Rescue Me [closed to Ginta & Hiro]
[ Takes place five years previously, the night the Kyuubi attacked Konoha. ]

The world was painted in shades of flame-blue and blood-blue and desperation-blue. (His eyes couldn't see that third but he knew it was there; he breathed it with every breath, thick and cloying.) Hiro's Byakugan took in the destruction around him, displaying a scene of monochrome catastrophe.

He was too tired for it to even affect him any more. Twenty-six hours since the first alarms had sounded--they still blared in the background unattended, repetitive klaxxons echoing through the fog and smoke--and Hiro had settled into a rhythm now.

First find the Kyuubi; he didn't need the Byakugan for that, following the screams would do. Screams were good, it meant someone was still alive.

Then he trailed in the demon's wake, hopefully far enough to be safe, using his bloodline limit to search through the human debris: left behind haphazard piles of flayed and scorched shinobi, charred flesh and exposed bone, all the colors of chakra-blue. Eventually he'd find one alive, would dig it out and lever it up onto his back. Often it would be making sounds, possibly words, but Hiro ignored them, concentrating only on moving one heavy foot after the other. He'd leave his burden at the makeshift field hospital, then head back out again, repeating from the beginning.

This time it was different, though. Superficially the two bodies in front of him were just like the rest: not breathing. He should have left them.

But these weren't like the others. These had names.

A girl, slight, her limp body resting as if asleep on a carpet of scorched kikai bugs. A boy, features half melted-off, his one unspinning pinwheel eye colored in a particular shade of Byakugan-depicted sharingan-blue.

Aburame Chiyo. Uchiha Takuro. Hiro blinked and deactivated his bloodline limit, colors slamming down on the world and narrowing his focus to a point. Images of dormant chakra pathways disappeared, and the ghostly patterns he saw in Takuro's eye faded away to a flat, lifeless black.

He had a moment of bizarre double-vision: the two bodies as anonymous corpses, objects he should leave behind, overlaid by memories of the teammates he had seen--well, it would be twenty-six hours ago now. Takuro, teasing him and slapping him on the back, rivalry and acceptance. Chiyo, with a small, quiet smile behind her scarf, a feather-light kiss on his cheek.

Then the images coalesced into one. Two bodies, two teammates. He bent down mechanically, sliding an arm underneath each one. Then, balancing them over his shoulders, he fought unsteadily to his feet.

He almost fell; both teammates were older and bigger than he was. The only thing keeping him standing was the knowledge that if he went down, there was no way he'd be able to get them lifted up again; his strength was running too low. As it was, he had to leave Chiyo's beloved kikai bugs. He closed his eyes and lowered his head as he turned, sparing a moment to mourn them for her as he left them behind.

The sky was still dark, but the red glow through the smoke cast more than enough light to see by without needing to waste his chakra. His feet only knew how to carry him to one place anymore, so he let them go, one step following the next, into the fog and the night.