Flee on sight.

He stood there, just a few hundred feet away, yellow hair almost lost in the yellow-orange of the sun behind him as it set. She wasn't sure if he was looking in her direction or not, the sun blinded her so much. She was terrified for the first time since they'd started this. It washim.

Flee on sight.

At sight of Konoha's Yellow Flash, that was the only order. Allies or enemies, the order was the same; he was too dangerous and too unpredictable to meet with in a situation like this. And for her, who was still only a genin, that made a lot of sense.

She'd been fighting for hours, days maybe, defending her village and her country beside her sensei and two genin days out of the Academy team without end and without rest. Kushina knew she looked frightening, her blood-red hair was stiff with the wet and dried blood of others and her own, she had splatters, streaks, gushing wounds, all that matched her hair perfectly, her vivid blue eyes stood out horribly against the clash of red and black. And she was still small and childish. Maybe she was still a child. Kushina knew that she probably looked unhuman. She still grinned but it was stiff and only out of habit- there was nothing left to grin about.

The other two had already been killed, the other two from her team, she'd seen one and lost the other. She kept seeing it, even now, the other girl being struck from behind with a blade; it had split her head from the top right down to her eyes. She didn't die straight away. Kushina would hear her feeble moans and cries for her mother till the day she died. That girl was supposed to be the heir to their clan, she was supposed to grow up and be a medical nin, she was supposed to have been 'Kushina-chan's new best friend!'

And the boy... one moment he was there, the next he was gone with only blood and his weapon left behind to prove that he existed at all. She didn't know where. He was the youngest in a large family of shinobi and he was quiet. That was all she knew about him. Kushina wished she'd asked him more, wished she'd realized that it was really -war- they were going into, wished that there hadn't been a war at all.

They'd both only been fighting with her and her sensei because her team had been killed a few weeks before. Kushina felt like she should have protected them both more. They were only a few years younger but they were like children -they didn't know war or fear or hatred yet.

Kushina had to keep going though, sorrow, fear, anger, hatred, she had to put it all into keeping fighting, she had to keep going till she collapsed and couldn't do any sort of damage. If she fell, then she'd just try and stab them with her kunai in her teeth, if she lost that then she'd try and stick tags on them with her mouth. She knew she had to keep going till she was dead, unconscious or till she couldn't move. Kushina wouldn't die without letting them know her intent to harm them.

Couldn't move. Couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. The smell of blood, of death, of pain, it filled her nostrils, her head felt light, and the fear of the man who'd created the stories was enough to take away what tiny will she had left. Her sensei was already gone. He'd have moved out of the way into a safe location, she didn't have his protection, and the shinobi attacking and defending had gone too. There were only the moans of the dying, the screams, exploding, and yells to flee...

Fight without mercy, kill without hesitation, keep going till she couldn't go anymore; flee without shame if Konoha's Yellow Flash was seen.

'Well,' she thought as her legs gave way, 'I'm just fleeing into a different place to the others.' Kushina felt the pain of sharp rocks and other things dig into her face, her body, and her arm bent awkwardly under her, she would have winced if she'd had the energy. Instead she just lay there like a dead thing, eyes wide, staring at the small blades of green grass that were flecked and stained with blood, waiting for the darkness to come and help her flee to a better place. It came quickly.