I held out another piece of tape. He quickly took it and was half-way done 'fixing' the third shard when he froze.
His head then, sinisterly, craned around like one of those wooden puppets whose head rattled in place for every inch it turned like a broken axle.
"GYAAAH!" shrieked the messiah.
He jumped out of the chair before I could blink and OHSHIT "Kid, NO-!"
"Ugh!" Uzumaki Naruto slammed back-first into the giant rack of shelves stuffed with my proofs of concept for kunai and shuriken and razor-sharp knives-
"NARUTO!"
"AAAAAH!"
Shiiing-CRASH!
The rack tipped over with a hellish racket, and as my back erupted in pain, it was all I could do to throw Naruto away from where I'd jumped over him before thick, solid wood smashed me in the head.
I made it this time, was my fading thought.
The next thing I knew was I could barely breathe. I was in pain too.
My spine felt like Ume must have felt when that beam fell on her. There was a babble in my ears too, but it was unintelligible.
I ignored it and did my best to turn on my side instead. It was hard, the shelf rack was heavy and I groaned in pain from the sting of cuts and stabbing pain in half a dozen places.
One of them was in my back. A big one.
One of the standard kunai I kept for comparison, it had to be. But when I took a breath, it didn't hurt inside.
Didn't reach the lung.
Painfully, I managed to get a grip on the side and tried to drag myself out. "Agh!" The… whatever it was in my back caught on something.
I turned some more and pushed myself to my feet instead. The rack was solid wood, but I managed fine.
Which was good because I had to put most of my attention into not aggravating the thing stabbing me in the ribs on the way up.
I swear I nailed this thing to the wall.
The crash was almost as loud the second time when I finally dragged drag myself out from under it. I collapsed on all fours, wheezing, resenting how shallow my breaths had to be so the thing in my back didn't send more pain through me-
"-old man, are you okay, please say something, I didn't meant to, I swear, I just wanted-oh crap, there's a kunai sticking out of your back, I'll get it-"
"NO!"
Naruto flinched so hard he fell on his ass.
My sight was blurry, but that didn't stop me from turning my head to glare at him. "Stop.
Helping. "
Naruto opened his mouth, then closed it when I snarled at him, biting his lip and sniffling tearfully.
Curse my bleeding heart.
Carefully, I climbed back to my feet, leaning on the wall and waiting for my head to stop spinning. It worked, but the clarity only made it easier to feel the blood trickling down my back and lower.
It wasn't gushing, so I'd gotten away without a slice to any major veins or arteries. It was still a lot though.
The blood was all the way to my knees now, soon I'd start leaving footprints.
Looking around, I saw that the mirror next to the rack was broken too, because of course it was.
I took a long, slow, deep breath to gather myself.
Then I grabbed Naruto by the scruff, hauled myself up the stairs, almost fell down the stairs– "Uzumaki Naruto! Stand still and shut up before your dumb luck finishes the job!" andstaggered out of my house, turning left towards the neighbour I didn't like because, unlike the other one, he owned his own cart and an ass.
Smash, smash, smash, went my fist on the door. Each hit felt like knifing myself in the back and punching myself in the head at the same time, but my mind was preoccupied with much more important concerns.
Like the fact that Naruto had almost killed a man and still no Anbu or nin was in sight even though I was hauling him like a meat sack and smash, smash, SMASH-
"I'm coming, I'm coming! Whoever it is, this had better not be some sort of – SAGE ABOVE!"
"Yori," I said calmly, blood trailing down my face. "I need a ride to the hospital.....