Naruto : Path of Wind

"Doctor's orders," he says, unmoved. "Before you can do any physically strenuous training you need to check back in for a physical." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little slip of paper with a room number and a name scribbled on it, and hands it to me. "Hurry back!"

"I hate you."

...

I stomp into the ground floor of Konoha's hospital a short while later, slapping the slip of paper down on the front desk and glaring darkly at the woman sitting behind it. She plucks up the paper unphased, no doubt used to all sorts of disgruntled shinobi attempting to kill her with their eyes- well, maybe not the Uchiha- and nods at the neat row of chairs on the other side of the front room.

"I'll have you called up as soon as there's a medic nin free," she says primly. I grumble something not at all complimentary under my breath and grab a seat nestled in the corner of the room. I pull my sketch out of my pocket, wishing I'd brought some balloons or my scroll on the Heavenly Chains with me, and stare at it.

I don't actually think I'm going to find anything new amidst the tangle of broken symbols and not-subseals, but it makes me feel better than staring at a plain white wall.

As the minutes drag on, my attention slowly gravitates towards the blood seal portion of the construct. I squint at it, and for a second I could swear that it's moving. Just an illusion, I immediately think, just the lines blurring together, and my lack of sleep making my brain all fuzzy. And yet... I lean in closer to it, until my vision is filled with red ink, and suddenly the image changes. The symbols begin to writhe on the page, curling and twisting and coalescing into...

"Uzumaki Naruto?" My head jerks up, bringing me face to face with a concerned looking man wearing the typical get-up of a medic nin in a nonmilitary environment. I blink rapidly, turn back down to look at the scroll, and see nothing but nonsense symbols. "Are you alright?" He asks gently.

"Uh, yeah." I cough, my throat suddenly dry, and quickly roll the scroll back up, shoving it in my weapons pouch. "I didn't get much sleep last night," I say in response to the look on the man's face, and after a tense moment he nods.

"Follow me."

We wind through the maze that is Konoha's hospital, walking up three different staircases to a floor I've never been to before, and turning down dozens of different hallways until we come upon an unlabelled room.

The medic shoulders it open and ushers me in. He flicks on a light switch, illuminating a small cot and a desk with a clipboard and a bunch of unorganized files strewn over it.

"Have a seat," The medic orders, rifling through the papers. "Ah, here we are," he says, brandishing a crumpled paper triumphantly and then clipping it to his board.

What follows is your average shinobi check up, which is really no different from a civilian check up except for the fact that the bar for wellness is set significantly higher in the physical department. Except because, as Kakashi said, I can't use my chakra how normal shinobi can, I'm physically only as strong as a very, very fit thirteen year old. So aside from a quick test to make sure I don't feel any burning when I channel my chakra- which I learned was caused by extreme chakra exhaustion- I'm given a civilian physical.

Joy.

"Well, Uzumaki-san, I'm not sure how, but you're in perfect shape," The medic nin eventually says, astonished. "The raiton damage that your muscles sustained have completely healed in the span of a few days, and it seems like your chakra exhaustion has been taken care of as well. You're sure you didn't see a medic nin after you were discharged?"

"Positive."

"Well then, I suppose we'll just have to say you're a very lucky young man and leave it at that," he says, smiling, but I can tell he isn't satisfied with my answer. What else am I supposed to say, though? I heal fast.

He scribbles out a pass for me to train again which I hastily take, eager to start catching up with Sasuke again as soon as possible. I leave the office just short of jogging, wasting at least five minutes navigating the dizzying array of halls before I reach the staircase. I'm picking my way through the second floor when three familiar faces come walking around the corner at the other side of the hall. Neji, Lee, and Gai.

"Hey Lee," I say, waving a hand. The friendly genin tears his gaze from the floor, startled. Immediately I notice the redness rimming his eyes, and an uncomfortable weight settles in my stomach.

"Hello Naruto-san," he replies in kind, but it sounds hollow in comparison to the boisterous exclamations that I had grown to associate with him on our mission. "What are you doing here?"

I hesitate. Why does he sound so... beaten down? "I had to get a physical." Suddenly Neji storms past me, his hair obscuring his eyes from sight, and disappears around a corner.

"What's going on?" I ask the remaining two, bewildered. Instead of answering my question, Lee bows, speaking again in a quavering voice.

"I have been meaning to apologize, on behalf of myself and my teammate, for our actions during our joint mission. It was an unforgivable responsibility to leave you and Uchiha-san while the mission was still in progress, and I-" He chokes off, and doesn't continue. Just shakes his head, murmurs an apology, and walks swiftly past me after Neji, his head ducked low.

I turn to Gai, imploring with my eyes for some answers. He sighs, staring after Lee with a look of intense sorrow on his face. "Please excuse them," he says. "They have both been dealt a cruel blow."

"What are you talking about?" I ask helplessly. Lee disappears around the corner, and Gai turns back to me.

"Tenten attempted to commit suicide this morning," he says quietly. "She has been confined to intensive care."

I feel my heart drop into my stomach. "What?"

He doesn't say anything in response to that, and I'm not even sure what I want him to say. He just clasps me briefly on the shoulder and walks after his students, leaving me in the middle of the hall. My mind races, having made a terrifying connection almost as soon as he'd finished his sentence.

There was blood on her cheeks too when I checked her, but I couldn't wake her up. I think whatever he was trying to do to Sakura, he did to her first.

I practically sprint over to the intensive care wing of the hospital, poking my head into rooms until I find a civilian doctor who knows which room Tenten is being kept in. A minute later I stumble to a halt in front of a closed door, jerk it open, and stare.

She's been covered in a mound of blankets, leaving her head the only visible bit of her body. At least a dozen chords snake their way from various machines underneath the blankets, and there's a clear gas mask fastened over her mouth.

I stand in the doorway for an eternity, just watching her, wondering what I'm doing here. Eventually I inch into the room, pulling the door shut behind me. Even though it's just past noon the curtains have been drawn and there are no lights on, so the room is dark save for the thin rays of sunlight knifing through the blinds.

I come up beside her, and notice at once that she's sporting bags under her eyes even darker than Sakura's, and her breath is shaky and halting, despite the anesthetics that are no doubt being pumped into her veins. I reach out, but my hand stops before it touches her face. I exhale slowly, and rest a finger on her eyelid. I slide it up.

An eye so gray it looks black stares up at me.

"Shit," I curse, stumbling backwards. Sakura's own gray-green eyes appear in my mind's eye, and Sasuke's words from the day I got out of the hospital ring in my ears. I stare with wide eyes at the unconscious girl for a moment, then turn and flee from the room.

I burst out of the hospital and turn my head side to side, quickly calculating the distance from here to training ground seven and from here to the Academy.

Then I leap up onto the nearest rooftop and dash straight for the Academy, wondering what day it is and praying they're not on a day off. I leap clear over the chunin standing guard at the gate, ignoring his warning shout and speeding through the halls. I reach a familiar door and throw it open without hesitation, striding into the room.

"Naruto?" Iruka says, bewildered, from his place at the chalkboard. At least thirty little heads turn towards me, but I pay them no mind as I hop down the steps two at a time.

"Iruka-sensei," I say hurriedly, stopping in front of his desk. "You need to tell me where Sakura lives, now."

"What? Naruto, I'm in a class. You can't just-"

"Now," I say harshly. "This is important."

Right then the gate guard appears at in the doorway, glaring daggers at me. "Just what in the hell do you think you're doing, kid?"

"Ah, it's fine shinobi-san," Iruka calls. The chunin halts, having made it halfway down the steps, and furrows his eyebrows.

"You're sure?"

"Yes, Naruto's a former student of mine. He just came to pay me a visit." Iruka assures him. The guard hesitates, but leaves with a nod and one last dirty look in my direction. Iruka begins rummaging through his desk, producing a small box of papers which he quickly pulls a folder from labelled "Haruno Sakura". I tap my foot impatiently against the hardwood floor, continuing to ignore the eyes on my back, until he pulls a neon green paper out of the folder and holds it out.

"I expect you to explain to me what this is all about later," he says quietly, and I nod in acquiescence, committing the address to memory and promptly bolting back up the stairs and out of the room.

Sakura's apartment is thankfully close to the Academy, sitting just one district over amongst the nicer apartment buildings. I weave through unfamiliar streets, repeating her address over in over in my head, a steady mantra. I finally skid to a stop in front of her complex, and without a second thought start scaling the outside of it, peering into every window and balcony on my way up.

I'm about halfway up the building when I come upon a balcony leading into a dark room with a small figure crouched on the floor. I pause in my ascent, watch as the figure shuffles. I slowly climb up and over the balcony, creeping forward.

"Sakura?" The figure doesn't reply, doesn't even react. The weight in my stomach, which hasn't gotten any lighter since I left the hospital, grows even heavier.

Then the smell of blood hits me.

"Sakura!" I dart into the room, falling into a crouch in front of her and grabbing her shoulders. "What's wrong? Why are you bleeding?"

She jerks back, something flies out of her hands and clatters off the wall. I squint through the darkness, and faintly make out the edges of a... scalpel? What the-

"Oh, it's just you," Sakura says, pulling my attention back to her, sounding profoundly relieved.

"What do you mean it's just me? Who were you expecting?" I shake my head. "No, what are you doing?"

"I was testing my seal," she murmurs, almost too softly for me to hear despite being inches away from me. She holds her arms out, and that's when I notice the cuts running up both of them from her fingertips to her shoulders. Familiar jagged shapes.

"What do you mean testing it?" I manage to say after a stunned silence.

"I had to make sure the blood wouldn't run," she says, and maybe it's the lack of light in the room, but her eyes look darker than they did yesterday. "I had to make sure it wouldn't escape."

...

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