10.5
I opened my eyes again to the white ceiling and the sterile smells of a hospital. There was some pressure over my chest, like something heavy and warm was there. Waking up in the hospital again was a strange experience. I didn’t need to be a genius to know something was, maybe not wrong, but different.
Looking down, the pressure was a mop of blonde, disheveled hair.
Ino sat by the bed, head resting on me. Her face had a lot of cloth marks, and she was drooling a little. Cute.
My hand found its way to her head, gently threading fingers through the sleeping kunoichi’s hair.
So, there were some strange things happening. Yup.
It hadn’t been my imagination when I was trying to rescue Ino from Asuma. She was taller and looked older. Not enough to say years had passed, but maybe a few months? Not something I’d usually notice, but it was like that from one nap to another; she’d grown a few inches. More of a teenager than a pre-teen now.
The room was also strange. With a few more minutes to look about, there were… a lot of small things around. It wasn’t like the first few times I woke up here, and the room was bare. Now, I could even see a few other pieces of furniture, a couple of chairs, and a small table. Even a few folded clothes in one corner.
The comfy pajamas I wore almost made me laugh when I looked closer. It was pastel pink, decorated with… badgers: cute little menaces slurping honey by the bucketful. Whose idea was that?
Instead of lying on the bed, I pushed up to a sitting position.
That woke up Ino. She blinked, looking around, then her head snapped to me. She smiled, then cried, then grabbed me in a hug that bruised my ribs.
“Hinata-chan!” Ino said amid sobs.
I tried to wrap my arms around her, but Ino had trapped me in her vice-like hug. I couldn’t even breathe properly. I held on as long as I could, but when Ino showed no signs of letting go, I squeaked out.
“Ino-chan, I can’t breathe.”
Ino relaxed her grip, but didn’t release me.
That gave me the chance to take a much-needed breath and sneak my arms from inside her hug, then wrap them around the blonde. She nestled against me, still sniffling.
I don’t know how much time passed. I didn’t want to interrupt the moment. I enjoyed hugging Ino, even if seeing her crying sent a spike of pain through my heart. However, my stomach didn’t really care for any of that; it let out an enraged growl.
Huh, I was starving.
Ino pulled away a smidge, but never really let go of me. She looked at my face, searching my eyes for something. Then she pulled her face closer to mine. Slowly, giving me more than enough time to pull away if that's what I wanted.
I didn’t pull away, no chance of that. One of my arms moved to her waist, pressing her toward me, while the other sneaked behind her head. Ino gasped. I pulled her closer until our lips met.
Some indeterminate amount of time later, I sat on the bed, while Ino lay by my side with her head on my lap. I didn’t really know how much time had passed. It felt like a few seconds, or maybe an eternity.
I was biting down on an apple, trying to appease the enraged beast that was in my stomach. After gulping down a mouthful and drinking more water, I spoke.
“What happened?”
Ino had her eyes closed, enjoying as I trailed my fingers through her hair.
“You wouldn’t wake up.”
I mulled over that. It didn’t feel like I was asleep. It also didn’t feel like I had taken that long to work on the seals. If anyone asked me to put a timeframe, it felt like a day or two, maybe three. Certainly no more than four.
“How long since the Land of Rivers?”
“Ten months.”
So, I was fourteen now? Birthday went and gone while I was asleep? Well, it wasn’t really a problem. No one really cared much for a birthday here. I was about to ask more questions when a chakra blaze appeared just outside the room.
Ino raised her head, looking at the door at the same time I did.
There was a knock.
I exchanged glances with Ino. She didn’t look like she was going to move.
“Come in,” I called out.
The door opened, and Shisui entered. He wore the Uchiha’s colors, with the Hokage coat over everything. He even had the funny Hokage hat, too. There were more hidden chakra blazes just outside the door. They didn’t enter the room.
Shisui closed the door after he entered. He had a small basket in his hand, with fresh fruits. He looked at me, at Ino, at the mess of the room, then offered me the basket.
I wasn’t in any condition to take it, really. If I did, I’d have to dislodge Ino, which I didn’t want to.
“Thank you, Hokage-sama,” I said. “Can you place the basket by the table?”
Shisui didn’t seem phased, placing the basket there, and picked up three apples. He sent two to me and Ino, then bit down on the third. He looked around, found a chair, pulled it toward the bed, and sat down. When he was comfortable, he spoke.
“Welcome back, Hinata-san.”
I looked at Shisui, the chakra blazes outside. This was super sus.
“Am I in trouble?”
Shisui chuckled. Big expressive eyes that smiled more than his lips. “Yes.” He said. Then, before I could panic, he added. “Ino-san promised to keep you under lock and key and never out of her sight again if you ever woke up.”
Ino squeaked, hiding her face on my shirt.
I blinked, confused.
“And Lady Shijimi is heartbroken, since there are no more cupcakes.”
I opened my mouth, unsure of what to say.
“And Uzumaki Karin might have threatened to ‘carve up those old codgers’ when the council wanted to visit you.”
It turns out a lot of things had happened while I was in a coma. The political situation had changed a lot in the last few months. Kumo and Iwa had officially joined in an alliance to fight Konoha.
On our side of the war, Suna and Kiri had thrown their lot with us. Which, in the end, wasn’t that much. Each of those villages had its own problems to deal with.
Sunagakure was trying to recover from years of mismanagement and being stymied by their daimyo. They had lost a lot of shinobi because of Orochimaru’s treachery and the Gelel people's attack.
Kirigakure was still a mess. Terumi Mei was the new kage, but they were still dealing with the consequences of the civil war, as well as some still unknown enemy kidnapping bloodline shinobis.
Unknown, yeah. Fucking Danzo.
And speaking of Danzo, he dared to get in contact with the village.
From what the Hokage told me, what the old traitor wanted boiled down to was: Shisui kicked out of the Hokage position, the Uchiha clan imprisoned for their “crimes”, and he to be nominated as Hokage instead. If we did that, he promised to join us against our enemies, or if the village refused, he’d get his ROOT organization to join the enemy alliance instead, then he’d rebuild a better Kohoha after the old, weak one was destroyed.
He hadn’t said it in those exact words, but that was what he implied, in the end.
Fucking traitor.
Why wasn’t Shisui doing something about the old rat? Why leave the traitor free and alive? There was probably some complicated reason I wasn’t aware of, but it was frustrating, more so because of my personal history with him.
The other terrible news was that Sasuke had gone missing. The timing, if what Shisui told me was correct, was the same day I plucked the snake eye out. No one knew where he had gone or what had happened. Izumi’s squad had been on a recon mission in the land between Iwa and Konoha, then he simply vanished, with no sight of where he went.
But that wasn’t all. I was, truthfully, in trouble.
“And you’re grounded,” Shisui said, after he finished updating me with the most essential details of the past months.
“Come again?”
“Grounded,” Shisui repeated, deadly serious. “The village is at war, and you are in no shape to fight, so naturally, you get a vacation.” He stared into my soul. “Don’t waste it.”
I scowled. That wasn’t fair. All of my friends were out there, fighting in this damn, pointless war, and he wanted me to stay in Konoha again?
“Tsunade’s orders,” Shisui added. “You need time to recover from whatever you did to yourself.”
“But-”
He didn’t let me finish. “You and Ino. Grounded.” He said, eyes drifting to Ino, who was still hiding her face in my shirt.