Saved
Everyone had scattered, looking for the stolen hyuga girl, some were still in the village looking while some were looking in the forest, Iruka being one of them. He was joined by Tsume, the mother of his student Kiba, and her companion Kuromaru. With the help of his impeccable sense of smell they had tracked her scent to the edge of the forest east of the village, Iruka watched as Kuromaru sniffed the ground. He felt a sense of urgency, he needed to find that child and make sure she was ok, “ got anything?”, he said as his foot tapped the forest floor.
“Give it a sec.”, she responded, her eyes pinched which caused the red paint on her cheeks to flinch as she watched her ninken, he sniffed the air seeming to have found something as he turned his nose towards the forest, his ears shot up and he looked back at the two, “Over there!”, shouted the dog before running off into the forest, both shinobi quickly jumped from the ground and followed in pursuit in the trees, they jumped from branch to branch, the wind whipped past their ears as it carried the smell of pine in moss with, but Iruka could feel that something else was in the air, something sinister.
Tsume and Iruka ran in a straight formation; her being first with her companion and him being behind them. Iruka looked everywhere in the woods with sharp eyes. Tsume jumped back and landed next to Iruka, “Someone’s over there”, she whispered to Iruka and pointed in the direction to their right, he nodded to her and quickly, but quietly, ran with Tsume and her wolf like dog towards what he hoped was the girl they were looking for. He had never met her but one of his students Hinata; a sweet but shy girl, talked about her to him quite some times, Fumiko he thinks her name was; she seemed like a nice girl, he found it horrible that she was victim to such a terrifying situation at such a young age.
“Were close.”, Iruka looked at Tsume and slowed down, he landed on a sturdy branch and peaked through the leaves. His eyes scanned the forest floor, the sound of voices could be heard and his eyes followed them until finally he spotted a group of people, Tsume and Kuromaru landed next to him and silently gestured to the group with a glance, she followed his line of sight and saw them, she took in the scene with precise eyes.
“ look! That’s her!”, she pointed towards a girl who was being held by her hair, they could hear her pleading to them, “ she’s the one were looking for.”, then she pointed to the two men, “Those must be our assailants.”, she paused as she kept examining the group, “it seems someone else is there…”, past one of the men another person could be seen on the floor, blood surrounded her body, he could see slight movement from her meaning she was still alive.
“ She’s hurt, we have to hurry.”, he turned to Tsume, “ there might still be enough time to save her.”, Tsume was dubious at first but figured if those two men were her partners that she wouldn’t be bleeding out on the ground. She huffed and nodded, “ alright you take the guy with the sword and I’ll catch the other dude.”, she looked thoughtfully at the men , “ they look weak enough.”, turning towards Kuromaru, who had been waiting patiently for an order next to Tsume, “ go get a medical ninja quick and try to tell the others where we are.”, he nodded firmly, quickly turning away he jumped from his tree branch and ran into the bushes. The branches rustled as his navy colored tail disappeared in the green leaves. Tsume turned back towards Iruka, “ alright let’s go.”, they nodded to each other and split off from there spot, each going to an advantageous spot to kill their target.
Iruka landed and crouched in a tree behind the guy with the sword, kunais in hand ready to throw. He was masking his Chakra to keep his presence secret. He raised his hand and aimed his kunais at the head and neck, the forest was quiet, no wind passed and no birds sung, all that could be heard was his breathing as he focused.
He sucked in a sharp breath and threw the kunais, they flew through the air with a low whistle. His target turned hearing the kunais, he jumped out of the way, Fumiko screamed as she was dragged along. Iruka glared, he had already anticipated this and had made a clone earlier, which sent kunias swiftly towards the man. His opponent turned towards the sound but didnt react quick enough and the weapons were quick to stab into his flesh.Blood squirted from the wounds and onto the floor like spray paint on a canvas.
His grip went slack as he fell to the ground, his sword clattered to the ground and his grip on Fumiko’s fell hair. She sank back down onto her knees, her hair falling loosely around her. She breathed a sigh of relief, the pain from her scalp finally ending. The other guy watched his partner fall to the ground in horror. He reacted quickly and immediately turned tail, but when he spun on his heels Tsume was right behind him, kunai posed, his face paled as reflection of the kunai flashed in his eyes.
“shit-“
Tsume brought down the kunai and slashed his throat, the blade cut through him like butter and blood splattered on the floor and painted the grass red. He stumbled backwards as he held his neck, a horrified expression took over his face. He gurgled on the blood before finally falling to the ground, choking on the deep red liquid.
Iruka jumped down from his branch and ran towards the girls, he crouched next to the hyuga child and held her arms comfortingly. She jumped, scared, and tried to move away before she spotted the konoha leaf symbol on his headband and realized that he was an ally. She stopped trying to run away and her fearful expression relaxed. She grasped his jacket and with pleading eyes said , “ please help her.”, she looked at the girl on the floor before looking back at Iruka, “ she saved me. Please….”, she said in a small voice. Iruka looked at the girl across from them, her eyes were hazy and her face was pale, her hair was sprawled across her back. He frowned, she looked so young, he felt sorrow thinking she could die. Tsume walked past the man, who was still somewhat alive choking. she kicked him and gave him a deathly glare, her glare said ‘this is what you get for messing with out village’.
She turned away and walked to the slowly dying girl and crouched beside her. She softly put her hand on her back and checked her wound, she turned to Iruka who wore an expression of melancholy, “ she could still survive.”. She looked at where her companion had disappeared into and stared at the spot in thought before saying, “ Kuromaru is fast he’ll come back very quickly.”, turning to the girl next to Iruka, she smirked, “ she’ll be ok, no dogs as fast as mine.”
She smiled softly the as she wiped the tears on her eyes, Iruka side hugged her and smiled, “ that’s right she’s going to be fine Fumiko.”
Fumiko got down on her hands and crawled towards the girl she now saw as her savior, she sat herself next to her head and brushed the hair out of her face, “ she didn’t even know me and she saved me.”, Iruka frowned and got off his knees to stand next to Fumiko, he stared into the wounded girl’s eyes, his heart ached painfully.
Everyone stopped as she breathed in an achy and painful, she whispered so lowly almost no one could hear, “ mom….dad….”
It went quite as everyone felt despair at her words, it almost brought tears back into Fumiko’s eyes, Iruka clenched his fist.
Her words hit a specific part in Iruka’s heart that he wished was buried deeper. He hastily turned around hoping maybe the medical ninjas would appear with just the will of his stare. Of course that didn’t happen, even though he wished it did it wasn’t possible. He turned back to Tsume who had stood up and walked to be beside Iruka and put a hand on his shoulder, “ There almost here, she could still survive.”, Iruka nodded and sighed, his shoulders slumped.
.
.
As Tsume said her dog was fast, it didn’t take long for him to come back medics following closely behind him. As soon as they saw your little group they were quick to getting to work on you and checking if Fumiko had any wounds. When they deemed she didn’t they joined in on helping you. They almost hesitated in helping you considering they could tell that you didn’t come from the village but after a word from Iruka they didn’t question it. They had to work fast, you had lost a lot of blood. They were quick on stopping the bleeding and healing the bigger damage, now all they were missing was giving you back the blood you lost, they needed to go to the hospital for that so they worked fast and put you in a stretcher.
Iruka, Tsume and Kuromaru all followed the medical ninjas on the way back to village, Fumiko was riding on top of Iruka’s back her arms and legs wrapped around him securely. She watched your limo body and pale face with worried eyes, she never got to thank you. She promised that if you survived that she would thank you with her whole little heart.
Once they arrived at the village the group was quickly swarmed, everyone worried about Fumiko and overjoyed that they had found her. Her mother was quick to join the crowd, her joyful cries were heard loudly in the crowd as she pushed through everyone. Iruka let Fumiko down and she ran to her mother, she almost tripped with how fast her little legs were running. The relief the pair felt as they hugged was clear in their faces, they both had tears in their eyes as they held tightly on to each other, Fumiko’s mother caressed her hair and kissed her forehead rapidly practically in heaven at finding her daughter. Iruka watched from afar as he smiled, he was glad they found her. He turned his head to the side just in time to see the medics and you disappear behind a building on your way to the hospital, the corners of his mouth drooped as he thought about you. If it wasn’t for you they would never have found her alive, they would have found her dead somewhere probably without eyes. He really hoped you survived, your parents were probably worried sick. He found you heroic and he hoped he could properly meet you.
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You stirred, the darkness slowly faded from your mind as the morning sun shown on you, the heat replacing the cold you felt. Your fingers twitched as you slowly woke up; a soft beeping making you stir, you ignored it instead opted for the feeling of the soft blankets and pillow, you slowly drifted back to sleep as the beeping faded away. As you were about to go back to sleep your mind replayed a memory. It struck through your mind like a knife causing a shivering fear to shoot through your body.
Your eyes snapped open as you remembered a searing pain you felt in your stomach, a cold sweat formed on your skin as you gasped and shot up, eyes opening to be as wide as saucers. You ripped the blanket off your shoulders and reached your hand down to feel your stomach hurriedly; which you expected to be hurting but to your surprise wasn’t, and from what you could feel was wrapped in a soft bandage, you also noticed that the hand on your stomach had an iv pricked into it a small piece of medical tap keeping it in place. Someone saved me…., you looked at the needle that was stabbed in your skin with a crunched nose as your eyes followed the tube to the iv bag that was hung above your head. A monitor stood next to you; tall, white and shiny.
That’s when you finally registered the soft beeping of your heart on the monitor, that’s what I was hearing, you thought as you remembered waking up because of the beeping. You could see the wires of the machine disappear into; what you now realized to be wearing, hospital gown, and when you pulled it back you saw the patches stuck to your chest and further down the bandages, which were clean and white.
You let the gown fall back down to your chest and looked away instead deciding to look around questionably as you took in the room you somehow found yourself in, I’m in a hospital room. The room was a light baby blue with brown tiled floors, you were sat in a small bed that was pushed to the corner of the room where the window was situated. Everything is still animated, which means I’m still in another world. So it wasn’t a dream.
You looked out the window with a frown on your lips as an animated bird flew by; the sunshine bright against its brown feathers as the rays filtered through the houses. Which the longer you looked at, noticed they didn’t look like the houses you were used to, they were cylinder in shape and all had very colorful roofs. Your eyebrows furrowed as you squinted, from afar you could see a sandy colored wall with faces carved into it that towered over every house you could see.
“What are….”, you paused as your eyes widened and your mouth fell open, you brought a hand up to your gaping mouth in shock, “ are those literally the hokage faces….what.the.fuck!”. You stared at the faces with a perplexed face, your mind was basically buzzing as you stared.
A memory suddenly surface in your brain once more, it was from when you were running away with the girl in your arms. You remembered how she had said byakugan and had used it while you ran away. You gasped as you held your face thoughtfully, “that’s right, I remember now!”, your eyebrows furrowed as your memories of the fight with those two men slowly came back, “ if it hadn’t been for that we might have died”, you glanced at the bandages, “ well….had a bigger chance of dying…”. You looked back at the hokage rocks and your lips tugged upwards, maybe I will survive; Narutos pretty chill…..
...
……Your smile slowly sagged as you bit your lip. Doubt sprouted in your mind as you really thought about your survival and the anime.
Probably not, with all the fighting I’d be surprised if I even survived a day in this world. I don’t know anything about fighting.
You grimaced slightly as you looked down at the bandages, you fiddled with them slightly as you got lost in thought. You were thinking about everything that had happened, you were still in the dark about how you had even gotten here, how you had been thrown into Naruto. You tried to think of everything that had happened before all this.
You remember just trying to fall asleep; school had finished and you had spent the day with your mom, exhausted you had decided to go to sleep early. Nothing had been out of the usual so what could it be….you felt tears spring in your eyes. The hand on your face pushed against your lips as you scowled, everything was getting to you again especially since you had almost died, you wished your mom was here; she was always there for you when you needed her but now she was in another dimension.
Not an hour away, not even across the country but in another completely unreachable place.
You hunched into yourself as you tried to stay quiet, your near death experience wracked your body in terror. You didn’t even know how you were gonna survive this place, you didn’t have any skill to be a shinobi and you didn’t know if you would even be allowed to live here.
As you spiraled into a mindless whirlpool of anxious thoughts you didn’t realized that a little someone or more like a couple someones started to appear around you. Your snakes waited to form to see how you would react to things, they didn’t want to overwhelm you too much but once they saw you were crying they formed; worried about you.
You jumped when you felt cold sensations run up your arms and face, you opened your eyes and twisted your head to look and find out the source of these sensations. You quickly relaxed when you saw your snakes looking at you with worry, you smiled wetly as you wiped the tears off your face, “ hey…”, you pet one of them as they rubbed against your face, “ almost forgot about you guys.”, they backed up looking almost offended, you quickly took back your words laughing as there faces surprised you, “ I didn’t mean it like that I promise!”, you laughed as your reached out to hug them with your hands pressing them against your wet face. They all hissed with fake vexation.
It didn’t really take long before they gave in and started laughing with you, it wasn’t a haha but more of a sasa, it was very cute and made you laugh even more. You finally calmed down from your laughter and settled into a soft smile and giggles, you stared at your snakes as they stared back; there was a lot of eyes to look at, you’re really gonna have to count how many there were.
You sighed as you stared at them your mood quickly going back to gloomy, they seem to notice almost instantly, “ it seems your guys are gonna be..”, your voice shook as you breathed in a shaky breath, “….be my only friends.”, your words wavered as you said this, you were quick to cover your face with your hands as tears fell down your cheeks again following the path of your previous tears. They all hissed distressed as they moved about on your head, you felt some press against your hands and some wrap around your head as you cried. They fussed around as some of your tears fell from your hands to their scales, some even feel on their heads.
You needed to cry, you felt like you could cry forever, “ How am I gonna survive this place..! I have literally no skill whatsoever.”
You cried out as you thought about your fate, “ I might be healed now but what’s to say I won’t be kicked out and die by the hands of another rogue ninja.”, you wept as your snakes stared.
They watched as you cried; your tears soaking the blanket on your lap, they looked at each other worriedly not knowing what to do. They sighed as they decided that you needed to cry and that they would be there to comfort if you needed it, they wrapped themselves around you hoping to bring you solace.
The sun was about setting when you stopped crying, your eyes were red and puffy as were your cheeks and nose. You sniffled as your snakes gazed at you, your eyes looked tired as you rubbed them.
The room was covered in a nice orange light, the sun was big as it started to set. You pet one of their heads as you said, “ sorry for that, I just….I don’t know….”, you looked at them eyes full of guilt, guilt from crying like that in front of them, you felt almost ashamed at your crying as your shoulders slumped. You looked to the side facing away from their piercing beady eyes to look outside the window to stare at the hokage rocks the setting sun illuminated them even more than before and you could really see their details, you still couldn’t believe you were actually in Naruto. You loved Naruto, it was one of your favorite animes, you had all the mangas, and you displayed them proudly on a bookshelf you had in your room. Your heart felt heavy in your chest, maybe later you’ll be more happy about this, you thought.
Your snakes watched you as they admired your beauty in the golden hues of the setting sun, your brown eyes were golden as the sun shone on them. They moved towards you and once again hugged your face, you only smiled and glanced down at them too tired to really move. You watched as the sun set, below you in the streets you could spot people closing shops while some night time shops opened. You pressed your face against the glass as you watched people go by, your snakes joined you in watching the people below.
Your sight seeing was interrupted though as you heard footsteps coming, your head whipped towards the door as you spotted a shadow coming from underneath it. It stopped right in front of your door and you prayed that whoever it was wouldn’t come in. But luck wasn’t on your side as a hand stuck through the door.
A woman in a white gown pushed the sliding door to the right and entered the room her shoes clacking on the ground lightly. Her purple shirt peeked out from underneath her gown at the collar, she was short but her slender face gave her an air of professionalism with her neat brown hair and sharp blue eyes.
Luckily she was looking down at a paper attached to a clip board, because if she hadn’t your reptilian companions wouldn’t have had any time to hide. As quick as they could they had turned into normal hair and you were back to looking like a regular girl. You stayed quiet as she walked slowly in your direction, she still didn’t seem to realize that you were awake and staring at her. She stopped and stood in the middle of the room, she had a look of puzzle as she stared hard at her paper, something seemed to be really interesting on that paper because she really couldn’t see that you were upright in your bed staring holes into her forehead.
You got tired of waiting for her to see you and decided to finally speak up, your voice was small as you spoke, “ um-“, you immediately cut off as she jumped, she yelped and almost dropped her clip board as she stepped back.
You tensed as you gripped the blanket, her reaction made you jump as well.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she realized that it was only her patient as she placed her hand on her chest where her heart would be, seeming to try and calm the rapid beating from the fright you had just given her, “ oh my, you scared me.”. She breathed out through her nose as she walked towards you, you stared slightly nervous as she walked to the side of your bed and grabbed your iv bag, she checked it and whatever she was looking for was there so she let it go and it swayed back and forth the clear liquid sloshing about as she turned to you.
Her soft smile made you slightly more at ease as she turned towards you pen in hand poised to write things down on her clip board, she seemed to have flipped to another page instead of the page she had been looking at earlier.
“sorry, I hadn’t expected you to be awake yet.”