The Reality of Things
Ever since the Nine-Tails had wreaked havoc in Konoha, Yamanaka Izumi had been stuck inside the hospital walls. And she absolutely hated that.
If she was entirely honest with herself, she loathed almost everything at the moment. Over the course of her stay, her mood had gloomed to a point where a blanket of it seemed to surround her, no positive emotion worming its way near her. For the first time in so long, Izumi felt entirely hopeless, every ounce of energy sucked out of her.
‘A shell of herself’. It was what her parents had explained to her aunt and uncle when they had come to visit, bouquets of flowers in hand to cheer her up.
Even with their frequent visits, the days only seemed to drag on, never coming to a conclusion she could look forward to. Upon the bedside desk, small mountains of books and scrolls stood perched carefully. It was the one thing she had requested, the one thing she had yearned for: information.
Gathering information about jutsu one day useful to her made Izumi feel safer, less trapped inside a situation she is unable to change.
Her legs felt as though any moment they might fall off, and so did her other limbs. While her hand had been fully healed shortly after her admission to the hospital, getting back to using it properly again had taken its time and was not as easy as she would have wished for it to be.
At the moment, nothing appeared easy to Izumi. More so than ever, everything was a challenge, a challenge she could barely overcome. It left her feeling hopeless and her focus strained, only the information she gathered uplifting her spirits somewhat.
Yet, Izumi couldn’t help but wonder how her life would continue as soon as she was allowed to leave the hospital. Would she continue being an active Shinobi, a Jounin of the Barrier Team, or would she close that door of her life, ready to open another?
Being an active Shinobi was a double-edged blade.
If completely honest with herself, Izumi was more a lover than a fighter at heart. As she had once told Minato, she does not enjoy close fighting, not at all. Close combat was something she indulged in only if necessary or during her training sessions with Kakashi. Though even after years, she found herself struggling with taijutsu, leaning more toward the usage of ninjutsu.
The training with Kakashi brought her comfort. Never once had she felt truly in danger when in his presence, and the silver-haired had always made her feel safe and protected. Even when he kicked her butt numerous times when she lost battle after battle against him, never did she feel threatened or fearful.
Fighting with someone who openly seeks to injure you was another thing for Izumi, though. The situation was frightening, chilling all the way down to the bone. It was something she preferred to avoid, not actively avoided. If it came down to helping her teammates, she would fight with fear in her every step if it was necessary. There was no doubt in that.
Regardless, such a situation left her breathless and her heart missing a few beats.
It also made her wonder whether she would want to be a Kunoichi. Was that what she was destined to be? A Shinobi of the leaf until one day she would perish on a mission or find herself injured beyond her health?
That wasn’t what she wanted, not at all.
In her many vivid dreams, the future Izumi foresaw for herself was a different one that she would most likely live. As an adult, she would live in a quaint house, one that wasn’t too close and yet also not too far away from the center of a village, one that was surrounded by tranquility. She would work for a branch of her clan and with her job be able to help people and maybe sometimes also help out in the flower shop. Life would be calm and joyful, a constant delight.
The reality she lived in was far from her ideal. It was almost like her reality was the opposite of what she imagined in her head. The fact frustrated her greatly.
Not everything in life would always be perfect, or at least that was what her mother had taught her. Miho had always spoken about the endless appreciation one should have for life and its good moments, and so Izumi also knew. She had seen it play out with her father, after all, a man who lived vicariously through his moments of euphoria. And even after the Nine-Tails attack, the man was still radiant, smiling and telling jokes each time they sat together. Which meant daily.
Fuji was the one to make Izumi smile for the first time in long. He was the one who managed to coax her out of her shell the slightest bit, and helped her return to her old ways. Yet her father’s attempts never really felt enough, more wasted sometimes. It was something that made the brunette feel guilty, about disappointing her family.
It wasn’t that she only disappointed her family, but also the friends she had been closest to for years now. Speaking to them had almost felt like a chore, active conversation tiring her out with every word she spoke. Her replies were sharp and short, and so she knew. Most likely they left cuts in the relationship she had with her precious people, but despite knowing that, Izumi couldn’t find it in herself to put in more effort, to be as she had always been. Somehow, it was suddenly something exhausting to her.
Yamanaka Izumi was used to having awful moments, moments where she could feel every bone in her body ache tremendously, feeling as though they might break apart at any moment. Though mostly, such pain was located in her legs, in her knees specifically, it often left her speechless. Most days, she did not allow the pain to get to her. But the attack pratically broke her high spirits, left to be reconstructed again.
Maybe Kushina had good advice … oh.
Kushina and Minato, they were dead. Her sibling figures, the ones she looked up to, from one day to another were dead. Naruto, her godson, meanwhile survived, residing in the same hospital as herself.
Several times she had visited the small child, a mere baby. Atop his small head sat a bundle of light blonde hair, some curling toward the sides. One of his most noticeable features was the cat-like whiskers decorating his tan cheeks, moving along with his constant babbling. He also had almost electric blue eyes that captivated whoever was taking care of him, that looked so wide and almost aware of his fate. With every day Izumi saw him, he looked more like Minato than he did like Kushina, almost a carbon copy of the Fourth Hokage.
On the one hand, she found the resemblance utterly adorable, as the boy had been blessed with great features in his older years. Yet, on the other hand, she mourned the loss of the appearance of her sensei, someone who could not be seen on the face of her son. Izumi just hoped that as he will grow up, he will also take on features of his mother.
Izumi knew that it was unlikely for anyone to step up to the responsibility of taking care of Naruto. Even the nurses, who were supposed to be kind and gentle, shied away from the boy once he began to cry, the nurses fighting over who was to tend to him. It left her standing with a wry smile in the children’s ward, her cerulean gaze fixated on the small boy with a fate that preceded him.
Naruto, I’m sorry.
If only Kushina and Minato were still there, they would definitely know what to do.
Izumi shook her head, evicting the thought of her older sibling figures. They wouldn’t want her to wallow in their memory, beseech it by drowning in the melancholy surrounding her. They would most likely want her to be better, to take care of herself.
Yet, Izumi couldn’t find it in herself to do so.
For reasons unknown to her, the negative thoughts spun their web in her mind, permanently sticking to it. The brunette found herself lost in the negativity, none of her usual optimism in sight. As she found herself doing often during the past few weeks, Izumi let out a sigh, relaxing back against the stiff hospital bed. She continued to shift uncomfortably on it, attempting to find a position in which the pains of her legs were bearable, but was unable to find one. For some reason, however she positioned herself, the ache remained.
Izumi let out a noise of frustration and squeezed her eyes shut, an overwhelming amount of annoyance overtaking her. She missed the simple days, the days when they were cheerful little Genin without much of a care for the world around them.
The days of such carelessness were over. Nothing would be as simple anymore, that had been decided the day Obito had died.
Team Kushina had promised one another to always stand by each other's sides, no matter what circumstances may attempt to pull them apart. And so they did, they kept the promise even through the loss of their sensei. As it turned out, to do so was more difficult than any of them could have anticipated the day the promise had been made.
Izumi clenched her hands as much as she could, squeezing her eyes shut at the distant memories. When she moved her fingers, sometimes their movements were slower than what they used to be. Muscle memory, it was what Sen had told her. Even though Izumi was a Shinobi, it was as though her fingers remembered the heavy injuries they went through, hesitating in the movement.
“I don’t understand.” Izumi had told Sen after the raven-haired had explained the circumstances of her fingers in a meticulous way, leaving out no information.
“To explain it to you, ‘Zumi. Your fingers were injured horribly. For you to regain your movement from before the … accident, it will take a very long time. Physical therapy will be included,” Sen was kind enough to put the explanation into simpler words, not being able to find it within herself to tease her best friend in her current state. At the same time, she also knew pity was not what the brunette needed either, more so she yearned for both comfort and space to recover and so Sen knew. “It won’t be easy, but you can do it.”
The same could be said for her left leg. Sen was genuinely right, nothing was easy for Izumi anymore. It was more so that everyday tasks had become a struggle over the past few weeks, a challenge to overcome day by day.
Over time, she had begun to realize two things: one that nothing would ever be the same, that it was time to move forward into a better future and that two, pushing her friends away was more than just lonely.
More than just several times she had pushed Kakashi away, both subconsciously and actively when he had visited her in the hospital, often a bouquet of many flowers clutched tightly in his hand.
It was as though their roles had reversed. Kakashi sat by her bedside while she patiently listened to him talking about his day and what she had missed around the village. The only difference to their usual dynamic was that the brunette could barely bring herself to reply, not even to hum or nod at him.
Izumi felt both exhausted and guilty.
Several times she had promised him to never leave him, to always be there for him. Yet there she was, leaving him behind while he continued on his chase, even after he had saved her and her father’s life.
The guilt crawling up her throat was indescribable and left her gasping for air.
Izumi was unsure what had caused her sudden lack of social behavior, but was very much so aware of the fact that it was hurting those she loved the most. Her family, Sen, Chihiro … Kakashi.
Her head still beat harshly against her chest when he entered the room and came closer, his gaze piercing hers as she listened to his every word, practically clung to each syllable pushing past his lips.
If anyone were to ask Izumi what it was that she felt for the silver-haired teen, the world ‘love’ would immediately be the reply she would give to the person. Weeks ago, it had seemed impossible to her, as if her own feelings were messing with her in his presence. The brunette had been very unsure and unable to tell the extent of the line of friendship and something more than that she was treading on. Time in the hospital was not spent well and neither did it go by fast, but at the same time, it gave her enough privacy to think over her feelings properly.
Izumi was also able to fully realize how much she valued their friendship. Whenever something happened that shook her to the core, whenever she felt troubled or happy and or anything, really, a certain silver-haired was by her side, ready to listen and be there for her. In her life, Hatake Kakashi had become more than a constant.
He was her everything.
Sen and Chihiro were without a doubt also important constants in her life. They were her siblings, after all, two people for whom she would lay her life on the line without as much as a thought. More than anything, she loved the two of them.
But Kakashi was her anchor.
On one hand, she so desperately wanted to confess to him, admit how she felt. Izumi yearned to hold his hand in a way that wasn’t platonic, in a way that revealed what she truly felt. On the other hand, she feared losing the dynamic they had. She was deeply aware of the fact that Kakashi was easy to scare off and that was the last thing she wanted to do.
She would give it time, so Izumi decided. Until she recovered, she would make no rash decisions. The whole situation they had found themselves in was more than simply a mess: it was incomprehensible most of the time.
Everything was all of a sudden rather bizarre, but that was just the reality of things.