"Isamu," a woman's worried voice carried on the wind to a man tending a small garden.
The man looked up and directed his golden gaze towards the doorway of a small cottage as the wind played with his light brown hair. In the doorway was a woman with ruby eyes wearing a strained expression as white bangs danced in her face and black strands tickled her collarbone. Instantly the man was on his feet, going to her side and placing a dark-skinned hand on her shoulder.
"Her fever," the woman managed to say in a shaking voice as she brought one of her pale, trembling hands to her mouth. "It's gotten worse."
"We have to take her to a doctor," Isamu said as he looked over the woman's shoulder into the cottage; he could just barely make out the form on a low cot beside the hearth.
"Well, we can't go to Konoha," the woman sighed as her hand moved to rub her temples. "The next closest hospital would be in Iwagakure."
"Then we take her there."
Sunlight filtered through the window and splayed out against the white walls and tile floor of the hospital room. Outside birds were singing and if you listened hard enough you could hear the sound of a bustling market not far away, but no sound penetrated the glass panes. Inside the room the only sounds that could be heard was the steady beep of a heart monitor and the hum of other machines. Tucked firmly into white sheets a girl lay on the bed with her head turned towards the window. The only movement from the girl was the steady rise and fall of her chest as she breathed and the occasional blink of her gold-flecked purple eyes.
The door to the room creaked open and a young nurse shuffled quietly in. She walked over to the foot of the bed and scanned the chart hanging from a hook. According to the chart the patient didn't need any more medicine, just a new I.V. bag that was to be changed daily until she regained consciousness. Simple enough. The nurse nodded to herself as she retrieved the required item from the cart she had wheeled in after her.
"Can you please open the window?" the girl on the bed asked when the nurse crossed in front of her.
The nurse almost dropped the bag in her hands at the sound of the girl's voice. She looked around in mild panic until she realized that it was the patient who had spoken.
"Ah, you scared me!" the nurse breathed a sigh of relief, a hand over her racing heart.
"Sorry," the girl smiled weakly. "The window?" she tried again, her eyes flicking to the glass set into the wall.
"My apologies," the nurse said with a small smile, "the window's do not open in this building."
"Oh," the girl's voice sounded faint.
"Excuse me, I must go get the doctor," the nurse bowed slightly after placing the I.V. on the bedside table.
The girl groaned as she pushed herself into a sitting position and allowed her head to rest against the wall behind her. The white ceiling swam in her vision and she had to close her eyes against the nausea that welled up in her stomach.
"Good to see that you're awake," a new voice came from the doorway, "we were beginning to worry about you."
The girl opened her eyes and looked over at the door and blinked the spots from her vision. There was a woman with dark hair pulled into a bun wearing a white lab coat walking in with a young assistant trailing after her head down with a pen ready to write notes onto a clipboard. The woman – whom the girl assumed to be the doctor – gave a reassuring smile when she drew closer.
"I'm sure you're a bit confused," the doctor said as she reached the bedside. "That's to be expected, you were out for a long time."
"How long?" the girl asked.
"About a month and a half," the doctor informed as she checked the display on the heart monitor. "Now, you came in with a head injury," the woman began as she pulled out a pen light and shone it in the girl's eyes. "I need you to follow the light with your eyes only, please," she said when the girl tried to pull away.
"Pupil dilation is normal, as is eye movement," the doctor dictated to the assistant.
The assistant nodded and began to write furiously, the scratching of pen on paper joined the steady beep of the heart monitor.
"Can you tell me what your name is?" the doctor asked, taking a seat on the edge of the bed.
"Jiyuudo," the girl answered quickly.
"Okay, good," the doctor nodded as the assistant scratched a few more notes. "Do you remember how you hit your head?"
"I fell," Jiyuudo answered after a long moment, "I'm not sure how, but I know I fell." That was a lie, but the doctor didn't need to know that.
"Hmm," the doctor hummed as she stood up and signaled for the assistant to follow her. "You're going to be weak for the next few days Jiyuudo-san, but that will pass with regular exercise. Rest for now," she ordered as she reached the doorway.
Jiyuudo nodded in confirmation before turning to look out the window again.
Sasuke could tell that Orochimaru was pissed. He had only been living in the Sanin's base for a little over a year and he could tell. He watched in boredom as his teacher killed the third servant that day.
"Perhaps you should find another way to vent your anger," Kabuto suggested carefully, "good underlings are hard to come by these days…"
"Silence, Kabuto!" Orochimaru hissed as he shot a glare at his white-haired second in command. "Or else you'll be next!"
The older teen frowned, obviously not liking the tone he had been spoken to, but remained quiet none the less as he pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. Sasuke wondered who or what had caused the man to fly into such a state of anger as he looked at the latest bloodstain to decorate the walls of the underground hideout. Maybe one of his experiments failed or something along those lines…
"Sasuke-kun," the Snake Sage started in a somewhat calmer tone, "I want you to prepare yourself, we're going to go on a journey to further your training."
"Hn, whatever."