Prologue: The Medic
Uchiha Sasuke was a failure; an absolute failure.
That was what he continually told himself as he laid drenched-to-the-core on the bank of a large river somewhere in the mountains of the Fire Country.
He had failed to become strong enough to kill Itachi and avenge the brutal murder of his clan. He failed to sense the hunter-nin who had been lurking about in the forest; failed to save his three fellow ex-Sound shinobi, who had become exhausted due to their weeks of travel, as they were struck down before his very eyes.
But most of all, he failed to escaped unscathed.
The only chakra that the male had left was being used to keep him barely alive, while his body had become numbed by the frigid river water that he had floated down as if he was dry wood for what had felt like hours. He was silently glad on that he had had enough physical strength left to pull himself up and out onto the low, sandy shore before collapsing.
While he couldn't feel the pain in his chest from where cold, hard steel had contacted it due to the cold temperature, Sasuke knew very well that it wasn't a good thing. Whether he ended up dying from hypothermia or the loss of blood that was slowly leaking from the torn flesh across his front, Sasuke knew it could be either one.
'What a way to die,' he thought sheepishly. 'Not that I care.'
Yet, as he lay there, he wondered on how he ended up like this; he was more that certain that he had done everything he believed to be essential in order to kill his brother for revenge, and even nearly killed his two ex-teammates, yet this had happened.
He hadn't been able to acquire his own power; had Itachi been right?
Sasuke would've slapped himself if it wouldn't have been such a waste of his remaining energy. He had decided long ago that he would find his power on his own terms, even if it hadn't had led to this result.
This result, Sasuke now saw, would most likely cost him his life, not that really was a problem now. He hoped that Naruto and Sakura had finally given up on taking him back to Konoha.
It was very likely that this had been his fate: To live—and die—alone.
That was what Sasuke thought as his eyelids closed heavily; maybe it wouldn't be bad to die this way after all.
Fate, on the other hand, had other ideas.
Merely seconds of his conclusion, the snapping of a twig jolted Sasuke back to reality; so much for dying in peace. Allowing his eyes to remain closed, Sasuke's hearing quickly deciphered the number of foot falls. One was clearly a human, yet the other was much more quick and steady; a dog perhaps?
The Uchiha's assumption was immediately confirmed when he sense a furry snout near his damp hair, which then resulted in a fit of barking and slight growling. Urged by his instincts, Sasuke attempted to cover his ears to block the shrill pitch, but found his body unwilling to move due to the trauma it had endured the last few hours.
Nearly seconds later, Sasuke could see the glow of a lantern from behind his eyelids and heard the accompanied hard breathing, as if someone had been running.
"What do we have here?" a female's voice said softly. "A traveler who encountered a bunch of low-life thugs and left to die?"
You could say that, Sasuke thought as he was too tired to say anything.
"Quite a mess you are, too," the girl said, gently placing a hand on the male's bare shoulder; Sasuke stiffened slightly at the contact.
"Still alive are we?" the voice said with amusement. "You're a resilient one."
Sasuke silently took the comment as a compliment while hearing the female rummage around in what had to be a bag. He felt his head then being lifted gently off the earth and the mouth of a cruet pressed against his lips. Despite having put up a resistance, though weak, the containers opening was forced into Sasuke's mouth, the liquid content slipping down his throat. A few of the drops attempted to slip down his windpipe instead, resulting in a vicious coughing fit on Sasuke's part.
Vomiting soon followed, forcing the young boy to turn away from the girl to expel his stomach's contents, leaving his already tired body more shaken and silently found the stench of stomach acid overwhelming.
"You'll widen the wound if you keep moving like that," the girl said, gently pulling Sasuke away from the mess and giving him more to drink, this time without regurgitating it, and to rinse his mouth.
"Now, let me take a look at that wound of yours." The girl said, placing Sasuke on his back.
She whistled softly. "Nasty wound you have, not that will be a problem." The girl lowered her hands to Sasuke's torso and began to push her Chakra gently into the still-disoriented male. Sasuke immediately felt the skin beginning to heal, but found it irritating that the girl was doing it rather slowly and then removed it early.
"I stopped the bleeding," she said. "You can sleep now and I'll get you some place warm, okay?"
"How do I…know that…you're…not an enemy?" Sasuke asked weakly then.
"Even if I was," the girl said. "I don't think you have a choice in your condition."
Sasuke could only grunt in reply; he wasn't very trusting of this unknown female—even if she was clearly helping—and wasn't about to let sleep take over just yet. He was clueless on why this girl would stop to help him, a complete stranger, and one who had decided to die.
Still, the girl was just as determined to not leave him and, when it became apparent that he wasn't going to sleep on his own, she took action.
"I didn't want to do this," she said, a hand reaching to Sasuke's neck. "But I'll just have to knock you out."
At that, Sasuke was overcome by a large burst of fear; no longer wanting to be here, Sasuke mad a brash attempt to get away. His body, however, didn't take the sudden movement very well and the lack of blood caused the Uchiha to temporarily black out.
When he managed to recover, Sasuke was shocked by his new position. The medic had managed to catch Sasuke and reposition the male so that his left side was now resting against the female's front with his head on her shoulder.
Startled by his position and even more so by the unknown female's boldness, Sasuke again tried to move away, but his body was uncooperative this time and he was stuck resting against the girl.
"Now that you've calmed down," the girl said, "let's try this again." A hand reached up and gently circled Sasuke's throat.
Believing it was the end, Sasuke closed his eyes and awaited for his neck to be snapped; when it didn't come, the male slowly opened his eyes.
"Aren't you going to kill me?" he asked, forcing the words out with each breath.
"I said 'knock you out', not 'snap your neck'," the girl replied. "I don't see any reason killing you and I for one don't like going against the code of a Medic. So relax, you need to sleep."
At the gentle touch of Chakra, Sasuke's eyes slipped shut as his consciousness was interfered and his form slumped against the girl's body as sleep finally took him.
"You took your time, Aniki," the girl said in the darkness as soon as the boy was asleep.
"I apologize, imoto," a deep voice came from a figure that had just entered the area. "I was making sure that no one had followed him and intended to finish him off."
From the glow of the lantern, a man appeared wearing a black cloak and a scarf wrapped around his neck to keep out the bitter cold of the night.
The dog responded with a welcoming yip and walked up the figure with tail wagging slightly and awarded with a pat on the head.
"No matter," the girl said, "he's asleep now."
She looked down at the sleeping figure resting against her. "He looks like a little kid in his sleep."
"That he does," Aniki answered, stooping down to lift the male off the ground, "since he is still immature."
"I'm just glad that I finally got to meet him after all these years," the girl said, standing up and gathering her lantern and bag.
"Let's go," she said. "I don't want to keep Kimi-sensei worried."
I came up with story back in Junior High, and finally getting it written.
For my Tenshi fans, I'm still working on it, but I've found that working on other stories helps me to come up with more ideas for stories that I am working on, so please bear with me and I'll update as soon as possible.
Thank you and please review.