"AH!"

Aoi felt the sword tear through the skin of her shoulder, but it didn't stop there, no. It continued it's swing with an unstoppable force. She felt her muscles, nerves, blood vessels, everything, being torn forcefully in half. And then, the bone. The crack of her shoulder blade vibrated through her body, shooting white-hot pain down into her fingers and making her arm involuntarily convulse. Then, without warning, her opponent pulled the sword back towards himself mid-swing, while it was still planted firmly in her bone. She was yanked forward by her shoulder blade, cracking a few ribs as she was pulled, and then collapsed to the ground. The sword was free from her body. She lay on the ground, screaming in pain as hot-tears streamed down her face. Her opponent stood, smiling, twenty feet away.

All happening in about a second.

"Aoi!" Her teammate, Koru, ran to her side and grasped her. She lay, shivering and sobbing. Her right arm had now been paralyzed and was hanging off her body by only a few muscles and pieces of skin. Blood soaked the ground around Aoi, freely flowing from her arm.

"Aoi!" Koru screamed once more. Aoi was unresponsive, her eyes wide and bloodshot. Her whole body trembled uncontrollably.

"Make-make it..."

"Aoi?"

"M-make it stop!" The trembles that had taken hold of her body shattered to make way for screaming sobs. "Koru!"

"It's okay!" Koru gathered Aoi up in his arms, she screamed and struggled.

"Stop! Stop that hurts! Make it stop!"

Koru cringed at Aoi's agony, and turned to face their other teammate, Goku.

"Are you going to be okay for now?" Koru asked. Goku silently glanced at their opponent, who stood smirking evily, not having moved, then back at Koru, and nodded.

"I'll come back for you once Aoi is safe!"

Goku nodded once more, and Koru took off, disappearing into the trees that surrounded them.

Koru ran as fast as was physically possible for an extremely fatigued teenager with an injured person in their arms. Minutes dragged by as he sped on, trying to pick up speed. After a few, Aoi's shivering began to slow, her screams quieted. Koru sensed the flow of chakra inside of her beginning to decreased.

"Aoi!" He yelled, panicked. "Aoi stay with me!"

Her wide eyes began to close.

"AOI!"

Her head lolled to one side.

"Shit."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Can you hear me?"

Aoi's eyes were heavy. She could open them, but didn't want to. Her limbs were stiff, her whole body sore. It felt like someone was pressing down on her chest. Still, she opened her eyes a crack.

The room around her was fuzzy and unclear. Many different shapes and sizes surrounded her bed, all leaning over her, crowding around. She couldn't make out a thing.

"Are you awake?"

A voice called to her in the distance, echoing throughout her mind, causing her ears to ring. She responded simply by moving her head toward the direction of the voice. With her remaining strength, she opened her eyes a bit more. The images around her bed began to take shape. People...people she didn't recognize crowded around her, their hands resting on the railings alongside the hospital bed she was lying in.

Hospital...

Suddenly remembering where she was, Aoi tensed suddenly and inhaled sharply. The owner of the voice leaned forward and grasped both of her shoulders.

Both of her shoulders?

Aoi opened her eyes all the way, blinking every few seconds - the florescent lights in the room had given her quite a shock. Finally, as everything came into focus, she recognized the people around her. Well, not recognized, they were various doctors and nurses, all looking at her as if a tree had suddenly sprouted out of her forehead. Aoi's eyes glanced down at the hands holding her on either side, and then followed two arms up to an all-too-familiar person.

"Hokage-sama!" she gasped, pushing herself into a sitting position rather quickly. Tsunade winced as she did so, obviously wanting her not to move so quickly, but did not stop her.

"Hello, Aoi." Tsunade nodded, forging a smile. Aoi studied her face, the conflicted emotions - her smile was fake, that was obvious, but what was this look of confusion? She glanced around at all of the other doctors in the room, each carried the same exact expression. Confusion and fake glee that she was alright.

"What's going on?" Aoi's voice was quiet and worried as her eyes jumped wildly back and forth to each and every concerned looking doctor in the room.

"Your shoulder." one of the nurses, a female, said, from the back of the group.

Aoi glanced down, and then, with her left arm, reached across her chest and pulled the hospital gown down, exposing the bare skin of her right shoulder to everyone in the room. It was unharmed. Not a scratch.

"Yeah, you guys did a really good job on that. Has it been a few days?" Aoi, having been in the hospital multiple times before, assumed that she had been out cold during the reconstruction of her shoulder.

"No." replied the same female nurse. "It's been an hour and a half."

This statement shocked Aoi. Her mouth was open, ready to ask another question, when another doctor called,

"Bend forward."

Downright addled, Aoi obeyed.

"How do your ribs feel?"

"Erhm, fine."

A quiet mummer spread around to each and every doctor and nurse in the room. Some whispered with grave faces, others looked downright shocked. A few even took out clipboards and made nodes.

"Hokage-sama, could you please tell me...?"

Tsunade seemed just as confused as the other doctors. Her eyes slid shut and she breathed deeply.

"Aoi, ever since you came to the hospital, an hour and a half ago, we've done nothing."

She paused to let these words sink in to Aoi's mind. Aoi, in response, stared at the Hokage, understanding the meaning of the words but not entirely. When Aoi said nothing, the Hokage continued, explaining everything, enforcing the point.

"Aoi, your body fixed itself while you were unconscious."

- - H O U S E - -

(kidding.)

Author's Note:

This is my FIRST story in third person. I usually do it in first, but I didn't think that would work for this one. PLUS. This is really bad writing. I'm not being modest, this is SERIOUSLY HORRIBLE. I can write WAY better than this. (Check my other stories, proof right there.) Bad chapter. Effort sold separately. I wrote all of this in approximately twenty minutes. Plus, I never, EVER write hospital-injury things. There is NOTHING you can do with them. I've always sucked at writing things descriptively when it comes to hospitals. I mean, really? It was a hospital room. Boring. White. Doctor-people. How much can you do with that?

So, anyway, next chapter, she WILL be out of the hospital and there WILL be more description. I'm just putting this chapter thing up because my friend wants to read it and if I don't put it up now, I'll be editing it forever and I never will.

Cheers.

~SNB~