I can feel the poison spreading through my chakra channels, it's slowly burning me from inside out, every time I reach for my chakra, it intensifies.

I once read about a poison like this in the Academy, they call it the Shinobi's Bane. This is the one poison that doesn't affect civilians, with their less developed chakra systems, most simply shrug it off as a bad stomach flu. For ninja though, it is deadly. The more chakra you have, the faster it takes effect.

It's really ironic, isn't it? I'm not shinobi enough to avoid the poison but I am shinobi enough to die from it. An extruciatingly slow death, of course.

Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke-kun jumped away from the cloud of poison almost immeditately, I recognized it and ran but I couldn't get out in time, the moment I breathed in, I collapsed.

Naruto was next to me, I saw him breathe it in but somehow he must have pushed past the searing pain.

They fled without even looking back.

At first, I thought they were disengaging to attack from another area. Maybe they thought I was behind them.

Not anymore, minutes had passed and eventually the bandits realised they weren't coming back after moments passed and they captured me.

It has been 18 days since I've been take prisoner.

My chakra splutters under the poison but I've managed to grasp firmly onto it.

Procedure for those poisoned with Shinobi's Bane is to wait for your teammates to rescue you, they might need to acquire backup so it might take up to 5 days. Do not attempt to manipulate chakra in anyway, it will speed up your death.

I waited.

I waited the 5 days, they'll need to get to Konoha, assuming that Naruto has been incapitated. I waited another 3 days which was how long it took for us to get to this spot. I held out for another 10 days, making more reasons up for their delay that all fell apart when they never got here.

I waited till I realised that they were never going to come for me.

The bandits jeered as they watched me choke and gasp for air in their improvised cage, they kept a fair distance away from me, even tied up they were wary of what a ninja could do. The other slaves cringed in their cages during the day but during the night, I could feel eyes upon me, their rescuer was now one of them. Silent expectation weighed upon me to recover, to help them.

Help them? I can't even help myself.

They were selling us to some village in Grass apparently.