Dying To Live Chapter 1, a naruto fanfic

A/N: Not very much to say before I begin this...alright, maybe a bit. First of all, I will not lable this as any sort of romance. I haven't decided if I want to have a bit of a romantic flair to it or if I'd prefer to leave it more on a friendship role. Maybe you guys can make up my mind for me on that.

Also, I admit to being a Biotech major so I don't tend to believe my writing is as up to standard as many others on here. And even if I am a biotech major, I hardly know many of the medical terms which I'll be trying to research. I've learnt a bit on tumors and can probably tell you a good bit of cellular biology but when it comes to clinically, I can get a bit stuck, so a lot of my information is coming from the WWW, how we all love thee! I'll try to make this as realistic as posible, so please bare with me! If you do have more information than I do then please be my guest and help me.

I've had this idea for a while and when I did want to write it, I had often thought of making it more of an original fic, but after reading a few Naruto fanfics, I thought I would try for that instead and as such, I had to change a few of the things I wished to do to make it more realistic for the characters. It may be pretty OOC at times but I'm trying to keep the characters as normal as they would be in the cases that they lived in modern Osaka, Japan. On that note, I am no Japanese expert so bare with me on that too. XD I fail apparently!

The hospital I use later on is actually a hospital in Osaka so I take no claim to it. Frankly, it could be a hospital that specializes in orthopedics and I will feel like an ass, but just let it go and accept it, please?

I think that's it! I do hope you enjoy. It is a rough version. A beta would be preferred but I have no idea how to get my hands on one of those. If you do enjoy, please leave a review. I'd appreciate it and it will give me the energy to write and continue this going!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters that hold a part in Naruto. That right belongs to Kishimoto Masashi and I take no claim in it other than my wild imagination in which I add his characters to.

Prologue

The influx of air seemed to stick in the back of my throat and I could just make out Iruka behind me in what must have been a similar situation.

I was going to die.

And just like that, the room seemed to close around me. Stark walls seemed terribly closer to my wide eyes, and the lights were too bright. The air, too stagnant. I was going to die, literally. If not now, surely in a few months.

You know that ringing in your ears you get sometimes? That one that when it happens, some old gullible person tells you that someone is speaking badly of you? I could hear that ringing. I could hear it loudly and clearly and even if the man in the crisp white coat was speaking, all I could see was his lips moving.

Iruka was directly behind me now. I could feel his hand clenching through the fabric of my shoulder.

No! No no no no no! I'm seventeen. This kind of stuff doesn't happen to people my age. It's all right if you're wrinkly and grey and then no one really cares that much! But I still have a life to live!

"I'm seventeen." I finally whisper determinedly. "Seventeen." I stressed to the doctor. And now the room is back in order. I can hear again. I can breathe again. But for God damn sake—why the fuck isn't anyone shouting 'April Fools'?

The doctor seems slightly taken aback. "I'm sorry Uzumaki-kun, but while your age range is not usually the norm, this can very well happen at any age."

My world...my semi-perfect world…

Just like that—broken.

Chapter 1

It wasn't until I was coming out of math class that I felt it again. Sort of like a nagging headache that spread from the base of my skull to just behind my eyes. It made the world spin around me, and my eyes burned in exhaustion.

This wasn't my first headache. Damn—this was more like my hundredth headache! However, it had only just recently gotten worst. Before, I'd take some form of generic headache medicine and be merry and on my way, but now—well now, I wouldn't be surprised if I was overdosing on the damn pills.

The chatter around me seemed pretty insistent and loud. I caught pieces of someone bringing up homework, as someone else conversed on the school's basketball game last night. Could they be any louder? You'd think they had to scream for the whole world to hear.

Well, not that I'm one to talk. Shikamaru likes to remind me that I'm loud to a fault. I think he said that I was the textbook definition of loud, but to Shikamaru, I think everything is loud and troublesome.

"Yo, Naruto!" A gruff voice hollered somewhere behind me through the crowd of people.

I didn't have to turn around to figure who it was. There was only one person who could make growling seem human. Waiting for the bigger boy to reach my side, I took a quick glance at him. "Kiba." I nodded in greeting. "What happened to your face? Your guard dog mistook you for the enemy?"

I wasn't kidding about his face either. The area of his cheekbone was bruised an ugly purple. Fresh I noticed. I'd know that sort of thing. I got plenty bruised through life. I still got plenty bruised. He growled one of his more dog-like growls.

"I'll have you know that Akamaru is smart enough to know who the master is!" The Inuzuka's bred guard dogs. It was knowledge in our close niche of friends that Kiba was recently given his own dog to train.

"Seems like he isn't that smart then if he thinks you're the master." I grinned at the taller boy. Maybe headaches made me feel cheeky or something, because if school had been out, I'd definitely get an equally ugly bruise such as the one Kiba was sporting.

Kiba's hands rounded into fists and I made a grapevine quickstep to move further from his side. "If you're done," he murmured to which I nodded in quick recession. "I'll have you know this lovely piece of work came from Hyuuga."

"I hope you mean the he and not the she, because that would be pretty comical." Mirth seemed to spill from my words and I smiled imagining the tiny Hyuuga Hinata rounding on the large Inuzuka and punching him square in the jaw.

"Ha ha." Sarcasm did nothing for Kiba, I reckon. "Neji decided he didn't like the fact that I had my arm around Hinata-chan. He though he should give me a demonstration on what happens when one gets too close to the Hyuuga heiress."

I finally decided to give Kiba a better look. At this point, we were definitely going to be late for Economics but who needed Economics anyway? And God, was my head killing or what? "Well, I'm surprised it's not worst. Hyuuga has a nasty bite I hear. Worst than that dog of yours I imagine."

Kiba shrugged. "He'll get used to me dating his cousin eventually."

"Your funeral." I murmured before rounding away from Kiba.

"Where're you heading? Econ's this way!" He hollered towards me. The halls were nearly empty, with only a few stragglers lurching in the halls trying to take as long as possible.

"Nurse's office!" I replied behind my shoulder. "Headache! Tell Asuma-sensei I'll be in soon."

I rounded the corner and stared down at the impossibly long hallway. And was it me or was the room tilting? The pain behind my eyes made my eyesight blurry and the last thing I saw before I eventually entered a world of blackness was the principal heading in my direction.

Great, I thought. Tsunade-baa-chan would definitely be on my case for skipping on class.

I came to with someone shining a light to my eyes. "Uzumaki-kun, can you hear me?"

I murmured something that didn't even make sense to myself.

"Uzumaki-kun?" The tenor voice asked again.

"Where 'm I?" I finally mumbled out. My head was killing me. I could make out moving. A noise. Loud. But muffled. What?

"Uzumaki-kun. Can you tell me what you last remember?"

What the hell was going on? "Where am I?" And now I could finally speak it, while twisting my face to the earlier voice. "What's going on?"

Cold hands were feeling my wrists. Something was slipped up my arm. I could make out a rapid beat in the background like the fast rhythm of a drum. "Blood pressure is 135 over 92 and rising." The tenor said to an invisible person.

"Where am I?" Why wasn't he answering me?

"I'm sorry Uzumaki-kun." He finally responded to me. "You're in an ambulance heading to Kashiwara Municipal Hospital. Can you please tell me what you last remember, Uzumaki-kun?"

Ambulance? What happened? I tried thinking back but for the life of me, everything just seemed so jumbled.

I must've looked frustrated because the paramedic told me not to worry about it. He went on speaking to his invisible person again.

"Uzumaki-kun, we're pulling into the hospital now. We'll roll you into the Emergency Room, all right? We need you to be very still for us."

What happened next was a journey through white walls from one room to the next. From one doctor to another. From nagging and persistent nurses and needles and x-rays and jumbled letters that I couldn't begin to understand, far less decode.

And what passed was hours of waiting—hours of confusion as I tried placing my puzzled thoughts. I was in school, wasn't I? That's right, a headache. I had Econ. And I was going to the nurse's office when I must've fainted.

It didn't take long for Iruka to come running to my assigned room at the ER. Between the lights that were constantly being shined in my eyes and all the other exams, he seemed slightly blurry at the edges.

"Naruto—oh God! You're okay!" He was grabbing at my hand as if to make sure I was real.

"Iruka." I grounded out. "What happened?"

"Tsunade called me and told me you fainted." He was running his hands through my hair now. "The doctors haven't told me anything yet. I was finally able to see you."

A quiet lapse fell between us. "I was worried sick. Don't you dare do that to me again!" But while he said that, he continued to gently hold my hand as if I were to break.

I could just imagine how worried Iruka was. He'd always been a bit of a mother hen and his teacher instincts seemed to intensify them. And here I went and had a fainting spell like a young lady in the late 1800s, worrying Iruka for nothing.

"I'm sorry." I smiled weakly. "Guess I just like the attention, huh?" He found little humor in my joke.

"Uzumaki Naruto?" A voice called behind Iruka. It was a doctor, his coat as white as the walls. Underneath he wore dark blue scrubs that seemed as worn as his face even if he still appeared to be on the younger side.

"Yes?" Iruka answered for me. "Is everything all right? What happened? Why'd he faint?"

"Ah, I'm sorry, are you the patient's father?" The doctor strained to smile. Almost as if any act of kindness would hurt him.

"His adopted father, yes. I'm Umino Iruka."

"Well then, Umino-san. Uzumaki-kun. I am Dr. Takazawa of the neurology department here." The air seemed stale between us as the doctor placed a few scans on clips in front of a light that seemed to make them come to life.

"We just got back with the MRI and CT scans that were taken earlier and were able to diagnose the problem." And here his voice became a bit gruff. "It appears Uzumaki-kun that you have an abnormal cell growth between the cerebrum and cerebellum, just behind the occipital lobe."

Huh?

"Without some more information, we can't be sure if the tumor cells are benign or malignant, however, with it's rapid cell growth, we're assuming them to be malignant of a Stage Three category."

"Excuse me but can you explain what that means?" Iruka asked and even if he asked to explain, it sounded like he knew exactly what the doctor was talking about. If possible, his hands had gotten colder and his grip tightened.

Dr. Takazawa brushed a hand through his muddy brown hair that was cut cropped to his head. "I'm sorry Uzumaki-kun but it appears that you have a Stage Three brain tumor of the malignant variety. That is to say," he continued, "That it is most likely cancerous."

"These tumor cells are pushing against your occipital lobe and creating pressure in the skull cavity which explains the constant headaches you have been feeling as of lately."

I have a brain tumor. Full stop. No fainting spell. A fucking brain tumor. And here was the doctor going on as if this was as simple as a brain in a vat. This is my fucking brain!

"Frankly speaking, it's quite late in its stage and is starting to effect other things. You fainted due to its pressure against the area of your brain that works with motor skills. You might experience blurriness or slight ringing in your ears, which are all effects from the tumor."

Iruka was breathing harshly now. "What can you do?"

"Well, it might be too early to say anything without any more research and so that will be the first thing that must be done. However, if it is malignant as we believe, it will be impossible to fully remove the tumor as we would have if it were benign. The tumor will only continue growing even if we were to remove as much as we could."

Iruka seemed to back away now, almost as if the doctors words were pushing him back physically.