Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Naruto or any of its trademarks, characters, places, etc.
This story is part of a three part set of stories based on my two Kusagakure characters; Hitomi and Bunko. This is Hitomi's. If you were to put this in a timeline with my other OC-based Naruto stories, this one would take place right before My Favorite Harlequin and right after The Blond and the Blonde.
This story is exclusive to FanFiction . net while the story based on Bunko's character, The Blond and the Blonde, is exclusive to Quizilla (at least until they take it down).
-1-
Hitomi was a jonin of Kusagakure. She was known around town for her bright green eyes that sparkled like emeralds. While she enjoyed the role in one of the most diplomatically strategic villages, she spent the majority of her time acting as a courier for the daimyo. She had to admit that playing courier for the daimyo was a bit boring at times though. But this time she had been given a letter to deliver to the Hokage of Konoha. Her daimyo had made it clear that the letter was of the utmost importance and had to be delivered as soon as possible.
So Hitomi had spent her time since then jumping from mushroom to mushroom outside of the village to finally get to the forest outside of Konoha. With the urgency put on the letter she was to deliver, she should have at least expected to be routed on the way there. Without paying attention, Hitomi had accidentally set off several hidden explosive tags, which sent her spiraling to the forest floor.
"Shit!" she cursed as she fell to the forest floor, rubbing her head. A shinobi body flickered in front of her and grabbed Hitomi by her long blue hair, pulling her face towards his.
"Well if it isn't the Emerald-Eyed courier from Kusa," the shinobi laughed. His face was hidden by wraps and he had a Kusagakure headband around his neck with a line cut through it. Hitomi quickly grabbed her katana from its sheath and swung at him, but he body flickered back several yards.
"Not bad courier," the shinobi murmured, "Too bad you're outnumbered." Hitomi looked around her to see shinobi like the one who had grabbed her step out from behind the trees and drop from the branches.
"What could a bunch of traitors want from a courier!" she spat at the shinobi across from her.
He pulled out a short blade, "Simple, the daimyo only sends out the Emerald-Eyed courier on important jobs so we'll be taking whatever you're delivering."
"Not if I can't help it," she called as she stood, racing towards the shinobi and attempting to strike him. He skillfully deflected her hit and sliced through her torso. She fell back as several of the rogues grabbed her and stood on her legs to hold her down. The first shinobi with the short blade walked over to where she was being restrained.
"Now let's see what we have here…" he ripped the satchel from her and dug through it, pulling out a particular letter with the daimyo's mark.
"This is just what I wanted!" he smiled as he pat Hitomi on the head, "What a good courier you are, delivering me my mail. Too bad this will be your last delivery." He swung his short blade around and carefully stabbed it into her left eye, carving it out while the kunoichi's shrieks ripped across the forest. He gave the same treatment to the other eye and held them in his palm.
"These will be some nice souvenirs to remember you by," he laughed, stabbing her in the torso with his short blade. The other rogues let go of her, letting her drop to the ground and body flickered away, leaving the courier to die.
"Oh God," for a moment, Hitomi could make out the hustling and bustling village of Konoha, "Oh God please, save me." She continued crying while she bled out and crawled towards the sound of the village.
"Oh God, I'm almost there, I'm almost there…"
It began on a beautiful sunny day in Konoha, more specifically, the hospital in Konoha. The jonin from Kusagakure who had recently become the hospital's newest admitte was about to awaken from a short coma. It started with several minutes of non-stop fidgeting from the short blue haired woman and murmuring of some kind of message. The nurse who had been keeping an eye on her sat in a comfy chair by the open window with a clipboard and wrote down her observations of the jonin. The kunoichi then turned onto her side, facing the sun and stopped moving. Her breathing slowed as well, causing the nurse to rush to check her vitals.
As soon as the nurse's hand made contact with her, the jonin grabbed the woman's wrists defensively and commanded, "Where am I?"
"You're awake!" the nurse excitedly announced to no one in particular. The jonin's mouth curved in confusion as the nurse backed away. The woman ran out of the room to fetch one of the village's more prestigious medical shinobi, leaving the now very much confused Kusagakure kunoichi alone.
Hitomi sat up in her hospital bed and scratched her head, when she felt bandages tied around it, "Why is it so dark in here?"
The jonin brought her hands to her face and pulled the bandage covering her eyes down. And that's when she saw it-absolutely nothing. The remnants of her eyeballs had been surgically removed and her eyelids sewn shut, so to her, she was simply surrounded by darkness.
"Is this a genjutsu?" she turned her head, believing that she was looking around and tried to open her eyelids. Finally, she brought her hands to her eyes and felt the stitching along her eyes and face. She could remember being in a fight of some sort before waking up, maybe she'd been taken hostage or maybe this was just what it felt like to be dead?
The jonin brought her hands down and felt around her surroundings and what she was wearing. The way the surface below her felt, she knew it was obviously a bed, but her apparel felt very thin and she wasn't wearing her flak jacket or any equipment. She then felt her arms, where there was a piece of tape and a tube attached.
"Am I being experimented on?" the kunoichi ripped off the tape and tube and shifted her body around so she could leave the bed she was on. The jonin could feel an intense pain in her right leg as well as the bandages that were wrapping it, but she decided to risk it and continued to shift off the bed. When she finally had her legs over the edge and stood, she fell immediately to the cold, hard floor. In the distance, she heard a door being opened and footsteps that advanced towards her.
The nurse rushed to her, flabbergasted, "Oh no, please don't move, you're still injured!" The jonin felt arms grab onto her and lift her up, laying her back on the bed. Another set of footsteps advanced towards the jonin.
"So this is the Kusagakure kunoichi our scouts found in the woods last week?" an older woman's voice called. The jonin turned her head in the direction of where the voice had come from, "Hey kid, are you listening to me?"
The jonin pointed a finger at herself, "Me?"
"Yes, you," the footsteps grew closer, as did the older woman's voice, "Do you remember anything? Your name maybe?"
"Who are you?" the jonin demanded.
"I'm the Hokage of Konoha, Tsunade," the older woman, who identified herself as Tsunade, responded, "Now back to my question; who are you?"
The jonin was satisfied with the Hokage's response and finally answered her question, "I'm Hitomi Maeda of Kusagakure."
"Well, you remember your name, that's a start," she heard Tsunade sigh. The Hokage looked down at the loose IV that Hitomi had ripped off of herself and picked it up, "Now, do you remember what happened to you?"
Hitomi tensed up as she tried to remember, "I was sent on a mission to deliver a message to your ladyship from the Daimyo of Kusa when I was intercepted. I recall a fight but nothing afterwards."
Tsunade scratched her chin in thought, "My scouts found you in the forest outside of Konoha last week barely alive and brought you here. Since then, you've been in a coma. I'm surprised you remember so much."
Hitomi scratched her head again, taking all that the Hokage had said in, "Where are my things?"
"On the floor by your bed," she bent over, picking the clothes up and setting them in the empty space by the jonin's side, "I don't recall finding a message on you at all however; perhaps your assailants took it?"
"I must get it back," the kunoichi groaned feeling around for her flak jacket and trying to throw it on, when a hand on her arm stopped her.
"I wouldn't go after your assailants in your state," she heard the Hokage's voice warn. The hand moved from her arm, "Now that you're awake, we can finally get to your operation."
Hitomi tensed up at the phrase, "What operation?"
This time the nurse who sat on the other side of her responded, "Your eyes; there were only small pieces left of them when we found you that we had to clean out your eye holes and sew them shut to prevent you from bleeding to death. We weren't sure if you'd ever wake up, so we postponed putting in your replacements, but now that you're fully functioning, we can!"
"My eyes," Hitomi felt her eyes, remembering when the shinobi had stabbed into them with his short blade. She tried to rip open the stitching as she screamed, "My eyes!"
The nurse pulled her hands away and chided her, "Don't do that!" She let her arms fall to her sides and calmed down.
"Replacing my eyes?" she finally asked while feeling the stitches that held her eyes closed again, "How long will that take?"
The older woman's voice again; "The operation will take a day to complete. But three days to prepare for."
"I take it that means I'll be waiting around here for three day?" Hitomi sighed and laid back down on her back.
"Actually, while we're waiting for your operation, you might as well build up your strength," the jonin could almost hear the Hokage on the cusp of an idea, "I'm going to send for a guide to show you around Konoha. In the meantime, the nurse will help you get dressed and walk you out to meet them." Hitomi heard the Hokage's footsteps quickly leave the room.
The nurse timidly stepped over to the kunoichi who was still facing the door, "Um..."
Hitomi turned her head in the direction of the nurse's voice, "Just hand me my clothes, I can dress myself fine."
Since she was still injured, the nurse strayed away from allowing Hitomi to wear her regular Kusagakure uniform, instead opting for a loose rouge yukata with black trim and her Kusagakure headband around her neck. The timid woman wrapped the kunoichi's hands and legs in wraps and re-wrapped her eyes with soft white bandages. Tsunade also made sure that the nurse gave her a cane, since she was still recovering from numerous injuries including a broken leg. Hitomi was led out of the hospital to a tree nearby, which she used to support herself while she awaited the guide Tsunade mentioned.
While she waited she tried her best to remember everything that had happened before she awoke. She could recall a delivery for Tsunade and being stabbed in the eyes. But she didn't know what the letter that she was supposed to deliver was for but knew that the daimyo had put such importance on it that she had to get it back as soon as she could, no matter what Tsunade said. At least if she found the rogues and the letter but was outnumbered again, she could destroy the letter before she died.
The jonin then heard what sounded like a dog barking nearby. Hitomi turned her head in the direction of the barking as it continued to draw closer. She pushed her back to the tree and held her free hand out and felt a patch of fur. Hitomi continued to feel around until she found the bottom of the furry beast before her's chin. She scratched it and cooed, "I feel a large, magnificent beast before me~!"
"I guess this is her," a voice of a young man called from several feet away. Hitomi ignored it and continue to scratch under the beast's chin as it happily barked and wagged its tail. A set of footsteps came closer to her, "Tsunade said you were blind..."