All Alone Together
By: Night Flame Miko
Chapter One: To leave or let lie
Hinata plucked the sweet smelling flower; bringing it to her nose she closed her eyes in bliss at the wonderful smell. It was her one day off a week. Normally she would continue to train today anyway but she decided that considering she had just been made Chunnin she would give herself a treat and come to her favourite flower field, despite it being a good two hours from the village.
Adding the jasmine to her collection of flowers in her basket she sat down and simply basked in the sunlight. It wasn't often she could simply enjoy life, things had changed, she had gotten better, having created her technique that coincided with her families gentle fist fighting style. Few people knew about it, actually only her team-mates, Naruto and Kurenai-sensei knew about it. But they treated her all the better for it.
Of course her father still treated her badly, though Neji suspected she wasn't as hapless as she appeared. Also she was one of the last to be made Chunnin, which didn't help matters. But she managed to do it without revealing any of her techniques. She still had low self-esteem problems and she didn't need her father degrading her techniques, what he didn't know wouldn't hurt her. Not that he showed up at the exam anyway. Tears gathered in her eyes but she easily brushed them aside. Neji was more of a son to her father than she was a daughter to him. If she wasn't the heir to the Hyuuga titles then she didn't doubt that he would have disowned her.
Her morose thoughts were pushed aside when the ground rumbled beneath her, the trees shook and some birds took to the air, voicing their fright. Without a second thought she was on her feet, Byakugon activated and kunai in hand. Scanning her surroundings the very faint sound of fighting came through to her. Dropping her basket she didn't notice her flowers scattering over the ground, she grabbed her backpack with her survival gear in it. If she had learned anything over the past few years; it was always be prepared, even when going on a seemingly uninteresting flower picking trip.
Spreading out her sight she pushed her vision to the absolute limit. Flashes of light spread across her eyes to the right, sprinting across the field she headed towards the trees. She could see two jounin fighting, but that was the extent of her ability, they were moving so fast she only got glimpses of their green jackets.
Moving nimbly through the trees she ignored the branches slapping against her and the trees moving past at a dangerously fast pace in favour of focusing on the fighting. Unfortunately the odds were against her, whilst her fighting style had been perfected and her Byakugon range was increasing daily, her stamina was still not its best. The fighting ninja were just too far away. By the time she arrived the fight would most likely be done. Pushing herself she inwardly gasped when another three jounin joined the first to fight against the other.
Finally they stopped long enough for her to get a good look at them. This time she gasped out loud. One was Kakashi-sensei, the others were from the wind country, if their hitai-ite's were not fakes. Kakashi was clearly in trouble. His sharingan revealed, he was panting deeply and blood was soaking through his vest in numerous places. Whilst the sharingan was good against one opponent, even three if pushed, four was just out of his range. The short reprieve over, the jounin once again launched themselves at him. Kunai thrown and justsu's cast they all went with deadly accuracy towards Kakashi. Hinata watched spellbound as he nimbly avoided them all whilst launching his own attack, kunai embedding themselves in one ninjas' leg and another's neck. The latter fell to the ground, his hand scrabbling at the wound until he fell to the side, obviously dead.
The fight moved into hand to hand combat. Three against one and still Kakashi was holding his own. Avoiding well placed blows from the three other ninja he blocked and parried each attack as if it were all a well rehearsed play. Hinata nearly collided with a tree she was so focused on the fight ahead that she had stopped paying attention to her surroundings. She was in awe. This is what a fight between jounin was truly like. She had never seen such a thing before, having been unconscious during Orochimaru's attack on Konoha she had missed the majority of the battle and as such, never had she seen such stunning fighting before.
Kakashi took out another ninja with a well placed chop to his enemy's windpipe, crushing it and preventing the ninja from getting air. But the ninja refused to go down without a fight, taking a kunai he slammed it into Kakashi's leg before finally collapsing to the ground. Kakashi grunted but continued to fight the two other ninja. Yet even Hinata could see that he was slowing down, too many wounds and using the Sharingan for too long was taking its toll.
Leaping backwards Kakashi performed some hand signs, the chidori forming in his hand before he even hit the ground. The other ninja launched themselves at him, clearly hoping to kill him before it was fully formed. They were too late. Kakashi jumped at them, the ninja racing towards each other, all but a blur to Hinata's practiced eye. She saw the chidori slam into one ninja and a kunai embed itself into the other.
Time seemed to freeze as Kakashi stood between them. It resumed when suddenly the one ninja flew backwards, the chidori forcing him away and into a tree. The crack he made as he collided with it was heard all the way from where Hinata was. The second ninja slumped, his one hand gripping the kunai in his chest. Kakashi let it go, watching with emotionless eyes as the body slumped to the ground.
Then to Hinata's horror, he pitched forward, falling face first on the ground she could just barely make out his breaths, sharp and irregular, from where she was.
Increasing her chakra she forced her body to move faster, she was nearly there and she would make it in time, even if it killed her! She pushed away the familiar doubts, she was all too used to them by now, and despite her low self-esteem, she knew that she was an average med-nin and an ok fighting kunoichi. She would do this, and she would do it right.
Finally she burst through the trees and into his clearing. Unaware that a journey that should have taken 30 minutes at the least she had managed to do in 8. Dropping next to Kakashi she quickly felt for a pulse, breathing a sigh when it beat irregularly under her fingertips. Ignoring her hunger after the sprint she placed her hands over his chest and she pushed some of her chakra out through her palms and into him, following the chakra around his bloodstream she used it to heal the more major wounds and ignored the smaller ones. Unfortunately chakra could only repair chakra passageways, because the chakra veins were so linked with the body it could heal the more vital damage, but it couldn't repair broken skin or recreate blood cells. His body would have to do the rest.
Pulling her remaining chakra into herself she felt exhaustion settle into her very bones. Ignoring it, her senses (trained through years of use) told her that the humidity in the air had risen and the light filtering through the trees above had dimmed. Sure signs of rain. Cursing inwardly at her luck she worked out that she had about 10 minutes before it would start to pour. Rain was not good for healing ninja patients. Glaring at the sky she resorted to using her Byakugon, feeling useless and weak when she had to resort to hand-signs to be able to activate her bloodline technique. She had mastered it without the signs but she was so exhausted she had to use them to control her chakra.
Examining the surrounding area she pushed her sight further out until finally a ray of hope came in the form of a cave a mile ahead. Strapping her backpack to her front she hoisted the older jounin onto her back, and despite the numb feeling in her limbs, continued onwards, forcing herself to carry the deadweight on her back all the way to the cave.
She arrived at the cave a minute after the rain had come pouring down, leaving her and Kakashi-sensei thoroughly soaked. Trudging into the cave she made a beeline for the back, glancing in surprise at the furs and supplies lying along the one wall. This was clearly a bear-trappers cave, she knew about them and how trappers would often leave their supplies behind for the next year. Finally some luck coming her way!
Gently lowering her patient onto the straw covered ground she immediately checked his vitals, a smile sneaking onto her features when his pulse came through stronger than before. It was then she realised that she couldn't leave him in his soaked uniform, and she was going to have to bandage and/or stitch up the worst of his wounds. Twisting her hands together she glanced around, futilely searching for a way out of her predicament. When nothing presented itself she sighed and with a blush that would put a neon sign to shame she started to take off his clothes.
She took off everything but his boxers and his mask, focusing her attention on everything but the stunning male before her. Luckily the soothing sound of the rain kept her focused, so even when the glory that was his chest was revealed, she did not falter. Of course there was also the matter of the deep wounds criss-crossing said chest, and the fact that they were bleeding again thanks to the dear-darling rain that had weakened his clotting blood.
And so once again, despite the near pain in her tired body, she got out some needle and twine from her waterproof first-aid kit and began sewing the cuts back together, thankful for her work at hospital which numbed her to sewing up flesh. Done, she wrapped some bandages around the deeper wounds and finally let some more of her chakra enter his body, doing a once over and healing him up as much as possible once more. Looking him over she nodded to herself tiredly. Then just before she stood up she glanced once more at his mask. When she first took off his clothes she had reached the dilemma:
To take off the mask, or not to?
Noticing no blood stains or any visible cuts in the fabric she decided against it despite her curiosity, believing that he would wear it for a reason and she had no right to step in his personal space. Still, the urge to reach over and take a quick peak at what he constantly kept hidden. It was almost unbearable. Quickly, she backed away, keeping her twitching hands clasped firmly in her lap, lest they reach over without her permission. Grabbing some of the furs she laid them carefully over his prone form and then backing to another area of the cave she took the last fur for herself, hardly big enough to cover her (as she had given the biggest to her patient) and despite the cold she was soon fast asleep.
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AN: Here is a little Kakahina. I can't believe I've started another story, I wanted this to be a relatively short one (like a one shot? sighs) but my muse has attacked me and wont let me go on this one. Oh, well, the idea isn't too original, but I figured I could have some fun playing around with this pairing. So here goes. Please review and hope you enjoyed so far. :D
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