Ch.1 The Awakening

Shinzui-san! Shinzui-san! I was bleeding…yea, sounds cheesy right? But here I was, lying on my back, my vision going funny and feeling my warm blood drip out of my wounds. That damn bastard had gotten lucky, hitting me in several vital areas. I could see the faces of my comrades bending over me, their mouths moving, but I didn't hear the words coming out.

Is she going to be ok?

…I…I don't know, she's hit in four vital areas…there's nothing I can do.

What?! No…Shinzui-san!

My vision was getting darker now…so dark…I finally gave in to the evitable oblivion, free of pain…free…

Third Person POV

Private O'Brien was bored, very bored. He had been on patrol with Private Ryan for the past hour and nothing interesting had happened. He stifled a yawn as the two of them trudged up the path to head back to base. "Man…it's too quiet, I wish SOMETHING would happen."

Private Ryan looked at him. "Be careful what you wish for, hate to jinx ourselves." He was always the sensible one.

O'Brien scowled at him and opened his mouth to shoot something back…until something caught his eye. He turned more fully to witness a very strange sight, lying up ahead was a prone and huddled figure. "Hey! Up ahead!" As the two sprinted up toward them, they had to stop and gawk.

The figure was most likely female, judging from the long, raven black hair that had once been tied up in a neat ponytail, but now sprawled around her head like the sick parody of a halo. She was dressed in a semi-tight body suit of navy blue and what appeared to be a green flak jacket. What was disturbing though was the blood that was rapidly starting to form a pool around her.

"Oh shit! Ryan, call base now and get a medic down here!" His comrade did just that, barking into one of the handheld radios. "Hey…miss? Can you hear me? Don't quit on us you hear?!" O'Brien wiped a hand over his face; this patrol just took an unexpected turn.

Shinzui's POV

I hurt…all over…is this what death was supposed to feel like? If it did…it sucked. I then decided to stop moaning and see where the hell I was. Ok…hmmm, I was laying on something…metal…a gurney? Wait…A GURNEY?! I was now mentally screaming at my eyelids to freaking open already, but they were resisting. Oh wait…I was still bleeding…did that mean I didn't die?

Patient is a woman in her late 20s to early 30s, multiple stab wounds, definitely in critical condition.

She's damn lucky to even be breathing, one of those stabs looks like it nicked her lungs.

…people talking…wait, are they talking about me?

Get her to ICU stat and prep a room for immediate surgery!

Yes doctor!

Doctor, her brain waves are showing activity, I think she's conscious!

Miss? Miss? Can you hear me? Please squeeze my hand if you can.

Of course I could hear you baka! Oh wait, my eyes are closed…fine, stupid hand…SQUEEZE! After a moment, I breathed a sigh of relief when I felt my hand squeeze the doc's.

She's responsive! Good sign, ok. Miss, you're in good hands now, hang in there!

Trust me doc, I have no intention of kicking the bucket yet. Then, darkness overcame me again.

Doctor Louis POV

I had to admit, this was the strangest subject I have ever had to tend over. We had managed to get her out of surgery and she was now resting in ICU. To have survived the wounds that she had…very rarely in my medical experience have I ever seen a person in that state actually still be breathing. Not only that, but the equipment she had…

We had to strip everything off of her to operate and to say the very least, that was not an easy task. She had various pouches with rather dangerous looking weapons, knives, smoke bombs, and etc. Oh yes, and the nasty looking blade that had been strapped to her back. This was a person that was no stranger to a fight, which might explain her wounds. I scratched me head, this was beyond my jurisdiction, I had already sent a report to the higher ups about our find and hopefully, they would find an answer to this puzzle.

Shinzui's POV

Great, I hurt all over again. I normally wasn't this sarcastic or cynical, but anyone in my current condition would understand. My eyes also seemed to be stubborn again, but I wasn't going to let them get away with that!

After some terse moments, to my great ecstasy, my eyelids began to respond and they finally opened. Now I wish they hadn't when a blinding flash of light violated my eyeballs. Luckily, a few blinks took care of that, but now my eyes stung along with the rest of me. When my eyes finally adjusted themselves, I decided to try to get a bearing on my surroundings.

Well, from what I could tell, I was in some kind of hospital room, though that should have been obvious when that doctor had been talking to me. I had one of those oxygen things up the nose and my chest felt like somebody decided to wrap an extra tight corset on. I slowly sat up; my room was dimly lit, though my eyes probably were still holding a grudge against that light. The shades on the windows had been drawn and the quiet beep of the monitoring machine next to me was the only noise I could register at first. Then I could the quiet drone of conversation outside, yup, definitely a hospital.

I gently brush my black hair out of my face as I turned my attention to myself. I was wearing one of those, shudder, awful hospital gowns. A peek inside showed me that my chest was tightly bound in bandages. Well, that did explain the tightness. The stinging in my arm was probably from that IV needle stuck in it and the rest from general soreness. I sighed, I hated hospitals

"Well, I see that the patient is finally awake."

First, I mentally noted that I was going to hit myself for letting my guard down. Second, get my heartbeat back to normal. My head looked up to see a middle aged man with graying brown hair, holding a clipboard, and dressed as a medical doctor.

"We've been quite worried, some were afraid you wouldn't wake up."

I work some moisture back into my mouth; I neglected to say it felt like I ate cotton didn't I? "What can I say; I'm not that easy to keep down." I gave the doc a weak smile.

He nodded before walking up to my bed and looking at a chart I was guessing was hanging at the foot of the bed. "Looks like you will make a nice recovery; you were in pretty bad shape when you were brought in."

I blinked; I had just noticed that we were speaking English, not Japanese. Good thing I actually decided to study other languages, but where the heck was I? "Ummm…excuse me…er…"

"Louis, Dr R.J. Louis." He gave me a friendly smile.

"Right, Louis-san." At the honorific title, he gave me a confused look. "Not to be rude or anything…but where am I?"

He suddenly looked uncomfortable, that wasn't a good sign. "I'm…I'm afraid I cannot divulge that information."

Ok…definitely not a good thing. But…panicking wasn't going to due me any good, my chakra levels were still low, which meant I couldn't do anything about the situation if I wanted to. "…can I at least ask if this is Japan?"

Louis looked confused at the question. "Well, I can safely answer that I guess. No, you're not in Japan."

…uh oh. So I wasn't in Japan anymore…hmmm. I decided instead to study the doc's accent. Judging from his tone, English was his first language…but the accent…I couldn't quite place it.

"Ahem." The sound of the guy clearing his throat forced my attention back to him. "Now that I've introduced myself, perhaps I could ask for yours?"

Hmmm, well, I didn't sense any hostile intentions from him…but, one could never be too sure. I'd better just use my alias.

"My…my name for now is Renja." The doc didn't look surprised; he probably knew I was suspicious of him.

"Alright Renja, just rest up a bit. I'm afraid that there are some people who wish to speak to you once you're up to an acceptable level of health.

I had to smother a grin at that, obviously, he didn't know how fast we shinobi healed compared to normal people. "Don't worry doc, I'll be up and about before you know it. Give me…" I paused and looked at myself. Let's see, four stab wounds to the chest and the good stitching they had done…"about 5 days, and I'll see these people of yours."

The doc looked a little confused, but merely gave me a nod and walked out. As the door clicked shut, I laid back on the pillow. For now, I'd better more sleep, no use mulling over something I can't change. I shut my eyes and hoped this was just a crazy dream and I would wake up from it.

Hmmm, an interesting choice for a fic? Well, I don't care if you review or not, just enjoy...BUT NO FLAMES! Constructive criticism is welcome.