This is my third attempt at a Naruto story, and hopefully the chapters will turn out a little longer than my other tries. I'm really not a commitment person, but this story idea really made me want to write it. Then again, things don't always happen the way you want them to. So we'll just see how this goes. If I get at least 1 review, I'll keep writing. And if not, then this story is dead until I try to rewrite it. : (
Disclaimer: If I owned it, do you think I would be writing a fan fiction? Do I really have to say it?
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"Good morning, everybody!" yawned Tenten as she showed up for training.
"Good morning, Tenten." replied Gai.
"How youthful of you to say so!" shouted Lee.
"Hn..." grunted Neji, as he continued to throw kunai at the stumps on the training ground.
Ignoring Neji's strange sound, and Lee's 'fits of youthfulness', Tenten grabbed her own set of kunai, and began to practice her aim. As is bound to happen to people aiming at the same thing, Neji and Tenten bumped into each other, both of them missing the target.
"Watch where you're going, baka!" hissed Neji.
'Whoa, touchy. I wonder if anybody else noticed Neji's been a little... uptight the last few days. Not even uptight, more like utterly and completely pissed of at everything.' Tenten was pretty confused. Even thought Neji wasn't known to be a friendly person, he wasn't the type who would normally insult people at all. He'd just ignore them with his little 'Hn' thing.
All the time while thinking, Tenten had moved back to her original spot and continued throwing her shuriken and kunai. But she hadn't really been paying attention to anything. So, naturally she didn't stop when her name was called.
"Tenten."
Snatch. Thwack.
"Tenten."
Snatch. Thwack.
"Tenten!"
Snatch. Thwack.
Neji walked over to her, and shook her shoulder. But, seeing as Tenten didn't know what was going on around her, she assumed it was attack, and swung her kunai around into the hand on her shoulder. In the time it took her to realize that it was Neji who had taken hold of her, Gai was shouting for a medic, Lee was screaming like a little girl, and Neji was lying on the ground holding his fingers in a fist. Tenten started to panic, but not before wondering why Neji would show that he was in pain. Sometimes he was a bit too proud for his own good.
Within a couple of minutes, a squad from the hospital turned up with a stretcher. They all had grim looks on their faces as the looked Neji's body over. Tenten couldn't see the damage, so followed them to the hospital.
Inside the hospital, Neji had been taken to the emergency ward. Tenten wanted to see him, as did Gai and Lee.
"Hang on just a moment, I'll talk to the medic working on him." said the receptionist.
In a few seconds, the group was led up to the room that Tenten assumed was Neji's. As they entered, they spotted Sakura cleaning the gore of blood off Neji's hand. He was groaning in pain. Lee ran out of the room, looking as green as his spandex, when he saw the blood. Gai jumped after him, knowing that sort of thing was a bit... disturbing to some people.
Once Sakura was done with cleaning, she went into another room to get some bandages and sedatives. Looking at Neji's hand, Tenten began to understand why he was in so much pain. His ring finger had received a large cut, almost to the bone. But his pinky was another matter. It was barely attached to his hand anymore. Only a thin layer of skin kept the two from being separated completely. 'Lee is lucky he left the room when he did, otherwise he might be puking his lungs out. Hell, I might puke my lungs out!'
But that didn't explain why Neji was in ER. With Sakura's amazing chakra control, his fingers could be perfectly fine, no scar, within moments. As Tenten watched, Neji's hand began to turn purplish, like an old bruise. His heart rate quickened, and an alarm sounded. Sakura came rushing back into the room, with a panicked look on her face. As she noted the coloration of Neji's arm, her face set into a grim mask.
"What weapon was used to do this, Tenten?"
"Well, a kunai, but it was an accide-"
"Bring it here."
Tenten rushed to the waiting room where her weapon pouch was, and pulled out the small kunai. As she handed it over to Sakura, the medic sniffed it and her face became even more serious. Calling some lesser rank medics over, she began to order them around.
"Get a tourniquet on his arm! Go grab that needle over there! Hand me that bottle of
anti-neurotoxin!"
As she shouted this, Neji's arm began to twitch. His whole body soon began to spasm uncontrollably. When the things Sakura needed were handed to her, she quickly snapped the tourniquet onto Neji's arm to keep the... whatever it was... from spreading. As she filled up the needle, Neji's movements became more violent.
"Hold him down! I can't do this right if he's thrashing about like that!"
Plunging the needle into his wrist, Sakura slowly but steadily injected the medicine directly into his bloodstream. As Neji eventually began to settle, Sakura gave a sigh of relief. It had been too close.
Meanwhile, Tenten was completely baffled about the situation.'I have a feeling that there's something nobody is telling me.' as Neji's heart rate and breathing settled into a calm pattern, Tenten turned to Sakura to find out exactly what the hell was going on. Before she could even speak, Sakura understood and quietly informed her of the situation.
"Snake poison."
"Wha..."
"Somebody seems to have a bit of a grudge against Neji. Your kunai was coated with the venom of one of the rarer types of cobras. And I'm pretty sure you wouldn't do something like that, because you and Neji have known each other for several years without ever being hurt by one another on purpose."
"But that means that..."
"Somebody was trying to either kill Neji, dismember him, maim him for life, or just plain inconvenience him."
"But what confuses me is that the venom was making Neji spasm. How strong was that stuff?"
For the first time since Neji got hurt, Sakura looked Tenten in the eye. Sighing, she washed her hands off while Tenten noticed the grim look she had in her green eyes. Sakura began to quote from her book on poisons.
"The venom of snakes is often used for assassinations or to paralyze a victim. Administered through a dart or on the surface of kunai or shuriken, the most effective for a quick death is the venom of the proteroglyphous snake, or King Cobra. Containing the cholinesterase enzyme, it causes the muscles affected by the poison to spasm and eventually be destroyed. If the venom reaches the heart or any of the organs, it is fatal."
When Tenten processed all of this, she finally knew the danger Neji had been in. he could have lost his fingers, arm, been paralyzed for life, or even died. As Sakura slowly surrounded Neji's hand with her chakra, the fingers slowly began to heal. The ring finger now had something akin to a paper cut, but the pinky still was cut to the bone, and the tendon was surely snapped. A medic ran into the room, saying that Sakura was needed for another patient. She quickly finished bandaging up Neji's hand, then left.
Tenten knew her feelings for the prodigy hadn't died down over the years, but only gotten stronger. Although she knew the poison on the blade wasn't her fault, she still felt slightly responsible for the cuts. The chakra strings that had been controlled by the mysterious enemy had made the swing a lot more serious, but it had still been Tenten that swung it.
A tear made it's way down her cheek and dripped onto Neji's hand. Tenten wiped it away. She was a kunoichi, and shinobi couldn't afford to show feelings. She left the room in a muddle of emotions, but with a face as blank as stone.
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I actually did research on the snake thing. Don't laugh at Tenten for being a bit confused, I bet it took you some time to get that paragraph into your head.
Anyway, I'll write the next chapter soon IF I get at least 1 review. And I really want to write this story. So review. Or my cute little doggie will eat you.
Ja ne!