A fight to live

Chapter four

Tsunade watched team 7 disappear out of the hospital doors before she turned and headed back to the ICU. She was even more worried about Naruto then she'd told them. They knew nothing about the whole seal situation, so Sasuke and Sakura truly did not know how things really stood for Naruto. She always heard things were darkest right before dawn; she hoped that was true in Naruto's case. She couldn't bear to lose him, someone who worked as hard as he did deserved to see their dreams come true.

A few minutes later she walked into the cat scan room and found the technician going over some scans.

"Is Naruto's scans ready?" she asked somehow sensing that the scans wouldn't be good news.

"Yes Hokage-Sama, I'm looking at them right now" he said handing them over to her. She held them up to the light and looked at them. What she saw made her sick. There were several areas that showed severe damage.

"My god" she whispered "surely this couldn't have all been from the drowning."

"I don't think it was" the tech said "some of it looks like it's been there for a while."

"How the hell does he have no effects from it then?" she wondered out loud.

"Probably cause it was small things that everybody thought was normal for him, like he was more clumsy than usual, could have had trouble picking things up, which when around Sakura anyone could have passed it off as nervousness, and as for the clumsy issue, he always has been clumsy so who would have thought that there would be a different cause to it."

Tsunade scowled and then asked a question that was burning in her mind.

"How the hell did he get brain damaged?"

"It's not exactly uncommon for the villagers to go after him" the tech said nervously if he had known about that then so had other people.

"That was supposed to have stopped" Tsunade growled getting even angrier at the thought that the villagers had been causing harm to Naruto and nobody had ever done anything about it.

"People still carry grudges, you won't be able to stop that" The tech said.

"No but I can make them wish they had never laid a finger on him as soon as I find out who had hurt him this time." The tech frowned the Hokage sounded deadly serious.

Sighing Tsunade looked at the scans again and shook her head. Naruto really was in for a hard time but he wouldn't go through it alone. She would be there for him assuming they could find a way to stop the fox that is.

"Don't let any word of his condition get out" Tsunade said as she headed for the door to the scan room. "I don't want anybody to know his true condition, if they did I have they feeling he would have some help to the other side."

"I won't say a word but how will you get the whole hospital to keep quiet somebody is bound to talk."

"I'm the Hokage and unless they want to die themselves they won't utter a word." She said as she walked out of the door and headed towards Naruto's room. She hated having to threaten anybody but she was serious about protecting Naruto. If the villagers still went after him every day who would they be to stop kicking him when he was down?

Walking into his room she looked over at the young blonde who lay unnaturally still. Walking over to the bed she grabbed a chair and pulled it over and sat down close to his head.

"Why didn't you ever tell me they were still hurting you?" she asked softly as she reached out and brushed some of his hair away from his eyes. She hated seeing him so still because she knew he wasn't like that when he was conscious.

"You don't have to hide your hurts from me; I'm always going to be here to take care of you. So is Kakashi, if you felt like you couldn't tell me you could have gone to him." she wondered if there was anyone that Naruto truly trusted, she would have thought Iruka would have been that person, why did Naruto hide this from him? She wondered then if anyone had even told Iruka about Naruto's so called accident. Probably not since the teacher had yet to make an appearance. One thing was certain if he had known nothing would have kept him from being in the room with Naruto, not even the ICU rules.

"I'm sorry this happened Naruto" she said as she stood up "But I can promise I will be more active about protecting you, something like this won't ever happen again." Of course she didn't add her fears about his survival figuring he didn't need to know the odds he was up against.

"I'm going to go find Iruka for you" she said softly "He's going to be upset about this but he'd want to know." She bent forward and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead.

"No one will ever hurt you again" she said whispered as she straightened and headed for the door.

Iruka was more than a little upset once Tsunade had found him and had told him about Naruto.

"You let Sakura get by with pushing him off the bridge" the teacher said upset that his favorite former student's life hung in the balance.

"Punishments will be forth coming but I thought it better to concentrate on saving Naruto's life rather than doling out her punishment." She said forgiving Iruka for his temper knowing how much he cared about Naruto.

"I guess you know that I will be taking a leave from the academy to stay with Naruto" Iruka said making his decision in a second.

"I was hoping you would" she said "I don't want him left alone; I don't trust the villagers to not try to hurt him again"

"I thought that was over" Iruka said walking beside Tsunade to get to Naruto's room.

"So did I but some brain damage showed up on his brain scan that wasn't from the drowning." Iruka frowned and for an instant felt hurt that Naruto hadn't come to him when he'd been hurt.

"I suppose he had his own reasons for not telling anybody what they were doing to him but rest easy I'll do my best to keep him well protected from now on."

"Just don't smother him" Iruka muttered "he likes his space."

"He won't know they are there only a few of us who need to know will" she assured him.

Once they had reached Naruto's room, Iruka had been shocked at his former students condition, he had known that Naruto was going to be pretty bad, but he was worse than even he had thought.

"Good god who would want to do this to him" he wondered out loud as he entered the room. Then he remembered that Naruto was in this condition because Sakura had pushed him off the bridge.

"She shouldn't be allowed to be a ninja anymore" Iruka said as he sat down in the chair beside the bed.

"Don't you think that's a little harsh?" Tsunade asked.

"Don't you think it's a little harsh that she never took the time to get to know him, to know that he didn't know how to swim?" Tsunade said nothing because she knew Iruka was right.

"Be that as it may" she said "she will be punished but I won't be taking her headband from her, I will think of something but for now let's worry about him."

Sorry it took so long to update, the holidays had me pretty busy and I didn't have much time to write. I hope you like and that it makes sense. Thanks for reading and reviewing and have an awesome new year! Liz