It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
Sakura cursed herself for using such a Naruto-ish expression. Excuse really. Since her old team mate had returned with Jiraya several months earlier it had been hard for Sakura not to get swept up in his enthusiasm and mannerisms. Unfortunately however, a new found zeal for work and training didn't automatically enlarge her chakra levels to match that of her blond friends. Rather, she ended up getting more worn out having to chase him around for the well deserved beatings he induced upon himself.
But that wasn't the point and the extra thinking was contributing to the weary medic's diminishing energy issue.
The point was; it had seemed like a good idea at the time.
Sakura stumbled slightly on the uneven stones of the road running somewhere in the general direction of her home. The aforementioned 'time' had been only a few hours earlier that morning when overcome by her confidence and quickly growing prestige as a medic Sakura had taken on a rather challenging surgery. It had, of course, been completed successfully and in an appropriate time frame.
It was only when afterwards (having strutted complacently down the hallway before tumbling unwittingly down the stairs) that she realised she was suffering from chakra depletion. Perhaps it was once again Naruto's influence or just the girls recently discovered pride and self dignity but Sakura refused to admit her 'weakness' and instead made a show of shouting at some poor, unsuspecting nurse for not keeping the floors dry as an excuse for her fall.
It was simple after that. Having collected an arm, and bag load of paper work and books that needed examining she mumbled something about concentrating better at home to the receptionist and stalked out with a sort of wobbly but venerable prance.
There was the reason for her current state of semi-consciousness. Perhaps she had been a bit generous with herself in terms of how she saw her own abilities; stamina at least. Even so, it was an excellent opportunity to practice such a medical procedure in a controlled environment and earn the praise of her Sensei.
Hence, the surgery had seemed like a very good idea at the time making her actions completely justified. The ramifications from this decision on the other hand did not seem to fit into her perfectly logical outlook from that morning. Still, now all she had to do was get home.
Simple in theory but with her heavy bag and the bookwork she had picked up from the hospital obscuring her view it seemed inevitable that eventually she would stumble again.
And fall.
And roll.
It wasn't until she was 'comfortably' settled in the wide gutter running adjacent with the road she had previously been trudging along that Sakura opened her eyes. It turned out lifting her heavy lids required rather a lot more energy than perhaps she had ever realised before and she quickly let them droop again only vaguely recognising the flurry of white above her to be the papers she had been carrying.
When Sakura finally felt compelled to wake she noticed with a start that the sun had progressed rather significantly across the sky. This was why it concerned her that she still felt so weak; in fact, it seemed strange she had regained consciousness at all considering how her vision still blurred slightly as she peered upwards into the clouds casting a shadow on where she lay.
At least she would have had there been any clouds in that sky above her at that particular moment at all never mind positioned to make a nice shaded patch for her. She quickly sat up and swivelled around to stare back up at the road from the shallow ditch. Her head span and pain bounced momentarily from either side of her skull but she ignored it to squint at the form of the person looming over her from the curb side.
Sakura scrunched her nose up in disgust. Of course, who else would be likely to walk past and find her passed out in a gutter than Neji? It couldn't possibly be someone who would actually care about her welfare or health? Instead she got a slightly complacent smirk from the Hyuuga as he looked like he was trying to decide whether to ignore her completely or take the time to stop and snigger in her general direction.
"Go on," she patted the ground beside her "The soil is loose, kick some dirt on me, it's obvious you want to," She told him as she tried to muster a falsely charming smile but failed miserably hardly managing to slur the words out at all.
"I'm hardly going to dirty my shoe for the sake of scorning you," His smirk widened "Not when you seem to be doing such a good job all on your own."
With a grunt of protest Sakura managed to push herself up and stand in a relatively straight and normal manner.
"How long have you been standing there?" She asked him not even bothering to try anything witty.
"How long have you been uh…napping down there?"
She waved a dismissive hand in his direction and took a few unsteady steps forward onto the more level road doing her best to ignore his now impassive gaze as he stood stiffly with his arms folded. With incredible labour and effort she was able to pick up her bag marvelling firstly at the fact it hadn't been stolen and secondly at the fact she hadn't overbalanced just from bending over.
"So I take it those are yours too?" Neji spoke again and she saw him gesture in a general pointing motion from the corner of her eye. Raising her eyes Sakura looked around her and groaned again. As far as she could see in every direction paper was scattered. All through the small area of grass just beyond the fences that bordered the road not to mention the road itself upon which stray bit of paper flapped limply in the wind. Even beyond the small paddocks Sakura could see sheets clinging to tree branches. Sheets of hers. Her paperwork. Her work. Work from the Hospital. Important Hospital records of patients and new research into cures and developing medical techniques.
Anyone else observing may have called it swooning. Perhaps just a 'semi-conscious almost faint' if they were feeling kind. Sakura classified it as a rather rapid and unpractical descent towards the ground. Neji (for whatever perverse reason) saw it as an opportunity to practice in some rare and out of character heroism.
Neji moved quickly towards her with all his grace and Sakura felt herself steadied before she crumpled entirely. However, before she even had a chance to feel relived at the sudden halt in her progression downwards something in the girls temper flared.
The Hyuuga had hardly gone so far as to catch her, instead opting to grab each of her shoulders and prevent her from descending any further making it easy for Sakura to pull away abruptly and successfully fall flat on her face at his feet. She pushed herself into a sitting position and glared at his incredulous face.
"I don't need your help. Please do not trouble yourself," She told him in the most decorous tone she could muster while squatting in the dirt. When he didn't react she began to move in an almost crawl gathering up the pieces of paper nearest her.
It surprised her then (to the point she dropped what parts of her paperwork she had been able to gather) when Neji once again grabbed her in the same manner as before this time pulling her roughly back into a standing position this time facing him.
"I don't need your help," Sakura repeated slowly with a slightly malicious smile as she attempted to pull backwards and away from him again.
"You," He said with a look of focused concentration as he managed to catch each of her wrists instead "Are fast becoming a traffic hazard."
"A traffic hazard?" She screeched in response but quickly regretted the strain her answer placed upon her and took a regrettable and shaky step back towards him.
"And that's without even taking time to point out your blatant disregard to Konoha's environmental circumstance with your unhindered littering of this area."
"What?" Sakura garbled beginning to feel dizzy again. Sleep was nice. Sakura liked sleep, it is…nice.
"May I assume you are drunk?" He asked her disdainfully.
Sakura mumbled something in response that she hoped sounded like 'How dare you say such a thing you arrogant fool! I am incredibly affronted and demand you retract the statement at once!' However by the amused smirk Neji had adopted it appeared she may have drooled a little instead.
"If you are unable to walk then I assume it falls under my duty to drag you back to your residence," He slung her arm about his shoulders in the manner they had been taught in the academy specifically for the transport of injured comrades "If you have a dwelling other than the gutter that is."
She ignored the comment and instead tried to focus on taking small steps in time with his. She wasn't injured but he thought she was drunk. Oh wait, she wasn't drunk, she had run out of chakra. Her mind momentarily cleared again as panic made the desire to sleep dissipate. Tsunade was going to kill her.
"Uh, my work?" She flapped a limp hand.
"I'm hardly going to help you with your errands; I'm just moving you out of the way as you are too incapacitated to achieve this yourself," He grunted as he continued to half drag her.
"Then don't help me! I'll do it myself!" She began to struggle again. This guy was really starting to get to her and by that she meant piss her off. It was impossible to tell whether he was trying to help and didn't want to openly divulge it or taking advantage of the opportunity to make her situation worse. It was painful to admit that she wanted to be helped and also that she was…well, in pain, but it would be more painful to suffer anymore of his conceitedness.
"We're not going through this again Haruno! If you pass out again not only do you become a hazard but your undignified behaviour is an embarrassment to this village. Now tell me where you live so I can help you!"
"Oh right! So that's your plan, you're just doing this to find out where I live!" The chakra loss was going to her head. However, the effect of her comment seemed satisfactory and resulted in the first shocked expression Neji had given her that day (and that was including discovering her dead to the world face up in a gutter). So shocked it seemed he would have let go and dropped her entirely had she not managed to preempt him and cling onto his shoulders in a most undignified manner.
He sneered at her.
"You really are drunk." It was perfectly natural for her to try and hit him in response at that moment. Clearly however, getting past his defenses would have been barely possible even disregarding her current state of weakness and he avoided her flailing hand with ease. He gave her another shocked stare. She contested it with a smirk of her own. Her victory however, (as they always seemed to be these days) was short lived as, with a final faltering mumble of distress her chakra reached it's minimum and she fainted again.
A/N: To be continued! Two linking chapters for once in this series! So many questions to be answered! What will Neji do as Sakura passes out in his arms? What are his real motives for helping her out? Would Tsunade really go so far as to kill her own student/dramadrama:p. Hopefully the next instalment will be out very soon (and this update re-in stored some of your faith in my reliability to finish this XD). Thank you very much for taking the time to read and please leave a review on your way out (it helps me update 8D).