"Sensei, it is unlikely that Orochimaru will assault," Shino said. "Or declare war on Fire. If he wanted us dead he could have killed us in the forest and buried or burned our bodies. We would simply have disappeared and no one would have been able to prove he had anything to do with it. Instead he brought us here under guard and has been making strong efforts to seduce us into defecting. It seems unlikely he will throw all that away."

The kunai slowed its dance between Anko's fingers and finally stopped. She sat up and turned to face her genin with a serious look.

"Thank you, Shino, that helps," she said. "All right, where does that leave us?...Hinata, read us in on what happened."

Hinata blushed, pressing her fingers together and stammering. Eventually she managed to pull herself together and look at her teacher. "Sensei, after I left, Naruto came after me and I went to the rooftops..."

The story didn't take long to tell. When it was finished Anko was left staring stupidly at her.

"Are you serious? Naruto treewalked on a person from three feet away?" she said in disbelief. "That's...insane."

"It seems to have been effective," Shino noted.

"Yeah, but it shouldn't be possible," Anko said. "The amount of chakra needed to treewalk goes up exponentially the farther you are from the surface. If I tried to treewalk on something more than a couple inches away, it would suck me dry in seconds. Also, treewalking isn't a subtle technique; there's nothing sophisticated about the chakra flows, and they're easily disrupted. You can clamp to a tree, or a wall—they have little or no chakra, and what they do have doesn't move much. Clamping to a person is basically impossible; their natural chakra flows would disrupt the treewalking matrix instantly. If it didn't, then everyone would use treewalking in taijutsu—everytime you hit your opponent you could rip a piece out of them." She cocked her head in thought. "Huh. I wonder if that's what Tsunade-sama does? Maybe her Strength of a Hundred technique is just treewalking, and she's figured out how to do it on a person?"

Shino nodded. "If it's as difficult as you say, then that accounts for why Naruto-san was unconscious when he went off the roof, and why he was suffering chakra exhaustion. Beyond that, I note that Orochimaru-sama could have taken him to the hospital directly and had them do the chakra transfer, yet he brought him here instead. He probably did so to ensure that we knew what had happened, and that Naruto-san's injuries were not the fault of Sound."

"Someone's coming," Hinata said suddenly. "A Sound-nin, alone, walking up the street towards us. He's making no effort at concealment. He's not carrying more than a normal load of weapons, nor anything that I can identify as poison." She frowned. "He doesn't have any explosive tags. Or even a storage scroll. All of the Sound-nin that attacked us were carrying tags and scrolls."

"Sounds like a messenger," Anko said. "Orochimaru probably wants us at the hospital and he's our escort. Team, condition summary."

"253," Shino said.

"155," Hinata said.

Anko nodded. "355. Okay, Shino, put some of my chakra in Hinata. Not a full charge, because I don't think I can spare it, but enough that she can move, fight, and isn't about to puke." Shino's bugs swirled between the two, transferring the chakra as ordered. Anko seemed a little pale at the end, but got to her feet smoothly enough.

Anko waited for Hinata's signal and then opened the door just as the Sound-nin was about to knock.

"Hey, Hideo," Anko said casually. "Sound General, right?" She walked past him, the team trailing along behind her. He looked surprised for just a moment, then hurried to walk alongside Anko, the genin on the opposite side of her.

"How's things?" Anko asked.

"Can't complain," he said philosophically. "Still beats being a missing-nin; the pay's been getting better and it comes on time. Haven't done a mission in a year, though; with all the civilians coming in I spend all my time on till'n'fill."

She raised an eyebrow at that. "Really? Isn't sensei recruiting ninja as well as civilians? We never used to spend more than a day a fortnight on till'n'fill."

He shrugged. "Yeah, there's more of us, but it's never enough. It's not just buildings and fields anymore, and the other stuff is pretty intensive."

She glanced at him. "Classified?"

"Classified."

She nodded acceptance. "So, how're the kids?"

o-o-o-o

Sound General Hospital was the same one that Hinata had been taken to when she arrived in Sound. They were met in the lobby by a serious-faced doctor who barely waited for introductions before leading them to a side room and briefing them on their teammate.

"Naruto-san's injuries are extremely severe," he said. "He was unconscious from chakra exhaustion when he went off the roof, so he wasn't able to control his fall or use chakra to absorb the impact when he hit the paving stones. He landed badly, on his left side and head below center of mass. He has multiple fractures in all four limbs, two of them compound. All of his ribs are broken or cracked, he has a punctured lung, a damaged left eye from foreign body intrusion, and a severe concussion. Fortunately, his head was cushioned on the body beside him or he'd be in the morgue.

"We're trying to repair his eye, but there's a chance that he will be permanently blind on that side. It's still too early to know if the concussion is simply brain-bruising or if there's actual brain damage; we'll know more in a few hours.

"That seal on his stomach is complicating things. Orochimaru-sama won't tell us what it is, but he told us that under no circumstances are we to damage it or push chakra through it. As a result we're having to work in from the sides on a lot of the injuries, which makes things harder and slower.

"Probably the worst part is the chakra exhaustion. I've never seen coils as large as his and they were empty. Orochimaru-sama said that he was given a chakra transfer from three people, yet he's still empty. We've been parading a line of donors through and sucking them dry trying to get him back to the point where his natural chakra regeneration will restart. His coils are...burned, is the best way I can describe it. I've never seen anything quite like it, but it means that even if we do get his chakra regenerating again it's going to be moving very slowly and it will take a long time for him to heal. He'll also probably be in a lot of pain.

"That's the bad news. Here's the good: we've patched his lung and drained the fluid from his chest cavity. Once his chakra regeneration kicks back in, his natural chakra flows will hold the patch and the tissue will regenerate quickly. We've also set and chakra-sheathed the major bone breaks and patched the torn skin from the compound fractures. He'll be in surgery for a few more hours and afterwards he'll be in the critical-care ward for at least a month but, as long as his chakra regeneration restarts soon, he'll survive. He may or may not be able to resume his career as a ninja, but he will survive—again, assuming we can get his chakra regeneration restarted."

"What if it doesn't restart?" Hinata asked.

"Then he'll die," Anko said. She turned back to the doctor. "We'd like to be there when he wakes up, please."

"I will allow one visitor at a time," the doctor said. "But only for short visits and don't excite him. Please wait here; I'll have someone come for you when he's out of surgery."

o-o-o-o

The Hyuuga calm allowed Hinata to seem patient, but in truth she hated waiting. Waiting in a hospital for Naruto-kun to come out of surgery was especially bad; almost the entire hospital was within the range of her vision, and it was hard to watch. She could see the doctors and nurses and Shino's bugs moving around, she could see the patients in their beds—many of them in pain—and, worst of all, she could see the operating theatre and the frantic haste with which the medic-nin were working on Naruto. She could lip-read their curses as they discovered new damage or as a particular repair attempt failed. She could also see their expressions of satisfaction when they did successfully repair something, but it felt like there were fewer of those moments.

The truly disturbing part, though, was the steady line of people dying on the table next to Naruto. They were brought in on stretchers through one door and every last drop of their chakra was transferred into Naruto; she could see their hearts stop beating and their lungs stop pumping as they were completely drained. Their bodies were then carried out through the opposite door and, three or four minutes later, another would be brought in.

She watched the parade go by and said nothing. If she told her team about it, they might try to stop it, and Naruto needed the chakra.

Shino shifted over to sit beside her. "Hinata-san?" he said hesitantly. "I would like to apologize again for what I said."

She sighed and gave him a tired smile; she just didn't have the energy to be angry right now. "It's all right, Shino-kun," she said. "You were trying to help. And it's true that my father insists on giving me very intense training. It may seem harsh, but it's necessary if I'm to finally become a competent ninja."

She watched his face constrict in disagreement behind his collar and glasses, watched his tongue and vocal cords start to shape the word 'No', but he caught himself and said nothing.

"In fact, I owe you an apology," she continued. "I was exceedingly rude to you, and for that I am sorry." She bowed as deeply as she could manage while sitting in a chair.

Shino seemed to be having a problem deciding which part of this to object to first. "Hinata-san—"

Before he could continue, Hinata's head came up and a happy expression lit her face. "They're finished," she said. "There's a stretcher team in the surgery and they're getting him ready to transport to a recovery room. His coils are refilling..." She blinked. "His coils are refilling very quickly; his regeneration rate is unbelievable. Even so, it will still take several hours for him to refill completely. I can see his chakra flows sustaining the various patches and sheathes they've put on him."

"How about his eye?" Anko asked. "What can you tell?"

Hinata looked off into the distance, carefully comparing her loved one's eyes.

"There is still some damage," she said at last. "They removed the pebble, replaced the aqueous humor, and patched the cornea. I can see his chakra flowing through it, strengthening the patch and beginning to repair the cornea. It's slow, but it is repairing itself."

Anko sighed in relief. "Okay, good. When you guys were first assigned to me, I checked your Konoha medical records; based on what he's survived in the past, if he's healing at all then he'll be fine. Probably a lot sooner than the doctors expect, too."

Hinata frowned. "What do you mean 'what he's survived in the past'?"

Anko hesitated, then grimaced and answered. "After his parents died, Naruto was placed with a series of foster parents. There are ANBU records showing that he was an 'accident-prone child', according to several of the parents. After a few years the Hokage had him taken out of the foster system and given an apartment of his own with ANBU to watch over him. If you want more details, talk to Naruto." She flicked a glance at Shino. "Just be tactful about it."

Shino ducked his head and looked away.

"Sensei, one of the doctors just sent a nurse to tell us that we can visit. May I please go in and wait there?" Hinata asked.

"Of course," Anko said, gesturing to the door.

When the nurse walked in, he was surprised to find that Hinata was already waiting at the door. She bowed politely to him and was quickly led down the hall to Naruto's room.

o-o-o-o

Waiting was easier here, now that she knew he would be all right. She sat and watched him sleep—well, no, not sleep, unconsciousness. Just for a moment, she flicked off her Byakugan so that she could see him with only her physical eyes—the eyes that didn't show every bruise and broken bone, that couldn't see through the bandage on his head to show her the hole in his eyeball that was held together only by chakra. He was beautiful through both sets of eyes, but it was nice to see just the outside of him for a moment.

And then she flicked the Byakugan back on; sensei had taught her well that she could not afford to be unaware of her surroundings, ever again.

She waited patiently for him to wake up; it took a couple of hours, but eventually he groaned and shifted.

"Welcome back, Naruto-kun," she said softly. "You worried me."

His undamaged eye fluttered open slowly, clearly taking a moment to focus as he looked for the source of her voice. When he saw her he smiled in a way that made her melt and want to cry all at once.

"Hinadda," he said softly.

She nodded, blinking unshed tears from her eyes and swallowing the lump in her throat. "How do you feel?" she asked.

"You're 'mazing," he said, mumbling with semi-consciousness. "You don' realize it, but we do. I do."

She blushed, looking down. "That's kind of you, Naruto-kun," she said to the floor.

He rolled his head back and forth on the pillow, the closest he could come to a headshake at the moment. "You shoulda seen y'rself," he said muzzily. "I was dead; could see the kunai coming, couldn' stop it. Then you w're there; looked like an angel, come to prot'ct me. I need to punch people, hit 'em hard, and it usually doesn' work. You j'st touched that guy 'n' you won."

"Some victory," she said in disgust. "I would have been dead a second later if you hadn't saved me."

He laughed. "It was my turn," he said. "Just 'cause you're a better ninja'n me don' mean I don' get to save you sometimes."

She looked at him in surprise. "I'm not better than you, Naruto-kun," she said. "I couldn't even run away from you. I only defeated that one ninja because I took him by surprise. You had to save me from the other. And from what sensei said, the way you killed him was nearly miraculous. You are a much better ninja than I am."

He didn't have the concentration to blow a raspberry properly, but he tried. "Hinadda, I c'n jump four times furth'r'n you can, and I couldn' catch you. Only reason I got that guy was 'cause of th' Nine-Tails. Dumped all my chakra, wuzzen enough, pulled on his." He gave her a sleepy half-smile and chuckle. "Think I scorched my coils doing it, too."

She was still looking at the floor; he managed to flop one cast-encrusted arm out of the bed and use the protruding fingers to lift up her chin. "Hinadda, only reason I c'n do any of the things I do is cuz I have a demon in me. You w're born with th' Byakugan, yeah, but you earned everythin' else. You're kind, an' smart, an' a 'mazing ninja. An' ver' byoof'l."

Her eyes went wide in shock. "What?" she said.

He smiled sleepily at her again. "Ver' byoof'l." He frowned and forced himself to enunciate clearly. "I said, you are very beautiful." He chuckled at her gobsmacked expression. "Hey, even a dumbass can ev'ntchly see wass in fron' of him," he mumbled.

"You are not a dumbass!" she snapped. And then immediately clapped both hands to her mouth, blushing to the roots of her hair.

That earned a full belly laugh, which made him wince. He fumbled around awkwardly until he managed to catch the edge of her jacket in finger and thumb and tug her towards him. She leaned in, her heart pounding like a hammer with uncertainty and excitement.

Naruto pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, holding her against him for a moment before his hand fell free, exhausted. "See?" he said, smiling up at her. "Dumbass. Ne'er no'iced." He managed to catch her hand and pull it against his chest before he slumped back into the pillows, instantly asleep.

o-o-o-o

Back in the waiting room, a kikai bug crawled out of a small crack in one of the baseboards and up into Shino's arm. A moment later, Shino blanched and leaned close so he could whisper to his teacher.

"Sensei, the morgue in this building is so full there are bodies stacked up against the walls. But there's a level below the morgue..."