Chapter ten
The first thing Skylar knew when she woke up was that she was naked and uncomfortable with bandages. Then came the pain and then a numbing sort of feeling on her chest and stomach. She moved her face a little to try to get rid of the thing around her cheeks, mouth and head before opening her eyes with a bit of difficulty as they felt like they were glued together and blinked at the harsh light assaulting her vision to look up into a fluorescent light above her. She looked down at herself with her eyes and noticed her hands out of the blanket holding the blanket down over her naked body… Did they really have to take her clothes?
"So are you awake properly?" A voice from her left asked. She lifted her arm slowly and removed the mask on her face and dropped her hand back down with it still in her hand as she turned her head to see Yamato sitting up and watching her, holding a book he was reading.
"It's painful so I think I am." Skylar smiled and tried to laugh at her sarcasm before her arms shot up to her aching ribs with a wince.
"Do you want me to call Sakura or Ino for you, they're getting ready to a meeting but I can walk now." Yamato offered but Skylar shook her head into her pillow and looked straight ahead again with her arms resting over her stomach where she could feel the thick wad of bandages and remembered what happened.
"How long have I been out for?" Skylar asked as she remembered the events.
"Four days, everyone was expecting at least a week before you woke up properly… You've been waking up from nightmares then falling back asleep instantly." Yamato told her with concern.
"Wow, only four days and you're already walking." Skylar said as she painfully swung her legs over the right and sat up with her mouth hanging open in pain and her eyes scrunching up as she closed her eyes to grit her teeth. Luckily she had enough sense to pull the blanket to cover her before Yamato jumped up and tried to push her to lie back down again. She swiped his hands away when she started coughing up a little blood mixed with saliva but the pain she had was worse as she curled in as the coughing fit died down and Yamato helped her to drink some water.
"Thanks, do you know where there are some clothes for me?" Skylar asked as she stood carefully with the blanket clung around her. He stood up with her and reached for a basket under her bed and put it on the bed. She picked the two articles up and looked at them: A pair of black track pants and a white long sleeved kimono top. She pulled the pants on with some help from Yamato and pulled them up under the blanket and let them ride low on her hips because of the bandages and turned her back to Yamato to put the top on that closed nicely and tied the little clip closed and it showed the bandages as it was just a little short. She began towards the door slowly so she didn't get dizzy and began to open them.
"Do you want me to come with you?" Yamato asked, sitting on his bed again. Skylar turned back to him and smiled.
"No, don't worry, I'll probably be sent back here soon anyway." Skylar said and she closed the door behind her and began to follow the passages for the kitchen for some much-needed coffee. The floor was cold on her bare feet but she ignored it as she reached up carefully and untied her red hair from the plat, leaving it a little wavy. She filled up the kettle and put it on to boil while she prepared her cup.
"You should still probably be in bed asleep and not up and making yourself coffee." Kakashi scolded her as he walked into the kitchen to his surprise and find Skylar.
"Yeah well, after those burns, you probably should be uncomfortable in your uniform… Besides, I need the coffee, I love it too much." Skylar said grinning to herself as she finished making the coffee and eating a biscuit she found in the jar next to the kettle.
"I take it you've heard of the meeting then?" Kakashi asked as he made himself a cup of tea next to her as she leaned against the counter.
"Of coarse, I couldn't attend if I was unconscious now could I?" Skylar asked sweetly. "Besides, you're already late for it so I had to fetch you." She said putting her cup in the sink and dusting the crumbs off of herself. Kakashi shook his head in amusement and put his empty cup in the sink as he walked with Skylar to the meeting room.
"Do you remember what happened out there?" Kakashi asked almost apprehensively.
"Unfortunately yes… How could someone forget pain like that?" Skylar asked rhetorically and Kakashi noticed the pain she held in her face as she kept one arm across her stomach, making him feel guilty again.
"I mean, do you remember everything or did you blank out?" Kakashi rephrased the question.
"I remember stopping the Raikage from killing you then two other dragons appearing and telling the one to help Seiryu while I dealt with the damage and pain. I told them to make Tobi stuck for a while and then I took out Madara and we left to help Naruto with the Raikage when the other two dragons appeared and took him out with purple lightning then Naruto slinging me onto his back and coming back here, making sure everyone else was alright… Did I miss anything out?" Skylar faced Kakashi before they got to the meeting room.
"So you didn't blank out this time?" Kakashi asked and Skylar shook her head and opened her mouth to speak before they heard Naruto's and Sasuke's raised voices at each other. Skylar sighed and walked into the room with Kakashi behind her and Naruto and Sasuke had each other by the collar. Skylar grabbed their wrists and pushed herself in between them and waited for them to let each other go as she lowered their arms.
"Come on guys! What's going on here?" Skylar asked with annoyance.
"Naruto's the reason you were hurt… You should be in bed." Sasuke said calmly but the guys didn't take their eyes off of each other. "He couldn't handle the duty assigned to him and you ended taking up the slack." Sasuke carried on and Naruto went to lunge for him but Skylar stood to face him between the two guys and pushed him back against his chest with hard eyes and he back down.
"Look, everyone looses it and sometimes we want to throw it all away. My injury was my choice or Kakashi's death and I chose to save one of my precious people, it wasn't Naruto's fault or anyone else's… Including you Kakashi. " Skylar said looking over Naruto's shoulder at him who was looking guilty. "We're all stressed right now but we are all misfits living in a world on fire at the moment but at least we aren't having a funeral right now. Your tears of what's happened have turned to rage but we shouldn't turn it onto each other, the enemy hurt me but everything will be okay, even if we go down in flames but we've got to stick together because I'm not planning on our situation on staying like this forever.
So we just have to turn up the heat because this is OUR life and not someone's to control and we'll change this for good. I don't plan on leaving this place until we've changed things for the better." Skylar said determinedly then started a coughing fit and doubled over and her knees gave out but two sets of arms caught her and lowered her to the ground while Sakura rushed over and checked her over. Skylar was breathing heavily with tired eyes as she looked down on her lap and noticed Naruto's and Sasuke's arms were still wrapped around her protectively, being the ones who helped her down. She slid her hands down their arms tiredly and gripped their hands and squeezed as she looked up and smiled at the two astonished guys. She felt an arm hook her under her arms and lift her carefully before another arm was hooked behind her legs and she was tilted slowly into Kakashi's arms who gave her an eye smile and she let go of the two hands.
She yawned a little before cuddling into Kakashi's chest and falling asleep as he carried her back to the hospital with Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke following behind. Sakura opened the door for him and he placed her back onto her bed gently and Yamato looked up from his book.
"Hm, I didn't expect to see her so soon." Yamato said with sarcasm.
"Why didn't you stop her Tenzo?" Kakashi asked with slight anger.
"I did try but she flat out refused and it felt like pushing a brick wall." Yamato said as Sakura pulled her shirt up and began working on the soiled bandages. Kakashi sat on Yamato's bed while Naruto and Sasuke watched over Sakura's shoulders and Naruto was blushing while Sasuke smirked at the blushing blonde.
"That did make the whole meeting easier though, thanks to her." Kakashi mused.
"What do you mean Kaka-sensei?" Naruto asked as he looked up from her for a second, blushed harder and looked down.
"I was checking on every one's morale and going to boost it if need be but Skylar did that with her little speech, I was expecting her to stand up on the table and shout her words before she began her coughing fit. After the speech, everyone was standing up with fire back in their eyes before they began to worry for Skylar again, she boosted morale back up." Kakashi said with a smile behind his mask as he looked at Skylar. "Hell, she even stopped you two from arguing, now that takes talent." Kakashi said with an eye smile and Naruto, Sakura and Yamato laughed while Sasuke smirked with a smile. There was a knocking at the door and Sai walked in.
"Everyone was wondering about the meeting." Sai asked Kakashi.
"It was accomplished by Skylar, you can all go back to resting from your injuries." Kakashi waved and Sai turned to leave.
"Wait Sai, don't go yet!" Skylar said as she leaned up on her elbows and Sai turned back around and closed the door and everyone had a questioning look on their faces and Skylar grinned tiredly. "This is the first time that the whole Team 7 has been together… I didn't want this chance to pass by." She continued with a blush and a sheepish grin as she avoided everyone's eye as she lay back down again. Surprisingly Sasuke laughed and everyone was in shock for a while and Naruto laughed with him with Sakura and Yamato following and Kakashi eye smiled with a genuine smile and Sai also smiled and it wasn't fake.
Skylar sat up for Sakura to complete the bandaging while Sai moved to sit on Yamato's bed next to Kakashi and Naruto sat on the chair between the two beds and Sasuke stood on the other side of Skylar's bed with his arms crossed with a small smile playing on his lips.
"To any Naruto fan, this would be a momentous moment." Skylar said as she smiled down at her hands in her lap.
"So we have a lot of fans from the other dimension huh?" Sakura asked with a grin as she reached around and continued bandaging.
"Of coarse, everyone does, even though some of them are deceased now, the fan loyalty will continue on in their memory." Skylar said with a smile and winces as Sakura finished the bandaging and patted her stomach.
"I should get back to everyone and let them know the meeting is over." Sai said standing up but Skylar grabbed his wrist with a frown. He stopped and she let him go forming the hand seals of boar, dog, monkey, bird and ram before putting her hand down on the bed and out popped Seiryu.
"Yay it worked!" Skylar shouted as she raised her arms with fists and brought them down slowly with her face scrunching up in pain. "Seiryu, could you please go tell the others that the meeting is over?" Skylar asked the hovering dragon sweetly which sighed and shook it's head.
"I'm not here so you can summon me for menial thing but I will comply as I would like to talk to you afterwards." Seiryu said as he hovered out of the room.
"Sorry, I wanted to revel in this moment for a while longer." She said grinning and Sakura sat on her bed with a smile. She still had lots of surprises up her sleeves.
Skylar finally let them leave the room and Yamato turned over to sleep some more and Seiryu laid himself at the end of her bed to talk with her.
"The dragons have been talking about you non stop since you summoned all five of us." Seiryu began. "I hope we did not hurt you."
"No of coarse not, you helped me… Sure I suffered some chakra exhaustion but I'll be fine once we all sort this out. So what are they saying?" Skylar asked with caution.
"Suzaku and Byakko have taken a liking to you and Genbu is still a bit weary of you and Kouryu isn't taking it so well like I did at the beginning but you have proven yourself to me Skylar-sama but as you know I cannot speak for the others even though I may be their leader." Seiryu said with a smile and softened eyes as he added the respectful suffix and her name.
"I understand. I will need to get some more rest and heal before I'll be in any fit state to activate sage mode to summon the others but hopefully this won't be forever… Thank you Seiryu, you may return home now if you wish." Skylar said with a stifled yawn and she lay down and Seiryu left with a poof.
Skylar was ordered bed rest for at least two weeks so she could heal and another two weeks before she could begin training again. At least she head Yamato to talk to for most of the time and Naruto and Kakashi came to visit the most and the others now and again, even Sasuke and Gaara. It had been three weeks of bed rest and Skylar was getting frustrated and restless.
"God! I need to do something soon or I'll go insane!" She shouted up to the roof and Yamato laughed from the bed next to her. He was eating normally and moving around quite a bit but he still got tired easily.
"I heard the room next doors is completely empty and as big as this room." Yamato teased without looking up from his book he had been reading since the first time she woke up. Skylar turned her head with annoyance to glare at him but then she smirked and Yamato shivered, knowing that smirk was aimed at him without looking up. Before he could even think she was up and moving out the door and into the next room. Yamato was right, it was completely empty and a big enough space. She pumped her fist into the air as Yamato walked in and dragged a chair along and sat by the door, reading his book. Skylar took her kimono shirt off so she could train in her bra and the track pants and began doing kata's.
Yamato peaked up from his book to watch her. Her wound had healed nicely and was a pink mark now and was healing to leave no scar. He studied her movements and noticed it was more of a dance than actual kata. He watched her flip cautiously so as to not tear the new skin and realise she was moving to a familiar beat. It was of a specific song she blared through her earphones every time she came across it. It had different speeds to it which made it a nice and interesting tune. He smiles as she took a breath and was sweating nicely as he threw her I-pod to her and winked before turning back to his book. Skylar shook her head and smiled as she put the earphones in her ears and pressed play and just let herself dance with it at full blast.
Yamato got the twitching bug from Skylar and could hear the music and looked up again and closed his book… Now he knew why her Kata's looked more like a dance. He stood up and faced her with a stance as a new song played and she smiled and stood in hers and as the first actual beat started they began to move slowly, attacking and blocking… It felt good to be moving again. They continued until Skylar was finally allowed to train a week later as well as Yamato.
Skylar and Yamato walked from the hospital dressed in their uniforms for the meeting Kakashi wanted to have about where they were planning to go from here and Skylar felt the had become really good friends and Yamato even helped her with her katas. They turned the corner for the meeting room and Skylar dropped and rolled out of a kunai's way.
"You're late, both of you." Kakashi said with an eye smile as he saw Skylar's defensive look and pose.
"Gee sorry but it would help if someone actually brought me my uniform." Skylar said as she walked in and kicked Kakashi's chair out from under him and he flipped onto his back and stood up again as she made her way to her destroyed corner with Yamato following.
"What happened here?" He asked her in a whisper when he saw the corner.
"Sasuke attacked me but it's all good now." Skylar said with a shrug as she leaned against the corner and crossed her arms.
"Alright, for the past month we've been sending summons for recon purposes. We have reason to believe that Madara and Tobi have been using Kumogakure as their base, keeping the Raikage close under their control as he has a strong will and a reason to grieve after loosing Killer B. They have also been keeping Konohagakure and Suna close as well as we have their ninja and they are powerful countries. Ninja's have also been seen travelling from country to country and then staying in that specific country as a ninja of that village but we cannot find a reason to this." Kakashi began to explain with Skylar half listening as she mulled these thoughts over in her head.
"Do we know who these ninja are?" Skylar asked, still looking at the floor in thought.
"They are elite jonins and ANBU members." Kakashi said.
"Are the numbers of them moving around or is there something off about their movements?" Skylar asked again.
"A lot of them are from Konoha and moving into Kumo." Shikamaru said.
"We have also been looking around for supplies and we found that the old Uchiha supply line controlled by Nekobaa is free, she's not under the Tsukuyomi and neither are her cats. It's the only place we have thanks to Sasuke." Kakashi explained and Skylar smiled. "We are going to send a team to fetch supplies so I want all of you to make a list and hand it to me by tomorrow. A squad of six people will be going just in case and it has already been decided that myself, Hinata and Sai are going, anyone else want to come?" Kakashi asked with a lighter tone. Ino decided to go with Shikamaru and Sasuke who knows Nekobaa and the meeting was adjourned.
Skylar walked out distractedly back to her room. Of coarse elite jonin and ANBU would be sent to Kumo because of their own securities but swapping others didn't make sense. as she made her way back to her room to make a list. And why specifically Konoha to their base, was it all just to spit them or for some deeper reason? She lay back on her bed with her hands across her eyes as she racked her brain, trying to come up with a reason but if Shikamaru couldn't come up with one, how could she? A knock at her door aroused her out of her thoughts as Ino opened and looked inside with a smile.
"I was thinking I could get you a new outfit while we were getting supplies, you need a make over." She said, eyeing Skylar from head to toe with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, sounds great but remember, I don't like pink and no skirts or useless things that could get in the way, I'll put it all on my supply list… Thanks Ino." Skylar said after lifting her hands to look at her and dropping them again. She heard her door close with a snigger from Ino and she smiled before going back into her thoughts. She sat up after thinking she fell asleep and pulled out her I-pod to go over all the information she has. She read about Orochimaru's hide outs but most of them had been destroyed until three caught her eyes: The Northern Hideout was where most of Orochimaru's experiments have taken place and probably recorded onto the computers, the Island Laboratory where there were lots of medical supplies and other information and the other being the Unknown Hideout where Suigetsu and Jugo found a secret chamber.
She flipped up off of her bed and grabbed a pen and paper from her bag and made her list quickly before she forgot. It was all of the basics like soap and shampoo and new strappings and a list of things she didn't want in a new outfit and maybe some other clothes for training and relaxing in. She closed the paper pad and chewed on the pen and left her room to find Kakashi to give him her list. She stopped suddenly and walked backwards to see the door to the room with the computer in it and went in to turn it on and swung around in the chair to wait for it to boot up and she plugged her I-pod in to charge it.
It finally switched on and she began looking through the files and writing notes on her pad, she was hoping there might be something to go on about the other hideouts or what they could be doing with the elite jonin. Listening to the music she switched on and chewing on her pen, she was trying to work on the experiment files. Orochimaru was obsessed with the cursed seal, kekkei genkais, immortality and the sharingan. Madara hates the Uchiha clan as does Tobi but they keep sharingans like Orochimaru does with experiments… He has the reanimation technique and other information like what she was looking at on the computer… If only she could get her hands on those files from the other computers.
The team to leave for Nekobaa's place were preparing themselves and making sure they had everyone's list and their supplies. Kakashi noted most of it was general personal hygiene with a few other requests.
"Hey, Kaka-sensei, can I read Skylar's list on the way, I want to get her a new outfit and she said she wrote down what she doesn't want." Ino asked and Kakashi shuffled through the pages twice and remembered she hadn't given him a list yet.
"I guess she forgot to give it to me, let's go find her quickly." Kakashi mused and the group followed Kakashi to her room and didn't find her there or in the training hall or kitchen so Shikamaru suggested the computer room on an off chance. They followed the loud music and heard muttering and were amused and confused at the sight. Skylar was sitting there typing furiously and writing stuff down as she opened up new files and them she ripped off the piece of paper, crumpled it and threw it across the room and the process started again.
"Um… Skylar, you forgot to give us your list." Shikamaru shouted over the music, they saw her mumble something then her eyes widened as she swivelled back to the desk, ripped off a piece of paper, wrote something on it, folded it and flew it over to them before turning back to her work. Kakashi caught the paper and handed it to Ino who began reading it furiously.
"I don't think this is very healthy." Sai mused to the group and they all nodded except Ino who was still reading the long list.
"How long has she been here?" Shikamaru wondered and shouted to Skylar who swung in a 360 degree and shouted back to them when she faced them and kept turning to give her next answer.
"When was that meeting?" She shouted on the first round.
"Yesterday." Shikamaru shouted back as she did another round.
"Only one day huh… Well good luck." She said, separating it into two more turns and stopped at the computer again.
"We'll swing by the kitchen on our way out and alert someone about this." Kakashi said, leading the group again. They entered the kitchen to find Naruto eating cup ramen and look up at the group and smile.
"I thought you left already what's up?" He asked happily.
"Well Skylar hadn't given us her list yet so we went to find her and well, you may want to check the computer room soon and pull her away for ten minutes." Kakashi said almost sheepishly. Naruto raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah Dobe, maybe take her on a date or something." Sasuke said with his arms crossed and Naruto blushed and Sasuke smirked. "Come on, you can't miss the way you two have been acting… See you later Dobe." Sasuke said as he followed the group away for the mission. Naruto wanted to die right there, why was Sasuke such a teme sometimes but it was a good idea.