Chapter Nine-

There were two feelings that ate Sasumi alive: loneliness and guilt. Long ago she had given up trying to make sense of how something non-physical could hurt so much. All she knew was that it was hell. Physical pain was easy; it was something you could get used to. Sasumi was used to physical pain. But the horrible feeling in her chest and stomach now was something she doubted she could ever get used to. It was a cold feeling, like she was being frozen slowly, starting from the inside. And all because of a choice she had made. It scared her how one word, one choice, one movement, could save or destroy a life. She doubted the guilt would ever go away. Before they brought Naruto and Sasuke in she had been fabricating a story to tell the Nara genius. How selfish. Naruto was fine, they said. His strength had been completely used up and he had a large bruise on one cheek, but besides that he was fine. He would wake up soon. Her other teammate was in a coma. If he had been brought in a few minutes later he would have died. The mere thought made her feel so weak. Weak and helpless. But there was not much she could do for Sasuke now; she would have to wait for nightfall.

She had, as usual, other things to worry about. Like what she was going to tell Nara Shikamaru when he woke up. He wouldn't believe it was all a fluke. Even Naruto wouldn't believe that. He wouldn't believe that the Sound nin were just weak, because he had fought them himself. Maybe, just maybe, she could blame it all on the curse seal, however weak an excuse. But she had nothing else. All she had to do was wait.

Hanada-san hadn't asked her what had happened and Sasumi was glad for that. She just needed to be left alone for a while so she could figure out a few things. She stared out the window, looking at the Hokage's faces that had been carved into stone. Physically she wasn't hurt, so she hadn't needed any medical attention. Well, at least none that they could give. Her arm throbbed painfully from using it so much, while her other in the cast twitched from the aftereffects of the Healing Jutsu she had used on it. She was sitting in the hallway outside the Nara's room. She didn't sit in the room because she didn't want to see his sleeping face.

It was her fault they were all in the hospital now, that Sasuke had barely been stabilized a few minutes ago and now was in a coma, that Nara had been stabbed through the shoulder, that Naruto lay unconscious in the room next door. She should have been able to protect them, not protect herself and her cover. She drew her knees closer to her chest and leaned her head against the wall.

"If you saw me now, I wonder what you would say. The old you would have yelled at me. You would have said 'Stop mopping around!' or 'Get over yourself!' But would you say that now? I haven't seen you for almost eight years. It seems like forever. I'm sure you've changed. You probably hate me. I won't say I don't deserve your hatred, but…I wish you were here. You would tell me what to do and then everything would be all right. I don't know what to do. Every time they get a little closer to dying, every time I hold back and so far I've been lucky. But I don't know how long my luck will last. Sasuke…he's in a coma and it's all my fault, Naruto and Nara are hurt as well because of my cowardice. I can't forgive myself for being too afraid to do anything. That's right, I was afraid, afraid that if I did anything they would find out and then they would hate me. Just like you and the rest of them do. Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I wasn't cursed with these eyes. I can't even imagine it. And that's why it hurts, it hurts because I can't even imagine being normal. I don't regret coming to Konoha, but I just…I just wish you where here too. But you're not here and if we're both lucky…we'll never meet again, right, Y-"

"Sasumi?"

She looked up to see Naruto leaning tiredly against the doorframe.

"What happened? Where's Gaara? And Sasuke?"

She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn't find the words. She looked away from him, staring out the window again.

"Sasumi? Sasuke…is he…?"

"No," she said finally finding her voice. "He's in a coma."

He moved closer to her, "A coma? Then he's not…"

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him rub his eyes furiously.

"What's a coma?" he asked after he gained control of his tear ducts, sitting down beside her on the cold tile floor.

"He's asleep," she explained to him, "And I don't know when he'll wake up."

"You mean he could never wake up?"

It was too painful for Sasumi to say it, so she just nodded.

"Oh."

He was silent for a few seconds, but then began to speak again.

"Sasumi, are you okay?"

She turned toward him, immediately regretting it, as she noticed the dead look in his usually lively blue eyes.

"No, I'm not. And I don't think I ever will be."

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"No," She turned to look out the window again. "I'm not."

There was an awkward pause. She saw Naruto open his mouth to say something, but fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) at this particular moment Nara chose to wake up.

"Shikamaru!" Naruto cried, "What happened to your shoulder? Are you okay? I don't thin-" He stopped with a strange look on his face. Nara groaned and attempted to rub his eyes with both hands, but then stopped, wincing, because of the injury on his shoulder.

"What are you looking at me like that for?" he asked sleepily.

"Your hair…it looks really funny," Naruto giggled.

Shikamaru's hand went automatically to his hair, which was no longer tied up in a ponytail. He glared at Naruto and then turned to Sasumi.

"What happened?" he asked her, "All I remember is-"

He stopped and his eyes widened.

"Sasumi?" he said quietly, "How-"

Naruto cut him off, "Sasuke's in a coma," he said quietly. "The rest of us are okay, though!" he continued brightly.

Nara was still staring at her as if he hadn't heard him.

"Uzumaki-san," she said quietly, "Uchiha-san is in Room 135. Why don't you go visit him? I need to speak to Nara-san for a while."

"Err…okay," he looked confused, but had enough sense not to ask. He walked down the hallway and disappeared around the corner. Once she was sure that he was actually gone she turned back to Nara. His expression of shock had morphed into a serious and determined look. She suddenly realized that there was no way she could trick him. Every single excuse she could tell him, he would dissect and find something wrong with. She could only tell him one thing. The thing that was more far-fetched than any excuse she could think up. The truth.

"Who are you?" he asked, surprising her. Most people would ask 'How did you do that?'

"Do you really want to know?" she asked him, already knowing the answer.

"Why else would I ask?"

"It's a long story."

"I'm not going anywhere."

She paused. His determination surprised her. He had always been very laidback and had never seemed to care about anything.

"Alright." She said and began to talk.

Naruto walked down the seemingly endless hallway. Sasumi and Shikamaru had looked so serious before he left. He wondered what they were talking about now. Usually he would've hid behind the corner and eavesdropped, but Sasumi's face had been so serious he hadn't dared. He walked passed Room 179 deep in thought. Wait, Room 179? Shit! He had been walking around for twenty minutes and he still couldn't find it! It was just a room, it shouldn't be that hard to find! Right? Apparently not. He walked up to one of the nurses who was walking by.

"Ano…which way is Room 135?"

She blinked and looked down at him, "Are you lost?"

"No, I like asking people where random rooms are. Of course I'm lost!"

But Naruto wasn't really in the mood to fight, so he just told her that he was.

"Hmm…Let's see. Room 135. That's the Intensive Care sector, right?"

"What the hell is Intensive Care?"

"Well, first you go left down the hallway over there, then turn right at the fifth hallway to the left then go down a flight of stairs and then-"

"Uh…could you just show me where it is?" he said bluntly.

"Okay, follow me."

She led him through the maze of a hospital and Naruto made a mental note to ask someone to show him the way out. Seriously, someone could get lost in here and starve to death trying to find their way out. Finally they reached the room and the nurse left him. He opened the door and winced. Sasuke looked…(there was no other word for it)…like shit. Practically his entire body was covered in bandages. He was paler than usual (if even possible) and his body looked more limp than normal persons' did when sleeping.

When Gaara had hit him for the final time he hadn't thought it had done that much damage. Okay, that was a lie, for a second he though he was dead. Well, more than a second. He had caught him before he hit the ground and found that his heart was still beating. The rest was all a blur of sand and fire. He did remember, however, that he beat Gaara. And that was it. He didn't know if Gaara got away or if he had been captured. Surprisingly, he hoped he had escaped. Even though he had put Sasuke in a coma, he didn't deserve to die. He pulled a chair up next to the bed and sat down in it, staring at Sasuke's limp form. He looked strange sleeping. He didn't look like Sasuke at all. He looked smaller and more child-like. Naruto smirked; when Sasuke woke up he was definitely going to make fun of him for this. If he woke up. At this thought the smirk disappeared from Naruto's face.

"Asshole," Naruto muttered, "When you wake up I'm going to kick your ass."

Usually Sasuke would have looked at him disdainfully or at least scowled, but now he didn't do anything. He just lay there. Naruto had almost expected him to wake up and glare at him. Naruto turned the chair around and rested his head on the back of it looking wearily down at his sleeping

friend. He sighed blowing his blond hair out of his eyes.

"Bastard," he muttered.

And ever so slowly his eyes fluttered shut as he fell asleep.

Shikamaru's face, which usually portrayed the expression of utter boredom, was now completely blank. Yamaki Sasumi had told him her gruesome past without a single pause or tremor. Her seemingly uncaring mood even made Shikamaru forget about the pain in his shoulder. Her story was preposterous, utterly insane, and ridiculous. But despite being totally absurd, it made sense.

Shikamaru had always been a perceptive person. It came with being a genius. He always noticed things that other people would never even think of looking at, much less think about. Even at an early age he noticed strange things about the people around him. He had been in Sasuke's class when the Uchiha Massacre had happened. Sasuke had never been a very social person to begin with, but after the death of his family he had changed completely. He had stopped talking almost completely and had showed less emotion. The only thing that didn't change about him was his resolve to be the best in everything. Shikamaru never understood that about people. As long as you're alive and relatively comfortable, did it really matter what grades you got on some dumb test you took when you were ten?

Naruto wasn't in Shikamaru's class when he first entered the academy, but the next year he was to his parent's distress. His mother had even gone as far as to tell him to stay away from the blond-haired boy. Everyone seemed to hate him and after observing them and Naruto he had no idea why. Sure, he was loud, annoying, and basically a retard, but it wasn't like the rest of the class was much smarter. Shikamaru was glad that he had left the academy; now instead of an entire class, he only had to deal with one troublesome person named Ino. He had also noticed that most of the adults in Konoha seemed to hate Naruto as well. As he had said before Naruto was troublesome and had a knack for causing trouble, but then again so did Inuzuka Kiba and no one hated him. Shikamaru had given up long ago trying to figure out whythis was; it was way too much work. He had the same problem with Choji.

Most people had a problem with Choji's habit of eating everything eatable and even some things that weren't. Shikamaru didn't understand their reasoning, either. So, Choji liked to eat, well he liked to stare at the clouds, and no one ever gave him a hard time about that. Well, except his mother, but she didn't count.

Sasumi had always struck him as someone from one of those old clans like the Hyuuga, who was barred from showing any emotion for fear of shaming the clan. After finding out her last name, he thought that she wasn't, as he had never heard of a Yamaki clan, and the fact that she could have come from another village never crossed his mind. Not that she gave any indication that she did, or give any indication of anything at all. Even as she told him the most horrific things that could be done to a person, much less her, she was emotionless as a stone. Shikamaru was a genius, but he doubted he would ever understand people.

"So," he said slowly, trying to make sense of all the information that had just been told to him, "You can read people's minds…?"

He mentally kicked himself; of all the things he could ask or say to her he chose the one thing that had caused all her problems up until now.

"Memories," she replied, "I can read people's memories."

Shikamaru suddenly had the childish urge to ask her something in order to know if she really could look inside people's minds.

"I can prove it, if you like," she said evenly.

He suddenly felt very vulnerable and unsure, just realizing how dangerous a Kekkai Genkai like hers was. A simple look could tell her all she needed to know about him: his strengths, his weaknesses, everything. Had she read his mind? Probably. With a past like that she would probably be very paranoid. Shikamaru knew he would be. He swallowed, forcing himself to think rationally. It was obvious she had no intention of betraying Konoha, which meant he had no reason to fear her. As far as he could tell, she wasn't unhappy here, though even if she was he wouldn't be able to tell. Then again, if she was unhappy here, she would have probably left. If Shikamaru knew that missing nin that were criminals were the highest priority of the ANBU, not average Genin, then she probably knew that too.

How much did she know? There was no limit to what she could know. It was actually quite frightening.

"Ask me something only you would know," she said.

"Uh…what did I eat for breakfast?"

"Sushi; tuna and green tea."

Wait, he had green tea? Oh, yeah, on the way to the Chuunin exam he had…

He swallowed and sunk to the floor. She looked down at him, an unreadable expression on her face.

"Believe me?"

"…Yeah…"

"Then I have a question for you."

He looked up, surprised.

"What are you going to do, Nara-san?"

Most people would not understand the question, but Shikamaru understood it very well. She was asking him what he was going to do with the information she had given him. He hadn't even thought about what he was going to do if she could prove her story was the truth. From what she had told him he deduced that if the rest of the village found out they would be obligated to tell the Rain. The Leaf wasn't exactly on good terms with the Rain, but they were still allies and had a peace treaty. Which would definitely be broken if they found out that the girl before him lived in Konoha. What was he going to do? He doubted Sasumi planned on causing harm to Konoha, which, as a shinobi, he was taught to think of first. It was his duty to report to the Hokage anything that…could be potentially dangerous to the village. Hmmm.

"What are you doing here, Sasumi?"

She answered him right away, without any hesitation, "Living."

"Well, I'm not going to interfere then."

He picked himself up off the floor and walked down the hallway.

"Nara-san," he turned in surprise at the sound of her voice. It wasn't that he hadn't expected her to say anything, but the sound of her voice was almost…well, desperate.

"Thanks," she said quietly, a strange, soft sort of look on her face that he never expected her to wear.

"No problem."

Weeks went by and slowly Konoha recovered from the attack. The death of the Sandaime Hokage was a bad blow and the council was still arguing over who should become the Godaime. Sasuke was still in a coma, which paralyzed Team 7. Sasumi and Naruto had been let out of the hospital less than a week after the attack and the three of them spent most of their missions helping rebuild the village.

When Kakashi first heard of Sasuke's comatose state he was surprised and felt slightly guilty. Had he underestimated that Gaara? He was sure with the combined skills of Shikamaru, Shino, Sasuke, and Naruto they would have been able to beat him. He heard from Asuma that the team he had sent out after Sasuke had been separated. Asuma then asked him why he had sent Sasumi, because of her broken arm. Kakashi was surprised at this too. He didn't know that Sasumi had gone with the group and was even more surprised to find that Shikamaru, Sasuke, and even Naruto suffered more injuries than her. Asuma said something about how weak the Sound were if two average Genin (or maybe Chuunin) could defeat them. Maybe the fact that the Sound nin were weak satisfied Asuma, but Kakashi had a strong feeling that they were both missing something. They're were other things that bothered Kakashi as well. Strange things.

When Kakashi had visited the hospital to check up on Sasuke, he asked about the injuries his student had sustained and his chances of recovery. When Sasuke had been admitted to the hospital he had several broken ribs, a huge cut in the middle, a bruised lung, and a bunch of other cuts lining his body. Kakashi wasn't a medical nin, but he knew that in a few weeks, even with certain drugs, there was no way Sasuke could have healed completely. But he had. There wasn't a single mark on him now and Kakashi was very suspicious. Medical nin were very rare; the only one he could think of at the moment (that was alive that is) was the Sannin Tsunade. However, she had not been in the village for almost a decade.

It was interesting that he thought of her now, because it seemed that she was the main choice for the next Hokage. In fact, Jiraiya had already left the village to find her. Kakashi had heard he had asked Naruto if he wanted to come with, but surprisingly Naruto turned the offer down in favor of waiting until Sasuke woke up. If Sasuke had still been injured Kakashi suspected Naruto could have been persuaded, but he no longer needed an artificial lung, only an IV. His body was merely recuperating from the shock it received and the chances that he would wake up had increased by almost 20. He had been moved from the Intensive Care ward into a regular room, which was where Kakashi was now with the rest of his team.

It was two o'clock in the morning and they were all in their pajamas. The nurse on night watch had called them half-an-hour ago to tell them that Sasuke showed signs of waking up. Indeed, his eyes were moving rapidly under his eyelids and his hands were twitching. The nurse warned them that even if he did open his eyes he might not be conscious for a while. When Naruto questioned this, Kakashi shushed him for fear of the nurse's sanity. Time seemed to have stopped when Sasuke's eye's slowly opened.

"Sasuke!" Naruto said loudly.

Kakashi gave him an annoyed look. What had he done in a previous live for him to deserve such a loud student?

"I must have been some sort of criminal mastermind," Kakashi thought.

Sasuke's eye were open, but they were unfocused.

"Sasuke!" Naruto said again.

"Uzumaki-san," his other conscious student started, "Maybe-"

"Sasuke, you bastard, wake up, dammit!"

Kakashi inwardly moaned. Sasuke's eyes opened a little wider. He made a unintelligible noise and pulled himself into a seated position, eyes still out of focus.

"Uchiha-san…" Came the sot voice from his left.

Sasuke slowly lifted up a hand and rubbed his eyes.

"Helloooo… Sasuke, are you awake or what?"

Kakashi had a sudden urge to bang his head against something.

"Wha…Naruto…" Sasuke groaned, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"He speaks!" said Naruto cheerfully, but Kakashi noticed him wiping his eyes vigorously.

Sasuke glared at him.

"Typical Sasuke," thought Kakashi, "The first thing he does after two months is glare at Naruto."

"Wait..." said Sasuke slowly, "Why am I in the hospital? What happened?"

"You don't remember?" Kakashi asked.

Sasuke's attention turned towards him. Kakashi sighed.

"You were in a coma," he said, "For two months."

Sasuke looked confused.

"Okay, do you remember your fight with Gaara?" Sasuke shook his head, "Do you remember who Gaara is?"

Sasuke glared at him, "Yes…" he trailed off, "Oh," he said, his eyes wide.

"Remember?" Sasuke nodded, still looking shocked, "Well, you've been out for two months. I think you'll have to go to some physical therapy since you haven't used your muscles in so long."

Sasuke still looked dazed, "Uh…"

"What?"

"Is there a reason you're all in your pajamas?"

"It's two o'clock in the morning," Kakashi said dryly, "Well, I have a mission tomorrow, so I'll see you all…whenever."

And he disappeared in a puff of smoke. The last thing he heard before starting off for his apartment was Naruto's annoyed yell.

"Huh? Where the hell did he go?!"

Author's Notes: Well, that was quick. Then again, I posted the previous chapter when I was almost done with this chapter. Definitely Itachi and Kisame next chapter! And yes, that is a good thing! KUKUKU! Many thanks to: anniert, mitsuhime, psalmofsummer, EvilMoogleGirl, Back2Innocence, Kiyoshi Koezu, narunaru.ramen, Animealover, and AkaiTrixxterShiruba. I took the time to write your names down, feel proud of me! (If I spelled your screen names wrong please don't kill me.) Fact: My beta Sleeping Soundly is awesome. Thank you so much!