The Next Shinobi, Chapter 13: The Kiss of Death

I tried my best to hold my eyes open but the pain was too intense for my body; every fiber of my being was shutting down, one-by-one. "Hikari, this is going to hurt but I need you to stay with me, okay?" Kakashi-Sensei said as he slid his arms under me. I nodded the best I could before being lifted from the dirt. A pained yelp jumped from my throat as he carried me from the battlefield. Every bone in my body felt as if it'd been broken and my muscles were limp and lifeless; my entire frame had been rendered useless. "Reina, take care of her. I need to find the others, just make sure she stays alive, got it?"

"Right," Reina replied as she placed her hands on my stomach, the green aura surrounding them.

I winced in pain as she rooted around inside of me, searching for any substantial damage. "That hurts," I groaned weakly. My eyelids were becoming heavier with every second that passed and soon it felt like I had lead weights as eyelashes. "I'm tired…" I murmured as I allowed my eyes to drift shut.

"Hey, stay awake," Reina ordered. Her voice sounded far away now, almost as though I was drifting down a river and she was yelling to me from the shore, her image fading from sight the further I floated on the water. Beyond the blackness that consumed me, memories began to filter through like fireflies on a pitch black night.

"Go on, Hirkari," my father encouraged with his usual toothy grin. "You're going to be late for your first day at the Academy."

I shook my head and clung to his arm. "I don't want to go, daddy,"

He chuckled and knelt down so we were eye level. "Tell you what, I'll walk in with you, okay?"

"Really daddy? You will?" I smiled brightly, my eyes lit up like Christmas trees.

He nodded and stood, holding my hand as he led me inside. "I'm sorry, Iruka, but she wouldn't come in unless I came in with her," he apologized as we entered the classroom.

"It's no problem, Lord Hokage," Iruka-Sensei smiled. I shrunk back behind my father as Iruka leaned closer to me. "Would you like your father to stay in class for today?"

"Yeah!" I cheered excitedly, my blonde pigtails bouncing playfully around my shoulders.

"Are you sure it's alright?" my father whispered.

Iruka waved dismissively. "Don't worry about it. Your seats are right over there," he motioned to a seat between a dark haired boy and a girl in a bright pink dress. I skipped up to the third level of desks and plopped down in my seat with my father in tow. "I'm Hikari Uzumaki," I whispered to the boy who sat at my left, flashing him my friendliest smile.

He looked at me briefly before turning his attention back to the front of the room. "Kai Uchiha," he muttered bitterly.

"Uchiha?" my father gasped almost inaudibly.

"Do you know him, daddy?" I wondered. "He's kinda mean,"

He shook his head. "No, honey, I don't know him."

After our morning lesson, it was time to show off what we already could do with kunai knives and shuriken stars. "Why don't we have Hikari Uzumaki go first?" Iruka-Sensei suggested. I timidly stepped forward, the whispers from the other children making me even more nervous. I looked back at my father who smiled and nodded, encouraging me to show them what we'd been working on. I took a deep breath and nodded in return, turning to Iruka-Sensei and taking the kunai and shuriken he held out to me. I got into my fighting stance and narrowed my eyes at the target posted on the center on the tree before me. In one smooth motion, I threw the kunai and shuriken; both of them hit the bull's eye.

"Whoa,"

"Did you see that?"

"She's amazing!"

"Of course she is, she's the Hokage's daughter,"

"Hikari!"

I coughed violently and awoke to Reina pushing repeatedly on my chest. I spat out the blood that oozed into my mouth and forced my eyes to open. "Reina, that hurts," I mumbled. It felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest and it didn't help with her putting all of her weight on my lungs.

The relief on her face was obvious. "You do realize that your heart just stopped, right?"

"Oh," I replied. "Is that why it's so hard to breathe?"

That relief quickly morphed into concern as she placed her hands on my stomach once again. It was getting increasingly difficult to breath and I could feel my heart beat slow each time I attempted to fill my lungs. "No, not again," Reina pleaded, her voice cracking slightly. The panic in her tone was like oil on water, it almost sounded like she was crying. "Hikari, please, fight it!" she begged.

I swallowed slowly, my saliva thick with blood, as my eyes began to flutter shit again. I wanted desperately to stay awake, but my will power had abandoned me and I couldn't fight anymore. "Reina," I whispered as the darkness began to surround me. "You're a spoiled brat and you're virtually useless in battle, but in a weird, Twilight Zone kind of way, I've always envied you…"

Before I could say anymore, the darkness dragged me under once again.

"Okay, you've all made genin and are being assigned to your teams today," Iruka-Sensei announced as he held a clipboard in front of his face.

'Please don't put me with Uchiha,' I prayed silently as he read off the teams. 'Anyone but Uchiha,'

"Team seven," he started. "Reina Haruno, Hikari Uzumaki, and Kai Uchiha."

My jaw smacked the desk as I attempted to process what had just occurred. "Great, I'm on a team with useless Haruno and moody Uchiha," I muttered, leaning back in my seat and crossing my arms. I glanced to my right only to be met with Reina retouching her lipgloss, completely oblivious to anything around her. I rolled my eyes and looked to the left. Kai blew his bangs from his eyes and sent me a poisonous glare only to have me return it to him. 'This is going to be awful,'

"Oh boy," Kakashi-Sensei sighed when he finally decided to show up to our first training session. "Let's hope I see the same potential I saw in your parents. First thing's first, we need to see if two of you can get these bells from me, the third will go without lunch and watch the rest of us eat. Understood?"

"Ugh, you can't be serious," Reina whined as she inspected her manicure.

"Do I look like I'm joking?" Kakashi retorted as he pulled out a small orange rectangle. It was a book.

"You're reading?" Kai asked with a raised brow.

"Yeah," he nodded, his eyes glued to the page. "You may begin."

I smiled as I gazed at the memory, the fuzzy orb of light it came in floating away along with the others. The small, firefly-like creatures surrounded me and gave me glimpses of moments in my life like a slideshow. They all blended together nicely into a perfectly imperfect mosaic that summarized my life. My eyes stung as I tried to hold back the salty tears that filled my vision. I could feel those memories fading away, one-by-one disappearing into a black abyss, never to return from the eternal darkness. I knew I was dead, or dying at least, since everyone always said that seeing your life flash before your eyes was basically the kiss of death. I swallowed the lump in my throat as a trail of hot tears flowed down my face; this was really it. I held my face in my hands and allowed myself to break down. There wouldn't be anymore training with Kakashi-Sensei, no more sparring sessions with Kai, no more yelling at Reina to actually do something; it'd all be gone and all I'd be left with was the darkness. My shoulders shook violently as I sobbed into my palms uncontrollably, my memories drifting away slowly while one floated down to me, its warmth making me look up from my hands. It was the portrait he four of us took that same day we passed the bell test and became team seven. Kai was at the bottom glaring up at me while I had my arms draped around his shoulders, Reina doing the same to me and Kakashi-Sensei at the very top; we actually looked like we liked each other in this picture even though we couldn't stand to be in the same room. A strangled smile crept across my face as I stared down at the picture, tears falling from the tip of my nose and staining the small orb with water spots. After a minute or so, the orb floated away with the rest and disappeared beyond the darkness of my dying body.

Suddenly, the darkness and the orbs disappeared and I was standing in the forest next to Reina who knelt next to my body. Tears traveled down her cheeks like rain as she repeatedly performed CPR. "C'mon, Uzumaki," she grunted as she pushed on my chest. "Fight, damn it! You choose right now to give up? Fight!"

I gazed down at my body, my skin sickly pale with ugly purpling shadows under my eyes; I looked nothing like myself at all anymore. In fact, I hardly recognized myself, I felt no connection to that body, at least until Reina leaned down and pressed her lips to mine while holding my nose. I felt the warmth of her breath flow into me, filling my empty lungs. She leaned back up and quickly continued her compressions, the pressure forcing my muscles to contract and relax. I suddenly felt strange, like I was disappearing like the orbs that carried my memories. I looked down at my hand that was now fading away, expanding until my entire body was gone.

I coughed as I awoke again, this time much more violently in order to fill my lungs. I stared up at Reina as she sobbed and collapsed onto me in what seemed like a hug. "That hurts," I giggled weakly. Her whole body shuttered as she held me close, my slow heart beat attempting to keep up with her racing one.

"I didn't think you were coming back that time," she sobbed against my shoulder. "I thought you gave up."

"Give up?" I attempted a smirk. "I don't know the meaning of those words."

She collected herself enough to sit back up and return the strangled smile. "You'd better stay with me this time,"

I nodded and breathed deeply, my heart picking up speed as I did. "Okay,"