I couldn't help but be a little nervous about the current date. Inoichi had said that he would be back soon. A week had passed since then, but there had been no sign of him.
I probably should have been happier about that fact, but instead it put me constantly on edge. Sakura and the others had visited a couple of more times, but as hard as I tried I wasn't able to pry much information out of them.
My civilian rank wasn't exactly helping my cause either, but it wasn't like I could just go off and become a ninja. I was apparently already eighteen; way too old to be enrolling in the academy. Plus I was a considerably sketchy person, though by seeing that Daichi hadn't shown up again to watch me, probably not as much anymore.
Where was that guy anyway?
I guess I needed to add searching for him onto my to do list. For all I knew he could be on some sort of mission.
I stood up from my bed, doing a little stretching here and there. Though I initially didn't think so, my body was actually healing pretty fast. I was going to get the cast on my foot off any day now.
After being caught singing a bit, or as the nurse put it, "disturbing the other patients" I ended up starting to wander around the hospital.
The purple haired doctor, whose name ended up being Takoa Yuki, was someone I saw a lot. It seemed that he had been in charge of my care since I had been in a coma. Ever since my miraculous recovery, had been slowly going crazy over trying to figure out what exactly happened. The poor guy. I'm guessing he didn't have much access to confidential information.
There was a bit of gossip I overheard among the staff stating that if he kept it up, he was going to have to go in and get some professional help.
Hey! We could be therapy buddies! I'm sure he would love that!
For the moment though, I was kind of stuck entertaining myself with whatever. I even bothered to finally officially look at myself in a mirror.
It took me several tries to get up the courage, but I eventually got myself to stand in front of a bathroom mirror.
Hesitantly, I stood there, eyes closed shut.
I just needed to look quickly and get it over with. No big deal. It would be perfectly fine.
Slowly, I cracked open my eyelids, a blurry figure coming into view. I had to stop myself from immediately running out of the room in terror from the blurs of green, but as my vision became more focused I soon got a good look at my features.
Well, my height seemed similar, and my skin tone was about the same as my normal one. The rest of my face though… there was nothing recognizable about me.
I couldn't help and jump back in surprise for a moment, poking myself to make sure it was all real.
In describing myself, I guess you could say I had the potential to be attractive if I weren't so disheveled and pale looking. I looked a bit younger than my apparent age; maybe abut fifteen or sixteen. This still wasn't close enough my actual age of seventeen, but I guess I would just have to deal with it. My eye color was especially weird to look at, being used to having blue eyes stare back at me every day.
Getting over my initial shock, I started making a bunch of random facial expressions to try and figure myself out.
My smiles looked pleasant enough, and the puppy dog eyes face had potential. Next, I made the most furious, pissed off expression I could handle.
I flinched at the sight of my own face, a shiver quickly going down my spine.
When I looked mad, I looked absolutely terrifying. It was almost a murderous look on my face.
Wouldn't want to run into myself in a dark alley.
I made the expression again, this time trying to take closer look at myself.
After looking for a bit, I noticed it was mostly in the eyes. They had a more angular shape to them than most eyes, which really came out in full impact when angry.
Well, the more you know I guess.
I spent a bit more time making faces, my 'kawaii' expression completely throwing off whatever initial fear I had over myself.
The next issue though was still my hair. I could stop myself from instantly breaking down in tears now, but I still hated it.
The hair itself went well below my shoulders, almost midway down my back. Over all, it was uneven in several places; like someone had tried to cut it in layers, but had failed horrendously. They might as well of taken a weed whacker to it to get this effect. It probably would have looked better if they had.
If I had scissors with me I would have sat there and cut it, or better yet with a kunai. Kunai seemed to be the scissors of the ninja world.
The color of my hair itself was a light shade of green, but was still pretty vibrant. It looked like something you could pick out of a crayon box.
I guess it might make good camouflage in a forest; but then again, since when had Naruto ninjas cared about dressing up to blend in?
After my musings on whether or not Naruto's orange clothing was acceptable for a ninja, and making a mustache and beard out of long stands of hair, I headed out again to do a bit of wandering around. As I turned to exit the room, I found the doorway blocked by a younger looking nurse.
She looked a little confused, staring at me with a bewildered expression. I stared back at her, trying to silently convey the message for her to move out of the way.
The nurse didn't budge, eventually finding her voice.
"Um, excuse me miss, I've been waiting for you to notice me for a couple of minutes now… Well anyway, Yamanaka-san is here to visit you."
Ugh.
"Thanks for telling me, I'll be out in a couple of minutes."
The nurse nodded; expression unchanging.
"Are you- alright?"
"Uh, yeah. I'm fine. Why do you ask?"
She frantically shook her head.
"It's-it's nothing. I'll be outside."
She exited the room, silently shutting the door behind her with a click.
I let the room fill with silence for a moment, taking in my surroundings.
As quickly as I could, I hobbled over to the single window in the room, unlatching the lock. Luckily I was on the first floor, meaning I could get away without doing some second or third story jumping out of windows.
The view was of the backside of the hospital, a little gardened in sight and a nice escape view around the corner. I refused to be subjugated to Inoichi's mind games.
I was healed enough. It was time for me to get out of here!
Readily, I swung one leg over the window, careful to not knock my cast into it too loudly. Just as I was about to bring my other leg over, I heard the click of the door.
"Kato-san, I'm-"
There was a dead silence.
Recognizing that voice, I nervously turned my head around.
"Oh, um, Inoichi-san, I was just doing some new leg stretches. Care to join me?"
He looked like someone had just told him that his puppy died, and that I was the culprit.
"Kato-san, why don't we start our appointment now?"
This was quickly spiraling downhill.
"I would, but I'm burning so many calories right now that I don't feel like I can just stop."
Surprisingly, instead of asking what a calorie was, or why I was burning them, he came over to me, resting his hand on my shoulder.
I had never seen him look so compassionate and fatherly before.
"Were going to get through this together, okay? I'm here to help you."
I stared at him in absolute horror.
I wasn't trying to run away from my problems, I was running away from you!
AN: I got stuck writing this chapter for some reason, but I eventually figured it out. It's sometimes difficult to try and decide when to introduce which character, but I think I'm going to just wait for the right moment first.