The hiss of the door brought everyone's attention to him, somewhat surprised looks adorning the faces of those in the room, with the exception of Jolee and Simmons, as the first offered one of his stupid 'Hello there' smiles as if nothing was wrong and Simmons...well...a Mandalorian helmet was rather expressionless. But the medic quickly straightened and saluted in greeting as he was supposed to do. "Lord Mandalore, we were just finishing our diagnostics."
But Canderous was barely paying attention to his head medic, his eyes fixed on Revan as her lips turned upward into a warm, if albeit tired smile as she looked him over. "So your a lord now." Her raspy voice reached his ears, somewhat muffled by the helmet, even with its sound filter system. She smiled that familiar teasing smile of hers as she continued to speak. "You're moving up in the world Canderous."
Stepping forward he glared again at Jolee, even though he knew Jolee couldn't see it with the helmet on. But he didn't care, he needed to do it now lest he kill the old man later, who, by the way, simply continued to smile that innocent smile of his. "Sorry I didn't come earlier. But apparently I'm the last one to find out you woke up."
Revan smiled. She didn't say anything, she only smiled, lifting a shaking hand, he reached out, and grasped it firmly in his own, watching as she closed her eyes, leaning back as she took comfort in his touch.
The message was clear. 'Your soldier has returned to you, Comander.'
That's what she always was to him...to his people. The commander. A name granted to her when she fought against them during the Mandalorian wars, decimating their fleets of warships and armies of thousands with her brilliant tactics and strategies. A name he had later bestowed upon her again, when he traveled with her and the others during what was now known as the Jedi civil war. A name she kept, in his mind, when she ordered him to rebuild his clans, to take control of his people. A name she still held, in his mind. For the Mandalorians may serve him. But he served her, not the republic, not the sith, not the jedi. He served her, no other.
"Its good to see you again." She rasped. Her lids at half mast as they grew heavier and heavier, the days activities catching up to her exhausted body. Turning her eyes away from him and onto Naruto's bittersweet features. "This is the happiest day of my life...the day I finally see you with my own eyes...and I cant even stay awake..."
"It'll be alright." Naruto said, swallowing the lump in his throat as he continued. "I'll be here every time you wake up. That's a promise."
Revan smiled her blue eyes lighting up at his words, however minutely. "Don't...wanna...sleep..."
Jiraiya, whom had remained silent up to this point, content with watching the woman that had become his friend when she stole Minato's heart, interact with her son, stood. Running a hand over her hair. "Rest for now ok. We'll be here when you wake up."
Finally, the woman smiled allowing her eyes to slip closed as her breathing evened out.
Canderous straightened, turning himself away from the woman as he looked to Sakura and Simmons, the two medics straightening at his gaze, Simmons out of habit, Sakura due to her nervousness. "Talk." Was the simple demand.
"Well sir." Simmon began. "Considering how long she has been in a coma it is quite normal for her to be physically weak for at least another three days. But after that she should be able to stay up for a normal length easily."
Sakura nodded, picking up the slack as Simmons finished. "Yea, her muscle strength would also have deteriorated in her state, we'll need some physical therapy in order to rebuild her muscular structure to what it was."
Canderous nodded. "And how long would that take?"
Sakura shifted a bit uneasily. "Well from what Simmons has told me we have a few techniques that may be better at this than some of your technologies. The standard time it would take for her to make a full recovery would largely depend upon her determination, the shortest I've ever heard of it being done would be in two weeks, perhaps though with some of your medications and...what had you called them Simmons-san."
"First off, I told you to drop that suffix, it makes my name sound weird, and secondly, I called them stims; short for stimulants."
"Stimulants wear off after a while and can leave the user feeling weak afterwards if they use them too much" Canderous interjected.
"Yes sir, that may be true, but in theory, if we can give her very small doses of these stimulants, such as in her food or through injections, throughout a constant period of the day, it would help her move around for the first few days, which would in turn facilitate the initial reconstruction of her muscle structure, which as you may or may not know, is often times the most difficult and time consuming part of the therapy"
"How would you do that? Separating the parts of the stims you want from what you don't want I mean." The Mandalorian commander questioned as he crossed his arms, aware now that Naruto and the others were paying attention to their conversation at this point.
"Well. Sakura here has told me of a rather interesting technique their medics can use, to extract poisons from the body. I imagine that with a slight modification to it we can use it to separate the chemicals from one another."
At this, Canderous turned his head to face the pinkette, who was now looking like she would be happy to be anywhere else other than under the Mandalorian's scrutiny. "Is that true?" He questioned.
"Well, its possible. But Tsunade-sama is the best medic we have, she could tell you for sure."
Canderous nodded. "Fine then, keep up with your research, but before you give her any experimental treatments you contact me." The two nodded.
Rounding back onto the old Jedi in the room the Mandalorian snarled. "And as for you!"
But he was left pointing to an empty chair, the flap of Jolee's cloak vanishing as the door to the med bay shut behind him. Snarling the Mandalorian grumbled something about how he should have dumped the old man out the airlock while they were still in the upper atmosphere before walking out of the room and heading in the opposite direction Jolee had went.
Tenten, who had sat silently throughout the entire proceedings let her eyes go back to Naruto. The smile he had ever since his mom, Revan, had woken up over six hours ago, scaring the hell out of her in the process she might add was still firmly planted on his face. It was almost as if...as if a certain sense of peace had come over him. She couldn't help but feel good for him, she wasn't sure if the others could see it yet but she certainly could. Still just because she felt good for him didn't mean she could be content sitting in this room all day. She hadn't even gone home after Revan woke up, she needed a shower, some sleep, and she had to find her teammates in order to get some kind of training done. So standing up she walked over to Naruto and Jiraiya, patting the younger blond on the shoulder she brought his attention up to her. Offering a smile she spoke. "I'm gonna go home for now. I'll be back soon."
Nodding Naruto stood, and before Tenten could realize just why he did it he stepped forward and hugged her, startling the weapon mistress with the action. He offered that bright smile of his as he pulled away. "Thank for staying with me until now, I know you didn't have to but I appreciate that you did."
Tenten pulled herself out of whatever residual shock was left in her system as she smiled back and nodded, offering another smile and a wave to the remaining individuals in the room as she left.
Jiraiya watched the exchange with a small quirk of his eyebrow and a tiny knowing smirk. If what he thought was happening was indeed happening well, he could say he certainly never saw it coming. Still it'd be interesting to watch in the future. Watching as Naruto sat back down in his chair the boy caught sight of him staring. "What?" The blond questioned.
In response the toad sannin merely shook hi head. "Nothin, nothin." He said placatingly as he leaned back. He knew he should get Naruto up and training again, but the boy seemed perfectly content with staying here for now, and for a kid who could scarcely stay in one spot for three minutes, especially in silence, that was saying something. He'd leave him alone for today, they could train tomorrow.
But then a thought occurred to him. "Hey Naruto." He called out, bringing the young Jedi-ninja hybrid's attention to him. "Where's that HK-47 robot thing that's always following you around?"
When Naruto paled Jiraiya knew he wouldn't enjoy the answer when he eventually found out.
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In a small village several miles from Konoha, half the buildings were burning, while the other half was rubble.
"Pondering: I wonder where my master moved the ship."
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Rain pelted outside the cave entrance, the droplets of moisture pelting against their faces as the winds battered them into the opening, Juugo sat by the fire, his large frame shielding the flickering flames from the harsh wind as Suigetsu kept watch, sitting by the lip of the cave, his sword leaning over him, its hilt resting on his shoulder. Karin sat a short distance away from both of them, hugging her cloak tighter to herself as the biting cold of the rain and wind dug deep into her bones, causing her to try to repress her shivering through sheer willpower alone.
They had been on their way to some backwater village in tea country she couldnt bother remembering the name of, on the hunt for Itachi, Sasuke's brother. In the last village they had visited they managed to learn that Itachi had been sighted quite often in the village they were heading to now.
Problem was it rained in tea country.
Correction, it rained 'a lot' in tea country. Karin couldn't remember the last time she could walk all day without hearing the squelch of mud beneath her boots, or that exhausting suction it caused every time she tried to take a step. As far as she was concerned if she never saw another dark cloud as long as she lived it would be too soon.
Sasuke had gone out to get some food, he too had been getting increasingly agitated with the weather, the signs were minute but they were still there. Cutting of Suigetsu's head repeatedly instead of just punching him, snapping at her advances harsher than usual.
It caused her to roll her eyes more often than not. Honestly, the guy was a looker and had gotten unbelievably strong in the three years he'd been training under Orochimaru but if he kept up this attitude the Uchiha clan would die with him.
Now, if you wonder why she kept on flirting with him even after all his declarations that he was not interested (to put it mildly) one need only look at her other two current options.
One was a skitsophrenic with a split personality disorder, sure he was good and kind of sweet when he was docile but she wouldn't want to be kissing him when he had one of his little episodes and started trying to break her neck.
Then you have the guy that can be classified as annoying, loud, turns into water, wets almost anything that he touches and gets under her skin like a curved razor with his constant taunting and insulting of her. She preferred to stay dry most of the time anyway.
Of course that wouldn't be much of a circumstance considering the weather in this place. They were all always wet like Suigetsu at this point regardless.
Obviously with these current thought patterns, her memories would wander back to the blond, whisker faced ninja with that purple light sword, causing a smile to spread over her lips. Now that was an interesting one. It wasn't easy to escape one of Orochimaru's bases when the sentinels were on alert, not impossible mind you, but very difficult. She didn't really know what had made her kiss him when she did, maybe it was all those lonely years inside that base, with nothing but the company of sentinels, prisoners and experiments, maybe it was the excitement of the moment, but whatever the reason she wouldn't mind seeing him again.
Come to think of it, those injuries that light sword had inflicted on the sentinels were awfully similar to the one that framed Sasuke's prosthetic hand. Could it be that the blond had been the one to cut off Sasuke's hand. Of course for a warrior it was something of a blessing in disguise really, that hand, controlled by chakra strings, was immensely stronger than any natural arm and any damage it received would bring little to no pain to Sasuke, meaning no distractions in the middle of the battle. Of course, if Sasuke ever ran out of chakra in order to make the chakra strings the arm would be useless. Then again if he didn't even have enough chakra to make the strings he probably wouldn't be able to move any part of his body, let alone the hand.
As if thinking of the Sharingan wielder brought fourth his summoning Sasuke stepped through the lip of the cave, a dead deer carcass being dragged behind him. Throwing it to Suigetsu he spoke in that simple, no nonsense tone he always had. "Skin it."
The water based ninja growled but soon took out one of his kunai and, dragging the carcass further into the cave, he began to do his appointed task.
Karin watched the exchange, bored to tears, she could only hope that when they reached this village there would be something she could do there, and that this blasted rain would let up. Otherwise she may just go insane.
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Well here ya go, short and fillerish, but I promiuse next chapter will have more stuff happening in it. Hope you enjoyed it despite the fact that its a filler regardless and that you'll be kind enough to review.