Chapter 50: Kagami's Heart Arc - Truth is the Truth
Hey, sorry that I haven't posted for a week. State testing fried my brain for a while, but I'm back with the climax of this arc. I hope you enjoy it, since I really wanted to make this chapter emotional, specifically on Obito's part.
Anyway, thank you all for 12,000 reads and all of the wonderful reviews. It always warms my heart when people enjoy reading my silly writing. :)
Disclaimer: I own nothing in this fic except for the OCs and the storyline.
"Kagami!" all three of us cried in sheer horror as she began to ride her bike off the cliff. "Stop!"
But in the end, it was no use. Even with Akane going at full speed, we didn't realize that she couldn't hear us until she flew right off the edge of the cliff, trying to escape us.
"Akane!" commanded Deidara, "try to catch the girl, un! She might die from a fall like that!"
However, the moment the giant clay phoenix attempted to descend and catch Kagami in her talons was the exact same moment when all three of us heard a sickening thud just below the cliff. All four of us panicking — well, besides Sasori, who seemed to hide it — we descended right over the huddled shape of the girl's body, as well as her broken bike.
The phoenix squawked in sorrow as she landed right next to Kagami, making me worry slightly. This time, I didn't even try to resist my feeling of pity and worry for the little girl, even though she had been scared of me just hours earlier.
That speech she made...as much as I hated to admit it, the moment when she said the words that she despised so much was probably the exact same moment I had finally felt a pang of guilt stab my heart. Oddly enough, it was as if she had simply cast a spell on me when she had reprimanded me so harshly.
Bending over, I scooped her still body in my arms, gasping when I saw that she was bleeding. Her right leg and left arm were bent and twisted at an odd angle, to my horror. Deidara looked stunned, as if somebody had just outsmarted him in ninjutsu.
"We need to get her back to the others," Sasori announced, but this time, I could detect a small amount of emotion laced in his voice. "Her siblings will know what to do about this."
"But Sasori-san," I spoke up, "What about Kagami-chan's blood? Kagami-chan is almost covered in it!"
Deidara shrugged. "We'll just have to speed up, then. I left all of my clay back at home, and I don't think Sasori-danna's chakra threads should be used as a bandage. Perhaps we could try something strong from our surroundings?"
Sasori responded with a nod, then extended the chakra strings on his right hand to attach them to a nearby tree. With his power, he plucked a couple of leaves off of the tree. Silently, he turned to me, holding up the two large leaves in his hand.
"Wrap these around her twisted limbs," he instructed, and I nodded solemnly, taking the leaves from him carefully. Getting on my knees, I slowly wrapped one leaf around Kagami's twisted arm, then proceeded to wrap the other around her leg. Then, I fastened each leaf with sticks that were lying beside me, treating them as if they were safety pins.
"Will Kagami-chan be alright?" I asked as soon as I had finished, picking her up in my arms once again. "Tobi doesn't want Kagami-chan to die…"
For once, my Tobi persona spoke only truth in that statement.
The two members got back onto Akane, who gave a squawk for me to hurry. "She will continue to get worse if we keep standing here, un!" replied Deidara, not in an arguing mood. "We've got to get back to Kaiya and the others before it's too late!"
Both of us nodded, and I swiftly jumped back onto Akane's back, holding onto Kagami tightly as the phoenix roared. She zoomed off of the ground, flapping her wings powerfully like the plane that we had traveled on not too long ago.
I placed my ear near her, listening for her gentle heartbeat to notify me that she was still breathing steadily. Her breath grazed my cheek, and subconsciously, I let out a sigh of relief.
"I don't know if Kaiya is alright, though," Deidara spoke up suddenly, as we flew over a small clump of pine trees. "She took out the car again, so maybe she might be scared as well."
"Well," drawled Sasori, "she didn't seem all that scared when she started driving out of the garage. I guess that in times of danger, she's got better things to worry about than the fear of crashing into another car."
The blonde nodded sternly in response, before pointing forward as a command to have Akane increase her speed. Although I had never ridden on the bird before — mainly because Deidara wouldn't let me touch her — I didn't mind the wind slapping my body. The only thing that I did care about was the fact that Kagami could slip out of my arms if I wasn't careful. She was still bleeding, but it had already begun to slow down. The leaves were caked in the rusty red substance.
"Does senpai know where Kaiya-chan's car is?" I questioned Deidara, just to confirm. I wanted to expand on how he wasn't always the keenest on his sense of direction, but I would have broken my façade to him and Sasori if I did so. The only person that I didn't mind knowing about the whole ruse at that point was Kagami.
He slumped his shoulders, then shrugged. "Sort of. The rest of the Akatsuki except for Konan and Zetsu went with her in the car, so I should be able to detect their chakra presences. I'm not as skilled as Zetsu is in this world, since it hurts a little bit to use chakra, but we might be able to sense them."
Suddenly, Sasori pointed towards a spot near the ground below us. "I sense chakra, brat. Can you tell who it is?"
"I'll try," he said, before commanding Akane to stop moving. The phoenix obliged, and Deidara took the time to concentrate on the very spot, his eyes closing tightly.
"Does Deidara-senpai sense Kaiya-chan and the others?" I quickly asked him, tapping his shoulders. He shot me a glare for breaking his focus, but seconds later, he simply shook his head.
"It's not Kaiya," he answered, before cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting into the distance. "Konan! Is that you?"
At first, I thought that he was joking, but my theory was proved wrong when the woman flew up with a pair of paper wings on her back. Her expression suggested that she was exhausted from using them, or just chakra in general.
She took one look at the huddled shape in my arms and donned a serious expression. "Good, you found her. What's her status?"
"Alive," I quickly answered, showing her Kagami. Konan stared at the girl and her appendages, then proceeded to take some paper from her wings and wrap them around the bleeding leaves that we had used as makeshift bandages. At that point, her twisted arm and leg seemed to have casts on.
"I'm glad that you were able to locate her before anything else happened," she stated. "Now let's get her back to the others before her condition worsens."
All four of us nodding, Akane followed her confidently, squawking. Like a sheet of paper, Konan drifted through the air, flying over houses that luckily had all of their lights turned off. The clay phoenix soared jst over them, knocking a few clumps of leaves off of nearby trees and plants.
Although Konan was in the front, Deidara was the first one to finally spot the yellow Lexus. He signaled to Konan, and she nodded briskly at him before diving towards the car. Akane nosedived after her, but carefully enough to ensure that I didn't accidentally drop the girl...not like I would have, anyway.
Zetsu poked his head out of the ground in front of the car, and almost instantly, he spotted us descending overhead. Turning around, he whistled to the passengers inside the car, and I saw Kaiya, Kisame, and Naoki rush out of the car. Inside, Yukio honked the horn.
"You found her!" exclaimed Kaiya, immediately snatching Kagami from me. The little girl stirred slightly, then flipped on her side before lying still. "Looks like we got lucky...especially since the emergency room where they took me after the car accident is nearby. We've got to get there as soon as possible.
Naoki nodded, then approached Deidara. "Thanks for finding her, dummy. But next time, locate her faster, okay?"
Both Deidara and Kaiya glared at him for that statement. "That was rude, Naoki-chan," she reprimanded him. "But all of you, get back inside of the car. I'm going to start driving again right now. I don't know if we'll have room for you in here, but we might if you're all willing to turn back for the time being."
Deidara looked confused for a second, but then nodded in response, along with everybody else. Wordlessly, he turned Akane back into her original form, who immediately flew back inside of the car. Naoki handed his sister a feather, and at once, she began to tickle our noses...well, I was pretty sure that she was going to make me do it last.
"We're sorry," said Kaiya, "but a little after we took off, we got tired of everybody complaining about being shoved in the back seat, so we had to turn them all back. Still, it was a good measure in case we run into other drivers along the way."
After everybody successfully transformed back into kittens, she handed me the feather. I spun around, lifted my mask slightly, and tickled my own nose until I sneezed, a cloud of smoke flying up around my feet.
The feather floated down until it reached my paws, where Naoki gently picked it up and pocketed it again. He opened the door for us like a butler, and we all leaped inside, reuniting with all of the other members inside of the car.
An uneasy silence passed before Kisame decided to break it. "How is Kagami-chan?" he asked me, Deidara, and Sasori. "I don't like how everybody seems to be sad at the moment…"
"I guess that you can say that she's alright, un," replied Deidara, also looking kind of down. "But if we don't get to the hospital...I don't really want to know what's going to happen to her."
Zetsu padded up next to us, joining the conversation as the Hoshiyume siblings buckled up beside us, with Naoki gently holding onto his unconscious younger sister in the front seat. "The kid looks like she's just been in the heat of a battle or something. We mean, one of her arms and one of her legs are both twisted at really odd angles!"
Some of the members gasped, but Konan swiftly silenced everybody by slamming a paw down on the seat.
"Thanks, Konan," said Nagato, and for the first time, I detected how much more amiable his voice sounded compared to before we had met the children. "You all did what you could to protect Kagami, and for that, I thank you."
Deidara's jaw literally dropped, hitting the chair with a thud. "Wait...Leader-sama, did you just thank us?"
The orange-haired man shot Deidara an odd look. "Nagato is fine, Deidara," he corrected. "But without Akane and your keen eyes, I don't think that we would have been able to locate Kagami in time. And Tobi...great job in locating her diary. Without it, we wouldn't have even known where to begin searching."
Remembering that I still had to act as Tobi, even though Nagato had revealed his true personality already, I skyrocketed into the air, landing on the cushion of the front seat due to Kaiya starting the car. "Yay! Thank you, Nagato-san!" But once again, I regained my serious vibe, though I kept the same voice. "But...what will happen if we don't make it to the hospital?"
Kisame immediately turned white. "Uh...I really don't want to think about that. For now, let's try to do what Kagami-chan would do and stay positive. She would definitely like that, wouldn't she?"
Hidan scoffed at him. "Oh, has the tiny b**** grown soft on you too, sharky?"
"Shut up," grumbled Kakuzu, ensnaring him in a mass of gray tendrils to silence the silver cat. "You're part of the reason why she ran away in the first place, had you not have cursed her out for bumping into you."
Of course, Hidan began clawing the tendrils as he struggled to escape. "Says you, you old b******!"
As the Lexus began rolling — albeit not very smoothly — my shoulders slumped to the ground as I stared at the figure that lay unmoving in Naoki's arms. I couldn't tell if Naoki was crying or not, but Yukio, who was in the back seat with us, had huge water droplets in his eyes that he wasn't willing to let fall.
"Kagami-chan…" I whispered softly to nobody in particular as I ducked away from the other members so that they couldn't hear me. "This is all my fault, isn't it? All mine..."
The question? Why did I feel so guilty?
Like I mentioned before, I've killed and mutilated hundreds of other shinobi, along with that drunken man who had tried to kidnap Kagami without a hint of remorse. All I had seen at that moment was the world drenched in red, like what a lion probably saw before he leaped upon his prey.
To be honest, I hadn't even known that I had killed the man until I had regained my senses again. But even then, I hadn't cared that I had killed him. All that had mattered was that Kagami had been protected.
Why?
Deidara, who was instead concentrating on Kaiya to make sure that the girl kept calm while she drove, sat there with a stern expression on his face: something that I hardly ever saw. Usually, Deidara would have at least thrown out some sort of insulting remark or something of that sort by that moment, but perhaps he cared about Kaiya too much. Well, a while back, Kagami had informed me that he liked her, after all.
But now was not the time to be thinking about it. Everybody was working hard to get Kagami to the hospital safely, and I had to do my part as well. And the best way to help while inside of the car was to simply wait and be patient with Kaiya.
So I did. Perhaps that was what it was like to be part of a family that really cared about each others' well-being.
Kagami's right, I realized with a jolt as the car swerved towards the left. The sacrifices that I've made for the greater good...those weren't really suitable sacrifices, were they? But keeping their eyes open in the early hours of the pitch-black morning...flying through the cold night air...going places that they've never bothered to explore before...maybe this is what a true sacrifice is about!
"Tobi?" a voice called to me, a paw prodding my shoulder lightly. "Did you seriously fall asleep at a time like this?"
"Wha—" I began, panicking slightly until I realized that it was only Zetsu. "Oh, hey there, Zetsu-san. Are we here yet?"
The bi-colored cat nodded sternly, holding up a bottle of lavender perfume. "Kaiya's parking the car right now. Once she stops it, step outside and turn yourself back into a disguised human."
Nodding, I waited until Yukio opened the door, then jumped out along with the other Akatsuki members and Akane, who I hadn't seen dive underneath a jacket inside of the car. But then again, Deidara had mentioned at some point that she was scared of being driven around, especially by Kaiya.
After transforming himself back into a human, Zetsu passed me the bottle, which I swiftly caught with my tail. Pressing the nozzle lightly with my paw, I jumped outside and sprayed myself just before throwing it to Deidara, another white cloud rising at my feet.
Once we had all turned back into humans, we all quickly proceeded to don our disguises with the Henge, even though some of the members — mainly Deidara — argued that there was no way anime superfans were going to be up and roaming around at three-thirty in the morning.
However, they all quit protesting once Kaiya apprehended them. "This isn't the time to argue, boys," she warned, before turning her back on them to focus on her little sister. "Let's get my imouto to medical attention as soon as possible."
"Can Tobi hold Kagami-chan again?" I asked the siblings, staring pitifully at the girl's body in Naoki's arms. "Tobi wants to know if Tobi's best friend is alright…"
Naoki looked as if he was about to let out a retort, but Kaiya interrupted him with a nod. Resignedly, he handed his sister to me, and I scooped her up into my arms, checking her heartbeat.
It's slowing, I realized with a gulp. Swiftly, I glanced at the makeshift bandages, only to realize that they were completely blood-soaked, and the red liquid was even dripping slowly from her wounds. That was when I turned my attention back to Naoki and realized that his clothes were slightly stained with blood.
Quickly, all of us rushed towards the building, dodging the cars and signs in our way. The three siblings led the way to the building, being the ones that were familiar with the place. Akane sat in the hood of Deidara's jacket, cooing sadly.
None of us hesitated to push open the door when we arrived at the building, rushing inside. A couple of paramedics passing by in the halls gave the siblings queer stares before screaming at the sight of Naoki covered in bloodstains.
"Not me," he corrected them, pointing to his sister in my arms. "My imouto has been gravely injured."
Immediately after, one of the paramedics pulled out a stretcher, while the other spoke into a phone to inform others about the current situations. Soon enough, more paramedics arrived on the scene, with one of them approaching us and dipping his head politely.
"Can you please explain what happened to her?" he asked, whipping out a pencil and pad of notebook paper.
"My imouto was riding her bicycle late at night and rode right off of a cliff," Kaiya told him, careful enough not to spill too many details about the runaway or our identities. "We noticed that she wasn't in bed, and after searching in our car for a little while, we found her at the bottom of a small cliff."
The paramedic observed Kagami as the other medics wheeled her away, then turned back to us and coughed into his arm. "Well, you kids sure handled this situation quite well. Had you been any later, and...well…" His voice broke.
Nobody needed any clarifications to tell what his implication meant. My stomach began feeling sick, and for the first time in about eighteen years, I felt like throwing up for another person's sake.
"Is she going to be okay?" Yukio questioned the doctor worriedly. "I don't want to lose another member of the family."
"I thought that she wasn't even a member of your family to begin with," said Kakuzu, who had been among the few that weren't as worried.
Kaiya frowned at the man. "It doesn't matter if we're from two different biological families or not, or even two different worlds. Although she can be quite a hassle to deal with at times, I love Kagami-chan to death. No matter what happens or what she does, she is and will always be my one and only little imouto. A world without her would be like a day without sunshine."
"Same here," remarked Naoki, crossing his arms. "I'll admit it: I totally dislike how annoying and pestering that girl's antics are. I swear, there's certain days when she just drives me up the wall, especially since she's been interrupting my sleep by jumping on me. But at the end of the day, even I have to confess that Kagami is a part of the Hoshiyume family. And that's the way that I like it."
Yukio patted his brother's shoulder. "I'm with you, nii-chan. Kagami-chan always brings a smile to my face, and it would be very weird without her in the household. Being around her has helped us all recover with the incident that happened a year ago, and even though she isn't one of those sassy and rebellious teenage boys, I admire her. She can be pretty creative and funny at certain times."
The three siblings went completely silent for a moment, still staring off into the direction where the paramedics had taken their little sister away. I stared as well, my head hung low as I thought about what they had just said.
Did I love Kagami?
Well, it was too early for me to say that about her. I had only known her for four months, after all. And even if I did, it was definitely not the same kind of love that I had felt for Rin. Maybe it was...something that I had never really had the chance to experience.
But before I had time to ponder too deeply about it, I was jolted out of my thoughts by Kaiya, who tapped me on the shoulder.
"Are you coming, Tobi?" she inquired, shooting me an odd look. "We're going to see Kagami-chan off until the nurses and paramedics wheel her into a room."
Briskly, I nodded, then proceeded to follow everybody as they went off in the direction where the emergency room staff had pulled Kagami away on the stretcher. Eventually, we caught sight of them, and we tailed them worriedly until they finally stopped, right in front of Room 487.
Silently, I took a seat on a bench right next to the room, staring at the windowless door that Kagami was being treated behind. One of the nurses must have noticed all of us following them, and like a guard, she stood in front of the door and shook her head.
"We're sorry, kids," she said sternly, "But we cannot allow you to see the patient at this moment. She's in a pretty bad condition as of right now. It's not all that life-threatening, but the doctors need their privacy." And with that, she headed inside the room.
Yukio seemed to be quite upset at this. "Aw, come on! Sure, I can understand the whole family members only thing, but I'm not even allowed to see my own imouto this time?"
"It's for the best," Kaiya answered, gently tugging Yukio back. "Besides, if they decide to do stitches and stuff like that...you wouldn't really want to see the process, would you?"
He rapidly shook his head in fear, then began to turn white.
"Now," said Kaiya, "let's go home. It'll take a long time for the doctors to do their work on Kagami-chan, and even I'm getting tired."
Deidara blinked at her in confusion. "Right now, un? Don't you want to stay with your little sister?"
She shook her head. "It's not like we have a choice here, Deidara. I would love to stay and be there for Kagami-chan, but we can't. The hospital has its rules, and we must follow them, no matter who we are."
He looked as if he was about to protest, but in the end, he accepted his loss and nodded, with a yawn. "I guess so. But when will we figure out when we can see her again?"
"Hopefully soon," she answered, though I could detect the doubt in that remark. "The nurses will call us when we're allowed to visit her in the hospital. It's so sad, though...based on how bad her injuries are, she's going to have to miss her own birthday."
"Oh, yeah," said Sasori, who had been mostly quiet for a while. "Her birthday is the first day of the New Year, isn't it? I'm assuming that if she misses her birthday, then she also misses that holiday, too…"
"Poor thing," muttered Kisame, staring at the door. "Kagami-chan did nothing to deserve this, so why? Why did this have to happen to her?"
It's my punishment, isn't it? I realized, Kisame's statement stabbing me slightly. This is karma's payback after I killed her captor!
Suddenly, Naoki began tugging on my shoulder. "Tobi, come on. We're going home right now."
Defiantly, I ignored the boy and stayed put in the seat. He tugged harder, his teeth grit together as he tried to yank me off of the chair.
"Didn't you hear me?" he scolded me. "Let's go! Onee-chan and the others are waiting for you!"
"Tobi doesn't want to go!" I retorted, slapping the boy's hand away. "Tobi wants to wait until Tobi can go inside!"
Deidara decided to join in. "Stop being such an idiot! Didn't the nurse and Kaiya just make it clear that we can't stay here! If you do so, then you'll probably end up waiting here for a week, at least! Just wait for the phone call, like us!"
I crossed my arms and turned back towards the door. "Tobi doesn't care! Even if it takes days, Tobi will not leave Kagami-chan all alone!"
"But—" Naoki started, but Kaiya silenced him.
"Leave him be," she ordered, grabbing her brother's hand.
Both boys gave her an odd glance. "Wait, are you sure? He could be stuck here for a while!"
"I said, leave him be," Kaiya repeated, as they stared after her in shock. "Tobi has made his decision. I can no longer force him to leave, especially if he cares about my imouto so much."
And just like that, the entire group left, without another word. Not caring, I just continued to sit there, listening to the noisy clamors of the doctors hard at work.
"Now why did you do that?" I reprimanded myself out loud, checking to make sure that nobody had heard me talk to myself. "Why didn't you just go home or something?"
It wasn't that I didn't go home: simply put, I couldn't. Not without knowing that the girl that I cared about was safe.
Yes, I had made the final verdict during the search for the one girl that had just gone and changed my life, just like that. Kagami was very important to me in some way, and if something happened to her from then on, then my life would be affected.
But still, my mind questioned, what's she to you, exactly? If anything, she's not just your best friend, ya know. She's your buddy, your pal, your chum, your playmate… Then again, all of those meant the same thing.
"Kagami-chan…" I muttered weakly, my gaze refusing to let go of the door. "Stay strong in there. You can't die on your family...or me… I...I won't allow it. I...I can no longer accept the fact that you'd even step foot in this place."
My voice trembled, trying to find what to say next. "B-because...you're...Kagami-chan, you...you are—"
Before I could complete the sentence, my train of thoughts was cut off by a scream of anguish coming from the opposite end of the hall. A chorus of wails followed shortly after, and I didn't need any explanation to figure out what had just happened.
The heart of another patient in the hospital had just stopped beating. Although it was probably not the best thing to do, I heaved a sigh of relief, relieved that it was somebody other than Kagami. If the scream had originated from the room that I was sitting next to...well, I didn't want to think about it.
But now that the place had gone silent again, the thought that I had been thinking crept up on me again. And once it finally reached me, I had my final answer ready.
"Because...Kagami-chan, you're...like the...little sister that I never, ever got to have."
Yes, that was it. I liked the ring of it, definitely.
Days passed by like the flies as they buzzed past me, hovering just below the ceiling lights. Throughout that period, the passing families and paramedics kept on giving me extremely odd stares, especially since I hardly moved — scratch that, didn't move — from that one seat. My lips were obviously very parched and dry, but I didn't want to leave the seat. There was only one thing that would get me out.
Kagami.
And yet, nobody seemed to understand. Occasionally, I even heard the other nurses whispering about me in each others' ears, as if this was supposed to be a trendy gossip topic. It was very much my original dream of becoming Hokage, the thing that everybody ignored and therefore failed to understand.
So instead, I concluded that none of them had the courage to fathom what had befallen upon me when I had found Kagami, broken and unconscious, at the bottom of the cliff, with any trace of her smile gone from her face.
Maybe that was why nobody had understood my pain back in the shinobi world, after Rin had died. Nobody had taken the time to comprehend how serious I had been, and perhaps that was why I had killed many people: simply because they refused to understand. If they had understood, maybe I wouldn't have been the way that I was now.
At one point, a father and his son stood near me, holding a bouquet of flowers, most likely for a loved one. When they noticed me sitting there alone on the chair, they stared at me, and I stared back at them for a little bit before I got bored and looked away. But the moment I looked away, they began talking to each other about what seemed to be me, based on the context.
"Otou-san," the boy said, "what's up with that man right there? He hasn't moved from that spot for days!"
So they noticed me after all, I thought, wondering how long I really had been planted to that chair, awaiting the signal. I didn't even notice them throughout the days.
"Stay away from him, son," he warned the boy, holding the boy closer while glowering at me slightly. "You don't know what strangers could do. Perhaps he's waiting for a patient, but maybe he just doesn't get the notion that doctors must do their work in private."
The boy nodded, and after that, they entered the room, not coming out until about an hour later. I did not see the two men come back again.
Not that I wanted them to.
Every so often, like maybe once a day, I heard that scream and chorus of anguish once again. It wasn't pleasant at all, but I tried my best to ignore it, instead focusing on the locked door right next to me.
My stomach tended to growl loudly, protesting against what I was attempting to do. But just like those screams, I ignored it as well, since I did not have the will to eat. At that point, I had already decided that I would have to witness Kagami eating something before I ate something.
In my mind, I was going to make a sacrifice that was worth it. For another person's sake, and not mine.
I didn't know exactly how many days it took the nurse to finally utter the words that I had wanted to hear ever since we had all rushed Kagami to the hospital. But when she did, it lit a small spark of hope inside of me, something that had been pretty much extinguished at most.
"You may go see her now."
Before she had even completed the sentence, I was already inside Room 487, slamming the door behind me. Rushing over to the bed, I checked to see if she was there, gasping at the horrific sight.
Sure enough, Kagami was unconscious on the bed, the heart monitor right next to her beeping normally. There were so many different needles and tubes attached to her body that I felt like vomiting, oddly enough. But still, I guess that it was half-natural for me to feel that way about this, since I was the one who indirectly landed her in this bed.
"That's odd," drawled the nurse, rubbing her chin in curiosity. "She was just stirring seconds ago. But now that she's out cold again, I think that you should just—"
"Please," I begged her, "let me stay. I don't know how long I've been waiting for her outside."
The nurse shot me a worried glance, but in the end, shook her head and stormed out of the room to give us privacy. "Ten minutes," she grumbled, "and then get out. She needs to rest in peace, and I don't mean that she's dying. The patient will be fine."
I sighed in relief, just before noticing the time on the clock, as well as the date on the calendar.
January 1st, 11:50 PM.
It had been three days since we had taken her to the hospital. Kagami had pretty much missed her birthday, just like Sasori had predicted. Only ten more minutes, and it would no longer be her birthday. But even if it did bypass, she would still be a brand new eight-year-old.
Hunching over her, I observed her once more, even though I knew that doing so would only make me want to vomit. The arm and leg that she had likely broken after falling off the cliff were now wrapped tightly in casts, which — to my relief — were not drenched in blood. Her heartbeat had returned to normal again, as shown by the beeping monitor positioned right next to the bed.
The thing that I was most disappointed about, however, was the fact that she was still not smiling.
At that moment, I swore that I finally vomited. However, I didn't throw up any puke at all: the only thing that came out of my mouth was the words that I had long doubted that I would ever say again.
"I'm sorry, Kagami-chan."
And this time, I really meant them.
I didn't feel my hands subconsciously reaching for my mask, but by the time I had realized what I was doing, it was already halfway off. I felt tempted to put it back down, but by then, I no longer had the will to stop myself, just like how I had no will to eat or drink anything without seeing Kagami do those things first.
Not one part of me resisted when the mask finally flew off, landing in my hands like the basketball it resembled. The curtains of the windows were closed, and so was the only door that led into Room 487.
For the first time in forever, I showed my true face...to her. And I echoed the genuine statement one more time.
"I'm sorry."
Can you hear me better now?
"Wake up, Kagami-chan! Wake up!"
My eyes fluttered wide open, and I quickly swung my arms around in slight panic. I was lying on the ground, and I didn't stop flailing them around until I felt them pass through two familiar young spirits, who were calling out my name over and over again.
"Hey, what happened?" I asked nobody in particular, even though I was making full eye contact with both spirits. "I swear, wasn't I just falling...and falling…"
I trailed off, staring at my body and what had happened to it. Very much like my two friends from the Pure Land, I was shrouded in a cloak of stars, which curled into a genie-lie tail near my rear end. When I waved my arm in front of my face one for time, I listened to the stars in that aura twinkle and sparkle loudly, like mini sparklers.
All of a sudden, I turned ghostly pale, recalling what had happened just before I had blacked out. "Wait, let me get this straight...I rode off a cliff and somehow ended up here?"
"That's correct," replied Rin, and Shisui nodded his head in confirmation. "We tried to warn you, but you locked me out of your mind hours earlier, which siphoned away my chakra. That's why we had to interrupt your current dream to tell you what was going on."
"Hold on," I said, observing my current state once more. "Am I dead? I look like a spirit!"
Shisui shook his head immediately, and I breathed out a sigh of relief. "We figured that you'd ask something like that when you opened your eyes, Kagami-chan. You were on the verge of dying, but now that you've been treated in the emergency room, you'll be just fine."
"Phew," I responded. "Say, how did I get to the hospital? There's no way...wait, did Obito take me there? He was the last person I saw before I fell unconscious at the bottom of the cliff."
"Akane, Obito, Deidara, and Sasori found you just before you flew off," answered Rin. "They tried to stop you, but I don't think that you heard them in time and just rode on blindly like that. But yes, they flew you back to your family, and Kaiya drove you to the hospital."
Although I should have probably been more concerned about my own health, I still asked, "Is she alright?"
"Your older sister drove just fine," Shisui responded. "They got you to the emergency room that your sister had been sent to before, and the paramedics arrived almost immediately. You're currently being treated in the hospital with what your world seems to call IVs, and they've also been treating your broken bones."
At that, I gasped. I hadn't remembered it being that big of a fall. "Wait, what did I break?"
"Your right leg and your left arm," Rin continued. "Both of them were twisted quite badly, by the looks of it. The Akatsuki kept the bleeding at bay by using leaves and paper as makeshift bandages before they got you to the hospital. In fact, the paramedic commented that everybody handled the situation quite well, but luckily, they didn't give too much information away."
"Do you know what day it is right now?" I inquired curiously, then sighed painfully. "I wouldn't be surprised if my birthday passed by already, considering how tired my body feels right now."
They nodded sadly. "It's still January First right now," replied Shisui. "There are ten minutes left until the next day begins, so I guess it's kind of half and half."
Suddenly, Rin leaned in and whispered something into Shisui's ear, but I managed to catch something that sounded very much like like, "Should we tell her about him?"
"Who's this boy you're talking about?" I asked, and based on the expressions the two gave me, they had already accepted the fact that they had been caught in the act. Abruptly, and idea popped inside of my head. "Wait, you mean Obito, right?"
Rin frowned, then shook her head. "Indeed, Kagami-chan. Have you had any idea how worried he's been because of you?"
"Not really," I answered, still recalling what had gone down in the alley. "Besides, I doubt he'd do that, unless my speech decided to change him or something."
"I'm pretty sure it did," she responded, crossing her arms and sighing. "I wouldn't know why else he would just sit in the same chair outside of your hospital room and not eat, drink, or move for three straight days—"
"Hold up, what?" I yelled in shock, my jaw landing on the ground with a thud. "He did what?"
"At first, the emergency room staff tried to get rid of him and pry him off," Shisui commented, shaking his head. "But none of them could get him to move even an inch from the chair. He completely ignored his own hunger and thirst...just for your sake."
I felt one of my hands clench into a fist. "That's one of the stupidest things that I've ever heard...but at the same time, so flattering. He did all of that and suffered through those three days...just for me?"
They nodded in unison again. "Yes," he confirmed. "Because the way I've seen it by watching over you two with Rin, your friendship has the potential to be the strongest I've ever seen, almost as strong as how he felt towards Rin before she died. You get off on the wrong foot at times, but I can tell that deep down, you really both care about each other more than most other people."
Is that so? I thought to myself, my eyes sparkling and an embarrassed blush painting my cheeks. If that's the case, then...did I really move him that much with what happened in the alley?
Adrenaline rushing through my veins, I said one statement to both spirits with confidence. "Take me back to the mortal world."
Rin and Shisui shared a look with each other, then smiled at me. "Of course! Obito's been waiting for a long time already, so talk to him. I believe that all he truly wants to see right now is your smile."
With that being said, the stars and clouds began to fade around me, turning dark as my two spirit friends disappeared into the tenebrosity that was engulfing the Pure Land. But for once in my life, I had absolutely no feelings of uncertainty or conflict when I left the heavenly realm.
For once, I left with a large, genuine smile plastered on my face.
A certain heaviness had definitely been frosted over my eyes, since I had trouble opening them. I wasn't sure if it was due to my fatigue or the fact that I had been stuck in a different world for a while, but they definitely felt lie they had been deliberately glued back.
It was just at that moment that I felt the presence of somebody bending over me, and I felt the urge to flinch away. But this time, both the strain of whatever items were plugged into my body as well as the wave of the familiar lavender scent stopped me, though my eyes remained mostly closed.
And that was when I heard his words, loud and clear.
"I'm sorry."
Obito, I thought instantly, with happiness. But why does his voice sound much easier to hear than usual?
Finally, the weight gradually lifted itself off of my eyes, and slowly but surely, they began to flutter open. At first, I could see nothing but a blank white screen...until I realized this was due to me staring at the white ceiling.
I shifted slightly, but kind of regretted it, since doing so sent a jolt of pain coursing up and down my body. But still, it was worth it, because Obito noticed this movement well from where he was standing.
"Kagami-chan," he said, a happier tone returning to his voice, "you're awake."
I was about to respond until I noticed him crystal clear, making me gasp slightly. My gaze then averted down towards his hands, which were now holding his mask. Which meant—
"You took your mask off," I breathed in disbelief, though I knew that I was pointing out the obvious. As my eyes widened and my vision became clearer, I caught a glimpse of his true face. It was lined with many different scars, and his single eye was open wide...or at least, according to what I saw. Where his other eye was supposed to be was an empty slit. At first, I was tempted to question him about it, but remembered the tale behind the mask and recalled how the entire right side of his face had been crushed by a huge boulder.
He simply nodded, and for the first time, I saw his expression: a slight smile. I heard a couple of his face muscles crack, but he didn't seem to care at that moment. And of course, I decided that I had no choice but to smile back at him, with all the happiness that was stored inside of me.
"Happy birthday, Kagami-chan," he said, just before the clock in the corner of the room struck 12:00. "I'm sorry that I'm so late...but we had trouble locating this Lakeshore Avenue that you talked about."
My eyes widened again, but this time, I decided to let it slide. "So you guys did read my diary, then."
"Not them," he responded coolly, "just me. The only thing I told them was that you wrote about where you were going, and that's it. I didn't feel like telling them anything else that you wrote in there."
"So now you know," I responded, then allowed my smile to fade as the guilt welled up inside of me. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, Obito. This is my fault...if I had told you, then this wouldn't have happened."
A silence hung in the air for a moment before he decided to speak up. "I understand. We can talk about it later, once you get out of the hospital. But no, that's not why you're here, Kagami-chan. It's my fault. I was blinded by my desire to carry out Project Tsuki no Me and defend the ones that I cared about, so I didn't realize what I was doing until you finally helped me see what I was doing wrong and how it was affecting you. If anything, you should be receiving my thanks, not guilt."
Some really idiotic part of me thought that it was a lie, but there was no trace of it in his voice. Everything he had just uttered, by the sound of it, was nothing but pure truth.
So in the end, I felt my guilt ebb away, and my smile returned once more. "You're welcome, Obito. But actually, I should be thanking you as well. If you didn't read my diary, then I would probably still be stuck at the bottom of the cliff."
He nodded, and we kept on smiling truthfully at each other. Although I hadn't received a fireworks show or a single physical gift for my birthday, I guess I could say that I had definitely gotten what I had wanted: for Obito to see the truth. It wasn't exactly the ideal gift for a typical eight-year-old, but in my eyes, it was the best gift that I had ever received in my life.
And that's saying a lot, considering how many stuffed animals and toys were piled up in my room.
"Still," he continued, "I have only one more thing to request of you."
Instantly, I froze, then stared up at him in shock. "What is it?"
"Can you refer to me as Obito-nii from now on?"
My eyes widened in surprise, his words echoing through my mind like a cassette tape. I wasn't sure if he had realized that he was asking me to call him my brother, but his voice had definitely sounded serious when he had said that. And deep inside of my mind, a little birdie told me that perhaps it was the best way to thank him for saving me.
Besides, there wasn't any reason not to. Now that I thought about it, Obito really was like an older brother to me, though he was still learning how to be one. Not a single part of me felt like denying it at all.
Smiling, I stretched out my working arm to him, and he returned both the gesture and the expression to me as I revealed my answer.
"Of course I will, Obito-nii."
A/N: And there you have it, folks. This wraps up the arc, though I will focus on what everybody does for Kagami's party at the hospital in the next chapter. Kagami is going to be there for a while, unfortunately. However, I'm going to get back to Kaiya and Deidara again, too. Part of me feels quite satisfied with how their relationship is progressing.
Question: What is your opinion of Kagami and Tobi's friendship? I'm curious.
Until we meet again, my lovelies. Remember to leave a review if you enjoyed the chapter.
— Tenshi —
