It's the itching that brings her around, or the beeping. The confusion is crippling. She spends a long time trying to convince herself to open her eyes, but not quite winning. The tiredness and heaviness and the sticky eyelids scare her. It feels like the day she was born. Again.
The fear ebbs away and she feels… content. She tells herself she shouldn't be so comfortable about dying again, but part of her optimistically supplies, 'Third time's the charm.'
She blinks. It's dark, but she can feel soft bedsheets over the tops of her bare feet.
Ah. She didn't die then. She feels disappointed, then ashamed. Angry. Being alone with her feelings is nauseating. Oh, never mind. She's genuinely nauseated. She feels like she's spinning, so she closes her eyes again. It doesn't help.
She blinks a couple more times. There's a fuzzy grey obstruction on the edge of her vision. Right. Her left eye. It doesn't hurt, but she's not sure if it's even still in its socket. Her entire body feels tingly and itchy.
It gradually gets easier to focus her right eye in the dark room, but her neck is in a brace. She can't lift or turn her head.
There's a rolling over-bed table right in her line of sight, though. It takes a moment to make sense of its contents.
Cards. All handmade. A giant octopus plushie. Lots of flowers. The beeping monitor picks up pace and she squeezes her eye shut.
She cries.
The sun is creeping onto the far horizon when a medic-nin comes in to replace her IV drip and check her charts. They jump when they catch the eyeshine from her single eye in the semi-dark room.
"Good morning, Honōka-kun. How are you feeling? Any discomfort?" Clinical, impersonal—but not unconcerned.
"…"
She knows exactly what they're feeling, but she's afraid to open her mouth. Her heart thumps in her throat, beats coming out deceptively regular on the heart monitor even as she feels sweat breaking out over her forehead.
They don't push her for a response.
They finish checking her charts after another moment and leave as quietly as they came in. Even then, she doesn't relax.
Her tongue feels like it's choking her and she thinks she's suffocating for a while. When she's able to take in a deep breath, she feels dizzy and nauseous all over again. It takes her consciously regulating her breath to fight off the creeping panic attack, and by the time she manages that, there's another person in the room.
She freezes. They have a very… bold presence, and a robust figure.
"Good morning. How are you feeling?"
"…"
Her expression is easy, relaxed, but her concentration is deliberate. A poker face. Honōka's skin crawls.
"Any nausea? Itching? You've been in a coma for five days. It's normal if you feel confused or numb."
"…"
The unfamiliar blond woman checks her charts and IV, heels clicking softly against the floor. She isn't dressed like the medic-nin from before. Honōka's heart picks up a couple beats per minute this time, and she swallows. It draws the woman's attention.
"Relax, kid. I'm Senju Tsunade. Your sensei and me go way back."
Her lips are still moving, but Honōka can't hear her over the rushing blood in her ears. The woman moves closer, one hand glowing green, and her paralyzing fear flares. Fight or flight engages like a dying engine turning over.
The green glow touches the cast on her right arm, and Honōka flares her chakra in response. The two chakras collide and cancel each other out with a loud pop and the woman takes a generous step back, both hands held up.
She's exasperated, partially with herself and partially with someone else—but not at Honōka. Then she's gone between one blink and the next and Honōka forces herself to draw in deep panting breaths. She's finally able to unclench her left hand on the sheets, and she focuses on clenching and unclenching her trembling fingers.
…
"Honōka-kun, Tsunade tells me you are being difficult."
"Sensei…?" she asks.
Just hearing his voice is like hitting the reboot button on her brain. He's close enough to touch. She grabs his sleeve, expecting him to brush her off even as she does. He doesn't.
"You know very well that Tsunade is a medical-nin with no peer."
She nods. Everyone in Konoha knows, and Rin made sure she knew too.
"Tsunade is going to check your injuries now." He says. "Do not fight her."
She focuses on the material of her teacher's sleeve and fights back the hysteria. She does not look in Tsunade's direction, or even in her sensei's direction. Instead, she looks up and loses herself in the minute paint cracks on the ceiling.
Honōka hears Tsunade declaring her hand in good shape. Good does not mean great or perfect, and while the surgery was successful, joint stiffness would not be an unexpected side effect—which may improve over time, or worsen.
The bandages around her head and eye are removed and the trembling returns. She grips her sensei's sleeve harder and endures.
"Anything?" he asks.
Light flicks into her good eye, and then out.
"…no. The eye looks whole and healthy, but the pupillary light reflex is only being triggered by interconnected reflexes."
"What about an eye transplant?"
"A regular eye won't cut it. The only successful whole eye transplants ever recorded have been with dōjutsu bearing eyes."
"…"
"Please do not start a civil war over a single eye, Orochimaru… touching as your concern is." Tsunade sighs. "It's not like her depth perception is totally shot—the brain takes cues from other things, too."
"Her shurikenjutsu is hopeless anyhow."
A sputter from Tsunade. Her sensei is actually faintly amused. She finds her own lips curling up despite herself.
A cool hand rests on the top of her head. She blinks a couple times, eyes dry from going without for so long.
"There you are. How are you feeling, Honōka-kun?"
"Fuzzy. Pins and needles all over."
"That would be the general anesthesia."
She yawns. "Tired. Hungry."
"Will you eat now or after you rest?" he asks.
Her stomach burns—she's that hungry.
"…Now, please."
"Very well. Miso soup with tōfu?"
"And konbu…"
He hasn't lifted his hand off her head, and she hasn't let go of his sleeve. It should be awkward, but she's grounded by the contact. She's never known her teacher to be anything but intense curiosity and equally tense irritation. Right now, he's just… calm.
She thinks if her head weren't so fuzzy, she could delve deeper into the flickering thoughts whizzing beneath the surface. But she's more than content to tread lightly on the surface, for the moment.
A day later she's reading her get well soon cards when Tsunade knocks on her open door. She's in a private ward now.
"Feeling up to seeing anyone?" Tsunade asks. "You have visitors, and they're making a racket in the waiting room."
"…Obito?" she asks. She hopes it's him and not someone else. Honōka doesn't know what she would say or how she would react if it were her family.
"If he's an Uchiha kid, then yeah. He's there with a whole gaggle of brats. They're not all going to fit up here." She says it matter of fact, and also as a cautious reminder about selecting only visitors she's sure she can handle.
"Just Obito." He'll let her know who else is down there.
Tsunade nods. "I'll send him up."
She sits quietly while she waits, flipping through her cards again. There are cards from Asuma and Kurenai, Guy, Rin (Obito signed Rin's as well), Jūn-sensei, Minato and someone named Kushina, and Kakashi. There's a paw print on it and an ugly drawing of what she supposes is a pug. It's unexpectedly cute.
Obito barges in, arms full of treats. He and the others must have been to Akimichi-chō.
"Yo, Honōka! How ya feeling?"
She signs 'so-so' and Tsunade makes an offended noise.
"Whaddya mean, 'so-so'?" the Sannin wheels on her charts. "No patient of mine is gonna be 'so-so', kid. What's bothering you?"
"…my cheek hurts," she whispers.
A click of the tongue that somehow still conveys sympathy.
"I'll add a little something to your IV. Your last surgery was the day before you woke up, so it's really not surprising you're still feeling some discomfort."
Honōka thinks shinobi must have a skewed understanding of what 'some discomfort' is.
"Jeez, just how many surgeries did you need?" Obito grumbles. He's feeling 'some discomfort' from her beat up and taped together appearance. Tsunade gives him a withering glare that dares him to make another comment. She's worried Obito is moving into dangerous territory.
She holds up her casted arm. It covers everything from her elbow all the way to her fingertips.
"This many." She deadpans.
Obito gets her joke and laughs. Tsunade looks at them like they're both nuts.
"I guess I can tell Orochimaru your sense of humor survived."
She spends another week in the hospital. Rin and Obito visit every day. Guy challenges her to a game of checkers and half a dozen other games. Kurenai paints her stubby fingernails when the cast comes off. Asuma and his father visit with a ridiculously expensive assortment of fancy manjū.
Kakashi and Minato visit once, but they're so depressing that she blows bubbles at them until they're coated in slippery chakra-fueled magical spit water. They're too grossed out to be depressed after that. Kakashi makes her promise to teach them the jutsu later.
She doesn't see much of her teacher in that entire week—but she knows he's around. His distinctive intense-like-a-rubber-band-about-to-snap presence brushes along her awareness from time to time.
Then it's time for her to be discharged from the hospital, and she's chewing her lip in a private office with Tsunade.
Then Tsunade hands her a clipboard to sign, and she's confused. She's a minor. Shouldn't her parents be signing her discharge?
"See," Tsunade says, "this is why I keep telling Sarutobi-sensei there needs to be a class on bylaws."
"It would be helpful," she agrees.
"You signed some very long-winded forms when you joined the Academy, and when you took the Genin Certification Exam, you signed some more."
Realization dawns. She hides her face behind the clipboard.
"You mean the Genin Emancipation Act applies to children with legal guardians and orphans?"
Tsunade nods.
Honōka laughs. Somewhere along the line, it turns into her crying.