Chapter 23: Remedy
Sakura opened her eyes and winced as the brilliant flare of light that greeted her. Her head felt like a fish bowl, heavy with little creatures bobbing around inside it. Her right hand felt like lead as she clumsily lifted it to block the sun. Its shadow across her face seemed twice the normal size of a hand and she blearily drew the mass in to focus to realize, somewhat to her amusement, her hand was covered in enough bandages that her hand looked like a mitten.
What happened?
The night before seemed more out of focus than Sakura's vision. It slowly came back to her like a long lost friend. Kyuubi, the pond, the moonlight, Naruto's ashen face all swam into her memory.
The sickening sense of stomach acid bubbling into her esophagus made Sakura gag. She squinted into the bleary pale light around her and realized she was covered in Naruto's yellow sleeping bag, Sasuke's blue one pillowed under her head. Sakura weakly pulled the yellow comforter over her nose. She hadn't ruined it; it still smelled like Naruto, a seasoned smell, like ramen. It went very well with Sasuke's, which smelled sweeter, like week-old cologne. Sakura giggled. Salt and sugar; complete opposites that are at their best when mixed together.
"You're awake." A passive voice resounded from somewhere to her right.
"Sasuke…" Sakura groaned. He voice leapt from her throat as though she hadn't used it in years, hoarse and scaly.
"You gave us a heart attack, you know." Sasuke muttered, annoyed. Sakura's arms shook as she propped herself up on her elbows. She felt a wall behind her and leaned against it. Her head spun like water in a cup.
"Sorry, sorry…" She put a hand on her clammy forehead. Her brain settled back into place and she looked around the room. Sasuke stood against the wall by the window. He looked abnormally disheveled and he oozed of fatigue.
Something squirmed on Sakura's right. Sakura looked down and saw Naruto, curled up on the floor beside her. He lay bathed in the red, orange glow of the dawn; bright rays permeated his skin and lathered him in a cloud-like glow. His hand squeezed the edge of the sleeping bag covering her and he seemed to recede ten years in age.
Cute… Sakura grinned to herself.
"Don't wake him up." Sasuke grumbled. "He finally went to sleep. He was up all night worrying about you, that idiot."
Sakura brushed her fingers over his blonde hair affectionately.
"What happened last night?"
Sasuke's forehead throbbed with the memories of the past night. They peeled like a scab he longed to flick away and be rid of.
Eight hours earlier…
"What!? What do you mean 'Sakura's dead'?!" Sasuke hollered.
Naruto panted and hopped into the room. He swallowed hard and his eyes spun in perplexity. He wheezed in a combination of fear and confusion, globular tears running down his face.
"Meandsakurachanweretalkinginthispondandshesaidshewasntmadatmeandthenshejustkindoffelloverandherhandswerebleedingandshegotreallycold-!!!"
"Slow down!" Sasuke hissed. "I can't understand a word your saying!"
Naruto heaved some more, but rendered unable to speak in proper sentences. Sasuke gritted his teeth and grabbed Sakura's hand. The cold, clammy skin sent shivers up Sasuke's spine and the enormous bruise around the bleeding scar on her palm made him feel sick. Gingerly, Sasuke pressed his finger on her wrist. He heard felt a sound, a swift beat of a heart, but realized it was his own; Sakura's pulse remained empty. Sasuke's mind raced, all the worst possible conclusions filled his mind, when a soft thump sang through Sakura's vein.
"You idiot, Naruto! She's not dead!" He berated.
"Wha..? But I checked her pulse too! And there was nothing!" Naruto cried.
"Well, you obviously didn't check it long enough. She has a pulse, but her blood pressure is extremely low… Um…" Sasuke looked around himself frantically and moved toward Sakura's belongings. He picked up her sleeping bag, untied it and laid it out on the ground.
"Here, set her down." Sasuke commanded.
Naruto complied and dipped Sakura's cold, limp form on to her sleeping bag. She looked positively colorless against the bright red cushioning, completely still except for the gentle rise of her chest every so often.
"Look dumbass." Sasuke pointed down at her. "She's breathing. How could you mistake her for dead?"
"Shut the hell up! It's dark outside; I couldn't tell!"
"Yet you carried her all the way home on your back and never noticed…" Sasuke grumbled.
"What was that!?"
"Nothing." Sasuke walked over to the discarded door and hefted it off the ground. Gingerly, he placed it back in the frame, vowing to fix it later.
Naruto sank to his knees beside Sakura and carefully reached out to touch her hand. The cold, clamminess of her skin made his heart burn. Naruto didn't care what Sasuke said; Sakura looked dead, and that was all it took to make him hiccup tears of shameless guilt.
"If she's not dead, why is she so pale?" Naruto wondered aloud as Sasuke returned from his door escapade and sat on Sakura's other side.
"I'm not a doctor." He muttered.
"Well, we have to do something besides sit here." Naruto screeched.
"There isn't much we can do without knowing what's wrong with her."
"Doncha think we should fix her hands up? They're still bleeding!"
Sasuke rubbed his chin.
"I don't know. I vaguely remember Iruka-sensei saying something about letting wounds bleed if a person is poisoned…"
"Eh?! You think someone poisoned Sakura-chan!?"
"It's very possible; especially if they found out she's from Fire Country…" Sasuke thought about the possibility, and then poked himself in the forehead with his index finger.
"What?" Naruto cocked his quizzically.
"No, I don't think that's possible."
"Why not?"
"Sakura is a medic-nin. A large part of medic jutsu is mixing medicines and developing immunities to toxins. Not to mention, she was trained by Godaime-sama, one of the best apothecaries in the world, I doubt anyone would have been able to poison Sakura."
"Then what's wrong with her?!"
A vein pulsated in Sasuke's temple. Each question dug deeper into his brain like screws, adding to his stressed frontal lobe.
"How the hell should I know?!" He snapped.
"Well, I don't have a clue! You're supposed to be the smart one! You're the one who got the one who always got the highest grades at the academy!"
"Yeah, until my brother killed my family and I stopped caring about junk like practical Ninjutsu or First Aid!"
"You're a dumbass!"
"You're the dumbass! You never got good grades in anything!"
"Shut the hell up! I'm not an idiot!"
"Then you figure out what's wrong with her if you're so smart!"
The flames of Naruto's rage diminished like a candle in the wind, replaced by unbridled panic.
"Um…" He stuttered, his mind flipping through everything he knew.
Sasuke smirked. Not so easy is it?
Naruto rubbed his chin and gave Sakura a long sideways glance. Suddenly, he shot up and patted his fist upright into his palm.
"I know!" He announced. "We should give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation!"
Sasuke nearly fell over.
"W-what!?"
"I shall administer it." Naruto pulled on the collar of his shirt, as his face heated dramatically. He slowly bent over Sakura. His breath danced across her feather-like eye lashes. Naruto swallowed hard, squeezed his eyes shut and lower his mouth toward hers. His lips tingled with anticipation; his mind spun with ideas he'd had since he'd met her: What would it feel like? "Soft like a pillow and fresh like a lemon?" What would she taste like?
Something warm, moist and salty hit his lips and smashed like a rotten fruit against his face. Naruto was no expert, but this was like no kiss he'd ever had before, (even though he'd only had one in his lifetime).
Naruto opened his eyes and found himself smooching Sasuke's hand. He leapt back in disgust, wiping his lips.
"What the hell?!"
Sasuke smeared his defile hand over his pant leg.
"You retard." His face looked like a tomato. "T-there's nothing wrong with her respiratory system. She's breathing just fine."
Naruto eyed him carefully.
"Then what the hell is wrong with her?!"
"You've asked me that three times now!"
"Well, we should at least wrap her hands. She may get an infection if we don't. Maybe there's something n her stuff that can help us." Naruto began to crawl toward Sakura's pack.
Sasuke blinked and gawked at Naruto for a moment.
"Did you just say something intelligent?"
"Don't treat me like an idiot!" Naruto grasped Sakura's red bag and pulled it toward him. He pulled the duffel string open and paused. He felt so dirty going through Sakura's things, Icha Icha Paradise dirty. Naruto bit his lip a plunged his hand into the pack and prayed he wouldn't pull out something he'd regret touching, although a secret part of him hoped he would.
He began to pull out several things: bottles of various sizes, a plastic cylinder of senbon, sterilized needles and thread, a small pack of mysterious paper rectangles, until he, at last, pulled out his prey.
Naruto threw a spool of bandage to Sasuke and the two began work on Sakura's hands, Naruto on her right, Sasuke on her left. Naruto winced as he pulled the white cloth over the purple discolored wound.
"Sasuke, why do you think her hands are all bruised looking?"
Sasuke peered closer at Sakura's hand in his.
"I don't know… They were clean cuts; she shouldn't be bruising. She's not anemic, and these cuts aren't large enough to cause any major blood loss."
"Maybe she's been summoning a lot."
"What makes you say that?"
Naruto held up Sakura's hand for Sasuke to see. Her index finger held a fresh scab; black tissue crusted over the small, round laceration.
Sasuke looked at his own right hand and then at his left. While his right hand contained no scars, a small bite mark resided on the middle finger in his right hand.
Summoning frogs, snakes, and slugs required different things. Naruto only need to draw blood from his finger (typically, his thumb) and slam it against the ground after making the required seals. Sasuke, on the other hand, need to draw a line down the inside of his forearm in blood. He found it easiest to use his left middle finger to do this, hence the scar. Sakura need to the draw a line down the back of her forearm, something she did with her left thumb.
Sasuke looked down at Sakura's pale hand in his. The tiny scar on her thumb glowed through the whiteness of her skin. The discoloration was small; the last time she summoned was months ago, during their fight with Orochimaru.
Then why did she have a fresh cut on her right index finger?
Sasuke put down the bandage wrap and looked cautiously over at the large scroll discarded on the floor. It glared menacingly at him as though taunting him with its secrets. The words "Advanced Bloodline Binding Seal" tempted him like a forbidden fruit. How could lines on the ground contest with his Sharingan?
Above this floated the fear the Sakura had practiced the seal, had used her blood on a technique deliberately designed to disable him, so much blood that she nearly killed herself. Was she that desperate to find a way around the Sharingan eye?
Sasuke bit down hard on his apprehensions, leaned over and put his hand on the large scroll.
"Eh? What are you doing?" Naruto looked up from the hand that had become a mitten thanks to his wrapping.
"I… have a hunch…" Sasuke rolled the scroll toward him and awkwardly propped in upright. Carefully, he peeled back the paper and began to read aloud:
"This seal requires approx. 4 pints of blood and, therefore, is not intended to produce in one sitting if being produce alone.'"
"'Four pints'?" Naruto scratched his chin. "Is that a lot?"
"I think so." Sasuke's mouth moved on its own. His mind seemed numb and distant.
Naruto spoke Sasuke's thoughts, driving a stake of pain and confusion further into his heart.
"Why do you think Sakura-chan is learning the Bloodline Binding Seal?"
"I… don't know…." Sasuke didn't even try to think about it; his mind was too busy feeling betrayed and rejected. "Maybe she…"
"No, you're wrong."
Sasuke looked up, bewildered.
"What?"
"I know what you're thinking. You think Sakura-chan's out to get you. And you're wrong. Sakura-chan would never do something like that." Naruto glared menacingly over Sakura's body and directly into Sasuke's eyes.
"What makes you so sure? Anything is possible." Sasuke looked off to the side.
"I can't believe you! How can you say something like that!?"
"Well, it's not unreasonable!"
"Sakura-chan is our friend. She would never try and hurt either of us!"
"Then how do you explain the seal and Sakura's blood loss!?"
"Well… well... maybe they're for something else! It's probably just a big misunderstanding! I thought she hated me too, but I was wrong! Stop jumping to stupid conclusions!"
-
"Well?"
Sakura's voice transcended through Sasuke's thoughts.
"Huh?"
She looked at him sideways.
"What happened?"
"Nothing." Sasuke looked out the grimy window once more, but the faint yellow sky revealed nothing. He cursed his habit of waking up at dawn. Sasuke and Naruto had argued a little more but, in the end, Sasuke had fallen asleep, something Naruto didn't do until after Sasuke had risen at dawn.
"Really?" Sakura mumbled half to herself. "Surprising… Hey could you pass me that water bottle?"
Sasuke looked up and craned around until his gaze fixated on the small canteen on the floor. He moved carefully around Sakura's sickbed and snatched it up off the floor. He carefully held the clear bottle up and glared at the label.
The transparent plastic had been wrinkled white in some places and the crackled rips of wear-'n'-tear cascaded themselves across the faded brand name, Aqua no Jutsu Natural Spring Water (from the makers of NinCola), like roads on a map.
The label may have said "Spring Water" but the murky substance could have been pond sludge or vomit. The brown liquid swirled grotesquely in the clear plastic and would have made even the largest buffet nut sick.
Sasuke quickly passed it off to Sakura, who took it and unscrewed the cap. Sasuke winced as she put the bottle against her lips and poured some of the swill down her throat.
"Ugh…" Sakura groaned as her tongue savored the flavor and she put a palm to her forehead. Sasuke looked horrified. Sakura chuckled out of spite.
"It's a red blood cell regeneration serum." She explained to his unasked question.
She gave a playfully stern look.
"You did know that's what was wrong with me, right?"
"Yeah…" Sasuke moved solemnly back to the window and squinted at the dawn.
"Well, next time, you should elevate my legs above the level of my heart. It sends most of the necessary blood to more important… Oi, are you listening to me?"
Sasuke didn't respond. His wife-beater undershirt clung to ridges in his back with sweat and the muscles in his neck flexed from behind the small ponytail Sakura had given him when they first reached Sorano.
"Sasuke..?" Sakura ventured, a nervous chill running through her as she sat cast in his shadow.
"Sakura." He whispered as he continued to stare into the dawn. "Why… why were you learning the Advanced Bloodline Binding Seal?"
The question hung in the air like a suicide. Sakura blinked curiously for a moment and pulled her hand across her hair.
"Well… honestly, I don't know."
Sasuke wheeled around. Of all the answers in the world, this was one he least expected.
"What?"
"Well… In exchange for teaching me about Naruto's seal, Satori Kikyou said I needed to prove myself by learning this one. But I don't really know why she chose this particular seal. I mean, it's a hard seal, but it didn't have to be one. I suppose it doesn't really matter. She didn't teach me all that much about Naruto's seal anyway."
Sasuke blinked at Sakura for a moment. The answer held such simplicity, he found it hard to disbelieve.
"Really?" He asked anyway.
Sakura nodded as she ran her hand over her head again. The sickly dizziness had begun to fade from her temple.
Sasuke looked solemnly at the ground. He felt like an idiot for doubting her. Sasuke looked at Naruto's sleeping form on Sakura's other side. The blonde mumbled something incoherent and placed his hand on Sakura's leg squeezing the sleeping bag like a child does to a baby blanket.
Sakura smiled warmly down at him and ran her fingers through his hair.
Sasuke sighed in defeat. He walked to the wall, leaned wearily against it and slid down it, so he was sitting next to Sakura.
"What?" She blinked curiously at him.
Sasuke looked passively at the floor.
"I'm… sorry..."
Sakura looked at him, bewildered and wide-eyed.
"What for?"
Sasuke leaned his head against the wall and let it fall heavily to the side, so it almost rested on Sakura's shoulder.
"Nothing." He muttered.
Sakura listened as Sasuke's breathing grew regular and long winded. She gently pet Naruto's head as she placed hers against Sasuke's.
"Idiot. You thought I was trying to attack you, right?"
Sasuke didn't answer from his sleep and the sun slowly began to brighten the room as it reached into the sky.
Author's Notes: Firstly, I'd like to apologize for this chapter taking so long. I was away for a while... but now I'm back!! WOOHOO! and you guys didn't really think I was going to kill off Sakura (so soon), did you? :P This section took a little longer than I anticipated (I kind of wanted to get to the battle... it'll have to wait until next chapter), which can only mean one thing: I am getting better as a writer! With a closer attention to detail and description, paragraphs are getting longer, which might not be good in this senario.(The story's long enough. I don't need it to be any longer than it is).
A little about this chapter: This chapter was spawned by partly by One Piece, but I won't spoil it for anyone by telling you why. I just thought it would be cool to see what would happen if Sakura was incapacitated and Naruto and Sasuke were left to the medcinal work. I figured all they would do is argue and beat each other up... it was a pretty wild idea, so I sort of toned it down and stuck it in the story. At least it fits well!
One a side note, all that info I got about summoning I took from the manga, so don't sue me! and DO NOT RELY ON THIS AS A MEDICAL TEXT. I know nothing about medicine! Nothing!!!!!! On that note, I'd like to thank YahooMedicine for their easy-to-use database... Great, know I'm doing research... (and how corny is "Aqua no Jutsu"? I'm really sinking to a low... -.-)
Next Chapter: A Battle! I promise! Naruto's final test!