A shock, like a bolt of lightning, strikes out of the darkness. He jumps, sees the source as it flickers –

Her flame is dwindling.

When Choji returned to the hospital after a long night of restless sleep, he expected to find it much as he had left it: full of a tense silence, but otherwise docile and static.

What he found did not quite meet his expectations.

In the doorway of the room housing Shikamaru and Ino, a team of two medics stood like statues, listening to the orders of a frazzled Shizune. The Hokage's normally immaculate assistant had enormous dark circles ringing her eyes, and her black hair looked windswept. Her eyes swept over Choji as she bellowed orders, but she did not seem to see him. Only when he caught her elbow did she turn to him, her mouth curled into a snarl.

"What?" she snapped. Her expression softened as recognition sunk in, and she hastily corrected herself.

"Forgive me, I'm just a little stressed. What is it, Choji?"

Slightly cowed by Shizune's initial reaction, Choji answered with hesitance.

"I was just wondering what was going on."

Shizune frowned.

"I don't—" Her gaze suddenly became distant, and she yelled an order over Choji's head to a pale mouse of a man who had just come out of the room, who scrambled down the hallway and through a door.

She turned back to him, looking vaguely perturbed.

"What was I saying?"

"What's going on?" Choji pressed; one of the medics ducked into the room and quickly came back out, and as the medic passed him, Choji felt his stomach flip.

"I don't know that I can say, actually." Shizune said, her voice thick with fatigue. Up close, Choji could see that, in addition to the bags that encircled them, Shizune's eyes were bloodshot, as though she hadn't been sleeping.

"But… are they okay?" Choji tried not to sound desperate, but the words squeaked out. Medical confidentiality aside, these were his teammates she was talking about.

Shizune glanced over his shoulder, as if looking for someone.

"You haven't seen Tsunade, have you?"

Choji couldn't tell whether she had purposefully circumvented his question, or just not heard it, but either way, he could tell he wouldn't be getting much information from Shizune unless he helped her.

"I haven't. Does someone need to go find her?"

"Would you?" The relief in her voice was palpable. "We need her here immediately."

No sooner had Choji nodded his agreement than Shizune was practically pushing him out the door, gushing her thanks. In a matter of moments, he was up the stairs and out the front doors of the hospital.

Setting off down the path, Choji could only hope that he would find the Hokage sooner rather than later.

It was a garden. A flower garden. They were six years old, and she was twisting garlands while he lay beneath the tree, his eyes half-closed against the dappled sunlight that filtered through the leaves. The whole place was glowing with the radiance of mid-spring.

She leaned down from her perch on the tree branch and dropped the garland, watching as it floated down to cover his mouth and ears, catching in his dark, tangled tufts of hair. His eyelids quivered and his nose twitched, until one lazy brown eye opened to stare up at her. In an attempt to remove the garland, he disturbed the pollen within one of the flowers, getting it caught up in his nostrils.

He sneezed. She giggled.

"Ino."

The exasperation in his voice only made her giggle more.

"Ino, why can't you just leave me alone?"

She dangled one of her unfinished garlands down toward him.

"Because I like you, and you never pay any attention to me."

The little boy frowned.

"Ino, you know this isn't right. Why can't you just leave me alone?"

And suddenly, the voice had changed, and she wasn't looking down at a little boy, but at a full grown man, and he was smoking a cigarette, and the smoke was stinging her eyes. And she wasn't sitting above him either, but somewhere next to him, or maybe lying down, but she couldn't tell, because her wrist was stinging so badly, and her head just kept radiating pain, pain, pain…

"I-I… I don't know."

"Ino, why can't you just leave me alone?"

He growled the question this time, and it confused and upset her, because why was he growling, what had she done, and wouldn't this pain in her head go away?

"Ino, you have to tell me."

"I can't." She whimpered. "I'm tired and you don't like me anyway. I just want to sleep."

She closed her eyes, and she could almost feel it – the relief of being away from this place of coldness and confusion, back to somewhere that was warm, where the pain stopped and people didn't ask her questions…

"Ino."

It was like someone had touched her arm – she could feel him then, feel him pulling her away from the warmth and the stupor. She wanted to struggle, but something was nagging at her…

"Ino, why can't you leave me alone?"

"Because you're lost, you baka."

Like a bucket of cold water dumped over her head, clarity returned in a flood. Her eyelids flickered open, and she looked into dark eyes that stared back at her with something that passed for relief.

"You can't stay here." He said, as gently as she had ever heard him. "This isn't real."

She snorted.

"None of this is real."

"Real enough," he gestured to her wrist; it was swollen and discolored, sprained if not broken.

"'S your fault." She mumbled, and he chuckled, the sound rumbling in the air around them.

"It's hard to keep control of your mind when you're…" he stopped, and his eyes glazed over for a second, as if he had completely forgotten what he was saying.

"It's troublesome," he concluded, as if there had been no lapse in his words.

Ino felt a savage anger well up within her.

"I need your help, you lazy-ass! I can't do this on my own."

He fixed her with a stare.

"You can."

She didn't believe him, but for once, she didn't feel like arguing.

"You need to get going, though. If you stay here too long…" he trailed off, frowning. "Well, I don't know what will happen. You need to move on."

It took half an hour of searching, but Choji finally spotted Tsunade exiting a familiar door. She was still speaking with Ino's mother as she stepped out into the road, her face drawn. Ino's mother looked as calm as ever, but the lines in her face seemed deeper than the last time Choji had seen her. He jogged the rest of the way down the street.

"Tsunade-sama!" Both women turned at the sound of his voice, and though Tsunade's frown deepened, Mrs. Yamanaka gave a small smile to her daughter's childhood friend.

"What is it, Choji?" Tsunade sounded as weary as Shizune had looked. He was almost too hesitant to tell her what was going on, but urgency won out and he stumbled out the explanation. Tsunade's eyes widened, but Mrs. Yamanaka's face remained a mask of impassivity.

When he finished, Tsunade turned to Mrs. Yamanaka.

"You're welcome to come, if you like."

She considered for a moment, then shook her head.

"If anything happens, you know where to find me. I think it best not to complicate matters, and I've told you what I know."

With a brief nod, Tsunade turned back to Choji.

"Let's go."

By the time they arrived, the chaos had slowed to a crawl, and Shizune looked decidedly less frazzled. She handed Tsunade the chart as they walked into the observation room, and Tsunade immediately set to asking her questions.

Choji, in the meantime, had gravitated toward the window, to gaze on his two teammates. Compared to the last time he had seen her, Ino looked worse for the wear. Shizune had bandaged her head and her wrist, and attempted to mop up the trail of blood that had run down her face. She looked paler than usual. His stomach churned, and it occurred to him that it had been hours since he had last eaten.

"… and she's stable?" He caught the end of the conversation between Tsunade and Shizune.

"We think so," Shizune answered, but there was still a hint of uncertainty in her voice. "Only time will tell."

Choji glanced at Tsunade, the trepidation in his voice belying any attempt at confidence.

"So, we wait?"

Tsunade sighed.

"We wait."

The candle roars back, and he is once again entranced, lulled to sleep by the gentle movement of the flame.

But in the darkness, a distant light is flickering.

A/N: I ought to dedicate this chapter to Shikainoisthebest. Your review pushed me to get my self back in gear and work on the chapter, so thank you.

Thanks also to Medelie, scarlet letters in the snow, A Midsummer, Sayaka M, untouchable hexing witch, Flaming Beauty, FFNRocks, Otowa Nekozawa, The Clawed Butterfly, yellowlightning, Guest, VickytheRandomest, meepers369, and Ann for your reviews. They're greatly appreciated.