I don't own Naruto!
The Sandaime sighed; he loosened his shoulders and sank slowly into his chair.
The constant worrying and stress from Naruto's condition made him behind on all his paperwork. Never in his lifetime did he think he'd have to deal with something like this.
He was brought out of his thoughts by a knocking on the door.
"Come in"
The door opened and Kakashi stepped in with an apologetic smile, "Sorry to bother you, I was wondering if you wanted to come with me to the hospital?"
Behind his back was a white plastic bag from the local market and Umino Iruka, one of the teachers at the ninja academy
"To see Naruto I presume? What's that you're holding?"
Kakashi looked at the bag and vaguely replied; "A present for Naruto, I'm sure he'll like it"
The Sandaime nodded and lifted himself up from his chair, he glanced at the paperwork that was sitting on his desk and sighed. "I really need to get out of here, some of the jobs I have to do are killing me"
The two shinobi at the door smiled in understanding and started walking down the corridor. Iruka made a mumbling sound and fidgeted slightly as they were walking, the Sandiame noticed the strange behaviour and decided to speak up.
"Is something the matter Iruka?"
Said chunnin gazed up to the Hokage's face with a worried expression and looked like he wanted to ask something. The old man seemed to know what was troubling him.
"Don't worry Iruka, Naruto is still the same joking and energetic boy as he was before. Nothings changed"
This had calmed him down and he nodded, stiffening his back when he noticed they were outside the hospital
"Shall we go inside Iruka-san?" the Sandaime's mocking tone went unnoticed as the chunnin nodded and stepped forward.
…..
"Naruto my boy! How are you doing?"
Naruto jumped at the sudden entrance and darted his head to the door.
Realising whom his visitors where his face broke into a smile.
"Old man! And you brought Kakashi-sensei and Iruki-sensei too!"
The old man smiled and looked at the other guests
"Actually, they brought me, they've been really worried about you and wanted to see how you're doing"
Both men stepped inside the room and took seats, the Hokage choosing to stand by the door.
Naruto slowly reached his hand to the side table and grabbed the jug of water, bringing it close to the cup he was holding and starting to pour it.
"Would you like some water Kakashi-sensei?" he held the cup out in front of him. The jounin did his trademark mask smile
"What's with the sudden politeness Naruto?"
The boy blushed in embarrassment at the question, "I'm just happy to see you that's all"
Reaching his hand out, Kakashi prepared to take the cup from his hands when Naruto's arm suddenly fell limp.
CRASH!
Glass and water fell to the floor underneath his bed, Naruto made a face of shock..
The Sandaime reacted quickly and called a nurse into the room.
"I-I'm really sorry…"
Kakashi rested his hand on Naruto's shoulder as a sign of encouragment.
"Don't worry, it's not your fault. It'll get cleaned up"
This didn't seem to please him as his face went solemn; Kakashi stood up abruptly and walked over to the door.
Naruto heard the rustling of a bag and lifted his head to see what the noise was.
"I brought you a present" giving the bag to the younger boy, Naruto gave a curious look and peered inside.
"You brought me ramen!" he gleefully announced, wasting no time pulling a tub out and looking at the contents.
"I figured you'd get tired of the hospital food"
Naruto smiled shyly and thanked him for the present, proceeded to ask him and Iruka about anything interesting that had happened for the past few days.
Earlier...
"YOU-YOU THINK I'M WHAT? HAHAHA!"
Naruto laughed and laughed, tears were coming out of his eyes and his body was convulsing.
Her whole idea of him being immortal was hilariously disturbing.
Yuki sat there at a loss, she was sure it would be hard to convince him but this worse than she thought.
Naruto choked slightly and started to regain his composure.
"I'm being serious! I over heard two doctors talking about it a few hours ago!" Yuki was starting to get angry and gripped his shoulder in frustration.
Naruto looked at her with amusement but held his breath.
"I'm sure that's what I heard! Please believe me!" they made eye contact and she put on the most serious expression she could muster.
The desperation in the sentence was painfully honest and he wiped the smug look off his face.
"Look Yuki-san, I'm happy that you're worried about me but something as far fetched as tha-"
He cut off mid-sentence and froze.
…He hadn't been eating for two days.
… He never felt tired or sleepy.
What if… they were connected?
Yuki noticed the look that was appearing on his face. Something must have happened.
"What is it?"
Naruto looked fearful and glanced up to her with horrified eyes.
"I… haven't been eating or sleeping"
"Huh?"
The confusion was quickly overcome when it dawned upon her what he was trying to say.
"For how long?"
"…Two days"
Two days? That was quite a long time to go without either of them.
Somewhere in Yuki's head, a bulb lit up.
"That's since the day you where admitted." She mumbled.
"Do you think… that's not just coincidence?"
They both pondered on this for a moment until Yuki stood up and walked over to the bedside table, she opened the draw and started to rummage around. Curious as to what she was doing, Naruto carefully leaned his head over her arm to see what she was holding.
A pen.
He gave her an inquiring look, she turned to stare at him and her face held a look he couldn't quite place.
"We should test this out," she mumbled. She gripped the pen firmly in her hands.
Understanding her intention Naruto choked and tried to move backwards, which was incredibly hard since his muscles didn't respond.
She stepped forward and time seemed to slow down, Naruto knew that while Yuki was quite weak and fragile, there was no way he could defend himself in the state he was currently in.
The next few seconds happened so fast he didn't have time to scream, she grabbed his left hand and with as much strength as she could muster, jammed the pen in Naruto's arm.
Present...
Naruto rubbed the spot where Yuki had jabbed the pen, it was still sore and painful despite there being no mark.
He looked at the tubs of ramen in the table, sighed and pulled the covers over himself.
There was no way he could eat it anyway, he had experimented by asking one of the nurses to bring him some food.
Seconds after swallowing, he had vomited it all back up again, and he was pretty sure it wasn't because of the bad taste.
Alone once again in the hospital room, he found himself wondering about what he should do with his future.
The Hokage had mentioned that the rehab would be hard and take a few months.
And even if had would manage to walk again, what would he do with himself? It seemed like his whole world came crashing down after that one night of pain and agony, a night that had started out perfectly normal.
'So I'm immortal?' he mused.
Surprisingly, he had taken the information quite well, or maybe that was just because it hadn't really hit him not something that he's usually told after all.
Throughout the rest of the day, a single question haunted his mind;
Why hadn't the Hokage told him?
End of chapter
One of the reviews mentioned that the pace of the story was quite slow, any suggestions on how to improve this?
Constructive criticism is always welcome.
MrsKasoogi