~*~ Chapter 16 - Back On Track ~*~
Yoku's POV
Pain. Sheer agony. There are not really strong enough words, but it is all I have to describe. Almost as if every piece of flesh on my body is torn off, sewn back together and just torn off again. Hundreds of needles dig into my brain. My muscles contract and and expand again. My intestines squirm inside my body.
There is light. Lots of it. For a long time, or maybe not. I cannot tell. The light gives way to white fog. But I cannot move. Suddenly, I am wrenched away again, and everything is black.
I sit upright, my eyes wide open, with a gasp of breath. It feels like the first proper breath I have taken in weeks. I look around me.
I am inside the Akatsuki hideout, in my bedroom. Everything is in place: sunlight is streaming through the gap between the curtains. Zetsu's vine-like plant is hanging above my bed. The partially open closet reveals some of my clothes. The statue Dei-kun made for me is standing on the bedside cabinet. The bathroom door opens and Yume-chan steps through. She walks toward me in silence, and sits on the bed next to me.
"Was it a dream?" I ask, more to myself. But my hoarse, dry throat proves otherwise. Only hours' amount of screaming can make my throat feel like that: I know out of experience.
Yume-chan shakes her head, confirming the hard truth. "You were out for two days after Kakuzu finished ... what do you remember?"
"Not much," I say, struggling to make my vocal chords work. I try to get up, but Yume-chan stops me.
"I'll get you some water. Stay in bed."
My stomach growls uncomfortably, but I pass it off by asking, "How long was Kakuzu busy?"
"Five days."
"What?" I try exclaiming, but it comes out as barely more than a whisper. Yume-chan hands me the glass of water, which I drink as quickly as I can. It offers a few seconds' relief. "It didn't feel like that long."
"I asked Kakuzu for details a few hours after we came back here," she says, "The device was hidden in your intestines. But he didn't know that at first. He said you died once or twice every day. Even he started panicking a little. When he finally found the device, and extracted it, you were dead for almost four minutes, but he finally brought you round again."
I don't know what to say, so I just drink water instead.
"We've all been worried sick. No human body should go through that kind of trauma. Kakuzu said that your chakra somehow kept you from dying permanently, but he can't explain it ... I'll go get you some food."
She changed the subject because my stomach rumbled again. I blush and nod. When Yume-chan exits the room, I lie back down on the pillows. What a month I'm having. Imprisoned, starved, chased, killed, revived ... I pull the covers over my head, enjoying the warmth, and take a deep breath.
My chakra kept me alive ... how is that possible, if the ninjas think that it is abnormal? Are my medical skills finally making an appearance? But why can't I revive a fish, but I can revive a human, myself? It doesn't make any sense.
Nothing makes sense.
Why did we come back here anyway? Does that mean that the Konoha nin aren't after us anymore?
I don't allow myself even comfort in that small, hopeful thought. What if Sakura installed a backup device, should the other be found. For all we know, Kakuzu only needed to perform one more operation after the one on my intestines, and that one would have revealed the backup device.
Or maybe it's not the tracking device that permanently sets the nin on our trail. Maybe it's something else. Maybe one of the nin are spying on us right this minute, and he's just waiting for the right moment to call for backup and attack. They got us every time just as we let our guard down.
I am so immersed in thought that I almost jump out of the bed at the sound of the door opening and closing. I throw the covers off my face, expecting to see Yume-chan ...
"Dei-kun!" I exclaim. I feel as though I haven't seen him in weeks.
"Morning, sweetheart, un," he says, walking toward me.
He is carrying a tray full of breakfast in his hands. He sets in down on my lap, cups my face in his hand and kisses me softly.
"I missed you, un," he tells me.
"I missed you more," I say with a wink.
"Not possible."
I grin and examine the tray. There are five slices of toasted bread on one saucer, several rashers of bacon on another, three baked eggs on another, a glass of milk, and a clay rose in the corner. My stomach gives the loudest growl yet, and a prickle on my head and tailbone tell me that my wolf ears and tail appear from the embarassment, making Dei-kun smile fondly.
"Eat up," he says, "I'm just going to tell the others that you're all right. Brace yourself, though. I've been able to keep Tobi away thus far, but I don't think I'll be able to anymore., un"
I smile and nod, taking a big bite of toast.
Not five minutes later, the door bursts open again, nearly giving me a heart attack, and Tobi, Kisame-sensei and Hidan fight their way in through the door, each trying to get through first.
"Fuck off, bitch!" Hidan is yelling, "I was here first!"
"We all came at the same time, so move!" Kisame-sensei says.
"Hidan-sama, you're crushing my elbow!"
"Then move, you fucking whimp!"
"STOP!" Dei-kun's voice roars from the corridor, and all three men freeze. "Why don't you go in one at a time, un?"
The three men look to each other, look down, and each evidently decides that they should go in first, as each takes a step forward and just gets stuck again. I shake my head dejectedly, my mouth full of bacon.
While Kisame-sensei and Hidan start swearing at each other, Tobi bows down very slowly and cautiously and snakes around Hidan's legs until he is inside the room before getting up again.
"I got in first!" he exclaimes.
Bad move.
"Great Jashin!" Hidan roars, taking his massive scythe from his back and getting ready to swing it. I try to stop him by shaking my hands, facing up, in front of me.
"Hey, hey, hey, put that thing away, un," Dei-kun says.
"Don't you pretend to be the boss of me, you hear? Jashin will have your fucking brain for pudding."
"Well, while he's working on the recipe, why don't you calm down and just say hello to Yoku-chan, un?"
"Fuck you," he tells Dai-kun. I glare at him, and he grins before saying, "Glad to see you up and running, whimp. When are you gonna start training again?"
"Hidan-sama, she's still in bed! That means that she-"
"Is tired, and she just woke up," Hidan finishes.
I don't know what to say. On the one hand, I really want to start training again, but on the other, I know that I am not strong enough yet. Still on another hand, Pein is under the impression that Yume-chan and I are the weakest beings on the planet, so I really, really need to start training again.
At both Dei-kun and Yume-chan's order, I stay in bed for the remainder of the day, and for most of the following, keeping myself entertained by reading about different kinds of water jutsus that are known.
Everyone is training. And I mean, everyone. Even Itachi. The Leader instructed everyone to become stronger than they thought possible of themselves, because he 'cannot waste time with weaklings'. I know he looks down on me, but there's nothing I can do at the moment.
Three days after I woke up, Kakuzu allows me to start using the medical chakra again. Everyone is in the massive training room, perfecting their Taijutsu. Everyone except Itachi and Yume-chan, that is. She's downright awful at using her chakra properly, so Itachi is drilling her to death with using it.
After trying and failing three times, I finally maintain the strange balance between the energies inside me. My hands glow green and I feel a strange warmth emanating from them and into the fish. Suddenly it starts flapping about crazily.
"I did it!" I whisper. I look up, hoping that someone saw, but everyone is too immersed in their own training to pay me any heed.
My disappointment disrupts my concentration, and the warmth along with the green glow disappears from my hands. Panicking, I make a Water Clone and send it out the window along with the fish. Our base is practically right next to a river.
I take a deep breath, ridding myself of the overwhelming disappointment inside me, and continue training. In any case, it's only a fish.
No big deal.