Back in the hideout, everyone, including Hinata, admitted that Kisame was a horrible cook.
Hinata was in front of the toilet, waiting for the next big amount of pre-chewed food to come out of her mouth. Dinner had been hell, so in the end, much to the Akatsuki's delight, she had made them all food. But since she had still eaten what Kisame made, she had now been throwing up for an hour an a half.
She highly suspected he ignored the recipe instructions and just trusted his intuition, which happened to be... well, pretty awful.
Hinata made a face as her stomach twisted again and she leaned over the toilet, retching.
"Charming sounds you're making, luv," came a voice from behind her.
She whirled around to see Kein watching her with the tiniest of smiles on his face.
Hinata took a moment to understand what he said, and then groaned unhappily. "And here I thought I closed the door..." She made a face. "What can I help you with?"
He walked over and squatted in front of her. "Yep. Time for your first assignment as our new medic," he said happily.
She narrowed her eyes, looking at him in suspicion.
"You need to heal Hidan's broken ribs, Tobi's arm, and Zetsu is blossoming, so... yeah..."
Hinata stared. Blossoming?
But before she could say anything, she found herself being dragged sown the hall to what she guessed was the hospital.
According to what Kakuzu told her concerning Hidan, he could regrow literally anything crazy fast, including any part of his body. "For example," he told her, "once, an intruding muke-nin devised a plan to rip him apart, and did. All that was left was his head." Hinata had gaped at him. "Sadly, he just slept like the lazy ass he is for about five weeks and regrew his entire body."
She figured he'd be fine.
Tobi, however, had gotten his arm infected with ninjutsu-conjured parasites that were eating at his tendons. To her relief, she could see them clearly with the Byakugan, and wasted no time in cutting open his arm.
He had insisted on watching, sounding almost... giddy... and she could have sworn his voice got really dark and serious for a moment. "Tobi has to watch," he had informed her. "Tobi wants to see how Hinata-hime uses the Byakugan." The man chuckled lowly. "Tobi cannot possibly miss the opportunity to observe..." he had stroked her cheek with one thumb, gently-- "...such an impressive lady performing an operation of this caliber."
She had been frozen, her stomach twisting into a tight knot, breath caught in her throat, unable to think, unable to speak, until he had dropped his hand and inclined his head slightly towards her, just enough to be on purpose, then went back to chatting excitedly about squirrels as if nothing had happened.
Maybe she was going mad.
She didn't feel crazy, but it was possible.
The operation was nothing for her, and it was done within minutes. But she couldn't help but think that she had seen a sharingan, if only for a second, peering at her from the single hole in Tobi's orange mask. And another thing- she realized later that she probably would have missed it if she didn't have the Byakugan activated. It made her wonder what else was slipping under Pein-sama's all-seeing eye.
Once he was dealt with, she went and asked Zetsu why he was flowering. He had blushed and muttered something about his mission, saying it was what he ate, but he refused to tell her what. Eventually she just gave up and let the subject drop.
Hinata jumped onto her bed, reminding herself to thank Deidara for lending her his mattress. It was so soft!
She lay there, then suddenly remembered something. She sat up immediately. Kankuro-kun... she thought.
What was he doing?
Was he looking for her?
She didn't know.
Why did she care?
She liked Naruto, but that was one-sided, however much she wished it wasn't.
She sighed and laid back down. She closed her eyes and fell into a deep sleep.