Insanity's Slip

Chapter Twenty Six

By Boejangles

-/-

"Report," was the short yet firm demand directed at the gray haired male standing in the office.

Kakashi took in a breath and directed his eyes to the Hokage. "Sir, Uchiha Naruto received the curse seal during the second part of the Chunnin exams. During the preliminary fights, he went into convulsions. According to Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura, he had had the same type of fits during the second test. I realized that the curse seal was corrupting his chakara and making it toxic. I proceeded to form a seal around the curse seal to neutralize it. The last I saw, he was still in a deep sleep."

The aged Hokage took in a deep breath before letting it out slowly. Stepping his fingers in front of his face, he frowned at the desk. "The curse seal is Orochimaru's doing, there was other proof that he had infiltrated the village. I just can't put my finger on what he would want with Naruto."

Not having any idea on the matter either, the younger male remained silent.

"Thank you Kakashi. Now, I have something I would like you to do."

Staring down at the slumbering blond, pale hands gripped the bed railing. "Come on, wake up already." The upset boy paused when the small form in the sheets groaned and began to stir.

Bright blue eyes slowly opened to white light. Groaning in an attempt to push the light away, Naruto moved his arm to cover his face.

"You're up, I was so worried. Do you hurt?" came from the almost frantic voice of the dark haired male in the room.

The blond moved his arm to look at the other male in the room. "Sasuke? How long was I out"?

The older male came to sit on the bed. "A few hours. Are you hurting?" he repeated his previous question.

Shaking his head, Naruto moved to sit up. "Where is Sakura, is she okay?"

"What does that matter, you almost died," Sasuke spat out as if it was the most stupid thing to ask such a thing.

Sending a quick glare at his brother, Naruto moved to leave the bed. "She is my sister and she matters to me." The words seemed to condemn the older male for thinking otherwise.

The dark haired boy's eyes flashed as he snapped his arm out and grabbed the blond. "Sit back down."

Ripping his arm out of the grip, the blond growled. "Stop trying to control me. I am going to go see my sister. If you have a problem with that just try and stop me." After speaking the words, Naruto left the room along with a speechless male.

Blue eyes peeked into a pasty white room that contained a strawberry haired female. Slowly inching into the room, he attempted to determine how she was doing. A plastic mask rested on her face and was connected to a green container on the wall. Part of her face was wrapped up in gauze along with her arms. The rest of her body could not be seen.

Once at the side of the bed, he was able to look directly down at the girl. She looked almost peaceful, as if she had simply fallen asleep and not bashed into a state of unconsciousness; though, the black eyes and swollen busted lip distorted that image.

"Hey Nee-chan," the boy's voice squeaked out in almost a whimper. "I…I'm sorry…I'm so sorry that I didn't protect you." His frame shuddered and then slumped over the side of the bed, onto the girl and began shaking. Tears fell down the young boys face as he kept insisting that he was sorry and that he would make it up to the girl.

-/-

A small pale form slid into the room containing one Neji Hyuuga. The male's eyes darted towards the door and glared at the person that walked in. He had a bandaging coming up over his shoulder and securing a bandage to his chest where the kunai had slid in. The medics had managed to suction the blood out of his lung and seal him back up, however it was still painful to breathe.

"What do you want?" the male spat out with enough venom to kill a horse.

The person gracefully made their way to the visitors chair before taking a seat. "Well, during my near death experience I had some time to reflect and reevaluate certain emotions. When I really boil it down, you were never the target of my aggression. If I am completely truthful, I'm jealous that your father died instead of mine."

"Don't you dare say that!" the male growled out as if the matter of fact words spoken before had burned. "I'd give anything to have my dad back for just one more day."

The visitor developed a faraway look. "That's how it should have been; my father dead and with him the constant abuse. With his death the linage of the main house would have fallen on your father's shoulders and then you would have been the heir and I the humble servant. That's really the roles we were destined to play."

"Hinata," Neji attempted to put his thoughts into words, but was having trouble comprehending what the girl had just confessed. It was hard for him to take, because he had hated the girl, because things hadn't happened that way.

"The only way I was able to attack was to make a sacrificial move and imagine your face was that of my father- I'm not fit to lead a clan. However," The pearly white eyes focused on the older male, "you have surpassed where both of our fathers were at when they were your age. You are the rightful heir, yet I have absolutely no power to change our places; trust me, if there was any conceivable way I would take it."

The brown haired boy stared at the girl. There was a small part of him that wanted to hold onto the hate and anger, but the small frame in front of him was that of a lost little girl that was hurting just as much as him. Reaching out his hand he grasped Hinata's smaller hand awkwardly.

White eyes startled open and stared at the hand grasping hers. It was the first touch of comfort she received since her mother died and her sister stopped looking up to her. It was almost unnatural to her now. The feeling caused an emotion chain reaction inside the girl and she began to cry silently as she lost the fight against keeping her brave face.

Looking at the vulnerable form in front of him, Neji hated himself for ever hurting her. He had done the same thing as his cousin; his true object of loathing was his uncle, but he couldn't harm his uncle, so his rage was taken out on the smaller, weaker girl. All along they had shared the same enemy, but instead of uniting together, they slowly worked at killing each other. It was in that moment that the boy's mind was made up- he would never let the small girl before him ever be hurt again.

Wincing against the pain, Neji moved to pull Hinata into his hold. The girl became stock still as if waiting for some sort of underhanded attack. However, what she received was warm breath against her ear whispering, "I'll never let him hurt you again." The girl's eyes widened in shock closed tight as all of her emotions rushed out of her and silent tears became full body sobbing.

A tall male in a white coat walked in on a blond playing with a strand of pink hair and telling some story about obstacles and how they can be overcome. He raised his eyebrow in amusement and then coughed to get his attention. "Sir, I'm sorry, but you are going to have to leave. The little lady there needs to head back to surgery."

Naruto, who was at first startled by the doctor's sudden appearance, nearly became frantic at the males words. "She needs surgery? For what? What's wrong?" the words came out rushed and almost melded together.

The doctor ran a hand through brown locks and offered the blond a smile. "Well she suffered some pretty nasty breaks, we need to go in there and pin them in place so that they can heal properly. Also, her ribs crunched inwards so we need to go in and make sure all of her organs are doing alright. It is really nothing major, just some stuff to make her feel better." The male attempted to placate the boy with his words.

Blue eyes looked down at his older sister. Even though the doctor attempted to make it sound simple, he was worried. Surgery was for seriously injured people and he did not want to think that his sister was hurt that bad. Reaching down, he grasped the girl's hand. "You get better Sakura, we still have so much we need to do together." He gave a slight squeeze to the hand before letting go. He began to walk out of the room, but stopped in front of the doctor. "Take care of her, she is precious to me."

A blond haired boy slid through the front door of his house completely exhausted from what seemed like a month of events and to think in a month the actual fights were going to commence. As a matter of fact, because of the way things played out, he had no idea who he was going to be fighting. He would need to find Kakashi tomorrow and find out. He wasn't quite sure who he would prefer to fight if he were able to choose. He grew up with everyone except for the two nin from sand, oh yeah he would love to get his hands on that red head for what he did to Sakura, but he had this slight sinking feeling in his stomach when he thought of fighting.

Naruto was shaken out of his thoughts when he heard a bang upstairs. Rushing up the stairs he caught the source of the noise. Sasuke was witting on the bed and a suit case was on the ground from where it had either fallen or was thrown.

"Hello Aniki, I didn't know you were home."

Dark eyes flashed up with a glare. "Oh, I'm Aniki now? I thought Sakura was your sister and I didn't matter."

"I never said you didn't matter," the blond protested.

"Shut up, it doesn't matter. I am leaving with Kakashi," Sasuke spat out before turning away from the younger boy.

Shrinking back, the smaller boy bit his lip. "I'm sorry Aniki. Why are you leaving"?

The raven haired boy crossed his arms and looked as if he was debating whether or not he was going to answer. "We were paired to fight in the tournament, so we can train together. Kakashi is taking me to a special training ground. You get to stay here and train yourself." Sasuke smirked and looked at the younger boy. "And while you are doing that maybe you should work on respect. Because, if I come home and you still have this attitude- I will beat it out of you."

Blue eyes stared into the evil glint of his brother's. His body trembled slightly as he took a step back. He was going to get it because of their interactions in the hospital and he didn't even know where that side of him had come from. A part of him feared that no matter what he did, when Sasuke came back home he was going to become a punching bag.

Naruto was frozen in place and mentally screaming, that he didn't notice that Sasuke had moved until he was sprawled out on the ground staring up at the ceiling. He could faintly taste blood; yup the inside of his lip was definitely cut open.

"That was for the back talk earlier. If you don't shape up, you are going to be wishing that I only slap you around like this." Dark eyes looked over the stunned smaller boy before huffing in annoyance and walking out of the room.

The blond laid on the floor and stared up and the ceiling until he heard the front door slam shut. He honestly didn't know how to fix his attitude, because he had no idea where it had come from. Yet, in his mind that wasn't the worst of his problems, apparently he was going to be fighting his brother in the finals. On top of that his sensei was going to be training said brother. Somehow, it felt as if the fates were against him. His mind kept flashing back to what Sasuke had said during the preliminary round when the Hyuugas were fighting and then over all the times Sasuke had crushed him with a single blow.

Naruto lay on the floor staring off into nothing, being haunted by his memories for a long time. The sun had set for a long while before blue eyes finally drifted to a restless sleep.

Sasuke stood there trembling covered in blood. He turned and looked at the older teen. "You! You did this!"

The older one stood unmoving staring back at the younger one without saying a word.

Naruto took a few steps forward, "Aniki stop, please just stop!" He ran and grabbed a hold of Itachi's legs. "Help, stop Aniki." He was almost pleading.

Itachi looked down at his adopted brother and then over at Sasuke, "I'm leaving."

"No! Don't go. Don't leave me." Naruto grabbed harder onto Itachi's legs.

"You! You were working with him weren't you!" Sasuke screamed grabbing the blond hair and yanking back.

Naruto fell forward catching himself with his hands. His five year old frame shook, "No, no Aniki. Please just stop."

Sasuke kicked the smaller boy in the gut, "Shut up! Shut up you don't know anything! He killed our parents and you go to him for help! Traitor!" He kicked him again.

Naruto clutched his stomach, "No. No Aniki. Just stop. Don't hurt anyone else, please stop hurting people."

The dark-haired boy yanked the smaller one up and shoved him against the wall. "I haven't hurt anyone! It was Itachi that did it!" He moved to motion to his older brother only to notice that he wasn't there anymore. "Look at that! You let him get away! You let our parents' murderer get away!" He slapped the blond hard enough to knock him to the ground.

"No! No! You did it." Naruto started crawling away before stumbling to his feet and running as fast as he could, "Don't kill me!"

Naruto fell backwards after running into someone. He quickly shielded his face, "Please don't kill me!"

"I don't want to die!" a young boy screamed shooting into a sitting position. Taking in deep rapid breaths, Naruto slowly realized that he had been having a nightmare and he wasn't actually back there. It had been a while since he had that specific nightmare, that it really hit him hard.

He needed to get out of the house and into some form of fresh air of he felt like he would explode from all the pent up emotions.

The sunlight on his face seemed to be a miracle cure in its self. Slowly all the traces of the past began to fade from the forefront of his mind. A nice bowl of ramen and an hour or so on the swing would be like nothing had happened the day before.

He had almost made it to the ramen stand when a voice made him pause mid-step. "Uchiha Naruto"! The blond turned to the source of the voice. Tilting his head he attempted to remember where he had met the male that was in front of him before. He could very vaguely remember a male in green spandex, but couldn't put his finger on it.

"It is time for our duel!" the male with an unattractive bowl cut declared. Now Naruto remembered, this was the fool that wanted to fight Sasuke so he had to step in. Yet, Naruto couldn't get himself excited over the idea of the fight.

The smaller male moved to scratch the back of his head. "Is there anyway we can do this like tomorrow? I'm not really in a fighting mood."

Naruto watched as the male's face seemed to fall in disappointment. "I was going to go check on my teammate, but we can fight tomorrow."

"You mean the beautiful Sakura?" the male's entire body seemed to perk up with his question. "How is she doing, are her injuries recovering well"?

"That's why I need to go see her; I'm not sure how she is doing. However, my nee-chan is strong I know she is going to be alright," the blond declared with a wide grin.

Lee gave a sharp nod. "That is an honorable reason to postpone our fight. You go check on the fair lady and I shall return tomorrow to see which of us is stronger."

Blue eyes watched the strange male turn and walk away. He really was quite a strange one. Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he made his way to the hospital completely forgetting about ramen or the swing. He spent the rest of the day sitting next to an unconscious girl with strawberry hair and sharing animated stories of the past and future.

The doctors had said that she was in a drug induced coma to allow her body and mind to heal. She had suffered internal trauma along with her many fractured bones and swelling of the brain. However, the doctors were hopeful of a complete recovering. They said that keeping her asleep was a precaution, because too much stimulant could cause a backslid. So, Naruto was content to pray from the deepest fibers of his being and talk to her. Somehow, he believed that even though she was asleep, she would appreciate the company.

A/N: Okay, and that is the chapter! For some reason I can't even find it in me to apologize for it being so long before being updated. Full time College…21 credit hours of college, a part time job, and clinical hours…yeah I feel accomplished just getting anything written. However, -crosses fingers- I hope to finish this story with winter break coming. I don't have any vacations or anything planned but that could change, but this is the hope. So…like always comment away and tell me what you think.