So,… 100.000 words and counting, … I can't believe it.
Chapter 46
Asuma hadn't stayed awake for long but it was enough time to debrief him and to get the bad news concerning Anko out of the way. The whole group had breathed a lot easier with one of their comrades having returned to consciousness.
After Asuma's awakening Kakashi had sent Kurenai, Yugao and Genma home to get some sleep and recuperate somewhat from their wounds. Said ninja had only left reluctantly after much cajoling but in the end obeyed their team captain's order.
Left behind with only Gai and Raido Kakashi took the opportunity to write his mission report and stretch out more comfortably on one of the two sofas inside the room. The secure ward certainly had its perks the silver haired Jounin thought idly before letting his eyes wander back to the woman his daughter called 'Anko-baa' and 'Hebi-baa', her skin color had changed for the better in the last few hours. His musings were interrupted when he picked up a familiar chakra signature coming down the hallways and entering the room.
"Hatake, Maito, Namiashi." the gruff shinobi greeted them before he made his way over to Anko's bed.
"Morino." was grunted back by all three of them.
"Any news?" the scarred shinobi continued while he took in his subordinates still form.
"She is most likely out of the woods and the medics are cautiously optimistic but until she is awake and can use her chakra again nobody can say anything about the full extent of the damage." was Raido's answer.
Ibiki grunted in acknowledgment, his body language didn't betray him but all three men were aware that the gruff T&I expert saw something like a younger sister in the snake user. Said shinobi then turned around to send a glance at Asuma.
Without being prompted Kakashi answered, "He is going to pull through just fine; he already woke up and is now just healing." while looking at his unconscious comrade.
"That's good." The T&I head stated before addressing the three awake males in the room, "Be prepared to take on Root members. We are making progress in the interrogation but we aren't sure if we can break that bastard's defenses before his vigilante troop shows up or if they even will show up. Furthermore we have no idea how many of them we will be up against so stay focused."
As an answer Ibiki received grim nods before the T&I expert walked out of the room to return to his work, the interrogation specialist and Inoichi would be stepping up their game in the next hour, they needed as much information as possible and if they had to drive Danzo insane, so be it.
In the early morning hours a steady trickle of high ranked T&I and ANBU members started to visit the hospital room to check on their comrades, they all left after only a few minutes to return to their duties. From the questions asked Kakashi concluded that a lot of wild rumors were going around in the black ops and Interrogation HQs, probably planted to throw off any Root operative from the truth, Kakashi could practically see Inoichi's paw prints all over this the blonde man simply loved his mind games.
Around six am the other part of the Team returned to the hospital room. While Yugao and Kurenai looked a lot better than a few hours ago, Genma was even paler than before and moving in a very controlled and deliberate way. The silver haired Jounin was just about to say something when Tenzo appeared in the doorway. The twenty three year old shinobi came to a halt between both beds and then looked questioningly into the round; it was Kurenai that answered his nonverbal enquiry.
While the red eyed kunoichi was occupied by filling in the wood user about their comrades state Kakashi wandered slowly over to Genma and traced his slightly hunched form with his eyes. The Hatake's decade long experience with similar injuries let him quickly catalogue his comrade's physical state and made him inwardly wince when he came to his final conclusion. The senbon wielder was even worse off than they had feared, with the way he moved he would be unable to train for at least two weeks, barring that the wounds could suddenly be healed by chakra. Furthermore Kakashi expected that Genma would retain some pretty heavy scar tissue from this encounter, keeping the skin limber was going to be a bitch.
Having made his mind up Kakashi murmured, "Genma, you are coming with me." before he turned his attention back to the rest of the room.
Beside him the elder shinobi tensed clearly ready to decline the offer/command but before he could say anything Yugao jumped into the conversation, "Kakashi-taicho is right, you need to rest and you can't really help in your current state."
"Anko and Asuma,..." Genma tried to protest.
"Will be fine. The moment something changes we will inform you." Kurenai calmly supplied while her red eyes swiped concerned over her senpai's body.
"And I will stay here as well." Tenzo helpfully supplied.
"See, everything is taking care of, now come,… you too Gai and don't even try to decline." The silver haired Jounin said with a final air before moving out of the room with a casual wave at his team.
He felt both Gai and Genma follow him and was glad that the non verbal offer of a safe place to stay along with Shiori's food outweighed their pride,… if barely.
Kakashi arrived at his home to the sight of his Genins helping Shiori take care of the breakfast dishes. His beautiful wife nearly dropped the plate she had washed when she saw the three standing in the door but before she could say anything his Genins had noticed him.
"Kakashi-sensei!" came the exuberated shout from Naruto before he ran over.
Unconsciously Kakashi searched the room for Hinako but couldn't find her anywhere which was strange; Hinako was normally awake around this time of the day.
"Mah, mah Naruto, calm down." The silver haired Jounin said amused while he listened to the gush of questions his blonde student had.
"Are you okay sensei?" came now also the voice of his only female Genin, Sakura was looking at him concerned while her arms were held behind her back and her legs were crossed slightly, her body language practically screamed shyness.
"I'm fine Sakura-chan, why don't you guys go out and start with your katas? I will follow in a moment." Kakashi noticed how his voice unconsciously became softer.
Something about Sakura reminded him strongly of Hinako and he had to violently suppress the urge to coddle her, he would be doing her no favors if he did that. His Genin left dutifully and when they heard the back door close Kakashi unmasked hastily and kissed Shiori, the woman in his arms relaxed and let her hands wander softly over his back.
"I'm glad you are okay." was whispered in his ear before her eyes turned concerned to Gai and Genma to check them over.
After taking in their expressions Shiori moved over to them and offered gentle hugs to both of her husband's comrades. She was especially careful with Genma and worriedly traced the bandages peeking out under the standard Jounin sweatshirt.
"How are Anko and Asuma?" she then asked while she hastily moved to a kitchen cupboard and took out the leftover trail mix cookies from yesterday evening.
"Asuma already woke up and is going to make a full recovery,… the medics aren't sure about Anko, she has to wake up for them to give a diagnose." Kakashi offered while he covertly helped Genma sit down on the living room couch.
"How low on energy are you?" the black haired woman asked while she randomly tugged ingredients out of the fridge and the cupboards.
"About half." Gai answered for all of them when both Kakashi's and Genma's mouths were filled with cookies.
"So full breakfast and some heavy duty desserts, right? What about the others?" Shiori said while she counted the fresh fish filets inside the fridge.
"They went home to get some sleep and hopefully ate there." Kakashi replied.
"I'm still going to prepare some Bentos to take with you." Shiori very nearly fretted before she took a deep breath and centered herself, "I'm sorry that I'm so out of it but yesterday was a bit too close for my comfort."
The shinobi just nodded gravely, they completely agreed. Danzo should have never been able to come this close to Kakashi's family. That the old warmonger apparently had been aware of Shiori and Hinako had sent some very unpleasant shivers down the backs of all of them and they were more than glad that that man would never be a problem again.
"Why is Hinako still sleeping?" Kakashi finally asked about his daughter, he could feel her calm chakra signature upstairs in her bed.
"Your team played with her the whole afternoon and she stayed up pretty late too, so letting her sleep is probably the best, I really don't want to deal with her pouting the whole day." The young mother said wryly.
Kakashi just chuckled and nodded before reaching for another cookie.
"By the way, your daughter seems to have developed a fascination with ANBUs." Shiori said out of the blue.
"Oh?" Kakashi asked while he tilted his head slightly.
Why had the ANBU guard detail interacted with his daughter? They normally stayed out of sight.
"You know the tone she uses when she wants to get her way with you guys? Well let's just say she has two new ji-chans that cater to her every wish since yesterday. It was pretty funny, ANBU Jackal looked so out of his depth for the first half hour that I had to concentrate on everything else but the two or I would have burst into laughter." came the giggling reply.
"ANBU Jackal, huh? Interesting." Kakashi said.
He wasn't familiar with that particular operative but his daughter had apparently taking a likening to him so he would have to investigate that particular shinobi.
While Shiori worked Genma felt himself getting more and more tired until he could barely keep his eyes open with a sigh and frustrated teeth grinding he finally said, "I will have to pass breakfast, sorry Shiori-san but I think I need to lie down."
Without even faltering Kakashi's wife smiled at him and said warmly, "That's fine Genma-san, please don't take that the wrong way but you look even worse than the time you stayed here because of your chakra exhaustion, go get some rest. I will put something on the side so if you feel up to it later I can bring it to you. Kakashi can you help him?"
"Sure." Kakashi nodded before helping Genma carefully up.
The senbon wielder grumbled slightly about the indignity but then bit his lip and silently pouted when he only received indulgent and amused smiles from the people around him.
Anko Interlude
She was gasping for air but there didn't seem to be enough available, the snake summoner started to panic her body tightening up and increasing her distress. Where,… what,… when? Anko's body felt lethargic as if her limbs were weighting a lot more than they truly did and there was a dulled form of pain cursing through her veins. Additionally her body felt raw, especially in the neck area,… what the hell had happened?
"…ko,… nko,… Anko!" a voice called out of a sea of fogginess.
Disoriented the purple haired woman tried to move her head in the direction of the sound, her eye lids were too heavy and sticky for her eyes to open.
"Wha,…" her speech was nearly unrecognizable.
"You are fine Anko. You are fine, you are in the hospital." came a voice somewhere out of the mist, who the hell was talking? And why was she in the hospital?
Slowly some of her memories started to surface, everything was still very foggy,… Kakashi,… the Hokage,… Danzo,… ASUMA,… the CURSED MARK!
In the next moment Anko ripped her eyes open and shouted, "Asuma!"
From her side two pairs of hands came around her and stopped her from moving around further.
"Anko, Anko it's fine. Asuma is okay, calm yourself!" the soothing voice beside her ear said.
A quick look to the side identified the speaker as Kurenai, said kunoichi smiled at her gently before easing her back onto the bed,... oh,… ouch,… moving had been a stupid idea. A deep chuckle came from the other side of the room, Anko's gaze landed on the tired form of Sarutobi Asuma across from her who smiled warmly at her. The purple haired kunoichi returned the smile and tiredly closed her eyes before they flew open once again.
"My curse seal!" she shouted panicked.
"Is gone." Raido chuckled beside her, he had been the other person holding her, "Kakashi was able to remove it after Danzo did something to it."
"It's… gone." Anko asked dumbly while now also Tenzo entered her visual range.
Her comrades around her nodded happily while they watched the twenty four year old realize what she had just heard. Unsurprisingly to the ninja in the room a tear escaped the purple haired kunoichi,… and then another and another until she was silently crying while staring without seeing. A nearly silent hiccup escaped her before said hiccup turned into a small giggle that became louder and louder until the woman in the hospital bed was laughing and sobbing in equal amounts. The shinobi around her watched with small smiles on their faces while Anko let go of her emotions for the first time in what felt like forever to the young kunoichi.
After all this years she was finally free!
So I think you are going to hate me for this but I have exams in three weeks, so I probably won't upload a lot.