Tsunade-sama had been on the road for several months, drinking and gambling and, apparently, getting other villages to agree to terms of friendship with Konoha. The last Hinata had heard, she had been somewhere in Kirigakure, having some sort of drinking competition with the Mizukage. Therefore, she wasn't expecting the former Hokage to be available at such short notice.
She was wrong. Tsunade-sama had the ability to teleport. Somehow. She, according to Shizune-san, always had a Hiraishin kunai on hand at all times, 'in case something happened.'
Hinata dearly wished she wasn't the something that had happened.
The Legendary Sannin, Slug Princess, Godaime Hokage, had dropped everything in Kiri and had come rushing over. For her. She really was no good, no matter what Sakura said.
"Hinata, I heard you have high levels of chlorophyll in your bloodstream?" Tsunade-sama asked, hands on her hips, brows furrowed, scrutinizing every line around Hinata's eyes and the dried skin peeling off her lips.
"Ah...good morning, Tsunade-sama," she said sheepishly. "Sakura-san, I think, wanted a second opinion from you? I'm sure it's just a mistake."
Tsunade-sama said nothing to this, cupping Hinata's face in her hands and pulling down her lower eyelid instead.
"Anemia," she announced. "Sakura's report was right. And leucocytosis, even though you don't seem to be suffering from any infectious disease. Wan face. Uneven breaths. A constant floral scent."
"I...I use floral scented shampoo," she defended weakly at that last point, the only point she could say anything against. The other things were all medical jargon she had no hope of countering.
Tsunade-sama's amber eyes met Hinata's white.
"You're a tough girl, Hinata, but your face is such an open book. It's all in your eyes. Don't worry, I'm here now. They don't call me the Slug Princess for nothing."
The old Hokage patted Hinata's cheek and finally let go.
It's all in your eyes.
That lump. That awful lump constantly forming in her throat. It was back again.
Don't worry.
...That other Hokage, the Hokage of the future, he'd said something like that too, hadn't he?
I'm here now.
Past met future in a gushing, gurgling stream, full of force and vigor in the clear blue sky of the morning.
Only his face wouldn't ever be carved into the mountain.
The hospital's waiting room was cold and drafty, a bleached white with metal folding chairs and glossy magazines on a brittle wooden coffee table.
Sakura grimaced as she ushered Hinata to a seat.
"I know that the metal chairs are uncomfortable, but please bear with us...Shizune-san and I are calculating renovating expenses for our next quarterly budget..."
"Sakura-san, you do so much and think it's so little." There was no need to bring Tsunade-sama all the way over. There wasn't.
"I could say the same about you," Sakura fired back, lips twitching. "I know what you're thinking, 'I'm just no good, having all these people waste their time worrying about me, Sakura should just get back to doing important things, like finding a cure for a mysterious dangerous illness, not watching over me.' Right?"
"I..."
"Well, this is important too, Hinata. You're important, your health is important, and you keep doubting it all the time."
Hinata stared at her skirt, then at her sandals, then at the tiles of the floor.
Sakura persisted regardless. "Naruto...Naruto told you not to get down on yourself, didn't he? He told you not to beat yourself up. That you're strong. So please listen to his advice. Whatever happened in the war, whatever you're blaming yourself for, none of us think any less of you."
Silence stretched on and on, so unlike those forever forget-me-not blue days that she would anticipate with sweaty palms and a racing heart.
"How did you know he said that?" she finally asked.
"He did telepathically connect with us all during the war. I saw some of his memories. Now..." She went back into the pathology lab. "Tsunade-shishou is waiting. I'll call you when we're ready."
Half an hour stretched into one hour, and one hour stretched into one hour and twenty minutes. Sakura and Tsunade-sama had still not returned.
Hinata thumbed through a magazine issue, flicking through celebrity gossip and candid photos. Her eyes caught a flash of blonde upon turning to the middle and she snapped the issue shut, her heartbeats chasing each other.
At the one hour and fifty seven minute mark, the front door of the hospital opened, bringing a gust of wind, stray leaves, and a wide-eyed, anxious Hanabi.
"Nee-sama, there you are!" her little sister bellowed, launching herself into Hinata's arms.
"Hanabi, lower your voice, this is a hospital – "
"Where were you last night? You didn't come home at all after your friend's party, everyone was so worried, you could have told us where – " Her sister paused, scowling. "Ewww, you smell like alcohol. And puke."
"Hanabi – "
"Is that why you're here, nee-sama? Because you got drunk and you were too embarrassed?"
"Hanabi – "
"Ooooh, what does alcohol taste like? I really wanna know, but everyone says I'm too young!"
Sakura poked her head out of the lab before Hinata could even open her mouth.
"Hinata, we have an idea – is that your little sister?"
Another endless stifling silence enveloped the air.
"Nee-sama?" asked Hanabi. "What's wrong?"
The pathology lab was a mess. Random stacks of books strewn around, dusty scrolls, several empty bottles of something strong. Tsunade-sama was not in the room, apparently having holed herself up in a library, trying desperately to understand the problem.
Something hot and spiky shot up Hinata's chest.
A bright flash of yellow.
"So...after several hours of research, shishou and I have a hypothesis about your illness, Hinata," Sakura said, producing a large, thick, yellowing scroll. She unfurled it and in the process released a massive cloud of dust that enveloped the room.
"Well, what is it?" Hanabi asked. "Why is nee-sama sick?"
"We think it's because of what happened in the war. While we were fighting Obito and Madara, Naruto learned how to share his chakra with all us, remember? He split it all evenly, like a massive Shadow Clone Jutsu. But Hinata was the first to receive Naruto's chakra. And he was an Uzumaki, a descendant of the Sage of Sixth Paths. You Hyuuga are descendants of his younger brother."
"So?" Hanabi asked.
"So...when both chakras combined in Hinata's body, there may have been some sort of reaction. I mean, Otsutsuki chakra is extremely powerful. Under normal circumstances, it would augment your abilities significantly. And for a time, that's exactly what it did. Except that chakra changes in response to chemical stimuli too. The Sharingan is activated in response to strong emotion, right?"
"Look, Sakura-san, I appreciate this long, drawn-out explanation and all, but could you just skip to the part where you tell us what's wrong with nee-sama?"
"I just did. Hinata's chakra already changed once, blending with Naruto's chakra. And then...this is just a hypothesis...but it must have involuntarily changed again in response to an emotional upheaval. Shishou and I, we went through so much medical literature. We've gone through about one hundred years of shinobi history, trying to find something, anything, that would cause high levels of chlorophyll in the bloodstream. And we found one case. Just one."
Sakura took a deep breath, running a hand through her hair. The bright fluorescent lights fused with the dark shadows on her face, illuminating all the tired lines on her forehead.
"In Uzushiogakure, one of Tsunade-sama's ancestors. He'd wasted away. Low erythrocyte count. He didn't have any infectious disease, but his immune system was still acting up. It was fighting his own body like an autoimmune disorder. And his autopsy revealed abnormally high levels of chlorophyll."
Sakura paused in her narration, pursing her lips. Hanabi kept whipping her head back and forth like a ping pong ball, face scrunched up in bewilderment.
"His wife, a lady of the Uzumaki clan, was a sensory type. They'd fought in so many battles, side by side, and she was quite the expert at transferring chakra. But in one battle with Iwagakure, she was slain by enemy fire. And this man suffered a severe emotional upheaval."
"Emotional...upheaval."
Something caught in Hinata's throat and slid all the way to her stomach, a lumpen mess.
Emotional upheaval.
She caught his crinkling eye.
He caught hers.
She turned away to hide a smile.
When she looked at him, she always did get an intense feeling in her heart.
"This man had a final, very, very unusual symptom to the bafflement of all. Forget-me-nots."
"Forget-me-nots?" Hinata croaked.
"As blue as the sky above." Sakura gazed at her steadily and for some reason, Hinata could not bring herself to look away. "Please tell me...have you been coughing up flowers?"
A/N: I made up this whole explanation out of thin air...hope it makes sense.
I know the last two chapters haven't been super angsty (needing to move the plot forward as I did), but hopefully that will change in the next few updates!
I would love reviews! :)