Grasping at the Sky

Chapter 19: Healing

The next few days for Kira were spent in an unreal daze of sleeping, pain killer induced highs and seemingly random visits from people. She was rather sure they weren't really random but with the other two things throwing her time awareness off, they certainly felt like they were. She was prone to complaining about it, but was often given the reply that she'd done it to herself.

Because really, she kind of had.

So forcing herself out of bed and onto crutches right away hadn't been her best idea. Launching herself at Gaara had been even worse. It hadn't been realized until a little while later – the pain had been practically numbed due to local amnestic which probably wasn't a good thing when moving around – that in doing so she'd ripped her stitches in her side.

Kira still wasn't who had been more terrifying at the moment of realization: Gaara, or Sakura.

Either way, Kira had basically been ordered to stay in bed, at least until it was safe for her to move around. It was boring and agitating, but she didn't care when she was asleep and the painkillers kept her incoherent enough that she couldn't concentrate long enough on one thing to get annoyed. So her fits of boredom only came after the painkillers began to wear off, and it was never long before they were replaced. She was pretty sure Kankuro found it all a bit too amusing.

Kira decided he was an awful person. He'd agreed with a grin.

Other people had shown up besides the sand siblings to her surprise, and relief. Sakura checked on her periodically, normally with a sand medical ninja in toe taking notes on what would need to be done once they all went home. She never stayed long, just checked on her, talking briefly about how others were doing, what her day was like, and other idle chatter. She normal ended her visit with a shot of narcotics straight into the IV, which Kira was really starting to dislike.

On her second day stuck in bed Tenten and Lee had shown up at her door, looking just as awful as everyone looked these days. She'd been so happy to see them that her inquiry about their teammate had just slipped out, but it appeared it had been the wrong thing to ask about.

Neji had died in the finally battle saving Naruto. Further information revealed that Reiska, the girl she had seen with Neji that day, had died as well in Neji's arms hours before he'd been killed. Tenten had started crying and to her surprise, Lee had kept tight-lipped and pulled his teammate into a sideways hug. Kira hadn't really known what to say other then to point out that at least the two were together in the afterlife, or at least that's what she believed. She had found herself wishing she'd gotten to know the calm jonin a little better, and realized that in the end, she had been rather lucky.

Kira hadn't lost anyone close to her. Gaara's family was fine, as were her teammates from Team Fukurō. She hadn't lost Tenten and while she'd known the rest of the weapon user's team, Kira hadn't known them as well as the girl herself. True, that was only six people in total, but Kira still felt extremely lucky. There weren't many who could say they hadn't lost someone.

Maybe the world had been kind to her, seeing as she had lost her mother shortly before the war had started.

Kira sighed, running a hand over her face, over the stitches there. The person in the chair next to her shifted and drew her attention. Tenten was back again, on Kira's fourth day of bed rest. She'd come back a lot, claiming she didn't have much to do, and Kira supposed that was true, though the girl might have just not wanted to be picked for recovery duty. Watching over a critically injured friend was one way of getting out of that. Kira couldn't blame her; searching for the dead in the miles of terrain that the war had taken place in didn't sound like a much fun.