Picture is Kakashi
I saw Kakashi stirring out of the corner of my eye, and quickly picked up my clipboard so it would look like I was looking after him, not being forced to wait around in the hospital while I recovered my chakra.
"What happened?" Kakashi croaked.
"A severe wound to the chest, and quite a significant amount more chakra drain than you let on," I informed him. "The mission was a success. Tenzō finished off the last one while you were out, and actually did a really good job taking charge to get you back here."
"How long have I been out?" He put a hand to his head.
"Barely a day," I assured him. "But don't think you're getting out anytime soon; the blade that caused that wound was poisoned, and antidotes are not exactly my forte."
"Miyoshi?" Tenzō stepped into the room. "What are you doing? Sit back down and rest. Good to see you're awake, Captain."
"No, I'm fine!"
"That's what you said before you threw up and collapsed, so forgive me if I can't trust you anymore." Tenzō pushed me down onto one of the beds.
The ANBU hospital was not nearly as luxury as the Konoha general hospital. It was actually just a massive room filled with camp beds where medical ninja with barely any real skill walked around and made sure nobody was dead.
"You haven't actually been looking after me?" Kakashi raised an eyebrow.
"I have," I protested. "I've just been looking after myself at the same time."
"She used up every drop of chakra she had trying to heal you, then decided it was a great idea to use plant chakra. Long story short, it wasn't," Tenzō explained.
"It wasn't that bad." I rolled my eyes.
"I had to carry you here on my back, and you were out cold for most of it. Yes, it was that bad."
"He was out longer than me, though." I pointed at Kakashi.
Tenzō shook his head. "I'm not doing this. Get well soon and all that." He waved without turning around as he walked out.
"He's even sassier than you sometimes," I commented to Kakashi.
"You think I'm sassy?" Kakashi snorted.
"Have you met yourself?" I countered. "There's a reason that your nickname is 'Salty with a chance of attitude'."
"You're the only one who uses that."
"And apparently I'm your only friend, besides Tenzō. And don't do that really mean thing when you say that we're not friends, because even if you don't want to be my friend, I'm your friend."
"I wasn't going to say that."
"Really? Because the impression you give is that you don't want people around."
"That's because I don't."
"You can lose friends, you know," I lectured. "If you don't talk to anyone, they'll grow distanced from you, and it'll be harder to reconnect later."
"You say it like you're sure."
"There are a lot of things I know that you wouldn't think I do," I said quietly.
Most people would have told me I'm not making any sense, but Kakashi didn't. He looked at me sideways, with that look in his eyes that he gets when he's thinking. He didn't press the matter or ask for details, and I was glad, because I wouldn't have told him anything if he had.
"You get chakra drain a lot, don't you?" I said, changing the subject. "I noticed when I was healing you."
"Not much," Kakashi lied.
"You can't lie to me about stuff like this. I can always tell. It's that Sharingan, isn't it?"
"I... yeah," he admitted. "I think it's because it's not originally mine, so it puts a lot of strain on my chakra."
"I can imagine," I murmured thoughtfully. "I might be able to combat that, if I... no, that wouldn't work." I frowned. Was there a way I could lessen the drain on Kakashi's chakra? The obvious answer to me was using my plant chakra, but that had already proven impossible.
Or was it? I thought back on the memory of trying to mould plant chakra to heal Kakashi. It had made me incredibly dizzy and caused me to have severe chakra drain myself, to the point of passing out... but I had managed to fuse some and seal Kakashi's wound, even just a little. Maybe with a bit of practice and some specialised training...
I stood up and headed to the door.
"Where are you going?" Kakashi asked.
"Going to figure out a way to stop the chakra drain."
"Shouldn't you wait to be discharged?"
I snorted. "I'm the most qualified medical ninja in this room. I'm discharging myself."
"Shall I come, then?"
"Absolutely not. You're staying there and you're not moving an inch until I say."
"And you'll know if I do?" Kakashi challenged.
"Barrier tags." I indicated the seals on the floor around his bed. "They'll go off if they sense your chakra signature crossing the border."
"Thanks." I sensed sarcasm in Kakashi's voice, but my mind was racing with ideas, so I didn't bother to waste brainpower on calling it out.
"I'll come check on you in a bit."
"I don't need anyone to check on me." He called, irritated; but I'd already hurried away.
"Hey, where are you going?" Tenzō demanded when I ran into him by the exit.
"Training." I ran past without another word of explanation, thinking over all my ideas and testing the theory in my head. Tenzō called out to me again, but I was long gone. Who cared if I was infuriating the whole squad? This could be a huge breakthrough, if I could get it to work.
I headed out into the forest surrounding the ANBU hospital, decoding to train nearby so that if something went wrong I could get help quickly.
The forest was generally very dark and unwelcoming, and its whole purpose was to keep out intruders. However, with my affinity to plants and my kekkei genkai, I knew that it wasn't half as bad as it seemed. Realistically, it was just because the trees were dark, tall and grew close together that put people off, but I could easily find my way around. There was the occasional dangerous animal or poisonous plant that appeared to be safe, but I knew how to avoid them.
I picked a healthy looking tree to draw chakra from. I felt the now familiar ache in all my chakra points, and sat down to meditate before trying anything else. The ache I felt, I had realised, was what led to the nausea and illness when I tried to use the plant chakra, so this was the first thing I had to deal with.
The meditation was something my father had taught me when I was very young. I wondered if he had taught it to me on purpose, to help me master plant chakra. It was quite simple really; all it was was a chakra exercise, centring and controlling my chakra, moving it around and just generally messing with it.
The stiffness in my chakra points slowly faded as I shifted the chakra around and exercised it. Once I could no longer feel it, I quickly formed some hand signs for a simple Earth Style: Mud Wall. The ground rose up in a wall, but it was somewhat flimsy and smaller than normal. On top of that, the dizziness had returned.
I took some deep breaths, and got my bearings. My head hurt a little, but the dizziness was gone now. Okay, that didn't work. I thought. Let's try again.
Every time I repeated the process, I got much the same result. It felt like I was making progress because the dizziness was getting better, but the logical medic in me said that that was because I was getting used to it. After a while, I started to think that maybe that was the best thing I could do.
It was starting to get late. I decided to take a break and flopped down onto the surprisingly soft grass. As much as this forest was supposed to be dark and threatening, I could look up through the branches of the sycamore above me, and the vivid green hues of the leaves took my breath away every time I saw them.
A helicopter seed drifted down on the breeze, and I watched its spiralling progress to the ground. A tiny smile flickered across my face as I remembered watching them fall to the ground as a child, then picking them up and throwing them in the air again just to watch them spinning.
As it brushed the ground, an idea sprung into my head and the sudden inspiration caused me to sit bolt upright. Of course! I was so stupid for not noticing that!
I absorbed more plant chakra to refill my stores, and started to meditate again. I swirled the chakra around in a spiral, starting slow to nullify the stiffness, then getting faster and sharper. Soon, the chakra was a swirling vortex, so powerful that the ribbon holding up my hair got ripped into shreds, and my ginger locks tumbled down in a messy curtain. I started to form hand signs for the Mud Wall Jutsu, but I kept the chakra spinning. The constant movement of the chakra caused it to stab right into the ground, and as I formed the last hand sign, a huge Mud Wall exploded from the ground.
The chakra that was used forming that one jutsu was enough to cause me to stagger backwards. Panting, I closely examined my handiwork.
The Mud Wall was about the right size, but tapping it lightly, I discovered that it wasn't as solid as it appeared. It also had strange little swirling patterns, which I guessed came from the spiralling of the chakra as I moved it around.
I felt a chakra presence nearby, and glanced up just as Tenzō dropped down from a tree.
"What are you thinking, Miyoshi?" He demanded. "You can't just let yourself out of hospital-"
"Actually I can, I'm the most qualified medic in the ANBU, so technically I'm in charge of that place," I cut in.
"You of all people should know that you're in no condition to be using so much chakra. Is that a Mud Wall Jutsu?"
"Yep."
"How much chakra did you use?!" He exclaimed.
"None of my own," I said proudly. "This was done with pure plant chakra. I finally figured out how to use it properly."
Tenzō sweatdropped. "How long have you been out here?"
I considered for a moment. "Hm... few hours, probably. Not too sure."
"That's it, back to the hospital." Tenzō hauled me into the air with a Wood Style jutsu.
"H- hey!" I struggled against the solid wood trapping me to Tenzō's back. "Let me down!"
"Forgive me if I don't trust you to walk by yourself," Tenzō said dryly. "Honestly, you and Kakashi-senpai are two of a kind; I don't know what it'll take to keep you in hospital."
"I might if you paid me," I commented vaguely. "Or maybe if you used a Barrier Jutsu. That's what I did for Kakashi just now."
"That's a pretty good idea actually."
"Or it would be, except I know how to get out of them."
"Does Kakashi?"
"Oh, SHOOT I didn't think of that!"