Hello! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter.
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Hikaru stared blankly at the large, black dog with a white underbelly that crashed through leaves towards him. It sniffed him cautiously. Hikaru held up his hand for the dog to sniff- there was an eyepatch over one of his eyes.
It was familiar somehow, in a way that Hikaru couldn't quite recall.
The dog let out a long howl, calling something from the bushes. It was a team of three, but his vision was slightly blurry and he couldn't see that far.
Hikaru tensed as they stepped forward, one of them looking vaguely confused. He winced as the dog sniffed at him again, bothering the wound on his shoulder slightly.
He scanned over their outfits- Konoha hitai-ate proudly on their foreheads. There were Inuzuka markings on two of their faces. He froze, eyes narrowing as what looked like the owner of the dog stepped forward.
"Kuromaru, is that-" She trailed off, meeting Hikaru's eyes. "Hey. Who're ya?"
"Uzumaki Hikaru."
At this both--
Kiba? Was that Kiba?
They both stiffened, and Hikaru fought to keep himself upright. He started to stand up, wincing and crumpling halfway towards his accomplishment. The Inuzuka's clan leader rushed forward, hollaring that she needed a medic.
Hikaru hissed through his teeth as she brushed against the kunai on his shoulder, before quite literally lifting him up as if she weighed nothing.
"Konoha shinobi, right?" She looked down at him.
"Yes." Hikaru managed to grind out- everything was spinning and he hurt and there were too much colours-
He closed his eyes, loving the familiarity of being unable to see.
"You better not be falling asleep on me, kid." She muttered as she raced into Konoha.
Hikaru's thin chakra spread somewhat around him, searching for something.
He was dizzy. Now that he'd actually found Konoha nin-- something that made him want to tear up-- his mind was allowing him to actually fall asleep completely for the first time in six months.
"Not fallin' asleep." Hikaru grunted as she took to the rooftops. Hikaru opened his eyes- it was so dark, where was Naruto's apartment?
His chakra made a thin line towards Naruto's chakra, like a beacon. It prodded him awake, and Hikaru saw a light somewhere flicker on.
Hikaru slipped asleep in the Inuzuka's arms.
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He woke up to a steady beeping that reminded him too much of when he'd gotten kidnapped. The next thing he did was open his eyes and attempt to move.
Luckily, he was met with blinding white light and his limbs could actually breathe.
Hikaru glanced down, moving his hands and inspecting the wires attached on him. He glanced around the room- nobody was in here, but there were violet chrysanthemums on the windowsill, arranged carefully in a vase.
Hikaru blinked, and then he blinked again.
He grabbed the cup of water by his bed, limbs shaking heavily, almost spilling it all over himself. He'd never been more happy to taste normal, regular water that didn't reek of salt. He coughed as he drank it too quickly, a small smile on his lips.
He gazed happily at the sky, glad he was put in a room with a window. He could see the light blue sky again and it was the greatest thing that Hikaru appreciated at the moment.
The door opened and his face immediately stilled, his eyes darting towards the door. He moved to sit up, wincing at the movement.
"You're awake." Tsunade said. "Don't sit up, by the way. You'll pull the stitches in your shoulder."
Hikaru glanced over at her, and he softly smiled. "I see. Came here to question me, then?"
Tsunade nodded- it was good to see her, no matter how hurt and pissed she looked.
"Where were you the past six months?" Tsunade asked him. "I sent out teams of Konoha shinobi to search for you- you'd disappeared without a trace."
"I was kidnapped by Kiri." Hikaru murmured, taking another sip of water. "They kept me in chakra restraints and a blindfold, and I didn't know where I was until the third or so month in. When a girl helped me escape and took off my blindfold, I was chased by a team of Kiri shinobi to their shore. I think that I was on an island- the closest to Konoha maybe?"
"Hm." Tsunade quickly wrote all of what he said down. "I expect a full report in two weeks. That should give you enough time to heal. You'll be on mission leave for the next month."
"What about my team?" Hikaru asked, something desperate slipping into his voice as Tsunade stood up. "Are they okay?"
"Shikamaru's a little worse for wear, but he's okay. Choji made it out alive..." Tsunade trailed off, tapping the back of her pen against her chin. "All of Team Seven are chunin now as of last month, and Kakashi's no longer their sensei."
He missed his team becoming chunin.
No no no no no-
"Are you well enough for visitors?" Tsunade asked him as she opened the door.
A tendril of something curled inside Hikaru. "Of course."
"Alright."
Tsunade left, and Hikaru began to prepare himself for whoever would walk in the door next. What he didn't expect was Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto to walk in.
Naruto stood there as if comprehending what he was seeing.
Hikaru's eyes gazed at his team- Sakura had a working prosthetic for her missing finger, Sasuke was somehow missing an arm, and Naruto wasn't missing anything. They'd all grown a little taller. They looked so big now.
They grew up when you weren't looking, Hikaru.
"Sensei." Naruto finally breathed.
"Naruto." His eyes met Naruto's own eyes, before he looked at Sakura, and then Sasuke. "Sakura. Sasuke."
Sasuke was missing an arm. He was missing an arm, and Hikaru should have been there. Hikaru should have been there for them, and if this just hadn't happened, it would have been okay.
A lump grew in his throat as Naruto threw himself at him, and he didn't care how much it hurt, he was laughing softly when even Sasuke rushed to his bedside.
He missed this. He'd missed it so much.
"I missed you." Hikaru said, swallowing the knot in his throat. Naruto released him from the tackle hug he'd given, grinning widely and blue eyes suspiciously shiny.
"We missed you too, Hikaru-sensei." Sakura answered for all of them, smiling at him. "Where were you?"
"I was kidnapped by Kiri shinobi." Hikaru murmured, looking at all of them again. "How have you guys been? You made Chunin?"
Naruto grinned at him, and began to launch into the story. Both Sakura and Sasuke interrupted at parts, and soon Hikaru was laughing.
He missed them so, so much. He was glad that he'd hung on to see them again, just for a little while.
Hikaru stared at the violet chrysanthemums on his windowsill when the team left, all somewhat smiling.
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Ino approached him, another bouquet of violet chrysanthemums and some other flowers Hikaru didn't recognize in her hands. She smiled slightly- her long hair sheared shorter, about to the length his was. It was confusing at first- Hikaru almost didn't recognize her had it not been for her chakra signature.
She looked grown-up, like the short war had changed something in her.
Hikaru was being left behind again.
No. No, he wasn't and he couldn't be.
"Ino. How are you?" He greeted her when he'd found his voice.
Ino turned towards him, her visible light blue eye filled with surprise. "Hikaru-san! I'm doing good, sorry, it's my shift right now."
"You work at the hospital?" Hikaru found himself saying, and he watched her smile widely.
"Yep! I'm a med-nin in training, right next to Forehead!" Ino's voice was chipper, a strange tone that Hikaru wasn't used to hearing. "I've only just started, though, so I go out on missions with Shikamaru and Choji still."
"That's good." Hikaru muttered. "What about Asuma?"
Her demeanor darkened, and she shifted after placing the violet chrysanthemums on the windowsill. "A-ah, uhm, Asuma-sensei died at the end of the war."
He hadn't changed a thing, did he? Hikaru just made it worse, he made his team go through war, made them go through hell and back and Sasuke was missing his arm and it never would have happened had it not been for Hikaru.
"I'm sorry for your loss." Hikaru's voice said, but Hikaru didn't feel like he was saying it. He'd said it so, so many times during the war that he'd overused the phrase.
"It's okay." Ino smiled at him, but the smile didn't quite fit in with her flat expression. "I'm glad you're awake, Hikaru-san. I know Team Seven has missed you quite a lot. Did Kakashi-senpai stop by yet?"
"No." Hikaru forced himself to say uncaringly, worry biting at him. "Naruto told me that he was on a mission."
Hikaru couldn't really breathe- his breath had caught in his throat and he forced himself to cough to dislodge it. He'd wanted to see Kakashi, but he didn't really know how he'd be able to face him. He'd failed their team- all of them were even more traumatized from a war that he could've stopped.
You went out like a hurricane, at least. The voice contributed dryly.
"No. Kakashi-senpai's around- Hokage-sama told me that he was on mission leave." Ino grinned down at him. "Have a good rest of your day, Hikaru-san!"
And then she left him with violet chrysanthemums on the windowsill and trembling breath.
___
There was nothing that could be done about the darkness of his room at night. There was light streaming through the hallway, sure, but it didn't help the shadows that connected themselves to form different people.
The first one was Yuu.
Her betrayal stung at Hikaru, now that he reflected on it. It wasn't a betrayal, exactly, but it still hurt for no reason other than that she was the only one that was kind to him for awhile.
The second shadow that formed was Sasuke and Sakura- from his timeline.
Hikaru missed them. He wanted to go back, vent about how he'd ruined this world too, about how his genin-- chunin now, actually-- were traumatized and had already been through everything he'd sworn to keep them from.
But he could never get them back.
And it was mildly angering, but the more he thought about it the more he wished he hadn't come here at all. If he just hadn't come here, then there wouldn't be ghostly fingertips digging harshly into his thighs, a reminder of him being stupidly weak.
Hikaru sighed softly.
He didn't actually want to leave, though. He wanted to stay more than anything, see what else happened with this cursed timeline before fully deciding. They needed him still, after all.
And maybe some other things were keeping him here.
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Hello! So this chapter was an utter pain to write- I didn't know much about hospitals so I had to research. That lead me down the rabbit hole of flower meanings, which eventually lead to working on other chapters as well as foreshadowing, and then that lead me down the larger rabbit hole of the background in Naruto. All in all, this chapter was worked on for far longer than it should have been.
Next chapter will be fun, I promise. This one's mildly a filler, but not quite.
(01/18/2021 note: I almost forgot to update, so have a double update to make up for me almost forgetting to update. I don't know how it works but it works now.)
Original: 11/29/2020
Edited: 1/18/2021
This chapter contains 1955 words!
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