Wildflower Book 1 | Naruto Fanfiction

Chapter4: An Arrangement

It felt like forever had gone by when she finally awoke. Every part of her body was screaming in pain and she could barely move. The silence around her was deafening, overwhelming even. With what she had gone through she had half expected to wake up to the sound of the hurried, nimble footfalls of Anbu as they dealt with the scene.

"She's awake.", a male voice said from beside where Tama lay. He sounded stressed, judging by the strain in his voice. Tama slowly opened her eyes and lifted her gaze. There was a white light overhead that blinded her, she had to wait, blinking a few times as her eyes adjusted. When they did, she found that it was the third Hokage who stood beside her, along with her faction leader, Morino Ibiki. She was in the infirmary, she realised, and she was very much alive.

"Welcome back, Uchiha.", Ibiki chided with a small smirk. Suzume was silent for a while, before breathing out a curt greeting, "Morino-san."

"What happened? Why am I here?", she muttered in askance. There was silence as the two men looked at each other hesitantly. She looked up at the ceiling, eyes stinging terribly.

"There was...", Ibiki began, not too sure of how to explain the events leading up to her current state. Suddenly, he was at a loss of what to say, afraid that he would upset the girl.

"Suzume, do you mean to say you do not remember anything?", the Hokage asked, somewhat at a loss himself. However, it occured to him that she was only coming to terms with what had happened. She was probably in denial.

The girl shook her head slowly, and replied gingerly, "Unfortunately, I remember everything as it happened, up until we got back to the village.", she said as she tried to sit up, but Ibiki was quick to gently nudge her back onto her pillow. Suzume sighed at this, she didn't quite like the idea of being stationary while she was most probably needed elsewhere.
"I shouldn't be here, I should be out there, stopping those two from getting far.", she said impatiently.

"There's only one of them left. Shisui is dead.", Ibiki revealed.

After a brief pause the girl smiled and let out a strained laugh. She said, "Well then, there goes my effort. We can still get Itachi. If you would just let me-"

"I know you don't like this, but if you want to be back in full swing soon, then you'll have to rest as much as possible.", Ibiki explained, cutting her speech short.

Angrily, Suzume remained silent. She thought back to what had happened.

Itachi had mentioned that he left Sasuke to live as well.

With her being the only one left, there was bound to be no hope for him in the future. There was no longer a noble Uchiha clan, let alone a family to speak of. Truly, what Itachi did was so out of character for him and, terrible as it was, she didn't know whether to hate him or not.

Poor Sasuke must have been feeling terrible. The thought of the little boy being all alone brought a certain pain to Suzume's heart.

She placed a hand over her chest and took a deep breath.

A warm liquid had trailed down her cheeks, which she quickly wiped away lest her pride would be hurt. Looking down at her hand, she was met with the sight of a silky crimson liquid that trailed along the folds of her palm.

"No way...", she whispered, shocked, angered and awestruck all the same. A dull ache overtook the entirety of her head, and spots began to overtake her feild of vision. Soon she could barely see a thing as her line of sight was obscured by a foggy barrier. She grimaced as more and more pain consumed her head and chest, not giving her room to breathe.