Team Harmony

SFT51: A Choice

When they arrived at the village, Naruto and Hinata were eager for Tsunade to get to the hospital. So much so that she decided to go there before the Hokage Tower to "shut them up" as she put it, as they were basically all but physically pulling her toward Konoha Hospital. She should've gone to Minato first but seeing as Sasuke was being continuously tortured, she decided his was more urgent and she would see the other two since she was already in the building.

After finding out from the front desk where his room was, all four of them headed that way—Jiraiya decided to split from the group to report to Minato. The door was open and Hinata and Naruto were surprised to see both Ino and Sakura standing by the window and replacing the flowers in the vase.

"Ino-chan, Sakura-chan, thank you so much for looking after Sasuke while we were gone," Hinata said sincerely as she bowed her head deeply.

"It was no problem at all!" Sakura said, then she looked over at Tsunade and Shizune curiously.

"This is Tsunade-sama and her apprentice Shizune-san," she introduced. "They're here to help those that they can."

Both girls bowed their heads. "Thank you," they said. Then Sakura was pushing Ino toward the door. "Let's give them some privacy."

"Aww, I wanted to see," Ino mumbled, but let herself easily be pushed out the door.

"Friends of yours?" Tsunade asked as she walked up to Sasuke and took in his features, noting that he resembled his mother, Mikoto, with his soft features and dark hair.

"Yes. They're very outgoing and lovely," Hinata replied.

"They're so loud though," Naruto sighed.

Tsunade raised a brow at him. "That's funny coming from you, kid. You're the loudest person I've ever met."

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Nope. Ero-Sennin is louder than me," he said confidently.

The Sannin thought for a moment before acknowledging that. "Actually, you're right. I stand corrected." Then she put a glowing hand on Sasuke's forehead.

Hinata, though excited for him to be healed and awake, was terrified at how he was going to look at her. Could she handle it? Would it break her? Break them up? Turn his love into hate? She was scared to find out, but she knew this day was coming and she had to face the consequences of her actions and choices. Sasuke couldn't know why. She would have to live with it.

A few moments later, Sasuke was stirring, his eyes opening slowly and squinting at the bright sun peering into the room. Sluggishly, he sat up and looked at the woman next to him before his eyes moved to Shizune, then Hinata, and then Naruto before going back to Hinata.

She didn't know what to do. Should she hug him? Hold his hand? Could she do any of that and did she even have a right to? In the end, she went with her gut and moved closer to wrap her hand around his shoulders with a kind smile. His eyes then moved to the splint on her arm.

"Welcome back, Sasuke," she murmured into his shoulder.

Sasuke sat there, clearly out of it, but didn't push her away as she partially expected him to. It felt like a good sign.

"Glad to see you're up now," Naruto added after a moment. Then he turned to Tsunade. "There's still a couple more people, so let's leave them to it."

Tsunade raised a brow but followed him out a brow. She saw the pain in his eyes and tilted her head just a bit. "Why not stay and catch up?" She asked when they were far enough away not to be heard in Sasuke's room, curious about how this kid was going to handle the situation.