The Shadow on The Sand [Naruto Fanfic]

Chapter 2 - Insomnia

Chapter 2 - Insomnia

Hitori woke the next day at about lunch time. She yawned and stretched happily, feeling lucky that she slept so damn well. Recalling that Gaara wanted to see her today, she got out of the warm, comfortable bed, and had a quick shower before putting on her usual mesh-undershirt, sleeveless black shirt over the top, and a black pair of tight fitting pants that stretched down to her calves. She quickly looked in the mirror, and finger combed her black hair with the various shorter bangs that framed her face, making sure that she looked presentable enough and headed out of the apartment.

She made her way over to Gaara's office, mentally complaining about the fact that she shouldn't have to walk up so many damn stairs so early in the morning. When she was standing in front of the door, she lifted a hand out of her pocket and knocked twice. Hearing a muffled 'Come in' from behind the door, she opened it and her eyes fell on Gaara, who was completing paper work. He looked up at her, and in that moment he faintly reminded her of Naruto.

"Good afternoon." Gaara said kindly, with a shadow of a smile on his face.

Hitori gave a simple sound of greeting and got straight down to business. "You wanted to see me today?" she asked, honestly wondering why the Kazekage had any more business with her. Gaara smirked faintly at her not beating around the bush.

"I was wondering if you would like to continue you stay here for a while longer. I would be glad to let you stay for as long as you please."

"Are you asking me to free-load here for however long I like?" Hitori asked, without letting the surprise show on her face, instead only smirking playfully at her half-joking/half-serious question.

"In essence, yes. Suna owes you a debt for helping, no matter how indirect the context was. And I'm sure Naruto won't mind you being away for a little while." the red-haired man replied graciously, only his eyes showing the faint amusement that he felt at her funnily-worded question, but his expression and tone became more casual when he spoke the last sentence.

"No, I'm sure he wouldn't mind. He has been bugging me to take a break for a while, so I guess I'll take you both up on your offers." the grey-eyed woman huffed faintly in amusement at the memory of Naruto telling her to relax for a while before she had left Konoha a few days ago.

Gaara smiled as well. It had been too long since he had seen his old friend and fellow Kage. "Very well then. I'll let him know. It would be a -"

He was cut off as the door burst open and a random male shinobi began to speak in an urgent tone. "Kazekage-sama! Ashinami-senpai just returned from his mission, and he's seriously injured! He's in the hospital now, but we're not sure whether he'll pull through or not."

"Hai. Please keep me updated on his condition and make sure they do everything they can for him." Gaara replied and nodded once as the man left the room and began running down the hall way, most likely heading back to the hospital.

Turquoise eyes looked up at the black-haired woman standing in front of his desk, and she looked as if she was in very deep thought. Abruptly, she looked up and straight at him for a moment before she spoke.

"Well, I'm going to go check that out, because he's in pretty bad shape. There might be something I can do to help." she said, and pointed her thumb back towards the door where the shinobi was standing only a minute ago.

"O-okay." he stuttered, and watched in silence as she strolled out of the room and he felt her chakra signature head over to the hospital.

When she got into the hospital's emergency room, there was medic-nin buzzing around like flies and all she had to do was follow the ruckus and crowd to find the room that the patient was in. She stood next to the door way and peered inside. The shinobi's chakra was getting weaker by the second, even though there were several medics currently tending to him and doing everything they could to keep him alive. He wasn't going to make it with these canon fodder medical ninja treating him.