The Curse Of Hatred ~Book 2~

Chapter 8: I Wish We Could Turn Back Time

"The Elders are demanding to see you." Informed Kakashi by the bed side of Yuzuki. She laughed holding up her chained wrist. "That's a little hard to do." she said laughing. "I'm bed ridden."

"They can wait." Kakashi said as a matter of fact. He leant forward on the bed. He slipped his fingers between hers. She just looked down at their joined hands feeling a warmth in her chest. Like someone laid a hot rock on her chest.

Kakashi opened his mouth to speak. "Did you..." he hesitated. "Did you really see Rin?" he asked.

Yuzuki nodded. "And Minato and Kushina." she explained. "They told me I did good and it was time to rest."

"Obito?" he asked hopefully.

"No." she shook her head sadly. "They said others were waiting. I'm assuming he was one of them. I didn't get that far before I was literally dragged back from the dead."

Kakashi made a sound that resembled a laugh and a cry. "He would have loved to see you." his hand tightened around hers.

"I'm glad I didn't."

Kakashi's head shot up. Confusion was written all over his face. "Why?" he asked. What a silly thing to say, he thought, why wouldn't she want to see Obito?

"Because I wouldn't have come back to you."

His eye fell back to their hands becoming quiet. Yuzuki thought maybe she said the wrong thing. She dipped her head trying to read his emotions. All she received was a perplexing vibe from Kakashi making her feel uncomfortable. She mentally kicked herself for being too abrupt. Yuzuki was never one for feelings; and neither was Kakashi. The difference was that he is okay with expressing them, he was emotional on the inside. Yuzuki was taught to turn her feelings off 'for the sake of the mission' a common phrase repeated by her father and Anbu ninja. They drilled the sentence into her brain until it became her everyday life.

Her mind immediately turned to Danzo to revise everything he ever said, and everything he ever did. She hated even thinking about him. The way he would carry himself when he walked, the look in his one eye when he was displeased and the feeling of disappointment Yuzuki received for failing him, when in reality, now that she was thinking about it, she never failed him. Not once. And he still made her feel inferior.

Yuzuki wished Kakashi would say something to distract her, to make her believe what she said wasn't abrupt. What about what he said in the Land of Waves, when he replied to her grandmother about who he was? Did he mean it or was he just saying things out of grief.

The hospital door slid open and Hiko stood in the entrance. Yuzuki thanked him for breaking the tension in the room. "You have a visitor." he announced and motioned to someone behind the door. "It's alright." he encouraged the little boy. Sasuke cautiously peaked his head around the corner to look into the generic hospital room. Yuzuki was cuffed to the bed with a silver haired boy sitting in the chair.

"Sasuke?" Yuzuki tried sitting up surprised. Kakashi was quick to tell her it was alright and keep still. Sasuke stepped into the room approaching the end of the bed. His little eyes were glossy and red. He rounded the bed to the other side and reached over the mattress with short arms and hoisted himself up. Sasuke said nothing. He just examined Yuzuki and she stared back slightly perplexed.

"Are you alright?" she asked. The boy nodded his head slowly. He was not alright. He was forced to watch his brother kill his mother and father over and over and over. It played in his head like a broken record on repeat. It haunted his thoughts and even his dreams. He couldn't escape it. He wanted to scoop his brain out, wipe it clean and stick it back in.