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She trekked her way home, her body battered and bloody. Her mission was successful but didn't go as smoothly as planned. She had a hard limp and gripped her forearm tightly where it seeped blood into her ANBU glove from a large gash. It was suppose to be a rather easy mission but no one could have foreseen the infamous Uchiha's appearance. It's sheer luck she was even able to escape with the quarter of an inch of her life that she had left.
Her left eye was swollen cutting her field of vision, the exhaustion making what was left of said vision blurred. She stumbled, her body trembling with the massive amount effort that every agonizing step took. Her lip stung as the perspiration dripped into the split.
She grit her teeth through the pain, groaning from her broken rib with every shallow breath, stumbling through the fatigue to get back to her home village where she could be treated for the massive injuries she had endured. Physically and mentally.
The damage he caused to her psyche alone should have left her brain fried. Running on instinct only to lead herself home she finally collapsed within a few miles of Konoha's towering gates.
Disoriented she stirred in the bed, only to realize she had been strapped down with chakra eating restraints. She ignored the searing pain in her eyes and waited for them to adjust to the blinding light. She swallowed the lump in her throat hard, the dryness of her mouth making it hard. As her eyes adjusted and only a dull throb of pain lied behind she saw familiar assets of the Konoha hospital rooms. Slumping back into the pillow her body relaxed.
After lying there her mind aimlessly wondering a familiar pink haired doctor came in. She heard a slight 'oh'. Clearly Sakura hadn't expected her former classmate to have been awake.
She hurriedly worked over her surprise and was quick to her patients bedside. She examined the monitors silently for a while before doing the vitals check. The only sound was the scratching of the doctors pen on her clipboard and the annoying 'beep beep beep' of the monitors she was hooked to.
Sakura set her clipboard down before shifting over Hinata to undo the restraints. She stretched her long arms out as the chakra slowly filled her limbs again lessening the stiffness in her muscles and joints.
"Why had I been restrained?" She questioned, her voice held a sternness behind the soft and gentle tone.
"The scouters found you outside of the gates they brought you here after noticing who you were. We immediately tried to find out what happened to figure out a treatment plan but you weren't coherent. Your wounds were severe, the chances of survival were very slim. We started treatment but had to have Inoichi Yamanaka pry your mind for Lady Tsunade for the events that occured," she looked at Hinata, a sense of dread suffocating the room.
"What? What happened?" Hinata urged the response.
"Inoichi was put into a coma, he hasn't woke yet. Whoever you came into contact with severely messed with your mind; I say this not only because of Inoichi's current state but because when he failed to extract the details from your mind you attacked us. Or rather, your partner. Several people were injured. We had to sedate you."
Neither spoke for several moments, the air thick as Hinata grasped what Sakura was telling her.
"How long?" Hinata's soft voice was sharp in the quiet tension as she closed her eyes in shame.
"Three weeks and four days," Sakura whispered.
"When can I be released?"
"Hokage's orders; you can't leave until we've completed a seventy two hour watch and you've completed a physical and psychological evaluation after you have woken."
She sucked in a sharp breath between her teeth, her eyes narrowing dangerously on the other kunoichi before replying, "that's too long. I need to get back to work."
The other woman shifted uncomfortably with a sour look on her face and Hinata's pale eyes didn't miss the flash of guilt on her face. She felt her anger boiling with the knowledge the pinkette was hiding something else from her. Her lips parted slightly then flattened into a thin line before she ground her teeth, her jade eyes weighing her options.
With the quick defeat she decided quickly that it was better to be upfront and blunt, "The Hokage has taken you off the ANBU team temporarily. She has already assigned a temporary partner to Sasuke."
Hinata growled inhumanely. The guttural noise caught Sakura off guard but she just assumed it was something the infamous Hinata Hyuga had picked up from Kiba, her dog like partner from Team 8.
To be honest, she was slightly intimidated by the small framed Hyuga. No longer was she a sweet, shy, stuttering mess. Even though her tone of voice was soft naturally, one could not argue with the cold slate of her eyes and the lethal movements of her tightly toned body. To be a match for Sasuke in a two-man ANBU team with a success rate at a perfect one hundred percent she concluded the long haired woman before her had to be poise and deadly. Just like him, just like her once beloved Uchiha. She knew part of Hinata's abrupt and not-so-welcomed change was her own doing and that's what made her inwardly shudder, though she would never show it or admit it out loud.
She was too damn prideful.
"This part of the recovery will be until Tsunade-samma see's it personally fit," Sakura finished.
Hinata's cold penetrating stare and the sudden lack of oxygen in the sterilized room rose goosebumps along her arms and made the hair on the nape of her neck stand. She grabbed her clip-board and quietly left the room, instantly relieved as the door closed behind her.
Shoulders dropping she stared at her limp hands in her lap, lost in thought. Her scrambled and taunting thoughts had finally subsided as the hospitals hallways became quiet, the occasional foot steps of the nurses roaming to check on their patients, the room had become dark with shadows dancing around the room with the soft glow of light coming from a small lamp. The buzzing of the electricity of the lamp nearly swayed her to sleep as she laid back in her bed. She barely heard the door creak as it opened, even the unlatching of the knob went unheard. The soft groan of protest from the metal hinges holding the solid wooden door in it's designated spot brought her out of her half sleep state.
She laid perfectly still; her eye's still shut for an attempt to hear the person to possibly identify whomever just entered her hospital room so late at night. She knew automatically whomever was not a nurse or a doctor to have come in so quietly for the latch to not make the slightest sound or without knocking quickly on the door before entering. Her heart was beating strong and steady in her chest, her breathing shallow to feign sleep as she expanded her chakra to feel the intruders in hopes their chakra was familiar.
Not to her surprise, by the time she had risen from bed with a kunai placed defensively in front of her in a vice grip, he was gone. All traces of his presence in her hospital room erased. She allowed the cold chill to run up her spine, making her outwardly shudder.
