Light in the Dark

Reconnect

—Kiba POV—

Word of Akari being back in the village, being alive, spread like fire all around us. Some people were confused, some people believed she was the enemy still, and some of us were so happy it was hard to believe that a war was about to begin. We were still preparing the villages before the fight began, so we still had some time. So every chance I had, I was where Akari was being held. Kakashi asked for Tsunade to give me clearance to see her, along with Shikamaru. I think he only did this to make up for the fact he refused to go see her himself.

Akari slept a lot, and didn't really talk much after she got back. Shikamaru said that she was probably feeling a lot of guilt for what she had done, and what she probably had planned on doing. She talked more to him about it than she had talked to me, usually when I came around she just asked for me to hold her hand and not ask her any questions about anything.

I had to admit it annoyed me, and made me feel slightly jealous that she was letting Shikamaru in so much. I mean after all I was her squad member, we went on missions together, we trained together.. I should be the one she is telling everything to. Shikamaru seemed to understand this though, and kept me updated on everything she would talk to him about.

Like the fact that Madara had put it in her head that he had the best intentions for the village, and spun a web of lies to get her to believe him. Starting with telling her a bunch of things about the village to make her believe that she was only a weapon to all of us. According to Shikamaru the interrogation team still felt as though some of her experience with Madara was being left out, but that they had all the information they needed. She wasn't a prisoner anymore, but they still wanted to keep her held here just to ensure her safety from angry villagers just in case.

"Kiba!" Speaking of angry villagers, I turned around to see Ten Ten marching towards me. She was making that scary face, the face that even Neji moved out of the way for. Shikamaru asked him why once, and he said that a woman who was skilled with using sharp objects was not a woman to get in the way of.

"Ten Ten, hey how are you today?" I smiled trying to avoid the blow up that was about to come from her.

"Cut the crap Kiba, I want to see her and I want to see her now." Ten Ten demanded stopping in front of me, so I see she had finally reached this stage. The past few days she had been sweet, then sad, then sweet again.. Now we had reached anger.

"Ten Ten it's not up to me, the only reason I can see her is because Lady Tsunade gave me permission to," I explained for what felt like the hundredth time this week.

"That's good, because she just cleared me to see her as well," Ten Ten said in a matter of fact tone, I rolled my eyes and started walking away.

"You don't understand how fragile she is right now, you can't just go barging in there expecting her to open up immediately she doesn't even talk to me really," I looked down at Ten Ten who was walking beside me, keeping up my pace, "She wasn't even excited to see Akamaru,"

"Kiba, I know she has been through a lot, I'm not going to push her or yell at her, I just want to see with my own eyes that she is really alive," Ten Ten stopped and grabbed my arm to pull me to a halt, "I've spent so much time trying to process that she was dead, and now that she's not, I just need some kind of proof,"

I looked at her for a few seconds before nodding my head.

"I'm heading to grab her some food, wanna tag along with me or wait for Shikamaru?"

———

When Ten Ten and I got to the cell, Akari was asleep on the bed. She looked so peaceful sleeping like that I almost felt guilty trying to wake her up. She was wearing Shikamaru's t-shirt, and a pair of comfy pants that Hana had lent her. The shirt seemed so big on her it almost made her look almost child like.