The Balancing Act (Kakashi x OC)

Prologue

Burning. It was all Akari could feel in her body. Her ripped and burned sandals were exposing her already calloused feet to the rough ground of the forrest. Her calves burned with fatigue as she kept pushing herself to continue running. What burned the most though was her chest. Each breath she inhaled was like fire to her upper body, spreading and curling around her heart and lungs and licking its way down to her fingertips.

Akari could hear the distant calls of the shinobi who had burned her village and her clan, down to the ground. She couldn't escape the image of her older sister throwing her body in front of Akari's to protect her from the katana that came down and sliced all the way down her back. Her sister, Himari, held a look of panic and urgency in her eyes as she had used her dying breaths to tell her sister to run as far and as long as she could. With tears streaming down her eyes, Akari took off into the forrest, not even getting a chance to say goodbye to her parents, who had fought to keep their two daughters safe. She never knew what happened to them after that night. She could only assume they had gone down with the village, their bodies disintegrating with the flames.

Akari didn't know how long she had run for. All she knew was that she was starting to become extremely tired, and couldn't keep up at the pace she had been before. The angry voices of the ninjas behind her were starting to get louder and closer. This motivated her to push her little seven-year old self to run as fast as humanely possible in her current condition.

She ran for what felt like hours, and just before she passed out from sheer exhaustion, she could see large gates surrounded by a gray wall up ahead. She used the little energy and chakra she had left to push herself to the gates, where she spotted a blurry image of an older man with spiked blond hair, and three children a few years older. One had goggles on his face, the other boy had silver hair that seemed to place itself despite the laws of physics, and the girl had soft brown hair and kind eyes. As soon as she spotted them, she called out a weak cry for help, then promptly collapsed on the ground. The adult turned towards her with wide eyes, and started running over to her. The last thing she saw before passing out was a blur of yellow hair rushing towards her.

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The only thing Akari could see was the darkness of her closed eyelids. She tried to open them, but found she didn't have the strength yet. She tried wiggling her fingers, but she couldn't even do that. She could hear the faint beeping of a heart monitor, and could feel tape and an IV in her arm, even if she could not move it. As she laid there trying to move her body, the memories from that horrid night came flowing through, and unconsciously her heart rate started to rise as the panic from that night spread throughout her body. She could hear a faint increase in the beeping that she had tuned out when she first woke up, and the increase in sound from what she could only assume was the heart monitor didn't help with her stress. She heard someone run into the room and call for some help. Soon, many voices could be heard in Akari's presence, yet that only stressed her out more. The voices started jumbling together as she felt a cold substance slide from the IV into her arm. Within seconds, Akari's mind went blank yet again.

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This time, when Akari woke up, she could slightly move her fingertips. She went to move her hand completely, but could still feel some resistance from her incredibly sore muscles. Instead of moving her hand, she then attempted to open her eyes. She managed to do that, and looked in wonder at the room she was in. It was white and clean, with various items doctors used for checkups hanging on the walls. She could see the side of the heart monitor to the right of her bed, and looked down to see the IV still in place on her arm.

As Akari looked around the room, the door opened, and in walked what looked like a nurse. She had a kind smile, and her eyes held traces of sympathy as she stared at the small and fragile girl resting in the bed across from her.