Impossible to Foretell

Chapter 38: A Past Injury

Leaves rustled a little bit by my head as I was drawn from the tiny nap that I had started taking in the shade of my tree while we waited for the hideout to be cleared. I felt guilty about sleeping through this, but I hadn't slept a wink the night before and even I can't go forty-eight plus hours with only two hours of sleep and not take a nap of some sort. A wee bit disoriented, I watched as the blurry form standing above me came into focus.

"Kabuto?"

"Hello down there." He waved.

Anzu piped up from the tree that she was leaning against, "You know, creepy dude, you shouldn't wake people up when they're getting some much needed sleep." I had a feeling that she wasn't chastising him for waking me up. She hadn't slept either last night.

He sighed and sat down with us, and the part of my brain that wasn't shut down from the pain in my hip was trying to come to terms with the fact that this was the same Kabuto Yakushi that I had heard about during the war. It was a lot to wrap my head around.

"Kakashi sent me a messenger when he left the village to retrieve you."

I pulled the back of my hand across my eyes, "That was wise of him."

"Yes. I'm here to bring any of the younger victims who have no place left to go to my orphanage."

"That makes sense. It's a much nicer place than that hole in the ground that they're in right now."

"I'd hope so. I've put a lot of effort into making my orphanage the best, and to have it compared to one of Lord Orochimaru's old hideouts would be quite insulting."

"I can see how that'd be the case." I groaned as another wave of pain radiated from my hip, momentarily turning my vision pure white. "Damn it."

"Are you injured?"

I winced, "I guess that you could say that. However, this isn't really from this battle. It's a remnant of the Fourth Great Ninja War. I took a sword to the hip from a reanimated shinobi, and it did a lot of damage. I, uh, really didn't help it, though, when I opened up the First Gate during the last battle. In all honesty, I'll be surprised if I walk again after this."

"I'm so sorry." The amount of self loathing in Kabuto's eyes caught me off guard. Why? Oh... Crap, now I felt like a horrible person. Kabuto had been the one in control of the reanimation jutsu during the war. I had pretty much just told him that I'd never walk again and it was all his fault. Oops.

"No, no, you're fine! I exaggerated it a little; it's really not that bad." This was one hole that I probably wasn't going to dig myself out of.

Kabuto pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, "I am a medical ninja, and, if you don't mind, I can take a look at it for you."

It was the least that I could do after my little social faux pas, and I would love it if he could somehow lessen the pain. "Sure."

Anzu walked over and sat on my other side as Kabuto began to pump healing chakra into the inflamed joint.

"You didn't exaggerate." Oops, I had been caught lying. "If anything, your injury is much worse than you let on."

"Sorry?"

"Don't be. You don't need to try and spare my feelings. I am well aware that this is my fault and that I have put you through hell the last three years since the war because of my foolish actions."

"Well, uh, at least I didn't lose my life in the war so that's something that I can be thankful for." I sighed as his healing continued. I didn't think that what he was doing was medical ninjutsu, it was magic. I was ready to forgive him for all of past crimes right then and there as he healed my hip. The loss of pain was pure bliss.

Anzu was so unusually quite that I had almost forgotten that she was there. "So, how does this green light work?"

Kabuto smirked, "This 'green light' is medical chakra, and I'm using it repair some of the damage that was done to Kaiyo's hip."

"So how does it work?"

The smirk turned into a small smile as Kabuto began to explain the principles of medical ninjutsu to the eager, young girl. I didn't care what he was doing so long as he didn't stop healing my hip.

A/N: Sorry about the delay. I've been finishing up this book, finishing up "A Hole in One's Heart" (which is massive), and starting on the next book of this series. Also, I had a tiny bit of writer's block because I knew what I wanted to happen at the end of this book, I just didn't know how to actually accomplish it.