No One Stands Alone

Chapter 28

Chapter 28:

The sun's lights seared Hotaru's closed eyes, and any remnants of his dreams were burned away. Waking up, he tried to shift in his bed to lay on his side and escape the light. But his movement caused his wounds to scream in pain, and a small gasp escaped his lips. After a second, he had to stop.

The sound of a chair scraping against the floor filled the room, and Hotaru almost jumped out of his skin. He thought he was alone in the hospital room, but he heard footsteps made their way towards his left where the window was.

"Sorry, I didn't realize the curtains were open," Daichi's tired voice sounded as he drew the curtains closed. "How do you feel?"

Hotaru was able to open his eyes without any trouble. He blinked until his vision focused on his teammate who returned to his chair beside the bed. The green haired boy tried to sit up, and Daichi rushed to help him sit in a comfortable position.

"I've... I've been better," Hotaru replied once he was settled. His heart slowed to a calm beat, and the pain faded away to discomfort. "How long was I out?"

Daichi heard the slight panic in his voice, and gave him soothing smile. "Only a day. Kaori-san healed the worst of your wounds, but she said the best solution is for you to heal naturally, and to give your body time to recover."

A common, comfortable silence settled between them. Hotaru focused on the wall across from him, digging through his hazy memories to piece together what happened. After a few seconds, the muddled events sorted themselves into place.

Hotaru snapped his head to look at his teammate in alarm. "What happened after Tsukki kil—after I met up with you two?"

"We were ambushed," Daichi said. "You were struck first, and you passed out from the shock and blood loss."

"And... and Tsukki?" Hotaru glanced around the room, but it was only the two of them. "Where is he?"

Daichi placed a calming hand on his shoulder to get his attention. Hotaru looked back at his teammate. "It's alright. I just told him to go home and sleep. He had been here at the hospital ever since the preliminaries ended yesterday; he looked exhausted."

Hotaru breathed a sigh of relief. Then he realized what Daichi said. "Preliminaries?" He tried to search through his memories, but he couldn't remember any mention of preliminaries between the second and third exams.

"They didn't plan to have a preliminary rounds in the beginning. But there were so many genin passed the second exam, more than they expected, so they needed to reduce the numbers. We had to fight in randomly assigned matches."

"You and Tsukki passed, right?" Hotaru asked in worry.

"We did, but..."
"But?" Hotaru immediately began imagining what could have gone wrong. Panic flooded his veins.

Daichi looked away in guilt. "Tsukki's match was first, but I don't remember much of it... I only know that he won. I wish I could tell you how, but there's a huge gap in my memory for some reason."

Hotaru stared at him for a second before laughing out loud in relief. Daichi looked at him in alarm. "I thought he was injured or something during the preliminaries, and he was here at the hospital because of that," the green haired boy explained. With another relieved chuckle, he looked Daichi in the eyes. "How did you do?"

"I had gotten so used to sparring against you and Tsukki. The preliminaries were easy in comparison," the older boy replied with a smile. Hotaru smiled at the complement, and Daichi continued. "My opponent broke his leg in the forest, but he thought he could win because he knew some ninjutsu that were C-ranked. He put up a good fight, but he couldn't fight close-ranged at all. "