That Damned Raven Haired Boy (SasuNaru)

Part 14

"-you home. And he'll be in charge of you. Sakura will stop by daily for check... Are you even listening to me?" Tsunade snapped her fingers irritably in front of Naruto's face, triggering a blink from the distracted blonde. He scrunched his nose and glared at her, though the look was mild at best.

Snapping. Tsunade had been doing a lot of that lately and Naruto completely did not mind, even if he led the female Sannin to believe the opposite. It was a fine improvement from being whacked upside the head on a regular basis. As a bonus to her, it caught his attention in an irritating fashion without impeding the progress Naruto had made in overcoming his paralysis.

"Why would I listen to you when all you're doing is yapping away and not getting to the point?" Naruto retorted with a wiggle of his toes, a tilt of his head, and a challenging grin.

He was paralysed.

"Because all my 'yapping' as you're calling it is to give you some sort of understanding as to what is going on, brat." Tsunade's fingers flexed ominously around the clipboard she held in front of her. But it was a waste of her time. The blonde had already tuned her out - as he was prone to doing these days -, and had instead focused his attention upon the vase of flowers beside his bed - daisies. They had some sort of sentimental meaning behind them, and had Naruto actually been listening to Ino rattle on during her visit, he would know what that meaning was.

At the time though, he had been too caught up in himself to pay her, or anyone else for that matter, any heed - Gai and Lee had been the exceptions. Naruto glanced fondly at the green jumpsuit they had left him and swore to himself that the minute he could, he would slide into it and wear it in place of his dingy white hospital issue gown.

...The minute he could...

A long sigh passed his lips and Naruto's gaze drifted back to the daisies and all the people he had been so rude to when their only purpose had been to offer comfort and support.

He was paralysed. From the neck down. And yes he had moped and demanded to be alone and cried and pretty much hated the hand his life had dealt him and ignored the small blessing that he could speak and glare and laugh... for about two days. Then it had struck him - in the form of a very offensive, but badly needed, 'Get Well' card from Sai that happened to be leaning against the vase of daisies - that laying motionless in a stuffy sterile room was going to do nothing to improve his situation.

In fact, moping would probably do no more than exacerbate it.

A week after that revelation, Naruto - stubborn and determined and optimistic as he was - had managed to gain movement and feeling in his toes. And two weeks after that he had been able to move his neck, which was a blessing among blessings because having a conversation with people that were pacing at the end of his bed was frustrating beyond all comprehension at best when he couldn't follow their movements, let alone see them.

While his unwavering resolution helped immensely, in the end his gradual improvement was all due to the simple blessing that Itachi had returned the Kyuubi to Naruto's body when the extraction jutsu had failed.

Tsunade had tried to explain to Naruto what had happened. First she had told him that the Kyuubi's removal had severely damaged his chakra systems. But, she had added, that wasn't the cause of his paralysis, because upon being returned to Naruto's body, the Kyuubi had reconstructed Naruto's chakra systems entirely in the span of two days.

("Absolutelyamazing!"

"Absolutely do not care.")

After a reverent moment of marvelling over the Kyuubi's expansive abilities - despite Naruto's voiced disinterest -, Tsunade moved on. What had left Naruto a quadriplegic was the damage the jutsu had inflicted upon his neurons, at which point Naruto had loudly reminded Tsunade that 'He didn't have a damn clue what the hell neurons were.'