Foxhound Chapter 1: Part 10

Staring at the wall for three hours isn’t healthy. Ino had reached that conclusion 2 hours and thirty five minutes ago. At least the wall was better than that hanging clock’s taunting ticking. This was even worse than waiting on Chouji. The Hokage had already healed her teammate by the time she had gotten there and she only had to sit around for a half hour while waiting for him to be moved to a normal hospital room. Besides, she’d had Chomaru for company. Though the clan head was a bit intimidating, he was quite friendly to her and they had passed the time talking about some of Chouji and Shikamaru’s more amusing antics.

She’d never waited while someone was dying though. By herself, no less

The only thing that kept her from storming in there and demanding to know what was going on was the memory of Naruto’s decimated form. She had little desire to see that again before he was all comfortably bandaged up. Besides, she might interrupt some delicate procedure that could cost the boy his life and she didn’t want that hanging over her head. Still, this waiting was getting to be painful. She would just peek in, see how far along it all was, and sit back down. It’s not like it’d be hard to look inside, considering no one had bothered to put the doors back in place (read: no one was strong enough to dislodge the doors from where Tsunade had embedded them in the walls.)

Ino had stood and was just leaning to look into the doorway when both Tsunade and Jiraiya came rushing out the room and down the hall. Tsunade was carefully carrying a large, blanket wrapped bundle. The two Sannin disappeared around the corner before Ino could get a word out. She was about to follow them, having a pretty good idea what was in the blanket (what was with Sannins and toting Naruto around like a sack of potatoes?), when a large hand landed on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry, he’s fine. They’re just in a rush to get him into a hospital room and on a nutrient drip or something,” Kakashi said. Ino looked up at the tall man and jumped at the sight of his blood-red left eye. The copy-nin noticed her stare.

“Oh, whoops,” The jounin said sheepishly, as he pulled his forehead protector back down. “Forgot I still had that open. I was wondering why I was getting dizzy.”

A large sweat-drop appeared on the back of Ino’s head. What a flake.

“So he’s alright?” The genin asked, changing the subject. Kakashi started to answer when he suddenly wobbled on his feet. Ino let out a startled yelp as the large man nearly bowled her over on his way to the floor. Both ninjas were surprised when his fall stopped as the blonde girl caught him under his arm. Years of dragging Chouji out of restaurants when the chubby boy had eaten himself halfway to oblivion had paid off. Staggering, Ino managed to get the tall jounin over to the bench she’d been sitting on.

“Chakra exhaustion… You moron! I thought you’re a jounin, for Kami’s sake!” The girl snarled as she propped the Copy-Ninja’s semi-limp form back against the wall. “You’re supposed to know better, you idiot…Naruto must have rubbed off on you.”

“Nope, I’ve always acted like this,” Kakashi replied with a cheerful little upturn to his visible eye. Ino fixed him with a baleful glare that could’ve wilted all the flowers in her parents’ shop. The Copy-Ninja’s eye seemed to ‘smile’ even brighter.

“Pain in the ass…” The girl muttered as she sat down next to him. “So how is he?”

Kakashi’s eye returned to normal and visibly drooped lower than usual.

“He’s alive. That’s really the best we could’ve hoped for. His muscle structure was destroyed throughout most of his body. Odds are he’ll never regain full use of his arms and legs. Even if he does, the injuries have set him back years in physical training. He’ll have to re-teach his body how to be a shinobi all over again,” The jounin said, his voice low with sadness rather than laziness for once.

“Oh…” Ino said in a very small voice. “Then his dream…”

Kakashi nodded.

“He’ll never be strong enough to become Hokage,” The copy-nin replied, his shoulders sagging.

Flashing images of Naruto screaming out Hokage at the top of his impressive lungs moved through Ino’s mind. When you thought of Naruto, Hokage was always in there somewhere. Everyone in the Rookie 9 knew he dreamed of being Hokage. Hell, anyone who really knew anything about Naruto knew that. Even in their earliest days at the academy, the hyper blonde was always spouting off about it. Even if it was just nonsense, at least Naruto was able to dream and work towards his goal. To have that taken away from you completely must be a terrible feeling.

“But Tsunade-sama was able to heal even Lee! Can’t she…?” Ino trailed off at the look in Kakashi’s eye.

“Even the Godaime has limits. Lee was all there, even if he was damaged. There are pieces of Naruto that are simply gone,” The jounin sighed. Days like this, he felt all 28 years of his life. He shouldn’t feel this tired when he wasn’t even 30, dammit. Not all of his exhaustion could be blamed on over-using the Sharingan yet again.

“Kakashi-san… Who did this to him?” Ino asked. It was one of the thoughts that had repeated itself like a broken record the hours she’d been waiting.

“…Very dangerous people,” Was all Kakashi said in reply. At Ino’s questioning stare, he sighed. “I’m sorry Ino-san, I really am, but I can’t tell you anything specific. All I can say is these people have been after him for years and with his injuries, he’s a sitting duck. Even the Hokage’s ANBU guards might not be able to protect him. If he doesn’t recover…”

“Oh…” Ino trailed off. They sat in silence for a few minutes longer, before she jumped up.

“Well, we’ll just have to go see him then!” She declared. “He won’t stay down for long. He’ll be up and destroying people’s eardrums in no time! Even I know you can’t keep him from his dream and I barely know the idiot!”

Kakashi had a surprised look in his slouching eye as he watched the girl in front of him as she scrounged up a crutch from a nearby storage room.

‘Naruto… Even if you don’t get your dream, you’ve gained another friend.’

The tall jounin didn’t say a word as Ino fussed about, hauling him up and propping the crutch under his arm. Then again, Kakashi didn’t need to say anything, even when Ino grabbed his unoccupied arm and held him up on the other side. His visible eye was upside down and beaming brightly enough to give passing medics sunburns.

For a man who never showed his face, Kakashi was surprisingly expressive.