sunshineverse | After the dust settles

Entry tags:

After the dust settles

Who: Adela Milani (

abileunaspada) & Sasuke Uchiha (

not_thedragon)
When: February 22nd, Late Afternoon/Evening
Where: Konohagakure, just outside of the Hokage Office Building
Notes: After several missions collided and went haywire, self-blame was placed and avoidance was had. But, now it is time to talk.

Go out, get a treat, come back. Adela almost didn't feel like coming back, though she knew she'd have to - even feeling ill and down as she was, she took on the task of running papers, missions, and tea around the hokage's office for the day. She still had to check in at the hospital for them to check on her progress too...

Honestly she didn't feel like eating, but maybe she'd feel like it if she went to her favourite Takoyaki stand or something. Maybe.

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Sasuke definitely didn't feel like coming back, not after having stopped dead in front of Obito's office door at the sound of Adela's voice raised within. Obito had been right, though; as Chuunin, he and Hinata bore more responsibility. And as the one with most seniority on their mission, he bore the most of all.

Ultimately, he'd been forced to admit that this was part of his job as well, as much as the completed mission report rolled up in a weapons pouch now. So it was that Sasuke had tailed his underclassman out of the tower and to the hospital, dropping into step with her at the door with as much of a casual air as he could manage.

"Which attending do you have today?" He asked, awkward without preamble.

Huh? She blinked, a little visibly startled that Sasuke was there before sighing and looking away from him. Even with all that Obito had said... She still couldn't look him in the eye. It still felt like she really let him down. Could she even call him her senpai anymore?

"... They're checking on a persistent fever and how my injury is healing over. I'm still not cleared to train or go on mission again, even if I'm not in there anymore."

A persistent fever wasn't something he'd been hoping for, but at least it was a sign that the body was fighting rather than succumbing. Sasuke turned toward the outpatient wing with her, trying to ignore the accusing looks from a few of the staff who knew he'd been avoiding the place since getting back to the village.

"The snake that bit you had venom that damaged everything from your muscles to your nervous system down to a cellular level," he said, keeping his tone factual. "Even if you got the antivenom in time, there's no point aggravating the injury."

"Yeah, I know. I haven't been trying to train since, I don't want to until I get cleared to."

Her gaze was down, only barely keeping track of what was in front of her enough to not bump into anything or anyone. Why was Sasuke even there? She didn't get it...

She was certainly better about attending to hospital instructions than Itachi was, though admittedly Itachi had at least failed to leave on another mission without waiting to fully recover this time. The acquiescence left him at loose ends as to exactly what to talk about, though, and they walked in awkward silence for a long moment before Sasuke finally emerged with a preamble-less:

"It wasn't your fault, you know." He paused, then to clarify: "I heard you in Obito's office."

Edited (wtf icon fail) 2014-03-18 04:02 (UTC)

Adela couldn't help it. Her breath caught at the words before she looked away from him, stiff as she walked alongside of him.

"I couldn't do what you asked," She spoke plainly, quietly, with the silent addition of that definitely being her fault. He heard all that...?

"It was your first mission out with us as a team," he said, tone sharp. "And we were outclassed."

It rankled to admit it, but there was no way to even pretend around that fact. "By a lot. The people we were fighting had chakra like I've never seen before."

She didn't answer him right away, her footsteps slowing as she allowed him to get ahead a bit. Was this all he wanted to say? That she wasn't worthy of being on their team?

They might not have been outclassed if it was their usual team. She was the odd one out. She was the one who wasn't experienced. She was the one who jeopardized everything.

"... Yeah."

That easy agreement made him slow down to look at her more closely, trying to see if what Obito had told her had sunk in -- whatever that had been, given that Obito had spoken in a considerably quieter voice. The expression she was wearing strongly suggested that no, it hadn't really taken.

"... I don't think you're understanding me," he said after a moment of trying to find a gentler way to put it. Or at least a turn of phrase that was more appropriate for someone trying to mentor an underclassman, which was an Academy lesson he'd more or less discarded from memory by now.

"We were all outclassed. It was Hinata's and my responsibility to keep you in a position where you were prepared for whatever happened, and we failed." He paused, then: "I failed, as the one with seniority."

"What the hell were you supposed to do? Hinata warned me about the snake behind me. I still got caught and trapped. You were busy with your own fight, trying to bluff and then had to act in the middle of the fight. You took my sword and made sure the enemy couldn't get it. What happened to me isn't your damn fault, it's my own."

He really wasn't cut out for this -- when Adela started talking and didn't stop, Sasuke's expression morphed from an attempt at finding something vaguely receptive to one of outright irritation. By the end of her last sentence he'd halted his steps, reaching out and grabbing her by the shoulder to force her to face him, leaning down to glare sharply at her on eye-level.

"Listen to me," he snapped. "You were the youngest and least experienced person on that field. That's not your fault. That's just how things happened to be. With how little information we had, I should have taken more precautions to make sure none of us would be in a position to be attacked without someone to back them up immediately.

"I should have, not you. Do you understand me?"

Visibly she was startled by the move, stiff beneath his hand when she was made to face him like that. And... She didn't know what to do. He was right, she knew he was right, but at the same time it was her lack of skill that caused all of it. What he was saying couldn't - didn't - take away from any of that.

"I get it, okay!?" When he snapped, she couldn't help feeling a little angry as well as she shoved his hand off of her. No, not angry... Frustrated. More with herself than with him, Obito, or anyone else. It was because she wasn't skilled enough. So, as much as Adela tried to hold it back, she couldn't stop her eyes from misting over just slightly.

"I wasn't good enough to go on the mission, you don't need to keep rubbing my face in it! You and the Hokage! I shouldn't have been there in the first place, then it wouldn't have happened! I was the least experienced, I wasn't able to keep up so I was the one who got hurt, I get that I'm not good enough already!"

No, she wasn't getting it at all -- Sasuke allowed her to push his hand away, only because he immediately brought it back up to smack it against the side of her head. It was short of being truly painful, the antiseptic smell around them still reminding him that they were in a hospital, but it was hardly gentle, and his expression and voice as he leaned in was outright harsh.

"Shut up, Adela," he growled, eyes dark. "You're not getting it. Listen.

"If you weren't good enough to go on the mission we were assigned, Obito wouldn't have sent you. Hinata and I wouldn't have accepted you. We didn't know it was going to turn out the way it did."

Which -- wasn't his fault, either, but damn it -- "I should've pulled us back as soon as things got suspicious, not sent you two further afield. Either of you could have been hurt on my watch and it wouldn't have been your fault or because you weren't good enough for the mission. It was because given inadequate information, I didn't choose the right course of action. Not because of you."

It felt eerily silent around them then, her eyes widened with surprise as she just remained still and listened. No, it didn't hurt, not really, she was more shocked that he did that in the first place.

And, when he was done, she still wasn't looking at him, still silent, still trying to take it in. This time, she was really listening to what he was saying, but even afterwards she was still quiet and unable to meet his eye.

"..."

Sasuke waited for another slew of denials, more illogical insistence that somehow the least experienced member of a team thrown into something that was bigger than they'd been led to believe was at fault for her own injury, but none came. Just in case, he waited an extra count of five, lingering medical training when dealing with shinobi (give them time to admit everything that's going on).

Then he dropped a hand to her shoulder again and gave her a light shake, less violent than before.

"Is it making sense to you now?"

"... Yeah."

It was what she had said earlier, but it was sincere when she said it then. Finally she allowed herself to relax, her surprised expression changing to something much more subdued than before. She still felt awful... Pathetic.

"Sorry. I guess I just..." The words trailed off then, a slight pink tinting her skin as she forced herself to get the rest out after a beat, "I wanted to make you proud, Senpai. To make everyone proud. It just... It sucks that it turned out like that."

He stayed where he was a moment more, gaze still focused on her eyes, making sure that the concession was more than the flippant one she'd given earlier. It seemed that she meant it this time, though, and Sasuke let go of her shoulder to straighten again, folding his arms.

Something about her words struck a strange, familiar chord, but he shook it off when he couldn't place it, frowning instead.

"It sucks, but you survived," barely, and only by the skin of her teeth and Sasuke's complete gamble on what to do in the face of poison. "That means you'll have more chances in the future, with this experience now under your belt."

"... I almost did die though, didn't I? I don't remember a lot but... You were panicking, weren't you?" Adela still wasn't meeting his eye, admittedly still a little shaken from the whole thing. Not only that it happened to begin with and that she couldn't prevent it, but she could recall how horrible it felt - how powerless she was, and how weak she got. How everything almost became completely black, and that even breathing was a struggle. And yet, through it all, she could hear the demands to stay conscious - likely, his demands.

"... Probably would've died if you weren't there."

"You almost did," he confirmed, unwilling to lie to anyone, much less someone who had technically been under my command. "The fact that the hospital hasn't cleared you to train even now should tell you that. I didn't have experience with poison; the wrong guess could have been fatal."

They'd gotten lucky, and she'd most likely have the scar for the rest of her life as a reminder of what could happen when the person in charge fucked up and failed to establish the most superior vantage point before moving in. Sasuke looked away in turn, mouth twisting. "You'll scar. I'm ... sorry."

Then, because he had to rescue some kind of -- sempai-ness, he added: "I wouldn't say I panicked."

He was... Sorry?

Again Adela was shocked, blinking at him as he added on the words about panic. But... Sorry. For it scarring. No, it wasn't just for it scarring, she wasn't stupid enough to think it was just for that. It was weird to hear, conflicted against what she thought of the situation; she thought she was a complete disappointment, even still the idea plagued her. But... Sasuke was sorry for what happened.

It was about then that her feet carried her forward to do something neither of them was likely prepared for; she stopped not even two inches away from him, her head bowing to rest on his chest as her eyes closed. At that time Adela didn't really want Sasuke to see her face of the expression she was making then, but the soft words she spoke then were only for him to hear.

"Thank you, Senpai."

He absolutely wasn't prepared, first confused and then alarmed by her forward momentum -- was she passing out? Had the venom somehow stayed in her system after all? -- and then confused again when she appeared to be conscious and cogent, just ... leaning on him. It wasn't a matter of being tired, either; she was shinobi enough to stay upright in the face of exhaustion.

So it had to be just -- seeking comfort. Sasuke had done the same as a child, but he'd never been called upon to offer it. He and Hinata had been raised too formally to hug each other much, and the reassurance of her presence was more about just that: presence more than anything else.

But he'd been held before, and after a moment of awkwardly moving his hands in the air he dropped one to the top of her head with a sigh, administering a few clumsy pats, a wordless response.

Aah - she felt her face heating up at the touch, and her grin just broadened. Adela had to struggle to get her expression back to a more stoic one before she pulled back and away from him, nodding.

"I'll do better next time, Senpai."

True, she still felt like crap over the first time but... It seemed like Sasuke was at least willing to try, and she should have been too. She wasn't going to get any stronger by sulking, right?

It was a relief when Adela stepped back, Sasuke finally able to work out what to do with his hands again. Embarrassing that he hadn't known how to handle it, but he was trained to stab people and she wasn't family -- definitely good excuses for freezing up in confusion as he had.

Her words gave him something easier to focus on, Sasuke nodding with a short jerk and what he hoped was a confident-sounding: "I'm sure you will."

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After the dust settles

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