sunshineverse | It happened too quickly to stop.

Entry tags:

It happened too quickly to stop.

Who: Adela Milani (

abileunaspada), Neji Hyuuga (

heavenly_earth), & OPEN (Post-event only)
Where: Several kilometers outside of Konoha, near the western border of Fire Country / Konoha Hospital
When: September 5th (late night), 6-10th
Notes: Acting on the rumors of a powerful doujutsu, an enterprising missing ninja has decided to give himself greater power to make himself more appealing to a new village. This, unfortunately, doesn't end well.
Warnings for gore, violence, and language.

It hurt so much.

Adela was panting heavily, her good eye wincing and tearing up as she watched the blood drip down to the dark and dead leaves beneath. Her hands and the kunai she found were stained with her assailant's blood; the scuffle had ended his life, but she felt so sick and dizzy - not to mention her eye stung and she didn't want to open it. And she may have gotten stabbed a couple of times as well, though the fact that she only saw blood and no other fluids was probably a good thing. Still...

Where was she?

Knocked out, taken to the middle of no where, and she had fought an angry missing nin with the intent of taking her eye based on that stupid fucking rumor. Wonderful. With a grunt she got to her feet, dizzy with blood-loss as she tried to find her way. The moon was still giving enough glow to see through the trees, but she was barely armed and had no strength left... She was going to die out here.

Damn it, she couldn't die like this! In her own frustration she slammed her fist into a nearby tree, though it didn't take her too long to cling to said tree for support. Her world was starting to become more black as well, driving her to feel even more angered and frustrated. She hadn't even gotten to catch up to him... She hadn't even gotten the chance to become Hokage... This wasn't fair! No, she had to survive, she had to... Even if it was looking more and more hopeless.

That was when she heard the rustle of branches above, and immediately Adela took the bloodied kunai in an unstable grip - one wrong move and it'd slip right out of her hand. Who was coming now, someone who was with that ninja...?

--------------------

The smell of hospitals always got to her. She sighed, feeling heavy in her bed when she finally regained full consciousness. There was an IV drip in her arm and a heavy gauze taped over her injured eye. No one had talked to her yet, save for a nurse telling her that she could have visitors. How would her eye recover, though? She didn't know, she just knew that she still felt kind of dizzy and tired.

Still, she turned towards the curtain seperating her from the rest of the room. At least she was near the window and it was sunny out, if a bit cooler than it was before. She had to wonder just who would come to visit, if anyone at all. It all happened so fast... Would anyone have even heard about what happened? She remembered someone coming for her last night, but save for possibly the Hokage...

It was probably going to be a lonely recovery, depending on how long she was in there. Damn everything. Why did someone have to act on that stupid rumor...?

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"Unless you've undergone practice throwing blind, there is still an adjustment period. If you aren't operating at 100% you shouldn't be going on any missions, let alone leaving the village." She had a literal blindspot now, so her likelihood of getting killed on a mission had shot up. 'A few weeks' was a bit soon for Ami's peace of mind.

Ami inched forward again, still slow and deliberate, until she could leave the box on the edge of the bedside table. She despised hospitals; they reminded her of the hard times, at the end of her mother's life, when her frail body finally decided to give out on her. "I'm...glad."

"I know there is. But I'm out of the hospital in a couple of days, and I'm going to be training for that during the off time. I'm not going to let this stop me from being the great ninja I want to be."

But... Even so, hearing that Ami was glad... It warmed her a little more. She closed her exposed eye against the watery build-up and reached out a hand to gently ruffle her hair, taking her hand away after a moment before she sat up gingerly and rested her arms over her knees, "Thanks, Ami. Thanks for worrying about me, and for coming by to visit. It means a lot."

"I know...that being upset doesn't make any difference when a person is dying." She didn't look up, even as her voice stuttered and stumbled over itself. "I know that. But I was. Because—because the main damage is your eye." She had seen that much. "Like in that rag."

She took a deep breath. "I think I might have done something bad, if it killed you."

"... I'm pretty upset about it too. Part of me wants to beat whoever wrote those stupid rumors about us into a bloody pulp."

She glanced away from Ami then, her eye closed for a different reason as she sighed and tried to communicate her feelings on the matter. It was important for Ami to know how she felt about it, especially with their conversation last time, "I ended up killing the guy who blinded me - he was trying to kill me too, and even if he wasn't he was a missing nin and a clear threat to Konoha. It's frustrating, but... That's really all I can do about what already happened. From here, I have to move forward. I'm not exactly a good senpai or chuunin if I let something like this stop me, and revenge isn't going to help me feel better or get my eye back."

After a beat, she added, "Shisui-san's already working on petitioning to get the gossip magazine shut down because of this. And I know there was some pretty nasty stuff about you and him in there too, so I can't blame him."

"Revenge isn't about making yourself feel better." Ami tugged at her sleeves, trying to find a way to finally make Adela understand her feelings on the subject. "It's...it's a type of 'closure'. You ensure that what happened to you either does not happen again, or does not happen to somebody else."

'Living well' was one type of revenge, but the more satisfying types were the ones that closed that chapter of your life. Ami had thought long and hard on the matter, during her mandated psych sessions after the unfortunate events of their mission. Just because she didn't become morally torn over her captors being killed didn't mean that she was cold or unfeeling. She was just very satisfied with that outcome, was all.

At the mention of Ami's own slandered situation, she scowled darkly. "I don't mind being considered some sort of one-person weapon," she said. "But my parents were faithful to each other. Sephiroth is as unhappy as I am about those stupid allegations they put in about us."

"I figured that'd be the issue with it," She tried not to seem too amused by that - especially since she definitely knew better. She didn't press though, instead looking over Ami thoughtfully before she opened the box to take one of the manju out to eat.

"I don't know what to tell you, except to deny it to whoever asks. And whoever doesn't believe you at your word is too stupid to listen to the truth."

She took a bite and paused, trying not to make a face at the sweet paste against her tongue. It was red bean so it wasn't SO bad, but it was still a little too sugary for her. Even so, she chewed and ate it slowly, because as sad as it was to admit it really was better than the hospital food.

"...nobody has the guts to talk to me now, except the people who know better." Truth be told, that suited her just fine. She didn't like the thought of people thinking of her mother or father poorly, though, so she schooled herself towards ire. Her aunt had sent in a blistering letter and a demand for an apology, but that was still too light a punishment in her eyes.

"You..." Ami frowned thoughtfully, canting her head to the side. "You...don't actually like manju." It wasn't a question. It was also probably a good thing Ami hadn't told Adela that she made those herself, or she might have tried harder to cover up her discomfort.

Urk! She choked a little, swallowing hard and breathing a couple of times from surprise. Damn it, she thought she'd been better about hiding that!

"I'm not a huge fan of sweets in general," Attempting to explain gently, Adela tried to think over her next words carefully before she grinned, "It is better than what I've been eating here. And it's not too sugary, so I think I'll get through the whole box - even if it might take a while. I really like the gift, and they do taste nice for sweets. Thank you for bringing them, Ami."

... What? She was being sincere! Really! Partially because she didn't want Ami to feel bad over the gift, but Adela knew better than to try lying to Ami over it -- every word that came out then was honest.

Ami fell silent at that—which wasn't exactly a bad sign, given that her usual state was silence, when given the choice. She mulled something over for a moment, then dug around in her fat messenger bag. She came up with a roll of senbei.

"You can have these too, then," she decided, offering up the seaweed-wrapped rice crackers. They weren't very flavorful, but they were still better than hospital food. And sweets, apparently.

"You don't need to do that," Adela murmured, almost embarrassed but clearly pleased that Ami was thinking of her. It made her happy, to know that Ami really cared that much about her. If there was anything that still had her doubting Ami's feeling towards her as a senpai and friend, it was swiftly disappearing with this.

Maybe today was a good day after all, and she needed that after such a terrible night.

"Thank you Ami, but if it's all right with you I think I'll finish this manju first. They're really well-made, and it'd be a shame if they went to waste," Just like that she took another bite, a little more eager than before.

Ami hunched her shoulders up and looked down, burying her face in her large collar as much as she could. The pleased blush was still slightly visible, but Adela didn't have all the information to really understand just how pleased hearing that made Ami.

"It's fine," she mumbled. "It's your food, now, so it's up to you how to eat it. And when."

"Thank you very much," After speaking with a clear mouth she continued to eat quietly. True, she'd probably need a good drink of water after, but only because her mouth was kind of dry in the first place. Eating helped a little, and she was feeling more relaxed than she had been earlier in the day when she spoke with Shisui.

It was only when she was done that she laid herself back against the incline of her bed, sighing happy as she looked over to Ami. Damn it, she was feeling so tired... The sugar would probably help with her blood replenishing if she was completely honest with herself, but she knew she'd be resting a lot during recovery. Just a little while longer she wanted to stay awake though, because Ami was there...

"Rumours aside, how have you been doing? I've seen you running around the village sometimes, so I guess Shisui-san's been keeping you busy with all kinds of missions."

Edited (Just realized that the post was contradictory and fixed it quickly) 2014-09-11 17:35 (UTC)

"It's fine," Ami repeated, shrinking in on herself a little more. Adela didn't have to thank her for bringing a food that she didn't even like and making up for it with bland snacks. Still, she seemed sincere and that was—it was good. It meant that Ami had at least partially succeeded, after all. She hadn't come to visit anybody in the hospital since her mother, and that had been a much, much different case.

"I was assigned teammates," Ami reported stiffly. "So more missions that usual, yes." She hesitated, then added, "A few days ago, while outside of the village gates, I ran into Sephiroth." A brief pause. "Would you, um. Like me to mention...?" She flicked her eyes towards Adela's ruined one.

He had...

She stopped smiling then, frowning up at the ceiling. Sephiroth had...

"... It's up to you. I don't mind if you tell him or not. If he was gonna see me again, he'd probably figure it out at a glance," Adela sighed, glancing to Ami with a small reassuring quirk of her lips, "I trust you to use good judgement about it. But that aside, teammates? That's got to be a big change, since you were solo before right?"

Edited 2014-09-12 05:00 (UTC)

"I'll be discreet," she promised. She really didn't feel right about not telling him, even with the rough patch the pair of them were going through. Even if she were angry with her own cousin, she'd also want to know if something had happened to him. Still, Ami knew better than to go blabbing about where Adela had been attacked or the state of Konoha's defenses.

"Some things are worse if nobody warns you first," Ami mused.

"... Then I guess I should be grateful that you told me first," She breathed a bit before nodding. It was good to see that someone had reached out to Sephiroth, and that they really were getting along... It made her a little sad, but mostly happy to see it. Adela just felt like she would never have a relation like that with Sephiroth again, but that someone could...

Thankfully, Ami could.

Edited 2014-09-13 02:40 (UTC)

"Mm." Ami had been thinking more on Sephiroth's behalf, but she supposed, in retrospect, that Adela might have been at risk of an unpleasant shock as well. "Whether you're upset with one another or not, family is family." She very deliberately did not say clan.

She knew the difference. Most ninja did.

Adela's smile was sad then, and she sank a little more on the bed. Ami... She really didn't know a whole lot about it, did she? About what was said to her, about how worthless Sephiroth had made her feel when they had met again... But it was probably better that she didn't know. Not when it didn't look like she'd ever have to experience it herself.

"Yeah, you're right," She murmured, her eyes drooping more and more. She didn't think the conversation would take that much out of her, but... "You wanna know something? He was my ultimate goal as a ninja -- I wanted to be equal in strength to him, to be able to match him evenly."

"What a short-sighted goal." The words cracked out thoughtlessly, like a whip. Ami wasn't thinking deeply enough to notice or care, bringing a hand to her chin thoughtfully. "If you set a limit for yourself, you will subconsciously slow yourself as you draw closer." Ami tilted her head, pinning Adela with her somber green gaze. "You should just use him as a milestone."

Adela just couldn't help laughing a little, shaking her head before she glanced over to Ami again, "I was gonna say that I have a different goal now. Yeah, I still wanna be able to take him on, but that's not my main goal now. It actually took me a while to figure it out, and it's probably pretty unbelievable because you've only seen me screw up."

"Small failures build to great successes," Ami offered. It was something she had been told to think over, in order to mitigate the self-recrimination and frustration she had felt due to being overpowered and taken away. "I mean... It isn't so unbelievable that you have your own aspirations, or that they might change over time."

... Ami really was a sweet girl. Adela huffed a slight chuckle as she shook her head, her eye closing as she just felt tiredness taking over once again, "I dunno what else to say except that you're right. My aspirations did change. And with my new goal I can't let myself get lazy or it's never going to happen. For now, though, I've gotta focus more on rest and recovery so that I'm ready when the village needs me again."

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It happened too quickly to stop.

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*Assuming this is the next day

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I'M DYING FROM HOW CUTE THIS IS I HOPE YOU KNOW

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