22 - Shattered Dream

"I am so grateful Yozora's summons are blue."

That earned Fuyuka a 'what the hell?' face from Naruto and Katsume. Thankfully, Yozora was a nice enough kid not to question it.

"I mean, imagine if this bird we're riding on was bright pink. Or green. Or worse- banana yellow. Gods, I hate banana yellow."

The Aquila squawked proudly, declaring how proud it was to be blue instead of banana yellow.

"We're here," Yozora announced, dropping them off in front of the hospital. "Come on, we have to see Nemuri nee-san."

Katsume left them there, having to get back to Shadow Star. Naruto, Yozora and Fuyuka walked into the hospital for the 237478326457832657826th time that day, walking into Shigetsu's room. The second bed out of the few was now filled.

"Is Nemuri nee-san okay? And how is Shigetsu nii-san?" Yozora asked Tsunade, who sat on a chair by the door.

"Nemuri's organs still aren't fully functioning, but we let technology do its work. If what you said is accurate, she should be back to normal with time for her consciousness to return. At the speed she's recovering, she should be alright in a day or two," Tsunade explained. "But Shigetsu... Miyabi-san's power is slow but universal healing, except he's worsening so quickly it's all she can do to keep him stable. I'm trying to figure out how to heal his internal wounds without worsening it, but..."

"Just please, try your best," Yozora pleaded. Tsunade couldn't help but smile. "Don't worry, kid, we're trying our best."

"Oh yeah, the guy can manipulate space-time," Fuyuka added. "So make sure to have some guards around the village, I guess."

The girl was about to go back home to finally chill for once, when Tsunade had a realization. "Wait- is it possible that with some sort of space-time manipulation, Shigetsu was directly attacked from the inside, hence why his internal damage is more than his external?"

Fuyuka sat in her living room, reading Bleach and eating salmon dipped in physically disturbing amounts of soy sauce. It's not like there was any more to do, so she went back.

She had the feeling something was going to go wrong very soon. More wrong than Bleach being banned, than all fish dying, than everything turning banana yellow.

Her instincts told her something was going very wrong.

It's true, Kyomu can't attack Konoha openly without getting wiped out by a bunch of ninja. That did not mean he couldn't go in secret and mess some things up.

He stepped into the hospital room in silence.

Someone was still healing blondie #1, but thankfully the beds were all separated with curtains. To keep silent, he did not walk, travelling simply via teleportation.

To keep things subtle, he lifted a small knife, cutting the wires on the machine that kept her functioning until her consciousness could return. He had to wait a bit to evaluate the room's guard schedule, but it wasn't hard to get in when he could teleport.

One down. It wasn't exactly one to go, the other blondie would die in his own time. Frankly, he should have died already if it weren't for the Tsuyoku's enhanced physical strength. The blondies were too smart to be manipulated, so he had to get rid of them entirely, and then go after the purple kid.

Now he should really get back before Rina and Kessho start the Fourth Shinobi World War.

"How are Nemuri nee-san and Shigetsu nii-san?" Yozora asked the next morning, knocking on the door to the Tsuyokus' hospital room. He received no response, until Tsunade strode up to him.

"You're here early," the Hokage commented, opening the door. "Miyabi-san is probably asleep now, I'm here to check them up."

They went to check on Shigetsu first. Tsunade did some medical ninjutsu, reporting that he was no different. Miyabi had made some progress over the night, but was dry of chakra and Shigetsu had not improved in summary.

The healer herself had fallen asleep on the chair beside the bed, tired from healing for most of the night.

Then the two lifted the curtain to see Nemuri.

"Somebody-" Tsunade's eyes widened in horror as she rushed to her bedside. "Somebody cut the wire- I don't know-"

She did some medical ninjutsu to check on Nemuri's condition, her panic quickly fading to hopelessness. "She's dead."

Fuyuka was thoroughly confused why a watery-eyed Yozora knocked on her door.

"S-somebody cut the wires on the machine a-and Nemuri nee-san couldn't make it," he sniffled, curling up on Fuyuka's couch. "T-tsunade-san thinks Kyomu teleported in at night when the guards were changing shifts."

Oh.

"...look, you have to be patient for now. I promise Kyomu will die violently, painfully, with lots of pain and suffering, okay?" she promised. "And Tsunade-sama and my mom are trying everything to save blondie one, and we still need to figure out where you'll stay after all of this."

Yozora wasn't exactly violent or cruel, but he also really hated Kyomu and did want him to die violently, painfully, with lots of pain and suffering. He also wanted anyone else as cruel as Kyomu to die. "C-can I stay in Konoha? Can you train me? Can I become a ninja too?"

Oh x2.

"Look, I'm a genin, I'm not qualified to train you or any shit. I can ask Tsunade-sama to send you to the academy or something, but I can't train you," Fuyuka replied bluntly.

The purple haired child blinked. "Oh, okay, that's fine too, I guess."

"He wants to become a ninja?" Tsunade asked incredulously. "Well, I suppose I can send him to the academy, but we don't know what level he's at without any training."

"Actually," Shizune brightened slightly. "Aren't we doing a leadership challenge for the genin next week? We can let Yozora-kun join this, and we can evaluate his level along with everything else. It can also serve as a good... distraction from worrying about Shigetsu-kun all the time."

Yozora looked up as Tsunade and Shizune both stared at him. "Oh, um... that works."