Abandoning Hope

Abandoning Hope
Part 2
By Phantasm

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Three days later, a number of variously ranked ninja had gathered in the waiting room, one occasionally going out to bring back food for the group. The only word they had gotten from the staff was an occasional statement that they were still working on Naruto. Surgeons cycled in and out, working their specialties when needed and rotating with peers to avoid anyone working under exhaustion.

Finally, a weary looking surgeon pushed into the waiting room, surprised that so many people were still stubbornly there. Iruka was a given, having nearly raised the boy himself. Team Seven was there as well at the front of the room. Members of other teams had shown up as well. Kiba, Hinata, Shino, Shikamaru, Ino, Chouji, Neji, Lee, Tenten. Somehow, Jiraiya had been informed, possibly by Ebisu who was sitting beside him, and had come out of seclusion to check on his student. Konohamaru had followed his teacher as well, wanting to see his friend. Surprisingly, the Hokage was there as well, Tsunade waiting as doggedly as the rest for information on the blond. She would have been in the operating room working alongside the surgeons but was worried that her nerves would get the best of her working on the mutilated blond.

The surgeon blinked blurred eyes at the cluster of people camping out in the hospital. He had never seen such a turnout, especially one that would wait so long. He suspected that they would mess him up fairly badly if he doled out any bad news. Clearing out his throat, he woke up the sleeping ninja. It was three in the morning after all.

“How is he?” Iruka asked, the first to jump to his feet, ready to dash across the hospital to see his student. He might have done just that if he had known where the blond was currently.

“We’ve moved him into ICU,” the surgeon started. “He’s stable, but we’re not allowing visitors right now.” The gathered ninja looked mutinous. “His left arm was damaged too badly. We weren’t able to reattach it.”

“What about his eyes?” Iruka pressed. He didn’t bother to ask about the missing fingers and toes, only one of the latter having been found.

“The kunai were poisoned. His eyes… had to be removed,” the surgeon sighed. If Iruka hadn’t liked that news, he was certainly going to snap at the next piece of information. “I need to speak to you.” He eyed the gathered group. “Alone.” He turned and walked away, leaving the chuunin to follow. Unsurprisingly, a few of the others disobeyed his order and came along. The Hokage, Kakashi and Jiraiya seemed to think they were included in ‘alone’. Sasuke and Sakura started to do the same, reluctantly falling away when their sensei waved them back.

Reaching his office, he flopped down behind his desk, flipping open a file waiting there. He motioned for the four to sit down. Last in the line, Jiraiya pushed the door shut, leaning against the wall in lieu of sitting, extremely uneasy. The doctor had freely admitted to a large group that Naruto was a blind amputee. What could be so much worse that he needed a private consultation?

“His attackers weren’t trying to kill him,” the doctor said bluntly, his voice hard. He wasn’t among the masses that thought Naruto was the Kyuubi and was furious over what had happened. “They were trying to break him.”

“How do you know that?” Kakashi asked, not enthusiastic about where the conversation was headed.

“Every major organ and artery was avoided. Some bruising indicates that his arm was even in a tourniquet so that removing his hand wouldn’t cause him to bleed to death immediately,” he answered grimly. “His fingernails and toenails have been pulled out. A few key teeth have been pulled methodically in every quadrant of his mouth, specifically the canines and bicuspids. The top of his right ear has also been removed.” He knew he was stalling, but at the same time, he was reluctant to deliver the worst news.

“This isn’t what you called us in here for,” the Hokage urged. He swallowed back bile.

“He was assaulted… sexually. Not just once… many times,” the surgeon bit out. “And at least once with a kunai. We removed the instrument from him.” He hesitated. “There were at least three men.” He didn’t put into detail the lab work involved in analyzing the sperm sample they’d removed from the blond, certain that it would only serve to further upset the four already distraught ninja.

Kakashi sighed and closed his visible eye. The Hokage groaned and covered her face with both hands, her quavering jaw belying the fact that she was crying. Very pale, Jiraiya looked physically ill. Only Iruka seemed able to speak, and his voice was flat and agonized.

“That would explain the look on his face,” the chuunin choked out. “If they were trying to break him, they succeeded.”

“Let’s wait until he wakes up to determine that,” Tsunade said. “He’s always been stronger than we’ve given him credit for.”

“Is he awake?” Iruka asked suddenly, turning to the doctor.

“He should be in an hour or two,” the surgeon sighed. He kept going before they could demand to see him. “As I’ve already told you, we’re not allowing visitors.” Sensing the impending argument, he raised his voice slightly and cut them off. “However, because of the severity of the attack, I will allow one person to stay with him. I suggest you pick someone he trusts.”

The four ninja looked at each other for a moment, or rather, Iruka looked at Kakashi, who stared right back at him. Jiraiya was right out since all Naruto ever did was call him a pervert and try to beat him senseless. Tsunade simply didn’t know the teenager well enough to be considered. The decision would fall to one of his instructors and neither looked ready to back down.

“I’ll go,” Iruka said, just daring Kakashi to argue.

“Fine,” Kakashi said flatly, vanishing in a burst of smoke. Iruka jumped slightly in surprise. Jiraiya and Tsunade had to struggle not to show any emotion at what had happened. Leaving abruptly to fool the doctor, Kakashi had led the surgeon to believe that he had gone somewhere to sulk, when in reality, he had transformed into a shuriken and was camping out in Iruka’s holster. The poor doctor actually looked relieved that a full battle hadn’t broken out in his office. It had happened in the past. Jounin and ANBU members had tempers.

“Come on,” the surgeon said, knowing that the next words out of the chuunin’s mouth would be to see the blond. “I’ll show you to his room. I’d appreciate it if you two could tell his friends to go home. It will be at least a week before he’s moved to a standard room and ICU does not allow visitors.”

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Tsunade and Jiraiya looked annoyed at the request, not wanting to have to deal with a large group of upset and soon to be mutinous ninja. They consoled themselves with the fact that the doctor was saddled with a hyped up Iruka. Served him right for unloading such a miserable task on them.

Sure enough, there were bitter objections to the news that they had to leave for a week. The hospital was likely to have a lot of people attempting to sneak in. A certain silver-haired jounin had already done it. Mutters and glares were offered up from most of the ninja there as they dispersed into the night.

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Instead of hammering the doctor with useless questions, as he had feared, Iruka remained grim and silent, occasionally down at his holster. He hadn’t expected Kakashi to try to sneak in like that. In fact, the thought of slipping in without permission hadn’t crossed his mind at all, which vexed him greatly. He was a ninja. It was his job to go places he had no business going. When the chuunin got the same idea, Naruto was going to be swamped with visitors. He made a mental note to tell them, just in case. Naruto would love the attention.

Unfortunately for Iruka, Kakashi was just as heavy as a shuriken as he was as a human. Toting that much weight on one leg was starting to become irritating, especially the stairs. The straps holding the holster in place were digging into his leg. By the time they had reached ICU, Iruka was winded and limping.

The doctor had only offered up a few choice comments on the trek. Mostly, he had warned the chuunin that Naruto was heavily bandaged and would be in traction for the next few days. A lot of his bones had been broken and a lot of joints separated or dislocated, so they couldn’t have him moving at all until the swelling went down a bit. He had also warned him not to disturb any of the tubes or lines connected to the blond.

“His right foot looks very bad,” the doctor warned him as they reached a small isolated room in the ICU wing. “It will take work, but he should be able to walk again.” He pushed the door open and waved the brunette inside, noting his limp but not commenting. “He can’t speak yet, but we think that he may be able to eventually. We did a lot of reconstructive surgery on his throat. When he heals, his vocal cords should work.”

“You keep saying ‘may’ and ‘should’. Why?” Iruka asked.

“Medicine is never exact,” the doctor sighed. “He’s doing better than any patient I’ve ever treated or read about, so I’m fairly sure that he’ll recover. Don’t worry needlessly until you know one way or another.” He turned to leave the brunette to his charge, adding on one final thought. “Be sure to let him know who you are. After what happened, he’ll panic easily.”

Iruka didn’t bother with a scathing comment at the pathetically obvious instructions. He settled on pushing the doctor out and shutting the door in his face, eager to get Kakashi’s fat butt off his leg and to see his student. The moment the door was shut, he yanked the fake shuriken out of his holster and threw it into the chair on the far side of the bed, the weapon vanishing in a puff of smoke as the jounin reappeared.

“Go on a diet,” Iruka suggested, rubbing his sore leg as he flopped into a chair by the blonde’s right side.

“Get in shape,” Kakashi retorted.

It was an ongoing taunting argument that the two had held for the last five years. When Naruto had switched teachers at the age of eleven, the two had started to get to know one another. Their encounters had started when a decidedly irritated Kakashi had confronted the brunette chuunin and asked him how to control the virtually insane blond. Eventually, the conversation had turned into an argument due to their highly differing personalities. Kakashi was largely calm and indifferent, when he wasn’t being a pervert, and Iruka was a bit wry, friendly enough to drive anybody insane and entirely too perky. The brunette was a bit too hotheaded at times and ended up initiating the first of many fights. It had taken them a few weeks of that behavior to realize that they were acting no better than Naruto and Sasuke.

Iruka abandoned the argument before it could progress further. Taunting the other man was not why he was there. Picking a fight, even if only for a few seconds, had been a means to stall, to avoid looking at what he was afraid to see. Kakashi had been doing the same. Argument abandoned, they turned to study their former student.

Quite simply, Naruto was a mess. The only skin left uncovered by bandages was a small area around his mouth and nose to allow him to breathe. Heavy pads of gauze padded his hollowed eyes, creating twinned lumps in his wrappings. Both of his arms were in slings, holding them close to his body. Both of his legs were in braces and in traction, metal bars screwed into the bone to hold the limbs steady and supporting slings to keep weight off of the healing limbs.

Eyes tearing, Iruka started to reach for the sixteen-year-old boy, his attempt falling short when he couldn’t see an uninjured site to place his hand. Eventually, he gave up and delicately rested his fingertips on the blonde’s shoulder. Apparently, he had pressed against something sensitive, because Naruto flinched, gasping loudly as he suddenly snapped awake. With a slightly strangled gargle, he lurched awkwardly away, scrabbling to escape from the meager contact. Just as the doctor had warned, he had panicked. His bindings didn’t allow him to move more than a few inches.

“Naruto! I’m Iruka! You’re safe,” Iruka cried out in a desperate tone. He hadn’t meant to terrify the boy. Naruto reluctantly stilled, tilting his head towards the tearful chuunin. The brunette continued speaking since the boy seemed to calm at the sound of his voice. “You’re in the hospital. Kakashi and I are here with you.” Naruto jerked. The named jounin obligingly brushed one hand through the boy’s violently blond hair to alert him to his location. “He snuck in. The first of many, I think.”

Naruto opened his mouth, managing to produce a rasping noise for his efforts. Kakashi cut him off before he could strain his healing throat.

“Don’t try to speak for now,” the silver-haired jounin advised, still idly stroking the blond hair. “Just poke us if you need something.”

Naruto had gone still at the questing fingers in his hair, eventually accepting the foreign touch. Using his only remaining hand, mutilated though it was, he reached for whoever was on his right, vaguely recalling that it was Iruka. Tentative fingers met his own and he gripped them tightly for a moment, as though he was reassuring himself that Iruka was really there.

Tongue rasping against chapped and split lips, Naruto haltingly spoke. His voice still did not work, but his two mentors tried to read his mauled lips. The only sound that escaped him was the occasional rasp or squeak. Their concentration and intuition were already honed to his question before he could attempt it, his bandaged hand moving jerkily towards his bandaged eyes.

“Am… I… blind?” he grated out. Iruka and Kakashi exchanged guarded looks, neither wanting to answer the question. They had apparently paused for too long, Naruto understanding the significance of the silence. “Oh God…”

“Naruto…” Kakashi started hesitantly.

Naruto cut him off, trying to speak and failing miserably, only this time his teachers didn’t know what he wanted. Frowning, he pointed at his leg where his holster usually sat, and then to his sensei, clearly asking to be trained despite his new handicaps. His two mentors exchanged worried looks. Crippled and blind, the boy still intended to train, unwilling to accept that he had suffered debilitating injuries.

“We’ll do whatever we can,” Iruka promised when Kakashi faltered. The promise was an empty one. They would try to help him, but they simply doubted that the mangled boy would be able to fight any longer. Naruto frowned, catching the evasion. The blond tried again, motioning to his bandaged body. He wanted to know how badly he was injured.

“Aside from your eyes and hand, you should be fine,” Iruka offered hesitantly, using the hated ‘should’ word. Kakashi caught the boy before he could attempt another question, distracting him with an inquiry of his own.

“Do you know who did this?” Kakashi asked flatly. Iruka glared at him for the inelegant proposal of the inquiry. Suddenly shaking, Naruto answered wordlessly by simply nodding. “Who?” He tried to answer, but the word was unintelligible. Pressed for information but unable to speak, Naruto tried another method to convey the words, pointing silently to his left, directly at Kakashi. The jounin blinked. Iruka looked ready to kill.

“What?” Iruka asked flatly.

Naruto huffed in irritation and stretched his arm further, pointing stubbornly. He curled his index finger, beckoning the jounin closer. Kakashi obligingly leaned into the outreached hand, waiting to see what the blond was up to. Naruto trailed his fingertips up to the man’s face and over his forehead protector, tapping on it insistently above his eye and repeating what he had attempted to say earlier. The word was garbled but understood.

“Sharingan,” Kakashi said, catching on. He didn’t look entirely happy when Naruto nodded and pointed doggedly at his covered eye.

“Itachi,” Iruka sighed. “Sasuke is going to be pissed.”

“Who else?” Kakashi asked, dreading the answer. One dangerous criminal was bad enough. Just as before, lack of a voice made anything beyond a simple one-syllable word unintelligible. All three men sighed, resigning themselves to charades. Naruto started the guessing game by sticking out his tongue.

Kakashi and Iruka exchanged worried looks. They knew of one person that fought predominantly with his tongue, and the very thought that he was allied with Itachi terrified them. Either one alone was dangerous enough, but in tandem, they could level Kohana. If they were correct in what they were about to confirm, it was no wonder that Naruto had lost miserably.

“Orochimaru?” Iruka asked slowly, praying they were wrong. Naruto shattered their hopes by nodding. “Shit.”

“Who else?” Kakashi asked, remembering that the doctor had claimed that there were at least three attackers.

Naruto said a name just in case they were able to read his lips at all, but they couldn’t. His mouth was too badly damaged for that. He raised his hand up to his own face and formed a circle, holding it over where his eye used to be.

“Goggles?” Iruka tried. Naruto shook his head.

“Glasses?” Kakashi asked, earning himself a nod. Such things were rarities among ninja.

Naruto reached for Kakashi again. Already used to the pointing, the jounin obediently leaned into range. The outstretched fingers reached for his hair, flipping the pale locks.

“Silver hair?” he asked, getting another nod.

“That sounds like Kabuto,” Iruka mused. Naruto nodded again and the brunette’s eyebrows rose. “He’s been missing for years. I thought he was dead.” The blond shook his head and dropped his abused arm back to his side, his recently relocated shoulder sore from the minimal usage.

“Were there any others?”

Naruto shook his head wearily, already starting to tire in his battered condition. Trusting his two sensei to protect him from further unwarranted punishment, he relaxed against the starched sheets, immediately drifting under with the help of morphine. After fighting like the devil against three powerful criminals and taking potentially deadly injuries, he was exhausted.

“Naruto?” Iruka asked worriedly when the blond suddenly slumped, his entire body limp.

“He’s asleep,” Kakashi said soothingly. “After what he’s gone through, he’ll tire quickly. Besides, he’s still under the effects of the anesthetic.”

“Which means that he shouldn’t have been awake,” Iruka argued. “I’m getting a doctor in here. Transform into a houseplant or something.”

“A plant in ICU would be rather obvious.”

“A pillow then,” the brunette growled. Rolling his eyes, the jounin did just that, trying to hide before the younger man could open the door. “I need a doctor in here.”

A man in scrubs peeled away from a small group of conferring residents and followed the summons. His automatic reflexes had him checking the teenager’s vitals and the heart monitor readouts. Putting his stethoscope around his neck, he turned to Iruka.

“He appears stable,” the young doctor said. “What seems to be the problem?”

“He can’t stay awake for more than a few minutes. He passed out,” the chuunin explained.

“I’m surprised that he was awake at all,” the man in scrubs said, shaking his head wryly. He sat down in the free chair, unwittingly sitting on Kakashi, who was still hiding as a pillow. He winced as his butt made contact. “Damn hemorrhoids,” he muttered before turning his attention to Iruka, who was biting his tongue to keep from laughing at Kakashi. “For the first week, he’ll mostly sleep. The next time he wakes, see if you can get him to eat something. Unfortunately, since he as taken a gut wound, he’ll be restricted to a liquid diet for now. Don’t let him remove his catheter. You ninja are notoriously bad about that one for some reason I can’t figure out.”

“Proud warriors don’t want help taking a leak,” Iruka offered. “Anything else?”

“Yes. Since he’s lost so many teeth, he cannot use a straw for at least a week, or he’ll suck out the clots and start bleeding again,” the man in scrubs said. “You’ll need to raise his bed up to a forty-five degree angle. His arms may be too sore to move, so he’ll need help with almost everything for awhile.”

Iruka just nodded, considering stalling the young doctor for a bit longer. The man, with hemorrhoids no less, was still sitting on Kakashi, who had miraculously held onto his jutsu to avoid being caught. That was true commitment to his student, there.

“That should do it,” Iruka said, taking pity on the silver-haired man. “I’ll call you if I need anything.” Nodding at the dismissal, the man in scrubs moved to leave. He paused in the doorway.

“One more thing,” the doctor called, smirking. “We have cameras in here, butt-dweller.” He vanished at top speed, escaping the vengeful ninja before he got beaten senseless. Iruka burst out laughing.

“He knew,” Iruka hiccupped, grateful for the relief in the tension permeating his mind. Kakashi dropped back to human form, glaring death at the door and at the chuunin for laughing. “I thought you were going to lose it when he said the word ‘hemorrhoids’. Naruto will love this. You’ll never escape the title of ‘butt-dweller’ after he hears about it.”

“That guy is dead,” Kakashi growled. “As are you if you say a word to anyone.”

Iruka chuckled. “Go out and wash the butt-print off of your face. While you’re up, tell the mob outside that they should sneak in to visit.”

“Openly breaking rules. I’m shocked,” Kakashi said. He paused, eyes saddening. “You’re planning to stay with him twenty-four, seven, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Iruka admitted softly.

“Naruto will like that,” Kakashi said. He clapped his hand on his friend’s shoulder as he left. “I’ll cover your classes and stop by to drop off meals. I’ll even give the chuunin some tips to sneak in.” With that, he was gone.

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To Be Continued…
Warning: Following chapters are going to get VERY graphic. Anyone with a weak stomach should bail out now. And review!