Chapter 1 - Back from the Dead

Kajihana Izumi awakened and, for a moment, did not know where she was. The last thing she remembered was the hard stone table beneath her and the cold steel of the chains that had bound her arms and legs. Now she was in a brightly lit room, lying on a soft bed and wrapped in a warm blanket. It was not until she noticed the IV in her arm that she realized she was in a hospital.

“Izumi?” said a voice to her left and Izumi turned only to find herself wrapped in her older brother’s arms. “You’re finally awake,” he said as he released her and backed away. Izumi could see the tears forming in his eyes.

“Where are we?” Izumi asked as she pushed herself up into a better sitting position and looked about at the room. It was rather Spartan, with only a pair of landscape paintings on the wall and a vase of wilting flowers on the end table next to her bed. The only other things in the room were a few chairs, one of which was covered in a recently used blanket. Looking at Mikon’s face and seeing how tired he was, she realized that he must not have left her side. Then she added, “And how long have I been here?”

“This is the Konoha Shinobi Hospital,” Mikon replied, “it’s where the leaf shinobi come after missions and such, and they have some of the best medical care in the world. When Akai and the rescue team found you, you were brought here as quickly as possible. The guy that brought you, I think they said his name is Lee, literally almost killed himself to get you here as fast as possible. He’s recovering in the room next door. You’ve both been bedridden for the past two days.” Izumi was stunned.

“What happened to me that a shinobi had to get me here that quickly?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“I can answer that,” said a female voice from the doorway, and both Izumi and Mikon turned to see Haruno Sakura walk into the room, carrying a bundle of flowers of flowers. She bowed respectfully to Izumi and added, “I am Haruno Sakura, and I’m one of the medic-nin that tended your wounds and I’ve been keeping watch over you since. Mikon here was helping me with that,” she added, indicating Mikon. She then walked over to the table next to Izumi and replaced the wilting flowers with the ones she had brought.

“To put it simply,” Sakura continued as she now walked over to the window and threw it open, letting in a cool morning breeze, “the reason Lee almost killed himself getting you here was because you would not have made it if he hadn’t. He had been ordered to open only his third chakra gate, which even though it would seriously injure him was the only way to safely get you here in time, to the senior medic-nin who would be able to help you. But Lee being who he is, when he noticed you starting to slip closer to the edge, he opened all the way up to his fifth gate, causing him massive damage, but giving him even greater speed. Even then he barely got you here in time.”

“How?” Izumi asked, “what happened to me?”

“Well,” interrupted Mikon, “Akai told me that he found you just before one of the Akatsuki agents, the men that attacked the caravan, stabbed you in the stomach. He also said that he wasn’t able to tend to you until he had taken care of the Akatsuki, so you were in pretty bad shape before he and the other shinobi could get you out of there.” Izumi looked horrified. Then she remembered the black-robed man that had stood over her with a knife, and Akai’s face only moments after she had been stabbed, filled with guilt and tears.

“It was worse than that,” added Sakura suddenly, causing the two siblings to turn and face her again. “What we didn’t discover until you got back here was that the knife you had been stabbed with had been coated in Karnum Poison.” Even Mikon was shocked by this, but it was Izumi who realized the true meaning of the statement. She had read about Karnum Poison in her study of herbs.

“But that’s not possible, Karnum Poison kills in under a minute!,” she said to Sakura.

“That’s true,” Sakura replied, “but it was pumping through your veins for at least ten minutes before Lee even started bringing you back here. Even Lady Tsunade can’t explain how you lasted that long, let alone how you lasted the hour it took for Lee to get you here. But what we do know is that once we extracted the poison from your system, you immediately started a rapid recovery. Under normal circumstances, you should still be unconscious for at least another week after the kind of stress your body went through.” Izumi was silent, stunned by what she was hearing. How had she survived? She had a sneaking suspicion, but she hoped it wasn’t true, so she did not voice it, deciding to change the subject instead.

“Where are Mom, Dad, and Akai?” she asked Mikon after a moment. Mikon glanced at Sakura with a worried look on his face before turning to his sister.

“Mom and Dad are with the rest of the clan,” he told her, “and Akai went to go see them. Everybody has been asking him about his time here, and he decided that it was about time to tell everyone, since you were still out of it.” He tried to sound normal, but Izumi thought his voice was a bit on edge, like he wasn’t telling the whole truth.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, concerned for her brother. Before Mikon could respond, however, another person came running into the room. He was wearing an orange and black jacket and Izumi noticed what looked like whiskers on his cheeks. He was breathing hard, as if he had just run a long distance. Sakura turned to face him as soon as he entered the room.

“What is it, Naruto?” she asked, a worried look crossing her face. Naruto leaned up against the doorpost to catch his breath before responding.

“Trouble,” he said shortly, followed by another gasp for breath. He noticed Izumi sitting up in her bed a moment later and nodded. “Good, you might want to come, Miss Izumi, and you Mikon.”

“What kind of trouble is it, Naruto?” asked Sakura.

“The argument has reached a head,” he replied, causing Sakura and Mikon to glance quickly at Izumi, who had no idea what argument he was talking about. “Grandma Tsunade wants representatives from the ninja clans to meet at the South Gate.” Now Mikon was as confused as his sister, but Sakura, who knew exactly what that meant, only gasped. And she wasn’t the only one.

Everyone turned to see Hinata, who had been visiting Lee in his room, and Lee himself, with the aid of a crutch under his right arm, standing in the doorway behind Naruto. They had heard the blond haired ninja come running down the hall and had come to see what the rush was about. Now both were standing there with looks of shock on their faces.

“You don’t mean,” started Hinata, but she stopped when Naruto answered her unasked question with a look.

“No,” said Lee softly.

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