{Broadcast Mind -> Video - 29}
---
I'm awake.
She wakes up on a hospital bed she recognizes. It's in the third room on the left on the fourth floor; she remembers the angle of the view of the Hokage monument. She snorts when she sees this last.
Naruto's painted orange swirls on the Third's face again, it'll take him hours to scrub it off. I thought he'd grown out of that behavior?
She thinks it's orange, at least. She figures it must be. The vandalism, the monument, the view outside the window and Konoha's bright colors are recast in shades of gray, but it's Naruto's handiwork so it must be orange.
The sheets are not white, that much she can tell. There is a dark stain seeping in, and she frowns in disapproval--
Who changed these?
--and puts a hand to the stain. It's hot still, tacky on her fingers, and when she rubs them together there is a very faint smell of metal in the air.
Blood,
she concludes.
When she lifts the sheet she realizes it's leaking from a wound in her gut, through the hospital gown. That would explain it.
... Neji.
She has to find him. He should be here--and she doesn't know why, they're hardly close, certainly not close enough that he'd visit her in the hospital--but he should and he isn't and she has to, has to find him. The wound doesn't matter, she throws the blood-heavy sheet off her because it doesn't matter either. The shock of the cold floor on her bare soles as she stumbles to the door and how heavily she braces herself on the frame doesn't matter. She summons the strength bloodloss has stolen from her and runs.
The corridor is dark. She cannot follow her path so much as she can see the circles of torchlight that mark it in front of her that blaze her trail, tell her where she must go. Forward. She must go forward, but it's difficult when her own blood is puddling under her feet, slick and treacherous. Running over it is more challenging than walking up trees. Much more. Her feet betray her and she goes sprawling as gracelessly as a civilian.
To think you imagined yourself worthy of an Uchiha.
Don't look.
That voice and the disdain in it--she knows it too well. More importantly, she knows the power of his eyes, and she fears them. Don't look.
Don't look.
The creaking, clattering puppet arms that suddenly encase her are superfluous, she thinks. She's not going anywhere. But then neither is the sword through her throat--she'd have bled out in a minute and a half without it, each of her heartbeats like the click-click-click of a second hand as each pumped a little more of her life out. Now, her heart is still.
Senseless, really, unless he wants to humiliate and silence her. She doesn't put past him.
Because she's dead and it doesn't matter any more, she looks--
[--the dream ends abruptly.
For a moment, the feed ends. Another moment later, it's back on, but there's nothing to see in the video. There's very little to hear, either; just harsh breathing and the quiet sound of rustling through grass. A full minute later, Sakura finally speaks]
Where--
[Movement, and then the Forge is turned over and she comes into view. She frowns at it for a long moment, as though it's offended her or perhaps as though she's trying to figure out what it is.
She sets it down; face up this time, not intentionally, but it still captures her standing and walking quickly into the mist, out of view. The video runs on for several minutes before ending.]
I'm awake.
She wakes up on a hospital bed she recognizes. It's in the third room on the left on the fourth floor; she remembers the angle of the view of the Hokage monument. She snorts when she sees this last.
Naruto's painted orange swirls on the Third's face again, it'll take him hours to scrub it off. I thought he'd grown out of that behavior?
She thinks it's orange, at least. She figures it must be. The vandalism, the monument, the view outside the window and Konoha's bright colors are recast in shades of gray, but it's Naruto's handiwork so it must be orange.
The sheets are not white, that much she can tell. There is a dark stain seeping in, and she frowns in disapproval--
Who changed these?
--and puts a hand to the stain. It's hot still, tacky on her fingers, and when she rubs them together there is a very faint smell of metal in the air.
Blood,
she concludes.
When she lifts the sheet she realizes it's leaking from a wound in her gut, through the hospital gown. That would explain it.
... Neji.
She has to find him. He should be here--and she doesn't know why, they're hardly close, certainly not close enough that he'd visit her in the hospital--but he should and he isn't and she has to, has to find him. The wound doesn't matter, she throws the blood-heavy sheet off her because it doesn't matter either. The shock of the cold floor on her bare soles as she stumbles to the door and how heavily she braces herself on the frame doesn't matter. She summons the strength bloodloss has stolen from her and runs.
The corridor is dark. She cannot follow her path so much as she can see the circles of torchlight that mark it in front of her that blaze her trail, tell her where she must go. Forward. She must go forward, but it's difficult when her own blood is puddling under her feet, slick and treacherous. Running over it is more challenging than walking up trees. Much more. Her feet betray her and she goes sprawling as gracelessly as a civilian.
To think you imagined yourself worthy of an Uchiha.
Don't look.
That voice and the disdain in it--she knows it too well. More importantly, she knows the power of his eyes, and she fears them. Don't look.
Don't look.
The creaking, clattering puppet arms that suddenly encase her are superfluous, she thinks. She's not going anywhere. But then neither is the sword through her throat--she'd have bled out in a minute and a half without it, each of her heartbeats like the click-click-click of a second hand as each pumped a little more of her life out. Now, her heart is still.
Senseless, really, unless he wants to humiliate and silence her. She doesn't put past him.
Because she's dead and it doesn't matter any more, she looks--
[--the dream ends abruptly.
For a moment, the feed ends. Another moment later, it's back on, but there's nothing to see in the video. There's very little to hear, either; just harsh breathing and the quiet sound of rustling through grass. A full minute later, Sakura finally speaks]
Where--
[Movement, and then the Forge is turned over and she comes into view. She frowns at it for a long moment, as though it's offended her or perhaps as though she's trying to figure out what it is.
She sets it down; face up this time, not intentionally, but it still captures her standing and walking quickly into the mist, out of view. The video runs on for several minutes before ending.]