Disclaimer: Naruto and all of its characters belong to Shueisha and Masashi Kishimoto. I own nothing but the original characters I create.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 77: Hospital Visit
Naruto identified the source of the sounds and hurried inside the room.
"What the…" He found Rock Lee lying on a bed. His left arm and leg were in casts, suspended in the air.
The other occupant of the room was bending over the bed. Gaara was staring at Lee, moving sand closer to his face.
"Got some unfinished business here?" Naruto asked.
Gaara was visibly startled as he turned to face Naruto, having been so focused that he failed to notice his approach.
"You're…?" Gaara recognized him but couldn't recall his name.
"Uzumaki Naruto, and I already know who you are. But…do you mind telling me what you're doing?"
"I'm going to kill him!" Gaara said without hesitation.
"I figured you'd say that." Naruto could easily sense the bloodlust radiating from the boy.
"If you try to stop me…I'll kill you too." Gaara threatened.
"What's the point of killing him now? You already won the match." Naruto got a bit closer.
Gaara grinned.
"I don't have any specific reason for doing so…I just want to kill him, that's all."
Naruto raised an eyebrow.
"You're really messed up in the head, aren't you?"
His face contorted with contempt. "I warned you…don't get in my way…" Gaara moved his hand, and the sand began to creep across the bed, inching toward Lee's face.
"You're really stubborn…" Naruto knew this was a very powerful opponent and could not afford to hold back too much in his current state, so he used the traces of the demon's chakra already in his system to enhance his movement.
In an instant, he was next to Gaara and threw a direct punch at his face.
Gaara hadn't expected Naruto to attack so suddenly, so he wasn't on full alert and his automatic defense was too slow to block the punch.
Naruto's fist connected with Gaara's face, sending him flying through the window he had used to enter the room.
The glass shattered with a loud crash, along with part of the window's frame.
Naruto poked his head out of the hole and found Gaara standing on the hospital's outer wall.
The sand armor on Gaara's face had already begun to regenerate and he didn't seem to have sustained any real damage.
"How dare you?! I'm going to kill you!" Gaara looked completely enraged now.
Naruto made a complicated expression. He had not wanted to confront this crazy boy yet.
From what he had seen so far during his match against Lee...this was not an opponent he would be able to beat without resorting to using the Kyubis chakra. And that was something he would prefer to avoid as much as possible.
However, when Gaara tried to jump back into the room, a shadow passed by Naruto at an impossible speed and blocked his path, forcing him to land in the hospital's inner garden, along with the person who stopped him.
"That's enough." Gai held Gaara firmly by the arm.
"You again…" Gaara glared at the jonin.
"Let me go!" He struggled, but he couldn't break free from Gai's grasp.
"Leave now, and I won't mention this to anyone," Gai told the boy before releasing his arm.
"But if you try this again, I'll make sure you're locked away for a long time…"
Gaara looked extremely angry, but he wasn't stupid and he hasnt reach the point where he would lose control. He knew he couldn't do much against a jonin like Gai, so he had no choice but to leave.
Without saying a word, Gaara gave Naruto one murderous glare before he jumped away and disappeared into the busy village.
"What a character…" Naruto commented.
"Uzumaki…" Maito Gai came back into the room and looked at him with a kind smile.
"I must thank you for what you did. If th—"
"What happened here?!" Several nurses and a few patients arrived at Lee's room, attracted by the loud noise from the broken window.
"Who did that?!" One of the nurses pointed at the destroyed property. Her eyes locked onto Naruto, showing nothing but hatred.
The other nurses soon joined in.
"It was you, wasn't it?!" They began to accuse him.
Gai stepped forward and smiled at the women.
"Oh, this window?…I must apologize for this. I got a bit carried away while doing my morning stretches, hahaha."
"Mister Maito?…it was you?" The mood of the nurses immediately changed. All Jonins were extremely revered figures in the village after all.
"Yes, I'm very sorry about the mess. I'll pay for it, of course."
"Oh, there's no need for that!"
"Yes, it was just an accident." The nurses began to assure him.
Gai tapped Naruto on the shoulder.
"Your teammate is at the end of the corridor. You came to see her, right?"
"Yes, thank you." Naruto wasn't going to reject a good chance to get out of here, where everyone was looking at him with those nasty eyes.
As he approached the last room, he began to hear voices.
Peeking inside the one with the open door, he found Sakura sitting on her bed, seemingly in the middle of a heated argument with the girl in the next bed.
"Shut up, you just got lucky!" Sakura exclaimed.
"Lucky? I won fair and square." Ino was quick to defend herself.
"Your opponent was half-dead; where's the fairness in that?" Sakura retorted.
"My sensei always says that luck is also part of a ninja's skill set," Ino said.
"Luck is not a skill…"
"Yes, it is! And it doesn't matter anymore. The results are clear…I'm in the finals, and you aren't. Thus, I'm the superior ninja, hehe." Ino chuckled.
"It doesn't work like that!" Sakura shouted.
"You two are very lively already…that must mean your injuries aren't a big deal." Naruto said.
The two girls finally noticed his presence.
"Naruto! You came to visit me." Ino appeared pleased with his arrival, at least.
"Wait…why would he visit you? It's obvious he came to see me. I'm his teammate!" Sakura insisted.
And just like that, another argument began.
'Why would they put those two together?...' Naruto wondered.
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