In a Dream - Chapter 2 (Patreon)

A constant beeping sound slowly drew the girl out of her slumber. Decades of training not entirely her own forced her to keep her breathing even as she examined both her body and her surroundings.

Bandages covered her torso and she had needles sticking into her arms. Probably IV’s or such going by the placement but otherwise she wasn’t restricted. Also her sense of smell told her she was in a dedicated medical area, too sterile and too many artificial scents to be otherwise. The sound of people moving through the halls told her that it wasn’t a small facility.

When nothing happened for a few minutes after she awoke, the girl cautiously opened her eyes and looked around.

Yeah, this was a hospital alright.

An official one too. No secret hospital-prison or anything similar would have a window unsecured and wide enough for a person to slip through even if they thought there was no chance of their patient escaping.

She was probably safe then.

Safe-ish anyway.

So with slow movements to not agitate her wounds she sat up and waited. A few minutes later a nurse walked in and did a very bad job of acting surprised she was awake. That was fine, what wasn’t fine was how the nurse refused to explain what happened or how long she had been here.

Asking any of those types of questions were met with repeated lines ‘I can’t tell you’ or ‘someone will be by later’.

It got annoying very fast.

Thankfully a doctor being escorted by a Konoha ninja arrived quickly and she was able to get some answers.

“As far as we can tell, Itachi Uchiha snapped and attacked your clan. We are unsure exactly what the cause was or how he managed to subvert the Uchiha compound’s defensive measures to ensure no one was alerted during his attack…but the result is he left very few survivors.” the doctor summarized gently. He had a good bedside manner, actually managing to give her information about what happened without slapping her with ‘Itachi killed your whole family’ right away.

The doctor sighed. “As for what happened to you… we did some scans. Several areas of your brain show stress from a high level genjutsu. You may feel phantom sensations, hallucinations, or experience severe deja vu. Follow the standard recovery template number six to avoid mistaken interactions until you can be sure what is real for the rest of us. Your physical injuries…” He paused.

She waited politely for him to figure out how to say ‘your boyfriend stabbed you in the chest’ and pointedly cleared her throat when he failed to think of anything.

Should probably be ex-boyfriend at the moment though, he did basically succeed in killing her and Itachi wouldn’t be coming back for a few years if things stayed at all the same. She’d figure it out later, probably.

“...there is no other way to say this, it is a miracle you are alive.”

Not too surprising, Itachi was good at what he did. No matter how much he didn’t like doing it.

“The only thing that saved you was the sharpness of the blade and your kekkei genkai. Without those factors, you would be dead.”

Okay now she was confused.

“My what? How would my sharingan save my life?”

The accompanying ninja was the one to answer. “Not your sharingan. We discovered you had another bloodline limit you inherited from your father’s side of the family. It stress manifested during the massacre.”

“Yes, indeed.” the doctor glared at the other man for just dumping the word massacre on his patient. “It’s a rarely manifesting bloodline but it's well documented. The Lifespring Body kekkei genkai ensures all wounds heal perfectly. It would be more famous if it wasn’t so rare or easily overwritten by outside genetics. In fact we had assumed you unable to possess it once your sharingan activated.”

Hmm. “So a hidden kekkei genkai accelerated my healing and let me - no?”

The doctor was shaking his head before she even finished her sentence.

“The Lifespring Body does nothing to accelerate healing, all it does is ensure you heal ‘perfectly’ from various injuries. You won’t need to worry about scars or infections now. No, the katana was simply so sharp that it left a very small wound behind and your body was able to heal with none of the normal issues left behind caused by organ damage.”

“I-I see…”

So rather than accelerated healing, she had just managed to not die long enough for her body to patch itself up a bit. A slightly bigger hole, a more ragged cut…

“But I'm fine now?” She asked, just to make sure.

“You’ll heal.” the Doctor said sardonically. “You will still be confined to bed rest for another week at least and light duty for a while after that. Just to make sure your heart doesn’t explode if you push yourself.”

“Which is why I’m here.” The ninja interrupted. “Genin Izumi Uchiha. Based on your current medical and political situation you are being moved off the active roster for the foreseeable future. That status will be reviewed when you are medically cleared or returned to active duty by the head of your clan. Whoever the fuck that turns out to be. With only two of you left, maybe just flip a coin for it?”

“Right, that’s enough.” The doctor glared at his companion again. “We were supposed to address this slow and professionally.”

“She’s a ninja. If she can't handle a bit of bad news she is going to die soon anyway.”

The doctor gave him one last disgusted look as the ninja walked out of the room and turned back to the girl. “I apologize for how you found out, but yes, there are only two survivors from that night. Sasuke Uchiha is currently in a coma from what seems to be the same genjutsu you were afflicted with.”

“Can I see him?”

“When you heal more. The week of bed rest is mandatory.”

“I see, thank you. If that is all…?”

The doctor took the hint.

“I’ll have a nurse come by soon with some food. You must be hungry.”

The gir-Izumi nodded in thanks as the man also took his leave. Once the door shut, she leaned back into her pillows and thought about her situation.

Well, she found out the reason she didn’t die. Ironically it was the non-Uchiha heritage that had forced her away from the clan until her sharingan awoke that saved her.

She also had confirmation Sasuke was alive.

Not that she doubted that would be different but it helped to be sure.

So…plans…

Long term plans like influencing the Sound invasion or the Akatsuki could wait. She had years to think about those issues, hopefully.

She was also too weak at the moment to even have a hope of influencing the people needed to listen to her. And the Uchiha still seemed to be disliked to some degree if the ninja from earlier’s attitude was any indication. People still wondered if they were to blame for the Kyuubi attack and hadn’t realized what the massacre meant just yet.

That would probably change within the next few days when they realized the Police Force had been gutted and would not be getting more Uchiha to replace those lost. Heh, Izumi idly wondered how many procedures were going to have to be re-written from the ground up now that the skills her clan brought to the table were gone.

Izumi shook her head and focused back on the present.

Her short term plans were pretty straightforward. Train herself up as much as possible and avoid getting wrapped up in politics. The Tsukuyomi actually worked in her favor here. Her body didn’t gain the conditioning or strength but the skills her old self ‘learned’ in the illusionary world were very real and she had theoretically matched Itachi in ability for a bit. Itachi always knew one of her goals was to stand as his equal and if he was going to go out of his way to create a perfect world for her to die in that ‘draw’ was his current skill level.

She wouldn’t be matching him right away, and Itachi was no doubt going to get stronger, but the gap had already shortened considerably thanks to her knowing how to plan her training.

But that would have to wait until she was cleared from the hospital.

She sighed and triggered the call button for a nurse.

If she couldn’t train her body, she could at least train her mind. Starting from confirming how much she actually retained from the Tsukuyomi…