A Hatred That Will Never Bloom Into Friendship

“So, your finally awake?” he says in a surprised tone.

I turn my head around to him, my heart racing and a waterfall of sweat rolling down my face. I glance down his figure, and I see that his pants were soaking wet over his thighs.

“What happened to you, Kimina?” he asks, worried.

You bastard! What did you do to him?

I run out to Orochimaru, kunai held out. But when I get close, the demon grabs my arm and twists it behind me, and he strikes me with the knife in the center of my chest.

Blood spills and soaks the tree bark, and both screams rip out of my throat and Sakura’s.

I place my hand absent-mindedly over the spot where I was pierced, and I wasn’t really astonished to find that the wound was healed and gone. I cringe slightly though as I let my hand fall back into my lap. I didn’t feel it before, but now I did. My whole body, from the neck down felt numb, senseless. Like I’ve been lying unconscious for days. For days?

I turn back my head sharply to Lloyd, and I regret doing it because the muscles in my neck throbbed indistinctly in protest. “What day is it…for this exam?”

“It’s the third day. Well, almost the ending of it, anyway.”

I glance up towards the sky, which was orange and pink tinted. Sunset.

“So, I’ve been unconscious for almost two whole days?” I question, dumbfounded. Lloyd nods.

“So, were…you holding me all that time?” The moisture on his pants I concluded was the sweat on my face that rolled onto him. Or at least I hoped it was. I smile at the childish thought, and Lloyd looks away from me. I then quickly compose my expression, fearing Lloyd read too much into the grin.

He gazes back at me. “No. But this morning, you started to shake and you looked like you were in pain. I didn’t know what to do, but you wouldn’t wake up. So, I put your head in my lap…” He looked almost embarrassed at this point, and I couldn’t blame him. This was, again, one of Lloyd’s softer sides that he never showed.

“Thank you,” I mutter, but loud enough for him to hear.

“Hey, don’t mention it. You’re my teammate. I was worried about you,” he tells me sincerely. I smile.

“So, what was going on with you? Or do you remember?” He looks really bothered as he asked this.

I think back on the nightmare, on how it felt when Orochimaru’s bastard teeth sunk into my neck; the ghastly pain. Yuuna Zakuro’s terrible and painful grip on my face, and her even more disturbing and gut-wrenching words. But I couldn’t tell Lloyd about that, because he would find out about my healing power being a curse. Naria and I had agreed to tell them both at a later time, so it was automatically out of the question, even though it pained and terrified me.

I could sense Lloyd reaching his hand out to me, but he pulls it back reluctantly.

“Tell me what happened, Kimina. I know something did.” He stares straight at me. “When I was running through the Forest, I saw a bright green light falling down into the darkness of the trees. I noticed it was you, and the green light was your healing chakra. When I caught you in my arms, I saw for a instant the stab wound in your chest before it closed and healed up.

“Tell me what happened to you. Who did that?” His hands ball into fists at his side.

“You…you remember the Grass Ninja with the unnaturally long tongue?” He nods. “Well, that wasn’t who he really was.”

“What do you mean?”

I start off by telling him my confrontation with Sasuke.

“What? You fought Sasuke? Well, that’s to be expected. Both of you have been waiting for that opportunity. So, what was the outcome? Did you kick his ass?”

His reaction completely strayed away from the primary focus of me telling him about the Sound demon, but I guess I should have expected it.

“Um, I don’t know. The brawl was kind of cut short.”

I continue on with the part where we heard Naruto scream, cutting out all the details of me and Sasuke’s battle.

Sasuke running off in the direction of his teammate, and me chasing after him. Me looking into the eyes of the demon and the words he spoke to me.

“Wait a minute. Why the hell does he want to help you control it?” Lloyd asks skeptically.

I shake my head. “I don’t know.” And I honestly didn’t.

I resume the repugnant account on with me fighting alongside Sasuke against the Grass Ninja. Lloyd’s eyes widen at this, and his mouth drops open. I rush on before he could stop me.

“…We thought we had defeated him, but we were way wrong. He pulled out of the wires and put some sort of binding spell on the three of us. The fire had burned off half his face, and his headband bore the mark of the Sound village, and his voice changed to a deeper tempo.” I close my eyes. “His neck stretched from his body and he bit Sasuke on the neck.”

“What the hell…?” Lloyd bellowed.

“When Sasuke fell to his knees, I saw a black mark where that demon bit him at. And he was in absolute pain.” I look away from his stare. “I attacked Orochimaru with a kunai in my hand. But he twisted my arm and struck me with the knife. That’s how I was wounded in my chest.” I feel myself beginning to tremble, and Lloyd’s eyes narrow.

Then his body started to sink into the tree, with my body along with him. But he left Sasuke with a message, saying that Sasuke had to defeat the Sound ninja who serve him and that Sasuke was going to search him out in a desire for more power.

Orochimaru and I alone, and him telling me that he chose Sasuke and that he wanted me as well, because I had potential and mostly because of my healing power. Before he could do anything though, Anko showed up and he let go of my arms and that’s when I fell and went unconscious.

“You…you were really scared, weren’t you?”

“Of course I was. He was so powerful and terrifying.” A powerful demon not of this world. My eyes close again in remembrance of the fear I felt when I was in his presence. I shiver when a small breeze blows by, but the wind was warm, not cool.

“Damn it. I knew we should have never split up.”

“There was nothing you could have done, Lloyd.”

“I could have protected you, or at least tried my best to.” He gazes at me earnestly, and his green eyes capture my dark ones. “But I will, Kimina. That bastard isn’t going to lay a finger on you. I promise you that.” He smiles his cocky little grin.

Without thinking, I turn my body all the way around and wrap my arms around Lloyd’s neck in an embrace. He holds me back in his strong arms, and we seem to stay like that for an eternity.