Tamamo's senses reeled, caught between worlds — one where screams echoed, red and endless, and this one: hollow, still, wrong.
She hit the ground hard, vision flickering. Her head pulsed like it had split open, and when she tried to move, her limbs fought her. Her body was shaking, bones refusing to obey. She tasted copper. Smelled it too.
Blood. Her own. From her eyes.
Somewhere, deep in her skull, the remnants of Tsukuyomi still screamed — a phantom pain dragging barbed wire through her mind.
She blinked. Once. Twice.
The moonlight from the window blurred in her vision, doubled, warped. Her Sharingan was still active, but barely. The new pattern spun sluggishly, drowning in red.
She couldn't feel him anymore.
Itachi.
He was gone.
And in that sudden, crushing silence, only one thought rose like a cry from the core of her soul:
Sasuke.
Her vision shifted. Shapes snapped into focus. Shadows. A small form beside her.
She dragged herself forward, knuckles scraping along shattered stone and blood-slick tile. She reached out—
Fingers found fabric. Skin. His shoulder.
"Sasuke," she rasped, voice broken.
He didn't respond.
Her heart seized.
She pulled him toward her with trembling arms. He was unconscious — pale, frothing lightly at the mouth, chakra unstable and erratic beneath her palm.
'He's alive.'
Her fingers gripped tighter.
A wave of nausea slammed into her as she tried to lift him, head spinning so violently she nearly blacked out again.
But she didn't let go.
She wouldn't.
Not while she still had breath in her body.
She hooked one arm beneath him, then the other, forcing her legs to obey. Her knees wobbled. Her spine screamed. The world tilted and reeled, but she dug her heels into the earth and stood.
Her brother on her back.
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.
'You're not dying here. Not tonight. Not like this.'
Her steps were uneven, dragging, stumbling. Every few feet she nearly dropped him. Her hands were slick, her vision darker with each breath — but she pressed on.
Through the forest line.
Past the shattered compound gate.
Into the empty, sleeping village.
No one saw her.
No one stopped her.
No one came.
Blood ran down her face like tears as she passed under flickering lanterns. Sasuke's weight was crushing.
Her own body was burning out, chakra flickering like a dying flame.
But Konoha Hospital was in sight.
She didn't know how many times she fell.
She didn't remember how many times she forced herself back up.
But she reached the doors.
And with the last of her strength, she slammed her shoulder into them, collapsed to her knees, and whispered hoarsely into the night:
"Help him."
Then everything went dark.
—
Sasuke woke to the sterile scent of antiseptic and the dull beeping of machines. The world felt foggy, the edges of his vision pulsing in and out like a bad dream refusing to end.
His body ached, but nothing compared to the weight pressing on his chest.
He tried to sit up, only for a hand to rest gently on his shoulder.
"Easy, Sasuke. You're safe now."
The voice was calm. Old. Familiar.
Sasuke turned his head. The Third Hokage stood beside the bed, his face grave but gentle.
"Where... where am I?" Sasuke rasped.
"Konoha Hospital. You've been unconscious for three days."
Sasuke blinked, confusion morphing into fear. "Tamamo?"
The Hokage's eyes softened with something almost paternal. "She's alive. But she's in a coma."
Everything else drowned out in that moment. Sasuke's breath hitched. His pulse rang in his ears. He stared at the ceiling like if he looked hard enough, it would undo time.
The Hokage said more — about the massacre, about Itachi — but it all blurred. Sasuke didn't register any of it. Not until he was led, still wobbly, down the quiet hospital corridor. And there, in a sterile white room, lay his sister.
Tamamo.
Still. Pale. Wrapped in gauze and dried blood and silence.
He reached for her instinctively, his hand trembling as he brushed a few strands of hair from her eyes. Her skin was cold. Not lifeless. But close.
He sat down beside her bed and didn't move for hours.
---
Day Two.
Sasuke didn't eat. Not because he was trying to prove anything. He simply forgot. The food tray was brought in and left untouched. The nurse checked it hours later and left with a frown.
He spent the day watching Tamamo.
Sometimes he talked to her. Quiet things. Stories from when they were little. Dumb things. Like the time she tried to train a squirrel, or how she once put flour in his shoes because he "looked too serious."
No response.
His jokes fell flat.
By nightfall, he had dark circles under his eyes and a dull ache in his chest that didn't fade, even when he laid his head beside her hand.
---
Day Three.
The Hokage visited again. He brought news Sasuke didn't care about — funeral arrangements, Clan meetings, outside attention. Sasuke nodded like he heard it. But his eyes were always on her.
She looked smaller than he remembered.
He tried brushing her hair. It tangled easily. It didn't feel right. Tamamo always looked a little chaotic. Hair slightly messy. Smile full of mischief.
Now she looked like a ghost of herself.
Sasuke tried to make her laugh again.
He recounted the Great Nugget Betrayal. Shisui's betrayal. The dramatic chase. Her awakening the Sharingan over deep-fried chicken.
He smiled at the memory.
But the silence that followed made it unbearable.
He curled into himself that night, blanket over his head, pretending she was only sleeping off another chaotic experiment gone wrong.
---
Day Four.
Sasuke tried training.
In the Hospital courtyard. Did push ups until his hands blistered. Practiced the hand seals for the Fireball again and again, despite the pain in his chest and throat.
He told himself Tamamo would want him to get stronger. That she'd make fun of him for moping.
But he couldn't stop glancing at the window. Wondering if her room was still lit.
He skipped dinner again.
When he returned to her room that night, he found her unchanged. Still. Cold.
He held her hand for hours.
---
Day Five.
He brought her a flower. It was small. Pathetic, maybe. But he remembered how she liked them.
Wildflowers.
He placed it on the bedside table.
He told her more stories. Spoke of the time she tried to haunt Shisui into teaching her the Body Flicker. How she practiced whistling at night just to spook him.
"Remember when you showed up in his dream?" he asked quietly, almost smiling.
"He said you looked like death in a flour apron."
Silence.
His smile fell.
---
Day Six.
Sasuke sat at her bedside, hollow-eyed and silent.
He hadn't slept. He hadn't eaten. The nurses had stopped asking.
Tamamo still hadn't moved.
He leaned forward, resting his forehead lightly against her arm. "You know," he murmured, "I tried training alone today again. No one called me a nerd. No one tackled me halfway through a kata."
His laugh was more breath than sound.
"I even missed your terrible form."
A long pause followed. The room was quiet except for the steady beep of the heart monitor.
He stared at her face, pale and still. It didn't look right.
"You weren't supposed to be the one who…" His voice cracked, and he bit down on the rest.
The silence pressed in.
He took her hand gently.
"I'll wait. However long it takes."
He gave it a small squeeze, as if hoping she might squeeze back.
She didn't.
But he didn't let go.
—
Day Seven.
Sasuke didn't remember falling asleep.
He sat beside her bed the same way he had for the past six days, back straight, hands in his lap, trying to be still, trying not to disturb her.
The hospital had stopped asking him to leave hours ago. He was quiet. He didn't demand anything. He just sat, like a fixture, as constant as the monitor's beeping.
Tamamo hadn't moved in a week.
Her skin was still pale. Her breaths came shallow and slow, barely lifting the blanket that covered her. The flowers he had left days ago were starting to wilt on the windowsill.
Sasuke had started talking to her less. Not because he didn't want to—but because the silence after was starting to hurt more.
His eyes were half-lidded now, focus soft. The kind of quiet that sits heavy on the chest.
And then her hand twitched.
At first, he thought he imagined it. A muscle spasm. Nerves.
Then her whole body jolted.
The chakra monitor let out a high-pitched wail.
Sasuke sat up so fast his chair scraped against the floor. "Tamamo?"
She convulsed again—harder this time. Her limbs shook under the blanket, her back arching off the bed. Her face twisted, brow pinched tight, teeth clenched.
The monitor's rhythm changed—rapid, erratic.
Panic surged through Sasuke like a live wire. He stood frozen, heart hammering in his ears.
"Nurse—!" he tried to shout, but his voice cracked, barely audible.
The door burst open a second later, three people flooding in—a nurse, two med-nin, barking terms Sasuke didn't understand.
"Seizing—get a stabilizer!"
"Chakra spike—what the hell—?!"
"Get him out of here!"
One of the nurses tried to guide Sasuke toward the door, but he didn't move.
He couldn't.
He stared at his sister—at Tamamo—shaking violently, eyes clenched shut, her whole body betraying her.
He couldn't breathe.
"Move the boy—now!"
Hands grabbed his shoulders, pulled him back. The door slammed shut behind him.
Sasuke stood in the hallway, cold all over, chest tight, staring at the door as voices barked orders inside.
She was alive.
But something was wrong.
For the first time all week, he felt it—the full weight of how little he could do.
And it was unbearable.
--
It has been over a week.
The room was quiet.
He looked like a ghost — skin pale, eyes ringed with grey.
He stood over her for a long time, fists clenched at his sides. Then, slowly, his trembling hand reached out and brushed a lock of hair from her face behind her ear.
"You'd hate this," he said softly. "Being stuck here. All these clean sheets and quiet halls."
His hand found hers next.
The room was silent but for the hum of chakra monitors.
"Please wake up already," he whispered, voice barely holding together. His lower lip trembled. "You can't leave me too."
He looked down at her, eyes glassy with unshed tears.
He dropped to his knees, forehead against the matress.
"You're all I've got left."
He held her hand tighter, hoping she could feel it. Praying she'd come back.
"I need you."
Her face remained still.
And for the first time since he awoke, his shoulders shook.
The monitors kept humming.
And Sasuke stayed there, hoping.
Waiting.
Breaking.