Title - Confinement of Duty.

Category - Naruto

Themes – Angst.

Rating - Mature.

Disclaimer - I do not own Naruto.

A.N - Thank you everyone who followed, favourited and reviewed, and even those who took their time out to read it. I hope you enjoy this chapter, I may write another chapter(s) but I currently have a lot of work to do.

Chapter 2 - Revelation

I think it's the human spirit inside all of us

that gives us an enormous capacity to survive.

Amanda Lindhout

No one has ever accused him of being stupid, well not after the chunin exams and he changed his whole life around. The person he once was, was driven by jealously and hatred towards himself and the world. His previous misjudged perspective shattered and he has become triumphant because of it. Now, now he was comfortable within his skin, he knew who he was and what his limit were. He had a functional relationship with the rest of his family and he had forged bonds with his friends beyond just fighting alongside each other.

So he knew, he could tell that something was wrong with his friend, he didn't need his Byakugan to see. He had noticed how she flinched away from any form of physical contact, creating boundaries higher and impenetrability. How her demeanour had changed over the years, her eyes became dimmed, her laugh became uncommon.

Yet he dismissed it all.

Just like everyone else did.

What fools they were, how they naively just believed that her changes - from the girl he had fallen in love with to a distant shadow, were because of Sasuke. The man who had broken her heart and left it broken, that destroyed her childhood innocents and trust. Yet he still fell in love with the pieces, he would have done anything to have of held her whole heart. He knew she knew, yet was frightened to trust anyone with the remains of her heart.

How foolish and naive, they were ninja's they should have known something was wrong.

He should have.

Yet he had no idea until he found out that she was in a hospital.

That she wasn't there to greet him with her bright shining emerald eyes.

For her eyes wouldn't open.

He was watching her again and he knew it; he knew he was staring and he couldn't help it. The others that visited did nothing to stop him, all stuck in their own minds and the vision that tainted it.

Whilst they always associated her with the hospital, they never imagined her in a hospital bed. They didn't even know that she had a mission, they never knew for three days that she was in the hospital, stuck in a bed and unresponsive to the world around her.

The girl he had fallen in love with was in a coma and seemed so dull, even her brightly coloured hair. Her body seemed so small in the bed, the blanket covering most of her body, only revealing her gown covered shoulders and her face. Her face that was swollen and bruised. He could only agonisingly imagined what the res of her looked like.

He could not help but wonder what happened to her, why she never mentioned going on a mission as she had brushed off a Konoha meet-up. He had thought it was because she was tired from the hospital. But she wasn't even on duty that day.

So what had happened?

That thought plagued his mind whenever he was not by her side, which did nothing to help her. How he wished he could help her, for her to wake up. He had Shikamaru to check the records and her name wasn't associated with any missions recently.

It nudged under his skin, the itch to find out what happened. If she wasn't injured in a mission, then it meant that someone in the village had hurt her. Someone in their home had hurt her, and he would find out who it was. He would make them pay.

Yet Shikamaru had told him that he had found something. Something that he needed to see in the bowels of the mission records hall. He didn't know what he was expecting but what he found, those maroon mission logs that were supposed to be hidden but he had found on the table. A pile of them that stole his breath away. He supposed he had to thank Shikamaru for finding them, though his friend had taken a two-month solo mission last night.

To see the records, to see what happened to his friend and what could have happened to his teammate or his cousins made his anger cold in it's intense fury. He felt sick for what the village has done to her to the point that it feels like another separate entity had done this – for the village he fought for, the village his precious people fought for wouldn't have done this.

But they had.

His whole belief system shattered.

The village claims to be the students of the Will of Fire but how can they claim that after the missions they assign? He carefully read all the maroon mission reports he can find, uncaring of how the time passes as he envision all the pain she went through privately. How his heart aches and slowly begins to crack as he read the 26th seduction mission she went on, the one that required counselling and hospital visit.

He cannot help but compare what he knew at the time.

How drastic her change in behaviour which they all dismissed for her growing up, how foolish were they? How could they claim they were close friends? How could he of all people brush off her behaviour, it was when he started seeing her for who she was rather than just Naruto's teammate. He could not help but wonder whether any of them could have made a difference, could have helped prevent the actions that got her maimed and stuck unconscious in a hospital bed.

There is a hurricane whirling beneath his skin, itching and scratching within his system screaming to be let out, to create havoc on those who had hurt her, the village included.

He does not want to hold back, he wants to break and burn everything to the ground. Like they burnt her out, burnt out any relations that could have been.

He would not hold back, he vowed as he stormed out the records room, he would avenge all the wrongdoings done to her. He would make everyone pay so that when she would wake, which she would, she didn't have to fear anyone or anything again.

If this is his reaction, he cannot even comprehend how her teammates would react.