Waking up

While running through the streets of Konoha, Kotetsu would occasionally glance down at the girl lying weakly in his arms and each time he did he would speed up. Finally, after what felt like an eternity he reached Konoha hospital. Not wasting a single more second, he entered the hospital and asked for help.

"Quick, someone help, I have an injured person with me, she needs emergency care. " Kotetsu shouted the moment he entered the hospital.

Instantly one of the free medical-nin went towards Kotetsu and started checking upon Athena.

Upon seeing the pitiful state she was in, the medical-nin couldn't help but raise an eyebrow and ask while taking Athena towards a bed.

"What exactly happened to her?"

"I don't know either, we found her wandering in front of the gates, and as she seemed to be lost, I went to help her, but the moment I touched her, she just collapsed in my arms. I rushed towards here as soon as possible and didn't think too much about it." Kotetsu replied while scratching his head.

" You did well. Don't worry she had nothing too serious. She collapsed because of exhaustion, a good rest would solve that. As for her wounds, we would take good care of it, don't worry." the medical-nin replied as she finished checking on Athena.

" Oh, thank you. I'm relieved to learn it." Kotetsu said relieved.

"Ah, and Kotetsu-san go and take a breather. You look exhausted too. You have already done what you could." The medical-nin added

" Oh no, there is no need. That was nothing. I need to quickly go and inform the higher-up." Kotetsu said trying to brush it off.

"Kotetsu-san!" the medical-nin said with a frown on her face

"Alright, I get it, I'll go and rest a bit. " Kotetsu said giving up.

"That's more like it." The medical-nin said with a smile and turned to continue taking care of Athena.

Some hours later, the sleeping Athena opened her eyes and looked around in confusion. While she was acting like a lost lamb on the outside, her thought process was the complete opposite.

'Uh, step one is done. Now I should be careful with all I said and portrayed myself as a nice girl. I can screw up now, not after what I  put myself through early.' As she thought about how she had to mess herself up to fool the guards, Athena greeted her teeth and was even more determined to pull through all this.

While lost in her thoughts, Athena didn't hear when the Medical nin came back into the room.

" Little girl, hey little girl, are you hearing me?" The medical-nin called out Athena many times before the latter answered.

" Ahhh, who are you? Where am I?" Athena answered as she was a little startled when she saw she was not alone in the room anymore.

" Calm down little girl, you don't need to be afraid. I won't harm you. You are in Konoha hospital and I am the doctor that took care of you. Can you tell me your name?" The medical-nin said, trying to appease the little girl in front of her.

" Ok, thank you. Yes, I am Athena Inane. And you, aunty?" Athena answered shyly to the medical-nin.

When the medical-nin heard the way Athena called her, she could not help but feel a vein pop on her forehead while rebuking Athena in her head. 'Aunty? Why are you calling me aunty? I just turned 25 this year. I am young like this and she is calling me aunty. Leave it, I should correct her instead.'

" Oh, you have a beautiful name, Athena. You can call me Oyone onee-san." Oyone said and the last sentence was said with a smile that looks half kind and half threatening.

"Yes, onee-san," Athena answered timidly. She would have loved to continue teasing Oyone but sadly, she had to keep acting like a confused and timid girl for some time.

"That's better like this. Now, that we are presented, can you tell me what happened to you?" Oyone asked as her expression turned serious.

Hearing that question, Athena knew it was time to spew some bullshit out. While the story she has put together may not be an award-winning soap opera, she knew it was enough to make any guy with a heart tear up.  So without further ado, she started talking with tears leaking from her eyes and a downcast look.

After hearing Athena's story, Oyone couldn't help but feel sad for her. Putting the crying Athena to sleep, she went out of the room. Looking around a little she quickly found the ninja send by the Hokage to investigate and went towards him to report what she learned from Athena.

Athena's mother was something akin to a wandering merchant, she went from village to village to sell her wares, and because of that they never stayed in a village much long and were always traveling. Some days ago, as they were traveling, they were attacked by a group of bandits. It wasn't the first time they had to deal with bandits and they knew that as long as they gifted them some of their merchandise they would be left alone. But that day, things were not going to be so easy as the bandit were looking for something more.

As they refused to cooperate and surrender Athena's mother to the bandits, a fight broke out between the group of bandits and the mercenary Athena's mother had hired. Seeing that the situation was not good for them, Athena and her mother tried to escape together. Unfortunately, Athena's mother was the goal of the bandits, they were not going to let her escape easily and always had an eye on her.

So to let her daughter escape, Athena's mother took a difficult decision, she made her daughter run in a direction while she would run in the opposite direction.  She knew that Athena wasn't the bandits focus so doing it like this would give her daughter a better chance of escaping. While Athena tried to oppose her mother's decision, she was not given the choice and had to run away. And that is what Athena did, even though she had to went through countless difficulties to survive and escape, she succeeds and her mother's sacrifice was not in vain.