A/N: This was inspired by a magazine for children, "Il Giornalino", which published very nice ideas on how to re-tell fairytales the wrong way.

Note: The Uchiha clan is OOC here.

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Sakura took her medical bag, walked out the door and locked it. She went hurriedly towards the centre of the village, where the hospital was. She was already a bit late for her shift.

When she arrived, the usually hectic hospital was relatively quiet. It seemed like she wouldn't be needed any time soon, so she went to her office and took her list of patients, which she had prepared the evening before, and went through it, making notes on each of them.

Sakura was the beautiful twenty-two-year-old, pink-haired, green-eyed, vice-head medic of the hospital of Konoha. It was the biggest village of the region, even if it was surrounded by thick forests. There were dangerous bandits living in the forests, but as long as you remained on the main roads, you had nothing to fear. The Police Department of Konoha, run by the powerful family Uchiha, made sure of that. They also made sure that there was safety inside the village. They were currently trying to create a special squad of agents to free the forests of the bandits.

Sakura had always lived in Konoha, except for a few months when she had accompanied her teacher on a medical trip to Suna, another nearby village. She had had nothing to fear, because Tsunade, her mentor and current head medic of Konoha, had insisted they took the busiest roads of the country. Besides, she had made sure Sakura was skilled in self-defence.

That had been a few years before. Now Sakura worked regularly at the hospital, since she was an exceptional medic, and sometimes hung out with her friends. She loved her job and took it very seriously, knowing that making a mistake would mean lose the patient's life.

That wasn't a problem. She was a precise person and was usually very punctual. However, that morning, she had felt… tense. The pink-haired woman hadn't known why, but she kept getting distracted and was therefore a little late. Her tension faded as soon as she arrived at her familiar office, and she relaxed a bit.

With her list in her hand, she started her morning routine visiting some of her patients, controlling their conditions. A few hours later, she had just finished when a nurse came looking for her in her office.

"Doctor Haruno, the head-medic needs to speak with you," the nurse said.

Sakura nodded. "I'll be there immediately. Is there an emergency?"

"No, she said there is a particular patient you need to visit," the nurse explained.

Sakura furrowed her brow. "Strange. Well, thank you, I'll be coming right away."

The nurse exited and Sakura, taking her inseparable medical bag, went towards Tsunade's office. She knocked on the door and went in.

Her blonde teacher had a bottle of sake and a few documents on her desk. She motioned for Sakura to sit down.

"Sakura, sorry for interrupting your work, but I need you to go visit a particular patient today. It's an old woman, called "Granny" by the few people who know her, who lives by herself in the eastern part of the forest. I usually go to her once a year and do a full physical examination, just to make sure she is healthy. As you have seen, today is relatively quiet here at the hospital, and we can afford to be without one medic. I'd like you to take my place and go visit the old Granny this year, because I have to perform that surgery on patient Lee today, which has been scheduled months ago," Tsunade said.

Sakura frowned. "Of course I'll do it Shishou, but couldn't it wait until tomorrow? Today I wanted to…"

"I know, Sakura," Tsunade sighed in exasperation. "You wanted to experiment with your poisons again. I know that you're good at it, well, actually, very good at it, but it isn't priority. You should do that only when you don't have patients to visit. And since you have a patient to visit now…" Tsunade trailed off and grinned.

Sakura sighed. Fine. "Alright, Shishou, I'll go. Where exactly does she live?" she asked.

Tsunade explained that her house was in the middle of the forest, beyond the third eastern mountain, and the quickest way was a little path that went up the mountain, down the other side and arrived directly at the little cottage. She then gave her apprentice the old woman's file. "And Sakura," Tsunade added, "don't worry. You won't need the whole day. In a few hours you will be already back, and you have the rest of the day off. You can go back playing with your poisons to your heart's content."

Sakura smiled a little and went back to her office. She took her medical bag, her stethoscope, the Granny's file and a few light poisons to dull one's senses. She was going to cross the forest, after all, and self-defence or not, it was still a dangerous place. So, better safe than sorry. She then quickly ate some lunch she had packed that morning, brushed her teeth and went out.

It was early autumn and therefore she didn't need a jacket. The weather was sunny and the temperature was pleasant. The green-eyed doctor observed the village she loved, but again, like in the morning, she felt a little tense. She shrugged it off and continued towards the eastern part of Konoha.

Near the border of the village there were also the Police Headquarters. Sakura knew the place a bit, because one of her friends, Sasuke Uchiha, was the son of the Police Chief. Sasuke had been her friend for a long time. She used to have a crush on him when they were younger, but as soon as she realized she was embarrassing him (and annoying him as well), she had "recovered" and they had become friends. Not close friends, maybe, but he, together with Naruto, Ino and a few other guys, all of her age, were the only ones she sometimes hung out with. Not that she had much free time: she was a workaholic and lived alone. Her parents had died in a fire which had destroyed the western part of Konoha, where she had lived, eight years before. She had been devastated, but fortunately at that time she had just begun to learn medical skills with Tsunade, and therefore she had had her hard studies to keep her busy. She had overcome her loss after a while, and her cheerful and compassionate nature had emerged again. She had become famous over the last few years for her skills and her kind-hearted spirit.

Sakura cared a lot about her friends, even if she didn't spend a lot of time with them. Ino was the Gossip Queen, and it was fun to talk with her, or rather, to let her chatter for hours. Naruto had lost his parents when he was still little, therefore he had been really helpful when she had sometimes felt really down after the death of her own parents.

Sasuke had instead a few problems with his family. A large part of it was inside police force. Sakura often wondered if he would become a police officer as well. She knew he wasn't sure about it, mainly because of his brother. Itachi Uchiha, five years their senior, was the Uchiha prodigy. He was incredibly talented, skilled and clever, and he was soon to be the new Police Chief after his father. People respected him because he was just, fair and honourable. He took his job seriously and it was obvious that he liked it. Sasuke admired him greatly, but he also envied him a bit. He knew that if he joined the police force, he would be compared to his older brother. And Sakura knew he wouldn't accept that, because he was proud. All the Uchihas were a bit proud, Sakura mused. But she couldn't be sure, because she had never met Itachi, so she didn't know what he was like. However, even if he had been a little less proud, Sasuke didn't really like the job of a police officer. Therefore, he was still uncertain of what to do in his life.

While passing near the Police Headquarters, the pretty pink-haired medic shook her head. Sasuke was being a bit unfair towards his brother. It must have been difficult, she mused, to get where he was now, even if he was a genius. The Uchiha family was strict, they didn't allow anyone to receive a promotion if they weren't worthy of it. Being the son of the Police Chief wouldn't help. Meritocracy was valued, and Sakura thought it was fair. There were few women in police force, but those few were capable and reliable. They weren't the kind of women that slept their way up the ranks. Sakura was glad that the same rules applied to the hospital. She wasn't the vice-head medic because she was the head-medic's apprentice, but because she had earned it, with her hard work and her skills. The Uchiha family had been the first in Konoha to value true skill and sense of justice above anything else.

Sakura was so caught up in her thoughts about the Uchiha family, that she didn't notice that she had almost reached the forest. She shook her head again to clear her thoughts and proceeded to look for the little path. She found it and saw that it divided in two a few meters later. She was about to go left – that path would go up the mountain – when she heard a crack followed by a thud and a suffocated mild curse.