So here's my second update; enjoy
They travelled through the night.
Gamakichi was tireless, even when they reached the desert and Sakura had to use water style jutsu to keep him from drying out too much.
It was no walk in the park for Sakura either, her perch wasn't comfortable, and she had to actively ride the toad, sometimes using Chakra to grip his back. She was glad that she'd read her mission scroll before she left, because there was no way she could read it now. They weren't stopping until they'd reached Suna. Even when her energy levels dropped to the point where she couldn't grip any more, Gamakichi carried her in one hand.
At least, she thought wryly, she could boast to Lee and Gai-Sensei that she had beaten their record.
By the time the sun was starting to descend from the sky a familiar rock formation became visible in the distance. And were those... figures approaching?
She watched warily as the figures approached, mindful of the fact that most of the rouge ninja had escaped. She felt her mount slow slightly, wary because neither of the approaching shinobi had made any kind of signal.
But then Sakura spotted the container that they carried between them; a water satchel, and, as they came even closer she recognised the girl who had been Gaara's student some years ago.
"Haruno-san, Lord Kazekage sent us out to guide you into the village, as most of the entrance has been destroyed. And we figured you might be thirsty." The man greeted her as the young female attempted to catch her breath.
"I'm surprised he knew I was coming." Sakura replied reaching for the water. "I don't think we even had time to respond to the message he sent."
This time the girl (was it Matsuyi? Matsuri?) responded with an adoring smile. "The Kazekage said the sands whispered of your presence."
Sakura had her doubts that Gaara, the Kazekage and man of few words, had used that specific phrase but she understood the sentiment.
Clearly, he had some connection to the sand that allowed him to sense people as they approached the village.
"Was the damage to the village that bad then?" Sakura enquired. "And I've only got really sketchy casualty figures. How many were wounded?"
"We've got 4 people circling the drain, 31 with severe injuries and 127 people with more minor complaints." The man again, he was probably a medic-nin. "Most were injured by the rubble and shrapnel from explosions."
"Brief me on the 4 in critical condition."
The medic Nin looked more than a little reassured by Sakura's confidence when it came to taking charge. Rightly so, with their medical capabilities this was a real catastrophe for Suna, the 31 people with severe injuries could very well end up in critical condition as well.
In Konoha this would have just lead to every medic in the village working overtime for a week. And a very harassed looking Tsunade.
He began rattling off details as they sped around the side of the village. He knew the patients well, had a sound understanding of how they were being treated and knew why they weren't really recovering properly. But he had one nasty habit.
"Listen, uhm?" Sakura started before realising that she had rather rudely forgotten to ask his name.
"Oto." He supplied.
"Your knowledge is great. But if I'm going to use you as an assistant when I get to that hospital you need to stop saying these people are circling the drain. The term is critical condition."
Oto flushed. "Ah yes, I guess it isn't really very professional. Wait did you say assistant?"
Sakura grinned at the man. "Yes I did, I'm going to need all the help I can get; I can't focus on 4 critical and 31 severe patients without help."
"Don't you want to report to the Kazekage first?" Matsuri interrupted.
"I'm sure that the patients who are clinging to life by a thread are slightly more important than me saying 'hi' to the Kazekage." Sakura replied scathingly. "He can wait."
"I'm glad to hear you're so eager to start work Sakura-chan."Came an amused female voice from above.
Sakura looked up at the sandy rock wall that stretched up in front of her. There, 10 feet up, stood Temari, Kankuro and, a little further back, the Kazekage.
Temari was the same as usual; confident, proud (or 'troublesome' as Shikamaru would describe her), and of course, fan wielding. Kankuro still wore war paint, and carried his puppets on his back. He bore the same kind of expression that Temari did; confident to the point of being arrogant.
The Kazekage. Well from what she could see he was as pale as he'd always been, and still carried that gourd on his back. But he was facing back toward the village, so his expression was obscured.
Sakura noted that her welcoming party had now dropped to their knees respectfully, murmuring 'lord Kazekage' as they went. Not wanting to be disrespectful, Sakura finally hopped from Gamakichi's head and landed softly in the sand. But she didn't drop to her knees, that was a little too far in her opinion.
"I didn't travel all this way in a just over a day so that I could swap pleasantries while people need my help."
Temari smiled. "That's the leaf spirit for you isn't it. I hope you haven't over exerted yourself in your rush to save the innocent." She teased. It was obvious she was thinking of Naruto and his tendency to exhaust himself to save everyone he met. "You'd better brace yourself; Gaara's going to bring you up."
Gamakichi wheezed slightly. "Time for my exit." Sakura nodded at him gratefully, he really had over done it to get her here so quickly.
Then the ground shifted beneath her. And of course, because she hadn't been paying attention, she stumbled and landed not quite so neatly on her backside. Graceful as ever. The sand brought her and her companions level with the sand siblings and promptly deposited them on the ground.
"We'll take you straight to the hospital." Kankuro said from her left. "It's not far from here." He glanced at the still silent Kazekage, who nodded and finally turned away from the village to look at Sakura.
His expression came as a surprise. Unreadable, but soft. The slight tension in his jaw hinted at stress. The softness lay somewhere deep in his blue-green eyes. And a little in set of his lips, not smiling but not scowling. She could see why so many mothers wanted to give their daughters to him. And why those daughters would willingly go along with it. He was a very attractive man, and he bore the title of Kazekage.
Kankuro led her forward to reveal some steps cut into the sandstone wall. "The place that we'd found for you to stay in was destroyed during the attack." He gestured to the village; the destruction was surprisingly wide spread, many homes must have been flattened. But the area of devastation stopped suddenly.
"I was told only a small number attacked the village. How-?" She ended her question there; it was obvious what she was going to ask.
"Most of the damage was done by the leader; his earth style jutsu flattened that area in a matter of seconds. Then Gaara deployed his sand." Kankuro explained.
"It was a miracle that no one was killed." Temari added.
Gaara said nothing; instead he started down the steps, hands curled into fists.
Sakura followed suit, itching to get to the hospital, where she was needed. "You'll be saying in the Kazekage mansion while we find somewhere else for you." Kankuro informed her.
"That's fine; I'll probably end up just staying at the hospital anyway, it won't be the first or last time I've done it." she smiled, thinking of the times Tsunade had literally had to drag her home from the hospital usually after Shizune had grown tired of convincing her to leave.
"Yeah the Hokage did tell us not to let you do that so much." Temari chuckled. "He doesn't want us wearing out his favourite medic."
Sakura stumbled on an uneven step, almost plummeting headlong into Gaara's back. "He told you not to let me stay at the hospital?" She rolled her eyes; Naruto was going to wear himself out if he kept worrying about her.
They reached the bottom of the stairs shortly after and began to walk through an undamaged part of the village.
Well, the buildings were mostly intact, but signs of the attack were everywhere; broken windows, some kunai here and there, people who looked somewhat akin to refugees out in the street.
The rogue ninja that attacked the village must have been on a par with the Akatsuki.
Then they reached the hospital. Sakura could see the area that had been razed to the ground not one hundred meters away from the entrance. They had been fortunate indeed.
"Forgive me." Sakura began, eyes fixed on the area of devastation. "But how is it that no one was killed? Such a large area, there must have been some people in it."
Kankuro answered her question wearily. "The attack happened on the third day of the Festival, almost everyone was on the other side of the village listening to Gaara's speech, the few that were over on this side were exceptionally lucky."
"I keep hearing civilians say that we've all been blessed by the gods." Temari added sceptically. "Although I doubt that some of the wounded would agree."
"Speaking of wounded people." Sakura pulled her hair back into a rough bun. "I have some patients to attend to." She took three steps toward the hospital entrance but a light hand on her arm stopped her for a moment.
She turned and met the Kazekage's eyes with surprise. A deep emotion swirled in his eyes.
"Thank you, Haruno-san." His voice was husky and sincere. She'd gathered that he'd always been of few words, and that the thank you had an implied 'for coming to save my people so quickly'.
Not sure how to respond, she bowed her head respectfully and murmured. "Kazekage-sama." Then she turned to the hospital glancing back once to see him gazing off in the direction of the flattened earth.
Once she'd entered the hospital her training kicked in. Oto rushed her to the emergency room where she was given scrubs and led to the first patient she asked to see.
Half an hour later she'd briefed the attending nurse how to continue his care while she saw the next patient, then she moved on to the next; teaching Oto as much as she could while she worked. After the critical condition patients, she moved on to the worst severe cases making sure they wouldn't get infections.
And then she moved back to the first patient, who now desperately required surgery to remove the shrapnel from his abdomen.
Sakura knew she would be working well into the next morning.
Gaara was stressed.
He had to admit it; the stress was finally getting to him. But it was no surprise really; half the village had been blown away right before his eyes not 5 days before and the fallout had been terrible. So many injured, so many displaced from their homes, medics had begun dropping left right and centre from pure exhaustion. Sakura's arrival had been a god-send; he wouldn't have to worry about the hospital so much now.
And he expected another attack any day now, because they'd only brought down one of their assailants.
He put his head in his hands. He should get some sleep, but he knew that he would never be able to relax enough to rest. He eyed the bottle of sleeping pills in his drawer warily. They would knock him out for a good six hours, but he wouldn't sleep restfully, they brought cloying nightmares and left him feeling groggy and unfocused.
He stared at the wall for a good few minutes, disinterested.
He would probably have to check in on the Konoha medic. She was one of Naruto's precious people, and Gaara wanted to make sure she didn't tire herself out. Temari hadn't been joking when she'd told her what her Hokage had said about her. He'd made sure that Gaara knew that Sakura was prone to over working, that if she could she'd never leave the hospital.
She just wouldn't catch a breath for herself.
Gaara had promised that he would look after her, and he would. He'd even taken the trouble to plant a tiny amount of his sand on her sleeve, so he knew that she was still at the hospital. He could sense that her chakra was depleted now; maybe he should go make sure she came back for sleep?
No, she wouldn't, shouldn't, leave the hospital tonight; she was the best medic in Suna right now.
He broke off his staring contest with the wall to glance at the bottle again. There was no help for it. He needed to stop thinking, if only for a little while.
He poured some water from the canteen by his desk and popped a pill in his mouth, then strolled across to his sleeping chambers.
Sakura hastily shoved a granola bar down her neck as she hurried between patients, her chakra was way down but some of those patients just wouldn't stabilise.
Jana, the second critical patient she'd visited kept crashing; she had several shrapnel wounds to the chest and a nasty head injury and one of her lungs had collapsed not ten minutes ago.
Takemi, a patient who had been listed as a minor had massive internal bleeding, he too had been made a critical patient after he began coughing up blood in the waiting room.
Three more patients had been bumped up to critical condition in the last hour. And because they had gone so long without treatment they wouldn't stabilise.
She needed her full team of Konoha trained medics for this. Instead she had a hospital of Suna medics who, although quick learners, just couldn't handle the injuries presented to them.
Oto rushed out of the room in front of her.
"Jana's crashing again; I think her other lung has collapsed. And she was having a seizure." He was panicking; he was no use to her like that.
"Stay here for a second." She told him firmly. "Take a minute to calm down. I can't use you if you're not calm." Rushing past him she felt a tiny wave of guilt but knew she was justified in her words.
Tsunade had said similar words to her a long time ago.
Jana's lung had collapsed. And as Sakura repaired it she started having another seizure. Oto came in at that moment followed by two nurses.
"Hold her down." Sakura ordered. "I can't work on her if she's moving like this." They all moved to their places, pinning the woman down. "Seriously hold her down guys!" Sakura shouted as the woman jerked out of their grasp. "She won't mind a few bruises if it means she lives."
The beeping on the monitor fluctuated, and then made the sound that all medics dreaded. A long flat note stretched through the room.
"Starting CPR." The nurses pulled out a board and slid it under the woman's back while Sakura pushed air into the woman's lungs.
"Come on Jana, you've got to want it." Sakura pleaded with the woman as she pumped her chest.
She knew the woman couldn't hear her. She could feel that her chakra network had already deteriorated.
I'll try one more time. She told herself, and each time she finished she repeated. She'd spent so much time and chakra into keeping this woman alive. And here she was, slipping from her grasp.
She stopped abruptly. Lips white.
"Call it." She said to the room, not really caring who did it. She vaguely heard someone speak and made to leave the room.
One of the doctors who had joined them in the room started preparing to move the body. She stopped.
"No." The word popped out of her mouth of its own accord. "You leave that to the orderlies. There are patients that need your care." The doctor looked almost disgusted at her words. Maybe he thought she was disrespecting the dead? "In situations like this, people die, there's nothing more you can do for her except fighting that much harder to save the next life. Right now your skills are better directed towards those you can still help."
The man looked... Sakura didn't know how he looked really, but he seemed to understand and they followed her out of the room. Away from the first fatality.
A nurse came running along the corridor.
"Haruno san, Yuki's abdomen is distended and black, and he just started coughing up blood."
On to the next Sakura thought to herself, a black cloud descending over her.
So yeah, that was fun, lots of medical stuff, can't you just tell I've watched Grey's Anatomy?
I tried to cut down on my paragraph breaks a bit, as suggested in one of the chapter 1 reviews but I do get a little 'enter happy' when I get into it so it's probably still looking a little errr, gappy?
Thanks for the nice (and constructive) reviews guys, made me want to bash this chapter out a little quicker =] so if you do it again I'll try to treat you with chapter 3 asap