Hello, again! I would just like to thank all of you who reviewed! You are wonderful!

In response to the anonymous reviews: Thank you very much, and Kisame appears in this chapter! THANK YOU!

Now I'll let you read the next chapter.

Chapter 2

The next morning, Sakura gaped like an idiot at the Kirigakure hospital for several minutes, unable to stop herself. Her guide waited nearby, but if he was becoming impatient he hid it well.

The facility was much larger than Konoha's, with off-white stone walls and a staircase that led to two double wide doors separated by a four foot strip of stone. A large cobblestone path meandered through the well-tended front lawn into a decent sized garden that some people were using to harvest medical herbs. However, none of that was what caused her to stare in amazement.

It was the statue. It was only half her size, very old—if the weathered, slightly washed out texture of the stone was anything to go by—and stood between the two doors like some sort of guardian. There were small but bright flowerbeds planted about its feet, as well as several bunches of flowers laid almost reverently against it, as if part of some sort of homage.

It would have been just like any other statue if it wasn't for the fact it looked like an exact replica of herself.

She turned to her guide, who was giving her a sharp toothed frown/sneer, the same expression he'd been showing her since she met him. "Um, why is this here?" Sakura asked, hoping to sound more curious than startled.

Huffing slightly, the man replied, "It's a statue of the founder of this hospital. The older shinobi say that she was a miracle worker who was years ahead of her time."

"Oh, okay. Why are there flowers here?"

"Some of the locals pay homage to the statue as a way of gratitude. The woman did stop a near annihilation within Mist."

That piqued Sakura's interest, but before she could inquire more about the subject the man interrupted. "Look, as fascinating as this is, we've got people dying so please just do your job and get in there."

Sakura flushed at her own thoughtlessness before walking into the hospital.

A quick glace around the lobby revealed the same sort of stonework that the walls were made of. Striding up to the nurse behind the large desk near the entryway, she reported in.

And was almost immediately thrown hip deep into patients.

Sakura sighed. It was going to be a long day.

Anzu stared at the young medic working beside her for a moment before returning to her own patients. She couldn't believe that Sakura was back! In the flesh! Everyone thought she had died that day she disappeared sixteen years ago!

Anzu frowned a little though. But, if this was the same person, why did Sakura look exactly the same as she did back then? She had heard about some people having the ability to manipulate their bodies to make themselves younger looking, or even jutsus that worked about the same so maybe Sakura had just done that? After all, the woman had to be in her thirties.

But since when had Sakura ever been conscious of her appearance? Surely she didn't age that badly? And why look sixteen again?

When she had greeted the pink haired woman, Sakura hadn't seemed to recognize her.

And come to think of it, Anzu thought as she drew blood from the man on the bed to run tests on later. Why was the surname of this girl 'Haruno'?

Taking out a needle and syringe, she jabbed an odd mass at the base of her current patient's neck. Pulling the plunger of the syringe up, the tube filled with thick white-yellow pus. That was not a good sign. She injected a mild antibiotic in order to stave off the disease for now, until they had a better idea what to do. Her mind raced in two directions, torn between figuring out about this Sakura and the epidemic.

Maybe it isn't our Sakura. Anzu shot a look at the younger medic. Perhaps this is a daughter?

No, that couldn't be right. She knew it was Sakura; you could change your appearance but not your chakra.

Plus, I'm pretty sure Kisame would have disemboweled the guy who got you pregnant if that was the case, Anzu smirked to herself.

After finishing with her patient, she walked over to where the pink haired ninja stood reading a medical chart.

"Hey, Haruno-san."

Sakura only momentarily looked up before her gaze returned to the clipboard, giving a quick nod to show that she was listening.

"I wanted to apologize for yesterday. You had treated a… ," she had to think fast to come up with a plausible explanation, " …friend of mine a while back and I had wanted to thank you for a long time," about seventeen years long, "and I guess I should have been a bit more clear about it. I hope you don't think I'm some weird stalker or something." Anzu knew that Sakura wouldn't, in fact, think anything of the sort. It just wasn't in Sakura's nature to believe that unless the evidence said otherwise.

Sakura smiled, looking up once more. "It's alright. I see lots of patients all over the place, so I apologize if I seemed a bit rude. Could you hold this here?" she gestured the gauze that covered the spot on a patient's arm where she had drawn blood.

Anzu grinned widely as she did what was asked, while Sakura wrapped a bandage around it. "In this field one tends to forget names and faces more often than not. I totally understand."

"Me, too," the young man they were talking over chimed in, grinning cheekily. "Even if I'm one of those forgotten names and faces, I totally forgive you."

Anzu and Sakura laughed. This one still had some fire in him, despite having the disease.

"Hey! Don't laugh at me!" he yelled, acting indignant. "As repayment, one of you lovely ladies must go on a date with me!"

Sakura peered closely at him. "He certainly doesn't seem sick. What do you think? Is our chipper friend here just skipping out on work?"

The blonde woman made a thoughtful expression. "Hmm… that is a possibility. Perhaps we should take his temperature to find out?" The patient's face lit up. "Of course, we should use the most accurate thermometer available."

Playing along, Sakura pretended to mull it over. "Yes, that does seem like a good idea. I'll go and get the rectal thermometer now."

The man paled considerably at this statement but remained undeterred, taking the joke in stride. "Skipping straight to there? What—and you haven't even taken me to dinner yet!" He made a tsk noise. "Naughty, naughty doctor-ladies." Shrugging in an exaggerated manner, he closed his eyes. "But well… I'm a cheap date."

Moving onto the next patient, they waved a goodbye to the boisterous man, who returned the gesture with a vigorous wave of his own.

Smiling, Anzu prodded Sakura a little. "I bet you don't see too many Kiri-nin's. Especially ones like him." She jabbed her thumb in the direction of the man who was starting to sing very loudly and very off-key (to the abject horror of everyone within earshot).

"In all honesty, I can only recall one Kiri-nin, but that was on the battle field when I was younger—long before I became a medic. He was one of the Seven Swordsmen of Mist."

Anzu perked up at this. "Did you know his name?"

Sakura looked sad for a moment but continued to run the basic tests on her new patient. "His name was Momochi Zabuza."

Anzu's smile slipped slightly. She had been one of the few people to cry when word reached about his death.

Forcing a new grin on, Anzu said in a thoughtful tone, "I always wondered why they carried such huge ass swords. Maybe they were compensating for something?" she suggested, a slightly perverted grin on her face. "Makes you wonder just how small the tool was to carry such big weapons around, if you know what I mean."

Sakura gave her a wolfish grin as she finished up the patient. "I personally believe that the bigger the sword, the tinier the package."

Anzu laughed. A hundred ryo says that if Kisame ever heard that, he'd be having guppies.

Lunchtime proved eventful for Sakura. Team 3 was a lively bunch, their light attitudes putting even the most worrisome medics at ease; a feeling that Sakura was pretty sure none of them had experienced since this epidemic began.

Somehow the trio had convinced their patrol partners to take a break, leading them away like Pied Pipers to the hospital, where they were now. They sat near the garden area, in full view of the front doors to the hospital (much to the pink-haired medic's amazement since this had to be the clearest she had ever seen the weather in Water Country). Sakura and Rumiko sat together, close to the windows of the building as Akira began to tell a tale about a battle between a strange flying, monkey-tailed boy and a green demon king that he claimed to have once come across.

Sakura found the trio funny, since they seemed to have many extremely wild and weird stories to tell, most of them far too outrageous to be even remotely true. She had to give it to them, though; they really knew how to liven up things.

At least the old lady running the building hadn't found them yet (Sakura wasn't going to fool herself, she knew that the old bat would find them eventually). Sakura had seen her blow up at some of the younger staff members for the tiniest things, and had even heard the lady yelling about them eating and drinking on their breaks! She doesn't seem to realize that in order to heal others we have to keep up our strength and chakra!

The old grump had soured everyone's mood, but it looked like things would be getting better now thanks to the arrival of the crazy trio.

Sakura laughed at Akira's story, but a glimmer of something reflected off the window caught her eye.

Looking over she saw the statue, glittering unnaturally for a moment.

Then Sakura felt a tap on her shoulder. Praying it wasn't one of the cantankerous old biddy getting ready to yell at them for taking their breaks (Kami forbid that they eat their only meal of the day when they could be doing work instead), Sakura turned and was immediately relieved to see it was just another medic-nin coming to join the party.

"Oh, hello Sato-san!"

Sato Anzu had proven herself to be a very good medic-nin and Sakura found her easy to get along with. Not to mention the fact that she shared her odd sense of humor, or at least Inner's.

The purple-capped woman grinned, displaying her sharp teeth. "Don't call me Sato, just Anzu will do. Mind if I sit here?"

"Not at all, you'll probably be my one saving grace," Sakura said, motioning for her to sit in the empty seat next to her.

"Oh come on, Haruno-san! We're not that bad!" Masashi joked.

"Want to bet?" Sakura smirked.

"Why yes, I would. Because if you're anything like Hokage-sama, then you can't win a bet to save your life." Laughter ensued as Akira resumed his unbelievable tale and distracted Masashi.

Sakura went back to looking at the strange statue from before.

"It's pretty weird isn't it?" Anzu interrupted Sakura's thoughts.

"What is it, exactly?" Sakura asked, not looking away from the stone.

Anzu leaned back into her seat, her eyes glazed over, deep in memories. "The statue's made out of Auraz rock."

"Auraz rock?" the pink-haired girl repeated. "I've never heard of it."

"Auraz rock is said to have mystical powers, and depending on what you carve it will give you certain abilities. Bringing good luck, or making you more powerful, to just name a couple. But that's just a myth. It's pretty rare stuff, and the only reason they made that statue was because the first one was smashed to smaller chunks, this being carved out of one of the bigger ones."

"Does it always shine like that?" Sakura asked, tearing her gaze away from the thing to look back at the other medic.

"Only around this time of the year, because of the angle of the sun. Though I'll admit that it's unusually shiny this year."

Sakura stared at the older medic, a perturbed look on her face.

"What?"

"You're surprisingly open with your acquaintances," she noted.

"Meh. It's not as though I'm giving away any secrets. Everything I've told you is public knowledge." She shrugged. "You could find it all out yourself with minimal effort."

Sakura continued to stare.

Wow they weren't kidding when they said she was weird, Inner said.

She's not weird, just different. Sakura countered. Returning to the real world, she blinked a bit. "Hey, Anzu-san, can I ask you a question?"

The older woman gave her a wry smile. "Sure, as long as it has nothing to do with military secrets." She rolled her eyes. "Not that I know any, of course."

"Um… this may seem a little rude, but… I'd heard that the Mizukage was… female?"

Anzu guffawed. "Not expecting our rough brute of a Mizukage, were you? Yeah, our Godaime Mizukage was female, but she's recently stepped down."

Sakura opened her mouth to ask why, but then stopped herself. Frowning heavily, she stated, "She's also got the disease, doesn't she?"

The other medic frowned as well, deep worry etched across her face. "I shouldn't say this to someone not from our Village… but yeah. She's got it. She didn't want to be a burden on the Village, nor did she want the council to trod all over the office, so she forced the current Mizukage into taking her place for now." She smiled a little. "He can't wait for her to get better; he really hates all the paperwork."

"There you are!"

"Crap," Anzu whispered. "The old hag's found us."

The woman in question strode up to them, her face turning an interesting shade of purple that made the medic in Sakura want to admit her as a patient. Preferably in the psychiatric ward. "What are you doing out here?"

Sakura glared. She really didn't want to deal with this!

Before Sakura could reply though, Anzu was already speaking.

"We are in the middle of an orgy, which you so rudely interrupted," she said, perfectly serious.

Most of the people present choked on various drinks and foods, and the old crone's face was gob smacked.

…Whoa, Inner. She does have your sense of humor. Sakura thought.

A kindred soul! Inner cried happily.

Sakura looked at the blood sample under the microscope, frowning slightly.

The virus/bacteria/toxin/whatever (no one was sure yet what it was, exactly) was like the horrid love-child of a leech and a cancer. It latched on and multiplied rapidly, spreading something like poison throughout the body as it killed the healthy cells, restricted breathing, caused mass fatigue and screwed over ones chakra control. It also had the nasty side effects of an autoimmune disorder, causing the infected's own white blood cells to do most of the attacking for it. Death came in the form of a massive heart attack.

Most patients didn't even know they had it until it was too late. There were very few warning symptoms and the symptoms themselves varied widely from person-to-person; a slight cough, strange lumps on the lymph glands, even partial paralysis. The whole cycle took about month to break down the body, effectively killing it.

Now that she knew roughly what it did, she had to figure out what was causing it. And because the symptoms weren't predictable, they were masking the true cause. The whole thing was giving her a massive headache.

Sighing, Sakura looked at the clock and frowned. 11:13 PM.

Had it really been three hours since she bid Team 3 good night?

Deciding to call it a night, Sakura cleaned up all of the medical notes and supplies before walking out the side doors that led to an herb garden she'd seen earlier that day.

It was decently sized, with herbs she recognized and a few she didn't. It was soothing, in a strange way.

Sakura continued to walk on the path, admiring various night flowers. In her entire life, she had never seen so many different flowers blooming despite the fact that it was January and freezing cold. After a while she turned towards the gate, intent on getting as much sleep as possible when a thought crossed her mind.

How was she going to get back to the hotel?

The mist was, as she was quickly finding out, even thicker during night time.

How do these people even know where they're going when seeing is virtually impossible?

Retracing her steps, she found the entrance she had walked out of only to find that it was locked. Hadn't Anzu said it locked automatically?

Damn. And to make things worse, it had just started to snow. She hated snow.

Aggravated, Sakura pulled off her hitai-ate, scratching her head in frustration.

Following the course of the brick wall, she soon found the doors to the front entrance.

Sakura hoped that they wouldn't mind if she found an empty room and crashed there for the night, because Kami knows she wouldn't find her way back to the hotel now.

She stopped short of the entrance, looking back at the statue. Did that thing just sparkle again?

Another twinkle appeared causing Sakura to walk over to it, almost in a trance.

Kneeling in front of it Sakura traced the aged statue's jagged cut hair, wincing as it sliced through her glove and into the tender flesh of her finger. She yanked her hand back, sending small droplets of blood falling to the ground below. Sticking the offended appendage into her mouth to stem the bleeding, Sakura looked down in shock as the stone began to glow.

The stone girl seemed to come to life as its hands began to flash through a series of hand signs, its mouth moving as though it was saying something but no sound was coming out. Instead, pale wispy kanji's formed from its mouth.

Ha

Sakura paled as she saw the single drop of blood on the statue's feet.

Haruno

Scrambling up Sakura tried to run but found herself unable to move. "I THOUGHT YOU SAID IT WAS A MYTH!"

Haruno Sa

"ANZU!"

Haruno Sakura

She gulped as a light began to grow from within the stone as it finished the last hand sign. Lights of all colors flashed and swirled around her, spinning and weaving until she could no longer tell one from another. Then she heard a metallic clash as sweet darkness swept over her and everything stopped.

Sixteen year old Kisame walked aimlessly through the thick mist, bored out of his mind. It was 11:34 PM and he didn't get replaced until 3, meaning he was stuck with Gawa till then.

He hated being put on patrol duty. The first rule of patrol duty was that nothing ever happened on patrol duty, and Gawa was boring as hell.

And to make it worse, it was snowing. He hated snow.

"Hoshigaki-san, you really shouldn't scowl like that. The Mizukage might put you on more missions like this." Gawa's nasally voice penetrated the teen's head like nails on a chalkboard.

"Please," he muttered to no one. "Just once make this interesting."

Just as the word slipped from his mouth he saw a bright light not too far off.

Grinning, he said a quick thanks before rushing towards the source, Gawa not too far off.

He was surprised to find himself in the Auraz Statue area. Nobody went there unless they were hoping for a good bloodshed. That statue was freaking sharp. And creepy. Very creepy.

As quickly as they came, the lights disappeared. He frowned.

What was that all about? The fog was too thick to see through so he had no way of knowing what it was.

Walking a head a little further Kisame nearly jumped when he heard a pained cry.

Looking down he saw a girl about roughly his age whose bright pink hair he just trod upon.

Whoops.

"Huh?" came Gawa's oh-so-clever observation.

If it had been any other situation Kisame would have laughed at his companion's loss for words since it was a rare thing, but he found that he couldn't form any words either.

She groaned and Kisame debated with himself on what to do. Kill her and then check her corpse? Or get her some help?

He chose the latter, since for all he knew she was a shinobi of Kiri and he really didn't want to hear the Mizukage preach at him about why he should not go off and kill people for no apparent reason. It wasn't exactly a pleasant lecture (he would know).

Picking the girl up, he turned to Gawa. "You continue with the patrol. I'll take her to the medic tower."

And with that Kisame ran through the mist, leaving an angry Jounin behind as he mentally cackled to himself. No more patrol duty!

That ended up being far longer than I thought it was.

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