Strange Terrain:

Chapter 2

Author's Note:

I'm keeping these chapters short so that I can produce them quickly. Thanks for the reviews and follows! They lift my spirit! As always, enjoy-

Edit:

I have decided to merge chapters 2 & 3 because I felt they read better as a single chapter. Sorry for the false update!

XXX

"Lee-san, you're supposed to be resting."

Sakura tried to suppress the ever-growing vein in her forehead. Two hours and thirty minutes into her rounds, and she'd only managed to see five patients. With children running around the hospital, elderly patients refusing to take their medicines, and ninja trying to train in their rooms - the hospital felt like a place of chaos.

"Sakura-san, I am fine!" Lee punched in the air for emphasis, before wavering on his feet and over-dramatically gasping and grabbing his ankle. He fell to his butt in the middle of the hallway. "This… is nothing."

"Lee…" she started, bending down to look him in the eyes. She was careful to be sure her white nurse's dress did not rise too high. "If you don't rest that sprain, it's only going to get worse." This felt a little bit like talking a child into staying in bed. "You want to train, right?"

Lee nodded, his large round eyes filling with patriotic tears. Sakura mentally rolled her eyes.

"Then you need to stay in in your room." She rose gracefully, offering him her hand and grunting only slightly when he put his full weight into standing up.

Once Lee was safely deposited in his room and she'd done a full chakra scan of his ankle (training too hard, again) Sakura found herself walking briskly through the hallways of Konoha's massive medical center. She fumbled with the files in her arms, going through a mental checklist of everyone she needed to see today before she could end her nursing shift and get back to work in her office. Emerald eyes scanning each name written on the manila folders, and one in particular caught her eye.

Kabuto Yakushi?

What was he doing on her rounds? He was an S-class prisoner, currently being held in a private room many floors beneath the hospital. These rounds were assigned at random. Any nurse could have gotten ahold of this. It wasn't even public information that they had captured him!

Sakura was so engrossed in her thoughts about what kind of panic would have occurred if it were to become common knowledge among the staff that a man very capable of wiping out the entirety of their ranks was currently in a coma underneath their feet would cause that she did not hear her name being called by a meek voice behind her. She kept walking, fully intending on giving whoever had put this file into rotation a piece of her mind, when a timid finger tapped her shoulder.

"Ahh!" Sakura almost jumped out of her skin, whipping around violently and dropping her files. Hinata Hyuuga stood behind her, looking out of breath and blushing furiously.

"Sakura-san!" the girl gasped in her soft voice, "I'm so sorry!"

Hinata was immediately crouched down furiously gathering the folders. Sakura simply stared, mind lagging in an attempt to understand what had just happened. She gathered her senses and began collecting her patient files as well. "That's fine, I didn't mean to startle you Hinata. You don't have to pick these up."

The girl merely shook her head, eyes glued to the floor. She offered Sakura the files without looking up, before stuttering out, "It was m-my fault. I, um... I couldn't get your attention… You were walking so fast, so I thought…"

"Really, it was my fault," Sakura assured her, already feeling slightly exasperated at the Hyuuga formality. She took the files and straightened them out, smoothing her dress as she did so. Hinata did this as well, her own nursing uniform looking much tighter in some areas than Sakura's was. It was somewhat annoying that they were required to wear such ridiculous getups when both girls were clearly senior staff, but rounds with the nursing staff was part of their internships, and there wasn't preferential treatment no matter who you were.

Still, Sakura didn't think hers looked nearly as good.

"Is there something you needed?" she asked, shuffling her files back in to order and only half paying attention.

"Ah! Y-yes. Tsunade-sama asked me to find you and tell you to report to her office immediately." Hinata bounced her forefingers together, still not looking up. How could one person be so shy?

"Oh, okay. Did she say why?" Sakura's mind flashed to the Yakushi file. Maybe it wasn't random that it had ended up in her rotation after-all?

"N-no…" the girl looked up from under her eyelashes, a faint blush still present on her cheeks. "She said it was important, though…"

Sakura nodded and offered Hinata her thanks with a smile. Before the girl could respond, she had already turned around and resumed her swift pace. Tsunade's office was located at the top of the medical center, and Sakura made it there in record time. The rest of her rounds could wait. After all, one doesn't keep the Godaime waiting.

XXX

Three sharp knocks on Tsunade's door was all Sakura offered before she pushed through and stepped inside. Tsunade was alone, standing in front of her desk with her palms planted solidly on the oak. She did not look up when Sakura entered the room, instead muttering something to herself before calling the girl's name.

"Sakura," her mentor spoke her name with no formality. "You're late."

"I got here as soon as I could, Tsunade-sama."

Sakura stood behind the Godaime, her files clutched roughly in front of her stomach. Tsuande finally turned, smoothing a straw-colored stand of hair back behind her ear. "You got the file?" she asked, eyeing the manila folders.

So it wasn't an accident. "The Yakushi file? I was surprised to see it in my rounds. I've got it. Why?"

"Have you had a chance to study it?"

Sakura blinked. This was just like her mentor – expecting that she would spend every waking moment working. Tsunade was always pushing her like this, and while it had helped her to make leaps as bounds as a medic, it could sometimes be frustrating. 'You read 80 pages? Why not 100?' or 'You finished half your files, but not the other half?' Still, pointing out that she had only just received the file would not please the Godaime, so Sakura settled for a quick shake of her head. "I haven't."

Tsunade sighed, and suddenly Sakura was aware of the dark circles under her eyes and the frazzled nature of her hair. She looked exhausted.

"Well I have," the woman started, leaning back against the desk and crossing her arms under her breast. "I've been trying to decide what exactly we're going to do with him."

Sakura stepped forward and discarded her other patient files on Tsunade's desk. Her mentor watched as she opened Kabuto's folder and leafed through the pages; it was obvious Tsunade had been up all night making notes. There was a full transcription of the procedure they'd given him the night before, as well as several pages of intelligence gathered about his medical history. No wonder the woman looked exhausted. Her scrawling doctor's handwriting covered just about every margin, notes on his known jutsu and affiliation with Orochimaru intersecting with the biological information that they'd found during his preliminary examinations.

At the bottom of the last page a single word was written in large red letters. RESILIENCY. A flash of cold shot through Sakura's stomach. That word…

"And what have you decided?" she asked, looking up carefully. She tried to maintain a smooth composure, but if Tsunade was about to suggest what it seemed like… well, that was out of the question. It was unethical. They would be no better than he was.

Tsunade took the file, flipping back to the page on his medical information. "We both know he's too dangerous to keep here. This is a civilian hospital, not a prison. Even unconscious, it's not safe." Sakura nodded, waiting for the woman to continue. Instead she ran a finger down the page, apparently lost in thought. "You know what I am going to suggest, Sakura."

"We can't!" she burst out, stepping forward so that her face was close to Tsunade's. Sakura composed herself and stepped back, taking a breath. "It's not ready. It hasn't been tested."

"He's the perfect test subject. With his healing skills combined with our own, the chances of success are very high. It's your jutsu, Sakura. You know better than anyone that he is the perfect candidate."

Her jutsu? That was true. Sakura had spent the last year studying sealing techniques, trying desperately to design something that could work both defensively and offensively – something that could stop even Orochimaru. After all that time and experimentation she had found it, her very own jutsu. Nothing else in the world quite like it. Similar to the seal created by the Fourth Hokage which sealed the great fox spirit inside of Naruto, this jutsu was designed to selectively suppress the wearer's chakra so that it could not be accessed. It had a special provision that she had added in specifically for use against dangerous criminals, but so far she had not had the opportunity to actually test it.

"He could die," she said pragmatically.

"If we don't use it, he's going to die anyways."

Sakura didn't understand, and her face must have shown it. Tsunade continued, "We are not equipped to keep him here. If he were to become well enough to be useful in interrogation, he would be well enough to escape. He already knows this village, and the powers of the ninja within it. Look me in the eye and tell me you believe a few seals and an ANBU guard would be enough to keep him here..? That he wouldn't do everything in his power to escape confinement, and that he wouldn't take our friends and comrades with him? We don't even know all of his strengths."

Biting her lip, Sakura stayed silent. She couldn't say that. A part of her knew that Kabuto Yakushi was hiding great power – that he could easily destroy many of their great ninja. It was unrealistic to expect the entire shinobi army of the Leaf to guard one prisoner…

"Our only option is to neutralize him – one way, or another."

"So it's an execution!" Sakura's voice was harsh. This was not her ninja way. "Either we kill him while he sleeps, or let my seal do it for us..?"

Nonplussed, Tsunade stepped away from the desk and went to stand in front of the wide windows overlooking their village. "I do not make this suggestion lightly, Sakura. Study his file. I truly believe it would be a success." She turned to face the girl. "This is my will as the Fifth Hokage. Kabuto Yakushi will be stripped of his ability to harm this village, and as you are the only one who can use that jutsu, it's your decision how. Will he be executed, or will we try another way? Without him, we lose a great opportunity to learn more about that snake Orochimaru, and a chance to bring Sasuke Uchiha home."

Sasuke…

The name still wrapped her heart with sadness. She thought back to her conversation with Naruto earlier that morning. Did Kabuto truly hold the keys to bringing home their lost friend? If so, the ethical dilemma with which she was faced only became more complicated. Her head began to hurt, her mood suddenly dark and spiraling.

"I request time to examine his file for myself, and to run my own analyses on his body. I need to believe that there is at least a fifty-one percent chance of success… otherwise…"

Otherwise she would be no better than he was, using a convenient body to test unstable jutsu. She would not let her hands – the hands of a healer – be tainted in such a way.

A small voice spoke up in the back of her mind. Isn't it a healer's job to at least try?

She knew then that she would – that she could not let this asset slip through her fingers. Not like the countless times she'd already failed to defeat the Sound and bring Sasuke home. It was time to be a big girl, and to make the hard decisions.

"Go now," Tsuande ordered, seeming magnificently strong to the girl in front of her. Sakura wanted so badly to feel as resolute as her mentor. "I expect to hear from you by the end of the day."

And so, grasping her files with white knuckles, she left.

XXX

Sakura stood resolutely in front of the ANBU guard stationed outside of Kabuto's room. Neither of them had said anything for several minutes, and the pink-haired girl was starting to get annoyed. A florescent bulb blinked overhead, casting dank shadows through the concrete hallway (which was already quite barren and depressing, being located several floors beneath the main building).

She cleared her throat. "I'm here to see the patient. Tsunade-sama requested that I come immediately."

The guard finally looked at her, face obscured by his or her ANBU mask. Sakura never really liked ANBU members - they were too secretive, and more often than not the rank got to their heads. She was sure she could beat at least half of the ANBU members in a fair fight, but most of them acted as if she were a helpless medic who had no place outside of an operating room.

"You mean the prisoner?" He asked, and Sakura could tell it was a man by his voice.

Annoying. "Right now he's my patient, I don't care what you call him. Now, let me in."

The guard acquiesced without a word, stepped to the side and pushing open the heavy red-oak door behind him. Sakura stepped through, offering only a sideways glance in thanks, and the door slammed shut behind her. She was greeted with the ever-familiar sound of softly beeping machines and pumps. In the center of the room hung a single struggling light, illuminating the hospital bed directly beneath it. She approached it cautiously, something about the peaceful expression on her patient's face putting her more on-guard than usual.

It was hard to imagine that Kabuto Yakushi was defenseless. She could kill him right now, if she wanted. She should probably want to.

Sakura reached subconsciously to the kunai pouch on her thigh, but was met with nothing but bare skin. Self-consciously she realized that in her hurry she had forgotten to change out of her nursing uniform. Great, she thought, if the lighting was just a little more awful this would be a fantastic opening scene to a porno. The sexy nurse, the illicit traitor…

She chuckled, pressing cool fingers to her cheeks. Surely they were bright red.

Straightening up and getting back in to professional mode, Sakura approached the bed. Kabuto was asleep with his head back and his neck exposed, the skin of his eyelids stretched like thin paper over his trembling eyes. She imagined that if she were to look hard enough she would be able to see those inky black irises darting around beneath the surface. Thin blue veins spidered out across his cheekbones, and there were multiple sickly green subcutaneous hematomas formed all around his body.

Sakura ghosted a finger over one on his neck, before tracing the thin visible veins up past his check and to his eye. Her finger rested there a moment, and she found herself staring directly into his sleeping face. Never before had she seen him so clearly. It was hard to look away, and she had to remind herself exactly why she was here.

Dropping her hand to her side, the girl took a moment to check the readings displayed on one of the many monitors surrounding Kabuto. Pulse looked good, surprisingly. At the bottom of the bed Sakura found his chart, and she leafed through it uninterestedly for a few minutes. Tsunade had been keeping meticulous track of his blood-pressure, which had dropped dangerously low during their operation. It was already approaching normal, healthy levels.

Just what kind of man are you? She wondered, returning the chart before taking a moment to ritualistically crack her knuckles.

The initial chakra scan of his body showed that his physical state had already drastically improved. The arteries that they had spent the better part of the previous night repairing were already working near full capacity, and his bones were in the process of fusing back together. There were still fragments in his leg, but even those appeared to have been partially reabsorbed. His kidney hadn't healed yet, but that's why there are two of them. Anyways, they'd set up a small dialysis machine just in case. There were several long thin tubes, red with blood, traveling to and from his body.

Sakura was worried about those hematomas, though. There were more than she remembered, and that meant that he was likely still bleeding somewhere. Even the best medics miss things when they are fatigued. She went about trying to find the source, his body becoming an image inside her mind. Lost in the procedure, she spent the better part of fifteen minutes finding various small veins which had burst and clotted naturally overnight, and encouraging his body's leukocytes to absorb the blood which had built up under his skin.

It was engrossing, so much so that Sakura hardly noticed the small movements beneath her hands. She was working on a particularly large blood-blister on his leg when a sound caught her attention.

"…akura…"

Sakura almost jumped out of her skin, ripping her hands away from Kabuto's body mid-operation. She whipped her head up to look at him, and found that the man's dark eyes were open and staring straight at the ceiling.

"Sakura," he rasped again, a shiver trembling down his body.

"You're awake?" She tried not to gasp, to seem unsurprised. The truth was, this shouldn't even be possible. His body should in full shut-down while it tried to repair itself. This man continued to be a medical marvel that rivaled even Naruto in his ability to surprise her.

Kabuto was eerily still. When he opened his mouth, it seemed almost painful. His voice was soft and sounded as if it came from the back of his throat. "What are you… doing..?" Each word was labored, and he had not shifted his eyes from the light overhead.

Sakura didn't know how to respond. In her wildest dreams she hadn't imagined she would be in this situation, with Kabuto of all people. Her medical training kicked in, and at a loss for any other response she decided to treat him as she would any other patient. "I'm scanning your body to assess the damage. We were barely able to keep you alive, but you've already made impressive progress."

"…Why?"

Why? That was a silly question. He was a medic, after-all. He knew the procedures. She humored him anyways; "It's important that we monitor your progress in order to ascertain exactly how much treatment you will need."

"No…" he started, laboriously shifting his head to finally look at her. Sakura wanted to shy away from that piercing gaze. "Why am I…"

"…Alive?" She finished for him, realizing that he had probably been so far under he had no idea what was even happening. Kabuto nodded his head almost imperceptibly, creasing his brow from the strain. That was a more difficult question. Sakura absently returned to her administrations, light green chakra illuminating both of their faces as she mentally followed his skeletal structure. "You are of more use to us alive than dead," she mumbled, not bothering to look at him.

Kabuto dropped his head back on the pillow, exhaling air sharply through his nose. "Sasuke?" he asked, his voice seeming to have regained some of its strength. "You guys… never give up." Sakura ignored him until he added a soft, "It's pathetic."

"Information about Sasuke isn't the only thing we want from you, Kabuto."

He chuckled, and it sounded painful. Especially with the heaving cough that followed. "I'm surprised you can think about anything else," he said, a small rivulet of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. Sakura stepped towards the head of the bed and glared down at his face, thumbing the blood away more forcefully than necessary.

"I think about lots of things." She wrapped her hand around his throat, finding many micro-lesions inside. "…Like how that cough might have re-collapsed your lung." Kabuto was silent as she healed his throat, staring intently at her face the entire time. Sakura looked away uncomfortably.

A slight sensation on her upper thigh caught the girl's attention. She glanced down, and it took her longer than she was proud of for her to process that Kabuto had grabbed the bottom of her uniform between his forefinger and thumb and was rubbing the material between those fingers.

"What the-"

"What is this ridiculous thing?" His voice sounded much clearer now, and Sakura immediately regretted healing his throat even partially. She slapped his hand away and stepped back, furiously smoothing her dress. Her face felt extremely hot, and she wasn't sure if it was with anger or embarrassment. Probably a little of both.

"It's… we're required to…" Sakura glared hard at his face. "I don't have to explain myself to you. Go back to sleep, you're exerting yourself and pissing me off. I might just let you die."

Kabuto shrugged his arm back on to the hospital bed, the hint of a smirk on his lips. "Seems like a bit of a waste… after you've put so much effort in to keeping me alive."

"I'm not doing it for charity."

A long time passed with Kabuto saying nothing. Sakura hesitantly returned to his examination, always keeping his hands in her peripheral vision. Her heart was beating faster than usual. She wanted to ask him more about his regeneration, but when she finally worked up the nerve to address him she found the medic with his eyes closed and lips slightly parted, breathing unevenly. It looked like he wouldn't be maintaining any lengthy sessions of consciousness for the time being. That was probably a good thing, because her nerves were shot.

When she finally finished, an hour later, Sakura took a moment to look at Kabuto's face. She found her eyes straying to his lips, which were chapped and white. It was… uncomfortable… looking at them. She felt an odd sensation – the wisp of a memory which she couldn't quite access – gnawing at her.

Annoying.

XXX

Later that evening Sakura met with Tsunade and informed her mentor that she was willing to go through with the sealing technique. Kabuto's impressive healing abilities – whether they were natural or, more likely, chakra-enhanced – made him the perfect subject for the jutsu. It was difficult; she felt as though she were betraying her ethics by agreeing to use an untested technique on a prisoner, but the examination had given her confidence that this would not be a death sentence.

Hopefully…

Sakura did have one condition. It was important that his bones be allowed to fully heal before she could administer the seal. If they were to shift of change after it was applied, the integrity of jutsu would be threatened.

Tsunade agreed to these terms, seeming pleased that her pupil had reached the same medical conclusion that she had. Sakura got the distinct impression that the Godaime was relieved, and the image of her resolute mentor willing to execute a defenseless man to protect the village eased in her mind. There was still a feeling of reverence, though. Sakura knew with no doubt that Tsunade would put aside her own ethics in order to protect the people under her charge. This was one of the many moments Sakura found herself hoping to someday glean some of her mentor's strength.

"I'll leave his care to you, then." Tsunade informed her. Sakura wasn't sure how she felt about the idea of spending countless hours in that dank room far beneath the rest of the hospital, healing a man who did not deserve to feel the warmth of her chakra. "This is an S-class mission, Sakura. I expect you to finish quickly, so that we may administer the seal and move him somewhere more secure."

"I understand," Sakura tried to feign confidence. She had to remind herself that this was for Sasuke, and ultimately for the protection of the entire Leaf village.

With that Sakura gathered her things and left Tsunade's office. She stopped by the locker-room on her way out, changing out of that god-forsaken nurse's uniform and slipping back into her usual Haruno garb. She hung the dress in her locker, and found herself fingering the area at the bottom of the hem where Kabuto had kneaded the material. How was it possible that a man who could barely cling to consciousness was bothering her so much?

She slammed the locker shut and went home, helping herself to a big meal before settling down to a long night of studying. With Tonton nestled in her lap, Sakura spent the evening writing notes over Kabuto's physiology and planning out exactly how she intended to reshape his skeletal structure. Tomorrow she would see him again, and she could only hope this time he would stay asleep.

It was not going to be a pleasant experience for either of them.