Sakura is aware she may have made a fatal mistake in her kunoichi career when she sits in a hotel room outnumbered six to one.

Edward snaps off his handcuff, just as the sixth member, a boy of austere expression, bolts the door shut. This boy is sharp, gaze trailing her, volatile as a lion. Sakura is more cautious of him than Edward's muscular brother against the wall. Meanwhile, on the bed is a viper, as disdainful as she is shapely, while Alice perches on the windowsill.

Sakura mentally winces. All her escapes are blocked, and Carlisle, the man in the middle of the room, is unreadable. She should be on a plane right now, not checked into an L.A. hotel, confronting a lethal family incensed by her robbery of Edward's DNA.

"Sakura."

She focuses on Carlisle, who extends his hand. "Before we start, please return the DNA."

After a final scan of the room, Sakura hands over the plastic bag with wires of coppery hair.

Carlisle gives her a look. Sighing, Sakura unzips her jacket, and from an interior pocket, takes out a slide. She unlaces her boots and pulls out a third sample, before finally slapping into his palm the forth. Once all hair, blood, tissue, and saliva samples are returned, Carlisle nods, and his children loosen.

"That was thorough, Sakura." Leave it to Carlisle to drop a compliment in the middle of a death interrogation.

Sakura mumbles, "Actually, I also want sperm sample, but time did not permit."

"I know. Which is why I will say now, that I forbid Edward from having sexual intercourse with you."

While Edward chokes on his spit, the rest of his family fights back snorts. Then there is Sakura, who folds her arms. "Dr. Cullen, twenty percent of your country's population carries sexually transmitted disease, several of which terminal. The vampire clan may be immune, but I will engage in no activities until after I see results of medical testings." Then as an afterthought, "I will not with your son, regardless."

Ouch.

Sakura directs her hostility towards Edward with a nasty look. Edward admits he did mislead Sakura, gave her the idea that she would be negotiating one-on-one, not get cornered. Still... ouch, never has he heard a rejection, and one that blatant, until now. On the other hand, his siblings smirk, and Rosalie might not kill Sakura yet, just to see how else Sakura can damage her darling brother's ego.

Carlisle, however, wants to go back to business. "Edward is also the one who wants me to give you money and connections for your work. I cannot do so until you tell me what that is."

He waits until Sakura caves in. From her backpack, she throws him a folder. The characters are a mixture of kanji and kana, but Carlisle is familiar enough with Japanese to know it is not. But he says nothing of this, only flips to diagrams, of cells and molecules, trying to make sense of the workings of this girl.

Sakura is confident that Carlisle will turn up empty handed. She has given classified information that not only is written in a different language, but also encrypted. Only the Konoha elite can make anything of it.

As predicted, Carlisle gives in. "What am I seeing?"

"Pleurisy," Sakura says. "Chest pain and cough are first symptoms, from fibrosis of parenchyma."

Edward raises an eyebrow. "Rheumatoid arthritis?"

"Sarcoidosis?" tries Emmett with a shrug.

Carlisle hushes their wild guesses, as he examines closer the diagrams and asks Sakura about the next page.

"Neurodengeneration, second symptom. Amyloidosis."

Page by page, Sakura continues to describe a systematic failure of the human body, of a disease as deadly as artistic, letting the victim hold himself hostage. It is a disease that throws the whole body in discord, but no matter how high up you track the symptoms, the causes of the causes, you cannot find the source.

Sakura has faced many frightening opponents in her life, but never the hand of a shinigami that can hold a beating heart and, at whim, close its fist. And as she talks, she is reminded that time is a worse enemy than a clan of vampires. She cannot run.

Carlisle closes the portfolio. "And what is the purpose of this?"

"Someone is dying, Dr. Cullen. I cannot just let him," Sakura murmurs. "I had hoped your people recognize this illness and have cure."

"Until you realized we didn't," Carlisle finishes for her. "In which case, you decided your stay in Forks is over."

Sakura says nothing. Carlisle hands Sakura back her files. "So you think, if there is no cure, you will create it yourself. There are many places in the world with the tools and resources to help you do that. It is unfortunate, but I must tell you that such thinking is dangerous, and a delusion."

Once again, Sakura says nothing. She does not need him to tell her the case is hopeless. She knows how medicine progresses, how it takes the collaboration of hundreds of thousands, from the technicians to the doctors to the cryptographers. It takes billions of dollars and endless resources. Finally, it takes time, decades of trial and error, mapping the most insignificant details before a hint reveals itself.

She knows.

When it becomes clear that Sakura remains unbent, Carlisle changes his approach.

"Elizabeth," he says, and Sakura does not follow. However, she notices how Edward has frozen.

"You may see me as patronizing, Sakura, but I know more of what you are experiencing than you think," Carlisle says, "I know what it feels to be helpless."

After a glance at Edward, Sakura asks, "Was this Elizabeth ill?"

"Not at first. Her son was." Carlisle's gaze never leaves Sakura. "The disease was highly infectious, but she couldn't abandon him. She took care of him, and because of it, fell ill herself. I tried everything to help her, but death did not wait. By the time science pulled through, and the first influenza vaccine was engineered, Elizabeth Mason had been buried for twenty seven years."

After a silence, Sakura says, "You blame yourself for her death."

"Just as you will blame yourself."

Years of training regiment fails, as Sakura's poker face crumble, the fears she has suppressed since the beginning of her mission surfacing.

"If this person is important to you, Sakura," Carlisle says, "go home. Be with him while you still can. Science cannot be pushed to come, and those who force it otherwise will only find an early death."

For a moment, Sakura feels the same nauseating wave in her stomach, the da-thump, da-thump of chakra deficiency, that warns her once again that she has overwelcomed her stay in the New World. The cost of saving Bella and Tyler has been too much, what drove her to the desperation of leaving Forks in the first place. Things were progressing too slow; she needs to get the cure before her body gives in on her.

Only there is no cure.

She closes her eyes.

From where Edward stands, he clenches a fist. His family has betrayed him. Carlisle is not interested in a collaboration with Sakura; he is getting her to leave. Jasper is changing the atmosphere, pressuring Sakura into a corner. Alice is going through images of the aftereffects of Sakura's decisions. They are all working together, and they all want her gone.

Edward has enough. He is about to speak up, when Sakura stands up, and Jasper backtracks.

"Thank you, Dr. Cullen, but enough preamble. If Edward wants me to cure him of blood fixation, I need two million U.S. dollars, and access to these laboratories." Sakura gets to the point, handing Carlisle a list of locations. "I also need assistants, including Edward, although if you can find me others of higher competence who can follow orders and keep secrets, that is preferable. In the case I require other favors, they will be provided to me."

With that, Sakura reseats, eyes direct. Edward snaps to Jasper, who is forcing more of his powers onto Sakura, trying to shake her up. But no matter what he does, she remains composed.

Manipulating her emotions have no effect anymore, because she has removed herself from them, the first and most crucial technique taught at the Academy, what allows children to be able to run through Iwa mines, slice throats, pull themselves together and survive after their teammates fail to. She is no longer motivated by the smiles of friends, but by a clear, unquestionable order.

"Finally, my mission has priority," she finishes. "I will not look for your cure, not until either mine is found or my patient is dead. Are these terms understood?"

The hotel room falls to silence, which is then broken by a laugh. The laugh comes from Rosalie, her shoulders shaking, her smile full of teeth. Through a curtain of curls, she looks at Sakura in more amusement than pity. "You still don't get it, do you? Carlisle is being nice. That DNA stunt you pulled has royally pissed us off, and we're giving you a chance to scram with your life. We hardly have any intention of following with your little charade."

Sakura is unfazed. "I was under impression your family is very desperate to rid thirst."

"And just what can an eighteen year old girl do that we cannot? Everyone in this room understands the elementary biology you spew, so I hope you didn't measure our intelligence by Forks High School."

"Neither should you measure my capacity by my vocabulary," Sakura counters. "It is only elementary, because your language lacks equivalent terminology for concepts I try to express. Also, I care not of your comprehension level. You can have centuries of knowledge, but if you cannot accomplish anything in field, you are useless."

Alerted, Emmett steps in, and Jasper puts the whole room under calm before Rosalie can attack.

Sakura lowers her eyelids. "Had you a cure, I need not offer."

Rosalie takes a moment to keep her temper in check. Then, with a plastered smile, she says, " And what on earth makes you think you will succeed in finding it. What evidence do you have for us to invest two million dollars in you."

"This."

Rosalie catches the folder.

"That's-" Edward snaps his head to Sakura. After she conked his head with a fire extinguisher, she must have taken all the files of their joint research. There was not time for a full scrutiny of the lab; by the time Esme shook him awake, Alice had already seen Sakura at the airport.

"Blood substitute? That's what you two devised?" Rosalie spits, reading the reports with disdain, then throws them away. Edward springs to catch the papers. "You fool. If blood substitutes were at all edible to us, we'd be peaches now. Don't waste my time with this crap."

"Yes, Edward told me first day blood substitutes no better effect on hunger than chicken noodle. Do you know why?"

From Rosalie's expression, no, she does not know nor care. After the family tried hemoglobin solutions back in the 50s, and the results failed miserably, they have not returned to the topic since. Because Edward believed his fate is doomed, he took the hemoglobin failure as another mark of defeat, not as an inspiration that such a solution could exist. That humanity was already working to grab it.

But from what Sakura sees, Rosalie, in her well matched leather jacket and heeled boots, is clearly a woman who shares no such despair. Rosalie finds the works of the scientists too insignificant and uninteresting to be worthy of her time, but nonetheless expects to enjoy the fruits of their labors. She can stand some nuisance with thirst until then, and it will take much more to convince her to get involved into the toils of research when she can just sit and wait for science to pull through.

Only, no one can freeload forever. Whether a race or a civilization, the more you fall behind, the more you rely on others, the more you fall to their mercy. Sakura wonders just how long before globalization is complete and there is no where left for vampires to hide, how long before physics uncover chakra and the satellites detect her homeland.

"To cure my patient, I need to know the constituent responsible for vampire revitalization," Sakura says. "To cure your family, I need to know the constituent responsible for vampire metabolism. You need to invest in me, because the world is closing in, and it is in your favor to have this knowledge about yourselves before all of humanity does."


Rosalie has Edward in a choke-hold.

"You did not tell us that girl planned to cure her little boyfriend through vampire venom."

Had Edward not been able to slip through her grip, he would have spent the next hour patting the hotel hallway for his decapitated head.

"I didn't know!" He backsteps when Rosalie struts forward, ready to chew him alive. "I hardly knew what our research was on, let alone hers."

Only belatedly does Edward realize how absolutely no help that comment is in helping his case. Thankfully, Jasper is loading Rosalie with happy thoughts, and Alice comes to his defense. "And you never told Sakura-chan about the venom, right, Edward?"

"No, of course not. She just thinks we are genetically different, potentially a separate species. I never told her anything supernatural about us, like the venom or powers."

Jasper's lips pull in a thin line. "And realize that had you not taken our advice of keeping that information from her, she would be injecting that venom into her patient as we speak. Potentially many other folks too."

"She wouldn't-"

"She would," Rosalie snaps. "She is trying to save a dying man, Edward, and she is very desperate. We're going to have a huge problem if Japan suddenly fell on the Volturi's radar because of us."

"Calm down, Rose!" Emmett grabs his wife before she can assault anyone. "The Volturi is not getting involving in anything! We have locked up there an eighteen year old girl, and you think she's going to start some sort of international crisis."

"Any eighteen year old girl that can cut my powers is a threat," Jasper says dryly. "I must side with Rosalie on this one. Alice?"

Alice flickers her gaze between the split sides and skips away from the fight. "My visions are the same as before, I'm afraid."

"See, no cure!"

"And certainly no Volturi!"

The hallway falls into chaos and noise, until the door opens, and Carlisle steps outside. Everyone turns their attentions to him, waiting for his final judgment.

Carlisle merely gives a tired smile.

"Though Sakura is very delightful, she is most difficult and certainly expensive. For the delay, she wants a flight to Zurich in three hours, and your prompt assistance, Edward."

"And?"

"And she then she bowed and apologized. She said if we were to refuse her, she must then kill us and proceed her mission solo."

"Wait, now I'm confused," Emmett says, letting go of Rosalie. "So are we helping this chick or killing her?"

Carlisle does not give an answer. "I believe that would be for Edward to decide. It is he, after all, who wishes to ally with her."

Technically, Edward wants Sakura to ally with him, wants Sakura to assist him, but you know what, whatever. The more important issue now is that Carlisle has given him the seat of power, letting him decide.

Had this been a day or two ago, Edward would have defended Sakura till the end. In those months, they spent far too much time together in school and labs. They were too familiar, too comfortable. Sakura was the first person outside his family he has ever bonded with in Forks, and hell, he dared say he was Sakura's friend as well. Maybe given a little more time, their relationship could have turned into something more.

But then Bella and Tyler's stupid truck had to ruin everything. It is difficult not to hesitate now that Edward understands Sakura is a pragmatic, violent, and unmanageable bitch, and he should worry less that she will break his heart, and more that she will carve it out and store it in a jar of formaldehyde. And he has to admit that he's a bit intimidated – okay, shit-scared – when he enters the room alone, and Sakura stares back at him, face devoid of emotion.

"So you accept my conditions?"

Edward holds his breath, and...

"Okay, just for clarification, this guy we're curing... he's not your boyfriend, right?"

Sakura stares at him harsher.

Then...

Her face flushes red, and she starts sputtering, "What, of course not! Where did you get such conception- I love his brother-" When Edward furrows his eyebrow, she frantically waves her hands. "Loved. Past tense. I mean, I still love him now, but not same way- I mean, it was childhood crush- I'm over that now. Wait! Do not understand me wrongly, that does not mean I have any prejudice against Itachi-san just because his brother and I did not work out. He is great, but he is my patient, and so much older, five years gap a little too wide, that relationship cannot work, and..."

While Sakura rambles on in a frenzy of hand gestures, Edward refrains from commenting that he himself is her patient, and eighty-five years older than her. But screw it, he does not even care, because what he takes from her overly lengthy reply is that Sakura is single.

And that is all that matters, as he picks up his cellphone for a call to the airport. Two million? That is less than his Lamborghini, and last time he checked, the car did not revolutionize his world.