Her light destroyed, Sakura now finds herself on a path she never thought she'd take, that of a missing-nin. Rumors of her status are spreading, and one organization has taken notice. Redemption is offered, will it be taken? Will the light of her life be replaced with a catastrophic boom?
A/N: Over 6,000 views, wow guys! 'v '
Recap
"Was there anything you needed me for?" It had been unusual to find the woman simply standing out there, she tended to stay hidden until Sakura called for her.
"Ah." Sunni had obviously forgotten why she had been sent there in the first place, but it must have been unimportant if a nin of her standing had been so casual this entire time. "Deidara-sama has blown his hand off and we require your assistance in the training grounds to administer first-aid."
Speculative Thoughts
Chapter twelve
Sakura flew into a flurry of movement as she whipped around the room grabbing various items as well as a large first aid kit. She shot Sunni a furious look as she stormed from the room and begun to descend through the building as quickly as possible, though it wasn't until she was two stories down from her original position that she turned on Sunni.
"Lead, now." Sakura had no clue where she was going and was simply wasting time out of anger.
Sunni took the lead with no problem and kept up Sakura's quick pace as they dashed through the halls. It was at this moment in time that Sakura was pleased the Akatsuki's main building was exceptionally quiet and understaffed, it left the dark hallways clear of any obstruction.
"What the fuck happened?" Sakura felt it would be good to learn what any information Sunni had previously left out before they arrived. "And why the hell didn't you say anything sooner?"
"We don't know. Everything was fine and then there was an explosion, which is pretty normal for when Deidara-sama is practicing, but this time there was a scream. I was one of the first few on the scene, along with Junji-san, a medic. He took to Deidara-sama's care by applying pressure, I decided to report to you asap." She threw Sakura a look over her shoulder as they burst out the concealed door and off down an alleyway, Sakura was pleased to find that there was no rain today.
"I didn't get a good look as Junji had it covered, but my guess is with all the blood he's fucked up his hand. He was swearing like nobody's business, must of hurt like a bitch." Sakura hadn't missed the way Sunni had left out why it took her so long to tell her, but maybe Sakura had overreacted a bit and Sunni had only arrived in time to hear the tale end of her conversation with Konan, the delay may have only been as small as thirty seconds.
But Sakura had seen people die in less.
With a furious sprint down one of the streets at the back of building, Sakura found herself weaving down a small alleyway before bursting out into a large, uncovered training area. It was as bleak and grey as every other part of the city, though it did seem to incorporate large swaths of native floral and natural elements like trees, rocks and waterways. They weren't too far from the building, maybe a minute by walking, and Sakura was pissed she hadn't let Sunni lead sooner as they simply could have descended from Sakura's window.
Not faltering in her step at all, she continued her dead set pace as she sprinted towards the group of four or so nin huddled around her soon to be patient.
"Move." It was a commanding tone, leaving no room for back chat and Sakura was surprised to hear it coming from Sunni. Sakura was glad to see its effect as the group dispersed slightly, revealing Deidara prone on the ground and a younger man kneeling at his side. Falling to her knees she felt herself skid slightly, bringing herself a bit closer to Deidara than what she had intended, dropping her first aid kit she immediately begun assessing the damage.
'A lot of blood.' Her eyes flicked over the surrounding ground to see the blood splatter originating from a smashed boulder, a large hunk taken off from the front, leaving the rest to cave in on itself. Looking back to Deidara she could see his pale face contorted in pain, flecks of blood having splattered up his arm and torso to paint his features and mat in his hair.
Looking down on the hand she was met by a pair of large, masculine hands holding a swathe of soaked gauze to Deidara's profusely bleeding right hand.
"Move." Sakura motioned the man to move his hands away, when he didn't comply she looked up to establish eye contact. He was around the same age as her, a slashed Ame hitai-ate tied around his forehead and seemingly wearing the same, plain grey uniform all the Ame medical staff seemed to wear. Sakura could read the uncertainty in his eyes, obviously not knowing if he should follow her orders or not. At any other time Sakura would no doubt have agreed with him to keep the pressure until they could get him to a better facility for treatment, but this was a very unusual patient and she had a desire to see his hand before making any snap judgements about treatment.
"Move your fucking hands before I snap them off." Sakura's legendary temper was rising with every second some low rank medical serf disobeyed her orders, having never faced such disrespect from her previous medical staff. He waivered, yet complied in the end, removing the gauze blocking her assessment.
'That's a shit show.' Was Sakura's first thought as she witnessed the destruction Deidara had inflicted on himself. While she could make out all of his digits, that was about it, the skin had been rendered useless and had seemingly disappeared all together, save for a few scraps that fell limply from the wrist. Bones, tendons and muscle were all visible, but for what Sakura could identify, where not in the correct place or even attached to other things. The muscle seemed to be pulverized, tendons snapped and bones fractured and displaced.
And that was just the back of his hand.
Snapping through her the hand seals for her Shosen jutsu, a green haze of chakra encircled her hands. Sakura then placed them on both sides of Deidara's hand, letting her own chakra filter through the devastation, it was only then Sakura knew the full extent to the injury.
"Zoketsugan, first layer on the left." It was an order to the medical-nin in front of her, and she was pleased to see him follow it without fault this time. 'The blood increasing pill will stop him from bleeding out as I complete this assessment.' She reassured herself, giving herself more time for an in depth evaluation.
She was pleased to see his chakra pathways in his hand were intact, if not in a complete disarray and justifiably fried. They seemed to centre mainly around the huge gaping hole that stretched through his palm, and it was then Sakura realized some of the disfigurement she had taken for damage had simply been the unique anatomical makeup of Deidara's hands to facilitate the unusual cavity his kinjutsu required. Probing deeper she found a lumpy, fleshy mass that she decided had once been the tongue.
Veins had been ruptured, however, causing a significant bleed out that needed to be stemmed immediately, which Sakura set about doing. 'Cauterize them for now, until I at least get him up to the medical bay, the hand should last without blood flow for six hours so I need to complete the majority of healing before then.' She mentally walked herself through the steps as she set about doing them, using her own chakra to stem the flow of blood to his hand before forcibly sealing the ruptured veins closed.
'The bones will need to be set and mended, muscles and tendons healed and reconnected, the skin will have to either be forcibly regrown or grafted from a different area. Worst comes to worst I have to find a skin donor, but for the most part...' Sakura turned her gaze back to Deidara's face, surprised to see the his lone blue eye staring back at her through a tiny parting in his lashes.
"It's fixable." She told him directly with a stern, serious look on her face. The connection lasted a brief second after she told him her prognosis before she turned on the medical nin who had been tending to him previously.
"Go to the medical bay, prepare for an emergency operation, start with Ox scroll. There is anesthetic in the top left shelving over the desk and syringes in the top left drawer of the desk. Prep two, ten mls. I shouldn't need to tell you the rest." She barked, expecting him to know what else she would need for this surgery. He complied without thought, breaking out into a sprint as he made his way back to the large building.
Casting off her cloak Sakura revealed the large scroll she had strapped to her back before coming down, with a tug of the binding keeping it there she let it fall to the ground. Destroying the wax seal keeping it closed, she threw it along the ground, letting it unravel as it rolled. With a few hand seals she slammed her palms down upon the basic seal that had been written upon the scroll, and within a second she was surrounded in a plume of smoke. As it cleared it revealed a standard stretcher, folded down to be level with the ground.
"Sunni." Sakura barked for the woman, hoping for her assistance as she made her way back to the faint, pale Deidara who was barely clinging to lucidity. He had lost far too much blood before she had arrived, but with the blood replenishing pill within his system, he would be recovering in no time.
"Otherside." Sakura motioned for the Ashi nin to get on the other side of Deidara as Sakura fell into a crouch before the other man, grasping his arm she threw it over her shoulder, reading to support him if he should fall. Seeing Sunni do the same, she turned her attention back to Deidara,the cold grey of his generally fiery denim eyes unsettling her.
"Deidara-kun," Sakura almost surprised herself with the use of that suffix "On the count of three I want you to stand up. We're going to walk you over to that stretcher and then you can lie down, okay?" He responded in a positive fashion with a lazy, sleepy nod, but Sakura wasn't too worried about that as she could finally see some colour coming back into his cheeks.
"One, two, three." And with a mighty heave Sakura and Sunni dragged Deidara to his feet, which was actually more difficult than Sakura had hoped. It seemed even with his approval he still didn't quite have the strength to help with the standing portion of the plan, only seeming to have the strength to keep his feet under himself. It made it awkward for both Sakura and Sunni, as both of the girls were far shorter than Deidara.
Slowly they made their way to the stretcher, which luckily enough was only a few feet away. On top of that, it seemed that the remaining nin were useful enough to prepare the stretcher, pulling it up to its full height and positioning it so Deidara could easily flop on top of it. Grabbing Deidara feet she threw them onto the end of the bed so that he was ready for transport.
He still seemed to be holding his hand up, but Sakura knew it wouldn't last for long, she could already see his resolve wavering as his arm twitched and swayed. Reaching for a sterile sheet she placed it on Deidara chest before taking a hold of his undamaged forearm. It seemed to jolt him out of whatever wavering plane of consciousness he was floating in as his lone visible eye snapped open and flicked to Sakura.
"Deidara-kun, you can put your arm down now." She spoke softly and calmly, hoping the strong headed blonde would listen to her, and she was relieved when he did. Sakura had to admit she hadn't thought he'd be so compliant, she had expected him to be hard-headed, stubborn and one of those types that try to stay far, far away from medical personnel, but he had been taking direction well so far.
'Probably the blood loss.' She mused to herself as she placed his eviscerated hand on the sterile square sheet. Giving a look to Sunni, Sakura took hold of the bar along the side of the stretcher, pleased to see Sunni doing the same.
"Move quickly." And with that, they were off, pushing the stretcher as fast as they could without compromising the stability. As they wheeled through the alleyway, Sakura reached over with a hand to press her fingers against the side of Deidara's neck, checking his pulse while keeping an eye on his breathing.
Throwing open the door to the medical bay, Sakura was greeted with a pleasant sight. Junji had set up an operating bed, the armrest stretched out to the side with the Ox scroll Sakura had asked for spread out on the area where Deidara's hand would lie. Wasting no time she and Sunni bought Deidara's stretcher up along side the table he would be transferred to.
"Otherside." She commanded Junji as she grabbed a fist full of the sheet under Deidara's prone body, Sunni following her lead.
"On three again, we lift and move him on. One, two, three." And with a heave he was placed upon the new table, the movement jostling his hand and pulling a painful, semi-lucid groan from Deidara.
"Sunni," Sakura turned to look at the girl, taking a few moments to look her over. Sunni's chubby cheeks were flushed red, as was most of her face, sweat had beaded on her forehead and she could tell the girl was softly panting, even if she tried to hide it. Sakura had already guessed she wasn't a physical fighter, so dragging Deidara's limp body as well as an incredibly heavy stretcher up multiple flights of stairs had physically taxed her. Sakura was pleased she hadn't voice a complaint.
"You're dismissed from this room, but please stand guard outside. If anyone is to ask you will fill them in but do not allow them to enter, this must be a sterile work environment. Junji-san will assist me." Sunni nodded, slinking out the door and closing it behind her.
Sakura quickly shed her cloak before reaching over to grab a disposable smock from a cabinet, slipping it on over her standard issue uniform. A pair of sterile latex gloves were snapped on next, followed by a surgical mask; this wasn't a field operation so Sakura was happy to take advantage of her new toys.
"Vitals." Sakura asked her latest assistance, having already checked to see him wearing the exact same outfit as her. Her eyes flicked over the instruments he had prepared earlier for her, all laid out neatly on a sterile sheet on a metal stand beside Deidara's mangled, outstretched hand. Walking closer to the prone blonde, she stood between his outstretched arm and his torso, facing up towards his head as she looked down on the hand.
"Steady." Sakura nodded, picking up a syringe that had been prefilled with a local anesthetic before ejecting the numbing fluid over the surface of Deidara's hand. The first syringe was used to liberally coat the outside of his mangled hand, the second was injected directly into torn tissue, a third followed before Sakura begun cleaning the wound of various loose bits of flesh and debris with a saline solution.
It was only once Sakura was happy with the prepped hand that she moved on to trying to repair the damage.
Reaching over to her repaired instrument, Sakura found her fingers wrapping around the cold, sterile loops of a pair of surgical scissors. Reaching over Deidara's limp, semi-conscious body she grasped at the strands of long, golden hair.
A swift snip and Sakura was now the proud owner of a lock of Deidara's hair
She spent a few seconds to wrap a thin thread around the bundle of hair to keep it from disbanding and making a mess before placing it within a small section of the seal Deidara's hand resided on.
"Medium is placed." Sakura told Junji, pleased once more to see him studiously taking note of the procedure so far. While his first impression had been severely lacking, he seemed to be making up for it in competency. "Moving forward with activation."
Slipping her hands into a simple, perfectly executed Ox seal, Sakura then placed both hands down on the two circles in front of her, feeling the seal activate and her medical chakra flow out from her body. The seal and the medium helped to stifle the flow of chakra to not overwhelm Deidara's system, the last thing Sakura needed was for Deidara to enter a comatose state on her operating table. The scroll was generally only used for long term surgeries, it certainly wouldn't be activated for anything less than two hours.
While it had certainly been an incredibly long time since Sakura had performed a procedure, let alone healed someone, she had not become rusty at all. It had all seemed to flow back into her like it had never left. The procedures to follow, the knowledge, the experiences, all of it had simply been waiting for her to reach out for it again.
Her eyebrows pinched as Deidara grunted, but Junji said nothing so Sakura continued pressing her chakra into the seal and through to his body.
'Not too much, but not too little either.' Sakura whispered to herself, concentrating on maintaining the correct balance between the two. 'If I don't use enough he'll lose nerve sensitivity in his hand, he'd be useless as any kind of ninja.'
There was a lot riding on the line for this operation and Sakura cursed at the fact that she was woefully unprepared with zero knowledge on how Deidara's physiology worked. She had no idea if she was helping or harming him by forcibly re-arranging bones and tendons in his hand to better match that of an average person.
The procedure was long and taxing, taking far too much of Sakura's concentration and chakra reserves. There had been times where Deidara had been lucid and questioning, but she'd let Junji deal with that, and there had been times she'd heard voices coming from beyond her door, but luckily Sunni had dealt with those and Sakura hadn't been disrupted.
At the end of the hours long procedure, Sakura found herself exhausted and physically drained. While the sun had once been up, it had set long ago and Sakura was left with nothing but darkness and the stinging fluorescent glow of her lights, but she was pleased.
"Bones are aligned, tendons mended, muscle will need more work but for the most part is repaired of tears. Tongue and teeth need more work but for now won't bleed." Sakura finally pulled back from Deidara, letting the last of the chakra within the seal dissipate as she ripped her gloves off, followed by her mask.
"Blood circulation has been returned." She added as an afterthought as she gazed down on the hand. It looked a lot better now, while at first it had appeared as a mashup of mincemeat, bones and tendons, it now resembled a human hand, save for the lack of skin.
"Deidara-sama is still in a deep sleep, is this normal?" Sakura nodded affirmative.
"My chakra is still circulating throughout his body, it will naturally filter out of his system and it's better for him if its done while he sleeps." Junji jotted down more notes, the same as he had done through the entire surgery.
"Two more operations will be needed, but your assistance will not be necessary." Sakura added, though slightly amused to see the way Junji deflated, he had a curious streak and had obviously enjoyed being under her command during the surgery.
"Of course, Haruno-sama." He bowed deeply, taking this as his time to be dismissed. "And may I just add it was a great honour working under you, you truly live up to the stories." Sakura's eyebrow cocked, but it hadn't been the first time she'd had such high praise.
"Thank you for your work, Junji-san."
With another bow, he ducked out of the room, though as he finished passing through the doorframe, some else immediately took his place coming in.
"Leader-sama." Sakura was surprised, not having expected Pein to be waiting for her to finish her procedure. She dropped into a crouch, head bowed, if she wavered slightly from the taxing surgery Pein didn't mention anything about it.
"I had intended to see you today to brief you on your next assignment." Sakura opened her mouth to apologize and point out the fact she had more pressing issues, but Pein continued before she could. "Though I see you had better things to be doing. Tell me what happened."
"I'm not sure." Sakura could feel his heavy gaze settle on her shoulders and it nearly made her grimace. It seemed Pein wasn't the type to be left uninformed.
"Sunni reported to me to ask for first aid, I only know that this happened on the training grounds." Pein nodded and Sakura guessed that Sunni had been questioned before her.
"Is he stable for questioning?" Sakura paused, wondering which of her positions was more important. Pein demanded loyalty, and as such she knew she should wake Deidara, as it would not be life threatening, so that Pein could receive the answers to his question.
"No." However, above all else Sakura was a medical ninja, and her patient's well being trumped her desire to please her superiors. Pein nodded, taking her word for it.
"When he regains consciousness, I would like you to question him and then report to me. You are of course suspended from any other duties, including missions, until Deidara has healed enough to be deployed. I assume your facilities are enough to deal with the aftercare?" Sakura nodded and that seemed to be enough for him, as he turned and left. It was only when the door to the medical bay slid closed that Sakura felt she could wearily rise from her crouched position, though the stinging pain in her back let her know that wasn't a position she should be in after having performed an operation for hours on end.
Giving a sigh, Sakura rubbed at her temples, feeling the stress and exhaustion starting to compound behind her eyes. She flicked her gaze over to Deidara before giving another long, weary sigh. There had certainly been theories as to how Deidara may have gotten himself into the state he was in, but she wasn't about to speculate in front of Pein with unfounded ideas.
'But still,' Sakura thought, a whisper of concern seeping into her mental tone of voice. 'the injury is very similar, if not an extreme case of, chakra being built up into one area until it reaches breaking point; the 'it' in this case being the flesh.'
Sakura was intimately familiar with such an injury, having experienced mild cases of it during her apprenticeship with Tsunade.
'Why would Deidara have such an injury?' While it was true his unique ability did focus in his hands, she doubted it required this much chakra, on top of that Deidara was a high level nin who had been using this Kinjutsu for years, he'd be well aware of his limits. 'Perhaps he was creating a new technique?'
Or maybe she was overthinking it. With another sigh, Sakura resolved to get her answers in the morning. Making her way over to her desk, Sakura settled in for the night, knowing that after such a procedure she'd need someone to monitor the patient over night, and seeing as how Sakura didn't have a handful of assistants to do the job for her, she was stuck doing it herself.
With a slightly pained grimace, Sakura got stuck into the paper work, intending to beef up Deidara's lack lustre folder with a highly detailed report of her findings, including an in depth portion on his hands anatomy.
"What the fuck happened to my hair, yeah?!" Came the shrill yell that startled Sakura awake. Whipping her head around she was greeted to the sight of a frantic Deidara combing his good fingers through his hair and looking mournfully furious at the missing chunk.
"The fuck is this, yeah?!" Deidara bit out once more, although this time it was directed squarely at Sakura as she walked over to his side.
"Calm down, you'll ruin all my hard work." This hadn't been the first time Sakura had dealt with an irate patient.
"A section of your hair was needed for the operation to act as a medium between your chakra and mine. I would not have been able to heal you otherwise."She leant in closer, raising both of her eyebrows as she looked down upon Deidara on his bed.
"It was either that, or your hand." She finished, tapping the pen in her hand against the bandage covered fist. The tap against his hand seemed to bring him back some sense, as it sunk in that he had been pretty messed up when he was last fully conscious. His gaze dropped to his hand, his eyebrows pinching as he no doubt tried to flex and feel what was going on under all that bandaging. He probably shouldn't have done that, judging by the pained grimace.
He flopped back into bed, his upper body propped up at a gentle angle by the tilted head of the bed, a dejected pout on his lips as he gazed out the window into the early morning sun.
"If you'd like to know how your surgery went, it was a success, you'll require two more but your hand should be fine." He scoffed and Sakura couldn't help but feel incredibly offended at him blowing her off after she'd just insured he'd still able to be a shinobi.
"Do you have a problem with that?" Her tone had been biting, but it did well in pulling Deidara's attention away from the window and back to her.
"I'm sure Kakuzu could have just given me a new hand, yeah." He sounded like a spoiled brat and Sakura had the desire to pop him like one too.
"Yeah well Kakuzu's not here, so you're stuck with me, you brat." Annoyed with the thankless attitude Deidara was giving her, she turned to retrieve the clipboard that was residing on her desk, furiously scribbling notes down to avoid having to deal with the brat she now had as a patient. She missed the way Deidara's pout grew at the nickname.
The next few minutes dragged on in silence, filled only with the noise of pen on paper as both occupants of the room tried to ignore each other.
"Well, thanks, yeah." Sakura's head whipped up as she looked over her shoulder, her foggy jade eyes focusing on Deidara, only to see him steadfastly focused on something outside of her bay window. She could still see his pout in his profile.
She sighed, having always been a sucker for apologies.
Grasping at the back of her desk seat, she dragged it over to take a seat beside Deidara's bed which seemed to merit his attention, as he broke away from the window to look at her curiously.
"You know what I have to do now." Deidara face turned foul as he once again returned his attention to the window with an annoyed 'tch.'
"What happened?" Sakura's voice was bored and plain because she knew the likely hood of her actually getting anything out of Deidara was minimal. And she was right, as the question wasn't responded to at all, instead Deidara showed his contempt for such a thing by gritting his teeth and jutting out his jaw in a childish display. Sakura rolled her eyes in preparation of a lecture about insubordination and withholding pertinent medical information, but found her voice stifled by a demure knock on the door.
Arching an eyebrow, she glanced back over her shoulder to look towards the door.
"What is it?" She called, knowing that if it had been anyone of notoriety, they simply would have walked in regardless.
"Food, Haruno-sama." Delicate, shy, female voice; distinctly not Sunni.
"Come in." The door was opened, a small food cart pushed in and a delicate waif of a woman followed. Brown hair, pale pink eyes, couldn't have been more than five foot one, looked like Sakura could see her ribs through her clothing and still not Sunni.
"Where is Hiro Sunni? She was the one assigned to me." Sakura asked blandly, not overly worried about her short time companion, merely curious to her where abouts. The girl seemed startled at having been addressed, her down turned face jerking upwards and coral coloured eyes wide.
"A-ah, Hiro-sama was called away for, Haruno-sama." As she came beside Sakura, she offered a deep bow before walking several steps backwards. The girl was overly formal and a bit too polite for Sakura to be comfortable around her, so she simply dismissed her with a nod.
"She always creeps me out, yeah." Deidara seemed to be over his annoyance with her, but maybe it was just the prospect of food. "She's one of Zetsu's."
Sakura simply nodded and stored that information away for later. Reaching under Deidara's bed she grasped the small table used for patients meals, absentmindedly placing it over Deidara's thighs as she prepared his set up.
"Oh." His inflection was nearly as scandalous as his smile. "Do I get Nurse Sakura, yeah?"
Sakura felt a vein pop in her forehead as she contemplated dumping the bowl of okayu down Deidara's front.
"No, you have Doctor Haruno, who is in charge of you until she deems you fit for service." The plate was nearly slammed down on the table, but the tone in Sakura's voice spoke volumes. 'You're my bitch until I say so.'
But with a comment that would have bought about ire from other shinobi simply seemed to bring out the amusement in Deidara.
"I think I'd like that, Sakura-sensei." Sakura simply snorted before flopping down in her own seat beside his bed with her own bowl.
"Just Sakura is fine."
"Eh, you're ruining my fun, yeah."
"Just eat your food, Deidara-kun, you would have burned off most of your energy last night cycling out my excess chakra." She returned easily, used to being the killjoy when it came to patients in the hospital. Deidara seemed amused though, for whatever reason, a spark of light burning brilliantly in his lone denim eye that had been so pale and weak the day prior.
Sakura sat back in her chair as she bought a spoon full of okayu to her mouth, enjoying the warm feeling of the soft rice as it invoked feelings of home. She gave a pleasant sigh as she felt herself relax, taking another spoon full as she reminisced about the quiet mornings spent around the table, the dawn chorus starting up outside her house while she slowly enjoyed her coffee and meal. The mornings where she'd be sitting in little but a tank top and underwear, her head lolling back as the warmth from the okayu settled comfortably in her stomach as a pair of strong, masculine hands would sweep away her hair and-
"Ah, shit." Deidara hissed as the hot okayu spilled down his chin, throwing the bowl he had been manhandling with his left, non dominant hand down onto his small lap table. Sakura, thrown from her day dream sat up straight, grabbing a sterile cloth from a cabinet and handing it to the now annoyed patient. Looking down to her own breakfast with a sigh, she watched a few red beans swirl to the surface before she placed it back down on the food cart.
Taking a seat on the side of the bed, she grasped at Deidara's own bowl, which seemed to bring his attention away from cursing at having made a tit of himself and back to her. Taking the not yet used spoon, she gave the okayu a small mix before offering the ladened spoon to Deidara. His eyebrow quirked just like Sakura's had done previously, and while it looked like he was about to shoot her down, he reconsidered, instead taking the time to indulge as Sakura slipped the spoon past his lips. She tugged back against the resistance his lips and teeth provided, sliding the spoon out as she watched him swallow the mouth full be had.
"I owe you this much." Sakura broke the silence as she lifted another spoon to his mouth which Deidara happily took. He didn't respond, but he certainly looked smug.
The rest of the day carried on in a lighter atmosphere, Deidara was quick witted and playful with the conversation and Sakura hadn't been dragged into such sharp back and forth since that time she'd been assigned to oversee Kakashi-sensei's stay in the hospital. His remarks were well placed, making Sakura feel annoyed enough to respond, but keeping the jabs humorous enough that she didn't find them offensive or even mean.
The second day carried on much like the first, except this day she permitted Deidara to be out of his bed, even if he wasn't allowed to leave the room yet. He hand still had the high risk of getting infected and Sakura had prefered if he stayed within a sterile environment. She had of course permitted visitors if he was to have any, but no one had shown up. Deidara didn't see to find this odd or out of place, but Sakura had at least expected Sasori.
She was glad he didn't show up.
Deidara of course, still refused to answer any of her question pertaining to the incident that had gotten him into this mess in the first place, but Sakura had a way of getting around that. While it certainly hadn't been legal within Konoha, Sakura resolved that she was a missing-nin and loosening up the lips of another equally illegal fugitive wasn't entirely wrong or morally unethical, especially because she wasn't going out of her way to do this, nor would it leave Deidara with any ill effects.
The drug she'd be using to numb the pain in the next operation tended to make its users a bit loose lipped, so was it really so bad for her to abuse that?
Probably.
Notes
Shosen jutsu - Mystical palm technique or Healing jutsu
Zoketsugan - Blood replenishing pill
Ox Scroll - Made up by me, but you see medical nin use similar things when operating. Basically it's a seal that helps regulate the amount of chakra you're using, because if you put too much chakra into someone else they'll end up in a coma.
While Sakura has excellent chakra control, this ox scroll is used because medical nin can become tired after expending so much time, energy and chakra into an operation and that results in lack of concentration. One slip up and too much chakra pushed in could be deadly, so it's more of a precaution.
Can Sakura do this operation without the scroll? yes, undoubtedly. But Sakura is smart and she'd rather be safe than sorry.
Okayu - a rice porridge, often served in hospitals and to the ill, elderly and infants. It can have many fillings but I chose red beans for today.
A/N: Sakura returning the favour of the bread roll!
