Hey hey :)
as promised the next chapter-there is some finction going on here-and i'm talking about the fact that you can't actually see the chains of DNA through a microscope, perhaps through a transmission electron microscope-but that would sound even more fictional for a medic-nin to have such a machine in her house lol! I begin to like medic-nins very much as I write this story- they are the scientists in the Naruto world and Tsunade-sama is the head of them!!!
HAVE FUN!!!
"Sakura?"
Sakura grunted, different ribbons of light floating in front of her eyes.
She tried to move, feeling stiff.
"Sakura? Wake up, my dear!" she heard Tsunade's soft voice call.
Sakura lifted herself and drew the red curtains to uncover the big window over her mattress.
She stared outside the window for a long moment, until she realized that it was barely dawn. The sky was still dark, but there was an orange tint coming from the east.
She yawned and stretched.
Standing up she heard voices from the house.
Tsunade's and a man's voice.
She put on her gown and tied her hair in a bun opening the door. The sudden light ruined her vision for a moment, causing her to flinch.
"Tsunade-sama, you should really consider doing something with these lights, they're too bri-!" Sakura paused, frozen, when she saw Kakashi-sensei sitting by the kitchen table looking at her.
"Good morning, Sakura!" he smiled at her and turned to look back at Tsunade.
"Only cats, as I said! The night was calm." Kakashi muttered sipping from a wooden cup his tea.
Sakura stood there, motionless, staring at her sensei.
It was barely dawn and he was here, in Tsunade's kitchen, drinking tea… and he was in his ANBU uniform.
Sakura gasped and felt the ground beneath her disappear when she remembered every single detail of her sensei in her dream.
A dream so vivid, so… genuine.
Sakura wanted to move, but she couldn't. Was this indeed a dream…
Oh dear…
"Sakura, are you alright?" Tsunade wondered looking at her student.
Sakura managed to smile stupidly and hurried to the kitchen, sitting at the farthest chair from Kakashi.
He looked at her with his casual look and drank his tea.
"I-I'm fine! I'm fine!" she said too cheerfully.
Tsunade lifted an eyebrow.
"You act strange, dear! Like you've drank too much coffee or something." Tsunade muttered and placed a cup of tea in front of her.
Sakura glanced at Kakashi nervously and drank her tea.
"Autch!" she gasped as the tea burnt her tongue. She could feel the numbness take over it.
Shit!
Was her dream a sign that the first person she would see in the morning would be him. Why couldn't it wait until she was fully awake, dressed.
Oh dear, I'm in my PJs in front of sensei!
She deeply desired to punch herself for thinking and being so stupid and tried to hide all these thoughts behind her cup of tea.
She didn't care if it burnt, she had to suppress her nervousness somehow and now this was all she had. Her cup of boiling tea.
"Sakura, once you're done burning your poor tongue, go and check this on the microscope." Tsunade said, making Sakura spit her tea back in the cup. Tsunade put a small glass tube on the table with a piece of little cotton in it.
"What is it?" she asked taking it in her hands.
"Kakashi's DNA sample. Analyze it so we know what we're dealing with." She said and sat by the table.
Sakura had totally forgotten that Tsunade had accepted in attending Kakashi's surgery, if she first examined him herself. She had been so lost in this anxiety of seeing her sensei live in front of her, after she had this intense dream of him, that she couldn't think clearly.
"Right away!" she said, taking this chance to leave and get away with her crazy thoughts.
She didn't even glance at Tsunade and Kakashi as she hold the tiny glass tube and hid in Tsunade's private medic-room.
It was a spacious chamber, with huge windows and equipment of each size and use. In one corner stood a huge pot with a tall cactus, Tsunade's favourite plant and next to it a desk covered with piles of Tsunade's personal medical research, recipes of poisons and antidotes, medical techniques and methods she had developed. It was like a real medic-nin's hideout.
Tsunade had mentioned to her this room, but it was the first time she ever visited it.
She was in complete awe observing every little piece of equipment and gadget. There was a small drawer with different kinds and sizes of tools, like lancets and tongs. Beside it was a shelf covered with glass bottles of many different colors of liquids, and underneath it a table with a modern microscope.
Sakura smiled and touched it gently, as it was a sensitive and surely very expensive piece of equipment.
Sakura took the tube with Kakashi's DNA and put the tiny cotton in a small plastic one with two drops of water.
She closed it and shook it in her hands.
The sunrays were finally arriving Konoha, as Sakura stared outside the window.
She smiled, feeling her former anxiety fade away as she lost herself into working.
Sakura placed the tube on the table and put on a pair of latex gloves of one use. She grabbed a small, flat piece of glass from a box beside the microscope and let a drop from the mixture of water and Kakashi's DNA sample on it.
She turned the microscope on and placed the sample under the light and looked through the lenses.
After adjusting the light she tried to distinguish the particles of the cells which contained Kakashi's genes.
She could see dark freckles, as the lenses were covered with dust.
Sakura sighed, remembering that her master was not one of the most organizing and clean people. She tried to clean it with her gown's sleeve and looked back at the sample.
She heard a loud chuckle and turned to look at the door.
Tsunade and Kakashi were at the door, looking at her, smiling.
"Straight into work, I like it!" Tsunade said happily and approached Sakura, placing her hand on Sakura's back.
Sakura tried to ignore a certain someone and focused at the tiny linear dots connected to each other. She zoomed on one of them and tried to make the different shapes out. She tried to remember all the books and scrolls she had read about genetics, DNA structure and the differences between persons' genes.
Different characteristics are translated into different rows of bases in the long chain of the DNA.
She could see the chains, swirling in pairs.
She looked up at Tsunade, feeling her eyes losing focus for a second as she tried to adjust them.
"Ehm, we need to find the bases' row and line it up and compare it with the Uchihas' sample." She said feeling a lot calmer, as she only had to talk about genes.
"Great, then do it. The Uchihas' sample is in this drawer." Tsunade said and gestured to Kakashi to sit by a chair in the middle of the room.
Sakura avoided Kakashi and opened the drawer Tsunade had shown her.
She gasped noticing hundreds of small glass tubes, bearing tags with different names on it. She noticed a glass tube with the name Hyuga on it, and behind it the Uchihas' sample. She wondered whose Uchiha this blood was as she looked through the clear, crimson liquid.
Was it Sasuke's…
"For heaven's sake, Kakashi, I'm not a dentist! Sit still!" Tsunade complained.
Sakura heard Kakashi sigh silently and couldn't help but smile.
She past by them, always avoiding to look into Kakashi's eye, and worked on his DNA sample.
Tsunade had him look through his Sharingan and hold her palms on it as she felt the chakra his eye was consuming and the damage it caused to his brain.
Sakura noticed how he was moving his leg nervously and Tsunade shouted at him to stay still for the second time.
Sakura signaled, using basic medic-ninjutsu, and managed to analyze the different rows of bases the two DNAs consisted of.
She wrote down on a piece of scroll the different rows and, finally handed Tsunade the two scrolls.
She fixed her eyes on them for a long moment, in which Sakura found herself staring through the window the morning coming by.
The warm colors shoved off the cold ones from the night. The last, brightest Northern Star sparkled one last time, before a sunray made it vanish into thin air.
"Good work, Sakura! I'll work on this later. But I'll have to speak to Rin first. And you, Kakashi, you do have a big problem going on in your brain. I won't say it'll be an easy procedure, as there are great chances you could lose your Sharingan, but if you do want to continue with this surgery, you must know that you'll be in perfect hands." Tsunade announced, sounding really professional, something Sakura always admired in her mentor.
"I'm already aware of that!" Kakshi said calmly, grinning under his mask.
"So, will you proceed?" Tsunade asked him.
Kakashi glanced at Sakura and then back at the Hokage.
"If I don't, your student will kill me. So I have no choice!" he said.
Sakura grunted.
"I-I didn't say I'd kill you, I…!"
"I'm just kidding, Sakura!" Kakashi said, his mask twitched.
Sakura felt her insides bounce and her cheeks felt warm.
She turned quickly around, pretending to be cleaning the tools she had used.
"I guess you know of the recovery part, right?" Kakashi wondered sounding serious again.
Tsunade nodded.
"Well, it's a brain surgery. Your nerve-network is part of your brain, and linked with your chakra network, so this will need time to work. You won't be able to use your Sharingan for a while, if everything works fine. You won't be able to use any jutsu, at least not for two weeks I presume after the surgery. I hate this, as much you hate it, I'm sure, but Sakura is right. If you continue using your Sharingan… it could prove fatal." Tsunade said in a grief tone and hid the scrolls with Kakashi's and Uchihas' DNA translation in a drawer by her desk.
Kakashi nodded understandingly and stood up.
Sakura looked at him, noticing the worry in his normal eye, as he kept his Sharingan shut. She observed the scar on his left eye and remembered the day Rin had told her of that day; the day Obito Uchiha had died, and his gift to Kakashi. His Sharingan.
Her heart beat faster, as she knew how he felt. He had lost a best friend, a comrade. He had been helpless, unable to save him.
Just like she was for Sasuke…
She didn't move, when their eyes met and she smiled back at him, when he smiled at her.
If only I could see that smile, she thought and flinched.
"I'll head straight to the Hokage building. Kakashi, please tell Rin to come by my office. The sooner we deal with your problem, the better."
"Aye, Hokage-sama!" Kakashi said and walked to the door.
Tsunade put on her favorite heels and Kakashi his boots, while Sakura observed them.
"Tsunade-sama, should I come with you?" Sakura wondered. She wanted to help in anything. Today Shikamaru's team would probably arrive and she wanted to be there.
"I can't wait for you, there is an ANBU team outside. They will watch over you." She said and put on her green anorak.
"I can escort her, Hokage-sama!" Kakashi said calmly standing by the door.
"Oh, n-no, you don't have to. It's…!"
"Great! Watch over her! See you all later." Tsunade announced satisfied and shut the door behind her.
Sakura wanted the earth beneath her to crack and swallow her, let her disappear from this awkward moment. This weird silence and this tempting grin from under his mask.
He would be here, waiting for her, while she would be dressing and thinking of him. Imagining him, like she did in her dream. His stare, his smile.
That felt so embarrassing, she couldn't even speak.
"I can wait outside if you want!" he said, like he had read her mind.
Sakura gasped and hoped Kakashi hadn't taken notice of it.
"Ehm, it's ok! I'll be quick!" she said hastily and ran into her room.
She shut the door, aware of his presence, of his deep voice and this strange cool attitude that made her blush.
"Oh dear!" she sighed and threw her gown on her mattress and put on her normal clothes. She tied her bag with her weapons around her waist and zipped her red shirt. Now she needed to freshen herself, but for that she needed to go to the bathroom, which meant she had to go out of her room and face him.
Shit!
When exactly did all this start, she wondered frowning and stood by the door handle.
Oh come on!
She grunted and tried to look normal as she opened the door of her room. She noticed he was still standing motionless by the door.
She hid in the bathroom and did as quick as she could, trying to make no sound. All the time she muttered to herself and blushed.
When she was ready she, again, stood there by the door handle. This strange kind of anxiety drove her mad. She was no little girl anymore. Chie could act like that, in front of her new crush, Turo, but not her. She was eighteen, way past the age of acting so crazy around a man she liked.
Or was she not, she wondered.
Well, she was still a teenager, but he was… a man. Thirty years old. Although he only looked like twenty-three, maybe twenty-four. But no! He was thirty years old, twelve years older than her. So she definitely didn't need to act like a little teenager around him. She actually didn't need to show him anything, that would be totally stupid. She would only embarrass herself to the highest level.
I don't need this!
She did feel attracted to him, she did have dreams of him often lately, she did crave to fall in his warm embrace again. Feel him, listen to his heart. She did like the idea of him liking her the same way, but that was way inappropriate and impossible. He was her sensei, and definitely with interest in real women. Like Rin.
She could never win a place in his heart. Especially not like this.
I must find my cool and act normal around him. There can be nothing else, besides there are greater things to worry about, she thought intensively and opened the door.
Still, she missed a heartbeat seeing him there, by the door, looking at the kitchen boringly.
Did he act like this on purpose, she wondered. Did he know.
But how… well, he does observe, even with one eye, she thought with a frown as she slowly approached him. She stood next to him putting on her boots and he opened the door, letting her pass in front of him.
Sakura grabbed the key and could feel his stare on her back.
When she turned to lock the door, she let a cry of surprise as, suddenly, Kakashi was wearing his ANBU mask, as their identities must stay secret.
She hadn't been used in seeing those strange, porcelain, animal masks with the red markings, especially so close. They looked… funny. His seemed to be the animated version of a dog's face.
She heard Kakashi chuckle and she locked the door, blushing.
They walked down the stairs through the huge cherry trees.
The sun was still hidden behind the trees and the sky had a light blue color, while the atmosphere was chilly.
Sakura crossed her arms in front of her chest, as the chill reached her fingers.
"Were you in the ANBU team that was watching over me?" she asked, just trying to fill the strange silence between them.
He looked at her through the mask.
"Yes!" he said simply with his hands in his pockets.
Sakura caught herself observing his tattoo on his left forearm, the logo of the ANBU shinobi.
She looked quickly away.
"Do you ever rest?" she wondered.
He chuckled again.
"Sometimes!" he said looking straight ahead.
"Well, you'll have all the time to rest pretty soon!" Sakura said, imagining already Kakashi stuck in his bed, unable to move, just reading his weird novels and drinking tea.
"I guess so." He said, sounding a bit grief.
Sakura looked at him, noticing the alteration in his voice.
"You still don't like the idea of the surgery, do you?"
Kakashi glanced at her and then stayed silent for a moment.
"I try to think of it as something necessary, but still… it's a brain surgery and not a broken bone or an injured organ. It's my brain and the Sharingan. I know the possibilities of failure and success, and if it was in my hands, well…you know what I'd decide!" he said. Sakura could sense the smile under his ANBU mask and his own mask.
"You wouldn't do it!" Sakura muttered looking the street beneath her.
"You wonder why, don't you?" he asked calmly.
Sakura looked at him and nodded.
"It's a risk I do not really intend of taking, but…there are two things happening which I cannot let them be. Our village lies under great danger and every shinobi and kunoichi must be well prepared and alert every minute, so leaving now for an operation is like running away. On the other hand, though, I cannot fight and secure a victory without my Sharingan and, according to three medic-nins, if I use it more it could kill me…that's why I cannot tell you for sure what my decision is. Honestly, if it lay in my hands and we were living in times of peace… I'd take my chances and live in this state, whatever state that is."
Sakura could see his point of view, but still…
"I'm well aware, Sakura, that the Hokage and the whole shinobi community would hope I'd have this surgery so that they have at least one little piece of hope. I know many believe in me in this village, and I never forget that. Perhaps this is the only reason I'm agreeing with this." He sighed silently.
"You think you'd disappoint him?" Sakura asked, as the question popped out without really thinking of the consequences of entering someone else's personal life like this. But she wanted to know.
Kakashi turned to face her.
Sakura hoped she could see his face, although she could perfectly imagine how he would look like. Serious, calm, maybe there'd be a sad smile.
He looked away, his gaze lost somewhere faraway.
"That day I changed. I became who I am today… although it meant my best friend had to die… . And he never knew; that I thought and I still think of him as my best friend. This eye means more than a gift from a friend." He said.
Sakura looked at her feet, one after the other stepping on the road. One after the other with a steady pace, while her mind traveled towards an imagination of Uchiha Obito. A person who'd be now as old as Kakashi, maybe he would be the sensei of another team as well. And he and Kakashi would go to Jo's bar every night and hit on women, laugh, drink and talk all night.
She'd like to have met him. This Uchiha Obito. He must have been a wonderful person.
If he was still alive, Sakura thought, Kakashi would probably not be so secretive and so in undertone.
"But I'll have the surgery, don't worry! If you hadn't convinced me, I'd still be arguing about it." He said, sounding suddenly much more cheerful.
Sakura missed a heartbeat.
She didn't know what to say.
She had been so sure, Rin was the one who had convinced him, but… it was her nonetheless.
She smiled, feeling a little proud.
"It will go just fine, I'm sure it will!" she told him honestly. She herself would make sure nothing would go wrong. How could she. There was no way she'd hurt her sensei. No way.
"I trust you!" Kakashi said and looked at her for a moment.
Sakura smiled at him.
I trust you too…
___________
At the Hokage tower, Sakura bid her farewell to Kakashi and let him return to Rin and Chie.
Sakura entered the busy and crowded building.
By the entrance she saw Shikaku Nara and Choza Akimichi, Shikamaru's and Choji's fathers. They were two distinctive jonins, heads of their clans and comrades ever since their childhood. Shikaku was a perfect resemblance of his son, though much handsomer and with a more stiff necked figure. His face was scarred and he looked much more vibrant than his son. Next to him, Choza petted his fingers one after the other on the handle of his katana. He wore an outstanding armor, freshly polished with his clan's symbol in Japanese on his chest. His long, bushy hair was tied loosely on his back. They were talking secretly wearing frowns.
Sakura looked at them, waiting for them to notice her before greeting them.
Shikaku immediately smiled when he did notice her. Choza turned around to face her, beaming.
"Good morning Sakura-chan!" they both greeted her.
"Good morning, Nara-sama, Akimichi-sama!"
"Are you heading for the Hokage's office?" Shikaku asked.
"Yes, I am! Are there any news from Shikamaru-san's team?" Sakura asked, sure that if they had already arrived, Shikaku would have known as he was the jonins' Commander.
Shikaku's face darkened.
"No, not yet! There's a jonins' team looking for them at the borders, if they see them they'll assist immediately and inform us." He said, his voice steady and deep.
Sakura sighed silently, having a very bad feeling. She was already aware of Neji's disappearance and of Naruto and Temari-san's state of coma. But there was something else. Was it this uncomfortable air coming from Nara-sama and Akimichi-sama, she wondered. She wasn't sure, but she had to find out.
She was about to greet them and go find Tsunade, but Choza stepped towards her, his fist on his katana.
"Sakura-chan, the Hokage is on a meeting with the Elders at the moment. You should better not interrupt." He told her, his voice much softer than Shikaku's.
"Oh, alright. Thank you for informing me. I'll be back!" she said and left the Hokage tower, standing in front of the building.
This feeling. This strange threat that made her heart beat faster and her hands shake. What was it… . She tried to take deep breaths and calm down, but nothing changed. She looked up at the bright sky.
This weird heaviness felt like pressing her heart downwards, through her guts. She felt her airway blocked, the air reaching her lungs ice cold, the oxygen reaching her limbs inadequate, the beautiful feeling of being so complete she had some minutes ago as she had departed from her sensei… it felt like it never happened, like a distant memory.
She looked around her, maybe there'd be some sort of sign, something that could tell her, warn her of this unseen threat.
But everything seemed normal. The people, the buildings, the shops, the streets, the birds, the trees.
Two red eyes…
She gasped.
Now the whole dream appeared into her mind. When she had seen Kakashi that morning in Tsunade's kitchen she had only remembered the beautiful part of her dream, the rest of it… it was a nightmare.
She had dreamt of Madara. He had been there, speaking to her, holding her hand, comforting her…
She felt the heaviness drown her heart and crush it as the world around her disappeared and she returned in this dream, in a darkness, with stars above her and he was there. Staring at her with his piercing eyes. With the Sharingan.
Her hands were numb and her feet glued to the ground.
She looked down to her feet, trying to move them with her eyes, but she couldn't. They wouldn't listen.
She thought of walking so intensively it hurt. But her feet wouldn't move.
What's wrong?
She looked upwards, moving her head so quickly, that her neck cracked and suddenly she saw only light. Bright light and those two eyes…
_________
Nobody could really tell which was the strangest day in Konoha.
Every day held a shocking surprise, either a good one or a bad one.
But this sunny day, was definitely one of the scariest ones.
Tsunade had reached her limits.
The council of Elders, for one more time, lectured her of her unawareness about Madara's threat and his actions, of Shikamaru's team's fate, of Sakura's questioning part in the story. They shouted at her, disrespected her, swore at her, and once more doubted her appropriateness to be Hokage and run this village.
Tsunade had stayed calm, she always did. Well most of the times…
Shizune's and Jiraya's absence had been intense that moment. She had wished so deeply to have them back with her, knowing that they both were in danger, somewhere far away from her.
But she acted as she should. As a Hokage should act.
But the moment she exited the huge, round and dark chamber she had to deal with a problem that felt like a stab in her heart.
A young chuunin had been waiting for her to finish with the meeting to tell her that her student had collapsed in the entrance of the tower.
Tsunade had ran so fast to find Shikaku and Choza attending the pink-haired girl, who was laying there on the stairs with a cut on the side of her head and her eyes turned in their sockets, flickering. The girl was in spasms, shaking in Nara's arms.
Tsunade knew she had punched many, in order to reach her beloved student. She held her in her arms and vanished, with the greatest velocity, to the hospital of Konoha.
Well aware of the jonins running behind her, and the ANBU team that was watching over Sakura , she reached the hospital in eight minutes. In the meantime, she swore under her breath everyone for not being able to see or sense whoever or whatever caused Sakura this.
Panting, she burst the doors open and many pairs of eyes stared at her, shocked with mouths wide open, seeing her with the shaking girl in her arms.
Tsunade didn't know what she had said, to whom she shouted, who else she punched. She only knew that Sakura was finally on a bed in the emergency room, with doctors and medic nins over her.
Tsunade stood beside them, unable to think clearly to help.
She just watched, every now and then wiping some hot tears away from her cheeks, every time they tickled or blocked her vision.
Her eyes fixed on Sakura.
She was opening her mouth so wide, while her eyes were pure white. Tsunade waited to hear a loud scream, but there was no sound coming from the girl. She just shook like mad on the bed, while four nurses were needed to keep her stable.
Tsunade placed instinctively her palm over her mouth, when she noticed one medic-nin grabbing Sakura from her throat and forcing Sakura's head to look upwards in order to open her airway.
Tsunade gasped, her heart missing a beat, as a dark cloud emerged from Sakura's mouth, like a semi-transparent liquid in a size of a fist.
Sakura, then, yelled with pain and her shaking stopped. The medic nin grabbed the strange, floating liquid and placed it in a bowl, covering it. One of the nurses, quickly, hid the bowl in a refrigerator.
Tsunade approached slowly, noticing Sakura's eyes being shut as she lay unconscious.
A nurse suddenly touched her on her forearm, making her flinch.
"Hokage-sama, there is a man named Nara outside. He requests to see you." She said nervously.
"I can't!" Tsunade growled, not taking her eyes off Sakura.
"H-He said, it's an emergency." The nurse whispered.
Tsunade immediately understood. She had to let Sakura under the medics' care, there was nothing she could do under this state she was. Furious with everyone, out of control…
She grunted forcefully, almost breaking the door of the emergency room.
Shikaku was there, his face grief.
"Hokage-sama, they arrived! They are three hours ahead to the west. Inoichi-san and his team spotted them and guide them back home." He said, in his professional tone.
Tsunade marched outside the hospital and looked up at the sky.
"OWL!" she shouted to nobody.
After a second, a man in the ANBU uniform appeared in front of her behind a cloud of smoke.
"Aye, Hokage-sama!" he announced standing straight.
"Do not leave Sakura Haruno from your eyes, understood? Or I'll kill you with my bare hands! Do not let anyone, and I mean it, anyone enter this building without my permission!" she growled and the ANBU shinobi bowed and disappeared to inform his comrades.
Tsunade and Shikaku ran towards the entrance of Konoha, where they'd be waiting for Shikamaru's team to finally arrive.