Chapter 27 - Diluted Red
Sakura carefully inserted the finnpipette into the electrophoresis gel. It had to be perfectly placed before she ejected the sample; neither above nor below the gel floating in the liquid, but exactly in the designated compartments. The trick to getting it just right was to insert the tip at an angle and not from directly above.
Seeing she was at the right spot she pushed down the button on top all the way down in one smooth motion; perfect. Pulling out the pipette she moved it over a plastic bucket and ejected the replaceable tip (she couldn't risk contamination from one sample to the next). The rest of the one-use tips she already prepared in a rack, so she only needed to push down on one till it was properly stuck to be ready for the next round.
It was rather monotone work and she'd only found it fun the first few times, after which her hand had stopped shaking and the excitement had died off. She filled the pipette. Still it was a job that required the utmost concentra...
"What are you doing?"
Sakura promptly jumped half a meter into the air and she felt sure her heart had jumped so far into her throat, it had hit the bottom of her skull. Luckily she hadn't knocked anything over... this time. She spun around with a glare directed at the boy standing no more than two feet behind her.
"What the Hell, Itachi? Do you get a kick out of scaring me or something?"
He smirked that infuriating Uchiha smirk of his and Sakura fully understood now why Naruto couldn't help picking fights with Sasuke back in the team 7 days.
"I have been standing here the last five minutes. I assumed you had noticed me by now."
Sakura narrowed her eyes.
"Ever heard of knocking?"
"Ever heard of locking the door?"
Her glare morphed into surprise, "would that really stop you?"
He considered it for all of two seconds before giving a small shrug, "not really."
"So you do get a kick out of surprising me."
He raised a black eyebrow.
"I have no idea how our current conversation made you conclude that, but yes I find your reaction quite amusing."
She stared at him blankly. It had been a sucky day of monotonous work because the department supposed to be doing this had been behind. Screw missing him when he wasn't around, right now she could do without him making her heart do fright aerobics.
"I really hate you," she mumbled childishly.
His smirk fell and he frowned.
"You don't mean that." It was a statement, but she could hear the minuscule waver in his voice. She promptly punched him in the shoulder for his stupidity.
"Of course I don't mean it! Don't take everything so seriously, I'm just grouchy. In such a situation you should just say something like 'don't be silly you know you love me'."
"You can be rather strange at times," Itachi deadpanned, but she could tell some of the tension had left his shoulders.
She smiled sugar-sweetly. "And for a genius you sure can be clueless."
Her smile fell and turned serious, "just because your way of greeting annoys me, it doesn't mean I'm not happy to see you."
"There you go contradicting yourself again."
Sakura was just about ready to rip her hair out in frustration, when something occurred to her.
"You're just teasing me again, aren't you?" she asked suspiciously.
His mouth twitched upwards for a moment.
"A little bit."
She threw her hands upward in defeat, talk about fast recovery time, and turned back to her work.
"Why am I friends with you again?"
"Apparently because you know you love me."
She threw a glare over her shoulder, "don't make me reconsider that."
Itachi just sent her a smirk and her eyes narrowed further. With a huff she gave up and stuck the pipette in the gel. He was a fast learner. She had to be creative to keep up with him. Points had obviously gone to Itachi this round (Inner Sakura was keeping score).
Oo o oO
Itachi watched her work while considering whether to bring up something, that had been bothering him.
"I don't like that you are so easily caught off guard down here," he finally admitted and she turned back around to face him. The first few times he had found it endlessly amusing, that she was so caught up in, what she was doing, that she failed to notice his entry, but after that the vulnerability had been gnawing at him.
"What if I had been an enemy?"
A strange expression flitted momentarily over Sakura's face before settling into a disbelieving smile.
"Who would attack me here?" she questioned incredulously and did an encompassing motion with an arm, making it obvious that here meant in the middle of Konoha down in the basement of the hospital. It did seem very unlikely when put like that.
Still he held onto their eye contact, conveying he was serious. With a sigh her shoulders fell.
"Alright who?"
"I don't trust that Kabuto guy and then there's the head medic..."
"Fumio-san?" she spluttered in surprise and swallowed a laugh, "sure he's damn annoying, but I really don't see him attacking me."
Itachi frowned not at all appreciating her laughing at him, when he was being dead serious.
"I don't like him. He doesn't look at people like they are people."
The boy especially didn't like the way the man had a habit of looking at his friend like she was a particularly interesting test subject to be taken apart, but he refrained from mentioning that.
Sakura's expression saddened.
"It's something of a side effect of the medical profession. We are taught so much about how the body works and it's composition, that after a while we risk losing sight of the people and just see the body as a machine in need of fixing."
"As for Fumio-san he's more of a researcher and less of a healer at heart, which only makes it worse."
She could tell she'd made her point and resumed her work. It did make sense and the fact that he was a shinobi probably didn't exactly help either. Reducing a person to a target and assassination to just-another-mission-objective was a common way to deal with what was ultimately murder. It was just the sad reality of their world. Something he himself struggled with (he still didn't like Fumio though).
The train of thought made him wonder; had Sakura with her bright eyes ever killer another person? He doubted that. Sure, there was something she carried around, but it didn't feel like the darkness of losing touch with one's humanity. It was something she thought mainly about when she was alone (or thought she was), that shadowed and worried her features, but it would always end with a look of determination taking over.
Privately Itachi suspected it had to do with her statement that she never wanted to lose her precious people again. Of course he could just ask, but he didn't want to bring out some potentially painful memories just to satiate his own curiosity.
"Alright, I'm done for now," she exclaimed clapping her hands together and glanced back at him with a brilliant smile. "Lunch?"
"Aa," he agreed. It was the reason he was there after all.
Her smile fell a bit at his rather absent reply.
"Hey."
He looked down to meet soft green.
"I'll try to be a bit more alert." Her mouth quirked upwards and she raised an eyebrow, "but don't expect me to discover you right of the bat. You're stealthier than a freaking cat."
He shook his head amusedly. He didn't consider himself quite there yet when it came to masking his chakra (in fact he was sure, she had that part down better than him), but his silent and unseen movement was topnotch.
"I guess that's fair."
Sakura hadn't refused his suspicions on Kabuto. He wondered if that meant she didn't trust him either or if it had just been lost in the trails of conversation.
Oo o oO
As they walked to lunch Itachi realized Sakura never answered his initial question.
"So what were you doing today?"
"Oh, the electrophoresis? It sorts charged molecules by size..." She trailed off as she noticed the boy's carefully blank face.
"How much do you know about DNA?"
Itachi shrugged, "no two people have the same, the genes are written there."
She seemed to ponder a bit how best to explain.
"Alright, so basically we have DNA in every cell of our body, well except erythrocytes but they are prette much living on borrowed time anyway." She shook her head getting back n track, "since DNA is unique from person to person you can use it to prove a person has been at a scene if they've scraped themselves, dropped a hair or something like that. It's quite handy when the sensor types can't pick up on a chakra signature."
"Okay," Itachi hesitated, "but what has that got to do with this electrophoresis?"
He felt dread fill his stomach at the excited gleam in Sakura's eyes.
"It's sort of an indirect way to determine if two DNA samples are the same. Basically we've got an enzyme which cuts DNA whenever there's a specific sequence of bases. Since everyone's DNA is different one can reasonably assume the profile of how the different lengths of DNA come out is relatively unique and that's a DNA profile. The electrophoresis does the sorting. Each strand of DNA is negatively charged so when you send an electric current through an electric conductive liquid with DNA in it, the strands will wander towards the positive pole. Instead of just having a liquid there's also a gel, which obviously has a higher density. Basically the gel slows down the bigger strands, the bigger the slower, the smaller the faster they wander and that's how it works. It's a really good method because you need relatively little DNA and it's a much faster analysis than full out sequencing."
Itachi blinked and tried not to stare too much. He felt a distinct lack of basic education in the subject. The word enzyme he'd only ever stumbled upon on his toothpaste tube, to take just one example of a word he didn't feel made sense in context. He deliberated whether he dared ask a question, but felt he needed some clarification.
"So basically you could use a single strand of hair to make a DNA profile?"
"Well yes and no, I mean mitochondrial DNA can be extracted from the strand itself, but that isn't as surefire considering the mother and the siblings would have the same..."
"Sakura stop talking."
The medic looked at her friend's thoroughly confused face and grinned sheepishly.
"Here." She pulled out a hair and pointed to the root where there was a cluster of white. "When a hair is pulled out, like during a struggle, some cells will be pulled along, so they can be used to extract DNA from. If you only have the strand, it is still possible, but not quite as solid evidence. Better?"
"Slightly," he deadpanned and then frowned, "I thought you were working on a paralyzing agent?"
"I am. It's just that the analyzing department apparently had been too busy to finish this spring's new genin, so I ended up with the task."
"You mean to say we've got a register of all shinobi?"
"Yeah, not many people know and it's probably better, it stays that way. The clans allow it because the original samples are destroyed and a profile doesn't say a thing about their precious genes."
They entered a restaurant, where they made a good tempura and the subject was dropped - much to Itachi's secret relief. He felt sure that if he'd allowed it, Sakura would have recited an entire textbook at him. As it was, when he ran over the conversation later, he felt absolutely at a loss, he had absolutely no clue, what he should do with this information. Too much of it made no sense, but he just couldn't let it go. As a shinobi he'd been taught that no information, no matter how seemingly useless, could come in handy. It made his head hurt.
Oo o oO
Soft light filtered through the treetops and gradually replaced the gray of night with greens and browns. The old farmer and his two hired hands had already been on the roads for hours to reach Konoha in time to get a good stall place in the market area.
Usually it would have been his son who accompanied him, but he'd been mightily roughened up by a group of three missing nin, who passed through the small village two days ago. With the damage they had cause, the weekly trip to Konoha with fresh produce had become even more essential. Sadly with every young man in the entire village being out of commission due to injuries the trip had seemed an impossibility.
Luckily a pair of well built travelers had come upon the village yesterday. In return for a solid evening meal the men had helped with some of the heavy lifting necessary for repairs. It was with the welfare of his village in mind that Satoshi had approached the strangers to hire them.
After bargaining a bit back and forth they'd reached a price that was well within his expected profit - in fact he could hardly believe his luck, but after the catastrophic events the day before, he rather thought karma owed him one.
"Good morning Satoshi-san, early as always," the guard greeted him with a pleasant smile as he drove his ox-driven cart up to the gate. Returning the smile and the greeting he searched his pack for the official trading permit, which was more of a formality considering the guard recognized him.
The shinobi's smile fell when he spotted the two figures sitting in the back of the cart.
"You didn't bring your son today?" he asked with a frown.
The old farmer cursed shinobi and their paranoia. If he told the truth and said they were hired, he might refuse them entry.
He remembered how hard it had been for his father to obtain the much-coveted trading permit in the first place; they had gone back several generations to ensure there was no connection to any enemy of Konoha. With that kind of paranoia it was very unlikely they would allow two strangers of unknown background into the village.
Satoshi could not risk his aides. He was much too old to carry the heavy crates by himself. The decision to lie came natural, his village needed the income too much to risk anything.
"My son got himself injured, these two are my nephews."
The guard looked skeptical for a moment, but in the end Satoshi's longstanding affiliation with Konoha as a merchant won out.
"Oh, very well." He indicated the old man could pass as he wrote down 'Satoshi Farmer and two grown nephews' on his clipboard.
It took less than an hour to set up the stall and afterwards he gave his two 'nephews' permission to leave until the evening. There was no reason in having them around all day. They would just be bored and he didn't need them to see how much profit he actually made from the wealthy citizens or they might reconsider their deal and demand more or worse just take it; it wasn't like an old man like him could really resist.
He felt a surge of apprehension at the thought, but wrote it off as the paranoid shinobi atmosphere making him unnecessarily jumpy.
Oo o oO
So far everything had gone according to plan. Their boss really was a genius, Ieyasu and Takeshi thought as they walked down the streets of the awakening hidden village.
The two of them hadn't really understood at the time, why they couldn't participate in the attack on the small village, but it made sense now. Obviously they wouldn't have been hired otherwise. This way getting into Konoha had been almost too easy and not a single soul was suspicious of them.
For a moment back at the gate they had almost panicked and only their leader's firm orders not to act like shinobi had saved them from ruining the infiltration. Now they just had to find the Uzumaki.
Oo o oO
"The Naruto brat, huh?"
"Luckily I haven't seen him today."
"What did the troublemaker do now?"
It was the kind of responses they'd had for two hours now. One vendor had even taken one look at the two big men's now rather disgruntled features and said, "if he's done something it's better to report it at the tower, the hokage doesn't appreciate vigilantism."
Of course they couldn't exactly correct the misunderstanding, as saying they just wanted to kidnap the brat and not take revenge on a prank of some kind probably wouldn't go over well.
It wasn't until late forenoon they had any success and they got a six year old boy walking down the street pointed out. Success was a relative term in this case though; the kid was blonde ergo not the kind of Uzumaki the boss was hoping for. He had literally pounded it into their heads that the person they were to abduct must have red hair.
Ieyasu huffed in irritation.
"Great, all of this for nothing. You coming Takeshi?"
At that moment the fake Uzumaki shouted a head-turningly loud greeting and the two of them looked reflexively in the boys direction (like every other person in a 50 meter radius).
"Sakura nee-chan!" The boy jumped into the arms of an older pink haired girl. They started talking, but the two would-have-been kidnappers were too far away to hear anything. Ieyasu quickly lost interest and turned to walk away. Maybe they could find some place that served sake to kill time until evening, when they could get their inconspicuous ride out of here. He was halted suddenly by his partner, annoyed he glared at him.
"Say Ieyasu?" Takeshi trailed off.
"What? The boss was clear on this. No red hair, no deal," he grouched knowing exactly. how impossible the boss would be, after this turned out to be a dud.
"His older sister has pink hair..."
The glare turned to complete disbelief.
"You're stalling us because of an abnormal hair color?"
"No," Takeshi frowned confusedly as if it was physically painful to think, "I had the thought that maybe if one parent had red hair and the other was blonde..."
Ieyasu was absolutely blank for ten seconds until the possible meaning of those words had completely trickled in. His face lit up in an ominous grin.
"We're still on."
Takeshi answered the grin.
"So which one are we going for?"
"The boy obviously, can't you see the hitai-ate? The girl would be more trouble than she's worth."
Oo o oO
"Eh?" he exclaimed, "you're going to work on a Saturday?"
Sakura smiled at his outburst. It was such a Naruto thing to do.
"Yes, there's something of a Summer Cold going around, so they are a bit understaffed at the hospital."
"I've never been sick," the boy boasted proudly.
The girl ruffled his unruly hair affectionately.
"Just don't tell Sasuke or he'll tell you it's because you're too slow to catch it."
Naruto looked at Sakura uncomprehendingly, which only made her smile wider; he was so lovably dense.
"I need to get going, but if I get off early enough, I'll pass by the playground on my way home."
His face lighted up, having already forgotten there was something, he hadn't understood.
"Okay! See you later Sakura nee-chan." He waved and continued down the street.
The preteen smiled secretly knowing there was no way Naruto would miss Sasuke and Mikoto if he continued in that direction. It was Itachi's birthday tomorrow and in accordance with his recent sprout of independency Sasuke had insisted on finding his own present for his brother. In truth it was something Sakura was rather grateful for, as she otherwise wouldn't have known at all; it wasn't like Itachi went around telling people such details himself.
Luckily the summon to the hospital hadn't been the rushed kind, so she'd just had time to pick up a present. Thinking he would get plenty shinobi related stuff without her chipping in, she'd bought him a novel.
It was of the fantastical kind, where the hero had to struggle through a gruesome amount of obstacles, but it had a happy ending; Itachi needed more of those in his life.
Oo o oO
"Eh, Sasuke-teme and Mikoto-chan?" an unmistakable voice burst out and they turned to see the young blonde running to catch up through the throngs of people. Mikoto wasn't sure she approved of the boy's manner in addressing her son, but then again it wasn't like Sasuke was politeness incarnate when the two were together.
"Hn, dobe," the boy greeted in a perfect nonchalant Uchiha manner and Naruto grimaced with his tongue out in retaliation, before morphing his face into one of his sunny grins when he looked at the Uchiha lady.
"Can Sasuke play?" he asked eagerly.
"Can I?" Sasuke put in hopefully, the Uchiha aloofness completely thrown out the window and sent crashing to the ground.
She now had two pairs of puppy eyes looking at her. Which wasn't really necessary as she wouldn't have said no anyway; it had really been good for Sasuke to have someone his own age to play with, he was much more confident in himself. Since they were doing such a good job of trying to convince her however, she purposely made a show of considering it, which of course made the begging orbs even wider.
"As long as he is home for dinner," she finally agreed with an amused smile as they did a small victory dance. They were just about to disappear into the crowd when she noticed the bag still hanging from her son's elbow.
"Shouldn't I take Itachi's present back with me?"
The young boy turned and pouted.
"I can take care of it myself!" he yelled back quite affronted and followed Naruto.
"Very well," Mikoto said to herself and rolled her eyes. Kids and their wish to do everything themselves even when it wasn't practical at all. Only one way to learn, with that thought the Uchiha lady focused on making her way home in the midday rush.
Oo o oO
Later that day Mikoto looked at the clock and sighed. She had given Sasuke and Naruto plenty of time, but now she couldn't postpone dinner any longer. As it was she'd only managed to delay it so far because Fugaku had brought paperwork home and was working in his office. She promptly decided, Sasuke was getting a watch for his birthday next month.
The woman walked out onto the veranda, where Itachi was enjoying the sunshine while writing up his latest mission report. Before she managed to utter a word, he'd rolled up the scroll and stood up.
"I'll go get him."
"Thank you Itachi." She smiled gratefully. He was such a thoughtful boy.
Oo o oO
Itachi frowned as he entered the deserted playground. He'd purposely taken the long way by walking in the streets in case he met Sasuke on the way. There was no way he could have missed his brother as the crowds had died down an hour's time ago. Did they wander off?
He walked over towards the trees. It seemed it was mostly there the two boys played and they might just be out of sight. A small voice in his head told him, it was too quiet though and he felt tension build in his shoulders.
Then his heart promptly stopped; a shopping bag with what was obviously a present leaned against a tree trunk, a few drops of blood were on the ground and tracks from two heavyset men (most likely option considering the size). Dark eyes followed the signs of the scuffle to a point where two small pairs of footprints just stopped and went no further.
Sasuke!
Oo o oO
1 hour earlier...
The playground had emptied except for them and Sasuke realized he should probably be going home as well. Naruto wanted to stay a bit longer, because Sakura-nee had said she might come by.
Sasuke had just turned down the first street when he realized he'd completely forgotten Itachi's gift. Scolding himself for forgetting something so important he ran back where he'd come from.
Oo o oO
Naruto looked after his friend, wishing he could have stayed longer. It was always like this and he would end up alone, but with Sasuke it was okay. He would play with Naruto another day, he wasn't like the other kids, so the blonde could deal with being alone for a while.
The gravel crunched behind him. He spun around in surprise to come face to faces with two huge guys. They smiled pleasantly at him as they advanced, but it didn't reach their eyes. Naruto knew eyes and these were cold.
He ordered his body around and ran as fast as he could, but he wasn't fast enough. They were shinobi. In a flash one was in front of him and grabbed him.
Oo o oO
An ordinary child would probably have stood frozen in horror as they saw their friend getting abducted. A smart child would probably have run for help. Sasuke Uchiha however jumped right into the fray with a kick to one of the kidnappers' face.
The man groaned in pain taking a step back, but that was all the young Uchiha could manage in the moment of surprise. The other man still with a firm grip on the struggling blonde backhanded the child. Though maybe he shouldn't have done that; if there's one thing that will make Naruto double his efforts it's seeing one of his very few friends being hurt.
With a twist of his head he clamped down on his captor's arm tasting sweat and then blood. Yowling the man swung his arm sending Naruto flying through the air. He crashed to the ground in the heap, but he had no time for pain.
He struggled to his feet with his head darting around. Both kidnappers had gotten their bearings. He sprinted to where Sasuke was dizzily getting up with a hand supporting his head.
He had never been so scared and desperate before. Adrenalin leant speed to his legs, he never knew, he had. Reaching Sasuke he didn't stop, merely grabbed the still disoriented Uchiha by the arm and tugged him along. Luckily Sasuke still had the sense to move his legs.
They didn't get far. Suddenly one of the kidnappers was in front of them. Naruto skidded to a sudden stop. Sasuke unable to stop his momentum slammed into his back sending the blonde sprawling to the ground. Frantically he scrambled back up, never noticing the scrapes on his hands. Standing back to back they each faced a sour looking brute.
Oo o oO
Their little piece of cake mission had left Takeshi with what was sure to be a black eye and Ieyasu with a bleeding arm. They were not happy.
"I'm gonna wring this one's neck, we only need the blonde," Takeshi stated ominously and watched in twisted pleasure as the dark haired boy looked at him with fright in his eyes.
His partner not having a particular grudge against Sasuke, was more sensible.
"We don't have time to dispose of a body. Let's just grab them both and get out of here, besides they might be more likely to behave if they know we'll hurt the other."
Takeshi grinned menacingly.
"You hear that pipsqueaks? Any trouble from either of you and your little friend gets it."
The kids never stood a chance.
Author's Note:
And so Naruto and Sasuke were sold off to Cloud and the massacre was prevented because the Uchiha clan and Konoha joined forces to get them back, all because Sakura travelled back in time and her presence made our stupid kidnappers come to a roundabout correct conclusion on Naruto's parents... okay not really XD
