AN: Note that I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, or any of the characters from either Anime. This work is a fanfiction written out of my love for the series and not in any attempt to make a profit.

Proofread by: Author

Well then, I believe I should begin by notifying everyone that a few, minor edits have taken place in the previous chapter. They're nothing major, but definitely not something I could ignore. You see, despite Sakura mentioning Inner, we never got a proper reaction from Sakura's parents about it, and that just isn't right. I didn't want to change the chapter too drastically, so I did it with minimal changes, but feel it was still enough of a major change that I'd suggest people check it out, it makes a huge difference, to me at least. I also have something special planned for the Haruno family relations, so keep tight for that. Now, to those of you not crazy about going back and re-reading an entire chapter for some edits, I will summarize the changes here: Sakura's parents acknowledged Inner as a second daughter and now make sure to try and address both her and Sakura at once. Any disbelief or concern about Sakura's mental well being was thrown out as they listened to Sakura's tale, as they were polite enough not to interrupt until the very end, at which point they were more concerned about other issues.

Chapter 31: Bored and glad at the hospital

Sakura sighed as she finally had a break from the drawn-out civilian check-up they had started with, in pursuit of identifying her Kekkei Genkai's effect on her body. Beginning with measuring her blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature, and the rate of respiration. Following the regular checkup, she was then asked to submit a blood, urine, and stool sample, which seemed excessive, but was considered the norm when testing for a Kekkei Genkai. Sakura wasn't too pleased with the process but still complied as she didn't have much of a choice in the matter, regardless of how embarrassing it was to produce and hand over such samples.

Next, Sakura was going to allow them to take a full-body x-ray of her, followed by an MRI scan, considering Neji's mention of additional chakra pathways within her brain. Considering Sakura wasn't feeling all that different, but knew it was definitely related to her Kekkei Genkai, as Inner had become far more prevalent in her mind since that change, she wasn't worried about such a change, but agreed that it would be best to confirm exactly what it was that was going on with her.

"Not enjoying your hospital visit?" Kakashi asked her from where he sat on a visitor's chair, next to the bed Sakura had been given for the time being.

"Of course not. I feel dirty. Naruto is right, Hospitals are evil." Sakura complained sourly, getting a chuckle out of Kakashi.

"I suppose I should have expected that from you. I agree that it's never pleasant to spend time in a hospital, but it's necessary." He assured her, and Sakura couldn't help but huff in annoyance.

"Well, in that case, I saw Karin earlier. How about you go see her and I'll call you when you're needed." Kakashi suggested, glad to see Sakura's mood immediately improve.

"Sounds great. Thanks, Kakashi." Sakura thanked him before leaving the room to find Karin.

Leaving the room she had been assigned, Sakura immediately went to the closest waiting room, finding Karin there who was reading a scroll she had seemingly brought with her, only to look up and smile as Sakura entered.

"Sakura!" She exclaimed before getting up and rushing over, hugging Sakura, much to Sakura's confusion.

"Um, Karin?" Sakura prodded for an explanation, before Karin let go, blushing a bit from embarrassment as she stepped back.

"Sorry, I just wanted to thank you for saving me back in the forest of death," Karin explained, looking apologetic, but also excited about something.

"You're welcome, but I thought we already went over this?" Sakura tried, a bit confused as to why Karin would bring it up again.

"We did because you saved me, everything is going so well! I learned to wall climb, I actually managed to pass the second exam and the preliminaries for the third exam while no one else in my team did, my teammates are actually being nicer to me now and the Hokage came by and told me he's interested in letting me stay here, and he's almost certain he can make it happen!" Karin revealed, throwing her arms up in excitement while smiling at Sakura. "And it's all thanks to you!" She added, before throwing her arms around Sakura again, who was a bit baffled by it all.

"Oh, that's great, but it's not all because of me, you were the one to pass the exam yourself, and Naruto likely spoke to the Hokage about your situation." Sakura tried to reason, glad that Karin soon let her go again, as she felt a little bit awkward from being hugged so suddenly in a public waiting room. Especially since they weren't alone and some of the others, waiting there were looking at them.

"True, but none of it would have happened if you hadn't decided to help me. You didn't have to help me, but you did, and now everything seems to be going great." Karin explained her reasoning, and Sakura couldn't help but smile for her.

"Well, I'm glad things are working out for you, but you don't have to attribute it all to me. It was your own luck that I happened to be nearby. Now, on a different topic, I'm planning to invite the boys for a celebration for having passed the second exam and preliminaries for the third, and I wanted to invite you as well." Sakura told her, hoping to steer Karin's enthusiastic gratitude away from what seemed to be a developing case of hero-worship, and instead try and focus her efforts into a more friend based direction.

"Really? You're inviting me? I, uh, sure!" Karin agreed, having hesitated slightly in disbelief for a moment before agreeing eagerly.

"And she's never been invited to a celebration before… This girl really needs a friend, we should introduce her to Ino now that we've made up." Inner suggested. Sakura mentally agreed to the idea while smiling back at Karin.

"Great, just come over tomorrow and- oh, right. You don't know where I live. I guess I can show you once we're done here, does that sound good?" Sakura suggested, thinking it easier than giving her an address and having her asking people for directions to try and find it the next day.

Karin simply nodded in agreement, until she seemed to realize there was an issue. "Oh, wait, I was going to meet with the Hokage a bit later today for an interview concerning my time in Kusagakure," Karin said regretfully, a bit down by the revelation.

"Oh, well don't worry then. If I'm not done by the time you have to leave, I'll come to find you, deal?" Sakura suggested instead, glad to see Karin's expression brighten again.

"Oh, deal," Karin replied with a smile, happy to be making plans with a friend after never having had the opportunity to before.

"Great, so what exactly did the Hokage tell you? I'm curious to hear what you meant by him being confident you could move to Konoha." Sakura inquired, walking over to sit down in one of the chairs alongside Karin.

"Oh, you see, apparently Naruto came to him and explained my situation to him, and there might be a breach of conditions concerning the alliance between our villages, so the Hokage plans to launch an investigation starting with my team, that's why we're going to see him later today, although the rest of my team doesn't know why yet, only that the Hokage has requested our presence," Karin explained, while Sakura's eyes went wide. If a breach of conditions between two allied villages happened, it could rock the boat in their current time of peace.

"Really? Did he elaborate on what condition your village might have violated?" Sakura inquired in a hushed whisper, only for Karin to shake her head.

"He didn't so I don't really have an idea besides it possibly being because I'm an Uzumaki or something," Karin admitted, shrugging. "We'll find out later today I suppose."

"I see, well I hope you good luck, and I'm glad your team is treating you better now, I'm guessing it's because you got them the second scroll to pass and managed to win in the preliminaries?" Sakura speculated.

Karin nodded in confirmation. "It is, I think they found some respect for me after I stabbed Kankuro and actually complimented me on a good job," Karin revealed.

"Huh, perhaps her teammates at least are a bit more decent than the rest of her village, that's using her as a disposable medical tool," Inner commented with disgust.

Sakura simply smiled encouragingly at Karin, hoping that the Hokage would rain hell on the Kusagakure Shinobi for how they treated Karin, someone they had taken in to protect, only to abuse them for their abilities. While the world wasn't all sunshine and rainbows concerning rare abilities concerning Shinobi, even in Konohagakure, as Sakura now knew very well, there were at the very least some lines you didn't cross out of common decency. Sakura at the very least had a voice in the matter. None of the current options might look all that decent, but she still had a choice, Karin never did.

"Ehem, Sakura?" Kakashi suddenly spoke up from next to them, startling the two girls out from their conversation to see a bored-looking Kakashi looking down on them. "It's time for your MRI and full-body X-ray," Kakashi informed Sakura, much to her displeasure.

"Well, it was nice talking Karin, I need to go now. I'll see you later." Sakura told her, sighing before standing up.

"Alright, I'll see you later, good luck!" Karin wished Sakura who turned back towards Karin with a smile while continuing to follow Kakashi while walking backward.

"You too, good luck!" Sakura responded before turning back to follow Kakashi, now in a much better mood than she had been before. Things were seemingly taking a turn for the better. Hopefully, the lead about a potential out with the other clans for her situation would prove fruitful.

Sakura sighed as she was once again left to wait in the room she had been assigned. This time, Kakashi hadn't been left with her but instead been called on to speak with the doctors as they excitedly spoke to him about the results. From what Sakura had overheard, they couldn't quite believe their findings and sounded both amazed, as well as worried. Naturally, they had decided to leave her out of the discussion and let her wonder about what they had discovered instead. From what she had overheard, it was both worrying and suspicious that they had decided to exclude her from the discussion.

"Adults really are unfair sometimes, we if anyone deserves to know what they found, don't you think?" Inner decided to complain.

"Yeah, but I kinda understand why they don't always think it's a good idea to tell the patient. They might be afraid that whatever they discovered will just end up disturbing us." Sakura responded, looking out the window over the village, seeing her reflection shift to take on Inner's appearance, which was nearly identical to her own, just with a forehead protector with the words "Inner Sakura" written on it.

"Oh don't you defend them! They're acting like asses and you know it. It's worse not knowing what has them so worried, leaving us here to speculate instead. For all we can imagine, we've developed a brain tumor and our Kekkei Genkai is slowly killing us without us knowing." Inner offered, spreading her arms wide in the reflection in aggravation, making Sakura frown at the idea.

"Geez, thanks for that thought," Sakura muttered out loud, deciding to stop looking at the Inner reflection and focus on the sight of Naruto's shadow clones attempting to escape what looked like a special Jonin also using shadow clones to pursue him. The sight amused her and made her smile. "That knucklehead. What do you think he did to anger a special Jounin?" Sakura asked instead.

"Probably pranked them hard, used his Sexy Jutsu inappropriately because they pissed him off, or tricked them into paying for Ramen, before eating like ten servings, take your pick." Inner listed off, making Sakura giggle at the mental image. Naruto did have an uncanny ability to get the drop on people with his odd ideas and pranks.

"We should ask him about it later then," Sakura suggested, before hearing someone stepping through the door into her room. Turning around, she saw Kakashi again, followed by a medical-nin. He was holding his hand up in a greeting and seemed happy, based on the eye smile he was giving her.

"Sakura, good news. Seems we're going to get to the final part a lot faster now. It's time to see what your Kekkei Genkai can do." Kakashi informed her of the good news.

"Finally!" Inner exclaimed relieved in Sakura's mind as they got up from where she had sat next to the window to follow Kakashi to finish up the examination and get her hospital visit over with so she could introduce Karin to her parents.

AN: Honestly, I struggled with the beginning of this chapter. I wasn't sure how much of the examination I wanted to include in the chapter, and how far I should take it. I didn't want to provide my readers with the mental image of Sakura having to give urinal or stool samples, but that is the more realistic outcome, and it depends on the reader how vivid their imagination is in the end, so I decided to leave it in in the end, because it is part of Sakura's current reality.

Now, the actual examination is time skipped, only mentioned as an afterthought, I decided to do this to save time on coming up with doctor and nurse interactions which would all likely have to be OC characters. I was slightly pressed for time while writing, especially since I was having trouble with writer's block, so to move the story forward, avoid unnecessary research, and bore the reader with something they could easily imagine themselves from our own, daily lives, those parts were skipped. The next examination however won't be and believe me, I will be researching it well in advance now to make it as canon friendly as possible.

About somewhere during Sakura's conversation with Karin is where inspiration really struck for me and this chapter became a lot easier for me to write, so I hope you all enjoy it.

To those of you who made it this far in my Author's Notes, aren't you curious little buggers? Well, I included a pretty decent indicator of what the approximate timing is by including the Naruto cameo. Since Sasuke isn't in the hospital, things obviously didn't go the same way they did in canon, but either way, Naruto did meet up with Kakashi there earlier than Kakashi had planned, as Naruto decided to come and visit both Sakura and Karin. As a result, Kakashi had the opportunity to introduce Naruto and Ebisu, who are actually already acquaintances.