Chapter 3

Sakura's not sure when the white sterile walls and smell of betadine started made her feel like home. She wants to think it happened during her final year of medical school when she was home so little she rented out hotel rooms and kept all of her possessions in a large suitcase she could leave in the locker room. But the reality is that it happened much before that, when she spent a week beside her father after a minor accident. The only lasting memories from that incident was the safety and serenity she felt knowing her father would be fine because he was here.

To this day she finds a certain comfort just walking down the halls, a feeling that only the warmth of a cigarette on a cold day can replicate. It is for this reason she decides to take the long route to her office. It's not long before her muscle memory takes her down a familiar hall, where the soft voices from behind the exam room tell stories she's all too familiar with.

"I've had my prosthetic for most of my life. I was born without a leg."

"I lost it during the war."

"It was an accident with a machine."

"Sometimes it feels like it shocks me. At first I thought it was just tingling but recently it's been getting worse."

Those words stop Sakura right in her tracks. She pushes her hair behind her ear with one hand and pulls the chart out of the patient behind the door in her phone.

"Lets see...I know the battery life for these models is ten-years but lately I've had a lot of patients stop by with similar symptoms, we will try a battery replacement that seems to do the trick for them." Katasuke's voice tells the man in a confident manner.

The man's sigh of relief is heard, "When can we do it? It kept me awake all last night. My wife pressured me to come in."

"With good reason." Katasuke jokes.

Sakura's eyes narrow in thought as she starts to skim as fast as she can through his chart. While she is leaning on the opposite wall. Something tells it could potentially be tied to Naruto's case and if she's right her problem might be more serious than expected. 'Katasuke did say several patients-'

"Dr. Haruno, what a surprise. Do you need anything?" One of the department's local nurses says with a bright smile on her face. She's trying to hide the amusement of having caught her eavesdropping so blatantly.

"Oooh- Um. Yes." Sakura replies quickly, dropping her phone in the pocket of her white coat. She decides to take a gamble on her hunch, even if it's founded on so little evidence. Although the more she thinks about it, the more plausible it seems.

"I was just going to ask you to schedule Naruto Uzumaki for a consultation, the sooner the better." Sakura says slightly unsure of why to even bring him in. She guesses it's due time to go over her lack of results and the very real probability he might face in the near future.

How was she going to prepare him for the possibility of once again losing your arm?

"I'll go ahead and do that, Dr. Haruno." The nurse replies. Before the nurse can say much more Sakura murmurs a "Thank you, bye" walking away as fast as she can, hoping no one can see how red her face is with embarrassment but most importantly doing a bit of research on her newest lead.

Sakura opens the door to her lab with enough force to cause Hinata to jump from her desk. Her pale eyes frantically look for the source of the sound relaxing only once she realized it was Sakura's doing.

"Sorry," Sakura says in embarrassment once again clearing her throat to compose herself. Before walking over to Hinata's desk "I was hoping you could go through all of our department's patients and sort out who's been reporting any pain."

"Just pain?" Hinata said as she pulled a piece of paper out in preparation.

"Mhm, also subcategorize it by what type of pain they're experiencing. I just heard a really interesting conversation and I have reason to suspect Naruto's case may not be an isolated incident." Sakura said, feeling the vibration of the phone in her pocket. A notification for her appointment with Naruto, and a copy of Katasuke's schedule.

"I'm going to go see what else I can find, message me with what you find." Sakura said, adjusting her lab coat before making her way out the lab hoping to find Katasuke.

He wasn't hard to find with his larger than life personality. Dr. Katasuke Tōno was easy to find Sakura could hear him the moment she stepped way into the hall his office and laboratory were located at. As she made her way over his door she mentally practiced what she was going to ask. Although she never had a chance to because he opened the door before she could even knock.

"Well if it isn't my favorite pink co-worker!" His bright voice said much to Sakura's distaste.

"Hi Dr. Tōno, I was just stopping by to see how you were adjusting, especially since you took on my workload." Sakura replied in the happiest voice she could muster without sounding too fake. Thankfully Katasuke didn't seem to notice.

"Yes of course, come on in, I could make us some coffee." Katasuke replies, stepping aside.

"That would be wonderful, I'd love to hear all about it." Sakura says, hoping with his eagerness to share he will disclose the information she's looking for.

There are many things Naruto is: oblivious, headstrong, dedicated, but stupid isn't one of them. He knows the rumors that circulate Sasuke's office. They range from secret lovers to illegal activities. The truth is much simpler but at the same time more complicated.

Sasuke and Naruto were the only consistent things they had both had in each other's lives. They were the same age, both sons to busy parents who were very good friends. Making eachother a constant at most social events their families attended, they even went to the same schools.

They were there for each other's firsts, first day of school, first heartbreak, first kiss, etc. When Naruto passed his drivers test the first thing he did was drive to Sasuke's house to hangout. They even enlisted in the military together. Where after years of training separately they were able to spend their last tour together towards the end of the war.

So the first night Naruto's fake arm sent him the emergency he knew that the only person that could even begin to understand what he was going through was Sasuke. He had, after all, been there when he lost his arm. Sasuke's left hand was holding onto the same explosive that took Naruto's right arm. They had mirrored injuries, although Naruto had to admit Sasuke got the worst of it after a piece of shrapnel took his left eye as well. Not that it seemed to affect him much since Sasuke's family literally specialized in eyes, they were able to ensure he left the hospital with a functioning eye with technology no one had ever seen before.

Naruto has always suspected that Sasuke's guilt over the accident was the cause for his refusal of his prosthetic. As much as he wanted Sasuke there for his incidents he also didn't want to remind him of the reason they were there in the first place. It's for this reason he doesn't allow himself to go to the emergency room unless he had no other choice.

Even though last night the shocks were enough to keep him awake all night, every time he felt sleep consume him barely bearable pain would force his eyes open once again. At one point he even contemplated calling Shikamaru but decided against it because Shikamaru would probably call Sasuke and disclose the event, just to sleep in the following day. 'Typical lazy Shikamaru' Naruto thought.

Thankfully after weeks of waiting he gets to once again see his doctor and hopefully get some answers. His doctor's request for an appointment couldn't have come at a better time so he takes her earliest availability, at noon. With any luck he will spend the rest of his day asleep so he can be ready to go for his debate tonight.

"Well Sasuke, I'm going to headout to my doctor's appointment." Naruto says, closing his computer and looking at the tired face of his best friend. Somethings been up with him lately, he's noticed the past couple of weeks there have been days where he's been happier. Naruto suspects it's a woman that's curved his attitude, he thinks she must be a bit different than his run of the mill hookup because Sasuke yet to disclose any juicy details.

"With your 'hot doctor'" Sasuke taunted.

"Hey, let's not talk about that." Naruto replies with an embarrassed tone, carefully touching his false arm. "I'll let you know how it goes so turn on my notifications!"

With that Naruto made his way over to the hospital just a block away. The staff is friendly. He is after all a celebrity of his own right, they guide him to a private room, offering him drinks. He doesn't even have to fill out any evaluations; it's all done for him. All that's required of him is to sit down, enjoy the cup of cappuccino he was handed and wait. The only company he has with him is an empty desk and some fancy tower with a bunch of wires and lights.

Even with the cup of caffeine in his hand it's only a matter of time before the heaviness of his eyelids take over. He doesn't know how long he's asleep before a polite knock wakes him up.

Naruto thinks he's still dreaming because in front of him is the girl he convinced himself he had imagined while on pain medications. True to his memory she had pink hair that went a bit past her shoulders and a plain black dress under her open lab coat. Surprisingly enough they were all paired by a pair of white sneakers, 'Guess you have to run sometimes.' Naruto thought back to his emergency.

"It's you," He says in awe pointing at her as she takes a seat on the desk across from him, dropping a stack of papers and equipment from her arms.

"Yup, I should apologize for ghosting you since our first meeting, I promise you it was with good reason. I'm Dr. Haruno in case you forgot" Sakura said, extending her arm to him offering her most polite smile. Naruto was still questioning himself if he was dreaming.

"I-I just wasn't expecting you to look so-so... young" Naruto gapped, snapping out of his daze. "How old are you even?"

"Oh let's not worry about that, we're here to talk about your case." Sakura said retracting her arm after Naruto refused to shake it before handing him a folder filled with papers.

"So, here is a copy of the tests I've given you as well as the results." Sakura started with a sigh trying to hide her disappointment of what an absolute failure everything had been.

Naruto listened as much as he could but he understood the basics. The pile of tests he had in front of him were normal but she was confident that if he gave her a bit more time she could solve it. The determination in her eyes gave Naruto all the trust he needed from her.

"Aside from that night, have you had any other episodes?" Sakura asked in a tone that left no room for nonsense. The lack of reply gave her all of the information she needed.

"Right... be right back, I'm going to get an adapter to connect to your arm."

There are a lot of things on Naruto's mind while he waits. When will this end? Will he have to give up his arm? Dr. Haruno had made it very clear that if she was ever in a position where she had to pick between his arm and his life she'd choose the latter. He pulls out his phone to check if anything urgent has come up since he last saw it but the most interesting thing is a message from Sasuke, Was I right? Or was I right? He asked in reference to the doctor.

'I'll show you dumbass.' Naruto thought and took a photo of Dr. Haruno walking in the room quickly before pressing send failing to realize how blurry the photo really was.

It was moments like this where Sasuke wondered if he was in purgatory, or at the very least deeply regret his choice of taking on this branch. Naruto and him had made all their way cross country after the war to start new, and not be like their parents. Yet here he was in the same type of meeting his father would be at back home, for the same company his family had worked in for generations. Naruto wasn't any better, he was running for mayor just the very same job that he resented his father for…the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree.

However passionate the man in front of him was, dragging out a ten minute idea into an hour-long presentation was grueling to say the least. To make matters worse, not only had Naruto ditched him for an appointment but Sakura had also been too busy lately to smoke with him, next time they talked he should tell her that their meetings don't have to revolve around nicotine. He'd even be willing to meet her at her job. As much as he hated to admit it she had really grown on him as a friend, perhaps even more but it was too early to decide that just yet.

Sasuke sends Naruto a quick message, for bragging rights, before returning his attention to the presentation.

He doesn't expect a photo, that almost makes his heart stop. It's blurry, clearly taken when she was moving but it's the exact shame of rosegold that plagues his dreams. Sasuke concludes it's probably not her but the coincidence is still so large he's instantly infatuated but he's been thinking about her since he was twenty-five. Seven years dreaming of a pink haired girl is way too long regardless of who she is.

This isn't the first time he's chased after a pink haired girl, he's met several but none quite meet his expectations. How could they? His ideal was a fantasy after all.

He'll have to ask Sakura or Naruto to see if he can get more info on this girl.

As if there couldn't be better timing he receives a text from Sakura: Smoke in 10?

Sasuke replies Yes, managing to catch the tail end of the presentation. He stands up and shakes the man's hand telling him he'll reach out to him soon before grabbing his cigarettes from his desk and heading out.

"Hi Sasuke," Sakura says with a cigarette in between her lips. She's smoking rather quickly, Sasuke can tell her time will be limited, she's probably in a rush. Without wasting any time he pulls his phone out, with the photo and waves it in her face.

"Do you know her?" He says and watches her face fill with a rosy tint before she starts to cough on the smoke.

"W-What? Where did you get this photo?" Sakura says in between coughs, shaikly placing her hands around the phone.

"My friend sent it to me, I need to find her." Sasuke repeats, snatching the phone out of her hand.

"Well damn, that's not a flattering angle. Why do you need to talk to her?..." Sakura says feeling caught in a web of lies she spun. "... actually I need to tell you something."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed, he felt a lump in his throat. He looks at Sakura's brightly red face, she's looking at him through her lashes, slightly biting her lip. She looks embarrassed about what she's going to say was in a setting he was all too familiar with and the last thing he wanted was a confession. Especially when he didn't know what to feel anymore, his dreams were becoming a reality. He was feeling overwhelmed.

"I see, you don't need to tell me anything." Sasuke replied with a cold voice taking a step back. Taking one last inhale of his cigarette before tossing it into a small pubble near him. He needed to get out fast. He takes one last look at Sakura's tear rimmed eyes before walking away.

The last thing he needs to hear right now is Sakura's voice cry out to him, "Sasuke! Wait! I can explain!"

He makes his way back in his office with a heavy feeling on his shoulders. He didn't expect his chest to clench when he saw her teary expression. Sasuke doesn't want to think about it so he sits on his desk and starts to analyze the revenue of companies that had approached him this week.

Naruto makes his way though Sasuke's office doors with a trimpunt expression. Waving his phone in his hand. "Who's the loser now?!" He says in between laughs.

"That was the blurriest photo, was your appointment at least good?" Sasuke asked, trying to approach the topic stealthily. He doesn't want to not seem overly interested.

"Well?" Sasuke repeats with a bit more concern on his face when he sees Naruto's expression turn serious. It's a look he had seen back in the war and it was never a good sign.

"It wasn't good news, they still don't know what it is but she's on the right track. I know it. So let's not worry about it." Naruto carefully says, giving Sasuke a sheepish smile. Sasuke isn't one who usually likes to be kept in the dark but he shrugs letting it go. At the moment he has a more pressing issue he wants to solve.

"That's it? I thought she was the 'one"' Sasuke replies in a taunting voice only to see Naruto blush in shame. "Is she actually kind of ugly, it's hard to tell with how blurry the photo is."

"Shut up- it's not that...she's pretty but very..um… young. Like ridiculously easily ten years my junior." Naruto says dissapointed.

"I'm sure it's not that bad, what's her name?" Sasuke's hands hover over the keys ready to look up her name. Naruto thinks for a minute before pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket.

"Dr. I-aru?" Naruto says squinting while looking at the paper. Only to have Sasuke take it away and groan at the faded ink. Even with his sharingan it was impossible to read but regardless he searched up the name even if he knows it's going to come back empty.

Sakura lets out an exhausted sigh escape her lips as she's taking the back hospital elevator up to her lab. The past few days had been a lot, Sakura is nowhere near emotionally ready to even think about the whole ordeal with Sasuke. In a way she thinks she deserves it. The reality is that it's the least of her worries.

The more pressing issue is the fifty-four patients who have the equivalent of an unpredictable defibrillator on their bodies. She leans against the wall typing Shikamaru a message asking him to join. Any set of eyes could help and as far as she knew he was the best in his field. Plus he would make it a lot easier to communicate with manufacturers and ask for their collaboration.

A light ding of the elevator grounds her.

"Are you not going to say anything, Sakura?" A familiar voice says with an edge to her tone.

"Ino! Sorry, I wasn't paying attention." Sakura says, straightening up to look Ino in the eye.

"That seems to be the least of your problems, look at you. What's going on?" Ino says looking at Sakura's cream mock neck sweater with disgust.

"Ugh you know I can't talk about it. What about you? You look...really good. Are we having an event? I didn't see anything on the calendar." Sakura replies nervously, Ino always looks great but you can tell she's gone the extra mile to look her best. Even her makeup looks immaculate and her navy dress flaunts her curvy body.

"There's been this super hot guy eating at the cafeteria every day." Ino says with a sly smile batting her eyelashes at Sakura.

"Oh no, did you break up with the artist? Man, I've been a really bad friend. I'm -" Sakura starts only to glare at Ino once she cuts her off.

"I'm still with Sai, but he probably has influential ties, just networking." Sakura tries not to give Ino an annoyed look but once the elevator opens to the first floor it's hard not.

"Just networking huh?" Sakura says as she looks at the sea of perfectly dolled women trying to make their statement. For once she's glad she got out of her boy crazy stage in her childhood.

She half expects to see Hinata well dressed when she opens the door to her lab but she looks just as bad as Sakura. Her scrubs look wrinkly and her pale eyes have a purplish tint underthem that Sakura sees in her own reflection.

"Good Morning Hinata, any news?" Sakura says, trying to lighten the mood before preparing a new pot of coffee for the pair of them.

Hinata shakes her head. Sakura returns the gesture with an understanding nod before sitting at her desk to cross analyze the cases. She's spent the past few days writing a new algorithm to detect any patterns but it hasn't shown anything too promising yet. She hopes Shikamaru can get here soon.

"Hinata?" Sakura starts looking in her direction "Your eyes, have you used them on these patients with prosthetics?"

"No-in nursing school it wasn't allowed." Hinata began looking at the floor in avoidance. "They thought it would be too big of an advantage."

"That's a load of bull-shit, there is no such thing as an advantage. Plus it would be helpful to look into our patients without having to subject them to radiation." Sakura reasons, looking at Hinata's agreeing nod.

A soft knock on the door stops their conversation, Sakura shouts, "Come-in!" Seconds later Katasuke and his purple haired assistant walk through her door with a smile but serious aura.

"Hello Sakura, Hinata." His bright cheery voice says.

"Hello Katasuke.. And?" Sakura looks for a name tag on the young nurse.

"Sumire" A fresh faced girl says, she looks young Sakura can only guess she recently finished school.

"Nice to meet you, come in, take a seat we have a lot to go over." Sakura says motioning at the table in front of them pulling out files. No matter how much technology advanced nothing replaced paper.

They went over every case, it was painstakingly time consuming eating into their lunch break. Other than symptoms every other aspect is random. None are from the same manufacturer, they were all coded by different people; it doesn't target a specific limb. Sakura sits in thought staring at her poorly managed cuticles as a distraction.

"Hinata? Are you still in contact with your family members?" Sakura asks seemingly out of the blue.

"No...why?" Hinata replies cautiously.

"You don't think that this could affect ocular implants do you?" Sumire queued in disbelief.

Katasuke took the lead, "I don't think we have access to that information, there is a lot of...politics when it comes to those."

"I don't know but the more I look at it, the more this looks like the beginning of a cyberattack. I'd be interested to see if they have had similar issues given that they run on an entirely different system" Sakura says with a frown and allows the group to think. 'I'll have to ask Shikamaru.' She thinks.

There is a pregnant pause for what feels like minutes Sakura doesn't know what else to say or what to even do next; the logical thing would be to remove every prothetic the moment it started to malfunction but she couldn't do that to people without affecting their livelihood.

"Katasuke, I overheard you mentioning that once the battery was replaced your patients stopped reporting shocks?" Sakura asked, rubbing one of her eyes to relieve it from the strain of reading all day.

"They did, but it seems like within the month they came back with the same issue. Just had my first return last night." He replied placing his hands on his temple.

Sakura looked at the other two girls for any additional input. "Well so far it hasn't gotten to the point where it's killed anyone but I fear it might. So for now let's implement a removal policy, anyone getting shocked at around one hundred joules needs to have their prosthetic removed."

Katasuke nodded in agreement, "They'll be mad but I'd rather have a mad patient than an angry one."

"We should meet every morning an hour before our schedule to go over anything new. I've contacted Shikamaru for additional help so hopefully he'll join us this week. Any Questions?" Sakura scanned the room as she stood up and stretched her sore limbs. Before making her way off for a belated dinner.

On her way out of the parking ramp she messaged Sasuke out of habit, Hey, I know we didn't leave on the best of terms but I'm going to smoke. The company would be nice. She waited for her car to arrive with her eyes glued to her phone but after several minutes she had no reply. Just an empty vehicle waiting to take her home.

The following day Shikmaru messaged her with a request to be added to the hospital roster. Sakura spent the rest of her day making sure he was added to the system in record time. The rest of the day she made her way with new patients who had seemed to be affected by the shocks. Hinata and her left work late and exhausted, their new norm but at least they weren't having any emergencies. That night while she was waiting for her car to arrive at her parking ramp she messaged Sasuke again without any success.

She repeats the same routine the following day.

And the next.

Shikamaru finally arrives, he's stoic and straight to business like always. He settles in quickly to Sakura's lab, taking over most of the workplace. Sakura's used to working with him, there is even a certain comfort that the sound of his typing makes. It takes her back to the frontline hospital, trying to study in the dead of night not knowing what the next day held for her. She occasionally glances up hoping he's found something but the frown on his face lets her know he hasn't.

It's later that afternoon when they lose their first patient to a shock and Sakura is livid. She runs down to the emergency room to talk to the doctor in charge.

"I cannot believe you did not remove his leg upon admittance, I had made it very clear what the new protocol is." Sakura hisses at the white haired doctor. She can see small specks of her spit reflecting on his glasse while he holds his hands at his chest to create space between them.

"Dr. Haruno, please I can explain. We had another patient with the same symptoms and his shocks were reading at higher joules. We removed his foot as required." Sakura glares at his name tag.

"This better not happen again. Dr. Amado." Sakura warns making her way back to the lab.

Hello! I know this is getting really slow burn but I promise it'll have a good resolution just hold tight everyone. :) I