Alright well, it has been a while since the last upload, but I just sometimes feel like I write myself into a hole. But here is the next chapter, and I hope you like it.
New Patience and New Patients
As the rain came down, Sakura thought back to the very limited interactions she had had so far with the townspeople. There had been only a few people the town had sent to her. She could understand why. The fact that she was a child again was a blessing and a curse. The people in the area had pity for her, but they also only saw her as what she appeared to be, a child, not a medical professional. There were a few older women who came to see her with chronic 'back problems'. She could see right through that, nosy townsfolk were all the same no matter the time period.
Even though they came out of curiosity they left amazed when she had fixed a few of their actual pains from their back to feet and even a few arthritic hands she had treated. She knew that it would take time for the town to get accustomed to her presence, she just had such a fast start to everything she did not expect it to plateau for so long. Three months. Three months she had been here and she had treated at most five patience. Even when she was an apprentice she treated more people than that in a day. It was a bit humiliating and very humbling.
She had used this time to try and get back some of what she had lost in terms of muscle mass, it was difficult with a child's body. She trained hard then healed and repaired with her chakra it made the process much faster, but there was only so much she could do safely, after all, she was still physically a child and going too far could do some long term damage on her body, she remembered how hard Lee used to push himself and she remembered how he almost went too far in the chunin exams. So she got herself to peak condition for her body with a few chakra enhancements then focused on meditating. She tested her chakra coils and reserves testing and filling them as best she could, those she could push, and she did, hard and every day.
In her spare time she tried to remember as much of this time period as possible. There were a lot of little things that she remembered, but she was by no means a scholar of ninja history. She had been working so hard in the last few years that most of the knowledge she didn't think she needed, was replaced with duties she felt were a little more important for fighting a God-like Kaguya, and organizing vastly different tribes of ninja for survival.
She remembered the terrain of the time, and vaguely who was supposed to be fighting who, but she did not remember the animosity that civilians harbord towards any type of ninja. This was not to say that she did not understand where their anger was coming from, this was before a time where ninja villages worked with civilians. And right now civilians viewed ninja as more or fewer monsters that they occasionally traded with. They were unpredictable and dangerous. If a town happened to be in the middle of a battle between tribes it simply added a new terrain and inevitable civilian casualties.
In short, she was not trusted, and she had to prove that she actually cared for the villagers. A task that could take years unless ninja did attack in which case they would need her. Not that she was asking for something as terrible as that to happen, but well staring at the rain and meditating for chakra gathering was messing with her head.
Sakura was not much of a pet person, between shifts at the hospital, governing, taking care of Naruto, his trouble making friends, and missions took up a large chunk of her time. Though, even before life started moving too fast to keep track, she could not ever remember having a pet when she was living with her parents.
"Maybe I should get a cat," she thought aloud to herself. She envisioned a beautiful fluffy white cat with green eyes, that were so like hers yet so different. Then looking around dismissed the idea again remembering the hazards of pet hair and dander, it could contaminate things or bring dead animals in. She shook her head, she wouldn't have even wanted a cat anyway, never get an animal whose personality is too similar to yours. She looked around the room and huffed, she was tired from nothing and felt so frustrated by it.
On days that were nice she had been able to start a medical garden, it was doing well, but she was not sure how long most of it was going to last with weather like this. She had started it a month or so after arriving and receiving some outdated, but much appreciated, supplies from the village. It was not until this month that she had really seen some nice growth, she even had given some to the guards that brought her supplies and such. They finally began asking her a few questions here and there about the garden, and the house, how Sakura was holding up all alone, only surface level but at that point, she was just happy they were even attempting conversation. Then one day they asked her about the cherry tree. It was a brighter day and they had just had a conversation about how there was an impending storm and a new caravan of traders were going to come through the town if I was in need of anything.
"What cherry tree?" Sakura had replied, completely confused, one of the men pointed atop the roof of her home that had been connected to a stone wall that connected a part of the mossy roof to the cave. Because of how the roof and area above the cave were angled, combined with Sakura's short stature she had not noticed anything odd in that area.
She turned to the men, "Would you mind if I hop up that tree for a bit?" She asked sweetly not wanting to startle her guests/guards. With their curt nod, she moved around the tree and ran up. She wanted to hide as much as she could do from the villagers so as not to make them more fearful of her. As she got to a higher branch she looped around and saw what they had been talking about. There was a small cherry tree sprouting from what looked like moss and stone. "Well that is certainly not normal," she mumbled to herself before climbing back down the tree.
"I have no idea how that got there." she said in a sweet yet confused voice to the two men.
"Right then." one of them said, fully not believing a word Sakura said. The other gave him a look as though to say 'c'mon man you don't need to be such an ass'. Though his tight smile to her was not the most welcoming either as they said their goodbyes and left with the shortlist of supplies she needed.
But Sakura was truly confused as to how that tree got there. It was in full bloom too, and completely out of season. All of that on top of the fact that it was sprouting out of rocks and moss, nothing about it added up. No wonder they didn't believe her.
It must have something to do with her, she just didn't know what. After the guards were completely gone she jumped up to the ridge, and walked up to the small sprouting tree. It had the same signature of her chakra in it, the same as the place where she had woken up.
"But why," She said to herself bringing her thoughts back to the present looking out at the rain. Why cherry trees? She had pink hair and her name was Sakura, but other than that she just couldn't figure out why. She had never had the ability to control plants or had wood release. And every time she tried to think back to Kaguya she began to have a splitting headache, which made her think that it must have something to do with that, but she just could not remember what.
Sakura leaned her head against the glass it was cool against her forehead. Then she noticed it. Immediately her mind broke from the past, and back to the present. A chakra signature was moving in her direction, no she thought again honing in on it. There were two signatures, one was just very weak. She jumped from the window no longer as tired as she had been feeling. She could feel her blood pumping in her veins with excitement as she went to go grab a nice long blade to hold behind her back. She was going to assume they were coming here for treatment as one of the signatures was so low. But Sakura was not going to take the chance of being unprepared, as she waited quietly by the door as the signatures got closer and closer.
Izuna was at the end of his rope. His brother was on his back as he pushed himself from limb to limb. There had been a town near the battle and it was the only one close enough that might have a medic of any kind. But when he had gotten there, the bastards had turned him away. He was about to level the place with what little chakra he had left, until they told him that there was another medic that was living a little ways from the town, who was supposed to take anyone they sent. Before listening for a second more to the terrified villagers he headed in the direction they had pointed out.
It did not take long to find the small house with a warm glow from within in the pouring rain, it was a beacon to him. And he began banging on the door. "I need the Healer who lives here by brother needs immediate help!" He yelled
Then the door swung open, and in front of him was a little girl with long pink hair. "Come in quickly," she ordered calmly.
"Where is the Healer?" Izuna asked coming in watching the girl move quickly around the room turning on a pot of water and grabbing linens from a cupboard
"Put him on the bed over there." she said, ignoring the question, and tying her hair up into a bun.
Sakura was already in her grove the moment that the boy asked for help. From the state of blood on the boy's clothes she knew she would need to do diagnostics quickly. When the boy just kept looking at her she let out an exacerbates huff, "I am the medical professional here and I said put the kid on the table."
Izuna was a bit shocked to say the least, Izina and his brother had both reached their teenage years and from both of the reputations and experience neither had been referred to as kids in a long time. Izuna just stared half out of exhaustion half out of confusion. The girl in front of him could not have been more than 11 or 12 there was no way that she was older than them, but the way she moved around showed a certainty that confused him. He felt the pit in his stomach grow even bigger a little girl, that was the only hope for keeping his brother alive.
So he took a hard gulp and tried to force the lead in his throat down as he rested his brother's body on the table the girl had prepared. "Are you sure you can do this" he croaked out, his voice sounded sad and desperate, as the girl leaned over his brother.
Creating a chakra scalpel she carefully sliced down the middle of his armor, peeling it off so that she could more clearly see any damage. Immediately she started probing her chakra into him analyzing the diagnostics of his chakra and any physical harm, "Yes. and while I'm doing this" she said, her hands glowing green and running over bruises and some clearly broken bones, "You can strip him. Other than these ribs and some very sever chakra depletion are there any other wounds I should be aware of?" Sakura's asked focused on the task at hand.
"No… wait yes, he got a burn on his left side" Izuna moved over to the side of the table motioning to the area.
The fabric had melted into his skin and with one hand sakura reached out and pulled a piece of the melted fabric from the surrounding area. Feeling his internals were not dire, and that the burn though bad was only surface deep she looked up at the boy in front of her, and for a brief moment, she came out of her work trance as though she had been slapped in the face. He looked like Sauske, not closely but he had similar handsome features behind all the blood and dirt. Pale skin, onyx eyes, and blue-black hair. 'Shit' she thought internally, they are Uchiha.
"He is going to be fine," she stated trying to calm the boy down, he looked like he was going to be sick, "Look over there" she said, nodding to a cupboard on the far left side. "Bluebottle with small black pills, grab those bring them to me and soak some of the towels over there in the cold, and I mean cold water."
Izuna did what she said, he put the blue bottle down next to her as he began to soak the towels in a bin of cold water. "So his life is not in danger then?" Izuna asked a little more hopefully
"Yes, while he is here getting medical attention his life is in no danger, now hand me that cloth."
Izuna did as he was told and Sakura wrapped the cloth over the wound, she reached over and placed Izuna's hand over the cloth, "Hold this in place firmly but don't push too hard" she instructed
She used this time to wipe down and sanitize the rest of the nins upper body, healing as she went while Izuna looked on in amazement. Her control was impeccable as it had been before. In awe, he stared as she mended bone and flesh back together, healing bruises, and closing scrapes.
"Ok now remove your hands" she said taking the towel from him slowly peeling it off, dabbing the area to get a better look at the wound, "Ok so I am going to pick some of these pieces of clothing from the wound before I start healing it, and hopefully he doesn't wake up. His chakra levels are so low that I think they will keep him knocked out, but if he does you have to hold him down. Can you do that for me?" Sakura asked looking up at the young boy.
"Yeah, I can hold him down." Izuna said looking over his brother
And with a nod, Sakura moved over to her patient's side taking some tweezers she began probing around and pulling and cutting out some of the melted and nonflesh material from the wound. "So, how did you two end up like this," Sakura asked trying to start conversation distract the obviously shock riddled boy.
"That is confidential." Izuna said narrowing his eyes
"Ok, ok, I'm not trying to fish for information I just wanted you to not be so hyper-focused on your brother and pass out on me, he is going to be fine. I'm sure you can see he is already looking much better."
Izuna looked over his brother, who indeed was no longer as pale as he had been, all scrapes and wounds had been closed and healed up, and his breathing seemed to be back to normal. In fact he would even go as far to say that there were some scars that were now missing from his brother's body. He was in shock. All he could do was watch as the pink-headed girl was focused on the burn wound, and not try and not pass out from exhaustion.
Izuna had been hailed as a prodigy, so had his brother, but this kind of healing at her age, he had never heard of anything like this? Who was she? "What clan are you from that has someone like you, working for a civilian village?" Izuna asked, "And for you to help anyone, any hurt ninja that came by the town. Just who are you?"
"That is confidential." Sakura started keeping her eyes on the burn, still pulling pieces of cloth and metal from it. The air went stale for a few moments, "sorry," she said with a huff, "I was never very good at lightening the mood, humor is not really my strong suit. That's why I always had that baka around… nevermind" Sakura looked up at the boy, briefly making eye contact before nodding over to the blue bottle he had grabbed for her before.
"Take one of those, I don't need you passing out if your fellow here wakes up on me." Izuna did what she told taking the rough brown pill from the container. He examined it looking at the girl and then back at the pill he popped it into his mouth, he had trusted her this far and she hadn't shown any signs of aggression. Immediately he self a warmth in his chakra streams, he had a bit more energy and he felt slightly more awake. He looked back over to the pink-haired girl, what the hell was going on. Before he could ask her anything she started talking again.
"It is not actually confidential. I am not part of any clan really, not like what you are probably thinking of at least. We were, at heart, healers, most of the people in our family were strong but pacifists." she said mindlessly as this was a story that she had been practicing over and over in her head. Making sure it aligned with what she had told anyone else she had met along the way. Sakura was not an actress or one who was able to easily shield her emotions. But it wasn't hard to pretend like her whole clan had died, because they had. All of her family and friends, her whole life was gone so in a way she was telling the truth. "None of us wanted the war, so we did everything we could to stay out of it, helping villages and just normal civilians when we could. Most of is honed our crafts for the sake of being the best we could be. We all had very close bonds to each other, at times some bonds seemed stronger than life itself."
"So then why did they leave you here alone, in this village?" Izuna asked
Sakuras face twitched a bit, as she pulled the last piece of debris from the wound of the boy in front of her. She would have thought a ninja would have been able to connect point A to point B. "They didn't" she mumbled relaxing her shoulders, she looked down at her handy work, a clean open wound she brought her hands up focusing on now on weaving the flesh back together. "I was sick, but because of that illness, I survived. They died, all of them, it is a short story, but they did not leave me."
"I am sorry to hear that," Izuna said, baka he thought, he should have known better, but how was he supposed to know. This was just all so odd.
"Don't worry about it, most ninja have known great loss during these wars. We saw a lot of devastation in the wake of many of even your clan's battles, Uchiha right?" Sakura asked
"Yeah," Izuna said, it was fairly easy if someone was part of a clan to be able to identify a few of the major clans, Uchiha and the Hyuga being the most Identifiable by their features.
"Figured, hard to ignore physical features like these, ok just about done." Izuna had been observing as the wound had been slowly closing, again as though there was no wound there to begin with. He shook his head as he looked down at his brother.
"I am truly thankful that you were here, I am sorry that I initially doubted your abilities. I and the whole Uchiha clan owe you a huge debt"
"No I can understand that this is an odd situation, but let's not get too caught up in what is owed or not. I agreed to heal anyone the village sent my way. I did what any healer worth anything could do. Now let's set your brother up over here, so that both of you can get some rest."
Madara was pulled from his dream slowly. He was back in the warm forest of sakura trees, resting. There was no clan to protect, no war to fight in, and no traditions he had to follow. He wanted to stay there forever in the memory of its warmth. Slowly the vision faded and so did the warmth. He was still warm but it wasn't the same, he could feel the weight of the blankets and the thumping of his blood through his veins.
Then he began to open his eyes. Things were a bit blurry at first. But he blinked a few times and quickly emerald eyes came into focus, a beautiful girl with a heart-shaped face and pink hair hovered over top of him. For a moment he wasn't able to think straight as he looked at her. His mind went blank as he stared into her eyes, they were so bright, and her pale skin and pink hair gave her an out of focus glow, then she moved away and broke Madara from his daze.
Where was he, he tried to sit up but the girl came back over, "I wouldn't do that if I were you." she said bringing a vile with her. "You are healed but your body still needs time to adjust. Here take this." She emptied out a few brown balls into his hand. He looked down at them, then back at her. What was going on?
"Oh sorry," she said scratching the back of her hear, "You are safe this is not some enemy camp or whatever, your brother is just outside doing some chores. He refused to not repay me, even though I was just doing my job. Something about Uchiha honor." The girl was rambling a bit, she looked cute as she fumbled explaining things to him, there was a slight blush on her cheeks giving her face a more flushed look. "I'm sorry I just didn't expect you to wake up for a few more hours, let me go just get your brother." And with that, she was out of the door.
Madara looked back down at the pills, rolling them around in his hand he looked back up now taking in his surroundings. The place was clean and open for such a small room. There seemed to be tables set up with a few beds with clean sheets laid out on them. The air had a slight scent of one of the healing tents he could remember being in the Uchiha compound but the sent was not so intrusive or as pungent.
Then the door slammed open. "Nisan!" Izuna shouted running over to his brother taking him into a big hug.
"What did I just say about handling him!" he could hear the same voice from before this time more annoyed than the shy sputtering.
"I'm sorry Sakura, I just got so excited to see him up and about! I really thought I lost you there for a bit brother." Izuna said looking over Madara, "How are you feeling."
"Confused." Madara stared blankly, he looked back at the girl with the pink hair, it seemed she had gone about doing things around the room moving a basin of dirty rags to the sink and putting a few viles away. "Who is that? And why are we here, and not with the rest of the team."
"We got separated. Do you remember the attack?" Izuna asked a mix of relieved and worried.
"No not much after…" he looked around Izuna again, at the girl, he now knew as Sakura, still putting viles away, "..after I got back to the team. There was a battle I remember fighting just not really what I did. Then Black." Then I was dreaming of being back in that place again, but he didn't want to talk about that near this unknown person, who was clearly not Uchiha, yet also a ninja of some kind. He could barely sense her chakra, she either had very little, or a lot of chakra control, and something in his instincts told him it was the later.
"You pulled a big, and stupid stunt. Sent up a big firewall separated the battle and caused enough distraction for us to get away, unfortunately, the team went the other direction back to the village, but you were too hurt, you would not have made it back. So I took you to the nearest village to try and find a healer, but they wouldn't help so they sent me here and that is when I met Sakura." He nodded in her direction.
The girl turned in their direction giving a nodded back at them, "Nice to, officially, meet you. I'll need to give you a check-up after you have taken those pills to make sure your chakra channels are fine."
Madara looked back down at the pills slowly taking in the information, he looked back up to his brother who nodded in approval, and he popped the pills in his mouth. He felt a warmth bloom in his chest and energy run through his chakra channels. "See not so bad right?" Izuna said, "She made me take a few earlier and I'm feeling a lot better."
"They don't make up for proper rest though, which you need." Sakura said coming over to the two. "Can you lean forward for a moment while I do a quick checkup."
"So then I am to assume it was you that saved me from the brink?" Madara said in a skeptical voice.
"Yes." Izuna and Sakura said at the same time. Sakura gave Madara a look, before moving around Izuna to get to Madaras back, "Now like I said lean up a bit more."
He did as he was told from the girl, Izuna seemed to trust her well enough, and if she didn't give off an aura that put set his usual nerves off. On the contrary, something about her calmed him down. He felt her cool hands on his back, and his eyes widened with realization as he could feel some of her chakra bleed into him, soothing and warm yet probing.
Her chakra signature felt like the forest. He turned his head to look at Izuna. Izuna seemed fascinated by watching her. She seemed to have charmed his brother somehow, though he had to admit it was not a difficult task. Izuna was one of the kindest and more friendly members of the Uchiha family that he knew. As he could feel the warmth retreat he felt dull ache where her chakra had been probing and massaging his chakra coils and spreading through his muscles.
"Ok that should be it," Sakura said getting up and taking a step back, "You should still take it easy for a couple of days. I don't know when you need to head back, but you should have plenty of breaks along the way. I know it is easy to think you can just push a little further sometimes, but this is not one of those times. Your chakra coils are healing but they need rest, push them too far and you might cause more damage.
" hn." Madara said eyes lingering on the Sakura before turning back to his brother. "Is there a place we can talk." his eyes shifting to his brother.
"Oh, just go outside." Sakura said, "I won't bother you out there. I have plenty to clean up anyway."
With that Madara began moving to get up. He did not like the feeling of being in a place where he had no control and this, this was something new. This girl might be connected with the anomaly that they found and he wasn't sure how to approach the situation. His brother helped him up, physically he was sore, but not in any pain. Then they made their way outside.
Madara blinked a few times the sun was bright outside and everything was glistening and wet from the rain from the night before.
Madara looked around, the air here felt normal and so did the ground and the pain, so he could determine that he was no longer in the strange place from his dreams. He turned to his brother, "What do you know about this kunoichi?"
"Not much," Izuna said, "I only really know what she told me, she ended up here after her clan died. She is supposed to help anyone the village turns away. And she is an unbelievable healer, you were about to bleed out and she was able to close your wounds like they were paper cuts. It was really amazing to watch!"
"It seemed you have grown fond of her." Madara stated
A light pink dusted his cheeks, "She is really... different, but more than that she saved your life. I took a watch for most of the night before she offered to stay watch. She said that we were her patients and that she would let us know if there was anything heading our way. Then I got up this morning and she was sitting in the same spot by the window keeping watch. I know she is not an Uchiha but she treated you so well and you are feeling ok and that is what is .." Izuna paused as he looked towards his brother. They had walked a ways from the little house and his eyes were transfixed on something above the hut on the rock face. He could see just the tops of what appeared to be some kind of pink blossoms. "What is that."
"If it is what I think it is then there is more to this girl than what she is telling us. You said she was different, I would agree with you on that. But you are often too trusting Izuna, there is something wrong with this place and there is something off with that girl. I don't know what it is but we need to let the clan know that we are alright first. Otherwise, who knows what they might do."
"You are right brother, I'll send a raven. I just wanted to wait till you woke up before I did anything."
"Next time just do it." Madara said sharply, "We can always send another. I understand wanting to gauge my condition first but you never know what those old cooks are thinking in the council or how father will react. Especially when we will have to delay our return."
"Delay our return?" Izuna repeated questioningly.
"Yes. There is something off here. Plus the girl said we needed to rest for a while before heading back."
"Is that what Sakura said?"
"She is not going to push patients out of the door, and this is the closest town to the anomaly we should look around and see if there is anything else here that might have been effected.
Ok there it is! What do you think please let me know! I really hope that you comment, it really drives my writing even though it takes a long time for me to upload.
So please let me know what you are thinking!
I hope the story is making sense so far...