I feel rather sad. Today is my last night in the Akimichi compound. However, I am thrilled to get my itchy, sweaty, slightly smelly cast-off today! I run towards the hospital, eager for that part at least. Ami should be at home, at the apartment, right now, setting everything up. We'll have dinner with the Akimichi clan and then head back for the night since they are heading off in the morning at first light.

"Heya, medic-san… I'm here to get my caste off?" I say questioningly at the front desk on the hospital. The woman wearing that pale beige-yellow that all the medics seem to wear (I have no idea why, white would help show dirt and filth easier, and it's not like it's the Red Cross sign because they DO have that as a sign for first aid here… yet it is the go-to medic uniform in the leaf) she doesn't have the cap on so I can tell her hair is a faded hay-like colour that she keeps stiffly pinned back, she has murky green eyes and round glasses that compliment her face. She's a medic, not a nurse, (nurses wear those uniforms that would be cheesy and sexist in my old world, not the yellow. Maybe that's why the yellow?). She looks at me, her eyes squinting and darting to her clipboard, though she seem pleased by my address of her and smiles.

"I can give you a hand with that." She says, and for a minute, I am confused, then a little sad because judging by kunoichi classes, sexism is alive and ACCEPTED in this world, so I wonder how many call her a nurse instead of a medic. Still, I am glad to skip the long wait and judging by the infuriated looks of those who are waiting and the irritation in their fluctuating signatures… (proud I am starting to be able to tell that!) I am skipping. I move to follow her but then get a better look at the smile… it looks… hollow and empty like it's only a movement with nothing attached. It makes me shiver, and I wonder if I should instead just wait in line and find a different medic. However, I feel like that would be suspicious.

She leads me back to a standard exam room like the one I was in when I found out I was chakra sensitive. (Well, officially, at least) I hop up on the exam table as the woman puts the clipboard down beside me. I just barely see my name on the list. Then I realize something. There's no way that I am the only kid getting a caste off today, right? Yet she didn't even ask my name… I don't think I met her before, maybe when I was unconscious and got my caste in, to begin with? That could be it…. Still, I feel my guard rising and hide it with overflowing calm.

"My name's Sayori. What's yours?" I ask, and she grabs my casted arm gently, but I feel I am hitting something, some nerve it doesn't show, but I can just tell.

"That's a beautiful name." She replies conveniently, not answering my question. Then again, the medic who used to come to the orphanage once a year was similar in that he never responded to any of us. "I'm going to o inject a little chakra. It might tickle." She says with a smile, but once again, it is hollow. I don't like this. I have a bad feeling. Ok… what should I do? Keep her talking, right? Stall? Just do something!

"You remind me of the medic that would visit the orphanage…." I inform her, and her hand glows, but she put it to my chest… I don't think you need that to check a broken wrist, do you? I feel the chakra leaking into my body. I feel the urge to scream, but I am also getting a little sleepy, and something tells me it wouldn't do anything.

"Your arm has healed nicely…." She says, but there is a slight change in the pitch of her voice, I feel my body going limp, and I try to push her away, but my eyelids are heavy…. "Shh…" she shushes, and finally, there are some emotions in those big murky eyes. She keeps her hand there, batting away by attempts to shove her off as her other hand grabs my shoulder, lowering me down to the table. An energy flare… that will get people's attention, right?

I feel a bloom of chakra, the biggest I can make, push out of me.

Energy Flaring Proficiency Level has Risen X1

The medic raises an eyebrow but seems unfazed. Seals, maybe or maybe chakra bursts, are common in a hospital.

Still, I feel a little more alert now and try to shoot up, but her hand pins my shoulder to the table. "Get off of me…." I mumble, the tired feeling returning tenfold.

"Your resistance is pointless…." I hear her whisper. "But impressive…" She also praises with a bit of pity. Something inside me compels me to say the following words. I have no idea why but I know her, and it's bugging me.

"You sure you've… never been to the Budding Leaf Orphanage?" I all but mutter out, and it's slightly slurred, and then I definitely feel some jumps in her chakra, and she staggers back as my eyes close and something clatters on the ground…

My eyes open and the medic with two fingers stretched out coated in chakra cleanly cuts through my cast taking it and giving me a REAL smile. Now I am confused, really confused.

"You've healed well. Just try not to strain your wrist for the next few days, Sayori-chan." She says, discarding the caste in the garbage. "I'm sure you'll become a fine Kunoichi." She says, heading towards the door.

"You never told me your name." I tell her, sitting up, my head still dizzy. I KNOW her. I do.

She pauses for a second, her hand on the handle. "I don't have a name… not anymore." She mumbles and leaves me really freaked out. I think I just met "Kaasan," whom all the older kids would talk about.

POV Nono Yakushi

Failure was never an option. I knew that, of course… so why did I chose to fail? I could make the excuse that the chakra flaring was large enough that soon someone would come to check the source, even if it only felt like a genin trying to learn the release technique for genjutsus. I could make the excuse that someone was approaching down the hall (they were, after all) and that I would blow my cover trying to move the girl. Not girl, Sayori. She has a name…

I could make many excuses, not that Danzo-sama would care. A mission is a mission. However, the girl was from HOME.

How many years has it been now? I made that deal to protect the children, to protect Kabuto. They were supposed to remain untouched. No recruits would come from the children I love so much. Yes, I did not know Sayori, she seems young enough that she would have been born after I left, but she was from HOME. I couldn't do it. There would be a punishment for this. I know it, probably a reassignment to another foreign hidden village. Perhaps death. I grip the photo of Kabuto in my hand. It's all I get now, I look for him when I can, but that is not often. I hope wherever he is. He's safe and happy.