Part 6 – A New Lead…
After Sakura had received a check-up, being as Sasuke had to give her the kiss of life back in Singapore, she was given a clean bill of health.
Then Sasuke was given treatment for the burn on his arm, and both she and Sakura got back to work.
Two hours later, Sakura and Sasuke were in a sealed-off room in the infirmary doing an autopsy of the stitched-together corpse.
The organs looked like they had also been fabricated from multiple hosts, and rather expertly done.
After another two hours, Sakura started documenting the remains, "There are numerous sutures along most of the body parts and organs," she said into her recorder, "It seems that the Puppet Master made this male from a Caucasian male, an unknown African, and a Polynesian male. The skeleton seems to be from one man, I still haven't gotten to the lower body yet."
As she clicked the recorder off, she walked over to the sink, and washed her hands, there was no blood in the body, but there was plenty of bile, and it was very gross.
As she washed her hands, she saw Sasuke sitting in the corner, thinking of something.
Sakura walked up to him, and as she sat next to him, she spoke, "You ok?"
"No, not really," Sasuke said, "This case just gets stranger and stranger, and it has a way of getting to you."
"I know what you mean," Sakura said, "You never can get used to death can you?"
"Not even as a former SEAL," Sasuke said, "I saw a lot of death during my time in the Special Forces, bodies mutilated so bad an open coffin at the funeral would be considered illegal, I actually had a few run-ins with various meta-humans, on the opposite side of the law that would use their powers to murder people in the most gruesome ways. They all had their weaknesses though, all we had to do was find it."
"So much pain," Sakura said as she sat next to him, "It's like there's more bonding us than I thought."
"You mean because you're a meta-human?" Sasuke asked.
"And an alien," Sakura said, "But I've never minded anyone seeing me in my true form in combat because I can't help it, the rest of the time I try to hide it because it doesn't look normal."
"Why would you hide it," Sasuke asked, "You have a gift."
"I think it's hideous," Sakura said, "You humans have your singular skin tone, mine is not normal, and neither are my ears when I'm in my alien form."
"Nonsense," Sasuke said, "You're beautiful, you could never look ugly."
"Oh yea," Sakura asked as she stood up, and closed the curtains, "Try this."
The dim light provided Sasuke with a clear enough picture of her alien form, her skin was Spanish pink, her hair was the same color it always was, her ears were very sharp like an elf's, her eyes turned from normal human eyes to solid green eyes, and various lines like tattoos appeared on her face.
Sasuke stood up, "Wow." He said.
"I know," Sakura said as she turned away, "I'm hideous."
"No you're not," Sasuke said as he walked over to her, and turned her towards him, "You're breathtaking."
"You're just saying that." Sakura said.
"Am I," Sasuke asked as he lifted her face so she could look into his eyes, "I wouldn't lie to you, not now."
Sakura could tell from the look in his eyes that he was telling the truth, and she smiled at his sincerity.
The two of them right then noticed how close they were, but like last time, right before they could kiss, Naruto barged into the room, "Hey," he said as he entered.
"Nice," Sasuke said as they moved apart.
"Sorry," Naruto said as he walked over to the corpse on the table, "Ino wants to know how the autopsy's going."
"We've managed to identify that this body is made of several different pieces from several distinctive ethnicities," Sakura said, "It had to have taken two months to put all the pieces together."
"But how did it manage to stay alive?" Naruto asked.
"We've already found that one out," Sasuke said as he walked up to a small table with a light shining on a long medical dish covered by a piece of bloody cloth, Sasuke removed the cloth, and revealed a connection of metal plate with barbs sticking out of the plates, and at the end was a cord with several bloody spikes sticking out.
"What the fuck is this?" Naruto asked.
"We don't know exactly what it's called," Sasuke said, "Me and Sakura call it the Animator," we pulled it out of that thing's spinal column," he then pointed to the barbs, "These barbs here go in-between the individual vertebrae," he then picked up the cord that contained the bloody spikes, "And this part went into the brain via an hole drilled into the base of the skull that would send electrical impulses throughout the spine, reanimating it."
"Damn," Naruto said, "This asshole really went all out."
"Yea," Sasuke said, "But nothing to tell us who any of these people were."
"I'd better present this to Ino," Naruto said, "She'll want to know what you've found."
"Go ahead," Sasuke said as he handed Naruto the medical dish, "Keep it in the dish."
"Ok," Naruto said as he took the dish, and left the room.
Sasuke sat back in the chair against the north wall of the room, and exhaled slowly.
"No rest for the weary?" Sakura asked.
"Apparently not," Sasuke said, "By the way, I noticed how you got dizzy when you had that mask on for half an hour."
"I guess I need some of the other gasses in the air to function normally," Sakura said, "I never did a study on it."
"Maybe we can do a study on it when this is over," Sasuke said, "I can fund it."
"You can do that?" Sakura asked.
"I was an international mercenary remember?" Sasuke asked.
"You must have made some pretty good money," Sakura said as she sat next to Sasuke.
"I got around." Sasuke said.
"Anyway," Sakura said as she stood up, "I guess we should get back to work."
"Well that was productive." Sasuke thought as he stood up.
Sakura slid on a second pair of surgical gloves, and decided to go through the knee, as she went into the top, the scalpel hit metal.
"Retractors," Sakura said as she held her hand out to Sasuke.
"Retractors," Sasuke said as she handed the two metal grips to Sakura.
Sakura spread apart the knee to reveal the knee was synthetic.
"Looks like we found out common link," Sakura said as he went down the knee, "He missed it."
"I don't think so," Sasuke said as he pointed at the area near the ankle where there was a big heavy gouge in the metal, "These marks are made by a file, and this is where the serial numbers would be."
"There must be something we can do to identify who owned this leg," Sakura said.
"Without the serial number we can't get a positive identification on the man that owns the leg," Sasuke said as he removed the leg from the pieced-together flesh, "But, I bet trace elements inside might be able to identify where the last place this leg was before it ended up in this body."
"And we know someone who can do that." Sakura said.
Sasuke and Sakura brought the leg up to the command center where the team was discussing the Animator with Ino, "You're here," she said as the two of them entered, "What do you need?"
"Some serious help," Sakura said as she held up the prosthetic leg, "We found this in the puppet we took from Singapore, and we were wondering if you could identify some of the elements in it so we can find out where it was last before it ended up in this creature."
"Sure," Hinata said, then pointed to a small tablet, "Put it down over there."
Sakura put the titanium leg down on the table, and as she looked at the leg, she focused on the elements she saw on the leg.
"What do your magic eyes see?" Sasuke asked.
"I'm detecting traces of Andradite, Beryl, Platinum, Quartz, Basalt, and Fireclay." Hinata said.
"What does that tell us?" Ino asked.
"One thing," Shino said as he walked over to the D.S.I., and pulled up the world map, "Several years ago, I was helping some old friends with a job they were doing," he zoomed in on Russia, "Andradite, Beryl, Platinum, and Quartz all together can only be found in one place," he tapped on the Ural Mountains.
"The Urals," Sasuke said, "Brilliant Shino, positively brilliant."
"What about the Basalt and the Fireclay," Ino asked, "That could come from anywhere in the world?"
"All those four elements and the Basalt and Fireclay," Sasuke asked, "Can only come from one place…" he pointed at Hinata.
Hinata responded, "The Eastern Slope."
"Took the words right out of my mouth," Sasuke said as he tapped on the Eastern Slope of the Ural Mountains.
"But there are several towns and oblasts along the Eastern Slope," Ino said, "It'd take us weeks to survey the entire slope."
"Hinata," Sasuke said, "Is there anything else on that leg?"
"Yes, actually," Hinata said as she looked more closely at the leg, "I'm detecting traces of Iron and Steel."
"Processed?" Sasuke asked.
"Yes." Hinata said.
"That narrows it down even more," Sasuke said as he zoomed in, and tapped on Sverdlovsk Oblast."
"Sverdlovsk?" Ino asked.
"It is where some of Russia's Iron and Steel is processed," Sasuke said, "Two hours ago, we didn't even know what made these things tick, now we know where one of these things' parts was."
"We have a general idea," Naruto said, "We don't know exactly where the leg came from."
"All of these elements have something in common," Sasuke said, "They all have to be processed, a place that processes gemstones, can't be a lot of those in Sverdlovsk."
"True," Ino said as she turned to her soldiers, "Get on the phone with the Russian Government, see if they can give us a few leads."
"What about us?" Sasuke asked.
"You've been hard at work," Ino said, "Why don't you try and get some sleep?"
"That might be a good idea," Sasuke said as he turned to his team, "Let's get some rest."
As the team walked down to their quarters, Sasuke could tell his team was exhausted.
The second Naruto entered his room, he face-planted into the bed without taking anything off anything, and immediately started snoring.
Shino walked into his room, kicked off his boots, and fell asleep.
Tenten removed her boots and jacket, laid back on her bed, and was asleep in a few minutes.
Hinata just kicked off her shoes, sat back on her bed, and started reading one of the books she brought along.
Sasuke meanwhile had decided to train a little, he had used the gym for half an hour before coming back to the room, when he did, he saw a liquor glass had been broken, and he heard the shower running.
Sasuke walked over, and noticed the door was hallway opened, but there were no clothes on the floor.
He opened the door to see Sakura sitting there, hugging her knees to her chest, and shivering.
He pulled off his jacket, tossed it onto the floor, and walked over to the shower.
He sat down next to Sakura who leaned on him, and grabbed his arm, "My hands won't stop shaking," she said, "And I can't get those images out of my head."
"Let me see," Sasuke said as he held out his hand, Sakura held out her hands to Sasuke who examined them, then brought them to his lips, and kissed them each, "Better?"
Sakura nodded, "Yes." She replied.
"Are you cold?" Sasuke asked.
After Sakura nodded, Sasuke reached up, turned on the warm water before wrapping his arm around Sakura's shoulders, and bringing her closer towards him.
"It's like being stuck in a horror movie," she said, "It's scary."
"Don't worry," Sasuke said, "I'll be here to help."
"You want to protect me?" Sakura asked.
"Yes." Sasuke said.