Sakura had been having a perfectly wonderful day. That is, until she had arrived at Al's room and found him missing. She had been specifically ordered by Tsunade-sama to bring Al to see her as soon as possible. And you didn't want to be around the Hokage when she was upset. Invariably, she would find a way to make you upset too. Sakura knew.

So, she'd been forced to search.

She had looked all over the building and couldn't find a trace of him. If he had managed to get out into the city, he could be anywhere. Her search had seemed hopeless until she had found a nurse that happened to recall Naruto visiting. Then Sakura relaxed. If he was with Naruto, there was only one place he could be.

That was what had happened to spoil her day and now leave here standing outside of Ichiraku Ramen behind Al with her arms folded and every molecule of her being promising death to a certain blond-haired idiot. Named idiot was looking up with blatant fear and a stupid smile plastered on his face. That look always annoyed Sakura. "Hi, Sakura" he managed to say. Sakura just scowled harder.

She snorted. "You are so lucky I'm in a rush right now, or I'd hit you so hard you wouldn't wake up for a week. Didn't you get the orders that he's not to leave the hospital? You," she said to Al, placing a hand on his shoulder, "are coming with me."

Sakura began grumbling to herself as she cast one last glare promising a slow and painful death at Naruto, and then proceeded to drag the other hapless blond by the arm.

"I swear, I should have knocked some sense into him a long time ago. I can't believe his own stupidity hasn't gotten him killed yet. And now he's gone and got me in trouble with the Hokage. Stupid, blond, spiky-haired, stubborn, little…eerg! He's so annoying!" She looked at her captive audience for confirmation, remembered he couldn't understand her, and felt even more annoyed that her perfectly good rant had just gone to waste. She yanked on his arm and picked up the pace, just to make it perfectly clear that for one, she was NOT holding his hand, and two, that he was the one being escorted, and not the other way around.

In less than an eighth of the time it had taken Naruto and Al to get to the ramen shop, Sakura had dragged Al all the way back to the Hokage's chamber. Sakura paused outside the door to allow him to catch his breath. Now she did feel a little bad. He was just recovering, and yet she'd forced him to practically run across the city. She smiled to show that he was forgiven and he seemed to understand.

This language barrier was getting really tiring, but that was hopefully what Tsunade had called them here to solve. Sakura's thought process was interrupted by the door sliding open and Shizune's head popping out.

"Ah, Sakura! I thought I heard a noise. Come in, come in. Lady Hokage was beginning to get impatient." Sakura took a deep breath to steady herself. It was always best to have your wits about you when you talked to the Hokage. She was just as likely to do something strange as Naruto was to do something stupid. She grabbed Al's arm and pulled him into the room behind her.

The first thing that Sakura noticed was that the room was a mess. There were scrolls everywhere, but all except for one seemed to just have been thrown haphazardly against the walls to make room for people to walk. The one exception was sitting on the Hokage's desk, and the Hokage herself was sitting right behind it.

Tsunade looked up and smiled, suddenly seeming to relax. "Sakura, finally. You took long enough. Shizune was making me do paperwork until you arrived, couldn't you have come faster?" There was a teasing note to her voice and Sakura relaxed too. It seemed as if Tsunade's relief at being allowed to stop doing paperwork far outweighed her annoyance at having to do it for so long in the first place.

"I apologize Tsunade-sama, it just so happened that Naruto decided that it would be fun to take our guest here out to eat ramen this morning. It took me awhile to locate them." Tsunade just waved off the explanation with one finely manicured hand.

"Of course, of course, we both know how Naruto is. But we have other matters to attend to. Like this." Tsunade held up the scroll. "Can you guess what this is?"

"Did you actually find a language jutsu Tsunade-sama? That's wonderful!"

Tsunade huffed. "You spoil all the fun, you're not supposed to guess right… oh well, it can't be helped. Yes, it is. Now we'll actually be able to learn what happened to our little friend here. I only regret that it's taken this long, he could have some very important information for us. Bring him over here." With that, Tsunade unrolled the scroll until it stretched from one end of her desk to the other.

Sakura walked forward and looked at it. It was covered in symbols she didn't know, but, then again, she didn't practice this type of jutsu, she was a medical nin. "Are you sure this will work? We don't want to hurt him accidentally."

"What? Oh, of course! There are all sorts of records of it working. Now, let's see, what do we need to do again? Aha! He simply needs to prick his finger and place it in that center part there. I'll take care of the hand signs. What were they again?" Sakura looked at her doubtfully, but sighed as Shizune ushered Al over to the desk, then stood behind him with her hands on his shoulders. Once Tsunade had her mind set on something, she rarely gave up, and she usually had the best interests of her people at heart, so it couldn't be too bad. Sakura just wished sometimes that Tsunade would show her brains a little more.

"Alright! I'm all ready." Tsunade exclaimed. "Now all we need is just to prick your finger and we'll be almost done!" As she said this, she drew out a kunai and pointed it at Al.

"Tsunade-sama, wait a second!" Sakura went over to Al who seemed to be panicked. Well, who wouldn't be, she thought, he's only seemingly held captive by Shizune while a strange lady pointes a knife at him. She spoke random nonsense in the most comforting voice she could for a few seconds, it didn't matter what she said anyway, then took the kunai from Tsunade. "Look, Al, we're not trying to hurt you, we simply need to prick your finger. Like this." With that Sakura took the kunai and pricked her own finger and held it up for him to see. "This is all we're going to do."

Al looked apprehensive as she took his hand, but he allowed her to prick his finger without further fuss. Sakura put his hand on the scroll and motioned for him to leave it there. Tsunade made some quick hand signs and there was a puff of smoke. Sakura watched as the smoke cleared hoping that the jutsu hadn't turned him into some strange animal or something. To her relief, Al still looked the same as before, albeit a little more bewildered.

"Well," said Tsunade, "that was certainly interesting." Al started and his mouth dropped in surprise. Tsunade smiled smugly. "Judging by your reaction, I'd say the jutsu worked. Now we should have some formal introductions. My name is Tsunade, the Hokage of Konoha. What is yours?"

Al closed his mouth and grinned. "Thank you very much for whatever that was you just did." He bowed. "It is a pleasure to meet you all, my name is Alphonse Elric. Al for short. Now, would someone please tell me where I am?"