Note:
this chapter is unedited and not proofread (05/18/24)
chapter one: and i knew you'd come back to me
Now
"You were right."
Tick.
"Jirobo is dead."
His focus strays from the clock mounted on the wall atop the fireplace.
"And what of the men we had watching him?" His voice was smooth, not a single emotion discernable in his tone. It's as if he saw this coming.
"Dead, as well."
Three people stand before his mahogany desk, serious expressions dawning their faces.
Clipboard in hand, the man in the middle flips through the report he was given. "It was messy. Multiple stab wounds, and they took their time. They wanted him to suffer."
"Considering they got to him the day he was discharged from the hospital; they were waiting for the opportunity to strike," the only woman in the room adds, irritation darkening her features, marring lines on her forehead.
"It'd be stupid of them not to assume someone would have a rogue member of theirs under surveillance, especially since this isn't their domain." The tallest of the three folded his arms, face twisted in thought. "Or, like we discussed last week, we could have a rat."
Tick.
"You had a suspect in mind, Obito?"
He nods in reply.
"Proceed as you'd like."
"And if he isn't?"
The man behind the desk leans forward. "Get as much information as you can before you're through with him," he simply says, certainty evident.
Obito smirks, his eyes lit with dark excitement, even brightening the disfigured half of his face.
"What of the hospital?" The woman asks. "Police are all over the Konoha Medical Center. Since he was just discharged, they're going to start questioning the staff."
A scoff. "Izumi, we all know how useless they are. They're not going to get anything of use until it's too late."
"Unless they were waiting for something."
The fire crackles. Her insinuation causes a stillness in the air, a heavy sense of unknowing engulfing the room.
Tick.
"This was a trial run," Izumi says, confident in her deduction. "They wanted to test their new poison and see if someone would be capable to cure it."
The man in the middle focuses on their boss who had gone silent as the conversation continued.
His silence is not unusual. He preferred to listen and only ask questions he deemed necessary. He kept stoic, something he undoubtedly learned from his brother and his father. To everyone else, they found it intimidating. To the people in this room, the people closest to him, it was how they always knew him.
Right now, however, there's something different.
Tick.
A deep-set frown to match the furrow on his brow, his intertwined fingers now in a tight hold, and a sweltering, silent rage behind his eyes that hadn't been seen since he returned home after the death of his brother.
"It seems like boss had an inkling that this may be what they wanted," he hazards a guess.
All eyes are on their boss now, assessing him.
The boss stands, his chair squeaks as it moves back. "Remind us of the doctor who was capable of finding cures to The Snakes' poisons?"
Shisui did not even need to look at his report. "Dr. Tsunade Senju."
"Dr. Senju retired years ago." Izumi bites the tip of her thumbnail. "There's been an uptick in Snake activity since."
"What does this have to do with right now? Senju wasn't overseeing Jirobo, and she never took apprentices or anything like that, right?"
"She never announced that she had taken someone under her wing." Shisui corrects her as he watches the boss makes his way to the fireplace. His back is to them, hands clasped behind him. The fire illuminates his silhouette. "It seems Sasuke knew otherwise this entire time."
Shisui is ignored. "Question the traitor. Let me know what we can get by the end of today."
Tick.
The phone rings.
Time's up.
"We'll reconvene tonight."
It's late.
An eerie stillness surrounds her. No light breeze to sway the leaves on the trees. Nothing illuminating the windows of the houses that lined the street. Only the sound of cicadas drowns out the silence as her car comes to a halt, the engine whirring before it's off.
Sakura rests her forehead on the steering wheel, eyes closed in resigned lassitude. Her grip on the wheel loosens before her hands fall to her sides.
The doctor has experienced and seen quite a fair share of oddities in her line of work. Loss was once something that came very few and far between, but after years in her profession, is something that rears its ugly head more often than her past self was ever used to.
It comes with the business. One cannot save every single patient they have. The first time she lost a patient, she had known this, but it didn't stop the helplessness and self-resentment that followed. While her track record was better than most, especially considering her age and time on the field, those losses helped strengthen her resolve and built a sturdier wall when it comes to these circumstances.
Today, however, was something entirely different.
This patient was brought in by the Konoha Police and put under her care due to her reputation with high-risk patients. Because of their involvement, she was not permitted to know who this patient was. He was simply known as Patient One, and Patient One was in horrific shape when he was brought in.
In addition to what she knew were fresh bruises and lacerations, upon further tests, the man showed early signs of organ failure. She had to act swiftly, or the patient would have been dead within just a few days.
After a quick blood test, she found high levels of heavy metals indicating heavy metal poisoning. If it were a normal case, there should have been signs beforehand, a slow build to being paralyzed, but based on what little she was told, they found the patient attacked and had the forethought to think that he may also be poisoned.
Aggravated by the lack of information but not being able to fight against what she had been notified as a government backed operation, she began doing what she could. Thankfully, Konoha Medical Center had the technology she needed to curtail the patient's death, if not for a few more days. They started the patient on chelation therapy, injecting ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid into a vein, and doing so, she hoped to rid the remaining poison in the body as she refocused on the patient's organs.
However, it seemed that even when the patient saw signs of recovery, another organ would show signs of failure and it became a cycle. The poison still lingered despite the acid injections.
After two long, grueling months in the ICU, she found a breakthrough. With the patient's blood saved from the initial test, a cure was finally made. And all she needed was the extremely rare Tomoshiri Grass to make it. With it, an antidote was made that could turn the poison into harmless protein.
Patient One was in the ICU for one more month before he finally woke.
He was discharged with police supervision just yesterday after three weeks of waking from his coma. She thought that would be the last of it.
However, the police returned earlier today and requested to see her. They bore no news of Patient One. In fact, they did their best not to talk about him. Instead, much of their questioning was about her and, unnervingly, her safety.
She'd known that the police's involvement meant something serious. The poison in Patient One's system leads her to believe that this was out there, planned to be used again. The question of her safety, though? It meant that someone was more than likely angry that she had managed to cure it.
Having been assured that police will be nearby just in case; she drove by a police car, windows tinted black, stationed by the end of her street that is not usually there. The seriousness of the situation had begun to settle at that moment.
Sakura takes a long, deep sigh before lifting her head.
She didn't want to admit that she had felt as though she was being watched for a while now. If she were honest, she'd felt that way even before Patient One had come into her care. She thought it was nothing but paranoia. After all, who was she, truly, to feel as though she was being observed from afar like that?
It's completely different now, though.
Finally getting out of her car, she takes her bag and starts the short walk to her front door. She lives in quite a safe neighborhood, in a nice, quaint one-story cottage style house that she paid for all by herself after years of hard work. The small, covered porch and the low-pitched gabled roof was inviting, and the chimney meant that there was a fireplace. The moment she saw it, she knew it was the one.
Taking careful steps, Sakura walks the path she had committed to memory by now. Yet, the closer she gets to the oasis that is her home, the more tense she feels.
Something isn't right.
Her eyes shift around her, briefly turning to find nothing amiss behind her. Is it paranoia? It had been fueled by the hectic day and the unsettling visit by the police, so it may as well be nothing but her own nervous fears taking over her conscience.
As she reaches the door, an odd chill wafts through her fingers, gliding up her arms and raising goosebumps in its wake.
She had locked her door this morning before she left, and yet the front door is slightly ajar, unlocked.
Her heart hammers beneath her chest. Her palms suddenly clammy as she maneuvers to grab her keys from her bag, quickly wrapping her fist around the ring, securing a key in between each of her fingers. With her free hand, she attempts to reach for her phone.
But someone grabs her from behind, and her phone clutters onto the wooden porch, as well as her keys.
A hand covers her mouth, stifling her scream. The other wraps around her neck as a low, menacing chuckle heats her cheek.
"Took you long enough to get home, doctor." She struggles in her captive's hold. "I was beginning to think you weren't going to grace me with your presence."
Her pulse beats in her ear as a sickening wave of terror wells up from the pit of her stomach, rendering her to still. But only for a moment.
'Move!' she wills herself.
In a second, her own stubbornness fights against her fear, her fist tightening once more as she struggles against his hold.
"Oh, a feisty one, are you?" The man asks, amusement lacing his words. His grip tightens around her neck, not enough to suffocate, but enough to send a message.
His taunting only adds to her aggravation. The man is cocky, that is for certain. He had her by the neck, but her arms and legs remain free.
Remembering her self-defense training from her university days, she steadies herself. Her momentary stillness loosens his hold, and he starts walking them backwards.
The small space in between their bodies as he moves is enough.
"Where the fuck are they?" Sakura hears him mutter.
They?
She has to act fast. She needs to get help.
Timing their steps, she musters enough strength and hopes her aim is right.
As he moves back once more, she stands still, momentarily making it difficult for him to force her to move with him. His hold on her neck tightens, but she moves swiftly, her hand landing where she wants: between his legs.
She squeezes. Hard. Then tugs just as strongly.
The man yells, his hold on her weakening enough for her to get free.
Turning, her free fist lands right where she wants it. She hears a loud crunch as her fist collides with his nose. There's a sharp pain on her fingers, but adrenaline pumps through her veins, letting her ignore it as satisfaction lifts her spirits as the pain was enough for him to yell out in agony and fall to the ground.
That satisfaction lasts briefly, however, as her survival instincts kicks back in. Her hand stings as she runs, moving past him and heading straight to where the police car was parked.
"Help!" She yells, hoping that the neighbors can be alerted to wake. "Help!"
She makes it to the end of her driveway and sees the police car headlights to her right. For a moment, hope blooms, but it is short-lived as she sees a body slumped on the ground, the driver seat door wide open.
There's muffled laughter behind her. She chances a peek, turning her head slightly to see her attacker still on the ground, crimson streams between the fingers that still clutch his face.
"Fucking bitch," he spits. "You pack a punch. Who taught you, huh?"
He starts to move, and she runs. Instincts tell her to run to her left, so she starts, screaming for aid as she does so. Still, no one so much as even peeks out their window.
'Please!'
Then, a gunshot. A gargled breath.
Her hands covering her ears as she folds her body down to a crouch. She freezes, petrified.
A body falls onto the cement.
She hears six more before the sound of cicadas overtakes the silence once more.
Her ears are ringing, her heart is practically jumping out of her chest. But after what feels like an eternity, she realizes she's unharmed. No one has touched her. No one has even uttered a single word.
Her knees give out, falling onto the concrete road, scraping them in the process. The flesh of her palm does its best to steady her before she could fall face first onto the street.
She's alive.
Somehow.
'But…'
Unable of even finishing a thought, she counts her breaths, hoping it will help steady herself enough.
Mustering a sliver of courage, she turns her head once more. Adrenaline had already faded, and all that it left behind was exhaustion.
She had grown used to loss, to death, in a hospital setting.
This, however, is not that.
A few feet away from her lies the corpse of her attacker. His body is sprawled face down, drowning in a pool of his own blood.
"Sakura."
Her heart stops.
Her breath catches.
Her ears must be deceiving her.
'It can't be.'
Slowly, she looks up.
Dark hair that matches the hue of his eyes. The ever-present furrow on his brow. The same tenderness in the way he would utter her name. That's where the similarities with her memory of him end.
He's older. He looks wider than she remembered, stronger. Gone was the young man that held her in his arms. In front of her, he was a hardened, even more intense man.
She has always wondered what it would be like to meet him again, to see him again after all these years. She had a million things she wanted to say to him if she ever had the chance to, but it all escapes her now.
"Sasuke?"
Sakura never expected to see her own relief reflected in his eyes as he stares back at her, drawing back the hand in which he held a deadly weapon. The gun that was aimed at the dead man between them.
End Notes:
this first chapter has probably been the hardest first chapter I've ever had to write so far mainly because of that portion of medical jargon that I spent HOURS googling. sakura may be a brilliant doctor, but this author is not.
the poison she's dealing with is basically sasori's poison that almost killed kankuro in the manga! except, she took longer to find a cure because there is no ninja magic here to speed up the process. again, I am no doctor, so hopefully what I wrote makes even just a little bit of sense considering the number of tabs and articles I combed through. nevertheless, this is a work of fiction, so let us all suspend our disbelief, shall we? pretty please?
hope y'all liked it though. definitely a bit info dumpy (and dramatic but lol uchihas are involved, so that comes with the territory), but necessary.
I did my best to use canon characters in here, but seeing as we don't have names of as many Uchiha, I went on a Naruto wiki deep dive. Also, expect some of Sasuke's animal summons on the show to be actual people (what's the opposite of fursona?)
each chapter name will be a Taylor Swift lyric, mainly TTPD ones since that album inspired this fic's inception. though, this first chapter's lyric is obviously from cardigan bc it's a very fitting.
now, let us all sing along:
I KNEW I'D CURSE YOU FOR THE LONGEST TIME CHASING SHADOWS IN THE GROCERY LINE
I KNEW YOU'D MISS ME ONCE THE THRILL EXPIRED AND YOU'D BE STANDING IN MY FRONT PORCH LIGHT
AND I KNEW YOU'D COME BACK TO MEEEEEEEE