Chapter 1:

It was a horrific sight. Blood congealing in the ruins, dust smothering the air, the whimpers and cries of those caught in the explosion and the hurried bustling of ninja leaping in to rescue survivors.
Shikamaru surveyed the scene with a practiced analytical mindset, calmly suppressing his empathetic nature that was threatening to emerge. That was something he could not allow to happen right now. Part of him hated himself for acting so coldly, but he knew that distancing himself from his emotions would allow his brain to run at maximum efficiency. And he needed that.
There had been no warning. No signal, no alarm raised, nothing to hint that something was wrong. One moment, the hospital had been standing there, the same as ever, and the next...
It was a pile of mangled, bloody rubble.

Shikamaru nearly tripped over his own feet as, through the clearing smoke and dust, he spied a familiar figure. Rose - pink hair, red shirt emblazoned with a white circle.

"Sakura!" Shikamaru ran towards her, immensely relived to see his old classmate had survived the blast. Uninjured too, judging from her strong, upright pose. In fact...
The young Nara slowed, his brow furrowing. There was not a mark on her. Not a scratch, a graze, nor a single drop of blood was visible anywhere on her body. Even she, the young woman who had trained under Tsunade, could not possibly have been caught up in the explosion without injury. There wasn't a chance, unless...
No. Surely not. Not possible. Right?
Even so, Shikamaru stopped well before he reached her.

"Sakura?" He said cautiously. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

She didn't reply. But Shikamaru noted how her hands curled subtly into fists.
Shikamaru tensed.

"Listen to me. I know it's a shock, but there's people who need your help. Come on Haruno, we all need to help to get this sorted out."

Even as he spoke he felt a rising nausea in his gut. Something was wrong.

A rush of wind heralded the arrival of three more Konoha ninja that Shikamaru didn't recognize. They spread out, surrounding Sakura with their blades drawn, and fists raised.

"Sakura Haruno! Stand down, now." Said the oldest one of the group - A tall, dark haired man with an unkempt beard and a gruff, commanding bark. "You are under arrest, on multiple counts of murder."
There was a deliberate if subtle gesture to the surrounding rubble, making it clear to what he was referring.

"What?" Shikamaru couldn't help himself. The notion was utterly absurd and yet this man, a Jonin from the looks of him, was speaking with such... authority, such certainty.

He desperately tried to force his brain to think.
"I-I... She... Why do you say that? On what grounds?"

The strange Jonin's eyes did not even flicker from their target as he answered.
"Sakura Haruno was witnessed murdering hospital staff who saw her preparing explosives around the building."

"Bullshit! That's not... I mean..." Shikamaru's eyes were repeatedly drawn back to the young Kunoichi. She hadn't twitched, hadn't shown any sign of registering what was going on around her.
"Sakura?" Shikamaru called.

There was no response.

"Say something, goddammit! What the hell is going on? Why are they saying-"

- There was a blur of speed as Sakura twisted around and slammed a chakra-laden fist into the earth, forcing all the surrounding shinobi to spend precious seconds reorienting and rebalancing themselves lest they stumble over the splintering ground.

Shikamaru leapt backwards, his hands already flying into position:

"Shadow style: Shadow Imitation Jutsu."

Plenty of rocks, rubble and cracks in the earth. Range certianly wouldn't be a problem, and the speed of spread would be considerable. Should be a simple matter to catch a close-range fighter such as Sakura, and then determine later what had happened when she was restrained-

- Except it didn't quite work out like that. A second after his feet met the ground again, he felt the earth swell and shift. All around him, the flying debris was starting to bubble and melt, the droplets burning like searing acid as they splashed against his skin.

Wha- Genjutsu? Oh, crap -!

It was not a specialist subject of his and it had been a while since he had had to deal with a genjutsu user, but a hurried flashback to his Chunin exams reminded him of a possible escape. Pushing past his instincts, he wrenched the ring finger on his left hand backwards, biting through the ensuing agony.
To his relief, his surroundings turned back to normal and the bubbling acid burns on his skin dissipated...

...Only to be faced with a pair of pained, green eyes.
Sakura was less than a meter from him. Around them were the twitching forms of the other ninja, still momentarily trapped in her illusion. Her face... was sad. And determined.

"Shikamaru?"

His brain was spinning with frantic, half-baked plans. All of which he realized he wouldn't have time to even attempt as Sakura brought up a gloved fist.

"Tell everyone... I'm sorry."

Several days earlier

"Haruno! Sakura Haruno! Oh for fucks sake, where is she?"

"I'm right here, Kyonoru." Said Sakura as she ran out next to the frantic medic-nin as he and the rest of his team wheeled the broken and bloody form of the ANBU operative down the corridor.

Sakura pulled on a pair of latex gloves from her pocket as she turned to them.
"What do we have?"

"He- I... I don't know. There's something wrong with his chakra, it's attacking his body and he's in danger of complete organ failure. His colleague who brought him in claimed they were ambushed by rogue Sunagakure ninja."

"Sand shinobi, aggressive chakra system..." Sakura nodded. "Most likely poison, we'll take him to emergency room 6. Did his colleague obtain a poison sample? Did they obtain one of their opponent's weapons?"

"Not that I know of."

"Right. You-"
-She pointed to one of the medic-nin pushing the stretcher-
"-Find the other ANBU operative and find out."

"Yes, ma'am!"
He disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Sakura examined her patient as they sped through the hospital halls. His arms were tense and shaking, with his fists opening and clenching periodically. His eyes were wide, red veins spreading across the white flesh and a crimson liquid spilling from his mouth and nose, with similar telltale red beads emerging under his eyelids and beneath his fingernails.

Damn. I've not seen this before. This will be tricky.

The door to the emergency room flew open, smacking against the walls with a loud crack as Sakura led the stretcher in.
She turned to a young Kunoichi, decked out in white medical robes.

"Get some chakra suppressants."

"Which ones-?"

"Whatever's closest! Now!"

Sakura placed both hands on the patient's chest and concentrated, a green glow enveloping her palms. She allowed her chakra to reach out into the man's body, searching for any and all signs of damage.

His body is being torn to shreds from the inside. Shit, he hasn't got long if this continues.

She willed her chakra to mend the rips and tears along the man's interior, but despite her medical brilliance and the aid provided by her assistant, more were appearing faster than even she could mend them. Sakura's co-worker hurried back to her side, gently pushing the head of a syringe into the nook of their patient's unresisting arm.
The man twitched and spasmed as the chemicals flooded through his system, before his eyelids fluttered closed.

As the drugs took hold, Sakura sensed his frantic chakra begin to settle. His internal organs were still being attacked, but Sakura was now able to keep up. Slowly, she mended the wounds and lesions as her assistant focused on purging rogue fluids and toxins that had spilled though holes in the stomach, liver and bladder.

Sakura glanced up briefly to see how her associate was coping. Kyonoru Umadai, though a year older than she, was new to the role of medic and relatively inexperienced with anything more serious than a broken arm. Ideally, a case such as this would be treated by a team of trained medic-nin, but rarely could such a force be spared to treat one lone shinobi. A silvery sheen coated his forehead as he gazed fixedly at the patient, but he seemed to be coping.

Good, Sakura thought. If he could cope with this, it was worth keeping him in mind as a useful delegate, should the need arise.

It seemed to take an age, but with time and effort their patient began to breathe more evenly and the palest hint of colour returned to his greyed features.

Sakura stepped away with a grim expression.

"I doubt there's much more to be done here."

Kyonoru glanced sharply up at her.

"What? He can't survive like this, he's still got buckets of that venom in him and currently only our pure chakra is holding his fucking lungs together-"

"He's not going to survive. That much is clear."

Sakura turned away, not wanting to see Kyonoru's expression.

"All we can do is make it less painful. Hopefully get a sample of the poison used against him, and maybe keep him alive long enough for him to... finish anything he needs to. Say goodbye, put affairs in order. Maybe."

She pulled a low trolley to the bedside, atop which was a a steel bowl of water.

"Now, hold him still." She commanded. "I'm going to remove as much of the poison as I can..."

It was a good two hours later when Sakura staggered out of a side door of the hospital, breathing in the night air deeply.

It had been a busy shift. Then again, most of them were.

Her keen mind, unparalleled chakra control with the addition of Lady Tsunade's training had propelled Sakura's medical career rapidly upwards, until in only two years she had become the most skilled medic-nin in Konohakagure, second only to the fifth Hokage herself. As a result, she was also the most overworked shinobi in the entire hospital, with her skills constantly in demand as injured Chunin, Jonin, and even ANBU were wheeled in and out of the building like clockwork. Even the simplest injuries took a great deal of effort to mend, and the dangers that most ninja faced could rarely be described as 'simple'.

On the bright side, the daily exhaustion of chakra has done wonders for my reserves. Perhaps it won't even be too much longer before I master the 'Strength of a hundred' seal...

She looked down at her clenched fist.

She was certainly a hundred times stronger than her thirteen-year old self. She had defeated Sasori of the Akatsuki, and yet...

...Why was it that she still felt so... redundant?

If she was a hundred times stronger than she had been, Naruto had come back two hundred times stronger. And as for Sasuke... well. The Tenchi bridge mission had shown clearly the immense power gap that had developed between them.

Sakura forced her thoughts away from her childhood crush. That was another thing that working at the hospital was good for – distracting herself from the many things she'd rather not think about.

"Sakura-chan!"

Sakura looked up, smiling despite the irritating honorific Naruto so often insisted on attaching to her name. Her old teammate looked much as she would have expected; disheveled, bruised and filthy after a typically intense training session, no doubt. But still grinning from ear to ear.

"Hey, Naruto. What brings you here?"

"What, I can't visit one of my best friends without a specific reason?"

"Well, generally you're not supposed to when they're working, so yes. Also you usually avoid hospitals like the plague."

Ever the childish goofball, Naruto playfully stuck his tongue out at the last comment.

"Yeah, well, excuse me if I don't like all those pesky medics trying to stick enough needles in me to turn me into a porcupine. Er- no offence. You don't count."

"Oh?" Sakura cracked her knuckles. "I don't count as a medic, now? What exactly are you trying to say?"

"What? Er- That's not... I didn't..." Naruto squirmed nervously.

Sakura was reluctant to admit it, but she still got a small measure of sadistic glee when threatening Naruto with a beating. Now that she thought about it, that was probably a good instinct to do away with. She had enough injuries to deal with without having to heal the damage dealt by her own fists.

Naruto coughed, desperately changing the subject. "...Kakashi, actually kinda ordered me to come. I mean, it's nothing serious at all, I don't know what he's worried about, but..."

Sakura's eyes focused on Naruto's right arm, only just noticing through the dark the awkward angle at which he held it and the dark red stain slowly spreading through his sleeve.

Not missing a beat, she strode forwards and rolled the fabric away from the wound.

"OW- Hey, Sakura-chan-!" Naruto protested, wincing as the kunoichi grasped his arm and began examining it critically with a furrowed brow, an expression not usually seen on Sakura outside of her medical work.

"For crying out loud, Naruto, 'nothing serious'? You see that?" She pointed to a small white gleam amidst the the glistening red mangle.

Naruto gagged at the sight, but Sakura ignored his squeamishness.

"That's bone. You've broken your arm so badly that it's torn through the flesh. I don't care if you're a jinchuriki, even you could lose your fucking arm if you leave this untreated for too long!"

She sighed, shaking her head and pulling on her gloves.

"Idiot." She muttered, bracing her hands on either side of the wound.

Naurto's eyes widened when he realised what she was intending. "Wait- aren't I supposed to be sedated or someth-"

With a crack, the bones were snapped back into place. Naruto's eyes watered, an agonised croak pushing through his lips as he fought back a scream.

"Come on." Sakura said as she guided him inside.

"How the hell did you manage this?" Sakura muttered, leaning over Naruto's arm as she poured the last of her chakra into the wound.

Naruto looked away sheepishly. "It's' not my fault! Well... okay, it might have been. A little."

The red tinge of embarrassment on his face was slowly replaced by a widening grin.

"You should have seen me, though! I was awesome! Really! These rogue Oto ninja were busting out all these weird new sound jutsu, and I just smashed right through it with my Rasengan! Then of course, Sai rolled in with his fancy ink scroll and tried to take all the glory, but Kasashi had to save his butt when-"

- Sakura faltered in her healing. Naruto had been on a mission? With... with Sai? And Kakashi-sensei?

Without even telling her?

Huh...

Naruto chattered on oblivious to her alarm, making as emphatic gestures as he could with his right arm in Sakura's vice-grip.

As the Uzumaki's tirade of supposed heroics began to die down, Sakura cleared her throat.

"When did you... get that mission?"

"Two days ago. Took us a while to track down the bastards, but we were close enough to the village when we did that Kakashi-sensei decided to wait until we got back to treat my arm."

"Well... if I had been there, maybe it could have been treated a lot sooner." She cast an analytical eye over Naruto's face. "How come you three took a mission without me?"

Naruto laughed. "Well, to be honest, we didn't expect to need much patching up. Safe to say we were wrong. Kakashi-sensei had to carry Sai back!"

It wasn't an entirely unreasonable explanation. Sakura's main role was medic, a support role, but regardless... it hurt that they saw little value in her aside from her healing abilities.

Chakra enhanced strength aside, Sakura spent the two years since beginning training under Tsunade in other ways as well. Tapping into her unexplored natural affinity for Genjutsu with Kurenai-Sensei's guidance, expanding her capability for tactical analysis by badgering Shikamaru into Shogi matches, and, although she was less proud of it, exploring how medical ninjutsu could be employed in a more... offensive manner.

Sakura had heard various intriguing details of Kabuto Yakushi's abilities over the years, mostly from various reports she'd helped Tsunade file away, and some from the Sannin herself when talking about her encounter with him and Orochimaru. Sakura had initially felt repelled by the twisted use of medical ninjutsu that he displayed, but over time she had found herself become more and more curious about the execution of such techniques. Tsunade herself had previously utilized her unparalleled knowledge of the human body to her advantage in combat. Between various poisons, confusing the brains electric signals and even temporary corpse reanimation, Sakura could not deny the tempting lure of exploring the dark ninjutsu that would, perhaps, be best described as necromancy.

Not that she would ever admit to such an interest. Not to anyone.

Why not? Why not rub it in their smug faces that the meek little kunoichi has some bite after all?

Sakura jumped in surprise as the words echoed through her head. Now there was a voice she hadn't heard in some time.

Her inner manifestation had quietened down in the last couple of years as she had gained confidence in herself and her abilities, but before that the deafening monologue in Sakura's head had been a regular occurrence. She wasn't sure when it had first started, as for as long as Sakura could remember the sneering and angry part of her consciousness would rattle its chains and yell truths and profanities that Sakura herself would never have the belligerence to voice. Over time, what began as a private way of expressing suppressed impulses seemed to develop into... something more. Although she hadn't realised the extent of her inner's evolution until her duel with Ino during the first chunnin exams, in which the rogue segment of her pshyce seperated from the rest of Sakura's consciousness, and overcame the Yamanaka's famed Kekkei Genaki.

To this day, Sakura was unsure just how independent from her her inner self was. Despite this, the return of her childhood companion was... somewhat more comforting than she would have expected.

Sakura finished up her work on Naruto's arm as best she could with her depleted chakra reserves.

"That's as much as I can do for now." She said, stepping back and allowing Naruto to gingerly lift his arm off the table, flexing the muscle cautiously. "It's a shame you caught me at the end of my shift. I'd like to do more on it, but it was a pretty tough day and I'm running low on chakra. I'll go see if there's anyone else who can touch it up for you."

"Oh, don't worry, Sakura!" Naruto grinned, pointedly balling his hand into a fist and making punching motions in the air, ineffectually attempting to hide his winces as he did so. "You did awesome! I'll be fine from here."

Sakura raised an eyebrow, then leaned against the doorway with her arms crossed.

"Let me rephrase. Either I go get another medic to finish your treatment, or you spend the next week resting. And by resting, I mean no training. Not even push-ups, unless you want to risk your weakened bones shattering like glass." She lowered her voice slightly, but kept the sharp edge. "Even with your jinchuriki healing."

Naruto grimaced, not particularly liking either option, but evidently the thought of staying put for an entire week was out of the question.

"Aargh! Fine, then! Go get the mad scientists!"

"How courageous of you."

As Sakura went to leave, she paused by the doorway and looked over her shoulder.

"By the way, leave me out of a mission again and I will personally ensure that your next trip to the hospital will be particularly... unpleasant."

Being as late in the evening as it was, the only other medic currently available was Kyonoru, who was almost as tired as Sakura was and who paled at the thought of having to treat the boisterous Naruto, famous throughout the institute for his intolerance of doctors. He sighed as Sakura informed him of the Uzumaki's injury and need for further treatment.

"...Fine." He grumbled reluctantly. "But you'll need to watch the ANBU while I'm gone. He's got a fever now, and I was going to stay overnight to make sure he didn't... go too soon."

Sakura shook her head sympathetically. "After you're done with Naruto, go home. You need rest."

Kyonoru looked at her pointedly. "So do you." He replied quietly before heading down the corridor.

When he was out of sight, Sakura lowered herself into the chair beside her patient, exhaling as her strained muscles and mind finally untensed. As much as she didn't want to admit it, Kyonoru was right. She was overtaxing herself at the hospital, but as each shift had come and gone, Sakura had begun to dread returning home more than she had the exhausting lessons under Tsunade's tutelage. At work she felt more confident in herself than she could remember feeling anywhere else. Feeling important, indispensable even, was intoxicating. After experiencing that high, the mere thought of letting it go was terrifying.

Sakura pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to force herself to stay awake despite the chakra deprivation she knew she was suffering. As a distraction, she picked up the file that Kyonoru had left on the side table and began to leaf through it, vaguely hoping that the patient's records might hold some nugget of hope that he could pull through after all.

She skimmed the first page. Then the second.

Almost all the information on who she was treating was redacted.

"Fucking great." Sakura muttered.

It was not uncommon for some information on her patients of be classified. They were ninja, after all, and the ones that she ended up attending to nowadays tended to be the more serious cases and therefore the ninja were higher-ranked. It was vital for the security of their village that their spies and infiltrators keep their identities quiet. Sakura fully understood all of this. It didn't mean it wasn't bloody infuriating to deal with, though.

Sometimes, with some of the information that was kept from her, Sakura seriously wondered if someone in the upper chain wanted her patients dead.

The increasing irregularity in the ANBU's ragged breathing was what first alerted Sakura to the fact that her patient was waking up.

Sakura instantly shot upright, her eyes analyzing every tiny movement and fluttering eyelid of the battered ANBU as he gradually rose out of unconsciousness. Bruised veins twitched beneath his skin as he softly gasped in air. His hands twitched and curled around the bed sheets, as though in search for comfort.

Folding to the pressure of her conscience, Sakura pressed her own hand on top of his.

"Can you hear me?" She said softly, feeling his weakened but, for the moment, steady pulse.

The man exhaled, his eyes flicking open, roving sluggishly over his surroundings.

"...where..?"

"You're in Konoha, this is the hospital. Do you understand me?"

"...Hospi... Oh... No... I have to go..."

The man made a weak but earnest attempt to rise, one that probably would not have succeeded even without Sakura to hold him firmly to the bed.

"You are staying here. You're very ill."

The man seemed not to hear her, squirming uselessly under her hands.

"The mission... the mission..."

"Your mission is over now, okay?"

"Never over, always more... The black ops need me out there! No-one can know the truth about it."

Oh, man. He's not about to start spilling government secrets now, is he?

Yes. Yes, he was.

As much as Sakura tried to calm him, the words uncontrollably bubbled forth from the fevered mind.

"They'll know, they'll know! Lord Danzo said no-one was to know about the Uchiha. It would ruin everything!"

Sakura froze.

The... the Uchiha?

Sakura stood stock still as the nonsensical words drifted into her ears, making no further attempt to stop him.

"Must get the scroll back. Can't let them take the records... shouldn't even be records... stupid, stupid... the story should have died along with the clan."

What was he talking about? The clan? Is he talking about a secret of the entire clan, or a specific Uchiha?

Trying to keep all tremble out of her voice, Sakura leaned forwards and spoke softly, now very wary of the possibility of eavesdroppers.

"What records?"

"No one can know..."

"Then we have to get them back, right? What records?"

His eyes flickered with panic. "The massacre. When they all died. It has to be kept quiet why."

His voice was creaking, and his eyelids were drooping. He didn't have enough energy to spend on such a frantic, feverish rant, and it was already catching up to him.

Even knowing this, right now Sakura found herself in the unusual position of not caring very much.

"Why? What do you mean? What was the reason they were killed?"

"...Scroll must be retrieved, please. They'll kill me if... if it's not..."

"No, no, stay awake."

Sakura shook him as gently as she could manage in her anxious state.

"Talk to me. Please!"

It was useless. Even as she poured chakra into him, his eyes closed and he dropped back against the mattress as the tension drained from his limbs.

Sakura found herself unable to do much other than stare at the man's unconscious form, her mind blank with confusion and shock.

...Well, shit. What do we do with this?

Thank you for reading. I have a few Authors Notes to add on, if you're interested in such things.

- Currently intending for the pairings to be much the same as in canon. Though... there always remains the possibility of a bit of Ita/Saku, depending on the reviews and my own inclinations.

- I have slightly adjusted Sakura's abilities, as you may have noticed, not least because her eventual Akatsuki membership requires her to demonstrate a level of power that canon Sakura never quite managed at this stage. I intend to have her branch out even further as the story progresses, so she becomes something more interesting than simply a 'second Tsunade'.

- I'll be honest, regular updates are... not my strong suit. But I've loved writing this fic so far, and I've got a far more detailed plan for it than I've had for anything else, so if there's anything of mine that I'll come back to, it's this.