FANDOM & CATEGORY - Naruto / dark-suspense-romance
PAIRING(S) - Sakura/Kakashi. Some totally non-sexual strains of "We're just friends!" Kiba/Sakura. Yeah, right.
WARNINGS - Gore, death, sexual innuendo, torture, drug abuse.
SUMMARY - It began with a hostage recovery mission. It ended in bloodshed and death. Caught in a circle of missing medications, her companions dead for mysterious reasons, Sakura means to get to the bottom of everything, even if she has to sacrifice what little remains of her sanity to do so. Dignity - what's this thing called dignity?
DISCLAIMER: Bob made me do it.

ADDITIONAL NOTES: Flashbacks are done in italics. And, yes, these flashbacks are quite long sometimes.

The tiny vials, each no larger than the thumb of a man, for certainly her hands were smaller than most and therefore not a good comparison, were filled with liquids that changed crystalline color when viewed from different angles. They were lined together in the blue velvet-lined box like so many gaily-attired ninjas eagerly awaiting orders, all accounted for but the six missing indents on the lower left corner. The ornate kanji for her name and occupation were scribed across the lid of the box, the buckles a gleaming brass and the lock new. She had the only key, but the scratches around the keyhole were quite informative.

Someone had been in her supplies.

Someone had stolen her goods.

It was more than someone taking the knife already plunged her chest and twisting it. This was like packing salt and lime into her fresh wounds and grinding.

Sakura's lips pursed and her brow wrinkled as she pulled a notepad from the pocket of her gray fatigues. She flipped through dog-eared pages, her eyes scanning names and dates, until she reached the pages marked for Schedule II drugs. Under the entry for methercyclinamphetamine were only a few lines, since she so rarely used it.

#1: 1/24, Yamanaka I – concussion, 4 broken intercostals, punctured L lung

#2: 4/07, Takahashi, T – shattered R humerus, est. 10% blood loss

#3: 6/11, Kobayashi H - collapsed R lung, 40% damage to L medial aspect thigh.

#4: 6/11, Tanaka, G – L paralysis

The entries were written neatly, although the upper corner of the first name was smeared with a dark brown substance that flecked away when she absently scratched it with a chipped thumbnail. None existed after #4. Each time Sakura was forced to use what Naruto facetiously called "SupaBoostas" to give severely injured ninjas something to dull the pain, increase reaction time, and flood the body with adrenaline, she had always been sure to mark down when, where, who, and what for. Methercyclinamphetamine was harsh on the body and usually worsened the damage already accrued. It was to be given only in dire situations when the alternative of going without threatened to be far more disastrous. The medical council had been trying to pull its use for the past three years, but there was nothing that could fill its place.

But two in her personal supplies were missing, against all reason and wonder. Schedule II. Easily abused; quite addictive. An amphetamine, which made everything worse. Sakura could recall only a half-dozen med-nins trusted enough to keep a number amongst their personal supplies, and she was one of them.

Someone had destroyed the good faith and deep trust Tsunade had placed in her.

Chewing on the bottom of her lip, Sakura turned to the loose-leafed pages that lay beside the box and wrote down the batch number and the amount missing. It was at the bottom of an already-long list, and just another thing to take note after her searching. She wasn't too sure how long she had been searching; time was an unmoving as Sasuke's determination, and she had lost track. All she knew was the driving, unrelenting need to know how much and, even more importantly, why.

"Surely," a voice said from her left, "you had enough information to present your case of sabotage and theft oh, six pages and twelve hours ago. Perhaps even twenty-four hours ago?" Sakura didn't need to look at the voice to know it belonged to Kiba. She didn't need to see him leaning nonchalantly against the wall, his arms crossed before his chest and a twisted smile on his face that hinted of fang and wicked humor.

"You know me," she whispered as she closed the box and set it carefully on top of the stack of other supplies. "Careful and complete."

"Do I," he said sardonically, "it's in your job description."

Sakura looked up sharply, a prickly retort on her lips, but all that stood to her left was a shelf of IV equipment and a coat rack. She saw her reflection in the mirror; what skin wasn't covered with abrasions and purplish-black bruises was pale. Dark rings circled beneath her slightly-unfocused eyes while a thick bandage was wrapped around her head. She had a migraine, an invasive pressure in her skulls that seemed like a vise opening outward, but she was ignoring that. Her entire body was stiff and aching, and no doubt she was in far more pain than she realized. Thank the heavens for this lovely thing called morphine, for which she had a very legitimate prescription.

With a shrug of her shoulders, she resumed her investigation.

oOoOoOo

Sakura had checked her medical supplies the night before, when she had received the orders to accompany Kiba's team on an information reconnaissance/hostage rescue. The Hokage fully expected the hostages to need medical help, since their captors were well-known for their cruel captivity. She felt no need to double-check her medical supplies as she added supplies that didn't ordinarily accompany the med-nin's kit.

Sakura rummaged through the medical cupboard's cabinet, signing off for each case she grabbed. Pain medications, antibiotics, several packs of syringes. With a wince of regret, Sakura also grabbed a contraceptive/abortion kit. She scanned the contents of the cupboard, mentally cataloguing what she currently possessed to every possibility. Just because she always felt surer of herself when she was over-prepared, Sakura added more bandages and syringes.

It took only a few moments to secure everything in her backpack before she locked up the cabinets and backed out of the storage room. She locked the door behind herself and started down the hospital's hallway. She bumped shoulders against a newly-graduated med-nin, Watanabe Haya. Watanabe gave Sakura a nervous smile. Sakura smiled back with more self-assurance.

Her steps echoed through the pristine white halls that smelled slightly of disinfectant and newly waxed floors. Sakura had walked these halls many times for the past eight years. Four years had been spent learning what she needed; two training under Tsunade, two in medical skills to get all the technicalities Tsunade always assured her she could pick up without a problem. The last four years she was either leaving the hospital from a mission's results, or entering for preparation of the next. Sakura could recall with clarity the first dozen or so missions after her graduation, but they all started to blur altogether after that, each becoming like the next, only with different faces and different injuries.

The only way she could tell the difference was the scars. Due to her higher skills and aptitude for healing, Sakura often accompanied the more skilled ninjas on the more dangerous missions. Only a select score of ninjas had the skills and experience needed for such missions, and the faces never really changed; they just faded into the backdrop of memory, and it was only by the scars they bore on body and soul that she truly recognized them. Each scar for an adventure; each adventure with a mishap; each mishap cared for by her hands and her skills.

Now she was outside. The weather man had said there was an 80 percent chance of sunshine; Naruto declared that meant the weatherman had a 20 percent chance of being correct, and then insisted she bring an umbrella.

Naruto, Sakura realized as she lingered beneath the curving eaves, had been 100 percent correct. It was only a small shower though, a little sprinkling that left a mottled pattern on the dusty roads and beads of crystalline moisture on the faded foliage. No need for the umbrella; it wasn't as if she'd have enough time to take a shower when she arrived at her flat. Kiba had a habit of having the team assembled and ready to depart at the ungodly morning hour of four.

Sakura's steps were quick and sure; not a movement was wasted as she weaved an awkward pattern through Konoha. The rain stopped falling half-way before her hair could become more than a little damp. She nodded her head in passing at those ninjas she had treated before. Most of them she had been called to help in emergencies that exceeded their skills or knowledge, she being near their position at the time. Some she had been on missions with, but none who would be accompanying her tomorrow.

The eight years had passed quickly. Eight hours would be gone in a blink of an eye …

oOoOoOo

When all was said and done, Sakura's panic levels had gone so far off the deep end that she had reached that state of mind, that sense of zen, where everything was crystal clear but the soul as fragile as the situation. It wasn't just her own supplies that bits and pieces were missing from, but also three other med-nins she had chosen to randomly search, all four supply closets, and the stores in Hinata's office.

"Makes you wonder," Kiba said from where he sat cross-legged on the ceiling. The light from the near-by bulb threw no shadow.

Sakura's bound right arm had begun trembling when she finished cataloguing. Sakura tilted her head back and took a deep breath to calm her nerves. The ocean of panic that threatened to drown her was still for a moment, but anything could send a tsunami crashing down on her. Only the pain that was so invasive and so prevalent ground her to the world and kept the events from washing her from that desperately-clung precipice.

"I mean, what's the point to stealing these drugs when they mean the difference between life and death?" Sakura bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, but Kiba continued blissfully onward. "It would have to be another med-nin. They are the only ones with keys to everything. Even the suppliers don't have access to your personal kits."

"But neither do other med-nins."

"Hinata."

"She wouldn't."

Kiba remained silent at that. With her free hand, Sakura clumsily folded the paper three times, and then tucked it into her sling. She scooted her chair backwards before standing. At the movement of her chair, Akamaru, who was curled up beside the closed door, looked up from where his head rested between two massive paws. She paused for a breath at the doorway, leaning against the jam with her eyes shut tight against the suddenly sweep of vertigo.

"Breathe through your nose; it might help," Kiba said helpfully.

"Who's the med-nin here?" Sakura asked through gritted teeth. Her white-knuckled grip on the doorway tightened. She pushed away, straightened her shoulders, and then dragged the door open. "Let's go." Kiba dropped from the ceiling and landed soundlessly on the floor behind. He fell into step with Sakura, continuing his monologue of suspicions. Having listened to it from the moment she had stormed from the hospital, prescriptions clutched closely to her chest, Sakura had grown quite used to Kiba's companionship.

She should wait before telling Tsunade and the council. She should get some sleep because she had been running for what seemed an eternity, since the caves. Since –

"No," she said out loud against that line of thought. Akamaru came up short with a small growl. "Ah," she said as she rested her hand on his head. "Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you." She made her way to the stairwell. Each step seemed like she was dragging her feet through molasses, or at least Naruto hanging on her legs, begging for another date. Good grief - give in one time, present an inch, and Naruto will run amok with a few miles. Sakura shouldered her way through the doors. Gripping the railing with her good hand, which rolled and curled beneath her touch, and Akamaru trailing at her heels, Sakura inched down the stairs, one painful step at a time. Four steps from the top, she cried and arched her back as sharp pain lanced from the base of her spine through one buttock and twined downward to her ankle.

"Hey, slowpoke," Kiba said at the bottom just before the door. His hands were tucked in his pockets as he gazed up at her with a frown of concern. "You keep pushing yourself like this, and not only will you hit the wall with a dull splat, but the wall's going to crumble and collapse on top of you!"

The remaining stairs before Sakura blurred, warped, and then suddenly gave out from beneath her. Sakura screamed as she plummeted downward, jagged spikes with gleaming green points rising from the abyss. One spike slit open her leg from ankle to buttock, pain throbbing in fresh waves and blood streaming like a waterfall to wash away the stains of disease and impurity. She fell downward, and marveled at her blood gushing over Kiba, washing away his own wounds and losses until the only color that remained of his self were the dark lines indicating where he stood.

"Sakura!" Kiba's white arms stretched across the abyss and looped themselves around her waist as if made of rubber. His face was suddenly pressed against hers, a bandage strapped across his mouth and a kunai buried to the hilt in the socket of his ruined eye, darkness lurking just beyond.

"I'm sorry!" Sakura cried, flailing against reality. She reached up and yanked the kunai free, only to find that the weapon had morphed into a forehead protector in her hand, and two eyes, unmatched and widened in surprise, staring intently at her. "Oh." The sharingan caught her attention for a moment, whirling around like a spinning coin of ruby, and then she jerked her head, startled back into her wits once more at the sound of her name in a voice that was not Kiba's.

"Sakura, haven't you gotten any rest?" Kakashi asked in concern. "You're so exhausted you're falling over your own two feet."

It took a moment for Sakura to realize that Kakashi was holding her up, one arm hooked around her waist, her body pressed up against his own for balance. He wasn't even supposed to be up! "Why are you out of bed?" Sakura demanded hotly. The simmering flash of anger she felt awoke something perceptible and familiar within. This was familiar ground; she could handle difficult patients who ignored orders. "You sh-shouldn't be moving around with your wounds!"

One silver eyebrow went upward languidly. "And what of you? I fulfilled my forty-eight hour observation."

"Nor should you be doing any physical labor! Lifting greater than ten kilograms is a no-no and – and – forty-eight hours?" Sakura's vision blurred and skewed. Light ricocheted from Kakashi's sharingan, and his face shattered into a kaleidoscope of pale colors and bizarre shapes. Oooh, pretty.

"Sakura, we've been in Konoha for seventy-six hours. Have you gotten any sleep?"

"Hah!" A small weight fell upon Sakura's shoulder, and she turned to look at it. A mini-Kiba the size of her fist sat upon her shoulder, a pair of feathered wings sprouting from his back and a halo crookedly perching on his mussed hair. "See, if you had gotten to bed when I told you, then your old sensei wouldn't be scolding you."

"He's not scolding you," Kiba said from the other shoulder, and she turned her gaze upon him. A pair of lopsided horns peaked through his hair. He seemed to be leisurely swinging a forked tail. "At least, not yet. Give him three more sentences." He held up four fingers.

"Sakura," said Kakashi again, pulling Sakura toward him. "Off to bed you go."

"I can't!" Sakura tried to pull away before she realized that Kakashi was picking her up. With a squeak of dismay, she dropped his forehead protector, sending it bouncing down the stairs, and grabbed his arm firmly with her good arm. In a mere moment he had gently set her on the ground beside the exit door. He snapped the door open and propped it still with a firmly-planted foot.

"Don't make me toad-march you to the hospital for your forty-eight hours of observation," Kakashi said as he stooped and grabbed his forehead protector. "I'm not supposed to be doing any physical labor, remember?"

"Wh-what? Oh."

"There," said the horned Kiba. "You see? In order for Kakashi to be a good patient, you must do as you're told."

"But what about all your work?" asked the winged Kiba. "What if he steals your hard work? All those hours spent finding out what's missing to be presented to Tsunade and the rest of the medical council, and he could take it! Don't put it past him, you can't trust anyone except Akamaru."

"Here now," said the other Kiba with a snarl as he jumped to his feet. "Are you calling Kakashi a liar? Sakura's own sensei wouldn't do that to her!"

"Oh, you say that now." The winged Kiba waved away the protest with a flippant hand. "We also said Sakura's own teammates wouldn't betray her. And look at what happened to wuzhisname - a bloodthirsty avenger with a poor sense of sanity!"

"Sasuke?" Sakura asked helpfully, bemused at how her split conscious had mixed up their roles of bad and good; she wondered if they realized they missed the memo.

"The poor boy is merely misunderstood," the horned Kiba said. There was a moment of thought among the three.

"Are we talking about the same Sasuke?" the winged Kiba asked with a bewildered expression. Sakura wondered the same thing herself as the ground moved.

"No!" She grabbed the most stable thing within reach, and found it with Kakashi's vest. The ground stopped moving, and she took a deep breath to calm herself. She found the bickering between Kiba and, well, Kiba to be woefully familiar, and while her chest ached with something greater than physical pain, it was also a comfort that spread over her panic-stretched nerves like a soothing balm.

"Ah, Sakura?" Kakashi asked. Sakura jerked, sending the two Kibas tumbling from her shoulders.

"Yes?" she asked, peering upward, past his eyes, past his hair, into the ceiling that was fading away into a clear midnight sky.

"Come rest."

"Not yet." She tried to push herself away from him. "There is something I must yet do. Th-the council must know of my f-findings before it's too late."

"Sakura, you'll do everyone, including yourself, more harm."

"I, I can't."

Kakashi sighed, and suddenly looked wearier than she felt. The pain in her chest increased; what sort of med-nin was she, to be so difficult? She was always complaining of how no one listened to her, but the example she held up for herself was what not to do. "A compromise," he said at last as he rubbed his temples. "I'll take you to the lounge where you can catch a quick nap on one of the couches."

"Oh." That, she thought, was a fairly reasonable compromise. "Just a qu-quick cat nap," she said.

"Just," he confirmed. He carefully wrapped one hand around her elbow and steered her through the doorway and down the hall. Step step clack. Step step clack. Sakura looked around for the annoying clack that followed trhem. The floor beneath tilted her into Kakashi. He stopped as she stopped; both reasserted their balance. Her eyes trained on the floor, Sakura caught a glimpse of a long, slim tree growing beside Kakashi. How odd.

After a moment, she pushed away from Kakashi. "I'm all right," she said assuredly. He studied her for a moment, his sharingan once more hidden behind his forehead protector.

It took them a fair bit of time to navigate the hallways, Sakura leaning against Kakashi more and more often, little Kibas clinging to her feet and chanting, "Faster! Faster!" in squeaky voices. She didn't even notice when Kakashi led her into a room and was pushing her against a couch.

"Sakura, you must bend your knees," Kakashi said with a glint of humor in his eyes. She glared at him suspiciously as she forced her stiffened joints to unlock. She sank onto the couch, and then screamed and flailed her arm when the cushions rose up to engulf her. The couch! The couch was a Sakura-consuming monster!

"S-Sakura!" Kakashi grabbed the flailing arm and held it steadily in his hand, his grip strong and sure. Sakura took a deep breath and held it, focusing on the hand as a lifeline. Her vision became amazingly clear, after being skewed and blurry for so long. She could make out every line and scar on the back of his hand; could trace the web of blue veins that spread across the back, noticed valleys and tiny hairs. She could faintly imagine the pulse of blood through arteries and arterioles, and instantly her mind knew which ones to cut that could cause death if no one interfered with its bleeding. Instantly, she felt ashamed of herself for such thoughts; this was the anchor that kept her head above foam and cloth, a teacher, a friend, a fellow fighter.

Slowly, the cushions receded back into place. She lifted her eyes from Kakashi's hand and met his own, filled with worry as he studied her face. "Don't let me go," she whispered with a shaky voice, her own desperate clutch upon his life, his stability, his past and his future and his all, the only thing that kept the vast ocean of panic from sucking her under into its murky depths.

"Never," he replied softly with a firm nod of his head.

"Good." Carefully, without releasing Kakashi's hand, Sakura leaned to the side and swung her feet up to the couch. Her weight rested against her bound arm, but the dull ache was nothing compared to the deep, settled ache in her pelvis and the slicing pain that pulsated from buttock to ankle. A blur of red entered the range of her vision. Sakura's gaze focused upon it, and Akamaru came floating into view, every hair of his fur etched in sharp clarity.

"Get some sleep," Akamaru said in Inner Sakura's voice. For the first time since she had started her search, tears welled up in Sakura's eyes.

"Why did you leave me?" she asked Inner Sakura. "Where are you when I need you?"

"Sleep," Inner Sakura said more firmly, Akamaru's muzzle moving with each word. "All will be clearer in the morning. I shall stay here with Kakashi and guard you against rabid cupcakes."

"I fear no cupcakes!" Sakura declared bravely.

"Oh, believe me, these rabid cupcakes are no ordinary confections." The dragging weight spread from her legs to her chest and then her eyes. With a wicked cackle, the weight invaded her eyelids, and Sakura embraced the darkness that came after.

Author's note and glossary

#1: Drugs are divided into different "schedules" based completely off of how addictive/dangerous the drug is. Schedule V drugs are the safest by way of toxicity/overdose/side effects, and are usually available over the counter (OTC). Drugs included in this schedule would be aspirin, ibuprofen, Tums, etc. Anything else not a Schedule V must be obtained by prescription. Schedule II drugs are the most lethal/addictive/dangerous, and are often tightly monitored by more than just the doctor. Examples include any of the amphetamine/amphetamide drugs. Schedule I drugs are drugs that are highly addictive, incredibly dangerous, and are illegal as hell to own - like heroin. Marijuana is lumped under this category as well, and I won't go into that, because people don't need to see me up on my soap box.

#2: Methercyclinamphetamine does not actually exist; merely note the last part of the word though.