Chapter Seven

Transcension

Upon beholding the Konohagakure Community Hospital for the first time, Sakura felt a certain amount of shame on behalf of her own village. The building was twice the size of Iwa's hospital, and there wasn't a crumbling brick or a spot of mildew in sight. The entire facility was perfectly clean, freshly painted, and fully staffed, in stark contrast to the hospital Sakura had spent the majority of her adolescence working in.

In fact, the whole of the village was large, prosperous and beautiful, so far as the kunoichi could tell—it was certainly a more cheerful place than Iwa, as loathe as she was to admit any inferiority to Leaf.

Upon arriving at the front gates of the village, Sakura had quickly been more securely bound—with a chakra-inhibitor that was more restrictive than the thin paper bracelet that had almost allowed her escape—and handed off to a second squadron of ANBU. If Konoha's protocol for returning platoons was anything like Iwa's, the young woman guessed that Hatake's squad was headed to the Hokage's office for a debriefing.

Instead of leading her to a prison cell at Konoha's ANBU headquarters, Sakura had been equal parts surprised and non-plussed when the squadron had escorted her directly to the village hospital.

As they passed through the glass doors at the front of the building, Sakura was overwhelmed with the nostalgic sensation of cool, antiseptic-scented air washing over her. She swept her gaze around the waiting room, noting that it was empty of patients—unsurprising, seeing as how it was one in the afternoon, and she assumed that this was the civilian wing of the hospital. Even the reception desk was empty, which Sakura found somewhat suspicious. Even if this was the civilian sector of the building, and it was the middle of the afternoon, the desk should have been manned at all times.

Her observations were interrupted by the approach of a stunning blonde woman whom Sakura immediately recognized, not only from her Bingo Book page, but from countless hours studying medical techniques. The kunoichi felt her breath leave her and her knees go weak, as she beheld the woman whom she had idolized for the majority of her youth.

The Sannin Tsunade may have been a Konoha shinobi, but she was renowned throughout all the elemental nations as the greatest medical ninja of all time. She had pioneered dozens—perhaps even hundreds—of innovative and revolutionary techniques, and had practically rebuilt Konoha's medical program from the ground up. She and Sakura may have been on different sides of a war, but that didn't stop the younger kunoichi from worshiping the ground Senju Tsunade walked on.

As the ANBU took a step back, allowing Sakura to come face-to-face with the famous kunoichi, Tsunade pursed her crimson lips and cast the younger woman a cool look.

"You have been brought to Konoha at my request, Haruno Sakura." She said, her tone frosty and her amber eyes bordering on arctic.

Sakura's own eyes narrowed, as her formidable intellect attempted to puzzle out this statement. She wasn't left in curiosity long, as Tsunade's next words clarified many of the mysteries Sakura had been attempting to solve over the past few days.

"I require firsthand information from a qualified medical ninja of Iwagakure."

As she said this, the Sannin waved a hand at the ANBU squadron in an obvious dismissal. When Sakura didn't feel their chakra signatures disappear immediately, she glanced over her shoulder to see that the platoon was still standing behind her.

"Tsunade-Hime, we are under strict orders from Hokage-sama not to allow the prisoner out of our sight while she is within the village walls." The captain replied uneasily.

Tsunade's eyebrows clashed together like thunderbolts, and the atmosphere in the waiting room grew uncomfortably strained.

"This is my hospital, and I won't have a bunch of cloak-and-dagger buffoons wandering around disturbing the patients!" She snapped, her tone brooking no argument.

The ANBU all shifted apprehensively, and after a moment of charged silence, the captain gave ground.

"As you wish, Hime. We will be stationed outside the hospital entrance."

With that, the signatures all flickered away, and the two kunoichi were left alone in the hospital waiting room.

It took all of the young woman's formidable will to meet Tsunade's calculating stare, and to not fidget under the scrutiny of arguably the most powerful kunoichi in the world.

"Come with me." She said at last, abruptly breaking the silence and turning on her heel to head off towards a set of doors marked 'employees only'.

Sakura cautiously followed, falling in step with the older woman as they headed down a mostly-empty hallway towards what she guessed to be the hospital's research laboratories.

"You're obviously the most qualified medical shinobi in Iwa, which is why I requested you specifically." Tsunade said, her tone brisk and clipped to match her pace. "I assure you that your cooperation in this matter is not optional."

Sakura's mouth tightened at the blatant threat, but she said nothing in response. The fact that Tsunade had 'requested her specifically' implied that the Konoha shinobi had been tracking her for some time before her capture, and that the events of the past few weeks—as random as they had seemed—had been orchestrated. This realization made Sakura burn with anger; the fact that she had been manipulated so easily by her enemies...had Magumi and his children been but a ploy to corner Sakura in the right place at the right time?

For every question that Tsunade had just answered, Sakura could think of a dozen more.

Her racing thoughts were quieted somewhat as they entered the laboratories, and she once more felt shame for the state of Iwa's facilities; these labs were state-of-the-art, and although the one Tsunade had led her to was empty, the room showed signs of recent use, and the pink-haired kunoichi couldn't help but feel jealous of a village that had fully-staffed research and medical facilities.

Tsunade crossed the room to a set of filing cabinets, and after a moment withdrew a thin manila folder, labeled with a crimson sticker proclaiming the sensitive nature of the documents inside.

"I want you to tell me everything you know about this new strain of venom Iwa shinobi are coating their kunai with, and I want an antidote." The woman proclaimed, without preamble, as she shoved the folder at Sakura.

The kunoichi's brilliant green eyes widened, as she flicked through the documents in the folder. From what she could gather from a quick scan, over forty shinobi had been admitted to Konoha's hospital in the past month with cases of poisoning. All of the shinobi had been cut with kunai belonging to Iwa ninja, and their symptoms were identical—vivid hallucinations, similar in effect to a potent genjutsu, followed by paralysis, seizures, and death within twenty-four hours. So far no headway had been made by Konoha's medical personnel in identifying the poison or its antidote.

As she read over the symptoms, Sakura pursed her lips and shook her head absently. Of course, to really get a reading on the poison and its effects, she would have to examine an affected patient, but so far as she could tell, she had never come across this particular toxin before. Not that she would supply Konoha with the desired information, even if she had had it.

"I've never seen a poison with the described effects." She said at last.

Tsunade's expression became thunderous.

"I have ways of getting the truth out of you, Haruno. If you don't supply us with the antidote, the gloves will come off."

Sakura suddenly felt very tired. Not just from the strain of the past week—though that was considerable—but tired in the bone-deep, aching kind of way that made her just want to curl up and sleep until all her problems went away.

Her proudly-erect posture slumped slightly, and a single dirty and nicked hand moved to massage her temples.

"I don't give a shit what you do to me. You can torture me for weeks, months, years; and it won't change the fact that I don't have any better idea than you of what this poison is."

Tsunade's forbidding expression faltered slightly, and she seemed slightly put-off by the Iwa kunoichi's obvious sincerity. But after a moment her resolve—and her amber eyes—hardened, and lightning-fast her hand reached out to clamp around Sakura's upper arm.

"I don't believe you. You are the foremost medical ninja in your village; you should have intimate knowledge of all poisons in common use among the shinobi of Iwa, particularly as an ANBU operative."

Sakura shook her head in silent denial, even as she allowed herself to be practically dragged out of the laboratory and back towards the front doors—and the ANBU squadron waiting there.

"You will assist us in formulating an antidote." Tsunade said, even as she deposited Sakura with the captain, who had come to attention at the slug summoner's appearance.

Sakura almost wanted to laugh—if Konoha's greatest medics couldn't come up with an antidote, what made them think an Iwa shinobi would be able to? She had just as much foreknowledge of the poison as Tsunade and her team did, and if Sakura was being honest—which injured her pride immensely—Konoha's medical team was far superior to Iwa's. But she remained silent, merely shaking her head in a silent denial.

"Take her to ANBU HQ, but don't hand her over to T&I. Yet."

And with that, the legendary kunoichi turned on her heel and swept back into the hospital, the glass doors slamming shut behind her.

Sakura looked up from the list she was formulating, and leveled a glare at the Konoha medical technician standing across the table from her. The woman quailed slightly beneath the kunoichi's unblinking stare, and looked unabashedly grateful that Sakura was chained to the laboratory table.

"It's been six hours. I'm thirsty." She said abruptly, setting her pen down on the table with a 'clack'.

The woman swallowed heavily, before bobbing her head in a nervous gesture of ascent.

"I will be right back, Haruno-san." She said quietly, before striding out of the lab, obviously grateful to be removed from Sakura's presence.

After a fitful—but undisturbed—night of sleep at ANBU HQ, Sakura had been roused at the crack of dawn and 'escorted' to the hospital, where several members of Tsunade's team had been waiting for her. They informed her that the princess had 'requested' that she formulate a list of all toxins used by Iwa shinobi with effects similar to the ones described. Sakura had agreed readily enough; after all, Konoha was aware of nearly all the poisons exclusive to her village, at this point.

The medics had so far denied her request to see one of the affected patients. Sakura had fought to keep her temper in check over the refusal, but after a few moments realized that Konoha was the only party with anything to lose by withholding information. And so here she sat, formulating a list of poisons that was no doubt already securely ensconced within Konoha's intelligence database.

Two minutes and another half-sheet of paper later, Sakura set her pen down on the laboratory table and stood up, stretching out her legs and suppressing a yawn. She attempted to roll her shoulders, as well, but the metal cuff chaining her to the table restricted this movement. Shooting the chain a venomous look, she was moving to sit back down, when a vial sitting on a rack across the table caught her attention.

Her cat-like eyes quickly flew to the label on the vial, and a wide grin spread across her face. Hydrofluoric acid. Shooting a covert look at the laboratory doors, the kunoichi wasted no time in making a grab for the vial. She winced as the reach forced her to chafe her wrist against the handcuff, but she didn't stop straining. Just a centimeter further...!

And then suddenly her fingers were wrapped around the vial, and she had the bottle of acid. Carefully, she eased the cork off, and drawing the chain taught—she didn't want her hand anywhere near the contents of the bottle—the young woman carefully dribbled a sizable amount of acid over the chain of the handcuff.

The acrid scent that suddenly filled the lab was nearly unbearable, and Sakura had to fight not to gag, even as the acid quickly and efficiently ate away at the metal. The excess fluid had dripped off of the chain and onto the floor, and Sakura absently noted to smoking hole that was beginning to form in the tiles. After a few moments longer, the kunoichi gave the chain an experimental tug, and was delighted when the severely weakened metal snapped, allowing her to step away from the table.

Wasting no time, she grabbed a lab coat which one of the technicians had left draped across a desk chair, and threw it on, buttoning the jacket up all the way to conceal her dirty and blood-smeared ANBU uniform. Then she grabbed the clipboard the technician had left behind and strode confidently out of the laboratory.

To her immense relief, she didn't encounter any technicians or nurses on her way out of the research wing. She had just reached the beginning of the ER wing—which she knew from careful observation had a service door leading outside—when she was confronted with the familiar sight of three nurses and a medic racing down the hall, pulling on gloves and surgery masks.

"Sensei! You're needed in operation room 2209!" One of the nurses exclaimed. "We've got an injured ANBU platoon, and one of them in critical condition from Unknown Toxin 417."

Sakura froze, eyes wide. The kunoichi in her was screaming at her to knock out the nurses and the medic and make a break for the service door. But the clinical researcher in her was screaming at her to haul ass to operation room 2209, and observe the effects of Unknown Toxin 417—aka the whole reason she was in this mess in the first place. It was the human being in her that broke her indecision at last; she was a medic, and medics were meant to save lives. The fact that those lives belonged to Konoha shinobi was something she could disregard. For now.

"Lead the way." She said at last, attempted to exude confidence even as the nurse handed her a set of gloves and a surgical mask.

As it turned out, operation room 2209 was just around the corner. When Sakura stepped into the room, she immediately felt what was left of her reservations fall away; she was in her element, and it didn't matter that she was technically a prisoner of war in hostile territory.

Crossing to the nearest operating table, where a wheezing ANBU was being hooked up to an IV drip and heart monitor by several frantically-working nurses, she removed the man's mask and checked his vitals.

"Blood pressure reading?" She snapped at one of the nurses.

"Sixty over forty, and dropping fast." The woman gasped, sweat beading at her brows even as she and another nurse applied pressure to a wide slash on the ANBU's shoulder.

Sakura nodded and removed her gloves, green medical chakra already gathering in her palms. She nearly grinned at the sensation, after the past two days of having her abilities suppressed.

It only took a little under ten minutes to heal all of the shinobi's injuries, and Sakura slowly let up on the input of chakra, even as she nudged his red blood cells to begin reproducing more quickly.

"Patient is in stable condition, Sensei." One of the nurses proclaimed, even as the ANBU's heartbeat steadied on the monitor, and his blood pressure began to return to normal.

"The other squad members?" She inquired, accepting the chakra-replenishing pill one of the nurses handed her.

"They're being attended by several chunin medics in room 2208, Sensei, but they will need you in room 2210. The patient has been hit with Unknown Toxin 417."

Sakura nodded, and quickly made her way to a door on the left side of the room which she could only pray led to room 2210; it would seem suspicious, no doubt, if a doctor who supposedly worked at this hospital didn't know where anything was.

Upon stepping across the threshold of the room, Sakura immediately knew that she was in the right place; the smell of blood was heavy in the air, accompanied by the erratic beeps of a heart monitor and the frantic chatter of the nurses and medics crowded around the operating table.

She moved over to the table, already eying the patient with a clinical eye. His mask had been removed, and Sakura noted that he had the trademark dark features and aristocratic looks of an Uchiha. This place was simply crawling with them, she observed dryly. He was perspiring heavily, and as she watched, his eyes rolled back in his head and he released a blood-curdling scream.

As two of the chunin medics struggled to hold him in place as he thrashed, one of the nurses handed Sakura a syringe filled with what she assumed was a sedative. Even as she pushed up his sleeve and inserted the needle with the ease of long practice, the man's dark eyes focused on her face, and she was disconcerted when tears began pouring out of his eyes.

"Dad, please don't hurt her..." He croaked, his eyes cloudy and his mind obviously somewhere else. "Please!" He sobbed, trembling and thrashing even as the chunin struggled to restrain him.

In less than a minute the sedative came into effect, and the ANBU slumped down onto the operating table, his eyes sliding shut. Pale, her mouth clamped in a thin line, Sakura proceeded to flush his body with a diagnostic, and to close up all of his wounds, including the poison's entrance-point. She didn't recognize the toxin coursing through his blood, and without an antidote there was really nothing more to be done.

She stepped away from the table, sighing.

''There's not much more to be done." She said, and the two medics nodded in agreement.

Just as Sakura was about to request a blood sample from the injured shinobi, the doors to the operation room slammed open to admit an infuriated Tsunade, flanked by two ANBU. Immediately, the two shinobi lunged for Sakura, and she only managed to evade them by ducking lightning-fast onto the other side of the operating table.

"Watch it, morons! This is a hospital, not a battle ground!" She roared, ignoring the fact that she had no jurisdiction here as a shinobi or a medical professional. Retreating behind the persona of a medic caring for her patient was comforting. "You'll upset the patient's stability!"

The nurses had all scattered to the corners of the room, pale and frightened. They seemed entirely confused, their eyes darting back and forth between Sakura, the ANBU, and a fuming Tsunade. The blonde woman looked about ready to rupture a blood vessel, but when the ANBU made to attempt a second attack, she held up a hand.

"No!" She barked, and the men immediately stilled. Her amber eyes zeroed in on Sakura, the the pink-haired woman had to struggle not to take a step back. "Haruno. Outside. Now."

"Um..." One of the braver nurses asserted herself then. "There are still a few minor abrasions that need attending to, Tsunade-hime. Ah...it would be best if Haruno-sensei were to stay here..."

"Haruno-sensei?"

Tsunade swept her eyes up and down Sakura's form, and her face grew even more clouded with rage—if this was actually possible—when she took note of the pilfered lab jacket.

"Pah. Fine, but make it quick, if you please, Sensei."

Sakura swallowed heavily, and still eying the two ANBU warily, moved closer to the operating table so she could continue treating their comrade. The heavy gazes of the shinobi, plus the sannin, were enough to make Sakura sweat, as she proceeded to close up the remaining minor abrasions. Within a minute, she was finished, and she stepped back from the table. A tiny amount of tension in the room drained away.

Sakura had to keep from scoffing, then. Did they really think she would go to all the trouble of bringing this poor bastard back from the brink of death, only to injure or kill him? Ridiculous. As the nurses and chunin medics all converged on the table to take blood samples and attempted to make the patient as comfortable as possible, Sakura felt a hand close around her elbow, and swiveled her head to glare at the ANBU now grasping her arm, even as he frog-marched her out of the operating room.

With a jolt, she recognized the pattern on the ANBU's mask, and realized that he was none other than Captain Hatake. Muttering obscenities to herself, Sakura unwillingly made her way into the hall outside the operating room. A moment later, Tsunade and the second ANBU had joined them.

"Inform the platoons that the prisoner has been apprehended." The blonde ordered, and the ANBU closest to her nodded and disappeared in a swirl of leaves, causing the blonde to make an irritated noise about the mess left on the floor.

Then, Sakura had Tsunade's full attention, as the sannin crossed her arms and turned to face the younger kunoichi. The rage was gone from her face, replaced by a much more perplexing expression; after a moment of thought, Sakura labeled it as 'evaluating'

"So, do you always waltz around enemy villages healing injured shinobi? Or is this a new hobby?" She said at last, one eyebrow quirked in a manner that was at once questioning and forbidding.

Sakura didn't deign to respond, instead focusing on shaking Hatake's grip off her arm, glaring as she did so. He willingly released his grip, but not before allowing his fingers to whisper down the bare skin of her wrist in a millisecond long moment in which Sakura found herself breathless.

To hide the fact that his unexpected—and highly disturbing—action had ruffled her, she only increased the viciousness of her glare. He was obviously attempting to mess with her head.

Well, Sakura thought vindictively, it wasn't going to work. She had experience with people who played mindgames, and she wasn't going to fall for any of his.

The blonde kunoichi seemed to have missed this fleeting exchange, because she was still staring expectantly at the young woman across from her. Sakura sighed. There was no point in lying.

"I was attempting escape." She growled, with the concise efficiency of a person used to giving official reports. "I was almost out of the ER wing when I ran into a nurse who said there was an injured platoon that had been brought in, so I came here and healed the guy."

She deliberately left out the fact that she had known beforehand that the ANBU had been poisoned with Unknown Toxin 417; although she had resolved to tell Tsunade the truth, she had no inclination to pick apart her thought process for the woman's benefit.

"Why?" The question was fired almost instantly, and caught Sakura off-balance.

"Wh—why?" She spluttered. "Because I'm a medic, that's why!"

"You are also a shinobi. A shinobi, I might add, from a village that is currently at war with Konoha."

Sakura clenched her jaw, setting it in a stubborn line.

"If you are suggesting disloyalty on my part, let me assure you that I'd rather die than betray my village. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm a healer; it's my duty to help people, and that...that transcends alliances and enemies and...and petty border disputes!"

By the end of this, Sakura was practically fuming, her impassioned declaration serving to whip color into her cheeks and cause her teeth to clench together defiantly.

"Sorry, perhaps you would have preferred if I had let him bleed out like a stuck pig." She snarled. "But I'm not so petty as to allow a man to die in front of me just because he's sided with the wrong village."

In the ensuing silence, Sakura realized that despite her declaration of undying loyalty to Iwa, what she had just said would certainly have fallen under the category of 'treasonous', back in her home village. But she couldn't manage to lie to herself, and believe that every word of it hadn't been sincere.

This side of her, she realized with some chagrin, was the same side that had urged her to help Magumi's sons, despite what her village would have had to say on the matter. She felt at once proud of herself, and like bashing her head into a wall.

She was so stupid.

After a moment more of the silence stretching onwards, Sakura peeled her gaze away from where she had stolidly fixed it on the wall, and managed to meet Tsunade's eyes. She was shocked to see no anger or even irritation there; the only thing filling her gaze was a faint glimmer of...respect?

"Well. As enlightening as this conversation has been, I believe we're done for the day. Captain, escort Haruno back to ANBU HQ. I'll expect your observations on the effects of the poison tomorrow, kunoichi." She finished, before turning on her heel and sweeping off down the hallway, leaving Sakura feeling mildly flabbergasted.

She had expected to be berated intensely, if not beaten or tossed into solitary confinement, as punishment for her escape attempt. She had certainly not expected to earn a portion of the legendary medic's respect, however small.

Feeling slightly dazed, Sakura allowed herself to be practically dragged out the hospital's back entrance. She didn't even flinch when Hatake tied a blindfold around her eyes, as the ANBU had done yesterday upon escorting her to HQ. After all, it wouldn't do for an enemy shinobi to have information regarding the location of Konoha's black ops' headquarters.

She only regained her wits when she felt a hand move to encircle her wrist.

"What are you—"

The rest of her inquiry was cut off by the familiar sensation of being squeezed through a tube, which always accompanied a teleportation jutsu. When the sensation cleared—Sakura couldn't really rely on her sight to inform her whether or not they had arrived—the kunoichi was practically spitting at the injustice of being tossed around between Konoha shinobi as though she were a sack of flour.

The feeling of helplessness caused by the impairment of her vision, combined with being manhandled by an enemy, was enough to have her hissing and spitting. Wrenching her hand out of Hatake's grip, she stumbled back a bit, and felt her shoulder collide with a cold stone wall. Hard.

"Fuck!"

There was what sounded like a muffled snort of laughter, accompanied by an exhale of air that sounded suspiciously like a 'tsk'.

"I'd advise you to cooperate." She heard Hatake say flatly.

Sakura was still smarting from the jarring pain of being slammed into a wall (by herself, no less), but her shoulder wasn't the only thing smarting-her pride was stinging as well. She had been a shinobi for nearly twelve years now, for god's sake; she shouldn't be stumbling around knocking into things like a green genin, even if she was slightly chakra-depleted. Hatake's remark did nothing to soothe her flaring temper.

"And I'd advise you to stop provoking me, before I rip your goddamn throat out." She snarled, rubbing her sore shoulder and extending her chakra to sweep her surroundings-like she should have done immediately upon arriving in an unfamiliar, possibly hostile environment.

The only chakra signatures immediately nearby were Hatake's-just a foot or two away from her own-and one she had come to vaguely recognize as belonging to Monkey. He had obviously been the one to produce the snort of laughter, and he proceeded to then assert his commentary on the situation.

"Glad to see Tsunade-sama hasn't knocked any of the fight out of you, Pinky," He snickered.

Sakura glowered, and would have responded in a decidedly impolite manner, had Hatake not nipped their argument in the bud.

"Stop harassing the prisoner."

The snickering didn't stop, even when Hatake handed her over to his squadmate, with orders to escort her to her cell. The moment she felt Hatake's chakra signature disappear from the vicinity, Sakura 'stumbled' and managed to nearly flatten Saru's toes with her own booted foot. Accidentally, of course.

A/N: A/N: This chapter has been edited as of 10/20. After reading several very insightful, helpful reviews, I realized that I had kind of screwed up my portrayal of Kakashi (le gasp!), which is a pretty big deal, seeing as how he will be the central male character of this story! Anyway, I want to give a heartfelt thank you to the reviewers who provided me with the encouragement and constructive criticism to improve this chapter, however slightly.

(PS: Sorry for the lack of activity lately; school comes first.)

(PPS: I've been getting SO MANY questions about the Uchiha massacre, so I'll just address it now; my timeline is pretty vague, but I decided at the beginning that it's only been about two or three years since the Kyuubi attack. The Uchiha massacre didn't happen until about six or seven years after the attack, if I'm not mistaken. So yes, the Uchiha are alive and kicking, and that particular fact is actually canon-compliant.)

(PPPS: I would have still included the Uchiha even if it weren't canon-compliant, tbh.)

(PPPPS: Wow, I'm very chatty today. I swear I'm done now.)