Chapter 3
Sakura Haruno found him when she was dashing through the forest thick with bare trees and shimmering drops of snow with Moegi.
By the edge of a river, was a man with a tear in his right sleeve and a few blotches of mud dappling his green Chunin vest. From the waist down he was soaked in water, one of his shoes hanging loosely at his ankle, if she hadn’t been fast enough it might have already been taken away by the water’s current. He was a Leaf shinobi for sure, the symbol of Land of Fire emblazoned on the silver plate of his forehead protector shone brightly in the sunlight. It was the light it reflected that caught her attention.
“Wait!” Sakura yelled at the orange-hair meters in front of her but it seemed like Moegi was just in the middle of picking up her speed. Sakura tightened the cloak’s collar around her neck roughly, after years of being a healer, it was against her morals to let the dead die and not help. Moegi and her signature blue vest soon disappeared from her vision before Sakura could even look back to check on the just-became-Chunin. Biting a frustrated breath that escaped through her fumed nose, Sakura headed straight for the glowing point, far to her left.
Now that she was right before him, after the burden of dragging him out of the river, picking the leaves and branches of his body, and wiping away the smeared trail of mud running down his face and more that covered almost all of his hair (yet she couldn’t remember any of his facial features no the color of his hair since she was too concentrated with the problem at hand). She unzipped and threw away his cotton vest as she concentrated her chakra in her palms and began scanning over the body with the green glow hovering in her hands.
On the body’s surface, it was mostly just bruises and scratches yet as Sakura pressed more chakra into the person’s body…Her eyes widened in shock when she felt the minimal reactions she was getting from his chakra flow—there were no reactions at all. This body lacked the presence of chakra. How? Sakura frowned, her eyes glued to the back of her palms as she hovered them over from one spot to another over the man’s chest and then abdomen. No, no, no, she crossed a finger over her heart, please don’t tell me his dead.
Thump, thump, thump.
His heart was beating, only that it was thumping against his rib cage slightly faster than the pulse of a dying man. Sakura wasted no time in checking how the other organs in his body were functioning.
Her hands trembled when she sensed the wreckage on his kidneys, liver, and intestine. An opening for ruptures in a few of his blood vessels and a pool of muddy water in his stomach. His internal organs were all severely wounded, Sakura could feel his life draining away at her fingertips, and his pale skin looked translucent under her ball of chakra. Immediately, she threw herself into channeling her healing chakra into his body; stitching up the ruptures in the vessels and the scratches and blows on the organs then warming up his blood, which had felt like ice piercing at her palms when she sank the chakra into the blood veins. She repeated this process of healing and checking for two minutes until she could feel the vibration his pulse sent through his body.
“Ms Haruno!” She heard a yell from the distance, Sakura’s fingers twitched in their positions; her shoulders shrugged in fright. She ignored the cracks in her neck as she wheeled it around rigidly, trying to glance at what was behind her. It was Moegi, gaping back at her with a worried face with a hint of confusion.
“Moegi,” Sakura spun her head back at the unconscious man before her. The chakra trail she had created to detect the man’s blood circulation jolted to a stop when Moegi dropped into her presence. She had to focus on channeling the trail again, with much more concentrated force in the center palms of her. Moegi must have realized her struggles too, as her assistant became quiet when she held up a hand.
Inside her mind, Sakura debated on what she needed to do. It was clear that who she was treating currently was a shinobi of the Leaf. She hadn’t managed to steal a careful look at his face yet and with the absurd state she found him in, it left Sakura’s brain completely blank of what to do——only for a few seconds.
“Moegi, you’ve been quite active with assisting and completing missions lately,” Sakura started. She had finally finished stitching up the scars on the man’s blood vessel; she fuelled her chakra into her hands again: it was time to clean his stomach and fix some of his malfunctioning organs.
Just as she was generating what her next lines would be, something slipped past the space between her palms and the man’s body. Her green flame of chakra flickered for an instant, Sakura clamped her mouth shut in shock. What just happened? My channel of chakra has been cut off again?
Was it because I poured in too much chakra at once into his body this time?But this has never happened before…normal shinobi and even civilians should be able to handle this amount. It is the minimum. Sakura bit her lips, her teeth sinking into the dried flesh. What substance was that——the thing that just disturbed my chakra? It wasn’t any other’s chakra; it was completely in the blindsight of her chakra sensing and her vision. Sakura furrowed her eyebrows; her emerald eyes dilated in stress.
Then something snapped in her head, and Sakura opened up hurriedly, “No, Moegi. I need your help for this instant.” Without looking, she could tell Moegi scuffling her feet as she lifted her head from her chest to stare at her. She had been acting too indifferent with Moegi a few moments ago, Sakura hoped she had not hurt the girl’s pride.
The task at hand was becoming easier and smoother for her healing abilities, and along with that grew Sakura’s confidence as she gave her orders to Moegi: “Seek for the nearest lodging or village around us. Once you get there, send a bird back to me about the location—don’t worry about me for now. Then send letter another to the Leaf’s hospital with the request of one ANBU member and if permitted, Lady Tsunade…to come to the lodging immediately!”
——
She has finally finished repairing all the damages within the man’s body. Sakura exhaled deeply as she comprehended the man’s overall health. The fatal blows he received she have healed them, the injuries he carried on his body that could affect him in the long term, she treated them and the circulation of chakra…Sakura paused, her hands dropped back to her side. There are still no signs of any chakra…Sakura’s hands fell back to her side. Her arms ached from this exhausting process, though the man was still alive and breathing.
Now that his body is well and functioning…Sakura muttered to herself, though her thought was venturing somewhere else. Acting on autopilot, Sakura clasped her hands together, and unclasped them again as her mouth opened automatically to utter: “Katon: Tanebi no Jutsu!” A few feet away from her, a tangled web of twigs burst into flames; Sakura hauled the body closer to the fire. This should help dry his clothes off and keep him warm for a while.
She took out the Chunin jacket she placed underneath his head (with the purpose of cushioning) and spread it out across the ground. Her hollow eyes gazed at the sparks from the flaming twigs shooting themselves onto the jacket and then disappearing in a sizzling noise.
Now was the time to inspect his identity. Sakura whipped her head around and stared intensely down at his face.
He had pale hair, dappled with mud and small twigs and leaves. They carried a spiky appearance, despite every hair on his head being soaked with water; a streak of grey hair fell lopsided across his left face. Covered slightly by the Jonin headband, were his thin brows and closed eyes; his scrunched-up brows painted a menacing appearance over his slumbering figure.
Sakura trailed her eyes down his cheeks, lifting a finger to draw down the mask the man had, plastered onto his face. Her jaw clenched when she saw something on the left side of his lips…a mole.
Sakura’s brows knitted together as she averted her gaze away, eyes piercing into the distance. The man before her had looked exactly like another version of someone else. Her thoughts turned to musing about where the Hokage could be at this time of the day——
——Because the shinobi she was kneeling next to…was the exact version of what Hatake Kakashi would look like without a scar etched down the left side of his face.