Medical Ninjutsu

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Sakura had fallen into depression. She was missing weeks of school.

But that was okay, Sakura wasn't alone. She had a ghost to keep her company. And, it wasn't like she wasn't getting her education.

"Sakura-chan, let's go this way," Obito was walking beside Sakura through one of Konoha's slums. It was nearby where Naruto lived, just deeper into the poorer areas.

She didn't like the leering looks she was getting, and she didn't think Obito had any combat abilities since he had long died. She reached over and poked Obito, her hand phrasing through his body like he was only an illusion. Sakura drew her hand back, certain now more than ever he was a ghost, and not that he had a intangibility technique.

She didn't know that Obito was in reality, a physical Tobi casting a genjutsu over himself to appear like his younger self. They were in public but no one in the slums would have recognized a person who died a decade ago.

"Over here, through this manhole," Obito sunk under the round lid in the middle of an empty street, and Sakura pushed some chakra to her fingers to pull the metal lid aside, exposing a ladder that must have went a thousand feet underground. She tentatively stepped onto the ladder and slowly moved her hands and feet to descend, but not before pulling the lid shut.

There was no light source, and Sakura was in the absolute dark, clinging to a ladder hundreds of feet above ground. She shuddered, wondering if there were rats waiting down to consume her, or something disgusting like sewer water full of poop and trash.

"O-Obito-kun," Sakura squeaked, slowly descending.

"Don't worry, I'll, uh, catch you if you fall, I mean, if I can, I really can't since I'm a ghost," Obito amended. That did nothing to calm her nerves.

She felt her anger well up, Obito was reminding her of Naruto! She huffed, and descended faster.

"Actually, Sakura, you should learn to land on your feet with chakra. I can't wait here all day and you're too scared to take one step at a time without a minute break each step." Obito put on his lecturing voice, "First, you move the right amount of chakra to your feet, just before you land, and upon touching the gorund, you should expel the same amount of chakra correlating to your body weight and the landing friction. It takes practice to get it right, if you're not a physics nerd."

"I am a physics nerd,"

"Still, hands-on approach."

"Obito, I am not dropping myself off this ladder when I can't see the floor. How do you expect me to land properly?"

"Right," Obito grinned sheepishly,

"Wait, why are you so close to me? Ghosts can float?"

"Err, sorta, I'm standing on the side wall with ghost-chakra. You shouldn't try it, it's slippery and flat and wet and hard to control. Just take the ladder."

Ten minutes past and when Sakura descended the last step, she was shocked to feel the flat floor. "Wow! I actually made it!" She glanced up, "I just hope I'll be able to find my way back. It's so dark and the ceiling looks the same everywhere."

"Follow me!" Obito put a slight glow over himself and walked down the hall of the sewer system. He looked almost divine.

Sakura followed.

"So you see, this is an abandoned laboratory of a guy named Orochimaru! It's such a waste that no one's using it, I bet Sarutobi's sentimentality had a hand in that. And, he never returned to use it after he got chased out of the village. It's yours now."

"W-What? I can't just take-"

"Here's the map."

She took it and gasped at the sight of a maze outline.

"There are tons of seals that make places not look connected to others, or accessible, but I'm sure I can figure it out for you. Who knows, maybe you might even learn one or two things about fuuinjutsu."

"Okay," Sakura replied, entering a room full of stacks of research notes.

"This is the medical ninjutsu invention room...I bet some of Tsunade's stolen stuff are here." Obito said, gesturing grandiosely to the shelves. "I expect you to spend the rest of your nights studying here rather than at the Academy. Also, learn to make a chemical that preserves eyeballs, and some more..." Obito smirked, having a medic nin to transplant Nagato's Rinnegan into his eye socket was an appealing notion. He was reminded of Rin, removing and transplanting his Sharingan into Kakashi. "Transplantation techniques."

Sakura looked utterly repulsed, but after a few carefully chosen words with just the right amount of guilt placed on her, Sakura relented.

Obito smiled. She's easier to control than Rin, at least.

"Now get to work. I expect you here every night, we don't have much time." He hushed her before she could ask 'much time for what?' and told her to use the secret routes he pointed out in the map.

"No matter what, if you get discovered, you'll be sent to Torture and Interrogation. You don't want that, do ya, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura shook her head profusely, sweat beading down her forehead and neck. She didn't sign up for this...

"Good girl. Finish that shelf by the end of this week, and proceed to the next." He paused, "I have to return to 'heaven' now...I can't spend much time away from the death realm, or too far away from the KIA Stone, but I'm getting better at this." He smirked. "You're a bookworm, aren't you? This should be easy. Also, there's a light switch beside the door. Enjoooy~" Obito, spiraled out of existence.

Sakura watched, transfixed, before sighing, walking over to the light switch, and turning it on. She shuddered at the stacks of yellow, dirty paper and the trash on the floor. No doubt there were germs and bugs and dust and rats.

She walked over to the bookshelf, grabbed a scroll, took a seat on a clean spot on the floor, and began to read, her fingers shivering at the soggy parts of the scroll.

Sakura desperately wanted to wash her hands. But that compulsion gradually reduced, as she gained more insight on medical techniques than the textbooks ever provided her. Orochimaru, or Tsunade, or whoever did all this reseach, was a true genius.

She summoned a Koneko and asked him to borrow some reference books at the Konoha Public Library. There were still some words she didn't understand, and Obito wasn't here to define them.

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Itachi looked around, his hand gripping Sasuke's softly. He'd expected Sakura to be here, but she wasn't present at Hana's funeral. The other elders apparently thought the same thing, judging by their expressions of disbelief and scanning eyes.

"Have you seen Sakura?" The old woman who threw rice buns at Sasuke whenever he was on the way to school asked.

"No," Sasuke said, clenching his fists. He looked at his brother, seeing a worried expression on Itachi's face, which was rare enough already, and Sasuke decided he quite hated Sakura. That fangirl doesn't deserve all this attention, there was nothing special about her, she only did everything to impress Sasuke.

This is unexpected, Itachi thought. Perhaps she doesn't have as much compassion as she seemed, or she doesn't care about others once they're dead...Or it might not even be lack of compassion but rather too much sadness that she had simply given up fully on anything regarding Hana-san.

He didn't know how wrong he was.

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