Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Menagerie – A Collection of Naruto Shorts ❯ Stasis: Sakura & Hayate ( Chapter 10 )

Stasis

 

 

He was the first exhumed body she ever had the opportunity to work with.

 

He lay on the cool stainless steal of her autopsy table, covered from the waist down with a white sheet. His arms and chest were marred with hairline scars of past confrontations, the tell tale signs of any ninja, but they were nothing compared to the nineteen inch wound that transected cross body from the katana death blow delivered by enemy nin.

 

One week ago, the Hokage had summoned Haruno Sakura to her office. The fifth had given her a dusty three inch thick file along with a list of half dozen names of the not so recently departed Konoha nin with the direct orders to: “See if there's any truth in this fiction.” And that is exactly what she did.

 

She choose Gekko Hayate from that list.

 

He was a war orphan with no living relatives to object to an exhumation. Though had there been, it wouldn't have mattered. He had volunteered for the experiment, signed on the dotted line of the release of responsibility affidavit (legally binding post mortem), and accepted payment. There was absolutely no legal repercussions however the Konoha attorneys could twist matters, all the T's had been crossed and the I's dotted, this body was hers.

 

Shortly after death, his body had been washed and placed in a new experimental medical jutsu, the Stasis-no-Jutsu. The jutsu enveloped the body in a cocoon of suspended animation. Allowing the subject and/or object to neither age, decay, or become susceptible to any of the natural elements.

 

After reading the research data, Sakura did agree that there were many possibilities in medicine for the Jutsu, but at the time of its creation, a decade ago; it was too advanced to be anything more than what it was. Now with modern jutsu medical arts, there was a whole new playing field of possibilities at her fingertips.

 

She pushed her fingers through the Jutsu, surprised by its tangibility; it was like treading her fingers through water. She held his hand in hers, again surprised when she examined his fingers. It had been ten years since his death and his body didn't even show the slightest sign of rigor mortis, much less decay.

 

“You must have been put in stasis immediately after your death, Hayate-san.” He didn't answer and she didn't expect him to. She had developed the habit of conversing with her patients as she worked; this instance included the dead man on her autopsy table.

 

“Live fast, die young, leave behind a beautiful corpse,” she spoke to the silent man again.

 

She hovered her hand over the katana wound. It was a mess. The blade had cut through bone and flesh. It looked as if there was an invisible zipper that begin at his shoulder and ended at his navel then had been unzipped. It was a horrible analogy, but a truthful one. However, it was one she could repair. She pushed her chakra into the dead flesh, mending muscle and bone until the death blow was as if had never been there at all.

 

It was a gift entirely unique to her, stumbled upon by accident. A gift she used so widowers and children of fallen Konoha nin could have one last good bye before the casket closed.

 

“You look like you're sleeping,” she told him.

 

From the pocket of Sakura's medical nin uniform, she withdrew the syringe. If she succeeded there could be countless lives saved from the combination of the jutsu and drug. But ethically, she didn't agree with measures taken to separate fact from fiction. She preffered live patients not dead. In her opinion, she'd rather modify the stasis-no-jutsu hold the living, not the inanimate. But when she expressed those concerns to the Hokage, she was told to follow the direction of the original doctors, so she did.

 

The syringe is what held the answer. It was filled with kyuubi adrenaline.

 

Sakura wasn't pleased to learn that Naruto had offered himself up as a guinea pig a few months ago, but what's done is done. Naruto's an adult and if he choose to bleed himself dry in the name of science than so be it.

 

Thumb on the plunger, she pierced the adrenaline filled needle into Hayate's heart and injected him. Sakura hovered her palms over his body, willing the drug to disperse through veins and arteries. She pumped him full of chakra continuously for twenty minutes. Her legs trembled with exertion and her head felt lightheaded.

 

“Enough,” she whispered, bracing herself on the table. She was spent. If this was unsuccessful, then nothing would work. “Enough,” Sakura repeated. “Let the dead sleep undisturbed.”

 

She had followed her orders and the experiment was fruitless. After all the wasted hard work, Sakura was pleased. Medicine was about healing life, not resurrecting the dead. Konoha politics needed to stay in the office and out of her hospital. Sakura closed her eyes, allowing her mind to wander through the rest of the day's schedule that she hoped to complete before the end of the shift; putting Hayate back in the ground, reports, and finally a stop at the grocery store before going home.

 

A barely audible pop and subtle breeze pulled her from her inner thoughts.

 

She looked down at the man on the table in time to see his eyes fly open. He coughed then wheezed, struggling for breath. His eyes searched the room as he tried to gauge his bearings; he relaxed when his eyes took in her Konoha hitae then met hers.

 

“Whe..where am I?” he croaked. His grip on her wrist tightened and he struggled to sit.

 

She blinked away astonished and went into medic mode, years of practice and training kicking in.

 

“In Konoha Hospital.” She answered.

 

“Water.” Hayate rasped.

 

“Of course.” She retrieved a bottle of unopened water that she had brought to the morgue for herself. Had she had even thought the experiment might work; she wouldn't have conducted it in the morgue, that's for damned sure.

 

He drank it down five huge swallows, wasting some over his bare chest. “Ambushed by San—“

 

Sakura touched her finger over his lips, hushing him. “It's okay now, I know. Everything's going to be fine.” The lines were automatic, spoken repeatedly over the years to the nin that came into her hospital.

 

She was cool and collected on the outside, but internally the mantra of what have I done? repeated.