Chapter Text
The coffee maker died at 6 AM, which should have been Sakura's first sign that today would be a disaster.
By 6:15, she was running late for her shift at Konoha Memorial Hospital. By 6:30, she'd discovered her apartment had flooded—again—because the upstairs neighbor kept forgetting that modern plumbing required you to actually turn off the faucet. And by 7:00, she was standing in the hospital parking garage, staring at the mysterious golden seal that had appeared on her car's hood, while her phone buzzed with increasingly frantic messages from her supervisor.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Your first client session is scheduled for 8 AM. Please don't be late. They get... irritable.
Sakura deleted the message for the third time this week. She didn't have time for whatever scam this was. She had a double shift, back-to-back trauma cases, a research paper on innovative suturing techniques due by Friday, and she'd promised to cover Dr. Yamamoto's on-call hours because his daughter had a recital and Sakura couldn't remember the last time she'd said no to anyone about anything.
The last thing she needed was—
"Excuse me. Are you Sakura Haruno?"
She spun around. The man standing behind her shouldn't have been able to sneak up on anyone. He was tall, unnaturally pale, with long dark hair gathered into a neat ponytail, and eyes that seemed to swallow light. He wore a black cloak with red clouds that looked like it had been pulled from an anime convention.
"Look, I'm not interested in whatever you're selling," Sakura said, fumbling for her keys. Her hands trembled slightly—too much coffee, not enough sleep. The usual. "And I'm late for—"
"The Sage of Six Paths said you would help us." His voice was flat, emotionless. "You signed a contract."
Sakura froze. The memory surfaced like a half-forgotten nightmare: three weeks ago, exhausted after an intensive surgery followed by an emergency appendectomy and then a motorcycle accident victim who'd coded twice, she'd stumbled into what she thought was a 24-hour ramen shop. Instead, she'd found a wrinkly old man with a staff, concentric rings in his eyes, and an offer that seemed too good to be true.
Help eleven individuals transition to modern life. One year. Payment: ten million yen per month, plus full coverage of all personal debts.
She'd been delirious with exhaustion. She'd signed something. She'd thought it was a hallucination brought on by forty-three consecutive hours awake and the protein bars she'd eaten that might have been expired.
"Oh no," Sakura whispered. "Oh no, no, no—"
"My name is Itachi Uchiha," the man continued. "I am having difficulty with my 'smart phone.' The instructions say to download applications, but I cannot find the download anywhere in the physical device. I've opened it three times. There is nothing to download."
Sakura stared at him. "You... opened your phone?"
"Yes. With a kunai. Very carefully." He produced the device. The screen was shattered, the back panel hung loose, and something inside sparked ominously. "I believe I may have made an error."
Her phone buzzed again. Dr. Tsunade, the hospital director and her mentor—the woman who'd taken a chance on an overeager resident four years ago and was probably regretting it now.
TSUNADE: Where are you? We have a multi-vehicle pileup incoming. I need you here NOW.
Sakura's fingers hovered over the keyboard. She'd never missed a shift. Never. In four years, she'd worked through the flu, a sprained ankle, her grandmother's funeral. She'd published six papers, assisted on the hospital's most complex cases, volunteered for every holiday shift so her colleagues could see their families.
Her colleagues who had families. Lives. Hobbies.
When was the last time she'd done something that wasn't work? When was the last time she'd seen her friends? Did she even have friends anymore, or just coworkers who occasionally asked if she was okay when they caught her crying in the supply closet?
"Ms. Haruno?" Itachi tilted his head slightly. "You appear... distressed."
"I'm fine," she said automatically, the same lie she'd told Tsunade last month when her mentor had pulled her aside and said words like "burnout" and "sustainability" and "you're going to kill yourself at this rate."
Sakura had laughed it off. She was fine. She was helping people. Saving lives. That's what mattered. That's what had always mattered.
So why did her apartment look like a disaster zone? Why were there three weeks of laundry piled up, takeout containers forming an archaeological record of her declining food choices, and credit card statements she was too afraid to open?
Oh. Right.
Because four years ago, she'd signed a different contract—with Konoha Memorial Hospital. Prestige, opportunity, and student loans that would take thirty years to pay off on a normal salary. But if she worked enough hours, took enough shifts, proved she was indispensable...
Her phone buzzed again.
TSUNADE: Sakura. Answer me.
She looked at Itachi. At his shattered phone. At the golden seal on her car that definitely hadn't been there yesterday.
Ten million yen per month.
She did the math quickly—a skill honed by years of calculating drug dosages and surgical margins on no sleep. That was... that was more than she made in six months. That was her student loans, her mother's medical bills from last year's surgery, her flooded apartment's repairs, her car that needed new brakes, her—
"Ms. Haruno." Itachi's expression hadn't changed, but something in his voice had shifted. Almost... concerned? "When did you last sleep?"
"I don't—that's not—" Sakura ran a hand through her hair, which she'd forgotten to brush. Again. "I sleep. I sleep plenty. I'm a doctor, I know the importance of—"
"You're swaying."
She was. The parking garage tilted slightly, then righted itself.
Her phone rang. Tsunade, this time. Not a text.
Sakura stared at the screen. At the name of the woman who'd believed in her, who'd mentored her, who'd recently started looking at her with something that might have been worry or disappointment or both.
She thought about the last time she'd felt genuinely happy instead of grimly satisfied after a successful surgery. She thought about her mother's voice on the phone last week: "You sound tired, sweetheart. Are you taking care of yourself?"
She thought about the fact that she'd been so exhausted three weeks ago that she'd hallucinated an entire mystical contract negotiation, except apparently it hadn't been a hallucination, which meant her grip on reality was even more tenuous than she'd feared.
Sakura answered the phone. "Tsunade-shishou, I—"
"Don't." Tsunade's voice was sharp. "Don't apologize. Don't explain. Just tell me: are you okay?"
The question hit like a scalpel between her ribs.
"No," Sakura heard herself say. "No, I don't think I am."
Silence. Then: "Come to my office when you can. Not today. Tomorrow. We need to talk about your schedule, your caseload, and the fact that you've logged more hours than any surgeon on staff. By a lot."
"I can handle—"
"Sakura." Tsunade's voice softened. "You're one of the best surgeons I've ever trained. But you're going to burn out before you hit thirty-five if you don't learn to pace yourself. Take today. I'll cover your shift."
"But the pileup—"
"I've been doing this for thirty years. I think I can manage." A pause. "That's an order. Rest. Eat something that isn't from a vending machine. Sleep. We'll talk tomorrow."
The line went dead.
Sakura stood in the parking garage, phone in hand, exhausted enough that she'd somehow agreed to a supernatural tech support contract and too proud to admit she might have made a massive mistake.
"So," Itachi said, still holding his destroyed phone. "Are you available to assist us?"
She should say no. She should go home, sleep for sixteen hours, and figure out how to untangle her life.
Instead, she thought about ten million yen per month. About paying off her debts. About maybe, maybe, having enough financial breathing room to actually take a day off without panicking about money.
About the fact that helping people—even frustrating, ancient, supernatural people—was the one thing she actually knew how to do.
"I need coffee first," Sakura said. "A lot of coffee. And you're going to explain to me exactly what I signed up for."
Itachi nodded solemnly. "We have coffee. Hidan attempted to brew it yesterday. The pot achieved sentience briefly before we subdued it."
"Of course it did."
By 8:30 AM, Sakura had stopped by a convenience store for coffee that definitely wouldn't achieve sentience, texted her mother a lie about being fine, and found herself in a surprisingly upscale apartment complex. The directory listed it as "Akatsuki Corporate Housing."
"Corporate?" she muttered, following Itachi into an elevator that played tinny versions of traditional Japanese folk songs.
"The Sage felt we needed a... 'brand identity.'" Itachi's face remained impassive. "Deidara designed our logo. It explodes."
"Of course it does."
The elevator doors opened to reveal chaos.
A blonde man—Deidara, presumably—was trying to use a microwave, which was currently shooting sparks and making sounds no appliance should make. A blue-skinned figure with what appeared to be gills was attempting to fill the bathtub by manually carrying water from the kitchen sink, one cup at a time. A man with orange hair and far too many piercings sat cross-legged on the floor, staring at a laptop with such intensity that Sakura worried he might set it on fire through sheer willpower alone.
"I require assistance," the orange-haired man announced without looking up. "This device claims I have 'seventeen viruses' and must 'call Microsoft immediately.' I have tried calling. Microsoft does not answer. I am considering destroying the laptop and everyone responsible for its creation."
"That's a pop-up scam," Sakura said faintly, her surgical training automatically cataloging details: multiple individuals in distress, hazardous environment, situation deteriorating rapidly. "Don't call the number. Just close the—"
"How does one 'close' a digital window?" He turned to face her, and Sakura's breath caught. His eyes were the same as the Sage's—concentric rings, ancient and utterly inhuman. "I have tried force. The window remains."
In the kitchen, the microwave exploded.
"ART IS AN EXPLOSION!" Deidara shrieked triumphantly.
Sakura pulled out her phone—her personal, non-shattered phone—and opened her notes app. Her hands shook slightly as she typed, the same methodical approach she used for patient charts:
Day 1 Client List:
- Itachi: Destroyed phone trying to find downloads inside hardware
- Pain/Nagato(?): Computer illiterate, possibly planning mass murder over pop-up ads
- Deidara: Weaponized microwave (security deposit, definitely not getting that back)
- Kisame: Doesn't understand modern plumbing
She looked up. "How many of you are there?"
"Eleven," Itachi confirmed. "Though Zetsu counts as two, technically. He argues with himself. Frequently."
"Of course he does."
Sakura closed her eyes. Her apartment was flooded. Her mentor thought she was burning out. Her career was built on a foundation of overwork and denial. And now she was apparently tech support for ancient supernatural beings who thought 'turning it off and on again' meant performing elaborate rituals.
But here was the thing: this mess? This chaos? She could handle this.
Multi-vehicle pileups, emergency surgeries, patients coding on the table—that was chaos too. And she was good at chaos. She was good at triaging, prioritizing, solving problems, helping people who needed her.
Even if those people were immortal and thought smartphones were haunted.
Maybe, and this was possibly the exhaustion talking, but maybe this ridiculous contract was exactly what she needed. A different kind of challenge. A forced break from the hospital. And enough money to finally, finally, get her financial life under control.
"Okay," she said, opening her eyes and straightening her shoulders. "Okay. Everyone stop touching things. We're going to start with the absolute basics. Does anyone know what 'Wi-Fi' is?"
Eleven pairs of eyes—some human, some decidedly not—stared at her blankly.
Pain raised his hand. "Is it a form of invisible lightning?"
Sakura opened her calculator app and did some quick math. Ten million yen per month. Times twelve months. Minus her debts...
She could do this. Probably. Maybe. If she survived the year, she might finally be able to figure out how to help herself while she was helping them.
"Close enough," she sighed, pulling out a notebook from her purse. "Let's start there. Can someone please tell me where the fire extinguisher is?"
"Fire extinguisher?" Kisame looked confused. "What is this 'extinguisher'?"
It was going to be a very long year. If Sakura could even survive the week.