It turned out that Lady Tsunade hadn't summoned just Sakura, Chōji, and Shikamaru, but rather all available shinobi to the Hokage Residence in order to declare martial law. Once again, the embers of war were stoked, and the Hidden Leaf stood on the brink of the Fourth Great Shinobi War ahead of schedule. When the Hokage's address ended and the others dispersed to go back to work, Sakura decided to stay behind to speak with her teacher.
"Good, it looks like your eyes have regained some colour," Tsunade said sharply as she swept by, not even letting Sakura get a word in edgeways. "Come with me if you feel confident enough to second me. We've got an emergency surgery lined up."
"A surgery?" Sakura echoed, skittering after Tsunade to keep pace with the stride of her master's longer legs. "For whom?"
In that moment, she forgot entirely what she had meant to ask.
"For Jiraiya and Guy," Tsunade replied tersely. "The aviary received an unencoded message from Team 3 stating they would be arriving within the hour."
Unencoded meant Team 3 hadn't had time to run their message through an encoding ring, which meant their situation was desperately urgent, and that the medical team needed to prepare for surgery immediately. Of course, unencoded also meant there was a slim chance this was a trap, but no ordinary tricks could fool the village's sensing barrier.
And so, Sakura, Tsunade, and Shizune hurried to the hospital and assembled the surgery team— anaesthetists, lab technicians, and all the rest— in the main operating theatre. While Shizune rallied her toxicology team, Tsunade drew Sakura into a quiet corner to talk.
"Leaving aside your theft of the holy miko's breasts, putting the world's safety at risk with your selfishness, Kakashi told me you saw a vision of the future where Jiraiya dies," said Tsunade seriously. "It would be extremely helpful to know what kind of injuries he might have sustained before he gets onto the operating table."
Sakura tried to remember all the paths of Pain.
"Let's see…" she said, chewing her bottom lip in thought. "Crushed, soul torn out, exploded, slashed to ribbons, stabbed, chewed on, critical chakra loss… tongue cut out…"
"Not poisoned?" Tsunade asked, frowning.
Sakura shook her head.
"Hanzō of the Salamander should be dead," she said slowly. "So, no, I s'pose not… gyah!?"
Without warning, Karin, Tenten, Lee, Guy, and a half-dead Jiraiya appeared between Sakura and Tsunade, startling them so badly their breasts smacked their chins as they jumped.
"Finally… made… it…!" Tenten gasped.
Her eyes rolled back in her head as she fainted.
"I really wish you'd take your Flying Thunder God jutsu formula off my body, Tenten," Sakura said helplessly. "You're going to give me a heart attack, one of these days."
"Jiraiya!" Tsunade gasped. "What in the world happened to you!?"
The white-haired Sannin was barely breathing. Despite his mummy-like appearance, bandages wrapped around almost his entire body, Sakura could tell he was riddled with holes seeping blood; no doubt the result of being stabbed with black receivers. And given Karin's ashen complexion, the only thing that had sustained Jiraiya on the return journey from the Hidden Rain was her blood.
"I'm fine, I tell you! Forget about me!" Guy cried desperately, waving a bloody stump at the medics trying to approach him. "Please, you must help Lee!"
Sakura's eyes widened in shock as the medical team got everyone but Guy onto stretchers.
Guy had lost his entire left forearm up to the elbow, and an unconscious Lee looked as though someone had taken a road roller to the left half of his body. After a quick diagnosis, Sakura determined Karin and Tenten were simply suffering from extreme chakra depletion; they'd be fine in a week or less, so she had them moved to another room to rest.
"I'll take care of Rock Lee with the main Healing-Resuscitation-Regeneration Array," said Tsunade, tearing her eyes from her old friend. "I'll need the whole medical team, so you handle Jiraiya and Guy for me. Don't let me down."
Lee's present condition was far worse than the injury he had sustained in the original timeline's Chūnin Exams, beyond Sakura's power to heal… by ordinary means, that is. However, Tsunade had expressly forbidden her from using Creation Rebirth Kinjutsu to stimulate her patients' regeneration, not wanting her disciple to end up an old woman ahead of time like her.
According to Tsunade, Sakura's two uses of Creation Rebirth had already stolen months of her crucial growing period, which might explain why she stood so short beside Naruto and Sasuke, who had shot up in height like bamboo in the last few months. If it weren't for Katsuyu reassuring her that she could use Shikkotsu Forest's immortal sage techniques to permanently increase her height, she might have cried a little.
"But Lee…!" Guy blubbered, as Sakura tried to get him to follow her out of the room. "You don't understand, I have to be by his side…!"
"Guy-sensei, do you think Lady Tsunade can concentrate on healing Lee with your bawling and your snot dripping down her shoulder?" Sakura hissed. "I'm sure Lee will be fine, so stop bothering the medics and follow me! Your arm's off, in case you haven't noticed! Do you still have it tucked away somewhere?"
Sakura's words felt like an ice-cold shower to Guy.
"In here," Guy said reluctantly, handing her one of Tenten's sealing scrolls. "But Lee…"
"I can't make any promises about Lee, especially since I'm not the one treating him," Sakura sighed, pocketing the scroll. "I can only promise you that Lady Tsunade will try her best."
With that said, Sakura wheeled Jiraiya's stretcher out of the main operating theatre and into an empty room, and placed him in the centre of a smaller-scale version of the Healing-Resuscitation-Regeneration Array in the main operating theatre.
Guy picked a corner of the room to stand in, gnawing anxiously at his remaining hand's nails.
Sakura immediately connected Jiraiya to an IV drip and placed her hand on his chest, sending chakra rippling through his body to scan his condition. Just as she had surmised, Jiraiya's torso and limbs were riddled with perfectly circular holes, and to make matters worse, one of his lungs had collapsed.
"That's odd. Karin's blood should have staunched the bleeding already," Sakura murmured to herself as she cut away the blood-soaked bandages over Jiraiya's first chest wound and tossed the gauze aside. "Something's blocking his healing… residue from the black receivers? I'll need to remove that… have to work fast, can't afford to disinfect… then, convert the old man's hair into usable tissue to replace his lost flesh… good thing he's got a lot of it."
Sakura laid her hands on the healing array and channelled her chakra into it. This was going to be a very long operation…