"There doesn't seem to be anything outwardly wrong with her," Sakura muttered as she pried open Tenten's eyelids and flashed a light in her eyes, one at a time. "Pupils responsive, no foreign chakra in her brain… rapid eye movement, elevated brain activity… I'd say she's dreaming."
Sakura turned off her penlight with a click.
"Keep her under observation for now," she told the assistant medic. "Give her a nutritive IV drip so that she doesn't waste away, and keep the IV's saline levels normal, since there's no brain swelling."
With Tenten's case temporarily filed away, as time was often the best remedy in cases of unexplainable comas, Sakura had officially finished with the latest batch of patients that had come their way, which included Lee-chan's case of anaemia, so she decided to saunter over to Naruto and the others and take a peek at Hinata's fancy new eyes.
"Yo, Sakura-chan!" Naruto called as she approached, pointing at the air above Hinata's head. "Do you see a weird ghost lady above Hinata-chan's head, ya know?"
"What, is there a blackboard eraser or something like that up on that branch, ready to fall on my head?" Sakura said playfully. "I'm not Kakashi-sensei, so you'll have to try harder than that to prank me~"
Everyone seemed to have taken Naruto's words as a joke, since there was clearly nothing up there. Everyone except Sasuke, that was; he was still gazing into the empty space above Hinata's head with dead-fish eyes worthy of Kakashi himself, though that wasn't anything new for him ever since he'd learned of her relationship with Naruto.
"Try opening your Rinnegan—" Sasuke began, but Sakura had already turned away and started examining Hinata. Somehow, that girl had managed to evolve her eyes into a pair of Tenseigan, which Sakura recognised from watching the last Naruto film.
"Sooo, new eyes, eh?" Sakura said with great interest. "Mind if I—"
It was at that moment that the camp's long-range radio suddenly crackled to life, cutting her off in turn:
"All stations, special alert! This is Twin Peaks Central Base Camp, conducting a radio check on Channel 4! Requesting signal reports from all active Hidden Leaf bases, over!"
"Hang on, important call," Sakura said apologetically as she ran to the marquee where the radio equipment had been set up. "Gotta take this one!"
"W-what's going on?" Hinata asked timidly, trotting after Naruto and the others as they rushed over to Sakura's side to listen in on the radio communications. "Twin… Peaks?"
Twin Peaks was the call sign Konoha's high command had assigned to the Manyū clan's old village, Tanimagakure, the Village Hidden in Cleavage, since it was nestled between two breast-like hills. Since it was very well hidden and its location was still unknown to the enemy, it had been selected as the Hidden Leaf Village's new central radio communication hub.
"Shh!" the radio operator hissed, raising a finger to her lips as she turned around and glowered at them. "I need to hear this!"
The radio crackled.
"This is Umibōzu! Reading you loud and clear! Equipment check normal! Over!"
"This… Big Depression…! Reading… heavy static… Over!"
"This is Long Long Bridge! No problems here! Over!"
"This… Stargazer! … …. .."
Umibōzu was the call sign assigned to the port city Hinata and the others had saved, a major trading hub with the Land of Moon and the Land of the Sea. Big Depression was the Hole, which housed the Ōtsutsuki artefact called the Ama no Hoko. As for Long Long Bridge and Stargazer, those were obviously the allied Land of Waves and Hidden Star Village.
"This is Paramedic!" the radio operator called when her turn arrived. "Reading you ten out of ten… oh, and the Spring Flower has bloomed! I repeat, the Spring Flower has bloomed! Over!"
Sakura's frown deepened as the roll call went on.
Though the other parties hadn't been warned in advance that there would be a test call, several key installations had failed to radio in. The message had been broadcast on a pre-agreed frequency, and there was always supposed to be someone manning the radio posts, which meant that the only reason those signal posts weren't answering was because they couldn't.
"This is kinda bad, isn't it?" Sakura muttered to herself. "Basset Hound didn't answer the roll call, and neither did Tamatebako, The Price is Rice, Ame-no-Murakumo, Earthwolf Spider, and a few others…"
Basset Hound was the signal post attached to the secret location where the Fire Daimyō had been evacuated when the war had begun. It had received that call sign because the Daimyō's face sort of looked like the dog's, what with his sagging jowls.
Tamatebako was Takigakure, for reasons only a former Japanese like Sakura would understand; The Price is Rice was Otogakure in the Land of Sound, formerly the Land of Rice Paddies; Ame-no-Murakumo was Kusagakure, another reference to Japanese mythology; and Earthwolf Spider was the Tsuchigumo clan's mountain.
Otogakure's Orochimaru and the Tsuchigumo clan's leader had betrayed the Hidden Leaf, so it wasn't surprising that they wouldn't answer the roll call, but the absence of a response from the others was extremely worrying…
"Should I contact Twin Peaks and ask them for instructions, Milady?" asked the radio operator, craning her neck to look at Sakura hovering behind her. "However, I must caution you that if Twin Peaks is forced to broadcast too often or for too long, the enemy might triangulate their location."
No place was truly safe from infiltration when ninjas existed; not even the Hidden Leaf, let alone a half-abandoned village with hundred-years-old infrastructure in the middle of nowhere.
"To all temporary bases located near Kisaragi Village, this is Twin Peaks!" a voice suddenly rang out from the radio. "Move out and eliminate the enemy! Over!"
Sakura's fingers drummed against her forearm. Central's latest message had been short and sweet, and very light on details, and yet…
"Didn't you say the odds of Central Base Camp's location being triangulated would increase exponentially if they communicated too often?" she asked the radio operator after a moment's thought. "If memory serves, isn't Kisaragi Village just a small farming village in the jungle to the south?"
Not that the Land of Fire's peasants weren't important, it was just that, strategically speaking, they simply weren't worth mentioning. When weighed against each other in terms of their contributions to the war effort, losing a handful of rice farmers was nothing compared to losing an entire hidden village of shinobi, in the grand scheme of things.
"Yes, Milady," the radio operator said after a moment's hesitation. "But if Central believed it was worth breaking radio silence for, then surely it must have been important enough to communicate this information, no?"
Sakura found this mildly suspicious, but as much (or as little) as she wanted to investigate, there were plenty of other problems that urgently needed addressing before she could look into Konoha's dark underworld.
Obito and Madara ranked first, naturally, since their actions threatened to bring about the end of the world. Second was finding the missing Fire Daimyō, and third was driving out the remaining invaders and eradicating any bandits who might have cropped up to take advantage of the chaos. Fourth was dealing with Orochimaru and the Tsuchigumo traitors, and fifth was the matter of the mysterious Ketsuryūgan user who seemed to have a grudge against the Uchiha.
"Kisaragi Village is a bit far, not worth the detour," Sakura muttered to herself. "Since Obito and Madara have gone underground… why don't I go and see if they're home?"
She had just remembered Madara's hideout in the Mountain Graveyard!
"All right, ya know!" Naruto said excitedly. "We're finally moving out!"
"When are we going back to the village?" Sasuke said miserably. "The Uchiha Stone Tablet…"