Chapter Text
The fluorescent lights of The Cherry Blossom Clinic hummed with a persistent, buzzing vibration that seemed to sync up perfectly with the throbbing behind Sakura Haruno’s eyes. She was dead tired. It was the kind of tired that made your bones feel like lead and your brain feel like overcooked ramen. Working a 14-hour shift with only a thirty-minute lunch break was a special kind of hell she wouldn't wish on her worst enemy, but then again, she had Deidara.
"That damn kid," she muttered, viciously scrubbing a countertop.
If Deidara hadn’t quit mid-shift, she’d be face-down on her pillow by now. He was a sketchy hire from the start, always rambling about "art" and the "sublime beauty of an explosion," but she had been desperate for help. That desperation had officially died this morning when he walked out after she refused to let him "deconstruct" a deceased parakeet with a firecracker. Who the hell tries to blow up dead animals in a medical facility?
Sakura sighed, glancing at the clock. She had officially missed Keeping Up With the Hyugas. Tonight was the episode five years in the making, as Neji was finally going to propose to Tenten. She’d been rooting for them since her high school days, and missing the climax of their romance felt like a personal insult from the universe.
Grumbling, she retreated to the locker room. She ripped off her stained scrubs with enough force to threaten the seams, roughly shoving them into her locker. The clinic was quiet, and the only sound was the distant drip of a faucet mixed with the heavy thrum of the city outside.
In this world, Konoha was a sprawling metropolis of steel and glass, but it was built on ancient soil. While the average citizen walked the streets with only enough chakra to keep their lights on and their phones charged, there were whispers of the "Spirit." These were the massive, overwhelming pools of chakra carried by the Yokai who moved in the shadows of the skyscrapers. Sakura had never seen one. To her, they were just ghost stories meant to keep people out of the deep woods.
Just as she was about to reach for her civilian clothes, the bell above the front door let out a cheerful, mocking jingle.
"God damnit," she hissed. She’d forgotten to lock the door.
She yanked her scrubs back on, her temper simmering just below the surface. She marched toward the front desk, grabbing a clipboard like a shield.
"Good evening," she began, her voice flat and professional, though she didn't bother looking up. "We are technically closed, but if this is an emergency, I’ll see what I can do."
"It’s an emergency. Fix it now."
The voice was deep, smooth, and laced with an arrogance that made Sakura’s grip tighten on the clipboard.
"If you're going to be rude, you can leave!"
The words died in her throat.
The man standing in her lobby was breathtaking. He looked less like a pet owner and more like a masterpiece carved from marble by Michelangelo himself. He wore a navy kimono and a black haori that hung loosely, offering a distracting view of a well-defined chest. He looked like a Greek god, but his expression was anything but divine. His lips were pulled into a thin, impatient line, and his dark eyes were glaring at her with unsettling intensity.
"Are you going to stare at me all night, woman, or are you going to help?" he snapped.
Sakura’s temper flared. She was ready to kick him out, Greek god or not, until she noticed a strange, rhythmic shifting behind his shoulders. At first, she thought he was carrying a large bird in a harness, but the movement was too fluid and too attached. Large, midnight-blue feathers poked above his broad shoulders. As he shifted, his breathing hitched, which was a clear sign of suppressed pain.
"Is your bird's wing hurt?" she asked, her medical instincts overriding her irritation. She stepped closer, squinting. What kind of legal pet had a wingspan that massive?
The man’s eyes flickered with a strange realization. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as he turned his back to her. Sakura gasped, the clipboard nearly slipping from her fingers as she stumbled back against the desk.
They weren't pet wings. They were his wings.
They were massive, feathered appendages of obsidian and indigo, spanning the width of the waiting room. He looked over his shoulder with a bored, almost regal expression and flexed the giant appendages carefully.
"I broke the metacarpus on the left wing," he said, his tone clinical. "It’s a clean break and it will heal fast, but I can’t set it myself. You’re a vet; I figured you could handle it."
Sakura stared, her mouth agape. She was convinced she had finally snapped from exhaustion. This was a hallucination, a very handsome, very winged hallucination.
"You’re annoying," he muttered when she didn't move. "Are you helping or not?"
The word 'annoying' sparked a strange, familiar irritation in her, as if she had been waiting years to hear it from him specifically. She swallowed hard, forcing her legs to move. "I... I can help," she whispered.
She reached out, her trembling fingers brushing the feathers. They were soft like expensive silk, but they carried the faint, earthy scent of burning firewood. Most strikingly, they radiated a heat that made her small human chakra hum in her veins. This wasn't just biology; this was Spirit.
"How did you even break this?" she asked, her curiosity momentarily eclipsing her shock. How could a creature this powerful be so careless?
"None of your business," he grunted, his ears tinting a slight shade of red.
Sakura suppressed a smile, assuming it was an embarrassing story. "Fine. Follow me to the back."
The walk to the exam room was punctuated only by the sharp clack of her heels on the tile. The silence was heavy, filled with the presence of something that shouldn't exist in modern day Konoha.
"Sit on the table," she commanded, snapping on a pair of latex gloves. She gathered her wraps and antiseptic, her professional persona finally locking back into place. He complied, turning his back to her once more.
Sakura didn't hesitate. She positioned her hands on either side of the fracture. "Hold still," she muttered. With a swift, practiced motion, she snapped the bone back into its proper alignment.
The man let out a sharp, pained grunt, his entire frame tensing. "You could have warned me!" he hissed, his eyes flashing a brief, dangerous red.
"Where would the fun be in that?" Sakura retorted, a bit of her usual fire returning as she began to wrap the wing with expert precision. She didn't flinch at the red eyes. Instead, she stepped closer, using her shoulder to brace the heavy wing. "And sit straight. You're slouching."
"Hn." He stiffened but did as he was told.
"You really are a piece of work," Sakura muttered as she tugged the bandage tight, causing him to straighten up with another grimace. "Coming in here, demanding help, and then calling me annoying? You should be more grateful that I'm not calling the authorities or a circus."
"As if they could catch me," he whispered, though the bite was gone from his voice.
He stood up, experimentally stretching the wing before wincing. Sakura sighed, her heart softening slightly. A break was a break, regardless of whether the patient was a dog or a mythical being.
"Don't use that wing tonight," she warned. "In fact, you should stay here until morning to ensure the wrap holds." It was a practical offer, though a part of her just wanted more time to figure out what, and who, he was.
He looked at her with lingering suspicion before giving a short, sharp nod. "Hn."
As she finished cleaning the room and prepared to finally head to her car, she felt his gaze on her. She reached the back door, her keys jingling in her hand.
"Thank you. I am in your debt, woman," he said from the shadows of the hallway.
Sakura spun around, her green eyes flashing. "My name is Dr. Haruno Sakura, not 'woman'!" she barked, baring her teeth at him.
The man actually looked a bit sheepish, his arrogance momentarily faltering. "My apologies, Dr. Haruno. My name is Uchiha Sasuke. If you ever find yourself in need of help, call my name."
Sasuke stood, testing the weight of the bandages. He turned to Sakura, his dark eyes unreadable for a long moment before he reached back toward his good wing. With a sharp, sudden pluck, he pulled a long, iridescent primary feather from the covert.
He held it out to her. It shimmered with an oily, midnight sheen, vibrating with a faint, rhythmic heat.
“I can’t take this, Sasuke,” Sakura said, waving her hands dismissively. “A ‘thank you’ is enough.”
“It is not a gift,” Sasuke said, his voice dropping into a low, serious register. He stepped forward, closing her hand around the quill. The heat from the feather surged into her palm, syncing with her own heartbeat. “For a Tengu, a feather is a piece of our essence. It is a part of the spirit we use to take flight. By giving this to you, I am creating a tether.”
Sakura looked down at the feather, mesmerized. “A tether?”
“If you are ever in danger, or if the world of the mythical or the world of men becomes too heavy for you to bear, you need only call my name while holding this,” Sasuke explained. “I will feel the pull on my soul. I will find you, no matter where you are. To hold an Uchiha’s feather is to hold a claim on our protection.”
He looked at her with a flicker of something that wasn't quite warmth, but a deep, burgeoning respect. “You mended a part of my spirit tonight, Sakura. It is only right that I leave a piece of it behind to watch over you.”
"Thank you, Sasuke-kun," she said, her voice softening as she offered him a bright, tired smile. "Have a good rest of your night."
She turned and headed to her car, leaving behind a very stunned, very red-faced Uchiha. Sasuke watched her go, leaning against the doorframe. Human women were definitely annoying, he decided, but this one was also remarkably interesting.
Sasuke’s POV
Sasuke watched through the glass as Sakura’s car pulled out of the lot. She was very odd for a human. He had come here expecting to knock the doctor out just so he could access her medical supplies. He was a fugitive of sorts, a creature of the mountains in a city that had forgotten his kind.
Instead, she hadn't even hesitated. She had looked at his wings, parts of him that usually commanded fear or worship, and treated them like a bird's broken wing.
Sasuke moved to relax on the cozy couch in the waiting room, his wing throbbing with a dull, manageable ache. Just as he sat down, the bell on the door rang again. He didn't even have to look up to recognize the chaotic, over-saturated Spirit signatures approaching.
"What do you want, dobe?" Sasuke sighed.
Naruto Uzumaki bounded over to the couch. He was wearing a loud orange kimono that did nothing to hide the fact that he was a Kitsune of legendary proportions. He flopped onto the couch, his nine orange tails smacking Sasuke squarely in the face.
Sasuke angrily shoved at the fur. "Watch it."
"So, did you knock the doc out so you could fix your wing?" Naruto asked, his blue eyes wide with excitement.
"No," Sasuke said, leaning back. "She saw me and didn't hesitate to help me."
Naruto froze, his tails going stiff as he stared at Sasuke in shock. Beside them, a silver-haired man leaned against the wall, his face buried in a small book. Kakashi Hatake, an Inugami of immense power, stopped reading and looked up with his single visible eyebrow raised. A fluffy, canine tail flicked restlessly behind him.
"She didn't even question why you had wings?" Kakashi asked, his voice holding its usual lazy drawl.
"No," Sasuke said. "She just went to work. She also didn't hesitate to give me attitude, either. Almost like she wasn't afraid."
Kakashi completely closed his book. His curious gaze drifted toward the exam room Sakura had just vacated. "Interesting. A human with a small spark but a large amount of nerve. Maybe I should stop by one night to see exactly how she’ll react."
"Me too! I wanna meet the 'doc' as well!" Naruto shouted, his whiskers twitching as he shot to his feet. "If she can handle Sasuke without screaming, she must be awesome!"
Sasuke sighed at the future headache the two were about to cause. He closed his eyes and leaned his head on the back of the couch.
"Do what you want, but leave now. I am exhausted and the doctor gave me the clinic for the night." His eyes slitted open, the red Sharingan spinning as he glared at the two. "She never permitted guests."
"Mah, mah. Alright Sasuke-chan, we will leave you to your brooding," Kakashi spoke, his tone teasing.
He grabbed Naruto by the collar and began dragging him toward the door. Naruto wiggled and waved his arms around the entire time, his tails knocking over a display of pet vitamins.
"Don't forget our spar tomorrow, teme!" Naruto shouted before the clinic door swung shut.
Sasuke closed his eyes and let a small smirk show. He would rather rip his own eyes out before he admitted it, but he didn't mind those two that much. He reached behind him to his wing, his fingers grazing the spot where his feather used to be.
The clinic smelled like antiseptic and cherry blossoms. For the first time in a long time, the Uchiha felt safe. He closed his eyes, the image of a pink-haired doctor with a sharp tongue and kind hands flickering in his mind before he drifted into a light, Spirit-filled sleep.