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Chapter 1: Her Art

Sakura gazed at her reflection at the oval shaped mirror just across her table in her office. Her pink locks of hair were tamed on the sides, some escaping to block the view on her beautiful yet paled face.The dexterity of her youth was still there, lips were still lustrous and her eyes were still attractive to her own point of view. It should be there! She didn't want her work to cause her to age. She was still young, 20 years old young.

How long has she been doing this? 15 hours? She brought a hand to massage the throbbing temples that caused her discomfort and tried to relieve her headache using her own energy. She smiled, learning that this was probably one of the best ways to use her chakra, soothing a terrible headache. She sighed and focused her attention to the multitude of papers on top of her desk. She rolled an eye after looking at almost 5 neatly compiled folders, oozing with papers from the inside. There was still a lot of work was what she thought.

The papers were important and she wished that aside from the hokage and shizune, there was someone else who could understand the importance of what she was doing. She was the top dog of the medical community now, duly assigned by the hokage, although, there was no other kunoichi of her class to take in the position. She was the only one who can identify, study and probably think of the techniques that their ninjas in the village suffers from when out in ther missions. The hokage told her once that this was essential to the village's information to assess the level of abilities the other countries have. Using this to Konoha's advantage, it will help their village to strengthen their ninjas.

She could have easily left the job to the secretary to sort out the papers but she would rather do this herself. She knew what was dangerous to what was not a critical threat for the time being. As a medical ninja, her skills have reached a level where even other countries had recognized her status and reviewing the cause of the incidents and the casualty is one of many stepping stones she had forced on herself. Yet the influx of the incidents made her mad. Revewing the notes was one thing but having a greater incident and death reports on top of her table was disturbing.

"Tea?" a brown haired woman offered as she settled the drink at the near edge of her busy table. Sakura
nodded once and smiled at her, prdeciting that if she did not immediately acknowledge the woman, she would have to endure a lecture from her. Sakura trailed the other woman and hinted her that she was busy if ever she planned on what the medical ninja knew she was planning.

"So I'll just put these in that basket over there?" she had 5 letters in her hand, some quite girly, others kind of manly. Sakura made a gesture that she wasn't interested, earning a look from the smaller woman before she made a walk towards the basket. She hesitated to put it down which the kunoichi immediately noticed.

"Sarah, just put it." Sakura ordered with a raised brow.

"But you have to read it you know? You have like..." she stopped for a moment as she turned around and
described the mountains of letter that was inside a hollow container. "See? It's a basket full of letters already!" Sakura sighed and when she took a quick peek that the other didn't seem to notice, she was exaggerating. It was just overflowing... or whatever. It wasn't that many, she thought. She shook her head and shuffled the papers into one folder.

"That's just exaggerating it." Sakura immediately countered.

As she placed the folder in one empty spot on top of her table, she turned her attention towards the tea. She lifted it gracefully in one swift and silent motion and started to take small sips on it. She smiled when she smelled the aroma of Jasmine. She felt her muscles released some of the earlier tensions it had and when she had her fill of her stretch, she leaned back on her chair.