The Third Member

By RJ

Pairing: Ita/Saku Hida/Saku

Disclaimer: Yada, yada, yada...

Chapter One

Present Time

Itachi listened carefully to Pain as he stood on the tongue of the doorway and gazed at the rain falling from the blackened sky as it flooded the streets of the rouge village below. Ever since all nine of the Tailed Beasts had been placed into their posession and the Great War had started, it seemed like even on sunny days it was cloudy. The last Uchiha couldn't even remember the last time he gazed upon the rays of the sun.

Behind him, Pain assumed the image of Itachi's back meant he wasn't listening. "Are you listening to me, Itachi?" He asked, turning his attention from the usually blue Kisame, to the ebony-haired criminal. He was leaning one arm against the doorway, his back turnd on his comrades, and seemed lost in his own world.

Itachi turned to look at the raven charms dangling next to him in the doorway, but the way he tilted his head made it seem like he was talking to Pain rather than the dangling wooden birds. "I heard you." He said almost inaudiably, eyes unfocused.

"Then you understand the situation that is placed upon your shoulders, and not ours?" Pain wasn't enjoying the attitude Itachi was giving him. This was crucial information that needed to be taken into careful consideration. He rarely confronted his members directly unless it was vital they see he was being 100% serious.

Itachi turned to face him and narrowed his onyx eyes. "She's just a girl."

"So am I." Konan said bitterly from the shadows of the room. She sat on an old armchair, legs crossed, watching her fellow members discuss their new problem.

Kisame scratched at his blue hair and chuckled nervously. "Not to be sexist or anything, but can such a Kunoichi really be a threat to us?"

Pain gave him an incredulous look. "She killed Kakuzu."

The blue-skinned man laughed and shrugged, but not in an amused fashion. He took a swig of the Sake bottle on the table and wiped his mouth with his wrist. "I guess that's a little bit of a problem." He mumbled to himself. He cast his attention onto Hidan, who had remained taciturn ever since Itachi and Kisame had arrived, and raised a brow. "Hidan, you saw her fighting Kakuzu for awhile, how tough is she?"

He didn't say anything, only glanced at him for a fleeting moment and then returned to staring at the floor, lost in whatever thoughts he was having. Perhaps revenge? He hadn't hated Kakuzu, in fact he was a little attached to him in a way, the loss must have been a little hard to wrap his mind around right away.

Pain looked back at Itachi, who was once again facing the sky watching the rain fall. "You understand, don't you?" He inquired quietly. "You're her main target." Of course Itachi knew this fact. They were all well aware of the probable, seething hate she had for Itachi. It wasn't a secret that the girl had an astounding admiration for his younger brother, it was a stronger version of "Puppy Love," as Kisame had once described it.

Sakura Haruno. The third member of Team Seven. The thought was ludacris, but at the same time, they should have seen it coming. After what they had brought about, she was bound to come after them eventually. Maybe that's why Kisame was so unnerved by it, because he knew it had been his chore to kill her those seven years ago while the others took care of the stronger units. Instead, he had graciously taken mercy on a little innocent girl and let her live. Seven years later she's their biggest threat, at least according to Pain. Both Kisame and Itachi were having doubts.

How old was she now? Nineteen? That means she witnessed them murder her friends when she was only twelve. What a terrible thing to have to see as a Genin, unexpirienced in the field of death. It was akin to throwing her into a pit of wild dogs, hungry and angry. It was also his problem now, even though at the time nobody had given her a second glance. The girl was always reguarded as Team Seven's weakest link, and she was never meant to be surrounded by such important shinobi, because in the end she was nothing but a worthless kunoichi with a few good skills, an average ninja at best.

When a bolt of lightning cracked through the air and earth in the distance, Itachi was suddenly jolted back into reality and concieved how bad the storm was getting. He and Kisame couldn't travel through this and come out clean on the other side. Pain must have figured this matter was going to pop up, because he spoke the simplest solution a moment later. "If you want, the three of you can spend the night here, but I want you out of the village in the morning." He and Konan exited the room quietly, leaving Hidan, Itachi, and Kisame alone in a pondering silence.

It was awhile before anyone spoke or made a noise, and it happened to be Hidan, even though he hadn't said a word the entre time. He laughed at his feet and grinned at his two companions, a very human emotion burning in his blue eyes. "Looks like we really fucked up, didn't we?" He asked rhetorically. He straightened himself up from the wall and glared at Kisame. "Couldn't kill a little girl, could you, you fucking idiot."

Itachi didn't sleep too great that night. In fact, around midnight the thunder was getting too loud for him to even keep his eyes closed and pretend that he was sleeping. He lay on his back on the futon in the living room that Pain let them sleep in, because he didn't want to give them seperate rooms to clean up after. He glanced over at the couch, where Kisame was snoring, and then at the arm chair, where Hidan was zoning out on the floor. However, as he looked more closely, Hidan's breathing was even and slow, and Itachi understood that he was just sleeping with his eyes open.

Thunder struck again, and Itachi rose from his futon slowly, making sure to be slient in order to let the other two keep sleeping. Not out of consideration, but because he didn't want them to bother him.

Not to long ago Pain had opted that the cloaks were causing too much trouble for all the members; making it impossible to not be instantaneously spotted by enemies, and catching on sharp edges when they ran, ripping the fabric. He instead decided individual wear was better, making whether or not the one in question having a particular ring the only way to determine if they were part of the organization. So, now deducting his cloak, Itachi wore normal shinobi slacks and his black sandals, a black, fitted T-shirt, his grey mesh undershirt, and the charm necklace resting on his collarbone. On his finger was his crimson ring, signaling his position in the organization, and he tied his long black hair higher up on his head rather than at the nape of his neck. One detail he had never altered was the position his Hita-Ate had on his body, and that would always be on his forehead. At the moment it was removed because he had been attempting to sleep.

Even though Itachi had never been in Pain's asylum physically, the rooms and hallways were genuinely familiar, because he had been there multiple times the way he had been in the Tailed Beast chamber. He could easily recollect the way to get to the room with the tongue balcony they had been in earlier that night when they had first been briefed by their leader about their new enemy. He enjoyed being in that room, it was wide and faced the moon, so when it was full, the light filtered through the cracks in the wall and the opening to the balcony. Nonetheless, it was still raining, like it often did in that particular area, but the lights from the modernized village still cascaded in, making the room look ethereal.

Thunder struck the horizon and casted a silver glow for a split second, revealing a figure with dull amber hair lounging on the sofa in the corner. Itachi could see his leader in the corner of his eye, but he didn't tun to face him. He wasn't fond of looking at Pain in the eyes, his bloodline didn't scare him, but it made him feel vulnerable.

They were both silent, until Pain rose andentwined a hand through his hair. "She's here for you." He said quietly, reguarding the doorway with his piercing eyes. "Konan and I won't interfere." His footsteps on the concrete floor echoed as he came closer, and Itachi still did not meet his gaze when it fell on him once more. Ever so quietly, Pain leaned closer and whispered something noislessly in his subbordinate's ear. Whatever he had said or instructed, it made shock crawl across Itachi's face. He finally turned to look Pain in the eye, but his superior had already left the room, closing the door softly behind him.

Itachi wasn't entirely alone now. He turned back towards the doorway and waited, the rain was getting heavier and the lights from the village were starting to exstinguish. When the next beam of lightning struck the earth, she was there. Gracefully, she flipped herself up from underneath the tongue, as lean and flexible as a gymnast, and stood still on the tip, her black cloak dripping wet and heavy at her ankles. He couldn't see her face yet, because it was hidden in the darkness of the hood. Her footsteps against the stone were gentle as she came closer, out of the rain, and revealed her face.

He had expected something different, exspecially when Pain had informed them that she had been training underground, to avoid possibly being exposed to the world by spies before she was ready to go after the Akatsuki. Her introduction into the world as a class-A Assasain was news to them. Itachi had expected her to be pale and angry-looking. He had expected her to have the same emotional sleeve as the nine tails boy had, or his little brother, Sasuke, maybe even taken after the Copy-nin's aloof facade. Instead, she seemed more like a politer version of Konan. Quiet, but not stoic, more like she didn't make too much out of being where she was, but he knew better. She was exactly where she wanted to be.

She wasn't that bad looking either, he had to say. Her face had matured and no longer bore the childish structure she had when they had met seven years earlier. Her eye brows were pointed, and her eyes were sharp and pleasingly green, even her thin lips were in perfect proportion to her face. Her hair was pulled into a black bandana with the Konoha insignia stamped on the metal plate, but he could still tell it was bright pink because of the wispy petal locks at the nape of her neck.

He had to admit he was slightly curious as to what she was wearing underneath the cloak.

There was an agonizingly long stillness between the two of them while they merely stared at each other, mainly because Sakura had nothing to fear about making eye contact as long as his Sharingan were not activated. When she spoke, breaking the silence, her voice seemed unused, as if she had not mused aloud for a very long time. "They had expected me to go after Kisame or Hidan first." She broke eye contact for a fleeting moment and unbuttoned the brooch at the neck of her cloak. She rolled her shoulders to push it off and it piled up around her feet in a wet heap. Instead of the ridiculous pink uniform she wore as a child, she wore sandal boots, fitted shorts, and a fitted tank top, all of it black. On her lower arms she wore gray armor, and her gloves had metal plates on the back, also stamped with the Konoha insignia.

The most prominent feature to her attire was the inky-black Katana straped to her back.

"I'm not going after either of them first, however," she said quietly, pulling on the wrist of her left glove, and glaring at Itachi with venom, "because I'm impatient."

The Uchiha blinked, and when he reopened his eyes instinctively, they were blood red. The Sharingan. Sakura was no longer looking him in the eye either, now she focused on his chin.

"They will hear." Itachi informed her. "You're outnumbered."

"No." Her voice was fierce, and she stood up straight, her hands at her sides balled up into fists. "Lock the door."

Itachi assumed her order was supposed to be significant, because they both knew that even a Genin could kick down that door, it wasn't strongly built. But they also both knew that him locking that door meant he was commited to fighting her one-on-one, no outside help. Knowing that deep down he wanted to fight her alone and fairly, he obeyed, and without breaking his gaze from her focused green eyes, he bolted the door shut tightly.

Lighting struck.

The light exploded into the room for a nanosecond.

And then they were upon each other.

She moved like a bird, light and quick on her feet with extra chakra, but she struck like a cobra. Itachi was forced to admit, only to himself, that everytime she swung her sword (which curiously enough also had a black blade along with the sheath), he only barely managed to dodge or block it. He, however, wasn't so unexperienced either. Wherever she went, he went, and whatever she threw at him, he could effortlessly push her back onto the defensive just as quick as she had.

At some point he had leapt to the wall of the room where two katanas were mounted on display, and he only managed to retrieve one because at the same time Sakura had thrown a swarm of shurrikan at him, forcing him to settle with leaving the other behind. Instantly she went for the second sword, and threw it out the balcony. It spun down into the streets and was lost in sight. "Fair fight!" She snapped at him, bending her knees and holding her katana out with both hands on the blade.

He didn't have time to reply. She made a seal with her hands and two clones of herself appeared from the shadows behind him and he was suddenly engaged in a violent hand-to-hand fight between the two of them, while the real one leapt from wall to wall, gathering all the expensive, but useful weapons and tossed them out the window. Now, the only two weapons in the room were whatever kunai or shurikan the two had on them, and their single swords. As soon as she was sure they couldn't one up one another, he sliced the throat of one of her clones with a kunai and she dissapeared. The other clone put a little room between them and kicked her heal against the floor. With a snap, a sharp blade cut through the sole of her boot and she kicked at him when he was turning from the cloud of smoke where the last clone had ben eliminated. The speed of her kick and her proximity was too quick for him to dodge, and the blade of her foot was lodged into one of his love handles.

It was just a fleshwound, and he quickly grabbed the distraction and broke her neck with a nast crack. He took a moment to breathe and felt his side, pulling away a little blood on his fingertips. Thankfully the kick hadn't been close enough and the wound was too shallow to matter.

Both of them were at a distance now, back where they started. They were both underestimating each other at the same moment, and now they were both going to bring it up a notch. A big notch.

Itachi made the first move, much to her surprise, and was in front of her in less than a second, brandishing his sword and she blocked it only a moment before it could have split her head in two. With the handle in one hand, and the flat of the blade in her free palm, she stop the fall of his sword and grunted when she was forced to bend her knees to push him back. The toes of her boots slid on the smooth surface of the concrete, and Itachi's knee smashed into her stomach with a sickening sound.

She gasped, winded, and stumbled back. Before she could aknowledge the pain, she was forced to roll out of the way of the tip of his blade, which came down for her, whislting through the air it cut through. She jumped as soon as she was clear of him and kicked him in the shoulder, hearing something pop, and she realized she had dislocated his joint. When she was on the ground again, she spun a kick around for extra force and hit him in the rips, sending him back. He flew from the ferocity of her attack, and hit the wall behind him with his back.

With a window of opportunity, Sakura's hands clasped around her navel and she started to heal whatever damaged he had done to her internally. Later, when she would be given time to examine herself more properly, she would worry about whether or not she'd be able to have children in the future. The pain receeded slightly, but she couldn't afford to go all out and waste her precious chakra. At the moment she was the only one who had used any, unless Itachi was also using some to better his footwork.

With a grimace, she stopped letting the chakra flood her and got back on guard as Itachi lifted himself from the wall where he collided into. His eyes, although she did not see them, burned with fury. He didn't like being overpowered by someone who wasn't part of his own clan, and this girl was defiantly proving to be a threat. Her stood straight and snapped his shoulder back into place with a wet sound, and rolled it a little to get it working again.

Quickly, before she could predict his hand formations, he made the seals necessary to use fire, and, in less than a second, scorching flames expelled from his mouth, and all she could do was dodge. However, when she landed in front of the door, she realized that in the confined space of the room, the fire would eat her up.

Right before she decided to make her defensive move, something crashed through the door, shattering the hinges and falling for her.

By instinct only, two shields of blue exploded from Sakura's hands, one to curve the gyser of fire from her path, and another to stop the shredding sword from crashing into her. The fire dispersed quickly when it wasn't being effective, and the second it did so, Sakura released her barriers and kicked Kisame's sword into his face, where he quickly let it go and ducked to the side before the razor-sharp sides touched him. Behind him, Hidan stood in the hallway, watching the scene with nonstalgia in his cold eyes. Sakura took a second to lock her gaze with his, reminding him of how she killed his partner.

She'd get even with the Jashin eventually. But not now.

"Kisame! Don't interfere!" She heard Itachi order.

Sakura, not wasting her worry on the two in the hallway, turned her back on the doorway to face Itachi once more. Something didn't seem right to her, whether it was from the pain in her abdomen or the feeling that they all knew something that she didn't. Something she should know.

But at the moment, it didn't matter. This time, at their pause, she didn't let Itachi make the first move. She gathered up as much chakra in her feet that felt like a safe amount and flew at him, literally. The speed in which she was upon him made her barely touch the floor with the tips of her toes. Their weapons came at each other from crooked angles, and the force in which they contacted made them all but shatter, shaking violently in their hands. She didn't see where either of the swords flew off to, but she could see her hand grabbing onto the collar of Itachi's shirt, and she could feel the chakra burning in her fist. In a second, she would like to feel the bones in Itachi's face get crushed under the ferosity of her punch.

Instead, he caught her fist before she could gain enough momentum to make it effective, and he shoved her back. She bounded back in small leaps, crossing her arms with the armor facing him as he sent a kick at her face. She used the chakra in her feet to keep from moving back, and when his kick contacted with her blocking arms, she quickly grabbed his ankle, and with her inhumane strength, she threw him.

He landed on his feet. Unharmed.

It was then that Sakura made her biggest mistake in the fight. Without thinking, and overcome with her inability to think clearly at the moment, she looked into his eyes.

And then there was darkness.

"What is your name?"

Sakura blinked, unfazed, into an endless sunset. She didn't know where she was, but when she looked down at her hands they were clean, slender, and long. She didn't recall ever having hands this pretty. She always remembered them being worn out, scraped at the knuckles and sore at the joints. The same with her clothes, when she noticed. She was wearing a pink dress she had only worn when she was a girl, but, now that she thought of it, she couldn't remember why she had stopped wearing her favorite color in the first place.

Whoever was with her repeated his question.

"Sakura Haruno." She answered. She wanted to see who was asking her this question, but when she tried to turn, he forced her with strong hands to keep staring ahead. She didn't argue, because the endless horizon was breathtaking. She wondered why it seemed so familiar.

"Where do you live?"

She breathed in, the air tasted like honey. "Nowhere."

"Do you know of the Village of Konohagakure?"

She closed her eyes now, tilting her head back a little. Her abdomen ached a little, but she couldn't remember anything happening to it. "Yes," she whispered, "I was raised there."

"Do you have any intentions to return?"

Sakura's eyes reopened, and instead of gazing into an endless sky, she saw now the great gates of her home village. Seeing them filled her with no feelings, not hate or love. She reguarded them with indifference. "I never want to return to Konoha."

"Is there anyone waiting for you there?"

"No."

"Why did you leave?"

She blinked and was now gazing at a clearing in a forest, crimson blood spattered and soaking into the pure white snow that was caked and disheveled on the ground. "I wanted to become stronger and Konoha was sheltered. I wanted to become a great Kunoichi." Although the scene meant nothing to her, she had to wipe a tear or two away from her cheek.

"Sakura..."

"Yes?" She beathed, unable to take her eyes of of the bodies sprawlled across the clearing. She wanted to throw up, it was nothing but slaughter, she couldn't even make out the faces.

"Are you aware of the names Sasuke Uchiha, Naruto Uzumaki, and Kakashi Hatake?"

Something inside her screamed for her to say yes. But why? She had no idea who those people were. She answered truthfully; "No I do not."

Pain stared down at the unconcious girl, whose black bandana had been removed and now her short pink hair was unkempt around her face. Itachi's hands, which were previously pressed to her temples, were now on the back of the couch, which he stood behind. Other than them, Konan, Hidan, and Kisame also stood behind Pain, watching her with reletive interest.

"I don't get why we don't just kill her," Hidan mused darkly, "she's our enemy isn't she?"

"Not anymore." Itachi told him, standing up straight.

"Is her memory erased?" Pain asked him.

"Yes, but not enough for her to forget her skills. She remembers how to do the things she's mastered, but she doesn't remember who taught them to her. She's just a rouge kunoichi now, and it'll be easy to have her as a member because she's been training underground and nobody outside of Konoha will recognize her."

"Why the fuck do we even need her?!" Hidan snapped, gesturing to her limp body with esasperated hands. "What? So she can almost beat the shit out of Itachi, and she's one of the few class-A Assasains overnight? Big deal! I'm fucking immortal!"

Kisame pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose while Hidan listed reasons why Sakura wasn't such a wise addition to their already thinning organization. They already had one PMSing member (Pain had to restrain Konan from ripping off a very important part of Hidan's body after he threw that one out into the open), her hair was sure to attract way too much attention to them, they happened to be the ones who maimed and murdered her best friends, if she ever remembers she'd end up killing them, etc, etc.

Nobody was listening to him.

When Itachi and Pain had been alone in the now trashed room, he had whispered one thing to him; "Do not kill her." At first, Itachi didn't know what he meant, until halfway through his fight with the nimble Kunoichi. She was quick, strong, and deadly. She had single-handedly taken out Kakuzu, with Hidan close by, she was the most skilled medic in all of the largest villages, and she was almost a stranger to the entire world. That was the requirement to joining Akatsuki, other than being dedicated to the destruction of the great nations, you had to be elite, and useful.

Itachi sorted out the other members in the organization, Deidara with his explosives, Sasori with his pupeteering, Kisame with his sword and water skills, Hidan and Kakuzu with their near-immortality, him with his bloodline, Pain with his influence, Konan with her stealth, Zetsu with his stealth, and...well, Tobi didn't exactly have a useful skill. He was their black sheep. But soon, with Itachi's ability to mess with her mind, they planned to add Sakura to that list; Sakura, with her healing, her strength.

Her everything.

The third member of Team Seven was about to make her mark in history.

A/N: I have a thing for Sakura being totally bad ass. The girl seriously needs to have some more screen time and fight time because her fights are always entertaining. ALSO, before you read on, keep in mind that this is a cracked-up fantasy of mine glorifying Sakura, and if you're a Sakura hater, please don't read cause I don't want your "Sakura's a bitch, she's not this powerful, blah blah blah" reviews cluttering my vision. I'm fully aware that Sakra isn't a powerful character in the real manga/anime. I don't care. This is just fanfiction. Anyways, here are a few things to keep in mind while reading this, because I've really tweaked the original story just for the hell of it. (This is the only Author's Note I'll be writing until the last chapter).

- Obviously all the Akatsuki members are still alive, and Tobi is just Tobi. He won't be Madara now or later, he's just Tobi. I like Tobi.

- You may consider Sakura a little OOC in some parts, but she won't be a mary-sue, I promise you.

- Really, I wasn't a fan of Itachi only pretending to be a bad guy. I defiantly prefered him as one.

Enjoy. Review. (Please?)