Disclaimer: I am only going to say this once, because doing it on the rest of my chapters really is a pain. I do not own the anime Naruto, nor any of its characters. I do, however, own the plot and so on and so forth. Now that that's done, enjoy the chapter!!

For Haruno Sakura, common sense and logic came second nature, even if it wasn't always what she wanted. Therefore, it was easier for her to understand why she should stay out of fights with people she had no chance of winning, or even surviving against. It was also slightly easier for her to understand than some people, why, after eight years, one of the most important people in her life was still out of it. All of this now understood, she was now having trouble understanding why she was getting ready to attack one of the most dangerous criminal groups in the world, well, she was only going after the most dangerous one, and that she was doing it in an effort to get the man she loved back. Her mind still trying to focus out of its fog, Sakura closed her eyes, and created some very quick hand movements, and upon opening her eyes, set out in the darkness of the night that had recently fallen, after the one man no one had been able to defeat.

The group of ninjas stalking him and his partners were not as bad as some of the others, thought Uchiha Itachi. He had dealt with some of these leaf ninja before, and had never been truly impressed. Though admiration was worlds off, Itachi had to admit that they had gotten better. However, the little fox was still very easy to single out. His enormous amount of chakra was nearly suffocating. But, Itachi nearly smirked, the Jinchuuriki wasn't going after him, but his partner. So then, who was going to try and attack him? An answer came in the form of the earth suddenly splitting beneath his feet, and shuriken flying to where he landed after jumping away into a tree. Everywhere Itachi landed, shuriken or kunai would follow. Which meant, someone was not only able to see in the dark, but able to predict his movements. How interesting. It seemed like the Konaha heroes had found someone to specialize against his sharingan. Or at least, they had tried. No one could escape or match his Mangekyou. And whoever was hunting him, obviously knew that.

She did know. After her one live sighting of him, she couldn't really call it an encounter, Sakura had read up on those infamous eyes of his. Unfortunately, there wasn't too much that was known about them, but Sakura had managed to track some very unfortunate medics who had been hired to heal him. It hadn't been a fun experience, considering she had needed to go into one of the Akatsuki hideouts and jail-break the men, so to speak. Though she hadn't had much time with them, taking the fact that they had all been found and killed, Sakura had gotten enough to bring back to the village and study on her own. With the information she had gotten from the medics, and all the books she had read, Sakura figured herself fairly well-informed about the sharingan, and the Mangekyou. Therefore, she had been able to create her own jutsu for her own eyes to try and counter-act the normal sharingan. Of course, that still left her defenseless against the Mangekyou, but she knew how to avoid it. Her own jutsu allowed her to not only see in the dark, but used the pre-cognition that every human being has, just heightened, to predict the person's moves. The only problem was, the jutsu left her eyes incredibly sensitive, a side effect that goes along with almost any complicated eye jutsu. Also, during the time she has the jutsu on, her eyes go completely purple, except for the irises, which turn pink, and the black, pinwheel-shaped pupils.

That was the part that Itachi found intriguing, when he finally located his attacker. He had never seen anything like it, and concluded that the girl must have created it on her own. Highly risky, and only attainable by someone incredibly intelligent, and gutsy. There was way more to this girl than her pretty face. She didn't seem at all surprised when he suddenly disappeared, then reappeared right behind her. In fact, she was ready for him, and was already turning with a punch when he landed. Itachi very easily dodged it, but felt the power in the punch, and knew, if it hit him, he would have been in serious trouble. He spent a couple tense moments dodging her attacks while trying to land a couple of his own, and observing her movements. A couple of the easier observations were that she already knew about his eyes, for she wasn't looking into them, until she realized that he couldn't use them. This confirmed his suspicions that she was not only a medic, which he already knew, but that she was a brilliant one. She could tell his movements were slightly tired and weak, so therefore figured that he couldn't use his eyes. As she began to look into his eyes, Itachi was able to piece together hers, and try a few experiments. He found that if he knew what movements he was going to use, she could easily predict them. However, if he himself didn't decided exactly what he was going to do until the moment he did it, it was harder for her to predict. Using this new information to his advantage, Itachi began to push her more to the defensive.

The moment his movements became more confident, Sakura knew she was screwed. Apparent by the sudden yelling, her partner, Naruto, became aware of the same fact. He hadn't wanted to leave her alone with the dangerous Uchiha in the first place, but she and Sai had insisted that it was the smartest course of action, considering that the Akatsuki partners were after him, and Sakura standed a better chance against Itachi because of her eyes. However, Naruto had known from the instant they began fighting, that it had been a bad idea, and now it was confirmed.

"Sakura! Get the Hell out of there! Leave him to Sai!!" Naruto tried to get away from Kisame to help Sakura, but even with Sai's help, Kisame was not letting Naruto get the chance. Noticing this, and the fact that Naruto was probably going to last longer than Sakura, Sai took a second to draw a few beasts, and send them Itachi's way, then went back to Naruto, hoping the beasts would give enough of a diversion to let Sakura get away. They didn't even come close. Itachi merely batted them away without even looking at them, and continued after Sakura. Sai inwardly cursed, but couldn't break away from the fight with Kisame and Naruto.

Naruto growled, and began pushing Kisame back. "I can handle fish-face. Go and get Sakura out of there!" After making sure that Naruto would be alright, Sai turned away, and went after Itachi and Sakura.

She had never been in a fight like this. It was like she didn't even have time to breathe before he suddenly came at her with another attack. Normally, she would have turned and run, putting some space between them before throwing weapons and beginning another attack. Unfortunately, Itachi seemed to catch on to her idea, and was not even giving her time to turn around. If she did, he would catch her in the back. So, she remained facing front, fighting a hand-to-hand battle, which was quickly wearing her out. Still, she was surprised at how good he was with hand-to-hand. From all the reports she had heard from Kakashi, she knew that his specialty was gen jutsu, not close contact fighting. Yet here she was, fighting for her life, in close contact. It began to frustrate her, which made the fatigue begin to fade, and her movements become stronger. One of Itachi's brows rose as he felt her strength coming back, and he suddenly had to jump away as she managed a punch through his attacks. Right as he was about to land, another swarm of beasts came out of nowhere. Just like before, he swatted them away, almost in boredom. He looked straight at Sai, and pointed. Knowing exactly what he was doing, Sakura yelled at Sai, and threw herself at Itachi. It was enough, and Itachi's attention was back on Sakura. After a couple blows, Sakura jumped back towards Sai, then froze when she heard a scream. Naruto's scream.

"Sai," she breathed. He nodded, and they both took off.

It didn't take them long to get to where Naruto was, now surrounded by Kisame, Deidara, and two others. Sakura remembered them as Hidan and Tobi. Two kunai were protruding from Naruto, one in the shoulder, the other in his stomach. Unlike normal, these two were deeply embedded, and seemed to have been twisted. Sai pulled out a scroll, and sent more creations after the Akatsuki, who either dodged them, or destroyed them. After a quick nod to Sakura, Sai took off after the group, and Sakura went to Naruto. Kneeling, Sakura began to examine the seriousness of the wounds. Before she could do anything, Naruto pulled them out, and threw them away.

"It's not that bad, Sakura. They just caught me off guard," he said, looking up at her with a pained smile. Sakura shook her head and sighed.

"Well, as long as we have time, I want to heal them as best I can." She gathered chakra, then put her hands to his shoulder. Right as the tissue and muscle began to close, she was suddenly thrown away by a great force. Red spots danced in front of her eyes as she hit a nearby tree on her right side, then crumpled to the ground. Raising herself up on her elbow, she was barely able to see Itachi walking towards her as Naruto yelled, once again in a fight with Kisame.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Kunoichi," Itachi said as Sakura readied her fist to punch the ground. He pulled her up by the hair, and kicked her in the stomach, once again sending her flying into a tree. Her back took the blow this time, but when her head connected, there was no red, only black.

Itachi slowly walked over to the fallen girl, slung her over his shoulder, then turned to Kisame, who was getting his ass kicked by Naruto.

"Kisame! We're leaving." Not even bothering to see if Kisame was following, Itachi took off, soon followed by Hidan, Deidara, Tobi, and, eventually, Kisame. Sai and Naruto followed, but soon fell behind when Deidara began dropping his bombs. Him, Hidan, and Tobi stayed behind to get rid of Naruto and Sai, and soon caught up to the other two, alone.

"So why the Hell are we supposed to get this girl?" Deidara asked after they had gotten a little farther. Itachi just grunted, like usual, which left Kisame to answer.

"She's apparently a very good medic, which means she might be able to help Itachi, and she's close to he Jinchuuriki, which means that he'll come after her."

"Is he really that fucking stupid?" Hidan asked, slight disbelief in his voice.

A smirk appeared on Kisame's face as he answered, "Oh yes. Especially when it concerns someone he cares about." Hidan just sighed, but Deidara smirked.

Tobi looked at them all, confused. "Why does Kisame make that sound like a bad thing?"

A.N. Ok, so this is definitely not my first fanfic, nor my first Itasak fanfic, but I changed my writing style a bit. I've been reading a lot of classics from authors like Jane Austin, and watching some movies set in Victorian-age England, so my speaking and writing has been slightly altered. XD Kinda strange, but hey, my English teacher will love me. Anyway, I hope you all liked the chapter. It was a bit short, but the others will probably be a lot longer (hope that doesn't bother anyone.) No fires please, but I would love some reviews. The only reviews I get are from my sister, so it would be nice to get some non-biased opinions. Thank you very much! --Kat