Breathe (into me)
Following Itachi into Suna, Sakura and team seven are swept into something beyond their control. Something, perhaps, they weren't meant to control. [Gaara-Sakura
Chapter One: One Step Behind! Team Seven Follows!
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For five months they had been doggedly tracking Sasuke and his entourage, known only to them as "Hebi". For five months, she had lived, her world circled around one boy and the hope that someday she would be able to call to him as her teammate once more. Slightly sentimental, considering he was Sasuke, but Sakura had never been one for facing reality.
Akatsuki was falling rapidly, nearly out of members, and on the run from Konoha and Sand, who were hard pressed to catch up. Naruto had, had a puzzling meeting with Itachi - one that had ended as quickly as it had begun. Soon after Sasuke had come face to face with his long hated brother, though the battle was soon over and Sasuke looking for his brother once again, this time with the knowledge that he was growing rapidly, climbing steadily to Itachi's level.
Naruto continued training whenever they arrived back home, determined not to be left behind or useless. Sakura, one who understood the feeling more than she would ever care to, began learning anything she could get her hands on. Desperate to be of some use to the people she loved.
Kakashi helped when he wasn't teaching Naruto - which she quickly came to understand was almost every hour of everyday. Yamato began teaching her earth elements, which she was quick to pick up; later coming to realize that her chakra was earth based (she had previously convinced herself it was fire so that she might be of better use to Sasuke). Tsunade marveled at her stunning growth, smiling and announcing that she was the most promising medic nin she had seen in her life.
Sakura knew she was growing, she also knew that it still wasn't good enough. She didn't have amazing Uchiha blood, nor did she have a demon's power resting within her. Her growth was all will and determination, and she was beginning to fear it wasn't going to be enough to help her reach her teammate's level.
Sakura felt uneasy as they traveled through Konoha, on the borders of Sand, following a thin lead that had placed Uchiha Itachi there a week before. She knew Sasuke would come as well, no matter how weak the lead may seem, and it left a sick feeling in her stomach. Something terrible was going to happen, she could feel it.
-x-x-x-x-
Naruto lay out on the narrow bed closing his eyes and falling asleep instantly, Sakura, who sat in the window seat still unpacking her night-clothing, shook her head. The girl stood and walked to his side, taking note of the deep even breathing, a good sign that tonight he might not have nightmares. She leaned over him and removed his shoes, pulling the sheets out from under him and tucking him in with a motherly smile.
She loved Naruto, more than the knucklehead even deserved. Dropping a quick kiss on his forehead she moved back to the window seat, grabbing her clothing to change into a book to read while she waited for Kakashi to return.
Unlike her noisy companion, sleep would not be so easy to find her tonight. Sakura smiled ruefully, and set the book on the bathroom counter. It wasn't unusual that the members of team seven had a hard time getting sleep; each were haunted by the ghosts of their shared past. Perhaps though, it was Naruto who felt the cracks in their bond the deepest.
To Naruto, team seven was the family that had been denied him. Kakashi the annoyingly lazy father (though sometimes Sakura felt he'd be better as the older brother). Sasuke his brother and best friend, and Sakura, the motherly sister (someone had to pick up the slack for their 'father'). It was funny though that Naruto's family plan had made it clear that none of them were meant for each other.
Sakura knew Naruto hadn't even meant to do it. She had realized on the day Sasuke left that he wasn't ever going to love her, and it hurt, it hurt worse than she was willing to let on. And some part of her refused to stop loving him, rebutted everything that Kabuto said, all the conniving lies he told to try and get a reaction out of her. Sasuke wasn't gone, her Sasuke - their Sasuke was still in their somewhere.
Still a child clinging to the death of his family, unable to let it go. Sakura sighed, grabbing her tooth brush and wetting it under the water. Her tired reflection stared back at her in the mirror as she brushed her teeth, pale waxy skin, deep dark smudges under her listless eyes; she looked terrible, and felt worse.
Leaning over Sakura spat the water in her mouth out, watching it circle 'round the white porcelain before slipping down the drain and out of sight. Sakura tensed as the door to their hotel room opened, her hand slipping into her kunai pouch without thought.
"Naruto won the third round of the chunin exams mostly due to a fluke fart in Kiba's face." A deep male voice called, as the owner halting in the doorway.
She let the weapon go, opening the bathroom door and giving Kakashi a wave, "how'd it go, sensei?" The older man gave a return wave and closed the door, walking into the room. He sat on the bed next to Naruto's, his shoulders slumping in exhaustion.
"Not well," he said softly, laying back on the hard bed and closing his eye. "Nothing but a woman who remembered selling a pork bun to a "pretty" man with black hair and red eyes."
Sakura moved towards him, taking off his shoes and repeating the process she had done with Naruto. Urging a pillow under his head she replied, her voice soft. "It's better than nothing, Kakashi-sensei."
"I know." He touched a hand to the sharingan and she narrowed her eyes, knowing that if she asked him about any pains he'd deny them. The man was as stubborn as Naruto.
"Get some sleep sensei," she shook her head when he went to argue. "No, I got enough last night; I'll keep watch and wake you up for breakfast."
"Alright," he agreed, settling down into the bed and giving her an eye crinkle. She rubbed his head as if he were a child and turned off the light, going back to the window to read her book, using the dim street lights to see the pages below.
It was going to be another long night.
-x-x-x-x-
Naruto woke first around seven, grunting and sputtering curses as he was prone to in the mornings. Sakura promptly whacked him upside the head, telling him to be more respectful of Kakashi's sleep, and then sending him downstairs in search of food for them all. Kakashi woke to the smell of overcooked bacon and eggs with a side of runny oatmeal.
Sakura ate quickly, ignoring the taste of the food on her tongue. Once the horrible food had been pushed forcefully into their stomachs, they began planning the day. Sakura was to cover the red-light district. Naruto protested loudly, and in the end "Naruko" was going to patrol the district. She was, as she pointed out to Sakura, much better suited in that area, while pointedly starting at Sakura's chest.
It's a good thing Kakashi was there to hold Sakura back.
Kakashi soothed the real female of his team, and assigned her to hotel searches, giving her wad of bills to aid the persuasion along. She didn't ask him where he had gotten it. So that's how Sakura found herself four hours later, tired and loosing hope. The city was larger than it appeared from the outer walls. Which also made sense why Itachi and his weird partner would choose here to spend their time.
Sakura stepped into a nice hotel, looking around the overly done interior. "May I help you?" The woman behind the counter asked her dubiously, eyeing her disheveled appearance. Sakura narrowed her eyes and forced herself to smile.
"Yes, I'm looking for--"
The woman began strumming her fingers on the table, long fake nails clicking. She made a noise that grated Sakura's thin nerves, "unfortunately, we don't give out information about our customers. Sorry."
Sakura had a feeling that money wasn't going to work on this woman, so instead she sighed and slipped her hands into seals, deciding that a small amount of chakra being used on the woman wouldn't be too much of a waste. The genjutsu, much like Ino's mind transfer technique, allowed her to slip into the woman's mind, her own body on auto pilot.
She shifted through the woman's memory, ignoring the pointless childhood and fast forwarding into the previous weeks, her eyes widening as she caught a glimpse of Akatsuki cloaks. She brought forth the memory; Itachi rented a room for two, his cold ruthless eyes halting the clerks playful flirting.
The woman saw him only once after that as he left early in the morning, returning later with a bag of steaming pork buns. Sakura leapt forward, her eyes straining through the jumbled memories. There! She grabbed hold of the stream of memory and spread it out before her, watching Itachi hand the girl back the room keys.
"tachi - room - sand?"
Sakura frowned, replaying the memory and trying to hear what Kisame asked his partner quietly. The background noises nearly drowned out the man, but Sakura caught a small part of their hushed conversation.
"Itachi, did you get - room - to sand?"
She pulled away from the memory, two days, they were two days behind. She released the jutsu, slamming back into her own body and stumbling backwards. The girl collapsed onto the polished marble counter, unconscious, Sakura paid her no mind as she turned on heel and ran in search of Kakashi.
-x-x-x-x-
"Are you positive, Sakura?"
The pink-haired girl nodded, "yes, sensei. I know their going to Sand, that's almost all I got, but Sand was clear."
Her teacher nodded, running a hand through his hair. "I'm going to send a messenger bird to Tsunade and have her contact the Kazekage. You and Naruto pack, we're leaving at noon."
Naruto and Sakura nodded, packing the little things they had gotten out the night before. Sakura momentarily weighted idea of trying to wash her clothes. But she had less then thirty minuets and unless... "Naruto!" He poked his head into the bathroom and she made a beckoning motion. "Take off your clothes."
Naruto stared at her before blushing. "Sakura-chan!"
She gave him a dirty look. "You're over-evaluating the situation. Our clothes need to be washed."
"But," Naruto took off his shirt, as if oblivious to the fact that he continued to argue with her. "We don't have the time to wash clothing."
Sakura sent the blonde to get Kakashi's clothing as well. "Do you or do you not know wind jutsus Naruto?"
"Oh. OH," Naruto smiled and nodded proudly, throwing Kakashi's dirty clothes to her. "I understand now, Sakura-chan."
"Good, now go and pack all the other things and then come help me dry these clothes." The two set to work, Sakura washing the filthy clothing, wondering just how Naruto could possibly sweat so much that his clothes could start to smell like that. Naruto helped to dry the clothes; his jutsu (one that she made him swear wouldn't be too hard on the clothes) had them dry in minuets.
Sakura began folding a putting Kakashi's clothing into his travel pack, making sure all of his things were in the bag. She checked over Naruto's bag, nodding as she found nothing wrong, and then puckered down to begin packing her own bag. Naruto sighed heavily as noon came and slowly began to pass.
Nearly twenty minuets after noon, Kakashi opened the door slowly, "Naruto wants to be Hokage."
Sakura looked up from where she was stuffing her now clean and dry clothing in her pack for the second time, raising her pale eyebrows at her sensei. "That's weak, sensei, everyone knows that."
"Well," the older man shrugged. "That's all he told me the day we first met, so that's all I can think to say."
"You're late!" Naruto screeched, running out of the bathroom, his pants sliding off his hips, untied. "How could you be late?!"
"Naruto! Your pants!" Sakura shoved him back into the bathroom and shut the door on him, rolling her eyes tiredly. "Kakashi, don't even bother to explain. You can dig the latrine tonight."
The man winced, catching his pack as Sakura tossed it to him. Naruto exited the bathroom seconds later, his pants tied securely around his waist and an angry look on his face. "We're leaving," he said simply. "We've wasted too much time here."
"Alright," Kakashi said, opening the window. "Don't look at me like that, Sakura, I paid. It's better for us to exit like this anyway."
"Of course." The girl replied, smirking. "Of course it is." Kakashi didn't reply, only gave her that little eye crinkle of his and leapt out of the window. She told Naruto go ahead and gave the room one last look over before following them.
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Kakashi's ninken found a trail after two hours of searching the edges of the town, and they slowly followed the dying trail. Twice the dogs had nearly lost the trail; too many people had walked through the trails and it made it hard to target Itachi and Kisame's scents.
The sky darkened after a few more hours and Kakashi watched the clouds tumbling in. "Pakkun, rain's coming in; we'll have to move faster." As if in response, a rain drop splashed off Kakashi's hitai-ate. The ninken, not discouraged followed the trail for another half mile at an agonizingly slow pace. Even Naruto seemed to know that it was hopeless to try and follow like this for much longer.
'That's it,' Pakkun told them gruffly, sitting and staring up at them his droopy eyes. 'Unfortunately, we can follow the trail no more, the scent has died.'
"I see." Kakashi thanked the dogs and released them back into the seal, turning then to his tired students. "We'll camp here for the night, I want you two to get some sleep, I'm going to contact Tsunade and wait for her orders. I'll wake you a couple of hours."
Sakura set her sleeping bag into the hollow of a large oak, Naruto pressing tightly into her side and keeping her warm. Her lids dropped heavily over her eyes, and she watched Kakashi as she drifted to sleep, studying his masked face before sleep overtook her.
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That's about all I can do, since sleeps about to overtake me too. Please review, the plots coming on slow, I know, but it'll start to develop soon. I really hate writing such morbid, boring stuff anyway.
-Exit Here-
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
In need of a beta, if anyone is interested?