"Team Kakashi, you guys have a mission, well most of you," Tsunade bellowed. Naruto went on his normal happy happy joy joy rant and accompanying dance, sure that Sakura would be the one sitting on the bench. Sakura just shook and slapped her head, 'how did this joker become a genin again,' she thought. "What's the mission, Lady Tsunade," Sakura asked quickly, eager to get on the road, hoping it was to retrieve Sasuke.
Tsunade eyed everyone, "You're going to search for the Akatsuki base and report back information on any Akatsuki activity you may encounter."
Everyone visibly deflated at that news, all were in the same hopes as Sakura. They were silent as Tsunade explained the details of the mission. After hearing said details which included leaving out a pissed off hyperactive knucklehead ninja, Naruto narrowed his eyes,"Baachan!"
Itachi and Kisame were on their way back from a recon mission. Within a couple of hours, Itachi sensed that they were being watched and quickly performed the hand signs as a perfect copy of himself appeared just out of view of the ones watching. The clone quickly moved to get in a better position for his sharingan to be able to discern who they were... He masked his chakra and sank silently onto a tree branch directly above the unskilled spies. The real Itachi formed a genjutsu as he and his partner left the scene back toward Akatsuki. They were unaware of Kakashi and the rest of the team following at a safe distance.
He laughed inside realizing the discovered spies to be from Konoha. How fortunate that the bijuu container was there. 'Honestly, could they make it any easier on the Akatsuki?' he wondered.
Naruto was fidgeting. Sakura sent a warning glare in his general direction. "That's Itachi Uchiha and his partner Kisame," she whispered, "keep making noise if you want to die, Naruto. They're no one to play around with."
He glared at her, but stopped moving around.
Itachi smirked, honestly, as if someone would get this close to Kisame and himself and not be detected. How he was sick of Konoha sending these weaklings after him. They had well skilled ANBUs, but yet they continually insulted him by sending rookies. He was actually offended. He was then shocked when he noticed that the Naruto was actually a substitution, it had took him a minute to realize it and was pretty impressed by that fact, though the pinkette not realizing this continued to talk to the impressive copy as if he was flesh and blood. The kunoichi was actually alone.
He decided to make his presence known. "It's not polite to spy you know."
Sakura looked up and her eyes became as wide as saucers. 'Oh crap! Mega busted!' she thought with a silent curse and prayer to Kami that she didn't die a virgin at the age of 16.
"Ummm, Hi Itachi," Sakura said nervously, "Fancy meeting you here, hehe." 'Oh dear Kami, I'm a dead woman,' she thought with a gulp.
Itachi's lips twitched as if he wanted to grin, "well at least you're smart enough to be terrified, you can relax, I'm leaning more toward letting you live just for that."
For some reason that thought didn't go far toward easing the pinkette's mind. "Could I have that in writing," she inquired before thinking.'Yep, totally a dead woman.'
At that he actually laughed. "Do you think I would honor a piece of paper, kunoichi?"
She had no reply, she simply started backing away a little at a time, hoping he would either not notice(yeah right), or be a good enough sport to let her have a good start. Inwardly she was cursing Kakashi for suggesting that she be the distraction. At least it seemed to be working though, even if she was probably going to be sucked into a tuskuyomi that she'd probably never wake up from.
"By the way," Itachi began, as he jumped to the ground lithely about ten feet in front of her,"that was a pretty good job you did on the substitution jutsu, it actually fooled me for a minute."
Sakura backed away a bit more as she tried to distract him with conversation,"General substitution jutsu layered with a genjutsu, but I'm sure you already knew that. Thank you for the compliment though."
He nodded his head toward her as if to say 'you're welcome' while grinning in a way that one could only think of as the way the big bad wolf probably looked at little red riding hood. 'Where the hell is the lumberjack when you need him?' Sakura thought as she sweat dropped noticing him take a step forward. Panicked, Sakura thought, 'please hurry Kakashi.'
Sakura heard the vague sounds of someone racing toward them, she thought they seemed fast but ninjas weren't exactly the easiest creatures to judge for that as they tended to remain quiet. She noticed Itachi stiffen and pull his katana out. In less than a second, he was behind her and had pulled her against him with his katana branded across her throat. Sakura was too terrified to even scream.
"Let her go,Itachi."
Her eyes went wide and darted to the new presence. He looked older, but it was definently Sasuke. She almost breathed a sigh of relief, but the murderer was still holding her hostage. Itachi had his attention solely on his little brother and would be assassin. Sakura closed her eyes and said probably her thirtieth silent prayer. She grabbed Itachi's katana cutting both her hands and pushed it away from her throat while she ducking down and immediately jumping behind Sasuke. Itachi's katana barely grazed her hair behind her at the last moment before she got too far for him to reach her without his brother's interference. "Hello foolish little brother," Itachi sneered, "it seems my toy has escaped me, pity, she would've been very enjoyable to play with I think."
Sasuke gave Itachi one of his death glares. "Hn, gay. Shut up and bring the real you over here for a fight."
A vein in Itachi's forehead barely twitched, belying his nonchalance while he was staring blandly at his brother before looking in Sakura's direction, his demeanor instantly changing to seductive though his words were more sinister to her ears. "I'll see you later, Sa-ku-ra. Just so you know, you may thank my foolish little brother for your fate. I'll be coming to claim you soon and you will be mine, for the rest of your short life." With that, Itachi's clone came apart into multiple black birds and flew away.
Sakura's eyes widened in horror. She had to choke back the bile. Really she didn't want to wretch on her first meeting with Sasuke in almost three years. She was sure she looked as green as she felt. She looked at Sasuke who cursed and began looking around for the direction his brother had taken, dismissing her completely. "Thank you." she said simply and turned away from him, sure that he would now leave her alone. Normally, Sakura would've begged him to come back or said anything to keep him there, but considering all that had happened and her frayed nerves, she just didn't have the emotional energy to deal with it. Sasuke said nothing, but didn't leave immediately either as his eyes stopped scanning their surroundings. Sakura barely registered this in her panic over Itachi's words. She was afraid that one day soon Itachi would come for her and she would die. She hung her head and closed her eyes, knowing that she didn't have the strength to stop him. She looked up at Sasuke over her shoulder noting that he was now looking at her in that same bored manner. She simply stared back, what was he thinking about while looking at her, she wondered. 'Maybe he's feeling a little sympathy over my possible upcoming demise,' she thought.
Sasuke looked away from her and at the direction from which he'd came, then his eyes returned to her. To her it seemed as if he was internally debating something. "Come," he said simply.
Her heart jumped in her throat. Did he mean it, she wondered. He simply jumped in the direction he'd came from and without needing another second to think about it, she followed.
Kakashi, Yamato, and Sai had managed to find the Akatsuki base, thanks to Sakura's distraction and Kisame and Itachi unwittingly leading them there. Yamato had sent his clone back for Sakura a few minutes before and was waiting for a status report. It came shortly.
Yamato looked at his team, "there was a small amount of blood on the ground, evidence of a possible skirmish and Sakura is gone. According to my clone, the blood is Sakura's."
"Tsunade is going to destroy us if we don't find her alive. Yamato, get your clone on her trail. I'll send my clone to the Leaf to give the information on Akatsuki to Tsunade. We follow behind your clone, move out," Kakashi said as he made the hand signs and a shadow clone appeared, immediately heading in the direction of the Leaf. The team immediately headed back to where they'd left Sakura.
Sakura had been following Sasuke for what seemed like hours. He hadn't said a word the entire time. She wanted to ask him where they were going or why he'd decided to take her, but she was afraid if she did, he would change his mind and decide not to bring her after all. So she'd remained quiet and simply concentrated on following him and not slowing him down. She noticed they'd crossed into Sound territory. It made her a little nervous, but she thought that she'd be pretty safe in his company since he seemed accustomed to it. He stopped and held his hand out to her, she looked confused for a second but then put her hand in his. He some sort of teleportation jutsu that she'd have to remember to ask him about later. They appeared in front of a large rock and looked at her as he performed a hand sign and an entrance appeared. She walked in close behind him but had to stop for a second to allow her eyes to become accustomed to the darkness as opposed to the bright sunlight. He let her for a moment and then said, "keep up." The entryway disappeared behind her and she walked behind him. She looked around, it was a stone cavern with torches along every few feet looking as if they were fed by chakra. The stone was a warm sand color and had different patterns on it. It was actually sort of pretty in her opinion. She didn't have to be told that this was Orochimaru's lair. Her nervousness returned when she realized that the owner of the lair likely had no idea of her presence or how he would react to her intrusion, even if she had been invited by Sasuke.
She also remembered Tsunade speaking of his expirements and hoped that she wasn't fated to become a subject. She supposed that if need be, she could try to escape, although she doubted she could open the entry that they'd come through and imagined the other entrances if there were any would be likewise sealed. He stopped in front of a door after a few minutes and motioned for her to go inside. She simply decided to trust him and hoped there was no trap waiting inside. At this point she really had little choice. She walked into the room and after a brief pause, he followed her. It was a small room, the only furniture was a bed and a desk and chair. It looked like there was a bare closet in the corner and a bathroom off of the side of it.
"You stay here," he said and turned to leave.
"Sasuke..." she began nervously. She wanted to step toward him, but didn't, afraid that to do so would somehow cross some boundary with him. "Why did you take me with you?" Her voice was low and she cast her eyes down as she inquired of him, not fully expecting an answer.
He remained silent for a moment and she thought that he wasn't going to answer for a moment when he sighed. "It was the only way to make sure Itachi didn't carry through with his threat. Kitchen is down the corridor, six doorways to the right. I'll inform Orochimaru of your presence." With that he left the room.
She sank down onto the bed. She knew her team would be worried, she hadn't stopped to even think of them when she'd made the split decision to go with Sasuke. She knew that this was Sasuke's only way of making sure Itachi didn't put his hands on her, the insult to the abilities of Konoha to protect her evident in the very act. She didn't fool herself of Sasuke's motivation, he was being kind, but he wasn't doing this for her. He was doing this so that Itachi wouldn't get something that he wanted. It did hurt that his only motivation was to get a small revenge against his brother, but after all this time, she really couldn't expect much more. However he didn't have to show her any kindness in letting her know where the kitchen was. She did have a small measure of hope that maybe he wasn't completely unreachable. She did get the feeling that she shouldn't push him or try to seek him out too much. He didn't do this for desire for her friendship back, of that she was certain. She would have to handle Sasuke very carefully and respect his space or he would likely withdraw from her even more. She didn't come out of her quarters that night. Kabuto had came to her room and offered her some clothing that had belonged to one of Kabuto's scientists. She sincerely hoped that the previous owner had simply outgrew them.
She'd thanked him and he'd left immediately. She was glad that at least it seemed that Orochimaru and Kabuto weren't objecting to her presence. She knew that if they had objected, Sasuke would've either disposed of her himself or threw her out. She layed on the bed, feeling very lonely that night and was missing Naruto very much. He would've made her feel better if he'd been there. She smiled thinking of her best friend, but then frowned knowing that her disappearance would hit him very hard. First he lost Sasuke, now her. In the dark, she gave into quiet tears for her friend and her unsure fate before falling into a restless sleep.