AN: It hit me. In my defense I simply couldn't resist. Itasaku is just too good to pass up. The title is not mine, others have used it but I feel that it fits and aligns itself perfectly with Itasaku-ness.
Cognitive dissonance refers to anxiety that results from simultaneously holding contradictory or otherwise incompatible attitudes, beliefs, or the like, as when one likes a person but disapproves strongly of one of his or her habits. ()
"Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me..." -Emily Dickinson-
She sailed through the trees, gasping for breathe as she turned, launching more shuriken at her pursuers, using their halted dodge to gain speed. To keep from being killed. Tired from running so far already, she was loosing more ground than she was gaining. She shook her head, desperate to press forward. She needed to conserve her energy if she expected to make it back to Konoha alive. She would have to turn and fight.
"Kimoto, report" She demanded through their com link as she dodged, weaving through the trees with alarming speed to try and loose them in the forest. It wasn't enough, it was never enough it seemed, as lines of senbon barely missed her, landing with a thunk in the helpful tree she hid behind. She tried to shake them, but it was useless as she was too tired for that kind of speed. Sakura didn't have the dexterity needed for such evasive maneuvers. She wasn't a long range fighter, in short proximity, at least not in the air as this fight was. It would be one thing if they were on the ground, but they were blocking her from getting there. If she jumped down from the trees, she would loose her only source of cover and protection and they would have her before she hit the ground. And she didn't have enough chakra to risk it. Damn these kumo ninja!
"Taishou, trouble-Ak-Ahg!" Kimoto's agonizing scream pierced through the link, making the girl nearly halt in her stupor.
"Kimoto!" Sakura gasped, and her little failure was all the excuse they needed, as kumo ninja kunai grazed her upper arm and thigh.
She stumbled forward in her surprise, cursing, and fell through the canopy of trees, the ground coming far too fast the floor coming dizzily into view. This was exactly what she hadn't wanted, what they had been waiting for. If she didn't do something she would die. Eyes widened, tears blurring, as bloodshot eyes alit. Adrenaline gland pumping and flaring to life, Sakura found the burst of energy she needed. Turning mid air, she threw her own katana straight at them, impaling both of them who were too close behind to dodge, a lucky break for her.
Now she had to avoid becoming a splat on the ground. Trees sailed past her eyes, as Sakura reached, grabbing desperately for the tree branch that would catch her fall. Her fingers grazed one, bruising from the impact, and slicing the inside of her knuckles. She hissed in pain, breaking one of her fingers with a sick snap, but she caught the the third branch beneath it, as her arm wrenched, halting her from danger. She cried out in pain, but held on tightly, scrambling desperately for her life. Her enemies hit the ground with a sickening squelch of skin, and steel into the grass below. Sakura twisted, with a groan, managing to get her foot on the trunk and get herself safely on the branch. She shakily stood,weary as she tried to maintain her balance but her vision was blurry from the pain. That was close, far too close for any sort of comfort.
Panting, closing her eyes to fight off the bout of dizziness, she focused, pulling her chakra out. Applying some healing chakra to her arm, Sakura tried to get her head on straight. But her thoughts were too fear filled, with scattered moments of terror to piece them al ltogether. They had been ambushed, expected from the very start she thought sadly. Her plans had failed. All of their hard effort was wasted. She tried to shake off the inevitable dread she felt, but reality was sinking in, drowning her, suffocating her with it's truth. Defeat and weary dejection were coursing through her veins as they pounded, resounding and echoing her hearts movement.
Half her men were dead and she was responsible for them. It had been her job to make sure they went back home alive. Her mission had long since gone haywire. It was about surviving at this point, and bringing back as many men alive as she possibly could. If that was even possible now. She had fucked up, badly... and people's lives had paid for her costly mistake. It was their blood splattered across her grey vest, staining it. And there was a good chance she could die out here, herself. Jade eyes twitched in agony, brownish purple blotches stained beneath her eyes from little to no sleep as bloodshot green eyes blinked wearily. Pulling her twin katana out of the dead ninja with a grimace, she did her best to get the blood off, wiping her face with her forearm, though she knew she would never get their blood off, never be able to forget their faces. They had trusted her...Sakura trembled. She didn't have time for this. She had to find the rest of her men. Whatever had happened she needed to save them and avoid getting herself killed in the process.
Disappearing with ninja speed, she flickered in and out between the trees, trying to track through the dwindling chakra signatures of her men, whoever it was attacking them. Hiding behind the tree, she peaked out cautiously though her body rebelled against her surging her forward as she overbalanced and teetered.
A tall man stood above Taisuki, her best genjutsu user, second to herself. Long black hair and a black cloak with...red clouds. But that wasn't possible. Instead she focused on the blood spilling out of his body in a pool beneath him.
She had taught him, had spent countless hours improving his genjutsu to use in the field. They had bleed for each other, shed tears of frustration and heartache together. He was one of her precious nakama, the few she had left. And she could only stand there in transmuted horror as she watched.
"Ahg, the death god take you himself" Taisuki cried out in a curse, as the person holding him drove his thumbs into his eye sockets. Sakura didn't flinch.
"Pathetic." The man's lilting tenor voice told the dying body in his arms.
"Go to hell" Taisuki sputtered.
And at this she could see the corner of his pale mouth turn upwards in the hint of a smile, though she could only see the look of horror across her dying comrade's face.
"You first" He told him, and released the body of Taisuki. It slumped to the ground, never to move again as it twitched and convulsed in the final signs of death. Taisuki was dead. Kimoto was dead. Her men were dead. And he had killed them.
Sakura's eyes widened, transfixed, frozen by what could not possibly be, standing before her very eyes. Hands snapped up, stepping into the open, as she forced the words to break the genjutsu stumbling in her haste. Sakura was a master of genjutsu as this point, able to detect the subtle things people did to try and play with her mind. What shocked her to the core. What was simply unconceivable about the entire situation was that. It. Was. No. Genjutsu.
But that simply wasn't possible. This man was dead. She blinked her eyes, scrubbing them as she stumbled forward, exhausted and brought to the edge of her sanity. The man clearly looked like Uchiha Itachi, the older brother, and mass murderor of the Uchiha clan but this couldn't be real. It wasn't true, she willed, praying, betting against it with everything she had. Yet as much as she prayed as she willed it to fall apart in front of her, for him to vanish as the ghost he was, there he stood, the walking dead. But that was wrong, so wrong that there was no way it could possibly be right. He was dead. Dead people don't just get up and walk around and kill the people you know. Everyone in the ninja world knew that he was dead, had been dead for some time. Sasuke had killed him with his own hands, before turning to darkness unending. The blue stars danced in Sakura's eyes and she fought her body to avoid passing out.
Itachi turned, kunai, and bloody hands, complimenting those blood red sharingan looked her straight in the eyes, searing straight into her soul with his look. Her stomach curdled, she felt cold, chilled to the soul by his haunted look. This monster, disguised as an angel. He was completely emotionless as he stared at her. She could hear the rustle of silk, smell the sick stench of death and decay and blood. Dead people smelt like this, but they didn't look her in the eyes like this man did. Entranced, estranged, Sakura could only stand there and stare.
The clouds shifted in the sky, the moon appearing like some unholy ethereal light sending luminescent beams on him, making her wonder if he really was an apparition, but she'd be able to see through a ghost. No, worse still, she could make out the beads of moisture sticking to his skin and hair, making him that much more real. He was deathly pale and deathly beautiful in this moment, though this thought was fleeting. The stray thought rotted, crushed as she knew with certainty that she would die. He would end her if this was who he seemed. The only sound was her ragged breath and the blood dripping from his fingers, into the grass with the rest of the blood from her men.
Uchiha Itachi lifted his hands each filled with two kunai, one clutched in his bloody fingers, staining the blade, and Sakura tensed, broken from her induced like trance as her body once again reminded her that she should be fighting for her life, that standing still would only get her killed and that she wasn't the kind to stand still and die. He launched the kunai and she braced herself for impact, wondering if she was fast enough to retaliate, but they flew past her, hitting the kumo ninja behind her, as they fell to the floor, dead. Sakura flinched as she felt their bodies drop, lifeless to the floor. Uchiha Itachi stood, her shuriken, deflected and stuck in an aspen tree to the right of him.
Sakura's breath hitched, as she began to tremble. Dead men didn't kill other people. Dead men didn't walk around. Dead men couldn't deflect her shuriken. Corpses could be animated but not by looking like this man did, not a day from the grave. No markings, scars, or deformed properties were about this man. He was very much alive to her unfortunate prognosis.
"Who are you?" she heard herself whisper, her throat convulsing in pain and horror as she swallowed. For if this truly was Uchiha Itachi, then she definitely would not leave this place alive.
He seemed to pause, musing on her question, tilting his head slightly at an angle as he gave her a considering look. Those red eyes never left her own. He turned from her, and Sakura was shocked that he was showing her his back.
"Who do you think I am?" He replied, as he turned his head again blood red sharingan pulling her, drawing her in towards him.
She looked upon him, the black silk, the red clouds that she would recognize in her darkest nightmares, in her clearest thoughts. She looked back up at him again.
"You can't be who I think you are." She replied, looking away from him and towards the ground where her dead men lay.
He had done this to them, she thought sadly. Sakura's head hurt, pounding, throbbing as she clutched it in agony. How long had she been on this mission? How many sleepless nights plagued her? How many hours had she been fighting this loosing battle, for it all to come to this?
Those black sooty eyelashes fluttered in the moonlight and he took three steps closer to her. Sakura was paralyzed in place. For ghosts didn't walk, didn't leave imprints in the grass where his feet had previously tread. This was real.
"And why not?" Itachi asked her, staring at her beneath his thick eyelashes, haughtily challenging her to answer him. Was he toying with her?
Sasuke....Itachi....Uchiha. Sakura's head spun, the dizzying effect causing her to grab her head to stop it. Had she suffered a head wound?
"because that man is dead." Sakura replied firmly, unwavering though her body rebelled against her in the action.
"And yet here I stand. Living." Itachi retorted, with a heated whisper, dark smirk gracing his proud features.
In that moment he looked so much like Sasuke that it made her heart ache. But that was impossible too. Sasuke had sworn to kill her the next time he saw her, the last time she had seen him. Was this divine justice? The right of a brother to take what his other brother had offered? To kill her?
"Why are you here?" Sakura demanded, though her tone trembled.
She was afraid of this man, had been afraid of this man since she was a little girl, told superstitious bed time stories over and over of this man and his exploits. His massacre, the massacre, a promise in waiting, in her case. The air was chill, and it began to snow, the snow flakes touching the ground around them. This was surreal.
"I came to give you a gift" He told her, stepping closer to her.
Sakura froze, tensing as she realized she couldn't move a muscle. He had some sort of jutsu on her, preventing her from moving. Struggling, with a protested cry, she fought against the sightless bindings, until she felt his touch on her throat. Three fingers walked their way up it and she couldn't move, couldn't breathe couldn't blink as she trembled, choking on stale breathe as she turned to him. His chapped lips settled against her very flesh with a chaste kiss near the corner of her eye. She blinked, gasping in a desperate burst of air, as she could move, was free. Itachi was no where to be seen. Panicked, she looked around, but he was no where within sight. She could not sense him.
She could however, sense the low pulse of two of her men's wavering chakra. They were close, a few yards away. Sakura made her way towards them, thankful that there was someone, anyone alive. Thankful as she got to thinking. That she had crossed death in passing and lived to tell the tale.