Heart of Darkness

by Jasmin Kaiba

Part I

They really did it this time. They'd beaten her black and blue and Ino hadn't been there to try and protect her. Somehow, Sakura was glad that Ino had stayed home because of a cold. This time even the boys had joined in and hit her. And only because Sasuke-kun had said that he'd see her tomorrow, when he left for home. It's not like it was her fault. She'd only thanked him for correcting her aim when they had target practice that day. And he'd smiled a bit and told her, "Sure, no problem. See you tomorrow, Sakura." Ami had been livid, because Sasuke-kun never remembered her name and called her Nami. And so she, four other girls and two boys had attacked Sakura on her way home.

She couldn't even sit up to go home. Home. That had become the orphange as of three months ago when her single mother had been killed on an A-ranked mission. The kids hated her even there. Most were civilians and were jealous of Academy students. Ino had said something about shinobi privileges Sakura didn't understand and couldn't remember. The only person geniunely nice to her there was Naruto. He was a goof, and a bit of an idiot, but he smiled when he saw her, and talked with her all the time and he thought she was the prettiest girl in the Academy. He probably hadn't met Ino yet.

Wincing as she put weight on her heavily bruised wrist, she tried to haul herself up, but fell on her behind again as the pain in her knees became unbearable. Dinner would be over in fifteen minutes and she'd go hungry to bed if she didn't return on time. She hadn't eaten anything that day, because one of the boys at the orphange had thrown her plate on the floor and she was too afraid to ask for more, then Ami had fed her meager lunch box to Kiba's dog behind his back. She was really hungry, her stomach was growling something fierce and her trembling wasn't caused by her many injuries or the cold wind. She would faint if she didn't eat anything soon.

After a few more minutes of desperately trying to pick herself up and somehow reach the orphange on time, Sakura heard steps and stilled. They were light and hurried, coming in her direction. Afraid, but still unable to move properly, she started scooting backwards as a tall, dark figure came into view.

Itachi hurried along the way towards the eastern gate of the village. He refrained from jumping up on the trees lining the trail and breaking into a run, because he had to get out of the village inconspiciously. Since he always left through the eastern gate and never run till he passed the gate guards, they would get suspicious if he changed the pattern he'd used for years now. They had to think he was leaving on a mission. The success of the coup he'd just completed depended on it being undetected till the morning. He had to hurry.

He rushed through the bushes, absorbed in his own thoughts when a small squeal demanded his total attention. He came to a halt the moment he heard it and looked down toward his feet. And there, crowding against a particulary dense bush was a tiny girl with pink hair, big tearful green eyes and trembling hands. He stared at her for a moment incoprehending, before he noticed the bruises covering her face, arms and what was visible of her legs. And the fear written all over her small, wet face was so strong that he was taken aback for a second. Then he noticed that she was attempting to crawl into the bush backwards, but the branches were too strong for her small body and she couldn't get even an inch of herself inside.

Temporarily forgetting about what he'd done and had yet to do, he turned and crouched in front of her. She tensed, but didn't move or make a sound. She was terrified. He was wearing his ANBU uniform without the mask hiding his features, but he somehow doubted that she'd ever even seen an ANBU before. Only his hitai-ate identified him as a shinobi to her. Unable to take the terror on her face anymore, he decided to speak.

"What are you doing here this late?" he questioned softly, his voice barely above a whisper and she seemed to relax just a bit. "Are you alright? Why are you hurt?"

Her big eyes left his and she stared at her own hands before a tear streaked from her left eye. A second later, she answered shakily, so quiet he had to strain his ears to hear her. "Some kids from the Academy beat me..."

So she went to the Academy. But if she was crying in the bushes after letting some of her classmates beat her... Well, her future as a ninja wouldn't be bright. Even if she made it to genin, which he seriously doubted. Still, it had piqued his interest.

"Why?"

She looked up to him again and shrugged. It wasn't the first time, she was used to the beatings. What a pathetic ninja she would make. "Today, because Sasuke-kun knows my name and helped me, when he doesn't even seem to notice that Ami exists... Usually, because Ami says I'm ugly, or Iruka-sensei praises my chakra control which he says is the best he'd seen in years. Ami can't control her chakra at all and always fails at the Henge no Jutsu."

His eyes sharpened as he picked out the information in any way useful to him. This girl was a classmate of his little brother, probably even his friend. And despite his earlier assumption, she could have bigger potential than Sasuke if her chakra control was as good as she said. With the proper training she could become a hell of a kunoichi. She could be useful to him.

"Can't you stand up?" he asked and she shook her head before looking down again. She was ashamed of her weakness. "Come, let me help you," he offered and her eyes brightened as she nodded.

Itachi stood before he bent and scooped her up. She didn't resist. Throwing his earlier plans mentally away, he activated his sharingan and easily put the girl to sleep before dissolving into a flock of ravens and vanishing with her in his arms. Nobody would miss her.

Two years later, Amegakure

Itachi stood outside the protective rain that surrounded the large village and watched his ten year old ward as she sparred against Kabuto, a boy under his partner Orochimaru's tutelage. Truth be told, the young Uchiha trusted Orochimaru as much as he would a poisinous, agressive snake, but Kabuto was a very gifted medic-nin and Konan, Leader's partner had commented that Sakura would be suited to become one as well. And so he'd asked Kabuto to teach her. He was always present for the lessons and left the girl with Konan or Leader when he had a mission.

In the two years he'd been taking care of her, Sakura had grown amazingly. She was still too small for her age, but she'd shed her shy and unsure disposition for guts and a healthy dose of self-confidence. And she'd developed quite the nasty temper. Where she got that, he wasn't sure.

Kabuto had taught her well and she seemed to be a natural healer, picking up on the older boy's teachings quickly and learning his techniques in record time. She'd tried to develop some techniques on her own, but... Somewhere along the proces she'd messed up and what was meant as a healing techique ended up being a very nasty attack using healing chakra. She could control the blood inside her target. With a little training, Kabuto had commented, she would be able to stop hearts with a single bursh of her hands.

If she wasn't so terribly unsuitable for stealth mission with her brash and staright-forward nature, Itachi would've trained her to be an assasin. As it is, she was more suited for open combat, face-to-face. He'd also discovered that she had a natural affinity for genjutsu. It wasn't a nice way of discovering this, when he'd woken one morning only to find himself back in the Uchiha compound in Konoha, surrounded by the corpses of the family he'd killed with his little brother laying unmoving and dead at his feet. It had taken him a good while to figure out that it was neither dream or reality, but a very nasty genjutsu. He'd dispelled it with the sharingan only to find his small ward sitting on his chest with the biggest grin on her face. The nine year old had giggled at the shock in his eyes and asked, "Did you like my genjutsu, Itachi-nii?" When he'd demanded to know where she learned that, Sakura had shown him a scroll Konan had given her.

The genjutsu worked only on sleeping enemies and he'd pointed this out to the girl, but she'd only grinned again and brought her small hands to his temples. He was deeply asleep the next second. She'd woken him again and proclaimed proudly, "Kabuto-sensei taught me!" That was also the day he'd found out that healing chakra could be very sinister, in the right hands. Or the wrong, depending how you look at it.

Few days ago, Leader had commented that Sakura would be ready to officially join Akatsuki before she would've graduated the Academy had she stayed in Konoha. Itachi had tried to imagine the tiny girl with pink hair in an Akatsuki cloak intimidating an enemy. It was sad how comical that image had been. But that might have been because the only picture of Sakura in the black and red cloak was the one of a month ago when he'd come out of the shower to find her in his room, grinning at him from within the folds of the heavy garment. She'd looked like a toddler in her father's shirt. She said she wanted to look how it would suit her, when he'd asked about it. The next day Konan had arranged one such cloak to be made for her. The tailor had looked from the girl to Konan to Itachi and back to Sakura as if he'd wanted to ask how he was supposed to make a standard issue cloak fit a girl who only reached Itachi's he'd done it and she still looked ridiculous wearing it.

Konoan had giggled when she'd seen Sakura in her new clothes and Pein had picked up the pouting child and promised that she would go on missions when she was twelve years old. Sakura had than surprised them all by proclaiming that her first mission would be to go to Konohaand show Ami, her worst childhood enemy, how strong she'd become. What had shocked Itachi was Sakura's answer to Konan's question on how she planned to show her new power to Ami. The ten year old had grinned almost maniacally and whispered, "I'm going to make her heart explode in her chest and she won't be able to do anything to help herself." That was when he learned that the little sunshine who always smiled at him had developed a dark side as well. It was to be expected, after being abused and beaten most of her early years and then end up living with some of the most dangerous people in the world. It was the first time he'd questioned his decision to take her with him.

The new member of Akatsuki fascinated Sakra to no end. The blond boy, no more than a year older than her, had already been a member of ANBU back in his native village, Iwagakure and he had mouths in his palms. He was also brash, cocky and on the arrogant side, but the two of them got along just fine once he'd gotten over his initial fury at the way Itachi-nii, Kisame-baka and Sasori-dono had recruited him. He'd cursed the Uchiha genuis several times, muttering somethng about almost blowing himself up because of the accursed Sharingan. When he'd called Itachi a fucker the fifth time in a single sentance she'd hit him over the mouth with all her strength and had promptly cast her most sinister genjutsu on him. He'd struggled in it for well over fifteen minutes before Leader had found them and commanded Sakura to release him. Deidara had learned his lesson and refrained from insulting Itachi in her presence again.

She was just shy of thirteen when Sasori-dono had brought the news of the Chuunin exams held in Konoha. Sakura had wasted no time in pestering Leader, Itachi and Konan to let her participate, insisting she still had to take revange on Ami, and where better than the Chuunin exams where all shinobi were invited?

"Sakura, listen to me," Itachi tried to talk his charge down before Pein decided to allow her even this nonesense. "Only genin teams are allowed to take exams. You're not even a genin, you don't have a team. There's nothing we can do."

She started to pout, but in a moment her face brightened and a victoreous smile broke on her cherubic features. "But we can! I can take the genin exams here! And two genin from the Academy can be my teammates!"

This time Pein broke in. "Even if something like that was possible, Sakura, we'd be hard pressed to find two genin close to your age who are on your level of knowledge and power. If you take the Chuunin exams I'd expect you to pass them with flying colors but without a balanced team that'd be impossible."

"Deidara can be one of my teammates!" desperation seized the small girl and all reason left her.

"I'm already ANBU for fuck's sake, you squirt! I can't take the exams again, yeah!" the blond broke in from the door where he'd come in search for the Leader about a mission he was about to take.

"Are you stupid or what?" Sakura reeled at her sometimes friend. "You won't just waltz in Konoha and say 'Hi! I'm Deidara, a missing nin from Iwa, currently working for the evil organization of Akatsuki. I'm already and ANBU, but I want to take the Chuunin exams again!' They'd kill or imprison you, dimwit! We would have to use a small henge to alter our looks and we won't give them our real names. You're not even a full year older than me, so who the hell will suspect that we're on a much higher level than the avarage Genin, huh?"

Itachi had to admit that she'd thought this through quite well, but the danger of such a expediton was simply too big for him to sit by idly. "You'd still be missing one more teammate and a sensei. Kisame and I wouldn't be able to mascarade as your sensei and neither would Sasori. There's no way for you to go, Sakura, period."

"No!" she exclaimed and he sensed a temper tantrum in the making. But before it had a chance to manifest itself, Sakura calmed down again. "Sasori-dono can be our other teammate. The Chibi Doll, his real body is that of a thirteen year old anyway. And Konan could be our sensei. Nobody knows her. Please Itachi-nii?"

She gave him her most adorable puppy dog eyes, but he forced himself to resist their charm and not to melt. Seeing that she had no luck with him, she turned to Pein.

"Pein-sama," she whispered sadly, crawling into his lap and giving him no chance to turn away from her glistening, large viridian pools. Pein had always been a sucker for The Eyes, as were Kisame, Deidara and Itachi. "I really, really, really want to attend the Chuunin exams. I want to prove to you that I'm worthy being an Akatsuki member and that you can count on me. I'm strong, really strong, I'd pass the exams easily and make you proud, I promise. Please let me go, Pein-sama. Pretty please with a cherry on top?"

For a moment she thought that their auburn-haired Leader would refuse her as he simply stared at her with his ringed gaze, but then he gave a small sigh and nodded. "Very well. The exams are in two weeks. Deidara and Sasori will finish their mission in no more than three days. When they get back we'll see how we're going to disguise you three. Meanwhile you'll take the genin exams here, Konan will arrange everything."

"YES!" she shouted happily, excitedly jumping up in Pein't lap before she threw her arms around the amused man's neck and peppered his cheeks with small kisses. "Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Yes, yes," Pein sighed in defeat. "Now get off me, you brat!" he scolded lightly and she jumped off with a smile, shooting a victorious smirk in Itachi's direction as he followed her out of the room.

When they left, Konan leaned against the back of Pein's chair and giggled lightly. "That girl is going to break hearts left and right when she grows up. Itachi will have to fend off her suitors with a stick in a few years."

"Serves him right," Pein comented lightly. "He's spoiled her rotten."

"Don't act as if you are not catering to that child's every whim too," his partner reminded him amusedly.

"Hm," was all he said as he turned his attention to the pouting blond in the corner. "Did you need anything, Deidara?"

"I can still see the traces of chakra, Sakura. You have to use less," Itachi droned from his place under the large fir three and his young ward used ine henge after another.

Frustrated, she let the last one drop and glared at the Uchiha genius. "Of course you can see it, Itachi-nii, you have the sharingan, it's not fair! Don't use it now!"

He stood up and walked over to her. "I have to use it, Sakura. Sasuke has the sharingan as well. If he ever uses it on you, he'd be able to see the chkra traces all around you, he'd be able to tell that you're using a henge. There's the Copy Ninja who has the sharingan as well. Work harder."

"Great. You killed every single person in your Clan save the one person that will be there when I take my exams. Why did you do that?"

Itachi only smiled slightly and caressed the top of her head. "He's my brother. You know that."

Of course she knew. She was the only one but she knew very well how much Itachi loved his brother. She was also the only one who knew the truth behind the massacre. That truth would die with her if Itachi so wished it. Her ultimate loyalty belonged to him after all, together with her heart. "Yes, yes, I know. What about the Copy Ninja, than? Why's he alive?"

"Because he's not part of the Uchiha Clan, his sharingan is a transplant. Besides I doubt even I could defeat the infamous Copy Ninja without help," he admitted shamelessly. Nobody knew his limits like Itachi himself. He'd never been arrogant, something like that simply didn't have any place in the always practical Uchiha.

"You have the Mangekyou Sharingan, it's something that not even the man of the thousand jutsu can boast," his ward pointed out and he nodded.

"Yes, but I still can't control it as well as I would like to. It drains me of chakra faster than I can afford in a battle. Besides I wouldn't want to kill the Copy Ninja, as you well know."

"Of course, Itachi-nii. I know who you're loyal to, even if I think that you're crazy for that, but that's just my humble opinion."

"Humble, huh?" he teased affectinately. "I wasn't even aware you knew that word, my little one."

She huffed and crossed her thin arms over her still flat chast. "I still remember my life before you found me. That now I'm happy and well fed and don't have to live in fear anymore, doesn't mean I've forgotten how I've suffered before I met you. I owe you my life, I'd do anything for you. I'd die for you."

"I don't want you to die for me, Sakura. I just want you to grow up ad live. Someday I'll give you the life you deserve, but for now be patient." With that he hugged her to him and she melted in his embrace, slipping her arms around his waist and squeezing with all her might. He may not want to hear it, but if he were ever in danger, she'd sacrifice her own life to save him. There wes no other way to thank him for everything he'd done for her. Her gratefulness towards him was just as great as her unconditional love. Itachi had just to accept that.

Deidara and Sasori finished thier assignement in under three days and returned to the headquarters just in the same time that Sakura mastered a simple henge that changed her hair and eye color without being discernible as henge. She stood in the doorway of Pein's study with waist long black hair and big ice-blue eyes surprising the hell out of Deidara just for kicks. Well kicks and seeing his shocked face. The blond needed almost a full minute before he recognized Itachi's ward.

"Not bad, squirt." He commented grudingly and she smirked, overlooking his insult to her height for the first time.

"Of course. Not even the sharingan can tell that this is a henge. Now you just have to do the same trick as successfully and we're all set," she daunted.

"Don't talk such gibberish, squirt. As if I would have throuble with an Academy level henge, yeah. Better tell Sasori to practice, my control is better than his, after all."

"Yeah right," Sakura agreed sarcastically. "Itachi-nii will judge if you can pull off this Academy level henge. And Sasori-dono can do it without problems, I've seen it. He'd older, more experienced and over all a better ninja than you."

Sasori hid a chuckle behind a slight cough and walked around Sakura into Pein's study after caressing her hair affectionately. The girl had taken an almost immediate liking to him when he'd been brought into Akatsuki and as an artist he was most curious what kind of beauty this fiesty child would turn into. Whatever it turned out to be, Itachi was royally screwed, he was sure of that. The Uchiha would be even more under her charm when she fully developed into a breathtaking swan a few years down the road. Than again, his partner might be just as screwed. He hid it well but Sasori knew he was affected by the girl more than he was wiling to admit to even himself.

"Listen here, squirt," Deidara hissed furiously. "I can do everything Sasori can and more, yeah. Need I remind you that I was ANBU at fourteen, hmm? I'm the better ninja here and the better artist, too. You need to learn respect, you annoying little brat. You and that fucker Uchiha."

And just like that Sakura's good mood dissipated and Deidara was on her bad side once again. "You have no right to call me a brat, when you're only months older than me. ANBU at fourteen, so what? What's so great about that? Itachi-nii was an ANBU captain at fourteen. I'll respect you when you do something that deserves respect. And if you call my Itachi-nii a fucker again not even Pein-sama will save you from my genjutsu. I learned a new one a few days ago, but I promised Itachi-nii not to use it on anyone I don't want to have permanent psychological damage from it. I'll use it on you, you disrespectful brat!"

Deidara threw his hands up in the air and cursed loudly before turning to the now black-haired girl again. "You and that Uchiha are all the same, yeah! You can only win fights when you use petty mind-tricks. None of you stand a chance against me in a real fight so you resort to somethng like genjutsu. How pathetic is that, huh?"

Sakura's cute features twisted in a sinister sneer as she fixed the exploives master with a look worth of Pein's best glare. "I don't stand a chance against you without genjutsu, huh? You so sure of that, Deidara? Why don't you take me on and see for yourself just what I'm capable of? You assume that because Orochimaru defected and took Kabuto-sensei with him I stopped training in medical ninjutsu. Think again, idiot. I can do just about anything to your body with healing chakra. I can cook you from the inside by heating your blood to the boling point., I can rupture organs and arteries without havoing to cut your flesh, I can cut off the blood flow to your heart or brain, I can make your heart explode in your chest with just a brush of my hands, I can my make your body into a puppet by controlling your blood. You only need to get close to once to lose not just the fight but your life as well. And Itachi-nii... He may not be able to execute the variety of the madical jutsu I can, but he can take you down with a well placed katon jutsu just as easily. The sharingan has more uses than just genjutsuafter all. Pray that you never have to stand on the opsing side of Tsukiyomi, Amaterasu or Susano."

Deidara huffed angrily, doing his best to mask the look of apprehension that had come over his features at the mention of the crimson doujutsu's abiliteis. "Just fancy names for nothing if you ask me, yeah."

Sakura didn't take offence and only smirked at him. "Yeah right. Tsukiyomi is a whole world of Itachi-nii's making, a second here is a day there, and if you get caught in it you get tortured in the worst way imaginable. Just a second is enough to kill most ninja. Amaterasu is black fire. It cannot be taken out by any jutsu and it will burn and burn till it reaches and finishes its target. Susano is a demon body made of chakra and is the ultimate defense jutsu. Once it is activated the Susano will protect its wielder till they run out of chakra, of course it can attack as well. It will do you a world of good to remember that and not get too cocky around Itachi-nii."

Something like disbelief clouded Deidara's almond-shaped blue eyes as he regarded the little girl in front of him. He didn't know very much about Itachi and even less about the sharingan and its potential powers, but he knew that even the fearsome dojutsu of the Uchiha Clan couldn't be that powerful. "As if I belive you, yeah. If the sharingan had such powers, I doubt that Itachi could have eliminated the whole clan in a night all by himself. They wuld have torn him apart, yeah."

"Ba—ka," drawled the henge'd squirt and cocked her small hips to the side. "Of course the sharingan doesn'thave such powers. What do you it is, huh? The ultimate form of the doujutsu has these, the Mangekyou Sharingan. Only very few in the Uchiha Clan ever obtained it, because it demanded a high price."

"And what price, hmm?" demanded Deidara venomously, not liking what he was hearing at all.

"The life of the person closest to you, your best friend," came the omniously sinister reply of the girl and the blonde stiffened.

"He killed his best friend just to gain more power? Wow, he's even more cold-blodded and ruthless than I thought, yeah."

"No," Conan contradicted Deidara, coming from Pein's study to stand behind Sakura. "Uchiha Shisui, Itachi's cousin and best friend tried to kill Itachi. In the fight that ensued, Itachi came out the winner and Shisui payed his betrayel with his life. That's how he got the Mangekyou. It was way before Itachi eliminted the Clan."

Sakura nodded and Deidara just scowled, the urge to say that the Uchiha deserved to be betrayed by his best friend just barely contained behind a hint of understanding. If there was one thing the blonde eplosive's master understood it was betrayel. Everyone he'd ever trusted had turned on him in the end, after all. He could sympathise with the Uchiha on this, even if just a bit. The guy was still a sick fuck in Deidara's mind, but he refrained from voicing his opinion in front of Sakura, that girl was menacing and merciless when it came to defending her beloved Itachi-nii, what she saw in him, the blonde will never know.

"Whatever," he brushed it off as nonchalantly as possible. "I really couldn't care less, either way. But at least he's not as sick as I thought. Now move, shrimp, Sasori and I have to debrief with the Leader and then you can pester us with that exam of yours."

Without making the fuss Deidara had expected, Sakura moved from the doorway to let him pass. As he made his way to Pein's desk, he saw from the corner of his eye as she waved to Konan and disappeared from the room, still in that henge.

As if reading Deidara's mind, the bluenette approached the desk and said, mostly to Pein, "She decided to keep the henge up for as long as possible, to built chakra stamina. Itachi told her to do that. She might get in a tight situation during the exam an the let the henge fall if her control on her chakra losened."

The auburn-haired leader nodded and laced his hands in front of his face. "That is sound advice on Itachi's part. Though I hope it won't come to that. Deidara and Sasori will be with her all the time, without exception. It is on them to protect her on all costs. On this mission, Sakura's safety is their first priority."

Even as he never took his ringed gaze off of Konan both Sasori and Deidara knew that Pein's words were mostly directed at them. It was a veiled order. Pein would never openly show it, but that little girl meant more to him than he was even ready to admit to himself. It was plain to see that she'd charmed hm completely. Like she'd charmed everyone else. Even Zetsu seemed sometimes affected by her. If Itachi had known what kind of trouble he was preparing for all of them he probably would have never abducted the child from Konoha. But, than again, maybe he would have. Deidara suspected that the primary reason for Itachi's abrupt action concering that girl-child was simply that the Uchiha prodigy didn't want to feel lonely.

Pein broke his thoughts. "Your report, Sasori, Deidara. And make it quick, you have to train as soon as you rest."

Nodding, the two other shinobi started telling their Leader about what had happened on the short mission.

Two weeks later, Sakura, Deidara, Sasori and Konan stood in front of the towering green gates of Konoha, waiting to be admitted inside by the chuunin and jounin who all inspected the papers of the invited genin teams. There was some form of security, but it was lax, to say the least.

Their wait was no longer than twenty minutes and than Sakura and her teammates found themselves standing in front of the Academy. Banishing her bad memories of this places to the deepest reces of her mind, Sakura smiled brightly at Konan who handed her the filled out aplication form and said goodby to them, adding that she'd see them afterwards. Before they could enter the Academy for the first, written part of the exam, the now black-haired pinkette caught a glimpse of a man wearing a strange, cotton mask over the lower half of his face. He wore the standard issue uniform for jounin and she decided he was probably the sensei of a team entering the exams. That was't what caught her interest though. It was the Konoha hita-ate the man wore over one eye. That and the fact that his hair was silvery-white though he appeared not much older than Pein and Konan, told Sakura that this was the famed Copy Ninja. The only person beside Itachi's brother Sasuke who still had the sharingan. She really would like to find out if he was as strong and powerful as Itachi-nii always said he was, but that was a discovery best left for another opportunity.

"We have to go to the third floor, says here," mumbled Deidara, consciously supressing his speach quirk. In his hand was a white sheet of paper given to him by a chuunin at the entrance, it contained the information where they would find the person responsible for the aplication sheets.

"Third floor it is," Sakura said brightly, and taking her companion by their elbows, she steered them to the staircase. "Come on boys, let's rock this thing."

On the second floor was a huge groupd of genin teams all staring at a door guarded by two chuunin. Above the door was sign indication that it was the room they'd been looking for. Deidara raised an eyebrow, looking from the sheet in his hand to the door and back again a few times. Sasori just folded his arms over his chest and scowled.

Sakura didn't notice any of that. She was too busy looking at the backs of three familiar people. The spiky black hair and the the navy shirt with the Uchiha emblem could only belong to Sasuke, the messy blonde hair and orange jumpsuit simply screamed Naruto and the long brown braids of the girl on Naruto's right could only belong to Ami. She'd found her target sooner than she'd expected. Then she heard Ami speak.

"This is it, Sasuke-kun," she said looking at the door.

"Hm," was all the young Uchiha replyed.

Sakura could see that Naruto was about to say something, but she never gave him the chance.

"No, it is not," she stated confidently, moving away from Sasori and Deidara to march by Ami towards the door. All the eyes in the corridor followed her as she came to stand in front of the two smirking chuunin. Overconfident idiots.

"You wanna go in, kid?" one of them leered and it was Sakura's turn to smirk.

"No, thank you," was everything she said as she pushed her chakra outwards in powerful wave and forcefully shattered their weak D-class genjtsu. The two guards, swayed on their feet for a second before they dropped to their knees, clutching their heads in pain. The sign over the door changed and a ripple of shocked voices raised in the corridor. "You call that a genjutsu?" Sakura asked them acidly, well aware that every genin in the room was focusing on her completely.

Most of their chakra signatures showed that they were weak, a few though were very powerful. Nowhere near her level and they could never stand a chance against Deidara or Sasori, but they were vastly better than the others. One was Sasuke, another Naruto, than a boy she'd glimpsed in the corner earlier with red hair and Suna's insignia, the two with him were stronger than the rest too, though weaker than their teammate. Yet another one was a green clad boy with Konoha's hita-ate and his teammate who was very obviously a Hyuuga. Those were the strongest ones. The rest were barely worth mentioning.

"What a weak little group," Deidara muttered as he and Sasori came to stand beside her. "A few are promising, but the rest... Bah!"

"Yeah," she agreed quietly, watching the two chuunin by her feet but focusing completely on the red-head in the corner. She could feel his piercing gaze on her. So, he'd sensed that she was way more powerful than the majority of wanna-be ninja in this room. "Some are dangerous," lastly she whispered to the blonde. "One is the red-headed Suna nin in the corner. The other is the blonde behind us. Those are jinchuuriki. The one-tailed racoon and the nine-taled fox."

"I see," Sasori spoke for the first time. "The Suna team in the corner are my cousins. The one with the painted face is a puppeteer too and the girl is proficient with wind jutsu. They're all three siblings. The youngest is the jinchuuriki."

"You sure have a colorful family," remarked Deidara slowly, cautioulsy eyeing the Suna team. Two jinchuuriki in one place couldn't be good.

"Doesn't matter," Sakura brushed it off. "If we ever get in the situation where we have to face one of the two, the easiest thing to do is a quick and powerful surprise attack to take them down before they can harness the power of the demon. I can take them down with a medical jutsu easily."

"The Konoha jinchuuriki, maybe," Sasori intoned carefully, masking any outwards sighs of what they were talking about. "But the one-tail's host is at a considerably higher level. He has absolute control over sand and is mostly a long-distance fighter. Plus, his defense is impenetrable. You'd have to be quicker than his sand to pull it off."

"Is it possible?" Deidara asked with a hint of worry. Sakura was stubborn and if she wanted to fight the jinchuuriki and something happened to her, Pein would have their hides. Not to mention what Itachi would do. The Uchiha would skin them alive and then quick fry them with one of his katon jutsu.

"It's not impossible," his partner answered, knowing exactly what Deidara was thinking about. "Gaara is still young and mostly inexperienced. He's strong, yes, but easily overwhelmed by an opponent of his own level. You're stronger than him, Sakura, but you're also slower. I don't know if you could take him down before he can use the Shukaku."

"Well than, steer clear of that freak and we should all be just fine, yeah," Deidara snapped, his agitation finally winning over his careful control.

"Don't worry. I'm not plannig on getting myself needlessly injured. I'm here only to pay that bitch Ami back for everything she'd done to me. Knowing her, she's probably a shit ninja, she sucked at the academy, even worse than Naruto. I can take her on without any problem. Sasori will just have to manipulate the main computer to let me fight against her in the final round."

"If you say so," the blonde almost pouted, but fixed her with a warning glare that said, 'don't do anything stupid'. She didn't answer either way and only turned to the stairs again.

"Let's go boys. We have to get to the third floor. Their pathetic genjtsu took more time than it was worth."

And with that they were off, leaving a room full of genin staring after them and whispering among themselves.

AN: Number XI in Tidbits. I decided to give it a try since it refused to let me go, and here it is. :) Most of the characters are really OOC, I know, but I changed their lives drastically so it would be dificult to make them stay IC with these changes.

Well I hope that you wil give this story a chance and that you wil enjoy it. Please drop me a line or two and tell me what you think.

Jas