Yes, I changed the characters from Sakura H. and Sasuke U. to Sakura H. and Itachi U. Why? You'll just have to see...

After hearing the terrible news, Sakura had run straight home. Fortunately, no one had stopped her while she was in town. Actually, no one she knew had even seen her. She had deliberately taken the long way home to avoid going past Ichiraku, because Naruto was bound to be there.

Once she had unlocked and opened the door to her home, she went straight to the couch and collapsed and began sobbing her heart out. She knew her parents weren't home, so she did even bother going to her room to let her feelings out.

'Who am I kidding? There's no way I could even find Itachi, let alone convince him not to kill me long enough to explain why I'm there!' The thought made a wave of hopelessness wash over her. That caused more tears, not only because of her predicament, but now because of how pathetically helpless she felt.

Despite her current state, she knew that she could simply burn the documents, but that wouldn't change the fact that Tsunade and the Elders knew. If she did that, no priest would even consider marrying her. True, she could elope, but that only made her a missing-nin, and she would be hunted down for the rest of her life.

She curled up in a ball and began to rock herself slowly, as if to calm down. The tears still kept coming. Her eyes were starting to burn from all the tears she had cried.

She wasn't sure how long she was like that, and when she heard the doorknob turn, she quickly wiped her eyes free of tears. 'Just keep it together until whoever it is leaves.' She chanted that over and over in her head to strengthen her will.

"Sakura, Kakashi sent me here to…" Sasuke stopped in mid-sentence when he saw his teammate. Her eyes were bloodshot and glistening with tears. The skin all around her eyes was puffy and her skin was red and blotchy. She was clutching her knees as close to her chest as humanly possible with her head slumped on top of them. She looked as though she had just been told someone had died. Sasuke did what any man would've done in his place; he stared at her.

Sakura sniffled weakly. Of all times for Sasuke to come, he just had to be there now. She wiped her eyes again with the back of her hand before looking up at him.

"Sasuke-kun? What does Kakashi-sensei want?" Surprisingly, her voice was level and at a normal volume. Sasuke blinked before responding.

" He said that Tsunade-sama told you something important and that he wanted to talk to you." Sasuke didn't sound terribly interested in the matter, but he did not leave.

Sakura untangled herself from the couch and stood up. Her hair had gotten all messed up during her time on the couch and she went to go grab a brush. No sense in anyone else knowing that something was wrong. She would just have to put on a brave face. Still, she had to ask.

"Did Kakashi-sensei tell you anything about it?" Sakura wasn't sure whether she wanted Sasuke to know or not.

If he knew, she could at least discuss the problem with someone who would actually care. It annoyed Sasuke when Sakura talked to other guys about anything that wasn't strictly business, so if he knew that she was engaged to his brother… He would jump at the chance to help. He would also declare that he was going with her, though probably more interested in revenge. If Itachi was dead, the engagement would be void, and Sakura would be a free woman.

On the other side of that, if no one told him, he wouldn't have to have a heart attack at the mention of Itachi's name. He would be safe from his murderous brother, and that was a comforting thought to Sakura. She would never want him to be in that kind of danger. She couldn't live with herself if he got killed and it was her fault. She would have to keep the whole issue to herself, though. No help from anyone. She was alone.

"No."

"Oh…"

So he didn't know. 'At least he will be safe.' She assured herself. She ran a brush through her shoulder length petal pink hair and dabbed her eyes with a tissue before turning back to Sasuke. He hadn't left and had waited while she got cleaned up.

"I'm ready." She walked out of the door and Sasuke followed wordlessly. She locked the door with a click and prepared herself. Sasuke walked off in the direction of Kakashi's house, and Sakura walked beside him. Neither spoke the whole time, and Sakura was hoping that Sasuke would forget that he had seen her weak moment.

Upon arriving at Kakashi's house, Sakura raised her hand to knock on the door, but Sasuke opened it before she could. She remembered that he tended to just walk in rooms without warning, but Kakashi must've stressed that it was important for him to be doing that now. He held the door open and Sakura walked in with Sasuke following a second behind her.

Kakashi was leaning against a wall near the door and had his favorite book in his hand, Icha Icha Paradise. When he saw Sasuke and Sakura enter his home he shut the book and put it in his back pouch with ease, he'd had much practice in that.

"Sasuke, you can leave now."

Kakashi didn't want Sasuke to know about the whole Itachi thing. Sasuke would chase after him and end up throwing his life away, since he was still no match for Itachi. As usual with these types of things, something very unexpected happened.

A fairly young Jounin burst into the room. "Is it really true that Sakura knows about her engagement to Itachi and that she's going after him?"

Sakura whipped her head around so fast that her hair whacked Kakashi in the face, or what part of his face that his mask wasn't covering. She wasn't looking at the Jounin, however; she was looking to see Sasuke's reaction to all of this.

The thing was, he didn't react; he just stood there frozen. His face was emotionless as ever and he stood still like a statue. The only signs showing that he had even heard the Jounin was that he was incredibly stiff, and that his eyes were glazed, as if he was in his own world.

"I-I see that this is the case," the Jounin stumbled over his words. "I'll be on my way then." He exited leaving an annoyed Kakashi, a horrified Sakura, and a…brain dead Sasuke.

Sakura did not want to stick around to see Sasuke's reaction. If she did, she might never get to leave. So, naturally, she did the very intelligent thing. She did not talk it over with Kakashi.

She ran.

Sakura always kept a bag packed with the necessary supplies for a mission, in case she had to leave Konoha quickly, like this time. Retching the key out of her pocket, she unlocked the door for the second time that day and kept running to her bedroom.

Without bothering to see if her parents were home, she grabbed a packed backpack and flew out the door of her house, forgetting to lock it again. Luck was on her side as she reached the gates, seeing as no one had come after her. She sprinted right out of Konoha and took the trees.

-

Sakura slumped against a tree in utter exhaustion. She had been traveling full speed since she had left Konoha that afternoon. During that time, though, adrenaline had been pulsing through her system and by now it had long since worn off.

Before she can even stop herself, she falls into a deep sleep.

-

"Oi, Kisame, have you found the intruder yet?" a male voice asked over a radio.

"Yeah, and she is the strangest person I've ever seen." The one called Kisame answered.

"Describe her then, un." The other commanded irritably. Out of all the members of the Akatsuki, he had to find the person on their territory. Obviously, he was in a bad mood.

"There's a young kunoichi sleeping against a tree, but get this, she has pink hair." Kisame told his companion. "Didn't a kunoichi you met two years ago have pink hair, Deidara?"

Deidara snorted over the radio. "I don't remember! I've met lots of kunoichis before, un."

In a few minutes, Deidara had found Kisame and was standing next to him on a tree branch a few yards from the kunoichi. Deidara cocked his head to the side while regarding her.

"Oh, I know her!" he said after about a minute. "You clearly have trouble seeing Kisame." Kisame turned his head to look at Deidara. "What makes you say that?" he sounded more confused that angry. Kisame turned to look at the slumbering kunoichi. She hadn't woken up and she did, indeed, have pink hair. He looked back at Deidara, confusion clear on his face.

Deidara just shook his head at the incredulity of the matter. " How could not mention that her forehead is wider than the Fire Country?" Deidara now looked at his fingernails and picked at his nail polish absent-mindedly. "If you'd said that, I could've told you that she's the one who got Sasori in a second!"

Kisame looked rather amused. "You can't remember her hair color, but you know that she has an abnormally wide forehead? Pft, some artist you are."

"Shut the hell up!"

Kisame placed a hand over Deidara's mouth. "Shh, if she wakes up, this will be a lot harder than it needs to be." Certain that Deidara wasn't going to yell anymore, Kisame removed his hand. "I'm not sure how to capture her without waking her up, though. She might be a light sleeper."

Deidara shook his head again and jumped to the ground with a soft thud. Ignoring Kisame's protests, he walked straight over to the sleeping kunoichi, and scooped her up in his arms. "Pft, some captor you are."

-

When Sakura woke up, she had the biggest headache she had ever experienced. She groaned as she tried to sit up. She reached out to her right side to grab her backpack that she had discarded the night before to find that it was not there. Confused, Sakura sat straight up.

She regretted it immediately as her head started pounding. Groaning louder this time she looked around at her surroundings. She appeared to bee in a small, stone room completely empty of anything besides herself. There was one candle that was flickering pitifully while trying to illuminate the entire room. There was no window and only one door on the opposite side of the room.

It didn't take Sakura long to figure out she had been captured. She also knew better than to open the door, because that was asking for trouble, and it was probably locked anyway. Nevertheless, Sakura jumped to her feet at once, headache forgotten. Sensing a pathetic amount of chakra flowing, she didn't gather any to her fist and try to punch her way out of her prison.

Instead, she attempted to communicate with her captors. "Hey, you bastards had better get your sorry asses over her and tell me why the hell I'm even here, or I'll castrate you with my bare hands!"

One room above, Kisame, Deidara, Tobi, Hidan, and Itachi were in the main room of the hideout, minding their own business when Sakura's string of profanities reached their ears.

"Kisame, I believe the kunoichi has regained consciousness." Itachi said monotonously. Kisame nodded and continued to paint his fingernails.

Everyone remained unaffected by her never ceasing insults, except for Tobi. After hearing about castrating, his legs he trembled in fear. He knelt to the floor and called down to Sakura, "But Tobi is a good boy!"

Sakura stopped yelling when she had gotten a reply, granted it wasn't one she had expected.

"I don't give a damn if Tobi is the Queen of England!" she yelled back. "At least have the decency to talk to my face!"

Tobi leapt off the floor and hid behind Deidara. Deidara tried to get away from Tobi, but Tobi had already grabbed his shoulders. "Deidara-senpai, Tobi is scared of her!" Tobi ducked down so that he was peering out at everyone from Deidara's mid-back.

"Someone should probably do something about her, un." Deidara was now prying Tobi's hands off of him while looking disgusted. Hidan hadn't been terribly interested in watching Kisame paint his nails, so he decided to give Deidara a break. He walked over to where Sakura's voice was the loudest and gave a noisy stomp on the floor.

"Hey, bitch, all of your fucking racket is making it hard to concentrate!" he yelled down to her.

"And scaring Tobi!" the said Akatsuki member piped up.

"And scaring Tobi." Hidan added, more as an afterthought than anything. This didn't deter Sakura at all. " Well, your fucking chakra draining sword is making it so I can't do a damn thing!"

With that remark, Deidara had freed himself from Tobi, who was no longer scared because of Sakura's mistake. Itachi had put his book down and was now watching Hidan, looking bored. Kisame had finished with his nails, and was waiting for them to dry, so he watched Hidan as well, for lack of anything better to do.

"Dumbfuck, I'm not Kisame! If you have a fucking problem with Samehada, take it up with him!" Hidan stormed off to a chair on the other side of the room, now in a bad mood.

Sakura was now pacing like a trapped animal. With that small mistake, she had learned hoards of information. She was the captive of the Akatsuki, and why they wanted her was unknown. She had only ever met three of the members, one of them she had killed. The one yelling at her was a very vocal person, and there seemed to be a young boy upstairs with them. She deemed the boy to be the most likely to tell her anything.

"Hey Tobi!" she did her best to keep her temper under control while calling up to him.

Above her, Tobi jumped in surprise. He trotted over to where she was in curiosity. Sakura had heard the footsteps, so she continued, "Could you please tell me why I am here?" she asked as civilly as she could manage in her current situation. To her surprise, he laughed.

"Kunoichi," he started then called over to his partner, "Deidara-senpai, what's her name?" Deidara shrugged, "Why would I know? She didn't introduced herself to me when we captured her, un."

"Haruno Sakura." Itachi said suddenly. Tobi turned to him with his head tilted, but he didn't ask Itachi how he knew. "Thanks, Itachi-san! You're a real friend!" Tobi turned his attention back to Sakura.

"Well, Sakura-chan, when a man and a woman love each other very much they-" Tobi was cut off by a pillow hitting his head.

Hidan looked even more irritated. "What the fuck are you talking about?!" Tobi now had his head tilted while looking at Hidan. "Sakura-chan asked why she is here and Tobi was being a good boy and telling her."

Kisame sighed heavily, "She means why is she with us, not why is she on Earth, Tobi." Tobi seemed to understand this and nodded.

Now, because Sakura didn't hear any of this, she started to yell again. "That's not what I meant you fucking idiot! I am very well aware of how I was made, thank you!" Realizing how that could be misinterpreted, her face turned darker red. "I mean, not because I've done…that, I'm a medic for crying out loud! What kind of a medic doesn't know about that?!"

Kisame sighed again. "Itachi-san, can't you do something about her?" Itachi glanced over at Kisame before picking his book back up. "You are not in charge, and therefore you can not order me. I believe Leader-sama put me in charge, until he returns."

Tobi shook his head repeatedly. "No, Itachi-san, it rotates, and you were leader last time. It's Kisame-san's turn now!" Kisame grinned at Itachi and pointed to the floor. Itachi got up from his chair and walked towards the door without a word, though the aura coming off of him was not a pleasant one. He closed the door quietly behind him and his footsteps faded away.

"That poor kunoichi…"

Oh dear, what price will Sakura pay for her mouth? Please review, since they are inspiring and motivating. And I like reviews.

And to finish my exclamation on the previous chapter....

BUT ITASAKUSASU IS EVEN BETTER!!!