A/N: Before the time period of this fanfic, Pain's attack on Konoha happened, but Sakura and Shizune were able to bring her out of the coma, so Danzo was never hokage as per this fanfic.

Itachi opened his eyes as he heard the creak of the iron door and breathed the draft of slightly less stale air. Or rather, he thought that he opened his eyes. The last thing he remembered was seeing the hokage smirk at him and wondering if she had been able to create a poison capable of affecting him. It certainly seemed that way, since here he was, lying on stone, unable to see anything. Whatever poison it was had knocked him unconscious, but he was puzzled by his lack of sight. Perhaps his holding cell was merely extremely dark and his blurred vision was diffusing the light so broadly that the area appeared lightless.

Using the Sharingan would help. He tried to activate his Sharingan and sorely regretted the decision when instead of black, he now saw a field of fuzzy brown lines and felt the fire of a thousand liters of hydrochloric acid surging through his eyes.

This was a rather unfortunate moment for someone to greet him.

"Uchiha-san," the businesslike, feminine voice began, "good; you're awake this time. Sit up."

Itachi said nothing for fear of letting his inner scream of pain escape. He inclined his head but an inch, as if preparing to sit up as instructed, then froze because the pain increased tenfold. To his horror, a slight grunt managed to rumble from his throat, betraying his excruciating level of discomfort.

However, his visitor seemed to think he was purposefully ignoring his request.

"Ugh, you are so much like your brother, Itachi-san, grunting at everyone and not moving a centimeter unless it suits you," his visitor growled as he felt small hands grab his bare forearms and force him upright.

This time Itachi could barely hold in his urge to yell out his pain and he began to shiver with the effort of staying quiet. Sweat quickly collected on his forehead and began to form a droplet that lid down his nose.

"Huh? Are you cold? But you're sweating," the voice contemplated, her voice switching swiftly from callous to concerned.

Itachi felt the same small, slightly cool hands settle on both of his temples. His shivering settled the moment foreign chakra began to flow into his head, as if his body could sense the healing intent behind the gesture.

"You must be in unimaginable pain right now, why didn't you say something?" the voice asked as the foreign chakra poured deeper into his own chakra channels. The prickling acidic aflame feeling in his eyes subsided steadily into the dull ache he was used to. Only then did he dare to move enough to speak.

"The slight inclination of my head made the pain worsen. Talking would have compounded that," Itachi stated simply, then frowned. "You know my name, but I lack the reciprocal knowledge. May I ask your name?"

"Haruno Sakura," the voice replied. Itachi wasn't entirely surprised by this information; he knew that Sakura was a medic of greater talent than the hokage. Most would put her at equal or lesser talent, but Itachi had spent a lot of time observing Sasuke's teammates and had seen in both strength and ingenuity superior to that of their Sannin masters. He knew that the hokage would never let her apprentice be the one to examine him if the hokage's own prowess would have been enough.

"Haruno-san, thank you," Itachi offered genuinely.

There was a brief pause before Sakura replied.

"I wouldn't be so quick to say that if I were you. I'm not here to finish healing you, I am merely here to examine your eyes and determine what the effect of our poison was," Sakura snapped, seemingly annoyed to have received his thanks.

Itachi carefully tested each limb as he thought over this information. They had developed a poison that could target the Sharingan; he was more than impressed. The shackles around his wrists sounded with a ting as he clacked them together. They were inhibiting his chakra flow, no doubt. Sakura was more of the trusting and sympathetic sort from what he had seen, so he thought she would be a bit less hostile toward him. Even so, she had responded to his extreme pain with sympathy, healing his eyes to a manageable level. He couldn't help but resonate with her distaste for undue suffering.

Sakura interrupted his musings with a barrage of questions.

"What do you see? Does it still hurt when you move? Does it hurt when I poke your eye? What was your eyesight like before the poison?"

Itachi didn't answer immediately, and not only because she had asked an absurd amount of questions at once. He was trying to decide whether or not to be forthcoming with this information; after all, she was essentially using him as a test subject and was not intending to heal him. What incentive did he have for answering her questions?

To his intense chagrin, he began to violently cough and he experienced the familiar sensation of spewing blood alongside the 100 mile-per-hour air shooting out violently from his lungs. Itachi was slightly panicked, knowing that his medicine had been in his cloak and they had taken his cloak from him.

Sakura's hand quickly moved to his back. "This makes no sense at all; the poison was only supposed to target your eyes. I guess the shock to your system was a lot greater than I anticipated."

Itachi didn't bother to correct her. If she thought his lung disease was caused by her poison, maybe she wouldn't use the poison on Sasuke. He needed Sasuke to keep his ability to use the Sharingan. Sasuke still needed to take his revenge and Itachi still needed the peace only the sight of his parents in the afterlife could bring him.

However, he mused, if Sasuke was poisoned, they would bring Sasuke to Konoha and he would be safe from Madara. Itachi was worried that with his capture, Madara would seek to fill his position in Akatsuki with Sasuke, especially now that he was planning a second infiltration of Konoha. Pain had attacked only a month ago and the village had still not fully recovered, so Madara would strike soon. He needed to recruit more manpower quickly since he had lost Kakuzu, Hidan, Sasori, Deidara, Pain, and Konan all in a very short period of time.

Itachi could think of only one way that Madara would succeed in recruiting Sasuke to Akatsuki, and Itachi would kill Madara for it. He hadn't been able to prepare for that possibility, mostly because he shouldn't have been able to be captured. Orochimaru had inoculated all of Akatsuki to all known poisons, so Itachi had never had to worry about the glimmer of liquid on a blade before.

"Uchiha-san, did you have this lung condition before Tsunade-sama poisoned you?" Sakura pressed, her medical chakra not having been able to determine the answer. Either the poison had done a lot of horrific damage fast (which poisons were wont to do), or Itachi had previously contracted this disease.

"I have had this lung disease for years," Itachi clarified before another bout of coughing took over. He decided that it was more important for Sasuke to be free of Madara's influence than it was for him to be able to keep his Sharingan.

"Oh," Sakura breathed, sounding almost frightened and removing her hand from Itachi's back as if scalded.

"Oh?"

"Nothing, nothing. Does it still hurt when you move?"

Itachi merely shook his head, annoyed at her blatant subject change.

"What about when I poke your eye?"

"No more than it hurts when anyone pokes someone else's eye."

"What do you see?"

"Blackness."

"And your eyesight before the poison?"

This was the part that Itachi was most reluctant to reveal. Sakura had already seen the weakness of his lungs, likely brought on because he hadn't taken his medicine in so long, due to being unconscious and all. He didn't want to give the additional information that his eyesight had been leaving him slowly. If Konoha knew how weak he was at just this moment, they might kill him and ruin the future he had worked so long to construct for Sasuke. However, Konoha would make a powerful enemy out of Uchiha Sasuke if they killed him.

"Blurry."

"All right. As much as I enjoy spending time with the mass murderer who drove the love of my life to defect from the village and train with the least moral ex-Konoha shinobi, I need to research a few things that I saw and make some notes."

Sakura had been addressing him civilly again until that point, so Itachi was again surprised to be on the receiving end of her hostility. However, Itachi had gained some valuable information. First, Sasuke was at some point the love of her life, if not currently. Second, Itachi was not the least moral ex-Konoha shinobi. For some reason, this both pleased and plagued him. He found himself wondering what Sakura would think if she knew the true circumstances of that fateful night, that he had been fully sane and had still chosen to follow orders. As usual, he buried those thoughts and instead focused on the sound of Sakura's retreating footsteps and the sharp whine of the iron door as it again opened and shut.

She was his key to escaping this holding cell, he just had to figure out how to convince her that he wasn't a threat.

As I left Itachi's holding area, I nodded to the two guards on duty and told them to bring Itachi some food that he would be able to eat with his eyes closed. One of the guards gave me an odd look, but they both nodded. I trudged down the hallway and up the stairs to the building entrance.

It felt wrong, how the low sun greeted me with its warm gaze and a small rabbit blinked hopped innocently across the path. I had just spoken with one of the most treacherous criminals to hail from Konoha. I had just spoken with a man who killed his own flesh and blood. I had just spoken with Uchiha Itachi. And I felt compassion for him. Twice. Once when he was visibly shaking with pain; no one deserved that kind of torture. Once again when I was examining his lungs.

As I began the short walk to the hokage tower, my mind drifted to the events that happened in Itachi's cell, trying to sort out what I would report to Tsunade-shishou.

Something was off about his lung disease. It was severe and certainly shocking, but I couldn't place what was so different about it until Itachi had mentioned having it for years. I had only seen anything like it once before, in an elderly man whose grandson finally dragged him into the hospital years after he should have gone. The man hadn't been able to move his arm for two years, although he said the mobility had been leaving him for about ten years. I had examined it and could not find any medical cause for the issue. Usually a neural issue was to blame, but all of the man's nerves were functional. I was about to call Tsunade-shishou to examine him when his grandson explained it without even knowing what he was doing. Ten years before, he had lost his wife of fifty years.

Somatization was surprisingly uncommon in the shinobi world. Shinobi had their vices and they used them to deal with their emotions. Asuma-sensei had his cigarettes, Kakashi had his adult novels, Tsunade-shishou had her sake. But that elderly man hadn't dealt with his grief and it had manifested physically in his body.

Uchiha Itachi's lungs were not a factor of any physical disease, which would explain why I hadn't been able to determine a cause and also why Itachi seemed not to have been able to find a way to heal them. His lungs had the same mysterious pulse that the elderly man's arm had exhibited.

I didn't know how to process this information— what grief could a psychopathic killer feel? How could he have enough grief to mortally damage his lungs? Did he regret his actions? It was this very same chain of thoughts that had bulleted through my mind as I examined Itachi. I didn't know how to feel about the revelation, so my brain had gone on auto-pilot and I jumped into medic-mode with him while I mulled over the information.

After thinking about it, I was angry. How could I feel sorry for the grief that a mass-murderer went through? The reality was that I did feel sorry for the grief that he went through and that made me so mad. Even if whatever caused him to grieve also caused him to murder, I shouldn't be able forgive him of his transgressions against Konoha and against Sasuke. And I didn't forgive him for all of that, but I did feel less animosity.

I was budding with rage at my own sympathetic emotions when I arrived at Shishou's office.

"Come in, Sakura," Tsunade-shishou said, ushering me inside. She noticed the confusion and frustration on my face. "What happened with the Uchiha?"

"He was completely blinded by the poison and was in such extreme pain that the slightest movement burdened him." I hesitated.

"Go on, I can see that you have more to say," Tsunade-shishou prodded.

"It's just that he has some severe lung damage, not from the poison. He'll need to be healed before anyone can interrogate him about Akatsuki's infiltration plans. Otherwise, I estimate he has less than a week to live and he certainly won't hold up if he's subjected to any strong jutsu."

"I see." Shishou seemed to consider the implications of my words carefully. "Since you're concerned for his wellbeing, you can begin to heal him tomorrow. No more than what is necessary for him to hold up under interrogation."

"But Tsunade-shi—"

"No buts, Sakura. We desperately need this information or Konoha will again become a crater devoid of life, as Pain tried to leave it. Only ten people know that Uchiha Itachi even came within range of the village. And two of them are dead."

That meant that Tsunade-shishou hadn't even told the elders of Itachi's presence. Shishou was suspicious of the motives of some of the elders and she was even more suspicious of Danzo. I had seen for myself at a couple of meetings the strange way the man talked about protecting the village. His thoughts always went to the extreme first, especially where Sasuke was concerned. Danzo wanted him dead, and didn't relent in pushing his opinion even when he was out-voted. If I were Tsunade-shishou, I wouldn't have told anyone else about Itachi's presence either.

"Sakura, I can't be the one to heal him. The elders will see my exhaustion at the meeting and know that something is up. Shizune also attends the daily meetings, but she also doesn't have your inventiveness. I know how you feel about Uchiha Itachi; to you he's the root of everything that went wrong in your life,"

I had been glowering at the floor, but my head shot up when she said that. Was it really so easy to tell that I blamed Itachi for Sasuke's actions?

Shishou saw my reaction and continued, "Naruto said as much when he visited today to yell at me again about my decision. I just figured you would feel the same. I need this information. Konoha needs this information. Naruto needs this information."

Her last sentence hit it home. We needed this intelligence if we were going to convince Naruto to let us protect him. He was half a breath away from running off to face the Akatsuki alone, and as powerful as he was, he wouldn't survive that battle.

"Hai. I will report to his holding cell again tomorrow morning." It wouldn't be easy to heal, so I would have to stock up on carbs and vitamins tonight to increase my endurance.

"Thank you, you're dismissed."

I left the hokage tower feeling slightly defeated and headed to Ichiraku, where I knew I would be able to find Naruto. The low sun had finished its descent behind Hokage mountain and it was officially evening, which meant that the 2 bowls for 10 ryo deal was happening. I needed the carbs, so I ducked into the small establishment and sat next to the puff of blond hair that was Naruto.

"Sabira-chaaa!" exclaimed Naruto with a full mouth when he saw me.

I shook my head at him for talking with his mouth full— really, no one else would be able to understand that blabber— but fluffed his hair affectionately.

"Uglyyyy, I'm glad you could join us," Sai greeted.

I felt a small smile spread across my lips. After such a frustrating day with the S-rank destroyer of Team Seven, I was craving normalcy.

Sai returned my smile with one of his own, and for once it didn't seem quite so fake. He pulled his near-empty ramen bowl up to his mouth and drank the remnants. After setting the bowl down, one of his hands rested very close to mine, but it was a cramped restaurant and I thought nothing of it. Until he started talking again.

"Your smile makes me feel like everything will be okay. I will always fight for the chance to see your ugly smile," Sai leaned toward me, his dilated pupils staring intently into mine, waiting for a response.

"WHO GAVE SAKE TO SAI AND LET HIM WATCH MORE ROMANCE MOVIES?" I bellowed, and Naruto was smart enough to create some clones before he started running so I would have more targets for my wrath.

There was an entire week this month when Sai would only talk in quotes from a romance movie; Naruto appeared to have re-created that incident. Sai said a lot of very sweet things that week, the problem was that he said them to every girl he came across. I don't think I ever saw a man get slapped more times than Sai in that week. I finally managed to explain to him after a week why he was coming across so poorly. I just hated the memory because even through that phase, Sai still only called me Ugly. Was my face really that hideous?

I pushed Sai back to give myself some breathing room and ordered some ramen. Naruto wouldn't be back for a while and I couldn't waste my chakra by beating him into the ground, no matter how much I wanted to.

Well, at least Naruto seems like his old self today. Now, how will I get my revenge…