Author's note: Hope this is to your satisfaction. I'm beginning to forge more ideas for this story more and more. Let's see how it all works out.
Disclaimer: Naruto's not my property. It's Kishimoto's. Scream by Avenged Seven-fold is not owned by me.
xXx
You know I make you wanna scream.
You know I wanna make you run from me baby,
but it's way too late you've wasted it all your time.
That chilling, baritone voice froze her in place, or maybe whatever this world was had done that to her. She knew that voice. She knew this technique. She was stupid. She should have left the damned necklace, and now—
—now she was trapped in the Sharingan world, with Itachi for company.
What in the hell was Sakura going to do in this situation?
Stuck in the Tsukiyomi, everything either progressed rapidly, or extremely slow. Today, however, the clouds decided to take on a feel as if a light breeze were moving them ahead, but she failed to feel any sort of wind brush against her skin.
The pregnant moon that hung in the air stared back at her. It appeared as if the red, bloody sky was absorbing the world around it, eating up the street and the houses above it.
"Give me my birthright," a voice, beside her, in front of her, all around her demanded.
Sakura backed away, frightened, summoning the chakra to her fists, but it dissipated automatically. When she heard a rustle of clothing and she shot to the left, immediately her hands searched for the kunai pouch on her right thigh. All her fingertips came in contact with was her skin. My...my weapons...
"I know you have it." The voice appeared again, seeming closer than before. "I want it."
Again, Sakura struggled to make sense of the world around her. Time seemed to slow. The whole scene before her began to shift, intermingling with each other and warping so it looked like a spiraling circle.
"It's on my neck!" she screamed, quaking in her boots. "Here!" she reached behind her neck to fiddle with the necklace's clasp...but her hands only felt the smooth material of her shirt and the tresses of her hair. "Wh-wha...it's...gone!" she groped herself excessively, finding no necklace. She was sure she removed it from the safe and placed it back on her neck! "I...I just had it! I don't know where it went... I—"She frisked herself, panicking, her throat closing when she realized that she had no weapons and no necklace.
"Don't lie to me!" Sakura stumbled, lost her footing, and landed flat on her rear. Fear lanced through her whole body, immobilizing her, as she saw two large, blood red eyes staring back at her. They broke through the sky, and watched her with intensity, those black comma marks swirling and swirling and swirling... "You're in my world, and you will do as I say or you die. Now, where is it?"
Sakura couldn't find her voice. Petrified wasn't the right word for what she was feeling. Attempting to scramble to her legs, she rose unsteadily. "I...I had it...I could have sworn I put it back on when I left the apartment building..." she once again checked herself, assuring the very real truth that she was going to die because she couldn't give Itachi back his heirloom.
But she had one question for him.
"Why are you seeking it now? I've had it for so long!"
The eyes refused to blink, or to even shift in her presence. "Foolish. I've waited long enough. Now give it to me."
"I told you!" she barked, feeling her energy begin to rise. "I don't have it! I thought I did, but I don't!"
The boldness she was experiencing vanished when the world around her did. Like a black hole, Itachi's eyes absorbed the world around her. When she opened her eyes, she wasn't sure if they were really open—darkness surrounded her. She could barely see the hand in front of her eyes.
Then, like someone turned on a light switch, the world around her illuminated, once more bathed in the three basic colours; white, black, and red. She was standing on a piece of wood, secured by other pieces, so from an angle it looked sort of hexagonal. In the center, however, was a cross which contained shackles. That's not...for me...is it? Sakura didn't really want to find out.
Now...how to get out of here.
"There is no escape."
Sakura jumped to one side, narrowly avoiding hitting Itachi's body. He stood tall, and dominating over her. She refused to look in his eyes, even if she was already trapped in the Sharingan world.
A sudden jolt shook her body, and when she looked around, she was no longer standing next to him, but she was hovered above the platform she previously stood on. "I'm..." She was shackled to the cross, and there was Itachi. He held one katana aloft in his hand, while he was submerged in a sea of katana. There had to be at least a hundred surrounding her.
"If you won't tell me where it is," he said, raising the katana, "then I'll have to force it out of you."
Sakura immediately writhed in her confines, but found no chance of breaking loose. "I don't have it! If I had it I would give it to you! Just—aaaah!" A million volts of electricity had lashed through her, and even before she realized that it had, in fact, been the katana piercing through her, there was another Itachi holding a katana.
"Tell me," the second Uchiha demanded. When she refused to give him anything but an answer to where it was, he inserted the katana straight through her sternum.
"Seventy-one hours and fifty-seven minutes to go." The third Uchiha stated while impaling her once more.
xXx
Three days had gone by. Sakura was completely covered from head to toe with swords. One hundred swords.
Itachi number-one hundred stared at the half conscious female. In the world of the Sharingan, he could not only control time, space, and matter, but he could control your state of consciousness, too. He had allowed her some vestiges of peace, but he never completely allowed her to submerge herself into darkness. That would not be the necessary means to retract the information from her.
She's tough. She has four more minutes before my jutsu ends. Maybe this will be the time where she tells me where it is.
Just as he declared to her the time which she had remaining, and yet again asked where the location of his item was, Sakura denied the location of the whereabouts.
The jutsu broke. Sakura felt like a fraying rope being stretched taut until she snapped. When she could see the outside world again, she blacked out onto the floor.
Itachi peered down at the girl as she took one look at the surroundings, and then promptly fell on her face.
She still hasn't told me. Briskly, the Uchiha hoisted her up on to her shoulder. Without delaying, he deactivated his Sharingan. If he was going to interrogate her later he needed to reserve his strength. The jutsu took a toll on his eyesight, and even if the jutsu took off another year at sight, he would do anything to get his item back.
He walked through the gates of Konoha, and headed straight to Kirigakure.
xXx
Kisame looked to his partner skeptically. "This woman has your sword? Are you certain, Itachi? I mean, she doesn't look like the type to steal from—"
"She has it. I know she does."
Kisame was quiet a moment. "Then...why didn't she hand it over when you tortured her?"
Itachi was silent, too. "I don't know."
The swordsman shifted in his seat, taking Sakura in, wondering how she could have ever stolen from the ninja that stood beside him for so long. "Itachi. I think you're wrong. No way she could have stolen it. I mean, look at her." He gestured at her. "She doesn't have it. I can feel it."
Itachi regarded Sakura. "But she has the chakra it emits from the sword. There's no mistaking it. It's within her body."
Kisame had lost keeping track with what Itachi said a long time ago, but now he was intrigued. "In her body? What do you mean?"
Itachi pondered why he would explain this to his partner, sighed imperceptibly. "When you possess something that strong from the Uchiha clan, it either kills you once it detects that you are not an Uchiha, or your chakra combines with the seal that it has placed.
"Once it has merged with your chakra because of the seal, it behaves in a manner as if the user were an actual Uchiha. Therefore, I could sense the chakra in her, because it's taking over it. But now..."
"But what?" ventured Kisame.
Itachi looked unsettled. "I can't feel it any longer."
The swordsman sighed. Isn't that what he'd been trying to tell his partner all along? That this girl didn't possess it.
"Then why are you detaining her, if she doesn't have what you want?"
"She might know the location of it."
Kisame shook his head. There was just no arguing with this guy...
Itachi circled the cage in which he imprisoned this pink-haired thief. Whether she stole it or not was not the issue. What matters right now was the location of his sword. And when—or if—she would awaken long enough to tell him.
And, just as if she had heard him through her unconscious state, she looked at him with green eyes laced with fear.
"Where is my sword?" he demanded.
The kunoichi looked genuinely confused. She mumbled, "Sword? I...I thought you wanted..." then she blacked out again.
Kisame regarded her, wondering what in the world Itachi put her through. "Did you put her through seventy-two hours of torture?" he shook his head sagely. "She won't be talking for a couple of days, you know that."
Itachi was silent yet again. Yes, I know. This is one of my first mistakes.
xXx
When Sakura came to six days later, she felt shittier than she had in her entire life.
When she noticed that she was shackled to a chakra suction-type machine, that didn't really bother her. When she recalled being in the Tsukiyomi for three straight days being tortured, when in reality it only lasted about three seconds, that didn't really bother her. And even when she remembered being accused of stealing Itachi's necklace - nope, scratch that, his sword as he claimed - that didn't bother her a lot, either.
What was really bothering Haruno Sakura, however, was the fact that she had not showered in six days, eaten in six days, and had even a tiny sip of water in six days!
She figured that she thought of herself as strong willed to only be thinking of those few necessities she required, when she should be fearing for her life because an S-class criminal abducted her on account of stealing his sword.
But why did he think she had his sword? Shouldn't he be after the necklace?
Dazed and confused, she wobbled unsteadily to her knees, hunched over and heaving for breath. Her lips were cracked and dry, and her tongue felt like a lead weight in her mouth. Dehydration was a scary experience, and she was hoping that she might be able to curb its effects if she just told herself not to cry out the rest of the liquid she was storing.
So where is Itachi at? she wondered, trying to yank her hands free, but to no avail.
"H-hey...! Itachi!" talking seemed to bring on a whole other round of pain. "Itachi! I want water!" she bit her lip to keep from crying, but all that managed to do was break open one of her sores and squirt blood down her shirt.
Oh, fabulous.
Soon enough, the Uchiha appeared in front of her cell. "Yes?" he asked, sounding genuinely quizzical. Maybe he was just amazed that she was actually talking.
"I...I want water," she managed weakly. She hated how she sounded so feeble.
Sure enough, the man before her kicked in a bowel filled with delicious looking water. But she frowned. This is probably not a good idea, but I'm not some dirt bag man who committed a foul crime. I want to drink out of a bottle, damn it, not lap up the water with my tongue like a mutt!
"Can I have a water bottle?" she asked, and his red eyes squinted. "Uh...please?" her throat became hoarse, making her sound like an old man.
Itachi seemed to ponder the things that would benefit him if he got her a water, but relented. He flashed away, but reappeared, presenting to her a bottle, indeed, filled with water. He kicked that in as well.
It's as if I'm a disease or something, Sakura scowled, but nonetheless went to reach for the bottle, but stopped short when she remembered she was shackled. She gestured with her eyes to the stoic man. "Well?"
As if he hadn't heard her, Itachi disappeared.
Fucking perfect. She took her time deciding which she would drink from, and eventually relented and lapped up the water that was in the bowel. It tasted sweet and cold on her dry throat, and she welcomed the small satisfaction it brought to her fasting stomach.
When she was finished, she slumped against the cold metal bars, thinking of how soothing it felt on her feverish forehead. Now get me a five-star meal and I'll be good to go, she thought wearily, drifting back into unconsciousness.
She didn't fight it. Soon she was asleep on the floor.
Itachi watched the captive. She's tough. But she'll have to be stronger if she doesn't tell me where my sword is.
He vanished and reappeared in his quarters, wondering what kind of interrogation method he should try later on in order to crack her open.
xXx
"I have both of the items that you requested."
"Excellent. And the Uchiha?"
"Thinks the girl has it."
"Good...now, what I want you to do is set the girl up. Don't give him any reason to suspect us at all. If all goes according to plan...we could start another war."
"Yes, sir."
The thief took a moment to fondle the Ryuukaton in his fingers, smiling deviously to himself. They'll never suspect it was me...the girl will die, and the world will then be ruled by me!
