Itachi Uchiha, shinobi of Konoha, ten year old chunin and the pride of the Uchiha clan was utterly stumped.

The Hokage had given him his first solo mission a month ago. A girl by the name of Sakura Haruno had disappeared from the middle of the busiest street in Konoha, right in front of fifty witnesses, including a few shinobi, and without leaving a single trace behind.

Itachi had meticulously combed through the evidence, thoroughly analysing each witnesses' report, secretly glad that he was away from his family. Ever since he became chunin, his father had been trying to get him alone, to talk to him about all his new responsibilities to the Uchiha. Itachi had endured the lectures in silence for the most part. Some of what his father said was useful, but whenever he went off on a tangent about the pride of the Uchiha, Itachi had to keep a careful grasp on his emotionless mask. He loved his father, but he did not share the same ideals as him. Itachi was sure that informinghis father of this would not help his situation, so he was thankful that this assignment gave him the perfect excuse to stay away from the compound.

He had considered kidnapping, child trafficking, abusive parents and even the jinchuriki, but so far he had not been able to find a shred of evidence to back up any of these theories. Currently, he believed that the child's parents were innocent. Mebuki Haruno had been wracked with guilt over leaving the child alone for a minute, sobbing hysterically when Itachi came to question them. Her husband, Kizashi Haruno had sat beside her, pale and thin-lipped, one hand supportively on the mother's shoulder. Itachi had his sharingan activated for the entire interview, and as far as he could tell they had been completely honest. There was no evidence of abuse, only love and grief. He found it highly unlikely that the child had willingly ran away and hidden for this long.

Mebuki seemed to be just as confused as he was about how the child had simply vanished without a single person seeing it happen. One witness had sworn that he had seen the child sitting on the bench, swinging her legs happily. He had looked away for a split second, and when he looked back the child was gone.

"Whoever took her, they were fast." the stout shopkeeper had told him, his eyes wide "They got her just like that." He clicked his fingers. "Only people I can think of who could pull that off would be the Snake Sannin or that cousin of yours."

Seeing as the man was a civilian who had no idea how powerful shinobi were, Itachi was confident that he didn't have a clue what he was talking about. Any shinobi with a quick enough Body Flicker could have taken her, not just someone of Shisui's level. Likewise, Orochimaru had not been sighted within the village for years. It had been a long time since his infamous kidnappings had terrorized the citizens of Konoha.

It could have been a regular shinobi, but again, Itachi had no idea what their incentive might be. The Harunos were an utterly ordinary family. Mebuki was a school teacher for those who weren't interested in becoming a shinobi, and her husband worked as an accountant for the Hokage. Itachi had investigated Kizashi's work, looking for any signs of a conspiracy that might warrant a kidnapping. So far, he had found nothing.

As for trafficking, the last known trafficking gang had been destroyed years ago. Not a lot of people were foolish enough to start a common criminal gang in a village filled with shinobi. Still, he couldn't cross the possibility off his list completely.

That left the jinchuriki. That had been a long shot, even before he began investigating. Naruto Uzumaki was only five years old, and aside from the occasional prank, had never seriously harmed anyone before. Still, the Kyuubi's power was great, and there was a possibility that it was working against the boy's will. However, after asking his former genin teammate to shadow the boy for a day, he was forced to admit that if the Kyuubi was responsible, it was doing a good job of hiding it. Naruto had spent the morning being ignored by both teachers and classmates in the Academy; including Itachi's own little brother. The rest of the day was spent alone in his apartment. Itachi's friend had reported that a few civilian children had thrown eggs at the boy's window, yet neither the Kyuubi nor the boy had made any attempt to get revenge. In the end, Itachi decided to stop investigating the Kyuubi for now. There was still too much classified information about the boy that he wasn't privy to.

He stared down at all his neatly written reports, reading them over and over again. He had been here in the mission filing room for an hour now, deep in thought. He knew that the chunin standing guard outside thought it was adorable that he was so dedicated to the case. Itachi idly wondered if the guard would ever see it coming if he decided to slit her throat. His age and apparently 'cute' face made a lot of the shinobi let their guard down around him. He was certain that one day that mistake would cost them their lives. Still, that was a worry for another time. For now, he needed to focus on this case.

Of one thing he was sure of: He was missing at least one crucial piece of the puzzle. Something most definitely didn't add up, but Itachi wasn't sure how to fix that. He tried thinking of any other reason why a five-year old civilian girl had disappeared, and there was only one thing he could think of:

Sakura Haruno had discovered some secret, and had been taken by someone, most likely a shinobi, so that she wouldn't give away the secret. What she had discovered, or what the secret was, Itachi didn't know.

First thing tomorrow, he decided, he would begin to investigate that theory. But for now, the sun had begun to set, and Sasuke was probably waiting to play with him. As he stood up and left, he imagined his brother waiting impatiently at the front door.

A small, secret smile crossed Itachi's normally stoic face.

Day 1

Sakura woke up to see a fat, ugly man staring down at her. She wasn't quite sure how to react, so she stared back for a minute.

"Who are you?" she asked eventually.

The man continued to stare at her, until Sakura began feeling uncomfortable. She quickly stood up and made her way over to the sink to wash her face. The man's eyes followed her.

"My name is Baiu." the man said, his voice deep and gravelly. "Konan sent me here to be your teacher."

Teacher. That was a new word, yet no sooner had he said it that the definition popped into her head.

"Does that make me your student?" she asked.

"Not quite." he replied, his eyes continuing to take in every inch of her. "I suppose teacher is not quite the right word. Do you know how weapons are made? Before they are given to the wielder-in this case Pein-sama-they must be forged and tempered. That will be my job-to be your creator."

Sakura frowned. Forged and tempered? She didn't have a clue what those words meant. But she didn't trust this man. It was best to pretend that she understood.

Baiu pointed to the center of the room.

"Stand here."

Sakura obeyed, walking over to where he was pointing. Baiu began to circle her, staring at her from top to bottom. Sakura noticed him frown slightly from time to time, and every time he did her urge to curl up into a ball grew.

Eventually, he stopped circling her and stared into her eyes. She stared back, utterly clueless. What did he want from her?

"You'll do." he said at last. "I can see potential."

Then his mouth opened into a terrifying grin that made Sakura want to run and hide under the blanket on her bed. Run! her instincts screamed at her. Run!

She didn't move.

"Let's get started, shall we?" said Baiu.

Day 2

"Again."

The hail of senbon came shooting towards her. Sakura dodged left, sidestepped right, knocked three away with her kunai and flipped backwards to avoid the last few.

When the senbon stopped, she was left panting, a small graze on her right arm. Sasori looked at her with something akin to satisfaction in his eyes.

Baiu frowned.

"Again."

They were in a deep underground cavern which Baiu called a 'training room'. It was huge, at least ten times bigger than her own room. The walls, floor and ceiling of the cavern were made of thick stone. Although she couldn't see them, Sakura knew that there was more than one hole in the roof. She had climbed down a ladder from a hole in the ceiling to get here, and she knew there was another one because of the giant waterfall on her left. It thundered down from far above, loud enough to cover the sounds of her training so that Pein and Konan wouldn't be disturbed. Baiu explained to her that they were used to the sound of the waterfall, and it was loud enough that even explosions wouldn't be heard over it.

As Sasori began to fire senbon, Sakura took careful note of his body language. It was hard for her to guess his emotions, seeing as he was a puppet with only his eyes visible, but she after training with him for two hours, she was fairly certain he hated her.

She remembered back to when she first woke up and attacked him. He hadn't looked happy that she had gotten past his defenses. Perhaps he had felt embarrassed? It would make sense that he would dislike her after that.

Her thoughts came to a screeching halt when she felt a searing pain in her shoulder. One of the senbon had hit her while she was distracted. Frowning, she focused on dodging the rest of them. It was harder now that one had hit her. Her arm was growing numb. Did Sasori intend to kill her? Baiu had made it clear that Sasori was allowed to harm her, but Pein wanted her alive. His senbon had poison on them, but he had reassured her that it wasn't lethal. Still, she didn't know him well enough to trust him. Was Pein's word enough to keep Sasori under control?

The senbon kept coming. Another one hit Sakura on her hand, making her drop the kunai. She started to panic. She tried to draw another kunai, but her entire arm had gone numb.

Calm down. Breathe. You've done this before. Let your instinct take over.

She weaved through the senbon, letting her body flow like water. One senbon bounced off her fingernail, but didn't penetrate her skin. Her eyes met Sasori, and something flashed between them.

The number of senbon increased.

"That's enough." Baiu said.

Sakura stopped immediately. Sasori ignored him. Three senbon caught her straight in the stomach. She gasped once, and began to dodge again. One hand quickly pulled the senbon out, while the other held the kunai.

"I said enough!" Baiu yelled.

The senbon cut off abruptly. Sakura collapsed on the ground, gasping. Slowly, she noticed the tension in the air. She turned and looked at the other two. Sasori stared stonily at Baiu, who looked extremely nervous, as if he had only now remembered who he was yelling at.

"I agreed to help train the brat for my own personal reasons." Sakura shuddered. Sasori's voice was perfectly smooth and level, but she could clearly feel the menace behind it, and so could Baiu. "But I didn't do it so that some lowlife scum with delusions of his own importance could order me around. Remember who I am. Don't make me regret my decision."

"Yes sir." Baiu said hastily.

Sasori turned and somehow, despite his bulky form, he swept out of the cave gracefully. Sakura barely caught his body flicker out of the corner of her eye as he went up the ladder. She turned back to Baiu, who looked shaken. He noticed her staring, and his eyes narrowed.

"Get up."

She obeyed.

He walked over to her and pointed to the high cave wall.

"As we found out yesterday, you have excellent chakra control. Today we'll be seeing how long you can maintain that control for. Run up that wall until you reach the roof, then run back down. If you're not exhausted, then do it again."

She wanted to tell him that she couldn't do it, that Sasori's poison had temporarily crippled parts of her body, but she could tell that it would only make things worse if she told him that. Instead, she shook her arms out and focused on that bubbly feeling in the pit of her tummy. Slowly, she pushed the warmth up her chest, down her arms and into her hands, until they began to glow with green light. Baiu watched her, his face a stoic mask.

She pushed her hands under her top and pressed them into the senbon wounds in her stomach, where the most damage had been done. She felt the numbness turn into pain, pain that rushed through her veins and arteries like liquid fire. She drew the pain away from all her other wounds towards the middle gash in her stomach. She felt it swirling around and around, and when she glanced down she was surprised to see more purple liquid than red around the wound. Slowly, she lifted her hands away from her stomach, and the purple liquid followed. She grinned happily, as the poison floated between her hands. She looked up at Baiu, who wasn't quite able to hide his surprise. However, his expression quickly changed into a frown, and he reached out and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes. The surprise made her lose her concentration, and the poison splashed onto the ground.

"Why did you smile just there?" he growled.

His eyes were cold, and she felt herself growing nervous.

"I-I don't know." she stammered.

"Tell me." His voice left no room for argument.

"I was… proud, I guess, of what I did."

Abruptly, he let go of her, and stood back up. To her surprise, he was laughing. She didn't like his laugh, it reminded her of… a dog? What's a dog?

"You were proud of that?" he chuckled. "Believe me, that's nothing to be proud of. You are nothing to be proud of. You were nobody, remember? Now you're going to become a weapon. You have no pride, no shame, no emotions." He stopped laughing then, and his voice got lower. "Don't smile again, you hear me? Sakura doesn't smile. The only time you smile is when you're ordered to, or when you need to fool someone. Understand?"

She didn't, but she nodded anyway.

"Good." he said crisply. "Now strip down to your underwear and run until you faint."

"What?" she said dumbly, than flinched, realizing how stupid she was to say that.

Sure enough, his eyes narrowed.

"Did you not here me earlier?" he growled. "You have no pride or shame. If I tell you to eat my shit, you'll do it without feeling a thing. There are no other options for you. Now get going."

She stayed quiet after that. Only hours later, when she finally collapsed and woke up alone in her room, did she allow herself to cry. But even as she sobbed loud wet tears, she made sure to bury her face in her thin blanket, just in case they were watching.

Day 7

That morning, when Baiu came to get her, the first thing he did was sneer in disgust.

"You're filthy. Have you not taken a shower yet?"

"What's a shower?" she asked

His eyes narrowed, probably wondering whether she was insulting him or if she truly meant it. Sakura wasn't quite sure herself.

He let it go, dragging her outside her room and down the hall. He pushed at a wooden door, and it swung open with a creak. Inside was a room almost as bare as her own. There was another toilet, which looked no cleaner than the one in her bedroom. There was also a sink, and in the corner, a small square of the floor was covered in tiles. Above those tiles was something that resembled a metal hose, ending in a wide nozzle. Sakura recognized what it was the second she noticed it.

Of course, that's a shower, she thought, Why didn't I know what it was before? What's wrong with me?

You're suffering from amnesia doofus, her brain responded, rather rudely, Sakura thought. Then she frowned. Was it normal for her to have rude voices in her brain? She didn't think so.

She would have liked to think about it some more, but Baiu was looking at her expectantly, so she quickly stripped off and walked over to the shower.

Day 20

"Kill her." Baiu ordered.

Sakura stared down at the whimpering woman who had caused her no harm.

"Why?"

It was the wrong thing to do. Baiu leaned over and struck her across the face.

"You don't get to ask why. You do what you're ordered. Now kill her."

Sakura looked at the woman who Baiu had dragged in a minute ago. At this point she was curled up in a ball, sobbing in terror. Her hair was brown and matted, her face wrinkled and she wore a brown threadbare dress. She seemed utterly ordinary. Sakura still didn't understand why she needed to die.

But Baiu was staring at her, and she was reminded of Konan's words to her, what seemed like a lifetime ago.

You don't get to choose what you are, Sakura.

She looked at the kunai in her hand, and then she looked at the crumpled woman in front of her. There were so many questions she wanted to ask. Why did this woman deserve to die? Why did Sakura have to be the executioner? Did this woman have any people who needed her? Why did Baiu want her dead in the first place?

She glanced at Baiu. He stared back at her coldly, waiting for her to make a move. She gave a small, silent, gulp and then she steeled herself.

"What's the quickest way to kill her?"

Baiu smiled.

Day 35

It was the same nightmare as she'd been having for the past two weeks, only a different variation. This time, when she slit the woman's throat, she kept screaming. Even after her body went cold and rigid, her mouth still remained open. Sakura didn't understand why, but when she looked at Baiu he only frowned angrily at her, like it was all her fault.

"What are you waiting for? Shut her up!" he snapped

Growing desperate, Sakura plunged the knife down again and again, until the woman's face resembled nothing more than a lump of raw bloody meat. Still, the woman screamed. Sakura looked up at Baiu, hoping for an explanation but instead he advanced towards her, his hand raised as if ready to slap.

She scrambled backwards, her hand grasping at the knife, She brought it up between her and Baiu, but suddenly it was protruding from her chest, and the woman was holding the hilt. Her empty eyes gazed deep into Sakura's and then suddenly she began to laugh. She laughed and laughed until a red line appeared on her throat and blood leaked down onto her clothes. Sakura tried to scream, but she realized that her throat had also been slit. As she gasped desperately for air, the woman disappeared, only for Pein and Konan to take her place. There stares were as impassioned as she remembered. Pein shook his head slowly.

"Disappointing."

Sakura woke up screaming.

Quickly, she stuffed her blanket in her mouth, and listened tensely for the sound of footsteps. After a minute or two went by and there was no noise from outside her room, she breathed a sigh of relief and flopped back onto the bed.

With one hand on her pale, clammy forehead, she stared up at the darkness above her. Slowly, she counted backwards from one hundred. By the time she reached thirty, her heart had stopped pounding in her chest, and she could think clearly.

She wondered if the nightmare would ever go away. For the past fifteen nights, she had woken up screaming. Every morning Baiu would look at eyes as they slowly lost their brightness, day by day, and he would smile with satisfaction.

One night had been different though. The seventh night had started off the same way, slitting the woman's throat, but then the dream had abruptly changed. The woman had morphed into a huge orange monster with glowing red eyes. Everything around her had gone dark, and all she could hear was the monster laughing. Fear, deeper and more primal than she had felt in any of her other nightmares, had frozen her to the spot. She had known instinctively that this nightmare was much more dangerous than her normal one.

The monster's eyes had met her own, and all she had seen in them was seething hatred. It had lunged forward and Sakura had screamed and shut her eyes. After a little while she had cautiously opened one, wondering why she was still alive. To her surprise, the monster had disappeared, and instead a boy with bright blond hair and even brighter blue eyes had stared at her in frustration.

"Who are you?" he had yelled, but before she could reply, she woke up.

That dream still haunted her, although the more she thought about it the fuzzier the boy became. She could hardly remember what his face looked like, although his eyes still shone clear in her memory. Sometimes, when she was too scared to fall asleep, she would think of them. They weren't particularly gentle or soothing eyes, but something about them comforted her nonetheless.

Naruto couldn't understand. Neither could Iruka-sensei, or any of the grown-ups. Every time he yelled "There!" and pointed at where the pink haired girl was, she would suddenly disappear, and the others would just glare at him, as if to tell him that his latest prank wasn't funny. It was driving him crazy, these visions.

He didn't have them all the time, otherwise he would probably demand to see the Hokage about it. It was just small little occurrences. In the classroom, he would turn his head and catch a flash of pink hair, but when he tried to find the source there was no one. Once he had heard an unfamiliar girl laughing, but again, when he turned around, there was no one there.

There were two things he had picked up on though. Firstly, the glimpses became more frequent whenever he was around Ino Yamanaka, or Sasuke Uchiha. He had no idea why it happened, but ever since he'd noticed that, he'd try to discreetly hover nearby them. He wouldn't actually talk to them of course. Ino was always surrounded by her girl-pals, and some of them were really mean. And Sasuke was… Sasuke. Naruto didn't know the Uchiha very well, but something about him was just screaming for Naruto to punch him in the face.

Secondly, the girl was definitely the same one he dreamed about. It was incredibly frustrating, because in his dreams he saw her face, and to his dream-self it seemed that the girl was familiar, but when he woke up, he could never remember what she looked like.

If Naruto hadn't already been bottom of the class, his grades would have certainly slipped from lack of attention. He was sure Iruka-sensei had noticed, but since he couldn't see what was wrong, he couldn't help. Naruto was on his own.

Nothing new there, he thought.

He lay on his bed in his dingy apartment and sighed. He had two options: Find out who the girl was, or ignore the visions altogether. Obviously, option number one seemed to be the one for him, but after a month with no progress, he was slowly been worn down.

Would it really be that bad to forget about a girl who'd never even existed?

Baiu knelt respectfully before Konan. The office was dull and plain, just like the hundreds of others in the building. Baiu wondered how she could keep track of them all, but decided that that was Konan's problem, not his.

"Pein said to only disturb him when she is ready to progress. You should think hard about why you're here. If he deems her unfit, it will be your head that rolls."

Baiu slowly raised his head so that Konan could see the confidence in his eyes.

"She's ready."