Things Change

Things Change

Chapter 3

"Resistance"

Pushing down the cold fear that had began to bubble in her gut, Sakura swerved herself aimlessly to the left, then the right every few paces. Itachi was much closer than he was moments ago, and like a rocket he still gained speed on Sakura.

With a great leap, Sakura thrust herself from the forest floor onto one of the higher branches of an oak tree. She turned to face Itachi, refusing suddenly to let him herd her farther into his territory.

The pastel haired kunoichi gripped the holster of a kunai so tight she swore up and down that her knuckles were white under those midnight gloves of hers. Even closer, Itachi charged her, glaring bloody daggers all the while.

In spur of the moment, Sakura saw a flash of silver pass before Itachi and realized that he'd withdrawn his katana. Luckily, she shifted away in time…

The katana sheathed itself into the large trunk of the enormous tree deep enough to let Sakura bide her time for a second's worth of air. However; she had just made a rookie mistake. She ground her teeth in anger at herself.

Itachi, the real one, was plummeting down on her from the sky. Thinking quickly, Sakura flashed a smirk as she leaped toward the tree Itachi's clone was standing in. Mustering the great strength she concealed, the kunoichi uprooted the tree and hurled in into the air to block Itachi's counter.

Sharingan ablaze, Itachi used his Tsukiyomi, and dispersed into the air entirely. "Shit." Sakura muttered, barely audible. It was too quite suddenly.

Like lightning he crept behind her. Yet she was faster than lightning. Sakura's reflexes shot her forearm out behind her to intercept a soft male hand she knew too well.

Onyx met jade. Sasuke stood in a silent façade, the side of his hand still putting pressure on Sakura's arm. As Sakura stared at him, onyx bled to crimson, followed by crimson beginning to spin.

Reality hit Sakura like a bullet too fast for a gun…this was Itachi's game. He was driving her into mercy.

Closing her eyes, Sakura began to put more pressure on 'Sasuke' and she began to push him away. Sadly, her efforts were futile. Over another push or two, 'Sasuke' resigned his resistance. He allowed her to push him until his back softly thudded against a tree.

Eyes still closed, teeth still clenched, Sakura angrily forced her fist into the tree next to the tree. Wood splintered, and from the puncture up, the great oak came toppling down in the opposite direction.

'Sasuke' cooed to her, gently tracing his fingers over her cheek, to pull her chin up. "Open your eyes, Sakura. Let me see your beautiful eyes."

One thin slit peeked up at him in a pouting expression, and the beauty of his face stung her heart to paralysis. Somewhere inside, the troubled kunoichi conflicted with herself to resist.

The stupid fucker played was playing his cards right so far. That god damned trademark Uchiha smirk etched itself onto his unmarred face. He chuckled softly, and continued to examine her. "Too beautiful to be a kunoichi. Fearless, smart, young and strong? You can't possibly be the Sakura I used to love." The imposter lied.

"Love?" was shocked, bewildered entirely. Her eyes became gently and warm, and she simply couldn't resist leaning against him a bit more. Her hands were subtly giving him the once over. Scared, well-muscled abs. Strong arms, and tight thighs. He towered over her by about half a foot she guessed. He was gorgeous. He smelled of forest and winter. Definitely her Sasuke.

The bright morning sun twinkled through the treetops, small rays of light illuminating the imposters face. Bending to her ear, mirage 'Sasuke' whispered "I love you" into Sakura's ear.

"Sasuke…I-" cherry lips found strawberry flavored lips. His kiss demanded for comply, but that small brink of sanity left in her mind finally filtered a successful message to Sakura. He isn't Sasuke.

From her holster tied tightly around her right thigh, Sakura reached for a kunai with one hand. The other sneaking up the back of the neck of her 'Sasuke' to hold hid head. She locked his head in place with her hand, but 'Sasuke' wasn't stupid after all. His hand slid from her waist to snatch the hand that held her kunai. Deepening his kiss, this imposter slowly plucked her fingers from the hilt of the kunai.

Sakura was beginning to wear thin. It was get rid of him, or give into him. At the moment, no matter how hard she tried, Sakura couldn't bring herself to take her lips away from his. He just tasted so…so, good. Too good to be her Sasuke. What was left of her sanity finally sent a successful message rushing to Sakura's common sense. He was not Sasuke-kun at all.

Faster than she had ever moved before, she wrenched her hand from his grasp and clamped her fingers around his jaw tightly. A smile perched itself upon her lips when she heard him grunt at the feel of a cracking jaw. Slow and painfully, she continued to clutch his jaw, satisfied with the art of breaking bones.

"I can play that was too, Itachi." She grinned menacingly. A wicked shadow cast from her eyes into the brighter sun.

Glaring through the fire of her advantage, Itachi released the genjutsu and dispersed into nothing once more. From beneath her this time, his arm locked in a death-grip around her ankle. With Sakura rooted to the ground, the hundreds of senbon from Itachi's senbon jutsu came showering down as a direct hit.

However; the real Sakura had escaped to higher ground the moment he disappeared. Much before the danger had even presented itself.

Secretly from her branch, Sakura spied the Itachi who which was a living, breathing, multi-cellular organism. Moving closer, Sakura decided to hide in his shadow, though it was faint in the scarce sunlight that danced in pieces around their little playground. Regardless, this was certainly a jutsu Sakura would have to thank Shikamaru for if she ever saw him again.

As Itachi resumed his search for Sakura, she leapt from his shadow and into the suns beam at the right moment. With the small, pink-haired eclipse plummeting down on him, Itachi lost his footing for a moment before Sakura threw a handful of shuriken.

One of the handfuls was a direct hit, nailing his right shoulder, which was perfect. His right was his throwing arm.

When attempting to land a kick to the shoulder, Itachi instead caught her leg easily and threw her against a tree, which she flew straight through, roughly hitting her back on the next tree. Her head ricocheted and whipped back against the tree as well. Unconscious as soon as her head hit, Sakura lost the upper-hand just as quick as she'd gained it, falling through sharp, splintering branches and twigs until she finally thudded against the forest floor. She was battered, and by the looks of it, broken.

XXXX

At last, Sakura awoke to stare up at Uchiha Itachi. Even better, she found herself, comfortable, in his arms while he walked silently.

Enraged, as she should be, Sakura blurted incoherent things like, "You little mother fucking piece of shit." And "Who the hell do you think you are, you can't just do whatever you want." But these things may not be her exact words, per say.

"Mind letting me down?" she finally spoke up. Sighing, Itachi pulled his arms from her knees and back. Without uttering a word, he continued to walk.

Moments later, while Sakura stared in awe and rubbed her sore butt, she found herself being forcefully pulled along a few feet behind him.

"The hell kind of ninjutsu is this?!" angrily, she shouted. Itachi walked further still, rubbing his temples without faltering.

Sakura demanded an answer. "Hey, asshole…I said, 'Wha-"

"Annoying…it's a chakra leash. And I am not the one wearing the collar." His voice was monotone.

Slender hands instantly flew to her neck, yet Sakura felt nothing there. Not anything more than a slight tingling feeling. But; Sakura had eyes like a hawk. Good enough to detect a slight greenish-reddish discoloration in the shape of a line leading from Itachi's hand, to her neck.

Thinking she was smart, Sakura dug her heels into the ground and yanked. Itachi also stopped.

Reaching for a kunai, Sakura uncomfortably realized that her holster and pack had been taken.

Well, Sakura had been in stickier situations, making her recall the time during the Jounin exams when Neji and Kiba had stolen her clothes, along with TenTen's, while they were bathing in the waterfall. This flash of a memory executed a teensy smile to sew itself on Sakura's face.

Slowly, Sakura walked around a tree, hoping that this damned leash would break, though she figured it would do one of two things. She gulped hard. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Itachi's voice broke the silence.

Wanting to yelp, Sakura passed back to the same side of the tree as Itachi. She was incredibly determined to figure this leash out. She already knew it was created of both members chakra, and was incompatibly strong.

Stopping once more to grate her dirty heels into the ground, Sakura elicited her chakra, letting it sink to her feet and rise to her hands. Once she was no longer being dragged, all of the chakra she had left rushed to her hands.

Eying the ghostly leash of chakra, Sakura attempted to grab hold of it with her glowing hands.

However; nothing happened. She was fucked. She couldn't even touch the damned thing. Itachi then asked if she was finished, and continued to drag her along like a stubborn puppy. Just great, now she was fucked sideways.

Mid-day had come and gone already, and by the position of the sun, it was approximately one-thirty in the afternoon.

Fed up, Sakura sped up to walk by Itachi's side. On the other hand, she was surprised to find that she couldn't get very close to him either. There was some sort of barrier shielding him.

About time a light-bulb clicked on in Sakura's head when she sensed the spike of chakra. She learned that the leash acted like a magnet! Now if only she could just try and get close enough to Itachi to break the resistance between the magnetic pull. That would definitely cancel out the lock on the leash, allowing for unlimited distance coverage.

Pushing closer, Sakura's plan did not go unnoticed by Uchiha Itachi. Instead, he turned toward her and watched her for a second.

His Sharingan was blazing, repetitively spinning. Mid Mangekyou, Sakura rolled her eyes and scoffed, waving a hand in his face. "Honestly, Itachi. You give me too little credit. I've seen this trick a thousand times before; it's not going to work. I can fight with my eyes closed, you know." She said.

Itachi gave no indication of an answer. "Didn't think so. You're just like your little Otuoto…I would know. You're a coward and you hide behind that all-mighty Sharingan of yours. Is that all the Uchiha clan is worth? Tell me, because I really don't see what the big deal is about your kekkai-genkai." Sakura continued to blather endlessly.

Of course he revealed nothing, but inside, Itachi was smirking wickedly, and this fiery little woman was quirking an interest in him. No one, not even his father, had ever said anything like this to him. It was fresh, it was new.

It was...'cute.' he thought.

Her goal was to make his blood boil…to make this as degradingly painful as possible. Again, Itachi gave no answer, which was expected of him. Sakura then began to rant about Uchiha Sasuke, and how he was going to kill Itachi one day because even he, was not weak like his brother, standing before her.

A new, lighter feeling surrounded her suddenly. She touched her neck. The chakra leash had been released. She was free!

No…actually she was dead if he could catch her. Acting on impulse, Itachi's large hands were locked around her throat until Sakura burst into poison smoke.

Living Sakura, from afar, watching such an event saw even the tinge of surprise scattered on Itachi's face. The first emotion seen all day. Sakura laughed, "Making progress already."

Mockingly, she laughed still, because Sasuke was actually the one who taught her that trick. In spite of herself, she continued to laugh at him.

Suddenly, a kunai lodged itself in the back of her thigh. "Shit!" she growled. Another hurled itself at her. She wouldn't have time to dodge. It was either take the kunai, or the phoenix flower jutsu rising in front of her.

Dismembering the kunai from her wound, Sakura reached into her cleavage for a hidden paper bomb. There was nothing there, and a deep red spread across her cheeks.

"Itachi! You went through my clothes?!" she shrieked. Where Itachi stood, a grin danced around the corners of his dark lips.

When the moment was right, just when Sakura was in Itachi's blind spot, she made a single clone of herself. Clone Sakura held the bloodied kunai and stood on the sturdy branch, defensively dodging the giant fireball aimed at it.

The real Sakura re-animated herself on a branch parallel to her clone. Itachi's attention was directed on the real Sakura, thankfully. On her signal, the clone threw the kunai at the unarmed, live Sakura before discreetly disappearing.

Working her thespian skills, the live Sakura 'dodged' the rogue kunai the second before it hit her in the throat. She faked muttering the word, "Sasuke-kun." As she started at the place where 'Sasuke' was supposed to be standing.

Itachi noticed the kunai buzzing past her head, and he instantly read her lips. He raced in the direction in which his younger brother had supposedly come from.

Thankful for Sakura, Itachi had fallen for such a cheap trick. She used this incentive to heal the majority of her wound. She worked quickly, but not quite quick enough. Itachi was back in no time at all, anger and embarrassment flailing from his radiant chakra.

Leaping to the ground, Sakura continuously jumped back, doing flips and summersaults to avoid using her lame leg for now. Also, to evade the head on arsenal of weaponry Itachi was slinging at her. She even caught a few shuriken here and there.

She kept the newly acquired weapons, using them to stop Itachi from making the hand-seals necessary to use his katon jutsu. Her attempts her futile, and pathetic of all things.

Holding his katana up to the great fire, it became engulfed by its massive flame. After watching Sakura struggle to heatedly by pass the katon fireball, Itachi charged her with his flaming katana.

She fended him off with a recovered kunai. Leaping back a few yards, Sakura punched a great crater into the earth, erupting huge masses of earth herself, and uprooting hundreds of trees.

Amazed, Itachi just couldn't get away fast enough. The wreckage was constantly at his feet, no matter where he went. It was gaining on him fast.

He spied Sakura coming up on all three sides. Easily with his Mangekyou, he saw the real one before it struck. To the left, he swung his blade, and struck a gaping wound in her arm.

Sakura didn't have enough chakra or time left to get away from Itachi, and heal herself.

As both knew it would be, Itachi came out as victor. Even Sakura gave up. Just before fainting of blood loss, she called out, "Itachi." And he caught her blood-soaked body before it hit the jagged rubble of the ground.

Watching such a beautiful flower wilt was such a shame. But he held her up.