Uncanny Magnetism
Chapter Four
VVVVVV
I was startled. The moment I opened my eyes, there was an orange, swirled mask with a single eye opening staring down at me. This provoked my reflexes as I jolted out of bed, finding myself landing back on my pillow again just as quickly with a fresh contusion on my forehead after colliding with the mask. As I nursed my forehead, the green light encouraging the detumescence of the rather large lump, the orange face popped up over the side of my bed again.
"Hiya!" He waved at me maniacally.
"Umm...hi?" I drawled groggily, rubbing my healed wound.
"Tobi heard that Itachi-sempai brought back a pretty girl! Tobi was mad that it was a secret, but Deidara-sempai wouldn't shut up about a pink blossom! Tobi says 'hi'!" He said, excitedly. His voice was like a child, but it sounded strangely disguised. I brushed the thought of his strangeness off, dismissing it as just a careless assumption due to my fogged mind.
"Nice to meet you, Tobi-san," I smiled as medic-friendly as possible. I held out a hand for him to shake; he happily took it and shook violently. He was strong. I had underestimated his capacity because of his child-like voice, but that handshake had just brought my entire body along with it. I was shaken into full consciousness.
"Nice to meet you, too, pretty girl!" I could feel his smile radiating from behind his mask. Looking down, I realized he hadn't let go of my hand, yet. He gave a few short tugs on my arm.
"What is it, Tobi-san?" I questioned.
"Tobi wants you to meet everyone else!"
"But I-" I glanced over at Itachi's sleeping form. His chakra was not stirring.
"Maybe it wouldn't hurt," I sighed, getting off the bed and following Tobi as he dragged my sluggish body to the door. Just as he cracked the door open, Itachi shifted in his bed.
"Where do you think you're going, Haruno?" I froze, turning my head back into the room. It was creepy how Itachi could be completely calm about, well, everything. He never seemed to lose his cool nor did he ever think thoughts as useless as mine. Realizing chicanery would not work, I laughed nervously. There was no excuse. After all, he had forbidden me to leave the room without him by my side.
"Pretty girl is coming with Tobi!" Tobi stuck his masked face in the doorway, disencumbering me from having to explain myself.
VVVVVV
It was raining. I could feel it in the soddened hollows of my bones. I sat, tapping my pen to the patter of the soft downpour outside. My thoughts began drifting from the text in front of me. I remembered Tobi's whine when he realized that no one else was present in the base, probably due to missions. Itachi had been fully awake by the time I came back into the room alone. He had been flipping through the pages of my notes, attempting to read them. Fortunately, my penmanship was rather petite. When he turned to face me, I found myself in a moment of shock. At first glance, he really did resemble him and I finally understood why Naruto had been mistaken on our first encounter with Itachi. In fact, I hadn't realized how much I thought of him daily. Itachi reminded me of him so much: His tendencies, stolid nature, and intense stare. It has been years since I last saw him. He was tall and strong, but his eyes were so dull and life-less. I missed the fire he used to have flickering in them, the glint of mischievousness behind his facade of indifference. However, there was one thing I carelessly glanced over: his bloodlust. I mistook it for passion and strength. A sad smile stretched across my lips; I was such an imbecile. I was so stupid and young. I was so eager to follow him to Orochimaru and betray Konoha solely for my infatuation. Even though those days were over, I couldn't get over him. Every time I heard Itachi's voice or felt his hot breath fanning across my face as I examined his crimson eyes, I saw his face.
"Do you ever stop thinking about my brother, Haruno?" Itachi had once again intruded into my thoughts again.
"Do you ever stop walking all over my brain, Sasuke?" Shit. I slipped.
"Hn."
"Fuck."
"That confirms it," He said, smirking at his victory. I turned back to my book, readily placing my fingertips over the braille. The instant my fingers touched the raised print on the pages, I snapped around in my chair.
"Fight me, Uchiha."
"Excuse me?"
"Spar with me. Taijutsu only."
I was adamant. I wanted to get him out of my system. I wanted Sasuke out and I was at my last string.
"Fine."
I smirked at his reply, reached into the drawer, and slipped on my fighting gloves. This Sasuke sand bag was going down.
VVVVVV
"Oh. You're ambidextrous?" I asked with brows raised in quizzical amusement. I had Itachi pinned to the ground. He was good, really good, but not so much without his senses. A couple minutes into our heated spar was enough time for me to realize that I had the upper hand. I, Haruno Sakura, had the upper hand against the Uchiha Itachi. I let out a pert laugh as I knelt right above his hips on my shins. I was tickled––He was completely useless due to the damage of the Sharingan. Itachi lay on the ground, head turned to the side to avoid contact with my eyes.
"Hey, Uchiha," I said, taking hold of his face with my right hand. I turned his head with a gentle force to face me, "I'll teach you something." His gaze was still averted from mine; I could see the defeat in his eyes. I extended my hand out to him after I stood up and dusted myself off, but he just lay there with his head turned to the side again. I could feel the rush of his emotions spinning within my chest for a split second, but he always managed to close them off before they spread wildly.
"I can never tell what you're thinking, Uchiha."
He sat up looking me squarely in the eye. I could feel a thought forming in his mind, but as usual, he extinguished it as soon as it was just a glimmering spark ready to set ablaze.
"That's how I intend it to be, Haruno," He murmured. His voice and his nonchalant gaze gave me chills. Now that his Sharingan was defective, his eyes were a glassy obsidian. They were quite vibrant with life and emotion unlike Sasuke's piercing onyx ones.
"If you're playing a game, it's not going to last long," I grinned, sliding into ready position. As soon as my feet shifted in the sod, Itachi shot up shakily.
"Try to assess my propinquity," I said. I had jumped backwards a few meters away from him.
"Three and a quarter meters."
"Wrong, three and a half."
Frustrated, Itachi lunged at me and we engaged in a weaponless, chakra-less fight. His taijutsu was brilliant and I could tell. However, he was handicapped and his judgment was off by a few centimeters in close combat. A fist swung, missing my nose by several millimeters. I could hear the frustration in his shallow, jagged breaths. Suddenly, Itachi stopped his movements and folded over. He was hemorrhaging.
"Itachi!" I bounded over to him quickly, pumping my chakra into his system and searching for the source of hemoptysis.
"Fuck, this is bad." My medic eyes continued scanning through his body. I eventually settled on the lower respiratory region after seeing that nothing else was wrong in his body. "Shit, Itachi. Why didn't you tell me something else was wrong with you, damned prideful Uchiha?" My thoughts were angry, but I didn't have time to dwell on the infamous cockiness of the Uchiha brothers. His lips were stained crimson red from the violent coughing and his breath was irregular. Seeing the extensiveness of the vascular damage worried me. He had been keeping this illness to himself for an extensive amount of time. I didn't hesitate to begin soothing the inflammation in his blood vessels and starting the reparation of his damaged lungs. I withdrew my chakra once his staggered breathing had ceased. After bringing him back to our room, his eyes flickered open once his head touched his pillow.
"Haruno," He spoke to me through his thoughts.
"What, Uchiha?" I sent back.
"Nothing." He closed his eyes again and fell asleep. I watched him for a bit, marveling at the sheer strangeness of the man lying in front of me. Soon enough, I was brought back deeper into my mind as I sat at the edge of Itachi's bed. I closed my eyes and placed a hand over his face as he slept, sweeping gentle wisps of chakra across his features. His eyes were more feminine than Sasuke's; his lashes were rather prominent, softening the sharp angles of his eye shape. Beneath his eyes were deep sets of tear troughs that curved gently outwards toward the apples of his cheeks. His nose was a bit broader than his younger brother's, but just as straight. When I reached his lips, they were slightly parted and I could feel his warm breath rushing out between them as his chest rose and fell at a steady pace. To be frank, Itachi was rather gorgeous. I shook my head in attempts to rid it of my thoughts. My purpose in sparring with Itachi was to sock the living daylights out of this cookie-cutter image of Sasuke in order to forget my childhood crush. Feasting on Itachi's beautiful facial features would bring me nowhere near such an accomplishment. As I stood, the slight motion of the bed had caused a small bottle to roll out from underneath. I knelt down to pick it up, blowing off the soft layer of dust that had gathered over its surface. When I turned my head around to look under the bed, I was faced with a graveyard of pill bottles identical to the one I held in my hand.
"Holy shit," I breathed, digging my arm in to sweep out more of the empty bottles. After reading through all of the labels with a brush of chakra from my thumb, I was able to learn that Itachi was suffering from some sort of autoimmune disease and was medicating himself for the past four years. I lay my glowing hand over Itachi's chest again. My findings confirmed the diagnosis that had been scrawled across the countless bottles. Just as soon as I had stopped his hemorrhaging on the training grounds, his body had begun attacking itself again. The medication he had been taken merely suppressed his immune system, rendering his body vulnerable to illnesses. I quickly drew out more chakra to my hands to reverse his immune system, waking it up from its dormant state and guiding it to function correctly. His breathing was becoming less shallow and color began to fade in slowly on his skin.
VVVVVV
It was really loud. I furrowed my brows, attempting to fall back asleep amidst the ruckus going on. Unfortunately, I failed, as I was fully conscious. When I opened my eyes, I found myself lying in an awkward position next to a sleeping Itachi. In surprise, I yanked myself backwards away from him, only ending up hitting my head against the table that separated my bed from his. I bit back a cry as I held my hands over the back of my head, knowing that anything could wake Itachi. It took a lot of willpower to stay motionless next to him in hopes of not rousing him from sleep. The noise continued on, but it didn't seem to come from outside nor within the room itself. It struck me rather violently that the cacophony was taking place within Itachi's dream and I was, for once, able to wallow in his subconscious. I couldn't see his dream, but I most certainly could hear it. Though this was the limit of our connection, I could tell that he was an abstract dreamer. As I closed my eyes in attempts to clarify what the sounds in his dream were, an arm snaked around my waist.
"Shit!" I hissed in my mind. There was definitely no way I could make it back to my bed. I lay stiffly, listening to the last few minutes of his dream. His breathing slowed down and his eyes rested from their REM state. I decided it was time to take the risk. As I slowly peeled his arm from my waist, his grip tightened suddenly, eyes snapping open.
"Going somewhere, Haruno?" His voice dripped heavily of sleep and his lids were slightly lowered. I swallowed the lump in my throat.
"First, you look through my personal things," his eyes scanned the ground which was littered with his pill bottles, "and then you listen to my dreams. That's a major infraction, Haruno."
"First, you hired your skanky teammate to kidnap me. Then, you trapped me in this room only to have you walking around through my mind twenty four-seven. Not only that, Uchiha, but you were dying and failed to notify me of your illness when I started your eye treatment," I growled lowly. Thunder was rumbling outside and each time the lightning flashed, I could see his eyes boring into mine.
"I'm going back to bed."
When I tried to pry his arm off my waist, he only tightened it to lock me back onto his bed.
"Stay."
"What?" I squeaked. I could only assume that the expression I shot at him was a look that questioned his sanity.
"I was pretty clear with my words, Haruno."
I reluctantly shifted, tucking myself into a less uncomfortable position. My ear was against his chest and I could hear his heart beating rapidly.
"You're scared of thunder, aren't you?"
"No."
"Don't lie to me, Uchiha. Besides, it's fair that if you're able to read my mind, I'm able to feel your emotions, too."
"That didn't come with the package," He mumbled, his chin moving against the top of my head where it rested.
"No, it most certainly did not. However, I'm rather adept at reading emotions through someone else's chakra."
"Hn." We lay in silence for a while, listening to the rumbling and the rain splashing onto the muddy ground outside of the room. As the thunder ceased, the rain slowed to a light drizzle and silence washed over the room.
"May I go back to my bed now?" I asked. There was no response. I mumbled under my breath and closed my eyes, falling to sleep listening to the steady thump in his chest.
VVVVVV
A/N: I was struggling so much with this chapter. I was a bit worried that it was too jumpy and didn't make sense. What I was most frazzled about was whether or not I was moving Sakura and Itachi too close too fast. Please let me know through a review or PM if I am fluffing it up too much and if I should slow down their romantic development. Please and thank you! (: Happy reading!
P.S. - To clarify some things, Itachi was coughing up blood (I kept this issue from the manga) because he was suffering from an autoimmune illness. This is why he seems to be sleeping so much because the illness is draining his energy. I'm sorry if things aren't quite medically correct since I had to tailor it to my story. Also, the seal Itachi placed in Sakura connects them has its limits. The illness Itachi had (he's healed!) does not present itself in Sakura. The seal seems to only connect them from the neck up (thoughts, dreams, etc.), but even then, it has its flaws seeing that they can only hear each other's dreams.
