Holy crapcakes, Batman, it's been a month since I last updated! I can't tell you guys how sorry I am that it's been so long, but this past month has been insane as far as school goes. I had four papers (each at least three pages apiece) due within a week and I've been taking tests and I really probably shouldn't have even done this, but it's been so long and I felt horrible about it, so instead of extra studying for my final tomorrow, I decided I would throw you guys a bone. Or a chapter, you know, whichever.
So it's definitely almost two in the morning and I just finished this, so if there are any typos you come across, please let me know.
As for the (few) people that reviewed the last chapter and the people that have put this on alert and added it as a favorite, thanks so much! I can't tell you how much it means to me. :)
I'm going to stop rambling and let you guys (finally) get to reading this. Enjoy!
Sakura was awake before dawn the next day in preparation to set off in search of her Akatsuki ring. She had been instructed the night before by Itachi to meet him in the common room with her things, ready to report to Leader-sama by six in the morning. Ever the punctual kunoichi, despite the fact that she was still hard-pressed not to punch the man in the face, she entered the room at a quarter till, unsurprised to see that Itachi had beaten her there, sitting at the lone table in the sparse room and sipping on a cup of tea.
She ignored the part of her consciousness that pointed out just how bizarre it was to see an S-class criminal sitting and drinking tea so nonchalantly and took the seat opposite him and poured a cup for herself, intent on enjoying what she knew would likely be the only downtime she would get for days. It was a two day trip to Oto—which was where she assumed the ring to be—and if Itachi was a slave driver on the training field, she was loathe to see what he was like in a real-life scenario.
They both finished their beverages with minutes to spare and she watched impassively as he rinsed their dishes before setting them aside to dry. She stood as he turned and wordlessly followed him as he left the room and began the trek upward to the leader's quarters.
She knew she had no right to complain about her partner after having met a few of her other fellow Akatsuki—like Zetsu, a creepy two-toned plantlike shinobi who seemed to possess split personalities to go with his dual coloring; just the thought of him sent shivers down her spine—but she wondered how long she would manage to retain what was left of her sanity in Itachi's ever-silent presence. It seemed he had no intention of breaking that silence and she didn't want to seem annoying—as his otouto had so eloquently put it years before—so she suffered in silence, wondering if he would always be so muted.
The trip upward seemed much shorter than her first and before she knew it, they were stepping into the dimly lit room where she had initially met the Rinnegan user—Pein, Itachi had informed her. He was sat behind the desk much like he had been during their first encounter, and she couldn't help but be jealous of the fact that he could look so awake at six in the morning. That wasn't to say that she wasn't awake, but she knew that she probably looked as though she still had one leg in the bed.
She stood in front of the desk to Itachi's left and looked on at the red-headed man, awaiting instruction.
He first turned his gaze to her and she had the distinct notion that he was scrutinizing her appearance. "It seems that Akatsuki's robes suit you, Haruno-san."
"Please, call me Sakura." She murmured in response before inclining her head in acknowledgment of his statement. "And thank you, Leader-sama."
She felt equally awkward about two things: the first being the thought that Akatsuki robes could look good on anyone—especially herself—and the second being that it felt wrong to address anyone other than Tsunade as her leader. The days for her to entertain these thoughts with any amount of seriousness were lost to her forever, however. As it was, her retribution against them would come in time.
"You are welcome, Sakura." He responded and she immediately sensed the change in his demeanor as he switched from pleasantries to business. "Sakura, you already know the general location of the hideout, considering that is where you were at the time of the incident with Danzo's subordinate."
Her eyes widened at his statement and it was hard for her to wrap her mind around the fact that the man before her knew so much about her last mission as a Konoha kunoichi, thought it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise: the man was the leader of the most successful terrorist organization the known world had ever seen—he must have spies everywhere.
He smirked faintly before continuing. "You will be going to Kusa. However, once you locate the base, I must warn the both of you that the chance of the ring being anywhere but on or near Orochimaru's person is unlikely. Do what you must to retrieve it. Itachi, avoid confrontation with your brother at any cost, even if it means taking his life."
Itachi nodded in acknowledgement of the order but did not speak. Sakura risked a glance at the Uchiha, but his face told her nothing of the thoughts on his mind, so her gaze was quickly averted forward once again.
"Should any problems arise, regroup at the base on the border, but report back to me within the week," he paused, shifting back to focus on her. "Hopefully the next time I see you, you will be a full-fledged member of Akatsuki."
She smiled minutely, though there was no emotion behind the gesture, just in time for him to dismiss them. Itachi turned and exited the room, Sakura trailing behind him. It seemed she would be confronting Orochimaru long before she wanted to and with him, possibly her old teammate as well.
Dropping from the canopy, Sakura breathed a relieved sigh. Going from Amegakure to Kusa didn't seem like a long distance when one looked at it on a map, but traveling at near inhuman speeds tended to wear on a person. The speed at which Itachi traveled shouldn't have surprised her with his ANBU background, but it reminded her of her run-ins with ROOT. It didn't make her feel any less drained, regardless.
They were set to camp in what amounted to a decent-sized clearing between a grouping of trees, surrounded on all sides by the wilderness with just enough room for two people to set camp with a fire. Itachi was nothing if not sufficient, it seemed. They wordlessly gathered firewood, Sakura watching as he arranged and lit a fire using a small fire jutsu before he began to cook what would amount to two small servings of rice. It was around the time it started steaming that she couldn't hold her silence any longer.
"I can't take this anymore." She spoke harshly, the frustration evident in her voice as she looked at him from across the fire. "If I have to sit in silence any longer I'm going to scream just to hear the noise."
"I'm impressed." He spoke, though he certainly didn't sound impressed, and he looked quite the opposite of the emotion he claimed to feel.
"Any why is that?" She asked, resisting the urge to cross her arms over her chest. She was beginning to feel as though he knew what she was going to do before she did, like she was a book laid open for him to read—she needed to file that tidbit away and work on masking her emotions; she'd never survive the Akatsuki if she didn't.
"I expected you to crack long before you did. You were teammate to the kyuubi, after all." He responded, lips quirking, and it took all she had not to leap over the fire and smack the smirk from his face.
'Naruto, his name was Naruto,' she wanted to yell as she shook him until his eyes rolled into the back of his head. She saw through his attempt to anger her however, instead rolling her eyes and choosing not to speak, face deadpan.
"We should discuss the mission." He said after seeing that she wouldn't rise to the bait.
She nodded, all business once more after the mission was mentioned. She could talk business, even with patronizing assholes like Uchiha Itachi. "I can't say for sure exactly where the base is, but it's at least twenty minutes north of where the Tenchi Bridge used to span." She noted the raised eyebrow he directed her way and elaborated. "It was destroyed when Naruto lost control of the kyuubi after Orochimaru mentioned Sasuke."
The lack of honorific left the name feeling unfinished on her lips, but she wasn't sure how she felt for the younger Uchiha anymore. She wanted to believe that she still loved him, but it had been three years since she'd seem him last and discounting the details of how he'd left Konoha—left her —so much had happened since then. It was hard to say how she felt about most anything anymore.
He nodded, satisfied with her explanation. "We'll travel along the river; I will know the location once we arrive."
She bowed her head in agreement and proceeded to stare at the forest floor, not noticing the bowl he held out for her. Only once he had spoken her name did she bother to look up. She took the bowl and murmured her thanks before digging in to the simple meal.
It was quiet once more as they ate, though the silence was not nearly as awkward as it had been before. Once finished, her gaze rose to meet his across the fire. "What will we do once we find the base?"
"Get in, find the ring, and get out." He responded simply.
She scoffed at him. "You think it'll be that easy? It's Orochimaru for kami's sake."
"It is of no concern." He spoke, his tone leaving no room for argument.
She huffed in irritation, ignoring the unspoken warning. "What happens if Sasuke shows up? He'll go straight for you and I'm confident in my abilities, but I'm not sure I can take Kabuto by myself."
"You took down an Akatsuki and singlehandedly killed an entire team of ANBU ROOT, yet you cannot handle one fellow medic nin by yourself?" He asked, his tone implying that he was beginning to question her intelligence.
"I had help with Sasori and—I killed all three of them?" She asked, the disbelief clear in her voice.
"The woman was hanging on by a thread when I crossed her path. It seems that Danzo does not see fit to train any of his agents in the healing arts." He answered as he stood. "It's of no consequence. I will be back."
She opened her mouth to protest, but he was gone before she'd managed to find her voice. She dropped her posture, cursing all Uchiha's mentally: they were awfully rude.
Getting into the base was easier than Sakura had ever imagined it would be: Itachi had known the jutsu to activate in order to gain entrance—whether by stupidity or arrogance on the snake sannin's part, she didn't know. Upon entering, she had expected them to split up to cover more ground, but Sakura found herself staring at Itachi as he watched her, a smirk on his face.
She instinctively knew that she would end up regretting the question but jumped in headfirst, face expressionless. "What?"
"Finesse can get you much further than brute strength. The first example that comes to mind is your performance following the extraction of the Ichibi." Her face turned red—she couldn't decide whether it was from embarrassment or anger—and she turned her head to the side, hard-pressed not to act like a petulant child. It was a tough battle to win though, for it seemed that he brought out the worst in her.
After a moment of silence, he realized that no response would be forthcoming before suggesting that they split up like she'd expected. Soon, Sakura found herself wandering around in the pits of the snake den, becoming increasingly concerned at the distinct lack of … anything. There were no people, only corridor after candle-lit corridor of the same doors with the same room behind each one.
She was beginning to get the feeling that she was lost in a never-ending maze when she started to turn down another corridor and immediately ran into something, her nose being smashed into—was that skin?
She jumped back, embarrassed by her lack of attention because of the paranoid that held her in its grasp. She leveled the person before her with a steady gaze before taking an involuntary step back in shock.
Her stomach jumped to her throat as her heartbeat doubled its pace, laying eyes on the person that had been at the focus of her last mission in Konoha. The thought made her chest ache, wishing that Naruto had been with her to see him again, to make sure that he was well and in one piece. Just knowing that he was still alive made the world feel a little less lonely, but how would he react? Trepidation replaced the elation of finally knowing that he was safe, however relative the term was in relation to Orochimaru.
"Sasuke-kun." She greeted, the suffix slipping past her lips out of habit. She marveled at her ability to keep the shake from her voice—on top of worrying over his reaction, he was the first to see her in the cloth of her new 'allegiance.'
He stood before her, stone faced, watching with an expression of detached disinterest, as though she were mud that had dried to the bottom of his sandals. Even cloaked in Akatsuki's garb, it seemed that she would never make him see her as anything other than an obnoxious admirer. Only when she didn't move to give explanation as to why she stood before him did he speak, "Why are you here?"
As with her, the person he had been in Konoha was dead, replaced by a hardened version, and she took a brief moment to lament the loss of both before leveling her stare to his fearlessly—his Sharingan had activated somewhere during the timeline of events, though of when she wasn't sure. "How are you, Sasuke?"
"What do you want?" He demanded and the only difference in his expression was the spark of impatience that flared in his eyes as he ignored her query.
She watched his hand grasp the grip of his blade and as she took another step back—this one completely voluntary—her eyes widened. "I don't want to fight."
"You're here for Orochimaru's ring." He stated, tone flat.
"I am, but I don't want to fight you."
"You're so weak, Sakura."
Hurt, pain, frustration, anger—all of these emotions flashed through her and her fist clenched of its own volition. She would ignore it, though, as it had been so long since she'd seen him last. They were virtual strangers to each other now, so the least she owed him was courtesy, right? "We missed you, Sasuke."
His jaw clenched for a moment but the display was gone in a flash, replaced by only emptiness. "Why didn't you spend that time training instead? Pathetic."
Her frustration got the best of her, eyes turning furious and burning like an emerald flame. He understood fury, so she would speak his language for a minute. "Pathetic enough to join the Akatsuki? Weak enough to kill an Akatsuki? You know nothing of me and the deeds I've done in your absence, Sasuke, so don't you dare patronize me!"
"You'll always be weak, Sakura."
"Why?" She asked, the sound coming out more like a yell than she'd intended it to, echoing back a few times in the empty stone corridors. "Why will I never be good enough?"
He seemed to find a great amount of amusement in her frustration, a condescending smirk gracing his otherwise blank visage. However, other than this, he did nothing to supply her with the answer she sought.
She wasn't exactly sure why—maybe it was the frustration of knowing that Sasuke would always see her as a nuisance, as something below him, or it could have been to try to take out her frustrations on the only Uchiha she had a chance of hitting—but she found herself streaking forward in a manner reminiscent of the ones Naruto used in battle, yelling the whole way, kunai at the ready.
He blocked effortlessly, the chokuto holding her kunai at a fair distance with barely a flick of his wrist. It was as his blade maneuvered to push her back a fair distance that he spoke. "That's why you'll never be good enough, Sakura. You're as pathetic as Naruto."
The jab at their fallen teammate made something within her snap, all sense lost to her. Chakra poured to her fist and as of that moment, she didn't care about the mission, she didn't care about Akatsuki—all she cared about was pummeling Sasuke into a bloody pulp for the words he'd spoken. He didn't know how hard Naruto had trained to bring his ungrateful ass back to Konoha, didn't know the fear of having the Akatsuki trying to capture him at every turn. He most especially didn't know that Naruto was dead.
She took a deep breath to try to calm the fire raging within her veins, but it did nothing to dampen the blaze. She began walking toward him, each step bringing about a new action: her fist clenching until she was sure her palms were bleeding from the pressure of her nails biting into the flesh, chakra beginning to concentrate to her hands, making the sleeves of her cloak glow eerily, the floors lighting under her, her jaw clenched.
It culminated when she stood toe-to-toe with the man, looking up into his face, her expression a study in madness; he continued to watch her with disinterest, but it was coupled with a cautious glean in his eyes, his hand holding tight to the grip of his blade, all these signs pointing her to believe he had no idea what she was about to do next—which made two of them.
The chakra faded from her palms, hand—dripping with blood from her previously clenched fists—slowly coming up as if to caress the side of his face. She watched her own actions with a sort of morbid curiosity, not sure herself what was about to happen. He too was watching, though as time passed, his gaze became more wary, unsure of what had changed in her.
At the very last possible second, the chakra from before flared back to life and her hand moved with lightning quick speed, the power behind the hit snapping his face to the side, the sound echoing loudly throughout the corridors around them.
She watched as the tomoe of his crimson dojutsu began to spin, horrified—yet strangely satisfied—at her own actions. His face slowly began to twist back in her direction and she knew that he was going to retaliate in the worse way possible. Halfway through turning back to her, however, he stopped, eyes focusing on something behind her.
A quick glance behind her informed her of Itachi's presence and it would have been a lie if she'd said she wasn't relieved to see him—in face, she might just have kissed him had it not been for the situation. She took a step back from Sasuke, who was thoroughly distracted from her presence the moment his brother's had become known, and looked to her partner for direction.
"Sakura, go." He spoke in response to her questioning look, eyes never straying from his brother's—it seemed as though they were already in the midst of a genjutsu battle, though it seemed like Itachi wasn't being strained by the conflict considering that he was still talking; not that the fact surprised her in the least, he was a master at his craft.
She nodded and took off like a shot past Sasuke, not wanting to take the chance of him coming from the induced reality and attacking her, intent on putting some distance between herself and the quarreling brothers.
All of the halls looked the same; she'd noticed it before, but only once she was once again left alone with her thoughts—revolving around Sasuke and how she was glad that she'd slapped him—did it bother her. After twenty minutes of more twists and turns than she could keep up with, she began to lose her patience. Another five passed before she dropped all semblance of maintaining her calm and loosed her hold on her chakra, allowing it to spread momentarily to try to locate other presences in the underground lair.
It took nearly a minute, but she finally located Orochimaru before reestablishing the cloak on her chakra and continuing on, finally having some idea as to where she was going. She'd also felt Kabuto's signature—it seemed that he was on the other end of the base, a level lower in the ground than she and Orochimaru were. Hopefully he was too occupied to check up on his master for time enough for her to find the ring.
As she walked in the direction she knew the snake sannin lay, she wondered what was happening between Itachi and Sasuke. She knew that Pein had told him to kill his brother if need be and she wondered at the status of their battle. Would Itachi actually kill his otouto?
She turned a corner at the next junction and stopped dead in her tracks, spotting someone up the hall from where she stood.
The dim flickering of the candles that lined the walls glinted off of spectacles and a foreboding smirk graced his lips. "Hello, Sakura-chan, what a surprise it is to see you again."
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