Bleh. It's been a while, but you know... Life gets in the way. Coughschoolcough
Anyway... Sorry about the wait. I'm not going to say it was worth it, because I dislike this chapter, but the next one should be good!
Well, you can read it now if you wish.

Disclaimer - I do not own anything concerning Naruto. Except for a few posters and headbands and t-shirts...

Two days. It's only been two days and already she felt like she would rather die than be here. Well, she always figured that she would, but to this extent... It was driving her mad.

She was placed in a room upon arrival and hasn't been outside of it since.

She always felt tense. She knew the members of akatsuki were watching her and it made her uneasy. She felt two different chakra switch with another two every 12 hours. Well, that was how she figured it would continue to go until today. The end of today would be her third day in here and apparently the akatsuki decided to disrupt the pattern. Itachi had decided to pay her a visit.

"...!" Surprise was etched across her features, but she refused to show any signs of fear. She knew that would be the start of her downfall and she wanted to prolong that as much as was possible.

"Haruno Sakura." His deep monotone voice filled the small room. "Not a very common name, is it?" She scoffed at him, eyes never going above his jawline. "Sakura is a very common name. Infact-" "I meant Haruno." "..." She bit her bottom lip.

"Oi! Itachi!" Sakura assumed the man who just walked in was Kisame. Kakashi and Gai sensei had mentioned something about him being blue and he carried a large sword. He fit the description.

"Oh! What's this? Agirl?" A wicked smile was flashed her way, sharp teeth making all the more menacing. "Sakura," he told Kisame, "Kisame." He then told to Sakura, who just had her suspicions confirmed.

"She's the medical bitch, I've heard about? She's going to fix you?" The man said nothing while looking at the younger ninja ans she held a look of defiance. She refused to do anything to help, and he expected as much.

"No offence, but doesn't she look a little young? How good can she possibly be at her age?" "Apparently, she has the potential, even now, to surpass Tsunade's medical skills, and she could rival you in taijutsu." "Ha! I just might have to find out for myself then!" He flashed another menacing smile that, in any other situation, would have made the girl turn 5 shades of red and possibly earn the man -thing- a slap.

"Well, I hope you two have fun. Ha ha!"

Sakura could continue to hear laughter erupting from the shark-man's throat until he closed the door, leaving her alone with Itachi once again.

"I refuse," she finally said after a long moment of silence. "And I would reconsider that," he told her. "Well, I'm not you. I refuse." Her voice was harder this time, making sure to get her point across. "Then we'll have to do this the hard way. What would you prefer first, tsukiyomi, or physical torture?" Her eyes shot open, though she was careful enough to stay away from his eyes, which, she noted, already had red swirling through them.

She didn't respond, but her eyes remained on the floor.

"Then, I'll choose for you." She expected to be hit at first, so she winced, but nothing came. She didn't look up, though, to see what he was planning.

"Sakura." This got her attention. Her head snapped up at the sound of Sasuke's voice, but got a face-full of Itachi instead. She saw deadly red eyes and sharp, black shapes spinning before her world turned dark-red...

---

"Alright," Jiraya spoke first after the whole group met at the entrance of the village. "My group will go first and to the east. Kakashi's group will leave five minutes after us and to the west. Both teams will do a semi-circle type route and meet up back where this whole mess started; The explosion site." He looked around the group of shinobi there, waiting to leave. "Any questions?" Nothing was asked. "Alright then, let's go." The sannin's group didn't need to be told twice.

"Good luck." he said to Kakashi and his 'travelling buddies', before he left to go after the group before they got too far ahead and got themselves lost. "Aa. Same to you." He was sure that the older man had heard, even though he took off.

Kakashi was aware of the menace coming from one of his members in the team. It was the hebi member. His eyes glared at him like there was no tomorrow. He wondered why..?

He shrugged it off, though he wasn't completely unaware of the eyes that so badly wanted to burn a hole in the back of the jounin's torso. He sighed. This was going to be a long trip. He wondered if he should take out his book, but decided not to. One of his students' lives was at steak so he figured they wouldn't be stopping much, or at all, today. There was no time to read. The faster he got to Sakura, and the akatsuki, the better.

Sooner than he expected, the five minutes were up. "Alright, you all know what to do. So, let's go." And then there were blurs of colours as they darted off.

---

"Hey, Ero-sennin!" Jiraya looked back to the blond that had called him. "What is it now...?"

Poor Jiraya had asked, knowing what the questions was and what his answer would be. Naruto had been asking for the past 10 minutes 'Are we there yet? How much longer will it take? Can we go faster?' . He wasn't sure how much more of it he could take. Even a legendary sannin had his limits. However, he was surprised to hear something different coming out of the blond's mouth.

"Do you think... Sakura-chan is okay?" He was also surprised to find that Naruto had even asked that question, all the while looking like someone had just killed his best friend.

"I'll be honest with you, kid," he made his tone serious, so that even Sasuke had to look (much to Karin's displeasure. She had been trying to get him to look at her since they had started, and all it takes is this 'Sakura' and his attention is diverted), "I really don't know. But this is the akatsuki we're talking about, so I wouldn't be surprised to find out that she might not be in great health when we find her." 'If we find her, alive anyway.'

The Kyuubi vessel kept his head down. He knew the sannin was right, he just didn't really want to hear it.

"Great health? I'd be surprised to find her breathing." Karin huffed out. She missed the glare sent her way by Sasuke and Jiraya. That, or she just didn't care. However, Naruto made sure she'd regret saying that.

Blue eyes clashed with the female's and he grabbed the collar of her shirt, forcing the entire group to stop. "Listen, I don't care if you are a girl, if Sakura-chan doesn't beat the crap out of you when we get there, I will. Got it?"

She smacked his hand away. "Hey, you asked the question, so you should have been prepared to hear the worst!" He shut his mouth. She was right, in a way.

"You just don't like her, so your opinion doesn't count." he snarled at her and started running again.

She wanted to yell at him again, telling him all of the brutal things they could be doing to her at this very moment, Sasuke, however, gave her the 'shut up if you want to live' look and took off after the rest of them. She followed, only because heaven forbid that she be separated from her dear Sasuke. But her evil little mind got working up all of the way she could rile the whisker-faced shinobi up. She was suddenly in a better mood.

After a little while of silence Tsunade's voice repeated part of an earlier conversation,

"You sound like you're her mother." "Hn, I'm the closest to one she's ever had. I'm sure the feeling's mutual."

What in the world did that mean? Before they left they spoke with two adults who seemed concerned that Sakura did not come home with her team. Tsunade spoke with them, trying to, calmly, tell them what had happened. She left out some of the fine details, but got the message across.

So, if she had parents, then why would-?

"Ugh, can we stop for a bit? We've been running all day!" Karin had finally spoke up. Jiraya sighed. If she was going to complain after only half a day's worth of travel, he would knock her out and carry her himself. He regretted putting Karin on his team.

"Sakura-chan doesn't complain even when she hasn't slept the night before." Karin glared at the blond boy. "Like I could give a flying crap about what 'Sakura-chan does! You speak so freakin' highly of her! I bet she's not even capable of taking down a 5 year-old!" "Obviously not! She's got a heart, unlike you bunch of-" "Naruto, enough. We'll stop for 10 minutes." Naruto was about to protest but the three hebi members had already stopped. "Figures..." He mumbled.

Well? How was it? It's okay, pleeeaassseee be honest! Just don't go overboard saying it was a piece of- You get the idea, yes?
Next chapter there will be a lot more Sakura-tsukiyomi ness. So be happy!