"What the hell is going on!?" Sakura scream-whispered at Kisame.
"You mean, you didn't get it?" said Kisame, shaking his head.
"..."
"Wait, you didn't know?"
"..."
Rolling his eyes, Kisame put his head over hers to look through the crack with her.
"Honestly, what are they teaching you kids over in Konoha?" he said down to her. "Count five trees towards us, starting from Itachi."
Sakura was impatient and aggitated from what happened with Itachi. Still, she took a deep breath to calm her nerves, and began to count.
"Ok, so what?"
Kisame knocked his fist on her head.
"Ow!"
"Concentrate, Baka!" he hissed.
Sakura looked back again and sighed with frustration. She didn't know what the hell she was doing still hanging around. However, as she focused, her eyes caught a hold of something.
The tree that Kisame had told her to look for did not sway with the wind the way the others did. Sakura brought her face closer to the rocks and squinted.
gasp!
"Yupp, do you see it?" said Kisame, grinning again. "It's Sasuke..."
Sakura was dumbfounded.
"So stop your tears little girly, Itachi didn't mean it."
Sakura was silent and her eyes looked as if they were going to start crying again.
"We didn't come all this way for nothing. As soon as we heard that Sasuke had run off towards Konoha, Itachi did not waste time in heading in the same direction. Unfortunately, we were coming from much further than Sasuke, and by the time we had reached Konoha, you were just setting sail off the coast...We got lucky though. Jiraiya managed to send a message to Deidara who in turn helped us focus our search.
"Were you watching what just happened?" asked Sakura.
"Mmmm. I was to follow the southern coast while Itachi took the north. He had a feeling you would follow either one to make your way back. Our meeting point was further up the beach, but I guess that Itachi took you here so that I would catch wind of it and prepare for making the grab."
"So...it was all just an act?" said Sakura, looking down.
Kisame nodded. "Itachi had never been more aggitated in all the years that I've been partnered with him since he left you back in Konoha. Still, I guess he thought that maybe if he treated you that way in front of Sasuke, Sasuke might leave you alone. Now, whether Itachi did it to also make you forget about him, I can't tell you."
Sakura's heart dropped again. It was like being brought back to life only to be stabbed.
"Now, enough of the mush," said Kisame, putting his hands on his knees. "Let's see what happens."
Peeking back through the crack, Sakura could see that Itachi remained unmoved. Holding her hair back, Sakura watched nervously to see what was going to happen.
Itachi faced the ocean with an angry look on his face. He knew that Sasuke was still there, watching.
Feeling the air around him, Itachi could tell that this time things were different. The fact that Sasuke did not blatantly attack means that he had become much more cautious. This meant that now Itachi was going to be fighting a calm and cool Sasuke, unlike the other times where rage enveloped his thinking. This time was going to tough, and as Itachi waited there to see Sasuke's next move, Sasuke spoke.
"So...Itachi..." came Sasuke's voice from the tree. "Picking on girls now, I see."
Itachi remained silent. He was preparing for Sasukes strike. Closing his eyes, Itachi was feeling for the attack.
"What a cruel thing to do to someone you don't love..." said Sasuke, coming out from the shadows of the tree. "Then, I guess you don't mind if she dies."
With that, Sasuke disappeared into puff of smoke.
A copy...thought Itachi, startled out of his concentration. Looking down the beach, he could see that the real Sasuke was already a hundred yards ahead of him, running straight for the rocks where Sakura and Kisame were hiding.
Itachi took off down the beach after Sasuke. Chasing after his back, Itachi was for a brief moment, actually scared.
I'm not going to beat him... thought Itachi as he ran. Considering the distance, there was no way he could catch up in time. Gritting his teeth, only now had he fully begun to realize Sasuke's original plan.
Sasuke knew. He knew from the very start that it was an act. Even without the sharingan, he could tell that Itachi's breathing was unsteady the whole time he was torturing Sakura. Before they had even reached the beach, Sasuke had even already known that Itachi was well aware of his presence following them. Realizing this, Itachi figured out that this moment wasn't for Sasuke to have an opportunity to kill him, it was to make Itachi suffer by forcing him to watch Sakura being murdered in front of his eyes.
Across the beach, Kisame could see that the situation had just turned ugly.
"Whoops, gotta go," said Kisame, suddenly grabbing Sakura around the waist with one arm and picking her up to make a dash for the ocean.
Sakura saw the world shaking around her. With her hands grasping Kisame's arm, she could just barely make out Sasuke's image coming straight for her. However, just as Sasuke's feet had hit the stone surface drawing his sword, Kisame leaped off the small cliff into the ocean, slamming their bodies into the waves below.
As the water swirled around Sakura upon impact, she felt her body pull with great speed further out into the ocean. Opening her eyes, it were as if she was being dragged by a rope attached to a boat. Holding her breath, Sakura could do nothing else but trust Kisame.
On the surface, Sasuke ran towards the edge of the cliff and jumped off to begin running on the water. However, as soon as he had touched the water, a giant swell grew in front of him. Sprinting up the wall of the wave, Sasuke managed to clear the peak and land on the other side before being caught. Turning around, he saw that the wave smashed the shore with amazing strength, breaking the jagged rocks that Sakura was hiding behind. Turning out towards the sea, he could see the disturbance in the water that showed which direction Sakura and Kisame had went.
Suddenly, several more swells grew and Sasuke was busy dodging them again. This time, however, it wasn't an attack, but rather a tactic to make Sasuke lose them. Leaping high into the sky, Sasuke looked to the water to find their shadows, but none could be found. Looking back at the beach, Sasuke discovered that Itachi was gone.
As the swells subsided, Sasuke found that he was standing in the middle of the water, alone. Sheathing his sword, he knew that he wasn't going to find them.
