Story Title: Unfortunate Circumstances

Chapter Title: 10. Needles in a Nest

Chapter 10 of 11

Arc 1 of 4

Pairing: ItachiSakuraKisame

Rating: M (Swearing, Later chapters)

Author: Backlash Symphony

Summary: Sakura is sent to a tiny village in need of medical help after the death of her husband, Kakashi. The Akatsuki attack, taking control of everything. Due to her reputation, she is forced to help the Akatsuki. More specifically, Kisame.ItaSakuKis

Disclaimer: Nope. Don't own it.

Extra: Holidays are hectic, of course. And I've got two movies and a video game script I should be writing, but I figured, "I haven't worked on this story for at least a month. My readers deserve an update."

And if you don't remember what happened in the last chapter, just remember that Sakura found the next page but the back was blank, Sasuke leaves her a cryptic message, and Itachi's birthday is coming soon.

Sakura, Naruto, Sasuke: 20

Itachi, Kabuto: 26

Orochimaru, Jiraiya, Tsunade: 58

Text means normal writing.

'Text' means thoughts.

'Text' means Inner Sakura's thoughts.

Text means flashback.

-Text- means something written.

Sakura knew the days were closing in on her. She had been cooped up in her lab for nearly four days. Her blanket and pillow and all of her bags were spread out on the operating table in the middle of the room. Her fridge was filled with pre-made meals and plain snacks. Her work now had a scroll specifically designed to seal it all inside and she had made sure it wouldn't open unless her chakra was fed into it. All exits and entrances underwent the same procedure. She was being extremely careful.

Or maybe she was simply paranoid.

Regardless, she had explained it a few days before. She was going to be living in her lab until she reached the end of their agreement. That way, no 'accidental destruction' of her lab could occur (she looked pointedly at Itachi when she said this) and she would be able to make up for lost time spent sleeping herself to recovery.

But three nights spent sleeping on a concrete slab wasn't proving to be beneficial for her back or her neck. And the meals she made had to be eaten cold, and she constantly worried about leaving the lab to make a stop to the bathroom. She hadn't showered in three days, either. She was persistent about making up for lost time.

Or maybe she was simply paranoid.

Not to mention that Itachi's birthday was so close she could almost feel herself suffocating and becoming sloppier and more frantic with her work. Sasuke's words were playing in her head like a broken record, scratching out her thoughts of work with his damned cryptic messages. Sakura couldn't understand even slightly what he had meant, nor why he even showed up in her room. No, especially why he had shown up in her room. And seemingly flirted. Withher. That boy and her had serious issues to discuss.

Or maybe she was simply paranoid.

Itachi's behavior was becoming more unpredictable with each passing day, and his health seemed to be getting worse. Deidara and Kisame were also acting strangely. She could see them huddled together on her way to the bathroom, having heated conversations no higher than whispers. When she would walk by them, they would separate and disperse, leaving her alone without so much as a wave or a nod or even a plain, "Hello" to prove that they had seen her. She wasn't paranoid, but they were all acting a bit suspiciously.

"Oh, who the hell am I fooling? I'm paranoid," came the indignant huff of the pink-haired medic.

She set the paper she had been staring at for the better part of the last hour down and ran her clammy fingers through her dirtied, stringy hair. A sigh escaped her lips and she grimaced at how oily her skin felt.

'I really need a shower. Badly.'

Her senses were screaming at her to move her ass up the stairs and sit under a hot shower for a good hour (A good, long, long, long hour, maybe even the rest of the day). If she wasn't so paranoid, she would just march up the stairs and bathe her troubles away.

Sneaking a glance from the corner of her eye, she could see the scroll popping out from her bag, taunting her knowledge that she could store her work in there and then take it with her to the bathroom and just leave it on the toilet or the floor. She and the scroll stared at one another for a few moments.

Sakura swore the scroll moved.

"Fine, fine, you win!" she hissed, rising to her feet and stretching.

Around the popping of her joints, Sakura hobbled over to the scroll with her notebooks and papers in hand. She wrenched the parchment from her sack and spread it over her blanket, hurriedly spilling the contents in her arms onto the circle that sat in the middle of the page. Building chakra into her fingertips, she sealed the scroll and snatched it, heading for the door.

More chakra opened the door, and once she was outside of her lab, her chakra locked it. She noted that it was actually warmer outside of her lab. Or maybe she was fantasizing about the heat her lovely shower would produce?

Up the stairs she trudged and the familiar hallway greeted her. She shivered at the memories those walls had witnessed and the way they felt against her back. She pressed the scroll tighter to her chest, willing those thoughts away. Itachi's room went by, as did Kisame's and Hidan's, but as she passed by Deidara's, she could hear shuffling inside and frustrated grunts.

Brows furrowing, the rosette-haired woman slowed and concealed her chakra, moving closer to the door. She heard Deidara's voice utter her name and Sakura nearly bolted for fear of being caught, but Kisame's voice interrupted.

"Itachi is the one, not Sakura, Deidara!"

Deidara growled, "Don't stick up for her because of how you feel, yeah! This is serious! She's getting so close to the edge it's driving Itachi and I crazy, yeah!"

"My feelings have nothing to do with this," Kisame hissed. "I'm trying too damn hard not to let Itachi lose it all! Or didn't you notice that without him here and Itach – no –"

"Don't say it, yeah! Don't even think about it! Itachi will move up whether or not Pein is gone or here."

"Pein? That's what his name is?"

"Yes, but Konan isn't fit to run Akatsuki and we all know that, yeah! But so long as Itachi is in this situation, we can't move forward, and the sooner that Sakura makes things right-"

"Why is it up to her, Deidara? She won't be able to even begin to think past where she is right now! She'll never get the rest of my story and by the time she figures out why Sasuke and Itachi are working together it'll be too late to break free from this agreement because she won't have any proof of it!"

Deidara sucked in a breath and the wall shook as his fist hit it.

"She has a chance to find the loophole and get away from here, for sure, if she can get the answers before Itachi's birthday-"

"Which is less than five days away, yeah! There's no way. I know she's smart but even this puzzle can't be solved, yeah! If we weren't in on it, we wouldn't even be able to get this all figured out, yeah!"

"Evenif Sakura does figure it out, nothing will change! Just because we caught her in a deal doesn't mean anything other than our guaranteed survival for when we finish gathering the biju and proceed with the next step of the plan!"

"And Itachi is the only one who knows what that step is, next to Pein…so we could be following this whole idea to our deaths, yeah…And if Pein shows up before Itachi's birthday…we're in serious trouble, yeah!"

"Sakura is the one with the death threat here, and our heads will be right next to hers if we help her. I don't know what Pein was thinking when he approved of this deal but right now our top priority is to find him and keep him away from here until Sound has finished their end of their deal."

"It's too dangerous to have all of these agreements simultaneously in action, yeah. I have a bad feeling about all of this."

Disbelief, dread, fury, betrayed. Sakura wasn't sure which word best described her as she listened to the conversation between Kisame and Deidara. Obviously she knew the deal she was making and what was expected of her, but while she had suspected something else was happening, she hadn't actually thought that she was so on track.

Itachi really did have something wrong with him, and the reason why they were acting so strangely was sound. It had something to do with another member, named Pein, and Itachi's new position.

"So I wasn't paranoid after all!" she whispered, but immediately recognized her mistake when the words filtering through the door silenced.

Sakura spun on heel and sprinted down the hall to the safety of her room before anyone could check to see if they had been heard. She closed the door behind her, leaning against it and breathing heavier than she should have been.

Now, however, she had a lot more to be worried about. She closed her eyes in intense thought and began to work through the problem of what she had heard.

There was more than just her own agreement with the Akatsuki, Deidara had said. There was another one going on with Sound, but Sakura had a feeling there was at least one more considering the way he had explained his fears of multiple plans coinciding. Then there was the issue of Itachi and his "rising up the ladder".

And Pein, who she hadn't heard of before. Konan she had never seen, but Pein was a completely new name. She tried to match a face without a name to this new one but failed. The only person she could think of was 'Leader', but he had always been in the shadows when she encountered him. Besides, what kind of idiots would follow under the lead of a man whose name they didn't know?

Apart from that fact, she knew that something was being weighted on her shoulders to figure out. Kisame had said 'his story' which meant that Sakura's path of mythology pages apparently might be the wrong one to go down. She would need to find his medical records. There was another person she was supposed to be watching out for, as well. Definitely Sasuke and…perhaps Kabuto?

'Kabuto doesn't have a high enough position to try and make a deal with Akatsuki. It has to be Orochimaru. But what would Akatsuki want with that traitor? And Sound, too? And who is this third party involved with the Akatsuki?'

Sakura pushed those questions from her mind, knowing that she wouldn't be able to figure those out unless she overheard the Akatsuki members discussing their answers. Back to Itachi's birthday, however, led Sakura to begin to believe in Sasuke's warning. Something was going to transpire on his birthday, and it was up to her to figure out whatever it was Kisame and Deidara were talking about in order to get out of this place.

'But what kind of a loophole were they talking about me finding?'

Hot water had never felt so good before to Sakura. She had spent a nice forty minutes underneath the spray, washed her hair and skin four times, and had even taken the time to shave. The water was worth those extra ten minutes it took. She had convinced herself not to think about what she had heard while she tried to relax.

Once she dried off and washed her face one more time, she felt a presence at her door. Frozen, she recognized the overbearing sensation as Itachi's chakra. Rapidly she slipped on the fresh set of clothes she had pulled from her drawer.

Thirty seconds later she emerged from the humid bathroom with black shorts and a green short-sleeved shirt on, clouds of steam billowing from behind her. Her water-darkened pink hair was pulled off to the left side of her neck, the moisture soaking into her shirt.

Sure enough, at the entrance to her room stood the stoic figure of Itachi, looking sick and utterly exhausted. Cautiously she looked him over, assessing the state he appeared to be in.

"Did you need something, Uchiha?" Sakura asked once she had finished her observations.

"We're all leaving the base tonight to attend a meeting," Itachi explained, remaining in his position against the door to her room.

Sakura's brows furrowed.

'They're leaving? Didn't they just have a meeting two weeks ago, too? And why is he telling me this?'

"I'm keeping Tobi behind to make sure you stay out of trouble," he continued and ignored Sakura's glare in his direction.

"It's not like I'd be dumb enough to burn the place down or try to escape. You'd just come after me and murder me or something equally as idiotic."

A single brow raised in response before Itachi said, "Don't try anything stupid, Sakura. Just do your work."

"Che, like I would do something stupid," Sakura defended, crossing her arms over her chest.

Itachi fixed her with a stare that spoke for him, telling Sakura that if shedidn't even believe her words, then how was he supposed to? Sakura rolled her eyes and dropped her hands to her hips, returning his stare.

"Are you done gawking at me or can we…"

'What the hell?!'

"Tobi is much stronger than you. Don't try anything."

And Itachi was gone, exiting the room and leaving Sakura with eyes wide and her mouth open.

"It had to have been the light. That's the only explanation. It had to have been the light…"

But reasoning with herself didn't explain the flash of crimson in Itachi's left eye, or the amber flicker in Itachi's right.

Clean and settled and frustrated beyond all belief seemed to be Sakura's latest trend. She had been tinkering with the blank back of the page for a few hours now. She had found lemon juice in the kitchen and had dabbed a cotton ball in some, swiping gently at the corners of the page. Nothing had shown up.

She had borrowed some matches from under the sink and found that by holding the paper over the flame, nothing would change except the singing of her fingertip. Stealing a black-light from Deidara's room had been no easy feat, but despite her accomplishing it, the paper remained blank.

Those letter fragments were teasing her, she knew it.

She highly doubted that by using chemicals she would be able to find the writing on the page. Her stomach growled and Sakura decided to grab something to eat. A break wouldn't be too bad right about now, anyways.

She stood and stretched and headed for her fridge. Opening it let her see how empty it was. She frowned and realized she would have to make a trip to the kitchen to fix herself another few sets of food. She didn't even bother to think how she had missed it.

She left her lab, making sure to lock up, and went into the kitchen where she roughly collided with Sasori. The air was forced from her lungs at the impact and it didn't help that she had run into him of all people.

'The one time I wish I could bump into Uchiha and of course he's nowhere to be found.'

Sakura took a hurried step back and shot Sasori a brief smile.

"Sorry, I should've been watching where I was going."

Sasori simply looked down at her, face emotionless and frozen in the beauty of his false youth. Sakura, hesitantly, took another step back. His only movement was to follow her with his eyes. Sakura's heart was beginning to beat faster against her ribs. Was Sasori waiting for something? Should she apologize again?

"I-"

"You should take a better look at things," Sasori cut in. "It could help you out in the future."

He passed by her and disappeared into the main hall. Sakura was left thoroughly confused, but she couldn't help but think the words he had said would possess another meaning.

Sakura woke up with alarms blaring in her head and feeling like someone was watching her. Her eyes fluttered open and a vibrant orange was the first thing she saw. Eyes widening, she let out a cry and threw her fist out but the orange thing screamed and ducked to the floor.

Sakura kicked her covers from her body and scrambled backwards to the other side of her bed. She was reaching for the lamp on the table beside her bed when a plea of, "Tobi is a good boy!! Tobi promises he was only telling the pretty lady Tobi made breakfast for the pretty lady and Tobi!!"

Sakura's face softened and she shook her head.

'How did I forget? They're all gone and I'm being babysat by…Tobi…who really should be the one being babysat…'

Sakura took notice of what he called her, scrunching up her nose at how childish it sounded. She knew the "man", if you could call him that, was already very childish to begin with, so it didn't make much of a difference.

Tobi's mask-clad head peered over the edge of Sakura's bed and she raised an eyebrow at him.

"Is the pretty lady awake now?"

Sakura sighed and violently threw her pillow at Tobi, causing him to yelp and hit the floor again.

'Only me, right? No one else has to deal with this.'

Sakura slid off the bed and pulled a pair of Kakashi's sweatpants over her legs and boxers. She stretched as she made for the door and left her room without waiting for Tobi. She could hear him scrambling to his feet anyways, so there was no need to call for him.

She ran her fingers through her hair in an attempt to tame it as Tobi sprinted to a position beside her. Sakura could see that he was a few inches taller than her and that his hair seemed to be just as messy as her own.

"Tobi apologizes to the pretty lady for having to keep her under close guard, but Tobi is willing to spar with the pretty lady if she wants Tobi to?"

'Spar? Christ, I haven't done that in a while…'

"Hm, that sounds-"

'Like the second worst idea we've ever had, actually.'

Sakura froze in mid-step, eyes dilated. Tobi made it a few steps ahead of her before he realized she wasn't following him anymore.

'Where the hell did you come from!?'

"Pretty lady?"

'Have I mentioned how difficult it is to break through those damn barriers?'

"Hello?"

'Where have you been! And what are you talking about, 'barriers?''

"Preettyyy laaaddyy??"

'The ones Itachi used to split us apart. Didn't you wonder why he was able to 'use the Mangekyo' on us? Or why I disappeared for such a long time? Or did you really not miss me?'

"Is the pretty lady alright?"

'But that isn't possible. How did he…what kind of a…you've been in my head the entire time and you've just been trying to 'break the barrier?''

"Heeelllllooooo??"

'You can't get rid of me that easily. I am you, remember? That Mangekyo thing wasn't the real thing. It was a very advanced-'

"Does Tobi need to splash cold water on the pretty lady??"

'Genjutsu, yes, I know that much. I figured that out, but I still don't understand how you were trapped on a separate side of a…barrier…you really aren't making any sense, you know…'

"Oh no! TOBI FROZE THE PRETTY LADY!"

'Time is running out, to be honest. The barrier keeps depleting and I can break through now, but it's not gone entirely. Trust me and don't fight him. Figure out where that last page is and I'll return.'

"What can Tobi do to bring the pretty lady back?"

'Wait, last page? Let me guess, you crossing the barrier allowed you to catch up with everything that's happened?'

"TOBI KNOWS!!"

'Exactly, but be careful. You're approaching the last days before his birthday, so let's figure this out before then.'

"Tobi will give the pretty lady a KISS and she will turn unfrozen!"

Sakura's eyes watered as if she hadn't blinked in a very long time. She blinked, squeezing her eyes closed to allow the fluids to coat her eyes again, and reached a hand up to push Tobi's face away from her.

"Yay! Tobi brought the pretty lady back! Is the pretty lady okay now?" he asked, shaking where he stood with excitement.

Sakura nodded and said, "I'm fine, but I think I had better work for today. I'll spar some other time."

Tobi's disappointment seemed physical to Sakura, and she quickly walked away from him, going over her conversation with her inner self. How long had it been since she had been able to have a full discussion with herself? But now she had even more to think about!

'Jeez, if these last few days don't kill me, I think suicide might just be the most intelligent choice before I go completely insane…'

Breakfast went by quickly and Sakura bid Tobi goodbye, heading for her lab. Once she was sure her door was locked, she headed for her desk, only to find that a piece of paper with writing that definitely didn't belong to her was sitting there, a clay spider walking along the edges of the paper.

Sakura's blood ran cold at the thought of someone managing to get into her lab when only her chakra could activate the door. However, that spider was one of Deidara's, Sakura knew, and the moment Sakura began to approach her desk the spider stopped moving and melted into a clay puddle.

Tentatively Sakura pulled the paper from the spider remains, fearing that maybe it would explode. It certainly explained how someone was able to get inside without having her chakra. Deidara had sent the spider with the note under the door and had instructed it to sit on her desk. Maybe it alerted Deidara that she was there when it had melted?

Sakura cleared her head and looked down at the paper.

- Forget Kisame's and my brief conversation yesterday.

We did happen to know you were there, by the way.

All in all, it would be in your best interest and resting safety to forget.

Deidara -

Sakura's eyes narrowed. Deidara, without a doubt, did not talk like this. Neither did Kisame, in case Kisame could have narrated and Deidara just sat there and wrote it out.

"Is this what Sasori wanted me to look at? Or am I over-thinking this?"

'It won't hurt to try, right?'

Sakura put the piece of paper close to her face, reading the words over again. She was struck once again with the awkward wording and the suspicion of this not being Deidara's way of speaking. She knew that the Sharingan allowed one to copy the exact way of writing, and Itachi could have written the note, but Sakura knew Itachi didn't speak like this either.

Jade eyes moved over each letter individually, thinking there may be a certain space of line indicating a hidden message. She reached the 'r' in the first 'forget' in the note and saw that it was smudged to the left. She knew that Deidara was right-handed, so he couldn't have smudged it unless he mistakenly touched his other hand to it.

Ignoring it, she moved along and stopped only two characters away on the 'e' of the first 'forget'. Once again, she saw the smudge to the left. Sakura wasn't sure if it was coincidental or if it actually meant something. She snatched a stray pen and began writing down a dot beneath the two letters.

She moved along the rest of the note and realized that there were a lot of smudged-to-the-left letters. She made marks under them all until she got to the end and then looked over the note once more.

- Forget Kisame's and my brief conversation yesterday.

We did happen to know you were there, by the way.

All in all, it would be in your best interest andresting safety to forget.

Deidara –

Sakura wrote the letters out on the bottom of the paper and tried to sound it out. It took her no longer than two seconds to realize that Sasori had been right about a hidden meaning. The letters spelled, 'Remember Library'.

It felt like ice was growing where her bones were. She was completely sure now that what was going on was intended to throw her off course and that Deidara, despite his knowing he would get killed for letting her know, had helped her.

She would have to remember to stop calling him Blondie for that.

Sakura knew that the library room was actually Itachi's room, which meant that she would have to somehow get back into his room without alerting Tobi that she was up to no good. Though honestly, she wouldn't mind socking him one right in the face for trying to kiss her earlier.

Seriously, this wasn't a freakin' fairytale. He wasn't a prince. She wasn't a princess. Kissing her wasn't going to bring her back to reality.

Her biggest problem was now to focus on how she would lie to him and get past him. She really did want to punch him, but her inner self had warned her not to, and while she was generally the one who loved trouble and misbehaving, Sakura knew that her inner self's honest warning was one to be followed.

'Not to mention that Uchiha warned me yesterday that he was stronger than me, which means he was expecting me to fight him. Asshole…that man deserves the suffering he's going through right now for putting me through this hell…'

Sakura sucked in a deep breath and made up a plan in her head. Tobi seemed nice, right? He couldn't be that bad of a guy…right? Sakura snatched a report file and tucked it under the waistband of her sweatpants, tying the strings tightly to make sure the papers didn't fall out.

Sakura left her lab and acted as if nothing had happened when she entered the kitchen where Tobi was reading a newspaper's comic section. He looked up and Sakura gave him a smile.

"Sorry to bother you, Tobi, but I left one of my report files in my room. Uchiha told me you were in charge, so I'm just letting you know so you don't come knocking on my lab door when I'm not there. I'll be back down in a minute, alright?"

Tobi nodded enthusiastically and went back to reading his comics.

"Pretty lady is granted permission!"

Sakura thanked him quickly and made her way to the second floor of the complex. She peered over her shoulder to see if Tobi was following her but she found the hallways and staircase to be empty. She calmly strolled down the hall and stopped at Itachi's door. She placed her hand over the door knob and turned it. She let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding when it opened.

She slid between the frame and the door and quietly shut the door, wincing at the quiet click it made. Her eyes searched through the darkness for something that would tell her she was being watched or that her presence wasn't the only one in the room. She found it to be empty and she flicked on the lights.

She tried to ease her breathing when she remembered what had happened in this room and succeeded once she reminded herself why she was here. She gave the room a once-over and decided to move over to the small bookcase against the wall. She brushed her fingers over the titles printed on the sides of the books, scanned the quickly, and determined how useful they would be.

She reached the shelf at the bottom and found a battered, frayed book with no title on the side. She pulled it out of its place and flipped open. The first few pages were blank and Sakura didn't understand why Itachi would keep a blank notebook on his bookshelf.

She was about to close it when she caught a flash of writing at the back. She flipped the book around and opened it from what she thought was the back but what she now could see was the front. The words printed across the top of the page were scribbled out and pictures of men and women were taped inside.

Parting the pages from the ones before them, Sakura felt fear begin to pump through her heart. Her stomach was twisting in knots and her breathing became labored. Sketches of people and diagrams were scribbled and messily written around in letters that Itachi had never written before.

Sakura turned another page and the book, already dangling dangerously from her hands, dropped from her fingers. Her eyes couldn't move away from the design and the writing on the page. All she could do was look down and stare as her fear mutated into absolute, unbridled horror.

Glaring up at her were the instructions required to perform the Body-Transfer Technique.

So this chapter basically means that this first arc will be completed once I write next chapter. And I'm warning you now that the next chapter is going to be pretty short because only two things are happening in order to wrap up this section of the story.

I'm not sure how I'm going to work out the second arc (by means of posting, now what's going to happen) but I think I'll write the last chapter of this first arc and then write the first chapter of arc 2 so I can provide an immediate link when I post the last chapter.

This chapter was definitely kind of strange and confusing so if things need to be clarified, ask because I don't see myself explaining things in any of the future chapters.

Thanks to my reviewers yuki san1, Moonhuntress09, Fire Kitsune, freak a geek, Shadeslayer390, anbu kai, Sami, moonlightmama, Heartless Ghostie, Bloody Sunrise, Sailor Tiamat, TeenageCrisis, Serenity Fey, Manipulated Insanity, Teslyn, gaara's hope, SpeedDemon315, Goatis, Iskah, black55widow, and SweetAssassin.

You guys always keep me going! Thanks for reading! Leave a review and have a great day! Till later!

Backlash Symphony