Sakura didn't follow him in his side and ignored the whispers coming from the hallway between them. Instead she was plagued with thoughts of what could possibly be behind the new scroll they found.

Behind a brick.

Under a tree.

Inside a volcano.

Jade, Amethyst, and Ruby.

Jade's mythological property was luck.

Amethyst was chakra replenishment.

Ruby was for mental stability.

Luck meant knowing the future; she could only guess what the others meant, though it seemed fairly obviously the Amethyst scroll would give an unlimited supply of chakra….oh, what she wouldn't do for that at the moment.

Those gems, her situation, the scrolls…everything was difficult to understand and it all made Sakura terrified. She couldn't be sure that she was the only one who knew how to open the scroll….what if there was someone else that could? Like the Akatsuki leader.

Her stomach twisted and turned as she thought of the endless possibilities but her Mirai offered no help. Sixty-two minutes of her own future was the maximum she could push herself except for the visions she had no control over. Even worse, she couldn't see ahead unless it involved her.

"Ugh," she groaned internally. Just a month ago she felt so invincible that she'd never get caught or hurt by anyone….and now she was chained up to chakra draining cuffs with a seal behind her that she couldn't see and being forced into situations that she couldn't avoid.

Everything seemed to be ending for the worse.

Her existence and her death would harm the innocent people, that she, as a shinobi, was sworn to protect. It was disgusting and Sakura could not find one piece of ANBU training or advice that could get her out of this.

After a little less than two hours of internal panic and evident self hatred, Shini walked into the cave with her usual meal that the Kunoichi was getting sick of.

"Hey, Sakura!" The girl greeted with an air of friendliness that didn't match the environment, "how do you feel? Oh my, is that blood? Did you try to hurt yourself?" Shini asked leaning in to exam the already closed wound on her chest.

"I tested the cuffs and caused some old wounds to reopen," the ninja lied.

"Oh, don't do that. I don't want you to bleed to death…Kabuto does, but I don't like him."

Finally…Shini gave her some information – and all it took was Itachi threatening to kill her, and partially attempting it.

"What don't you like about him?" Sakura asked smoothly, keeping it within the limits of their conversation.

"He's mean, and he plays with dead people. It's gross," the girl replied as she scooped up a spoonful of porridge and placed it near Sakura's mouth. She obediently opened and swallowed – allowing Shini to feed her without complaint.

"You don't like corpses?" Sakura asked, knowing it sounded like a dumb question but if she could get Shini to be truthful with her – for just a few questions, Sakura believed the girl might let something valuable slip.

"Not at all! I think it's wrong when he takes things from ninjas. That's stealing."

Takes things from ninjas…So I was right. He wouldn't hesitate to kill me to reveal my secrets and steal them from me.

"You don't like stealing?" Sakura asked, continuing with the seemingly harmless questions.

"Not at all. Well, I mean no. But yes," Shini's eyes shifted from side to side uncomfortably, "it's like…stealing something small and stealing something big but you don't know what it is. Something small to you could be something big to someone else," she half whispered the last part as she looked down at the chilling porridge in her hands.

"Did…you steal something….small?" Sakura asked hesitantly. It was the only follow up question she could think of, but she knew it was going to ruin the pace of their conversation.

Shini looked up at her with guilty eyes and quickly offered a big smile as she ignored the question, "open up!" she said placing another spoonful of the vitamin enriched food to the kunoichi's lips.

Sakura accepted it.

"So…" Shini tried to change the subject, apparently having enjoyed the communication, "What's your favorite season?"

"Winter, what about yours?"

"Winter? Why winter?" The girl asked, supposedly surprised by the pink haired medic's answer.

"Because winter doesn't pretend. There is nothing growing and blooming, or falling and dying. It just exists in its empty state."

"What? That doesn't make sense," Shini said scrunching up her nose.

"I like the cold," Sakura offered instead and the girl smiled with a nod of understanding, obviously preferring the second answer.

"Here," she continued to feed Sakura as they made small useless conversation again.

'Kunoichi,' a cold voice muttered inside her head and Sakura's eyes widened in surprise.

"You okay, Sakura?" Shini asked, pausing the feeding momentarily.

"Yeah, I just got…this massive headache all of a sudden," she replied bitterly.

'What?' she thought back to him, along with a string of subconscious insults and curses.

'Use your Mirai on her,' Itachi instructed.

'What? I can't.'

'Use it.'

'I am not some….pet of yours! And besides, I can't!' Sakura spat back at him.

'For all intensive purposes, you may deem yourself as my pet. Now use your Mirai on her.'

'What part of, I can't use it on anyone except me,' Sakura stressed the last word, 'do you not understand?'

'Do it.'

'Are you listening to me!' her inner self shouted vapidly at the Uchihla.

He didn't reply and Sakura gave a loud huff, as she wished the bastard could choke on his own existence.

"Are you okay? Your face looks weird," Shini commented leaning closer to Sakura's face than she would have liked.

"I'm fine…I was just thinking about something."

"Oh, what were you thinking about?"

"Someone I hate. A lot."

"Why do you hate him…or her?"

"He gets in my head and drives me insane," Sakura meant literally but knew that Shini would take it was a metaphor.

"That's no fun."

"No…it's not," Sakura agreed.

"You should ignore him, you know, not think about him. Or since you're a ninja, you could kill him."

"I'll probably do the later…"

'Hn,' it sounded smug to Sakura as she began to feel her stomach wound reopen slowly. She shot medical chakra into the wound to stop the pain.

'Fuck, stop….please….not everyone is into your masochistic crap,' Sakura pleaded in her head as she tried to repair the wound again.

"Are you sure you're okay? I can get Kabuto to take a look at you."

"No!" the kunoichi declined quickly, if Kabuto took a look at her he might notice all her seals, and peeking another psycho's curiosity was certainly not on her agenda.

"Yeah, I don't like him either," Shini said sighing, looking helplessly at Sakura who was starting to believe going from talking in her head to talking in person was worse than jumping from present to future.

'Do it.' Itachi's voice was bitter and impatient and was everything that was wrong with the world.

'I hate you…just putting that out there.'

"Shini, I'm fine," and as soon as the last word left her lips she activated her Mirai and looked a minute into the future, disconnecting herself from it. It was painful and her desire of self preservation kept her from trying. She had attempted it a little over a year ago, but it had left her weakened and useless for a long time. A state she didn't enjoy…but since that seemed to be her state for the foreseeable future – becoming more useless didn't look so bad anymore.

The dark haired girl had decided to leave and was saying goodbye to the prisoner. Sakura used as much of her chakra as possible to try to follow Shini as she walked out but felt something like a leash tugging her back. It was similar to the feeling of being skinned alive, but Sakura bore through it.

When she managed to look around, she saw her own body staring dully at the end of the cave. Sakura tried to push herself even further out of her body. The pain was indescribable, and she could feel an intense strain around her eyes as her metaphysical self finally traveled to the middle of the cave.

Sakura gritted her teeth as she pushed her Mirai further…further out of the cave as the future continued to play out.

She felt the severe migraine forming in her head as she used the last drop of her chakra to go as far as possible but all she was able to see before snapping back into the present was darkness draped with stars and a thin moon that seemed to be laughing at her.

She trembled violently and gasped for air trying to fill her lungs with as much as possible. She had no more chakra left and all of her wounds had reopened. Blood loss was going to knock her unconscious soon. Tears streamed down her face involuntarily because of the mental and physical exhaustion she had brought upon herself.

She was right…she couldn't see other's futures, not without nearly killing herself.

'You bastard, happy now?' but she was talking to herself…Itachi had left.

She was left feeling used.

.

…

.

Itachi felt the wound in his chest and stomach threaten to reopen again as he finally opened his eyes to look at Kisame who was leaning against the jagged sword, enjoying a nap.

"Kisame," Itachi awakened his partner.

"Yo," Kisame greeted, opening one eye.

"When do we have to report to leader?"

"You have to report in three days, I'm free till you're done."

"Hn," Itachi breathed out into the neck of his Akatsuki coat. He looked up into the sky, noting all the constellations and celestial positioning of the stars.

"I have a package that I need to pick up," he finally stated after orienting himself with the sky.

"Eh?" Kisame asked confused.

"There will be plenty of bloodshed that you can participate in," Itachi added as he stood up and activated his Sharingan.

"Where are we going?" Kisame asked standing up and stretching his arms over his head.

"One of the Taifuu headquarters. They have something of mine."

"But leader said…" Kisame began to falsely protest as he grabbed his sword. The blue skinned man was never going to deny fighting alongside Itachi's rare desires to engage in combat.

"Let's go," the Uchiha cut him off and Kisame smirked widely as they both jumped into the darkness of the forest.

.

…

.

Itachi and Kisame walked calmly up the mountain path wearing their Akatsuki cloaks and hats to hide their faces. Daybreak was two hours away when they finally entered the Taifuu occupied area.

"18 shinobis scouting the area, 6 camping out, 3 sleeping, 25 guarding a cave."

"The package in the cave?" Kisame asked with a cautious glance at Itachi. It wasn't every day that his partner agreed to needless bloodshed.

"Hn," he meant yes.

They both stopped at the edge of the turn, "You go catch the scouts – that should be fun," Itachi offered a half smirk.

"Aye," Kisame smiled widely back, "Save some for me when I get back."

"Hn."

They both disappeared. Itachi headed higher up the mountain at lightning speed and Kisame jumped off the cliff into the dense forest below.

The Sharingan wielder made the hand symbol for clone-jutsu and created two. One shot out west to attack the ninjas who were camping out while the other followed Itachi towards the cave concealed by patches of boulder sized rock.

"What the –"

The missing nin couldn't finish since the Itachi clone had already killed him and his comrades. A civilian eye would have only seen pieces of blurs and then watched a dozen bodies collapse to the ground.

The real Itachi let his clone take care of the others who were coming towards him as he stepped inside the dark hole of the cave. After a twist inside, he saw Sakura as she lifted her head, hearing someone's footsteps – obviously noting that Shini wasn't due for a meal visit for at least another six hours.

She gasped when her eyes beheld the dark cloud motif cloak, and when her eyes traveled towards the face of the man – her stomach sank. She must have murdered babies and put them in pies in a past life….because this was just too cruel.

"Itachi," her voice was weak and frail, "what are you doing?"

She should have been scared, but she wasn't, knowing that if she hurt, he hurt – brought some comfort to her. She pushed the fact that he was a psycho masochist who probably stabbed himself in the gut every time before bed to the back of her mind.

Sakura watched as he performed unsealing jutsu and she felt the chakra absorbing properties in her cuffs disappear. With his last finger movement, the handcuffs gave a loud echoing clank and her deadweight arms fell down to her sides.

"Get up," itachi's voice rang through every corner of the cave.

Sakura stared at him in disbelief, feeling vulnerable, pitiful and weak. If she hadn't used up all her chakra attempting to see beyond herself, she could have stood a chance against him for a few seconds – long enough to give him a well deserved hook in the face. His cold eyes didn't need color to see the death threats looming behind hers as she glared at him.

She tried to get up but she was unable to move her arms – they felt detached and so sore from almost a week of immobility, and her shoulder was still dislocated. She wasn't able to even use her hands as leverage and her legs trembled with every movement she attempted to make.

Finally after shuffling herself around, she got on her knees and fell backwards on the floor, her knees could not support her weight anymore. Itachi just stared at her while she failed, noting that every ounce of her chakra was drained and she was more useless than a civilian.

Even though she was obviously unable to hold her weight with her legs, she continued to try again. Itachi's gaze was cruel and challenging and she didn't want his condescending look on her anymore. Had her arms been willing to move she would have released the Ying Seal and high tailed it the hell out. But the god damn release required one god damn hand symbol and since she wasn't seconds away from dying so she couldn't release it subconsciously.

She forced her back up against the wall for support, groaning as a protruding rock dug into her shoulder, drawing blood. She was soon going to be in desperate need of a blood transfusion – that of course only depended if Itachi didn't stab anymore of her organs first.

She grounded her shaky legs onto the floor as she continued sliding up the wall till she stood – the rock slid from her shoulder down to her lower back as she continued to rise.

Itachi's eyes narrowed as he felt his back wet with his own blood. Then he watched her try to propel herself off the wall to stand without support but she fell down face first. He tightened his jaw as he stepped towards her, her breaking voice begged him to leave her alone, but he was never any good at following orders.

She could fell his strong thick arms warp around her weak body and pick her up.

"I w-w-wont hel-help you," Sakura stuttered as her head fell into the crevice of his neck, her eyes drenched with tears as she made empty threats, "I swe-wear, I'll ki-kill you."

"Shut up," he muttered adjusting to hold her bridal style. She felt the cold refreshing air hit her sweat and blood drenched body. She closed her eyes and continued to cry, being unable to imagine what the monster would do to her. Everything was terrible. She was so miserable and horrified at everything that had happened in the past two weeks. She had forgotten what it was like to be weak and she hated every second of it.

She didn't think of Shini, or what became of her as the smell of freshly drawn blood hit the kunoichi's senses. Nor did she think of Neji's life or Konoha. All she could think of was the simple fact that Itachi had her in his arms and she was helpless.

Utterly helpless.

Just how she was with Team Seven.

Unable to do a damn thing.

'Shut up,' his voice echoed in her head. He didn't care to hear her pity consuming thoughts.

'I hate you! I hate you! I hate you so much! I won't help you! I swear I won't! I –" but before she could finish Itachi had knocked her out – one simple pressure point and her mind went blank. Just like stupid Sasuke…

He no longer had to hear her stupid whispers in his own head – the damn hallway needed sound proofing.

"That was fun!" Kisame exclaimed with a smirk as he joined Itachi while walking down the blood soaked trail.

"Hn."

"That the package?" The sword wielder asked twisting his head to the side to get a better look at the woman.

"Yes."

"She smells god awful."

Itachi didn't protest, after all, Kisame was right – she smelled filthy.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed! Please leave a review :), thank you!