Chapter 9 - THE MISSION
"hn…"mumbled sakura as she shot her head up to stare in the direction towards konoha.
'What is that…." she thought. She had been at the one of the many training grounds of the ninja academy. She had come up with a new teaching technique for one of her fellow team members, and being the good seinsei , she was perfecting it to make sure there were no flaws.
But when a sudden tugging on her heart pulled her to stare at the pathway back to her village, she became worried.
"what's wrong sakura-chan?" asked a very concerned sai. He had come to help her with the layout of the place, and also to lend his special "scouting" techniques, to get a wider range of the area.
"I don't know, I just feel like.." she stopped in mid sentence to whip her head back toward konoha as another tug pulled on her.
She started power walking in the direction towards the pull ," something's wrong sai."
Its wasn't till she went into a dead run that sai began to follow, catching up shortly after.
The pull became more forceful as she got closer to the wall," we have to hurry," she called back.
After jumping over the wall they began to make it to the center of the city. "wait," she said as she stopped and slowly turned to the left.
"its coming from this way," she said as she began to walk faster and faster towards the "pull".
They walked for a good ten minutes before the pulling finally seized in front of the most unlikely place.
Her home, well her new home. She had only moved in after some serious begging from her husband. They had only been married for four months and she had made it very clear that she DID NOT want to move into his estates mansion. Only because of the history, it was too haunting for her and she knew it would stir something awake in him that she was too afraid to see. But he had talked her into it, she didn't know how he had done it. But she found herself almost two weeks ago, unpacking all her things into the house and cleaning like crazy, trying to scrub away anything that might cause memories to awaken in his mind.
'okay sakura, back to the problem at hand,' she thought to herself to pull herself back to the present.
"well this is the last place I want a nasty feeling pulling me towards," she stated.
"the uchiha estate," said sai as he stepped up beside her.
She began to walk towards the double doors only to be halted by a moan of agony,' sasuke…'
She slammed open the door to the house and walked straight into the living room, trying to find the owner of the moan.
"sasuke-kun.." she yelled. The moan came again.
"I think it came from upstairs," sai said as he followed sakura to the stairs taking two at a time to the second floor.
She started opening every door on the left and sai took the right side of the hallway. They had reached every single door and met at the last door in the hallway. Her and sasuke's bedroom.
She looked at sai ," on the count of three," he nodded in response.
"one," she began. "two," she said a little bit more softly.
She then mouthed ,"three."
They both kicked in the bed room doors, she did the left he kicked in the right.
It was when her eyes adjusted to the sunlight radiating from the huge bay windows on the opposite wall that she saw a sight that she feared more then anything in the world.
Sasuke was laying on his side, his back to her and he was in the fetal position. He was badly beaten and she could tell he was losing a lot of blood by the large puddles on the floor beneath him.
She tried her hardest to keep the cry from coming out, she didn't want to seem weak because the violent abuser was still in the room. Sure he may not have been in sight, but she could sense him in the room.
She did sigh when she heard sasuke moan once more though, ' oh thank god, we came just in time.'
She took a couple steps forward and looked around the room as she made her way to her husband, sai was behind her watching her back with his kunai in hand.
She stepped around sasukes head trying not to step in his blood. She kneeled down towards him and placed her hand on his right shoulder.
"sasuke-kun.." she mumbled as she forced him on his back to look at his wounds.
He eased over onto his back and barely opened his eyes into little slits just enough to see his wife's face. Sakura almost burst into tears as she thought, 'he's so weak, he's wounds most be more severe then I thought.'
"sakura-chan.."he mumbled as best as he could before reaching up and touching a lock of her hair. His hand suddenly dropped and he closed his eyes, letting his head slip to the side as if he fell asleep.
"sasuke.." she choked. Her hands began to glow green as she searched for a heartbeat.
"no…no…"she began to whimper while she searched. She couldn't find a heartbeat at all.
"tsk..tsk…tsk.." said a strange voice from nowhere." its sad isn't it, poor uchiha couldn't stand to see his beloved killed so he begged for his life to be taken instead."
Sakura began to cry with such force that she collapsed on top of her husbands lifeless body, wrapping her arms around him in a hug. She noticed that she was crying on sasuke's face when she touched her forehead to his, she couldn't help it. She had lost her reason for living, her reason for well…..everything. And it was all because he wanted to protect her, once again she was weak.
"damn you," she yelled as she hit sasuke's chest," damn you I can take care of myself."
"awe, how sweet." said the voice," so now your upset because he wanted to protect you instead of letting you be killed off like the rest of his useless clan."
Sakura was beginning to get angry, she sat back on her ankles to look at sasuke's face, she whispered, "this is for you."
Sakura rose from sitting position, turned once she was back on her feet to face the bay windows out into konoha.
"sai," she stated demanding the mans attention, " leave the room and make sure that you go to the hospital and tell tsunade to be here as soon as possible."
Sai was dumbfounded ," but sakura, im not leaving you to die."
"tell tsunade to please be here as soon as possible," she stated once again, " only she can save him."
There was a moment of silence when sakura began to get more and more angry ,' why isn't he leaving.'
"go, NOW," she said once again as she sharply turned around to face the pale former anbu black ops member.
He quickly left the room, he had learned early on when joining team 7 that once sakura reached a certain point of anger, you don't mess with her.
When the double doors closed once again she looked around the room in search of the killer.
"I see," she said calmly, "you can make sick comments about what you've done but when it comes to facing the consequences you hide like a coward."
"I have no reason to hide little ninja, I only like to play games with my prey," the voice stated.
She walked around in a circle trying to pinpoint the location of the voice," then come out."
Since the sun was going down she was not be able to see the whole left side of the room, it was all shadow. It wasn't very long after she had noticed this that she heard shuffling from the bed.
'the sick bastard, he was laying in OUR bed,' she scoffed.
She waited as she watched the shadow come towards her from the shadows.
She gasped as she saw the figure step into the light, she would have never imagined, "….YOU."
The image only smiled and chuckled ," are you really that surprised, sakura-chan."
The girl shot upright from her bed in a cold sweat. She was breathing so hard and she had tears coming form her eyes.
"oh my gosh, oh my go…" she was trying to breathe as she laid her left hand over her chest, but the air wasn't reaching her lungs in time.
'okay, breathe…slowly sakura….breathe…in and out,' she said over and over in her head.
Once her body had finally calmed down, she started to rub her temples as a massive headache began.
She got out of bed and went across the hall to her bathroom to retrieve the aspirin.
She washed her face to help cool her down, and to calm her nerves that were still in freak out mode.
She left the water running in the sink as she reached in the cupboard to take out the aspirin.
While she reached down to the sink and cupped some water in one hand as she downed the aspirin.
'what is wrong with me,' she thought as she stared back at herself in the mirror over her sink.
She had been having the same nightmare for the past three days, ever since she left the uzumaki house. She didn't know why she was having such a nightmare, or what it meant. She just wanted it to go away, it was clouding her mind of thoughts and memories of the person she despised the most and she wanted him out.
She took one more look at herself and cut off the sink before making her way back to her bed. As she laid down and got comfortable, kicking the blankets off because it was still hot, she thought , 'the only good thing that happened was that he was dead. I'm just sorry that I didn't get to be the one that ended his 'revenge'……"
And with that she fell into a peaceful sleep, not once dreaming of the uchiha again the rest of the night.
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He had been walking around for awhile, just thinking about his next choice of action.
He now had his team and he had his techniques down to a key, he wasn't nervous at all.
'I'm ready,' he thought.
He had circled the pond almost three times when he finally branched off towards the forest in search of his team. He had left them back in the city to rest up and eat before they went in search for itachi.
He had been walking for about ten minutes when he came into a clearing.
' well damn,' he thought as he began to smirk.
The clearing was a beautiful open meadow, full of various trees and flowers. But the only thing he noticed were the massive amounts of cherry blossom trees.
He walked up to the closest one and reached out and lowered one of its many branches.
He plucked a flower off and brought it to his face to smell the scent. It didn't really have a strong smell, but that didn't matter. He could only smell her when he brought the fragile flower to his face.
"soon," he said as he walked through the trees and back the village to gather his team, flower in hand.
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"everything is as planned," said a very demanding voice, "he has agreed to meet you."
"the destination?" asked a very calm green eyed shin obi.
Tsunade looked back at her former apprentice for a minute before taking out a map and unrolling it onto her desk, Sakura walked over to overlook the map. "he will meet you here but I suggest you still approach with caution," said the hokage.
"of course," replied sakura as she tucked the map into her backpack and placed it back on her right shoulder.
"no one else is allowed to know about this mission. If anyone asks," said the hokage.
'meaning naruto,' inner sakura thought with a smirk.
"you are just taking some information to the fire temple for me," tsunade continued the order.
Sakura replied with a head nod.
"this is a one shot mission sakura. He wants his story told and im the only one willing to hear it," stated tsunade as she turned her chair towards the windows overlooking her village. She stood up keeping her eyes on konoha as she said, " I know the truth about what really happened. No one else knows the real story. I want his side, the complete detail of his orders."
" the real story?" sakura wandered.
" not everything is as it seems sakura," stated the hokage as she turned to face the ninja," and you also will learn the truth from this. I don't know how you are going to take it."
Sakura lowered her head in confusion, " will he be alone?"
" yes," the blonde replied, " but use caution. With itachi, you never know what he is really thinking."
Sakura raised her head, nodded to her hokage and turned to leave the room.
"sakura…"a voice came behind her, making her stop half way out the door.
She turned to tsunade in response to her name. "be safe," stated the hokage with worry in her eyes.
Sakura smiled, bowed the top part of her body slightly and said ," yes sir."
And with that she left the room, she knew where she was going, still scared stiff at the thought of who she was meeting.' I can do this,' she thought, ' I have to do this.'
With fear and anger in her eyes, she left konoha to the lost sand dunes of death circle valley to meet with the most deadliest person she had ever heard of.
The eldest Uchiha….the murderer…..Itachi.