AN: Still OblateSpheroid, just different penname. Sorry for any confusion! Uh, so I don't even know how to apologize for the nice little two-month wait this took. Uh…it won't happen again, not without prior notice. To help this, I've created a livejournal where you can talk to me and I'll post up segments and ideas, so you won't have to wait as long! You can also give me critique on stuff before I post it here, which would be appreciated wince I'm happily un-betaed. See the link in my profile. I hope to see you there—friend me!

Itachi looked slightly less confident when Sasuke glared up at him with bloodshot eyes. Because they weren't just bloodshot. They were gleaming—

With the mangekyo sharingan.

"Your most precious person?" Itachi said, bemused. "The mangekyo only appears when you are responsible for the death of your best friend or someone else close to you. You believe yourself to be responsible for her death and you weren't nearly as apathetic to her as you would have liked."

"You son of a bitch," Sasuke hissed. "I'll fucking kill you!"

"Wait, wait. First we have to get rid of the body—otherwise Konoha might find a trace of me on her and find the Akatsuki base, and that wouldn't be good, now would it?" Itachi smirked cruelly as he started up a fireball—

Sasuke grabbed Sakura, no, not Sakura, the corpse that she had once inhabited—and leaped far away with it, laying it down behind him.

"You haven't gotten anywhere, even training under Orochimaru," Itachi snorted. "You think agreeing to be his vessel will gain you anything? He is weak, Sasuke. Don't you want to defeat me with your own power?"

"You need to be dead," Sasuke said, hair falling over his eyes. "You have to die, it doesn't matter how, you need to die—" he raised his head and used his mangekyou sharingan. He could see more clearly, but he had no idea what he could do with it besides Tsukuyomi—well, he'd have to use that then…

But Itachi was there first, right in front of him, drawing a kunai across his chin. "What ever shall I do with you now, Sasuke? If even the Mangekyou doesn't make you strong enough to kill me…maybe nothing will. Maybe you should just give up, spend your days in exile, rotting away, grieving over Sakura…and everybody else whose pain and death you caused."

Sasuke looked at the ground—

And frowned.

"That rock…it isn't the type that exists in the Poison Village. It only exists in Konoha and near volcanoes. I read up and this is igneous rock, which would be impossible to find here." He slowly looked up, and noticed a shimmer in the air near Itachi.

The answer hit him like a herd of elephants.

Genjutsu. It was a fucking genjutsu! "Kai!" he snarled and, sure enough, Sakura was still there standing next to him as they emerged into the clearing and Itachi was standing before them. Sasuke collapsed from the strain of the jutsu, from the relief of seeing Sakura alive, and from anger at not having seen through the ploy. He heaved and retched a little on the ground. Sakura looked confused.

"What…? Oh. You ate a Tsukuyomi. I see." She switched her gaze to Itachi, who looked smug but had blood trickling from one of his eyes. Sasuke tried his sharingan, but it was regular, not mangekyou. Sakura wasn't dead. Sakura wasn't dead.

God, he'd overreacted, hadn't he?

"Sakura," he said.

Sakura looked surprised at his addressing her.

"Itachi plans to kill you. Get out of here, don't make contact with him again."

"And how would you know that?" Sakura asked, not even cocking an eye at Itachi. That irrational trust…it irked him. "Where's the motive?"

"Itachi murdered my whole clan. He doesn't need motive. Get out of here!"

Sakura snorted. "You obviously don't give a shit about me, so you're telling me this to keep me out of the way, not because you're trying to protect me. So no. I am… disinclined to acquiesce to your request."

Sasuke opened his mouth to protest, but Itachi cut in: "So, Sasuke, how long have you been away from Orochimaru's drugs?"

"What drugs?" Sasuke asked.

Sakura answered for him. "The steroids and other medication Kabuto slips into your food and injects you with when he thinks you're unconscious. Surely you've noticed."

"They're just chakra-building pills."

"That they are, but you know what else they cause?" Sakura asked, crossing her arms skeptically. "Withdrawal symptoms. They're addicting—Orochimaru made sure that we'd be tied to him. After a time, I've figured out how to counteract them, but you must notice you're getting weaker if you've been gone for about a week."

"It's just a bit of dizziness," Sasuke said through gritted teeth. "I can handle it. Will you get out of the way now?"

"Just dizziness now, but Orochimaru didn't want his secrets going out. It will eventually kill you—should take about a week and a half, as long as you don't use the curse seal—unless Kabuto gives you his cool-down drug. Or unless I help you. Which I won't do if you start killing my Akatsuki partner, because I really don't want to be re-partnered with like…Kisame or whatever."

"Haruno," Itachi said somewhat sternly.

Sakura slowly turned her back to look at Sasuke's brother.

"Sasuke does not learn by talking. He will only realize he has no chance once I fight him. If you please, it would be much easier if you stepped aside."

Sakura looked at him for a while, then obliged, sinking behind an old, run-down building.

Sasuke yelled furiously, "Why do you listen to him and not me? What the hell does he have that I don't?"

Sakura stuck her head out and answered with a smirk, "Manners."

The next thing she knew, Sasuke had fired a fireball at Itachi and they were in the middle of intense taijutsu. Sakura kept an eye on the battle, noting who was doing what, until she felt a tap on her shoulder.

Slowly, she turned her head, wondering who could have snuck up on her like that.

"Hi there," Kakashi said with his crinkled-eye smile.

Sakura pulled a kunai. "Kakashi, what the hell? I gave you an easy way out!"

"I didn't take it," Kakashi said simply. "I'm done letting my students get away from me. If I prove to you I'm stronger than you, will you let me train you?"

"Itachi is stronger than you," Sakura hissed. "I don't need your training." She formed hand seals, concentrating chakra at her arms, intending to drive it through Kakashi's chest to knock him out.

Kakashi blocked and the next thing she knew he was nowhere in sight. Sakura looked around wildly, then scowled. Of course—he was below. She threw her fist down and cracked the earth with the combined chakra stored up in her nails and that she had to spare. Kakashi was actually thrown back. Sakura smirked—he thought he was out of the blast radius based on the way she used to punch, but she punched harder now. Her chakra control was finer.

Itachi and Sasuke seemed to be exchanging fireballs, and the air was getting smoky, giving Kakashi a chance to get away. At least his nose wouldn't work to sniff her out—unless he wanted lung cancer he wouldn't inhale too deeply.

Then he came out from under her feet and caught her chin with an uppercut. Sakura flew back into the building she'd been hiding behind.

"Lesson number one," Kakashi said calmly. "Taijutsu. You think your chakra-enhanced strength substitutes for the speed and technique that makes a true taijutsu expert? It doesn't." Just to prove it, he ended up next to her as she scrambled to get up and swept her feet out from under her. "You only have one move—a punch. If I get in a position such that you can't hit me, the only thing you have left is to punch something near me, which I can avoid."

Sakura growled at being chastised like that, and tried to get away only to notice Kakashi had her in a lock. Classic, first-academy-year lock, with her arm behind her back in a way such that if she moved her arm would be broken. Fuck.

"I was teaching you wrong the whole time," Kakashi continued. "I used physical force on Sasuke and Naruto, but I never did it for you because I didn't think you could handle it. I guess the fact that you went to Orochimaru, who I hear is very…physical… means that I shouldn't have treated you differently."

"Don't get yourself down; everybody in that village thought I was worthless," Sakura responded with a curled lip. "But even you noticed I have superior chakra control. And guess what I've learned to use it for?" she sent the chakra to the arm that was being held, and then braced herself, knowing this was going to hurt. She essentially burned her chakra coils and caused her arm to expel a blast of chakra, forcing Kakashi away so she could run. She cradled her arm, knowing that trick cost her a few punches. Good thing it was her left arm.

"That chakra control is characteristic only of Hyuuga. I wonder who could have taught you something like that," Kakashi nodded, discreetly rubbing his own arm which had been burnt by Sakura's chakra attack. "Have you learned shape manipulation yet? Your elemental affinity? I'm sure that rasengan at the base wasn't real."

"I've learned both from Itachi, but I don't intend to use it on the likes of you," Sakura shot back, then ran at him. Kakashi disappeared in a whirl of leaves—but Sakura saw right through it and leaped to the area where he actually was—the roof of the building.

"Let me guess," she sneered. "Lesson two: genjutsu? I think at this point I can teach you more than you me!"

"You certainly didn't have this arrogance when you were in Konoha. That, I assume you picked up from Orochimaru." Kakashi did look vaguely impressed, though.

"Arrogance comes with power!" countered Sakura, and proceeded to engage Kakashi in hand-to-hand combat, attempting to throw him off the roof in the middle of the ongoing battle between Sasuke and Itachi. At this point, it appeared that the brothers were engaged in genjutsu: Sasuke was pressed against the wall of another building—by the throat. Kakashi followed her gaze; Sakura used the distraction to send a bit of chakra into her palms and push Kakashi off the roof. If he landed the wrong way, he could break a few limbs, but Sakura jumped down and, in midair, gave him a kick that sent him flying straight into Itachi. Oops.

There was dead silence as Sasuke slid to the ground, choking, Itachi's jutsu obviously having broken from surprise, with Kakashi laying there in between the two brothers, and Sakura across the street.

"Hatake Kakashi," Itachi said quietly, as though he weren't bleeding profusely from one eye. Sakura finally made the connection: they both had the same ANBU tattoo. Kakashi and Itachi may have even worked together on a mission or two. Now they were set against each other.

"How do you do," Kakashi said casually, very much avoiding eye contact.

"What the fuck…?" groaned Sasuke from the ground.

They all turned to Sakura, who gave a little wave and awkwardly stuttered, "Uh. Sorry. About the no-interfering thing. Yeah."

More silence.

Sasuke broke the silence by chidori-ing Itachi through the back. Itachi, who was a clone, exploded. Sasuke was sent back into the wall.

Kakashi caught Sasuke before his back could break against the hard wood. Sakura jumped over to where Itachi's knees had the faintest tremble.

Itachi coughed blood.

"Your illness!" Sakura gasped. She'd been working on medications, but Itachi never allowed her an actual examination so it was difficult to diagnose exactly what the problem was—was it related to the sharingan?

"It is fine," Itachi rasped. He straightened, looked at Kakashi, who was supporting Sasuke. Sasuke seemed to realize this, and pushed Kakashi away.

"I don't need your help!" he snarled. "Damnit! Sakura, step aside already! He needs to be dead…he's my kill!"

Sakura let out a humorless laugh. "Your kill? Your kill? That's actually hilarious. As if you could hold a candle to Itachi. As if I would let you try."

Neji lightly felt his way down the steps of Tenten's flat. The Hyuuga clan was in the midst of civil war; in his current state he would do no good stopping the fighting. His plight had helped initiate the battle, nothing more. His part was done now.

He'd never bothered with Tenten in the beginning. Her 100 percent accuracy was interesting, but he'd always thought that he could easily outdo her if he tried. As they grew as a team, he'd taken solace in the fact that there was one other person on Team Gai who wasn't clinically insane.

When he'd been sitting in the hospital recovering from near-death and she'd kissed him, he'd started to think maybe there was something to her.

Were teams designed such that one male was meant to end up with a female? He thought not. They were supposed to be balanced out in ability—team dynamics were meant to be built up no matter what. After all, Naruto had been placed with Sasuke. The assembly of their team made sense, in the end: Gai, the only sensei who could truly believe in the similarly enthusiastic Lee; Tenten, a weapons' mistress who lacked skill in other areas, and Neji, who, strictly speaking, was the genius of his year and tied with Uchiha Sasuke's scores when he reached his age. Of course, now that there was another person on Team Gai, Takeshi, who was quite adept at genjutsu: the dynamics were different. Gai was much more professional and occasionally shut down completely at the loss of Lee, muttering about how he could never be replaced. Still, he did his best to be civil to Takeshi, and Neji and TenTen followed his example.

Having the precise chakra control of the Hyuuga and an increasingly large chakra reserve from frequent meditation, Neji was learning to see by expelling his chakra around him then having it bump back. It would be very obvious to any sensing-type ninja, but civilians didn't notice and it kept him from bumping into objects. Most ninja who lost their eyesight quit, especially if their eyes largely defined their fighting style. But Neji refused to quit. Why?

Naruto.

Naruto had shown him, a long time ago, that giving up gets one nowhere. Neji had met this with skepticism—giving up was better than getting killed, right? But Neji looked at the life he would live as a blind man, rotting away, slowly dying without ever meaning anything, and vehemently refused it. He would continue as a ninja until he no longer could. Blindness was not an excuse.

Okay, so it wasn't just Naruto. Maybe it was the idea of not leaving…his teammates. The memory of Lee and Gai. And, yes, TenTen. He couldn't let her get herself killed; it was always his job to cover her weak spots.

And yet here he was, living at her house, off her food, until the Hyuuga rebellion died down.

He would have to insist she spend some time living at the Hyuuga compound, just to make up for this time here. It was only fair, of course. If he got to see her a bit more often, nobody would be any the wiser.

"Sakura," Itachi said suddenly. "Have you collected all the herbs?"

"Yeah," Sakura said, rubbing the arm where she'd burned her coils. "They're in my pouch."

"It's time for us to leave."

Sakura almost looked like she was going to protest, looking at Sasuke and Kakashi, but she hung her head, the fight drained out. "Yeah. Logically, it is. Pain will be impatient."

Itachi glanced at Sasuke, looking down at him like he wasn't even worth his notice. "It looks like you really have been standing still this whole time, brother. Why don't you let Kakashi-san take care of you like the child you are?"

And then Kurasu swept down from the sky, swept up Sakura and Itachi, starting to fly away at a lazy pace.

"Like fuck!" yelled Sasuke, and in a split second he'd gone second-form and was using his wings to try to fly after Kurasu. It was pretty useless since his wings weren't that powerful, but he managed to channel the chidori in his hand into a sword and sent out a long beam toward Kurasu. Kurasu had to slow to avoid it, swerving so Sakura lost her balance. Itachi was forced to grab her wrist to pull her back on, but Sasuke saw the weakness there and aimed the chidori sword right into Itachi's exposed hand. If he didn't have a hand, he couldn't form seals, right?

It worked like a charm. Itachi's hand was severed, since he couldn't move it when it was clamped around Sakura's wrist. Consequentially, Sakura had nothing to hold on to—and she was falling from 150 feet.

Sasuke spared her a glance, but his bloodlust was too much. Itachi was handless. He couldn't use any jutsu unrelated to sharingan or hold on to the bird. Now was his chance!

He shot a katon at the bird, figuring that would be it. No way to avoid the attack without hand seals.

But a second later, Itachi wasn't dead. Instead his fire was being pushed back by a crazy black fire. Damnit! The fire was eating through fire itself! Sasuke tried to buy himself time, but the fire was rapidly approaching. He had time only for a few handseals before the fire engulfed him, but it was just in time.

High in the air, a log was incinerated into dust while Sasuke jumped through the trees underneath, keeping up with the bird, which had a bit of one wing singed off. Substitutions really were something. Itachi was looking around, but he was gripping an eye, clearly unable to focus.

Hahah, Sasuke thought. Recoil. Serves you right, bastard—

That was until his curse seal burned madly and he tripped, falling ungracefully and painfully to the forest floor. The sprained ankle was nothing compared to the agony shooting through his shoulder.

Damnit. Orochimaru's drugs were taking a toll. He couldn't think, couldn't breathe, just lie there curled up in a ball, cursing his weakness.

When Sakura was falling, Kakashi had noticed and jumped into action, repressing his shock at Sasuke's actions. Bracing himself, he jumped up and intercepted Sakura before she could hit the ground. She was covered in blood, he noticed, but it wasn't hers. She still held Itachi's severed hand.

Kakashi had seen worse things in his career as a ninja, but the idea would still probably be a bit squicky to most.

"Kakashi," she gasped. "I'm not dead."

"I noticed."

"Sasuke. That bastard."

"Yeah."

In a split second Sakura shook her head to clear her mind, and she knelt over the gruesome hand, blood from it spilling onto the ground. She placed her hands on it and seemed to be working on a jutsu, with no visible effects.

"At least it was a clean cut," she muttered. "It'll be alright if I can get the temperature down enough to preserve it, then reattach it."

"You're going to actually help Itachi?" Kakashi asked. "He's dangerous. It would be better to let it go. I know you're really on our side, deep down, so why not take out an enemy?"

"Kakashi, I don't want to hurt you or Konoha. That doesn't mean I'm on your side. If I honestly thought Itachi was pure evil, I wouldn't be doing this." With a bloodied hand, she pushed hair out of her face. "There's something about Itachi. The circumstances of the massacre. It doesn't make any sense. At any rate, I don't think he would take out Konoha. He could have done that already. And I don't think he would take out Sasuke. So I have nothing to lose, and I could gain favor so that I can get deeper into Akatsuki secrets."

Kakashi contemplated this. He commented, "You know, you're in a very vulnerable position like this."

Sakura's eyebrows shot up.

"Right now, I could definitely knock you out and haul you back to Konoha."

"But you won't," Sakura said confidently.

"Why?"

"Because I'm in Akatsuki and I'll try to keep them away from Naruto. They're collecting tailed beasts, Kakashi. I can play spy. I can't get you information, but I can, if it so pleases me, sabotage them from the inside while I gain power. Neither you nor Tsunade-sama can pass up an opportunity like that." Cradling the now stiff hand, she stood. "Tsunade will know how to fix your arm. All I did was burn the coils a bit so you'll have trouble molding chakra for a while."

Kakashi chuckled. "This is not how I thought things would turn out when I took the three of you under my wing."

A hint of a smile. "I don't think any of us could have foreseen this. But I guess it's not all that bad, is it?" She widened the smile and called back to Kakashi, "Thing will go back to how they were! Everything will be all right!" She turned to the sky, seeing Kurasu in a controlled spiral downwards in the distance, in the forests beyond the town. "Remember, don't eat the fruit here. It's not the poison village for nothing." She started away, then turned back one last time. "And sensei? Thanks." With that, she started running to the scene half a kilometer away.

Kakashi shook his head in wonder. One second she was punching him, spouting nonsense about getting stronger, then she was using his lines about going back to normal, and then she was thanking him? Couldn't Haruno Sakura just make up her mind?

OMAKE:

"Sasuke: What the hell does Itachi have that I don't? D8

Sakura: A bigger penis.

Sasuke:…wut."

Again, check out my livejournal! :D I'm not leaving this site though. I love it too much. Don't worry.

I really love reading your reviews. Please continue sending them! They make me feel warm and fuzzy inside, and more inclined to write fluff. Which has no place in this story. Yet.

SaccharineGray, signing out!