"Who the hell are Suigetsu and Juugo?"

"Sasuke's friends," Sakura answered. "They were his teammates when he… when he was out of the village."

Tsunade's eyes narrowed. "The ones who helped kidnap you?"

"Yes," Sakura said, eyes sparkling with determination. It had been to her deep embarrassment that Sasuke had caught her with Itachi. She had promised him weeks ago that she would ask Tsunade this favor. This was the least she could do now.

"Tell me why you could possibly care about these delinquents who deliberately tried to hurt you," she demanded.

"They didn't try to hurt me," Sakura said defensively. "And they aren't delinquents. They were Orochimaru's experiments. They didn't commit any crimes against Konoha."

Tsunade pursed her lips. "You're doing this because Sasuke asked you to."

"Yes," Sakura answered. "I owe him a favor."

"Well I don't."

"Please, Tsunade-shishou," she begged. "You can hold me personally responsible for anything that goes wrong."

"Why would something go wrong, Sakura?" Tsunade asked. "Do you think they're going to do something wrong if I let them live here? Why should I grant you this favor if you don't even trust them?"

"No, no!" Sakura said, "I do trust them! Well, I trust Sasuke. Please, they're not going to do anything wrong."

Underneath her desk, Tsunade tapped her toes impatiently. "They had better not," she said. "They have my permission to live here, but I expect you to help them assimilate. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Tsunade-shishou," she answered.

"Good. Now get out of my office," she said. "But tomorrow morning I want you to report here instead of the hospital. I have something I'm going to teach you now that you're a jonin."

"Yes, Tsunade-shishou," she repeated.

.

After leaving Tsunade's office, Sakura went home to shower. She had felt disgusting all day throughout her shift having not been able to take one that morning, and even though Itachi had been thoughtful enough to leave her a washcloth, she needed a real good scrub.

Because she had fucked Itachi.

They could have been doing that all along, she thought. She should have fucked him back in Toyeiki. Ino had been adamant that the first time was always awkward, but Sakura didn't feel like it had been awkward at all, even in spite of Sasuke's impromptu appearance.

Itachi had been so sweet and wide-eyed. Sakura was beginning to understand Itachi's personality, his moods. He had been nervous – that she could tell. She was nervous, too. But he had also been determined, which was never a quality he had mixed with physical intimacy before.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized how selfish she had been. She could admit that she had been mostly focused on her own pleasure. Itachi hadn't seemed to mind, but she would have to remember to do better next time.

She inwardly squealed at the thought of a next time.

She hopped out of the shower and quickly dressed herself in her red vest, black shorts, and pink apron. She eyed the green jonin vest she had tossed over the chair in the corner of her room. She had yet to wear it, having no occasion where it would be appropriate. She hadn't revealed to anyone yet that she had become a jonin and she wondered what the best way to do it was.

Sasuke and Naruto still needed to take the chuunin exams. Maybe it was best to keep her new promotion to herself until they started to catch up.

"Hey, forehead, you here?" she heard Ino call from the living room.

Sakura poked her head out from her bedroom. "I'm just about to head out to a run a quick errand," she replied. "But it'll only take an hour at most. Do you want to grab dinner when I get back?"

"Sure," Ino said, plopping herself down on Sakura's couch. "I need some best friend time."

.

Sasuke hadn't been at Naruto's apartment. Neither had Naruto, for that matter. So Sakura found herself banging on the door of the main house in the Uchiha compound.

Itachi swung the door open, looking a little irritated. But she beamed at him anyway because had he always looked so good? Ino had also claimed that sex really changed things in a relationship and Sakura hadn't believed her at first. It wasn't that big a deal, was it? But Itachi did look different to her now. He looked… well, she just wanted to kiss him.

"Hi," she said, feeling herself grinning goofily but completely unable to help it.

"Hi," he answered, a grin spreading across his face, too, the irritation melting away. Good, she thought. It hadn't been because of her.

"Is Sasuke around?" she asked.

She immediately regretted asking as she watched the grin slide right off his face, replaced with confusion and then irritation again.

"I just have something I need to tell him real quick," she amended.

Itachi pulled the door open wider, propping it open with his foot. "He's in the kitchen."

With more caution than was probably necessary, Sakura sidled past him and into the entryway. It might have been wiser for her to move straight into the kitchen, because whatever was happening between her and Itachi was still weird and new and she didn't really know what she was doing.

But she did know that she didn't want to barge into his house uninvited, asking for his brother and completely ignoring him. So she turned back around and curled her fingers loosely into the fabric near the collar of his shirt and stood on her tiptoes to give him a mostly chaste kiss on the mouth.

She felt his ire melt a little, maybe not completely but she couldn't be sure. He kissed her back, holding her elbow loosely and stroking the skin there with his thumb.

"I missed you," she said when they broke apart. After having not seen him for several weeks, saying that to him after not even twelve hours apart probably seemed kind of clingy, but he smiled – well, smirked really.

"Did you?" he asked in a very un-Itachi like fashion – almost coyly, flirtatiously.

"Of course," she replied. "I'm sorry I left in such a hurry this morning. I wish I could have stayed for breakfast."

She couldn't tell if it was because of what she had said, but his mood seemed to darken again.

"Anyway," she said, drawing her eyes away from him. "Let me just go talk to Sasuke real quick."

Itachi pressed his lips into a thin line, but nodded to her.

She found Sasuke at the kitchen table, fiddling with a tomato. He picked at its stem in an angry fashion, his face just as dark and irritated as Itachi's had been.

"Sasuke, you've got a storm cloud over your head," Sakura said with way too much pep. "But I have some good news for you."

"I'm not in the mood, Sakura."

"Well, get in the mood because I just did you a huge favor," she said. He spared a glance up at her, which was more like a glare. "I asked Tsunade about Suigetsu and Juugo. She said they're welcome here. I've even been tasked with helping them assimilate."

"What?"

"It was actually pretty difficult to convince her to let them in," she went on. "You should be thanking me right now."

"Thank you?" Sasuke asked, seething. At that moment, Sakura picked up on the bubbling rage in his face that had nearly reached a boiling point. "What the fuck have you done?"

"Umm," she started in an unhealthily sarcastic tone. "I did exactly what you asked me to do. Remember?"

"That was weeks ago, Sakura," he said, nearly yelling. "Do you want to know why Naruto and I were fighting? It was because he thinks I spend too much time with them. And now you've invited them to live here!"

"You asked me to!"

"This is just great," Sasuke said. "Naruto is fucking mad at me and now I have to deal with their stupid asses on top of it."

Sakura crossed her arms with an exaggerated huff. "This isn't my fault, you know."

"Well, if you hadn't dragged your feet on the issue we wouldn't be having this problem right now," he said pointedly.

"Yeah, we would have had it weeks ago instead," she said, also nearly yelling now. "Because that would be so much better, right?"

"Come on, Sakura," Sasuke said. "I asked you to do one fucking thing for me and you screwed it up. When do I ever ask you to do things?"

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" Sakura demanded. She didn't even know it was possible to feel such blinding rage. How could he be angry with her for doing exactly what he asked her to do?

"Can you just go?" Sasuke said with an exasperated sigh. "You're really pissing me off right now."

As much as she wanted to stay, just to piss him off even more, she felt angry tears prickling at the back of her eyes and she didn't want him to see her cry. So she fled. She threw the door open and made it nearly off the porch before she felt fingers wrap themselves around her upper arm.

"Sakura, wait."

She didn't want to turn to face him. She was crying, probably puffy and her nose was running. And God, he'd already seen her cry plenty. They didn't need to make a habit of this.

"Sakura."

She turned to face him. He didn't recoil at the sight of her, so she took that as a good sign. But then again, Itachi was nothing if not gracious and tactful. He could be inwardly disgusted by her.

"I heard everything," he said. "Are you okay?"

"Shouldn't you be asking Sasuke that?"

He gave her a pointed look. "He was a real asshole to you."

She looked away from him, not able to come up with a meaningful response to that.

"Do you want me to put some old fish in his pillowcase?" Itachi asked with a childish grin. "Or I could fill his shoes with toothpaste."

She cracked a smile.

"I could just stop buying tomatoes," he continued. "Or I won't cook for him anymore."

"Or, you could keep cooking for him, but add special ingredients to his food," she suggested with a grin. "Like maybe a laxative."

He smiled at her recommendation and pulled her into a hug. "How about we go get some dinner?" he asked. "We can go to that teahouse. Or one of those restaurants we passed in the civilian district."

She rested her cheek against his chest, breathing in his scent. "Mm, that sounds good," she said. But then she remembered Ino waiting for her at home. "But I can't. I've got plans with Ino."

She couldn't see his face, but she could feel his body sag with disappointment. The second meal she had declined from him in one day.

"Let's get dinner tomorrow," she offered.

"Okay," he said. It was difficult to tell from the neutrality of his tone, but he sounded appeased.

"My treat."

"Okay, but I'm going to pick a really expensive restaurant."

"Go ahead," she said with a grin. "Get the most expensive thing on the menu. But I will expect you to put out."

He laughed.

.

"My baby's all grown up and having sex," Ino gushed.

They had chosen Ichiraku in a fit of spontaneous originality and now sat perched on the wooden stools with bowls of ramen half eaten in front of them. Sakura rolled her eyes as she took another bite, shaking her head.

"So give me all the details," Ino demanded. "I want to know everything."

Sakura ordinarily did not trust Ino with gossip like this. Sakura wasn't one for gossiping anyway. She occasionally enjoyed a nice blather about Konoha drama, but she usually could make better use of her time.

However, she was dying to talk to someone about her romp in the hay and Ino was very knowledgeable about these things.

"For starters," Sakura began, "He has a huge dick. Like, enormous. Kind of painful, actually."

"Oh, shit," Ino said. "Who would have thought?"

Sakura murmured her agreement, having had very similar thoughts when said appendage had first been revealed to her.

"So did he pin you down to the bed? Push you up against the wall? How did it all start?" she asked.

"No," Sakura said, a blush rising in her cheeks. She didn't know what Ino would think about the fact that she'd masturbated for him and she didn't really want to tell her. "After the clan ceremony we went up to Tobirama's head. He wanted to talk to me about something."

"Oh yeah? Talk?" Ino asked in a way that made it clear she did not believe that was what he wanted at all.

"We did have something important to talk about," Sakura said defensively. "About the clan ceremony."

Ino inched closer to her, waiting for her to continue.

"It was so romantic up there," Sakura said with a dreamy sigh. "It was like sitting in outer space. And then we just started kissing."

"You had sex on Tobirama's head?"

"No, we went back to his place."

"Come on, Sakura, you have to give me more than that," Ino said, wiggling her eyebrows.

"Well, Sasuke interrupted us at one point," Sakura said. "We were in the kitchen, already half naked when he walked in. He seemed really upset."

"That must have been weird for him."

"I suppose," Sakura said. "But he was a real dick to me today so I don't really care."

"What did he do?"

Sakura twisted her lips up before taking another bite of ramen. She probably shouldn't tell Ino Sasuke's business. It was one thing to talk about her sex life, but it was completely uncalled for to go spilling Sasuke's personal secrets to Konoha's biggest gossip.

"I shouldn't say," Sakura said. "But we're mad at him now, just so you know."

"Okay, you know I've got your back," Ino replied.

.

The next morning Sakura reported straight to Tsunade's office instead of taking her usual route to the hospital. It had been a while since she had learned a new technique from her shishou and she couldn't help but feel excited.

At a certain point Sakura realized that she would never have the power that Sasuke and Naruto did. She would always be behind them just by the very nature of her birth. She wasn't an Uchiha prodigy with a coveted kekkei genkai. She wasn't harboring a fox demon that gave her immeasurable chakra.

She could work as hard as possible and still never catch up with them.

But they were both genin while she had been promoted to jonin. She was the most skilled medical ninja in the village. The village needed her; she was important. It was hard to feel too down on herself about it when, for once, everything seemed to be going rather well with her career.

"Ah, Sakura," Tsunade said. "You're here."

"Good morning, Tsunade-shishou."

"Tsunade waved her hand, beckoning Sakura closer. "Come here," she said. "Are you ready to learn this new jutsu?"

Sakura nodded enthusiastically. "What kind of jutsu is it? Medical?"

Tsunade shook her head. "It's a fuinjutsu."

"Fuinjutsu…?"

"Yes," Tsunade replied. "Take a look at the rhombus on my forehead. You're going to learn how to create one for yourself."

Sakura paused because she hadn't been expecting that. She had been expecting some sort of revolutionary medical technique, or maybe an offensive jutsu of some kind. A fuinjutsu certainly wouldn't be her specialty, but she supposed with her level of chakra control that it wouldn't be too difficult.

"It's a yin seal," Tsunade explained.

Sakura knew what it was. She had been curious when she first met Tsunade, a stranger who was replacing the beloved Sandaime, about the glowing diamond on her forehead.

She had known that it was a seal of some kind. She had learned after a little bit of probing research that it was a seal that stored chakra.

"It requires a precise control of chakra," Tsunade said. "Shizune was unable to maintain hers as she doesn't possess perfect chakra control. But you do."

Sakura gave a nod of understanding.

"Essentially, it will give you the ability to fall back on a massive reserve of chakra if you end up in a dire situation," Tsunade said. "And I want to stress to you that you should absolutely not use the seal unless you absolutely have to."

"I understand, Tsunade-shishou."

"You'll need to be storing, adding a little bit of chakra to the seal everyday for several years before it will be sufficient enough to use," she further explained. "And eventually I will teach you how to use my mitotic regeneration technique."

Sakura felt it would have been rude to express her disappointment. She felt guilty for even just feeling it. This was an impressive technique to be learning – one that Shizune hadn't been able to use. Tsunade believed she could do it, so she should feel proud of herself.

But instead she felt a little bit let down. She wouldn't even be able to use the technique for several years. And now she was going to have a damn rhombus on her forehead. As if its magnitude wasn't already enough.

Nonetheless, Sakura listened diligently to everything Tsunade had to say regarding the seal. She was attentive, every bit the studious girl who had excelled at the academy when she was younger.

Tsunade showed her precisely how to direct chakra to the location on her forehead, how to keep it stored there, and how to increase its capacity over time. In spite of finding the technique itself to be a little dull, Sakura found the process fascinating to some degree. Over time, Tsunade had said that her natural chakra reserves might shrink. Though Sakura said nothing about it, she thought she could find a way to prevent that from happening.

So by late morning, Sakura was ready to head down to the hospital for her shift and spend a good bit of time thinking of how to prevent chakra reserve shrinkage.

But just as she was leaving, Tsunade stopped her with a firm clearing of her throat.

"Sakura, wait," she said. "There is one other thing I wanted to talk to you about."

Judging by the tone of her voice, Sakura considered that it wasn't something good. She turned back around to face her mentor with a smile.

"You and Itachi…" she began.

Sakura wanted to look away from her – she felt her cheeks heating up. But she had nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed about so she held Tsunade's gaze determinedly.

"It was none of my business, so I never asked," Tsunade said. "But things have changed now. I know there is something going on between you two."

"Yes," Sakura agreed. "There is."

"Is it serious?"

Was it? She was fairly certain that Itachi would say yes. Frankly, she would probably say yes, too. But if she told Tsunade that their relationship was serious, would she start to pressure her into marriage?

"I strongly suggest that you take a good hard look at what you're doing, Sakura," Tsunade said with a sternness Sakura hadn't heard since she had first asked Tsunade to be her mentor. "Marriage to Itachi will drastically change the direction of your life. You just became a jonin. Are you going to quit taking missions so you can have his children?"

She had a point, but the patronizing tone she spoke with made Sakura tremble with repressed rage. It wasn't like Sakura hadn't thought of that before.

"Before the clan meeting," Sakura began, "We had discussed whether or not I would be a suitable Uchiha matriarch."

"So it is serious."

"We agreed that we would take things slow and worry about that stuff later," Sakura continued.

"You don't have that luxury anymore."

"He would marry me right now if I suggested it," Sakura snapped. She didn't know if that were true or not, but it seemed like the kind of thing Itachi would do. "But it isn't wrong for us to want to take things slow."

"It isn't," Tsunade agreed, narrowing her eyes. "But Itachi has a duty to his clan and to the village."

"Well, now he has a duty to me, too."

"Does he?"

"I want to take things slow, and Itachi respects that," Sakura said, jutting her chin out boldly. She wouldn't let herself be pushed around, not even by Tsunade. She would get married on her own time – when she and Itachi decided it was best.

"I gave him one year, Sakura. You know that."

"I know."

"If you decided not to marry him at the end of the year, he'll have to marry a stranger," Tsunade pointed out.

"Why would he have to marry a stranger?" Sakura demanded. "Would you really make him do that? After everything he's done for Konoha?"

"The council will make him, Sakura," Tsunade said with an exasperated sigh. "That's why I designed the council. This isn't just my decision. They want Itachi married. They want Uchiha children. We're lucky they forgave him for his crimes at all. If a marriage, a family is what's required to make things right then he should be happy to do it."

"His crimes?" Sakura said, her voice shrill. She was dangerously close to losing her temper – something she'd never done with Tsunade before. "He was protecting us!"

"He was protecting Sasuke and you know it," she retorted. "Do you think he would have done what he did if Sasuke's death was inevitable? Yes, he prevented the coup. He saved a lot of lives. But he did so with selfish interests. If Itachi hadn't done it then Danzo would have and he would not have spared Sasuke."

"Why does that matter?"

"The council, the rest of the village – they're right to be afraid of him," Tsunade said. "I trust Itachi, I do, but I can see why they would be wary of a man who is capable of murdering the people he loves in cold blood."

Sakura didn't respond immediately, because one, she could hear the blood rushing in her ears and the tenseness in her body told her that she needed to calm down. And two, she didn't know how to respond to that. Itachi had said the very same thing to her – that he was capable of vilifying actions and he was dangerous.

But the Itachi she knew would never hurt her. He hadn't hurt her. He was sweet and kind and cared for her in a way that no one else in the village did.

"If the council is so worried about what he might do, then why do they want him to start a family so badly?" Sakura asked, pleasantly surprised by the calm quality in her voice.

"As afraid as they are of him, everyone knows that this is a shinobi village," Tsunade answered, matching Sakura's calmness with her own. "Things are always more complicated than they appear. Itachi committed crimes, but so have the rest of us. His were just against his own family. A family that could make us a stronger village. The Sharingan is an invaluable tool to have at our disposal."

Even though it seemed pretty fucked up from Sakura's perspective, to force two people into marriage so they could breed warrior children who would fight for their village, Sakura kind of understood.

"Would you be happy?" Tsunade asked. Sakura looked up at her, dragging her eyes away from the floor by her feet. "Would you be happy being his wife? Being the Uchiha matriarch?"

Sakura shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know."

"Sakura, if you were anyone else I would force you to break up with him," Tsunade said with an almost wistful sigh.

"Why?"

"I know you care about him. I know he's important to you so I won't make you do that," she said. "But if you don't plan on marrying him at all… If you wouldn't be happy to be his wife then you need to break it off. It will only hurt worse if you let the relationship fester."

"Why do you think I wouldn't want to marry him?" Sakura asked, puzzled. "Itachi said the same thing."

"He did?"

"Yeah, after the ceremony he gave me an out," Sakura answered, her emotions deflating a little. "He told me he didn't expect me to marry him – that he understood if I wouldn't."

"What did you tell him?"

"I want to take things slow, but I'm not opposed to marrying him."

Tsunade took a deep breath in a held it for a moment before releasing it slowly. She steepled her hands in front of her face and fixed Sakura with a determined gaze. "Listen, Sakura," she said. "You've got a year. You just became a jonin. Think about what it is you want to do. You can join ANBU. You could start developing your own medical jutsus. But once you're married, you'll have an entirely different set of responsibilities. You'll have to give up a lot. You're already spreading yourself so thin."

Sakura nodded, letting Tsunade's words sink in.

"Make smart decisions, Sakura," Tsunade said. "I'll be here to give you advice if you need it."

"Thank you, Tsunade-shishou."