Sakura took a deep breath. She simply had to try harder. It was ridiculous they had hardly made any progress and she had already had to take a break. She would not be dead weight, not again, not anymore.
She would be the first to admit this was harder than anything she had ever tried to do. What's more, Itachi seemed to be at a loss as to how much power she really had or how to control each individual tome. He seemed to be making educated guesses. Itachi was a genius and she trusted him but know that made the task even more daunting to her, thus making her more nervous.
Focusing her chakra into a point after focusing on her Kamui she breathed deep and felt her vision flicker, that was it. More, she needed a little more. Flicker, spinning. She disappeared.
Where was she? It was a room but not a room with big blocks? Another deep breath, focus, her stomach gurgled, she thought of the hot pot in her room back at the tower, she was dizzy, her vision was spinning, her feet hit the floor with a thud. She felt the preassure of the air change around her.
"What?" She was in her room in the tower. Did she just. What happened? Wow.
Concentrate she told herself, concentrate, chakra flowed to a pinpoint, Itachi, now, dizzy, go , go, go, her feet touched the ground, she stumbled and fell. Itachi.
Sakura looked around, she was back where she had started from. This is insane! She smiled. She did it. She felt incredible.
"Amazing." Itachi's eyes were wide. She had never seen such an expression on his face before. It was glorious to see.
"Did I , just teleport? I was here, then in a colorless room, then my room in the tower, then here." Her head hurt. Lifting her hand to her temples she soothed the pressure with the chakra.
"You went to a dimension called Kamui, then you teleported to your room?" Itachi asked her.
She nodded but stopped abruptly as it made her head start to hurt again. She felt a little sick.
"Then you teleported here, you didn't go from your room to Kamui?" He asked her.
"No, I went from here to a strange place with blocks and mono colors, then my room in the tower to here." She confirmed her actions with him.
"The place with the blocks as you say," He smiled at her description of Kamui, "Is Kamui."
Itachi thought for a moment looking at her.
"When you were in Kamui , what were you thinking of, were you thinking of your room?" Itachi wondered if thinking of a place took you there next, it was unthinkable but she was exceptional already why limit the possibilities. He didn't have Kamui and the instruction he gave her was derived from his own curious research years ago while he was still at the academy.
"Yes, I was thinking of using the hot pot in my room because I was hungry, but then I wanted to get back to you and I, my vision started spinning and , here I am?" She said it like she couldn't believe it either.
Itachi smiled, a genuine wide smile.
"Sakura. You just made history. No Uchiha has ever been able to teleport in such a way using Kamui." he wondered how far she could go, how many times she could do it before she got too tired.
"Really? " She smiled.
"Yes, want to do it again?" he asked her
"Kamui?" She asked
"Yes, let's make history again. This time I want you to try to use kamui to teleport yourself to." he looked around." that mountain's base, he pointed to a mountain in the distance. It was rather far, but he didn't want to limit her either.
"Are you insane? I can't do that." Her jaw dropped open.
"You can't if you limit yourself. I think you can. Try." He smiled at her.
"Okay, here goes nothing." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, focusing her chakra to a pin point and thinking of the mountains base she gently starts pushing her chakra forward, deep breath, push, flicker, she opens her eyes, spinning, flicker. She stumbled forward and falls.
She looks around, she hasn't moved. Sakura frowns, what did she do wrong? Maybe focus on something at the base of the mountain, something specific.
She remembers a big rock that looks like a potato at the base of the mountain, she focuses her chakra to a point, rock potato , mountain, rock, focus, flicker, fading, slowly, spinning round, pain, round, she falls hard, loses her footing and rolls off of a huge rock that looks like a potato.
"Holy shit." She grins, ignoring the throbbing in her head behind her eyes.
"Okay okay, now to get back." She says to herself.
Focus, chakra, Itachi, fading, she starts to feel sick, no, focus sakura, Itachi , pain, focus on him, the field, his smile, his eyes, dizzy, so dizzy, spinning , she sways, she stumbles. Itachi catches her before she falls.
"I don't feel so great." She says and closes her eyes. She is so dizzy and the throbbing is worse.
"Yes, but you did it. You made history twice today Sakura. You're amazing. So amazing." He kissed her forehead.
"I just need a minute okay? Just a minute and I want to try it again." She assured him.
"Check your chakra levels and your reserves." He tells her
"They are a little low but not bad. I might be able to do it again with a shorter distance." She offers.
"Rest a moment, let's try something different. Obito could teleport objects or people with him to kamui. I want to see if you can do that as well. Here have some water." Itachi hands her a bottle of water and kisses her forehead again.
"This is amazing Sakura, I'm almost jealous." He smiles at her.
Sakura scoffs, "You jealous of me? That's funny Uchiha."
"You have abilities no other Uchiha has ever had in the written history of our clan Sakura. I think it must have a lot to do with your immense chakra reserves and control, you don't waste any chakra, so you have more, to do more." She is doing better than he had ever hoped and it is the first day. He had made the right choice to give Sakura Sasuke's eyes, he knew she would use them well.
"Okay let's try it. I will take both of us to Kamui and bring us back ?" She asks him and he nods.
She reaches out her hand and takes his, focuses her chakra , her vision spins, she pushes her chakra forward, it is harder this time, it doesn't want to move, she expands it, reaches out and pushes hard, sharp knife like pains explode in her head.
They fall hard onto a mono colored block in an odd room.
"Amazing!" Itachi says as he looks around.
"You keep saying that." she laughs looking around holding her head. "Kinda drab in here huh? Could use some decorations." As she says that a vase of flowers spins into existence by them.
"How did I do that?" She asks him
"Are you alright?" Itachi notices hoe she holds her head and is grimacing through her smiles.
"Just a bit of pressure." She smiled, "The price of the eyes yeah?"
"Yeah, uh." He motions to the vase.
"You brought it here with your will, I think, but from where...do you recognize the flowers?" he asked her.
"No, they just look like...wait. They are, oh my gosh Itachi...those were the flowers my dad bought my mom from Ino's flower shop last year! How is that possible?" Sakura is a little more than surprised.
"Are you absolutely sure they are the same flowers, they could just look alike, there are a lot of flowers?" Itachi is looking at her
"Yes. There should be a silver coin in the bottom of the vase, a vase I made her at the academy." She picks it up and looks, there is a small silver coin at the bottom. Her hands begin to perspire and she sets the vase down before she drops it.
"Last year?" Itachi wants to confirm before he follows through on his thought.
"Yes, last year, so, so I can take things from time? Itachi! I just remembered! My mom accused me of throwing them away! She came downstairs to find them gone one day and no one knew where they went…she thought I had broken the vase, knocked it over by accident then threw it away so I wouldn't get into trouble." Sakura sat down hard. She was trying hard to wrap her head around this new revelation and the possibilities it brought.
Itachi was looking at the flowers again.
"Amazing." He said. "I have never heard of anyone having this ability, and you can do both short and long kamui"
"Can we go back now, I think I need to take a break. My head is starting to hurt and my eyes, they...I don't know how to describe it, they feel pained but stressed." She asks him.
"Over used. Hn." he steps towards her , she takes his hand, and they flicker, spin and vanish.
Kakashi, Sai and Yamato stood outside of Sakura's cabin in their anbu uniforms.
"I could have made a better cabin if she had asked me to." Yamato says absentmindedly looking at the cabin.
"She was six years old when she made this with the second Hokage's jutsu and Earth Style jutsu that most adults haven't mastered yet." Kakashi told him
"It is a very nice cabin for a six year old hag." Sai says looking around.
"Uh, Sai, you really should stop calling Sakura a hag." Yamato says.
"It is her nickname I have called her Hag for many years now, it is what makes us such good friends." Sai insists.
"We need to look for any possible clues in the cabin or the surrounding area. This is the last place they were that I know of." Kakashi told them, ignoring Sai.
They spread out and searched, Yamato went outside to search the surrounding forest, Kakashi recombed the cabin, and sai sent his rats up and down the river's bank and his birds to the sky.
Kakashi stood in the middle of the small cabin, he was getting restless, they hadn't found anything, there hadn't been any leads, no one had any idea where Itachi, Sakura or any of the Akatsuki were.
Picking up a small white shirt from the floor in a corner he brought it to his nose. "Sakura." Where was she? He didn't want to lose anyone else. Sakura wasn't just his student she was..she was, his equal.
He respected her. From the beginning she had intrigued him. He knew she had been watching him, knew when he had been watching her. Her dedication was admirable, she was beautiful and dangerous and...he didn't know when it happened.
Maybe it was when he had watched her video feed in the Forest of Death. She was like an angel covered in blood, so fast, so accurate, so ruthless, and so young and off limits. She grew up though, and he worried. Power can be both good or bad and he was never quite sure which side she fell on.
"Sakura." He moaned brining her shirt to his face again taking a deep breath, what was wrong with him, why couldn't he track her.
He ran his hands through his hair in frustration and fell with his head against the rough boards of the cabin looking down at the ground in defeat.
That's when he felt it, her chakra signature. It hadn't been there a moment ago he was sure. He knew her chakra like he knew his own. That's when he smelled it, he could smell her.
Kakashi bent down in the corner of the cabin looking hard as Yamato and Sai came in. Her scent ended here?
"Do you feel that? That is Sakura's chakra isn't it?" They asked him.
"You felt it too then." Kakashi said , not taking his eyes off of the corner.
Kakashi lifted his headband and studied the ground. He stepped back and made several complicated hand signs and a pit appeared. Inside was a very ornate wooden box. Kakashi brought the box up out of the pit and put it on the table.
Yamato and Sai followed him.
"Is it Sakura's?" Yamato asked.
"I don't know but I can feel her chakra on it , like she tried to infuse the box with it and it smells like her." Kakashi licked his lips, he was a little nervous, he wasn't sure what he would find in the box, he almost didn't want to know.
"Be ready just in case." Kakashi told them and opened the box, stepping back quickly.
Nothing happened.
Kakashi stepped forward and looked in the box. His eyes widened, it was an old rusted Konoha headband with a red wrapper, "Sakura." Kakashi whispered.
To be sure, he held the headband to his nose and sniffed, yes it was hers. Blood. He turned the headband over. Written in blood on the back was a date. Todays month and day...but the year ...was ten years ago.
Yamato and Sai , who had been looking over Kakashi's shoulder looked at one another.
"What does this mean Kakashi' Yamato asked him
"It means the hag went back in time and tried to leave us this clue." Sai answered for Kakashi.
"That is ridiculous." Yamato scoffed at Sai who looked at him blankly.
"Sai has an uncanny ability to see truths through ruthless logic. I think that is exactly what this means." Kakashi said lifting the headband to his nose, inhaling again.
"How else would it be here, now, the very second it arrived, we all felt her chakra signature. I searched this place top to bottom the first time I was here, this wasn't here."
"But Kakashi, how, how is that possible." Yamato was still doubtful.
"She is clever, very clever Yamato. She has Sasuke's eyes if our hunch is correct. With her natural abilities...remember, we said her potential was limitless." Kakashi broke out into a huge grin.
"What if there are no limits to time and space for her? If there was such a thing, she would be able to find it." His heart lightened.
He didn't know where she was, didn't know if she was alive, but he knew she had sent this for him and she wasn't a traitor. She knew him, she knew what this would mean to him. For now, it was enough. He would work the rest out later. He took a storage scroll from his pouch and sealed her headband in it.
Madara drummed his fingers on his desk as he looked out the window of his suite at the top of his tower. Itachi was a puzzle to him and he didn't know quite how to deal with him. It was true, he Madara Uchiha, was stronger than Itachi but the strongest warrior doesn't always win the war. A weaker warrior can overcome a much stronger opponent with genius.
Itachi was a genius , and so was that woman of his, Sakura. She was innocent, and a little naive but he could see both strength and ruthless intelligence in her.
He smiled to himself. Yes, Itachi's "Wife" was a very interesting woman and he intended to get to know her better. His genjutsu was flawless, only Itachi had ever seen through it, seen Madara instead of Obito, or the childish persona he portrayed for his own amusement at times. Unfortunately for Itachi, he was a genius too.
Yes, Itachi was strong and clever but most of all , he was very humble. It is hard to control someone who doesn't have a vice and it had annoyed him to no end for a very long time.
Madara grinned a devilishly handsome grin, but now, he had a vice. His "wife", and Madara was going to enjoy exploiting that weakness to its full extent.
They were out training her new abilities right now. Discovering her new talents and practicing them. Itachi had put up a strong protection seal around their training area, apparently he didn't want him to see.
He knew the protection seals were for him, who else would they be for, no one else presented half a challenge to the present heir of the Uchiha clan.
His fingers stilled on his desk, he could see them walking back to their tower across from his own. The woman looked tired. Itachi was grinning? Interesting. Madara wondered what abilities she had possibly discovered or mastered on their training expedition. He had never seen Itachi so happy before, he was admittedly...jealous.
Perhaps he would pay her a visit later, disguised as Tobi? No, she was too smart, he had messed that up already. He hadn't meant to switch personalities in front of her so soon but he just couldn't resist her. Another piece to add to the growing puzzle that was this woman. This Sakura, a puzzle he wanted desperately to solve.