Itachi and Sakura had worked on her Kotoamatsukami for a few hours. She found that it was far easier than the Kamui which greatly surprised Itachi but was a blessing because that meant she could use it much more frequently. In fact, she had made Itachi sing her favorite song three times in a row, only having to wait ten minutes in between for it to reset.
They practiced her Kamui four or five times, the distance increasing each time she practiced and each time she was able to take and call forth larger and larger objects as well as quantities.
Before Itachi decided they should take a rest for the day he asked her to try to bring forth another tome but she couldn't. She was unable to find any other than the ones she had practiced with.
Itachi thought it may have something to do with choosing the tomes and then releasing the others as cast-off energy but he wasn't sure.
If this was the case, he was very glad she had chosen Shisui's Mangekyou. Not only was it useful but it kept Shisui alive for Itachi, like his best friend was still with him, helping him with another one of their plans.
"You look like you are managing your chakra better today and are not as fatigued," Itachi told her.
"I feel better, there isn't as much pressure behind my eyes and I don't have that stressed drained feeling." She smiled at him.
"A few more days and Leader Sama will test your skills. Tomorrow we will go over each one individually, including the Amateretsu and focus on the one that takes the most chakra and effort." He said as they walked back to their tower together.
"I have to admit, I am still not completely used to having a Sharingan. It is hard to wrap my mind around. I wonder if Kakashi felt this way when Obito gave him his one eye." She wondered out loud.
"Do you miss him?" Itachi asked her.
"Kakashi?" She smiled at him.
"Hn."
"Of course I do Itachi, he has been part of my life for a long time." She said truthfully.
"Not as long as me." He huffed.
-Did Uchiha Itachi just huff? Sounds like spoiled brat Sasuke-
"I knew you most of my life as a Crow Itachi. I didn't think of you as a man. I might want to remind you, until recently I had always thought you were a crow." She shook her head a bit. "Sometimes I still can't believe it, everything has happened so fast."
"He loves you," Itachi told her.
"You've said." She commented dryly as they walked up the stairs to their tower.
"There was that night remember, when you let him touch you like you, like you…" He couldn't finish his sentence.
"Like I what Itachi?" They were in the little reading nook by her room now and she glared at him.
"Like you wanted him to." He said a little more forcefully than he had meant to.
"I was confused and alone, he was...comforting me." She said lowly, measured. "You left remember, you refused me, remember?"
Itachi's face went blank to hide his emotions. He was cutting her out she realized he was closing off to protect himself. She sighed. She was used to this type of behavior from Sasuke but she had hoped to avoid it from Itachi. Particularly now, they were supposed to be married.
"I was protecting you. It was for your own good. It was best we didn't have contact after, uh, I left." He said at last.
"I didn't need protection, I needed you, to know what I felt was real, to know you felt the same. I felt like you had left me again, or did you forget running from my bed and then not talking to me, or visiting me for a year?"
All the stress of the last month came rushing in on her, the pain the confusion. Was he really going to stand there and tell her it was for her own good?
"I follow you here, I accept what you tell me is true, do you have any idea how hard this is for me? I am going against everything I have ever known for you and you ask me if I miss my former sensei and because I answer you with the truth you get mad at me?" Her voice is raised and she is rocking back and forth on her heels.
"Leave off your fighting stance Sakura, I will not tolerate such blatant aggression. I deserve your respect." Itachi looked at her coldly.
-Did he just, yes he did...fucking Uchihas!-
"And I deserve yours. I deserved to know who you were, not just as a Crow. I deserved to know that you had eventually planned on me joining you here and I deserved to know everything you had been planning for our future without me, or my opinion. You never asked me what I wanted." She was furious.
She had never even realized that some of these things had bothered her, but the more she spoke the angrier she got.
"You chose to come here, you chose to be with me, you agreed to my giving you Sasuke's eyes and who would turn down such an immeasurable gift anyway." He scoffed…..like when he was a Crow and it infuriated her.
It reminded her how he had lied to her and kept secrets from her for years.
She stepped forward to slap him but he caught her hand and threw it back at her.
"Don't ever do that again." He glared at her.
-oh yeah?-
Her fist glowed green with chakra and she lunged for him. He ducked and twisted moving out of reach.
"Sakura calm down, you're being irrational." Itachi scolded her.
-Wow, he really knows how to calm a woman down-
"I am not being irrational, I am upset, it's called an emotion!" She was yelling now.
"When I was younger I wanted to tell people, I was sick of hiding my abilities, my talent, but you said, I mean a Crow told me not to, that they would use me, corrupt me, is that not what you are doing now? Using me, for something you won't even tell me what it is? Am I not now corrupted, I am a missing-nin now!" Her face was red and tears were forming at the corners of her eyes.
"You think I am using you, that I stole you from Konoha, you think so little of me? I release you. You are free of our bond. Leave if you wish." He balled up his fists to his side and walked away.
-well, you wanted him to be emotional-
Sakura stood there till she heard his door close. Slowly, she turned around to see Deidara watching her nervously.
"Kura? I felt his chakra spike and then I heard you yelling at one another, are you ok?" Deidara came over to her.
She didn't respond at first. She stood there. Then she broke, tears streamed down her face wetting her hair that had come down while training.
She tried to push the hair from her eyes but her hand shook. She looked at her hands bemused, why were they shaking, oh yeah. Itachi.
Deidara tried to help her but her legs wouldn't work so he picked her up. He started heading for her room when she found her voice.
"No, please, not there. In case, in case he comes back." She gripped his shirt with her hands trying to steady her breathing.
-are you really falling apart over a man?-
"My room then, we will go to my room, it's a little messy yeah but it is decent." And he carried her upstairs.
Madara felt the pulse of chakra from his tower. Itachi. Then he felt it explode. He went to his window, no one was in Sakura's room. He leaped from his tower to the other jumping from ledge to ledge until he reached the stairs on the third floor. He hid around the corner in a well placed alcove and watched Itachi and Sakura argue, he didn't make all of it out but he did hear him release her of their bond and telling her she could leave if she wanted. No, that wouldn't do. Itachi was a fool, he could release her but she wasn't leaving, not if he had anything to say about it...and he did.
Itachi had left her and gone to his own room, she was alone and needed someone to comfort her. She needed him. Madara was just about to step out from his hiding place when the blonde bomber ran out of his room on the 4th floor and bumbled down the steps to drop at her side. Hum, maybe later. Madara walked up the steps and jumped out the window back to his tower.
Itachi leaned against the back of his bedroom door. What had he done? He had lost control. The things she had said to him. Did she have any idea what he went through for her, how all this planning was for her, did she not know how much he adored and loved her?
He knew they would eventually have some sort of an argument, all couples did but he had never been a couple before. This was his first relationship. So he did the only thing he had known, control the situation. He had talked to her like his father had talked to his mother. He immediately realized his mistake, the fire in her eyes roared to life, she was so beautiful when she was angry but, that fire had never been directed at him before.
Everything he said was the wrong thing to say. When she said that she thought he was using her, that he was just like the people he had warned her about, he snapped. It was those people, they were the reason he didn't have a family anymore, they were the reason he was hated by his little brother, why people called him a "clan killer", and she had told him he was just like them. She didn't know of course what that statement would mean to him but….she thought it.
Everything he had ever done was to keep her and his little brother safe. He loved them both and he was showing them in the best way he knew how but it wasn't enough. He pushed off the door and stumbled to his bed to lay down.
"Sakura, my wife. I'm sorry." He was a terrible husband.
Deidara set Sakura on his couch after shoving several articles of clothing to the floor. He handed her the remote to the TV and went to go make them some tea from the kitchen.
When he got back she had the TV on and was watching a documentary about poisons from around the world. He handed her a cup of tea and sat down beside her.
"Thanks, Deidara." She tried to smile at him.
"No problem Kura." He smiled at her. "You wanna talk about what just happened?"
She shook her head.
"Did the bastard hurt you?" Deidara was looking her over for damage.
"No." She tried to smile she really did.
"We don't have to talk, it is ok, just watch TV together?" He put his arm around her and moved closer to her giving her a bit of friendly comfort.
"Yeah, do you like poisons?" She asked him.
"No way man, only art yeah!" He one shoulder hugged her and turned to face the TV with her.
It was nice. It felt like she was home again almost with Sasuke and Kakashi. Naruto. He had been gone a long time. What made him lose control, what had happened to him.
Sasuke, oh Sasuke. She started to cry again.
Deidara hugged her closer and snuggled up beside her taking her into his arms and lifting her onto his lap.
"I promise I won't try anything, but sometimes cuddling makes you feel better. Comfort yeah?" He smiled at her.
"Yeah." She said gratefully putting her arms around his neck and hiding her face in the collar of his shirt and cried as he held her.
"Thanks for being my friend Dei." She said into his collar.
"I'm here yeah," he said and continued to hug her.
She closed her eyes and relaxed against him.
He sat there holding her, her hair in his face, her smell surrounding him. He told her he would be a perfect gentleman and he would be but damn did she look hot. The kimono fit her form in a most pleasing way. It was tight but it wasn't. It showed off her beautiful legs but wasn't too revealing. She looked like a lady but also very sexy, like a nymph.
It was too much. He had to do something. I had given her his word he would behave.
"Sakura." He called her name gently." Hey Kura, wake up hun." He kissed her fuzzy pink head. "Come on Kura, wake up."
She made an inquisitive noise in her throat.
Her eyes fluttered open. It was late afternoon but maybe she ought to sleep. He stood with her in his arms and made his way back to her room. He set her on her bed and covered her with her comforter so she would be warm. With a kiss to the forehead he left, closing the door quietly behind him.
Deidara stood outside her door thinking for a moment. He would tell Itachi she was sleeping so he wouldn't wake her up. He couldn't stop the man but he could tell him not to bother her because she needed rest.
Deidara walked across the hall and knocked on Itachi's door. He waited a moment but no one answered. He knocked again. Nothing, Deidara went back to his room, he would check on Sakura later, maybe bring her dinner.
He had sat in his room for ten more minutes going stir crazy so he got off his bed and decided to go for a walk. As he walked he thought about their agreement and their training. He focused on their training session because he could actually do something about that where as he had no idea what to do about their fight.
Itachi closed his eyes and felt the air with his chakra...she was in her room now, good. He turned in the direction Konoha lay. He could feel a team of Anbu Konoha nin moving around the area, a recon team?
Itachi was torn. She had claimed he had abandoned her. If he left would she think he was abandoning her again? He had released her of their bond, would she know he had only said it in anger?
Everything he did, he did it for her. She would eventually understand. He would just see where they were and come back to her. He exploded in black feathers and flew into the sky.
Madara could feel Itachi moving farther and farther away from Rain. Fool, he thought. Itachi was indeed talented for a side branch of the family but he was still a fool. Madara turned from where he had been standing by his window watching Sakura sleep, walked out his door and made his way over to her tower.
Deidara's protection jutsu was worthless. The boy didn't know a seal from the sticker you get in a cereal box. Madara pushed Sakura's door open and closed it behind him.
He sealed the door with a proper jutsu this time. No one was getting in or out. He went to the window making several intricate hand signs and pressed his hands against the glass, for a moment it turned to liquid metal, shimmered and resumed its normal appearance.
Madara scoffed at the little clay figures on her desk. The bomber was quite taken with her wasn't he, a silly little crush, nothing real, she needed a man not a boy. He walked over to her bed and looked her over while she slept. The late afternoon sun shone through the large windowed wall making her skin glow.
She was stunning in her new kunoichi kimono, the dark colors suited her with her petal pink hair, it just needed an Uchiha fan on the back and it would be perfect. He would be sure to get her more when she had accepted him, he would give her everything. He sat down in the dressing chair by her bed, he wasn't in a hurry, he wanted to take his time with her, he had to do this right, he wanted her to want him.