Itachi met them at the gate of the village of Rain. He stood at the gate and watched their chakra signatures as they came close, stopping outside of view a little ways away.
"I know you're there, come out." Itachi made an effort to stand in the light of a street lamp so they could see him better.
Kakashi popped into view first, then Sasuke, then Yamato.
"Itachi." Kakashi inclined his head.
"We do not have time, I am not a traitor, I am a spy of konoha. I do not expect you to believe me but you can confirm it with the council upon your return with Haruno Sakura." Itachi didn't have time to convince them, he had to go after Madara.
"You, want us to take her back with us?" Sasuke asked skeptical.
"I burned your body after I took your eyes." Itachi said it as a fact. Not a question realization dawning on him. Sakura?
"I have father's eyes now, they tell me it was Sakura's chakra signature on me, she did this for me." Sasuke was staring at his brother.
"She did it." Itachi said to himself quietly. "You must go as soon as I get her to you, I will get her and come back, she will not want to go. Madara, Madara Uchiha is alive, and he did something to her. She must go back with you. You have to find a way to break it." Itachi disappeared.
"Madara Uchiha did what to her?" Sasuke looked at Kakashi.
Kakashi shook his head. He knew as much as Sasuke.
"He said she wouldn't want to come with us, why? Did she get brainwashed?" Yamato speculated.
Before anyone else could take a guess or ask anything else Itachi and Sakura had poofed into existence before them, and she was hitting him and screaming at him to let her go.
Itachi set her down in front of him and turned her to face the small group.
"Go home Sakura." Itachi told her. "Remember, everything I have done, was for you, you and Sasuke." and he was gone.
Sakura was staring at the team before her confused. She shook her head twice.
"Kakashi?" She looked at Kakashi and took a step forward then stopped. She took a step back and stopped as though in deep thought.
"Sakura?" Sasuke started to walk to her. "Are you okay?"
Sakura watched him walk to her , her brow furrowed in concentration. She looked up at him when he had stopped in front of her. Sasuke went to take her hand and she stepped back from him.
"Don't touch me." She said, not in anger or fear just simply.
"Oh, okay. Are you okay?" Sasuke asked her.
"Of course, why wouldn't I be?" She gave him a curious look.
"You look nice." Sasuke said looking over her kunoichi kimono.
"Uh thanks." She was looking off into the dark behind them as though searching for something.
"Well, I need to get back." and she turned to go back into the village when Kakashi flashed in front of her.
"We are going back to Konoha Sakura, where you belong. You do want to go home right?" He asked her.
"I am home." She told him.
"Yamato tried next, "You are a Konoha nin Sakura, we need to go home." He didn't like what he was seeing.
"I belong with Madara, Madara is here, so I'll stay." She smiled at them.
Kakashi didn't waste any time, he nodded to Sasuke who was now behind Sakura and knocked her out with a swift hit to the side of the neck, Sasuke caught her and lifted her off her feet.
"We need to get her somewhere we can talk to her." Kakashi said. "Let's go."
Kakashi led them back to the forest of Konoha and set down by the river. He decided her and Itachi's cabin was best.
"Sasuke put up the protection seals and check the perimeter." Kakashi motioned to the surrounding area as he took Sakura from his arms.
"Come with me, we need to figure out what is wrong with her." Kakashi motioned for Yamato to follow him inside.
Kakashi set Sakura on the futon, taking the blanket and trying to pat as much dust off of it as possible.
Yamato figured they would be there for awhile and started a fire in the fireplace to ward off the cold, it looked like snow tonight.
Kakashi was reviving Sakura as Sasuke came in and shut the door.
"Did she say she belonged with Madara? Madara Uchiha?" Sasuke was asking the others.
"That's what she said. So he is alive then. I had my doubts." Yamato said from a chair at the table.
The cabin was small to begin with but with all four of them it was tiny.
Sasuke took the other chair and sat across from Yamato, as Kakashi was still sitting on the futon with Sakura.
"Sakura, come on Sakura, time to wake up." He patted her face roughly.
Her eyes opened slowly and she sat up. "Kakashi?" Her hands went to her head, it was starting to hurt.
"Hey, how are you feeling?" Kakashi asked her.
"I, where's Madara?" She asked him.
"He isn't here." Kakashi told her.
"Why are you in our cabin?" She asked looking around.
"We thought it best to bring you somewhere familiar, you and Itachi spent a lot of time here." Kakashi hadn't moved since they sat down and was still looking at her rather intensely.
"Ita...it." She stopped. "I never spent time with him here, this is our special place, mine and Madara's, he used to watch me train here since I was 6." She smiled at the memory.
"No, you used to come here with my brother Itachi and you hid it from all of us." Sasuke was getting frustrated.
"Sakura, " Kakashi said carefully, " what is your relationship with Madara?"
"I love him, we are going to create peace, shinobi is a weapon for peace." She says as if it is rehearsed..
"You love him?" Sasuke jumps up, he has heard enough.
"Sit down!" Yamato tells him. "Obviously something has happened to her and we need to find out what, to help her."
Sasuke sits back down slowly but turns to Sakura, "So, how do you like my eyes?" He tries to smile, turn it into a joke.
"Your eyes?" She frowns, She lets a little chakra flow into her eyes and they shine red and spin tomes coming forward.
"Shit." Sasuke and Kakashi echo one another, Yamato is speechless and just stared at her.
"Is that...it can't be, is that...Shisui." Sasuke walks over to the bed and looks at her more closely.
She spins her tomes again and they stop again. "I have Obito's too, like you Kakashi I can do Kamui both short and long. Madara helped me train them."
"Show me." Kakashi says. "Meet me there now." and he lifts his headband from his eye and spins his tome, he disappears and then Sakura disappears.
They reappear in their Kamui, Kakashi jumps to her raised block and takes her hand in his. "Sakura, something has happened to you and we want to help you. Do you remember, here? Can you tell me, did coming here break a genjutsu?"
"I'm not under a genjutsu, I feel fine I'm, I'm ok." She says taking her hand back.
-We are not ok! We are being trapped! This is a fucking joke! I thought you were strong now, not weak anymore! Snap out of it!-
Sakura grabbed her head in her hands and fell to the ground. Kakashi dropped down beside her.
"Sakura, are you ok, what is it?" He asks her.
"Voice, mad, telling me to snap out of it, trapped. I don't know what they are talking about. It hurts." Her hands glow green and she tries to ease the pain growing in her head but it doesn't work.
"Let's go back." Kakashi says and they stand together, tucking her into his side, they leave Kamui.
"Amazing, I can't believe it." Sasuke is still in shock Sakura has a sharingan and can use it, has not only the tomes he had but two more! It almost isn't fair he thinks.
"Sakura, can you show us Shisui's? Did you get his, Kotoamatsukami." Sasuke was almost scared to ask.
"I'm not sure I don't remember, I think so. I remember someone talking to me about it but." she trailed off in thought looking at her hands.
"What was Shisui's abilities?" Yamato asked Sasuke.
"He had Kotoamatsukami , he could control the actions and memories of a target, but not just a target multiple targets it was amazing and dangerous. It was a complete control genjutsu. No one ever broke it, it was so powerful. " Sasuke told them.
"So, he could make someone do something and they would think it was their idea?" Kakashi asked.
"Yeah." Sasuke nodded.
"Did Madara have that ability too, it would explain this." Kakashi waved his hand at Sakura.
"No one knew what Madara's other ability was. If they did they never wrote it down or told anyone, it wasn't in the Uchiha archives, I looked. He was a fascination of mine." Sasuke said.
"I'm not under a genjutsu, there isn't anything wrong with me." Sakura kept insisting.
"You know, I remember Itachi telling me that Shisui was particularly dangerous because he could use his Kotoamatsukami, to see your memories but not just regular memories. Hidden ones, or ones sealed, so you didn't reveal information to an enemy if you were caught and interrogated." Sasuke was thinking out loud.
"None of us have the ability to use Kotoamatsukami though. Even if she does know how to use it, she seems to have forgotten and she wouldn't be able to use it on herself would she?" Yamato asked.
"But Itachi's infinite tsukuyomi might help. He controls time and space in there, he could turn back time maybe and try to draw her back to her memories enough to figure out how to fix her?" Sasuke was getting more hopeful
"Ita, Ita, I can't say his name. Why? Who is he again?" She looks at the men around her.
"He is my brother." Sasuke said more concerned than before. He hadn't been sure of their relationship but how could she forget a man that sent her roses and had watched over her almost all her life.
Kakashi grimaced. "He loves you, this was your cabin, you and he spent a lot of time here together. You have been coming here to train in secret and he was your friend, you knew him as Crow."
"Crow." She mumbled and her head started to hurt.
-Yes, Crow, he is your husband, not Madara, Not Madara, Itachi, we love Itachi, he loves you. Madara took you, he raped you, he is controlling you! Snap the fuck out of it now!-
"Stop, stop!" She moans holding her head doubled over in pain.
"What did they say Sakura" Kakashi's sharingan is still activated as he watches her.
"Madara is controlling me, but he isn't, I'm Ita It, his Wife, but I'm not! Madara raped me?" She growls in pain rocking back and forth.
"He what." Kakashi stood up looking down at her, nostrils flaring. Electricity crackles around him. Why hadn't he smelled it on her before, easy his only concern at the time was getting her away.
"Sensei." Sakura whispers.
Kakashi drops down beside her again trying to push back the blood lust.
"Yamato, report to the Hokage, tell him where we are, what we are doing, tell him everything." Kakashi says without looking at him.
"Yes Captain." and he leaves.
"Sakura we need to test your ability to use Kotoamatsukami. Can you try it on me? Make me do something I would never do." Kakashi smiles at her."Nothing too embarrassing ok?"
She nods and focuses her chakra spinning her tomes once her sharingan is activated and focus it.
Kakashi opens his mouth and "I promise to pay for dinner for both of your for the rest of your lives."
"Incredible." Sasuke says. "Kakashi, did you mean to say that?"
Kakashi frowns but says, "Yea, I think I owe you for all the times I stuck you with the bill."
"Sakura, it worked you can do it!" Sasuke didn't know what to say. "Can we help her to remember? We need Itachi don't we?"
"You can't say Itachi's name can you?" Kakashi asks her.
"He doesn't like it, he told me not to, he said I don't belong to him, only him Madara but, I feel like we know each other?" She shakes her head.
"What do we do Kakashi." Sasuke was worried.
"We wait for a response from the Hokage and perhaps Itachi. He will send a crow or come himself to see that she is okay." Kakashi said rubbing his face with his hands.
"I'm going to go outside, I need to breathe and it is stuffy in here." He walks out the door.
"Kakashi." Sakura looks up at him. "Did we, were we, ever together?" She looks away from him then.
-Yes, we were, the copy nin, the cold blooded killer, we kissed him, yes, remember! We are just like him cold blooded killers-
She grit her teeth as pain flooded her head.
"It hurts you, when you remember something real doesn't it Sakura?" He took her hand in his again. "We never dated or had a romantic relationship but I have feelings for you and I think you have feelings for me but...you also have strong feelings for Itachi." Kakashi sighs.
"Kiss me, I want to remember." She does meet his eyes now. "If I felt something for you, maybe it will help, kiss me."
Kakashi leans forward slowly taking her face in his hands, his eyes looking into hers, remember, he thinks, please remember Sakura. His lips lightly touch hers, she parts them, letting him in.
Wet, her mouth is wet and soft, he makes a small noise of content and kisses her fully covering her mouth with his, taking his hands from her face he wraps his arms around her holding her close, pressing his body into hers, feeling her mouth with his tongue, then drawing back slowly, his right hand in her hair, his left pressing her against his chest.
Slowly he draws back from their kiss and sit back in front of her watching her closed eyes flutter open.
"That was real." She says to him a small smile. "Have we, um, did we."
"If I say yes, can we?" He jokes and she slaps him like old times.
"We didn't, but not because I didn't want to. You were confused and weren't sure what you wanted." he gave her a small uplift of his eye, headband back in place.
"What was I confused about?" She asks.
"Your feelings for Itachi, he had left, and you were hurt." Kakashi hoped talking like this would help her to remember. He didn't enjoy speaking with her about her feelings for Itachi but if it would help her remember and figure out what had happened with Madara he would do anything.
"I see." Sounding like she didn't see at all. "Do you mind if I have a moment alone? Just to think?" She motioned to the small cabin and the space around her.
"I'll be right outside with Sasuke." He set her storage scroll on the table, got up and left to join Sasuke by the river. Yamato hadn't come back yet and he was impatient to find out what the Hokage wanted them to do next.
The fire was going strong but she was still a little cold. Shock she thought to herself. She didn't understand how she could have two memories in her head. Kakashi's kiss, she felt like she had kissed him before had felt his hands on her before and that she had wanted him. She at the same time felt that it wasn't true, that she had never kissed him, never let him touch her and that they were just sensei and former student.
Sasuke was a bit more confusing. Something in her made her feel like she used to be really good friends with him but that he hated her and another part said they were really good friends but he wanted to be more. Her head was hurting again.
Sakura got off the futon and went to the table where Kakashi left her storage scroll she assumed that Itachi had given him. She undid the seal and drew out her red hoodie and a few weapons, she didn't have her pack on and didn't know where it was but there were pockets sewn into her obi.
Distracted by her thoughts, that there was a whole time period missing from her memory she knicked her thumb on a kunai. Sticking it in mouth she shook out her red hoodie and a small little bird fell out of its pocket. She bent down reaching for it with her bloody thumb and picked it up. Blood blotted the white of the clay bird and she tsked at herself for dirtying it.
She set the bird on the futon and turned to grab a cloth to wrap her thumb so she didn't bleed all over the place and there was a small explosion behind her. She spun around kunai in hand and saw Deidara, sitting on the futon.
"Deidara? What, THE BIRD! I remember! It is a reverse summons!" She smiled at him, both at seeing him and that she remembered.
"Kura! We were so worried Konan and I, where did you go?" he looked around," Where are we? Where is Madara?"
Kakashi and Sasuke burst through the door at this point and Sakura stepped in front of Deidara arms flung wide.
"He isn't our enemy!" She scolded them. "I summoned him here, he is here because I called him."
Kakashi and Sasuke gave one another a look and slowly dropped their stances but Sasuke and Kakashi's eyes both still spun red as they watched Deidara.
"I'm just glad Kura is okay yeah, I'm not here to fight ok." He held his hands up.
"You call her Kura?" Sasuke growled, Kakashi agreed.
"Well yeah, we are friends hey." Deidara turned back to Sakura. "What happened after I left you in your room? All I know is I left you in your room when you started to fall asleep on my couch and then 3 hours later I feel this surge of intense dark chakra from Itachi, massive compared to earlier when you had your lover's spat and then I hear you screaming! I raced downstairs and met Konan racing up from the kitchen and we are banging on your door hearing Madara say some explicitly sexual things to you. Did he, are you okay? Did he...hurt you?"
"I don't, wait. I remember being in your room watching TV but, then I think I fell asleep. I don't remember anything but wait, there was a forest, with trees huge trees the first hokage had made in a cave ...an underground forest." She shakes her head, "Maybe I was dreaming."
-he sat in your dressing chair while you slept, I could sense him there, he watched you sleep then lay on the bed with you listening to you make noise and he would smell your hair and touch you.-
"No." Sakura moaned, her head was killing her again.
Kakashi saw she was in pain and knew she was fighting something or remembering something again.
"Sakura, what , what do you remember what did you hear/" He asked her.
"Madara, in my chair, I was sleeping, my dreams, he touched me, I don't know." She sat down on the futon beside Deidara and he took her in his arms and hugged her but let go quickly as Kakashi grabbed his arm and pulled him off the futon to sit in a chair at the tale.
"Okay okay yeah." Deidara looked back at Sakura. "She called me here remember."
"Tell us why she was with the Akatsuki." Sasuke sat down in the other chair , Kakashi had taken Deidara's spot on the bed.
So he did, he told them how she had arrived with Itachi, had her own room that was nicer than his, went shopping with konan and Tobi, how Itachi had been training her but didn't let anyone watch, how they had a huge fight and I tachi had taken off after slamming her to the ground, that he had helped her to his room where they drank tea and relaxed then he laid her on her bed when she had fallen asleep but that Itachi hasn't answered his door when he knocked on it.
He told them about the dark chakra again, Sakura screaming and what Madara had been saying to her, hoe he and Konan had ran through the door once Konan had gotten it open and they saw Sakura on the bed blindfolded with her arms tied behind her back and Madara pulling out of her as Itachi broke the window to get into the room.
"He blindfolded her and tied her hands behind her back? She was...was she naked?" Kakashi choked out, fury engulfing him.
"Yes." Deidara looked down.
"Itachi couldn't get into the room before?" Sasuke asked.
"No, he had been trying but wasn't able." Deidara said.
"It was on purpose, Madara set it up so Itachi would see, could hear what he was doing to her." Kakashi growled teeth clenched.
"How do you know that?" Deidara asked huffing.
"It is what I would have done if I wanted to alienate her from Itachi. If I had used a powerful mind control jutsu on her, I would want her to only remember me and no one else I knew her to be involved with." Kakashi admitted.
Sakura had been deathly quiet through Deidara's speech.
"Impossible, how could I not know?" She looked at them bewildered.
"He didn't want you to." Kakashi tried to point out kindly to her. "I can feel Yamato making his way back let's see what the Hokage has to say."
"And him?" Sasuke points to Deidara.
"Uh well if it's all the same to you, I'll be going yeah. Sakura, be safe I'll talk to you soon I hope?" He hugged her and before they could stop him he poofed
Yamato knocked once and entered. He looked grim as he held out an official mission scroll to Sakura.