Itachi didn't remember falling asleep, the last thing he remembered was deliriously seeing Sakura through his Sharingan eyes, realizing the truth of her nature in his exhaustion. When he next opened his eyes, he was laying down on a soft bed. There was something heavy on his arm, and when he tilted his head to the side to see what it was, he was surprised to see Sakura's head on it. She was also sleeping, awkwardly hunched over his arm, still holding on to his hand.

Itachi smiled at her dedication. She likely hadn't left his side all night, and he wondered if she had been as worried for him as he had been for her. Itachi stared at Sakura's long pink hair as he thought about his next steps. Other than the fact that the Akatsuki were looking for tailed beast summoning scrolls, he didn't know much about their goals. Ostensibly everyone knew that they were trying to manufacture a place free of any rules about the usage of magic, but Itachi doubted that was all there was to it. Unfortunately for him there wasn't much he could do without first gaining the trust of the organization.

Sakura moved slightly, and her hair fell outside of her bun, spilling over Itachi's arm. It tickled him as it moved but he wasn't bothered by it, admiring the silky quality of it. Staring at its pastel pink, he was reminded that Akatsuki also had the other failed experiment as a member. He wondered if that foul-mouthed man would feel any sort of loyalty towards Sakura. Itachi wanted to believe that Pein would keep Sakura safe as a means to keep Itachi well-behaved but he didn't completely trust that. He'd feel more comfortable leaving her if he knew there was someone who would prioritize her safety first. He had originally considered Kisame, but since he was the one who brought her to Akatsuki in the first place, he knew his friend couldn't be trusted to put their friendship above Akatsuki's goals.

Sakura moved once again, slowly waking up herself. Itachi observed her move, blinking slowly as she also tried to regain her senses. She brought a hand to her back, frowning. He wondered if the awkward position she had slept in was causing her pain. After she stood up more, her eyes went to Itachi, and he was amused to see her startled when she noticed he was awake.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to-"

"Sakura. It's alright." Itachi interrupted her. He smiled kindly at her, admiring the pinkish flush that began to color her cheeks. After spending so much time away from her, Sakura looked even brighter than usual. Itachi sat up, and Sakura moved away slightly. "I'll have to clean up and then meet up with Pein."

"I should probably fix myself too." Sakura hastily gathered her hair to the side. "I look way too improper like this." She blushed. "My room is right next to yours, stop by once you're finished with the Leader."

Itachi nodded and the two of them split, Sakura leaving him alone. Itachi walked to the adjacent bathroom to clean himself of the grime of the journey. He hadn't properly washed himself since leaving Fire Country's Capital City, and he still had blood and dirt under his fingernails. Itachi took his time to clean himself, using the time to also mentally steel himself for the upcoming day.

Once he felt like a proper gentleman again, Itachi left his room, adjusting his waistcoat. He didn't know the exact route to Pein, which was fine with him, it gave him a decent reason to explore the compound. He walked around, observing the different rooms, they looked somewhat familiar to him, and he realized it was the castle that used to belong to Rain's royal family. He had been there once as a child, when his parents had been assigned there on a diplomatic mission. Itachi knew the Rain royals had eventually been revealed to be corrupt, and had been overthrown. The last he had heard their estate was being sold off, and he wondered if Akatsuki had bought it or acquired it through other means.

Itachi was admiring a particularly pretty set of statues when he was forcefully pulled into a nearby corner. His assailant pushed him against the wall and Itachi turned Sharingan eyes on him, showing he was not pleased with the roughhousing. Hidan glared back, not intimidated.

"Was she the fuckin girl you were lookin' for? Was that why you and your bitch ass friend kept asking me those fuckin questions? Did that sick fucker keep doing those fuckin experiments after they fuckin left me?" Hidan growl-whispered at Itachi.

"You are correct."

Hidan stepped away from Itachi, letting him go. His face was twisted into a mix of confusion and disgust.

"Her eyes. They're… Is she… That woman's…" Hidan couldn't even complete his sentences. There was a wild despair in his eyes.

"You are correct." Itachi nodded.

"God fuckin'! Why did you let them bring her here! This is the most dangerous fuckin'!" Hidan grasped his own pink hair in frustration. "Look, trust fuckin' noone ok, fuckin noone! And tell 'er, tell 'er that if… Look I ain't gonna risk my life for her or anything, but if you do somethin' stupid I guess I could turn a blind eye or something." Hidan sighed, crossing his arms. "Me and the scorpion. I think he likes her or something. He asked to be the one to recruit you and he never asks for anything."

"That's good to know. Thank you."

"Don't fucking thank me! You fucking idiot!" Hidan walked away, cursing to himself under his breath. Itachi watched the strange emotional man, thinking about the information he had obtained.

Pushing himself off the wall Itachi continued his walk, until eventually he reached the art room. Inside there were several different paintings and drawings of Sakura, causing Itachi to raise his eyes in surprise. He understood what Hidan said about Sasori liking Sakura. Turning away from the slightly disturbing scene, he saw Konan walking towards him.

"Master Itachi, our Leader wishes to see you."

Itachi pinched his forehead as he walked towards Sakura's room. Pein was sending him away almost immediately to find a ceremonial knife. He hadn't been expecting to be sent away so soon, but he wasn't surprised. It just meant that he had to talk to Sakura immediately.

Itachi knocked on the door to her room and waited for a response. She welcomed him almost immediately, offering him entrance into her room. Itachi noticed Sakura was back to wearing her usual dresses and her usual braided hairstyle. He looked around her room, noticing it was almost identical to his.

"Did you talk to the Leader?" She asked, wringing her hands nervously. Itachi nodded. He could feel Pein's spells permeating the walls and knew what he'd have to do. He stepped much closer to Sakura, pulling her in for what looked like a loving embrace. He watched her eyes widen in size and he met them with his red ones.

"Tsukuyomi" He whispered. Sakura went limp in his arms and he supported her weight, completing the picture of a pair of lovers embracing each other. However, inside Sakura's mind was a different story.

Itachi had used the Tsukuyomi spell on many different people, but none of them had ever been the same as Sakura. Using the Tsukuyomi on someone was an invasion of their privacy and Itachi was careful to not thread into anything private. He pulled Sakura's conscience into a memory of their time together at his cottage by Konoha. She looked scared and confused, but as soon as she noticed him, she relaxed.

"What is this?" She looked around surprised. She touched the plants lovingly, and he wondered if she missed their time there as much as he did.

"I'm using a mind spell on you, so we can talk without Pein overhearing us. He has spells all over the palace, he knows everything that is said and done. I'm going to have to leave on a mission soon so I'll have to leave you here once more."

"You can't take me with you? I mean I doubt he'd allow it, but is there nothing we can do?" Sakura asked, sounding desperate.

"Now's not the time to try a desperate escape. Besides there's something I want you to do while I'm out. I'm sure Pein will keep a close eye on me whenever I am here, which will make it difficult for me to investigate. However I doubt he cares much about someone like you. If you've learned anything from your sister, see if you can't get some information about what's going on around here. I'd suggest Sasori and Hidan, I doubt they'd harm you." Itachi explained. He didn't like the idea of leaving Sakura alone to investigate, but he didn't see any options. He'd try to contact Kakashi when he was far from Rain, but he still needed to have some information to exchange for a pardon.

"Hidan? He's strange, and he keeps avoiding me. I do think I can get something from Sasori though." Sakura crossed her arms, thinking. Around him Itachi could feel her mind moving as she thought.

Itachi had never used Tsukuyomi on someone like Sakura before. He'd been careful about it, knowing that she'd be able to withstand it due to her unique magical tolerance, but it was still odd. He had never been welcomed into someone's mind like this. In that moment, Itachi finally understood the kind of trust and respect that Sakura held for him. If he wanted to, it'd be easy to find exactly how she felt towards him, and even to change it to whatever he wanted. The Tsukuyomi was a forbidden spell, due to the power that the user had. Even if Sakura didn't possess enough knowledge of the magical world to know about this spell, people still instinctively feared whenever a foreign force entered their minds. However there was no fear towards Itachi, only a deep, comforting warmth.

Taking a deep breath, Itachi welcomed the warmth into him, basking in it for a final minute before breaking the connection. He held on to Sakura until she woke up. He helped her to a chair as she still felt the aftereffects of the spell. As she rested her head in her hands, Itachi undid his necktie. He reached inside his shirt to pull out a necklace.

It wasn't the fanciest thing, an old family heirloom, passed down from father to son. It was meant to signal the leader of the Uchiha Clan. He hesitated for a second, still remembering the last time he had tried to give her a family heirloom.

"Sakura, I want you to hold on to this for me." Itachi presented her the necklace. She took it, looking at him curiously. "If I ever fail to return, you must go to Capital City, and present this to the royal family." Itachi purposely gave her vague instructions, in order to hide the true nature of what the necklace meant. With that in her hands, Sakura was now the next inheritor of the Uchiha's legacy.

"Please don't say things like fail to return! Promise me you'll come back to me and then keep that promise!" Sakura chastised him. Itachi smiled at her pout. Committing her face to memory, Itachi left, invigorated by her words.

.

.

.

Sakura could feel the weight of the necklace hanging around her neck. She hadn't expected Itachi to have something like that on him, but she understood there was something important about it. She felt as if somehow something about Itachi had changed during their time apart. He felt warm to her all the time now, as if the last wall that separated them broke down. Now it hurt twice as much to watch him leave, and Sakura felt doubly desperate to see him return.

She took measured steps towards the art room, thinking about Ino. She had spent enough time around her sister to understand how she managed to know everything about everyone, and Sakura asked herself if she'd be able to replicate Ino's skills. Sakura had a decent enough idea of where the secret was hidden. She'd seen Pein entering the place once by accident, and had seen a glowing red thing in the few moments the door had been half-open.

Predictably, Sasori was sitting in the art room, filling one of the paintings with color. Every iteration of her that he painted looked more and more lifelike. If he continued, Sakura could one day think she was looking at a mirror instead.

"Did your beau leave?" Sasori asked.

"Yes." Sakura answered, walking to her usual spot. She sat down and looked out the window. She remembered that Ino always managed to get people to talk to her if she looked like she didn't want to talk. Sakura tried to do the same, keeping her silence.

She waited and waited, and yet Sasori didn't break the silence. He steadily continued to paint and draw, filling different canvases with her likeness. Frustrated, Sakura decided to break the silence.

"So I noticed this place was kind of similar to the royal castle in Fire. Did kings and queens live here too?" Sakura asked.

"Yes."

"Hmm, then there must be some kind of huge ballroom where they held big parties, right? I mean every tale involving a royal family always has a huge ball." Sakura continued. She was almost certain that the ballroom was where the red glowing thing was, but she talked like a simple girl. That had been Ino's greatest weapon: pretending to be a simple, silly girl.

"Perhaps."

"I've never participated in one of those. I was actually super excited to go to Suna for the Wind King's coronation. Every girl dreams of putting on one of those beautiful gowns and dancing with prince charming in a huge ballroom." Sakura sighed dramatically.

"Is Itachi your prince?"

"What?" Sakura turned around to look at Sasori, surprised at the sudden question. She had never considered Itachi a princely person. He was polite and well-mannered, but he never gave off princely impressions. "He's not a prince. He's the villain of the story." Sakura joked. Itachi was much more similar to the smart older cousin that plotted the demise of the prince in the shadows.

"And yet you still love him." Sasori commented. Sakura stared at Sasori. Of course she loved Itachi, but she always took care to hide it from the world. She particularly wasn't expecting Sasori to call it out. He always looked so detached from everything and everyone, Sakura didn't even think he knew how to recognize human emotion. "It's quite obvious to me." Sasori looked at all the different iterations he had captured of her every day. Sakura blushed, not realizing her secret had been exposed so obviously. Upon seeing her blush, Sasori returned to work, trying to capture the exact shade of pink that colored her cheeks and nose.

Sakura felt like a failure, she had tried to get information out of Sasori, and yet he was the one who had extracted secrets from her. Feeling like a failure, Sakura was ready to leave, but Sasori stopped. He handed her a sheet of paper.

On the paper was a drawing of her, but most importantly was the hastily scribbled words at the very bottom.

Don't let him enter the ballroom.

Sakura looked up at Sasori, but he forcefully took the paper from her hands, tearing it into pieces and burning them. "I don't like how that one turned out." He muttered. After that he left the room, seemingly sulking. Sakura clenched her teeth to avoid smiling.

After Sasori's warning, Sakura began to anxiously wait for Itachi. She had no means of reaching out to him before he arrived, so all she could do was somehow intercept him as soon as he returned to the compound. Sakura tried her best to stifle her restlessness, but it was still noticeable to the trained eye.

"Oi pinky, don't pull on your pretty hair like that. Itachi should be arriving this afternoon." Kisame told her at lunch. Sakura had been twisting the end of a loose strand around her finger instead of eating and was surprised to hear the news.

"Really?" She tried sounding excited, but internally her heart began speeding up. She went to the foyer to wait for him as soon as the meal was over.

She paced back and forth, but no sign of Itachi. Sakura bit her lip. She had just heard a clock ding the three past noon hour, but she still hadn't seen Itachi. A door opened, but it wasn't the front one, it was Hidan, who had been entering the foyer through a side door.

"What the fuck are you doing here? Itachi's already arrived. He's meeting with Leader now." Hidan looked at Sakura strangely, and she paled.

Ignoring the man, Sakura took off running towards the ballroom, as all of her instincts screamed at her that something nefarious was about to take place. She made it to the hallway just in time to see Itachi's ponytail disappear in the distance as the door closed behind him.

"Itachi!" Sakura yelled at him. She ran at the door, throwing herself at it, but it would not budge. "Itachi!" She yelled, pounding at the door with her fists. The door didn't even shake. Sakura hung her head in despair when a deep rumbling shook the ground.

Looking up, Sakura barely had enough time to bring her arms up to protect herself when the door burst open, and a gust of black wind pushed Sakura back. She fell, but someone broke her fall, holding her before she could take any damage.

"What the fuck…" Hidan, her savior, looked at the scenery in front of them in surprise. Where once there was a ballroom was now a darkened crater, and three men stood in its middle. Pein, Itachi and a third man, with long black hair, an evil smile and terrifying Sharingan red eyes.

Madara Uchiha: One of the most legendary wizards in history, it is said that Madara Uchiha was the only one who could tame the 9-tailed beast, Kyuubi. The Uchiha Clan was a small, insignificant thing before the birth of its most famous prodigy, Madara Uchiha. He expanded the clan's influence on a global scale, and if it were not for the strength of the Senju clan, he could have conquered the world. Madara had a brother, who was his companion in his journeys, yet it was only after the death of his brother that Madara reached his peak. He created almost all of the Uchiha Clan's signature spells. Madara's death was strange and never truly explained by the Uchiha, as he seemingly disappeared into nothing. Some believe that Madara died of the injuries he sustained during his final fight with Hashirama Senju, but it was still odd that no funeral was ever held for the Uchiha Clan's leader.


We meet the final boss at last! It wouldn't be a proper Uchiha tale without Madara showing up at the end. There's still some things that will need to be explained and resolved, but not everything will be fully explained. Just as there are some mysteries in our world, so there shall be some in this world. I always enjoy leaving room for reader's own interpretations and headcanons, and so it shall be for this story as well. Please look forward to the next few weeks as we ride out the final waves of this tale.