By daybreak of the following day, all three Akatsuki members - Deidara, Kisame and Itachi - departed, leaving Sakura alone at the HQ. At first she'd thought they were leaving her for good, but Deidara quickly told her that it was a meeting with Leader regarding the Biju. He'd given her his usual grin, but his eyes strained, telling otherwise. Sakura had the distinct feeling that it was more about her than anybody's Biju. Kisame merely nodded in his farewell, and Itachi gave her what Deidara explained before was 'The Look.' It was his way of greeting, scolding, praising, and acknowledging. He even went so far as to joke that he was like a drink machine in which somebody had put only one kind of beverage - No matter what button you press you'll get the same one every time.

She used the day to herself to finally explore the headquarters for the infamous organization. She made her way down to the empty dungeons, then an equally empty kitchen, (Go figure; they may be Akatsuki, but they're young single men through and through) a room intended as a dining room but was largely unused. The table had been turned into a sort of weapons display; scores of shuriken, kunai, katanas, bamboo dart chutes to shoot tranquilizers with, senbon needle, sickles, even a few crossbows. She also discovered a room filled with puppets - human puppets. She shut the door without looking back.

Then, still unable to sleep during the nights, she laid down and took a recuperating nap. It was blissfully free of nightmares and flashbacks for once, and she had a pleasant four-hour sleep before being awakened by the shutting shoji door of the main entrance down the widest hallway. She sat bolt upright, expecting the trio, and was slightly disappointed, but surprised to see that it was Sasori with her daytime meal. She grinned. "Hey, Sasori-san." He nodded and held upthe bag, just like last time. "Uh…Thanks. At least I didn't greet you with a sword in my hand this time…" She laughed nervously and was pleased that he managed a small chuckle himself.

This time he'd brought extra, intending to stay there with her for awhile. She was glad for his company, even if he was very solemn and talked very little. She learned that he, like Deidara, manipulated puppets, though they were long-lasting puppets made out of - as she'd thought, remembering the puppet room - human corpses. He had a similar view of art; something that's long-lasting.

"Art is a thing of beauty left long into the future." He had stated.

Sakura smiled and nodded. "Some things…are eternally beautiful. It's very rare, but if they last, they are that much greater." Sasori smiled gently. She remembered how Deidara explained his disrespect for other opinions. "Even so," she added, "There are also some things that can't stay forever, but I can't help but think they're beautiful, too." She looked to the large window overlooking the training area; the sun was lowering through the trees. "Like sunsets. They're brief, but they're artistically beautiful. And, if you're patient, you get to see another one."

She turned to see a peculiar expression on Sasori's face. He gave her another smile, a true one. "An interesting viewpoint, Sakura-san." He said. "It's a disappointment that human lives are so brief like that." He turned his gaze so that it was watching the setting sun. "Some…are beautiful." Sakura's smile widened, thinking of Naruto. "It's always a shame to see the beautiful ones fade. You want more than anything to keep them there, and even when they're gone a person tries to find something to imitate it…But it never matches the true beauty of that first sight." She looked over to see that Sasori had a tear trailing down his cheek. Softly, he said, "That, I believe, is why fine art should be eternal."

Sakura's eyes saddened. "But then, one must wonder if we'd really appreciate it if it wasn't fleeting."

Sasori's eyes slid shut as the sky darkened. "Because, if they were still here," she explained, "we wouldn't be able to cherish them, since they'd always be there."

-/-/-/-/-/-/

Sasori left after sundown. Sakura mustered up the courage to hug him briefly around the neck. He paused, stiff, and Sakura worried that she'd made a mistake, but then she felthis arm pull her close. "You are beautiful, Sakura," He said abruptly. She leaned back and looked at him, incredulous. "Very few people understand how we operate. We all left those villages for reasons that people cannot understand. They despise us for it. You are the first to show me otherwise. I expect that Deidara and Kisame recognize it in you as well. Perhaps, even Itachi will see that not all can be defeated by spite. Thank you, Sakura-san."

She blushed and smiled as he left.

-/-/-/-/-/-/

The next day was spent by herself. Completely. She trained throughout the morning and napped through the early afternoon. She tried using the senbon needles and the crossbow, but that ended disastrously with a bolt going completely through her hand by accident while she tried to load it. She didn't have so much trouble with the sickle, but she figured she'd need a lot of training in order to get a general idea of how to properly use it. Then, bored and exhausted, she wandered around more of the HQ, and was delighted to find the item of her fantasy: a shower.

After a blissful hour in the steaming room scrubbing her scalp raw and her skin until it was pink with newness, she stepped out and washed her loaned clothes, leaving them to dry by the window, donning her old ANBU uniform while she waited for them to dry. Finally, she took a kunai in her hand and held it in front of her face, looking ather hair in the reflection. Well... Why not. She spent another good long half-hour in front of a mirror mounted in the bathroom, imagining her possibilities. Her waist-length pink locks had a number on her heart, and she wanted to change it without eliminating all its length. Decided, she took the bottom half of it behind her ears and braided it into a tight queue. She used the kunai to cut the rest of it to that it just brushed her shoulders. She shortened the bangs and shook the remnants loose for good measure. She toyed idly with the long thin braid and looked at the new image in the mirror. Not bad, Sakura. Not bad.

She returned to the window and felt her borrowed clothes. They were still slightly damp on the seams, but they felt dry enough to wear comfortably so she slipped into them and flopped down on the couch. Wonder how much longer they'll be gone. It's boring here by myself. She thought, tousling her hair and adapting to it lack of weight. She also wondered why it was that she could only sleep during the day. She would've thought longer on it, but her daytime exhaustion caught up to her, and she fell into a fitful sleep.

She awoke, like clockwork, just as the sky darkened into the deep blue-black of night. She looked around and saw, by both sight and lack of chakra signatures, that she was still by herself. She sighed sadly and ran her fingers through her hair. I can only go so long without eating…Ugh. They have to have something. She went to the kitchen and started with the fridge.

"Sushi!" She cried out in despair. "No more of it!" She snatched a water bottle and snapped the door shut, determined to find something OTHER than bloody sushi. They had it daily, for cripes' sakes! Was there no escaping the raw fish that was her doom? Sure it was good, but raw fish only satisfied for so long.

Satisfied with her brief moment of insane mental rambling, she turned to the cupboards. "I am praying to you right now, Naruto…Ramen God, please bless me with some dehydrated ramen!" She snapped open the first cupboard. Empty. "Damn." Next cupboard. "Nothing." Next cupboard…

Resigned to her fate, Sakura sat down at the table in the den, sushi plate in hand. She sighed dramatically and rested one elbow on the table and propped her chin on her palm, idly pushing the bites of stuffed fish around before picking one up. She glared at it.

"Thanks a lot, Naruto. I know I can always count on you when I'm in need of something other than this cursed sushi." She put the piece in her mouth and chewed. She paused, letting the flavor fill her mouth…

"Kyah! Rotten!" She was struck with disbelief. "That's beyond messed up. This is just cruel and unusual now!" She walked back into the kitchen and tossed the sushi, plate and all into the trash, frustrated. She all but stomped back to the den anda ll but threw herselfdown onto the couch with a growl. "Now I'm just irritable. There's nothing to do. Nothing to do. Nothing to eat. How do they live? Then again, they do have a goal. They go out on a daily basis and get to do something. I need something to do. Very badly. But still…" She looked down. "I grown fond of this place. I still don't want to go to Konoha." The voice in her head chirped up.

Who's to say Akatsuki doesn't need a medic-nin?

"No. I am not going to think of that. They are highly skilled shinobi, unlike me. I only have mediocre skills with everything except medic jutsus. No."

Who'd've saved Itachi, huh? Who'd've been able to SAVE him from the nine-tailed DEMON FOX?

"But I'm not strong enough." She argued firmly.

There's a training field RIGHT THERE! And it's MISSIONS that's gonna make us stronger, not sitting around waiting for them to kick us out! And you didn't get into the ANBU Black Ops by sitting around, y'know.

"You have to be incredibly strong in order to join; that's an obvious. Stronger than ANBU.Look at Itachi; Kisame; Sasori; Deidara. They all have incredible abilities."

And yet, NONE of them know healing. Well, except Itachi, he seems to know some. In that, EVERYONE knows you're the strongest though! Were they trained by one of the legendary Sannin? That's a hell of a record! You transplanted your own eyes! Shit, you transplanted two SHARINGAN eyes! Without going blind!

"I don't…"

Hey...You think that's what they're talking about in that meeting with their leader?

"Why would they be talking about having me join?"

Well, they certainly looked at you significantly enough. Then again, that might be because we're just that gorgeous.

"Ugh. You're the epitome of vanity!" She squashed the voice in her head down and cleared her thoughts.

Weeither ask and be accepted or denied,or we don't ask and have zero chance of staying. Do you wanna leave or not!

"I..." She sighed in defeat. She couldn't deny that she wanted desperately to stay, but...Desperately enough to ask to join Akatsuki?

-/-/-/-/-/-/

A/N - Wow...She didn't agree with herself that she was gorgeous! Is that a sign of MATURITY? -gasp-

-/-/-/-/-/-/

At daybreak the next day, Kisame and Itachi returned to the HQ; Deidara was not with them. Nevertheless, she was glad for their return, and even happier when she saw the bags of food they carried. She moved with them to the table and seated herself in her usual spot there facing Kisame. To her mild surprise Itachi took a seat beside her, rather than his sharkfaced comrade.

The meal turned out to be, as expected, sushi and rice (she was too hungry to complain), but Itachi pulled from his bag several skewers of dango, which he distributed to the others as well. He had sushi, but no rice. This meal, unlike most, was carried out in silence until their bowls had been emptied and removed. As Kisame took the dishes away, Itachi turned and fixed Sakura with 'the Look.' She tried to ignore it for a few seconds but a tingle in the back of her neck alerted her that this tactic would not pass Uchiha Itachi.

Look at me. He used the same hypnosis technique as he had when they first met. She tried to pull out of it to no avail, and her eyes locked on his. Itachi's voice was low and fixedly even, as always. "What am I preparing to do?" Sakura's brows furrowed. "What?"

No response. She shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know what you're talking about." She stated again.

"Use the Sharingan." Oh... How the hell was she supposed to do that? She didn't know how to use the Sharingan. Briefly she panicked, unsure of what to do and afraid of not following his order. Well, when I used it last timeI had to use chakra to enforce my eyes. So she did that, and it created a sort of visual hyperreality.

Colors and depth intensified. The surroundings were unmoving but Itachi's form seemed to vibrate, and she could see the faint chakra emanating from him. She saw that the area around his arm was more blurred than the rest, and seemed to 'buzz' with more activity. It was as though she could see the tenseness of the muscles in his arm through the air.

More chakra, Itachi's voice resounded in her head. She jumped but did as instructed and then the air itself filled with movement. She saw it moving toward her in waves and his blurred arm smeared across her vision toward her as well. An inanimate object was in the middle of the blur and she saw what looked like a senbon needle. An attack! He's going to throw it! Her hand shot in front of her as the wave of movement pushed closer.

Then, just like that, the image was gone - her sight returned to normal. Her hand had moved in front of her, as had Itachi's, and what she had mistaken for a needle was actually a skewer from the meal's dango. It was caught in her clutched fist over her heart. It was only after several seconds of staring at the skewer that she realized exactly what had just happened. Her eyes widened.

"You could have killed me with this!" She cried, throwing it on the table and getting to her feet. "What if it hadn't worked? What if I hadn't seen it, then what?"

Itachi's eyes narrowed. "Then you would not have learned quickly enough to survive." He said, voice sharp but even. She faltered. Learned? Uchiha Itachi had just taught her how to use the Sharingan to foresee an enemy's movements. She sank back down in her spot.Wow, do I feel sheepish...

And well you should. Itachi got to his feet now, letting his cloak straighten out around him. Unlike Kisame, he almost never took it off - she had yet to see him without it. Sakura fisted her hands at her sides and refrained from continuing her half-panicked tirade. "W-Wait!" She nearly yelled. He stopped in the hallway frame but didn't turn toward her. "...Why did...Why did you do that?"

In the silence that followed she saw that his head lowered ever so slightly, as though pondering his answer. She was accustomed to a pause before a response, but never any gestures to indicate that he was actually thinking of what he was going to say. What does that mean? Was the answer that important to him? He turned and looked at her over his shoulder, the uncertainty gone and his usual mask in place so swiftly she fancied having imagined it in the first place. "To test your utsuwa."

He turned his back to her again, fully composed, and left her alone in the den.

-/-/-/-/-/-/

The following day turned out to be a day of sick mind-twisting games on Itachi's part. At random hours of the day he would approach Sakura and ask her the same thing he'd asked her the previous night. She would then feed chakra to her Sharingan and try to decipher the blurred movements of his punches and swings. What she didn't expect was that rather than a single attack he'd start a barrage of movements lasting ten minutes that overwhelmed her and resulted in both depleting her chakra and stamina, as well as earning a solid hit to the stomach or head for failure. Then, Itachi would turn his back to her and instrust her to force him to face her with the Sharingan's hypnosis ability.

This, unlike the movement prediction, was completely and utterly impossible for her. No matter how much chakra and focus she used, she could never get Itachi to budge. At all. It didn't help that he had practiced these abilities since he was a child and could easily block it no matter how much effort she put into it. The arrogant jerk even went so far as to turn his head and give her a questioning version of 'the Look' as though silently asking, 'Are you going todo it or not?' If it wasn't for the fact that he was actually helping her (in this demented and twisted way that she loathed with a passion) she would have given him a nice big piece of her mind on the spot after the sixth or so time trying to force him to face her.

And he did this the entire day without saying a word.

Needless to say, her nerves were chafed to the point where her shoulder might explode if she sat down on the couch too quickly...or accidentally swallow her tongue if she blinked too fast.

Finally, near midnight, Kisame returned from his daily routine with the food - Sushi, again, with dango- and Itachi said the first thing that whole entire day.

"Tomorrow we are going to a meeting with Leader." Sakura looked over at him, mildly surprised, and swallowed her bite of sushi. Her heart sankslightly. That meant more days of nothing to do..."How long will you two be gone this time?" She asked. "Last time, I was left for a day and a half without food, so if you're staying overlong, could you please leave some here? I mean, the sushi in the fridge had gone bad..." Kisame gave her a weird look, as though questioning her sanity. "It's true!" She defended. "It was the only thing in the whole kitchen, all the cupboards are empty and that sushi had to have been in there for a week or something, and there was nothing to eat..."

"What are you going on about?" Kisame cut in."You're coming with us."

Sakura blinked, confused. "…Oh…I am?" She turned to Itachi for denial. None. She looked back to Kisame. "Uh…May I ask why?" Kisame raised an eyebrow at Itachi but, receiving no response, spoke. "An issue regarding Orochimaru has caught Leader's interest." She recognized the finality in his tone as the usual sign that he couldn't disclose anymore to her. Why in the world am I going to Leader? Is it something to do with what happened with Itachi? Or Naruto…?

Itachi had gotten to his feet. "We leave at daybreak." He said, and that was the end of it. He left Kisame and Sakura with their uneaten sushi that Sakura no longer felt the appetite to finish. What did I do…? She fretted.

-/-/-/-/-/-/

At two in the morning Sakura stepped out of the Akatsukiheadquarters and leapt as silently onto the roof as she was able. It wasn't so much the fact that she no longer slept at night, but that she felt too uncomfortable inside there where her thoughts could be heard by Itachi. She reflected on this statement. Just how is he able to do that anyways? It's scary enough facing him down with his Sharingan during his little 'foresee my actions' game, but he can infiltrate my head as well? That's just odd. And creepier than all get out.

Sakura sighed, sat down on the slatted roof and hugged her knees to her chest. The night was cool but not chilly, and the sky unusually clear with a perfect view of the moon propped in the sky in front of her. She rested her head on her knees and looked at the moon solemnly. "We're not so different, you and I…" She said softly. Her pale skin reflected the white light it gave off, making everything around her seem that much darker. "The longer I stay where I am the darker and more mysterious my surroundings seem to become."

She didn't realize until a soft warm breath caressed her neck that she wasn't alone. She jolted but didn't turn to face whoever stood behind her. Out of habit now she fed some chakra to her Sharingan and the sense of hyperreality came to her again, and she saw the still Akatsuki cloak hovering over her, indicating that it was Itachi bent at the waist so that his head was a foot from her own. After all, he was the only one who didn't take his cloak off, ever. Plus, none of the others could hide their chakra so well.

What am I preparing to do, Sakura? The familiar question earned the same reaction as all the times before; more chakra and the waves pressed toward her neck but he moved faster than her Sharingan could pick up this time, and he had one arm around her other shoulder on her throat and other on her chin.

What am I preparing to do? He asked again. She swallowed hard - she hadn't caught it that time, and now he had her in a perfect hold to snap her neck. Her pulse sped up.

"Well…Y-You could break my neck…" Her soft, slightly-trembling voice vibrated against his palm, sending goosebumps down her back. He pulled her chin toward him slightly. And why did you not stop me? He continued. It was the first time he'd asked something other than what he was preparing to do. She faltered slightly. "I…I wasn't prepared, and I didn't move fast enough to block it." She stammered. Her voice dropped to a whisper.

Now, what will you do to prevent it?

…Nothing.

Why? His voice got sharper, and she knew that it would soon be followed by a hit to the head or shoulder or back or wherever he decided to remind her of her inferiority. She swallowed again and closed her eyes. This…This is a hold I can't break out of. Nothing I could do would stop you. She was waiting for him to give her the usual punch to the head for impertinence and failure. Instead, he turned her head more, prolonging her inevitable.

"You are right," he whispered into her ear. She shuddered. "I will not stop."

And he brushed his lips against hers.

For a moment all her senses exploded in shock and a small tremor traveled down her back She felt her heart leap into her throat and switch into overdrive while her thoughts grated to a screeching halt. He held that position for several more seconds before finally pulling his lips from hers. To her own shock, the sensation of their departure left them unnaturally cold.

Do you know why I did that, Sakura? His voice was soft in the recesses of her mind. She opened her eyes to stare into Itachi's, each a mirror image of the other's Sharingan. His eyes were intense, but not emotionless. However, the emotions buried there were so subtle she couldn't figure out what they were. "I…I don't know…" She whispered.

Without warning he moved forward and brushed his lips against hers again, before pulling away and getting gracefully to his feet. When her eyes followed him up, his expression was stoic again. "Nor do I." He replied softly, before leaping off the roof and leaving Sakura by herself once again. All of a sudden the moon seemed even brighter, and its surroundings more mysterious and confusing.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Wow. Uhm...Yeah. Not much really to say about it, except that both are finally acknowledging (albeit denying and for the most part ignoring) the sense of standoffish affection each holds for the other: Sakura, for the people who've given her a feeling of stability where none existed during her brief stay in Konohagakure, and for somebody to (sort of) look up to; and Itachi, for a (sort-of) pupil that is a bit of a prodigy like himself, learning the abilities of the Sharingan as quickly as he himself had.

In the next Chapter: Meeting Leader and what he wants. (Hint: It's more than just Orochimaru's ring...) And also, Deidara's hands are tied (sort of).