Disclaimer: don't own Naruto

A/N thanky for the concern, luckily im ok and off mind-altering pain meds so things so can go along smoothly from now on... aiight well you know the drill...

Queen Cow and This is my name- Sorry about the how 'H' thing in front of Itachi's name my spell checker does that automatically and i guess neither i nor my proof reader caught it! I'll watch out for that from now on

Midnight-Miko66 - i thank you very much for the praise, the hug made me feel better too (smile) but im sorry... a bittersweet ending won out... but i promise to at least make it a little happier for you... also i dont plan to kill him, i would cry if i did that... he's to hott to sacrifice!

Big thanky to all the veteran reviewers... and to all the baby-boppers... big thanky as well!

Ending:

Happy: 8 vote(s)

Bittersweet: 12 vote(s)

Sad: 3 vote(s)

Bittersweet ending it is... my favorite kind (insert evil grin) ok then

Enjoy!

Remember You, Remember Me

Chapter 5: Chasing Phantoms

By: trailsofblood666 aka Wizard

As if spoken allowed Itachi answered her question. "We attack Konoha directly."

Sakura froze in Itachi's embrace, muscles tense and ready to retaliate. Sure, it made sense if thought about, attack Konoha and they will be too weak to send out parties after her, but the cost was high. She wanted a way to prevent any of her past classmates from dying though, and an all-out war would only seal that fate. Just because she wanted nothing more to do with them that didn't mean she wished them death.

Opening and closing her mouth several times she tried to find the words to voice her opinion. All that her vocal cords produced were squeaks and croaks as she got lost in the Uchiha's eyes. She couldn't do it; she couldn't bring herself to say no to the man that had just saved her ass for the millionth time but she wouldn't allow herself to say yes either.

"Sakura." The kunoichi turned her head towards the man who called her name. Darknessess eyes spoke of no emotions but his voice was soft and sympathetic, drawing her to him like a moth to a flame. Itachi loosened his grip on the girl as she moved from his arms, slightly irritated at his lose of warmth.

"Sit."

Sakura obeyed the transformed katana and fell to her knees.

"Listen. I understand that you have no wish to hurt your 'friends' but i see no other way. You will continue to be hunted until your last breath is drawn, if we attack Konohagakure at least half of our problem will be solved. Think about it master, they will no longer pursue you and we may possibly be able to withdraw the bounty on your head. You would be free." Sakura snapped her head up.

"They will no longer pursue me because they will be dead! That's not what i want!" Rising to her feet, Sakura stared down the men before her and continued her rant. "There's got to be more to life than all this bloodshed. People die every day without having ever taken the life of another, why can't I?"

"They're not shinobi." Kisame pointed out.

"Then I don't want to be a shinobi anymore, someone else can have that title! I wont kill them, I CAN'T!" By now tears were free-flowing down Sakura's face, the young girl was at ends with what she should do. She had never directly disobeyed Itachi and Kisame's orders but she didn't think she had the strength in herself to attack her home, the place she was born and brought up.

Itachi stepped towards the frazzled girl and closed his arms tight around her shaking form. She tried to push away from his chest but he held her firmly to him, refusing to let her go. Something about seeing the woman cry made him uneasy, he wanted that feeling to go away so the only logical thing to do was make her stop crying. Right? Resting his chin on top of her pale pink head he allowed her to cry into him, waiting for her tears to stop before he spoke.

"I need you to fight with us Sakura. You say you want to live your life in peace well this is your chance to obtain it. One last fight. A battle to end a war." Itachi pulled the Sakura back slightly to look into her eyes, "To end your war. Are you with me kid?"

Sakura watched him for a moment before turning her head away and looking towards the ground. Her reply was so soft it was barely caught by the others standing to the sides, but no one missed the lone tear that fell to the dirt.

"Im always with you.

Kakashi ran a hand through his silver hair. He'd been looking at the Rookie Nine's files for two days straight and Tsunade had been right, there was nothing out of the ordinary about Sakura's file. Something was wrong though and he knew it, his instincts told him so. For 30 odd years he had trusted those instincts and they had yet to fail him, but his suspicions were proving unfounded the deeper he dove into the past.

Perhaps he was just getting too old.

Waving away that thought he looked back at the files in front of him. Papers lay scattered all across the large table normally used for ANBU meetings, all of them belonging to Sakura's file. He had been searching desperately for something, anything, that gave even the slightest hint of what was coming. He was searching through medical reports, mission reports, and even personal information of the remaining Rookie Nine and Gai's team for something that matched with anything on Sakura's file. Perhaps one of the others had run into someone on a mission who had made some off-hand comment that didn't seem important at the time? Maybe someone had seen something that didn't merit recognition because it wasn't related to their mission?

Shinobi were expected to write out mission reports in detail about everything they saw and heard no matter the importance of it to the mission. If some strange bartender made a comment about how great his wife was in bed or saw some blacksmith poking a chicken, they were required to report it. No matter how trivial something may seem at the time it may have greater meaning to another mission later on, which is why shinobi were taught to remember every minuscule detail and relay it all in full in their mission reports.

It would take decades to search through all the mission reports from all the shinobi in the last 4 years and it wasnt something Kakashi wanted to do, or looked forward to doing. He figured he would start with the Rookie Nine and if they didn't turn up any results he would re-think his strategy. He defiantly wasnt going to waste his life away sifting through papers, that was a Chuunin's job. Maybe he should get a Chuunin to do this? No that would be too lazy, even for his standards.

"How's the hunt going Kakashi-sensei?" At the sound of Naruto's voice Kakashi allowed his head to fall dramatically onto the table with a 'thunk'. He didn't need any visitors right now, especially one like Naruto.

"I told you not to call me that. You're a Jounin ANBU you have no need to call me sensei."

"Sorry, sorry, old habits die hard." Plopping down in a chair opposite of Kakashi he looked at the strewn papers with amusement. It looked like a tornado had run over the piece of furniture and deposited papers randomly. Picking up the slip nearest him he read the contents. It was a mission report, or rather the preliminary investigation dated 8 months ago of a slaughtered ANBU team, courtesy of Haruno Sakura. He remembered this attempt at trying to recover Sakura, he remembered them all, but he had lost a friend of his in this attempt. Yet he couldn't be angry at her, even after Hinata was sent to the hospital because of her he couldn't be angry at her, that in itself pissed him off.

Putting the paper back exactly where he found it so not to confuse Kakashi he leaned back in his chair. The silver haired Jounin was quietly smacking his forehead against the table. He couldn't help but feel a little bad for the man, he had been couped up here for days chasing phantoms that may or may not even exist.

"Go get some rest Kakashi, I'll sift through some of this for awhile."

Said man raised his head to his former student and smiled. A few years ago Naruto wouldn't have had the patience to sit in a chair for hours let alone do so while reading boring mission reports. He had grown though, they all had, when Sakura had left. Her departure had hit the village in a way she would not ever begin to understand. Without her smiles and laughter to keep spirits up, even in the roughest of times, they had to grow and learn to deal with things the hard way: acceptance.

"I couldn't let you do that Naruto, you have other, more important, things to deal with at the moment than this. You're an important part of this village and we can't afford to have you holed up in here reading documents that are pretty much proving worthless."

Naruto let his blue crystalline eyes meet Kakashi's for a moment before scanning over the paper mess again. He was important to the village, he had realized that years ago, and he was a strong asset but they could spare him if it meant bringing Sakura home. She was one of the most significant people in his life and he refused to believe that she was beyond their reach in helping. Casting his back to Kakashi he leaned forward and sighed.

"Ya know, when Kisame came and snatched Hinata it was the most terrifying thing i had ever experienced. I couldn't do anything to save her, i was helpless and it hurt. Do you think that maybe Sakura is the same way? I mean that she has no other option than following them."

Kakashi shrugged. "I honestly don't know, but i somehow doubt it. She's strong Naruto, you fought her and it's visible in her eyes. If she wanted to get away from them i think she probably could. There are a lot of things we don't know about the situation and without Sakura telling us we will never know. I know it may be hard but we have to assume that truly is the monster nukenin she's made out to be. Anyways, speaking of Hinata, how is she doing?"

"Tsunade-san is working on her. She says that whoever put her there manually shut down a great portion of bodily functions. They put her into a coma-like state by over-riding her brains response signals making it impossible for her to awaken even though she wants to. Tsunade-san says she can get her back to normal in a few days if everything goes right. She wont know if there are any other problems until she gets her brain back to normal."

Kakashi nodded in understanding and looked back down to the files. Naruto was here because he had nothing better to do so why not let him take over for awhile? Snapping his head back to the blond Kakashi's eyes narrowed.

"When Kisame took Hinata, did he say anything of importance to you? Did he say anything period?"

Naruto raised an eyebrow in question at the older male, thinking that finally Kakashi had gone over the top. "Just told me not to scream, said he had plans for her, needed her to help out a friend of his. Told me the world doesn't revolve around me, made some smart-ass comment about loving to stay and catch up, said he wouldn't hurt her too much if she cooperates and took off."

Kakashi's eyebrows knit together for a moment before he let his head fall heavily on the desk again, he was getting absolutely nowhere. All he needed was one small scrap of information to go on, just enough to let him know that his feeling was not wrong. Giving up he stood up from the table and spread his arms out to other side and smiled down at the young ANBU.

"It's all yours, enjoy." With that Kakashi 'poofed' away leaving the blond to his devices. Shaking his head Naruto took up where Kakashi left off.

Sakura walked in silence with the three men as they made their way east, back the way they had came. She didn't understand what was going on, she had agreed to attack Konoha with them but she didn't think they meant right now, right this moment. She needed at least, oh lets say, 6 years to prepare? She needed to gather her courage to it's maximum before trying something so bold.

Swallowing hard she turned to Itachi. "Where exactly are we going?" Without even turning to acknowledge her he answered.

"Konoha." Freezing in her tracks she stared wide-eyed at the man. No, not now, she couldn't now. Itachi turned towards the frozen kunoichi and sighed.

"Do you trust us Sakura?" She nodded. "No matter what happens now, remember that."

White bloomed across Sakura's vision before it faded to black.

'One.' Clink. 'Two.' Clink. 'Three, four, five.' Clink, clink-clink. 'Six.' Clink. 'Seven, eight." Cli-clink. 'Nine.' Clink. 'Ten.' Whoosh.

"Damnit!"

Sasuke thrust his katana into the ground and opened his eyes. He missed, how in the name of the seven hells had he missed? He had been going through his sets, using metal poles to let him know he was performing them correctly. All his previous movements had been perfect, flawless, but he couldn't ever manage to go through this set without screwing it up at least once. Being the perfectionist he was, that was unacceptable.

He had seen Sakura go through parts of it fluidly, like it was nothing, and here he couldn't even get past the first 10 movements without fucking it up! How was it that she was able to do it and he wasn't? He refused to believe that she was actually more skilled at anything than him, that was completely crazy. Little Sakura actually excel in something he couldn't given the time to train? The thought was almost laughable.

A buzzing in the back of his mind told him not to think such things but he just pushed that little pest back into his cobweb covered crate. He knew she was strong but he would bet his life that if you took away that demonic sword she carried with her he would prevail in any battle they should engage in. Ok, he needed to cool down, he knew he was getting too cocky in his anger but, damnit, that woman pissed him off beyond belief.

First she tries to stop him from running to Orochimaru, then, when he finally does come back, she smiles and says nothing to him for weeks. She avoided him, ignored him, and refused to look at him when he cornered her. THEN she runs away and teams up with his brother, the one person he hates most in this world, and has the audacity to tell him he knows nothing about his brother and attack him! Who did she think she was!

Still, somewhere inside of him, he wanted to ask her a million questions. Why ignore him? What happened? Why leave? Why, for the love of Kami, Itachi? He knew that these questions would forever go unanswered by the pink haired kunoichi but he couldn't help but think them. They had plagued his mind since she left and just kept piling up on top of one another with every new piece of information he gathered about her. Half the pieces of the puzzle were missing and it irritated him.

Yanking his katana from the ground Sasuke sheathed it across his back and walked away from the training area. Thoughts still absorbed in a certain someone he walked through the busy streets of Konohagakure. Random people called out greetings to him and he acknowledged them with a slight inclination of his head. He wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone today, not that any of them would provide a conversation with any substance anyway.

Putting himself on auto-pilot he made his way to the deserted part of town that contained the Uchiha mansion. Passing the Hokage's tower he paused for a second, something was off. This place was normally full of shinobi and other life at all hours and now it was completely barren of activity. Was there a battle somewhere that he was missing? Maybe an emergency meeting that was called and he didn't recieve the call?

Slipping into the building he was met with the same sight, nothing. Drawing his katana he stealthily slid his way up the winding stairs to the Hokage's office. Maybe Tsunade-sama had thrown another hissy-fit causing everyone to flee and it was nothing to worry about, or maybe not. Either way he was going to be careful until he figured it out. Pausing in front of the door he hid his presence and listened, he could hear faint talking on the other side of the door but words couldn't be made out. He could hear the distinguishable tones of Tsunade-sama, which solved the problem of her whereabouts but left one question: Is she safe?

The smooth tones of another person reached his ears next and he held his breath, hoping to either catch anything a snippet of conversation or a gender. He didn't know if knocking on the door was a good idea if she was truly in trouble, but if she wasn't barging in would just get something whipped at his head or other, more sensitive, body parts. Just the thought made him shudder. Gathering the courage needed he threw the door open and held his katana low to the side.

What he saw there made his blood run cold.

Ending Notes: I'm going to leave it there for the time being... so you here ya go chapter 5 of RYRM, which i might rename when this is over idk... well as tigger says "TTFN Ta Ta For Now"

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