There is no greater fame for a (woman) than that which (she) wins with (her) footwork or the skill of (her) hands

Whenever Itachi's name fell from Sakura's lips, it felt equal parts intensely strange and fiercely familiar.

There was a time when Sakura had daydreamed all about what her first sexual encounter would be like. For an embarrassingly long period, long after she'd run off to train with Orochimaru, she had still seen that person as Sasuke, the fixation of her childhood and her prepubescent years. But where once she would imagine his tongue trailing along her neck, Karin had taken his place in reality. Where once she would make herself red-faced thinking about his fingers tracing her curves, Karin's had been there instead.

It was a fine first time, to be with someone who cared about her. Wiser now than the girl she'd been when smitten over Sasuke, Sakura knew that sex with him likely would've been awkward and strained.

Sex with Itachi, though, that was another experience altogether.

Not that they'd actually had sex, not officially or scientifically or biologically speaking. Presently he was nipping at the soft spot of her flesh where her neck swooped into her shoulder, his hand slowly tugging down the collar of her tunic. In the last year or so since that awful night with the Five-Tails' host, this had been the nature of things. When their rotations on watch allowed, they would wake early and meditate together, then gather herbs and roots at each other's side, chatting quietly and laughing loudly. And most nights—as long as Kisame had slipped into sleep, one of them would nudge the other.

That was always Itachi's cue to activate his Sharingan eyes, taking the two of them to a place where they could be truly alone. It never began with the intent to get physical, and often the moment she found her footing within his reality, they would set off and discuss all manner of things. While walking along an ocean shore, she spoke of how she sometimes missed her parents. He spoke little of his, though enough for Sakura to form an idea of the types of people they'd been in life. As they leapt through the giant forest branches of a fake Fire Country, he would tell her some thing or another of Sasuke, what he'd been like before that horrible day. He would speak some of Kisame—and how, for the first few days they'd been paired together, Itachi had been so intimidated by his partner's monstrously handsome features that he could hardly speak at all.

Sometimes they would spar, and she was ecstatic the first time he offered up an idea for her Rebirth Technique. They would pass theories back and forth, and in the safety of his mindscape where he could incapacitate her if things got out of hand, she could practice the jutsu whenever she pleased. It was difficult, though, without anything or anyone injured to work on. The thing in which she had the most confidence was her self-healing abilities, but if she were to save lives other than her own, she could not leave any room for error.

Just because things did not begin physical did not mean they didn't end up that way. Itachi, much like his brother, was prone to dramatics; often, after a long talk or an invigorating spar, he would glance down at her in one moment, and in the next would have her pushed against a tree, a rock, or the ground.

"I have a question for you," he would murmur, and she would roll her eyes fondly.

His knee was between her legs, and she reached up to touch his face. "Dumbass," she whispered, their lips touching only slightly. "You're supposed to ask before making a move."

He had quickly learned that she was not thrilled to make out in his various wildernesses, despite his assurance that he'd crafted no insects or dirt or sand to bother her. His kisses were always deep and passionate, and this was how they found themselves in a mock-up of an inn, one they'd stayed in a few weeks prior. She moaned his name as he pulled at her tunic, his adept fingers teasing along the waistband of her shorts.

"Put us in something else," she requested, her mind hazy and her nerves like live wires.

Their minds connected, he did not need to ask for clarification. Around her body her clothes morphed to luxurious robes, the most expensive-feeling yukata she'd ever worn. She held up her arm, touching the blood red-colored fabric, tightly woven through with exquisite designs in whites and yellows, as Itachi watched her through his tired eyes. Around his shoulders now was a yukata of a much simpler make, in deep blues and blacks cut through with stark, off-white blocks.

She thrust forward, catching him by the waist to pin him to the futon where she'd just been. His robe was loose, exposing his chest and the muscles across his stomach, disappearing into the lazily-tied obi around his hips.

"Why so modest?" she asked, dipping her head to plant slow, deep kisses along his sternum. His breath hitched, but he did not moan—that had been her goal of late, to drive him as wild as he did her. But he was a quiet person, and if she were feeling bold, she may even dare to call him shy.

One of his cold hands fell upon her exposed shoulder, pushing the rest of her sleeve off from her arm. Half of her bare chest was exposed, and he brushed the backs of his fingers along the underside of her breast. Her breath came heavy then, but she would not be so easily unraveled.

Beneath her, he'd smirked. "I'm a modest man."

She playfully narrowed her eyes at him, sinking from sitting on all fours to resting just on her knees. She was sat now directly atop where his legs met—she'd seen plenty of nudity in many different aspects in Orochimaru's estate, but the shock of intimacy to feel his hardness there was always such a thrill that her stomach flipped.

She called upon Inner's sheer audacity and leaned down, her lips at his ear, as she ground her hips into his. The pressure revealed that she, too, was aching between her legs, in a way she hadn't before realized.

"If you're so modest," she breathed, her tongue pressing against the flat of his ear, "I wonder what your excuse is for this."

Through his cotton robe she took his length in her hand, and she'd gotten what she wanted when a moan sounded from deep in his throat. She pulled back, eager to see the look on his face she so loved: his eyebrows furrowed, his head thrown back on the hard pillow, his teeth clenched. His face was flushed in a cute way, across his nose and under his eyes and even through to the tips of his ears. It almost seemed that he was in pain, but just before she began to ask, he cracked open one of his red eyes and, staring straight up at her, said,

"My excuse is that I desperately want to be inside of you."

She hadn't been expecting something so blatant...! He rarely talked dirty, and her blush to hear it was both intense and instant. In her frozen surprise he wrapped his arm around her waist, propping himself up to kiss along her jawline.

"I—Itachi," she breathed, just as he bucked his hips against hers. Oh, how she needed to get both of them out of these robes and—

But Itachi stopped, sitting still as a statue. A dangerous look fell over his features as he turned his head as if straining to listen to something small and quiet.

"Did something happen?" she asked in a hurried whisper.

"It's Kisame," he said quietly. "Collect yourself; I'm dropping the illusion."

When she blinked, she was lying on her side in the dark meadow in which they'd made camp. Itachi lay a respectable distance from her, his eyes locked to hers as Kisame's hulking form shook his partner's shoulders.

"If you two lovebirds are done," he was saying, his words clipped in annoyance, "we've just received the summons."

Waking from the Tsukuyomi was like waking from a dream that was much too real, and she could still feel that throb of lust between her legs and the excitement pulsing through her entire body. She sat up, alert despite her arousal, and scrambled to her feet.

Pein had just a few days prior authorized a strategic attack on the Village Hidden in Sand, and though she'd only met Sasori and Deidara once each, they were both unhinged and practically seeping with power, in their own ways. But from what she remembered of Gaara, she wondered how in the world he was taken down so quickly.

Kisame readied the teleportation scroll, and as she and Itachi packed up their small camp, they exchanged glances. He knew—and Kisame likely did, too—that she would make another attempt like she did for Han. But when Itachi's eyes turned teasing, she felt her face flush and her chest ache.

"Let's hurry," he said, loud enough for all to hear. "Wouldn't want to keep your old acquaintance waiting."

"Oh?" That had piqued Kisame's interest. The three of them gathered in formation atop the scrolls, but he was watching her. "You know this one already, little sis?"

"In a manner of speaking," she answered slowly. Would he be angry for her not being up front about that? "He tried to kill us a bunch of times during our chuunin exams. He's...scary."

"Scarier than me?" Kisame's smirk was unreadable to Sakura. "And you want to save his life anyway, even when he tried to take yours?"

"Yes," she answered. She activated her chakra, feeling the pull of the teleportation jutsu. She steeled herself, keeping her face as serious as possible. "I do."

The Akatsuki's base was shrouded in a protective barrier, through which they were granted access. Their gathering was attended by each member of the organization—most through some remote attendance technique—and two men she'd never seen before. Deidara, with his deceptively young face, had returned missing an arm. There was a small smug feeling in the pit of her stomach to know that Gaara hadn't gone down without a good fight, but all of her sense left her when she saw that unconscious body lying there on the dark rock. She inhaled sharply, holding her breath in suspense and fighting her urge to run to his side. Naruto had risked everything to save this same boy, years ago—she couldn't let that sacrifice be in vain. She couldn't fail.

"Sakura."

It was the deep voice of Pein, who was still technically her employer. She turned, bowing as politely as she could manage in spite of her frenzied nerves. He, too, was attending remotely, and she clicked her tongue at that.

The asshole couldn't even be bothered to show up this time? Inner spat.

He gave a curt nod to Itachi and Kisame. "I thank you both for your physical attendance, as well as ensuring the safe delivery of Sakura." When he turned back to her, she tried not to shrink away. "Your stunt at last year's extraction could have been costly. You should be thankful it was not. My assignment for you this time is simple: do not let the jinchuuriki die. If you fail once more, it is of no consequence to the extraction—though a minor inconvenience to me, to lose someone with the First Hokage's genetic material.

"But if you succeed, I would hold an audience with you for a request of the utmost importance. Itachi knows the way. Please, take your place by the host boy." He looked about the room, his incorporeal form scattering and reappearing at his place at the peak of the gargantuan statue situated in the back of the cave. He called all to attention, and they each took their respective places.

Her knees had gone weak. It was just as Kisame had said all that time ago: by putting her power on display in her attempt to save Han, she'd attracted the special interest of someone she'd sooner turn from and run at full speed.

"Making nice with that fancy-eyed freak," muttered Deidara as he brushed past her, "and getting special treatment from the boss? I knew you had no shame, un-un."

Vaguely she was aware of Kisame's short laugh, before telling the kid to scram. She was glad that of the few people in physical attendance, half were those she considered friends. As best she could, she shoved down her worries and approached the Kazekage.

Gaara had grown. His disheveled hair hung in his face, and as she smoothed it from his eyes she nearly flinched at the cold sweat that was beading across his forehead. She hovered her hands above his body, making a slow sweep down his neck and chest and belly, feeling for his chakra's and heart's baselines. Slow and sluggish; whatever the boys had done to take him down, it was nasty work indeed. Orochimaru himself would be proud, she was sure.

As Itachi made for his spot, his eyes met hers one last time. Though there were no words spoken, she'd spent enough time with him inside of his head to know what such a look meant: Do your best, and do not be stupid about it.

When Pein called for the extraction to officially begin, she swallowed hard. Her palms were sweating and her arms were shaking, but she would not fail. She couldn't. It would be a tough task to stay awake for the time needed to complete the jutsu, but she had gotten through it once before—and that was without much of a plan, and without the support of the boss.

The first day was as horribly slow as it'd been with Han. Gaara's tolerance for pain was seemingly much higher, only grunting and hissing his agony at first. But Sakura figured it would not be long until he, too, was screaming and writhing in pain, an integral part of his soul ripped clean from his body. His chakra wavered, his blood pressure rising and falling in hour intervals. The eerie eyes carved into the stone walls pried open little by little, their haunting stares leaving her feeling vulnerable and afraid. They looked only at the backs of the other members, but she and Gaara were under the full force of their otherworldly gazes.

All she could do was spare as much chakra as she could, always keeping enough in her reserves to ensure she could tap into her curse seal and the Rebirth Technique.

Early on the morning of the second day, Itachi stirred. An unspoken communication passed between he and Pein, and the two strangers who'd done nothing but stand aside like little more than puppets darted out from the cave, disappearing into the forest.

But when Deidara leapt from his place, Sakura's blood went cold. And when he and Sasori both took their leave from the cavern, she felt frozen where she stood. Something was deeply wrong for Pein to be willing to lose manpower, but before she moved even a muscle, she looked to her side. He was staring right at her, those spiraling purple eyes more piercing than the ones on the wall, and she gulped in anxiety and frustration.

"No doubt: Sand reconnaissance," he announced with disinterest. "Let us hurry and be done with it."

She closed her eyes, pushing past her instinct to worry and training all of her focus on monitoring Gaara's life force. She hoped it was not obvious how badly she wished that the Sand shinobi were successful in rescuing the Kazekage, but she cheered for them inwardly.

Some of the members began to chat idly, eager for a break in monotony. She tuned them out, their voices little more than background noise. The day wore on, but no matter how long the extraction dragged ever onward, the Kazekage did not cry out in pain. His resolution and tenacity was inspiring and sad, and she thought instead how simpler it was to monitor his condition than it was Han's. She should be grateful for this second chance, after all.

Sasori and Deidara did not return.

On the morning of the third day, the extents of her exhaustion had finally caught up to her. She took this as a sign, and began to tap into the power of the cursed seal on her wrist. She would need it regardless if she were to have any shot of surviving her sloppy recreation of the Rebirth jutsu, and the moment the seal's power turned her skin that stony grey, she nearly cried in relief. The boost in power was welcome, her fatigue all but forgotten.

In her heightened state, somehow she could feel it, Gaara's soul there in his body. It was hanging on by a thread, such a weak thing now, wasted away by three horrible days of this terrible jutsu. With her own power amplified by the strength of the First Hokage and that power made exponential by the effects of the cursed seal, she took in a great breath and carefully laid her hands—a strange, incorporeal version of them—onto the spirit.

Don't die, she and Inner chanted in unison. We can do this.

The extraction was nearing its completion, and she fought against its path of total destruction. She emptied her reserves into Gaara, and with the sheer magnitude of her concentration, she could feel each sporadic pump of his heart and the ache of his lungs. For the best result, her timing would need to be impeccable—she simply could not afford for a repeat of the last time. The moment of truth was making its rapid approach, but then in the span of just a few simple seconds, the circumstances shifted.

The first was that something had caught the attention of Itachi, whose Sharingan had been active for the entire ritual. His head had snapped from Gaara's body to the great rock barricade, but Sakura would not allow herself to lose focus now.

That was when she felt the second change: one final tug, the One-Tailed Beast free of its mortal host at last. Gaara's life force flickered like a candle just-blown, and she nearly yelped in her surprise. It had faded so quickly that she was sure she'd lost him, but it was still within her metaphysical grasp, a mere fraction of what it'd been moments ago, like faintly glowing cinders scattered amongst ashes.

The third change came from within, as she activated Rebirth in that very instant. Her senses all on the highest alert possible, she swore she could feel the jutsu at work, her cells dividing rapidly to create and replace as much energy as she needed. She felt invincible, powerful, like a god among men as she held a life in her palms, the only thing separating it from the soft, warm, and inviting hands of death.

The fourth and final way in which the tables turned was the explosion. The rock, where Itachi had turned attention, burst into a hundred-thousand pieces, shattered as if as brittle as glass. The shinobi from Sand must have killed Sasori and Deidara, and puzzled through the protective sealants placed outside of the cavern. A surge of elation came over her—these soldiers would arrive to find their Kazekage alive. Any sacrifices they'd made on the way would be worth something, and it was all for her persistence and hard work.

The midday sun poured into the cave, so bright that Sakura shut her eyes to it as it filtered in through clouds of dust. So lost in her own emotions was she that when a shrill voice called out in unfettered rage, she did not at first recognize it.

"You...you assholes!"

Maybe it was that she did not want to recognize it. But she cracked open her eyes, seeing there silhouetted against the glowing sunlight none other than Naruto, his face an ugly twist of anger.

"I'll kill both of you!"

He was looking past her, up at Itachi and Kisame as if she simply did not exist. The rest of the Akatsuki had all vanished, their remote presences gone from the cave the very moment the extraction had been completed. She'd been so focused on Gaara that she hadn't noticed their departures, nor had she noticed the other ninja who'd arrived with Naruto.

The enemies who'd been engaged by Sasori and Deidara hadn't been a Sand reconnaissance team at all. It had been Konoha's Teams 7 and 9.

Every shred of happiness we find, Inner ground out, shaking with rage, come crashing down at the wandering hands of the Leaf?

She shut her eyes, her work on Gaara not yet complete. It was almost there, and she would rather fall dead here and now than lose him to her carelessness.

"Whatever you're doing to him," Naruto growled, his chakra flaring wildly, "step out of the way, Sakura-chan."

She did not dare look up from her work. A splitting headache and a cold sweat had broken out on her arms, but Gaara's blood was pumping again, his heart beating on its own. If somehow through her trembling fingertips she could just ensure that he could breathe—

Naruto's roar was deafening, its echo bouncing off the walls of the cave. He'd charged, but Sakura did not flinch.

"Stop!" Sasuke commanded, and she knew that if the order had come from anyone else, Naruto would not have heeded. Instead, he froze dead in his tracks as the other boy offered a quick explanation. "You of all people should know better! It's healing chakra, idiot."

Kakashi was all defense, his stance guarded as he watched on. He was out of breath and took a small, staggering step forward. "We'd heard you'd joined the Akatsuki..." he mused slowly, as if piecing together everything he'd learned from the last three years. "But Sakura, won't you explain?"

But her breaths were labored now, her jutsu unable to be sustained any longer. She had minutes ago pushed herself beyond her limits, and just as the power of her curse mark faded back into the black sigil on her wrist, Gaara's black-rimmed eyes slowly began to open. Nothing else mattered then, not the pain of another Team 7 reunion or their anger and confusion upon seeing her there. Even if she'd the strength to answer Kakashi, all she could feel beyond her migraine and nausea was the incredible thrill of victory.

Naruto was at her side in a flash, though she knew she wasn't his priority. He'd grown even taller since last she'd seen him, his hair just as long and unruly. Through her heavy-lidded eyes she watched as he gave her a serious look, nodding once in thanks before lifting the Kazekage in his arms.

As she tried to stand, she noticed something pass between Itachi and Kakashi. A look, nothing more, and not as enemies but as ex-allies, tense and loaded.

"You're outnumbered," her old sensei said flatly, despite his obvious sorry state. Their power must have grown tenfold since last she saw them, if they'd managed to kill Sasori and Deidara. But that battle also must have left them low on chakra and exhausted; she wondered how often Kakashi had bluffed his way out of a bad situation. "Luckily, all we wanted was the Kazekage's body."

Itachi's reply was low and deadly, a malicious cadence to his voice that she'd never before heard. "It seems a fight isn't in either of our better interests."

Whatever his reasoning, she was grateful for such a response. She and Kisame would follow his lead as they always did, and she was in no place to stage an offensive.

When she began to sway and collapse, a cold pair of arms caught her before she hit the rocky ground. She rolled her head, her stomach horribly upset as she vomited a clear bile onto the stone. Far too tired to be embarrassed, she settled back into the black-clad arms, looking up into his eyes and whispering his name.

She had thought it was Itachi, but she'd memorized the pattern of his Sharingan long ago. Rather it was Sasuke who'd ran to catch her before she fell, and she furrowed her brows in confusion. He hoisted her upright, studying her intently.

There was a sudden, frantic air about him as he grabbed hold of her shoulders. Even through her fatigue she could feel it, see it in his widened pinwheel eyes. Under normal circumstances she might've blushed or gawked to be scrutinized so closely by him, someone for whom she once cared so much. Now, though, his desperation frightened her.

"Sakura," he said, blood beading at his tear ducts, "come home. I don't know what he's told you, but Itachi isn't—"

But then his hold on her was gone, and she was staring not into Sasuke's face, but at the sandaled feet of Itachi himself. He loomed over his brother, who stood as if to square off.

"Take the former jinchuuriki and go," the older said to the younger, his tone still sharp with that sinister bite. The last thing Sakura heard before she slipped into a dreamless sleep was his threat, unwavering and wholly sincere: "Before I change my mind."