Disclaimer: Naruto and all its characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

Chapter 8

Still firmly holding onto his gun with his left hand, Itachi ducked to avoid Orochimaru's swipe and aimed an uppercut at his face but Orochimaru tilted his head backwards to avoid it. Having expected that, Itachi slid his legs to trip him. This move finally caught him off guard, but Orochimaru recovered fast enough to prevent Itachi inflicting any lasting injuries on him. Orochimaru made his move next, letting fly two of the scalpels in his hand. Itachi managed to dodge the them but was unprepared by the sight of a third scalpel that was expertly kept from his line of sight by the first one. It sliced his cheek, drawing the first blood of the night.

"Tch."

"Getting rusty are you? Give up now and save your strength."

"Never."

With a sudden burst of speed, Itachi lunged forward and faked a kick to Orochimaru's face and swung a punch when he ducked. He missed, but he already expected to and immediately fired with his gun. The shot echoed loudly in the deserted building.

Orochimaru growled, temper rising. His left leg was flowing with blood from the wound. The pain wasn't much of a problem, but this will greatly affect his mobility.

Not giving Orochimaru any time to recover, Itachi quickly fired another shot at his right leg, but Orochimaru just managed to dodge and retaliated with a shower of scalpels. Too focus with dodging all the scalpels, Itachi momentarily lost sight of Orochimaru, only to feel the hairs on the back of his neck rising a split second later. He slid his body sideways, but Orochimaru still managed to leave a deep wound on his firing arm.

Ignoring the pain, Itachi put his gun back into the holster kicked a few of the fallen scalpels into the air. Expertly grabbing them all, the scalpels were only in his hand for a second before they were being projected towards Orochimaru.

"Using my own weapons against me? Even that is not enough to win against me, you know."

Itachi didn't respond, but instead threw another round of scalpels before doing a high backflip, landing behind Orochimaru. Much like how Orochimaru dealt the blow on his left arm, Itachi took the opportunity to lunge for him while he was still preoccupied with the scalpels he threw.

Orochimaru dodged with a mocking look on his face, "Using my moves as well? Seems like you are really getting desperate."

Itachi merely smirked at his successful fake and slid his legs to trip Orochimaru. With his legs in such a state, Orochimaru was not fast enough to dodge, and his balance was also weaker, leading to him falling face first onto the ground. The scalpels dug slightly into skin, drawing more blood.

Itachi wasted no time to pin him to the ground, firmly locking Orochimaru's arms with his one good hand.

Itachi's smirk widened, "You were saying?"

Orochimaru's only response was a sneer.

"Even if you have managed to defeat me, I'm not going to give up any information easily. By the time you're done with me, you would've lost too much blood."

"Oh, I know you're not going to spill that easily. Which was why I brought some backup."

With that, a swarm of armed police burst in, guns raised and pointing at Orochimaru. A few gathered around Itachi to properly arrest Orochimaru, allowing him to stand up and finally inspect the wound on his arm.

"Nice idea with the note, by the way. Would have preferred it if you hadn't coded it so heavily, though. How did you know that our office was bugged?"

Itachi looked up to see Obito and Shisui walking towards him. Obito was the one who had spoken.

"All of our previous foiled attempts were way too suspicious. Almost as if they knew we were coming before we even got there. The most likely option was that they were spying on us somehow, but since only the three of us knew the full details of each operation, I suspected a bug. I didn't have time to confirm it though."

"Why didn't you tell us earlier? If we had been here to help, you probably wouldn't have been injured." Shisui nodded at the wound that Itachi was now bandaging with the bandages in a first aid kit that one of the officers had handed to him.

"Too many people would be too noticeable. One person had the least chance of raising his suspicions. We couldn't afford to have him get away again."

Shisui sighed, "Well anyway, good job. You should drop by the hospital and get that treated. We'll take care of the interrogation."

Itachi nodded his affirmation and left. After all that Orochimaru has done to the Uchiha, he had no doubt that his cousins would show him no mercy and milk every word from his lips.

Sakura was feeling very confused and conflicted. She had no idea what to feel towards a Sasuke that didn't recognise her. The very concept of it made her head spin with confusion because how was it possible? How was it possible that the person she's known all her life, didn't recognise her? How was it possible that he had already forgotten the name of his best friend?

And so she had proceeded to ignore him entirely whenever he came with her food, almost as if she was storing away a particularly puzzling and tragic medical case for when her emotions had the capacity to handle it. For when her brain was clear enough to process and nit-pick through every procedure to find what went wrong.

She decided that the time was probably now. Even if she was still a bit heartbroken, she couldn't possibly leave her friend in such a state just because she wasn't emotionally ready.

I didn't graduate at the top of my cohort in med school just to become useless when my friends need me, shannaro!

Okay, first of all, Sakura reminded herself, from a medical perspective, losing one's memories is entirely possible due to amnesia. Judging from the fact that this happened after Sasuke-kun's disappearance for months right after his parents died, trauma is the most likely cause. Or it could also be from injuries he sustained in the fire… Either way, it would probably be best to speak to Sasuke-kun directly to find out what happened in the past few months to determine the cause and then I can draw up a treatment plan. But the biggest problem right now is the fact that he obviously won't speak to me after that inc—

Her rambling thoughts were interrupted when the door creaked open.

"Sakura, it's me, Sasuke."

Sakura looked up and could vaguely make out his features in the dim lighting. Combined with the familiar tone of his voice, the recognition that was now in his eyes nearly made her cry in joy and disbelief.

"I remember everything now."

Thank you for reading!