Chapter 10

"Have you finished looking around? I'm starting to feel weird, standing around here"

He was standing guard as the dark haired man snooped around, since he was the one who knew where to look.

Itachi rolled his eyes, as he tried to ignore Kisame's gruff voice, he was right in the middle of something important , not really the more appropriate moment for his partner to bother him.

He and the tall weird looking man were on a mission trying to retrieve the documents Pain so desperately wanted, and Itachi's first step was to search in the place they had been seen for the last time. Which was Konoha's secret services headquarters, situated right in the core of the police central department, where not only his former office used to be, but his father's was not very far from where they were.

To say that Itachi knew the building like the palm of his hand was no joke, but still, it wasn't safe for them to be there and it didn't help that it was the middle of the night, there was always someone guarding the archives, and someone like him and Kisame would be immediately recognized and arrested, and Itachi was sure Pain wouldn't appreciate it if they ended up getting locked up.

"Uchiha, I'm sure someone has noticed us by now and I would hate to get my good jacket dirty tonight"

Itachi sighed, as he replaced an old dusty set of files that had been left for who knows how long sitting on the desk. He was actually surprised they hadn't cleaned it up by now, how long had it been? Almost six years? And yet, everything still

Looked the same, almost as if Shisui would walk back in any minute now. He half smiled at the picture still sitting by the window, it had been taken on Shisui's and Hana's wedding day, he remembered it clearly, he had been the best man.

"Uchiha? Are you even listening to me?"

Itachi looked towards the gruff man, standing awkwardly in front of the barely opened door, standing guard as he did the searching.

Itachi flopped back his long black hair, and walked out the door, not caring that they were technically "undercover" and that anyone could see them and try to capture them, they were wanted criminals after all.

"They're not here, exactly as I had imagined." He stated, pushing back the last box.

Kisame huffed, as he quickly followed the black haired man, looking around suspiciously for any sign of movement. It was nighttime and the department wasn't heavily guarded during that time, but someone always loomed around, in case someone tried to break in. Which was exactly what they were doing.

"Why did we even bother then?"

Kisame asked, as his right hand fell on the helm of his Samehada as he heard the rustling movements of someone approaching. Apparently they had bene discovered, as voices started to sound closer, and an alarm boomed loudly all over the building.

The gruff man groaned at the sound, and Itachi stood quietly as he seemed to think about something, not looking as preoccupied as he probably should have been, since the building would be soon filled of agents.

"I needed to be sure" of course, cryptic answers were his specialty, Kisame had learnt to accept that with time, and it didn't even disturb him anymore.

"Of course" one positive thing about Kisame was that he never doubted Itachi's moves, following him in every mission giving the younger man his full trust. Even this time, he had blindly followed Itachi in this mission that anyone would have labeled as suicidal, the dark haired man was known for being able to escape any situation, but this time it looked like it wasn't going to be a walk in the park, they were right in the core of Konoha's police forces, and Itachi's knowledge of the place was the only thing they could rely on.

The two started to run down the narrow hallways, Itachi leading the way, as Kisame followed shortly behind him, his hands never leaving the handle of his sword, and a clear sound of a gun being loaded covered the noise of their steps.

Itachi was a pro at doing more things at once, obviously he would never wait the last minute, and Kisame smirked as he saw Itachi point a gun in front of him, but he didn't use it as a guard approached them, pointing his own weapon at them,

forcing them to halt their run, as the man, although scared, would probably fire at them to save himself. Apparently he was aware of who was in front of them, as his hand shakes in fear.

Itachi caught that, and shot his partner a quick glance.

"If I use this it will give our position away" he lowered his gun, aware that they couldn't risk to be caught, they were too far from the exit, and too high up for them to try and escape from a window.

"Well, it seems like we will have no other choice, hm?"

He pulled out his sword with an excited grin on his lips. It was rare for him to actually have the chance to use it, everybody considered it out of style and not so practical.

"Don't waist time, we don't have the luxury to show off"

Itachi reprimanded him, reminding him just how precarious their situation was.

"Fine. Uchiha, you're such a party pooper"

The guard retreated, aware of the impending danger, his hand shaking more than before, Itachi was impressed, the man still spotted a determined expression, although there wasn't much he could do all alone

"You better surrender! The building will soon be full of Black Ops!" The man stammered, his eyes warily set on the tall man's sword.

Kisame snorted at that, but Itachi took the warning more seriously, he knew the man wasn't bluffing, he was sure the man had rung the alarm, letting everyone in the building know of the impending danger.

"He's right, whatever we have to do, we better do it quickly, we have no time to joke around"

"Damn it, we'll hear about this in the news tomorrow, Pain won't be happy" the tall man laughed, and Itachi ignored him, too concentrated on getting both of them out alive then listening to his friend's rambling nonsense. How Kisame even managed to find humor in such a situation was unknown to him.

"Nothing personal old man, but you're kinda standing in our way" Kisame had drawed out his sword, pointing it at the poor guard, who paled as seeing the monstrous thing Kisame was wielding, holding as if it had no weight.

"Stop showing off, we don't have much time" Itachi's eyes kept wandering from one side to the other, he was sure that the man was right and agents would be swarming the hallway soon, and they didn't want to be there when they did show up. They were good, but they couldn't compete with the whole black ops squad.

Kisame grinned and with no hesitation and the precision's and speed of a master sword man, he gashed the man on his left side, who barely had time to register what was going on, and finished him with a kick in the chest, that was sure to knock the breath out of him.

Itachi could only frown at the blood seeping copiously from the man's clothes, but only turned his back on the scene, and on Kisame and without a word started to flee out the back way, sure that his partner wasn't that far away from him.

They could barely see the street lights illuminating the road, from the big glass windows at the entrance signal that they weren't too far off, which made Itachi suspect. Their escape had been too easy, and they had only met one obstacle on their way, which was suspicious enough.. Especially in a place that was supposed to be full of agents.

Itachi stopped, sure that something was waiting for them close by.

"Kisame keep your eyes open." He whispered, tightening the hold on his gun.

"As always."

The duo slowed down their pace, and Itachi barely had the time to register as he heard the sound of a gun firing and a bullet passed dangerously close to his head. Two mere inches on the right and it would have hit him fully.

"Put your hands in the air and surrender, you have been caught" the familiar voice of Harare Kakashi came from in front of them, Itachi's eyebrow lifting the only sign of surprise

The man had aged terribly from how he remembered him, his eyes looked tired,and his face had more wrinkles on it now, and his face held a tint of disappointment as he scanned Itachi's cold dark eyes.

"Itachi, I'm not surprised to see you here. I was actually wondering when you would show up."

He should have known it was the older man on their trail, and he knew very well, that the grey haired man had missed his target on purpose. Kakashi didn't make mistakes unless he wanted to make them.

A line of agents were positioned behind the older man, only waiting for a his signal before attacking.

"If you put down your weapons, no harm will be done to you"

"I don't think we want to do that, mr Detective"

Kisame leaned on his sword, the same shit eating grin he always sported on his face when a challenge was drawn in front of him.

"So the rumors were true. You did join Akatsuki a bad choice for a guy like you, you could have been a prodigy, but you decided to affiliate yourself with scum."

Itachi snorted at that, his lips lifting into a malicious smile, as he pointed his gun at the man, that had once been his superior, something had caught his attention in the background, and he could only smirk, pointing his gun at Kakashi, who managed to sport a relaxed expression, as if he was ignoring the weapon pointed at him.

"It doesn't matter who I affiliate myself with, I will always be a step ahead of you."

Just as he finished talking, a loud explosion roared, and the loud sounds of glass breaking and pieces splattering all over was the only sound that could be heard, some of the man behind Kakashi were thrown upwards, by the force of the explosion, Kakashi himself falling to his knees, as the whole entrance was torn into pieces, momentarily losing sight of his targets, the commotion causing enough distraction for them to sneak out unnoticed.

He banged his fists to the floor in rage, as his eyes tried to see through the smoke and flames as loud sirens wailed in the distance.

"Un, Hope you're glad to see me, because I saved both your asses"

Deidara was grinning as he leaned against an old beat up car who they knew belonged to Sasori, the red haired man sitting in the driver's seat with a pair of sunglasses on, that reflected the flames that were taking over the building.

"Shut up blondie, we could have managed on our own" Kisame grumbled as he sneaked in the back of the car, sighing as he rested his back on the leather seat, angering the younger man who snorted in anger.

"Did you hear that danna? The stupid moron said they could have managed on their own! Well next time I won't come and help you and let the police deal with you, maybe they'll throw your ass in prison, you overgrown fish head!" He went on rambling until Sasori grew impatient and leaned over the passenger seat, pulling the man inside by his arm.

"Get in the fucking car and shut up, we don't want to be here when the whole police force of Konoha comes here"

His voice sounded bored, but they couldn't expect anything else from the unemotional bastard.

"And, I think Itachi is wounded, we need to take him to Kakuzu"

Deiadara gasped and turned in his seat to look at the Uchiha who was silently gripping his arm, and made an o with his mouth in wonder, almost hitting his face on the seat as Sasori found that was the right time to speed away from the scene. Deidara cursed him out before concentrating on the Uchiha

"Did you manage to get shot you dumb ass?"

"Tsk… I would worry more about you, once Pain learns about all the damage you did"

"I wouldn't have to do any damage if you didn't get caught, what were you doing in that damn place anyway?"

Itachi looked away, visibly irritated, his dark eyes lost in thought as he looked out the window, ignoring the searing pain in his arm. He had been hit on the way out, probably by a shard of that fell down from the windows as they escaped. It hurt like a bitch, and it would render him useless for a short period of time. It bothered him, since he didn't have that much of it to begin with.

"You could at least be thankful, I should have let

You two fuckers get caught"

The blond flopped back into his seat with his arms crossed pouting like a baby.

"Fuck off" Kisame kicked the seat in a not very gentle way, and Sasori took his glasses of, looking at them from the rear view mirror, his hazel eyes looked like they were burning.

"Don't you dare touch my precious seats with your fucking feet. Clear? Now apologize to my little bitch here, I hate to see him so distressed"

"man look at the road dammit"

Itachi sighed, he wasn't interested in getting involved in the damn conversation, but it was getting too stupid for his own tolerance.

"How did you even know where we were?"

Deidara paled, and Itachi noticed him and Sasori exchanging a quick glance, after that, the redhead huffed, clearly annoyed.

"My little fuck thingy here, overheard a discussion between you two. Apparently he wanted to make sure you were okay and, bribed me to take him here." He smirked in Deidara's direction, the blonde smiling shamelessly at the red headed man, making Kisame want to puke at the exchange. Itachi though, wasn't convinced, he wasn't satisfied with the explanation, and was sure the duo hid something.

"Hn, if it's like that then, I guess we really should thank you,

Deidara"

Still, he was going to keep his eyes open.

Sakura lied awake in her bed, she couldn't sleep as she thought about the afternoon she had spent at the Uchiha.

She hadn't had the courage to tell Mikoto the truth on why Sasuke had been acting so depressed lately. She felt that it wasn't her place, that she wouldn't have believed her, and now she felt like a coward.

They had wound up talking about simple things like school work and the future, not even once had they tried to breach the topic. The older woman had obviously really wanted to know, but Sakura wasn't sure how she would have taken it.

So, now here she was, wishing she had listened to Naruko, and maybe had the blonde help her while they told Mikoto, hoping that she, as a mother could help Sasuke. She hadn't seen her boyfriend at all during the time she had been at his house, and she felt even worse than before. She had at least wanted to catch a glimpse of him, just to make sure he was fine.

She scrolled through her phone her fingers ghosting over Sasuke's phone number wishing she could just call him like she used to do and talk about anything, while he lightly grunted on the phone, meaning he was listening to her as she was venting about something. It wasn't much, but to her, every little baby step between them had been progress that he was healing, at least, until the Itachi chapter was definitely closed and then he could really be back to how he used to be.

She sighed, covering her face with her arm, wishing nothing more than to sleep and wake up in a world where Itachi hadn't ruined Sasuke's life.

It was then, that her phone buzzed and she reluctantly picked up to see who was calling her at that time, sure it could only be Naruko, who was probably bored at work. It was after midnight, so she could be the only one awake.

She was surprised when she didn't read the blonde's name but Sasuke's, and it felt almost as if the phone was screaming at her to pick it up immediately. After all it had been more than two weeks since the last time she had talked to him.

"Hello? Sasuke- kun?" She whispered, hoping that it wasn't just a joke, and that Sasuke would actually talk to her.

A few seconds went by , and she finally could her the sound of someone breathing on the other end. Her green eyes tested up, and with a shaky voice she repeated Sasuke's name, and this time she actually received an answer.

"Sakura…" he stopped and she recognized Sasuke's almost monotone voice, but it was laced with something else, something that made it sound sweeter, more emotional

"Sasuke! I have been trying to call you for weeks! How are you? I… I was so worried!" The barriers she had tried to put on herself broke and her eyes and cheeks were wet with her tears.

"I know… I… I- I truly am sorry." And he really did sound it, and she couldn't relish in the feeling of his voice sounding so truthful for the first time, and in the fact that he was actually apologizing, it actually made her more suspicious because it sounded off, coming from him. It just wasn't him to call in the middle of the night to tell her he was sorry. Something had happened and she could feel the impending doom washing on her.

"If you want to open the door for me, I'm outside. I wasn't sure if you wanted to see me."

Her eyes widened and she ran to the door of her apartment, trying not to make noise, so she wouldn't wake up the other girls sleeping in their rooms, close to hers. She opened the door with too much force and threw herself at the Uchiha who looked like a beaten up dog.

All of this would have been incredibly romantic, he was hugging her tighter than usual, and was incredibly the one to kiss her first, if all of this hadn't been so out of character for him.

"I can't believe you're here, of course I wanted to see you, you big idiot!" she whispered, hugging him tightly her arms around his neck, as she took some steps back to look at him in the eyes, she noticed some slight changes. He was paler and his face looked tired, his hair were a little bit longer and had become even more unruly, and he looked like he had lost a little weight, but over all, it was still Sasuke in front of her.

"I'm here because I need to tell you something " and there it was. The thing she was expecting, because she had been sure that he hadn't suddenly appeared at her door just for no reason or because he wanted to see her. Not after more than two whole weeks of him giving her the cold shoulder.

"Let's go to my room first" she slid her hand into his, and led him through her small hall, closing the door behind them, and inventing him to sit on her bed, in front of her.

He looked a little uneasy, this was the first time he actually stepped into her room, and she couldn't shake off the thought that it might be the last.

"What did you want to talk to me about?"

"I heard you today at my house, talking to my mother… I just wanted to let you know how grateful I am that you didn't tell her what really happened"

She felt relief washing over her, maybe she had been wrong to be so worried.

"I figured it wasn't my place to tell her"

"Thank you… but, it made me realize … how stupid I was, to be so afraid, so humiliated" he paused for a few seconds looking up searching for Sakura's eyes.

"Afraid? You were nothing but afraid!"

"Sakura, Itachi has become stronger, the training he endured over the years… he wouldn't had no difficulties at my age. I am not at his level, not even close. I can't hope to be the one to stop him, not when I'm this weak."

"What… what are you trying to tell me?"

"I talked to my parents. I told them I'm not going to attend the police academy."

Sakura looked at him with wide eyes, not understanding what he was trying to tell her.

"I am going to enroll in the Black Ops. The ANBU. Konoha's most lethal squad. My father knows somebody that works there, and has passed my grades and scores and they accepted me. I leave in a few days for Oto"

Author's note:

Hellooooo! After a long hiatus I'm glad to say I'm back! Slowly but surely I am still working at this story, and I even released the Italian version, which is my first language, whoever feels interested you can check it out on my profile. I am warning you, there will be slight changes, since I plan on rewriting it once I am done. I am satisfied of how it's going but I feel like I need to change a few details at the beginning and maybe check some mistakes and typos. Anyhow, I will worry about it once it's over!

Till next time my lovely readers!

Ja ne!