Warnings: Swearing, Alcohol Use, Sensitive Themes

Please enjoy the chapter!

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Chapter 7: Lay Me Down to Speak

When she opened the bathroom door, Sasuke stood as still as stone at the window, looking as if he had never moved. In fact, the entire room looked as if it had been frozen in the time she had used to heal and bandage herself.

"Did you take a nap?" she inquired as a mother would to her child. Sakura found that she enjoyed irritating him.

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "If you really must know, I did catch a few minutes of sleep. Better to sleep here than in a tree somewhere if my lead takes off."

So, that meant he must have had an idea of where they would be heading next. As predicted, he had impressive skill in tracking his older brother's movements.

"Great!" Sakura exclaimed at her success, "I'm all healed up and ready to go." With a brilliant smile, she shot her hands into the air as a display of her reclaimed limberness and energy.

Shifting his eyes from the outside world to look at her, Sasuke responded, "If you don't mind me asking, what kind of wounds did you have on your back there? You covered your faltering gait pretty well, but I could tell that the injuries were much worse than you were revealing."

"It's probably better that he doesn't know about the poison," Sakura thought to herself.

Keeping some information tucked away would offer an advantage down the road—especially if he turned out to be as untrustworthy as he had been in the past. Plus, she could claim ignorance if he ever brought it up. Sasuke always underestimated her intellect and abilities, anyway.

Waving her hand with a carefree laugh, she replied, "Oh, just kunai wounds. I'd say that I got pretty lucky considering what could have happened." For a brief moment, it occurred to Sakura that they had probably exchanged more lies than truths in their short time together so far.

His face spoke of silent agreement with her statement. Even if she had already showed him that she had grown since their last meeting, he would never believe that she had a true chance in winning against his older brother. If he had not managed to complete his goal yet, then certainly Sakura, the crying girl from Team 7, would not be able to defeat Itachi.

With no further questions, he checked for his katana at his side, scanned the room for anything out of place, and assessed her figure with a coldness that indicated it as a calculating measure rather than an affectionate one. He seemed convinced of her good health and ready to go.

Reading his body language, Sakura headed for the door and he followed. All without much ado, they exited the room, walked down the hallway to the lounge, and waved goodbye to the receptionist. Wordlessly, they walked into the late afternoon sunshine of the bustling town.

As they wove through pedestrian traffic in comfortable silence, Sakura realized that her kunai had disappeared from the door.

She chuckled to herself, "Hopefully it won't be used against me someday."

Even though it was strange to laugh at seemingly nothing, she allowed it to echo unsuppressed. After all, who knew? It might be her last chance to genuinely laugh ever again.

As she chortled to herself, Sasuke did not ask what she was laughing about.


The sun had long since fallen and the moon rose to take its place. It was a clear night and, now that they were away from light pollution, the stars were arranged in a brilliant display.

Finally breaking hours' worth of frigid silence, Sakura asked, "So, where are we heading? I'm going to guess that you got some directions while we were in town. Anything good?" She hoped he would reveal the information he had gleaned from the sewer scum dealers back there, but she sensed that she would only get a half-truth if she was lucky enough to get anything at all.

"We're heading to a place outside of Suna, still in rogue territories. There, we'll find one of two things: more information or my brother himself," Sasuke explained.

Itachi's conspicuousness confirmed her hunch that he was not hiding from them—he was hoping to spark another encounter. If he had not wanted to be found, chances were that they would not even have a lead. It would have turned into an endless game of hide-and-seek in which the seekers were blindfolded and the hider silently hopped from one cubbyhole to the next.

Sakura paused. "How likely is the latter?" Depending on the reliability of his sources, he might lean one way or another—a good source offered a better chance of the information being true.

"I never get my hopes up," he replied with cool stoicism. Sakura knew better, though—if he had reason not to get his hopes up, then he thought there was a good chance of them encountering Itachi when they arrived at their destination. This thought made her every nerve buzz with excitement.

"Of course not," she pushed forward in an effort to continue casual conversation, "You seem to be good at tracking people. You know. First me and now Itachi. Well, I'm sure you've always been good at tracking him. But, how did you hear about our battle?"

"I'm guessing that we tracked Itachi to the same location—in the Land of Fire, but outside of Konoha. We both knew he was there, but you got to him first. I didn't move fast enough. I was taking my time because I'd assumed it was a dud lead. As I was passing through a small village nearby, I heard that he was already gone after having fought with a pink-haired earthquake," he chuckled and continued, "I'd have assumed you were dead if it wasn't specifically mentioned that neither had fallen. Everyone was amazed—you made quite a name for yourself from that incident."

Sakura's brows furrowed in a combination of concentration and confusion. Firstly, she did not like that such a story about her had been the hot topic of a village—it did not bode well with someone who was accustomed to being comfortably nobody and had since turned into a missing nin. Secondly and most importantly, she did not understand how such a rumor came to spread. There had been no witnesses to her battle to tell the tale—not even Itachi's shark-faced partner had been nearby. Sure, people would have seen the dust clouds and firebombs from miles away, but Sakura was certain that there was nobody on the premises during the actual affair.

Trying to stay nonchalant, Sakura inquired with faux absent-mindedness, "Do you know where these rumors started? I mean, sure, our battle was pretty destructive of the surrounding area, but we weren't that close to a town or anything. I guess I'm just embarrassed that I caused such a ruckus."

For a tense moment, Sasuke was as quiet as an empty graveyard. As she waited, Sakura could feel her adrenaline kicking into overdrive.

"I'm sure it was just a passerby who sprinted in the opposite direction once he realized what he'd almost walked into." Sasuke's lie was so empty that even he sounded unconvinced—a stumbling third party does not go unnoticed when there are only two people in the warzone. If somebody was there, it was no accident.

Sakura scratched her head with a smile. "Of course, that makes sense. Ha! Can you imagine how scared he must have been? That would have been one ugly to scene to fall upon—Itachi Uchiha facing a girl who was cracking craters into the Earth. He must've booked out of there like no tomorrow!"

Even if Sakura was just following through with his lie, she did find the imagery entertaining. Plus, it seemed that her feigned ignorance seemed to put whatever darkness was brewing in Sasuke at ease.

He wore a small smirk and added, "I'll bet he ruined his clothes."

Now Sakura pictured a man with soggy bottoms scrambling away from the destruction and her forced laughter morphed into something more natural. Its tintinnabulation rang through the cool nighttime air.

This was what camaraderie felt like: two old friends laughing together despite their dangerous mission. It felt delightful, but it was all wrong—Naruto was not here, they were both missing nin, and they had exchanged so many lies to get to where they were that even the truth was questionable at this point. This moment was a flower that had sprung up from a pile of composting feces.

Sasuke abruptly stopped walking and turned to look at her. His face grew serious despite their previous jocosity and he averted his eyes away from her before speaking.

"I really did miss you, Sakura."

It was a lie spoken with such intensity that it oozed verisimilitude. Even though Sakura knew better, she found that her face still softened at the words she would have once died to hear—and, in an ironic way, she had died to hear them. She had to kill every bit of who she once was to end up in this moment.

Sakura offered a small smile before responding, "I really missed you, too."

At least her lie held a tiny half-truth—she really had missed him in the beginning. But, after years of him being gone, she had learned how to be alone.

Suddenly feeling uncomfortable, Sakura broke the impending silence, "Why don't we quicken our pace? The faster we get there, the better chance we have of catching him." A change of topic left her feeling relieved.

He nodded to signify his assent. Rushing to catch a sitting target was unnecessary, but they were both too anxious for the upcoming encounter to rest any longer.

"Let's race," Sasuke challenged with a smug smirk.

Throwing her arms to her sides, Sakura exclaimed in exasperation, "But I don't even know how to get to where we're going!"

Sasuke shrugged. "Well, I guess that means that you lose by default, then." In an effort to ensure his victory, he sprinted off to give himself a head-start.

Sakura stomped in agitation and inadvertently crumbled the patch of earth beneath her foot.

"You cheating bastard! This doesn't count as you winning!" she yelled after him.

Not wanting to waste another moment, she huffed loudly and sped off to catch up.


"Sasuke!" she called out, "Are you there?"

Her nerves were starting to tingle uncomfortably. She had lost his chakra signal an hour ago and had been running in what she hoped was the right direction ever since. There was too much uncertainty in her current situation for her to feel at ease.

Sakura's breathing was becoming a little quicker than she liked and her heart rate had already doubled. Deciding that she could not deal with the panic anymore, she came to an abrupt halt to steady herself.

"I'll just climb a tree and get a good look at what's around here. Maybe Sasuke's battling with Itachi a few miles ahead. If so, that's something I'd definitely be able to see from afar," Sakura whispered to herself. The sun was starting to come up, so she would have that to aid her vision.

She scanned the surrounding forest for a tall tree and found the perfect candidate only a few steps away. Sending chakra to her feet, she sprung herself onto the tree's lowest branch; it was thick and sturdy, so she did not worry that it would collapse under her weight. Using her chakra again, Sakura nimbly swung herself up to the next branch above her and then to the branch above that.

At this point, she was about three-fourths of the way up the tree and the branches were becoming weaker. Deciding that she needed to take the rest of the way a little more slowly, she reached up to the next branch without using her chakra.

As Sakura stretched her left arm above her, she suddenly saw it fly backwards as if an invisible force had pushed it. In a too-short moment, she sent chakra to her feet to save herself from falling and found herself dangling from the branch upside-down—whatever had knocked into her hand had held a lot of force behind it.

When her head jerked to look at her gloved appendage, her heart stopped—she was too late this time. The kunai that had lodged itself into her palm would have its poison delivered to her nervous system in a hand-basket when her shocked heart took its next beat.

Bah-dump. And there it went.

Her muscles became loose and the chakra withdrew from her feet. Her control over her limbs had vanished; Sakura closed her eyes and hoped that she would not die from the fall.

Instead of taking a speedy nosedive toward the ground, she felt herself floating slowly to the forest floor. When she gathered enough courage to open her eyes, Sakura discovered that she had landed in a soft bed of midnight down. While this should have lulled her into a state of comfort, she wished desperately that her body possessed the mobility necessary for her to thrash about.

A slew of curses sprung from her mouth as Sakura determined that she was paralyzed from the neck down. The person who put her in this undesirable condition would arrive to examine his handiwork any moment now and there was nothing she could do to defend herself. The feathers she lied on warned her that she was trapped in a genjutsu, but she could not move her arms to form the hand seal needed to dispel it.

In a nightmare-come-true, Itachi suddenly stood at her feet like an unwelcome apparition. As usual, his face was untelling, his body was languid, and his sharingan swirled with red. As she lied there, she knew that the hunter had become the hunted.

"Your name is Sakura," he stated.

She wanted to respond with silence, but she found that her lips moved anyway. "Yes. My name is Sakura Haruno."

"Why did you want to battle me?" he inquired. His voice was smooth and he spoke with the slowness of someone who had all of the time in the world.

Even though she resisted, it seemed that whatever jutsu in which he had trapped her also forced the truth to flow more freely than it would in the natural world.

"I wanted to experience the tsukuyomi and then I wanted to kill you."

Nearly going cross-eyed at her own words, she thought, "Profess that you wish to kill him while you lie incapacitated on the forest floor. Great idea! Way to go, Sakura!"

Looking down into her eyes, Itachi asked, "Why do you want to be taken into the tsukuyomi?"

"I've heard that it is the most treacherous torture that a human can be forced to endure."

At this, his brow furrowed in a way that appeared to be concern, but was probably just confusion. The bewilderment left Sakura delighted, though—she would have never thought that she would be able to trip up Itachi Uchiha and, even further, to have done so by simply telling the truth. Sakura had just obtained the unobtainable.

"Why did you want to kill me?" His questioning continued.

"To prove myself and finish Sasuke's conquest for him. Those were small reasons, though. I mostly wanted to kill you out of my own personal revenge. If you hadn't driven Sasuke mad, I might have led a happy life." Her voice was mechanical despite all of the emotion and meaning held in her message.

"A happy life," she thought, "It's too late for that now."

His pause between questions lingered longer this time than it had previously. Sakura hoped it meant that her words had affected him, but she accepted that it probably just meant that he was deciding how to use the information to his advantage.

Taking in a breath, Itachi asked in a finalistic tone, "Sakura, why do you seek to battle me now?"

She really wished she could be released from this interrogation genjutsu.

"I don't know."

Even though they were her own words uttered from her own mouth, Sakura found herself surprised at her answer. Sure, things had been muddled by recent circumstances, but she was certain that she had just… lied.

Itachi's head snapped to alert and he announced in unabridged wonderment, "I've never had someone successfully fight my genjutsu before." He chuckled emptily "Impressive. It's certainly more than my brother's had to offer on our battlefield three miles north of here."

"You're battling Sasuke right now?!" Sakura exclaimed in panic. She was relieved at her renewed control of her speech, even if her excitement was optimistically premature.

"He really is just as distractable as when he was a small child," Itachi stated wryly before changing the subject, "One last thing before I let you go and allow you to decide the turnout of our battle, though..."

For someone so calculating and logical, he was suddenly making very little sense. She might have gained skills and strength beyond measure, but she doubted her ability to be the deciding factor in battle between two powerful Uchihas—even though she would certainly try.

"…I'm sorry, Sakura."

Before she could respond, he was gone and the jutsu began to fade away into the natural forest. The kunai disappeared from her hand and she found that she was able to move her limbs again—it had all been a part of the genjutsu. Even though she was tempted to dwell on their conversation, she knew that she could do one better: Sakura was ready to join the Uchiha brothers on the battlefield.


Authoress's Note:

Hi, everybody! Sorry for posting a day late this week-stressful personal circumstances held things up a bit. I still intend to keep posting on Wednesdays whenever possible.

Thank you very much for reading! :)

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