Chapter 14: Chit-chat
Sakura awoke the next day with a sigh. Yesterday was dull, but today would be even duller without the poetry book to enjoy.
Just as she was beginning to feel sorry for herself, she heard a timid knock on the door.
"Come in!" Sakura almost sounded too eager.
Itachi entered the room carrying breakfast. Like every meal he carried into the room, it made her stomach growl.
Sakura inhaled. "Mmmm. That smells delicious! Who's been doing the cooking around here?"
He froze to stare at her.
"Uhhh…" she mumbled in attempt to cover up whatever mistake she had surely made.
"Sakura, we don't have maid service. I've been the one doing all the cooking."
Sakura gaped at him in disbelief. "Who taught you how to cook so well?" As insensitive as her question sounded, she always thought of cooking as something that someone learned from her or his family—at least, that was her claimed excuse.
"I taught myself. What do you think I am? Some kind of invalid?" he snapped at her.
Her laughter rang at an unnaturally high pitch. "Of course not! Who wouldn't know how to cook? It's a basic life skill. Everybody knows how to cook."
"You don't know how to cook, do you?" He saw through her lies with perfect acuity.
Sakura forced a cough. "Ha. Ahem. I mean, I know how to make hard-boiled eggs…"
He glared at her. "That doesn't count." He set her food down at the table and turned to leave with a face full of scorn.
"Wait!" Sakura called, "If you're going to lock me in this room for a whole week, you can't just drop off meals and leave anymore. I'm going freakin' crazy in here."
Itachi sighed, but obediently walked over to the table and sat down. Torn between her surprise at his compliance and her relief at having human contact, she sat down at the table and began eating her meal. This meal would have been the perfect way to start a long day of training.
"Thank you," she said after swallowing her first mouthful. She really meant it. In fact, if she had no moral and mental responsibilities waiting for her in the outside world, she would gladly embrace a lifetime of his mouthwatering free meals.
He looked at her gravely. "You need to learn how to cook."
"Nah," she replied, "I make pretty potent food pills." Making food pills was essentially condensed cooking, anyway.
"That's not cooking. Sakura, how have you survived until now?" He wore a look torn between concern and disgust.
Sakura shrugged. "Food pills and Ichiraku's Ramen, I guess." She ate there a lot after she stopped visiting Naruto—it made him feel nearby and brought back some of Team 7's happiest memories. It gave her brief moments of bliss amidst all of the emptiness and longing for vengeance.
Itachi scoffed at her. He looked offended enough to need a moment to recover. Sakura remained unaffected by his reaction and cheerfully enjoyed the meal provided for her.
"I'm teaching you how to cook someday." He sounded adorably determined; Sakura chuckled.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because everyone should know how to cook."
Sakura shrugged—she would let him try. In the meantime, she chowed down the results of Itachi's culinary prowess before she resumed a life with her own disastrous cooking.
After finishing her breakfast, she took a long shower, got dressed, made her bed, and pondered what to do for the day. Sakura let only a few minutes pass before she walked across the room to knock on Itachi's wall.
"Yes, Sakura?" he asked upon entering the room.
She put her hands on her hips. "I'm sick of this room. Can I go outside yet? The weather's been so nice and I just want to train."
He thought about it for a moment. "You can't go outside." Her shoulders dropped. "…But, you can train in here."
Sakura raised an eyebrow. "How? I may not be a big person, but my training normally causes big damage." She made explosive motions with her hands for emphasis. Did he not notice the mess she made on the battlefield?
"I'll help you train."
"By 'help' do you mean 'damage control'? Because I just don't see how this building could withstand my training," Sakura clarified. She felt a little narcissistic saying it aloud, but she knew that it was a very real danger.
"No, I mean exactly what I said. How well-versed in genjutsu are you?"
She frowned a little. "Not at all. I was training to go after you—it would have been pointless."
"I'm not the only shinobi in the world, you know. What if you ran into someone whose taijutsu outclassed yours?" Itachi reprimanded.
Sakura waved away his concerns. Why was he concerned, anyway?
"I'd be fine. I have a pretty solid back-up plan if I ever get myself into really deep shit." Calling it solid might have been a humble understatement—this was a plan that involved years of dedicated preparation.
Itachi's hard face softened a little. "I should have known. Well, even if you don't need it, would you be interested in learning some genjutsu?"
"Are you offering? I mean, it's not every day that someone gets to learn from a master of the craft."
Itachi smirked. It was not a smile, but it showed Sakura from where Sasuke got his own smirk.
"It's an offer. I think you show potential. After all, you broke out of my genjutsu in the forest."
Sakura thought about it for a moment. "I was told when I was a kid that I had an affinity for genjutsu. It just fell to the wayside because…" She shrugged.
"Because your other two teammates took priority," he finished for her.
She looked away. "Well, when your teammates are the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki and the last Uchiha prodigy, you tend to look pretty unremarkable in comparison." It did not matter if one was smarter or had more potential—flashy titles drew immediate attention while hidden talent had to be sought out.
Itachi waited a moment before responding. "You had to train alone a lot, didn't you?"
"Yeah. Tsunade was my mentor, but after I lost both of my teammates, I threw myself into training alone. Whenever I had any questions, I went to her; she was the only person who ever took an interest in my training. But, outside of healing and taijutsu, most of what I know was entirely self-taught."
Sakura tilted her head slightly and asked, "Why do you want to teach me genjutsu?"
His smirk returned. "Because, as much as we might disagree on some things, we're both Leaf shinobi. Technically, we're comrades. And I'd hate to see a comrade's talent squandered because she's a woman with an unremarkable lineage."
She grinned. "Well, if you're willing to teach me, I'd love to learn. With all the enemies I've been making, my arsenal will never be stacked high enough. Can we start now?"
Itachi nodded. "Let's sit down at the table. You might think that you'd use genjutsu the most while standing in a fight, but that's what everyone else thinks, too. You want to be able to trap them even in the most casual situations."
"That makes sense," Sakura agreed as she took a seat. The moment Itachi sat down across from her, genjutsu covered the walls in bloodstains.
"Break free," he instructed. He did not need to say so twice—the blood dripping from the ceiling onto her top was bound to stain and his chakra altering the channels of her brain felt weird.
"Kai." The blood disappeared, the room returned to its normal state, and her brain resumed activity as usual.
"Good. Now this time, break free without saying anything—break it with your mind."
Sakura furrowed her brow as Itachi melted away into several ravens. They perched at various spots throughout the room and cawed at her menacingly.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. No matter how loudly the ravens cawed, they were not there. She sat in a bland, raven-free hotel room with Itachi, who was manipulating her mind with chakra.
When she opened her eyes, the ravens were gone and Itachi returned to his proper place. Even though his face remained stoic, his eyes seemed distinctly pleased at her performance; Sakura could not help but to feel pleased with herself, too.
"Excellent. Now, what I have planned for the next few hours will become tedious, but it's important that you keep going."
Sakura nodded, prepared for whatever he had in store.
"I'm going to put you under genjutsu after genjutsu. They'll get progressively more powerful, but break free from each one as it comes. Only use 'kai' if you need to—try to do it silently instead, like you did with the last one."
She nodded again and the barrage began. It started with spiders crawling up her legs. No matter how much she wanted to itch and swat them away, Sakura reminded herself that there was nothing to swat and then they disappeared.
The next onslaught involved Akatsuki members breaking in through the door. As Kisame moved forward to punch her in the face, she turned her attention toward him. She stared at his fist and it froze approximately three inches from landing a blow on her face. She blinked and they were still there, but they were fixed and powerless. Sakura turned her attention back to Itachi and smirked. Finally, the Akatsuki members flickered out of existence.
In the next phase, Itachi stood from his chair and slammed one knife into each of her hands, effectively pinning her to the table. She gasped—it throbbed just as it would in reality. However, this was not reality. After all, the Itachi she had come to know was neither cruel nor merciless. She laughed at the contrast between reality and this illusion. Once she laughed, it disappeared.
The brief period of authenticity quickly transitioned into the next genjutsu. Suddenly, she felt the presence of someone familiar behind her. When he spoke, she knew exactly to whom the voice belonged.
"Sakura, come home with me," Sasuke implored.
This one hurt much more than knives in her hands. How could she not turn around and say yes?
Before she could will him away, he continued, "I was wrong. Vengeance consumed me and made me forget what's really important in life. It made me push away the two best friends I've ever had and now you're all I have left." He paused. "I'm so sorry. Please come home with me. You're my last chance at a normal life."
His words stung in all of her worst places. Even though they were words that Sasuke would never say, Itachi knew his brother well enough to make them sound painfully natural. Twisting the proverbial knife, Sasuke set his hand on her shoulder.
As she began to tear up, she closed her eyes. This forced the tears to roll down her face—something she knew translated into reality. Sakura took a deep breath and reminded herself that Sasuke would never say those words under any circumstances. No matter how badly she wanted to hear them, the only place they existed was within genjutsu. When Sakura finally gathered the nerve to open her eyes, he was gone.
Sakura sent Itachi a scathing look of hurt and anger just before the next genjutsu took hold. This one began with the uniquely horrifying sensation of her own eyes melting in her face. Sakura could not help herself this time—she shrieked. She had experienced plenty of awful feelings in her lifetime, but this made all other suffering seem inane.
As the melting of her eyes affected her sight, the room wobbled between light and darkness. She could feel the matter of her eyeballs slowly dribbling down her face as they liquefied in their sockets. Just as Sakura prepared to retch, she remembered the last genjutsu. Her eyes were not melting—they were crying.
In between the lambent darkness, she saw Itachi staring at her from across the table. That was all it took for her to remember where she really was—in a bland hotel room with no blood, ravens, nor melting eyes. Finally, she managed to force her way out of the genjutsu.
Upon reentering reality, Sakura found her cheeks wet with tears as she sat across from Itachi at the table. Despite understanding his purpose in his choices of genjutsu, she felt bitter at the fourth illusion.
"That's the second time you've used Sasuke in a genjutsu against me. Why?" Sakura demanded.
"…is that who you saw?" He looked down at the table. "My brother's lucky to have someone who cares about him so much. Too bad he's always been the type to squander his luck."
"Why would I see him?" she asked.
"Because the jutsu is designed to dig up past memories, wishes, and regrets and use them against you."
Sakura laughed now. "If you think he's lucky, I won't explain to you in which category he fits."
"To have regrets about him, you must have cared a lot at some point," Itachi remarked.
She smiled wistfully at the subtext of his statement. "I did, but I don't think I ever loved him. After all, I was fourteen and naïve. Now I'm old enough to understand that he abuses people who care about him to get what he wants. I'm worth much more than that."
Itachi lifted his gaze from the table and really looked at her. "Do you mean that?"
"Absolutely. As much as I miss the old Team 7 and want him to know the truth, ambivalence is a much better word to describe how I feel about Sasuke. I'm not entirely certain what love feels like, but I know what it's not." Tired of talking about her own miserable love life, she redirected, "What about you, Itachi? Have you ever loved someone?"
"I don't know."
Sakura got excited now. "Oh, come on! I told you the truth. Have you ever had a girlfriend?"
"I suppose you could call her that."
"What was she like?"
"She was rather boring."
Sakura rolled her eyes. "Don't be bitter just because she's an exe."
"She's not an exe."
"Oh yeah? Then what is she?—wait! Don't tell me you're still dating!" Sakura exclaimed.
"No, she was my arranged fiancée."
"…was?"
"Yes."
"Then where is she now?"
"She's dead. I killed her."
Suddenly, Sakura did not want to talk about love anymore.
"Wow! I hope you don't do that to all the women you date," she joked to ease the tension.
"I don't date."
"Well, that solves that problem." Sakura laughed uncomfortably.
"Yes," Itachi concurred, "Yes, it does."
He stood from the table and then said, "You did well today, Sakura. I'm going to make dinner and then I'll be back. You should rest until then." He disappeared from sight.
As much as she wanted to take his advice, she doubted that rest would come easily with the image of Itachi killing his arranged Uchiha fiancée stuck in her head.
Authoress's Note:
Oh, Itachi. How very Itachi of you.
As alwayssss, thank you all for reading! A special thanks to those who take the time to review - I really, really appreciate the feedback. :) I hope you all enjoyed the chapter.
Have a splendid evening (or day, depending on your location),
A
