AN: I updated!!! I should be doing my art homework...but I can't really be bothered...lol Anyway, here's the third chapter- enjoy! Again, I apologise for any grammar mistake I made in advance! Still waiting for my dear beta to recover from the horror of dissertations.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

'Inner Sakura'

Chapter 3

Final Gambling Chip

Fate paced in both anger and annoyance.

There was no way he was going to let this measey mischief ruin everything he worked so hard on.

If Chance thought he had won, then he had another thing coming.

Damn it.

If only Time hadn't sided with him.

If she didn't, he won't be having this migraine.

No matter, he was Fate.

He will dictate what will happen and should happen.

Even though it will now differ slightly from his original plans.

Sakura stared right into the sharingan which spun furiously.

The few seconds that passed by felt like an eternity.

It was as if time had almost paused itself.

Almost.

Itachi narrowed his eyes at her and scrutinised her form.

A glint of recognition flickered in his eyes, but it was gone as soon as it came.

Despite of her frozen exterior, her mind was on the edge of hysteria.

Inside, fear and anger conflicted.

There's was no way she could win against the Uchiha prodigy, even if he was handicapped right now.

But she didn't train under the Godaime of Konoha for nothing!

'Goddamn it! You're a fucking kunoichi! Get a grip!'she swore frantically at herself.

Despite all of this, she still couldn't move.

The paralysing effect of fear seemed to have permanently attached her feet to the ground.

That, or her boots had suddenly weigh a hundred kilograms each.

The latter was doubtful.

'Hey! Move you stupid legs!'

"You…"

Sakura's attention shot back to the elder Uchiha, but he was no longer there.

Just as she thought she lost him, she felt a presence right behind her. So close, almost touching. She whipped around instantly and looked up at him firmly but faltered as their eyes met again.

Her breath hitched and her heart pounded against her chest painfully.

Fear overrode anger.

His eyes glinted oddly.

So paralysed with fear she didn't even attempt to analyse what it was.

Sakura finally broke their gaze, clenching her eyes shut to ready herself for the inevitable death.

However, she immediately regretted it as the rest of her senses sharpened, feeling even more vulnerable than before.

She could smell the strong scent of blood and sweat off him.

She could feel the heat of the fever radiating off his body.

And she could hear each breath he took and exhaled, and his rapidly beating heart- or was it hers?

Each beat drummed into her ears, louder and louder.

"You're…" she heard him choke out.

Then, she felt the impact.

"Tsunade-baaaaaaaaaaaaa-chan!!!" the current Hokage felt a vein pop up on the side of her forehead and sighed irritably before preparing herself to face the hyperactive boy- no, man.

Just as she placed the piece of document she was looking at down, the door burst open.

"Did you hear, Tsunade-baa-chan?!" Naruto continued to rush forward and slammed both his hands on the desk making the tall piles of papers wobble. Tsunade's heart skipped a beat but relaxed as wobbling came to a halt. She will be damned if she let these documents get mixed up. After sighing in relief, she glared at the grinning young man.

"What is it?" she snapped at him. Oblivious to the fact that he nearly knocked over the towers of papers, his grin widened.

"He did it!" at this, Tsunade twitched in annoyance

'Can he be more vague?'

"Who? And did what?"

"That bastard Sasuke! He finally did it! He killed Itachi!"

"W-what?" Tsunade choked.

"Unbelievable isn't it? Itachi is dead. To kill Itachi, he must have gotten really strong, but I'm still stronger than him, right obaachan?"

"Itachi is dead." she echoed.

"That's right! And Sasuke is coming back!"

"Uchiha Sasuke's returning to Konoha?" Tsunade narrowed her eyes at Naruto.

"You bet! It'll be just like before- me, Sakura-chan, Sasuke-teme and Kakashi-sensei. We'll be Team Sev-"

"It's not going to be that simple Naruto." she interrupted him.

"What? Why not?" Naruto frowned at her.

"Have you already forgotten that Uchiha Sasuke had defected from Konoha? He is a missing nin, a traitor. He can't just come back to Konoha as he please." Tsunade gave him a brief explanation. She really need some sake right now, curse her apprentice for hiding it.

"B-but he killed Itachi and he killed Orochimaru! He got rid Konoha's two worst enemies!"

"Naru-"

"He only left because he wanted revenge! It's not like he's going to plot against Konoha!" Naruto interupted her angrily, determined to defend his rival and friend.

"Uzumaki Naruto!" she raised her voice, miffed at being interrupted. It wasn't like she didn't realize Sasuke had left for Konoha for revenge- or rather, gain power then revenge. However, she was the Hokage of Konoha, she had to take all necessary precautions for the safety of the village and its inhabitants.

"Naruto, how sure are you that this is the same Sasuke you knew? How do you know that he didn't lose himself after his revenge?" just as he opened his mouth to argue, she continued.

"Did you know that we had sources claiming that Orochimaru is still alive?" Naruto paled.

"W-what? But even so, that has nothing to do with Sasuke!" he protested.

"No, it has everything to do with him." Tsunade sighed tiredly, she had to tell him sooner or later anyway.

"How?" Naruto felt his throat go dry.

"Orochimaru is still alive because Sasuke is alive."

"I don't understand." he swallowed. Naruto had a feeling he wasn't going to like what he was about to hear.

"What she meant is that Sasuke didn't kill him." Naruto turned towards the new voice, "Instead, he had trapped Orochimaru inside his mind when he tried to take over Sasuke's body. Clearly not expecting his vessel's mind to be stronger than his."

"Ero-senin."

"Humph. I was wondering how long you were going to stay out there, Jiraiya."

"Heh. I was just waiting for the right time to make my grand entrance." He smirked and Tsunade rolled her eyes at him.

"So you're saying that Orochimaru might have freed himself and taken over Sasuke's body?" Naruto questioned both sannin.

"Well, basically that and the possibility of it happening in the future." Jiraiya crossed his arms.

"Then Tsunade-baa-chan! Send me to retrieve Sasuke again!" Naruto demanded.

"What?! Did you not understand a word of what we just talked about?"

"Yes, that's why I'm requesting this mission! Please Tsunade-baa-chan, I'll prove to you that Sasuke-teme is still Sasuke-teme! Would you rather he roamed freely than returning here where you could keep an eye on him?" Naruto's ocean blue eyes flashed determinedly.

There was no way he was going to let this chance of getting Sasuke back slip through his fingers. He will fulfil that promise of a lifetime he made to Sakura-chan. Although it would have been nice if Sakura-chan wasn't away on a mission, then they would have been able to retrieve him together.

'I guess it'll be a wonderful surprise instead!'

"Uzumaki Naruto, get the hell out of my office-"

"Tsuna-"

"Let me finish you damn brat- unless you want a year worth of just patrol duty!" she growled at him.

Naruto immediately shut up.

"As I was saying. Uzumaki Naruto, get the hell out of my office and assemble back here with your three chosen team-mates in two hours time." Naruto's face broke into a wide ecstatic smile.

"Yes! Thank you Tsunade-baa-chan!" the Fifth sighed exasperatedly after the cause of her current migraine dashed away.

"You were going to send him in the first place, weren't you?" he questioned her.

"If I didn't, he was going to bug me to death and go anyway."

"Heh. That's Naruto for you." Jiraiya chuckled slightly before sobering, "About Uchiha Itachi…" he trailed off.

Tsunade sighed at the mention of his name. Standing up, she walked to the windows and looked out to the direction of the abandoned state.

"What had been done is done. There's no turning back time, no matter how much we want to. I can only wish Mikoto could forgive us." she whispered.

'And hope that you made it there in the right time- even if it's a slim to nothing chance. You're my final gambling chip in this.'

She leaned her head onto the cool glass of the window and closed her eyes.

'Sakura.'

Thump

Clack

Sakura snapped her eyes open in shock.

Blink

It took her a few moments to compose herself before letting out a shaky breath of relief.

Perhaps one of the deities in heaven finally took pity on her relinquished the punishment placed upon her.

As she wrapped her arms carefully around the prodigy who had slumped onto her, unconscious, her legs trembled and collapsed

Perhaps it was because of the intense fear she had just experienced.

But she blamed it on his weight.

'Hell yeah! This guy is probably even more heavier than that fish face partner of his!'

Sakura's eyes narrowed right away.

'Oh, so you decided to speak now?'

'I thought you might want some company?'

Sakura kept quiet.

'Aren't you being hypocritical now? Giving me the silent treatment. Come on, you can't still b-'

Ignoring her inner self, she gently placed Itachi onto the ground and began to heal the reopened wound.

'-it was for th- hey! Are u listening to me?! You can't just ingor-'

After she was satisfied with it, she gave him some sleeping draught.

'so mean of yo- You're drugging him?!'

Sakura clucked her tongue in annoyance and decided to answer her inner self.

'I'm sedating him so that he won't suddenly wake up and kill me.'

'B-but you can't jus- wait! You're taking him with you?!'

'Why do you sound so incredulous? Didn't you want me to?

'Well, errr...yeah.'

Sakura rolled her eyes at her before picking Itachi up and head for Konoha. They were pretty close to Konoha right now, usually, it would take four hours to get back from where they were, but since there was an extra heavy weight, it was going to take longer. At least she still have one more soldier pill and some sleeping draughts. Sakura sighed tiredly, she really didn't want to think about the problems she was going to face once she was home.

Getting him into Konoha was going to be easy.

The tricky part was what she was going to do with him in Konoha.

'Erm...You cou-'

'No! I'm not going to hide him in my house!'

Chance had wondered for awhile.

About this prank he had pulled on Fate.

It didn't feel like it was by chance anymore.

Did it serve a purpose?

He felt he was missing something.

Something significant to all three of them.

Did Time know?

Chance sighed tiredly and rubbed his eyes.

He could definitely feel an incoming headache.

Yufvin-valentine

AN: Not a lot happened with Itachi and Sakura...Kind of drifted towards what was happening in Konoha and stuff about Sasuke...sorry about that. At least Inner Sakura is back! You know, I was so tempted to finish the chapter at the scene in Konoha and make you think Sakura was dead…but I'm not the evil, at least not right now. Anyway, feedbacks will be very appreciated. Hoped you enjoyed this chapter. I'm also tempted to put a tiny preview of next chapter but I don't know, maybe I should just leave I, so you won't wonder too much.

Response to reviews:

ayane04 - I'm glad you enjoyed my fic so far! Thanks for reviewing!

Awreel - Thanks:D

Ebil chameleon - Lol, aren't we all suckers for itasaku?

Erin - Thanks! I hope you liked this chapter too!

Sweet Assassin - That's how I'm trying to portray him…I hope I could keep it up. I don't want him to become OOC.

Alori Kesi Aldercy - You gave me criticism. I'm so happy!!! Lol I'm mad? No…crazy? Yes! XD Thanks, I'll try to keep a sharp eye…though no guarantee. I'm just really bad at grammar. :P

Skilled defence - Thanks! I'll update ASAP!

Furryhatlover2543 - Hahaha…I guess all Itachi got to say was 'you' and 'you're.' Oops? Nope…I really don't know when Sakura knows she's in love with him. Definitely not now though. Too early. Thanks for reviewing.

SharinganAngel - Itachi's coming to Konoha!!! Ahem…What's going to happen? I don't really know…lol I submit what my fingers type.

Lyneia - Thanks! Em…this is KIND OF longer…lol I really can't promise long chapters…I'll try.

Green Animelover - Cheers! I'm glad you loved it!

Ecstasy13 - Well…I guess you might find out why she went to Suna…though this chapter already kind of told you her actual mission which Sakura didn't even know. Hmmm think of her going to Suna as a 'side-mission.' Lol, guess I'll keep in mind to tell what that 'side-mission' was.

Chaotic Heart - Thanks! Lol she didn't exactly think up something this time. Oh well, but luck is not going to be always on her side. Unless I say so of course XD

Chained - I'm glad you liked it. :D

Namida Drop - Yup, it was a twist I felt I couldn't afford to make…but I got through it. Phew!

JHeyTTernallie - Thanks! I'll update the next one as soon as I can.

Darkindangerous1313 - Thanks! Lol though, by review, I take it you meant update ne?

Hao'sAnjul - Oops…guess he's back to unconscious now…XD

Free2dream - The fate thing? I guess you'll have to find out later…as for Sakura? She's safe for now…:P

Hot-ninja-babe - Well, here's the update! Next one might be a bit later though…

Lute12 - I'll try to keep it average since some people want it longer lol. Though to be honest, I think this is the length I write.