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Also, we regret to announce that after this chapter 'The Way of the Wind' will be on temporary hiatus. Expect to see a post from us in a few weeks. We just wanted to let you know there was going to be a delay in chapters due to outside influences! We should pick things back up and be back to updating regularly by mid-June.

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Just Enough

1 and 1/2 Years Ago
Konoha Training Grounds

Naruto crouched down next to her, his palms pressed together in an attempt to contain his excitement. "Do you think this is going to work?"

Sakura reached over and slapped him in the back of the head. "I thought you said you had gotten faster?"

Naruto scowled at her. "I have! But so has teme! He was training with Kakashi-sensei."

Sakura leaned forward so her nose was almost touching his and his eyes crossed a little. "Would you like for me to practice what I learned on your head?"

Naruto leaned back and grinned. "That's okay. I mean, can we do it after we strip him of his precious cargo?"

Sakura stared at him before turning back to the direction that Sasuke would be coming from. Part of her felt a little guilty for what they were about to do to Sasuke, but the rest of her was filled with the smug glee of someone who had been taunted one too many times. He should have learned his lesson at twelve when they shoved him off a bridge.

"Now, you remember the plan?"

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes. I go distract him, you cloak your chakra, and then we hit him together."

"You remembered to bring the rope?"

"Yes, but you know he will use that damn sharingan on us if he even thinks he knows what we're planning."

Sakura eyed him from the corner of her eye. "Going to be hard to do that with a mouthful of grass, don't you think?"

X

"Oooo. This one has bento flakes." Naruto said as he bit into his rice ball, eyes half closed in bliss. "Must be one of Itachi's since you're always saying how much you hate bento flakes."

Sasuke's words were lost in what sounded like hissing noises. Sakura adjusted her position on his shoulder blades, making a point to wiggle just enough to drive his gut back into the ground. Tangling her fingers into his hair, she lifted his head.

"What was that, Sasuke?"

"I WILL KILL YOU…"

She shoved him back down. Naruto smiled from where he was sitting crossed legged on Sasuke's knees, pinning his legs. Neither trusted the fact that his hands and arms were tied.

"This is for your own good." Naruto told Sasuke. "You know what Kakashi says about sharing and teamwork and looking underneath the underneath!"

"Hmm. This one has fish." Sakura said cheerfully. "You know, Sasuke-kun, it was very nice of you to share with us today. I hadn't had lunch."

More incoherent snarls came from below them.

Naruto cocked his head. "I think he suggested that you finish them off Sakura. We both know how he hates for you to go hungry."

Sakura batted her lashes at Naruto. "Why, Naruto! How kind of you; how about we half it?"

Naruto placed a hand on his chest, his eyes sparkling. "Why, Sakura! I am honored!"

Taking out his kunai, he neatly sliced the last rice ball in half. With a flourish that was not un-Lee like, he handed it over. Lifting them up, they saluted each other before finishing them off.

"So?" Naruto asked as a wiggling Sasuke jerked around their bodies. "What do we do now?"

Sakura licked her finger. "I'm thinking run like hell."

Naruto grinned at her again. "You're just so full of excellent ideas today."

Sakura grinned brightly. "I couldn't do it without you, Naruto!"

X

Present Day
Konoha Training Field D

If Sakura had been thinking clearly, she never would have taken Itachi up on his challenge. She would have straightened her stance and dropped her hands and demanded that he do his duty as a Konoha shinobi. But she wasn't thinking clearly.

Itachi had interrupted her in the middle of a good fight. Her adrenaline was rushing, her fight or flight impulses in full swing, and then he had just appeared in the middle of it. He'd been stalking her for weeks, disrupting her life, staring at her with those eyes – hell; he'd even kissed her.

'AND HE COMPARED US TO HIS MOTHER!'

Sakura was more than ready to take it out of his hide.

All the same, she couldn't just go charging in without a plan. This was Uchiha Itachi. Just thinking about what she knew about his skills brought up memories of shadowed secrets and proficiency so profound no one really knew the depths of his capacity.

Sakura narrowed her eyes. She was a shinobi as well and the shadows were her home. She was teammates with Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke. She had been trained by the Hokage herself. She had defeated Sasori of the Red Sands.

And he was taunting her with his pretty pinwheel eyes.

"You're going down, Uchiha." Sakura drawled the words out slowly, fingers deliberately reaching for the weight ties on her wrist. Her eyes locked with his as she deftly began removing the weights. She kept her movements slow and precise, flicking knots and buckles out of the way almost carelessly. His eyes burned and the smile slowly dropped of his face as the first, second, third and final arm weight dropped onto the ground. A small smirk gathered at the edges of her lips as she settled into a half crouch, hands flicking behind her calves, finger tips grazing over careful knots before they to, fell to the ground with a dull thud.

Air hissed between the Uchiha's teeth, and Sakura used her half couch to slide into a more defensive stance. Fingers curling into a familiar set, she lifted a brow at him, silently daring him to make the first move.

The smile that he gave her was vicious, showing off a glimmer of teeth. The breeze tugged long strands of his hair away from his back and his body seemed to flow into the first movements.

He was so damn fast. Sakura had seen him in battle, but she had never actually thought about how he moved before. Not like this. With the pinwheels of the sharingan burning at her from his face, with that unholy smile curled on his mouth, Sakura felt a thrill roll down her spine as she sidestepped and twisted through his almost careless combination.

Except Uchiha Itachi did nothing without purpose.

She'd been expecting the kick, and it came hard and fast. Sakura jumped up, flipping overhead to land behind him, except he had had already responded to her movement and had flickered so that he was now behind her.

His arm wrapped around her waist lightning fast and he was pulling her close, likely to say something snide, when she threw all her weight backwards into him, using his own momentum against him. She crashed into him for a split second and then abruptly reversed, spinning safely several feet away. Sakura balanced herself by crouching down defensively. She automatically reached for her kunai, but the narrowing of his eyes told her it would be dangerous to up the fight to that level.

So instead she quirked her brow and slammed her knuckles into the ground, channeling her chakra so that the ground exploded around his feet. Half a second before the force of her punch connected with the ground, he had shifted out of the way.

But so had she. Throwing herself into the falling debris, she executed Lee's favorite roll and came up in time to block combination of punches that made her knuckles sting. Jerking her head back, she used her shorter height to drive an elbow forward, following the motion with a particularly nasty series of jabs that he not only blocked, but used against her by grabbing her wrist and flinging her weight to the side, his hair brushing her cheek he was so close.

Sakura shifted her hand in his grasp and clasped his wrist in return. It was a matter of heartbeats before she'd infused enough chakra in her arm to throw him—he landed with far too small a thump and she cursed. Substitution jutsu. When had he managed to do a substitution jutsu—and without using any seals!

More importantly, where was he now?

Very impressive. Itachi hadn't really expected anything less, but actually fighting her himself was… he touched the tip of his tongue to the roof of his mouth… exhilarating.

She wasn't quite good enough to be a challenge, but she was good enough to be surprising. At this first level of his sharingan, her movements still blurred enough to keep him on his toes. And when she had shattered the ground with one blow…

He moved and appeared behind her, dropping down low to sweep her legs out from under her. She'd been waiting for him though, and flickered. Pain exploded in his back, between his second and third ribs and he felt one of them crack.

Itachi's eyes flashed hotter and he couldn't stop the grin that was peeling back his lips. She'd hit him. She'd actually managed to hit him. Grin still firmly in place, he twisted, reaching for her wrists before she had completed her follow through and flipped her. He felt her breath hiss between teeth at the hit, and his shifted his weight forward before she could react and pressed his hand to her throat, finger tips barely grazing the flesh and leaned forward.

"Hold."

She stared up at him, green eyes deep and sparking as her pulse beat rapidly against his fingertips. Her face was flushed and perspiration made her skin slick under his fingers, and he greedily drank. Her. In.

"Uchiha – "

She stopped when his fingers slid over her lips. Tsking low in his throat, he leaned forward, ignoring how his hair slid past her cheek. Breathing in the scent of her skin mingled with her exertion, he corrected her.

"Call me Itachi."

Her mouth tasted faintly salty with sweat and he slipped his hands into her hair, savoring the way her mouth felt under his. Sucking lightly on her lip, he coaxed her into the kiss before scrapping his teeth gently against the flesh under his mouth. She gasped as he lifted his head, green eyes dilated and a little dazed.

And then her hands were tangled in his hair and she was pulling him down for another kiss. She nipped lightly at his lips before pressing her soft ones to his, easing the sting. Her fingers tightened in his hair and Itachi groaned at the sensation.

Sakura wasn't entirely sure what was happening. One minute, she had been exulting in the feeling of victory that came from actually landing a hit on Uchiha Itachi, the next she'd been flat on her back, staring into his spinning eyes.

She'd struggled. Of course she'd struggled. But he'd pinned her effortlessly and then his hand was on her throat and it was gentle and that was terrifying. He was confident enough that all he had to do was barely touch her, and it was more of a threat than she received from half of the enemies she'd faced in her life.

But he wasn't an enemy. He was Uchiha Itachi. And she felt the heat from his barely-there fingertips like a brand. He was so close she felt like she was breathing him in with each gasp.

She'd started to ask him to get off, but then his fingers had slid over her lips, warm and firm and her lips had tingled. Then he spouted off with that ridiculous request again and he was kissing her.

This was no brush against her lips. This was an assault. Painstaking, meticulous, and gentle. He slipped his hands into her hair while he teased her lips with his, soothing and taunting and so soft and warm. Fissions of warmth ran down her spine and exploded in her stomach and when he lifted his head she was cold and wanting.

And now she was kissing him again. But she was kissing him and her hands were tangled in his hair and she was easing herself up on her elbows so she could be closer to him. He groaned into her mouth before sliding the fingers of one hand down the back of her neck to rest between her shoulder blades. His hand burned through the thin material of her shirt as he lifted her up so that her chest was pressed against his. His nose nudged her cheek as he changed the angle of the kiss, and she couldn't stop the low noise of approval she made anymore than she could keep her hands from tangling further into his hair, nails scrapping the back of his neck.

With her body pressed up against his, she felt the way his chest vibrated more than she heard it. His fingers tightened in her hair as he released her mouth. She opened her eyes to catch a glimpse of red before he had pulled her head back and settled his mouth behind her ear. Her grip on his neck tightened, nails digging in when the tip of his tongue stroked the sensitive skin there before sliding along her throat in a series of nibbling kisses. Squeezing her eyes shut, she whimpered when he found a particular sensitive area above her collarbones. She could feel the way his lips curved against her skin and she panted as the hand on her back moved, shifting her weight so he could angle her up higher, giving his mouth easier access to the delicate skin at the base of her throat. Hands sliding down his neck, she settled them against the muscles in his upper arms and shifted her legs…

He flinched.

Sakura froze. That little movement of pain yanked her out of the warm, rather pleasurable haze she had allowed herself to sink into, and brought her right back into the middle of exactly what she was doing. She was hanging in Itachi's arms, her head tilted back, arms wrapped around his shoulders, and she was pretty sure if he hadn't just flinched, she would have had her legs wrapped around his waist as well. She still wanted to.

Swallowing, she bravely opened her eyes. "Uchiha-san?"

Teeth grazed the side of her neck and she squeaked. "Itachi, Sakura."

Lowering her hands from his shoulders, she ignored the way her stomach lurched at the almost dangerous note in his voice. Placing her palms flat on the ground, she carefully levered up her upper body, pulling her knee away from his side.

"I cracked a rib, didn't I?"

He lifted his head and she watched as the sharingan faded to black. The expression in those eyes didn't make her any more comfortable than the mesmerizing effect of the sharingan and she swallowed hard. His hand was tracing patterns along her spine and the heavy lidded expression of satisfaction she could clearly read left her mouth dry.

"Yes, you did."

It should be illegal for a man to have that much approval on his face and in eyes for her ability to crack bone in a single hit while looking like he still wanted to bend her over backwards. Taking a deep, steadying breath, she shoved her libido down and did her best to level him with a frown.

And she shifted backwards. Slowly. Because his eyes were watching her too closely and she didn't dare give the impression that she was retreating. This was a strategic relocation, not a chance for her to run.

"You need to take your shirt off."

The corner of his mouth kicked up and he tilted his head, eyes slowly trailing down her body. She really was in so much trouble.

"I need to see your ribs, Uchiha-san." She deliberately used the formality to drive a barrier between them, and his eyes narrowed until he was watching her from under those pretty lashes of his.

For a moment, Sakura thought he was going to repeat his ridiculous demand. But instead something heated in his eyes.

"As you wish," he ran his hand down her spine one last time, stopping to support her lower back, "Sakura."

His movements were still so smooth, and as he slid out from underneath her to shift her to the ground and stand before her, Sakura couldn't help but stare at him with appreciation. He was holding her eyes with his, and she couldn't look away.

With deliberate movements, he reached to the bottom of his shirt and began to slowly ease his shirt over his head. How many times had she made one of her teammates take their shirt off so she could heal them after she'd busted a rib? Never, not in the hospital, not even with Sasuke, had her mouth gone dry like this. It took a concentrated effort not to let her eyes drop and devour every inch of skin he was painstakingly revealing.

When he finally had removed his shirt and held it loosely in one hand, Sakura gulped. She had expected his smoothly muscled torso and abdomen, he was a shinobi after all, but she had not expected her sudden desire to smooth her hands down the dips and bulges of his smooth, pale, skin. He had a few scars, and Sakura had to wonder if he kept them out of spite. There was one crossing diagonally across his left ribcage that he clearly should have gotten attention for and equally obviously didn't. She wanted to trace it and see if it would tell her its story.

Suddenly aware that she had been staring, and that he had been watching her stare. Sakura narrowed her eyes. Sliding her tongue between her teeth, she bit down to give herself something to concentrate on. Pulling up her nursing façade, she motioned for him forward. She would not give him the reaction he wanted.

"This is going to be easier if you're sitting down."

Those eyes darkened as he watched her hands move before he took a step forward and folded us legs up under him, sinking into the ground effortlessly. Her eyes narrowed and she let a breath roll out between her teeth.

"Uchiha-san," she scolded as she moved to his side, sliding along to press her hands to the area that she had driven her chakra into. That had to have hurt even if his face and eyes didn't show it. His skin shivered under her palms and she lifted her eyes to look at his face. He had tilted his head to watch and his eyes burned down at her.

Lowering her eyes back his side; she ran her fingers lightly along his skin, feeling his ribs carefully with her fingers. He flinched when she settled on his third rib and she traced her fingers long the length of it. Settling her hand along the area he had flinched, she allowed her chakra to slide from her palm into his skin.

"It's cracked," she said. "Thankfully, this sort of mending doesn't take long."

"I'm not in a hurry."

She refused to look to see if the expression on his face matched the soft velvet of his tone. Instead, she pulled more chakra into hands and sent it into the bone. She knew mending was uncomfortable, but he never moved. Carefully testing his other ribs for signs of bruising and torn muscles, she healed the damaged skin cells as she removed her chakra, careful to remove any sign of her blow.

"You shouldn't bruise," she murmured, fingers skimming his side before they hesitated over the long diagonal scar. "Did you ever get this looked at?"

"No."

She scowled up at him. "That was stupid."

He lifted a brow and she ignored it, lowering her eyes as her fingers probed the scar.

"Kunai?"

"Hmmm."

"Did it break bone?"

"Yes."

Her scowl deepened as she fed chakra into the scar. "I am going to assume that if it was causing problems while you were breathing, you would have mentioned it." She put some bite into her tone and kept her eyes on his scar. "You got lucky. If you had gotten any scar tissue in your pleural membrane you would have had trouble breathing. I'm not sensing any nerve damage. There is a reason we have mednin, Uchiha-san."

Itachi was profoundly satisfied. Every brush of her fingers over his skin was bliss. The power that she held contained in those slender digits, used to hurt, now used to heal, was titillating. To say nothing of the scrape of her calloused, well-worked fingers over the rarely exposed areas of his body…

There were only several situations which could be better than this, and some part of his mind was rapidly listing them, as well as planning on how he would make them possible and soon, but the rest of his attention was focused on cataloguing every iota of this experience. The scent of crushed grass around them, the shadow of her presence before him contrasting with the sun on his back, the confident brushes of her hands against him, the way her brow furrowed and her lips puckered in concentration…

He lifted one hand and tangled it in her hair; gently pulling her head back so that she was forced to look him in the eyes. "Really, Sakura. How am I expected to take such a scolding seriously when, even after all we have done together," and he deliberately dropped his gaze to take her in before meeting her gaze once again, "you still refuse to call me by my name."

Her eyes narrowed. He knew what she was going to say before she said it. He loved her spirit, but the fact that she was still fighting him on this was…irksome. Especially since in his mind they were well past formalities now. If Haruno Sakura had ever wanted the whisper of a chance to escape him, she never should have kissed him back, never should have proven to him the fire and passion he suspected burned within her.

"Uch—"

Itachi swallowed the rest of his surname with his lips, leaning upwards and capturing hers with his. He brought up his other hand to rest at her pulse point so he could feel it speed up at his attentions. Meticulously, he traced the outline of her lips with his tongue before he tightened his grip on her hair and pulled her closer to him.

The ground disappeared under her knees as Itachi kissed her. Her hand pressed against his side in surprised, and shivered as the hand at her neck slowly drew a line down her collarbones, between her breasts, across her abdomen to wrap around her waist and to pull her flush against him. She gasped at the feeling and dug her fingers into his side as he took advantage, deepening the kiss with careful, deliberate strokes of his tongue. It was hard to think with her palms against his skin and his mouth on hers, hard to want to think as his fingers moved in her hair. His body felt wonderful against hers and the possibility of running her hands all over that warm, smooth skin had her fingers clenching against his side.

She wasn't ready for this.

The surge of heat in her gut as he sucked her tongue into his mouth and bit down lightly cleared her mind of anything but him long enough that one of her hands rode up his spine and into the length of his hair before she could think clearly again. The hand he had settled against her hip was now burning a path up her own spine under her shirt, rough calluses catching against her skin in a way that made her want to her arch her back and purr.

She needed to breathe. Angling her head back, she panted and swallowed hard, ruthlessly ignoring her rising need. "Uchi-"

This time she did whimper, her hands tightening in his hair hard enough to pull as he dragged his teeth lightly across the sensitive patch of nerves he had found early on her neck before stroking the sting with his tongue. Her resolve wavered and she gasped for air.

"Stop."

The word came out more of a moan than an actual command as his fingers started to slide around her ribs, and to her astonishment, he stopped moving. His breath was harsh against her neck, lips hovering over her pulse, but he wasn't moving. Sakura trembled in his embrace. She could feel the tension in his body, he was like a crouching tiger, ready to spring, and he was restraining himself for her. Sakura knew there was danger in his compact form, and the fact that he would be able to overpower her and had stopped at her softly whispered word sent a coil of heat through her along with the heady rush of power and appreciation.

He finally moved, achingly slow, and she almost felt the distance between them as he slid upwards – a bare inch away from her skin until his face was even with hers. He lifted his gaze to stare into her eyes and all of his shields were down. The hunger in his eyes stole her breath. Very deliberately, very slowly, he leaned down to brush his lips against hers in the faintest of caresses.

Itachi pulled back and held her gaze. "The day is coming, Sakura."

The hand in her hair caressed down her neck before he released her, sliding his hand out from under her shirt to clasp her waist, and he casually lifted her with that hand as he stood.

Her feet firmly on the ground, she stared into the dark eyes of Uchiha Itachi for the space of several heartbeats before he took one slow, deliberate step backwards. A smile curled the corners of his lips, warm, inviting, and when he dropped his gaze from hers to drag his eyes up from the tip of her toes to her mussed hair and swollen lips, it became insufferably self-satisfied. He caught her gaze just long enough for Sakura to feel the weight of Itachi's smug contentment, and then she was alone.

Sakura blinked. Staring around the torn-up practice field in shock, she felt horror well up in her as she realized the full magnitude of what had just happened. She had just made out with Uchiha Itachi. "Oh shit."

X

Sasuke occasionally wondered what stroke of fate had given him a genius for a brother and complete idiot for a best friend. He supposed at one point in his life, Sakura had balanced out the equation with steady influence on Naruto, but any karmic points she had won had evaporated the moment his brother had taken an interest. He was trying very hard to ignore what was going on between Itachi and Sakura and for the most part he was succeeding. Kakashi had once asked his team if a tree fell and no one was around to hear it, did it make any noise? Currently, Sasuke was marching along on the assumption that if he didn't see the tree, there wasn't a tree to fall.

Except, thanks to the idiot he had mistakenly once called his best friend, he found himself eating ramen at a familiar stand. Cornered. Even if he hadn't been holding a chopstick full of noodles, even if Naruto hadn't chosen a booth that gave him absolutely no strategic escape routes, he doubted he would have succeeded in escaping. Inuzuka Hana was a problem he had learned to avoid. Her penchant for setting traps for Itachi, both literally and figuratively, and his brother's sadistic glee for running other people into them had been life lessons he was not overly fond of remembering.

This was why he was so disconcerted to find himself surrounded. Shisui was missing the common sense kami had given Naruto, Itsuki's long suffering posture promised that Hana had enough blackmail that he would be dealing with those creepy chakra eating bugs, and Hana herself was sporting a fanged smile that was entirely too familiar.

Vaguely Sasuke wondered how much of this he could drop into his brother's lap.

"What, Inuzuka?"

"Where's your brother?"

Sasuke blinked, once. "I beg your pardon?"

Shisui had the gall to roll his eyes. "It's been almost four days since Hokage-sama took him off active duty."

Even Naruto was looking at Shisui strangely. The blonde swallowed, thankfully, before piping up. "You want to take him on a date or something?"

Sasuke wondered, again, what he had done wrong in his past life? "I don't keep tabs on my brother, Inuzuka."

Hana snorted. "He keeps tabs on you." And then her eyes wandered the area, a frown tugging at her mouth. "Except I haven't seen him around you lately either."

Gritting his teeth, he deliberately took a bite of his lunch and chewed slowly. Surely Hana didn't actual expect him to respond to that?

Itsuki finally spoke up. "Hana is… concerned."

Sasuke stomped on the urge to roll his eyes. "She's nosy."

Hana pointed one clawed finger at him. "Your brother normally shows up bored by now! We haven't seen him in four days!" She leaned forward, eyes narrowed. "Your clan isn't doing something weird again, are they?"

Naruto choked on his noodles. Sasuke ignored it in favor of taking another bite of his lunch before speaking. "If it's clan business, Inuzuka, it would be none of yours."

Naruto snorted at that one, rolling his eyes as far back as he could.

"Bullshit and you know it, Sasuke." Hana said with a growl. She tapped her nails on the table. "If it isn't the clan, then I don't know what it is. Please don't tell me he rediscovered sex. It's been years since his hormonal kick, so unless he's batting for the other side..."

This time, Sasuke choked.

Naruto was looking at Hana strangely. "He likes girls."

Hana's eyes narrowed in on him. "How would you know that?"

Sasuke kicked Naruto in the ankle. The motion wasn't missed by anyone, but that was okay. In fact, it was taking a monumental amount of effort to keep from letting the satisfied smile he could feel building loose. Instead, he leveled Inuzuka with his best flat stare.

"It's none of your business."

It was like baiting Chouji with a stack of perfect little cakes. Keeping his face stern, he stared her down. Sasuke watched the wheels turn in Itachi's ex-genin teammate's brain. The way her eyes widened just a little at the corners as she put the dots into place, the way her eyes narrowed as she searched his face for a trick, and the way her shoulders loosened in disbelief.

'Oh yes,' Sasuke thought with glee. 'Just keep considering the idea of Itachi with a girl.' Hana was like the rest of her clan. Once they had an idea in their head, they lost all sense of subtleness. She would hit his brother straight on, and while not exactly a threat, it would be an annoyance. An annoyance he would have to be very careful to pretend he knew nothing about, but one he could savor in the depths of his mind.

Besides, he didn't want Sakura thinking he had any involvement with whatever it was Hana would do once she figured out was going on. Itachi might be sadistic, but there was only so far he could push those limits without their ka-chan noticing. Sakura had no such compunction to follow the rules when breaking his body into small, painful pieces.

He had to give her credit though. Hana did her best to put him off the scent.

"You're not going to tell me, are you?"

"No." Sasuke said flatly, deliberately going back to his now cold noodles.

She growled at him.

Lifting his eyes, he raised a brow. "Is there something you would like to say, Inuzuka?"

Sasuke could feel the sudden tension in the two men behind her. Hana was a good fighter. She fought dirty and hard, and after spending her genin days with Itachi, she was fast. She also had the nasty habit of setting traps long before she actually entered into a fight. Another knack she had picked up from his brother. Unfortunately for Hana, while she played dirty, Sasuke had grown up watching both his mother and his brother tangle each other and others into nasty little games that usually left the unfortunate soul they had gone against in mental (and sometimes physical) pieces. If it came down to a fight, he would win.

Hana finally sighed. "I'll figure it out, you know."

Sasuke shrugged, kicking Naruto again for good measure and finished his meal. He didn't look up until he was positive that Itsuki hadn't left one of his little bugs to overhear their conversation. A trick he had never been more grateful his brother had passed along.

Naruto was eyeing his suspiciously. "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

Sasuke snorted. "Did what?"

Naruto looked perplexed. "I don't know, but I know you did something. You're practically smirking."

Sasuke rolled his eyes and dropped a few coins onto the table. "Practice field at three?"

Naruto grinned. "You know it. And don't think I'm not going to tell Sakura whose fault it is if Hana starts bothering her."

Sasuke just shrugged and left the ramen stand.

X

Sakura leaned against the wall of her shower, letting the hot water beat over the muscles of her back and shoulders as she rinsed her hair. Resting her forehead against the wall, she resisted the urge to start pounding the wall with it.

What had she been thinking? Raking her bangs away from her face, she let out a long breath. She hadn't been. She'd been reacting. Reacting to that mouth and those hands and that hair… this time she did drop her head against the wall with a little force. Reacting to Uchiha Itachi was not a good idea. He was too adept at reading people, too good at finding the cracks. She grimaced. Not that he had had to look too hard to find hers today. He had kissed her once –once!- and she had dropped her guard and…

It had been rather carnal there on that practice field. She wasn't sure she was going to be able to spar there again. And Lee… Sakura groaned.

He had dropped Lee in a pond somewhere outside of the village. He had come running up, hair sticking in all directions demanding to know if she was all right. She honestly had not known how to respond to his question. Discovering just how appealing it was to have a very dangerous, very handsome man direct his very forceful personality at you both during the spar and… after left her a bit nervous. It had been flattering.

Breathtaking. She admitted it. Uchiha Itachi was an intense man. To have all that focus, all that intensity directed at her left her feeling a little weak kneed.

Turning off the water, she reached for a towel and sighed. Okay. She admitted it. She was attracted to Itachi, at least on a physical level. His eyes, his hair, that smile… they were distracting. Her brain kept replaying how deftly he had played her body, how easily he had wrapped her in sensation and him. If it hadn't been for his broken rib, she wasn't sure she would have had the mind to stop where things were going the first time. She wasn't sure where she had gotten the will power to stop him the second.

Rubbing her hair dry, she headed into the bedroom to pull out her nightclothes. She was going to have to figure out exactly what she was going to do about this. She was in the same position she had been in days ago; she didn't know what he wanted. She didn't know what had caught his attention, no matter how hard she searched through their interactions. She had to assume that it had happened sometime during that mission or shortly after, but she just didn't know what. It was starting to bug her. She hadn't done anything out of the ordinary. She had followed protocol and done her job. She supposed it didn't really matter what had caught his attention as long as she knew what his intentions were. Which she didn't.

He wanted to learn her. He wanted her to tremble at his touch. He was self-assured enough to assume that it wasn't going too much longer for one; she just wished she knew what the other meant. How was she supposed to play this without getting in too deep? Playing around with the Uchiha heir was dangerous. Exhilarating, but dangerous. If she wasn't careful she was going to turn around and find that she was too attached, too involved and he had whatever it was he wanted and was done. Gone.

Reaching into a drawer one of her teammates old shirts, she froze at the feel of the material her fingers encountered. Sasuke's training shirts were thin, patched and made of cotton that was soft only through countless washing. The material under her hand was so soft her calluses didn't catch and of a heavier material than she had been expecting. Closing her eyes tightly, she fisted her hand and pulled it out of the drawer. Taking a deep, calming breath, she cracked one eye open and looked at the shirt between her fingers.

The material was black, except for the half of a familiar red and white fan. It was obviously larger than Sasuke's old shirt, and her teeth were gritting so hard together she could hear them grinding. Dropping the shirt onto the bed, she yanked the drawer open and stared in disbelief at the stack of neat, folded shirts. The three shirts she had stolen from Sasuke, and even the old shirt Kiba had left after a long mission together that had never been returned, were gone. Only the shorts she had wheedled out of Naruto were still in place, starring up at her in all their faded orange glory.

She was going to kill him. Clenching her fists hard enough to hurt, she trembled with the force of her temper. The urge to break something had her taking several small, careful steps away from her dresser as she hissed a breath out between her teeth. He had broken into her apartment. Again. Taken her favorite sleeping wear and replaced it with his. As if she would actually wear it. If the clothing hadn't been dyed black she would have shredded them into field bandages.

Reaching forward, she yanked out Naruto's old shorts and pulled them on, fingers straining the seams with the force of her temper. She considered sleeping in her breast bindings, but the last time she had dared she had given an ANBU officer an eyeful when he came to wake her up for an emergency at the hospital.

No need to tempt fate twice. Sucking in a deep breath to stifle some of the rage burning in her chest, she spun on her heel and headed for her closet. She would be damned if she was going to wear anything that man gave her.

Digging through a stack of boxes she finally found the one she was looking for. Yanking off the lid, she pulled out a negligee that Ino given her as a birthday present a year ago. It wasn't something she was particularly comfortable going to bed in, these things were not made to be comfortable, but if she slept in her breast bindings then she would be decent. Might raise an eyebrow or two for her strange habits, but at least she wouldn't give some stupid male more of an eyeful than he deserved.

What was that bastard thinking? Underneath the smoldering temper came a small fission of nerves. Forcing her emotions into the little pocket she pushed them while working; she turned back to her still open drawer and eyed the clothing. What was he trying to communicate with this? She sincerely doubted that anyone besides his mother actually touched his clothing… she had no idea why he had given them to her. Her nails bit into her palms as she tried to read underneath the underneath.

If he were Naruto she would have assumed that he had done it to piss her off. But she hadn't made out with Naruto on a practice field. He hadn't backed her into corners and played with her blood soaked hair and hadn't watched her with those eyes which made promises that heated her blood.

Swallowing, she reached over and shut the drawer. Right now was not the time to be analyzing this. She was too worked up and too physically tired to think this through properly. Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would deal with that damn Uchiha and get him to return her shirts.

And she would be a hell of a lot more careful around him.

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