I can only apologise for Sakura's potty mouth in this chapter. The girl swears like a drunken sailor who's just stubbed his toe.

Suggested music for this chapter: I Will Not Bow, by Breaking Benjamin, and even so much better and more fitting: Just Like You, by Three Days Grace.

Her head ached and there was a sour taste in her mouth. She blinked drowsily and stood, noting that she was in a forest, her feet disturbing leaves on the ground as she stumbled about drunkenly.

The sky was still dark and strewn with stars, so she knew it was night time.

She was in a large clearing in the Nara Forest. It all looked vaguely familiar to her, the far-apart trees, the bushes…

She felt something warm brush against her back, a chin touching her shoulder lightly.

His voice, deep and smooth like before, whispering into her ear, "It is good to finally see you again, Sakura."

Sakura felt her body stiffen almost painfully, there was a burning sensation in her stomach, her hatred boiling and seething inside her and she clenched her jaw to keep the anger bursting out of her mouth in the form of poisonous words. I hate you so much, she thought viciously.

Itachi was still waiting for her to turn around.

She could feel his body at her back like he was giving off heat, a fiery presence that seared her skin and melted any confidence or courage she had left within her.

Suddenly she was twelve years old, young and stupid again.

Her sandals crunched on the grass as she very slowly turned around, her face left emotionless from the stress of suppressing her rage.

He looked exactly the same as he had as her kind, pacifist sensei. Except the addition of the two blood-red eyes, the eyes that had first let her know he was lying psychopath.

Those hated eyes swept over her slowly, drinking in her changed appearance carefully as though memorising her new self.

"Get the fuck away from me." Sakura said heatedly, her eyes flashing.

Itachi took a step back.

She wanted to scratch his eyes out… she wanted to rip him apart, limb by limb, tear out his throat and spit on his corpse…

This was the one person she would break her no-killing rule for.

"You've grown." Was all Itachi said in reply to her coarse words, his tone oddly proud.

"No thanks to you," Sakura said bitingly, "If you'd had your way you would have killed me at twelve."

"No," Itachi said, his usually calm voice breaking into something else, something emotional and pain-filled, "I would never kill you."

"Oh really? How… nice," Sakura spat, "How sweet. I feel so special. It's a shame I don't share the sentiment. If I could kill you now I'd do it in a heartbeat."

His expression looked so hurt and raw and if he didn't stop acting like he cared Sakura was going to rip the floor from under them and bury them both, anything to stop him acting like he gave a damn…

"So Konoha finally got to you." He said, his tone resigned, "You've become the killer they always wanted you to be."

"The only people I kill are the people who deserve it, so don't look down on me for doing my job and killing criminals when you killed your whole family you fucking hypocrite!" Sakura said, her voice rising to a scream on the last two words.

Itachi moved too quickly for her eyes to even register the movement and his hand was around her mouth and he was twisting her arms around her back effortlessly with one hand.

"Please," He said quietly, murmuring into her ear, "Stop swearing at me. I may get angry."

Sakura was seized with irrepressible rage and humiliation and ripped herself from his grip with her chakra-enhanced strength, managing to startle a gasp from him.

"Fuck," Sakura said loudly and clearly, emphasising the word for his benefit, "You."

And she threw her fist down at the ground, shattering the earth into ragged clumps. She somersaulted away from the wreckage and landed neatly far away from the crater.

Itachi had managed to escape being crushed beneath her fist at a hair's breadth; she could see his outright stunned face from across the crater, smoke rising between the two of them.

Sakura stood up straight, her head held high, her face grim now with the knowledge that there was no escaping this fight and it would end in death, "Guess what?" She said coldly, "I found a better teacher than you. And she knows she's strong without having to kill her entire family to test her strength. Doesn't that make her better than you?"

"I'm glad you found a good sensei." Itachi said, impossibly calm, not a hair out of place, his voice so kind and forgiving that it made her want to puke.

"So am I." Sakura said, and flew at him.

He met her kunai with one of his own that he had drawn so quickly she hadn't even seen him move, and took about an eighth of her strength in that one blow. His kunai slipped slightly, and his feet moved backwards.

He actually smirked, "Amazing. You are one of two people who can utilise their chakra in this way. I could never have taught you this."

Sakura gave a harsh laugh, "Oh, I know that. Do you remember how you mocked me for only knowing genjutsu? How good is your Sharingan these days? I bet you can see through any genjutsu." Her tone was odd, a mixture of scorn and hatred.

She let go of her kunai and, as the momentum moved Itachi backwards, she swiped a foot at the ground so that the dirt would fly up and strike his face. Or, more accurately, his eyes.

He didn't let go of his kunai, but delicately wiped at his eyes.

"Tsunade-sama taught me something else." Sakura said coldly, and her hand began to glow blue.

Itachi was too quick for her, he leapt backwards before she could swipe at his eyes (her plan having been to sever his optic nerves) and he even avoided the traps she had thrown behind him when she kicked the dirt.

All whilst completely blind.

He really was good.

Sakura gritted her teeth.

"Dodge this," Sakura said loudly and created the illusion of the earth beneath them cracking beneath her fist.

Itachi, hand still clasped against his pained eyes, listened carefully. She saw him move slightly to the left as his mind fooled him that the earth was cracking, but his head tilted to the right. Sakura obligingly added an undercurrent of feet slapping against the earth behind him.

He whirled around, kunai out.

Sakura saw her chance and dove towards him from behind.

Her own blade sliced through the air as he, blind, dodged, grabbing her wrist and throwing her into the traps she had laid for him.

Sakura turned the fall into a roll, neatly managing to avoid the spike traps, still half in shock that he had managed to dodge that.

"I suppose in some lights, that scheme may have been considered clever." Itachi said from behind her, wiping his face with his sleeve, his eyes left red from the dirt, "But I doubt it."

Sakura got to her feet, face red with anger, "I guess you're going to kill me today. In a way, it'll be a relief. I'll finally be able to stop worrying that you'll come after me, because it's already happened. Maybe Konoha will see me for who I am, just like they did with you. How does it feel, knowing that everyone who ever cared about you is dead by your own hand? Tell me. Cause I know I could never do that."

"Not everyone who ever cared about me," Itachi said, his voice low, "You are still alive, and you loved me."

At those words, Sakura coughed and rubbed her nose, shaking her head, laughing, "No," She said quietly, "No. That's a lie. Is that what you thought? You thought I…? Towards you…? No. That's a fucking lie. It is. Stop looking at me like that, like you're so damn sorry. You aren't sorry. You… you're just mocking me again, pretending to care even after you did all that… No. No, I didn't love you. I hate you."

"Sakura, I really am sorry it had to come to this." Itachi said sincerely.

"Come to this?" Sakura pretended to not understand, "But it was you who started all this. You killed your family. You taught me for six years, never telling me who you were. You only taught me so that you could kill me in front of Sasuke. When that didn't work, you came to tie up a loose end. So, that's it. The end. You'll kill me, and Konoha will probably assume I was betraying them 'again,' so I won't even be buried," She said, nearly crying now, shivering in the dark field in the middle of nowhere, with the man from her nightmares standing opposite her, just staring at her, "My mum will think I'm a criminal. My only friend will think she misjudged me. My sensei, my real sensei, they'll… they'll think…"

Sakura, to her shame and humiliation, had begun to sob, "Everyone will remember me as a traitor. I would die for that village, and they won't even give me a grave."

Itachi lifted a hand as though to comfort her. It was that what jolted her from her breakdown.

"Don't come near me." She whispered, her voice murderous. She wiped her eyes.

"Well, if that's how it has to be, then fine. I'll do it. They'll hate me. You'll get away with it, because no one will avenge me. Not even Sasuke." She said, obviously trying to keep herself from sounding completely heartbroken. She failed.

"You seem so certain that I'll kill you." Itachi said softly.

"You would have killed me four years ago in that hallway," Sakura said, "Why not now? Why not today?"

"You don't seem afraid for someone so sure their death is near."

At that, Sakura laughed, a real, genuine laugh for the first time. It was wild and dangerous.

"I'm not afraid. I've been waiting for this day for four years. I've dreamt about it. You see, I know I'm not strong enough to kill you. But, that won't stop me from really, really hurting you before I die, and the knowledge that you suffered even a flicker of pain because of me will send me to the traitor's bonfire happy." Sakura said with a wicked smile.

"I've missed you." Itachi said gently, "I thought about you every day. I hoped you were doing well. I hoped you'd quit being a ninja and that you were happy. I hoped you were still the same kind, generous girl I used to know."

"Well, people can turn out to be exactly the opposite of what they pretended to be," Sakura said savagely, "Hurts, doesn't it? What's it like, knowing your whole village despises you? They used to love you. They thought you were a genius, and so dedicated to them. Now they know who you really are, and they despise you. And your own little brother! Well, I'm certain he'll be the one to kill you in the end. Then you will know what it's like, having your own family kill you. I hope it hurts you."

"You hate me." Itachi marvelled, "You truly hate me. Sakura, you need to know the truth."

"I don't want to hear it." Sakura retorted, her green eyes flashing in anger. He was going to make up some excuse? What for? Just so he could get her on his side again?

"I suppose I can't tell you anyway." Itachi said, looking deeply saddened, "I wish I could. I never wanted to hurt you, Sakura. I hope one day you'll find out why I did what I did, and I hope you forgive me. I hope you can move on from this."

"I just wanted to say," Sakura said, looking at Itachi steadily, "You ruined my life."

Strangely, her words seemed to deflate Itachi, he slumped, his eyes on the ground. Then a change came over him and he looked up. He was smirking.

"Believe what you want. Think of me as a bad person. If you want me to be play the villain in your life, I will." He said, his thickly-lashed eyes narrowed and focused on her face.

Without a word, Sakura made a series of lightning quick hand seals and disappeared, her trademark concealment jutsu at work.

Itachi copied the seals, raising his eyebrow.

"Do you really think I can't see through that?" He said, a little disappointed that this was all she had to offer.

Sakura, faintly visible to his eyes thanks to his weakening Sharingan, made another series of hand seals and split into three.

Kage bunshin. Difficult to see kage bunshin. With exactly the same amount of chakra within them, making them identical. It didn't matter, though. At the level Sakura was at he could take out an entire army of her.

And then the clones exploded into petals.

Petals that were, incidentally, too small, too faint and too fast for Itachi to see.

There was a soft touch at Itachi's cheek, so soft and so like an embrace that his reflexes didn't kick in quick enough, and he hissed in pain as his cheek was burnt by the petal.

He jumped backwards and used the jutsu she had just so unwittingly shown him.

He disappeared.

There was a sharp breeze as the invisible petals spread around quickly, obviously searching for him. If they touched him, Sakura would know where he was.

He smirked, forming a few more seals.

"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!"

Fire emerged from his mouth, devouring the petals in his path. The fire blazed all around him, protecting him from the rest of the petals.

A rapidly growing shadow fell over him. Without even bothering to look up, he moved so fast it was as though he had teleported, just in time to avoid Sakura's outstretched leg smashing into him.

The ground caved in once more.

Of course. The petals, the clones, the invisibility, they had all simply been there to distract him. He was too quick for her though. Should he have been any slower, however, this fight would have been very different, the odds may have shifted in her favour.

"Concealment jutsu, fire jutsu, constant use of the Sharingan, you really must be running out of chakra by now." Sakura mocked him, emerging from the crater she had made.

Itachi was surprised, though he didn't show it. It was true he was running low on chakra, but he had such perfect chakra control that he never wasted any of it, and had never been caught short before.

"What makes you say that?" He asked, discreetly measuring the distance between them. She could get to him in about thirty seconds; he could get to her in about ten if he wanted to take his time.

"When I was twelve, the Interrogation Squad made me read all of their files about you, one, to teach me about who you really were, two, to see if I knew anything about you that contradicted with their information. I know everything that they do about your abilities. You have very low chakra reserves. I wonder if that sleep inducing technique you used on me took a lot out of you?"

Itachi nearly laughed. He should have known Sakura, ever the diligent student, would have studied him.

"You wanted to 'hurt' me before I killed you." Itachi said, his smirk widening with the ease of years of practicing to play the murderous, evil bastard he was supposed to be. He had slipped so comfortably into the role of Uchiha Itachi, infamous murderer, that he wasn't quite sure where Itachi the murderer ended and 'he,' the real Itachi, began, "How do you plan to accomplish that?"

Sakura glared at him, her mouth screwed up to stop her shouting something, her eyes narrowed and angry. How she had changed over the years…

"I was hoping blood would be involved," Sakura said, her voice harsh, "Preferably yours."

She drew a kunai. Itachi watched as her face smoothed into a blank expression. She held the weapon aloft, a wordless challenge.

Itachi met it with a kick to the chest.

Sakura went flying, the kunai lost in the grass, skidding and rolling to a halt, skin scraped raw and bleeding.

She pushed herself up without hesitation, ignoring the fact that she was obviously out of weapons and ideas, wiping the blood off her cheek and spitting.

Her wrists nearly cracked as Itachi seized them in a tight grip, pulling Sakura close to him. She gasped outright, having blinked and missed his movement – he simply appeared suddenly in front of her.

A pained groan escaped Itachi's lips when Sakura truly surprised him, head-butting him without hesitation, their skulls colliding painfully. He blinked, dazed. The whole move was stupid and instinctive, proving Sakura was getting desperate, for all her bravado about not caring if she died.

"Why don't you just give up?" Itachi said, his smirk growing cruel, watching Sakura's captured fists glow blue with chakra as she struggled to break his grip, still refusing to give in to him even as he pulled her yet closer, her head brushing his chest, "I could be your beloved sensei again. You wouldn't have to go back to that place. They do not trust you. They wish you would just disappear. Why don't you come with me?"

If she had disliked him merely standing close to her, having him now pulled flush against her body, whispering temptations into her ear, was enough to make her scream.

She turned her head away, the only defiance she could show with such little space to manoeuvre. She tried to force her shaking, chakra-laden fists into his chest, once touch and surely he'd go flying… But he kept a tight hold on both wrists.

"How many times do I have to tell you, no!" Sakura shouted, right in his face, "Konoha is my home and unlike you, I'd never betray it."

But Itachi had been struck by a new revelation, not that Sakura was far more determined than he ever would have given her credit for, or how it hurt more than he thought it would when she refused his offer again, but that, pulled up close to Sakura like this had caused him notice something about her.

She had grown… pretty. Her eyes – when not narrowed furiously, or filled with tears – were a soft, gentle green, large and framed by dark eyelashes. Her skin was soft and pale, her mouth…

No.

Itachi mentally shook himself, trying to re-establish barriers, Sakura was his student, no, his ex-student, and clearly no longer a child, but still…

She hated him.

Her face was screwed up in abject fury, her discomfort obvious by the way she was clawing at his chest in vain, so close to tears yet holding them back in a last defiance against him, the evil, murderous ex-sensei that was hurting her yet again with no reason.

He pushed her away hastily, shocked at himself. What had gotten into him? He'd simply held her to him for a long minute or two, ignoring her frantic attempts to get away, perversely noting how beautiful she had become…

This was something she would have expected him to do, he imagined, humiliate and frighten her. But it was not something he'd ever want to do.

It was something Itachi the mass-murderer would do, not… him. Not the real him. When had it become so difficult to separate himself from his loyalties, Akatsuki and Konoha?

But it had been so long since he had seen her and she had changed so drastically… she was so, so angry and hurt, deep to the core. The gentle, loving girl he had known was gone and he was the reason for it. He had destroyed her innocent, happy nature and replaced it with a harder, rougher version.

Sakura was on the ground again, humiliated, elbows digging in the dirt as she warily tried to push herself up again, afraid Itachi would simply grab her once more. Her wounds stung viciously and if she miraculously survived this, she was going to have to clean them thoroughly and disinfect them; she might need some ban –

Itachi was walking towards her again.

She nearly fell over again in her eagerness to get away, stumbling backwards as he approached.

He stopped before her, face serious, all traces of the smirking, cruel man she hated so much gone.

He held a kunai.

Her heart skipped a beat, she was shaking all over and suddenly sweating, this was it, she thought numbly, this was the end.

He threw the kunai at the floor between them, hard, where it sank into the dirt.

Sakura had flinched when he threw the kunai, but now she felt bewildered. What was he doing?

"Take the kunai." Itachi instructed, in that horribly familiar teacher voice of his.

Sakura didn't move, eyeing him suspiciously.

He sighed.

"Take it." He urged her, "Before I get angry."

She was obviously fighting her pride, a spasm of anger passing over her face, before she swallowed it down and crawled over to the kunai, reasoning that if it was a trap, at least she'd be armed.

But it wasn't a trap; Itachi didn't make a move as she pulled the kunai out of the ground and held it to her chest defensively.

Itachi pointed to his neck, "Do you remember what we did before? To prove I trusted you, I let you hold a kunai to my neck. I still trust you, Sakura."

Sakura, fighting her fear, charged over to him, a look of determination fixed on her face.

"Don't play the innocent sensei with me again," She said, placing the blade against his neck, "I told you I wanted to hurt you and now you let me do this? You forget, I saw you for who you really were in that hallway. I won't fall for the same trick twice."

"No trick," Itachi said calmly, every word he spoke caused the kunai to trace patterns on his throat lightly. She hadn't drawn blood. She wasn't even pressing it to the skin, simply holding it there loosely, "If you want to hurt me, then hurt me. It is the least I deserve."

Sakura stared at him, her gaze boring through his head, kunai menacingly drawing against his neck. The gesture lacked weight, however, because she was holding the kunai so carefully, so gently… She didn't know what was making her hesitate, was it the old, deeply-buried memory of what it had been like to kill Dosu? Or was it simply because while she knew, logically, that this man was a monster, he was a monster who wore her old, much-loved sensei's face, and she couldn't hurt her precious sensei?

Her sensei was Tsunade. Kakashi, Anko… they were the people who had taught her the most important lessons she ever learned. Where was Itachi when she needed him?

Tsunade had told her that to be a ninja, she had to learn how to cope with killing. Who better to practice killing on than Itachi?

Itachi read the indecision mingled with anger in Sakura's eyes and feared she wouldn't do it. He deserved this; he deserved whatever pain she could cause him, because he had hurt her so much more than she could ever repay him for.

Sakura was struck then with the image of Sasuke. What would he think if he saw his brother offering his neck as a show of submission to her?

For the four years of loneliness, isolation and pain, Sakura gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on the kunai.

She yanked the blade sharply across Itachi's neck and shoved him with a fist she had been secretly gathering chakra in ever since he had released her wrists.

Blood gushed from the wound, staining her hands.

Itachi fell back beneath the weight of her shove.

Sakura dropped the kunai and fell to her knees beside him.

"You can use all the pretty words you like," Sakura said slowly, repeating the words Anko had told her, "You can try to shape me in your image and you can hurt me as much as you want, because you got me when I was young and stupid. But I'm not young and I'm not stupid anymore. I'm not your student. You have nothing to do with me. You are dead to me."

Itachi's eyes fluttered shut, his mouth stained red.

Sakura paused as she was about to run, her feet glued to the floor. She wanted nothing more than to run, get away, go home, but the pained wheezes he was making were getting under her skin.

It hit her that the wound she had given him was potentially life-threatening and Itachi wasn't doing a thing to save himself, not even putting pressure on the wound.

"Don't you see?" She said, near hysterical, "I have to do this. I hate you. I really do. You betrayed me. I… I have to leave you."

Still, Itachi's eyes did not open, and his face grew paler.

I don't kill.

Sakura remembered what she had promised herself so many years ago when she was so afraid of becoming her sensei, of developing a taste for murder…

The only escape from that ever present fear had been to swear that she would never kill again.

She swore under her breath and dropped to her knees again, hands settling on the gaping wound in his neck.

What am I doing? She thought, panicked.

Her hands glowed green and washed over his neck, spreading in circles over the skin, watching it knit itself back together.

"I'm doing this," She muttered, watching his pulse beat in his neck, his chest rising and falling, "Because unlike you, I am not a killer. This proves the difference between you and me. But, if you ever come near me again, I'll break my rule."

Itachi's eyes opened slightly to slits and he watched her walk away from him, leaving him weak from blood loss, lying on the leaf-covered floor of the Nara Forest.

Um, yeah. I updated. Whoo! :)

I always seem to write this fic in the middle of the night, I don't know why :S

There was blood! Lol XD

Sakura's personality is vastly different in this chapter. After the time-skip, she proved that she was stoic, unemotional and broken. But when she is presented with Itachi, the cause and embodiment of all her trauma, she becomes enraged and cocky, suddenly proving Tsunade right when she claimed she had a big ego.

I like this story because both Sakura and Itachi have false personalities they use with everyone else (Sakura pretends to be unemotional and she tries to be kind despite her deep-set resentment for the world around her and Itachi pretends to be a murdering psychopath), but when they come together they can show their true personalities, Itachi can be the kind sensei he always wanted to be and Sakura can let loose with her rage.

This chapter is so long, despite the fact that it's just one scene. Weird!

Hey guys, could you let me know if Sakura's drifting into Mary Sue territory? I have to let it be known that the only reason she manages to hurt Itachi is because he let her. Also, if he was fighting seriously, she would be dead.

Also, Itachi has hormones and doesn't like it!

Let me know what you vaguely, sort of liked and what you loathed with the intensity of a thousand suns.

*whimpers*

Be gentle.

Quick poll take: Should Tsunade believe Sakura about Itachi?

A) Yes, the poor girl needs someone on her side.

B) Hmm, maybe she could slowly start to believe her.

C) No, she didn't know Sakura when she was Itachi's student and she has no proof that Sakura wasn't aware of Itachi's murderous past.

D) Other! Let me know!