A WHOPPING 12 REVIEWS THIS TIME! I'm so grateful, especially to the Awesomes who constantly review. You know who you are! :D Either way, thank you thank you thank you :DDDDD 65 reviews, an average of 8 per chapter. THANK YOU THANK YOU.

Without further ado, chapter 9 everybody!

Props to anyone who notices the classic Pocahontas scene in the flashback below!

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3 years ago, when everything changed.

The field was eerily still and quiet, except for the occasional gust of wind that caused the lallang in the field to sway along in a slow, silent dance. A body lay in the field, unmoving. Strands of pink hair swayed gently in the wind, and eventually, the body seemed to take a long breath.

The girl's eyes flew open, revealing jade-coloured eyes. She clutched at her throbbing head with her right hand, moaning softly. Slowly, she propped herself up from the ground with her elbows and noticed her clothes in an irreparable, tattered condition. Her memory slowly returned, and with an increasingly dizzying rush of panic, she staggered up, her eyes already blurring with flowing tears. Her breath came out in panicked puffs, her eyes scanning the surroundings haphazardly as her mind started to whirl.

Recognising the place, she ran in a familiar direction, her small feet noticeably bare and white, a stark contrast against the rough, chocolate ground. The soles of her feet started to sting with the accumulating scrapes and cuts against jagged rocks on the ground, but she channelled even more energy to her feet, as though her life depended on it.

She came to a halt when she reached a cliff, her clothes shifting in the wind and her hair whirling about her face as frightened eyes surveyed the area below.

What she saw confirmed her worst fears, and for the longest time, she buckled on the floor… and promptly cried.

Present time, 11:38 a.m.

Sakura woke up with a start, her eyes flying open. Moaning slightly, she looked around and noticed her lying on a familiar bed.

She was in her room. In Akatsuki's headquarters, in Amegakure.

Memory came back to her in a dizzying flash and despite her tired, sore limbs aching from the all-out spar, she sat up grinning gleefully, mentally congratulating herself on her win. She was, thankfully, still in her outfit – she still hadn't figured out who had changed her clothes the last time, and she did not want another occurrence. Stretching her limbs and swinging her legs slowly over the edge of the bed, she flexed her toes experimentally and placed her feet fully on the floor and proceeded to stand up.

And promptly fell down, down to the cold hard floor with a squeak, her head almost crashing against the concrete, her long, flowing hair blocking her vision. At the same time, her room door creaked open to reveal a pair of toned feet.

"Sakura!" An alarmed male, baritone voice called out as the figure rushed over to help her up. Sakura felt miffed and betrayed by her body, which threatened to buckle in the man's arms.

"I can help myself, Deidara," she muttered, but saw a few bandages on her body which she had not noticed before, covering her left arm and leg where the shards used to be. She looked up at Deidara and saw his concerned, cerulean eyes at her appearance. He frowned at her, giving her a mock-glare.

"You're supposed to be in bed, yeah. I did not bandage those wounds only for them to reopen again. You need rest." At that, he sat her up at the edge of the bed as he knelt before her, opting to check her bandaged wounds.

Sakura reached for his hand, stopping him as their gazes interlocked. "I can do it," she reassured him, and under his scrutinizing, intense gaze, she unwrapped the bandage on her thigh. The wounds were coated with dried blood, and the shards removed, which she was thankful for, reducing the chances of getting infected. Placing a hand over her wounds, she channelled her green healing chakra to spread all the way to her fingertips. Satisfied at the amount of chakra regained, she began to heal.

The soothing hum of her chakra started, and Deidara watched it with a slight tinge of awe written all over his face. Sakura stared mutely at her wounds, pointedly avoiding Deidara who was leaning forward on his knees as he watched her.

Then he spoke, breaking the silence. "Ne, Sakura… Remember the time we almost got mauled by tigers on our mission?"

Sakura let out a genuine peal of laughter, smiling fondly at the memory he brought up. "Yeah, I do. That was one weird mission, retrieving that businessman's tiger-pet. Thank Kami he paid us enough for all the crap we had to go through!"

"Sakura, they practically unleashed a whole freaking zoo after us, yeah. No amount of money could pay up for the terror they caused us."

"And I still can't believe he has a tiger as a pet. Seriously, who has a tiger as a pet?" Sakura scoffed.

"Well, obviously he does, yeah. But I remember one thing I wasn't able to forget," he said, his blue eyes twinkling merrily as he visibly fought to hide his amusement. "I remember me blowing up, and you were such a softie-"

Sakura's face flushed a deep red. "Now wait, I-"

"And when I woke up, you were sniffling like the world ended and were near hysterical-"

"Oh, come on-"

"-And you were healing me, yeah," he continued, his gaze trained on hers as he got up slowly from his kneeling position and crept closer to her, grinning mischievously. "And then, you said…" His hands came to rest on the bed, on both sides of her, as he leaned closer to her face. "You said…" His voice had become a bare whisper, his breath brushing gently against her face like a soft, soothing wind.

Her mouth opened, and the words came out on its own accord, in a soft whisper.

"Don't leave me alone, you idiot."

At that moment, the door opened with a loud bang. Deidara jumped back, as though burned, and the two of them stared at the visitor, who looked calm and collected as always, despite the scene he had definitely noticed earlier.

"Sakura-san. I need to speak with you. Privately," he said evenly, watching her impassively as he waited for her answer. Deidara made a small "hm" before shooting Itachi a glare. He stalked towards the door, intent on exiting the room, but not before interlocking gazes with Sakura with dark, cerulean eyes.

When he disappeared and the door closed with a soft click, Sakura seemed to snap out of the daze she was in with a weary sigh. "What can I help you with, Itachi-san?"

The man in question raked in her tired, ragged form and paused before proceeding to take a seat in a chair at the study table near the bed. "I wanted to ask how you managed to have a doujutsu."

How very straightforward of him to ask, Sakura mused. Slowly, she stood up, her energy returning to her legs and arms after healing, and proceeded to walk to him as she reached for her pack on the table. Rifling through her belongings, she eventually found what she was looking for and took it out. Itachi regarded her with his intense, hooded gaze as she bounced the object up and down in her right hand.

It was a transparent packet that held a bottle with a thick, white substance inside.

She tossed it to him and he caught it with one hand reflexively, turning it over and observing it. After a while, he spoke.

"It looks like a substance that numbs the nerves. However, my eyes detect a hint of chakra in them," he said, pausing in his observations to study her.

Sakura nodded, unperturbed by his gaze. "It's a substance I injected myself with. The chakra is mine, as you have noticed, but it's white in colour. This chakra is meant to alter, and in this case, alter the structure of the eye and strands of DNA," she explained. "But, to complete the process of creating a doujutsu for a person without kekkei genkai, the person has to keep injecting white chakra continuously for quite a while and monitor it. If the chakra exceeds a certain level, the unique kekkei genkai forming may result in blindness, and if it is too low… well, it triggers a defence mechanism in the brain in response to the DNA-altering chakra and I suspect it may cause death. "

He raised an eyebrow at her. Sakura took it as a sign that he was impressed, but she chose not to dwell on it. He was a mass murderer; his thoughts did not matter.

He was the man who destroyed Sasuke inside out.

He watched her curiously, making her feel like fidgeting. "You can change anyone's eyes?" he asked.

Sakura pondered on it for a moment, wondering if she should lie and say no in case he wanted her to do it on the Akatsuki. But it was Itachi; nothing escaped him. So she responded with half truths, which was much safer than telling a lie altogether.

"Yes and no. I can do it, but it depends on the person's sensitivity to my white chakra. It's a complex ritual and is extremely risky. Assume a person reacts negatively to my chakra," Sakura gestured to her eyes at this point, "I will not be able to stop injecting my chakra, in case he goes blind or develop a defence mechanism that can cause death. He will be forced to wait for the process to end… and basically, it's likely to be messy. He will have major complications and his brain may be affected as a result, causing mental defects in thinking. Then again, that's just my theory."

"Hn," he said, glancing idly at her belongings. Sakura raked her hand through her hair which she was sure was messy. She was beginning to get tire of his presence. She felt like crap and smelt like crap, and she desperately wished and needed a shower very soon.

"What do you want, Itachi?" she snapped, her arms folded in front of her. "Why did you really come here?"

His red eyes bore into her, and he leaned back against the chair, folding his arms. "I wanted you to start healing my eyes, seeing that a day has passed since the spar and I have recovered. However…" his voice trailed off as the edge of his mouth came up in a smirk. "You are obviously still suffering from exhaustion. This is despite the fact that you won and I lost," he said smoothly in his baritone voice.

If Sakura had scrutinized his gaze, she would have noticed a slightly intrigued look on his face as he watched her.

Jade eyes widened at his statement. It had been a day since the spar? She should have learned this from the state of her wounds, but she must have been too tired to notice anything.

She almost jumped when he gracefully stood up from the chair in an attempt to leave.

"I'll leave to your rest, then, Sakura-san," he said, bowing his head politely as he made for the door.

"W-wait!" Sakura called out before she could tamp down her mouth. The black-haired nin stopped walking and turned his head, his gaze focused on her.

The roseate-haired girl shifted her feet uneasily, as though a question was burning her inside.

Therefore, he wasn't surprised when she opened her mouth to ask the same burning question he suspected she'd ask.

"Why did you do it?" She whispered, and his entire body stiffened imperceptibly. He levelled her angry, affronted gaze coolly, and watched as she continued.

"Why are you doing this to Sasuke? Does it make you happy, to know you made a monster out of him?"

There was a long, tense moment where the two stared at each other, not backing down from the intense looks of the other.

Then the Uchiha spoke, his words mysterious, like a conundrum she was itching to solve.

"He needed it." And he left, leaving the kunoichi alone to tend to her confused, swirling thoughts.

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I know, bout time she confronted him. I mean, it's Sasuke's bro she finally gets to talk to. You gotta ask him why he KO-ed the clan sometime.

Anyway, the poll results for the previous one are a mixture of ideas, so I can't summarise them. And did you spot the Pocahontas scene in the flashback? Ehehe. XD

My personal pairing (sweetest one) is a NaruSaku story by luvtoshi, Let's Get Married. I was reading it yesterday night and got so mad that I had a lack of a love life. LOLOL. Naruto is soooooooooo sweeeeeeeet.

My shoulder is hurting like a boss again. Argh. It'll REALLY cheer me up if you leave a review! : )