Sasuke hissed in pain and threw a sour look at his pink-haired teammate, who was hovering over his three fractured ribs.
"Serves you right," Sakura muttered vindictively, the green glow of chakra fading from her hands as she finished healing Sasuke. She sank back down onto the small stool next to Sasuke's hospital bed, exhaustion finally hitting her like a ton of bricks. All Sakura wanted to do was to go home, take a hot shower, and crawl into bed.
Naruto finally emerged from the adjoining bathroom to the hospital room, having managed to scrape away the worst of the mud. He sat down heavily next to Sakura.
"Well, now what?" the blond asked.
Sakura sighed. "I guess we'll have to wait for further instructions from Tsunade-sama. I wonder if I'm still allowed to work at the hospital even if I'm non-active."
"Whatever," Sasuke said, throwing his legs off the hospital bed so he could sit up properly. He leaned in closer to his teammates. "Listen, my family cannot find out about this, do you understand? My father will kill me. It's going to bring shame to the entire Uchiha clan, and he's never going to stop hounding me, especially about you two," he looked pointedly at Sakura and Naruto. They both nodded minutely, knowing that Sasuke had to move mountains to get his father to accept his teammates who did not come from as prestigious a background as the Uchihas did. "And my brother. Especially my brother. He's going to hold this over my head forever," Sasuke moaned.
"Stop being so dramatic," Sakura snapped. The usually stoic Sasuke always got overly emotional when it came to family drama. "What do you want us to do? Go on fake missions?"
Naruto stood up, declaring, "That's stupid. We'll just go back to Baa-chan and ask her to give us missions, maybe she'll change her mind after having some sake or something!"
Both Sakura and Sasuke reached out simultaneously to punch Naruto in the arm, and the blond flinched. "What?" he protested.
"Don't be stupid, dobe," Sasuke scowled as he finally stood up. "I'm going home. Remember you two, none of this happened, alright?"
The Hokage had unfortunately sent Itachi on a solo-reconnaissance mission directly following his report, and he had to leave immediately. A few short days later, he finally returned to Konoha, a little exhausted.
"Okaa-san, I'm home," he called as he stepped into the airy kitchen of the Uchiha main house. He was met with silence. Itachi quickly deduced that his mother must have gone to the market; her shopping bag was gone, as was the shopping list usually tacked to the fridge. He couldn't sense his father in the house either; the Uchiha patriarch was probably dealing with clan matters elsewhere. Itachi headed upstairs, his sharp ears picking up muted conversation from his brother's room.
Sasuke's bedroom door was shut, and Itachi recognized the chakra signatures of his foolish brother's two teammates. Their voices were hushed and they seemed to be deep in the midst of scheming something, so that they had completely missed Itachi's presence in the house. Itachi smirked and muted his own chakra signature completely; he couldn't pass up this golden opportunity to embarrass his brother in front of his friends. He silently crept up to Sasuke's door, and just as he was about to reach for the doorknob, it swung open violently from the inside and a blur of pink and red fell into his chest with a horrified squeak before he could move.
"I-Itachi-san!" Sasuke's female teammate, yelped in surprise. Her hands were pressed against his chest, and he automatically reached out to grip her waist and steady her balance. Itachi caught the faint scent of lavender from Sakura's hair, and he glanced down at the shorter girl too see her staring back at him in bewilderment.
"You can let go now, Sakura," Itachi stated, amused. Sakura blinked, and then turned bright red.
"R-right. I was just—uh—going to the bathroom," Sakura quickly retracted her hands from his chest, and stumbled away from Itachi and out of the room, avoiding eye contact with the elder Uchiha brother.
Sasuke glared at his brother. "Stop manhandling my teammates, aniki."
"Hello, little brother," Itachi said, "how was your first mission as jounin?" Itachi's smirk grew wider as Sasuke's cheeks suddenly tinged pink and Naruto spluttered in the corner.
"It was fine," Sasuke said shortly. He stood up and strode over to the door, refusing to make eye contact. "Leave, I need to discuss something with my team." He attempted to shut the door on his brother, but Itachi quickly stuck his hand out and stopped him.
"Really," Itachi almost drawled, "well congratulations then. You should take some time off after your first successful mission…maybe a month's vacation?"
Sasuke's eyes snapped upwards, and Itachi caught a spark of fear before Sasuke quickly rearranged his features to look pissed off. "Get out, aniki," he snapped, and quickly reached forward to grasp Sakura, who had returned from the bathroom, and drag her forcibly into the room.
Sasuke's bedroom door snapped shut behind the pink haired female, and Itachi felt a flare of chakra and was met with complete silence – Sasuke must have sealed off his entire room to make it soundproof. Itachi's smirk widened even further if it was possible; he was going to have fun teasing his brother and his silly teammates.
"He knows!" Sasuke hissed, pacing around his bedroom.
Sakura frowned. "Well, it's possible, he is an ANBU squad captain, you know, he probably has access to information like this…"
"He's definitely going to tell my parents!"
"Maybe he won't?" Naruto suggested unhelpfully.
"Of course he will, he's evil! And he lives to make me suffer," Sasuke snapped, and Naruto nodded in agreement.
"He's not evil," Sakura protested.
"Yeah, you think that just because you think he's sexy," Naruto piped up.
"I do not!"
"You were totally feeling up his chest before—Ooh, Itachi-san, you have such nice muscles, ouch!" Naruto's voice went up an octave as he made kissy faces in the air, and Sakura cut him off with a hard smack to the head.
Sakura crossed her arms in defiance. Sure, maybe she did think that Uchiha Itachi was physically very attractive, or the finest male specimen that she had ever set her eyes on, and sure, maybe she had accidentally let that thought slip those few months ago when Team Seven got hopelessly drunk for Naruto's 18th birthday, but there was nothing wrong with admiring her teammate's hot older brother from afar. After all, they barely had contact with each other; Sakura only saw him fleetingly at the hospital or when she was at Sasuke's house, and he had never spoken more than two sentences to her before.
"Oh, shut up, Naruto. There's nothing wrong with thinking he's attractive," Saukra said, cheeks tinging pink. "A lot of people are attractive, like Kakashi, if he would take off his mask…Neji-san, Genma—"
Sasuke looked revolted. "Can we please stop discussing Itachi's looks and concentrate on the bigger problem here? How are we going to prevent him from telling my parents?" he said.
"Teme, we don't even know if he knows about it," Naruto said.
"He definitely knows," Sasuke muttered. "That's it, we need to blackmail him." He nodded, like he had just come up with the most brilliant strategy in the world.
Naruto grinned. "Hey, what if we put an eraser on his bedroom door like that one time we did with Kaka—"
Sakura cut him off with a heavy sigh as she stood up. "You two idiots," she reprimanded them rather fondly. "Anyway, I have to go meet with Tsunade-sama for training, don't do anything stupid while I'm gone. And Sasuke, get your panties out of a twist and stop making such a huge deal out of this."
Sasuke scowled.
Sakura still felt a little embarrassed facing her mentor after the failed mission. She might physically be the weakest member of Team Seven, but she prided herself on being the most intelligent on her team. She was the one who kept her two boys out of trouble, she was the voice of reason, and she was the one who fixed all the problems. Quite literally speaking, since she was a medic-nin. Sakura was not weak at all; quite on the contrary, under Tsunade's strict tutelage she had become one of the most powerful kunoichi in the village and one of the finest medic-nin in the shinobi world. But her teammates were Uzumaki Naruto the Kyuubi container and Uchiha Sasuke, a Sharingan wielder, and it was tough keeping up with them, especially during Team 7's younger years.
"Shishou?" Sakura knocked twice and entered the large lab where she and Tsunade did all of their medical training. This was where she revived her first dead fish when she was 12 years old, and the place held a lot of memories for her.
Tsunade stood in the center of the lab, hands on her hips. "I'll be teaching you a new surgical technique today," Tsunade announced, cutting to the chase. "You've pretty much mastered knitting together torn muscle, ligaments, skin, and the larger organs, but we're going to focus on the more delicate parts of the human body. The brain, for example."
Sakura nodded, excited to absorb new knowledge and gain new skills.
"The technique is basically the same, but it requires much more chakra control. Remember, neurosurgery is extremely delicate and precise…let's start with some chakra exercises then…"
Four hours later, Sakura was exhausted and drained of chakra, but exhilarated at the same time. She had successfully managed her first brain surgery (on a pig's brain for practice) and removed a small tumor on the frontal lobe perfectly.
Tsunade observed the brain closely, nodded and stepped back. "Well done. I'm proud of you, Sakura," she stated, and her young student beamed with happiness. "We'll continue with this next time. But first, about your team."
Sakura felt her happiness drain away to be replaced with dread.
Tsunade sighed. "Look, I know what Team 7 is capable of. You guys have proved that to me, and the village, over and over again. The thing is, you're adults now. You no longer need Kakashi around as a jounin-sensei, telling you what to do and how to do it. You need to think about all of these things for yourselves. Kakashi taught you to look underneath the underneath. You need to do that now, and more. You are the jounin now, and you need to take on the responsibility of being one."
"Which is why I'm going to assign each one of you additional training. You all need more experience when it comes to taking on responsibility. I'm going on a diplomatic mission for a week starting tomorrow, and I'm going to take Shizune and Naruto with me. Sakura, I'm going to place you in charge of the hospital until I return. Additionally, I want you to take on genjutsu training with one of our genjutsu specialists. Sasuke will also be training with you for now, until Yamato returns from his mission. Both of you will report to Training Grounds 3 at 0600 hours tomorrow. Is that clear?" Tsunade said, looking expectantly at her protégé.
Sakura nodded, her mouth dry. She was going to be in charge of the hospital. The entire, Konoha Hospital. Granted, it was only for a week, but the heavy weight of responsibility was already sitting on her chest. So this was the kind of training that Tsunade was going to enforce on Team 7 over the course of one month. Not physical training to increase stamina and speed, or ninjutsu training to learn more techniques, but training an individual to think, strategize, and prioritize in certain situations. A diplomatic mission for Naruto would undoubtedly test the blond's patience and tact. It would be good for him, Sakura decided, especially if Tsunade was grooming Naruto to take over as the Rokudaime Hokage one day. Clearly, Tsunade had something in store for Sasuke and Yamato-sensei as well.
"Yes, shishou," Sakura responded. She quickly bid farewell and left the lab to find Sasuke to inform him of tomorrow's new training schedule.
It was near dinnertime, and Sasuke most predictably would be at the Uchiha manor. Sakura made her way across town towards the Uchiha Compound.
"Sakuraaaa-chan!" one of the sentries guarding the compound called out, waving enthusiastically.
Sakura recognized the familiar voice and broke out into a wide smile. "Shisui-san! You're on guard duty tonight?"
Shisui grinned. "Heh, nah, just covering for my buddy for a few minutes. He urgently needed to—ah—use the bathroom. Bad sushi," he patted his own stomach and pulled a face.
"Is he okay? If it's bad, I can prescribe him some stomach medicine to ease nausea," Sakura inquired, immediately slipping into medic mode.
Shisui laughed and reached out to ruffle Sakura's hair. "Nah, he'll be fine. You're so cute for caring though. Are you looking for my baby cousin? He's in the main house."
Sakura pulled away from Shisui's offending hand, straightening her hitai-ite. "Thanks!" she offered the older Uchiha a charming smile as she passed through the compound gates. Shisui was the only Uchiha she enjoyed conversing with, save for Uchiha Mikoto, Sasuke and Itachi's mother. Unlike all the other Uchiha Sakura knew, Shisui was friendly and sociable, and did not have trouble actually expressing human emotions.
Sakura sensed four presences gathered closely together in the kitchen of the main house, and decided to knock on the front door to be polite instead of scaling the wall and entering through Sasuke's open bedroom window as she usually did.
The door swung open before she could lift her hand however, and Sakura's mouth dropped in surprise.
"I-Itachi-san!"
Uchiha Itachi leaned against the doorframe, dressed casually in black shinobi pants and a loose black t-shirt. His hair was damp and tied back in his customary ponytail, and he wore a small smirk.
"Well, hello again, Sakura-san. We must stop meeting like this. What is it, twice in one day now? You should really start paying more attention to closed doors," he said slowly, amusement laced through his words.
Sakura blushed in embarrassment and averted her eyes. "Ah, uh, well, I was, uh, looking for Sasuke," she mumbled.
She finally looked up when Itachi didn't respond verbally. He crossed his arms and cocked one of his perfect eyebrows at her. Itachi was not moving, and he was not inviting her into the house. The redness in Sakura's cheeks grew more pronounced, and she mentally shook her head to clear it.
"Could you please let Sasuke know that he needs to be at Training Grounds 3 tomorrow at 0600 hours for genjutsu training?" she spoke boldly, staring at the bridge of Itachi's nose instead of his dark eyes. Those were just a bit too intense to take on directly…
Itachi inclined his head. "That is acceptable. I will pass on the message."
Sakura flashed him a warm smile, disarming Itachi for a second before he quickly rearranged his features to his usual expressionless face. She did not notice. "Thank you, Itachi-san!" she said cheerfully, and turned to leave.
"Sakura-san," Itachi suddenly spoke up. She paused, mid-step. "It would be wise to not eat breakfast tomorrow," he said with a mysterious smirk. "Goodnight."
And with that, the Uchiha heir closed the door to the house, leaving a shocked Sakura for the third time that day.
AN: And here is chapter one, officially! I'm still working on getting the chapters to be longer, so please bear with me! Thanks for reading; hope my first Itachi and Sakura story is turning out alright. As always, feel free to leave reviews!