Chapter 6- Waking Up

Sakura.

Sakura awoke to the smell of fresh cooked fish and pine.

Sakura, wake up.

"Ugh." Sakura groaned slowly opening her eyes and holding her head. W-where am i? Sakura thought looking around the small clearing she was in. she was on top of her sleeping roll, a blanket lightly resting on her. To her left a small fire pit was smoldering with red hot coals. A fish was cooking in it. Other than that the clearing was empty.

What? What's happening? How did I get here? Suddenly it all came back to Sakura, the pills, the teleportation and the person in the clearing. She sat bolt upright, the blanket falling off of her. A gasp escaped her lips at the sudden pain in her head. I felt like her brain was being splattered against her skull. She quickly ignored it however, remembering the threat at hand. She reached down to grab a kunai from her leg pouch to find that it had been removed. She looked around the clearing, wincing at the sharp pain It caused, and located all of her equipment hanging from a tree, including her Akatsuki cloak and hat. she looked down to find herself dressed in her usual mesh leggings with black short and black long sleeved shirt.

Ok, that's kinda creepy, I NEVER take my cloak off in while im on a mission. I mean-

-Sakura. She was cut off by Itachi's voice. Her eyes widened slightly.

Itachi? What are you doing? She asked surprised and confused. She hadn't done the jutsu, how could he be in her mind? This didn't make any sense.

Sakura could've sworn he snorted, but she couldn't be sure. Hn. I'm talking to you obviously. He thought back annoyed.

I know that! But I didn't make hand signs or anything!

I can use the jutsu without your permission; I just haven't ever needed to. Sakura was shocked. Why hadn't she told her this? He could just get into her head whenever he wanted. Talk about and invasion of privacy.

Can I do that too? I didn't think- she was cut off.

-no. only I know how to use the technique. Itachi replied.

That's… not good. Sakura thought to herself, but she replied with ok, fine by me.

Hn. Now you must get up and prepare yourself before he comes back. Itachi ordered. Sakura slowly got out from under her blanket standing quickly. Her head twinged and her vision went out for a few moments. Sakura ignored it and walked to where her things were handing, gritting her teeth at the dizziness. a thought occurred to her as she was putting on her cloak,

Wait. Who is-

"Hn." The all too familiar voice sounded from behind her. Sakura's mouth opened in a small oh before she quickly recovered and turned around pulling her cloak all the way on.

"Sasuke." She dead panned staring at him blankly. He was standing across the small clearing one hand resting on his katana.

Though she refused to show it on the outside, inside Sakura was panicking. If Sasuke was here that meant he had been the person in the clearing, which in turn meant that he had been the one to take care of her, making her a bed and de-cloaking her (she didn't even want to think about that) and letting her rest. All over it was not a good thing. Now she wasn't just annoying and weak, she annoying weak and a burden. Great, this is exactly how she wanted to start their comradeship, her depending on him to make sure she didn't get eaten by a rabid bear.

Sasuke, sensing nothing of the Akatsuki's inner deterioration merely shrugged,

"Get your things" he said in a bored tone. Sakura froze, her fingers half-finished buttoning up her black and red cloak.

"My…things…" SHIT! Sakura mentally hit herself. She must have forgotten to grab her things before transporting out of the base!

Stupid, stupid PATHETIC! Sakura mentally chided herself.

Sakura.

How could I be so Stupid? It's not like its hard- Sakura continued to rant not noticing Itachi's voice.

Sakura…

-to remember to pack. GOD! Why am I so pathetic? I can't- this time Sakura was just flat out ignoring Itachi. Unfortunately, he knew it.

Sakura! He yelled at her impatiently. Sakura stopped to listen, Sakura, I hid your supplies a mile from here in a hollowed out log. He sent her a mental picture accompanied with a map. Sakura mentally sighed.

Oh thank god. The last thing I need is more screw up in front of Sasuke. She thought relieved. She felt Itachi's mild amusement.

You can talk to me later, when Sasuke isn't around. I must go now. And with that Itachi was gone from her mind.

Damn you and your flash jutsu .Sakura thought finally looking at Sasuke. She was shocked to see a curious and slightly amused expression on his face. It didn't last long and was quickly replaced by his ever present black mask. Sakura's expression mirrored his.

"My pack is about a mile northwest of here." Sakura spoke coolly, finally finishing buttoning up the trademark cloak. She saw Sasuke's slight nod as she led the way through the forest.

"Good, were going that way anyway." He spoke quietly.

Sasuke, while he would never admit it, was curious about his new partner. Earlier that day he had been walking toward their meeting place, planning to camp out for the remaining two days while he waited for Sakura. He arrived just as the Akatsuki had appeared silently in a flurry of Sakura petals. (He made a mental note of the method, assuming that was how she had disappeared earlier that day.) He watched as her eyes widened briefly before she crumpled to the ground. He presumed she was unconscious.

He stood awkwardly for a few moments trying to decide what to do. Eventually he had convinced himself it was his duty as her partner to take care of her and he had irritably carried her to different clearing (he couldn't be sure she wasn't being followed) before setting up camp. He had taken off her cloak (he dint really feel like describing the way he admired just how much she had changed…) and let her rest, assuming it was just chakra depletion that had caused her blackout.

However when he had cast a jutsu to check hidden chakra signals, he was astounded by the sheer amount she had, defiantly close to his size. What was curious was that it seemed like she had full chakra. This was suspicious to him for two reasons; the first being that most peoples chakra was never all the way full, as just living required chakra use; the second being that she had just teleported from who knows where, and teleportation jutsus generally use massive quantities of chakra. Of course Sasuke had to take into account that he had no idea what teleportation jutsu she had used, and therefore had no idea what it's effects were.

Things had gotten even weirder when he walked into the clearing later with some bread he bout at a nearby town to find Sakura moving around gathering her things. She was obviously disoriented, seeing as she hadn't felt his chakra approach and by the way she was wobbling all over he could guess she was dizzy too.

After he got her attention she had turned her face blank, but her eyes like an open book. He watched as terror, guilt and embarrassment flitted across her green eyes. He watched amused as she thought about something, obviously distressed. He apathetically told her to grab her things and was surprised to see her freeze, then appear to have a conversation with someone in her head. If Sasuke wasn't so disciplined in his behavior, he might have laughed. Her expression s changed rapidly from anger, to panic back to anger, submissiveness, gratefulness, relief then back to anger among other expressions he couldn't quite name. it would be very comical, if it wasn't so disturbing. She obviously not mentally stable which just made Sasuke apprehensive. The last thing he needed was a partner who wasn't part of reality. That coupled with his growing suspicion of her was not making him very excited about this 'partnership' they had.

She quickly recovered, however, and she was back to the impassive Sakura he was beginning to recognize as the 'new' Sakura. She proceeded to stop out of the clearing in the direction her things where hidden (…?...).

Now they were somewhere in the middle of the forest, Sakura bending down to search the inside of a log and Sasuke looking on cautiously. She rummaged for a while before standing holding a backpack, a small pack of what looked like soldier pills and a monstrous amount of weapons.

Sakura went still when she saw the pills, and then seemed to relax, nodding to herself. Sasuke watched wearily as a scroll slipped down from her left sleeve. She quickly made some hand signs (Sasuke was slightly angry he didn't have his sharingan activated so he could follow the movements.) and then the items were gone, sealed within the scroll.

"OK. lets go." Sakura said quietly. Sasuke glanced into her eyes and saw confusion. She glanced up seeming to feel his gaze.

She has really nice eyes…wait what? Sasuke quickly broke the eye contact and turn away from the pinkette.

"Hn." He said "Come on, I want to get to the village by sundown." Sasuke walked through the forest not checking to see if she was following simply because he knew she would be.

"Village?" Her question was expected, but no less difficult to deal with. In Sasuke's opinion, if she would just do what he told her to and things would work out excellently. But of course she just had to question his authority.

"Yes, village. You know like a small community with a population between one th-" he began.

"I know what a village is Sasuke." Sakura cut him off, clearly irritated. Sasuke almost chuckled. Almost.

"hn." He said simply. Sakura waited for him to explain further. Finally her patients wore out. She appeared in front of Sasuke, a snarl on her face.

"Uchiha, I am not some minion of yours." She growled, "And I will not continue to work with you like this. You will tell me what's going on and you will not just assume I will agree with whatever you say just because you have power. Cuse I have news flash Uchiha, i am just as powerful, if not more, than you." As she said this she edged closer and closer, trying to intimidate Sasuke. He refused to back down, even if he did feel slightly intimidated by her closeness. He stood his ground and glowered at her, his eternal sharingan flashing.

"oh yeah? Cuse last time I checked you relied on Naruto and me to do everything for you. I highly doubt that's changed." He snarled at her, leaning even closer so her could see all the darker green flecks in her furious looking eyes.

"You are going to regret that Uchiha." Was all he managed to hear before she attacked him.

A/N: you know, I rather like this chapter. OOOOHHH Sasuke is going to test Sakura now! The Next chapter is going to be EPIC! Anyway I hoped you liked it. I rather enjoyed writing the Sasuke monolog. It was also pretty lengthy almost 2k!

Yes I know the eternal sharingan never goes away in the real anime, but I really thought that it was important for Sasuke to be able to switch back and forth between his 'depthless pools of onyx' and the sharingan.

Review please!

The one and only Bismuth Killjoy,

Lexie