This is what I thought, I thought you'd need me
This is what I thought, so think me naive
I'd promised you a heart, you'd promise to keep
Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep
Excerpt from "Prelude 12/21" by AFI
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any AFI songs...
Silent Sacrifice Chapter 7: Halcyon Epoch
"Itachi-sama, you have very pretty nails," Sakura observed wishfully as she held his hand up to examine it closer.
The Uchiha frowned at her. "Is that a good or bad thing?"
She laughed. "Of course it's a good thing. A lot of women would kill for your nails."
He blinked, a sign of his blatant confusion at the strange ways of the opposite sex.
Sakura just sighed and continued with the black nail polish, sweeping the brush in tiny movements over the Uchiha's nails.
Itachi watched her face as she worked, his head rested comfortably in the warmth of her lap as she sat, cross-legged, on the ground. She leaned forward slightly so as not to pull his arm off.
She caught him staring, her neck growing hot. His eyes never left hers - intent and dark, the Sharingan was replaced by his intimate coal-black orbs in one of his brief moments of vulnerability.
Sakura cleared her throat. "All right, then," she said. "How about we train after your nails are dry? I still need to work with the Ephemeral genjutsu."
"As you wish." His eyes fell shut.
The kunoichi blinked.
'He seems quite content,' Desunei observed mildly.
Sakura's cheeks flushed. "Um, Itachi-sama?"
"Hn?" He only opened his eyes a sliver to peer at her.
She smiled a little at the content she saw, and responded, "Never mind…it's nothing."
With a slight downward quirk of his lips, he closed his eyes again.
'You know, it really is a novelty that he trusts you like that.'
She smiled full-on this time, her hand reaching out to rest on his hair, threading it through her fingers. He didn't move - if anything, he grew more motionless.
…I know.
The familiar whiz of kunai came at her from above, and she crouched behind a bush as her substitution log was pelted with them.
"Doton: Hakai-tekina Rokku Hashira!" The voice came from twenty feet to her left.
She swore when the ground around her began to rumble, huge shockwaves coursing through the packed dirt until the trees creaked and started to fall. She found herself conveniently being lifted into the air by means of a huge rock pillar beneath her. It pushed upward with alarming force until she was at least fifty feet in the air.
Sakura grinned and, without a moment of hesitation, drove her glove-covered fist into the pillar she was standing on. It shattered, the millions of fragments blowing outwards, like tiny dots against the pink afternoon sky. Quickly, she circulated healing chakra through her legs as gravity began to pull her down. She crossed her arms to protect herself from the debris falling alongside her - the pieces cut into her arms, but Sakura ignored their dull burn.
The healing chakra in her legs worked furiously as she hit the ground - at the same time that the shock from such a large fall broke her legs, she was healing them. The little pain that did reach her she brushed off, focusing instead on the plan in her head.
His chakra signature was within a fifty foot radius of her; a good punch to the ground would just scare him further away, and he wasn't close enough for a genjutsu to work efficiently.
Okay, Sakura, she thought to herself. Organize your brain - it's either you do something now or wait for him to make the first move.
With an upward twitch of her lips, she pulled out a handful of kunai and attached explosive tags to them, sending them out three hundred-sixty degrees around her. The detonations of the tags were followed by a muted swear.
As she ran toward the sound, she pulled out two more kunai and sent them ahead of her, forcing him to dodge. He appeared from behind a tree, coming at her with a katana in hand.
Sakura's kunai clashed with his katana harshly - the metallic ring echoed throughout the trees, resounding dully in her ears.
She grinned as he began to push against her kunai with all his might; unfortunately for him, it wouldn't be enough. She quickly sent chakra into her arms and threw him off - he went flying through the air until he landed on a branch several yards away.
In the time that he was airborne Sakura performed a short string of hand signs and thought to herself, Suiton Suijinheki. She inhaled sharply, and when she exhaled a blast of water followed from her mouth. The water sped toward his now-still form, breaking into five smaller, whip-like appendages that she could manipulate easily. The moment they reached him, his eyes closed, arms coming up to block the water, and she ended the jutsu. Those few seconds of vulnerability allowed her to gain the advantage, and just as quickly she performed another series of hand signs, running toward him as she did so.
He barely caught sight of her approaching form before her hand shot around him, her two fingers pushing forcefully into the soft skin at the base of his skull. His eyes became unfocused, closing slowly, and he dropped to the ground like a dead weight. Fortunately the branch he'd been standing on was only about four feet above the ground, so he wouldn't be injured too badly.
Sakura exhaled heavily, brushing the light layer of sweat off her forehead. She had nearly perfected her Ephemeral genjutsu, but there were still some things she needed to work on. Thus why she had concentrated more on putting him to sleep than letting him be tortured psychologically. The amount of chakra she had used should be able to leave him unconscious for another good hour or so.
With a sigh (and an inner rejoice at her victory), she heaved Naochi's body into her arms and carried him back to where they were camped - in a small, natural cave carved into the side of a pillar of rock. By the look of the clouds rumbling overhead with the promise of rain, it had been a smart choice. In the distance lightning struck furiously, true to the Lightning Country's name.
Sakura glanced at Naochi's sleeping form. She had told him about her situation with Akatsuki the day after they'd left the small village near Sound. He'd taken it all in with little commentary (by this she was shocked), and had explained that he was also a missing-nin. From what country she did not know, as he had not told her. However curious, she respected his need for privacy, and did not question him further.
A frown was now apparent on his face, and she suppressed a chuckle. Apparently her training with Itachi yesterday had helped immensely - however close to perfection she was, only practice would help. Maybe Kisame would let her train on him.
She continued to the cave, laughing at the mental image of a sleeping, drooling Kisame.
Their journey continued to the very outskirts of the Lightning Country. Light genjutsus were more than enough to fool the guards on patrol (the genjutsus were needed, for Itachi and Kisame were not quite inconspicuous in the shinobi world).
After traveling for a good week, the group made camp on the north-west side of the large peninsula, where the ocean was easily visible. Sakura assumed that Itachi had specifically chosen this area so she could practice more with her water ninjutsus.
They stayed there for a few days before beginning to cut across the country, avoiding large towns and only once in a while taking refuge in a motel. Training, eating, and sleeping were basically all Sakura's schedule had to offer.
She often wondered how easily it came to be traveling with two first-class criminals and a less frightening missing-nin. Everyday, however repetitive, was filled with warmth and smiles (the smiles only made by her and Naochi; she was lucky if she got a smirk out of the Uchiha, while Kisame's maniacal laughs were too fanatical to ever be considered any type of smiling).
Sakura never wanted those days to end.
But even through the warmth and happiness, Konoha called to her.
An ambush - the perfect start to a perfect morning.
…sarcasm, anyone?
Waking up to the sound of leaves crunching underfoot immediately set her off; she easily knew it was none of her own team - (she had to pause for a second on this one; calling them friends seemed too childish, yet anything other than teammates didn't suffice with her) - mates. Itachi was too silent for his own good; Kisame, despite his bulk of a body, was just as quiet; and Naochi preferred to travel above ground, in the trees.
Needless to say, Sakura was pissed.
It was near midnight, and Itachi was still doing whatever the hell he had left to do about two hours ago. Kisame was snoring - ever the oblivious type (at least when sleeping) - on the ground to her left, while Naochi lightly breathed to her right.
As the crunching came closer, her eyes snapped open and automatically adjusted to the darkness of the night. She could clearly see the forms of three men - she loathed to call them shinobi, seeing as they obviously had no experience in the art of stealth - creeping toward her through the shadows of the trees. A piece of metal on one of the men's heads flashed briefly from the light of the dying campfire.
Ah. Missing-nin (known from the slashes on their hitae-ates) from Suna.
They were now about thirty feet away from her. She debated on whether to start a bloody fight or just simply ensnare them in a genjutsu.
The former, to her and her brewing anger at being woken up, seemed much more interesting.
She silently grasped her newly-acquired katana from her weaponry belt and positioned it readily in her hand. And within a second she had pushed herself off the ground and was darting towards them.
Gaara, this is for you, she thought gleefully as she cut them down, one by one.
When Itachi returned from his "outing" (a few beers did a man good once in a while), he was not expecting to find three men hanging from a tree by their tied hands, unconscious and bleeding.
There was a note attached to one of the men's forehead.
It read: I fought them, now you get to deal with their bodies.
-Sakura
P.S. I took their money, and I am not sharing.
P.P.S. You owe me for my lost beauty sleep.
The Uchiha blinked, and he frowned, but his eyes glistened darkly with amusement.
Sakura was deeply sleeping where she had been before he'd left, her eyebrows creased as if in frustration.
His apprentice had turned out to be quite the little kunoichi.
"Kazekage-sama, we have a visitor for you."
Gaara glanced up from his paperwork - the endless piles that seemed to multiply everyday - and said to the guard, in his low, rough voice, "Allow them to enter."
Bowing slightly, the guard held the door open, and, to Gaara's surprise, the Godaime Hokage came striding through.
He could instantly tell she was not happy.
"Excuse me for interrupting, Kazekage, but would you care to explain to me why three unconscious bodies of your men were found at the borders of Konoha?" Her golden eyes flashed with irritation.
Gaara's own moss green eyes narrowed. "I've had no warning of this, Hokage-sama."
"Well, now you have!" she growled. "I've had them transported over here - they're not mine to deal with. I expect a filed report on this once it has all been taken care of - it's the least you can do for causing me so much trouble."
Just as she turned to leave, her black-haired assistant of sorts burst through the door, completely ignoring the flustered guard whom she had knocked aside. "Tsunade-sama! Come quick! I just found a layered genjutsu on one of the men's bodies - it's too strong for me to unravel."
Tsunade's curiosity piqued. "Were you able to track down the chakra signature left behind, Shizune?"
The woman frantically nodded, eyes wide with a mixture of fear, astonishment, and, above all, hope.
"Well, whose was it?" the Hokage asked impatiently.
Shizune gulped. "Uchiha Itachi's."
Tsunade disappeared out the door in a flurry of green robes.
Frowning, Gaara and Shizune followed.
Tigress, do you really think Kisame is a good test dummy? I mean, he could kill me if he wanted to.
The kunoichi stared, hidden behind a bush, as the Mist-nin busied himself with writing on a scroll. He seemed to be writing a lot of letters recently, she noted vaguely.
'Like he would even dare to touch you. The Uchiha would murder him,' Desunei responded surely.
Smiling a little, Sakura began to focus her chakra around the stones on her bracelet that didn't represent the five elements. The now-familiar rush of emotions bombarded her, but, from experience, she was able to control them quickly. Harmonization flooded her body, and she willed her chakra into the blue chalcedony and dravite on her bracelet (the blue chalcedony for water, the dravite for earth). They both symbolized Kisame's elements.
Less than two seconds before she had begun the jutsu, she was inside the Mist-nin's mind.
The clarity the tiger's eye had bestowed upon her allowed her to pick her way easily through his mind, while at the same time masking her presence so much so that he would never dream of detecting her. She wove out of his sub-consciousness (it served as a barrier to any foreign things - it was the only thing that could sense her, yet it would only alert Kisame is he was sleeping; even so, she would probably be mistaken as part of a dream) and into his present thoughts, where, through his mind's eye, she caught a slight glimpse of what he was writing - only to see that it was written in code.
After a moment of thought, she shook her head, cursing her own idiocy. She was in his mind, and therefore knew exactly what he was writing, for his brain knew the code.
But the contents of his letter were not relevant to her in that moment. This was a training routine, and she needed to focus.
Her own mind sifted through the various ways she knew (thanks to Desunei's lessons) how to incapacitate a person from their mind and their mind alone. She could completely halt his thought process (his mind was at her mercy now), which would render him incompetent to perceive what was going on around him. Another way was to place random or misleading thoughts into his head - almost like a genjutsu (however, this jutsu required a lot less chakra and a lot more concentration and skill) - that would disorient him.
A new idea popped into her head, and she felt Desunei laugh. 'Poor Kisame.'
Taking in a deep breath, Sakura lessened her hold on her chakra mask so he would be able to hear her in his head if she spoke.
And then she screamed at the top of her lungs.
Itachi knew Sakura was up to something. Often times, over the past month-and-a-half since their encounter with Sasuke, he would find her sitting alone, cross-legged, seeming as if she was meditating. With his Sharingan on full alert, however, he could clearly see the abnormal, fluctuating levels of her chakra. She was using her chakra to some degree, and he could not see - even with the Sharingan - why.
His curiosity, over that period of time, rose to a level he found to be a novelty.
And so, upon watching her take root amongst the bushes near Kisame, he flooded chakra into his eyes, further increasing the power of his Sharingan. And he scrutinized the way she quickly molded her chakra around the bracelet she wore, the way it flowed naturally around the beads.
His eyes narrowed, and he leaned forward from the cover of a tree (he'd sent the other person - as he referred to Sakura's new friend, Naochi - to get more supplies for their upcoming move; really, though, he just loathed to be around him).
Within the next five seconds, Kisame dropped his paper and writing utensils, and began to clutch at his head. His eyes snapped closed, his teeth grinded together horribly, and his blunt fingernails raked down his face.
A low growl burst from his mouth as whatever he was enduring continued.
Itachi, still hidden, watched with eyes no wider than usual, but filled with a burning need to know what was happening, and why.
Two seconds later, Kisame was left panting as Sakura stood and walked away. Silently, Itachi followed her.
"Damn, he sure did not make this easy for me," Tsunade muttered, wiping sweat off the ridge of her brow line. She once again wove her chakra into the intricate layers of the genjutsu Itachi had left her. It was placed on the stomach of one of the missing Suna-nin.
Surprisingly, none of the men had woken up yet. A medical examination of their bodies showed they had been knocked unconscious from hits to their heads. Quite amusing, Tsunade found it to be, seeing as their background information showed they had been jonin (however, only such for about a month) before they'd become missing-nin.
Her frown deepened as she continued to try to solve the puzzle. Every route she tried came out to be a dead end. She'd been at it for more than an hour now, and was steadily growing weary.
But it was from Itachi. And in that moment, he was her only connection to the whereabouts of her student.
So, after another fifteen minutes of precise concentration, she broke through the genjutsu. Tsunade opened her eyes to find a folded piece of paper upon the man's stomach.
She snatched it up - not even bothering to check it for potential danger - and the people in the room crowded around her, trying to see what it said.
My dear Tsunade,
How long has it been since you last saw her? Five months, almost six? Time flies ever so fast nowadays.
To be blunt, I myself had nothing to do with these men. You can thank your lovely student - or, should I say, my student - for the mess that was made.
Oh, and do tell the Kazekage to keep a tighter watch on his people. We don't want Suna to end up like Konoha, now do we?
How tempting betrayal can be.
Sincerely,
Uchiha Itachi
P.S. Don't bother searching for us. No matter how close to you we are (and let me assure you, we are always close), if we don't want to be found, then we will not be found.
Tsunade was silent as she read the letter time and time again. Her hair had fallen forward, shielding her face - and whatever emotion had been bestowed upon it - from the crowd of people.
Then, without notice, she screamed, "Damn it!" and vanished out the door.
Gaara, in the split second her face was visible to him, saw a single tear escape her eye.
He knew what it was like to lose someone, but in the Hokage's case, she had not only lost Sakura. He knew from Naruto that her mentor, her former teammate, her lover, and her brother were all gone, never to come back. She had been hurt again and again because of her losses.
And he could tell she was getting sick of it.
Sakura made her way to their camp leisurely, inwardly rejoicing. She, nothing but a mere chunin, had been able to not only catch an Akatsuki member by surprise, but also render him incapable of responding to the jutsu she'd used on him (she'd also wiped his memories of what had happened).
While using the jutsu, she was only barely in control of her own body (unlike the Yamanaka family jutsu, Sakura, eventually and with more training, would be able to fight and use her jutsu at the same time; so that while she kept her target's mind occupied, she could take care of their body). For now, it would be best to stay hidden while invading a person's mind.
Abruptly, she felt the instinctual sensation of being watched. Warily, she turned around and - her eyes widening - found Itachi standing right in front of her.
"Itachi-sama, is something wr -"
"Sakura." His eyes were alight with something she couldn't name.
"H-hai?"
"Stop referring to me as '-sama,'" he ordered blandly. "I am not above you in any way that would require you to call me that."
Her eyes betrayed her confusion. "But I've always -"
"Sakura," he said slowly, "I am now asking you to stop."
"If that's what you want," she replied warily. "But you couldn't have sought me out just to tell me that. What do you need?"
He frowned a little. "I would like to know what you just did to Kisame," he said flatly.
Her pale jade eyes widened. "You saw?"
His silence answered for her.
Sakura stiffened at his expecting gaze. "Well, telling you now would just ruin the surprise, wouldn't it? You'll learn, eventually."
But even as she spoke the words, she silently hoped they would never get into the kind of situation where she would have to use that jutsu on him; she couldn't decide whether her hope was because she feared it would not be strong enough against him, or because she simply did not want them to fight.
Such a fragile, fragile relationship they had.
And she knew, as she walked dutifully away from him, that that relationship could shatter with the smallest push.
"Shizune," Tsunade barked, "get me another glass of sake, pronto!"
The black-haired woman winced. "But Tsunade-sama, that was your fourth glass in five minutes…"
The Hokage glared, and Shizune relented, "Fine, but this is your last one!"
Tsunade sighed when her assistant left, and leaned back in her chair, turning to stare out the window. Konoha's lights glittered as the night life of the villagers began. She watched a civilian mother walk, hand-in-hand, down the road with her young daughter.
Tsunade's lips trembled slightly, and she clutched her empty glass closer to her.
"Why, Sakura? If you left this village out of your own will, then at least tell me why. And if the Uchiha really did kidnap you…"
She closed her eyes, tilted her head toward the ceiling.
"…then where are you, Sakura?"
"Naochi-san! You're finally back," Sakura called to his approaching form. "Did you get everything we need? We're packing up and leaving tomorrow."
He dropped the sack he was carrying at her feet and smiled to her. "Everything's there." He leaned closer to her, whispering, "And I got some pocky sticks for later, too."
Her eyes lit up, and he laughed. "You can have them, but you have to share."
She grimaced.
"Hey, I bought them with my own money" - everything else had been paid for by Kisame and Itachi; Sakura guessed that they had either stolen it, or it was pay from Akatsuki - "so I get some, too."
She stuck her tongue at him, but he just laughed even harder.
"Sakura." Itachi's even voice pierced the humorous atmosphere that had been established.
She turned toward him as he appeared from the forest. "Hai?" she asked, frowning.
Itachi glanced at Naochi - his eyes narrowed so minutely that only Sakura could see - before fixing his Sharingan eyes upon her again.
(A small voice inside her head pointed out the fact that he rarely let his guard down nowadays; in fact, less so since Naochi began traveling with them.)
"Kisame and I have just received a letter from Akatsuki," Itachi began. "We are to meet with our leader at the border of the Fire Country tomorrow at dawn."
Sakura raised an eyebrow. "And I take it we have to come with you?"
Itachi smirked faintly. "Of course you must. There's no telling whether or not you will run away." He once again glanced at Naochi. "He, on the other hand, may go back to where he came from."
Naochi glared maliciously. "I'm quite content as I am now."
The Uchiha's eyes smoldered enigmatically, his Sharingan slowly spinning.
Sakura stepped between them, her own fierce glower forcing them to look at her. "Enough, you two. If we're going to continue to travel together, then we don't need any fighting."
Naochi lowered his eyes and mumbled incoherently under his breath, while Itachi just stared at the kunoichi with an unfathomable expression.
She inwardly cursed the both of them (Desunei purred her agreement).
Sakura hastily continued their conversation prior to the argument, "But why the Fire Country? Can't we choose a different rendezvous point?" She tried not to let her anxiety show, but she was sure that Itachi, with his piercing gaze, could see through whatever façade she expressed.
The Uchiha's previous smirk flattened, and he stepped forward to rest a hand on her head. "It is the leader's choice, Sakura. In Akatsuki, no one would dare try to tell him differently."
Sakura locked eyes with him; she nodded slowly in understanding when he removed his hand.
Naochi watched their exchange with a wary gaze, eyes flicking between the two of them every few seconds. "Why does this 'leader' want to meet with you, anyway?" he asked Itachi directly, giving off an aura of contempt.
Curtly, Itachi replied, "I guess we will have to see," before he strode away to begin packing their few belongings.
Sakura glanced at Naochi, who was glaring at the path the Uchiha had taken. "Be nice to him, will you?" she scolded. "He has a very fragile heart."
A moment of silence passed before they both erupted with laughter.
Even the Tigress chuckled a bit - but her amusement only lasted a few seconds.
Because in some ways, that statement was true.
Shizune finally put her foot down as Tsunade neared her fifteenth glass - the only reason she had let the Hokage drink so much already was because she felt sorry for the woman. She'd thought that after receiving the letter from Itachi, the Godaime had deserved a break.
Well, she thought, break time is now over.
She had to strangle with Tsunade over the bottle for a good two minutes (how the blonde had been able to even get the bottle completely amazed Shizune) before the latter finally gave up.
Immediately afterwards Tsunade was snoring at her desk, deep in sleep.
But just as Shizune was about to leave, the Hokage lifted her head and murmured, "And, Shizune? Don't let Naruto hear about the letter. There's no telling what he'd do if he saw it." Her head plopped back down, and she continued to snore.
Shizune smiled softly, and shut the door.
Naruto wanted to stop by the Hokage's office before he got some ramen - if he got what he wanted from Tsunade (which was a mission), then he'd have to stock up to get energy.
That, and he was hungry anyway.
He hopped from roof to roof at a fast pace until the tower was in his view. He decided that the window was a much better entrance than the door, so he knelt beside it as he was about to push his way inside.
But the Hokage's groggy voice - coming through the crack where the window was open a little - halted him before he could move.
"And Shizune? Don't let Naruto hear about the letter. There's no telling what he'd do if he saw it."
Naruto's eyes widened, then narrowed.
What didn't Tsunade want him seeing, and why?
Silently, he pushed the window open further and stepped inside the office, careful not to wake up the Hokage.
His searching eyes rested upon a small, crumbled paper beneath Tsunade's hand.
She would learn to never keep things away from him again.
hal·cy·on
[hal-see-uh n]
–adjective
1. calm; peaceful; tranquil.
–noun
2. a mythical bird, usually identified with the kingfisher, said to breed about the time of the winter solstice in a nest floating on the sea, and to have the power of charming winds and waves into calmness.
ep·och
[ep-uh k or, especially Brit., ee-pok]
–noun
1. a particular period of time marked by distinctive features, events, etc.
(Definitions property of dictionary-dot-com)
"We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict."
-Jim Morrison
"There are some people who live in the dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other."
-Douglas H. Everett
A/N: Finally, another chapter done! Again, I'm deeply sorry for the wait, but I've recently been reading a ton of manga (speaking of which, have any of you seen the anime movie Princess Mononoke? If not, then you really should watch it! It's from the same creator of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, which is probably my favorite anime movies so far; Hayao Miyazaki is a genius 0_o).
Anyway, this chapter was more of a filler. Nothing epic really happens (hence the name of the chapter), but…in the next chapter, Pein will make an appearance! :D (I don't know about you, but to me he's…sort of hot, in a rebellious kind of way; why can't all the hot characters in Naruto be real?) DX
I'd like to thank you all for waiting so patiently, and also for your reviews. Each and every one makes me happy. :)
Until next time…
P.S. And please review!
Random Your Mom joke: Your mom's so ugly, it looks like her face caught on fire and your family tried to put it out with a fork. :D