I have made you an enemy
I have been my own enemy
I am asking for you to forgive me
For everything
If you don't, you're worthy of compassion
If you do, you're a better man than I am
If you don't know, you're my family
Enemy, I'm sorry
Oh, enemy, family
Forgive me
Excerpt from "Enemy" by Flyleaf
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any Flyleaf songs.
Silent Sacrifice Chapter 11: The Beginning of the End
Wind blew, and the trees swayed. The sun beat softly, a steady golden light upon everything. Pink hair waved to and fro, brushing into pale jade eyes.
Sakura clenched her fingers into fists, and narrowed her eyes. "Let me go."
Across from her, Itachi frowned minutely. "I'm afraid I can't do that."
Her hands shook. "Why is that?" she asked steadily.
He took a step forward. "Do you believe you're ready?"
When she smiled, it was wry. "I was only taught by the best."
His lips curved upward so slightly that Sakura could barely see the change. He shifted his coal black orbs to the clear sky. "We'll see about that," he said softly.
"Itachi," she said evenly, "please, just let me go. I don't want to fight."
His eyes once again focused on her, but this time she was met with the deep red of the Sharingan. He smirked faintly. "Neither do I."
In a split second, he was upon her. She dodged and propelled herself into the high branches of a tree.
"I do not want to fight you," he repeated from the ground, his gaze fixed on hers, "but to test your abilities, I must."
Sakura's fingers dug into the branch she crouched upon. Slowly, a small, melancholy smile grew upon her face. Her eyelids lowered, and her muscles tensed.
"Fine," she whispered. "Have it your way."
And she lunged at him, kunai in hand.
They were graceful. Equal, balanced, light and dark, but never one without the other. With every attack, a block. With every breath of fire, a waterfall. And, with every waterfall, a mountain.
For they were one and the same.
Equivalents.
Impartial.
Common souls.
Yet, at the same time, enemies.
And there must be a victor.
Balance? Equilibrium? Never.
For there must be a victor in this battle of ever-so-the-same enemies. There must be distinction, variation.
There must be a stronger shinobi.
Now, the only question is…who?
That was the question Zetsu wanted the answer to.
After ten minutes, she began to sweat. After thirty, her breathing became labored.
Fire. She inhaled sharply. Dodged. Fingers flew in complex patterns.
'Stay calm.'
Sakura took a deep breath.
'Clear your mind.'
Her chakra wrapped around the tiger's eye.
'Remember your training.'
She flexed her fingers.
'This fight is yours.'
Blood, obsidian, chaos.
Sharingan, dreams, breath, breath, breath.
Inhale.
Move.
This fight is yours.
Smile.
Exhale.
This fight is yours.
Fangs flash.
This. Fight. Is. Yours.
Attack.
They fought with taijutsu (and he was so fast that she had to take off the weights she'd been wearing for over a year to catch up with him), switched to unsuspected ninjutsu, and laid traps of genjutsu. All of this in the matter of seconds, with each of them taking their fair toll of injuries and small victories over the other.
Fist, elbow, foot, fire, water, earth. Duck, maneuver, look for an opening. Evade that sudden unexpected jutsu, plan your own. Check chakra, keep your emotions under control, ignore the pain. Stay alert, be cautious, but not overly so. Expect the next move, know what you'll do in reaction to it. All of this, a constant rhythm, an endless chanting in her mind.
Attack, attack, evade, breath, breath, move, blood, crimson, fire, evade, repel, water.
But she had to keep going, because she wanted - needed - to return to Konoha. She needed to prove she was strong enough to bring Sasuke home.
So: inhale, exhale, blink, fist, stomach, blood, sweat, sun, heat, attack, attack, evade.
An endless cycle she could not escape.
One jade eye was closed, bleeding, the other, narrowed.
Two Mangekyou Sharingan orbs stared back, wider than usual. Dirt was smeared across his cheeks, and rivulets of water trickled down.
To Sakura, they almost looked like tears.
Almost.
She clenched her teeth together. He was about to force Tsukuyomi upon her.
The perfect opening, when he would not expect it.
She watched as the elegant Mangekyou spun, and instantly, she was pulled in.
But not without a weapon of her own.
Black, white, red. The span of a lifetime condensed into the span of mere moments. A world of illusions, of pain and dominance, of horror and endless, endless time.
A world that was hers for the taking.
Just as a beaten and helpless Sasuke stumbled his way toward her - her former teammate was Itachi's favorite piece to play against her - she clamped a hand on her bracelet and infused her chakra within it.
Emotions, pandemonium, and then clarity.
Water and fire-blue chalcedony and fire agate.
And, finally, she was in Itachi's sub-consciousness for the second time.
The difference: this time, she knew what to expect.
And so, completely ignoring the Uchiha's subconscious defense system of extreme heats and extreme colds, she began to sift through his memories as if they were ancient scrolls yet to be examined. She chose the one hidden in the deepest, haziest part of his mind, and brought it to the forefront with her.
In one large bundle, she gathered her chakra, and threw the memory at his conscious mind.
Instantly, the feelings of torture from her body entrapped in Tsukuyomi halted. Slowly, steadily, she removed the chakra from her bracelet, and was thrust back into her physical form, free of Tsukuyomi.
She blinked. Looked over.
And found Itachi standing there with the largest hint of a smile on his lips she had seen in her time of knowing him. To other people, it might look like nothing, but to her, it was huge: forlorn, soft, and pleasant all at the same time.
Sakura smiled as she remembered the small part of the memory he was experiencing she had been able to see.
Years ago, in Konoha, with the sun shining and the people walking by, Itachi watched his little five-year-old brother point and beam at all the birds flocking above as the older Uchiha held his hand.
His weakness was the same as hers.
Sasuke.
And the most shocking thing she found was that his weakness, if anything, was more potent.
Her weakness was in her feelings. His weakness was in his need to see Sasuke happy. Because in Sasuke's happiness, Itachi found happiness.
And to him, happiness was a disadvantage.
To Sakura, her feelings for the younger Uchiha were what she used to keep her going - they gave her hope. And as Itachi locked his happiness away where no one, not even himself, could find it, she nurtured her feelings to the point of love.
But even with love came hurt, and so her love became her weakness.
Suddenly - ending her long train of thoughts - a hand gripped her throat, and she was shoved against a tree. With a wide eye, she gazed at Itachi's visibly daunted form: his breath came in large, heavy gasps; his Sharingan eyes were twirling, as if he were in danger and needed to defend himself; and the hand that held her was trembling slightly.
"What did you do?" His voice: shaken.
She glared and fought to inhale, but instead choked and coughed.
His hand tightened, and he clenched his jaw, the muscles in his cheek straining.
Sakura found that the edges of her vision were turning black, so, in a desperate attempt to get free, she focused a small amount of her chakra around her injured eye, and transferred her injury to him.
She had practiced with her jutsu over the months, and had altered it to fit her taste.
Itachi's hand quickly loosened from around her neck, and Sakura desperately inhaled the sweet, clean air around her. As she breathed, her hands began to fly through several seals, and just as she finished the last one, Itachi removed his hand from his now-bloody left eye, and she saw the Sharingan begin to twirl once again.
But this time, only in his right eye.
'Sakura, run!' the Tigress roared.
Sakura took a shaky step back, and her healed eyes widened.
'Run! Sakura, move!'
Itachi brought his hands up to his lips, and blew.
Fire, fire, fire.
It should've been crimson and orange, golden and yellow. Usual flames.
But no. It was black.
…Amaterasu.
She screamed, called forth the largest wave of water she had yet, and infused it with as much chakra as she could afford. She watched, eyes wide, as the black flames were repelled, even if just for a second. They curled upon the water, flat against it. Her healing chakra was holding them back.
Desunei roared in her mind once again, and Sakura blinked before the common sense was shoved back into her. In a flash, she whipped around and sprinted as fast as she could in the other direction, just as her wall of water exploded into a cloud of steam. Sakura reached into her shinobi pouch attached to her waist and grasped Hayasa in her fist.
All right, boy, bring me to the clouds - it's time to end this.
She threw the small falcon out in front of her, along with a touch of her chakra, and, just as he burst into his full size midair, she launched herself onto his back.
The flames grew to look like a patch of obsidian grass as they soared.
Itachi watched them climb high into the sky from below. The falcon's black-tipped silver feathers gleamed metallically in the sunlight.
Pain, and blood. He whipped his head down quickly, and brought his palm up to cover his right eye. When he pulled his hand away, it was coated in crimson.
His left eye, due to his precious student's unprecedented jutsu - he grimaced at the thought - was the same, if not worse.
Another wave of pain coursed through his body, and around him, the black, everlasting flames of Amaterasu began to recede. He willed them to die down.
The rest of his body was not much better. The fight had lasted far longer than he - or his stamina levels - preferred. With his condition and his dangerously low chakra, he would not be able to activate his highest-ranked jutsu.
A faint smirk graced his lips just as, far above, a deafening shriek pierced the air.
With obsidian eyes shedding tears of crimson, he glanced up. And at the same time, the ground beneath him began to shake. Within a second, he was propelled into the air on a wide pillar of rock.
In the fashion of an eclipse, Sakura descended toward him, the sun illuminated around her shadowed form. She landed ten feet across from him.
Her pale jade eyes were large and solemn. Lines of blood filled her face, bruises scattered her skin. Her clothes were partly scorched from his fire jutsu some time before.
In her left hand, a kunai. In her right, a chakra scalpel.
Itachi glanced to the side, and found that they were at least three hundred feet in the air. A drop like that would kill him, whereas Sakura's falcon was circling below them, ready to catch her is she fell.
She had him trapped.
He moved his gaze to meet hers once again.
Sakura took a deep breath and crouched into a battle-ready position, her kunai at her side, her chakra scalpel out and parallel to the ground. Her hitai-ate reflected the bright light of the sun from where it sat upon her forehead, and its red tail waved behind her in the blowing wind.
She smiled softly. "May the strongest ninja win."
He crouched into a position similar to hers with three shuriken hooked on his fingers.
His smirk was tender. "May the ninja who most deserves it win."
She laughed. "Well put."
And their fight continued.
She slashed with her scalpel - narrowly missed his shoulder. He threw a shuriken attached with a hidden string - she cut through it smoothly.
A shuriken grazed her cheek, and, in retaliation, she cut several tendons in his upper arm. When his fist met her stomach, her foot crashed down upon his chest.
They were both coated in sweat. The sun didn't help, nor did their fast-paced battle. Their movements were nothing but mere flashes of limbs and metallic gleams of weapons.
After fifteen minutes, they stood on opposite ends of the rock pillar. She had given him a broken rib, and he had given her internal bleeding that she did not have the chakra to heal.
Both covered in sweat. Both filled with variations of cuts and bruises.
Both dripping blood.
Their gazes met, and they were weary. But Sakura knew she was not going to give up. She still had a small amount of chakra to spare - not enough for a full healing, but enough to walk away the victor.
And a victor she intended to be.
She braced herself to lunge at him again, but then…he began to cough.
Itachi's fist curled against his lips, and his form hunched over. His voice was harsh, thick, and moist with blood as another convulsion overtook him. The crimson liquid coated his hand, splattered on the tan rock below. His breath came in heavy gasps before turning to a cough once again.
Sakura froze. What's happening to him?
Desunei's voice was calm yet melancholy at the same time. 'He's suffering from a disease, child.'
Instantly, Sakura's medical alarm took over. She took a step forward, then another, her mind all ready calculating Itachi's appearance and the most likely problems occurring within him. Why haven't I been notified of this? Why didn't he tell me? Panic began to settle in. I could've helped him! He looks like he's about to -
'Stop it, Sakura. There's nothing you can do for him now.'
Sakura inhaled deeply. Exhaled.
As Itachi took another breath to cough again, he was pushed to the ground, on his back, with his arms pinned above his head. Soothing chakra coated his throat, effectively halting his racking convulsions.
Her forehead was pressed against his, her nose brushed his, and her legs straddled his torso. He found himself staring into pale jade eyes brimming with tears. He blinked as one dropped to his face and began to roll down his cheek.
"You're sick," she said quietly. Her soft outlet of breath swept across his lips.
He closed his eyes.
"I could've helped you."
She shifted so her left hand restrained both of his above his head, while the other came down to caress his blood-and-dirt stained cheek.
The action caused his eyes to flash open again, focused sharply upon her green depths.
Another tear fell.
"I could've healed you."
Her fingers traced the lines on his face ever so gently. The pressure of her forehead against his lightened.
Her lips curved upward slightly. "I could've done so much for you…"
Her fingertips wiped away the dried blood under his eyes.
"…but you kept it all to yourself, and now you're slowly wasting away."
He didn't even try to react. So, gently, hesitantly, she brushed her thumb and index finger across his lips.
His coal black eyes softened.
And another tear fell.
She inhaled, pale jade orbs shut, and moved her hand to rest upon his head.
"Goodbye, Itachi," she whispered. Then what was left of her chakra coated his mind in a genjutsu, and his eyes slowly closed.
Her last tear landed on his eyelid. She leaned down and pressed her lips to each of his shut eyes before grasping his limp body in her arms. She whistled softly to Hayasa, and, in a great swirl of dust and feathers, the falcon landed before her. His molten orange eyes watched warily as she climbed upon his back with Itachi tight in her embrace.
Her voice, when she spoke, was calm. "To the ground, Hayasa."
The falcon leapt into the air and steadily lost altitude; he landed gently on the burnt, destroyed ground below. Sakura jumped off the large aerial predator with the words, "Wait here," and walked into the forest several feet until a blue form appeared from behind a tree.
Kisame's gaze locked upon Itachi's unmoving form, and then up to Sakura. He blinked. "Well," he said. "That was one interesting battle."
Sakura gripped the Uchiha's body close to her before she stepped forward and placed him in the Mist-nin's outstretched arms. She swallowed heavily. "You need to take him to a hospital; I would heal him myself, but…" She glanced at her cracked, bleeding palms. "I would heal him myself," she continued, "but I'm out of chakra, and I need to get going. So, please, take him to a hospital and have him fixed up."
She turned, about to walk away, but Kisame's hand on her shoulder stopped her in her tracks. When she looked back, his face was serious. "Take care," he said.
Sakura smiled a bit. "You too."
As she walked toward Hayasa, she faintly saw a mixture of green, black, and white disappear into a tree she passed. A faded chakra signature she didn't recognize was left behind. She paused, wanting to examine it further, but then a thought came into her mind.
Konoha.
She was going home. Finally, after two long years, she was returning to the place she belonged.
With that thought, she sprinted the rest of the way to Hayasa's waiting form, and leapt onto his back. "Fly as fast as you can for as long as you can, boy," she said, breathless. With a sharp cry, the falcon launched himself into the air and flew.
He flew, and one of the most important people in Sakura's life was left behind.
Pein stood outside the Akatsuki complex in Amegakure, drenched with the rain he purposefully caused to pour. His back leaned against the trunk of a tree with his arms and feet crossed. His head was bent - his chin almost touching his chest - and his eyes were sealed closed. The many piercings on his face dripped with water.
After several moments, he sensed Zetsu's chakra signature appear in the tree next to his, and suddenly his statue-like figure came to life. His eyes flashed open, and he uncrossed his limbs to take a step forward.
Zetsu answered the unspoken question without command: "It's just as you said, Leader-sama," his light side began. "The pink-haired one has defeated the almighty Uchiha Itachi," his dark side finished, slightly sarcastic.
Pein's expression remained neutral as he turned away and headed back into the complex.
After all, it was just as he had said.
Just as he had predicted.
The flight took less than thirty minutes, but by the time they arrived, it was far past noon. Sakura commanded Hayasa to land about a mile away from the main village, as she did not want to alarm anyone with a sudden behemoth bird landing in front of them.
When she climbed off the falcon's back (and packed his shrunken form into her pouch), a wave of pain and exhaustion coursed through every bone and cell in her body. The adrenaline she had been running on for so long finally depleted, leaving her with the full impact of the day's injuries and jutsu to bombard her in one long-lasting surge. She felt all the cuts and bruises vividly, smelled the acrid stench of her own blood in the air. She found, almost laughingly, that two of her fingers were broken, along with a slight fracture in both her left radius and her right fibula. The internal bleeding near her stomach only added to the throbbing of her body.
She glanced at herself, surprised she had been able to fight as long as she had. Along with the injuries, she was caked in dirt and blood. In several places, Itachi's fire jutsu had caught upon her clothing, but she had been able to put it out before it caused any real damage.
After her full-body inspection, she laughed to herself, but then winced - her ribs were heavily bruised, and chuckling did not help the matter.
Still, she smiled weakly.
She had fought Uchiha Itachi in a full-out battle, and would be alive to tell the tale.
Well, that was if she made it to the village before collapsing.
So, with shoulders straight and eyes set evenly, she continued toward her home.
"Shikamaru?"
"…what?"
"This is boring."
"Then leave."
"Nah, watching clouds is better than having Ino rant to me all day about how horrible the hospital is." A bag crackled noisily.
Shikamaru sighed, and muttered "How troublesome" under his breath.
"Neji! Come on, let's go spar," a demanding voice called. Bushes rustled, and a laughing Tenten appeared. She stopped when she caught sight of Shikamaru and Chouji lying on the ground. "Oh, hey, guys, didn't mean to bother you." She frowned, and called back into the forest, "If only someone would move his ass a little faster, we would be at the training fields all ready!"
"I said I'm coming, Tenten," Neji's slightly frustrated voice responded just as he stepped into the clearing. His eyes focused on the cloud-watching shinobi. "Shikamaru, Chouji," he greeted, nodding to each of them respectfully.
Shikamaru waved lazily back as Chouji said, "Hey there, Neji" with a mouth full of chips.
Tenten stepped forward and grasped her teammate's hand before she began to pull him in the opposite direction. "Now we've wasted all this time when we could've been practicing -"
She froze, and Neji nearly walked into her. He frowned down at her. "What are you stopping for?"
He saw that her brown eyes were wide with disbelief, shock, and hope all mixed together. Her lips parted slightly. "Oh…oh, my…Neji…" She shook his arm. "Neji," she whispered, trembling, "look."
He focused his pale gaze to the path before them, and felt the surprise flood through him.
"It's Sakura," Tenten said, almost mechanically. By that time, Shikamaru and Chouji had gotten to their feet to see what their fellow shinobi were so keen on.
"Dear Kami, it's Sakura," Tenten repeated. Shikamaru and Chouji came to stand beside them, and they both inhaled sharply as they gazed down the path.
Before them, about fifty feet away, a bleeding Sakura limped down the path toward Konoha. She continued at a steady pace even when her eyes focused upon the people she had grown up with so long ago.
"Sakura!" Suddenly, Tenten broke away from the group and sprinted toward their old friend. When she reached the pink-haired girl, she threw her arms around her in a crushing hug.
Sakura smiled, the tears welling up, and finally gave into the unconsciousness she had been fighting ever since she'd landed, knowing she was safe in the arms of a good friend.
Her body went limp, and she faded into blissful emptiness.
A/N: Quick question: do you guys read the excerpts I put at the beginning of each chapter, or should I stop them? I just want to know what you all think. :)
Anyway, if you read this chapter, please review and tell me your thoughts! Feedback is always highly appreciated. :D