STOP! If the chapter three you read and remember involved Sakura at the age of eighteen, GO BACK! The third chapter has been edited and you need to reread it! If you read the chapter three where Sakura was THIRTEEN, you may continue ^^

This chapter's supposed to be kinda short and funny, and the title doesn't make sense until the end XD hope everyone enjoys it!

Disclaimer: Making no profit off this because Naruto isn't mine (more's the pity...)

Chapter 4: Intentional

"Nothing," Sakura muttered irritably to herself as she strained to see over the pile of scrolls in her arms. "I've checked every shelf in the main library and nothing!" She wrinkled her nose, rubbing a scar that ran across the first two fingers of her right hand with a rueful air as she nudged the front door to Hokage Tower with a foot.

More than a year ago, she had considered the possibility of finding a way to control shuriken – or at least recall them – in the way Kankurou of Suna had during her first chuunin exams. It had been a passing thought, but one that had refused to leave her, leading to experiments that had not been as…successful as she would have liked. She touched the scar again, thinking of the other ones that laced her wrists and forearms. Her budding skills as a medic, having fully blossomed only recently, had not been able to match the speed with which she had collected injuries in her attempt to better utilize her favorite weaponry.

In the end, she had stopped trying to find substitutes for the chakra strings that were used in the Puppet Technique, leading to this latest exploration of Konoha's archives. So far, her searches had turned up nothing.

Suna seemed rather too adept at guarding the secrets of Puppetry.

And Sakura was too busy working under Tsunade's tutelage to visit the Land of Wind to request the knowledge herself.

"I'm running out of scrolls," the rose-haired girl sighed, gingerly navigating the stairs of Hokage Tower, by feel and memory more than anything else due to the scrolls in her hands that piled so high and impeded her vision. She nibbled her bottom lip, a gesture she often used when frustrated. The lack of progress recently had been disheartening, and though she hated to admit it, she did not want to concede defeat. Her recent growth in strength and medical jutsu had given her much self-confidence, and it was irritating how the lack of information was keeping this technique from her, especially when she had set her heart on learning it.

A small smile fluttered across her features as she remembered the feel of smooth-grained wood against her palm. She had practiced with those wooden-disk shuriken so often since the age of six, she could remember every ridge and groove in the individual weapons if she but closed her eyes. Learning to manipulate chakra threads to retrieve her practice weaponry was one more way to make certain she would never lose them.

The smile faded from her face.

She was already short one shuriken through her thoughtlessness, not having factored in her chakra-enhanced strength during a recent training session. Her shuriken had shattered upon impact with the target, a pile of splinters and several weighted, lead cores all that remained from the incident. They were tucked away in her desk drawer now, wrapped in one of her old handkerchiefs; she hadn't been able to bring herself to throw it away. Nor had she been able to stop herself from acting the total fool and crying herself to sleep that night.

Thinking back on it now, Sakura managed a soft, weak chuckle that was more wry amusement than anything else. She hadn't realized how much those shuriken had meant to her, affecting her life so subtly that she hadn't noticed, until she'd done one irreparable damage.

She probably hadn't needed to cry over it though…

"Scrolls," she admonished, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand: figuring out just how to open the Northwest archive door with her hands full. "Chakra strings would come in so handy right now," she muttered, only half joking as she shifted the load in her arms just enough to grip the doorknob and push the door open. "There has to be maybe one or two I haven't…"

The rest of the words died on her lips.

"Sakura."

She was no longer an excitable genin; she stifled the gasp of surprise before it escaped her, schooling her features to calm. She had forgotten that the Northwest archive was where ANBU members came to file their mission reports.

Struggling to speak past a constricting throat, she forced out the words with an attempted semblance of normalcy. "Itachi-san. I'm just…just here to re-shelve these," she managed finally, hating the sudden rush of confusion and happiness and embarrassment and heat that made the heart in her chest quiver and beat double-time. Caught up in studying under the current Hokage's tutelage, she hadn't had much time to spare thinking about the elder Uchiha brother, but seeing him like this, so suddenly and without warning, brought every single passing thought of him she had had in the past year rushing to the forefront of her mind. The heat of them nullified the chill of early winter seeping in through the archive walls more effectively than the library's heating system.

Hastily trying to scrub the wayward memories from her mind, she spilled the scrolls out onto a nearby table and set to her task with a will, not sparing the obsidian-haired Uchiha a glance.

Leaning against the side of a bookshelf, the ANBU operative seemed completely unperturbed by her presence.

Nothing could have been farther from the truth.

As impassive as he seemed, his attention was focused on her, and had been since her footfalls had been audible through the dense wood of the archive door.

It had been months, more than a year actually, since he had last seen her, and it took all the impressive self-control cultivated by nineteen years as the heir to the Uchiha clan, not to show more than a cursory interest in what she was doing as she shuttled scrolls from the table she was using to various stacks in the archive room. He had heard, in an oblique fashion from his otouto, that she would be busy for the next few years while her two other teammates left on training trips to become more skilled in the shinobi arts, but he hadn't been expecting such a change in her routine.

The occasional, lingering trips to the marketplace for groceries stopped, as did her visits to the bookstore. She no longer spent several afternoons a month shopping with her blonde friend, though the two seemed to spend no less time with each other in spite of Sakura's preoccupation. In fact, he had spotted them often, arguing over the contents of a scroll or taking a quick lunch as they discussed chakra manipulation.

"Notable Kunoichi of Sunagakure."

Sakura, a bookshelf away, stiffened at the sound of his voice. She had been intent on shelving her research material and wondering why the heat that warmed the building to stave off winter's growing chill somehow seemed stifling in the archive room. She would have assumed heat to negatively affect old scrolls. Perhaps she would mention to Shizune that the heating system in the northwest wing seemed broken…

"Wars in the Land of Wind. History of the Puppet Brigade."

He was reading off the titles of the scrolls she had left on the table, a sort of hooded interest in the dark eyes that flickered to her, catching her gaze through the open spaces in the shelf standing between them. "You appear to either be researching Suna's participation in the Second War, or planning an invasion on our current allies," he said, expression mild. "Which is it?"

About to answer the question sensibly, she registered the subtle lilt to his tone, the curl at the end of his sentence catching her attention. Was he…teasing her? "Invasion," she blurted, responding with gentle sarcasm, as she would have to the same question by Naruto, then flushed when Itachi raised a mocking eyebrow.

"I-It's just research."

"By your actions, I take it your project is not going smoothly?"

The fourteen-year-old shrugged, turning away with another collection of scrolls to shelve in her hands to hide her expression, not quite sure how to respond. Her search of the Konoha archives had been unsuccessful in finding more than vague hints at the technique that had been used with much success during the last Great Shinobi War, but that was hardly the reason for her diffident outward attitude. She had vented her feelings of frustration for the lack of information weeks ago. That, she could deal with. His sudden presence here, reminding her with aching sharpness of things out of her control, was a little more difficult.

"What are you researching?"

"Tsunade-shishou has been training me as a medic, and thought I could use practice in techniques that required high levels of chakra control," Sakura replied with a vague attempt at a smile. Her shishou had asked her to practice with various techniques, though the one she was currently researching wasn't one of them. "I just haven't been able to find any reliable information on this one."

As the older Uchiha scanned the remaining scrolls on the table, she watched him surreptitiously, under the guise of organizing the research materials as she put them away. Some of the tension she had felt was now ebbing away, leaving in its place a sort of catlike curiosity, the temptation to court danger.

Not that she thought Itachi dangerous…

Her lips made a slight upward tilt, the expression barely registering on her porcelain-smooth features. Uchiha Itachi was inherently dangerous. The fact was common knowledge; he was a clan prodigy, a member of the ANBU elite and captain of a squad since he'd turned sixteen, deadly in battle. But he had never frightened her that way. Her feelings might fill her with confusion, shyness, occasional moments of awe and surprise, but never fear. The only time she had felt such apprehension was over a year ago, the day her crush for Sasuke had died. And even then, her feelings had been due to the strangeness of her epiphany and nothing to do with the object of her thoughts.

The contact she actually had with him was minimal in spite of the taciturn kindness he showed her when they chanced to cross paths. It was just that the unknown was always a little bit daunting at first.

But the fates had conspired to leave her alone with her benefactor again, and it was hard not to want to make the most of this unanticipated opportunity when he seemed willing to instigate conversation. Some small portion of her mind protested. Itachi was a fool's antithesis, too long spent with him and he would realize her budding affections. But months spent studying under Tsunade had rubbed off a little of the older woman's recklessness onto the rose-haired girl.

"The Puppet Technique."

Startled out of her own thoughts, Sakura's ivy-hued eyes shot to the Uchiha's calm, dark-cobalt gaze. She hadn't thought to hear her research so casually named.

"It appears I'm correct," Itachi surmised at the surprise that was so clear on her face. She had yet to fully master the ability to hide her feeling when truly startled. "I didn't think there were any accurate records of it in the archives."

"There aren't."

Much more adept at concealing his thoughts, Itachi hid the smile that threatened to curve his lips. He had been waiting for just this admission, though it had taken longer than expected and more coaxing on his part than he had anticipated.

"I have found that clan libraries are more informative in the way of techniques than those found in Hokage Tower."

Eyes the color of spring leaves widened marginally at the implication in his words, growing, if that was even possible, more lucid than before until they resembled two limpid pools of green. She was no idiot; she had read into his invitation as soon as he had voiced it. With a quick upward tilt of his lips that made her eyes flicker with strange emotion, he collected the remaining scrolls and re-shelved them with surprising alacrity.

If Sakura felt suspicion at the ease with which he had found the proper places for the remainder of her research, ease which could only have been borne of someone overly familiar with the contents of the Northwest archive room or at least with her particular line of research, she said nothing of it.

"Come."

Itachi led the way out of the archive stacks, maintaining with some difficulty his usual aura of decorum. The thrill of masculine triumph that sang through him manifested itself only in a subtle gleam in his dark-cobalt eyes.

It had been more than a year since his last conscious effort to see Sakura, and even with the knowledge that something in the innocent girl might fear the ruthless shinobi he could be, he could no longer just stand idly by.

He possessed little selfishness; to say otherwise of himself would have been base false modesty. A shinobi was meant to be selfless, sacrificing themselves in the line of duty for family, friends, and village, and Itachi strove to be all that was expected of him in that vein of thought. But for her, he could succumb to that basic human characteristic. The desire to see her, speak to her, was more overpowering.

He missed her.

And if it meant that he had to bribe her with the lure of the knowledge hidden in the Uchiha clan library after discovering just what she had been researching for weeks, waiting in the Northwest archive room for hours with a mission report as his flimsy excuse at being there on the first free day he had had in a full month, in a fashion that some would have considered beneath him, just to speak with her, so be it.

The idea of not doing so had not even crossed his mind.

tsuzuku

If you haven't picked up on it, the reason why this chapter is titled Intentional is because, while Sakura thinks that finding Itachi in the Northwest archive room is pure and utter chance, Itachi's thoughts make it plain that he's been lying in wait for her for some time. That's right ^^, this meeting was totally NOT chance, orchestrated by one Uchiha Itachi. The man is putting his ANBU skills to use in...creative ways...

Anyway, hopefully you guys are enjoying this continuation of the With Practice-verse! The chapters 3-6 are meant to span the time between when Sakura is ten in chapter two, and the time when Sakura is eighteen in the now-chapter-seven. For those of you reading With Practice for the first time...ignore the last two sentences ^^ it's just too confusing to explain.

The muse is a smug bug...go feed her so she leaves ME alone XD I'm pretty sure this is causing me to lose sleep because of my crazy drive to write...

If you guys want to see fanart for ItaSaku, Non-Mass, inspired by a With Practice type fic that I've yet to upload on site, check my profile for the link to my deviantART! I'm under the same name I use here!

As always, your reviews fuel my desire to write and eggs the muse along in goading me to finish this faster ^^

Aria, out.