A mission is a mission, Itachi told himself not for the first time in the past few weeks. He had been doing what others might call an unhealthy amount of those lately and although they had worn his patience thin, this mission vexed him in particular.
It wasn't that the mission was difficult – remain unobserved, watch, follow, report daily on the target's state and activities. It wasn't that the mission had been ongoing for twenty-three days and took all of his overtime hours, keeping him up at ungodly hours – because heavens knew he would not be able to sleep anyway. It wasn't the target or her activities that posed a problem – she spent most of her time stuffed inside her flat, lying in bed and crying herself to some semblance of sleep.
It was not in his nature to question the Hokage's decisions even on his worst days, but really, what had Tsunade been thinking, assigning him this mission? Had she thought to teach him a lesson in grieving when he had asked for overtime instead of time off after Sasuke's death?
Because all Haruno Sakura did was grieve.
In retrospect, Itachi found it unnecessarily cruel of Tsunade to make him watch the whole process like he didn't know what it meant. He had it broken down in stages at the back of his mind, five concepts he juggled with every waking hour and sometimes in his sleep – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. He had gone through them before, with Shisui. He would go through them with Sasuke, in his own time and on his own terms. He did not need babying.
His eyes pointedly returned to his quarry after having wandered off towards the starry sky for a moment.
From his vantage point on the adjacent rooftop, Itachi could see the top half of Haruno Sakura through the front window of the Yakiniku Q restaurant. She was sitting at the table with Konohagakure's Team Asuma (sans Asuma himself), an untouched food plate in front of her, staring into her fifth cup for the night and only occasionally glancing up to speak or curl one side of her mouth into nowhere-near a smile.
If Itachi focused, he could drown out the district noise to focus on the loudest voice at that table – it belonged to Yamanaka Ino, who had dragged Haruno out of her seclusion for the first time since Sasuke's funeral. She had been trying to untie her tongue all night, and although whatever Haruno was drinking seemed to be helping, it could only do so much. No half-hearted smiles could cover the dark circles under her eyes, made all the more evident by the newly acquired sallow complexion. Haruno's shinobi mask was brittle, at best. Currently non-existent in Itachi's opinion. Nothing concealed the heap of misery within.
After hours of stunted conversation and Haruno's refusal to be walked home, concern lined Yamanaka's face when she hugged her friend goodbye. Eventually, she let go, and was rewarded with yet another lifeless smile. The Ino-Shika-Cho trio watched Haruno amble down the now empty street, exchanging no more than a few quiet words amongst themselves. Itachi caught enough to confirm what hints of worry he had gleaned through observation, then stalked off to follow Sakura.
She trudged through the district, seemingly headed toward her apartment. At the second intersection, however, Haruno turned left instead of right. Itachi thought nothing of it. A longer walk would do her good considering her state, he mused, in spite of the late hour. Better a walk than to waste away under the blankets until the early hours of the morning, like usual. The muddy undertones of the Naka river's scent slowly replaced that of food as Haruno left the market district, following the alleys along the gurgling stream, towards the outskirts.
For the first time, a shiver crept under Itachi's skin. Something was not quite right. He quickly revised the situation: for someone who had probably been imbibing (more cups of sake than he could count on his fingers and little to no food), she was walking rather steadily along the steep incline along the riverside – and seemingly with purpose. But there was something else, something he could not quite put his finger on, that set his senses on high alert.
He crept in a bit faster to shorten the distance between them, but as Haruno stepped out of the tree line and walked across the grassy strip toward the edge, Itachi was bound to the shadows. In the faint moonlight, Haruno's skin seemed to gain an almost translucent quality to it. She looked ghostly. And that's when it hit him.
He had seen something similar before.
The surge of adrenaline hit his muscles just as Haruno took a step over the edge, without preamble. He dashed over the bare strip of grass and dove off the cliff after her.
The sudden wind bellowing in Itachi's ears drowned out any haphazard thought that might have formed. He saw her falling and tucked in his arms to plummet faster, managed to grab hold of her flailing form and angled them both toward the almost vertical cliff. He pushed chakra into his one free hand and feet to help slow their fall. The pain did not even register as the rocks tore through his equipment, skin and flesh.
A few feet from hitting the ground, Itachi wrapped himself around Haruno's limp body and pushed off the cliff, diving into a grueling roll down the river bank. When they finally came to a stop, amidst a cloud of dust and sharp-angled pebbles, Itachi found he could not move. The pain hit him all at once, every inch of his body protesting at the ill-treatment, nerve endings alive, overstimulated. He gritted his teeth, forced his muscles to obey and shakily untangled himself from Haruno to kneel beside her.
Her ashen face now had some color on it from the dirt and smears of blood from a cut on her cheek and another one on her forehead. Her eyes were half-open, but unfocused. As far as Itachi could tell, the rest of her was more or less in the same state – moderately unharmed. Pulse and breathing high, he noted, but dismissed it as normal considering the circumstances. His own right hand was bleeding profusely, however, and he pulled out a bandage roll from his pouch to wrap it.
When he looked back at Haruno, her eyes were glazed with tears, glaring at him. Her lips moved and barely a sound came out. Then she tried again.
"-why?"
Itachi would have thought his ANBU mask an answer in itself, but perhaps she had sustained some damage that prevented her from thinking it through. And in any case, he had once let someone fall. Never again.
The answer stuck in his throat, torn. Instead, he began making a small series of seals and said, "I'll be taking you to the hospital in a moment, Haruno-san." Then he looked at the crow he had summoned. "Tell Hokage-sama," he commanded.
No sooner had the bird flown off from his wrist than he heard the gravel crunch under Haruno as she shifted to sit up. Itachi made no move to stop her, merely watched her warily through the slits in his mask, tense and irritated with the evening's turn of events, angry with himself for what he had nearly allowed to happen. She had been foolish, but he had been careless.
He had no excuse. Neither as a shinobi, nor as a human being.
The look of equal animosity on her face dulled into confusion as she stared back at him. Tears pooled in her eyes anew. Before Itachi could decode this new expression, her hand reached for his ANBU mask. He pulled away a moment too late. Fresh night air touched his skin, cool by comparison.
"… Sasuke-kun?" she murmured. The tears spilled down her cheeks.
Itachi surmised the sharingan's glow had caught her eye from behind the mask. As for the name that had spilled from her lips… perhaps a concussion. While some resemblance remained, it was no longer as striking as when they were children. If anything, the lines on his face had only deepened since Sasuke's death.
The tomoe in his eyes began to spin.
"I'm sorry, Haruno-san," Itachi said.
Her body slumped in his arms and the last of her tears fell on the back of his left hand. Itachi took a moment to steel himself, then picked her up and pushed off the ground with a stifled groan, beginning the long trek to the hospital.