A feather-light touch trailed along the ridges of her spine and Sakura's eyes fluttered open to the greys of darkness. She sat up dazedly and came face to face with a figure sitting on the edge of her bed. Her thigh, bare where the towel had run up, pressed against his hip and that point of contact burned against her cool skin. She raised her arms to hold the towel against her chest, heart skipping, eyes widening. Even half-etched in the darkness, his silhouette was still unmistakable.
"S-sasuke-kun…"
He was gazing at her, the same familiar depths, dark and unfathomable, yet tinged with something that set a swarm of butterflies roiling in her stomach. He had never looked at her like that. Oh, but how she had wanted him to.
"Sakura."
He had never said her name like that either, and something coiled in the pit of her lower belly at the sound of it on his lips. Those same lips pressed against hers no more than a heartbeat later. Goosebumps rose along the skin on her forearms and Sakura closed her eyes, swept up and away. His fingers ghosted up her thighs, pushing the hem of the towel up, up to where she burned for him, had been smoldering for so long.
When Sasuke's weight pressed Sakura down against the mattress, not one fiber of her resisted him – she opened up, melting under the heat of him, even as the sound of his strong heartbeat filled her eyes with tears. Why did it bring her such immeasurable sadness?
She couldn't remember. She had wanted this man for so long it did not matter, either.
"Sakura."
Her name again. Another shiver. Sakura opened her eyes to look at him. Only Sasuke's eyes were now more slanted, gazing down at her from a different face, of a different man. The heat throughout her body coalesced as he entered her. Itachi Uchiha leaned down to nuzzle against the column of her neck and Sakura let him, surrendering to the sensory overload that made her arch against him as she unraveled.
Another tear rolled down.
Sakura woke up with raw heat pooling low in her abdomen and a chill against her skin. The pillowcase was wet under her cheek. The dream remained, vivid in her mind's eye and pulsing in her nerve endings. Pressing her thighs together in an effort to alleviate the throbbing heat only inflamed it more and a small sound escaped her throat. She had felt aroused before, but not like this.
Sakura paused at that and bit her lip with a gnawing sense of self-reproof as Itachi's face came to mind, along with the maddening sensation of him sinking inside her. Her mind should have been incapable of reproducing that. Sasuke had never touched her, no one had. She had once touched herself thinking about Sasuke, but when she had been unable to look in his eyes without growing red in the face the next day, she had sworn to herself `never again`.
With a renewed vow, Sakura gritted her teeth and pushed herself out of bed and into a cold shower. This was not the time to be thinking of such things – Tsunade would probably reach out to her today about her decision.
That piece of knowledge Sakura held so close to her heart did not make the day go by any easier. It languished in minutes, slowly dripping by, as she paced around her house doing deep-cleaning instead of blowing off steam on the training grounds. Maddening, but long overdue, if she were to be completely honest. Cathartic too, in a way.
It wasn't until early evening that she received any kind of sign, and it was in the shape of a crow landing on her window sill.
Sakura nearly smacked it with the wooden spoon she'd been stirring her dinner with, before she realized it had two small cylinders tied to its legs. Tsunade had never sent crows before. She hesitantly set the spoon down on the counter and held out her wrist, which the crow promptly leaped on. It remained still until she relieved it of its burden, then leaped onto the counter and started pecking at the stir fry in the pan.
Sakura turned off the heat and quickly opened the scroll labelled "1". All it said was: "Abandoned playground by training area 5." The handwriting was small and neat, much unlike her own. She did not recognize it.
The scroll labelled "2" turned out to be the smallest storage scroll she had ever seen. Upon pushing chakra into the release seal, it completely vanished under the neat stack of equipment which had been stored in it.
Sakura stared down at the pained mask sitting on top of the stacked clothes and her blood ran cold.
It was the likeness of a rat or perhaps a mouse, smooth, cold and unyielding in her hands as she picked it up gingerly. Understanding settled in the pit of her stomach.
This was what she wanted. Then why did victory taste like bile?
Underneath the mask she noticed a simple, open note with the word "Nezumi" written on it in the same clean hand. Her whole identity, soon to be swept up under that mask, under that unassuming code name. This was what she wanted. It was. She repeated those words to herself over and over as she donned the dark clothing, pulled on the snug gloves, tightened the straps to fix the arm guards and zipped up the flak jacket. Sakura then pulled up the dark hood affixed to her tank top and disappeared behind the painted mask.
This was what she needed.
But Sakura should have known Tsunade would play dirty. She felt the first hint of hesitation as she stepped onto the deserted playing ground and her eyes landed on the figure leaning against the stairs of a slide. Her Captain was in full ANBU regale, but she would have known him anywhere by the mask, if his stance didn't already speak for his prowess and heritage.
Behind that cat mask was none other than Uchiha Itachi, who had saved her life only months past.
As he pushed himself off from the metal steps, the telltale ponytail swung behind his back, turning suspicion into certainty. A treacherous sensation briefly reignited between her thighs; the haunting caress of a dream not yet faded from memory. Sakura came to a halt before him, still musing about her shishou's twisted sense of humor. She couldn't help but suspect Tsunade was trying to set her up for failure, or perhaps merely trying to discourage her by employing any unorthodox means at her disposal. Sakura, however, was resolute. There was no turning back.
"Nezumi reporting, Taichou," she said.
"We have a mission. I will tell you the details en route," was all he said in response, and vanished in an instant.
Sakura snapped out of her momentary stun at the mission being thrust upon her right off the bat and followed him through the trees. She caught up with Itachi and settled into the relentless pace he set, reminiscent of the breakneck speed Naruto gained when he was angry.
"Our target is a civilian. He will be resting overnight at a resort six hours away," Itachi said, and Sakura committed the scant details to memory. "We should expect sentries posted, likely a handful of samurai guards, but our mission is to kill our target without being seen."
The mission didn't faze her. Assassinations in the night were probably an ANBU staple, she had expected as much. Sakura listened intently, waiting for more, but Itachi had fallen quiet. Surely he knew more than that, she thought as the forest sprawling along the outskirts of Konoha was being swallowed by the shadows of dusk. She decided to play dumb rather than arrive at the destination completely unprepared.
"I'm sorry, Taichou, but how are we to identify the target if that's all the information we have?"
"That's all the information you have clearance for," he said. "I will identify the target. You will handle the rest."
Sakura thought she'd caught the hint of a smile carried in the sound of that last word. The killing, he meant. He wanted her to be the one to do it. It made sense now. This mission was a test, simple enough in theory – perhaps too simple by ANBU standards. Itachi likely wanted to ascertain whether she, a medic, had it in her to take a life in cold blood. And she had six hours to brace herself for it.
Her mind swarmed with thoughts. The hour would be late, the target probably asleep, utterly defenseless. She had taken lives before, but the scant few she had killed had been fighting Team 7 with the same goal in mind. It had been a matter of "kill or be killed", not gratuitous taking of human lives. Who was their target? What had this man done to deserve such a fate? Perhaps it was indeed better for her conscience to not be further burdened by such details.
Five and a half hours Sakura spent in that hellish mire of thoughts until she finally told herself it was a done deal. She wanted to be ANBU and now she had to prove she could be. The target was already dead from the moment his name and information had passed into Itachi's hands. If she didn't do it, he would. There was no doubt about that in her mind. But that would mean failure, and Sakura could not afford that.
When Itachi finally came to a halt in the high branches of an oak, Sakura stopped beside him, haggard and breathless and chastising herself for not joining Lee in his morning routine of doing laps around Konoha. They had not taken a single break along the way, but no one would have known it, looking at him. His pulse and breathing were only slightly elevated, as if after a light workout.
It was past midnight, yet the sound of music and boisterous laughter rose above the droning of chicadas in the underbrush. They were near the resort – Sakura could see golden light filtered through the dense canopy from maybe a hundred feet away.
"Rest for a bit," Itachi told her, eyes still trained on that same light. "We'll wait for things to quiet down."
Sakura nodded absentmindedly, dreading the prospect of having more time to think about it. She slumped against the tree and popped a ration pill into her mouth to account for the dinner she'd skipped that evening.
The music went on for about another hour, noise eventually dwindling down to quieter conversations, barely audible from that distance. A while after the last light died out, Itachi motioned for Sakura to follow him, and together they sneaked closer to the resort inn, now suffused in silence. In the small garden visible beyond a waist-high stone wall and bordering one of the entrances, Sakura spotted two men standing guard. One was sitting on the porch, smothering a yawn with the back of his fist and another one was oiling his katana with a clean cloth, no more than a few feet away.
"We'll have to move in and out quickly," Itachi said to her in a barely audible whisper. "Do you understand what you need to do?"
"Yes, Taichou," Sakura replied, noticing the red glow of the sharingan in the darkness behind the mask.
"Watch for my signals," he told her as he turned his attention back to the guards.
The samurai who had been oiling his blade paused and raised his head, looking to the far back of the garden wrapping around the side of the building, listening intently.
"Did you hear that?" he asked quietly after a few moments.
His yawning partner scoffed. "I didn't hear anything. Imagining things again, Jirobou?"
"I swear I heard something. I'm going to go check it out."
"Heh. Must have been a raccoon. Woods are packed with them around these parts."
The man named Jirobou stood up, nevertheless. He strode off to inspect the far end of the garden, vanishing from sight. His partner shook his head derisively and stretched with a small, contented groan, only to slump against the wooden beam behind him a moment later.
Itachi motioned again for Sakura to follow. They leaped from their perch, over the stone wall and dashed along the stone path leading up to the sliding doors. Their steps were inaudible as they passed by the sleeping guard. Judging by his chakra, Sakura surmised he was trapped in a genjutsu. His partner had probably fallen prey to a similarly constructed distraction. She followed Itachi like a shadow through the narrow halls, passing by one set of shoji panels, then another, before turning right and slipping through a third, softly opened and closed.
Sakura's eyes, by now accustomed to the dark, took in what appeared to be a traditional room, sparse in furnishing. A single, occupied fouton lay in the center of this room, its occupant breathing slowly, deeply, every inhale accompanied by a small purr.
Itachi circled the fouton, looked down at the sleeping man, then up at her. He nodded.
Sakura's blood ran cold and a tight knot wound itself in her throat. She stepped closer, right hand slipping inside her weapon pouch, fingers wrapping around the slim, cold hilt of a kunai. She pulled it out as she knelt by the target. His face blurred in and out of focus under her gaze. A myriad of wrinkles lined his face, yet his jaw was square, set, his throat thick and his shoulders were wide and muscular.
Her knuckles whitened around the kunai as she inched the blade closer towards the man's exposed neck. She realized she hadn't for a moment thought about any other way of killing him than by slitting his throat. Yet the force needed to do it lacked from her trembling hand at the moment. Her positioning was bad, on the side of him, and her legs were locked underneath her, muscles twitching and disobeying.
She heard the slightest shift of fabric and looked up to see Itachi tap his wrist twice. Time. She was running out of time.
Sakura swallowed the knot in her throat. A bead of sweat trickled along her temple. Her left hand gingerly took the kunai and her other one, now free, moved to hover above the target's chest. Chakra glowed softly, spilling from her palm, sinking through skin and tissue, creeping into his beating heart.
First, numb the nerves to stop pain transmission. Second, delve into the conductive system.
The sinoatrial node stopped as her chakra blocked the electrical impulses. Next failed the atrioventricular node, bringing his heart rate down to 25 beats per minute. She had restarted plenty of hearts, never stopped one. The latter turned out to be much easier than she would have ever thought.
The moment she stopped the heart's last command center, the mission was complete.