¤ Chapter *.: Jinchuuriki ¤

"Sakura,"

The pink-haired woman clucked her tongue in disgust and sleepily as a voice calling her name, trying to wake her up from her deep slumber, reached her ears. She turned aside almost childishly, rolling on the soft bed away from the voice, wrapping herself deeper into the silk satin blanket she pulled over her head to block out the sunlight that filtered into her pupils through her closed lids.

"Sweetheart, wake up," Sakura felt someone pull the covers off of her, and she was chilled, no longer feeling the nice, warm warmth she had built up during her sleep.

In a sleepy and lazy way, she only half opened one eye and was forced to squint a little more to focus on the figure illuminated by the golden rays. She almost couldn't tell if she was conscious or waking from another dream. As her vision cleared, the curves and features of a familiar face sharpened, and she recognized the person next to the bed she was sleeping on. The woman who appeared was unmistakable, and her beauty and grace were unmistakable.

"Mommy," the half-asleep pinkette whispered dreamily, but as her voice and the address that left her lips finally took on the true meaning that settled in her mind, she shot up sharply and opened her eyes wide. "Mommy!"

"Shh," the golden-haired goddess put her index finger to her lips and rested her other free hand on her daughter's shoulder.

"What are you doing here, Mom?" the young girl asked excitedly.

She almost foolishly hoped that her mother had come to give her the latest news - news that the mission was being canceled, that she could finally go home, or that the original mission plan was being changed, that Sasuke was being reassigned to a different category, to a different person. However, the pink-haired girl's heart stung at the thought. She didn't want to admit it, but she couldn't deny it; her priorities gradually changed with each day and with each person - or rather downworlder - she met. She couldn't keep pretending that Sasuke was a normal person to her that she needed to get rid of quickly to get back into her life. She missed home, but in these few days, she realized why her whole life had felt incomplete like she was missing something intangible that no one, not even her mother, could give her.

She missed the inseparable friendship she had gained when she let the blond into her home. She missed the sense of security, mystery, and darkness she had discovered within herself many years ago when she met the raven-haired man, a feeling she once again tasted like her favorite divine chocolate near him.

Sakura finally realized what her inner voice had been whispering to her all this time. She didn't want to come home. Not without them, knowing she would never see them again.

She knew her mother was an understanding and loving creature, accepting everyone for who they were... except the downworlders, whom she despised. She was sure she would frown if she told her about the black-haired vampire, never mind her descent from the esteemed Hyuuga clan. Maybe her expression would relax slightly if she walked over to Ino and told her that she had finally found a rival she also considered a friend. Still, she was sure that the frown would return and deepen even more if she learned that comes from the Yamanaka clan, the most famous sentient clan.

What would she say if she even mentioned what had happened between her and Naruto? What would she say when she found out that in the whole world, of all dangerous creatures, she had not met a dreaded witcher but a jinchuuriki?

- FLASHBACK –

Tsunade had always avoided the subject of tailed demons.

The tiny, barely seven-year-old pink-haired girl often researched in the library, which stretched several floors high, in her curious youth. She often imagined that when she tilted her head and looked at the high shelves, this must have been how the people looking at the sky must have felt. She pulled out a book and flipped through the pages that dealt with these creatures.

To this day, the memory was fresh; her skin remembered the feeling of running her fingers over the old yellowed pages that depicted tailed demons – so-called bijou. The name and photo of the person with the description of jinchuuriki was always neatly written next to the pictures of the scary monsters, but nowhere did she read what the word meant. She could only assume that these jinchuuriki were somehow related to one of the tailed demons.

"Shukaku, Matatabi, Isobu, Son Goku," she read aloud the names of the tailed bijuu one by one as she turned the pages of the old book. "Kokuou, Saiken, Choumei, Gyuuki..."

The little pinkette frowned as her emerald eyes looked at the last page. This one should have depicted the last one, the ninth one in the order, and, at the same time, the most dangerous one, but this one was missing from the book. She bent down to better look at its surface, noticing the imperfect paper teeth – she was quite smart and especially curious at such a young age. It didn't take long for her to put the connections together to conclude that the missing page had been ripped out by someone in a fit of rage and stashed away, perhaps burned so that no one else would ever see its contents. She understood that whoever was responsible was trying to hide the ninth jinchuuriki's identity and the nine-tailed demon's form.

Little Sakura grabbed the incomplete book in her tiny hands, holding it tightly to her chest like her most prized possession. She ran around the palace until she found her mother sitting behind a table with round glasses on her eyes, studying some parchment with a bored expression. Many others were scattered on the table before the blonde woman, similar to the one she held.

"Mom, mom!" said the pink-haired girl, bouncing restlessly beside the tired older woman. "Mommy!"

Tsunade sighed patiently, closing her eyes. She loved her daughter with every fiber of her being, but in the last few days, she was too exhausted to fully handle the role of a mother, especially with the developmental period the little pink-haired girl was going through. We are talking specifically about the period when everything was interesting, even the most banal thing - the little pink-haired girl wanted to absorb information like a sponge about everything around her.

With an exhausted look, the woman slid down to look at the little girl; taking off her glasses, she grabbed the little girl by the waist and pulled her up to sit on her knees. The goddess of love gave a motherly smile as she heard her daughter's cheerful laughter, growing in beauty every day, but her smile froze when the pinkette placed a familiar book on the table.

"Mom, who are the jinchuuriki?" she asked in a curious child's voice as she bounced restlessly on her thighs, her two large, glowing emeralds looking up at her excitedly.

Tsunade dug her nails into the backs of the chair.

"No one, dear," she lied, stroking her hair.

"And who is the ninth jinchuuriki?" she continued her endless questions as if she didn't even notice her mother's dismissive answer.

"No one, honey," she said in a less calm voice, her stoic patience running out.

"But mom," the pinkette objected, pointing to a torn-out section in the book with her tiny index finger. "Ah, look! There's one missing here..."

The goddess of love didn't give her daughter a chance to finish the thought as she immediately cut her off.

"Enough, Sakura!" she yelled, placing the pink-haired girl on the ground and standing across from her with a stern look, no longer trying to mask the irritation in her voice. Golden hair billowing under the influence of the anger raised by the wind, she grabbed the book in question in her hands and burned it to ashes before the small pink-haired's horrified eyes. "I never want to hear about it again, Sakura," she knelt before her, cupping her young daughter's face with gentle palms to force her to raise her head and look into her eyes. "Do you understand?!"

"Yes, Mom," the pink-haired girl whispered, scared tears streaming down her face.

From that day, the word became forbidden in their palace. Tsunade proclaimed this decree throughout the Land of the Clouds - the word jinchuuriki had risen to the level of forbidden spells, for which the accused earned instant death.

- END OF FLASHBACK -

The pinkette shook her head to banish the unwanted memories.

"Black suits you," Tsunade said with a sweet and welcoming smile as she noticed the change in the color of her hair.

Sakura felt the urge to hug her; all fear was suddenly gone. She needed to tell her everything she had experienced, how she used to when she was little. She reached out to touch the beautiful woman, but her image began to ripple in front of her at the fleeting touch, then the pink-haired girl's saddened realization that her mother wasn't actually there. With a sad glint, emerald eyes looked at the glow emanating from her creamy skin – a clear sign of a hologram used to convey messages impersonally.

"How's the mission going?" she asked in a ringing voice. "Or rather, with Sasuke?" she laughed teasingly.

The pink-haired woman smiled sadly.

"Fine," she whispered. "I guess. Maybe," she added after a while.

The goddess of love frowned momentarily as she smiled again in her all-knowing way, her intangible hand caressing the pinkette's cheeks. Sakura unconsciously closed her eyes at the gesture.

"Just so you don't fall in love with," she quipped; she couldn't know that the pinkette heart sank at those words, how much she hated lying to her mother.

Sakura noticed that the moment of silence that followed that sentence became unreasonably long. Looking up, she could see the goddess of love's face hesitate as she gently bit her lower lip before finally speaking.

"Rumors have reached me," Tsunade said with a stern look on her face. "That you met Naruto."

A chill ran through the pink-haired girl's body. She expected a lecture, an argument, shouting, maybe even flames to shoot through her system, but she was surprised to find that none of the expected happened as she caught a small glimmer in the hazel eyes that felt...sad. Therefore, with an uncertain and jerky nod of her head, she nodded in agreement that the reports her mother had received were true.

"What is he like?" Tsunade whispered, looking down at the ground.

Sakura raised her eyebrows in confusion, surprise, and especially amazement. She couldn't stop herself; the words almost came out of her mouth alone, but when she opened them, she heard footsteps in the corridor behind the closed door.

"I have to go," she looked at her daughter one last time. "Good luck,"

"Mom…" Sakura whispered into the void as the image of her mother faded with the simultaneous opening of the door.

*.*.*.*

"I knew you weren't such a bastard, Teme,"

"Get off me, loser,"

The young Uchiha got tired of sitting on the uncomfortable branch; he figured if he was going to keep an eye on the blond, he could handle it indoors... something he began to doubt just five minutes after he made that decision and entered the room. The blond immediately began to overwhelm him with endless talk. After several hours, he patiently put his hand to his face, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his fingers to keep his inner calm and not kill him. He decided bitterly that this man would never run out of breath. He hadn't finished one sentence and was already starting another.

The raven-haired man found himself considering for a moment if he could spit out words that fast with his katana stuck in one lung.

"So, is that her?" Naruto asked with a mischievous grin and playful sparkles in his eyes.

The blond may have looked stupid, but he immediately noticed the absent spirit of his black-haired friend, which is why he talked almost breathlessly for hours, trying to get his attention. Very quickly—that is, several hours later, when he was running out of ideas for further conversations with himself—he found that he would not succeed, at least not until he hit the right subject. A lightbulb went off in his mind the moment he noticed the onyx eyes of the man sitting in the uncomfortable chair focused on the tree next to his house where he had spent the previous days and nights keeping watch.

It was no ordinary tree, but one that bore an unusual, strange, and exceptional name in their home village, Konoha - it was called Sakura.

Victory flashed in his eyes the moment he uttered his question. He was sure he had hit the right target; he saw his friend's muscles tense just as he unconsciously did when fighting the worst of enemies, in wars where they stood back-to-back because they didn't need to see each other's movements because they were linked and fought as one.

The raven-haired man growled and shifted in his chair to find a more comfortable position and ignore the question being asked.

"So yeah," the blond reasoned, staring dreamily at the ceiling as he relaxed, his eyes closed, arms crossed behind his head, a cheerful smile on his face. "I can tell from your smile," he explained sarcastically; the Uchiha raised an eyebrow in confusion; he was sure he hadn't smiled in many years. "For the last few days, the corners of your lips have been zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero-" he took a short, dramatic pause for a deep breath. "…zero, zero, one millimeter higher."

"I don't know what you're talking about, usuratonkachi," he snapped.

"Oh, oh," Naruto laughed. "But of course, you know," he stated confidently, earning a deadly glare from the onyx's eyes.

Naruto clutched his heart with both hands and dramatically mimed collapsing as if pierced by a thousand swords.

The raven-haired man rolled his eyes at his amateur theater.

The blond sat up with a swing. He sprang to his feet with the same energy and walked to the chair where a tired Sasuke sat. He crouched, stooping down so that his face was at the level of the bored and exhausted black-haired man's face. He stopped only a few millimeters from his nose, for which the black-haired man had the urge to give him a good headbutt that he would remember for the rest of his life - no, he would rather choose snakes to eat his insides, but he stifled those murderous desires inside him.

The Uchiha narrowed his eyes dangerously to scare the annoying blond and mentally counted why the annoying idiot in front of him had become his best friend.

"You won't keep it from me, bastard," he whispered into his face in a mysterious voice.

Just then, that was the moment when the black-haired man's years of patience ran out, and he punched his blond friend right in the middle of the face. He was almost sure the force had warped a few bones in his nose, but he figured the satisfaction was worth it.

"You're so cruel, Teme," the blond complained as he sat on the floor holding his broken nose.

Naruto fixed his nose with a violent hand movement, followed by a loud crunch.

Yes, this was one of the disadvantages that stemmed from the Uchiha's best friend being a jinchuuriki. None of the injuries he inflicted on him had time to warm him or cause him enough excruciating pain as the beast within him instantly healed and healed him.

The raven-haired man sighed tiredly and leaned back deeper in his chair. He really didn't want the blond to know about the past that connected him to a certain pinkette; it was the last thing he needed in this cursed situation. He had plans he wanted to achieve, and he was sure that if Naruto knew about it, everything would go to hell. He knew him too well—he could foresee his movements, thoughts, and actions too well; he didn't doubt for a minute that he'd conjured up a fairy tale happy ending in that little teaspoon-sized brain and would immediately run after the pink-haired girl to tell her everything, down to the last detail.

Yes, perhaps it would ease his situation, relieve him of the many duties that lay before him, and await him when he reached the desired and expected goal; however, Sasuke had a plan he wanted to carry out. He wanted it to happen differently than how Naruto would have arranged it, who would no doubt be happy to get involved, and differently than anyone else - especially his brother - had planned it. However, he was also aware that in order to keep things moving in the right direction, he had to be patient, even if he resented the slow pace of things.

"You know," the sound of the blonde's annoying voice reached Sasuke's ears again.

Sasuke rolled his eyes – hadn't he learned to interpret from his face over the years when he really wasn't in the mood for his bullshit?

"If you want to win a woman, you have to be nicer to her," he began his lecture on interpersonal relationships and techniques that he had listened to every day for three years on the road from his depraved white-haired uncle.

The raven-haired man gave his first warning growl.

"And more attentive," he continued as if he had not heard the chair's warning signal.

"Naruto," he said his name with a growl, but this time in a harsher tone; the blond just smiled mischievously.

"More sensitive," he named the virtues he counted on his fingers.

"Shut up, you idiot."

"You see, less you," he laughed happily. "I doubt you can do that with an I'm-the-biggest-bastard-in-the-world face,"

There was silence for a moment, the blond losing sight of the onyx eyes as the Uchiha lowered his head in a dark manner, strands of raven hair falling into his eyes. The black haired smirked invisibly and ominously for a second, then shot his hand in a trajectory towards the blond, whose smile disappeared from his face as he was forced to start hopping around the room like a squirrel - dodging the death bolts his friend threw at him in the form of lightning swords and frankly, in all the years he'd spent with him, he did not doubt that the Uchiha's intention at this point was to end up with Chidori Nagashi in his ass.

Despite jumping around to avoid the whistling lightning bolts, the blond was smiling triumphantly, as this expression from the black-haired man only confirmed his theory and his assumptions. Sakura was the one who lit a spark in his best friend's darkness so many years ago; he knew his intuition hadn't failed him the day the pastel pink hair fell into his line of sight.

*.*.*.*

"I have to go. Good luck,"

"Mom…" Sakura whispered into the void.

The pink-haired girl blinked in confusion.

"Finally awake, Sleeping Beauty, I thought I would have to call Sasuke."

It had only been a short while since her mother had vanished in a cloud of sunlight when the door to her room suddenly opened. It was only when a kind and caring deep voice entered her mind that she realized she didn't really recognize the room she was in, the bed she was sitting on, the silk blanket she was anxiously holding close to her body.

Emerald eyes looked into dark ones that looked strikingly similar to his younger sibling, but they didn't look at her in a haughty, callous, or arrogant way; his face wasn't adorned with a smirk, but a gentle smile that created small wrinkles around his eyes, completing his lovely appearance.

"Huh?"

The man laughed lightly and waved his hand. "You know, a true love kiss,"

The pink-haired girl looked away, lowering her head to let the black strands of her hair cover the small blush forming on her face as she felt a pleasant warmth rush into her head.

"Just kidding," he chuckled, taking another step forward; he placed the tray he was carrying in his palm on the bedside table next to the bed. "Here,"

Her stomach did a few flips at the sight of the tray full of food, but she suppressed the muscle urge to make a disgusted grimace. "Thank you,"

She expected him to leave after her last word, as his younger sibling was wont to do. However, she found out she was wrong as Itachi remained in place; he only moved to reach for a chair in the corner of the room to place it near the bed and then sit on it. Sakura raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"Don't look like that," he spoke, though the older Uchiha tried to mask it; he couldn't quite get the hint of amusement out of his voice. "Sasuke will skin me if I don't see that you ate something."

"Really?" escaped her lips before she could stop herself.

"Well," he thought, biting his bottom lip cynically as he remembered the conversation between him and Sasuke a few hours ago when he brought the unconscious pink-haired girl in his arms. Itachi crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the back of his chair, stretching out his long legs in front of him, which he crossed over each other in the same casual manner. "Something like that,"

If it weren't for their obvious resemblance, the pink-haired woman would never have believed that they were siblings, even if clear evidence of their blood relationship had appeared before her eyes. They were so.. different.

Itachi rolled his eyes in annoyance – in this gesture, she found another similarity between him and his younger sibling; the way he did it was almost identical. He reached for the tray full of food placed on the bedside table a short time ago and moved it to the pinkette's thigh area.

When, even after a few minutes of his intense dark gaze, she was unable to pick up the cutlery, he took over the task himself - he reached out with his right hand, grabbed the fork on which he impaled a piece of juicy meat and brought it closer to her face, but what he didn't expect was her reaction, as she turned her head away. The older Uchiha sighed; how many years had he experienced something like this with little Sasuke, raising him since they were alone?

"And for Mom," he laughed cynically, mimicking a small plane with his fork - not missing the small glint of amusement in her emerald eyes and the slight upturn of the corners of his mouth. "And for Daddy," – at that moment, the black-haired man suddenly stopped as the moment he spoke his words, the spark in the two emeralds instantly disappeared as if on command.

Itachi was known for his intelligence, empathy, insight, and mindfulness; he was often compared to the most significant thinkers; some dared to compare him to the batch of intelligence of the Nara clan. He quickly understood that he had hit a target that should have remained intact.

"That's fine," she gave him a soft smile and shook her head. "I never knew him."

Itachi glared at the young girl. He knew he shouldn't; it was information she shouldn't have heard from his mouth, but something whispered to him. He always trusted his intuition, even if he sometimes had no idea where his unplanned decision would lead him, it always turned out to be right in the end.

"I have known my father and even my mother," the older Uchiha stated, earning a significant look from the pinkette who registered the past tense in his sentence. "They are dead."

Her pupils widened; she looked like she wanted to speak, say anything, apologize for even bringing up the subject because her loss, which never really happened since she didn't know him, was nothing compared to his.

"We're fine," he winked at her, giving her a brief smile. "Now eat. I don't want to name any more dead relatives,"

The pink-haired girl nodded timidly, her smile bittersweet as she knew Itachi was trying to make her laugh, but the cynical tone of his words derailed her. He seemed so composed to her... at ease with everything. How could he be so at peace with the death of those closest to him? What terrible things must have happened to this young man in his life?

Reluctantly, Sakura grabbed her fork, skewered a small piece of meat, and put it in her mouth.

"They say that you almost fought with Naruto."

The bite caught in her throat at his words. She swallowed hard, then nodded with a stony face.

Memories started to flood her mind like a ton of bricks; she remembered every moment that had happened.

"Where am I, Itachi?" she asked suddenly.

The Uchiha raised an eyebrow, a smirk spreading across his face. "On the North Pole,"

After a brief exchange of glances, with the jade eyes still looking with that determined gaze after a while, the elder of the raven siblings understood that the young girl would not laugh, so he answered her question with a quiet sigh.

"In our house,"

Sakura frowned. "Who brought me here?"

"Santa Claus," he snorted with undisguised sarcasm.

The pink-haired girl raised the fork she was holding in her hand warningly. Itachi rolled his eyes in amusement.

"What do you think, smartass?" he sat more comfortably in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. "Sasuke,"

*.*.*.*.*

Ok, here I am again with a new chapter!

What do you think will happen next? Will it be okay between Sakura and Naruto? What will be their reaction when they see each other again? What's more... what is Sasuke hiding from our young pink-haired woman?

Well, we'll see! We still have a lot to do.

I will be delighted with any comments, questions, or curiosity... do not hesitate to write to me! :)

Kisses,

M.