Part 5

Itachi wouldn't have thought that when Sakura told him she wanted to wait before they started sleeping together that the build up to it would be so awkward. After the first time he made her come on her couch Sakura started to get a little skittish around him. Not about to let the woman he loved be uncomfortable around him, Itachi sought the first opportunity to talk to her about it. That ad been a good idea, even if the conversation itself had made him feel like a lecherous old man.

Sakura relaxed a great deal more with him after that. After a couple of days she'd even started to initiate their intimacy. He'd never forget how he came to pick her up from the hospital for a meal and she'd smiled and proceeded to kiss him hello right there on the street. Itachi wasn't one for publicly showing affection, but he couldn't bring himself to mind with Sakura, especially with the smile she'd given him after the kiss. For her, he'd even engage in PDA. Within reason, of course. Luckily, Sakura was a private person as well and aside from the occasional kiss hello or goodbye and holding his hand while walking, she kept all their other interactions behind closed doors.

Their relationship was also out in the open. They'd been seen together enough times to make people speculate and Itachi wasn't about to lie if asked outright, so when Sasuke and Naruto had confronted him about what he was doing to their "darling little Sakura-chan," (Naruto's words, Sasuke had just scowled, and Kakashi, there reluctantly from the very start, had walked away at that point.) he'd told them the truth. He was courting Sakura. Dating sounded too trifle for what he had in mind, after all he wanted to make Sakura his wife, not that his brother or Naruto needed to know that, not yet anyway.

When Naruto's temper tantrum was over and when Sasuke had ceased trying to intimidate him with his Sharingan turned on, Itachi had proceeded to remind them of the lesson he and Shisui had taught them a couple of weeks ago and that it was only the beginning. If the boys didn't ease up their interference in Sakura's private life, Itachi was going to make their lives hell, it was that simple. Seeing as both had given him looks of absolute terror and just about run away, Itachi deemed his little mission and success and promptly 'forgot' to inform Sakura of the altercation, positive Naruto and Sasuke wouldn't dare to breathe a word.

Their relationship proceeded much more peacefully after that. Until the Clan elders got wind of it, that is.

Itachi had just come back from a weeklong mission with his ANBU cell and only wanted to see Sakura for a bit before returning to the compound for a shower and some sleep. Unfortunately, another ANBU cell had been ambushed on a mission and returned to the village barely alive, so Sakura was stuck at the hospital, doing her best to save the three operatives. Itachi couldn't fault her for being dedicated to her job, though he'd been disappointed. He'd thought about crashing at her place until she got back, but discarded the idea, as she'd probably be dead-tired after her trying day and would like to rest without having anyone disturb her. So, home he went.

In hindsight, he should have really stayed at Sakura's place.

The moment he entered the clan grounds he was accosted by Shisui, of all people.

"Itachi!" the older Uchiha, panted out, looking almost frazzled. "What are you doing here?"

Itachi blinked and tilted his head to the side. Yes, Shisui was strange at times, even to him, but he'd never seen him like this, whatever this was supposed to be. "I live here, Shisui," he replied sedately, and he could have sworn that Shisui growled? What in the world?

"Not the time to be smart, Itachi! The whole clan is in an uproar! The elders are out for blood! Your blood!" Shisui exclaimed, grabbing Itachi's shoulders and looking around almost frantically.

"What are you talking about, Shisui?" he asked calmly, too tired to entertain his cousin and best friend's unusual behavior. Shisui was usually as calm as one can be, he really had to be. A person who wielded as much power as him couldn't afford to let emotions sway him, it could turn disastrous. Itachi had learned to always keep his own calm from Shisui. And now Shisui was losing it. Why?

"The whole village is talking about your relationship with the Hokage's apprentice!" Shisui burst out and Itachi blinked. Well, damn. "The elders got wind of it and have been hounding your parents and Sasuke, demanding answers. I heard through the Force that some even tried approaching Sakura-san but have been dissuaded by Hatake Kakashi who is sticking to her like a leech these days. She can't go anywhere without various Uchiha trying to talk to her. Apparently, she's also been attacked by one of the clan girls." Here Shisui looked away from Itachi's suddenly stone-cold, knife-sharp gaze and grimaced. "That didn't end too well. For Akira. Sakura-san lost her cool and put her in the hospital and went on to make sure no medic would heal her. Akira won't be leaving that hospital anytime soon. The hospital run by Sakura-san; I might add. She's probably in living hell."

"Good," Itachi clipped, shaking Shisui's grip from his shoulders. "That saves me from having to discipline her, myself."

"Itachi," Shisui groaned. "You've got bigger trouble right now!"

Itachi ignored his dramatics and proceeded towards his house. "It doesn't matter, Shisui. The elders knowing is an inconvenience, yes, but a minor one."

"Huh?" Shisui asked intelligently and Itachi sighed.

"Did you forget?" he asked quietly, turning his head and catching his cousin's eyes. "They're afraid of me." He said this calmly but with a sadistic edge and a chilling smirk on his lips.

Shisui almost gulped. Itachi didn't often show his dark side, but when it was provoked to appear…. It never ended well, for whoever forced it to light.

The elders had every right to be scared out of their wits of Itachi. He was a pacifist, yes, until provoked to be something entirely different. This he'd proven when he was just 15 years old and the clan had conspired to take over the village. Itachi had singlehandedly stopped the coup d'etat by appearing at one of the meetings meant to discuss how to go about it and promising to slaughter each and every one of them, if they didn't cease with the nonsense. Nobody had ever seen that maniacal gleam in Itachi's eyes before, ever felt that level of bloodlust emanating from him in waves. Even the most hardened of the clan elders had shuddered in chilling fear that night. Nobody had doubted that night that Itachi would indeed lay waste to the entirety of the Uchiha clan if they didn't do as he said. The only person who was a match to him was Shisui himself, and he'd stood by Itachi's side, his own Sharingan promising carnage upon their family if they didn't obey.

But threatening to kill everyone wasn't always going to be effective in resolving clan disputes. Especially not something like this. Yes, the elders feared Itachi something fierce, but no one from the clan had ever dared to look outside it for partners. And now the clan heir himself was breaking that one often unspoken, but universally understood rule. It didn't matter that Haruno Sakura was a better kunoichi than any Uchiha woman, with the sole exception of Itachi's own mother, perhaps. It didn't matter that she was the prized student of the Godaime Hokage, one of the legendary Sannin, and thus held more prestige in the village than most members of the Uchiha clan. It didn't matter that she run the hospital and saved more people every day than anyone could count. All the elders were going to see was that Sakura wasn't an Uchiha.

If Itachi married her, she'd taint the Sharingan, they'd say. She'd pollute their noble blood. It didn't matter that decades upon decades upon decades of inbreeding had already tainted the Sharingan, polluted their blood beyond saving. All they were going to see was an outsider, and that Itachi wanted to make that outsider their matriarch.

Fugaku and Mikoto had tried to change clan politics for as long as Shisui could remember. They'd tried to allow marriages outside the clan over and over again only to be shot down each and every time. Unrest was growing within the clan. The younger generations, those not allowing themselves to be influenced by the elders recognized the error of their ways, wanted change, wanted things to be better within the compound. There were those who wanted to live outside the walls. Why the Uchiha clan had chosen to separate itself from the village at large nobody really knew. The Uchiha had always been secretive, but in the last decade or so, they'd also grown paranoid. It was going to be the end of them, if things didn't change and soon.

And Itachi was already making all the moves he could to initiate the change. He'd have to go through the elders, but Shisui honestly doubted that a bunch of old geezers who lost touch with reality a long time ago would pose any real obstacle for his cousin.

Once again Itachi found himself contemplating that hindsight is always 20/20. And that forewarned is indeed forearmed. If Shisui had not made him aware of the elders' intentions, Itachi might have dismissed the matter entirely.

One of the elders, a man Itachi usually respected for his level head and more modern outlook on things, was Uchiha Akira's father. Akira was a couple of years younger than Itachi and the youngest of five daughters. Her father had remarried after his first wife had died, his second wife over two decades younger than him, and Akira was the result of that marriage. All of her elder sisters were married and had children, in fact if Itachi remembered correctly her eldest sister's children were Sasuke's age, two boys, chuunin on the Police Force. Akira's father would never had aspired to have one of his daughters as clan matriarch, his wife on the other hand, had raised her daughter in preparation to become Itachi's wife. Her own husband had tried to dissuade the notion, especially when Itachi's parents had clearly stated that their sons may choose their own wives, and they would not interfere.

That had only spurred Akira's mother on, and she filled her daughter's head with the misguided belief that if she made herself readily available to him, Itachi would surely marry her. And so Itachi had been hounded by Akira since he'd been 10 and she around 7 or 8 years old. He'd never, not even once considered marrying her, had never even spoken more than a couple of sentences to her, careful not to raise her already overblown expectations. Akira was pretty enough, as any Uchiha woman was, she was a passable kunoichi, but that were her only positive traits. She was overbearing and talked incessantly about topics he had no interest in discussing, kept trying to touch him even after multiple demands from him to cease and desist and tried to manipulate everyone around her to aid in her cause.

She'd despised Izumi and had verbally accosted her on several occasions, why hadn't Itachi thought about her going after Sakura? Truthfully, it had never even crossed his mind. He had not thought Akira so stupid as so act openly hostile towards a kunoichi who not only outranked her but could destroy her with a hand tied behind her back and blindfolded. Apparently, he'd overestimated her intelligence and she was now paying the price. Well, she'd pretty much asked for it, and Itachi was always fond of the saying that you reaped what you sow.

Akira's mother had posed a problem. She'd demanded that Fugaku arrest Sakura for assault on her daughter, even after Sasuke, who'd witnessed the entire thing, said that Akira had attacked Sakura, out of nowhere while Team 7 had been on their way to the training grounds, Several other Uchiha could attest that Sasuke spoke the truth, since Team 7 had been talking to them when Akira had appeared behind Sakura with a kunai drawn and lunged without warning or explanation. Sakura had easily side-stepped the attack and proceeded to beat the stuffing out of Akira, without even breaking a sweat.

The matter had ended when his mother's patience finally run out and she'd all but ordered her husband to send officers to arrest Akira and leave her punishment for the Hokage to decide. Mikoto had then explained to Akira's enraged mother that her daughter had attacked a Konoha kunoichi, who was also the Hokage's apprentice, and that her actions amounted to treason. That had shut the overbearing woman up for once and all. Akira's fate rested in Tsunade's capable hands, and Itachi stopped thinking about the issue the moment it was dealt with.

As much as he sometimes lamented being born in the Uchiha clan, Itachi was still grateful for his family, especially his head-strong, stubborn, intelligent, independent and strong mother. That thought led him to think about the woman he was turning his own world on its head for. Sakura was a lot like his mother, he realized belatedly. Strong, independent, stubborn, loyal, kind, loving. The only things that truly set the two most important women in his life apart was his mother's very practiced calm and his lover's fierce, untamable temper. Sakura would never be able to exercise the same seeming serenity his mother did at all times, and he didn't want her to. Even if Mikoto only seemed to be subservient to her husband in public, he refused to have Sakura pretend to be anything but herself. He loved her for her unshakeable spirit, the inner strength that made her stand back up no matter how many times knocked her down, that led her to strive to better herself until she could laugh life right in the face and never let it knock her down again.

Matters with his family finally settled, three days later, Itachi found himself in Sakura's home and wished to never leave again. She had the day free and he'd been there since early morning and had no intention of leaving any time soon. Being with Sakura was easy, even if they disagreed on something it was playful and teasing and they quickly found a compromise. She was most pleasant company, her charming nature pulling him in, her beauty only serving to bring him in deeper. He could hardly keep his hands to himself.

Which brought him to the current problem. Well, calling it a problem was overstating it, really. It was mostly an inconvenience. A rather uncomfortable one, but still no more than that.

They were making out on her couch again. And things have heated up between them rather quickly again. Itachi was loathe to cut it short, but if he allowed it to go on any longer, he feared his control would snap completely and it wouldn't end with her achieving her climax by means of 'dry humping', as Shisui called it. A man was only so strong when it came to the allure of the woman he loved and Itachi found that in regards to Sakura he was rather weak.

Sakura herself made no signs of wanting to stop anytime soon, having climbed into his lap some twenty minutes ago and was rather happily undulating her hips against his, creating delicious friction that only left him wanting more. It was time he exercised what little control he had left and put a stop to this.

He tore his mouth from hers and panted for a second to regain his breath, Sakura immediately lowering her lips to his throat. Oh, she was trying to kill him, the little minx. "Sakura," he breathed raggedly, grasping her shoulders and gently pushing her away.

She looked at him with bright emerald eyes, darkened by pleasure, lips swollen from his kisses and breaths uneven and Itachi forgot for a second why he'd stopped them in the first place. "What is it?" she asked softly, hands caressing his chest through his undershirt, as his uniform sweatshirt had come off ages ago.

"I think we should stop," he said slowly, somewhat uncertain. He didn't want to stop, but Sakura had been the one to ask for them to go slowly and he respected her wishes.

"Why?" she almost whined and he felt his control waver.

"You wanted to go slow," he whispered, lowering his head to bury his face in her throat. He couldn't look at her at that moment, she was way too seductive.

"Screw slow," she hissed, small hands fisting in his ponytail and tugging his head up.

Just as their lips met again in yet another searing kiss, Itachi had the fleeting thought that having his hair yanked like that really shouldn't feel that good. The last coherent in his pleasure addled mind was, Screw slow.

That night marked the start of a very passionate relationship between two people desperately in love with each other. Even years later, when they got married, took over the Uchiha clan and children of their own, their passion and need for each other never wavered, never cooled down. Their love never faltered.

By the time their eldest son was ready to take over the clan, Itachi and Sakura had changed it almost completely. They'd started by subtly forcing the elders into retirement and slowly introducing new customs and traditions to the people. Their first son, Katsuya dispelled every notion that outsider blood would weaken the Sharingan. The boy had surpassed his father by the time he was twelve and only continued to grow stronger with each day.

That marked a new era, for the Uchiha clan. A new, better and improved Uchiha clan that became the pride and joy of their village.

The End

AN: And that's it for The One. I hope everyone liked this last chapter. I had previously thought to put a lemon in here, but in the end it would have interrupted the flow and felt forced so I left it out. But if you'd like I can still write it, just post it separately, like those cut scenes in movies lol.

Anyway, thank you very much for all the love and support you have given this story. I hope that you will also read all the next ones I plan on popping.

I'm still working on my GaaSaku one, that one won't be posted anytime soon, though.

On the ItaSaku front I thought of two one-shots, kind of companions, but not connected, one where Sakura is Hokage and the other where Itachi is. Not much in the line of plot of either, just a healthy dose of smut, lol. Let me know if you want to read them.

I also have the idea for a longer ItaSaku piece, one where Itachi refuses to go to the hospital for treatment but shows up in Sakura's house every time he gets injured on missions. He and half the ANBU corps, lol. It would be light and mostly romantic and humorous, but I'm not really sure I like the idea.

There's also another one where Itachi survived his fight with Sasuke and was found by the Konoha team afterwards. Sakura nurses him to health in secret by Tsunade's order and everyone only finds out about him after the war. It would start with Itachi and Sakura already in love with each other since it wouldn't cover the war only what happens after and would be mostly drama/hurt/comfort, with plenty of romance.

And lastly, I wanna write KakaSaku, but I'm kind of lacking ideas, lol. So, I was thinking of starting a kind of anthology of KakaSaku, ItaSaku and/or GaaSaku one-shots, all by commission. If you have some idea, you'd like to see me write there, feel free to contact me, either review or PM, and let me know. Be as specific as you can, i.e. rating, pairing and a short summary and if you want a title.

I recently made some pretty drastic changes to my life, left a workplace where I was uncomfortable and now I think I'm gonna have more time to write.