Many things could describe what he was feeling at the moment.
There was anger, frustration, even embarrassment, but one stood out among the rest as the perfect word.
Wrath.
Yes, Uchiha Itachi was furious.
This little girl he had in front looked at him with a pitiful gaze and he could feel the pleasure it would give him to torture her both physically and mentaly to death.
"You're not very wise if you thought you could deceive us, Sakura-kun", he said, dangerously slow, each word contained a promise of unthinkable pain.
Sakura visibly tensed under it.
His eyes were narrowed, to the point were they appeared to be a thin line of black and crimson.
His silence making the air grow heavier, the atmosphere so thick it made her difficult to breathe evenly.
She hissed almost inaudibly.
He saw her close her eyes tightly, her brows pressed together drawing a deep frown, her head bent down just a little.
He bent his head down too, but kept his intense blood eyes fixated on her trembling form, piercing through her as if she were a worthless bug.
"I..." she said with an icy and shaking voice.
"You're dead" he interrupted.
Actually, he couldn't kill her just yet; he had to take her to Leader and let him decide her fate, but that didn't mean he couldn't hurt her first.
He would certainly do it.
Painfully slow.
Itachi moved incredibly fast to stand in front of her, invading her personal space, pushing her down with his mere presence. He lifted up his hand to roughly grab her chin, forcing her to look at him, but her eyes were still tightly closed.
"The Sharingan..." he whispered, his breath brushing her cold cheek, "...How?", he merely said.
She opened her eyes, but refused to meet his gaze.
She slightly parted her lips to respond.
"Itachi!!" a threatening voice cutting her off.
His eyes looked behind her to his angered little brother. He was standing up, his breathing evidently ragged.
"...Leave her" he said coldly.
Itachi looked at him for a few seconds, wondering how was it possible for his brother to appear right at the worst possible moment.
He would have to decide whether to fight him, or take Sakura to Leader.
Sasuke wouldn't wait there and happily look how he ran away with his former teammate.
Itachi released Sakura and stepped backwards, still looking at the younger Uchiha.
"Sakura, leave" Sasuke said.
She didn't move.
"Sakura!" he said, his patience dying.
She slowly turned around to look him in the eyes, searching for something she didn't even know of, then, she started walking away from them, her head facing the ground below her feet.
Itachi didn't move either.
None of them uttered a word until Sakura lost herself amidst the trees.
And then, the fight had begun.
The tears wouldn't stop running down her cheeks.
She just, couldn't stop them.
Her legs were trembling and her hands shook uncontrollably, not from the icy winds, but from fear.
Fear and a bundle of emotions that made her go insane.
She collapsed on the snow, her knees hitting the ground below.
She grabbed her head and begun crying hysterically, making her body shake violently with every sob.
She heard the sounds of their furious fight, not too far away from her.
Her mind told her to take the chance and run away from there as fast as she could, but for some reason, she couldn't get her legs to move.
Was it because of the cold?
Because of fear...?
She tried to calm herself, to regain her calm demeanour, the one she had learned to have being Mia, but...
...She wasn't Mia anymore, right?
Itachi knew who she was, and so her mission was almost over, that was why she needed to get out of that place immediatly.
She lowered her shaking hands to look at them, and suddenly she realized that there was no need to keep playing that role.
She was Sakura again. She had to see her friends, Naruto, Kakashi, Tsunade, her village, and slowly her sobs diminished.
She stood up and started walking. Soon her steps grew faster and she found herself running.
It wasn't easy to run on a snowy forest, but she wasn't even thinking about it. All she had on her head was to escape.
The need to reach Konoha alone was moving her legs.
Trees passed by her like a blur as she sped up, jumping on a branch to make her travel easier.
Suddenly she stopped, dead in her tracks.
She just wished to die; a quick death hopefully, though that was asking a little bit too much.
"You really thought I would let you escape so easily?" Itachi's voice sounded like a bad omen.
"Of course I didn't", she said, almost chuckling at her bad, awfully bad luck.
"You still haven't answered my earlier question", he said.
She jumped down to the ground and turned around to face the Uchiha.
"Sharingan?" she asked.
"..."
She hesitated.
"...It was a gift", was her mere reply. She wasn't going to tell him more.
He said nothing.
"And Sasuke? Was he so weak?", she asked, not liking the way her voice seemed to tremble.
"I'm fighting him", he said quietly.
Sakura activated the Sharingan, wincing a little in pain.
This was a clone.
She smirked.
Maybe she wasn't so dead as she had thought.
"Katon, Gougakyu no justu!"
Sasuke jumped to avoid it.
A rain of kunai fell, attempting to cut him to pieces, but he quickly made some hands seals and a clone received the deadly attack. He fell on the now melted snow and a clone of water went to hit him from behind. Sasuke cut it down with one swift move of his sword and dug it in the earth to support his weight as he drew a kick behind him, where another clone of Itachi was about to attack him.
He located his brother's presence and made seals to throw oil to that spot, while one of his own clones made a grand fireball, and Itachi was caught in the middle of the flaming hell.
Sasuke stood for a moment, waiting for Itachi's next attack, which came from below.
He was suddenly being pulled down into the earth; much like Kakashi had done years ago in their survival training.
In a dispaly of his chakra control, he emitted electricity through his foot, releasing himself from Itachi's grip, but as he reached the surface, he was received by a full-powered housenka no jutsu. He merely had time to dodge it, as he summoned one of his medium-sized snakes.
The animal occupied a great part of the small clearing, leaving almost no room for Itachi to move, so he just attacked it and the snake disappeared in a huge cloud of smoke.
He took the chance and went to grab Sasuke from behind, throwing him to ground and giving him a few broken ribs.
Sasuke grimaced in pain, but quickly moved his sword around, cutting Itachi in a half. Another 'puff' sounded, but an explosion accompanied it this time. He jumped backwards, meeting his brother mid air.
Sakura was having her own fight.
Even if this was only a clone, it was thrice as strong as she was, and it was even more difficult if she couldn't use any genjutsu.
She had prepared a few ones for him, but she realized it wouldn't work on a clone.
So she was practically fighting purely with taijutsu.
Her chakra-filled punches were having their effect on the Uchiha, as she had effectively connected a few times, but still, he was overpowering her more than she wished to recognize.
One of her strong punches on the earth made him just slightly lose balance, as she made an earth jutsu, grabbing him from under the ground. She smirked when her hand touched his ankle.
She had just cut down a tendon.
The clone disappeared with a light 'puff', and she stood there, trying to understand what had just happened.
Had she won?
She reminded herself that she was against time, so she started running again in direction of Konoha.
Itachi twitched his mouth a little as he realized his clone had been beaten.
Sasuke was coming from all directions, and this was becoming a rather interesting fight.
He hadn't thought his little brother would improve so much in so little time.
So he made another clone and sent it to catch Sakura.
Dammit.
A strong kick sent her flying against a tree.
Another clone?
Sakura stood out straight and prepared herself to fight again, this time with much more determination.
The amount of jutsus he knew were something she couldn't even hope to match. Each one more powerful than its former.
'Ninjutsu...you should know how important it is to possess at least a few powerful ones'
Yeah right, a few hundred of powerful ones.
Bastard.
She hit him with great force; a direct blow to the face. She felt a small glint of satisfaction at the sound of his cracking cheekbone under her knuckles. But suddenly her expression turned into that of pain as another stabbed her in the stomach with a kunai.
The clone disappeared and she fell to her knees, grabbing her side in pain.
Blood was rapidly drippig from the open wound and she tried her best to partially stop it. With great effort she stood up and started running again, not losing a second of the valuable time between clone and clone.
She realized she had travelled a fair amount of distance already, and if she kept this rhythm she would be in Konoha before sunset.
As she ran, another clone of Itachi appeared from her side, running behind her.
She stopped and hit him backwards with her foot.
He dodged it and she sighed, starting again this seemingly endless fight.
Itachi saw with satisfaction that his brother was panting heavily. His movements were more and more ackward and unprecise; his aim was worst as he was visibly tired.
Itachi was tired somewhat himself.
Fighting Sasuke and Sakura wasn't such an easy thing to do, and he was getting a little concerned by the fact that she was beating all of his clones.
He could tell she had improved a lot.
For some reason that realization annoyed him.
Itachi needed to end this fight soon, and then take Sakura with him.
They had been fighting for hours now. Even if Sasuke was tired, he was still putting up a good fight. He still didn't have Mangekyou, yet his power was overwhelming. Itachi knew that if he ever achieved it, he would soon surpass him.
But not in this life.
He smirked.
"Mangekyou Sharingan", he said low, and that,
was the final point for this fight.
The sky was already red, getting violet as the sun was about to hide.
Sakura knew she was very close to her beloved village, but with each passing second it was getting more and more difficult for her to move.
Her stomach had started to bleed again, and not only that, but her two twisted fingers and one broken rib were giving her the pain of hell itself. Her thigh had been cut deeply and her muscles were about to give up.
But in spite of all, she sped up.
She jumped on the path that leaded to the entrance of Konoha as a wide smile placed on her tired features.
She could do it.
Sakura felt a strong presence behind her and she fightened at the realization that this wasn't a clone.
It was the real Uchiha.
Then Sasuke...
Oh God.
She ran as fast as she could, trying to supress the tears forming on her eyes.
Itachi was getting closer too fast for her liking.
The gates.
Her eyes shone like they hadn't done in years when she saw those beautiful gates.
Tears were blurring her vision, but she didn't care.
'Konoha...'
He felt her dim chakra getting closer as he ran at full speed. He knew that Konoha was too close. It would be imprudent to enter the village given his current state.
Using Mangekyou had drained out too much chakra from him, so the idea of fighting the ANBU that would probably protect the kunoichi was disgarded already.
When he entered the path that lead to the gates, he stopped, his hands closing in a tight fist.
The girl had made it.
He remained still, looking at the distance where the gates were supposed to be, the very first amount of wrath boiling up inside of him.
What a troublesome situation indeed.
She crossed the gates and didn't stop until she reached the Hokage tower.
She couldn't believe it.
Sakura closed her eyes in satisfaction as her body finaly gave up and she collapsed in front of the main doors of the building.
A wide grin graced her features as she fell unconscious.
"Who's this?" she heard someone say in the distance.
"Take her to Hokage-sama", and then her world faded to black.
A/N: Hi people! here I am again with a new chapter. I'm already writing the next one, so that should come pretty much soon.
As always, thank you all for your reviews, I assure you that they give me a lot of confidence on my writing, they're very inspirating :D
About this chapter, I'm still not sure about it, this was supposed to be the pre, but I got tired of delaying it so I decided to upload it as it was, if you people dislike it, tell me right away, 'cause I'm not happy with it myself, but...well, I wanted to add more drama and tension and all that stuff that stiffens your body when you're reading it :P, so you tell me what you thought of it ok?
thanks a lot to blaze, who just arrived from a long and beautiful vacation (I hate you!!!), and did this in less than a day. kisses!!
Review!!
adieu!
PS: If you've got specific questions about the story or any other thing, please pm me ok?, cause if you just write them in a review I forget to answer them :P sorry! But still, review!!!! 8D