PREVIOUSLY ON SIMPLICITY...

.

Pein: "Yeah, so, hey — if you want to join our club, you're gonna have to throw down with one of my guys first."

Sakura: "I can't just get a letter of recommendation or something? I've got an in with the Godaime—"

Sasori: "I've got this. By the end of the week, you'll be a badass ninja chick."

.

Hidan: "Yo, bitch, we should totally fuck."

Sakura: "Yo, bitch, we totally shouldn't."

.

Sasori: "You idiot, I almost killed you!"

Sakura: "It's cool. I'm a tool anyway."

Sasori: "Say that shit again, and I will kill you."

Sakura: "...sorry."

.

Deidara: "Heeeey, new best friend!"

Sakura: "Er...?"

Sasori: "No, no, Sakura, we don't talk to filth. Come along now."

.

Tobi: "HIIIII, TOBI JUST WANTS SAKURA-CHAN TO KNOW THAT TOBI HAS BEEN STALKING HER, KTHXBAI."

Sakura: "Um."

Sasori: "What the fuck did he just say?"

Deidara: "I got you, fam."

.

Pein: "Good news — if you can kick Itachi's ass, I'll let you hang out with us."

Sakura: "Ah, shit."

.

Okay, but in all seriousness, I'm very sorry that this chapter took me so long to upload. Obviously, a year-long gap is better than four, but still. Just a few reminders for anyone who isn't keen on revisiting previous chapters just to reread my notes:

1) This story will officially be twenty-five chapters long, and while the remaining seven have yet to be completed, I already have the timeline and the plot hammered out. It's just a matter of filling in the gaps between the main points and then putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard, as it were).

2) I began writing this story way back in 2011, long before Sakura's chakra natures were ever revealed. As such, I took it upon myself to assign her wind-style and a minor affinity for earth, but any ninjutsu she uses will not (now or ever) be integral to the story in any way. She's still a taijutsu/medical/puppet-master-oriented fighter with a dash of genjutsu thrown in for good measure.

3) Our story started with Sakura (age six) being approached by Sasori (age eleven). Now, Sakura is seventeen (and a half — it's two weeks into August), and Sasori is less than three months away from his twenty-second birthday.

4) Deidara has, yet again, stolen the spotlight and imposed his will on mine. I have absolutely no control over him; I've just accepted it at this point. Please look forward to seeing him make entire scenes of this story, both here and in the future, completely about him for no reason whatsoever.

Also, a guest mentioned in a reveiw on the last chapter that they started reading this based on a rec from tumblr. Um. What. TUMBLR? I HAVE GAINED RECOGNITION ON TUMBLR? OH MY GOD, I HAVE NO WORDS. Thank you, all of you, so, so much! This would literally be impossible without your support!

So, without further ado, here's the next chapter. Not quite as monstrously long as the last one, but still nothing to stiff at if I do say so myself — a very respectable 11,175 words.

Happy New Years!

Please read and review!

Maelstrom

Rarely was Sasori ever caught off-guard. He wasn't ashamed to admit that he was rather proud of this fact — modesty was absurd, and false modesty was downright contemptible. The only viable excuse for ever employing it, in his opinion, was for the purposes of espionage, which was still a remarkably tedious endeavor; he simply hadn't the time or patience for such things. It was because of this mindset that he was both recognized and feared throughout the shinobi nations as lethal in his ability to remain unshaken. Even amongst the Akatsuki, he was widely regarded as one of the most even-tempered, logic-oriented individuals in their line of work (excepting, of course, for when the topic of art in its various forms was breached, in which case he couldn't be blamed for his immediate and violent reactions).

It was therefore no exaggeration to state that he had never felt nearly so shell-shocked and off-balance as when Uchiha Itachi stepped toward Sakura.

This was not what he had planned for.

.

"This is bullshit, yeah!" Deidara yelled, face reddening with anger. "Why the hell would you make her fight him?!"

He'd known, of course, that Itachi was always a possibility, and he'd even told Sakura all about him as a precaution, but he'd never thought that it would actually happen. Sure, he knew that Sakura was strong — probably even stronger than him if he was being honest and definitely stronger than that freak Hidan — but Itachi? Itachi was a monster. She didn't stand a chance.

Hidan curled his lip in distaste, clicking his tongue. "Fuck, seriously?" he griped, smoothing his hair back with an agitated sigh. "Thought we'd at least get to keep the bitch around for a while, shit."

Kisame glanced at Pein with a wary look before his eyes were drawn back to Itachi and Sakura, who stood a dozen meters apart in the center of the clearing. "Hey, ya know, isn't this kind of one-sided? I mean, don't get me wrong, Pink's got what it takes to be one of us, but Itachi-san's…" He trailed off, brows creased with concern.

Tobi hopped about, waving a pair of thumbs-ups in the air. "Good luck, Sakura-chan! Tobi believes in you!"

Kakuzu grunted, crossing his arms. "If you never had any intention of letting her join," he drawled, gaze flat and disinterested, "then why even bother with this farce instead of just killing her outright?"

Sasori's jaw clenched, expression carved from solid ice. Off to the side, Zetsu snickered darkly.

"Enough," Pein ordered, tone leaving absolutely no room for argument. Deidara scowled, looking ready to take his chances and damn the consequences, and Pein narrowed his eyes in warning. "My decision is final."

Konan took a half-step to position herself at his side, threat clear: anyone else who tried to make something of it would swiftly regret it. Deidara's glare could've scorched concrete, but she wasn't fazed. Kisame shifted his weight beside the blond in an unspoken suggestion to cool his heels, to which Deidara huffed but reluctantly acquiesced. Hidan sneered as if he'd bitten into something sour.

.

In the center of the field, Sakura stared holes into Itachi's forehead, desperately scrambling for composure. After years of working alongside Kakashi (and, to a lesser extent, Sasuke), the Sharingan didn't intimidate her in the least; she felt nothing beyond a simple appreciation for beauty when she peered into those crimson, ink-blotted depths. But now? Now she had to fight against those very eyes — and she knew all too well what they could do. If she met his gaze for even a fraction of a second, this battle would be over.

This, she reflected grimly, was truly the worst possible outcome.

No.

Sakura steeled herself, stubbornly forcing every ounce of tension in her body to relax though not daring to close her eyes. This was ridiculous. There was no reason to panic. Uchiha Itachi was just one man, and, as of this very moment, he was the only thing standing between her and Sasori. She'd spent days studying his techniques and learning about his abilities from Deidara. She'd fought alongside Sasuke for two years, and she'd wager that he taught her more about the Uchiha Clan's jutsu and fighting style than Itachi could ever expect her to know. She'd read his bingo book entry and the parts of his file in Konoha that weren't redacted countless times. She was intimately familiar with his greatest and most heavily relied-upon weapon — a weapon that was very much a double-edged sword, a fact which she had every intention of exploiting to the fullest. She was also a genjutsu master, rendering his second greatest weapon next to useless.

And, really, what did he even know about her?

He knew that she was trained by Sasori, Kakashi, and Tsunade. He knew that she was familiar with Sasuke. He knew that she was a medic. That her physical strength was abnormal to some extent. That she was decently talented at taijutsu — at least well enough to best Deidara, but that wasn't saying much. That she was intelligent.

That was it.

She had the advantage here.

.

The change that came over her was immediate. The other members of the Akatsuki watched curiously as Sakura drew in a slow breath, her entire demeanor shifting on its axis as she exhaled. She was no longer a skinny little pink-haired teenager gawking at Itachi with trepidation and disbelief; she was cool and confident and completely devoid of emotion. A shinobi.

Pein lifted his chin. "Begin."

Neither combatant moved, but the air noticeably thickened. As the seconds ticked by, a strange kind of silence reigned like the calm before a storm, and the space between them seemed to grow heavier and heavier. Both Sakura and Itachi stood unnaturally still, not even so much as blinking, and Hidan glanced around at his companions, frowning in confusion.

"The fuck is going on?" he demanded. "Why're they just standing there?"

"They're not."

Hidan squinted at Deidara suspiciously, but he just grinned wickedly in return. The former Iwa-nin was holding his bangs back away from his face, observing the proceedings with the eye he usually kept hidden.

"That asshole's trying to catch Sakura-chan in a genjutsu, but she's smacking all of 'em down, yeah." The smug satisfaction coloring his voice was undeniable.

Hidan loosed a surprised noise from the back of his throat, and Kakuzu tilted his head just so, considering Sakura with a measured look. Kisame abruptly straightened up with interest. "All of them?" he echoed.

Deidara's eye glittered with excitement. "All of them."

"Ooh," Zetsu murmured lowly, baring his teeth in anticipation of bloodshed. At his side, Tobi was curiously silent.

Konan glanced at Pein wordlessly, noting his narrowed, thoughtful stare. He'd clearly not expected Sakura's skill with genjutsu.

Despite the chorus of intrigued grumbles that surrounded him, Sasori kept his gaze locked unwaveringly on Sakura without uttering a single word.

.

Sakura watched the subtle fluttering of muscle and skin around Itachi's brow, reading lines of surprise and frustration as she deflected his barrage of illusions with steady slices of chakra. While his expressions were far more difficult to decipher than those of his younger brother, the two were still remarkably alike. Idly, she wondered how else they might prove similar and whether or not said similarities could aid her in this battle. A promising avenue to explore, at the very least.

Over a minute passed in quiet conflict, the air itself seeming to hold its breath as it grew more and more saturated with chakra. She nearly didn't recognize the tightening along his temple for what it was, but she caught it at the last moment, and they sprang into action with near-perfect synchronicity.

With his superior speed, Itachi met her two-thirds of the way across the field, hand moving so fast that she never saw him retrieve a kunai from the holster secured to his right thigh, but she was prepared. She ducked a slash intended for her throat, striking out with an open palm as though her entire hand were a knife, fingers held tightly together. He side-stepped her with ease and whipped around for a high roundhouse, forcing her to roll back in a handspring. He seized the opportunity immediately, hands already blurring through the final seal when she righted herself. By the time she realized what he was up to, the fireball was just a meter away, and she had no choice but to vault into the air to avoid it — and right into the path of another, much larger one. Swearing, she fell back on her old tricks from the Chūnin Exams and summoned a clone. Just heartbeats from impact, the clone grasped her forearms, swung her around, and flung her at Itachi, disappearing into a cloud of white smoke the instant the flames touched it. Sakura hurtled feet-first and raised one heel in a punishing axe kick.

The devastation was immensely satisfying.

.

"Holy fucking shit!" Hidan crowed, eyes popping wide as he staggered from the shockwaves.

He and his companions watched in (slightly horrified) awe as the grounds surged in a veritable earthquake with a one-hundred-sixty-one-centimeter brat at its epicenter. Itachi shunshined to the tree line, the brief pause before his counterattack the only indication that he'd been likewise caught off-guard. Kisame gave a low whistle.

"Hot damn. She really let you off easy in the shower."

Kakuzu frowned, mentally calculating figures and comparing them to the statistics he'd previously compiled. "She might be worth a decent bounty."

Deidara grinned with unholy delight, practically vibrating in place. "She's got this, yeah," he marveled a tad breathlessly, manic gaze glued to her form as she flashed across the field in tandem with Itachi. "Seven hells, she's got him. She's gonna kill that bastard."

Pein and Konan stood rigidly, muscles coiled in automatic response to the scene before them. Zetsu cackled next to Tobi, who might as well have been a statue.

Sasori's visage never twitched.

.

They clashed in a spectacular show of taijutsu. It was freeing in a way, unleashing her full potential. When she'd sparred with Deidara, she'd been careful not to reveal too much of her speed or skill even as her instincts cried out for a real challenge, fully aware that every bit of it would be used against her in this fight. Now she was cashing in on that forethought.

Itachi rained blows with both fists and feet, lashing out with the viciousness of a deadly serpent and proving just as agile, but Sakura matched him in turn. After her display, Itachi was far more cautious in dodging her attacks, but he did so in the most efficient manner possible, only skirting around her exactly as far as needed to prevent contact. He moved with the careless grace of an apex predator; it was almost infuriating.

Eons passed between them as they danced, suspicion beginning to bleed through Itachi's façade as she continued to jab at him with knifehand strikes devoid of chakra rather than wielding her gods-defying strength. They traded lunges and slashes with careful precision, though neither connected. Itachi twisted a hair's breadth to let her hand sail harmlessly past his side so close that she could've nicked him had he so much as breathed in too deeply.

That'd have been a perfect opening, she lamented, impatience eating her alive. But no — her trick would only work once thanks to that damned Sharingan, so she needed to make it count.

She leapt over a leg sweep and swung at his temple. He tipped his chin three degrees to the right, and her fingertips ghosted over the shell of his ear.

Wait, she told herself stubbornly.

He darted in with what would surely be a nasty punch to the chest, enough power behind it to snap several ribs and knock the wind out of her. She fell into a cartwheel, neatly curving around him to redirect her aim toward his windpipe. He rocked back onto his left foot, pivoting so that her palm kissed the air above his collarbone.

Just wait.

He swooped low and targeted her kidney with an elbow, bringing their cheeks close together, but she read his real motive and kept her gaze firmly on his forehead, knowing better than to be distracted by his proximity. She twirled in the opposite direction, overcompensating to give herself a clear shot at his nape, but he cocked his head and leaned back, keeping her directly in front of him.

Look for your chance.

He executed a textbook sidekick, and she rotated on the balls of her feet, diving forward to catch him in the eye. He tipped his head back so that her nails brushed mere millimeters over his skin.

There.

.

Sakura ignited a chakra scalpel at her fingertips with vindictive satisfaction, and Itachi's eyes widened a split second before he shunshined several meters away. Kisame sucked in a sharp breath, stunned speechless. Face frozen in the Uchiha equivalent of shock, his partner reached up to trace a cut leading from the side of his nose to the corner of his right eye where a few eyelashes had been split. Red smeared across his cheekbone at the touch.

For a moment, no one dared to move.

Then, Hidan gave a high-pitched wheeze, pupils blown wide and teeth bared in a skeleton's smile. Deidara laughed with morbid glee.

She'd drawn first blood.

.

The battle quickly devolved from there. Whereas Itachi had first come at her all elegance and finesse and highbrow techniques, he was now cold and calculating and ruthlessly efficient. The realization that he hadn't taken her seriously pissed her off to no end, though her pride at marking up his pretty face mostly made up for it, even if she'd failed to damage his Sharingan. And that cut didn't stay lonely for long; at least a dozen other slices, some shallow and others decidedly not, quickly made their home on the both of them.

Time was a fluid thing, slipping through her fingers not unlike grains of sand pouring from a broken hourglass. She had no idea how long they'd been fighting — a handful of minutes, half an hour, multiple hours — and the sweat slicking her skin could just as easily have been born from exertion as from endurance. It was a study in restraint, compelling herself not to dwell on it.

And, unfortunately, restraint was emphatically not her forte, which was probably why Itachi managed to get the upper hand. As she spun with a punishing butterfly kick, he caught her ankle and wrenched her leg sharply until a sickening crack rang out. She hissed as both her tibia and fibula fissured through her shin, blood pouring out at an alarming rate, and she threw herself back in a hasty bid to put distance between them. She landed heavily on her back and immediately bounced up with another back handspring, absorbing the impact with her good foot and nearly losing her balance. Itachi swooped in without hesitation, but there was no way she could fight him in her current state. To buy time, she summoned a pair of clones and directed them to demolish the grounds between them, forcing Itachi to retreat. She collapsed to the dirt and shifted all of her weight onto her left hip, hands blazing green as she reached down for that gleaming jag of bone sprouting just below her knee. With one quick movement and a truly cringe-worthy sound, she snapped the bones back into place and pressed her palms to the wound, eyeing Itachi's progress against her clones warily.

By the time he dispatched them, she'd finished mending the breaks but hadn't sealed the tear or stopped the bleeding, but she'd have to make do. Launching herself at him just as fearlessly as before, she slammed her heel into the earth both to force another retreat and to show off the durability of her medical ninjutsu. She could hear someone (Hidan? Deidara?) hooting at the sidelines, but she ignored them.

As their injuries continued to multiply, Sakura found seconds and fractions of seconds between assaults to heal her own, smug with the knowledge that Itachi couldn't do the same. They were each beginning to tire, she more quickly than he, and she knew it was time to change tactics again before he found another opening. Hands alighting with twin chakra scalpels, she altered her fighting style to something she'd picked up from Lee, namely a lot of diving and withdrawing and swift, merciless jabs. While the Hyūga Clan's light-footed style would better compliment this technique, it was also far more likely that Itachi was already familiar with their taijutsu patterns, what with the infamous rivalry between their clans.

Itachi scored three more uncomfortably deep slashes across her side and abdomen before she happened upon her opportunity. His kunai arced toward her jaw, but rather than dodge, she stepped forward and took the blow without flinching. The blade sliced up her cheekbone and over the bridge of her nose, missing both of her eyes by millimeters, and Itachi was so taken aback by this that he realized her ploy a moment too late. Now well within range, she dug up a mental diagram of the energy pathways surrounding the Sharingan and struck at a specific point on his right temple with a deep tissue chakra scalpel.

The backlash was instantaneous. For exactly four seconds, the chakra network routing through Itachi's skull was disrupted, and those beautiful red eyes deactivated. Triumphant, Sakura met his stunned gaze with a smirk that faltered as she took in the state of his irises and pupils. The color leeched from his face, eyes flashing with what she might have deemed panic on anyone else, and she froze.

Is he—

Then the red was blooming once more, and his entire disposition took a hard left turn. Fight or flight instincts screaming at her, Sakura dropped her gaze and leapt as far away as she could, but Itachi was already on her. His attacks, while unrelenting before, were now downright savage. She stumbled more than once, accumulating wounds left and right, unable to land any hits of her own despite the recklessness with which he threw himself at her. The third time she tripped, she saw the tomoe in his Sharingan bleed into a hauntingly familiar shape at the edge of her vision, and horror consumed her.

She had a single heartbeat to brace herself before all hell broke loose.

.

Black hellfire erupted from every direction, and the Akatsuki scattered with shouts of alarm.

"What the fuck, you psycho?!" Deidara yelled, putting his back to a tree and tensing to run. "You trying to kill us, yeah?!"

"YOU FUCKING CUNT!" Hidan screeched, voice reaching a rather impressive octave as he crouched with his three-bladed scythe drawn like he thought he could use it as a shield. "I'LL SACRIFICE YOUR HEATHEN ASS TO JASHIN-SAMA!" Kakuzu swore viciously just behind him, positioned carefully so as to use his partner as a much more effective shield.

"Itachi-san, what the hell are you thinking?" Kisame hissed under his breath, wielding Samehada cautiously. Though the flames would definitely burn through the bandages wrapped around his sword, Samehada would feast on the chakra and neutralize it with little effort, should it come to that.

Sasori perched in a treetop, muscles coiling with the effort not to interfere. Pein and Konan hovered at the base of another tree five or six meters away, the former poised to drown out Itachi's sudden explosion of deadly chakra with his rain technique if it grew too out of control. Zetsu melded himself to the trunk, laughing like a cracked hyena, and Tobi observed the goings-on stoically, the air itself seeming to cool rapidly in his vicinity.

"Kill that son of a bitch, Sakura-chan!" Deidara growled, fingers twitching toward the pouches of clay on his hips. "Take him down, yeah!"

.

Sakura didn't let herself stop or even slow down as she ricocheted around the clearing, alternating between jumping with chakra-enhanced legs and short bursts of shunshin. She couldn't worry about how much chakra she was wasting; she just had to keep moving. Sinister blots of inky flame were still appearing and eating through anything they touched with no rhyme or reason, but Itachi couldn't sustain the Amaterasu indefinitely — blood was already dripping from his eyes in a mockery of tears, a grim reflection of the blood coating her own face from the stripe she'd allowed him to gouge, and she knew that he, too, had to be scraping the bottom of his reserves.

According to Deidara, the Black Flames of Death (as he called them) took a significant amount of energy and concentration to maintain, and he'd never seen the Uchiha keep it up for longer than ten or twenty seconds. It could supposedly destroy anything in existence, and only the user could douse the fire, but it came at a hefty price. If she could only avoid a direct hit for a few moments longer, he would be left weak and vulnerable, and her victory would be all but ensured.

No sooner than this determination solidified itself, flames exploded up her left forearm all the way to her bicep. The Mangekyō promptly died out, Itachi's Sharingan flickering dangerously as he flirted with the cusp of chakra exhaustion, but Sakura hadn't even a shred of regard to spare on him. The pain was immediate and visceral, but Deidara's warning about the jutsu's properties rang ominously in her ears, and she didn't hesitate to ignite a chakra scalpel and slice a large strip of flesh from her arm, flinging it away to prevent Amaterasu from spreading.

Yells and curses sounded from the tree line, and Itachi was visibly dismayed by her show of self-mutilation, but she was running out of time. Sakura locked down her pain receptors and channeled the bare minimum of healing chakra into the gory mess of muscle and bone — Running out of that, too, her mind supplied helpfully — and hurtled toward her opponent. Tossing subtlety to the wind, she surged at him from all sides until she finally maneuvered him right where she wanted him. Just as he twisted to launch a barrage of shuriken her way, she curled her fingers and attached two chakra strings to his body, then jerked her arm out wide — throwing Itachi right into a clump of hellfire.

Sakura had thought their captive audience was loud before. It had nothing on their current volume.

The strings disintegrated, and it took Itachi only half a heartbeat to flash-step out, but tongues of fire were already licking over his cloak. He ripped it off even as he extinguished the flames, and Sakura was startled to see his torso bubbling up with angry blisters despite the fact that Amaterasu had never actually touched his skin. Had she not shaved off a layer of meat from her arm, she, too, would have been covered in hideous burns. She marveled at how impossibly hot the blaze must have been to cause such desolation.

They were both an absolute wreck. Covered in wounds, sores, and a frankly terrifying amount of blood, neither she nor Itachi had the strength to drag this out much longer. This called for desperate measures.

She made the executive decision to cease all efforts to heal her arm and instead use that chakra more productively. Now that he'd seen her use chakra strings, keeping her ability to perform the puppet master jutsu a secret was pointless. With a snap of her wrist, she unveiled a scroll and summoned the puppet Sasori had given her prior to this fight, controlling it with just one strand from her pinkie and leaping in for a round of close taijutsu. She worked in tandem with the marionette, synchronizing their movements perfectly to restrain Itachi from striking back, and it was when he stumbled back to avoid a nasty punch by the skin of his teeth that comprehension dawned on her.

She had the upper hand.

Exhaustion throbbed in the very marrow of her bones, but the end was at last in sight, and she couldn't afford to buckle. Redoubling her efforts, she lunged for his knees and sent the puppet in high, blade gleaming at the center of its palm. He spun clumsily, Sharingan flicking in and out — and as her puppet etched a shallow cut along his upper arm, his fate was sealed.

She watched the realization sweep across his expression, watched as he reevaluated his situation and abruptly dropped all pretense of caution. The Sharingan died a swift, silent death, and, from just a meter away, he rerouted that chakra into a massive fireball. At such dangerously close range, there was no way for her to avoid it, but if Itachi could embrace his lot without flinching, then so could she. She let the puppet drop, then sprang straight through the flames and cocked her arm for a brutal right hook.

The sound of the earth shattering beneath his broken body was perhaps the most beautiful thing she'd ever heard.

Sakura followed him down, caging him in with her knees on either side of his hips and drew back her fist for one last blow to incapacitate him — when suddenly the tip of a kunai kissed her throat directly over her carotid artery. She froze in place, multiple cries of shock and anger distantly filtering in on the edges of her awareness, and the form beneath her disappeared in a thin cloud of smoke as the real Itachi behind her planted a hand on top of her head to steady himself.

"This fight is over."

Itachi's voice was low and flat, and fucking hell, this wasn't supposed to happen.

Mind kicking into overdrive, she desperately calculated how quickly she could inflict a chakra burn on that hand and then flood her throat with healing chakra. She estimated that once he cut her artery, assuming he didn't merely saw half of her throat open, she would have approximately ten seconds before blacking out, then another twenty or thirty seconds before bleeding to death.

Ten seconds.

If she lost this fight, she was dead anyway. Ten seconds would have to be enough.

Without warning, Itachi dug the tip of the kunai in, and blood gushed in a hot, sticky mess down her front. Choking, she grabbed for the knife and concentrated every remaining scrap of her chakra to the wound, but without her enhanced strength, she couldn't pry him away. He left it buried in the artery, both keeping partial pressure on the cut and preventing her from sealing it, stranding her helplessly on the brink of consciousness.

"It's over," he repeated, palm clammy against her scalp. "Continue on with this foolish endeavor, and you will die."

Fuck that! she thought hysterically. She was going to die either way, so what was the point?

Clawing frantically for the will to fight back, she noted with feral vindication that his fingers were trembling. The poison from her puppet's blade was taking hold. It was now a waiting game to see whether he succumbed to the toxin or she ran out of chakra first, and like hell was she going to lose.

Under constant bombardment of healing chakra, the blood slowed to a trickle, but despite her best efforts, she couldn't remove the kunai, nor could she burn him without halting the healing process; the weariness and anemia were taking their toll. Several hairs separated from her head as he fisted his hand in her locks and pulled, his shaky grip triggering a wave of dizziness and nausea.

And just like that, her chakra faltered, finally reaching the critical threshold.

Sakura convulsed, suffocating around a mouthful of blood, and it didn't register that he'd released her until she went completely limp and fell forward onto her hands and knees.

"Match."

Vision going dark in large blotches, literally seconds from death, she fumbled with her hip pouch for a vial of chakra pills. She feared she was too late even as she bit down on a pale blue capsule, but then energy was singing through her veins, and she clasped a slippery red hand to her neck, vomiting blood and god knew what else as she ground her forehead into the dirt. Itachi staggered beside her and fell to one knee, and she pried her burning eyes open just enough to see the sweat beading on his unnaturally pale face.

Sasuke, she thought.

Sasuke would never forgive her if she killed his brother.

It was that idea alone that drove her to pull a syringe from her hip pouch with her other hand and jab it into his right outer thigh. Itachi slumped and barely managed to catch himself on his elbows, dark eyes closing briefly with relief.

A pair of feet stepped into her line of sight, and it took her a minute to muster the strength to look up. Pein glared down at her suspiciously, narrow ringed eyes skittering back and forth between her and the syringe, but she had no intention of explaining herself. It didn't matter anyway. Not anymore.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!"

Deidara's furious shout cut through the tense silence like a well-oiled blade. Sakura coughed as her stomach revolted against the blood trying to leak down her esophagus, using it as an excuse to close her eyes. She couldn't bear to look at him after failing so spectacularly. He'd done so much to help her prepare to fight Itachi, but she'd thrown all of his efforts back in his face. His anger was more than understandable. She'd let him down, let Sasori down —

Kami. Sasori.

Shame and loathing consumed her, burning far hotter than Itachi's Amaterasu had. Her lungs cramped up with agony that had nothing to do with her injuries, and she hacked helplessly because her life was no longer in danger, but she was still dying. Her shoulders buckled beneath the crushing weight of her misery and guilt and inadequacy, ribs snapping open to pour the pulpy remains of her heart — messy, tattered, useless — into the dirt where they belonged.

You are of no use to me dead you stupid girl you are of no use to me you stupid girl you are of no use to me no use no use no use —

"That bastard lost!" Deidara spat, cheeks flushed scarlet with rage. "She took him down, yeah! He lost!"

"Hell yeah!" Hidan agreed, waving his scythe about in the air. "Look at that red-eyed little shit — she mopped the fuckin' floor with him, seriously!"

"It's at least a tie," Kisame mumbled, worried gaze darting from Pein to Sakura to Itachi. "I mean, they both collapsed, so…"

Kakuzu's regard seared into her, but he remained silent, as did Tobi and Konan. Zetsu muttered something too low to make out in two different voices, but he was mostly ignored.

"Sakura-san was the first to fall," Pein declared curtly. "Therefore—"

"That's bullshit!" Deidara shrieked, cutting him off without hesitation. "Bullshit! She won, and you fucking know it, yeah!"

"Who gives a fuck who fell first?" Hidan scoffed at his usual obnoxious volume. "Pansy ass over there fell, too!"

Kisame frowned uncomfortably under Pein's steely glare, debating whether to try and calm his companions' tempers or just keep his distance. Deidara took the decision out of his hands.

"She healed herself, yeah!" the former Iwa-nin argued, jabbing a finger at her ragged form. "Out in the field, she'd still be fighting!"

"Pretty boy's eyes can't do that shit," Hidan added, gesturing vaguely with his scythe in a manner that would've alarmed anyone else.

"And that asshole would've died if she hadn't given him the antidote!" Deidara insisted, redirecting his aggressive pointing toward Itachi. "Which means she won!"

"Yeah, she — wait, she poisoned him? Fuckin' awesome! Seriously, she totally won!"

"Enough," Pein snapped, scowling at his unruly subordinates. "The question of Itachi's constitution is irrelevant. Sakura-san fell first, therefore she forfeited the match."

" 'Irrelevant' my ass," Deidara snarled, lip curling back from his teeth. "You wanted her to lose — that's why you pitted her against Itachi in the first place! You thought he'd make bean paste out of her, and then you could get rid of her without danna fighting back, but she nailed that fucker, and now you're looking for any excuse to disqualify her!"

Hidan shot him a startled look, and Kisame tightened his grip on Samehada warily. This was going downhill fast.

"Deidara," Pein warned, voice low and dangerous, but the blond sneered fearlessly.

"Who's next, then, huh?" He threw his arms out wide. "Me? Get tired of me running my mouth, so you'll send one of those freaks to skin me, but it's okay 'cause I doubted the almighty leader, and we can't fuckin' have that."

Dead silence.

Whereas Hidan had initially been nearly as indignant and confrontational as Deidara, he was now shocked speechless. It wasn't that he necessarily disagreed, and he certainly wasn't afraid of Pein's retribution. Rather, it stunned him that Deidara would have the balls to say something like that — after all, he wasn't immortal, and Pein would squash him like a cockroach with little incentive. Hidan found himself reluctantly impressed.

Kisame shuffled his weight, wide eyes locked on their leader. If the man actually made good on Deidara's insinuations, he wasn't entirely sure what he would do. He liked the kid, annoying and obtuse as he may have been, but Pein was someone he didn't particularly want to cross.

Then, out of nowhere, Tobi folded his hands behind his back and rocked to and fro on his heels like an impatient child. "Leader-sama already said that Sakura-chan lost," he chirped brightly, "so there's no point in fighting 'cause Sakura-chan's going to die anyway."

A chill ran down Sakura's spine, not at Tobi's words but at his tone — so upbeat and nonchalant as if he'd expected it all along. Almost against her will, she tipped her head up just enough to see him, though the mask, unsurprisingly, revealed nothing. Still unable to make herself look Sasori's way, she glanced instead toward Itachi, who was now sitting beside her with his legs crossed in a classic meditative pose. However, his body was hunched ever so slightly with pain and exhaustion, and his lashes hung low over his dark eyes, which remained fixated on Tobi. Again, that sensation crept up on her that he knew something about the mysterious man.

Deidara rounded on Tobi with a literal growl, but Pein's chakra spiked threateningly, and the former Iwa-nin stilled. Pein's voice was edged with obsidian and blood and death. A promise; if Deidara so much as spoke another word, he would be dead where he stood. "My decision," he rumbled, ringed eyes seeming to glow with a terrifying light, "is final."

Deidara's jaw clenched, and his nails drew bloody crescents into the skin around the mouths on his palms, but he was, at last, silent. That tiny, infinitesimal spark of hope that had taken root in the pit of Sakura's stomach the longer the argument raged on shriveled and died with scarcely a pathetic whisper.

Sasori never said a word.

.

"You have fifteen minutes."

The words echoed hollowly in Sakura's ears as Pein departed from the training grounds, the rest of the Akatsuki following close on his heels. Deidara hesitated, then took a step toward her, but Kisame fisted a hand in the back of his shirt and hauled him away with a pointed look in Sasori's direction. Deidara scowled thunderously and resisted for maybe six seconds before deflating. Casting her one last conflicted look, he sighed and trudged alongside Kisame back to the tunnel that connected to the base. Tobi brought up the rear and, just before passing out of sight, turned to call back:

"And don't forget, Sakura-chan — if you try to run, Leader-sama's rain will sense you, and then Tobi will have to kill you himself~!"

He disappeared with a cheerful wave, and then it was just Sakura and Sasori. She closed her eyes for a moment, more drained than she'd ever felt in her entire life. It was over. Everything she'd worked for, everything she'd dreamed of. Over.

Sasori shifted beside her, and even though she'd already disappointed him in just about every way imaginable, she was determined to see this through to the very end. Exhaustion gnawing at her bones, she heaved herself to her feet and approached him in silence when he jerked his chin back toward the base. The tunnel and hallways passed in a blur, but her internal clock dutifully logged every second of it.

Thirteen minutes, eleven seconds.

The instant the door to his room closed behind them, Sasori was a flurry of action and impetuosity. She watched in a detached sort of wonder as he snatched a black duffel from beneath his bed and shoved it into her hands before flash-stepping to his closet to retrieve a nondescript cloak. That, too, was thrown across her arms, and then he was looming over her, eyes burning with sepia fire.

"Regulate your chakra flow," he instructed crisply, hands encircling her wrists in an almost bruising grip. "Whatever little you have left will have to do — wait until you've passed beneath an awning and taken shelter from the rain to swallow another of those chakra pills. Now concentrate."

He tugged her forward and flattened her palms against his own chest, keeping her steady as she stumbled and dropped both the bag and the cloak. She peered up at him in shock, mind struggling to catch up, but he cut in on her thoughts without remorse.

"Close your eyes," he snapped. "Concentrate." She obeyed instinctively, and he continued in a lower though no less urgent voice, "Feel my chakra. Memorize it. Mimic it."

She sucked in a sharp breath at the implication. Surely, he wasn't—

"You should already be familiar with my chakra pattern," he said, giving her no chance to respond, "and your control is even finer than my own. Contorting your signature to match mine will be difficult but not unmanageable; you need only hold it until you're clear of the rain."

Sakura's eyes opened, stretched wide with disbelief. "B-but you—"

"I will remain here," Sasori cut her off impatiently, "and mimic your chakra pattern to give the illusion that it is I, not you, who has fled. By the time Pein comes to retrieve me and discovers he's been deceived, it will be too late."

Sakura's head shook ever so slightly, but Sasori plunged on relentlessly.

"You will lie low for the next four months in Lightning near a small civilian village in the northern mountains, and when I'm certain that Pein no longer has a tail on me, I will defect and come to collect you."

Sakura's world was crumbling around her feet, but she could only stare speechlessly up at Sasori as her heart swelled beneath her ribs. He'd planned this. The duffel beneath his bed had already been packed, and he hadn't hesitated even once in recounting his instructions. He'd spent the past week training her in earnest, which meant he'd expected her to win all along, but he'd prepared for the alternative as well just in case.

He'd never had any intention of allowing her to die.

Somehow, it was this revelation that soothed her guilt, and a soft kind of peace descended upon her. She smiled.

"I'm sorry."

His eyes narrowed, spitting sparks as they held her gaze unwaveringly. "You're wasting time," he growled. "Get on with it."

Eight minutes, forty-seven seconds.

Slowly, she shook her head and murmured, "I'm sorry. But I can't."

Jaw clenching in frustration, he forced her hands more firmly against his torso as though willing her to feel his chakra signature. "You can," he argued, tone growing harsher as the seconds ticked by. "Your chakra control is nothing short of phenomenal — mimicking another shinobi's signature, especially one with which you're already familiar, will be as easy as water walking."

"I know," she agreed quietly, fingers smoothing over his shirt, affection glowing in her veins. "But I can't go. This…this is it for me. This is as far as I go."

"What?" he demanded furiously.

Seven minutes, fifty-two seconds.

"You've done everything for me," she whispered, smile stretching further even as her cheeks ached. "You are everything to me. I swore I'd repay you somehow, but that fight — I lost. I couldn't uphold your expectations. I failed you, Sasori," and, oh, how freeing it was to call him by name, "and if I run away and hide out now, I'll just keep failing you over and over until you realize what a terrible mistake you made in taking pity on me." She shook her head, eyes warming but remaining blessedly dry. "I can't do that. I've already disappointed you enough. I'd rather die now than continue on and have you come to hate me. It would destroy me."

His body seized up as she rose on her toes and pressed a gentle, lingering kiss to his cheek, curled bangs fluttering as she exhaled against his skin. "Thank you," she sighed, every ounce of feeling leaking into her voice. "Thank you for everything."

Eternity passed between them, and she cherished every heartbeat as she soaked in his warmth. Then, without warning, he dropped her wrists and wound his arms around her back, crushing her to his body in an embrace that should have been painful. Instead, it felt like home. She tucked her face into his throat and let the tension dissolve from her muscles. The stress, her injuries, the overabundance of blood — none of it mattered anymore. There was only this.

Sakura had never been afraid of death, even before she met Sasori. Her life in those few short years had been dark and lonely and so utterly dull; death would have been an improvement. And then after him, the idea of death hadn't frightened her because he'd taught her to be strong.

But now…

Now she would greet death with open arms if it meant her last memories of this world were of embracing Sasori like this. She would greet it with a smile.

Sasori pulled back abruptly, and though she longed to stay with him in this perfect moment forever, the imprint of his touch remained. Without a word, he spun her about, swung his door open with a chakra string, and pushed her back into the corridor. When it closed behind her, so, too, did a chapter of her life — the biggest, happiest, most fulfilling chapter, and also, she knew, the last.

Two minutes, twenty-six seconds.

.

Sakura's time ran out just as she reached Pein's office on the fourth floor. Both his and Itachi's chakra signatures awaited her on the other side of the door, and she didn't bother knocking or flaring her energy to announce her presence; bit late in the game to be concerned with formalities.

Itachi's eyes were bright with the Sharingan, indicating he'd gotten ahold of some chakra pills, and she met them fearlessly. Perhaps they meant for her to meet her end in the Tsukuyomi. Perhaps not. She didn't care either way.

Once the door clicked shut, she shifted her gaze to Pein and waited. For the first time that she could ever remember, restlessness and impatience refrained from digging their claws into her skin. He studied her with a measured look, face revealing nothing.

"Tell me, Sakura-san," he said at length, towering over her stoically. "Why did you come here?"

For a moment, her brows pinched in confusion. Then, she understood.

"I requested a place amongst the Akatsuki," she answered, words flowing from her freely, "because Sasori is my only reason for living."

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he weighed her response. "And why," he asked, "did you make no attempt at escape?"

She could have said that it would've been useless. That they'd have caught her almost immediately. That she'd rather face death on her own terms than run with her tail tucked between her legs. And it would be true, all of it. But it wouldn't be the whole truth.

"Because I promised to fight alongside him," she murmured, holding his stare evenly, "and if I don't have what it takes to stand by his side as an equal, I'd rather die here, now, than drag him down with me."

A very long, very heavy silence followed her declaration, but Sakura wasn't choked up or emotional as others might have been in such an instance. She was at peace.

Minutes, perhaps years, trickled by, and still none of them moved. Then, Pein's lips twitched with the faintest beginnings of a pleased smirk.

"Do you know," he mused, voice deeper but somehow also lighter, "why prospective members such as yourself must fight to earn acceptance in this organization?"

"Because you didn't choose them," she replied automatically. "Because anyone could stroll in here and demand a spot in the Akatsuki, and you'd have no way of knowing their capabilities because you hadn't scouted them out beforehand." But even as she spoke, she knew there had to be more to it. Why else would he ask such a seemingly easy question? Unbidden, his speech from before the fight came back to her.

I gave you one week to prepare yourself while observing your companions' abilities, and your commitment to our cause will now be put to the test.

She stilled. She'd thought his phrasing peculiar at the time, but she'd quickly been distracted by Itachi's form stepping out to meet her. Now, though, it prodded at something along the recesses of her mind.

Your commitment to our cause will now be put to the test.

Your commitment to our cause.

Oh.

Oh.

Her expression went lax with surprise as she regarded him, scarcely aware that she was speaking.

"It's not just physical strength you're interested in — it's mental strength, as well." The picture solidified further, and she tipped her chin up with the rush of the realization. "You asked me why I didn't run. They all ran, didn't they? The others before me who volunteered to join — that's why you had them killed, not just because they lost their fights." Deidara's accusations prickled at her. "In fact…you purposefully orchestrated uneven matches to ensure they lost so you could force their hands."

The smirk on Pein's face took form fully, and he tilted his head curiously. "I must admit," he drawled, "to being impressed with your deductive skills, Sakura-san. It isn't often that I come across those who can decipher my intentions without shying away from intimidation. You are correct."

He shifted back and perched on the edge of his desk, arms crossing. The move was casual enough to catch her off guard, and with their heights now nearly equivalent, she almost felt as if she were speaking to a comrade rather than the leader of the Akatsuki. She wondered how many of the others ever saw him like this. Itachi, certainly — he didn't seem surprised, and it made sense that Pein would consider him something closer to an equal. Konan likely had, too, though she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that neither Hidan nor Deidara had received such treatment. They were wildcards, after all.

"I gave them fifteen minutes," Pein continued, scrutinizing her calmly, "to see how they reacted under pressure. Had they approached me with an argument as to why they deserved a spot regardless or demanded another opportunity to battle, so long as their physical abilities were satisfactory, I would have accepted them. To date, you are the only one who has been courageous enough to face me." His chin lowered, and his tone drifted upward with interest. "However, it never occurred to me that you or any of the others might come to face your death without a fight. You have, once again, impressed me."

Sakura smiled, and his brows lifted. She imagined not many others had ever smiled at him. He hummed, visage alit with fascination.

"Itachi," he stated out of nowhere, and she thought at first that he was addressing the Uchiha, but his gaze didn't waver from hers. "Why did you administer the antidote without prompt?"

Because Sasuke is my friend.

Because he and I both suspect that something more happened on the night of the massacre.

Because Itachi was very careful not to inflict irreversible wounds on me during our fight.

Because he knows something about Tobi, and I need him to tell me.

"Because he's been nothing but polite since I arrived," she said truthfully, "and I didn't want to kill him."

Pein's lips curled in something like amusement. "Interesting." He arched a brow. "And I suppose it had nothing to do with his younger brother being a member of your genin team?"

She wasn't surprised that he remembered. Though he hadn't commented on her teammates or mentors when they'd first met, she knew that her connections were too rich with potential to overlook.

"Uchiha Sasuke was my teammate for a time," she agreed, "but he defected from Konoha for an apprenticeship with Orochimaru, and I defected to rejoin Sasori. His history with Itachi is ultimately none of my business." Also true. But that wasn't to say that she wouldn't interfere a little to keep Itachi alive long enough for their paths to cross.

Pein accepted her answer with a curt nod. "Uzumaki Naruto was also your teammate," he said. "You are aware, I'm sure, of our plans for him."

"I liked Naruto," she admitted. "He was kind. Easy to get along with. But I knew long before I ever befriended him that Sasori would always come first, and that hasn't changed. I'd die before I ever jeopardized Sasori's position here."

"And Sasori?" he pressed. "You say that he is your only reason for living. Should I take this to mean that your loyalty lies not with me or the Akatsuki, but with Sasori specifically?"

She didn't hesitate. "Yes."

After a beat, he nodded again. "Your honesty is appreciated." She returned the nod. "This won't be our last conversation, Sakura-san. I suspect that you and I will have much to discuss regarding Konoha in the near future, but we shall leave it here for today. You've earned a rest."

She was surprised, yet again, by Pein's consideration. Undoubtedly, a lot of his politeness stemmed from her own respectful words and actions given how he often matched Hidan and Deidara in their hostility, but she was struck once more by how well he understood people on a fundamental level. He knew within moments of interacting with others exactly how to guide them to achieve his goals, and while it faintly smacked of manipulation, it was more than that. Pein was far more intelligent and observant than she'd assumed. Inexplicably, she liked him.

Recognizing a dismissal when she heard one, she prepared to leave when a thought occurred to her. Pausing just long enough to catch Pein's attention, she met his ringed eyes and straightened her shoulders. His eyebrows lifted a fraction, an invitation to speak her piece.

"Given my particular skill set," she said, "I presume I'll be allowed free reign of the infirmary and treating those who return injured?"

He inclined his head. "Naturally."

"You'll recall the state of Deidara's arm when we arrived last week." He hummed an affirmative. "When I healed him, I couldn't help but notice the frankly appalling state of the infirmary. It's honestly a miracle that none of your men have died yet."

Pein's look turned calculating. "And how would you suggest we correct this situation?"

"I've drawn up a list of everything the clinic needs, but according to Deidara, Kakuzu is the one who's refused to stock the necessary supplies because he's, shall we say, overly careful with the funds."

An amused smirk stretched across the Akatsuki leader's lips, and she knew she'd won. "So, you've come to me instead," he murmured, "because while Kakuzu might refuse you, we both know that he can't refuse me." She gave a sharp smile. He chuckled. "Very well. Bring me the list, and I'll see that it's all purchased so long as you remain within a budget of thirty thousand yen." His smirk widened. "And should thirty thousand prove insufficient, you may write up a report to convince me otherwise."

Yes, she and Pein were going to get along rather well.

"Thank you," she said, bowing in a proper demonstration of respect, unlike their first meeting in which she'd bowed as slightly as possible to avoid offense.

He huffed. "Dismissed."

Itachi followed her into the corridor, and though he remained silent, she wondered what he thought of the previous exchange. She wondered what he thought about a great deal of things, Tobi most of all, but she didn't dare broach the topic now. It was sure to be a very long, very heavy conversation, and with each step she took away from Pein's office, her mind was growing increasingly concerned with only one thing: Sasori.

Unbidden, a smile crept across her cheeks. Sasori. Gods, was he in for one hell of a surprise. On impulse, she suppressed her chakra so that he wouldn't sense her approach; she was looking forward to seeing the look on his face when he realized that she was staying for good.

"Sakura."

Her finger hesitated centimeters from the elevator call button as Itachi's quiet voice rang out, and she turned to regard him curiously. He watched her with a carefully blank expression.

"You were a member of my otouto's genin team," he stated, tone perfectly devoid of inflection.

"I was," she agreed. Going on everything Sasuke had told her about his older brother in years past and the few details she'd observed herself, Sakura took a chance and added, "Last we spoke, he was very interested in having a conversation with you."

"I'd imagine he was," Itachi remarked blandly.

"A real conversation. The kind with words."

His eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and Sakura was pleased to note that her tricks for reading Sasuke worked just as well on the elder Uchiha. At length, he said, "Last we spoke, he was more interested in the kind of conversation that involves kunai."

"And which one of us," she mused, reaching out to press the elevator button, "was the last to speak with him?" Itachi had no retort for that, and Sakura smiled as the metal doors slid open.

.

Checking one last time to make sure that her chakra signature was still masked, Sakura rapped her knuckles against the worn wood of Sasori's door. She glanced down either end of hall as she waited, hoping that no one spotted her and ruined the surprise. She'd gotten lucky up until this point not to run into any of the others, though she supposed they were all probably on the second floor in the cafeteria or the social room — Itachi had continued down to the former after she'd stepped off the elevator.

She could sense Sasori's presence within the room (standing by the window, judging by his position relative to the door), but he made no move to answer the door, so she knocked again. His chakra gave a tiny flicker of annoyance, but still he remained stationary, and, well, third time was the charm as the saying went.

His chakra flared, and she smiled to herself as he finally drew near. The door was abruptly wrenched open, and there Sasori stood with a truly magnificent scowl, only to freeze solid the instant he laid eyes on Sakura. His expression faltered, lips parting in an unconscious demonstration of shock, and she beamed. Time stretched on for a tiny eternity, and she relished the soft, peaceful feeling glowing between her ribs, not unlike how she'd felt during their last encounter.

In a flash, he snatched her wrist and tugged her into the room. He'd already dragged her halfway to the window by the time the door slammed behind her, and his voice was both harsh and urgent as he snapped, "Hurry, we don't have much time before he realizes we're gone—"

"Sasori."

His grip on her wrist spasmed at the sound of his name, and it belatedly occurred to her that this was only the second time she'd ever called him that to his face. He whirled, mouth opening to demand why she was wasting time, but she cut him off with a smile.

"It's over," she declared proudly. "I passed Pein-san's test."

He stilled. "Then…"

She twisted her hand in his grasp to squeeze his wrist. "I'm not going anywhere."

The words scarcely left her mouth before his arms encircled her. She found herself drawn into his embrace for the second time in the space of an hour, but while the last hug had been a goodbye, this one was a promise: never again. Never again would she fail him. And never again would she leave his side.

Sakura veritably melted into him, nuzzling into the side of his throat and taking in a deep breath. His scent washed over her, tickling at the edges of her fondest memories. Vanilla, cinnamon, and sandalwood, the pleasing blend of the soap they both used, and something that was uniquely him — something warm and spicy and comforting like molten licorice and sunbaked cloves.

Home.

His pulse beat a strong, steady rhythm beneath her ear, and she felt so close to him in that moment that she was almost certain her own heart slowed to sync with his. It was poetic in a way, that something so integral to her very being would alter itself without hesitation to align with him, but she supposed that it also made perfect sense. She'd spent her entire life since the day he came back for her molding herself to become anything and everything he desired, though their time together over the past week had taught her that perhaps his expectations of her weren't nearly so high as her own. She'd strived for perfection, for unbeatable strength and unparalleled agility and absolutely flawless medical expertise because he deserved nothing less than the best, because he'd irrevocably changed the entire trajectory of her life for the better, and she was nothing without him. But the things Sasori said, the things he'd done…

It had never been about any of that. Not for him.

She'd barely been six years old at the time, and nearly twelve years had passed since then, but she'd never forgotten his words. Not for a single second.

"Sakura…I have come to make you a proposition."

"What kind of proposition?"

"I will teach you. I will teach you all that I know so that you may be able to obtain the respect you so desperately desire."

"…if you do that…I will do anything you ask."

"You will become my tool. You will fight for me, aid me when I call upon you. From now until the moment of your death, you will pledge loyalty only to me. Not to this village, and not to your future teammates. Me. In exchange, I will ensure that you become the most widely-revered kunoichi of your time."

As far as he was concerned, she'd upheld her side of the bargain. He'd been prepared to help her escape at the risk of ruining his position in the Akatsuki, had risked forfeiting his own life just to protect hers. He'd yelled at her for undervaluing herself, freely admitted that her power exceeded his own. She'd done it. She'd proven herself, her loyalty and love and determination, and he was pleased with the results. It was she who was unsatisfied, she who kept pushing and straining for more. Maybe she really did have one last lesson to learn from him after all — how to accept that she was enough.

Enough. She liked the sound of that.

.

Words were unnecessary after that. Hours passed, but they barely spoke, subsiding predominantly on the vein of seamless understanding that flowed between them. Touches were exchanged with ease, the brush of fingertips or the bump of a shoulder to remind one another that the trials were over, that they'd at last carved out an existence here for themselves. They left the room only twice — once to retrieve a quick meal in the middle of the night, and once each, individually, to visit the private bathrooms down the hall (which were, in Sakura's completely unbiased opinion, hideously inconvenient). Sasori also directed her to take a second chakra pill and finish healing the injuries she'd accumulated in the fight, and while she regrew each layer of skin along her left arm, she thought fleetingly of Itachi's burns; he must've been in terrible pain, but he hadn't given so much as a hint of discomfort in Pein's office. She made a mental note to treat him in the morning.

Just as they had for the past three nights, they shared Sasori's bed, though rather than press their backs together for warmth (because Ame was far, far too cold for natives of Suna and Konoha), they lay facing one another. A foot of empty space separated them, but under the soothing cloaks of darkness and silence, they might as well have been intertwined.

And as she allowed sleep to welcome her with kind, open arms, she likewise allowed herself to finally acknowledge a truth that had long dwelled deep within her soul: Sasori was both the first and the last man that she would ever love.

You've made me the moon, so strong and bright —

A gentle glow, a guiding light,

And you are the deepest, darkest night.