I try to numb the pain

What do you know?

I try and hide the shame

What the hell do you know?

Until you look in their eyes

Until you see their soul cry

What the hell do you know?

This feeling of depression permitting my veins

Wearing down on me

Until you see my eyes fill with tears

Until you look and see the fear

You will never know what pain is

What the hell do you know?

SoraInu-chan

--

Paper Cranes

Disclaimer: In my wildest dreams and most outrageous fantasies do I own Naruto (which happens more then you would think)

--

Sakura couldn't believe it, she had to be dreaming, she had to be hallucinating; something, anything!

The presence at her back was foreboding and the powerful aura emanating from the body behind her was unforgettable and unmistakable.

'Uchiha Itachi.'

Not again…

"You seem tense, kunoichi."

Sakura stiffened considerable at the fingers brushing her jaw, but before she could whirl around and slam a chakra infused fist into what she hoped vainly, was an illusion, said illusion slammed her into the wall.

A gasp left her as her arm was pulled into quite the awkward position behind her back. Sakura knew for a fact the only way she was getting that arm back was broken or shattered if she tried anything like what she had done before again.

"Itachi-" She spat, she literally spat, but could you blame the girl?

All pushed up against the wall with pain shooting up and down her arm in bursts, she was more then a little annoyed and quite a bit pissed. A chuckle vibrated from the chest against her back, restraining her, and Sakura felt it rumble through her back and body.

Sakura flushed, emerald eyes darkening considerably, how dare the bastard laugh.

In one swift movement Sakura ripped her arm free of the nuke-nin's grip, not caring of the consequences and not taking notice of the fact that he allowed her to do so; whirling around to engage him Sakura suddenly found that no one was there.

Freezing, Sakura's eyes widened considerably as she tried to move away from the blow she knew was coming.

But she wasn't fast enough to avoid the Uchiha.

A sharp blow to the base of her skull had her collapsing on the ground, head reeling as she crumbled, pain causing her vision to go white for a moment.

A hand wrapped itself in her hair and yanked back, Sakura gasped at the pain that shot down her neck and back, her vision blurring.

"Never forget who you are dealing with, kunoichi." The voice that growled in her ear was dark and angry and not at all what Sakura remembered the calm Uchiha's voice to be.

But that tone only served to anger Sakura, before she could bit out a scathing remark to show her disdain for the tone of voice and treatment directed at her, she was dropped as suddenly as she was grabbed.

Silence reigned over Sakura's small kitchen for a few moments; the only thing that was audible was the harsh pant of her breath as the pink haired girl lay disheveled on the ground trying to compose her self.

For all intents and purposes, Uchiha Itachi was gone.

Pushing her self up, Sakura fought the self loathing that came with such a brutal beating, it was such a blow to her pride that the ease in which he subdued her was worse then any hit he could have dealt her.

Sakura frowned at the persistent pounding in her head, it almost sounded like…

Jolting up the rest of the way, Sakura realized it wasn't the pressure building at the base of her skull that was annoying her, but the knock of her door.

Cursing herself for being so stupid, her hand flew to the back of her neck to pour chakra into the bruise to stop the swelling, hurrying to her door she flung it open, only to freeze.

"Hello Ugly, I'm not interrupting anything am I?"

Sakura felt relief wash over her, but it was soon followed by a scowl, "Sai? What do you want?"

Vaguely she realized it was dawn, the early morning light filtering above the tree tops as she glanced behind the smiling nin.

Sai ignored her wondering gaze, smiling his large fake smile as he delivered the message he was sent to deliver, "The Hokage wants to see you immediately."

Sakura glanced at Sai in aspiration, of course the Hokage wanted to see her, everyone wanted something done didn't they?

With a sigh, she dropped her hand from her neck, forcing a smile on her face Sakura gave up her inner ranting of unfair interruptions to her sleeping time, "No problem, I'll be there in a minute."

Sai nodded but didn't make a move to leave, slowly, Sakura sighed, knowing what was to come.

"Ugly? Why are you holding your neck?"

Sakura shrugged lightly, "Kink."

Sai frowned for a moment and stared at the bare part of her shoulder where her shirt had fallen down a bit, Sakura felt herself flush a bit, "Sai…" She warned through gritted teeth, she had not had enough sleep to deal with this kind of behavior.

Sai glanced back up at her face and smiled, "Whatever you say Ugly."

And with that the smiling shinobi disappeared from her doorstep, with one last sigh Sakura felt her shoulders droop and she shut the door before she was tempted to get out of there before getting dressed.

The previous meeting had her shaken.

Damn right! Who does that jerk think he is?

Sakura repressed the urge to bring her shoulders up and shiver, "Uchiha Itachi…" She murmured, "Ballsy asshole, that's who."

She felt the slight wash of nervousness leave her as she turned around to note that light was washing in through her windows, no more shadows to trick her into losing track of what was real.

You'd think after staying in the guy's subconscious for a week we'd be able to sense him better…

The grumbling coming from her inner couldn't have been a more accurate way to sum up her thoughts. The voices she had been hearing lately where obviously his voice, and seeing as no one around her had heard them… and now with this, seeing the jerk in person… What was he up to?

Sakura did shiver that time, she hadn't seen the last Uchiha in almost four years, what would he want now after all this time in silence?

Don't you think that’s obvious?

Sakura frowned fiercely as she pulled out clothes for the day, he still wanted the kyuubi, after all that trouble with Orochimaru, after Konoha strengthening itself considerably, they still wanted the Kyuubi.

But they weren't the only ones, now where they?

Sakura bit her lip as she tied her hitai-ate into her hair, walking out of her room she couldn't help but feel a wash of paranoia take a hold of her.

She had finally gotten the chance to remove the Kyuubi from Naruto, finally gotten the chance to save his life from the Akatsuki, and now they where interfering.

Had they been waiting all this time for her to make her move? Remove the Kyuubi and steal it from her after she did so.

If so then wouldn't she have figured it out years ago when she had been forced to travel with Itachi to Orochimaru's labs?

:Do not be fooled, he will kill you when you and he are no longer tied.:

He had spared her all those years ago when she thought she was going to die.

His violence at the incident in her kitchen just a while ago showed that he was obviously not happy with her and held no qualms about pushing her around.

Well duuuh, we did force him to protect us; had we died he would have died as well. You'd think that'd make him a little angry wouldn't youl?

Sakura chewed on her lip as she rushed out her door and down the quiet streets of Konoha towards the Hokage tower, truthfully she hadn't given it much thought. Once Itachi hadn't killed her when he had the chance she had actually let her mind fall into a false sense of security.

Foolish really, had I not been in there to argue, he probably would have knocked you out and dragged you along then thrown you in a ditch when he was done with you.

Sakura bit the inside of her cheek, well wasn't that lovely, 'Will you be quiet.' Sakura wondered if having to mentally hiss at yourself to keep unwanted thoughts at bay was normal.

Cha, fine, but I was just warning you, he never made you any promises, and if I were him I'd be pretty pissed off.

Sakura felt her stomach drop slightly at that.

Hurrying up the stairs to the Hokage tower Sakura felt her arms prickle at the cool morning air.

What ever it was that had peeked the Uchiha's interest, was something she should probably find out about as soon as possible.

She just prayed it had nothing to do with what she suspected it might.

Naruto.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

"What do you plan on doing with her?"

The gruff voice was easily distinguished from the other holograms, all gathered in the cave.

Sharingan eyes narrowed, "Finish what I started."

The Sharingan wielder was, of course, referring to the ongoing mission to retrieve the Kyuubi, he had proved a most difficult target to collect without endangering the whole operation, as he had all of Konohagakure and Sunagakure at his aid should he ever disappear or be attacked.

The gruff voice hummed in ascent, Kisame was currently out of Fire country, separate from his partner; he would eventually meet up with the black haired shinobi once more after his own mission was complete.

The eyes of the man in the center of the circle of the Akatsuki's holograms narrowed ringed eyes.

"The kunoichi will prove a valuable asset to this organization, should her technique work… then you are to bring her and the scroll to headquarters, by any means necessary."

The Uchiha made a soft sound of ascent.

The other holograms remained silent.

"Until then."

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Sakura wanted to pull her hair out, and as she straightened the waist length white medic coat she was wearing, she contemplated pulling out her patient's hair instead.

"Hatake Kakashi, you will hold still or I will be forced to restrain you."

A snicker alerted her to how hilarious Genma was finding the whole scene, his arm in a sling as he awaited his treatment from the pink-haired medic-nin.

Kakashi sighed and relented, allowing Sakura access to his limp arm with a grumble.

Sakura ignored said Copy-nin, "I'll have you know I'm skipping my lunch break to heal you two fools!"

Kakashi gave a weak sigh, "Hai, hai, thank you so much."

Sakura ignored the sarcastic jib and with a quick flick of her wrist set the bone of Kakashi's arm back in place, said shinobi barely flinched.

Genma, however, screwed up his face and grimaced around his senbon.

"I can't believe you just did that without numbing it first, what kind of hell hole is this?"

Sakura tried very hard not to tighten her hold on Kakashi's arm as she poured chakra to help the bone heal.

"I did numb it, with chakra, had you not been busy staring at my ass you would have noticed."

Kakashi sighed and shook his head, Genma merely grinned around his senbon, "Aw, Sakura-chan! I didn't know you liked talking dirty, I can put that mouth of yours to better use-"

Genma snapped his mouth shut as the scalpel zoomed past, merely a centimeter from his head, now stuck in the wall from the backwards throw the kunoichi had made a moment ago.

Kakashi smiled at Genma through his mask, "Watch out or she might decide to hit you next time."

Genma swirled his senbon with his tongue, "My, my, what crawled up your ass?"

Finally, Sakura had had enough.

Removing her hands from Kakashi's arm, so as to not accidently injure said ninja she bit out threw clinched teeth and clasped fists, "Look here Buddy-boy, we happen to be short handed today, if you'd rather an intern patch you up, then by all means, stay in a cast for a few weeks, frankly it just saves me time and energy."

Sakura was trying to be civil, really, but when Genma cracked a grin and opened his mouth again she just knew he was going to piss her off… and sure enough…

"Ah, I see, it's not what crawled up your ass, it's what hasn't craw-"

Sakura's cry of outrage could be heard all the way to the gates of Konoha, "That's it!"

Turning on her heel Sakura threw open the door to the examination room and immediately started snapping to the interns to get their butts in gear.

The poor medic that got hurled into the job was shoved into the room as Sakura stomped out.

She was going home for her lunch break and if anyone needed her they could go straight to hell.

xoxoxoxoxoxo

Nervously the male intern studied the two shinobi in the room; what had they done to make Haruno-san so upset?

The scowl the white haired shinobi was directing at the shamelessly grinning, brown haired shinobi made guessing who's fault it was that she was so upset quite the easy task.

"Uh, so, where are your charts?"

The poor kid never had a chance to finish his sentence before the sliver haired jounin had disappeared, the brown haired shinobi continued to grin, "So kid, got any hot nurses here?"

xoxoxoxoxoxo

Sakura slammed her door shut behind her, not caring what her old neighbors thought; she doubted they could even hear it. Yanking off, and destroying a few buttons in the process, Sakura tossed the white medic jacket on her couch.

Pulling off her hitai-ate and running her hand through her shoulder length locks Sakura gave a little sigh as she wandered into her bedroom.

She really, really needed a nap.

She had never been bothered by Genma's antics before to that extent, he was just a pervert with nothing better to do then annoy anyone who would react, and usually she could drown him out or shoot back comments to his.

But today her fuse was way too short, and shortening as she stood there staring at her bed.

A little nap couldn't hurt…

Her meeting with the Hokage had merely been to inform her of hospital duties, she had once again been directed to come to Tsunade's office later on tonight to discuss something she'd been meaning to get started on.

The removal of the kyuubi… if she really wanted to attempt it, she'd need to be will rested.

So with a sigh, fully clothed, Sakura crawled into her bed and snuggled beneath the comforter, a little nap until she was needed again would do everyone good.

It was only moments before Sakura's breathing evened out and the kunoichi feel into a slightly exhausted sleep.

She'd been wearing herself out with worry for Naruto and just recently beginning to get stressed out about the whole Itachi situation, if she wasn't just imagining the whole thing.

You aren't.

'A girl can dream.'

It was so nice to have a break.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Sakura awoke with a start, her eyes snapping open in surprise as a weight settled over top of her, she went to throw her hands in front of her to push the weight off but found that her arms just refused to move.

Her breath caught in her throat as a pair of hands brushed her jaw, fingers tracing it lightly before her face was cupped and tipped back.

Her breathing frantic Sakura tried to concentrate enough to see in the dark room, but could see nothing.

Warm breath brushed her cheek and Sakura jerked at the unsuspected contact, her breathing growing faster and more erratic in panic as the warm body on top of her tipped forward just slightly.

The warm breath brushed her ear and Sakura gave a shiver that had nothing to do with fear.

"Let's make a deal."

Sakura's heart stopped.

A/n: Afternoon ladies and gentlemen, I don't know if anyone could tell, but I'm going through the chapters and fixing them up a little bit, it also helps me to get back into the grove of writing "Paper Cranes" since I have sorely neglected it for quite a while.

Anyway, I hate to say this, but it might get neglected a little bit longer, I'm over obsessing about "Blind Faith." Sad really XD