Her head hurt. Her back hurt. Her legs hurt. Everything hurt. The soreness from fighting, sleeping in trees, and running all day had just all gotten to her at once. Tired, dehydrated, and annoyed beyond belief, she searched for Naruto. Where was he? How had they gotten separated? [Hmph. Baka. You know very well how you got separated. You thought you saw him, and you just had to go after him. And they call Naruto a dobe.] She stamped down the inner voice that resided just at the center of her mind and sighed. [Wait. What was that noise?]
Water. Rushing water. Gurgling, laughing, splashing, wonderful rushing water! Following the sound of the river or stream or whatever-it-was, she soon found herself at the edge of a small brook. Closing her eyes, she fell to her knees and took some in her cupped hands. After testing a small amount for poison or any other toxins, she took her small canteen from her pack and filled it, and then wasted some chakra to make it so that the water didn’t escape her hands as she drank from them. It was cool, and tasted wonderful. When she’d had her fill, she sagged out of fatigue, and finally collapsed at on the edge of the water, one hand trailing over the gurgling stream.
--
“Oof!” Sakura woke to find herself bound and thrown over someone’s shoulder. “Damn. What the hell happened?” She tried to say these words, but they didn’t really come out very well, what with the horrible jarring of the person under her. She was being transported over the shoulder of a shinobi, dressed in non-descript black. When she craned her neck, she could see behind them. Her captor was moving through the trees at high speed, as if all the fires of hell were right behind him.
She could feel the beginnings of rain, which would wash away traces of their passing, and whatever scent the man carrying her left behind. Narrowing her eyes, she tested her bonds. Her wrists were bound, but so were her elbows. That would explain the unbelievable soreness in her shoulders…Then her feet and knees were also bound. [Damn. This guy thought of everything. Well, start assessing the situation, girl.] Through the canopy of leaves, she could see that the sun was at its highest point. That meant that she had been unconscious for at least six hours. It had only been six in the morning when she found the stream. [Okay. Now you’ve established time. Location will have to wait until you get to wherever you’re going. Now you need to figure out the ‘who’ and the ‘what’ before you get to the ‘where’ and ‘why.’]
Fifteen minutes later, the man stopped. She was unceremoniously thrown from his shoulder and landed on her stomach. “Hn.” [Wait a minute. I know that ‘hn.’] After a moment of awkward scrabbling, she managed to get herself into a sitting position, and looked up at her captor. [Oh, holy hell. Not Sasuke. The other one. What the hell is his name? Ah, yes.]
“Uchiha Itachi, I presume?” She asked, a wry smile on her face. He nodded. Her smile turned into a smirk. “What do you want with me? If you’re trying to use me as bait for either Naruto or Sasuke, you’ve got to be delusional.”
He smiled widely. [Now, that’s pretty scary.] “Oh, they’re not my concern at this juncture. You, on the other hand, are.” His smile flowed into a smirk at the look of shock on her face. She was always the one to be captured, always the one to need saving. Sakura was the one that was easiest to pick as bait. So, if she wasn’t bait, then what did he want her for?
“Ooookay. If I’m not bait, teme, then what am I?” She was really surprised that she wasn’t a little more afraid of him. But then again, she’d fought his type before. The cold ones, who never showed the slightest emotion outside of a lust for revenge. Was that really an emotion? With certain individuals that she knew well—or had at one time—it was more a state of mind. Itachi’s red eyes bore into her. Why was he not answering? However, she got her answer, and it was less than satisfactory.
He knelt in front of her, one knee on either side of her bound and extended legs. “You’re mine, is what you are.” His voice was like the verbal equivalent of a moonless night. Dark, mysterious, and completely impossible to see what lay behind it. He reached into a small bag, and drew from it something that she found to be rather odd. [A collar and leash?] She blinked. The collar was like one she’d seen on a rich woman’s dog. It was made of metal links that appeared to be silver, hammered rather flat, but this one had strange markings engraved over the surface of the links. The chain was of the same stuff, and it all led to a sort of wrist cuff.
Itachi smirked slightly and unlatched the collar. He placed it around her neck, and fastened it. The metal was cold against her skin, and it lay almost tightly against her neck. Then, he fastened the cuff around his wrist. She watched helplessly as he focused chakra into the thing, and blinding pain coursed through her. Her throat felt as if it were going to bleed with her screams. Then, as abruptly as it had come, the pain stopped. Panting, she stared fearfully at him. “What…what did you do to me?” He merely smiled at her, and took out a kunai, beginning to cut her bonds. For a long moment after she was freed, she rubbed the areas where the cords had dug into her skin. Then, he broke his silence.
“If you try to run away, if you touch the collar with intent to remove it, or if you try to hurt me, you will experience pain as you have never before known. Understand?” Fighting the urge to break his smug face, she nodded jerkily.
“So I’m your prisoner. What do you want me for?”
He reached out and took a handful of her hair. “You’re not a prisoner. You’re my pet, dear little Sakura. My pet, who will obey me. If you’re a good pet, then you’ll be rewarded. If not…” Chakra flowed from his arm into the collar, and she felt the barest hint of the same pain she’d felt before, but her breath caught in her throat, and she scrambled backward, whimpering. “Good. You’re learning.” His voice was infuriating. It was as if he really were talking to a dog.
She stared blankly at him. If she was stuck in this situation, she needed to know all of the rules. “What do I call you?” Honestly, she was hoping for ‘Uchiha-sama’, ‘Itachi-sama”, or even ‘Akatsuki’. But as it turned out, the biggest problem with the Uchiha was their utter arrogance and desire to dominate.
“You, my pet, will call me Master, or Master Itachi.” Her eyes nearly came out of her skull. She was not one given to backing down, or bowing to anyone, except for the Hokage. She jumped onto him and just barely got her hands around his throat when the pain came. It was a dizzying, searing, stabbing pain that started in her neck, and spread from there over her entire body. Every muscle tensed, contracting painfully, multiplying her agony, taking pain to a level she had never known.
Her paralyzed body fell away from him as he pushed her off of him, and she immediately rolled into a fetal position, trying unsuccessfully to calm her mind, detach herself from the pain. Then it subsided slowly, and then was gone altogether. She relaxed, and rolled onto her back. As she tried to breathe, Itachi leaned down over her. “Sakura, you’ve been bad. That’s only the beginning of the pain. Are you going to be a good little girl and come with me? Or do I need to punish you again?” Staring at him in impotent defiance, she seethed in her own mind. [Damn him.] “Oh. You’re angry, Sakura. I can feel it.” Again, she cursed him. She couldn’t hide from him. Her emotions weren’t even her own. If this persisted for too long, she would break. She knew that. It was just beyond her how she could possibly escape.
Sighing in defeat, Sakura dragged herself to her feet. It rankled her to have to do it, but she bowed to him and said in a strangled voice, “Sumimasen, Master Itachi. I will not disobey.” Her teeth were clenched, and she was angry with herself for even saying that. When she straightened, Itachi stepped toward her and patted her on the head, a small but happy smile on his face. She shied away. “I have one request.”
“What?”
“That you don’t act like I’m a dog. I am human, no matter what capacity you’re using me in.” She stared up at him, directly into those eternally red eyes. A small shiver went through her at the sight of his Sharingan markings beginning to move. A strange feeling, warm and tingling, came over her. Amusement. [He thinks I’m funny.] Her eyebrow rose, and she looked appraisingly at him. “Did I say something funny, Master?” She asked in a voice dripping honey, but with a vaguely mocking tone over the last word.
His amusement continued to flow through the link they shared, and he reached for her vest, and unzipped it. Letting it fall to the ground, he then took her kunai holster off, then her shiruken pouch. They joined her vest, and then he pulled her hitai-ate from her head and used one of the kunai from her holster to make a deep scratch horizontally over the stylized leaf on the metal. After tying it around her waist, he smiled and answered her question.
“Not at all. Let’s move.” He pulled on the chain, which she wasn’t prepared for, causing her to stumble, and she fell. She got up and brushed herself off. “You’re not usually clumsy, Sakura. Learn to anticipate my movements. You’ll need to learn them. Especially when we fight.” She blinked. That, she had not thought of. She’d forgotten, though the pain, that he never told her what he wanted her for. Was she a weapon? Her heart sank. She was being held against her will, but she had just become a member of Akatsuki. [Screw the link with him. If I’m pissed, for the time being, I’ll damned well let him know it.]
They began to move, Itachi on the left, Sakura on the right, and all the while, she kept glancing sullenly at the coiled length of chain that Itachi held loosely in his hand. There were at least seven meters of it. That meant she had some roaming room, but not much. She was stuck with him, and he with her. Unless he took the cuff off. What would happen then? She would cross that bridge when she came to it. For now, keeping her eyes peeled for signs of Naruto was her main concern. Though she might hope, she really couldn’t hide from herself the fact that she knew it was useless.
--
Finally, they came to the home of Akatsuki. It looked like a hole in the side of a mountain. Upon entering, Itachi veered to the left, and through a passage. After pressing a hidden switch, a Itachi ushered her into a large hall. It had high ceilings, and all of the walls were of the same dark stone of the mountain. After walking down this wide hall for five minutes, Sakura was nudged to the right, into a crossing corridor. She looked straight ahead, trying not to react to anything. She was attempting to be numb, which was impossible, but if at first you don’t succeed…
“In here.” Itachi turned the knob on a very large door, and went inside, letting the chain go slack. He was giving her the option of coming in at her own pace. Briefly, before she followed him in, she wondered if this was his attempt at a reward. As she entered the darkened room, she saw a spark, and then a candle was lit, and then another, and another, and another, and so on, until there were a total of about twenty candles in various locations around the room that provided light, revealing the comfortably furnished room.
“This is our room. It is a necessity that we share everything. You will be to me as dogs are to the Inuzuka.” Sakura doubted that something like that would be possible. The Inuzuka loved their canine partners. Itachi seemed incapable of any such emotion. Perhaps he expected it of her, but he would have to be sadly disappointed. He walked to a large wardrobe. When he opened it, two sets of clothing were revealed. One, obviously for him, was larger, and bulkier. The other side of the wardrobe held clothes that were obviously meant for her. With a slight jingling of the chain, she moved toward the wardrobe. There were folded undergarments, two pairs of black shinobi sandals in her size, and several duplicates of a rather…revealing shinobi outfit.
Taking one of the hangers out, she examined the oufit. When she had it on, it would reveal quite a lot of cleavage, and bare her stomach, even with the camouflage of the mesh shirt. Then there was the skirt. It was much like one she already wore, but it was black just like everything else; unlike what she had now, the leggings were mesh. [Kami-sama, why does he have to be a hentai?] She looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. “Is this your idea of what a ninja should wear?”
He smiled ever so slightly. “I thought it would look nice on you. After all, shouldn’t a pet please their master?” There was that same amusement coming through the link. She kept herself from snarling at him, and stamped down her anger. Instead, she decided to play his game. All the better to get him to let his guard down.
“I need a shower.” She said. This was, to some extent, true. She smelled terrible, and ached all over. Also, she wanted to test the limits placed on her, and see if he would take the cuff off. Itachi gathered the chain into familiar coils, and led her to the bath. Like the rest of the place, it was a stone room, but when he lit the candles, she saw that it was nothing like she expected. It was high-ceilinged, as the other room, but it had thickly carpeted floors, and a ‘bathtub’ the size of a swimming pool. There was no shower. Itachi took the hanger of clothes from her, and removed the cuff. He then walked to the tub, and attached it to a steel ring embedded in the rim of the bath. She heard a small click, and knew it was locked.
“I’ll be back in twenty minutes. Try to be done by then. If you are, I’ll see if I can give you a treat.” He then left her to her own devices in the bathroom. The bath looked very inviting. It steamed in the cold air, as if it were a natural hot spring. As she started trying to remove her clothes, she cursed herself for having a shirt that went over her head. In the end, she had to rip it off. Once she’d removed all of her clothing, she stepped into the water, sighing at the wonderful warmth of it. The water was at the height of her chest, unless she sat on the small ledge at the very edge of the bath. That’s exactly what she did for a moment, then she slipped off of the slick stone, and floated for a long time. The collar around her neck remained chillingly cold against her skin in spite of the water, and she felt the chain brush against her skin as well.
Then, she decided she’d been playing around long enough. She needed to get clean, so that she could get on with playing the little game she’d set up for herself. Diving under the water, she swam back to the edge of the bath and searched until she found soap, a wash cloth, and shampoo. There were towels nearby as well for when she was finished. The chain gave her a few problems when she was washing, and trying to get under the collar was a pain. But she succeeded in the end. Then, once she’d done scrubbing herself, she washed her hair three times. After the final dunking she gave herself, she came up out of the water with a gratifying splash, and shook the water from her short hair.
“You’re taking too long.” She looked toward Itachi’s voice, and found him sitting on the edge of the tub, his bare feet dangling in the water. She raised an eyebrow. He didn’t move.
“I don’t suppose I could have any privacy to get dressed, could I, Master?” Damn, but it got her steamed to say that word. And she was even more angered by the fact that he lifted his hand to show her that the cuff was attached now. She sighed. “That’s what I thought. Hand me a towel, please?” He tossed her a fluffy white towel from the stack, and she stepped carefully out of the water, so that she wouldn’t slip. Once she was dry, she took the clothes he’d given her off of their hanger. Everything was designed specifically so that she didn’t have to pull it over her head. The mesh shirt fastened on her left side and at the shoulder, and the over-shirt (such as it was) zipped up the front. Once she had everything on, she tied her marked hitai-ate around her waist, where Itachi wanted it. Surveying herself in a wall mirror, she thought she was dressed far too much like Ino. The girl had, in the past three years since Sasuke left, begun to dress far too much like Anko, whom she had decided to start hanging around with.
Frowning, she turned to Itachi. “I look like a prostitute.”
“You look nice.” He began hauling the chain in, and didn’t stop until she was less than a foot from him, his eyes boring into hers. “I like it.” Her eye twitched. Next thing she knew, he’d whip out a copy of Icha Icha Paradise, and start giggling at it like Kakashi-sensei. Instead of pulling out a hentai novel, he reached out a hand and grazed his fingertips over her cheek, his eyes still as expressionless as his face. There was feeling coming through that link that she could not recognize, but it set something in her stomach to squirming. “I suppose that you should meet the rest of the family.”
--
A/N: Okay, I know it's short. So sue me. I just need to work with the second chapter some more. It will most likely end up being a little longer than this one. I'm shooting for 4-6 chapters with this fic. Reviews are encouraged, flames are welcome, but I'll be giving them to Kyuubi to munch on, just so you know.
[Reviews - 3]Chapter or Story
Table of Contents
- Text Size +
Chapter notes: Hn. Here's my first fic where Sakura is with anyone other than Naruto or Sasuke. I got the idea for this tonight, while thinking about certain aspects of chakra production. If you really want to know about it, PM me, and I'll drabble about it all you want. For right now, let me say this: Sakura's angsty. Itachi's his usual aloof self, except for slight hentai tendencies. So, if anybody's OOC, please forgive me. It's been a while since I read the manga or watched the anime. So...warnings? For this chapter, not really. There's mild language, and slight hentai behavior. AND SPOILERS FOR SOME OF THE LATEST CHAPTERS OF THE MANGA. Other than that, just sit back and enjoy Sakura's angst. I know I do. She's fun.
Legal Stuffiness: I don't own Naruto, or any characters therein. Masashi Kishimoto, sole proprietor, owns it all. And I'm apparently his slave, as well.
As usual, I'm too lazy to learn to use the html tags, so [ text ] will indicate thoughts, k?