Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I am merely using them for my own twisted enjoyment. And possibly others, as well.

"Good news is that your eyesight isn't as bad as I'd originally thought."

Sakura told the apathetic Uchiha in front of her, trying desperately to ignore the way that she could feel the heat radiating off of him, as if she were in a freaking sauna. Itachi didn't respond, other than a subtle flickering of his currently closed eyelids. She had quickly learned that there had been no need to worry about the almost mute Uchiha. His reflexes were amazingly fast now that she had removed the disease from his body; so fast that his appendages had a tendency to blur whenever he moved. She had also quickly realized that his stamina was infinitely higher than her's, as they had just finished sprinting across the field for almost twelve hours without a break and she was worn out, while he looked like he had just come off of the freaking runway.

Stupid Uchiha and his stupid pretty Uchiha hair.

"Is there any bad news?" Itachi broke into her musings in his normal, soft voice, and she jumped slightly at the question before mentally berating herself.

"Uh… it'll take a little while longer than I'd originally planned on to fix your eyesight." She blurted out, eager to get her mind off of the Uchiha. "It's not so bad to that I won't be able to repair your vision. It just might be another two healings after this, instead of one, like I'd originally thought." She hurried to explain, drawing her chakra back into herself and leaning back on her feet before stretching.

"Is that all?" There was still that blandness in his voice, though she could have sworn that there had been the faintest undertone of amusement. Instead of saying anything, she merely studied him, watching as his heavily lashed eyes flickered open and stared intently at her. Meeting his dark eyes reminded her all too well of another pair, and she immediately looked away, choosing to instead begin to fiddle around with her backpack.

"What do you mean, 'is that all'?" Sakura called back to him incredulously. "That means your eyes will have to be bandaged for longer."

Itachi shrugged, completely at ease with the problem. "It is a small price to pay for regaining my sight." He returned smoothly, earning an exasperated sigh from the small woman.

"Whatever. Let me know if your eyesight begins to get too bad." She warned him, getting to her feet with the intention of finding something to eat for the both of them. Itachi's almost emaciated frame was still irksome to her, and she was determined for him to at least put on a few pounds before they separated.

"Very well," Itachi agreed easily, though they both knew that he would do no such thing. Sakura eyed him dubiously but didn't say anything. Dusting off her formfitting jumpsuit, the dyed brunette walked over to her medic pouch and removed small packets of herbs from it to add to the stew she had been planning on making. It was easy to do, and this area was flush with small deer and rabbit. Most of the time, anyway. She passed this information on to her patient, and he agreed with a slight nod. Pocketing a few kunai, Sakura disappeared into the dense forest surrounding them.

When Sakura returned, she was holding a small buck by the antler. "All I could find. It was either this or rabbit, which I happen to hate." She tossed the deer at Itachi's feet, and then blinked blankly at the thing sitting in Itachi's hand. Wordlessly, he tossed it to her and she caught it easily before realizing that it was a small bowl, obviously meant for her to cook dinner in. She merely smiled before beginning to fix the crudely made bowl up and filling it with the water from her canteen. The bowl wasn't perfect; Itachi had obviously known what he was doing as he was making it, but it was plainly done. As the water heated under the small fire, she reached for the deer but paused when she saw Itachi beginning to skin it.

"Stop that. You're injured," She protested, beginning to reach out thoughtlessly for him as she would have with any of her teammates, but caught herself quickly and lowered her hand. Itachi shot her an inscrutable glance out of the corner of his eyes..

"It's hardly difficult work." He merely shrugged slightly, still continuing to skin the dead beast.

"Its still work, and you had the crap kicked out of you a few days ago," she muttered defiantly under her breath, and missed the way Itachi lifted an elegant dark eyebrow at her sentence in vague amusement. "Fine. I'll start on the herbs." She apparently sensed that it would be of no use to argue with him (especially since he was efficient; the deer was almost halfway done already), and she was obviously sulking.

The two worked in comfortable silence, until Itachi silently pushed the skinned carcass towards her. She blinked, and had to smirk wryly when she noticed that he had left the dicing of the meat to her. Wordlessly, she started on the job, working with quick, efficient hands on the bloody, raw meat. The Uchiha leaned back and closed his dark eyes, tilting his head to the now dark sky. Despite his would-be relaxed expression, Sakura could easily see his taut shoulders and his subtle, but obviously tensed, posture. It was clear that he didn't altogether trust her. Not that she could blame him, even if she did save his life and agree to return his sight to him.

Minutes later, she had the meat simmering in the water with the herbs.. It wasn't a gourmet meal, but it would do for now. And the meat had the bonus of being high in protein, which was good for the already very slender Itachi. "Alright, let's get started on those eyes of yours, Itachi-san." She got off of her knees, brushing off her outfit before removing a small roll of bandages from her pack. Itachi shifted his position slightly so it would be easier for her to have access to his badly damaged eyes. Sakura settled down on her knees in front of him, having to lean forward slightly in the process. "Close your eyes." She instructed, and he obeyed silently, knowing that the glance earlier that day had merely been a cursory look to examine the damage, and that Sakrua hadn't actually done any healing.

He automatically stiffened when he felt the calloused pads of her slim fingers brush against his temples, but forced himself to relax slightly, as her now familiar chakra flooded into his optic nerves and soothed the ache that had become more familiar than he would have liked in the last few months. Almost absently, Sakura was mumbling off information, probably for her to remember for a later point in time. "Your condition is slightly different from Kaka-sensei's," she told him blithely, "his blindness was caused by his cones and rods slowly giving out under the stress of his Sharingan, which was never able to be turned off, whether or not he was actually using it."

"And mine?" Itachi inquired softly.

"It's your actual optic nerve cells that are giving. From what I can gather, the large amount of chakra needed to sustain the Mangekyo Sharingan has been steadily weakening the cells, so much that they're now shutting down. With no cells, you'll wind up going blind." She explained distractedly, her attention obviously arrested by his failing vision.

"The cure?" He was curious despite himself now.

"Slowly pumping up the cells with my chakra. Doing so will allow the depleted cells to strengthen, and since you no longer have the Sharingan, your sight should remain. Naturally, I'll have to leave my chakra in the cells to allow them to regain their strength, and soon you'll be able to see." She answered professionally. "Now hush, I need to concentrate." She was so focused on her task that she didn't think twice about ordering around the highly dangerous missing-nin. Itachi obediently did as she bid, and they collapsed back into the ever-present silence.

After several hours of slowly filling each optic cell with her chakra and making sure that the dull ache had vanished at least somewhat, Sakura was highly drained, and after drawing her excess chakra back into herself, she leaned back in mild exhaustion. "All I can do for now. I'll try to finish up tomorrow, as we're almost near Konoha now." She told him, slightly panting as she picked up the bandages by her leg, and without waiting for permission, she began to wind the bandages around his healing eyes. His retinas would be exceptionally sensitive to light while she was still healing, and bandages worked the best at correcting this problem.

Damn, his hair's nicer than Ino-pig's. She realized belatedly to herself, smoothing his long, raven-black hair out of the way as she wound the bandages around his skull with expert ease.. Itachi was definitely stiff underneath her fingers, though she couldn't do anything about it. There was no way in hell that she was going to let him do the winding, so he would just have to deal with her closeness for the time-being.

Moments after that, she tore off the last bit of bandages left and tucked the rest into a crease before respectfully moving out of his personal bubble. Out of pure habit, she set up her bedroll before tucking all of her extra items away into its respective niche. Her rabbit mask was still hidden away out of sight, and she had no intention of letting Itachi know what animal her mask had been fashioned after. Ever.

Itachi was mimicking her actions on the other side of the small, smokeless fire that he had created while she had been away hunting. His movements were nothing short of silent, while she, in comparison at least, sounded closer to an elephant tromping through a particularly dense rainforest.

Maybe even a herd of elephants.

"Good night, Itachi." She wished him automatically, barely catching his murmured 'good night' in return as she slipped into her bedroll and twisted around to lie on her stomach, where it would be easy for her to get up and gone if something were to go wrong.

"Here we are."

Sakura heaved a sigh, as the pair of large, open gates of Konoha were barely visible at the end of the road. They had decided that it would be best for them to separate while still a good ways away from Konohagakure, similar of a departing team. And even then, that had required Sakura to demand that Itachi put on a plain black cloak and a hat over his head to hide his memorable patrician features. Absently, the brunette ran her hand over her hair as she hefted her small satchel higher on her shoulder. She knew that a distinct band of rosy pink was now located along her scalp and that she would have to either continually wash her hair until the dark brown dye washed away or re-dye it.

"Don't forget to keep the bandages on until tomorrow evening, and not a moment too soon, am I understood?" She reminded him patiently, knowing full well that the chances of Itachi keeping the annoying bandages on were almost nothing. It turns out that the elder Uchiha could be quite childish when he wanted to be, as he refused to have anything that itched or irritated his skin on any longer than he absolutely had to.

Itachi inclined his head gracefully, ever so slightly, and she eyed him knowingly, but didn't say anything. "Yeah, okay. Bye." She tossed him a casual wave before turning towards her home.

"Sakura."

It was ridiculous that the way that her name rolled off of his tongue often gave her goose bumps, she mused distantly to herself, though she twisted around to look at him curiously. "Hmm?"

"Stay safe." He ordered her, uncharacteristically harsh, though she didn't take offense. Instead, she just heaved a heavy sigh and looked at him in exasperation. It seemed that all of the males she met took it upon themselves to make sure that she was protected.

Except Sasuke, but she refused to dwell on that matter.

"Yeah, yeah. Don't die, stay safe, whatever. Goodbye, Itachi." She waved off his command airily, turning back around and beginning to walk down the dusty road at a leisurely pace.

"Farewell." Itachi murmured softly, before spinning on his heel and beginning to walk in the opposite direction at a brisk pace to lessen the risk of being caught or seen.

Feeling strangely edgy, Sakura quickly decided that she would avoid the busy streets of Konoha, and instead leap over the rooftops. Which she was now doing. There was no doubt in her mind that Tsunade-shishou would grill her once she was successfully in the Hokage's office, and she mentally steeled for the interrogation. She suddenly found herself thankful for the fact that Naruto was still hospitalized (or should have been) due to his extensive injuries from a recent mission. While she loved the rather obnoxious blonde to death, he had a tendency to double team with Tsunade in his fits of worries.

While his worries were needless and extremely overwhelming, she knew that it was just because he was afraid to lose her like he did Sasuke. Which was why she let it go.

Shaken out of her dark thoughts by the arrival of the rounded, prominent architecture of Hokage Tower, Sakura paused on the windowsill of the window to Tsunade's office to peer inside, making sure that the buxomous blonde was indeed alone before solftly tapping on the door with a gloved knuckle. The sake bottle that had been perched on her desk disappeared in a blur as Tsunade turned around to face the window. Seeing that the Sannin's honey brown eyes were focused on her, Sakura waved and then let herself in. "You're becoming more and more like Kakashi every time I see you, Sakura." The long-haired blonde commented, and Sakura merely shrugged, brushing aside the comment.

"About time that pervert gave me something." The dyed brunette retorted, her tone that of forced indifference. Tsunade bit back a sigh, knowing that her apprentice still held a small amount of resentment towards the silver-haired nin for his lack of training for her when she was a Genin before she had gone to Tsunade, and even mostly when she was a Chuunin, before finally dishing out small bits of advice when she was a Jounin.

"Why are you so late, Sakura? You're usually more prompt than this." The lady Hokage changed the topic abruptly, looking at the ponytailed ANBU expectantly.. As was the norm for ANBU, Sakura was expected to give her mission reports verbally, to prevent the written report from falling into the wrong hands and potentially giving away important information to the wrong people.

Sakura flipped her tousled brown ponytail over her shoulder in a way very reminiscent of the Yamanaka heiress. "I wound up being injured on my way back, and I rested for a few days in one of the ANBU hideouts before continuing to make my way home." She lied smoothly, having concocted the idea on her way back with Itachi.

"And are you injured now?" Tsunade's experienced eyes scanned Sakura's lithe frame intently, as if looking for any tears in her formfitting jumpsuit.

Sakura shook her head almost immediately. "Iie."

"Good. And how did the mission itself go?"

Sakura proceeded to tell her legendary teacher all about the actual mission, which had mostly circulated around having to remove a poison from an aging lord's body, create an antidote, and then proceed to make sure that he was on his path back to health before departing. Tsunade couldn't help a few chuckles when the dyed brunette told her about how the lord's son couldn't seem to keep his mitts off of her and her backside, and then again at the following grimace afterwards.

After successfully giving her mission report (along with a bottle of sake she found) to her mentor, Sakura stepped out of the Hokage Tower, stretching lithely. Now that the adrenaline from spending a large amount of time around a highly dangerous missing-nin had worn off, the brunette realized just how tired she was, judging by the crick in her neck. She looked forward to her bathtub and seeing just how much water her heater held.

"Forehead!" She instinctively turned at the old nickname, and smiled wanly at the approaching blonde, with Chouji munching on his favorite barbeque chips behind her at a more leisurely pace. The young Haruno lifted a hand in greeting as the Yamanaka skidded to a stop. "What took you so long? You totally missed out on our girl's night in!" Ino continued, sounding properly outraged at the idea. Sakura clamped down on the inside of her cheek hard to refrain from sighing and rolling her eyes.

Sakura proceeded to loyally tell her best friend what she had concocted. At the end of it, the still-miffed Ino merely huffed and didn't say anything else, instead fluidly changing the topic. It turned out that Ino and Chouji were on their way to Tsunade's office for a mission, and they couldn't talk long, though Ino did spend a fair amount of time ranting and raving about how Naruto was being an amazingly annoying, whiny patient and she had to fight back the urge to bash his skull in with a food tray every time she was forced to check up on him. Sakura ignored the comment blithely, personally knowing the pains of having the jinchuuriki as a patient.

Bidding her friend and Chouji farewell after brusquely breaking into the long-winded rant, Sakura proceeded on home with the intention of getting in, greeting her cats, finding a book, and then continuing to the tub for an extended, undetermined amount of time.

Tsunade watched the dyed mahogany brown hair of her apprentice flip out of sight curiously, for once ignoring the sake bottles in front of her as thin, pale blonde eyebrows furrowed slightly in silent bewilderment.

It had been evident from the very beginning that something was off about Sakura, and when the fellow medic had lied to her, the Sannin knew it had to be something big. Sakura had never lied to her about anything during the entire time she had been her apprentice, and for her to lie about something now, it would have to be something huge.

Almost absently, the legendary medic-nin grasped the neck of the sake bottle that Sakura had so thoughtfully purchased for her, and plucked the lid off before lifting it to her lips, her honey brown eyes locked on the spot where her apprentice's long brown ponytail had disappeared, as if expecting her to reappear at any moment. Tsunade sipped at the rice wine slowly, savoring the rich, musky flavor with a soft sigh. It really was good sake, she mused idly to herself, setting the bottle back down. Sakura had even gotten her the expensive stuff, not the cheap stuff, despite her undoubtedly dwindling wallet.

"Tsunade-sama?" Immediately, the Sannin glanced at the long-haired blonde and the hefty Akimichi who stood on the other side of her desk. Ino looked expectant, while Chouji was too busy stuffing his face. After a moment, it clicked. The two had a mission, and she had summoned them. Making a mental note to watch her other apprentice carefully, the buxomous blonde retrieved a tightly wrapped scroll and passed it to Chouji, who was closest to her, and proceeded to explain the mission to them.

The Haruno grimaced as she examined a blatantly carnation pink root of her still-wet hair. The broad band of pink at her scalp was a stark contrast to the darker mahogany surrounding it. Wondering idly if she could borrow something from Ino at some point that would help remove the dye from her hair, Sakura padded out of her steamed bathroom, stepping over her two cats easily as they attempted to wind around her ankles as they meowed plaintively for her attention. Continuing to dry her hair with a towel she had tossed over her shoulder with one hand, Sakura headed into her kitchen with the intention of getting some junk food and bumming out on the couch for the rest of the night.

She paused breifly when she entered her small kitchen, her apple green eyes alighting immediately on the innocent looking box propped up on the counter, and realized that she hadn't left it there and it wasn't even her's. The box was on the smallish side, and she belatedly noticed the small note stuck to it, though she was too far away to read the scribbles written on it, and the box had obviously been knocked over at one point, probably by her cats. Assuming that it wasn't a bomb, as her cats were still in one piece and breathing, Sakura approached the box slowly and plucked the note off of it. Almost immediately, she recognized Ino's writing and relaxed completely as she briskly scanned the note, and she ignored the meowing cats as they continued to wind around her feet.

Hey Billboard Brow,

I bought this for you earlier today. It's supposed to help remove dye from your hair without ruining your hair in the process.

No idea if it works or not.

Anyways, best of luck getting your hair back to that normal, bizarre hair color that you seem to have an almost unholy fetish with proving the organic-ness of. (Oh wait, that's Kiba. Nevermind.)

- Ino

Chuckling to herself at the classic Ino note, Sakura lifted the box and looked it over before popping it open and peering inside curiously. It looked normal, and, satisfied, she put it back on the counter before deciding that she would do it at a later point. Effectively retrieving her ice cream and some left-over dango that was still good, Sakura wandered back to her living room and curled up in a blanket with a book and two purring cats.

The elder Uchiha crouched easily on the thin branch in the dense forest currently surrounding him, his pitch-black eyes focused on the small group of missing-nin below him. He refrained from snorting. The idiots still had no idea that he had been tailing them for hours, and had been steadily hacking down their numbers whenever one of them wandered off. In little over an hour, he had successfully killed off three of them and disposed of the bodies suitably. In that same time slot, he had also been looking for any weaknesses in their defense, and had quickly found several that he could easily use to his advantage. They were almost not worth his time, but they needed to be dealt with.

After he had departed from the medic, he had realized just how much free time he would now have on his hands. Now that he no longer belonged to any village, nor to Akatsuki, he was no longer required to fulfill a sufficient amount of missions each month and that meant much more free time, which had bewildered him for a moment. For most of his life, he had always had to do something. Eventually he had decided that he would spend that time eliminating potential threats to Konoha. This was what he was currently doing.

He had also discovered more about his brother in the process and what had happened to him after Itachi's supposed death. Apparently, Madara had tracked Sasuke down and whisked him away to an undisclosed location. Nothing had been heard of him since, and that made Itachi worried. Madara could be one sneaky bastard when he wanted to be.

Silently, Itachi shifted his posture from casual to that of a tensed, offensive one before launching at the group in a blindingly fast movement.

The entire group was taken care of within a matter of minutes, and Itachi stood up and stretched his stiff shoulders leisurely. He eyed the corpses at his feet before simply deciding that a fire would be the best way to remove the cadavers. It didn't take long for him to clear out the brush surrounding them, and after taking a step back to prevent any backlash and making sure he was upwind, his hands flicked into familiar seals with well-oiled ease.

"Goukakyuu no jutsu!"

Red-hot flames poured out of his mouth and smothered the corpses in a heated bath. Within seconds, thick black smoke began curling upwards and the overwhelming, nauseating stench of burning flesh filled the air. This Itachi ignored as he turned to leave, only to have to dodge a kunai. With a low oath, he realized that he had missed one. This one, a burly, tall man, was obviously more skilled than the others and smarter, too, for that matter. He was swift on his feet; that much was clear, even if his strength waned drastically in comparison to Itachi's.

Itachi swerved sharply from another slash at his midriff, before lashing out with a punishing kick to the man's unprotected back. He grimaced openly. Ever since he had forfeited his Sharingan to Sasuke, he no longer had access to the jutsus he had copied over the years and the genjutsu that was associated with the Sharingan. It was… irksome to deal with things physically instead of immobilizing them in Tsukuyomi and then driving them insane by three days of endless torture before easily disposing of them.

A drive towards the man's wrist forced him to release the sharp kunai, and the Uchiha plucked it up easily before twisting lithely away from another attack and driving the sharpened tip of the kunai upwards into the man's ribcage. He gave it a sharp twist, and with a loud gasp, the man fell backwards so that he lay flat on his back and Itachi stepped out of the way to avoid the spray of blood. "I-I know you! That face!" The other shinobi garbled, his lungs rapidly filling with blood. Unmoved, Itachi watched him die with indifference, and after making sure he was indeed dead, tossed him carelessly onto the burning pile of corpses.

His expression warped slightly as he recovered his lost weapons and found a few new ones. He despised violence of any sorts, but had long accepted that it was necessary for the life of a shinobi. Finding a half-decent, but dull, katana, Itachi quickly rooted up its sheath and decided that once he sharpened it, it would be a good weapon, and he slid it to hang from his belt. He had a whetstone somewhere in his supplies, and he proceeded to head back to his temporary campsite to recover and sharpen his dulled, recently acquired weapons.

He couldn't stay long, however. Even the thick canopy above couldn't hold back all of the thick, black smoke twisting and writhing its way skywards, and curious shinobi would be by shortly.

Especially since with his relatively close distance to Konohagakure, Leaf-nin would probably be the ones sent out and he was, after all, supposed to be dead. Though, if he lingered around long enough, perhaps he could see the medic again. She had proved to be quite entertaining, despite her obvious wariness of him. Not that he could blame her any. He had also been rather suspicious around her.

At the prospect of seeing the talented medic once more, Itachi's lips curved upwards ever so slightly.

Is the new layout of the Document Manager annoying the crap out of anyone else? Just wondering.

Wow. I had no idea that so many people would like this story. Not that I'm upset or anything. It makes me ridiculously happy.

And I got a few complaints on the massive detail I put on the healings. No worries. That was strictly a one-time thing. I hate putting too much effort into figuring something out, or how to make something work.

And somebody asked why Itachi would escort Sakura home (I think). My answer is simple: Itachi was probably raised with strict upbringing, and as she did do that whole 'saving-his-life' thing, he probably figured the least he could do was escort her home.

And not much going on this particular chapter, but more shall happen later. Mwuhahaha.

And what an explosive response. If I'd known that ItaSaku was this popular (I'd always figured it was because ItaSaku authors were really freaking good or something), I'd have started this a long time ago.

And the next update is going to be a while. I just moved, and the idiot movers put the computer that I save all of my work on in storage in an undisclosed location. So it may be a while. Luckily, I finished this chapter before we moved and then saved it to my flash drive. lol.

Review?