Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, only the plot bunnies in this particular story.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Sakura's alarm clock shrieked, startling the kunoichi awake. She groaned and started groping her bedside blindly, refusing to open her eyes. She sighed in relief as her hand finally found the "off" button, desperately holding onto the vestiges of wonderful sleep. It took a good amount of effort before she was finally able to roll out of bed and open the curtains.

Brilliant morning light flooded through the now open windows, illuminating her messy bedroom. Sakura yawned and rubbed her eyes. It was such a beautiful day today, and Sakura almost felt excited that she was going to spend the majority of it outdoors, soaking in the sunlight and feeling the breeze in her hair. The trepidation of training was still there however; it was not until late yesterday night after she had left the Uchiha compound that Sakura realized that she had no idea who was going to be supervising her and Sasuke today.

Sakura stumbled around her bedroom, pulling on her training outfit of a tan skirt, a red vest, and knee-high boots. "Gloves, gloves, gloves," she mumbled, flipping through the haphazard pile of clothes that rested at the feet of her bed. She was unfortunately not a morning person at all, unlike her dark-haired brooding teammate, who woke before the rooster every single morning without any prompting.

I really need to clean my room, she noted to herself, as she did every single morning when she had trouble looking for things before heading out the door. The thing was, Sakura was always so tired at the end of the day, and she had no energy to even think about cleaning. It was always shower, meal, sleep, and get up the next morning again. Thus, Sakura's small apartment was unfortunately in a state of permanent disarray, with clothes that just couldn't seem to find their way into the closet and heavy medical books and scrolls stacked high on every single table surface you could find. She finally found her gloves hiding underneath a giant textbook on poisons on her desk, grabbed her kunai pouch and medical kit, wolfed down a protein bar and an apple, and left the apartment.

Sasuke was already waiting on Training Ground 3 when she arrived, five minutes before the required meeting time.

"Who's training with us?" Sasuke asked bluntly, forgoing any greeting.

"Good morning to you too," Sakura said sarcastically. She shrugged and toed the ground with her sandal. "It's probably Kurenai-sensei though."

"Well then, I am sorry to disappoint you," an all-too familiar voice cut into their conversation.

Sakura and Sasuke spun around to face Uchiha Itachi standing in the center of the field, dressed in all black and looking as cool as a cucumber in the morning breeze. Sakura was certain that if Uchihas had emotions, her teammate Sasuke's jaw would have dropped by now. Sakura's own heart started speeding when she realized just who she was about to spend the rest of her morning, and maybe many mornings after that with. Her stomach dropped, not in a pleasant way, and she swallowed hard.

"Shall we begin?" Itachi said, almost gleefully.

"You've done good work, Uchiha," Tsunade told the young ANBU captain as she perused his latest reconnaissance report.

Itachi inclined his head at her praise. "You've also been working pretty hard these past few months, so I've shifted your mission schedule around a bit. I'm giving you the next two weeks off—don't give me that look, Uchiha—but I want you to start doing specialized genjutsu training with a few jounin. As you know, we are severely lacking in shinobi who are trained in the arts of genjutsu, save for the Hyuuga and the Uchiha with their dojutsu, but we cannot rely solely on their kekkei genkai forever. We need more shinobi like Kurenai to round out our ranks. This is why I want you to start with my own student, Haruno Sakura." Tsunade spoke. "See how she responds, and build a training program from her. If Sakura does well, then we'll start implementing a wider training program for shinobi who show aptitude in genjutsu."

Haruno Sakura, his brother's feisty pink-haired teammate. "I understand," Itachi said. "However, I believe it would be most useful to have another member participate in the training in the first week just to grasp the basics of what I'm planning."

Tsunade crossed her arms. "Well Yamato isn't back yet and Sasuke is on probation…" she mused aloud, "you can take your brother then. There will be no conflict of interest?"

Itachi nearly had to fight back a smirk. "No, of course not."

It was like Christmas had come early for him.

"Nii-san? Are you serious? I don't need genjutsu training from you! Hell, I don't even need genjutsu training to begin with! I can see through all genjutsu!" Sasuke blurted out.

"And yet, you seem to fail to see how your own arrogance blinds your abilities, little brother," Itachi spoke.

Sasuke flushed in anger.

"Don't you have important ANBU matters to attend to?" Sakura asked suspiciously.

Itachi turned his attention to the kunoichi. "I am merely doing what the Hokage has asked. Now, enough of this idle chit-chat. Let's begin," he said, and suddenly vanished in a murder of crows.

Sasuke and Sakura immediately shifted closer together in a defensive stance, their backs nearly pressing together. Sasuke had activated his Sharingan, and Sakura held her fists up, concentrating chakra in her fists in preparation.

Sasuke shifted minutely, his crimson gaze sweeping the empty field. He could feel his teammate's warm chakra swirling behind him, a comfortable reminder that she had his back in battle. The minutes passed by slowly.

"Sasuke-kun?" Sakura suddenly spoke. "I don't think he's here anymore…" she trailed off.

Sasuke blinked. "What are you talking about? He's probably hiding and watching somewhere. It's Itachi," he snapped. "He's a sadistic bastard and he'll wait until we drop our guard and then kill us and dump our bodies in the lake or something."

Sakura sighed and dropped her defensive stance. "Really now, Sasuke-kun, that's a bit dramatic isn't it?" She had her hands on her hips, and was gazing somewhere far off in the trees. "Anyway, I need to go soon. I have a lunch appointment with your mother."

Sasuke dropped his guard and turned to look incredulously at his teammate. "You have lunch with who?" he asked.

"I…well…am concerned about you, Sasuke-kun. You're always so tied up in these clan matters, and I want to talk to Mikoto-san about you, and what happened on that last mission. I think your parents deserve to know that we're all on probation," Sakura said heavily.

Sasuke's Sharingan started swirling dangerously. "You wouldn't Sakura," he all but growled. "You promised. You're my teammate!"

Sakura locked eyes with him, her emerald gaze watery with tears. "But Sasuke-kun, I'm just so worried about you…" She started turning, reading to leave the training grounds.

"What is wrong with you today?" Sasuke asked. "Sakura, come to your senses. I swear, I will physically restrain you if I have to! I'll fight you!"

Sakura stared at him, and starting forming the seals for a transportation jutsu. "I'm sorry, Sasuke-kun," she mouthed, and Sasuke sprang forward into action.

Unfortunately for Sasuke, he had missed two very vital things. First, that it was nowhere near close to lunchtime. And second, Sakura had stopped calling him "Sasuke-kun" when they were fifteen.

The morning breeze played with Sakura's short pink hair as she stood in the center of the training field, expanding her senses to find Itachi. She couldn't locate him anywhere. What she did sense was Sasuke's chakra, which was swirling with anticipation beforehand, suddenly spike and it took all of Sakura's years of evasion training with Tsunade to throw herself backwards and out of Sasuke's reach.

"What the fu—" Sakura exclaimed, skidding backwards and putting a good twenty meters between herself and her teammate.

Sasuke was glaring at her, Sharingan-red eyes bright with anger. He was going to attack her again. Sakura quickly reacted, slamming her foot into the ground with enough chakra to cause a mini-earthquake. The ground cracked, throwing up rock and debris, and Sasuke was knocked off balance for a second. Sakura took that second to hide amongst the debris, and it was also in that second she noticed something was off with Sasuke's chakra signature.

Genjustsu, she realized.

Sakura quickly assessed that she was not under the same genjutsu, and only Sasuke was suffering from it. She wondered what he was seeing that could possibly make him come after her like that, and be ignorant to the fact that what he was seeing was false. It was then she realized how skilled Uchiha Itachi was at weaving the subtle layers of genjutsu, so that he could even fool the Sharingan.

She needed to get close to Sasuke to break him out. Which was good, because close-combat was her specialty, however, Sasuke was also extremely fast. Way faster than Sakura. She made her move, darting behind the upturned earth of the training grounds and rushing towards Sasuke from the back. He sensed it and turned to receive her in a flurry of taijutsu movements.

Sakura gritted her teeth. Ten minutes later, Sakura was breathing heavily and she still hadn't managed to land a hit on her teammate. He was too quick, and his Sharingan aided him in seeing all of Sakura's movements. She didn't want to hurt him by using her brute force, she only needed to get close enough to him to disrupt his chakra. Sakura's mind started spinning. If she couldn't forcibly break him out…where was Itachi?

He had to be watching all of this. He had to be in the area. Which meant that if Sakura somehow started destroying the area, he would eventually have to show himself. With that in mind, she quickly created two clones to occupy Sasuke, and slammed another fist into the ground, shaking the battlefield once again. Then, she proceeded to rip a tree straight from its roots and swung it around in a giant arc, destroying a wide stretch of forest. Come out, come out, wherever you are, Sakura thought rather evilly with her oversized weapon clutched in her arms.

From where he was hiding, Itachi swore silently to himself. He had to use a teleportation jutsu to get himself out of the trees and avoid being clubbed in the head with another tree that Sakura was presently holding. He noticed that his foolish brother was engaging in battle with two of Sakura's clones, still trapped within Itachi's genjutsu.

What is she doing? Itachi wondered. Sakura was not paying much attention to Sasuke. Itachi was crouching in the bushes now, watching Sakura cause general havoc and destruction on the training field. Ah, he realized, she's looking for me. How clever. Itachi knew he couldn't just let her destroy the training grounds completely –pretty much every single Konoha shinobi who trained here would be pretty pissed off. Something along the lines of "don't disturb the neighbors this early in the morning" also floated across his mind. He had to make an appearance soon if he wanted to stop her.

Sakura almost started dancing in victory when Itachi suddenly appeared in front of her, an unidentifiable emotion in his eyes.

"Cease your fighting," he spoke calmly. And then his eyes widened when Sakura swung her tree at him.

Any lesser nin would have probably screamed at a giant pine tree being flung like a kunai in his direction, but Itachi calmly used a substitution jutsu and merely reappeared in front of the pink-haired kunoichi again, frowning this time.

Sakura was standing with her hands clasped behind her back, blinking owlishly at Itachi. "You said cease," she said innocently.

Itachi blinked, and was momentarily taken aback. This pink-haired medic-nin was most certifiably insane. Somewhere else on the battlefield, Sasuke had finally broken out of his genjutsu when Itachi's concentration wavered in dealing with the troublesome kunoichi, and was very confused.

"That exercise was to test how quickly you could identify being trapped in a genjutsu," Itachi started to say slowly, "Obviously one of you got a little caught up in your vision," he smirked at his little brother, who was turning five very interesting shades of red.

Sakura heard Sasuke growl like a rabid dog before he launched himself at his older brother, screaming something incoherent along the lines of the devil, knew all along.

Itachi merely side-stepped him. "One more move and I really will tell Mother and Father, little brother," his smirk grew wider.

Sakura felt her blood turn to ice. So Sasuke was right. Itachi did know. And if their parents found out…Sasuke would definitely be locked in the compound for the rest of his life, training only with the Uchihas and being sucked into clan politics. Team Seven would be destroyed, and she couldn't let that happen.

"Stop it, Sasuke!" Sakura yelled, stomping her foot and creating a small crater. Sasuke turned towards her, realizing that she was being serious. "Why are you doing this?" Sakura directed her question to the elder Uchiha, "Can't you just take your sadistic mind games somewhere else and stop messing with our team? Sasuke's already under enough pressure as it is from your stupid clan, and you're not doing anything to help with that, you bastard!"

If Itachi could look shocked, he would have. It was almost adorable how she was defending his silly brother. She called him a bastard. How interesting.

Sasuke was mumbling "Don't, Sakura," quietly to his teammate, but the livid kunoichi was not having any of it. She grasped Sasuke by the arm, and started dragging him away.

"We're done with this training session," she almost spat at the elder Uchiha.

Itachi watched them go silently. Gone was the shy and flustered girl he was usually accustomed to seeing around the Uchiha main house and the hospital. This girl in front of him was a spitfire, a girl who was not afraid of him, and a girl who recklessly swung trees around to destroy training fields. His dark eyes glittered with faint amusement.

It was interesting.

AN: Thanks for reading! As always, reviews are much appreciated. I still can't seem to get the hang of longer chapters but hopefully frequent updating makes up for that. Hehe.