Credit for the story image goes to sakuchan1 on Tumblr.

Prologue

The ground trembled under their feet, its rumble echoing in the surrounding area. A flock of birds took off from the trees, frightened by the disturbance. Itachi stopped in the middle of the path. Kisame came to a halt behind him, whistling.

„Seems like someone's having one hell of a party, nee, Itachi-san?" he said, swinging Samehada up on his shoulder with a sharp grin.

Itachi looked ahead, though even with his Sharingan, he could see nothing through the tight-knit trees. The Byakugan would have had the job done in the time it took for him to blink, but as he had no such doujutsu, all he could do was speculate. They were near the border between the Land of Sound and the Land of Fire, so this was likely no more than a skirmish between Oto and Konoha shinobi - nothing to concern the Akatsuki.

"If anyone bothers us, I'd be more than happy to carve a path through," Kisame said when Itachi started walking again.

That, Itachi did not doubt. Kisame was often overzealous when it came to battle. It did not bother him as much as it used to, though he would try to hold him back every now and again, lest they be delayed from completing their assignments.

But the sounds of battle did not reach them again. The forest returned to its quietude, and only the leaves stirred as the breeze swept through them. Their murmur was comforting to Itachi, who had spent the best part of his life in a village surrounded by dense woods. Leaving Konoha had not changed that.

"I hope Leader doesn't send us out again tomorrow. I could use a few days for myself. Are there any towns nearby?"

"A few villages," Itachi said.

Kisame seemed disappointed, but said nothing. His eyes stopped on the road ahead and widened ever so slightly. Trees had been knocked down, handfuls of shuriken embedded in their trunks. Kunai peppered the path that led to a house-sized crater. The Akatsuki stopped again, quietly surveying the area.

Itachi's eyes moved fast: two Oto-nin sprawled in the crater, another lying face-down in the grass a few feet away. None of them was breathing. Then his gaze drifted to the right, where he saw a kunoichi. She was sitting with her back against a still-standing tree, her head lolling to one side and her eyes shut. The Konoha equipment would have provided some camouflage, had it not been for the color of her hair. Pink was hard to miss, even for someone who did not have the Sharingan.

Kisame looked around, his hand clenched around Samehada's hilt. "This one's teammates seem to have run for the hills."

Itachi's Sharingan noticed the small but rhythmic movement of her chest, the blood seeping through a hole in her flak jacket and another trail of blood slowly making its way from her left temple down her cheek.

"She had none," he said.

"What makes you so sure?" Kisame asked, watching Itachi step towards her and thinking he was going to do her a favor and finish her off.

"Only four sets of footprints," Itachi pointed out, kneeling beside the unconscious kunoichi and brushing the pink hair from her face to have a better look at her. For a moment, he remained perfectly still, vacillating. He then removed her flak jacket, tossed it aside and pulled out clean bandages from an inner pocket of his cloak.

"What are you doing?" Kisame asked, nonplussed, when he saw his partner pick up the patched-up kunoichi.

"I know this one," he said. "She's the kyuubi's teammate. If we keep her alive, we can use her as bait when the time is right."

"Are you sure she's the one?"

Itachi gave him a pointed look.

Kisame's lips stretched to reveal his filed teeth. "I see, Itachi-san. They might want to protect the remaining jinchuuriki once they realize what's going on. Having some sort of… collateral wouldn't hurt." He paused for a moment, thinking. "Where are we going to keep her, though?"

The Akatsuki did not have a permanent headquarters, but a scattering of hideouts across the map, where members could rest without taking turns every once in a while, as they travelled to and fro. Itachi would not dare leave her alone in any of them, as it was impossible to predict for how long they would be gone at any given time. There was also the risk of other Akatsuki members passing by.

"She's coming with us," Itachi said.

Kisame opened his mouth, thought about it for a moment and shut it. Then he looked at the limp form in Itachi's arms and frowned. "It's easy now that she's unconscious, but wait until she wakes up. Both of us will be sleeping with one eye open."

"Then you can use the Samehada to keep her drained of chakra," Itachi said, his mind already made up.

He wondered, though. Clearly, it was her attack that had killed the Oto-nin, but what was she doing at the border all alone? Konoha-nin never acted alone. Solo missions were a rarity even among the ANBU, and she was only a chuunin, judging by her equipment. Was it possible she had been trying to get to Sasuke on her own?

Itachi's eyes drifted to the crater as they took to the trees, heading towards the nearest hideout. If she had done that, she was not as weak as she seemed. Also, taking out one of Otogakure's border patrols added to his impression of her – of Sakura, if he remembered correctly, though her surname eluded him.

He looked at her face, which seemed to have grown pale. Her wounds were not life-threatening and she had clearly started to heal herself before passing out. She would survive and she would wake up, eventually. Itachi had no doubt she would try to escape once that happened. In fact, he thought he might be disappointed if she did not.