Title: Beautiful Disharmony: I

Rating: T

Characters: Sakura, Itachi

Pairings: Maybe?

Setting: Shippuden. Manga spoilers 385+ like whoa.

Description: It was beautiful disharmony, the way her chakra screamed and drained and poured into the body of one she had once considered her greatest foe.

A/N: A "what-if" based on if Sakura found out the truth about Itachi.

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Her decision was made even before she reached the still, still body. Even before her eyes drank in his black, black hair and sharply familiar features – aristocratic, calm, and collected even in death. She almost laughed when she felt the bitter sting of disappointment to see Itachi dead instead of Sasuke. (She would have preferred it to be the avenger. Dead but stopped from madness was better than alive and not.)

She saw the irony reflected in the thick, coagulated crimson pool that surrounded him. A twisted visage of the happy, useless little girl looked back at her with empty jade eyes. Her lips twisted into nothing like a smile.

They call him a genius, with his bloodlimit sharingan eyes that see everything – record everything. They call him special; they call him impressive – and she had lapped and panted after him with the same disillusionment wagging from her tongue. It wasn't until years later that she could taste the bitter chalk of so many lies choking in the back of her throat. Scoff at those who would call one with a god-cheat more skilled.

He never had to work for anything in his life. He wasn't skilled so much as lucky; years of being left behind had jaded her – left her with nothing but hate for that awed recognition he was borne with, and she could not work herself raw to achieve. Without sharingan, he would be nothing. She would know.

Let him keep his blood red eyes. Let him keep his god-cheat. Sakura didn't need it; she was a genius in her own right, even if she was the only one who would ever recognize it.

Her hands formed seals to echo Chiyo baasama's, and her fingers did not fumble. She was a genius. She was brilliant. The forgotten, forbidden, impossible seals danced from her fingertips as if they had been of her own creation. It was beautiful disharmony, the way her chakra screamed and drained and poured into the body of one she had once considered her greatest foe – one she had once hated with what little hate her altruistic little soul was capable of.

'Oh, how reading a few top secret scrolls can change everything, ne?' She wondered if Sasuke knew; she wondered if Sasuke cared. She wondered if he would be horrified or thrilled to see Itachi again.

She wondered if Naruto and Kakashi and Tsunade and Ino-pig would have lied to stop this. Would have told her if only she waited a while longer, studied a little harder, trusted in her team and her sensei and her village – they would get him back, they would stop him. Just give it a little more time, a little more patience, a little more faith…

She wondered if they would have told her she was enough. She wondered if they would have believed it.

It was beautiful disharmony, the way he spluttered before his chest rose and fell. Before the world tunneled – expanding and collapsing abruptly as the earth rose up to meet her.

His sharingan eyes slid open the moment her jade green slid shut, and she wondered if Sasuke would love her or hate her for this. It didn't matter, of course – he would recognize her, would know her worth, and wasn't that all she had wanted all along?

She was forever lacking – was incapable – they all were, she realized. They were too bright, too good, too hopeful. And so, her gift to the world: Leaf's prodigal son, who was not.

Itachi's life for hers. One he saw, in exchange for one he did not. One who could stop him, in exchange for one who could not.

It was beautiful disharmony, the way light gave way to dark.

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A/N: SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS! Chiyo baasama being the woman who performed the resurrection technique on Sakura (and survived, since Sakura was not dead yet), and on Gaara (and did not survive, since he was.)

This being a sidenote piece. I hope to still finish Turning From The Light, but uhm, more inspiration will be required for that.