Title: ribbon

Author: paws-bells

Beta-ed by: ItachixSakura Forever, MelissaRose85

Characters/Pairing: Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Itachi

Type: One-shot (Complete)

Genre: Romance/Humor

Word Count: 3646

Theme: LJ Community, 50-shinobi theme #45, ribbon

Rating: T (Contains content not suitable for children)

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto-san.

Summary: She had been subdued, kidnapped, humiliated, and dragged all the way into god knows where just for…this… Him. The kunoichi is not amused. Belated birthday fic for Itachi. Dedicated to Julie and her fanarts, as well as her ridiculous fixation for Deidara.

Chapter Last Revised on: 17/07/08

Deidara and Kisame were currently, literally, running for their lives.

The roar of a Goukakyuu sounded frighteningly close by as both nin ducked, and burning flames flew harmlessly overhead to light an entire patch of Ame's forest on fire, and Deidara cursed loudly when he realized that the tips of his carefully tended-to, lustrous blonde hair were singed. Kisame grunted as he hauled the girly Iwa nukenin forward when the vain male paused to examine the extent of the damage done to his precious locks, and then he tossed him up a tree as the blue-haired nin ran under it. Before Deidara could react to being thrown skywards, a vicious kick came his way and the blonde dodged instinctively, flipping backwards with a deft handspring and skidding dangerously on a narrow branch.

Then, almost immediately, Deidara sensed the approach of deadly fist and nearly bent over in half to avoid being hit, and in the process promptly ran into an impossibly quick, hard knee as it slammed unceremoniously into his face. Pain exploded in his face, and belatedly the male heard the sickening crack of nose cartilage being dislocated. He staggered back, promptly lost his balance, and fell towards the ground in an awkward cartwheel, but surprisingly enough, his attacker relented on him and chose not to pummel him into the ground like Deidara knew that he easily could. The hard landing made the blonde lose his breath, and for a moment Deidara just laid there, panting deeply as he tried to recover from the long, exhausting chase even as his pursuer came down from the branches of the tree in a more sedate, and infinitely less painful, manner.

It was a while before Deidara could lift his hand towards his nose and finger it gently. The blonde's fingers came away with slight smudges of blood. Deidara winced and scowled. That bastard Uchiha had dislocated his nose. He cursed softly.

The culprit in question was not far away from the prone form of his fellow Akatsuki member. His crimson eyes glowed darkly, and Deidara turned his head slightly to give the high strung Uchiha a fierce glower.

"Vat ve vuck vas vat vor, yeah?!" the blonde sputtered unintelligibly with great irritation. "Yoo took ovv vree vinches of vy vair!"

It was obvious that the blonde knew just where his priorities lay, as usual. And where was that damn Kisame? He had probably hidden himself nice and safe and left him to die here, that blue-skinned coward.

With little difficulty, Deidara sat up. Then grimacing at what had to be done, the blonde tilted his head up, grabbed his nose, and then proceeded to give it a vicious twist. The cartilage snapped back in place with an audible crunch, and Deidara moved his face this way and that, trying to relieve himself of the horrid pain. Great; now his face was going to be bruised for days and to make it worse, he was covered in his own blood.

It was too bad that Uchiha Itachi did not give a damn. The lean, raven-haired male narrowed his eyes imperceptibly, and his aura was even darker than ever, if that was even possible.

"You have thirty seconds to explain to me why there is a bound and naked woman in my room."

His voice was curt, his tone cold.

Deidara was not intimidated. In an effort to further irritate the Uchiha, the blonde took his own sweet time getting back to his feet, and then proceeded to casually dust the dirt from his bloodied clothes. The Iwa nukenin frowned inwardly. Now he was going to have to do extra laundry when they returned.

At long last, he finally returned his attention to the silently simmering Uchiha standing before him. Damn it, he was beginning to regret losing that bet with Hoshigaki.

"Heh." The blonde schooled his features into a cocky, annoying smirk. "Don't you like your birthday present, Itachi? Kisame and I went all the way to Konoha to procure her for you, yeah. You really should appreciate our good intentions more."

Itachi was not amused.

"Get her out of here." His command was low—and threatened extreme pain for anyone who dared disobey him.

Unfortunately, Deidara was not about to be pushed around by the arrogant Uchiha. He gave a gleeful shrug.

"Sorry, but no. I'm only in charge of the delivery, yeah. You are going to have to deal with her yourself. After all, she's yours…now." The suggestive snicker was not lost on Itachi, and he looked even more forbidding than usual. "Of course, you can always try to look for Kisame, but he's probably gone to ground by now, hiding himself in some filthy sewage." The blonde curled his lips in disgust.

"What are you going to do now, Uchiha?"

A smirking Deidara looked to the spot where the man had been standing upon.

He was no longer there.

"Well, I will be damned. Yeah."

Haruno Sakura was one unhappy individual.

Today had not been a good day for the petite pink-haired medic-nin, and that was a major understatement in itself.

To start off, today had been her highly anticipated break from work; after days of pulling double, and sometimes even triple, shifts, Sakura was completely looking forward to a good rest and a late lie-in. To her greatest displeasure, she had been roughly forced out of her uncomfortable bed and attacked by two nukenin (with whom she had no quarrel whatsoever but that was no longer the case now that they had dared interrupt her precious sleep) and quickly subdued by the blue-haired shark man with his chakra eating sword and carted off to god-knows-where. Sakura even remembered thinking, dazedly, as they left with her weak, powerless, and casually slung over a shoulder (under a genjutsu, of course) out of Konoha's gates, that her village's defense was certainly pathetically low, and that she was definitely going to inform shishou of this appalling lack of security when she came home.

If she came home.

By the time the trio reached their destination, Sakura had become more alert and was able to struggle and demand to be freed and returned to Konoha, shrilling her distress and yowling out her indignities like Inner Sakura at her very best. Sakura was rapidly working herself into a fine rage; she was entirely devoid of chakra and she had no idea whatsoever where the men were taking her. She was, understandably, becoming more and more anxious regarding her current situation and being in the presence of two Akatsuki was not helping matters at all.

They ignored her until they brought her to their hideout, and then the blue-haired one drained her of chakra one more time, stating something to the extent of how she was becoming 'feisty' again and how they didn't want her to be so until the 'star of the show' arrived. Sakura had no idea whatsoever what that meant, of course, but she was definitely alarmed when the cocky blonde started to strip her until she was bare as the day she was born, and as much as she wanted to attack him in retaliation, her chakra exhaustion ensured that she could only sit there passively and watched helplessly like a doll as the smirking Iwa nukenin (she was definitely going to kill him after this!!) took away all her clothes and proceeded to wrap her round and round in an impossibly lengthy strip of hot pink ribbon. The bloody blonde seem to think it very amusing to dress her thusly, and humiliated and furious, she would have lashed out and viciously clawed out his eyes in a feline manner reminiscent of a tigress, and then used her inhuman strength to unman him in the most painful way ever.

But she could hardly move, and finally, even the nukenin left her to her own devices, trussed up like a gift pig—a very angry, very frightened gift pig, that is.

Time seemed to pass excruciatingly slowly, and Sakura was forced into a submissive, kneeling position on the futon due to the ribbons that bound her tightly in place. It didn't help matters at all that the hideout was situated in a huge underground cavern; it was cold as hell and she was bare-assed naked, captured by a pair of dangerous S-class nukenin and quickly coming to the terrifying conclusion that Konoha was probably still unaware of her abrupt disappearance. It may be all too late by the time her close friends realized what had happened.

By then, she may already be raped, and maybe even killed.

Despite her will to remain strong in the face of such a frighteningly possible scenario, Sakura could not help but feel panic creep up her spine and dread paralyzing her thoughts. There was no doubt in her mind that she would fight to the death to protect what was only hers to give, but then again, how much could she do? She was naked, weaponless, powerless, and without chakra. It had been the most horrifying sensation to know that, after all the training she had gone through, she was still so weak and unable to protect herself.

Sakura welcomed the self-directed helpless rage; anything was better than the cold, bone deep terror that was threatening to drown her at every turn.

If, no, when, she survived this, Sakura promised herself never to be caught off guard again. She didn't really care what she had to do in order to accomplish something as impossible as that, but she would be hell bent to do it all the same.

Of course, it just had to be then, when the kunoichi was finally feeling a bit more determined about her situation, that he walked through the doors.

He came to a stop just a single step into the room, and then he stared.

So did Sakura, only with a growing dose of recognition—and horror.

Neither spoke, but the way her breathing quickened in rising panic was enough to tell him that she clearly recognized him, and that he frightened her.

Actually, Sakura was beyond frightened, if she had to be perfectly honest with herself. She was nearly scared to death at the sight of Uchiha Itachi, like a petrified rabbit in the presence of a hunting wolf. So much for being tentatively optimistic. Dear god, it was going to take a goddamn miracle for her to survive this.

And she was butt-naked, save for a few frilly strings of ribbons that did nothing to conceal her complete nudity.

To his credit, the seemingly emotionless looking Uchiha wasn't openly ogling at her nude form; his impassive, onyx eyes turned away from her the very moment he deemed her completely incapacitated, and thus unable to attack him, and proceeded to scan the room for any clue that might indicate the reason why there was a bound and clothes-less young female in his room. He found it almost right away; his photographic memory had always ensured that he remembered everything he had laid eyes upon, and this time was no different. He could mentally recall the layout of his room in an instant, and that piece of paper sitting by the side table was clearly something that had not been there when he left early this morning.

Wordlessly, he started further into the room, clearly ignoring the pink-haired female who flinched and tried to wriggle as far away from him as she could. It wasn't much, and after having been forced to stay in that position for so long, her muscles were all cramped up and protesting loudly over her sudden movements. It was just as well that the Uchiha was more interested in reading the piece of paper that he had just taken hold of to notice Sakura—overly much.

'Itachi,' the message read in an almost unintelligible scrawl. 'Your birthday is around the corner again, and this time Deidara and I decided to get you a birthday gift together. Literally.' At that, Itachi paused and glanced over at the nubile kunoichi who was currently arranged on his bed in a most passive position. Her emerald eyes, though, told a different story. They were blazing with anger and a tinge of panic. He went back to reading the note.

'This kunoichi was the one they said could help heal your eyes, and of course, it doesn't hurt at all that she's a looker too, eh? I'm sure you have realized by now that she has one hell of a figure, just look at those big, luscious… Never mind. Anyway, I have a bet going with Deidara. For some reason, he thinks that you are into kink and bondage (thus the pretty ribbons on your present) but I think that you are just like us normal, hot blooded men with normal, healthy sexual urges for sweet young things (though I have certainly never seen you indicate any such thing before). However, if I was mistaken and you are really more interested in sweet young things of the other…hm….gender, feel free to demand an exchange. Heck, I will just send Deidara over.'

'…I don't think that will be the case (even though you do act so peculiar sometimes and have an unholy fixation on your younger brother), so either way, don't play too rough and break your present. You may need her to heal your eyes, after all. Happy birthday.'

'Cheers,

Kisame (and Deidara, though he says that he is still training hard to kill you)'

The crunch of paper was loud in the silent room as the Uchiha proceeded to crush the note in his hands. Sakura watched him warily and quickly stiffened when onyx eyes met hers. He was standing only a couple feet away from her, and it was all she could do not to cringe away. The ribbons were cutting off her circulation; bound so tightly to her petite frame that Sakura could not even feel her extremities anymore. Of course, that made it completely impossible to move herself away when he started towards her slowly, and she froze when he extracted a kunai from his person, crouched down emotionlessly on the futon before her, and directed the sharp blade towards her.

It was easy to sense her distress.

His eyes flickered over to hers briefly.

"Stay still." His command was short, but for some reason she calmed under his detached, almost brusque direction. Besides, Sakura was fully aware that she was completely helpless before him at the moment, and so somewhat warily, the pink-haired female stilled at his approach, her face burning red thanks to the fact that she was still buck naked and he was the second man today who had seen her thusly.

The fact that he appeared unaffected by her nudity relieved and disturbed Sakura simultaneously, but she was quick to force herself not to dwell on such matters. With a few quick slices, the pink ribbons that secured her so tightly fell away from her at last, and with nothing to hold her in place any longer, she slumped powerlessly to the side, ugly red marks marring her skin where the ribbons had bit hard into her soft flesh, the long irritated lines drawing attention to her body, from flank to thigh, and everywhere else in between. It certainly made for an interesting sight; the contrast of angry red skin and its pale, smooth counterparts vivid. When the Uchiha realized that he was paying entirely too much attention to the kunoichi, he stiffened subtly and looked away, but not before tossing a blanket completely over her nude form.

Sakura hardly noticed the nukenin's act of goodwill; she was too busy gasping and gritting her teeth in reaction as the painful 'pins and needles' sensation inundated her entire being as blood rushed back towards her deprived limbs. Without chakra to ease the pain, Sakura could only curl up loosely and try her best to wait out the uncomfortable sensation, even as her muscles twitched and jumped involuntarily, almost as if protesting against the discomfort.

It was a little while before she could finally take her mind off the pain, shivering lightly and reluctantly turning her attention back to Uchiha Itachi, who had by now retreated to a fair distance away, a good meter or so from the futon. She noticed the blanket thrown around her trembling form, and slowly, she drew the material around her securely before sitting up shakily. Sakura was very aware of the precarious position that she was currently in. She was assumedly in an Akatsuki hideout, abducted from her village in secret, chakra gone, help not forthcoming at anytime in the near future, and she was so disgustingly weak and lightheaded that it was hard to keep her focus on the matter at hand—as well as to keep herself from acting on her base instincts, which was to give in to fear and worse, panic.

Sakura swallowed, licked her painfully dry lips, and attempted to speak for the first time.

"What…does your organization want with me?"

It was a straightforward question, for Sakura was certainly in no condition to attempt the dizzying game of second-guessing.

He was brutally frank with her.

"You have nothing to do with the organization." His reply was terse, almost as if he was irritated about something, but before Sakura could even react to this new piece of information, he continued. "Your presence here was supposed to be a…gift."

The way he paused carefully made her frown blearily.

"A gift?" she echoed stupidly at first, and finally, the mist that was fogging her brain cleared up some and it became obvious to her what he meant.

That certainly explained all the ribbons….

Those Akatsuki bastards had just literally tied her up like they would a goddamned present!!

The small light of bewildered understanding was quick to reignite into fierce indignation and a terrible determination to cause pain and destruction to the idiot duo who had made her go through such humiliation and panic for the past few hours. With vague interest, Itachi watched as the seemingly confused female started to stir with renewed rage.

"A gift?!" she repeated once more, only this time she bellowed it loud enough for the whole of Ame to hear.

Eying the furious female with calculating interest, the lean, raven-haired male noted that she seemed to be the ridiculously overemotional type, though in this case her volatile temperament was actually working in her favor; she appeared to be recovering quickly from her physical distress, or if it still bothered her, she was now too fired up to notice.

He nodded once, calmly.

Sakura actually growled with increasing agitation. It was as if her fear was entirely gone, as if she had forgotten completely about the threat that was him. However, that was not the case, not really. Sakura was very hyperaware of the Uchiha who was in the same room as she was, of his many astounding feats as an extremely powerful shinobi, of his prowess in the battlefield, of how dangerous he could be. It was just that he paled in comparison to Sakura's badly stung pride. Her attention was still partially kept on him in order to react accordingly if he so chose to attack her suddenly, but other than that, the kunoichi was more interested in thinking up the most creative ways to make the Idiot Squad of Akatsuki pay for their misdeeds against her.

…And him!!

Sakura turned her attention completely to Uchiha, her gaze hard and suspicious.

"And what is your contribution to all this?" she asked with great skepticism. No matter how ridiculous a notion it was that the infamous clan murderer Uchiha Itachi would stoop so low as to kidnap a kunoichi with his fellow members and then plot to have her stripped naked and wrapped in ribbons, the fact that he was standing here and probably quite aware of what had been going on made Sakura scowl. Nobody had thought him capable of killing his own clan too, until he did it. Who knows, he may even be a closet pervert; after all, they had so many of them back in Konoha.

The look on her face turned from distrust to pure outrage in an instant, and before he could figure out what she was thinking, she was glaring fiercely at him.

"I contributed nothing." he admitted, somewhat amused by the furious female's antics. He looked at her.

"You are my gift."

Sakura froze in stunned stupor.

He must be joking.

"What?!" the expression on her face was so comically horrified that it actually piqued his interest a little more. He crossed his arms and merely waited patiently for her to reach her own conclusion.

The poor kunoichi in question was nearly hysterical with shock. Her wide eyes never left his, and she was sputtering badly.

"B- but tha- that means-"

Onyx eyes gleamed with mild amusement.

"It means that you are rightfully my property now, kunoichi."

Sakura gaped. The truth was simply too much to bear, and coupled with the intense stress and exhaustion, Sakura's mind was overloading.

There was only one possible outcome for this.

System shutdown. Please restart and reboot.

The kunoichi fell back onto the futon with a thump and fainted dead away, much to the growing amusement of the Uchiha. There was no doubt in his mind that she was going to wake up eventually, recover, and indicate her utmost upset to all within hearing distance, whether they wanted to know or not.

A small gleam of amused interest lurked within onyx depths as he regarded the unconscious form of the pink-haired female currently huddled under the blankets.

Maybe it wasn't so bad after all, receiving presents on his long forgotten birthday.

I will keep you…for now.

:owari:

Questions That I Would Like To Answer Before You Ask:

I am retarded. Seriously retarded. Here is a belated, belated, belated birthday present for Itachi, as well as a gift fic for dear Julie, meant to be the companion fic to the two pieces of awesome fanarts that she had created in light of Itachi's birthday.

The links for said fanarts are on my profile page; do take a look if you are interested!

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One may also consider this piece of one-shot to be a PWP (Plot, what plot?). Once again, my apologies to those who found it a complete waste of time.

To be honest, I was multitasking like nobody's business when I wrote this, and in the end, this was the result. In fact, I have another one-shot revolving around the same fanarts, only it's a little more risqué than 'ribbon' and also has no plot whatsoever, just Sakura in ribbons as well as a rather disorientated Itachi.

...

Anyway, I'm still not quite satisfied with the ending for the latter OS, but I'm planning on posting it up when I'm finally happy tweaking around with it.

Do watch out for it; it will be titled 'ribbon redux'.

…Yes, I know I have no imagination whatsoever.

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I simply love crack!Akatsuki to bits, not that evil!Akatsuki does not have its own special appeal, but the former is definitely a lot more fun to write. Don't you just love justified OOCness?

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Your reviews fuel my passion for writing. So please leave a comment if you like this fic, thank you.

--paws