title: What Doesn't Kill You
pairing: eventual SasuSaku and lots of botherly love
dedication: To the great Itachi, of course! He doesn't deserve to die a second time at all! Poor Itachi! Why can't Kishimoto let him live?
notes: 52nd fanfic, probably my 40th fanfic about Naruto. For those waiting for me to update my bigger stories, sorry, writer's block and I had this story waiting for me to write it out so... yeah...

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What Doesn't Kill You

Why was she here again? Actually, a better question was, how did she get here in the first place? Hm, let's see... She was with Hinata just a little while ago, running towards where Naruto was last known to be. And then . . . she blacked out, a little fact that she was annoyed by, and she woke up to find herself on the floor with two pairs of dark eyes watching her. (She had turned red after realizing that, but that was a story for a different time. But right now...)

Ten minutes had passed after that, and silence was the only thing amongst the three shinobi. Sakura decided to be the brave one and asked, "Um . . . so... Hey, if you guys aren't going to talk to me or do anything to me, can I go now?" She was very anxious to leave. For one thing, Naruto was fighting Tobi/Madara at the moment, so she was very worried. Two, Edo Tensei Itachi was here, and she was worried that he would kill her or torture her. And three, Sasuke was here. Need there be anything left to say about that?

"Tch, annoying..."

Sakura felt a vein pop. If she wasn't tied up at the moment and if she wasn't scared of her ex-teammate, oh, the things she would do to him right now for making that comment...

"Haruno-san, please, we are not here to hurt you."

Sakura was surprised that Itachi was the nice one in this. "Uh-huh, and you expect me to believe that?" This left her confused. Wasn't Itachi supposed to be a cold-hearted killer? And didn't he kill his and Sasuke's whole family? Why was Sasuke here with him then? (She ignored her Inner who kept screaming that Sasuke's finally gone bonkers.)

"We just want you to help us with something."

"Ha!" Sakura didn't know where her confidence was coming from, but confidence was good, so she was going to with her gut at the moment. "And give me a reason why I should help you two criminals!"

"See?" Sasuke was speaking to Itachi now. "I told you this would be pointless."

"Otoutou, let me explain my story to her first," Itachi reasoned. "She'll understand then."

"Understand?" Sakura asked. "You'll never get me to join you and whatever you have planned! Never, I tell you!"

But after hearing Itachi's whole story and how it was his mission to kill his family and how he couldn't kill Sasuke and how he wanted Sasuke to become a hero for killing him and how everything he did was for Sasuke, Sakura was bawling by the end of it.

"Oh, my god! *sniffles* I didn't *sniffles* know!" She turned to Sasuke then. "You know, once this gets out, *sniffles* it's not going to be just your father *sniffles* who liked Itachi better."

"So you'll help us?" Itachi asked.

"Of course! Those old geezers have got to pay for what they did!"

But for some odd reason, Sasuke had a bad feeling at the pit of his stomach that he was so not going to enjoy this quest of revenge.