It’s here! Our amazing project is brought to life! It was supposed to be released a few months ago, but due to war in my country Ukraine I had to postpone it.. Thankfully, all the artists were patient and understanding, I love them so much❤️ I’m so happy I decided to host this Multi Animator Project, every artist here is SO talented like WOAH! The result speaks for itself, enjoy ;)
A deep frown etched into the corners of her mouth. In the driver’s seat beside her, Kakashi raised his binoculars, his sights set down the street to a tavern that appeared otherwise unopened and unoccupied. They sat in a plain rental car. Only a few buildings down from the meeting point that had been provided to her. A small tavern in the middle of town.
Sakura still wasn’t certain Itachi had been the one to contact her. After all, he was dead. And so far, no one had come in or out of the pub.
“Itachi was the only one who ever messaged me that way,” she continued, her tone more withdrawn.
Kakashi lowered his sights to glance at her. “We witnessed his funeral,” he told her gently. As if she could ever forget. “If word got out about your attachment to him, it would be an easy trap for the CIA, Madara or even Kisame to set up.”
“The CIA would be most likely,” she said. “Shisui knew about our relationship and I don’t doubt he blames me for Itachi’s death. That doesn’t exactly give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. And if Itachi was alive, I don’t understand why he wouldn’t have contacted me before now.”
Kakashi didn’t reply to that and a moment of silence passed before he asked, “If it is the CIA, I wonder why they would have you meet here.”
“That’s another thing I don’t understand,” she agreed. “All of those three – the CIA, Madara and Kisame don’t have any territory here. This is neutral ground. Why ask to meet here?”
Not having an answer, he didn’t reply. Another few minutes passed before Kakashi finally asked, “So, do you not want to go in?”
Sakura inhaled a deep, silent breath. “No, I do.” Then she glanced at him. “You have my six?”
Kakashi flashed a quick smile in her direction. “I always do.”
His unwavering support steeled her nerves. Without another word, Sakura slipped out of the car. She pulled the collar of her jacket tighter around her neck as a breeze kicked up. She passed one last, purposeful gaze over the street. Other than a few pedestrians the block was empty. There weren’t even any lingering eyes in the windows.
Still, Sakura withdrew her gun as she stopped before the obviously closed tavern. She expected the front door to be locked, but the handle turned without resistance. It was utterly still inside. The door closed with an ominous, echoing thud as she shut it behind her.
The main bar was eerily silent upon her entrance, only her footsteps echoed against the polished wood as she stepped further inside. The teak chandelier was lit above her head, making the liquor bottles behind the bar flicker. In the lowlight, they looked like faces laughing at her.
Sakura turned away. She didn’t believe in ghosts.
The rest of the pub was empty. Totally and completely deserted. She didn’t understand why her mysterious stranger would send her here. It seemed like no one had been there since closing the night before.
Huffing a breath through her nose, Sakura turned back towards the door, intent on leaving when music reached her ears. It was faint, the gentle tinkle of a piano from somewhere else further inside the tavern.
Tightening the grip on her weapon, Sakura followed the sound. Towards the back of the room was another doorway. It led to a second bar that was a little smaller than the first. Off to one side, a wall of high-end liquors were lined on a the shelf behind a bar of polished mahogany. A number of square tables each with four chairs around them were set up about the main floor, all strategically placed to have a view towards an empty section of the room where a small band could set up.
In that space now was a single piano. And behind it sat Itachi.
If every cell in Sakura’s being hadn’t frozen on the spot, her gun would have slipped through her fingers and clattered to the floor. The world quit turning, the fire flickering in the fireplace stopped swaying and the tinkle of the piano faded into silence.
Itachi was here before her. He was skinnier than the last time she had seen him, the harsh contrast of shadows making his face appear more gaunt and his hair was a little shorter than before, but it was him.
Apparently, there was such thing as ghosts.
“The world becomes a dangerous place when you’re angry with it,” Itachi finally said.
As if someone had pressed play in the crescendo of a symphony, all of Sakura’s senses rushed back to her at once. Her hands trembled and she could feel the frantic beat of her heart in her chest like a bird trying to escape its cage. Noise, so much noise, filled her ears. The roar of the blood in her veins, the crackle of the fire, the tinkling of the piano. She just wanted it all to stop.
Sakura’s grip on her gun tightened until her knuckles turned white. If this wasn’t a hallucination, she didn’t want to shoot him on reflex and kill him. Again.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
Immediately Itachi’s hands stilled over the keys as he looked up at her. “Are you disappointed?”
She didn’t know if it was the lighting or if it was because it had been so long since the last time she had seen him, but in that moment, he was the most handsome he had ever been. His skin was pale against the dark blue button-down shirt he wore under his jacket. His jaw and cheekbones were emphasized by the firelight, but it was his eyes that pierced through her soul and kept her rooted in place. They were like twin pools of liquid midnight.
He looked like death that had warmed over. An angel of darkness.
She had missed him so terribly. And now he was here before her. She didn’t know how, but it was true. All those sleepless nights and terrible moments of guilt and grief. Her hands shook. It took her a moment to realize it was out of anger.
“I saw your funeral,” she said accusingly. “You have a tombstone in Arlington.”
A strange expression passed over his face, as if he was grieving his own death. “The CIA thought this would be a perfect opportunity to send me deeper undercover.”
Astounded, Sakura could only stare as she relived that day. Her heart had shattered into a million different pieces and guilt had left her bedridden for nearly a week. And here he was, telling her all that she had witnessed was a lie?
“Does your family even know you’re alive?”
Again, a brief but painful look settled on his features. “Shisui and my mother do. Unfortunately to keep my brother safe, I have to keep him in the dark until my mission is complete.”
Taken aback, Sakura’s lips parted but no words escaped. It felt like someone had shoved her down onto the cold, hard concrete and kicked dirt into her face. She was full of grief and heartbreak and anger and betrayal, so full she thought all that emotion might crush her heart and explode out her chest.
When Itachi’s hands returned to the piano keys, she became even angrier. He was playing her song. And it wasn’t those shaky, four notes anymore. It was an entire verse, over and over again. That song no longer gave her an escape from reality. It reminded her of everything she’d had, could have had, and would have had if she hadn’t made her worse miscalculation of betraying Itachi. And here he was, playing her mistake right to her face.
“I don’t play anymore,” she snarled.
Itachi had just enough time to withdraw his fingers from the keys before she slammed the fallboard closed. He simply looked up at her like a parent watching their child throw a tantrum. All forced patience.
“That’s a shame. I did always enjoy watching you play.”
Her eyes narrowed. “How can you just lie to your brother like that?”
‘Lie to me.’ She didn’t say the words but they were heard just as clearly.
“I do not think you can lecture me on lying to those closest to me.”
“You should have contacted me before now!”
“I couldn’t!” Itachi suddenly snapped, all that patience gone. He stood abruptly, nearly knocking the wooden bench over in his haste. He still stood a head higher over her, but she didn’t flinch away from those impossibly dark eyes. “Not without the CIA finding out. And I needed time to heal. I did almost die, that much is true. I flatlined in surgery twice and was in a coma for nearly a week. I had to put my health first.”
Sakura wanted to argue, but she couldn’t find fault with his justification. It had taken months for her shoulder to mend; it still wasn’t completely healed. Itachi would’ve had a much longer recovery time.
Automatically her eyes drifted down to his stomach, where she was certain he would have a scar to match her own. The death grip on her gun loosened before she raised her other hand towards him. To touch him and feel him; to make sure he was really there.
She pulled her hand back before her fingers grazed his shirt.
“For the last nine months, I thought I had killed you,” she said, her voice suddenly soft in the wake of Itachi’s outburst of anger.
He inhaled and exhaled a silent breath before he replied, his tone equally as quiet. “You did.”
Not physically at least. But peering up at him, she could see the heartbreak lining his expression even now. There weren’t enough people in the world that could help shoulder the weight of all her guilt.
“Why did you come back? You could have stayed dead if you really hate me so much.”
“I told you already,” Itachi said not unkindly. “I have a mission to complete.”
Sakura’s shoulders stiffened at that. It suddenly occurred to her for the first time that this mission could very well be to dispose of her. He would be the perfect assassin for the job.
The sudden urge to turn tail and run nearly overwhelmed her, but her curiosity got the better of her. She had to know.
“Which is?”
Itachi’s expression was utterly unreadable. Like a Greek God, he might as well have been carved from stone. “What I’ve been doing all along: tracking Madara. Only this time, he won’t escape.”
Relief swept through her like a torrential downpour, only to dry up as quickly as it came as Itachi continued, “Because you’re going to help me.” From his tone, she clearly heard that he was telling and not asking. “I know you have been keeping tabs on him. I know you know where he is. You owe me at least that.”
He scrutinized her patiently but expectantly, like he wouldn’t leave until he got an answer from her. Still, Sakura hesitated. She wondered what he would do if she tried to walk out; what would happen if she told him the truth. Would things go back to the way they were, or would he disappear on her again as he hunted down his target?
“Madara’s in Hong Kong. He’s been there for the last four months.”
Itachi stilled, as if surprised she had told him without more persuasion on his part. Then he did the last thing she expected him to do. He cupped her face with both hands and bent his head until he sealed his mouth to hers.
It took Sakura by surprise, but she reacted an instant later, her eyes falling closed as she reached up with her empty hand to grip the open fold of his jacket to tug him closer. Itachi wasn’t gentle by any means. His kiss was bruising, putting all his emotions into that single action. His anger and heartbreak, but also his desperation and sorrow. It made her realize that he had missed her as much, if not more than she had missed him.
When Itachi finally pulled back, they were both panting slightly, the sound loud in the otherwise quiet room. He reached up to smooth her hair away from her face, his gaze tracking the action before his eyes dropped back to hers.
Then his expression hardened. “If you ever pull that shit on me again, we are going to have a problem.”
Even with his warning, Sakura couldn’t resist the corner of her mouth twitching in the start of a smirk. She trusted Itachi would follow through with his threat should she try to mislead him again, but she wasn’t concerned. Because if there was one thing she was certain of, it was that she wouldn’t let Itachi go again.
She holstered her gun before smiling up at him innocently. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
A vaguely disbelieving expression crossed Itachi’s face before he released a defeated sigh – as if he was just realizing for the first time that he was in love with an asshole. Even so, he kissed her again, only pausing some minutes later for Sakura to send Kakashi a text telling him not to wait for her.
Because she was going to spend the rest of the night with the man in front of her. And tomorrow, they would work on taking down the bastard known as Uchiha Madara.
end.
xx
So, this is the happiest ending I could give. It’s not really a happy ending cause all the shit they’ve been through, they’re going to go through again. But for now, they’re happy.
This wasn’t the original ending I had for the story. Originally, I wanted to write a sequel that had Itachi coming back much later to hunt down Madara. Together, Sakura and Itachi catch and kill him, but while protecting Itachi, Sakura gets killed. And that’s how it ends, but I don’t have as much time to write as I used to, and I did lose motivation with this story.
That being said, I still love this story and I’m happy with how it came out. Thank you everyone for your continued support. To those of you who have been with me since chapter one and those of you who just came across this fic, thank you for your reviews. They are incredibly motivating and I cannot say enough how much I appreciate them.
Still to come:
Not the Only One - MadaSaku/TobiSaku (continuation)
