Last Name

Chapter Two


The cool air of night contrasted against heated flesh as the intoxicated female was swept along through the mantle of darkness by her mysterious companion. Rough, calloused hands crept under the muted, ruby cloth of her shirt and danced along the satiny skin of her lower back, causing shivers to course through her body. Sakura moaned breathily as heated, open-mouthed kisses were pressed upon the milky expanse of her neck.

It barely registered in her lust and alcohol clouded mind when they landed outside of a small building set in a nondescript neighborhood. The distracted kunoichi promptly found herself up against the rough surface of a nearby wall as her captor slanted his mouth over hers, gently nipping her bottom lip as his hands wandered down to her curvaceous hips and pulled her flush against him. Sakura gasped, allowing him to intensify the kiss as his tongue invaded her mouth and persuaded her to join in the primal exchange, grinding against her as she accepted his burning brand and reciprocated with passionate fervor.

The last reservations she may have held deep within her conscience vanished even as her arms wound around his neck. Slowly he drew away from her bruised lips before trailing his mouth with lingering kisses down her chin until reaching the pale, sensitive skin of her neck. A deep-throated moan escaped her crimson lips as he bit lightly down on the tendon below her left ear and drew upon the tender skin. A smirk brushed across the sensitive nerves as he pulled away, much to the chagrin of the impassioned female who whimpered slightly at this withdrawal.

“Not yet,” a voice like black velvet murmured beside her ear as he lightly tugged her toward the door of the establishment, the complacent female following blindly into the dimly lit room.

A wizened old man with deep-set, pale, milky eyes began droning on about something that Sakura ignored in favor of the tremors passing through her body as her companion’s thumb feathered across the palm of her hand, inflaming the sensitized skin with every ephemeral pass. The dazed woman kept what little concentration she was capable of on the slightly hazy image of the stunning male that was smirking at her sexily with dark hunger in his ebony eyes. The shriveled, little man turned to her and asked her something in a thin, reedy voice. Sakura responded without thinking in the affirmative, more interested in listening to the smooth baritone of her companion as he also answered the same question. A document of heavy parchment paper was produced from seemingly nowhere by the annoying elder, and she scrawled her name with minimal persuasion across the bottom of the page after the dark-haired male did.

A triumphant smirk appeared on his devilishly handsome visage as he swept her up in his arms, walked out the door, and leapt onto the nearby roof as he lightly ran across the town. Sakura murmured indistinctly and nuzzled his neck, shivering at the rich chuckle that vibrated through his chest and spilled from his throat.

Nudging the slatted, wooden shutters of a partially ajar window open, he landed lightly in the dimly lit room and allowed her legs to slip from his arms until she was standing in the cage of his arms. Entangling his long fingers in the pink tresses that glowed in the solitary candle’s flickering light, he tilted her head up and pressed his lips once more to hers, devouring her essence with fervent abandon. With a demanding tug, the burgundy silk tie to her hitai-ate came loose and slithered from its position with a sibilant hiss.

His hands removed themselves from her hair as they ran down the back of Sakura’s torso, causing her to arch closer to his unyielding body. Slipping his thumbs under the edge of the red shirt, the artistic fingers skated along her sides while inching the bright cloth higher and revealing the toned, milky skin of the kunoichi’s now exposed midriff. The light scraping of nails across her abdomen resulted in a violent shudder that coincided with a breathless moan as she pulled away briefly to catch her breath.

Moving up to her collarbone, he impatiently pulled on the tab of the zipper, the sound of the teeth being rent apart loud in the stifling atmosphere. His hands slipped under the shirt and slid it off her shoulders and down along her arms until it landed in a heap upon the floor. Her breast bindings swiftly followed. The petite female latched onto his thick, navy shirt with the intent to even the score. Once this task had been achieved, she threaded her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and pulled him down into an impassioned kiss. Unsnapping the heavy, canvas skirt and kicking it off along with her high sandals, Sakura was left standing in only black spandex shorts.

The determined kunoichi divested the amused male of the remainder of his garments with determined efficiency. Laughing quietly, he pressed her down upon the thick, dense padding of the futon centered in the stark room. His knee was insinuated between her legs, leaving the frenzied woman straddling his muscular thigh as he turned his attention once more to the sensitive area on her neck. Slender arms embraced him as he bit and laved the small area thoroughly, the receptive female arching her back and rubbing against him in a feline manner.
With a low rumble of amusement, he began to trail fiery, open-mouthed kisses down the her torso, pausing briefly to lavish attention to the rosy peaks of her breasts before continuing downwards. Sakura squirmed as he approached the sensitive and ticklish area of her stomach, long fingers slipping beneath the form fitting cloth and slowly peeling it from her skin and removing the last of the barriers between them.

A throaty groan escaped the young woman’s throat as her lover sunk one of his fingers into the pulsing heat of her core. She writhed on the bed as his finger set a slow pace as it pumped into her repeatedly. Her hips bucked wildly as a second finger joined the first and his thumb pressed upon the highly sensitized bundle of nerves. Sakura mewled and clutched his shoulders tightly as he kissed his way back up her body, all the while working his fingers deep within her feminine center.
His sinful mouth swallowed her cry as white lightning exploded through her body with cataclysmic proportions, causing the woman to thrash uncontrollably beneath him. His fingers slipped unnoticed from the distracted woman as he aligned himself and plunged into her wet heat. Sakura gasped and squirmed uncomfortably at the foreign sensation. His lips moved over hers gently and deepened the kiss as he set a slow tortuous rhythm. Low moans flowed from her lips as her womb tightened and her already heated blood flowed like lava through her veins, setting the impassioned woman aflame as her body eagerly prepared itself once more for euphoric bliss.

Hot breath tantalized the flushed skin of her neck with her partner’s ragged breaths, his head bowed with a curtain of sable hair spilling down to conceal his face, the cool, silky strands dancing tantalizingly along her sensitive skin. His head raised and dark eyes gazed with deliberation upon her half-closed, glassy green eyes before sweeping down and capturing her mouth with desperation. A keening thrummed through the back of her throat and her nails raked the taught plane of his back as her internal muscles clenched tightly upon him, sending him spiraling over the edge with her.

The two collapsed panting upon the mussed futon, their bodies an endless entanglement of sweaty limbs. He reached languidly over and grasped the thin blanket, draping it over their cooling bodies. He pressed a tender kiss upon her temple before spooning her to his body, receiving an incoherent murmur from the lethargic kunoichi who was already surrendering herself to the oblivion of sleep. His hand lazily took hold of the thin plate of silk backed metal beside the bed and glanced with longing upon the etched swirl, sighing as he placed it beneath the pillow and settled down to sleep.

xXx

Sakura shot up in bed, gasping lightly, the dream resounding through her and tormenting her heated body. Green eyes stared wildly about the familiar bedroom as her mind made the transition between memory and her actual surroundings. Flopping back into her fluffy pillows, the kunoichi groaned and threw her arm across her face.

‘I’m never going to be able to get back to sleep,’ Sakura thought as she slid her arm from her face and let it drop onto the pillow her head rested on after absently removing the short, damp, pink tresses from where they were plastered to her face.

xXx

“It’s a long way to the Land of Birds,” Kakashi murmured under his breath to his pink-haired companion who was glaring at the well-dressed youth at the front of the group.

“Don’t remind me,” Sakura hissed back as anguish seeped from jade eyes at the concept she was trying so relentlessly to deny.

“Why are you so slow?” a nasally voice broke through the ominous air as the man, or rather boy, they were being paid to escort threw a scornful look back at the three shinobi trudging along behind him. “Aren’t you supposed to be elite ninja? Move faster.”

Sakura twitched.

“He’s rude,” Sai stated bluntly from beside the seething woman.

“Just remember that he’s a client, Sakura,” the silver-haired jounin warned with a resigned expression in his single, dark eye.

The irritated kunoichi closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

“I would like to return home in time for this year’s birthday celebration, not next year’s,” the arrogant male sang. “Hmph, Father hired you to escort me to our estate, not laze around back there and chat.”

“Can’t we just knock him out and carry him?” Sakura pleaded. “He’d be less of a nuisance that way.”

“Unfortunately not,” Kakashi responded. “We’re obligated to obey Kiyoshi-kun since Masaharu-san paid good money for our services.”

“Naruto is so lucky he wasn’t able to come along,” Sakura sighed.

“I’m sure he doesn’t feel that way,” Kakashi said as he pulled the infamous green paperback from his pocket and flipped it open.

“That’s what he gets for overdoing it in training,” Sakura smirked as she remembered her blond friend’s reaction to being informed by the Hokage that he was on hospital arrest and would have to sit this mission out.

“Hey, Pinky! Since you aren’t doing anything productive back there, come walk beside me,” Kiyoshi demanded.

“What did he call me?!”

“Calm down Sakura,” Kakashi said placatingly. “Just think on the positive side.”

“Positive?” the irate female ground out, the pitch of her voice rising as she glared at the elegantly dressed young man. “You’ll have to enlighten me as to just what is positive about this situation.”

“We’re getting paid more than usual, and after we reach the Land of Birds we will never have to see him again,” Kakashi stated flatly.

“Pinky!”

The rose-haired woman groaned as she stared beseechingly up into the endless, blue sky in the hopes that some god would take pity on her.

xXxThree Days LaterxXx

“Maybe one of us should carry him,” Sakura suggested quietly as weary green eyes stared blankly at the pretentious male moaning about how much his feet hurt.

“Why would we want to do that?” the pale artist asked, perplexity written across his still façade.

“It’ll take forever for us to get rid of him otherwise,” she murmured under her breath as Kiyoshi glowered at them, clearly annoyed at being ignored.

“We’re already in the Land of Rivers,” Kakashi stated. “It won’t be that much longer until we arrive at our destination.”

“Maybe, but it’s still far too long a time,” Sakura gazed once more at their sulking client.

“Think of it as an exercise in patience and restraint,” Kakashi suggested good-naturedly.

Sakura opened her mouth to respond before promptly snapping it shut at the nearby presence of chakra. The three shinobi closed in on the merchant’s son as the owners of the immense auras approached and revealed themselves. Silence fell on the stretch of road as the two factions stared each other down.

Kakashi adjusted his hitai-ate to reveal his sole Sharingan eye. In tandem with their team leader’s action, Sakura and Sai lowered their eyes so that they weren’t looking into their potential adversary’s eyes, thus preparing for the inevitable clash. Sakura’s eyes began to flicker up to his face before she caught herself and returned to staring at his feet.

“There’s no need for that,” Uchiha Itachi’s smooth voice interposed calmly.

“Why do you say that?” Kakashi demanded suspiciously. Sakura attempted to keep her eyes averted so as to avoid being caught in a genjutsu, but her gaze kept being drawn inexplicably towards the smaller figure before them.

“The Kyuubi-jinchuriki is not with you at the moment,” Itachi stated simply, “therefore we have no need for unnecessary confrontation.”

Sakura gave up trying to stare at his feet to prevent eye contact with his deadly, crimson gaze and settled for merely watching him at chest-level. Out of her peripheral vision she could see the indistinct features of his aristocratic countenance, the light breeze blowing strands of dark hair around his face before he impatiently brushed them away.

Ebony locks fell about the pale façade of her lover as his mouth swept down and captured her own, tongues twining about each other in fervent adoration….

Sakura started as her memory interposed itself over reality. She shook her head slightly to remove the sense of déjà vu and returned her attention to the moment at hand, staunchly ignoring the slight aura of familiarity about Itachi.

“Be that as it may, but do you expect us to simply let you walk away?” Kakashi questioned critically, his voice breaking Sakura from her reverie. “You are a missing-nin of Konoha. We can’t just let you pass through.”

“You should concern yourself with your mission,” Itachi stated as he gestured to Kiyoshi, who was cowering behind Sakura. “There is no reason for us to fight each other.”

“He’s right,” Sakura said quietly to Kakashi. “Kiyoshi-san is our priority at the moment.”

“Very well,” Kakashi yielded as he kept his eyes focused on the two Akatsuki before them.

“Such a shame,” Kisame grinned toothily as he passed the copy ninja. “And I was so hoping to continue our unfinished battle from before.”

Kakashi glared at the larger ninja as Sai prepared to reach for his ninjaken should the situation call for it. Both disregarded Itachi for the moment as they focused on the shark-like man. Itachi simply resumed walking down the road, pausing briefly when he reached Sakura and pressing something cool into her hand. Startled green eyes clashed with glowing red as her hand unconsciously clasped around the item. A small smirk adorned his lips, his hair brushing the frozen kunoichi’s face as he leaned closer to her ear.

“It’s not polite to leave without saying goodbye,” his light tenor intoned as he drifted past her and vanished around the bend in the road, followed by his partner who was still leering at Kakashi.

Sakura stared blankly at the trees in front of her as her mind rapidly processed his words. She glanced down to see what he gave her. Her hitai-ate rested innocuously in her limp hands as she peered with rising hysteria at the gleaming piece of metal fixed on the length of raspberry silk.

“Sakura,” Kakashi called out with worry, “are you alright?”

The pink-haired woman listlessly focused on her team-leader as she pondered his words. “Yes, I’m fine.”

“You seem distracted,” the older shinobi commented.

“Oh, I was just thinking,” Sakura said with a fake smile and a dismissive wave. “It’s nothing important really. I just hope we find him soon.”

Kakashi nodded solemnly at the mention of ‘him’ and dropped the subject, lest he cause the petite female to become inexplicably depressed at any further mention of her missing teammate.

“Let’s go now,” Kiyoshi demanded as he smoothed the wrinkles out of his haori and promptly forgot that he was ever cowering behind a woman. “We’re wasting time.”

“Naturally,” Kakashi said blandly as he ambled down the road, Kiyoshi marching ahead of him with Sai trailing behind. Sakura followed them unconsciously, biting her lip in thought.

A light blush stained her cheeks as the implications of Itachi’s statement finally registered in the normally quick-witted kunoichi’s brain. Inner Sakura certainly wasn’t helping things as she cackled in the background and commented on the sake-hazed memories of her night in the unremarkable town.

‘No,’ Sakura decided firmly as she shut those memories out in denial. ‘There is no way that I am married to Uchiha Itachi. It is only coincidence that he found my hitai-ate.’

“Hey, Ugly,” Sai called out with his traditional fake smile as he fell back in step with the dawdling girl, “we’re never going to make it to the Land of Birds if you keep walking so slow.”

Sakura cast a scathing glare in his direction as she sped up to walk beside her sensei.

xXx

Sakura stretched her arms towards the blue sky with a smile of relief on her face as the three shinobi walked inside of Konoha’s gates. “I am so glad to be home.”

“Aa,” Kakashi agreed absently without taking his eye away from the book he was reading. He turned to the right and began ambling away from the two younger ninja. “I’ll go turn in the mission report now.”

“Does he really expect us to believe that?” Sakura muttered as her eye twitched. “He’s not even heading in the right direction.”

“I’ll see you later,” Sai said before heading towards his apartment.

Sakura shook her head as she continued on towards her shishou’s office. A gentle smile warmed her face as she looked fondly on the village she grew up in and loved with all her heart. The bustle of daily life continued on as it always did as the rose-haired kunoichi strolled amidst it. A loud, joyful shout rose above the noise, causing the woman to turn to the speaker.

“Hey! Sakura-chan!” a boisterous blond called out, waving his hands madly as he dashed towards his friend.

“Naruto!” Sakura’s emerald eyes lit up as she grinned before being hugged by the exuberant male. “Put me down! I can’t breathe!”

“Sorry, Sakura-chan,” Naruto said sheepishly, his light blue eyes gleaming happily as he stood before her scratching the back of his head nervously. “I’m just glad you’re back. It was so unfair of Tsunade-baa-chan to make me stay behind like that.”

“Maybe next time you won’t be so eager to destroy property and hurt yourself so badly while training,” Sakura lectured.

“I don’t see what the big deal was,” Naruto said despondently as he began walking with Sakura. “It wasn’t as bad as Baa-chan kept making out. Besides, my injuries weren’t bad enough for her to keep me hospitalized. I couldn’t even feel them!”

“Just because you don’t realize how bad an injury is doesn’t mean that it isn’t serious,” Sakura reprimanded. “The only thing you’ll do running around exerting yourself while injured is make it worse.”

“You sound just like Baa-chan,” Naruto muttered, his comment clearly not meant to be taken in a complementary fashion.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Sakura said darkly, glancing sideways at the nervous blond. “I need to go speak to shishou now. I’ll see you later, Naruto.”

“Alright,” Naruto responded as he waved before spotting Ichiraku and entering the coveted establishment.

Sakura continued on her way to the Hokage Tower, opting to land on the roof and enter in through the window rather than climb the long, spiraling staircase. She hesitated outside the window when she heard voices inside the office. Shikamaru’s lazy drawl was easily recognizable, as was Ino’s distinct pitch.

“We weren’t able to find any further information about Sakura’s troublesome mystery husband,” Shikamaru stated. “However, in addition to not discovering anything, the reason why we didn’t stay to search any longer was because we did come across something we thought you should know. There were confirmed Akatsuki sightings in the town the same night Kakashi’s team was there, and one of them was definitely Hoshigaki Kisame.”

“Thank you,” Tsunade’s voice carried out to the kunoichi who stood stunned on the ledge beside the window, her carefully built world of denial crashing down around her. “You may go.”

Sakura entered the room via the window mechanically, easily landing on the floor and gliding over to stand in front of Tsunade’s desk. The older woman watched her overly pallid disciple with concern.

“Are you feeling alright, Sakura?” the busty blonde asked, her brows furrowed with slight trepidation as the girl shook her head in the negative, sending pink strands flying around her face as the light winked off of her hitai-ate. “I take it you heard Shikamaru’s report. We will find out who…”

“No,” Sakura interrupted. “I know who it is. What they said only confirmed it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We met up with Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigaki Kisame in the Land of Rivers during our mission. They were only passing by, but as he was leaving, Itachi returned my hitai-ate and insinuated that it was him,” Sakura said impassively.

“So you’re married to Uchiha Itachi,” Tsunade stated flatly, the young woman in front of her nodding in the affirmative. “Well, I wasn’t expecting this. Are you positive?”

“Yes,” she answered dejectedly, “I’m positive.”

“I need a drink,” Tsunade muttered as she reached for a sake bottle and poured herself a cup before looking shrewdly at her apprentice. “You could use one too.”

Sakura looked unsettled at the mere mention of the alcohol. “I’ll pass.”

“Suit yourself,” Tsunade knocked back the small cup and smacked her lips as she refilled it, Sakura curling up in a nearby chair after clearing it of papers to reflect on the newly discovered and recently accepted knowledge of her current identity.

xXx

Shizune stared suspiciously at the door leading into the Hokage’s office. No noise had been heard in there since Nara Shikamaru and Yamanaka Ino had left half an hour ago. The dark-haired woman approached the door and pressed her ear to the heavy wood, listening for any signs of life. The medic’s eyes narrowed with the suspicion that perhaps her lady was slacking off once more.

She carefully placed her hand on the doorknob and slowly turned the brass handle before yanking the door open and staring in. The woman stared into the room, a tic forming in her eye. Tsunade was resting her head on the desk and staring contemplatively at the nearly empty bottle beside her, a half filled cup held loosely in her hand. In the plush chair beside the desk was Sakura, curled up in a ball with her forehead pressed to her knees as she chewed absently on her lip and stared thoughtfully at the floor, completely dead to the world.

Shizune marched up to her mistress and snatched the bottle of sake away from the blonde sannin’s hand even as she was reaching for it.

“Hey,” Tsunade pouted, her cheeks stained red from the alcohol, “Give that back! I wasn’t finished.”

“You have already had enough to drink My Lady,” Shizune admonished. “You’re Hokage now. You can’t just go and get drunk whenever you feel like it!”

“I’ll have you know that I had a perfectly legitimate reason to drink,” Tsunade slurred as she puffed up and poked her finger at her assistant.

“And what could that be?” Shizune asked skeptically.

Tsunade pointed at the pink-haired kunoichi resting in the fetal position. “Who’s that?”

Shizune stared at the flushed blonde with disbelief. “I think you’ve had far too much to drink.”

“Just answer the question.”

“Haruno Sakura, your apprentice.”

“Wrong!” Tsunade giggled gleefully as she stared at the annoyed woman. “That is not Haruno Sakura.”

“Then who is it?” Shizune cried out, waving the sake bottle around.

“Uchiha Sakura,” Tsunade snorted with amusement. “The wife of Uchiha Itachi.”

Shizune stared blankly at her long-time companion, glanced back at the vacant expression on the girl in question's face, then took a long draught from the bottle in her hand and collapsed on the seat beside Sakura.

---

Author's Note:

A bit of a warning for those who don't keep up with the latest releases of the manga: "Last Name" is intended to follow the canon storyline fairly closely (or as accurately as I can portray it with the differences in plot line). So, Readers Beware...

-Nephele

Kiyoshi – “pure; saintly”

Those of you with younger siblings (brothers in particular) should recognize Kiyoshi's personality type pretty quickly.