Kiss The Rain

A/N: As I said on FF, this chapter has given me hell. But, I think that I was able to over-come it and hope the next chapter will be out soon. Let us all cross our fingers. Anyways, please read and review.

~!~

Sakura winced as she tried to sit up. She heard the deep chuckle from her opponent and glared over at him before making a valiant effort to stand. However, her knees had a different idea and she found herself sinking back to the floor.

Pein watched with careful eyes as the girl before him attempted to stand. He had decided since the match with Itachi that he would personally spar with her and see if she could protect herself from him. However, where her abilities were not up to his level, her determination was that of a true champion. He knew that hell would freeze over before she admitted defeat to him.

When he entered her room, he had only planned to test her skills, but as they fought, he found himself hitting her with full force, thus knocking her back several times. Now, as she tried to get up from his latest hit, his eyes narrowed. This girl could not be allowed to remain within the Akatsuki. She was too much of a risk and even though his master insisted on keeping her, Pein knew that this girl would bring about the destruction of the organization. He would end this.

“Where is your fire, kunoichi?” he taunted, his eyes locked onto her crumpled form. “You can beat Itachi, but it seems that I am too much for you. Perhaps you are not as strong as people think you are.”

He moved back into an attack stance, but stopped when Sakura gritted out, “If you had not drained me of chakra, I’d beat your ass into the floor. You got what you wanted, so why in the hell am I still here?”

Pein cocked his head to the side. “Why, indeed.” He straightened and walked across the room to stand beside Sakura. “I imagine that you thought that once you defeated Itachi we would let you go. However, it has occurred to us that having such a strong defense to the sharingan might prove useful in our battle against Konoha. After all, they have the copy ninja and Itachi’s little brother on their side. Having you around would even the score,” he explained.

He watched as her eyes grew wide at his last statement and she gritted out, “I would never help you hurt Konoha. When he gets motivated enough, Naruto is a force to be reckoned with. I’ll enjoy seeing you beg for mercy when he decides that he’s had enough of your bullshit.”

A cruel smile formed on Pein’s mouth. “Perhaps. However, there are ways of making one bend to my will. But for now, I’m enjoying seeing just how far I can take you until you break. Tell me, kunoichi. Which limb would you miss more, your arm or leg?”

Before she could reply or even defend herself, Pein lifted up his leg and delivered a hard kick to her left thigh. She could almost hear the bone breaking underneath the vicious force.

Pein’s mouth drew into a thin line when he heard Sakura’s sharp intake of breath and mentally congratulated her on not crying out. Crying out was a sign of weakness, and for her to take the punishment he doled out and still attempt to fight caused him to rethink his plan. However, he would need just a little more time.

“Pein.”

Turning, Pein found Konan, Zetsu, and Tobi standing at the doorway. Konan’s eyes were wide as she took in the scene before her. Never before had she seen such brutality come from her long-time companion. Normally he got whatever information he needed, and then killed the person off without torturing them. He never cared to drag out the inevitable.

Zetsu moved forward and calmly said, “You are needed in your office. We will clean up in here.”

Pein’s eyes narrowed as Tobi bounced forward and moved over to Sakura’s side. He looked up to find Pein glaring down at him and then said, “Tobi will take good care of her. Tobi is a good boy!”

Turning on his heel, Pein stormed out of the dojo with Konan hot on his heels. Damn! A few more minutes and he would have incapacitated the girl completely. He could already imagine what was waiting for him inside of his office.

Tobi carefully lifted Sakura into his arm and looked over at Zetsu. Once he was sure that he had a firm grip on her and that he was not further aggravating her injuries, Tobi walked out of the dojo and headed straight for her room.

Once inside, Tobi knew that Zetsu was already making the signs for the sound barrier. Once it was up, he quickly set Sakura down onto her bed and sighed. “Tobi is sorry, but Tobi is going to have to clean you up,” he said, moving to grab hold of the zipper that kept her top closed.

Sakura hissed at him and jerked away, but immediately regretted it when pain flared all over her body. Frustrated tears began to slide down her cheeks, and she stiffened when Tobi reached over and wrapped his arms around her.

“Tobi understands,” he murmured, and then nodded over at Zetsu, who allowed one of his vines to form and wrap around the bed. Sakura gasped when one of the thorns embedded itself into the back of her neck. Within seconds, her eyes slid closed, and she was finally free of the pain from her injuries.

Tobi carefully laid her back onto the bed and began to pull off her sandals. “Explain to me why Pein decided to spar with her?” he demanded, his tone sharp and dripping with malice.

Zetsu had seen this man angry on several occasions, but now he sounded personally offended. It was as if Pein had delivered a personal attack on him and the man wanted answers. “We can only assume that Pein is jealous of the attention that is being shown toward the kunoichi. After all, he was here first but you have never shown this kind of interest in him. Perhaps he was attempting to see how far he could go before you would interfere.”

“Hn,” Tobi muttered, and then turned back to the task of undressing Sakura. As each layer was peeled away, his disgust grew. “He was attempting to cripple her,” he snapped when his eyes fell upon her thigh. “This is inexcusable. I clearly remember telling you to watch him.”

Zetsu nodded. “We did. We came and retrieved you, did we not?” he replied.

Shaking his head, Tobi stripped the remaining garments off of Sakura and then covered her so that only the necessary areas of her body were exposed. He went into the bathroom and came out with a basin of warm water and a washcloth.

He was about to start cleaning Sakura’s injuries, but stiffened and hissed, “Withdraw the barrier.”

Zetsu nodded and a moment later, a soft knock was heard. He opened the door to find Itachi and Kisame on the other side. Both men looked haggard, but Itachi’s tired eyes quickly sharpened when he took in the sight of Sakura unconscious and clearly nude with Tobi standing over her with a washcloth.

Moving forward, Itachi narrowed his eyes at the masked man and then looked back at Sakura, who was clearly injured. “What happened?” he asked, and though his tone remained soft, it was clear that he was angered.

Kisame wisely stepped away.

“Sakura-chan and Pein-sama sparred and she got hurt,” Tobi replied in a rush. “Tobi is going to clean her and then dress her wounds.”

Tobi moved forward, but was stopped by Itachi. “Leave. I will take care of her wounds.” He took the cloth from Tobi’s hands.

Tobi looked from Itachi to Zetsu and then back to Itachi. Before he could argue, Zetsu called, “Tobi, we must go to the greenhouse. There are a few plants that we need to prune.”

Tobi gave a happy yip and quickly followed the larger man. “Bye-bye!” he called, closing the door behind him.

Kisame shook his head. “That kid is seriously fucked up,” he muttered. He moved to the other side of the bed, whistling softly when he got a good look at the shape Sakura was in. “Damn, what in the hell did she do to deserve this?” he asked, and then growled. “Well, this isn’t fair. He tells me that I can’t beat her ass, but he goes and does it and I’m not even here to see it.”

Itachi’s eyes shifted up to his partner and watched as Kisame held out his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay,” he said. “Seriously though, what in the hell was he thinking?”

Itachi took in a deep breath and stripped off his cloak before dipping the soft cloth into the warm water. This was going to take some time.

~!~

“What in the hell were you thinking?” he gritted out and delivered a strong blow to Pein’s gut. “I warned you to keep your hands off of her, and instead, you go and attempt to cripple her. Tell me, what should I do to repay you for your thoughtlessness?”

Pein staggered for a moment, but then stood to his full height and wiped his arm across his face. He glanced down to find a large amount of blood before looking up at his master. He calmly said, “I wasn’t trying to cripple her. I was attempting to see just how far we can push her until she breaks. You’ve stated before that you want her with us, and like the rest of them, she has to be put though the tests to see just whom she would be best working with. I would never go against your word.”
Madara sneered at the man before him. “Do you take me for a fool?” he asked menacingly. “You are attempting to thwart my efforts to mold the girl into my own creation. If she is out of the way, my attention is returned to you. However, you have seemingly forgotten that this girl is under my protection. If you wish to remain in the arms of power, do not defy me again.”

Turning, he moved to the door, but before sliding his mask back into place, he turned and said, “When she awakens, you will apologize for your inappropriate behavior.”

Leaving Pein no time to argue, he opened the door and allowed his ‘Tobi’ persona to overtake his movements. Bouncing past Konan and Deidara, he waved merrily at them before disappearing down the hall and toward the greenhouse. Once inside, he dropped the act and stared at Zetsu, who had come over to greet him.

“The next time he lays a hand on her, you are to kill him.”

~!~

Itachi’s eyes were drawn to the large bruise that was forming on Sakura’s thigh. He watched as Kisame slid his large hand underneath her calf and gently lifted her leg so that Itachi could examine the wound closer. “It’s broken,” he stated, matter-of-factly.

He gave a sharp nod and then motioned for Kisame to lower her leg. “Are you able to pick up any chakra from her?” he asked, though with his sharingan, he already knew the answer. Pein had clearly used a chakra draining technique on her, and because of it, she would not be able to repair the damage.

“Nope,” Kisame said. “Samehada says she doesn’t even have a spark of chakra within her. It’s such a shame too. Her chakra is quite tasty.”

Not bothering to reply to his partner, Itachi quickly bandaged the other wounds, but made a mental note that Sakura would be basically helpless until her chakra returned. He felt his stomach tighten as he realized that his aura was flaring angrily, causing Kisame to back away and eye him warily.

“Geez, calm down,” Kisame growled. “You know, ever since we took her, you haven’t been acting like yourself. What in the hell has gotten into you?”

Itachi turned and calmly said, “She is an obligation. Nothing more, nothing less. We were told to bring her here safely and we have done that.”

“And you will be the ones to watch over her as she recovers.”

Itachi and Kisame turned to look at the owner of the voice. Pein stood in the doorway and he looked less than pleased. He walked over to the side of the bed and quietly assessed the thigh that he had kicked.

Taking in a deep breath, he looked up to find Itachi staring at him, the sharingan active and bright. Kisame was glaring down at the floor. It was clear that neither man was happy to hear that they were to play babysitter for the kunoichi.

“Until she is healed and can be assigned to a partner, the two of you will be taking care of her. Give her whatever she desires, but do not allow her out of the base. I don’t need her attempting to run back to Konoha, especially since she now knows that she is going to be instrumental in Konoha’s downfall,” he said, turning to walk back to the door.

“What did she do to bring this upon herself?” Itachi asked, his tone quiet.

Pein was not fooled. Perhaps the shark and the others were fooled, but not him. It was clear that Itachi was unhappy with the girl’s injuries and was now searching for any answer he could find that would give him the upper hand. But Pein wasn’t about to give up his advantage.

“She has received the same initiation that the rest of you received,” Pein replied. “That is all you need to know. However, should I find that she is uncomfortable while under your care, I will be most displeased and what I did to her will seem like a sweet dream compared to what I do to the two of you.”

With that promise, Pein left the room. He allowed a smirk to form on his lips, but it quickly died when he saw Konan appear around the corner and softly ask, “What are you doing, Pein?”

~!~

She knew that he was up to something. Sneaky little bastard always ignored her whenever she wanted answers, and damn it, it was not going to work this time. Following the man, she gritted out, “Why is it that I can never get a straight answer from you? Every single time you learn something new, you hide it away and don’t bother telling me until it is too late. Don’t do this, especially not now. We have too much riding on this for you to be keeping secrets.”

Jiraiya stopped walking and quietly asked, “Do you trust me, Tsunade?”

Tsunade’s eyes widened, but she softly replied, “I trust you with my life.”

“Then let me do what I need to do in order to help your apprentice,” he said. “I recently gained some information from an informant that leads me to believe that I know at least one of the people who are responsible for the Atkatsuki. Until I am sure, please continue to believe in me and let me do what I need to do.”
Tsunade watched as he walked away and sighed. It was times like these that she desperately wished Orochimaru had not walked down that dark path. It seemed that after his parents had died, Orochimaru became obsessed with death and how to beat it. But before he had turned, he had been the one to think things through and make logical decisions.

Now he was gone, and it seemed to her as if Jiraiya was walking away from her and she didn’t know how to catch up to him. He was taking on most of the responsibility and she was here waiting for something to happen. It’s not enough that she had organized a search party, nor was it enough that she had been the one to go over Itachi’s file and find some very disturbing evidence.

It was as if he knew that something bad was going to happen and wanted to do all that he could before it came. She lost her little brother and survived. She lost Dan and survived.

If she lost Jiraiya, she didn’t know if she would survive. She had told Sakura that there had been another besides Dan whom her heart called for. The day she realized that it was Jiraiya was the day she finally felt whole.

She loved him.

~!~

The room was quiet. The two occupants sat across from each other and waited for the other to speak. Finally, she said, “You are crossing too many boundaries. If you are not careful, he will kill you.”

Pein sat back in his chair and narrowed his eyes. “Do you think that he has the strength to kill me?” he asked. “You and I both know that he is surviving on borrowed time. He may have the power of the sharingan, but he is growing weaker as time goes by. One day, he will not be stronger than me. And on that day, I will rip those eyes of his out of his head.”

Konan shook her head. “You sound so confidant. But according to you, he has abilities that we will never have access to. I think that he is clever enough to put on an act that is enough to deceive even you,” she murmured.

Pein allowed his eyes to soften as he gazed over at his long-time companion. She was the heart and soul of their group when they were younger. Now that it was just the two of them, she was his light in the darkness. She was also his conscience in times when he would judge too harshly. Her opinion mattered the most to him.

“You may be right,” he conceded. “However, no man is immortal, myself included. He believes himself to be immortal because he has the ability to switch bodies whenever it suits him. He knows that Itachi is no longer a suitable candidate due to the fact that Itachi’s eyes have been pushed to their limits. The younger Uchiha brother, though, is a different story. His eyes are still in perfect working order. It was due to his sharingan that the boy managed to escape and kill Orochimaru.”

“Orochimaru also had a body switch technique,” Konan said, though she wasn’t completely sure. Pein never allowed her to get too close to the snake. He didn’t trust the man, and it had obviously been for good reasons. Orochimaru and Itachi had been assigned as partners, but Itachi had exposed Orochimaru as a traitor and it was then found out that he desired Itachi’s eyes. He left empty-handed.

Pein’s mouth formed a tight line. “It was from the master that Orochimaru had copied the technique, but he didn’t copy it correctly. I suspect that the master knew what the snake was up to and altered his technique to throw Orochimaru off track. As a result, Orochimaru only had a certain amount of time before he had to find a new host. It really is a disgusting technique.”

Konan allowed a small smile. Out of everyone within the compound, she was the only one who could speak freely to him without the fear of repercussions. Her smile melted away and she softly asked, “Please don’t anger him again. I can’t lose you as well.”

Pein stood up. He walked over to where she sat and knelt down beside her. Taking her hand in his, he said, “I will do all in my power to make sure that there is not a repeat of what happened earlier. However, this girl is going to become very problematic for this organization. I don’t believe that he will be able to turn her from Konoha.”

“If you truly believe that, why not just return her to Konoha?” Konan asked, rising to her feet. “You and I both hold true to what we believed when we were younger. It was you, me, and Yahiko. We vowed that we would protect our home and protect those who were weaker than us. We would take down our enemies and prove to them that we needn’t kill in order to persevere. If this girl stays, can you honestly say that she won’t meet harm? Despite the fact that she is from an enemy village, could you handle the guilt that her death would bring? Regardless of what people think, you are not a madman. Not even you would allow an innocent person, enemy or friend, to die unless it was unavoidable. Please, just let her return to Konoha and let’s figure out a way to get rid of your master. ”

Pein rose to his feet and walked to the window. “Returning her to Konoha would serve no other purpose than to anger him. However, he has informed me that I am to make sure that she is comfortable while in the compound. Therefore, I have placed her back into Itachi’s care,” he stated as he stared out over the village hidden in the rain.

Konan slowly nodded. She should have expected something like this from him. Pein could not help the girl himself. He had tried by incapacitating her to a point where she would be useless to this ‘master’ of his. But by placing her back in Itachi’s care, he was basically creating a barrier between the girl and the danger this ‘master’ presented.

Itachi would never allow the girl to be harmed. In his own way, Pein had attempted to save the girl himself. But now he could sit back and watch as Itachi defended the girl, and his hands would be clean.

He really was too brilliant. But from what he had told her, his master was more so.

This situation did not bode well for them. Any of them.

~!~

“You said that he won’t hurt her, but can you be sure?” Naruto asked, his tone soft. He looked over at his companion and winced at the pained expression on the man’s normally stoic face.

Gaara allowed his eyes to close, and when he opened them, he said, “Regardless of what their reasons were for taking her, in the end, their main reason will be for you to come after her. The Akatsuki know that you will do almost anything for her, and count on the fact that you will come after her. They will want to confront you on their terms. As for the Uchiha, I do believe that Sakura will not come to harm in his presence. He has been alone with her once before. She was not harmed then, and I believe he won’t harm her now.”

Naruto took in a deep, calming breath. “I’m scared for her. Despite some of her more violent tendencies, Sakura is the type of person who will find compassion within herself for those she deems worthy. If she feels that Itachi is deserving of that compassion, she will protect him, even from me and Sasuke. I know that we have shielded her from a lot of situations that would have given her experience dealing with this kind of stuff, but I think that we may have crippled her when it comes to making sound judgments on who is worthy to receive her compassion and who isn’t,” he said.

Gaara nodded. He too could understand Naruto’s concern. To him, though she was physically strong, Sakura had a really bad habit of placing faith in those who would twist it around and use it against her. Uchiha Sasuke was a prime example. The young man thought only of himself. If the chance presented itself, there was no doubt in Gaara’s mind that the younger Uchiha would use Sakura as a way of getting to his brother. In his mind, revenge took priority and everything else could go to hell.

“We will get her back, and she will be safe,” Gaara replied.

Naruto allowed a small smile to form upon his lips. He sure hoped his friend was right. His heart could not take it if one of his most precious people was ripped away and he didn’t at least try to save her.