Sakura's surprised when she opens the manilla folder and the photo is of Sasuke's missing older brother.

The heir to the Uchiha Clan who was unlucky enough to have been born an omega.

Tsunade leans against the mahogany desk. "We found him. The Uchiha Clan has asked us to rehabilitate him as he is..." Sakura's Shishou pauses. "He's quite broken."

From what Sakura knew, his dynamic had presented much earlier than his peers'. He'd gone missing shortly after that. "Do you know anything about what I'm up against?"

"He was an omega collector's favorite pet. And we linked the collector to several gory deaths of others with his dynamic in the area."

The Godaime's apprentice sighs. "Fuck. So it's bad."

"The Uchiha are highly unsettled," Tsunade agrees. "So please handle any interactions with soft hands."

"I'd be upset, too." Says Sakura. "When is he being transferred to my care?"

"It's high profile," Says the blonde omega. "So they'd like you to take him on this evening."

Sakura nods. "I'd like to leave and get things ready, then."

"That's acceptable."

xXx

His eyes are dark. There's no spark like she's used to seeing in Sasuke's. She wonders why he's muzzled and his hands are tied behind his back.

"We don't know what he's capable of," Mikoto says when she catches Sakura looking him over. "Moving him from our residence to yours proved to be a challenge without them."

"What kind of challenge?"

"He's still bound to that bastard alpha," Sasuke explains. "He will leave if you don't prepare for him to try to escape."

"I can handle that," She says. Having rehabilitated only two before him, she has to admit isn't an expert. But she should be able to keep a crafty, bound omega. "Where he will be staying is this way."

The Godaime's apprentice takes them through the living room and to the room that's directly across. Her own space is further down. She attempts to gently guide the omega inside but he flinches from her, turning his head as if in threat only to remember he's muzzled.

Sakura moves to untie him but Sasuke stops her. "Don't do that."

Instead, she removes the muzzle, looking to Sasuke and Mikoto for any indication that this, too, is a bad idea. The only thing she manages to catch are the Matriarch's wet eyes, despite her stoic expression.

When she pulls it away, he sits seiza and Sakura is glad her entire apartment is carpet.

"Did you have an alpha arranged before he was taken?" She asks Mikoto.

"We did but after five years of his absence, she was married to someone else."

"So you currently don't have someone to bond him to?"

Sasuke shakes his head. "Why?"

"It would normally be part of the process of removing the current bond." She says. "But that's a little ways off, so you have time to make arrangements."

Mikoto nods, "Thank you for helping my son."

"Don't thank me, yet," Sakura says sheepishly.

She sees them out with lots of assurance that the omega heir is safe and will be cared for, firmly shutting the bedroom door behind her.

But he isn't sitting in the middle of the room when she returns to it. There's no window in this room she had built specifically for rehabilitation. Slowly, she moves to lie on her belly, making eye contact with a blood red gaze.

"You're supposed to lie on top of the bed, not underneath it." She tells him

He doesn't blink. He doesn't even look like he's breathing.

She considers strong arming him out of his hiding place and wonders how he's going to get out with tied hands. He still doesn't blink.

Sakura decides it's better to give him time to adjust, backing away and thinking about dinner.

She isn't surprised when she looks for him and finds he hasn't moved, setting the food within his reach and going back to the living room to eat her meal.

xXx

She locks the knob to his space and makes a pallet in front of the door in case he can lock pick with his mouth. Sakura highly doubts Itachi has that sort of skill, but she doesn't want to get caught sleeping should he escape.

Sure enough, she doesn't know what time it is but she wakes to the door cracking open. Quickly, she grabs Itachi's ankle as he steps over her, hissing when he's knocked off balance and catches himself on his hands.

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He'd somehow freed himself.

She's mindful of how much force she uses when she pulls him closer. He growls and bares his teeth.

This doesn't bother the alpha as she pushes him down with one hand and rubs her wrist against his cheek with the other. She's fully prepared when he bites her.

It hurts like hell and she snarls at him but this merely encourages him to apply more pressure until he's drawn blood.

They don't break eye contact as she rubs her free wrist down his neck and over his trapezoid, effectively covering his left side and the right side of his face in her smell.

Marking him.

He releases her wrist, shoving her off of him and scooting back. If she can keep him from removing her scent within the next thirty minutes, he won't be able to return to the alpha who'd kept him before. He'd smell like he'd been claimed by someone else and, likely, be rejected.

For good measure, she says, "You belong to me now, Uchiha-san. You are my omega."

She mirrors him as he shifts to his feet. She isn't sure if he's going to make a break for the shower or the kitchen.

He darts down the hall and she full on tackles him. They both slide on the carpet and absently, Sakura notes they'll probably both have carpet burn as they grapple. He's older, with a stronger frame -- albeit thinner as he had been neglected. He flips them, going for her throat and she punches him on instinct alone.

He drops back, probably more caught off guard than injured as she didn't put any chakra to it. They both sit, breathing hard.

He was legitimately going to kill me, She thinks as she watches him, paranoid he might come at her again.

She feels a little guilty about the bruise forming around his eye. "I'm not going to go easy on you, anymore, omega," She says. "Submit or I will put you into submission."

He merely stares at her. It hasn't been more than twenty-four hours and she's already tired of the staring.

The other omega had easily submitted, looked for her approval and learned quickly that she only allowed her boundaries to be pushed so far.

Sakura realizes she may be a little out of her depth with Uchiha Itachi.

Slowly as not to spook him, she stands. "Come."

His head tilts and his eyes narrow. Sakura waits.

After a long standoff, he does as he's told. Rising and approaching her.

It's a relief that the struggle is over.

Itachi reaches out to her and she gives a smile that drops when he shoves her to the side, making an attempt for the shower.

Her hand tangles in his hair -- it's the closest thing on him that she can grab -- and yanks him back. His eyes are wild as he turns, using his momentum to throw her backwards.

She hits the wall and the photos nearby shake from the force.

"That's it!" She says when she sees the wet cloth in his hand.

He's already wiped himself down by the time she reaches him but Sakura doesn't give a flying fuck. She slaps the cloth from his hand and shoves him backwards. His leg hits the wall of the basin and he falls, taking the shower curtain down with him. She's yelling and cursing as they struggle and she pulls his clothes from him. Channeling chakra to her left hand to hold him by the throat as her bloodied wrist marks his cheek, the length of his neck and trapezoid, and down his side to his hip.

"You belong to me!" She says. "And you will not remove my mark again!"

As if thoroughly suicidal, he spits. It doesn't reach her but she briefly considers choking him out. Instead, she puts her hand over his forehead and pushes her chakra into him. He hisses and squirms before going still.

"Fucking omega," Sakura says as she hauls the unconscious Uchiha to her bedroom. Ties his wrists to the bedframe and goes back to sleep.

xXx

"How's my brother?"

"He's fine," Sakura tells him. "You can visit him if you want."

Sasuke looks past her shoulder from their place at the door. She knows he can see the blood on the carpet and the wall. "It's not going well, is it?"

Sakura pulls her sleeves up and his eyes grow wide at the vicious mark there. "He bit you like you were an apple."

"It fucking hurt," She says. "And he gets a pass this time because I provoked him. But any other time, another rehabilitator would have told you to put him down."

"It's not his fault!" Says Sasuke. "He-"

"I know," Says Sakura. "But an omega should never bite. I love you." At Sasuke's expression she says, "Not like that. That's gay. But I do care about you and Itachi is your brother. So I'm going to keep working with him."

"Thank you-"

"I'll also have you know he tried to kill me," She tells him. "So I did punch him. Without chakra."

"But he's okay, right?"

Sakura nods. "I put him temporarily to sleep so he'd stop making trouble for me."

"I think I'll wait to see him," Says Sasuke. "I'll just worry, otherwise."

"If you change your mind," She says, "You're always welcome to come by."

He leaves, hesitance in his steps. Sakura doesn't mind. She knows the Uchiha are eager to have their family member back. The only omega in a clan of alphas.

She opens her door to find him halfway out of his bindings but Sakura isn't concerned anymore. He'd been marked by her for six hours. Her scent on his glands is set in stone now and he can't return to the alpha who'd taken him.

She sits on the bed beside him, watches him as he works the ropes and he pauses. Looks at her. Maybe she'd been a little too rough on him last night.

"Want some help?" She asks. Her alpha side is urging her to complete their bonding while he's immobile but she stifles it down.

Perhaps, that's why he'd gone still. He assumed she'd attempt to either scent mark him again or mount him.

Her fingers lightly brush his ankle and his foot twitches. She counts it progress that he doesn't pull away from her.

"Are you hungry?" She asks. It is, after all, her job as his temporary alpha to provide for him.

His attention goes back to the rope and Sakura watches him work it loose and pull his hands free.

It's only eight am and he's already decided to fight her, it seems.

She waits for him to bolt for the door but he just sits there. For the rest of the day he trails her around the house, sits seiza at her feet and stares listlessly untill she moves to the next location. He won't sit on the couch with her, opting instead for the floor no matter how hard she tries to cajole him to perch beside her.

While her instincts are absolutely delighted to have him in such a submissive state, she realizes his last alpha did not treat him like a person at all. The files on him had indicated he'd been found in a dog crate.

And though some people did opt to crate their omega, there were specific crates for that, and they were only to be used for either an omega in a new environment or being transferred from one place to another. Anything else was absolutely wrong and unethical.

At the end of the day, when Sakura is getting ready for bed, she realizes he has left her side. She steps from the bathroom to find him nude. His entire body is strung tight and he trembles as he presents himself. Sakura gently strokes his wrist with her middle and index fingers.

He looks up at her with wide eyes and she takes her pajamas off, pulling him against her and spooning him. He's shaking but she smooths her palm over his ribs and side. She doesn't normally do skin-to-skin with the omega she works with but she'll make an exception this one time.

He's taller than her but she makes it work. Rubbing slow, deep circles over his stomach with her palm. Eventually he dozes and she, too, can fall asleep.