The Dream-Granters
By BlackFeatherz29
Chapter 1
This is a fic idea that I've had in my head for a long, long time. It's probably the darkest and most reality-oriented fic I've ever come up with, but I felt a need to write it. Actually, it was inspired by the sight of homeless men holding cardboard signs by the sides of the road when I was passing by on my way home from art class. I felt an incredible amount of sympathy, yet I was too scared to do anything about it.
This story deals with death and the actions behind them and after them. It'll be filled with Naruto characters, but they won't be the people you know. They're my own take on them, but I hope that you will enjoy them because their personalities will be similiar, with things I added to make them more interesting.
This was not edited by my beta-reader because he told me that it was too angsty and he couldn't deal with it. I hope that you won't have the same problem; I can write about depressing and disturbing things and not be affected only because I have not experienced much personal trauma in my short life. I'm quite dense and wasn't aware of the more sensitive readers.
The very beginning of this chapter was a bit abrupt, but I felt it was appropriate for this fic. That, and I lost the first five hundred words when I didn't update documents for a long time.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of Naruto, but this storyline is totally my own invention.
The next day, she was called into the office. Nobody bothered to find out what happened when she finally came back to class with swollen eyes and tear streaks of ruined makeup running down her face. It was only Sakura, after all. She didn't care about anything except herself. She'd never been a friend to them; why should they be a friend to her?
She'd never thought much about this. As long as she ignored everything else that went on a concentrated solely on her grades, her parents would be happy and so would she. She was never good at socializing, but she loved to read. Doing what she did best incited hateful spouts of jealousy from the other girls in her class; they had everything else she didn't, but they were envious of her grades. And because Sakura had never been able to approach them about anything, they came to hate her. They said she was a stuck-up, snot-nosed brat who was pampered by her successful parents and looked down on everyone else just because she was smart. She wasn't even that pretty and yet she dared to act like she was!
Of course she was hurt by this. Nobody survived bouts of the cold shoulder unscathed, and she was no different. But she ignored them, and ran. She was good at running. Whenever a homeless man went up to her and begged for money, she shook like a bamboo pole and took off in the other direction. She'd never really thought about what the other party wanted, and she'd never really wanted to know.
All she knew was books. Books, books, books. She had the highest grades in the class, but she wanted higher ones. She never cared for friends, because they never helped in the classroom. All they did was distract you from the task at hand. Friends were useless.
But now that she needed a person to cry on, there was no one for her. Tenten was thousands of miles away in China, and her parents were dead. There really was no one in the world that she could lean on.
She knew it was her fault. She'd built too solid a path toward someplace in life, and she'd never bothered to fit a net underneath when that narrow path started to crumble. And crumble it did.
Even more terrible than news of her parents' murders was that she could not go to university anymore. She had had her eighteenth birthday three months ago; she was of legal age now. Her parents had no insurance, and she had no living relatives. It was with casual indifference that they shattered her life.
She'd always thought that if she'd been a good girl and did all her studying, she could get anything she wanted. Now, she learned that studying meant nothing if you didn't have money. Tokyo University seemed so far away now that she could never reach it.
And it was with triumphant glares and much flipping of glossy hair that the other girls in her class expressed their satisfaction. The teacher asked Sakura to tell everyone else the news; she provided little information through her tightly pursed lips, but the negative tone seemed to spill everything to the other girls. How they knew from those few words, she didn't know.
There was only two weeks left in the school year before graduation. And for Sakura, these two weeks could never be replaced. No more teachers, no more learning. No books for a while, until she sold her apartment and stuck together enough money to provide herself three meals each day.
So with a leaden heart, she said good-bye to her beloved school on the day of graduation, her diploma clenched tightly in her sweaty fist. Tears streamed down her face, but she never made a sound. The sakura tree was in bloom, its petals floating lazily through the air as they became airborne.
She was airborne, now, too. She was on her own in the world.
Life was just like a dream. It had always been that way for as long as Sakura could remember.
Even though it made her feel satisfied when she got good grades or a particularly interesting book to read, all those adventures printed in thick white pages seemed but a dream.
The heroes, the beautiful maidens, the epic battles and philosophies of right and wrong… none of them seemed real. It was blissful to slip into that world, but throughout that long moment when she felt herself sucked into an adventure beyond this world, there was always this nagging feeling.
It wasn't real. None of it. People like that just didn't exist in this world. No wretched orphans ever had a chance to learn to become a vengeful hero for his people because nobody ever gave him a chance. There was plenty of vengeance in this world; there just weren't any people kind enough to make it happen, and maybe it was for the better.
Sakura knew she wasn't brave enough. She saw homeless people all the time; elderly, middle-aged, young children. Her heart went out to them, but she never gave more than ten yen to them.
They scared her, actually. Their haunted eyes, filthy clothing, and brown, crusty hands. Their eyes pleaded with her every time she went past in her pristine school uniform.
They scared her then, because she knew that if she didn't study, she'd end up just like them. No money, no food, no nothing.
Once she'd realized this, she'd shiver and run all the way home. Her fear pushed her to study, study, day and night.
By then, she'd forgotten all about the poor homeless people shivering in the bitter night air.
And then she'd drown herself in her work once again, go to bed when she felt she could take no more, and wake up the next morning to do it all again.
She was fiercely jealous of those girls with boyfriends. She'd never openly admit it, but she died of envy every time they laughed in such a carefree way or snuggled into each other.
Fire burned in her throat, scalding it, aching mightily as she ignored them, tongue clamped painfully between teeth. More than once, blood dripped out and dissolved on her tongue, tasting just like the horrible feeling she walled up inside her. They were so carefree, leaning on their boyfriends and looking like they had nothing in the world to worry about. They were so lucky. They could afford to waste time and grades and not give a fig; who cared as long as you had love?
She cared because she never had it.
Somehow, even though her heart felt hollow and empty, it also floated up in the air. She'd lost her chance at Tokyo University, but she'd gained the chance to just get away from those awful girls who had what she wanted and hated her for what little she had.
She felt strangely calm though she really had been demoted to the level of those homeless people. It was almost as if she didn't need to care about anything anymore, because she didn't have anything anymore to worry about.
Japan really was a ruthless place. If you couldn't study and you had no money, you would be better off dead.
Sakura had spent a few days scouring the weekly newspapers for a cheap apartment complex to move into. She'd found a broken down place bought and owned by an old man, but the rent was cheaper than she'd found in any other place.
She hated the sight of her landlord. He chewed tobacco all the time, and the acrid smell of cigarettes wafted through the thin walls every day. She hated going outside the complex, because every time he caught sight of her, he would leer grotesquely. It gave her chills, and she made sure to lock her door extra tight every night and to pile a spare futon and a small table against it in case anybody tried to force themselves in.
Little by little, Sakura managed to earn her keep, but by then she didn't care anymore. Nobody to care about her, nobody to care about, nothing to live for. It was like living in a dream where nothing seemed real anymore and everyone just floated around like ghosts.
She certainly felt like one. In fact, she couldn't even remember the last time she smiled a real smile. This wide, fake grin twisting her face into unnatural shapes couldn't even be called a smile. All her restaurant manager wanted was a positive expression, anything that didn't scare the customer away. So, Sakura complied with zero resistance.
What was there to smile for anymore? What was there to live for?
Before, she felt as if she were on the brink of something, something bigger and better, something life-changing and exciting. But now, there was nothing to look forward to anymore.
She remembered her old dreams of those faceless people, those two boys who haunted her dreams with their happy smiles. They had seemed so real, but there was nobody like them in this world. They were her old imaginary friends, the people she had made up out of sheer loneliness.
They still lingered around her dreams. Sometimes, she'd wake up with crusted tears in her eyes and not remember a thing that the dream had been about.
The raunchy laughter of businessmen hung over filled the air, along with the giggles of prostitutes and the sizzle of food that particular night. It was hot beyond reason, and spots of dark sweat stuck on shirts. Hers was no exception.
The chief told her to take over garbage duty that night, the very worst job there was in that dingy restaurant. She'd shrugged, not caring.
As she hoisted three huge bags of trash onto her shoulders, she stumbled a little before heading across the road toward the nearest dumpster. The bags must have weighed at least eighty pounds; she couldn't even walk with her face turned straight. She attempted holding her breath to drown out the putrid stink, but the air was filled with the odor.
She found she could hardly walk straight now. Months of cheap drugstore meals and not enough nutrition had reduced her body to nearly nothing, and laborious work everyday strained her already too-weak body.
Sweat ran down her neck in rivets. In a dim haze, she observed that this was not good because she would waste all the precious electrolytes that she still had in her body.
She never saw the car coming. It impacted before she had a chance to comprehend what was happening.
All she knew was that one minute she was wavering under the enormous burden, and the next, she wasn't.
And then Sakura saw someone.
She didn't even comprehend her own broken body lying on the dark road, uniform covered with garbage when the bags burst. She only saw one shining face that she'd only ever seen in her dreams.
That blond boy… the one who had such a huge, mind bending smile, the one who always inspired a kind of hope in her at the most desperate moments. Somehow, it was him standing in front of her, clad in lightbeams.
She couldn't hear the words he was saying, but she saw his lips move.
'Come', he whispered, reaching out a hand for her. She saw them now, the fingers usually darkly tanned but now glowing golden brown and shimmering, calluses imprinted heavily on the digits and deep whorls on the tips.
Sakura didn't hesitate. She put her own on that glowing hand, and smiled.
This is the first time I've written so intimately about death, but it's a powerful thing. Naruto didn't come in in this chap, but I hope you can look forward to him next chapter. He is probably the most complicated person in my story besides Kami-sama, and that's saying something. Don't expect him to be loud and obnoxious; he had a hard life and an even harder afterlife.
Next chapter mostly already written; look forward to it in a few days.
Reviews, plz. First time writing a mature fic; have been reading too much seinen manga like Parasyte(Kiseijuu), Cesare, Eternal Sabbath, Bokurano, etc. even though I'm not male and I'm barely turning sixteen next week.