On that rainy day no one ventured outside of their houses for too long. Everyone was tucked away inside, safe and dry, warm and happy. Only one person could be seen running through the downpour, across the street from where his car was parked, holding his jacket above his head to protect himself. It wasn't working.

He knocked three times on the door before it was opened, and he rushed inside to the foyer. He shook the water from his hair and handed his soaking coat to the maid. Urgently, he turned to the man who opened the door. "Where is she?" The butler looked down at his feet.

"This way." The butler led the man through the living room and the dining room. "She's been out there since it happened. We can't get her out of that chair." He gestured through the screen door to the garden. There sat a girl, in a chair in front of the roses, soaking wet, and facing away from the door. She sat perfectly still, no signal of movement, no telltale signs of life. "She's barely eaten."

"Well I'm sure you wouldn't either, if that had happened to you...if you were a young girl, that is."

"Sir, are you here to see the master? Or to ogle his daughter?" The butler asked testily.

"Ah, thank you for reminding me." He followed the butler away. As they turned, so did the girl, her sad eyes blank and lifeless as they took in the sight of the door. She didn't even shiver in the cold rain. The man was gone, and she turned back to the roses and the rhythmic beat of the raindrops on the petals.

"I have something for him," the strange man said, taking a manila folder from the sanctuary his jacket had provided outside. It contained a massive amount of papers.

"Master Kazuki should be in his study." The butler walked stiffly as he navigated the hallways to one door in particular. He knocked.

"Come in," asked a new voice. A gloved hand turned the knob, allowing the visitor to pass.

"Sir, a Mr. Kouta to see you."

"Thank you. You may go." The door closed. Kazuki pulled up another chair. "Kouta, please, sit." He did. "What have you found for me?"

"Well, sir, I've scoured for someone suitable and I've narrowed it down to about fifty possibilities." Kouta handed the floder to the older man. "They've all got experience, skill and excellent references, all but one."

"If there aren't references then why bother?"

"He was most exceptional, sir. I know someone who has met him and they say it's not just talk. His abilities are real."

"Have you met him?"

"No...I haven't." Kazuki flipped through the pages, extracting one or two whenever necessary. He laid them on his desk. When he'd finished reading them all, he closed the folder and slid the papers he's taken out toward Kouta. "Ive seen these people already. I'll read through the rest of them tonight and try to pick on by morning." He massaged his temple. "Who was the one you were talking about?'

Kouta too the folder, sifted through it and found the one particular resume he needed. He handed it to his superior. "Him, sir. He's an experienced fighter, and though he's never fought for anyone before, his skill is unmatched. And...I thought he might be better because he's closer to her age."

Kazuki studied the photo paper-clipped onto the file. He read through the entire thing three times before agreeing to meet with him. Kouta was relieved and happy.

"Thank you, sir! Shall I arrange it?" Kazuki didn't answer right away. He read a few others and decided on them as well, then handed the pile to his subordinate.

"All of these, please. I'd like to meet with them tomorrow."

"Yes, sir." Kouta left his boss to his work and left the house, once again pulling his jacket over his head as a makeshift umbrella.

"Sakura-chan," Kazuki said, addressing his daughter. She was still out in the rain. "Come inside! You'll catch a cold!" She made no movement to acknowledge him. It was as if she was in her own world. He walked outside into the garden and hopped over the short pansies that lay between him and his daughter. "Come on," he said, shaking her shoulder gently. She didn't move. He sighed and lifted her from the chair himself, carrying her inside with him.

"Take care of her please," he said to two of the maids that had come to help. They nodded and led her into the bathroom to dry her off and give her a change of clothes while Kazuki went to change his and returned to his study. Things had to change.

The Next Day...

Mr. Haruno rubbed his temples as another possibility walked away from him. He sighed deeply and remembered the conversation that had just taken place.

"What makes you think you're cut out for the job?"

"I'm a decent worker and when I want something to happen, it happens."

"Like what?"

"Like this one time in high school, I willed a girl into going out with me." Kazuki stared at him waiting for him to say he was kidding, but saw the man he was interviewing was completely serious about this. He really thought could make things happen like that.

"Umm...thank you. You may go. I'll contact you on a later date after reviewing everyone again..."

Kazuki had no intention of contacting him. Instead, he shuffled the papers on the desk in front of him and waited for the next person he'd been arranged to interview to show up. He leaned back in his chair. The door opened, and he looked up, expecting to see the face of a young man, but instead saw the two faces of his oldest daughters.

"Daddy," his oldest, Ran, said. "We heard you were looking for a bodyguard for Sakura. Are you really?" She and her younger sister Ayame looked at him with sweet, falsely innocent eyes that he almost couldn't resist. He laced his fingers and leaned back, turning his chair away from them.

"I am." He heard a knock at the door and turned to his daughters. "But I've got company here, so if you'd excuse yourselves, why don't you go be with your sister?" They bowed. They excused themselves, and a man walked in the door, taking their place in the room.

"Are you Kazuki Haruno?" the man asked.

"Yes. You may address me as 'Kazu', it's what my friends and subordinates call me. Please, have a seat." Kazuki watched the man as he walked. He was tall, with strong shoulders, a confident stride, and he was young and good-looking on top of it all. He sat in the only other chair in the room and looked his interviewer square in the eye--another good quality. Kazuki liked him more and more by the second.

"So," he asked--he had to look down at the resume in his hand for the name--Sasuke. "What makes you think you're qualified to be my daughter's bodyguard?" Sasuke's stone cold eyes didn't hesitate, though his voice didn't answer right away.

"I'm not exactly sure what you want me to say here." He answered. "No matter what you ask, there are always those who lie to make you like them more, respect them more, trust them more. Then there are those who would truthfully answer that they aren't sure if they're capable. Personally, I believe I'm very capable, because I've got experience. But if that's not the answer you were looking for, then in your eyes I'm not capable at all." His face remained calm while saying it, proving that he was indeed, a strong person. He wasn't buckling under the pressure Kazuki put on him.

"That's...a very educated answer. Let's try another. Why do you want this job."

"I need a job." He left it at that, simple, clean, easy. He seemed more comfortable answering questions now.

"Something recently...happened... to my daughter, which is the entire reason we're looking for someone. Do you think you can protect her efficiently?"

"I think you already asked a similar question, but on order to answer this one, I'm going to have to ask one of my own. What 'happened'?" Sasuke watched the man in front of him squirm uncomfortably, and that itself told him all he needed to know. But he wanted to hear it. He needed to be trusted.

"Well, I'm sure you're aware of my position as a 'mafia boss' as they say. Well, I have many enemies because of that. I also have three daughters. Girl are always seen as the weak ones, and my youngest was seen as the target for a recent kidnapping. We got her back through ransom, but she'd already been..." he waved his hands as if searching for a word. Sasuke decided to take pity on him and give him a hand.

"Raped?"

Kazuki cringed. "Yes." He shuffled more papers to fill the awkward void in conversation. "I see you have a clean bill of health and are very well educated in combat..." he muttered under his breath like a side note. "Mr. Uchiha, I'd like to be frank with you. You're the most promising bodyguard I've seen yet, but you have no references, which hinders your chances a bit..." Sasuke saw the fib in his eye. He knew he'd a good as gotten the job. "The only thing left would be meeting my daughter..." Sasuke's heart sank. "But after what's happened, I'm sure she wouldn't take kindly to anyone. This is my choice, I suppose. " He stood and held out his hand to the younger man. "Congratulations. The job is yours."

"Thank you, sir."

"Now, let me go over the basics with you. You'll be asked to take a room in the house to stay close. You'll accompany my daughter anytime she leaves the house, and be with her wherever she goes, whether it be to school or to the movies with her friends. You will not, of course, have to follow her into the bathroom or anything, just wait outside. I'll trust you to keep her safe, Mr. Uchiha, please don't let me down."

"I won't, sir."

"My maid will show you to your room, and if possible I'd like you to be finished moving in by tomorrow." Sasuke nodded, they exchanged goodbyes, and the younger man left. The second he was gone, Ran and Ayame were at their father's side.

"Was that him?" Ayame asked, watching him through the window. "He's cute. Nice little a--" Ran slapped a hand over her younger sister's mouth to stop her from saying such things in their father's presence.

"Did you decide, then father?" she asked, looking up through cherry red bangs. "I hope you can trust this man. Sakura can't deal with someone else trying something." Ran grabbed Ayame by the ponytail and dragged her off to Sakura's room. They didn't expect to find her there, but she was tucked in between the sheets, still sleeping it seemed.

"Sakura-chan..." Ran whispered. "Time to get up. It's nearly noon." The figure in the bed moved. A sad eye peeked out. "Oh, Sakura." Her sisters came and sat on her bed, snuggling with her to try and cheer her up.

"Do you feel like going out today?" Ayame asked. Sakura shook her head. "Do you feel like watching a movie with us?" Sakura didn't shake her head, so they took that as a yes. The two scooped their youngest sister right up out of bed and led her to the living room of their house where they began arguing over what to watch.

"Romance," argued Ayame, who was all about love and boys.

"Comedy," Ran said. At that moment, she just wanted to cheer her little sister up and a romance wasn't going to do that. They were so into their disagreement that they didn't even notice the pink-haired girl slip away.

She padded through the kitchen and sneaked out the back door. The dirt of the garden tickled her bare feet as she made her way across to the chair by the roses. She slumped into it and stared at the ruby-red petals on the fragrant blossoms. Her eyes watered. She didn't want to remember it, but without distractions, she couldn't help it. She drew her knees up under her chin, resting her heels on the edge of the chair. She wrapped her arms around her legs.

On her way home from school, she stopped to tie her shoe, and her sisters hadn't noticed. They didn't usually all walk together anyway, so it didn't much matter to Sakura that her sisters were walking away. She noticed, once she was finished, that they other was coming loose, so she fixed that one as well. She stood and picked up her bag, walking slowly, enjoying the time she had to herself. It was the start of spring, so the flowers were blooming. The peach blossom trees were her favorites.

A sudden foreboding change in the wind didn't faze her in the slightest, and she didn't suspect anything was wrong until the car came up beside her. The driver, a man in his late twenties, possibly early thirties, leaned out of the window, cigarette in hand. He was wearing sunglasses and a stupid grin and that was reason enough not to trust him. But Sakura was one of the few people in her family--a family of mafia members--that actually thought people were good by nature. She trusted people perhaps more than she should. So when he offered her a ride, she took him up on it.

"Where ya live, sweetheart?" He asked. Sakura wasn't that dumb. She knew not to tell complete strangers where she lived. Though she'd accept rides from them, and probably candy if they offered.

"You can just drop me off at the next corner. I'm meeting someone there," she told him. When he drove past the corner, only then did her brow crease in worry. "You passed it," she pointed out. He only nodded.

"I know." In the rearview mirror she could see his face. There was no longer a grin. No longer a joke playing behind his eyes. Instead she saw recognition. This man knew who she was and what he could get away with by using her. She was a fool for not seeing it earlier.

Sakura sniffled as the memories flooded back into her mind for the dozenth time, completely unaware she was being watched. She reached a pale finger toward a petal and smoothed her finger pad against it. Sasuke, high in a tree outside the walls of the estate, peered down at the girl he was supposed to guard. He hadn't even met her but he saw her as weak. because she couldn't harden herself against this sort of thing, she was weak. Women always went around saying "we're strong, we're strong," and Sasuke found it disgusting when they couldn't toughen up. His eyes jumped back on the girl as she moved, dipping one foot over the armrest of the chair and into the pond.

When the car stopped, Sakura watched the man get out of the car, and shoved herself into a corner of the back seat. She wanted nothing to do with him. Her father being who he was, she'd had talks since she was a little kid about dangerous it was to be alone. She'd learned at an early age about sex, rape, and kidnappings. She had to. It was for her own safety. But the fact that she completely ignored everything she'd been taught proved she hadn't learned it very well.

The car door opened and an arm reached in for her. She held her school bag in front of her chest, as if to protect herself, but he smacked it out of the way. It fell from her frightened fingers to the floor. She grabbed it again at the same time that the arm grabbed her, pulling her from the car. "Let go!" She protested, and kicked and screamed, but they were in a place where few people could hear her, if any at all. She was pulled into one of the many warehouses around her and handed off to a different guy.

"Write up a ransom note for her folks." Sakura's eyes widened in terror to see that this man was even begger than the last, and twice as mean-looking.

"I'm gonna have some fun with you," he said, chuckling, his sour breath hitting her face.

She could still smell that stench.

"Let me go! Let me go!"

"Not until we get what we want out of you." She knew that there was more than one meaning to that. She fought. Don't you dare say she didn't try. There was no way in hell she was just going to lay back and take it, but with someone easily three times her size on top of her, there really was no hope. She didn't stand a chance.

"Oh, Sakura..." Ran had realized in the midst of the argument that she wasn't there anymore, and they knew exactly where she was. In the garden, as usual, tears staining her pretty face. "Sakura..." Ran hugged her youngest sister gently. She blamed herself. Everyone did. Sakura blamed herself for being small and weak, Ayame and Ran blamed themselves for leaving her like that, and her father blamed himself for having the status he did, for not teaching her well enough.

But no matter what, everyone was optimistic. The man who did it was locked away--better for him, because a few of her father's men would've just killed him slowly--and everyone was hopeful that at some point in their life they could get over it. Everyone but Sakura. She hadn't said a word since she was found by one of her father's subordinates, naked as the day she was born, crying, bleeding, and broken. Hadn't spoken, barely eaten, hadn't slept much at all, and she didn't think she could ever forget. Never.

"Sakura, come inside." The girl let her sisters lead her inside, and Sasuke was more than intrigued when she peeked over her shoulder as though she felt something was there, watching her.

He was beginning to think he might have been wrong about her.