Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or Dark Curse: a Carpathian novel.

Dark Curse

Prologue:

The cold should have made her shiver, but it was fear, terrible bone-chilling fear that seized Sakura, causing such tremors they were impossible to control. She huddled on the floor of the ice-caves, studying the walls of her prison. The ice was beautiful, walls think and blue with amazing formations hanging from the ceiling and rising from the floor like a forest of multicolored crystal. She hunched down, watching the lights flicker across the ice—creating glittering, dazzling displays on the walls. All the while, her heart beat too fast and she choked on rising terror.

A soft whisper in her mind helped to steady her, to keep her centered and calm when she wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. She was eight years old now—today. She looked down at her arms and wrists, covered in bite marks, and scars from teeth gnawing through her skin to get at her veins. Her stomach lurched. Today was the last day anyone would tear at her flesh and drink her blood. Today she would escape.

'I am so scared.' Even in her mind, using telepathy, her voice trembled.

All at once she felt warmth filter through her mind. The sensation spread through her body, driving away the chill and giving her courage.

'You will not be alone. We will aid you in your escape. You must be brave, little one.'

'Will you come with me, Aunt Sumi? Will you both come?'

She knew she sounded plaintive and afraid, but she couldn't help it. She'd never been aboveground. The idea of going alone into an unfamiliar world was paralyzing. Without her aunts, she would have no way of protecting herself. They had both taught her, thrusting as many skills and jutsus into her brain and memories as possible, but she was still a child in a child's body. Thin. Weak. Pale. A mop of petal pink hair she could never control and little else.

'That may not be possible, Sakura, and if we cannot, you must go by yourself. You must get far away from this place and hide your talents and abilities so no one will ever imprison you again. Do you understand? You cannot in any way appear different in the outside world?'

They had told her of the outside world. Long, lonely nights they had whispered to her of places aboveground. Of the sun and sea, of forests of trees, of living animals and birds that flew free. They had filled her mind—and her heart—with images so beautiful they had stolen her breath.

'Why must I hide my gift in the world outside?'

Sakura shivered again, running her hands up and down her body in an effort to warm herself. It wasn't the temperature of the ice-caves—she could regulate her body temperature when she remembered to think about it—but the idea of leaving was nearly as terrifying as the idea of staying. Here she at least had the aunts. Outside—she didn't even know what to expect.

'It is always better to blend in, Sakura. Orochimaru is a cruel man— and there are others like him. You have powerful chakra within you and others will want it. Learn in secret and only use it when you must and for good or to save your life. You cannot let others know.'

'Come with me,' She pleaded again.

'If we can, but no matter what, you must leave this place. You see what they do to us—what they will do to you. Your chakra will call to them and they will take everything from you.'

Sakura closed her eyes, the trembling turning almost violent. Oh yes, she had seen. Torture. Horrible torture. Horrible black jutsus, drawing forth demons with red glowing eyes and the sickening stench of evil clinging to them. She would hear screams until the day she died, the screams of others begging for mercy, begging to be killed.

She couldn't let her father or grandfather know of the chakra growing within her. She could never let on that the aunts spoke to her and taught her, filling her mind with everything they knew so that as the chakra in her grew, she would have the knowledge to accompany it. The two men would try to wrest everything she was from her, and try to control her if they couldn't. In the end she would be just like the others, torn apart while they still lived, experimented on, and eaten alive piece by piece until madness and pain were all that was left.

This was the reason that she had to escape. To leave the only home she'd ever known and go out into a world she knew only through the memories of her two aunts. Before that could happen, however, she would be forced to endure her father's and grandfather's sharp, wicked teeth one more time. She covered her eyes and bit back a sob.

'Sakura! You are Dragonseeker, you can do this. We are strong. We endure. We do not ever succumb to evil. Do you understand?! You must escape.'

Auntie Sumi always lectured her, but there was love in her voice. Worry, Determination. Auntie Ami sounded sad and weak but the love was there as well, although these days, she rarely wasted energy on talking. Sakura knew something was wrong, terribly wrong, and she was frightened of losing the two of them.

"I don't want to be alone," she whispered aloud into the freezing cold of the bluish chamber. She didn't say it in her mind to her aunts, because she didn't want them to know she was paralyzed with fear of leaving. This terrible place of pain and death and cold was her home and here at least she had the aunts, and she knew what to expect. Outside—outside she would be alone in a foreign world.

Sakura's body suddenly jerked upright. At the same time she felt the invader spreading through her brain like sludge. A cry slipped through her lips at the intrusion. Her instinct was to struggle against the command, but she forced her will to lie quiet, to pretend to be subdued. It was difficult when everything in her shuddered and withdrew from that spreading stain.

'Do not fight. You must not fight,' Aunt Sumi's voice whispered. 'Save you strength. Let him think he has control. We will strike at the same moment. This will be the last time, child. The last time…'

Sakura choked on the sob welling up in her throat. To have someone else inside of her, to feel evil invading her body, pushing at her mind and forcing his will on her caused bile to rise, flooding her throat and mouth with burning acid. She took a step, then another, like a puppet controlled by strings. She couldn't prevent her instincts to fight. She resisted the invasive presence, trying to throw him out of her mind, a small rebellion that earned immediate retaliation.

Her body jerked again and pain pierced her skull, like ice picks drilling holes through skin and bone. The sensation of spiders crawling on her skin, hundreds of them, swarming, engulfing her, nesting in her hair, and biting at her scalp, had her frantically slapping at her body. She opened her mouth wide to scream, but nothing came out. She knew Roshi—her father—had no patience with tears or pleading. It infuriated him to listen to screaming, or to a childish voice. Her earliest memory was of him shaking her, snarling like one of the captured wolves he occasionally brought into his lair to torment.

Whatever her memories, this was her way of life. The aunts had told her a child should be loved and treasured, never used for food, but it was only memories they shared of their mother's childhood that all of them could really depend on. Not even the aunts had really experienced much more than what Sakura's life was like. And memories – especially ancient ones—could be faulty.

'He is forcing me into the chamber.' She tried to force down the rising panic, to keep herself from fighting, from exposing her abilities, but her sense of self-preservation was strong.

'You are coming to us,' her aunt reminded her. 'Think only of that. You are leaving this terrible place to go to a new life, one where they cannot touch you ever again.'

Sakura nodded and lessened her fight response. She couldn't lose it altogether or Roshi might suspect something. She was smart enough to know that he sought to control her through fear. If she wasn't afraid enough, he would find away to incite her terror so he could keep her under his thumb and biddable.

Sakura counted each step as she walked the icy halls. She already knew the exact number—she had made this journey many, many times before. Thirty-seven steps through the corridor and then her body would jerk to the right, and go through the entrance into the large chamber where Roshi and Orochimaru always held their ritual ceremonies. The long hall was really a tunnel with a bluish ceiling and thick ice walls. Under her feet the ice was slick and solid, almost crystal clear, always gleaming brightly from the orbs of light in the sconces. The lights flickered along the walls, revealing the rainbow of colors, gleaming like jewels embedded in the frozen world.

She loved the beauty, sculptures of orange-red and purplish-blue rising sharply from the floor, bursting into sparkling fountains frozen in place waiting for light to hit them to come alive. She moved around the familiar shapes using short jerky steps until she was in the middle of the huge chamber. Gigantic columns rose to the cathedral ceilings, marking every few feet. Ancient weapons lined one wall and straight ahead, encased in ice, were two perfect dragons, one red and one blue.

Sakura glanced up, her breath catching in her throat as it always did at the sight of her aunts. Imprisoned not only by ice, but caught in a powerful shape that was not their true form. She couldn't shift yet, but she felt she was getting close. The aunts had embedded the knowledge deep in her mind so that she wouldn't ever forget the process, but she hadn't worked up the courage to actually shift. And the aunts had forbidden her to try where Roshi or Orochimaru would feel the surge of chakra.

The red dragon had her great eye pressed against the ice. As Sakura watched, the lid slowly closed and then opened again. The small acknowledgment gave her the strength to look directly at the man who stood in the center of the room, a frown on his face. Roshi glared at her, beckoning with a long finger.

The lines in his face had deepened since the last time she'd seen him and that had only been a couple days earlier. His hair had darkened from coppery red to deep brown. His eyes were sunken and beneath them were darker circles. The moment his gaze fell on her, he began to breath harder, the air coming out in great puffs of excitement. In one hand he held a ritual ceremony knife and Sakura's heart began to pound.

'He has the knife!'

Teeth tearing at her flesh were bad enough, but the sharp blade slicing, metal against skin and tissue, invading her body and bringing with it the screams of past victims. Screams she couldn't drown out for weeks afterward. The pleas for mercy haunted her dreams and clung like ice to her veins so that she felt like she was going insane until time finally melted them away.

Sakura couldn't help that spurt of adrenaline and the surge of chakra that came with it, the instinctive retreat, breaking out of the stumbling steps to withdraw. Roshi snarled, his lips drawing back to reveal his blood stained teeth.

"Get over here!" His face was a mask of hatred. "You are nothing, cheap fodder to feed the genius of my existence. Nothing! A worm crawling on the ground to service greatness." He pointed to the icy floor and for a moment she thought to fight him.

'NO! You must do as he says. He cannot know of the chakra within you. He will imprison you as Orochimaru has done to us. This is the only way, Sakura.'

Aunt Sumi's voice whispered, cajoled, pleaded and even ordered.

All of that would never have been enough to overcome Sakura's instincts for survival and her revulsion of the knife and Roshi, but there was a stark fear underlying each word her aunt spoke. Sakura allowed her body to bend, to go on all fours, to crawl across the ice floor the cold piercing her knees. She allowed the sensation, not regulating her body temperature so the distraction of the cold could help her to calm down.

Roshi stood for a moment, hunched over, whispering to himself, his eyes changing from green to blue. Sakura winced. Her eyes often changed color depending on her mood, and it was the one thing that tied her to Roshi. The one trait she had to acknowledge they shared—and that meant the blood of a monster ran in her veins.

He stooped a strange expression on his face as he glanced around the chamber. One hand dropped to the top of her head, his palm stroking what could have been a caress over her pale pink tresses. He spoke in a whisper, his voice rusty and hoarse. "Get out. Get out before you are consumed."

Sakura blinked up at him, puzzled by the strange rituals he always invoked before he caught her by her thin shoulders and yanked her to her feet. His eyes glowed a ruby red, shining with madness as he turned her wrist up and slashed the blade across it.

She cried out, trying to suppress the shock of panic and pain as the knife cut through flesh to bone, freeing the screams of multiple past victims. The shadows of life still clinging to the weapon that had tortured and killed them. Roshi pressed his mouth to her wrist and began to suck greedily, his teeth biting and scraping like a dog would a bone. He made hideous slurping noises, the sound mingling with the cries of the dead.

Tears burned behind her lids, blurred her vision and choked in her throat. The aunts were right, she had to escape. It mattered little what was waiting in the outside world, she couldn't survive this torment day after day.

'Stay strong, little one. He is nearly sated.'

She clung to that, knowing that the aunts were always aware when Roshi was about to stop feeding. She felt weak and dizzy, her knees sagging. And then everything in her went still. The hair on the back of her neck rose. Goose bumps rose on her arms and a shiver of apprehension slid down her spine. He was coming. If Roshi was a monster, her grandfather was the living epitome of evil. She could feel his presence long before he ever entered the chamber.

Roshi visibly shuddered as he liftedhis head and shoved Sakura behind him. Sakura took the opportunity to swipe her tongue across the wound, the healing agents in her saliva sealing her skin.

The scent of decayed flesh heralded Orochimaru's arrival. He entered, his right hand rapped around a walking staff, as he slowly walked into the chamber. The walking staff was a weapon of amazing power and could be—and often was—wielded to administer pain. The long robes covering his surprisingly muscular form rustled with every step he took, swishing across the ice floor, picking up crystals so that the hem collected shards of glistening white. His sickly pale skin and yellow eyes gave him the look of a snake, an animal associated with evil, not unlike the man.

Sakura felt the surge of chakra and knew it emanated from the walking staff rather than from her grandfather. Roshi cowered from the snake like man as he approached. She knew Orochimaru was one of the oldest mages, and the master of both light and dark jutsu. His teachings had been the foundation of not only the race of mages, but of the shanobi people as well. Her aunts had educated her in the terrible family history of kidnap, rape, murder, and war. All because of this one man and his search for immortality.

Orochimaru stretched a pale arm toward her, his fingers long and thin, the nails sharp like claws. He beckoned.

Roshi shoved Sakura away. "You will not touch her. You have your own supply."

'Come close, Sakura, now while they bicker over you. Come closer to the wall and aid us in breaking free.'

"I can no longer use them as you well know. They have become far too powerful to control. I need the book. We must find the book." Orochimaru shuffled closer to Sakura, his claw like fingers reaching for her. "Once I have the book, they will not be able to defy me."

Roshi swept Sakura farther behind him. "This one is mine and you will not touch her."

"Do not presume to give me orders." The voice bellowed in the vast chambers. Orochimaru stood to his full height, Roshi shrinking before him. "I grow old, but I still have my abilities and you do not. Never forget that."

Sakura inched closer to the wall, all the while gathering the energy in the room.

"You cannot even control your own children. As sick as we are we still defy you! You force me to bring you my own offspring, but you kill them with your greed. You cannot have this one."

"You will give her to me." Orochimaru swung his staff up, the tip pointing at his son.

Sakura seized the opportunity, pulling every scrap of energy from the staff she could and directing it toward the ice wall. At the same time, the aunts connected their chakra with hers. The massive wall bubbled outward toward the chamber. Great shards fell off as the ice spider webbed, and then fragmented.

"Stop them!" Orochimaru leapt away from the splintering ice as he yelled the warning.

The bright red dragon burst through the ice, claws stretched toward Roshi as the blue dragon bent its wing to Sakura.

'Now! Hurry! Climb on.' Aunt Ami called to her.

Sakura didn't hesitate. She jumped agilely onto the wing, scrambled up the sloping membrane and swung her leg over the dragons back. Immediately the dragon reared back on its legs, great wings flapping violently creating a windstorm, and blowing the men backward. Orochimaru lost his grip on the walking staff. Sakura concentrated on it, funneling the wind straight at the thick wooded staff. It rolled to the far side of the chamber. The blue dragon then took to the air.

'There is not much time. Go, Ami, flee while you can,' Sumi pleaded with her sister while she flung her body between the men and the girl on the dragons back.

Sakura could see both dragons were weak. Already their skin color was fading. The effort to keep the two mages at bay was already taking its toll. Sitting on Ami's back, she realized they were starved, and had been for years. Orochimaru only allowed them the barest of sustenance to keep them from utilizing their chakra. Of the two, Ami was the weakest, so Sumi tried to give her sister time to reach the surface and escape.

Sakura looked down to see Roshi creeping toward the red dragon. Sumi flapped her wings to keep Orochimaru on the floor and away from the all-powerful staff.

'Look Out!!!!' Sakura tried to warn her aunt, but the warning came a heartbeat to late.

Roshi plunged the ceremonial knife into the chest of the red dragon. Ami screamed, as her sister sank to the floor.

'Get off. Run! I will hold them off as long as I can.' Ami extended her wing to allow Sakura to crawl off onto a ledge far above the chamber.

'Go with her, Ami,' Sumi pleaded

'Yes, please come with me' Sakura begged.

Ami shook her head 'I will not leave my sister. Go, little one. Run and forget this place. Do not look back, be free and find happiness.'

Sakura clutched the icy wall. She still had to find her way out of the maze of tunnels to the surface. She looked below one last time at the only home she had ever known.

Orochimaru regained his footing and held up his hand. The staff hesitated and then flew across the room to his awaiting hand.

"Be still or you will die," He commanded, then turned to his son. "You fool" he hissed out at Roshi. "Look what you've done."

The red dragon continued to fight, spilling blood across the ice floor in bright crimson streaks.

Orochimaru pointed the staff at the blue dragon. "Be still or I will kill your sister."

Sumi ceased all movement and lay panting on the ice. Ami settled next to her sister, nuzzling her with her long neck and tongue in an effort to save her.

Sakura held back a sob by pressing her hand tightly against her mouth.

'Go! Before her sacrifice is in vain,' Ami ordered

So Sakura turned and ran leaving it all behind, her monstrous father and grandfather, the torture they put her through, and the horrible memories. But as she ran tears slipped from her haunted emerald eyes, because she was also leaving behind her most beloved aunts and the only home she had ever had.