Title: The Earthquake Bird

Author: Eliways

Franchise: Naruto

Summary: Haruno Sakura had never been good at keeping secrets. After being taken into custody for murdering her best friend, she thinks she finally uncovered the biggest secret of all. "I've found my match at killing."

Disclaimer: I do not own anything.

Prologue:

The tremors awoke me before the palpitations of my heart did.

Although I had already been living in Japan for more than a decade, I still felt the familiar flutters in my heartbeat and an impending sense of doom. I sat up on my futon and glanced around the darkened room cautiously. The illuminated digital numbers on my clock showed 2:12. The faint green light of my clock and the ethereal glow of the moon through my window were the only things which allowed me to see the brief outline of my things.

In the distance, I heard a faint creaking sound. A burglar, I thought. I crept out from under my covers and grabbed a baseball bat I always put next to me. For security reasons, I told myself. Truth be told, I had always hoped that I would never have to use it. I swallowed and padded my way to the living room. I stopped and inhaled shallowly but quietly.

Nothing moved.

I exhaled.

After hiding behind a pillar for a few more minutes, I felt foolish. Nobody was there. It was probably my imagination, I consoled myself. However, just as I was ready to accept that shallow explanation, the creaking sound came again. It took all of my control not to scream and brandish my weapon blindly in the air.

Beads of perspiration rolled down the nape of my neck. Summer was relentlessly hot, and I slept with only a small electrical fan in my room. I advanced slowly.

As I reached the entrance of my small apartment, I hesitantly unlocked the door and peered outside. There was nothing out of the ordinary, much to my relief and slight disappointment.

The subtle crowds of the night still mingled with each other on the colorful streets, and I could almost smell the scent of alcohol and sweat on my tongue. Nighttime in Tokyo was a whole new experience, utterly different from the grey skyscrapers and majestic glass facades of the day. It seemed that a whole new crowd of people only came out of their houses when the sun set, and relished the darkness and security only nighttime could provide.

As I sighed softly to myself, the creaking sound came on again. I stilled immediately.

I had already established the fact that there was no intruder, but I was still intent on finding the source.

I listened closely, and traced the strange creaking sound to a queer little object which moved every time something touched it. It resembled a metal letterbox, except that it was miniscule in size. Illuminated by the faint glow of the moon, I could not make out what it really resembled, but it was hidden in a corner between the door of my neighbor and mine. Behind all the cluttered items such as pots of various plants and faded bicycles, I had never really given much thought to what could be hiding behind the mass of junk. It looked peculiarly strange, with rust coating it, but not to the extent where it looked worn or faded. It looked timeless, like and antique out from a fairy tale book. I made a mental note to ask Sachiko-san what that object was in the morning, and then headed in.

As I lay down on my futon, the tremors which had stopped earlier continued. I shivered slightly and consoled myself that tremors like those were common. From experience, I had no reason to worry. However, I could not slow down the rapid beating of my heart.

It was times like these when I secretly missed the feeling of a warm bed and the naive innocence which only childhood could blatantly disguise under the transparent act of youth. I was frightened, and I was nervous, but I tried my best to deviate my thoughts from my current predicament.

The kanji for earthquake is 地震 jishin, and jishin can also mean 自信 – self-confidence, I mused silently.

With that, I spent the remainder of the night connecting random hiragana with their respective kanji, forcing myself to nod off to the soothing lull of the Japanese language.

The next day, I woke up groggily and rubbed my eyes. The events which had happened the previous night played out in my head. I felt a little queasy and tired, having been awoken by the tremors in the earth, but I dragged myself out of bed and washed up, before heading to work.

I worked in a translation firm, and my main job was to translate Japanese texts into English. At the moment, I was currently working on translating a brief manual for a small company wanting to make their debut in the US. The manual was for a piece of equipment which merged the functions of a cell phone and a thermometer together. Quite ingenious, really, I thought. It was an enjoyable piece of text to translate, for the words used were relatively simple, and their quirky style of advertising was a brief respite from the longer, small-print manuscripts which numerous other companies had taken to adopt.

As I was typing in my last sentence, my co-worker, Naruto, came by.

"Sakura, do you want to have lunch with me? A new ramen restaurant opened around the corner! I heard that their food's really good!"

Naruto, with his clear blue eyes and shock of blonde hair, smiled lightly at me. There was no doubt that he was a handsome young man, and his easy-going nature was one of the few things which made me warm up to him immediately when I first moved to Japan.

"Sure."

I packed up my things and took my overcoat, following him as we used our company-issued cards to sign out of the office. Just as my card made contact with the scanner, another face loomed behind the glass.

It was a police officer.

I recognized the outfit immediately, having been introduced to it when I first came to Japan by my tiny neighbor, Sachiko-san.

"Ne, Sakura-chan, hope you won't meet one wearing his uniform… oh, but without it… now that's another story," She had winked mischievously, then resumed her usual routine of potting about her rows of plants.

I had stammered and turned at least three different shades of red, giving her the illusion that I was still a young virgin.

At the moment, however, I felt nothing when the handsome man turned his gaze on to me, glanced back to the piece of paper in his hand, and deadpanned, "You're under arrest Haruno Sakura, for murdering Yamanaka Ino. You will be taken into custody and interrogation. You have the right to remain silent. Everything that you say will be used as evidence against you."

With that, I was whisked away by the policeman. Naruto looked indignant on my behalf, but I felt empty. Nothing came to mind as his strong hands gripped my thin arms tightly.

I shook my head, annoyed. I wasn't going to escape.

Naruto was sputtering nonsense and was trying to get the policeman's attention, but the policeman purposely ignored the blonde and dragged me to his car. The last I saw of my workplace was Naruto's shocked, yet fuming features, and the looming grey of the building.

Dumbass.

As I was introduced to the police station, I noticed disinterestedly that the interrogation room was grey and dull, just like Tokyo itself. The lamp was glaringly bright and it pointed right at my face, casting my interrogator's face in shadows.

"Why me?" I asked them. I was genuinely interested how they had managed to connect Ino's death to me.

"Your neighbor – Sachiko-san, told us that she had seen you two arguing before Yamanaka-san's death. Apparently, it was a heated argument. You had slammed the door in her face. This gives us reason that to suspect that you had committed Yamanaka-san's murder."

"Because I slammed a door. That seems like a dumb reason."

"Anger is not, though."

"Well, I didn't do it."

"You are currently the prime suspect. Do you know how Yamanaka-san was found? Her dead body was found in a dumpster in an alley."

"I know. I read the news."

"Did it occur to you that it was Yamanaka-san? From what we know, the news did not mention the victim's name."

"The description fitted her. And I hadn't heard from her in days."

"There are many foreigners in Japan, Haruno. Yamanaka-san was not the only blonde woman in Tokyo."

"No use giving me a geography lesson. I already know this stuff. After all, I'm a foreigner too."

Author's notes: This is going to be a multi-chapter story.

Reviews are highly appreciated. :)