-Warning: exploring dark themes. Rated M applies-
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CHAPTER I
::OUR GREAT ESCAPE::
There is no such thing as shortcuts in life,
But our own limits and the demons we constantly try to fight,
As they scavage through the shadows, zealously waiting for the perfect moment,
To strike, to tear our soul apart, to rip every ray of hope from the sky.
And when the heart and soul leave you benumbed and cold,
Then all you have left is a shrieking lucid sanity,
And the cruel euphoric taste of:
M
O
R
P
H
I
N
E
"Is this providence?" Hinata was having a rosary in her clasped palms, looking pensively at Sakura, who has casually just set the Mental Hospital on fire.
There was such a poetic harmony into the embers of the fire, sizzling before Sakura`s gleaming jadeite gemstones, as she kept her head slant over her shoulder, staring outside the broken glass of their small window, her gaze sneaking through the hard steel cold bars, into the front yard, grinning mischievously at the spectacle unwrapped before her eyes.
Insanity embodied the elegance between genius and hysteria and it was only a matter of perception that alienated people like her from the others, whose brains were consummated by irreversible merciless pathetic illnesses and that was the reason why the stage was thrilled by so many different hollering masks, each dancing upon their own version of reality.
The matter itself wailed in pain and anguish, as the sweltering red wine-tangerine flames swallowed the decaying peeling walls, stripping the bricks of protection, the vista of the decadent soiled and stained huge building, immixing with the irony of the heavy rain crying over the indomitable modern jail.
Dementia and hysteria had their own rhythm and, for the span of a moment, the woman with the lucent of emerald embellishing into her viridian-golden irises, allowed herself to close her hues and delight into the shrieks of agony and psychopath groans and clamor coming from all over the rooms, while the all-consuming fire was purifying everything into a metaphoric purgatory.
It truly was Hell on that grounds, both physically and spiritually, Sakura thought for herself sarcastically, clicking on her tongue, leaning nonchalantly –as if the orgy amassed out there wasn't swaying her in the bit- against the wall beside her, arms crossed upon the tattered loose white hospital gown.
The avant garde unique hue of pastel coral hair was cascading along the outline of her slim shoulders, hanging in a disheveled frenzy until the ends tapped the outline of her waist, concealing her wicked entertained and demented stare behind a curtain of pink.
She didn't even roll her head over her shoulder to acknowledge the presence of her roommate, as she darkly pressed on every syllable that rolled out of her smirking lips. "No. This is my own judgment and I shall pass it to all the sinners."
"Only God shows clemency." Hinata`s eternally tranquil and lunar voice echoed from the other side of the room, as the lilac-indigo occult woman assessed her surroundings with an apathetic occult stare in her margarite-violet hues. "The rest of us are just his obedient sheep in the hands of destiny."
"Then tell your God that he was wrong." Sakura briskly hummed to her friend, as she was taking in the hordes of psychotic and lunatic patients scattering all around the soaked in mood and hard water yard`s grounds, confused and loss of what to do and the jadeite eyed woman narrowed her orbs to them.
She was patiently observing, waiting and calculating, not allowing herself to do any mistakes.
The flames were dancing at the door of the room she has been sharing with the resembling moon light`s Hinata for six years, and they snuck under the closed door, but none of them even flinched.
It was not that Sakura didn't respect the violet eyed woman`s belief, faith and religious inclinations, but the fact that their dogmas were contradictory oftenly led to frustration and tension.
Hinata sought from eternal mercy and providence from the skies above, while Sakura was an atheist to the core, who only trusted two things, making them iconic in her life: her judgment, that was immune to the pain and the bitterness of vengeance sizzling on the tip of her tongue.
"There is no lenience in this pathetic world. Only tears..." her sleek tongue was rolling the words easily out of her mouth, making her blaze with a wicked sinister glow. "...the screams muffled by this walls..."
She let her emerald orbs travel along the scribbled insanely white walls, taking in every quote from famous poets and preachers, hating and loving that room at the same time, for being a cage, a prison and liberation to her, helping her open up her eyes to see the reason why she was in such predicament and strengthen her resolve of the future.
"...this human circus."
"Look around you, Hinata. Look closely at this human charade and learn how vulnerable they made us feel... like sew rats." Chartreuse darkened orbs pinned Hinata`s luscious lavender ones, as the woman held her gaze absentmindedly seemingly unfocused.
Sakura wished to know whatever was crossing through that troubled conflicted mind of the woman who came quite close to the definition of friend that Sakura allowed herself to be bonded to, wondering whether she was indeed sociopath, mentally unstable and neurotic or simply introvert and autistic by nature.
Haruno Sakura, a young woman that has just celebrated her 24th spring since she has come into that world, has been a prisoner into Amegakure`s Mental Hospital –a modern imprisonment whose predicament and barbaric illegal methods were fading into the silent cruel walls, which were muffling the lunatic screams of the unfortunate souls that were sent there- for six years, but to her, if always felt like she has been there for only a minute.
And the reason why she was being one of the patients of a horrifying Insane Asylum, was definitely not because she was having mental problems; Sakura Haruno wasn't insane.
She has just been sent there on purpose, to be socially –and hopefully physically- annihilated, because someone had an interest for her to disappear.
Everyday, she struggled with keeping her sanity and not fall prey to the tempting illusion of indulging into craziness, slowly but steadily building up a solid foundation to her accumulating hate towards the ones who sent her there to rot and die pitifully, until she would escape that place and fulfill one but only dream: revenge.
It has been her only creed, a soulless silent companion, her source of immersing strength and the only thing that kept her mental sanity at bay.
That, and an unanticipated friend who she has grown really close to, namely Hyuga Hinata. The girl with the lifeless puppet unmistakably pearl orbs and a serenity that was beating any mentally deranged patient out there.
Since the very first time she has been put on the same cell-room as her, on the second floor of the building, Sakura knew that Hinata would be a great friend –a sister even.
And hearing her tearing and tormenting background story, the rose haired woman accepted her as someone to share her pain and know of her soul.
They never seemed to agree on anything and when it came to religion, Hinata was a nun in the body of a goddess, glowing of a light that somehow calmed Sakura`s seething darkened vile thoughts of revenge, but they formed a strong connection, both supporting each other and fighting against the system of a mental hospital.
They hardly interacted or talked to anybody else, they only ate in the farthest corner of the cafeteria and never responded when a random lunatic approached them cautiously but curiously, they never looked their medics in the eyes, because of a valuable lesson that they grew to learn from the very overdose of the drugs they injected their veins with, it being: one locked up in a Mental Hospital by someone who wanted to see them dead, and not because of a fair medical diagnosis, they should shut the fuck up and not show it that they were being defying and silently promise misbehavior against the doctors who have probably been bribed, because it would only lead to more drugs and injections, which would slowly but surely damage the brain until they would eventually turn into real psychopaths.
And that was never an option for someone sane who had yearned for freedom.
Someday… they silently agreed… someday, they would be free.
And that day… was today.
"We should get outside before we get caught into the flames." Hinata stated monotone, breathing the words on Sakura`s nape as she came to rest on the wall beside the young emerald eyed woman, staring at the burning collapsing door and the sizzling illuminated hall, as a charcoal smoke flared menacingly.
"You`re probably right. But before we make our great escape, I need to get into the Archives. They have my file in there."
"The first two floors are on fire. There is no exit. If we want to make it outside, then we have to jump through the window."
"No…" Sakura gnarled lowly to her lavender eyed friend, calmly assessing the situation.
They still had time and if she didn't get a hand on the information amassed within those damned walls and find out about who has sent here there, then escaping was pointless.
"No, I have waited too much for this. I have lived for the moment when I would get my hands on whoever has sent me to this prison and left me here to die and turn into a brainless zombie!"
She looked through the window as the building emptied of dashing frenetic doctors, crumbling and decaying, whille some people venturied towards the huge rusted gates, trying to escape that Hell, the entire landscape being enveloped by horrifying shrieks, the putrid stench of burned peeling skin and collapsing trembling walls.
"I need everyone out before I get inside to look for my file and I know that the snake Kabuto has it..."
Emerald orbs narrowed viciously as she seethed the name of the Head of the Mental Hospital, who would always force high dosages of injections through her veins, to crush her silent fighting spirit, even if they were unnecessary, since Sakura hasn't once displayed neurotic behavior, but that was beside the point.
He never succeeded in turning her into a psycho, because Hinata's Gods were helping her to get revenge. That was the reason why no doctor has seen her sneak into the pharmacy and use caustic substances to set the whole building on fire, in the middle of the night, of a raining November.
She even allowed those demented doctors, who were far more cruel, neurotic, masochistic and insane than the patients, to inject her with drugs that she didn't want to think about, in order to get access to that damned room, where all the medicines and substances were stocked and set it on fire.
She was after all, immune to everything they had to give there, as her body has slowly accommodated and even welcomed all the drugs, without altering her judgment.
Or maybe it did, but who was to tell the difference in a God forsaken place like that?
A violent explosion shook the foundation of the building, as Hinata has curled her hands around the cardboard of the bed, eyes never leaving Sakura`s sinister smirking beautiful visage.
"It came from the crisis stabilization."
Her plan has just begun. In order to get her hands on that damned file with every information about her family, friends, living relatives, pets, the reason why she was there, a name, anything, she had to get into the Archives, either way, setting that place on fire was fruitless.
Even if she escaped that place physically, she would mentally and socially be just as encaged, if she had no memory and no identity.
Somehow, they gave her something to erase her back memories as soon as she has been brought into the Principal`s sterile office room.
That clean freak has injected her vein with a pink drug in the hue of her coral hair and raped her brutally after all.
She paid dearly for the nails she dug into his eyes and pulse, marking him with some nasty scars, as they kept her locked into the basement, putting her on heavy sleeping medicine, and they let her stand there in a cruel silence and pitch darkness, restrained by leather bindings, hoping that she would lose her sanity for good, but she didn't.
Instead, they only strengthened her resolve for revenge further. After she plotted and schemed behind those idiots of medics and nurses` backs for six years, until she succeeded in coming up with a demented outrageous escape plan.
"This is better music than Eine Faust to my ears."
Sakura whipped her head to Hinata, who was dusting off her blank white –too much white- night gown which was split on the back, exposing her long slim legs, her curbed fine spine and her toned butt, but she never cared about that.
Never of them did, except for the creepy doctors who were salivating after their patients. Now, they were paying with their pathetic lives for their sins and begged to the Devil not to unleash his flames to them, unluckily.
They could heard screams in pain and hollers from the shrieking and burning alive doctors, who have been torturing them for years, but never from the patients.
They were the most pitiful and the most beautiful creatures to listen to. They weren't in pain, they were screaming in liberation.
They were crazy.
"Our signal. Let`s go."
The rosette gestured to Hinata to follow her, letting her emerald orbs flicker to the blood leaking from under the loose sleeves of her hospital robe and the scratching on her calves.
She didn't question though, as both jumped above a falling patient that has collapsed in their door step and dashed outside, slipping past the sizzling blazing flames, which were roaring to them, covering their mouths so as to not inhale the lethal dioxide combination and die of asphyxiation.
Because that would be lame.
Before she set the facility on fire, Sakura has locked the door of the room she was heading to, where she lured the Principal and conjured him to give her a tranquilizer, by acting psychotic.
The fool has taken the bait and next thing he knew, Sakura had him kicked him hard on the kneecap and punched his jaw hard, which he didn't expect.
After so many years of 'practice' Sakura and Hinata were experts in freeing their hands from the leather bindings, since the doctors were always fooled by their patients in wrapping it too loose on the wrist, by dislocating their bones and force their hands outside.
The two girls run downstairs, mindful to the trembling stairs as the entire spiral staircase was burning like a Christmas Tree, trembling under their light avian steps, but miraculously they managed to mold into the flames and not get trapped into the fire, making it successfully to the first floor.
Their bare feet were tapping on the concrete floor as they were shoving occasionally patients out of their side, since they didn't get what was happening around them.
The ones that were half sane were forcing the immense iron gates outside, or tried to climb on the fence or sneak under the holes they dug with their spoons under the exterior electric fence.
"This is it. You should run outside now, before the entrance doors get stuck and the walls collide, or you won't ever make it outside, Hinata."
"I can wait."
"I don't need aisle. I can handle this snake by myself. This is my revenge, not yours. I MUST deal with him by myself otherwise I will not mentally make it!" She had to kill him with her own hands for everything that he made her go through. She would take revenge for both her and Hinata, it was a vow.
If she hasn't been insane and the reason why she found herself tamed into such a place was because of a conspiracy and the Principal was an accomplice, naturally her revenge must start with eliminating him. She had to do this and free herself.
Hinata already killed her new roommate and the doctor that has arranged for the lavender eyed Hyuga to be moved to another room, one floor higher, since she and Sakura were clearly strong alleys, who weren't utterly insane.
They were dangerous together, so naturally they have been separated. That was why she had blood and deep nail and syringe marks embellishing her margarite silk skin.
She had her own share of fun, now it was Sakura`s turn.
"Go, l`ll be short on your tail!"
Hinata nodded in confirmation as she whirled on her heel and run down the dim lighted corridor, sneaking past the flames which were enveloping the place into a monstrous curtain of blazing crimson red and bright orange.
The sinister roars of blazing fire was blending with the pungent stench of decaying peeling human flesh, blood and the horror screams of agony, pain and dementia.
And the conductor of the sadistic orchestra, was the electrical jolts discharging from the thunder clouds and the menacing sound of heavy rain pouring over the grounds of the collapsing Asylum, like washing away the putrid smell of death.
Sakura threw herself onto the door, knocking it down with her shoulder and elbow, stumbling on the inside, where she found Kabuto fighting the flames and trying to escape from his office but Sakura knew better because she has personally locked the door from the outside, stealing the only key and she threw it into the toilet so that no one would ever find it on time, having a piece of dirty cloth pressed firmly against his mouth and as the multitude of files were disarrayed over the polished floor, some getting scorched by the intensifying flames.
There was one particular slim file covered in a black plastic envelope that Kabuto was holding for dear life and narrowed dangerous blitzing jadeite orbs caught the name written in golden letters: 'Haruno Sakura.'
Bingo! So her file was that precious that even with the Grim Ripper himself banging on his door, Kabuto still couldn't let go of it, wanting to take that secret into his fucking grave, huh?
A ruthless pleasure has surged through Sakura`s system as she thought about how important she must have been if her file was such an immensurable treasure.
"Isn't it funny how there always seems to be something coming in between us, Kabuto?" Her groan came from the ripped off door as the Principal spun his head backwards, glasses falling from the bridge of his nose, to look in horror at the satanic murderous aura of the pink haired patient, olive orbs going wide in shock.
She managed to flawlessly fake a concerned sad voice as his eyes narrowed to her, clearly starting to get an idea of who set the entire place on fire.
"S-Sakura?! H-how- what are you d-doing here?"
She stretched her index finger to him, smirking evilly in sheer delight, stepping further into the room, as he backed away from her, trying to put some distance, but jerked as the furniture was set on fire and the wood cracked in places erupting in a sinister low scorching sound, while Sakura was still approached as if her shadow was defying the flames. "S-Stay ba-"
"-My file. Give it. Give it and I will kill you before you will get to pleasure of experience the delight of being burned alive. Not that I wouldn`t love to see you scream!"
Her lusious orbs were gleaming like emerald gemstones in the dancing flames of the fire that was playing around her, like she was controlling it.
She was lethal, delicate and beautiful, her head was dropped askew over her left shoulder, her hair was scattered over her shoulders, neck and eyes and her lips were curled in a sizzling dark cherries heart shaped smile.
She was there to take revenge, it was just obvious. Kabuto mentally cursed himself for not concealing a weapon or a tranquilizer into his pants, but he didn't count on the fact that someone would set the place on fire.
"You will never get this file Sakura, I have been instructed to never tell you the-"
"-Truth? I don't care about that." She was before him in the span of a heartbeat as Kabuto let out a shriek when she dipped her body down and gripped him by the neat white collar of his shirt and hauled him up to align with her jadeite blazing orbs.
That woman was strong -inhumanely strong- from all the drugs they gave and the way her body adjusted to the intrusion of the inhumane chemical combinations, instead of going limp. She was insane, but genius and rational.
Everything about Sakura was a puzzling contradiction, like she was acting bipolar, while in reality, she wasn't bipolar.
Beautiful; she was so astonishingly gorgeous and her eyes were gleaming like the fire she unleashed over the Asylum that played her jail for six years.
"I only want to put you mortherfuckers six feet under. Everyone who kept me caged in here and wanted me dead... I will kill you all!"
"W-What are you-" His eyes narrowed at the way she took down his glasses and tossed them aimlessly on the floor, the sound of broken glass reaching their years and it was brutal and cruel.
"W-We are going to die of we don't get o-out now-"
"-Oh no no no..." Sakura slowly shook her head as her pastel pink tresses fluttered like a veil around her shoulders, following the motion of her head and she clicked on her tongue. "We... ain't getting anywhere, darling."
Kabuto was looking eyes wide in horror as Sakura lift up a thick long syringe that she had on her right hand, holding it in on his side, and his knees started to tremble. "Of course that I am going to get out of here. But you are going to die, Kabuto."
He never realized that she has injected him with whatever substance has been into that syringe –most likely a drug or a combination from their stock- because Sakura has been so swift and subtle and too fast for his quivering eyes and dizzy mind to catch it on time. He was scared shitless and couldn't fight her back.
Kabuto tried to land a pathetic weak hit on her, but she nonchalantly strengthened her hold around his neck, pressing her long sharp nails into his jugular, cutting his air supply, raising him up in the air as she caught his right punch easily, smirking when the serpent resembling doctor has finally dropped the files he was tucking on his chest.
The slim file landed on the floor with a muffled sound as the corners of some white and sepia sheets flashed to her content emerald orbs, so Sakura kneed him in his groin sending him flying down on the floor, with his head hitting his office desk, as Kabuto screeched in pain loud and annoying, blood leaking from his cracked skull.
Sakura cut the distance between them in two boisterous hard steps and roughly gripped his silvery grey hair that fell loose from his ponytail, making him wince out in unadulterated pain, but she looked at him passively and disgusted. "You can say your prayer now, you son of a bitch, I will wait."
"P-Please..."
"No, not me. I think it is God the one you should ask for clemency. Hinata says he will forgive us all if we repent." She slant forward to look him in his eyes, smelling and relishing into the smell of his fear and the acid stink of urine as he peed his pants in fear, paying him back for all the shit he has done to her. "Are you an atheist?" She asked in a velvet soft voice, but the sinister tone was unmistakable.
She was insane!
"I-I I-I a-am…"
"Are you? Don't you believe in God? Maybe I should have let her stay after all."
Kabuto tried to punch her stomach but Sakura was definitely stronger –mentally and physically- and she was the one to dominate the game and not the other way around, so she viciously punched him first into his face, making his head snap over his shoulder, blood spraying from his lips.
Flames were roaring around them in a sadistic dance, and she vaguely heard the sound of half of the wall collapse into the door and blocking the entrance.
"That's your answer from Heaven Kabuto and guess what? You..." She pulled on his hair hard, holding him up to her eye level, until she almost peeled his mane from his scalp.
"Are going to burn…" She brought his face closer to her own, until they were one breath away and roughly kissed his lips, biting on them until they split open and bleed, as the once imposing smug Principal of the Mental Hospital was crying and trembling like a jelly fish. "In Hell!"
And shoved the empty syringe shot into his chest, pushing the air within into his body as he screamed in agony, tears rolling down his blood shoot orbs.
It was music for Sakura`s ears and she could feel the adrenaline and the smell of freedom fill her system. It smelled like gratification.
"AAHHH!" The rose haired woman threw his limp carcass back on the floor looking him in the eyes to see how his soul was floating from his opened mouth, as his body jerked like electrified.
She couldn't wait for the injection to take effect, she had to see him suffer and suffer he did.
"Fuck!" Sakura tucked the file under the white apron she wore, looking at the damage where the door was covered by the decaying wall, blocking her way out and she run to the high window, kicked on the glass until it shattered at her feet, grazing the bare skin of her dirty calves and softly climbed on it, leaping without second thoughts off the window not sparing another glance back, landing gracefully on the soiled ground which was soaked in ashes, rain and blood.
It was ridiculous. It was heavily raining outside, it was a blitzing thunderstorm, yet the entire old building was wrapped into a curtain of merciless flames, the walls collapsed, insane people were doing ridiculous gestures: some praying, shouting dancing, screeching, some running and trying to jump over the face, doctors and personnel scattered like they were also lunatic patients.
Sakura threw her head back and let out a short hearted laughter. She should say goodbye to the place, after all, it has been her 'home' for six years and the food wasn't bad at all.
She would miss that tomato sauce they mixed with oregano, but she burst in hysterics into thinking that Hinata would finally escape the Ramen she loathed with burning passion.
Back into the Principal`s office, which was fully embraced by flames and smashing walls, an empty syringe rolled over the floor in a muffled low sound and Kabuto has been cursed to see the letters written on the vial before he died in pure agony, luckily before the flames caught his body into their limbs to burn him alive, as he took with him in Hell, one last word to haunt him in the afterlife:
'M-O-R-P-H-I-N-E'
Sakura has injected him an overdose of morphine, the drug they always gave her to alter her brain but instead of making him a brainless zombie demented patient, it only made her resistant to the highest levels of pain and she kept on being the genius woman that she always was.
Of course, Sakura had another eccentric inner inside her, being already on a certain level of insanity ever since they brought her there so there was no way they could turn a psychopath into one.
What an irony.
"Hinata?" Sakura hollered through the cries and deplorable moans, running around to search for the woman with the essence of lavender entrapped into her orbs, her slim bare feet slapping the muddy yard of the Hospital, staining her ankles. "Hinata, where the fuck are you-"
"-Prima Dona?" Someone has grabbed her shoulders roughly, as she has been briskly and clumsily turned backwards by someone. Enraged, Sakura totally attempted to punch the motherfucker square into his face, but stopped dead in her trucks when her widened surprise emerald hues collided with gleaming excited ruby.
"Is it time, isn't it? The great play has already started! The curtain has fallen, am I right? It fell towards all of us and we are waiting for the applause now, right? Can you hear them too, right? Do you think they are going to throw us red roses?"
Sakura gently cupped the face of the man before her, who was of the same age as she was and stared into his auburn eyes as she allowed herself a moment to let pity course through her system.
Speaking softly and tenderly, she caressing his face lovingly, as his short bitten split nails dug into her porcelain skin, gazing at his half burned peeling skin revealing the carbonized bone of his high right cheek, as he didn't even flinch or wail in pain. "Yes, Sasori. I do hear them. They are cheering for us. The performance... was a success."
Akasuna no Sasori has once been a famous prodigious actor and master puppeteer, before his theater has been closed down by his jealous rivals and he lost his job and his family has been killed, as well as his three years old younger sister and his older brother, making him succesfully go insane with the pain.
They brought him here and set him up because he was a loathed solitary genius, by no other than the colleagues from his branch, to get them erased from the public`s eyes.
Sakura respected him as a fellow insane genius and they have been friends for five years.
Six years spent in that Asylum and she only met two people that she trusted with her own life: Hinata and Sasori.
He wouldn't make it outside, his skin was entirely burned, it was a miracle that he was still alive, his eyes were content and gentle, he made no attempt to reach the dream of any patient out there, namely walk past the gates in the direction of the velvet scarlet horizon and gain his freedom, he only stared and her with an eliciting smile… he was beautiful. Grotesque, disfigured and carnage, but beautiful in a decadent way. Sakura felt genuinely sorry for him.
Sasori, just like her, has been injected morphine in large dosages, until any form of pain has subdued. "I would have brought you red roses." He placed a handmade chain with a wooden pendant with a rose design on it in her opened palm, smiling softly. "Bella Diva."
She curled her fingers around it, accepting the gift as his red jewels were looking lackluster around, seeing the pathetic silhouettes of their 'colleagues' move absentmindedly like entrapped into a cruel illusion. The necklace has belonged to his mother, Sakura knew it because he refused to take it off. "They are beautiful, Sasori."
"I love you." He breathed to her, his voice serene and his eyes thrilled, like he was envisioning himself in his glorious days when he would make the audience stand and clap.
The rose haired woman was aware that it was one of his rare moments when Sasori was lucid. Normally, he would spend his days into his room, with a piece of wood that he was sculpting using his nail, since they weren't allowed tools until it turned into a masterpiece.
Some other days, he would be found in the back yard, under a willow tree, writing poems and letters to his wife and kids, without knowing that they were long dead and read them to Sakura and Hinata, jolly telling them that he was still waiting for a reply.
Of course, it never came. But he remained optimistically. Probably, that sweet illusion kept him alive.
"I know." She felt... she had sentiments for Sasori, she truly had, he was so different, his story was tragic and pathetic, but she wasn't indifferent, even though she wouldn't go as far as to declare her love for him.
He was someone… special, who she wouldn't kill without second thoughts, equally smart, without a name and he taught Hinata and her meditation Zen and breathing exercises, to stimulate the flow of their inner chakras and remain sane.
How ironic, she succeeded in not losing her mind, using a clever advance technique that she has learned from an insane person.
"Kill me, Sakura." She pulled away from him, looking straight into his mellow ruby orbs, seeing no hesitation but only abdication. For the first time in months… Sasori was being conscious. His eyes weren't gleaming of dementia, they were tamed and lucid, yet sad and abdicated.
He accepted his faith. For him, death was the supreme liberation. To Sakura, it was revenge. The sole impulse that kept her on going and alive.
Sakura nodded once to him, casually pressing the long needle down his stretched arm, injecting him with her signature substance, mentally taking notice of the fact that she had only one left before she run out of whatever 'weapons' she had on her to escape that place, she kissed his lips tenderly once and he responded, parting ways to her forever.
She shot morphine into his arm knowing that he didn't want to suffer, since he would die anyways because of his injuries. "Thank you... Goodbye. I know you will make it in the end… "
For the both of them.
She let go of him as Sasori slide at her feet and smiled - he was very handsome- and latched his wet dry lips on her soaked in dirt bare ankle, whispering "…morphine..."
"My name is-"
"-Sakura!" That was Hinata`s lulling harmonious voice, being carried on the blowing wind, as Sakura whipped her head towards her shoulder, narrowing her emerald orbs.
"Where the fuck have you be-"
Burning wheels scratched on the soaked yard as an old ambulance came to an abrupt halt straight in front of her, blinding her lucent orbs with its white lights. Hinata had the window rolled down and beckoned to her to get up, before the place would burn down completely.
"Securing transport. Hurry up, we have to get out of here before the building collapses."
Sakura spat a vicious curse, complying nonetheless, throwing the passenger`s door open, jumping inside to join her friend, and Hinata slapped viciously on the gas pedal, pressing it to the ground and speeding into the direction of the front gates, barely avoiding the patients who were shrieking and trying to throw hemselves in front of the car, and went straight through the bars of the already shaking huge iron door and the car violently jerked on the side when it made contact, but didn't stop.
Somehow, the lilac eyed Hyuga has proved to be quite a skilled driver and managed to keep the car on the slippery front alley. "Shit!" Sakura hissed through clenched teeth, as she almost bumped her head on the window, since she wasn't wearing any seat belt. Hinata was utterly insane.
"You could have slowed down the heck down and not get us killed, you know?"
"Sorry, but if I did that, then we wouldn't have been able to break through it."
Hm, true that.
"Fuck that!"
Sakura turned on the seat, peeping through the rear window to see the amassed demented and lunatics looking through glassy dazzled and inspirited orbs at the opened gate, not knowing what to do. Some where even wayving their hands to them.
It felt as they didn't recognize a life outside that place. Animals set free off their cages, but never knowing another place to call it home.
Sakura snorted at them, shaking her head. They looked so helpless and pitiful. Liberty was shining and opening up providentially before them and yet, they couldn't grab it.
They were forever prisoners of their own minds, even if they weren't physically incarcerated.
"This is poetical and metaphoric." She muttered to Hinata, who was focusing on the wet dark road, avoiding branches that fell off the high fir trees.
Sakura vaguely wondered how in the world was she able to see anything, but then again, there had to be something intangible and maleficent into those milky fine veins protruding from her exquisite lavender orbs. God only knew how many drugs she had before Sakura became a patient and her roommate.
"Where now?" Hinata inquired gazing absentmindedly the level of gas in the tank. It was almost empty and the needle swaying between white and red. "This doesn't look too promising."
Sakura cursed viciously when her friend`s endearing blessed rosary, that Hinata conveniently hanged on the rear mirror, bumped her in the forehead, while she was ramming into the glove compartment.
Someday… she would hang her on that necklace. Sakura couldn't loath her praying rituals and religious tendencies more than when they stepped into her personal bubble. Into the gloves compartment, she found some money, pills, a bottle of rum –useful material- , condoms, empty shots and pens.
"What is the closest city?" Sakura unfolded a tattered map, trying to depict their current location; those imbecile doctors have been stupid enough to mark the location of the Asylum with a red dot.
It was just like Hinata and Sakura have suspected: the Asylum was far from the city, in a place that no one would ever know about what horrifying things happened in there. "Let`s see… 60 km to Suna if we follow this road... Sunagakure no Sato. Weird shit ass name that is, won`t you agree?"
Contrary to popular belief, Sakura was very vocal, easygoing and enjoyed making conversation; she wasn't an introvert by nature and got easily bored.
Unlike her, Hinata was rather quiet, wallflower and a loner, rarely engaging someone into a conversation, but she was happily listening to Sakura`s blabbers.
Up until then, Sakura has never actually figured it out whether Hinata truly had mental problems and childhood traumas, or she was simply silent and self-observer. Not that she cared, Hinata was someone she could trust, she would never betray her.
"We won't make it that far with the gas we have." It wasn't the gas that troubled Hinata, it was the stormy weather, their weakened condition, the fact that they didn't have an identity, a home, documents, nothing, they were dead to the world and probably, when the ones that caged them in the Asylum would soon start to hunt them down.
She so hoped that, with all the Archives burned to ashes –Sakura was a genius- they will all be declared dead. Plus, they were two young women, clad in dirty hospital gowns, stained in blood, starving and dehydrated, going to nowhere.
Easy prey to any rapists and serial criminals.
Sakura on the other hand, rolled her eyes exasperated by the 'optimism' she displayed, not paying attention to the fact that the lilac eyed Hyuga pressed the gas to the floor and she speeded up until the old car started to shake, on a slippery unfamiliar dark forest road.
The rosette arched an eyebrow at her driver, shaking her head in disbelief. Hinata was always pessimistic. Always, she was like a black crow or a black cat, who always announced bad omen or bad karma.
Extremely delicate, elegant and astonishingly beautiful, but lethal. Like the Hell Girl ,hence the nick name she had for her –Enma Ai.
She absolutely loathed the pungent smell of disinfectant, blood and pills reeking inside of that car. "There has to be a gas station somewhere along the way, for fuck`s sake."
"So we go to Suna then?"
"Only to buy clothes and necesary supplies, but I think that we shouldn't stop to the first city that is closest to this place. The farther, the better. Who knows who might hunt us down."
"True. My family probably thinks I am dead."
Something in the flat lackluster velvet way that she said those words made Sakura burst out laughing, like she was indeed, an Insane Asylum escapee.
Seriously, that friend of hers was utterly insane. Everything about Hinata was eerie, lunar, mysterious, occult and tranquil, something that Sakura simply couldn't place.
Where was that unperturbed character coming from? She wasn't impolite, she wasn't ruthless, barbaric or uncivilized, she was simply serene to everything.
Like she was always under the influence of some heavy drug. She wasn't always like that and the deep nasty scars on her wrists, forearms, thighs and hips were a solid proof of it, but probably she has run out of tears to cry and feelings of pain to feel, numbing.
Good for her, who needed shit as feelings? A pain in the ass and an obstacle in front of fulfilling her dreams.
Hinata`s story was as tragic and ridiculous as it was cliché. She has been sent to a monastery to become a nun, simply because she fell madly in love with a commoner that has been her personal servant.
Giving the fact that she was the daughter of a rich family –the noble Hyuga family which was aristocratic and crème de la crème in both wealth and blue blood- she, as the first born and the heiress of the family was about to stain her family's reputation with such transgression so they simply disposed of the man she loved dearly.
She found him dead in her chamber, headless, with a very clear message written in blood over her bed, then his body has been thrown from a cliff into the ocean to feed the sharks.
That was the moment when her heart broke in pieces and she was on the verge of losing her sanity, but they didn't stop there.
Seeing that Hinata was never fit to rule over such a prominent family and went into hysteria when she has been separated from her lover, they disowned her, deemed her as unfit and unworthy of her family name and sent to a monastery where no one would ever find her.
For years, Hinata has been tortured by the nuns for her blatant refusal to entrust her life in the name of Heavens and follow their doctrines, punished for her misbehave and attempts to escape multiple times, failing every single time, she still had nightmares from being forced to spend weeks in solitude, prisoner into the basement with only bread and water and surrounded by rosaries and prayers, forced into doing the most laborious works, and they even attempted to perform an exorcism on her, as Hinata slowly started to lose her mind for real, having panic attacks and claustrophobia, from when they cut her on the chest and poured holly water on her, a ridiculous ritual that she has barely survived.
Somehow, dead has never been generous to her and never took pity of her cries to come and take her, no.
She has endured the torture for five years straight and ultimately, sent to a Mental Hospital where she shaved all her hair, and her only relieve was God. She found refuge in her faith and Sakura respected that, even though the rosette was a convinced atheist.
Hinata has threatened the nuns that someday, God would do her justice, and then she burned down the monarchy by setting the chapel into fire, with a great fire she stirred using big candles, killing every single nun. The police has found her close to where the monastery was burning, dropped to her knees, a holly rosary curled upon her chest, praying and crying.
They never found out that she has been the culprit, but the doctors have diagnosed her with schizophrenia and sent her to Amegakure`s Mental Hospital.
Two years later, Sakura has been locked into the same prison, becoming her cellmate. Hinata flatly ignored every single patient out there, with the exception of Sakura.
They become best friends. And the Hyuga heiress has even confessed to her that she was the one to kill the nuns. Since then, their bond was inseparable.
"You don`t know that."
"I faked Kabuto`s handwriting and sent them a letter during which I informed them that I hanged myself into the bathroom."
Sakura slapped her forehead in annoyance, dragging her palm along her porcelain cheek, staining the snow skin with dirt and blood. "That`s so unstylish and unoriginal. They never visited you anyways."
Hinata was four years elder but looked younger than Sakura. Like a porcelain doll with a perfect face, which never aged and that was even creepier. "Will you take revenge?"
"I am just a powerless woman. Only God can judge." She breathed calmly and unflappable, on the same silk soft tune that miraculously, calmed the volcanic energetic Sakura down. "What about you?"
The rosette was already scanning the contents of the file she snatched from Kabuto, reeling in disgust that they smelled like his damned cologne. She absolutely despised that scent of whatever perfume he used.
Vaguely, she observed that they finally got out of that thick bottomless creep menacing forest and reached a clear long deserted street.
At least, the sky started to clear and some twinkling poetic stars were peeping from the puffy velvet clouds. The light resumed to a light pleasant dance, instead of a thunderstorm with big heavy drops. The farther Hinata drove, the clearer the sky was getting.
"I will not wait for the… retribution to come."
Sakura`s orbs narrowed and flamed until she swore the files she was focusing on burned to ashes, as the sheets rustled within her strong grip.
Hinata threw her a curious glance seeing hat her friend`s –no, sister, Sakura insisted that they were sisters, the small 'tattoo' carved with a needle on the inside of their wrist in the shape of a crescent moon was a token for that pledge- sensing the sudden change into her voice, which took a malevolent and vile touch.
"For those who sent me there to die like a stray dog without a name and be tortured until I go insane... I won't rest until they are all dead." She bumped her fist into the glass of the window, putting a large crack on it.
"Until I see their fucking names written on their fucking graves... I won't close a single eye. They will pay dearly for what they did to me." She has suffered there for six years and someone was taking pleasure for that. Sakura would never forgive them. Never.
"What are you doing?" Hinata looked at Sakura who rolled down the window, still mumbling threats, poking her head out to face the blowing wind, hearing the old engine creaking and emitting all sorts of nasty sounds, but Sakura couldn't care less if their vehicle was not exactly a limo, since it served as a means of escape.
Her respect for ambulance cars grew tenfold.
For the first time in what seemed like forever, Sakura allowed herself to smile a genuine smile. Heck she would even cry if her eyes wouldn't be so stingy and burning from all the smoke, dirt and dust.
A fresh strong humid air of pure sheer liberty was caressing her pink tresses and a delicate tint of virgin pink embellished her rose cheeks and it lacked the distinctive stench of medicine and sterile cleaning substances.
The smell of freedom.
The wind of revenge.
She was free. And it felt so fucking natural and good! "Damn Ai, you should fucking try this, I swear is orgasmic!" She giggled at Hinata, who was focusing on the road, but rolled her own window down to feel what Sakura was feeling.
"Won't you need that for later on? Why are you doing that?" The lavender eyed Hyuga deadpanned at Sakura, who grinned wickedly in victory as she held the files up before her gleaming iridescent emerald orbs and a lighter placed on the corner of the rusty papers, seeing as the flickering light turned them into charcoal ashes.
"Erasing all my traces. I already have this memorized the contents." Somehow, it made her feel empowered and independent, as she was the one to decide her destiny from there on out.
Plus, she had a fantastic out of that world memory, who could memorize everything as reading it or seeing it –even hearing it- once. There was no need for someone else to see that file.
There was no other copy of that file since the Asylum was no more, so getting rid of it meant that she would have the upper hand. She could take whatever identity she wanted and start anew.
Start a new life and hunt everyone down to skin them and bury them alive for what they made her go through.
What was the point in feeling pain if not sharing it with the others?
She let her eyes travel up to the filigree velvet lilac night sky, gazing at the stars. She loved stars and Hinata did too. They shone brightly like freedom and helped her hold on her reasoning in the past six years.
A silent confident which would never stab her in the back. "Feel this Ai?" Sakura told her dreamy, her voice turning suave and soft like a nightingale`s. Occasionally, owls were creating a melodic twilight symphony. "This is freedom. We are finally free."
"You are right, it does feel amazing." Hinata mustered a small hearted smile. She felt it too, because just like Sakura, she yenned for that feeling for elven years. After a decade stolen from her life, she was finally tasting the ambrosia taste of freedom.
"For fuck`s sake, can't you drive this shit faster? It`s more prolific if we run there instead."
"No. I want to enjoy this while it lasts." At first Sakura had an indecipherable expression on her face, as she tore a piece of her hospital robe to make a joke of a hairband and tie her long coral hair into a high ponytail, but then she caught the clever message behind her words and grinned widely at her friend.
"I hope to hear you say this when you take the throats of those who put you in here, Hinata."
They were driving under the starry sky, an ambulance.
The Asylum was history by then, no one knew that they escaped from that orgy… they were finally free and had all the time in the world. So why the heck not enjoy it?
"What did the file say? Who are your parents? Do you have any family members alive? Any contact?"
At that Sakura`s tone turned a fascinating amalgamation of unadulterated hatred, menacing pure evil, spitting venom and snickering like a devilish Goblin with twisted ambitions.
"Actually, there was nothing relevant in there, only shit about my height, weight, the substances they injected me bla bla but... there was indeed a name written there that is clearly not affiliated with mine, and a phone number with the contact details, probably belonging to the ones they used to keep informed about my status."
"And? What did it say? Who are the ones that locked you in an Insane Asylum?"
Her acrid answer blended into the shadows of the sinuous road as they left the asylum in Amegakure behind, already driving for two hours, heading to Sunagakure- no Sato, their first stop.
"Uchiha."
My revenge starts… now!
