A/N: As promised, this is the new and improved version of this story. You'll notice much more inclusion of Japanese folklore and mythology, I'm hoping I did my research correct. Enjoy! I do not own Naruto.

She felt the cool wind on her neck, and glanced once more at the overcast sky that she had come to love. Taking one last look at the crowded, lively streets of London as if to burn it into her memory, she turned to the train station entrance. Sakura took the deep breath and walked down the first set of stairs, the ones that led to the beautifully lit Waterloo Station, that would take her to the University of Edinburgh, her final destination. One hand gripped her cell phone tightly, the other held the handle of her suitcase. She had been accepted to the university a few months ago, and was making the final move to the Scottish city and countrysides. It would be a far cry from London, and hours away from her home. She would leave behind Kiba and Tenten, two of her closest friends. Of course, they had encouraged her, but there were definitely tears involved, not that Kiba would admit to any of it.

Sakura had never really needed the train station for much. If she traveled, it was by car with Kiba to see his parents in the towns about an hour away from London, or by plane. She had been to Japan to see her namesake and see her family, and had been to Germany for Oktoberfest, sometimes Spain for its' beaches. Londoners never really had a reason to leave London, the city was often all they needed. She did from time to time use the subway underneath the station, if she couldn't walk to her destination, but that place had a cold, clinical feel to it. The people didn't talk and there was only the quiet drip of water to accompany you to your platform.

No, Waterloo Station was gorgeous in its grandeur. The large room rose high above her head, made of glass, and at dusk everything was lit with a golden hue, giving her the illusion of warmth even though she stood in her scarf and winter jacket. "Wow," she mouthed, watching as people bustled to their platforms, waiting around screens to check the arrival and departure times. There was a massive clock, with a face similar to Big Ben suspended in the air. The neon lights from shops reflected off the glass and the smell of something deep fried and sweet wafted over, and she sniffed it pleasantly. She had never been to America, but she reckoned that Waterloo could compete with Grand Central.

Looking over to her left, there was an empty space, left that way so that a poem could be painted on it. She barely paid it a passing glance, attention set on the platform that her train would be arriving from. Platform 9 was smaller than the others, which was odd, considering the large city that claimed to be its destination. Checking her wrist watch, Sakura was maybe twenty minutes early and content to wait for the train to arrive. The distant roar of an engine curled around her ears as she sat down at one of the wooden benches.

"What's a pretty lass like you got to do with that train in old Waterloo?

Sakura turned her attention to the old woman sharing the neck with her. The woman sat crumpled over her walking aid, dark spots and deep laugh lines creating canyons of her face. Her sharp amber eyes pierced through the young woman, almost as if looking through her rather than at her.

Sakura flashed her ticket at the woman. "School, I'm going to Edinburgh for the next two years or so."

The woman let out a puff of air, leaning back against the chair, and staring at the ninth platform.

"Nothing good comes from it, girl. I would know."

Sakura glanced the old woman and mulled over the odd sentence. "Are you waiting for someone?" She nodded to the arrival schedule blinking in neon green nearby, where at least three trains were scheduled to appear in the next half hour or so, laden with weary travelers.

The old woman grinned, showing off carved in crows' feet at the corner of her deep set eyes. "You could say I'm waiting for someone..." She trailed off. The younger girl shifted expectantly, and the old lady snapped out of her reverie.

She looked down and placed a hand in the pocket of her green coat, pulling something out. It was her turn to show Sakura a piece of paper. Sakura realized quickly that it wasn't a piece of paper, but rather it was an old photograph. A man with what she assumed was brilliant red hair stared back at her with hooded amber eyes, the same color as the stranger who held the photo in her gnarled hands. The colors were muddled and it looked outdated, maybe by thirty or forty years, but she was never good at telling those sorts of things.

"Ah," said Sakura. "He's handsome. Are you two related?" She asked the question, although she was sure she knew what the answer would be. Turning the photo in her hands, she saw a name written in black ink. Akasuna.

The woman nodded. "My grandson," she croaked in a thick brough. Sakura blinked, because she wasn't expecting that. Either he was older than he appeared, or she was younger.

Her eyes glazed over and she went to a place that Sakura could not follow. "He boarded that train and never returned, as if he never existed in the first place. That ghost takes what it can and never gives back. The price for the destination is high: don't board that train if you're not willing to pay it."

Taken aback by those words, Sakura withdrew and looked at the train that had rolled in when she wasn't paying attention. It's white metal hull gleamed bright even in the dim glow of the station. It didn't look like a supernatural train, as far as she could tell. She left the superstitions to her grandmother back in Japan, who often whispered of yōkai and kitsune like they really existed, but Sakura was hard pressed to believe it. She would admit, she was a woman of science through and through.

"Take another train, lass. No university is worth your life," she told her, standing up and leaning heavily on the red walker. Sakura stared at the sleek train for a moment longer, before turning back to the old woman, who was gone.

"Wait," she called, standing up and frantically looking around, her hair coming out of the delicate updo it had been in. "You forgot this," she murmured, holding up the slip of paper and matching the gaze of the mysterious man in the photo. She wanted to return it, but it seemed as though she disappeared into thin air. "Akasuna," she tested the word in her mouth, letting it roll off her tongue with a touch of foreboding. "You are too familiar for a stranger," Sakura said, feeling nostalgic as she placed the photo in her purse. Shaking off the ominous warning, and the whole encounter, she stepped up to the train, who's doors opened wide to welcome her in. An attendant in navy blue smiled at her and ushered her in as she passed the threshold. She sat down at a random seat, where there were no other passengers and where she assumed a good view of the English countryside would be. Placing her bag by her feet, she settled in and took her coat off, throwing it over her lap and letting her forehead rest against the cool glass of the window.

Glancing back only once as the train lurched forwards, she whipped her neck so quickly that she grimaced, feeling the twinge in her muscles. I could swear I saw her, she thought to herself but the longer she looked and the farther the train pulled from the station, the harder it was to discern if that old woman really had been there on the platform, staring at her with sad amber eyes. Shivers raced up and down the length of her spine and she pressed further into her seat to try and calm them. Sakura busied herself with redoing her hair, gaze steadfast on the empty seat in front of her, the green landscape rolling by in her peripheral. Releasing a sigh, both nervous and excited, she closed her eyes as the train began to pick up speed and the high pitched whistle rang in her ears. It was going to be a long ride, so she decided it would be the best time to take a nap, suddenly overcome with a dreamy haze. Her head was blissfully quiet as she slipped away, but the image of vivid burgundy hair and sharp hazel eyes burned somewhere in the background, unwilling to be forgotten.

Emerald green eyes snapped open and she swallowed back a gasp. Sakura jolted forward, unable to explain her random awakening, but she felt as though her skin was crawling off her, attempting unsuccessfully to make an escape.

She looked around her, noticing she was in an unfamiliar place. The train had lost its modern look. Instead, she was sitting on faded red seats, leather handles just a reach away from her head. This train was coming to a stop, and Sakura looked out the window frantically, she didn't recognize any of it. "Welcome to Konohagakure Prefecture. Thank you for traveling with The Ghost in Waterloo Station, where the everyday world's your point of departure, but the place of arrival is never the shore you started from!"

She blinked, checking her wrist watch whose hands stopped moving, frozen on the nine and four. "What?" She asked, trying to calm her panic. "Konohagakure Prefecture? A Ghost in Waterloo?"

Her phone wasn't working. There was no signal, and when she attempted to send Tenten a text, even the keyboard refused to work and she was left mashing at useless buttons in frustration. "What is going on?" She asked herself out loud.

She turned to look at the door behind her, trying to orient herself and see if any of the other passengers were concerned, except they were black, see-through shadows. She cried out, standing up in alarm and then she made eye contact with a handsome stranger; his inky black eyes staring wide at her from behind a curtain of curled hair, the same shade of onyx.

He got up, and rushed to her. Unable to deflect his grasp, she went up when his hands encouraged her to stand. "What's going on?" She reiterated, wondering if she'd get an answer.

"The Gatekeeper is losing his touch if you got past his all-sight," he told her instead, watching her in a curious manner, his hands hovering over her like he wasn't sure whether to touch her still or not. "You shouldn't be here, come," he decided, pulling gently on her arm again.

"Who are you?" She let the question tumble over her lips, staring at him, as thoughts raced around her mind. "Where am I?" Sakura looked at the handsome side profile of the stranger, who by then placed his hands around her shoulders. She was never a fan of touching others, but his pseudo-embrace felt safe, and she warned herself that that was a dangerous notion to entertain.

"Shisui," was the name he provided her with, and he continued cautiously. "The Ghost is fickle. I'm not sure how this happened, but you have high levels of energy around you. Maybe that's how you slipped past the veil."

The veil? Her mind supplied no answer, only an unsuccessful example of the veil from the Harry Potter movie where Sirius died, but she assumed that wasn't what he meant. He stopped them as they exited the train, which no longer looked sleek and white. Instead, it was red and yellow, with wide windows. There was no station to be seen, just a concrete platform and water for miles and miles and miles. Tears began to slip out of her eyes at the sight of shallow ocean surrounding them, and the train whistled loudly before pulling away. She could just faintly see the tracks through the water, but it chugged along, leaving her alone with her bag and a stranger.

"Hey, now, hime. It's okay, we'll get you out of this mess," he said, leaning over when he saw Sakura crying into closed fists. "Trust me," he said, pulling one of her hands away from her eyes, and she looked up at him. His eyes bled red and he spread out his arms, letting skin turn to silky black feathers. She let out a gasp, and hesitantly touched them when Shisui wrapped his strange arms around her.

Without warning, he launched them off the train platform and into the ocean. Sakura screamed once before the sound stayed choked in her throat. Shisui's feet, still human and covered in stylish shoes, barely skidded across the water as he leaped. He's walking on water!

Her mind could hardly comprehend the action, but with each step they launched into the air and she felt the weightlessness take over her. Shisui, who wondered at her hitched breath and sudden silence, laughed at the look in her eyes, as she gripped his downy feathers in her hands. The wind whipped her hair and she looked beautiful against the rose and peach tinted sky. He jumped higher, if only to watch the wonder cross her face, and the almost- but not quite there laughter that escaped her.

As she squinted against the heavy breeze, land came into sight, and she let another gasp ring in the air.

"The city. It's floating!" She cried, wondering briefly if it even counted as a city—it looked more like a village built on, was that a volcano?— brushing her hair away from her face to get a better look. Shisui nodded, letting the wind and the open ocean zip by them.

The city towered over the ocean, climbing high into the air. Behind towering pines she could see the thatched roofs of traditional Japanese buildings. At the precipice of the city was a tower leaning high into the sky, a stark shadow as the sun began to set, and lights began to illuminate the city before their eyes. A large, hell red torii marked the entrance of the city, adorned by large paper lanterns, their tassels flapping. Distantly, Sakura could hear the sound of laughter and wind chimes, the air heavy with the smell of ramen.

Sakura couldn't help how her mouth fell open. "Where are we?"

Shisui raised his hand, standing just beyond the city gates. "Konohagakure Prefecture," he told her as if it were really that simple, placing her down. She worried for a moment that she would sink right through the water, which seemed to have gotten much deeper as they approached land, but whatever magic Shisui had control of seemed to extend to her, as well.

His eyes, which always seemed to dance with some sort of fire, still flickered between ominous red and abyss black as if unable to decide where on the spectrum of color to fall. He looked down at her, his face serious despite the constant twinkle in his orbs, something Sakura was beginning to suspect was special Shisui. "I never got your name, hime," he said to her, cocking his head. "Haruno Sakura," she said to him, trying her best to say her name the proper Japanese way, and tamp down on whatever London accent she had in her voice.

He raised an eyebrow at the name, but it wasn't condescending in nature. "Sakura," he tried it out, and she repressed a shudder at how sensual he made just her name sound. "Sakura," he said again, "This is the spirit world."

She glanced around her, at the floating city in the middle of a wide, shimmering ocean. The vendors, the large, three deck ship sailing in from other shores as they stood there, the strange hitodama in the air floating, like yellow and blue bioluminescent petals in reverse. It was beautiful, but not where she needed nor wanted to be. Yet, somehow she wasn't able to muster the panic that arrived to her so easily in the train. Rather, she had reached a point that she couldn't get any more tears out, she was exhausted from the ordeal already. Maybe that has to do with me leaving the real world and entering a corporeal one? She wondered. "This looks like the pictures from the old books Sobo used to read to me, when I was a little girl."

He nodded. "The spirit world waxes and wanes with the humans. We're left untouched by time, because this was the time when we were believed in the most."

She turned back to him, tucking into his feathered arms, hiding from the wind that got stronger with the last rays of the sun being swallowed by the horizon. "What are we going to do?"

He narrowed his eyes. "We're going to have to get you in, somehow. Humans aren't normal in the spirit world, but our Okami is a kind, if not stern woman. She will take you in until the Gatekeeper finds a way to get you home."

He said something she couldn't quite understand, it sounded like Japanese but wasn't, and then his long fingers glowed white like stars. He tapped the center of her forehead, and she felt something across her, like someone had dumped some sort of invisible syrup over head. She blinked, looking down at her body, where nothing seemed to have changed.

"I made you invisible, so that no one can tell you're here, at least not until you see the Okami and she decides what to do."

She nodded, "So only you can see me?"

He shook his head. "Not exactly, you see, because anyone with these eyes," he gestured to his own, "Can see through most illusions, but I doubt we'll be running into my family. Take a deep breath, Sakura. You can't breath until we get to the ryokan, Tsunade's domain, or you could be taken," at that sentence, his face darkened like a thunderstorm in the distance, twisted in contempt.

Sakura turned to the torii gates and exhaled nervously. Nodding to Shisui and opting not to say anything, she took in a deep breath. Some air escaped her as she was whisked away once more, encased in the supernatural man's arms, heavy and feathered. She held her breath as they went under the gates, even as the glorious scenery passing her, colorful and bright despite the dark of night.

"Hang on," he whispered in her ear, and she shivered from the feeling of his warm breath. She nodded, covering her mouth and nose with her hand, she didn't trust herself not to breath. Shisui took another high jump into the air, launching off of a pine tree, not really able to fly with his wings otherwise occupied.

He scaled the city nestled on a dying mountain in what felt like seconds, and just as quickly, he placed her on the ground, motioning for her to follow with a motion of his head. She dutifully strode after him, tucking into his wings. Two she curled into him more as two tall, similar looking men walked towards them. Shisui let out an anxious breath, one that whistled through his clenched teeth.

"Well, look at who it is! My two favorite cousins!" He ruffled Sasuke's hair and winked at Itachi, before walking between the two. "Unfortunately, I have to go, got an important crate of sake for Tsunade, can't afford to break it right before I get it to her!" He turned around, trying to get by as fast as he could, glancing down at the pink haired woman in the crook of his arm.

"Wait," said Sasuke, eyes narrowed and splotched with red. "Why are you transformed?"

"Ahh," trailed off Shisui. "About that…"

"What are you hiding, cousin?"

Shisui was definitely beginning to regret all the times he teased his younger cousin, as it was proving to get him, and subsequently others, into a pickle. Half turning to face his relatives, he gave a sheepish smile, all the while aware of Sakura, diligently holding her breath. She wouldn't be able to for much longer, they just needed to get over the threshold…

Sasuke strode forward, eyes widening as he caught sight of what Shisui was hiding under his arm. "What did you do?" He cried, lunging for the human being smuggled into the ryokan. Sakura gasped as he blazed forward, eyes bright and bloody red.

"Shit!" Shisui exclaimed, looking between the two before making a split second decision. He pushed Sakura into the hydrangeas, whispering furiously, "The kitchens!" Before he spread his bristled, black feathers wide, stopping Sasuke in his advance. Ignoring his cousins angry expletives, Shisui made eye contact with his best friend, Itachi and let his message ring clear. It was more of a warning, but he trusted the other man would understand. Don't.

"A human? Shisui, what were you thinking? Wait, I don't think you were thinking at all!"

Meanwhile, Sakura stumbled gasping through the bushes, tears of fear in her eyes. She had just been separated from the only person she could remotely trust in the strange world, left with a half-hazard command to go to the kitchens. Why the kitchens?

She could barely control her emotions, and not paying attention to where she was going, she tripped over the root of a gnarled bonsai tree. She let out a cry, falling to the ground, trying to break the impact with her hands. Gasping, scrubbing away the tears on her face with dirt smudged hands, she thought to herself. She hated crying, normally, but this time couldn't help it, not with the situation she was in. Looking up, the gleam of fireflies lit up the old, crumbling walls of an abandoned Inari temple. Behind it, a head of blonde hair and eyes as blue as summer skies looked down at her.

"Eh, are you okay?"

A/N: This is a lot more dense than my usual work, but I'm going to try and stick with it. Please leave some love and your thouhts! Until the next chapter.

Anbu-chan

footnote 1: re-write of the entire first scene. Unnamed lady is Chiyo and sorry guys, no Kiba or Tenten, they're just too easy to fall into a trope to, you know? Especially Kiba.

footnote 2: hehe Shisui makes an appearance, along with some other Uchiha, all in their bird-motif glory. I would love to say it was the crow summons that inspired that, but no, it was just Sasuke's hairstyle. looks like a chicken butt.

footnote 3: Sobo is the Japanese formal name for grandmother. Hitodama are the Japanese variation of will-o'-the-wisps. Okami is the name for the owner of a ryokan, a Japanese inn that typically serves dinner and breakfast and has baths within it for guests to use.