Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or it's characters. They belong to Kishimoto-sensei.
!WARNINGS, PLEASE READ!
This is not a story for the faint of heart. Seriously guys, I'm not kidding. This will be Dark. With a capital D. It will have everything and anything you can possibly think of, from extreme violence, death, torture and abuse (emotional, physical, and mental), to rape, insanity, multiple attempts of suicide, human sacrifice (and yes, that includes everyone, from babies to elders), Stockholm Syndrome, and Hidan. Yes, Hidan, because that fucked-up bastard we all love and love to hate deserves it's own warning sign.
If you can't or isn't comfortable with one of those, I suggest you hit the back button and never click in this story again. This chapter is not so bad, but things will get progressively worse and I don't want to offend anyone or receive complains later on about this, so please, heed the warnings.
Between Dreams and Nightmares (Hidan x Oc)
Summary: A girl haunted by visions of a bloody future. A boy with a spirit so wild that she cannot predict his destiny. The distinction between dreams and reality was never so blurred before.
A girl haunted by visions of a bloody future…
She was spared the massacre that took away her entire village because of the "gift" she possessed, a gift said to have been given to her by the god of the man that murdered her parents. Taken against her will from her burnt down home, she is thrust into her own personal hell where she is expected to serve and worship a blood god whose followers have destroyed everything she holds dear in her heart.
A boy with a spirit so wild that she cannot predict his destiny…
He is the son of the man that slaughtered her parents in cold-blood, whose highest dream is to become their god's greatest disciple. A boy with silver hair and magenta eyes who make her constant headaches stop and gives her the first taste of freedom and ordinariness since she was a toddler. A boy who stubbornly refuses to leave her alone so she can wallow in her loneliness, misery and hate.
The distinction between dreams and reality was never so blurred before…
She is trapped in an endless nightmare of blood and death from which she cannot break out from, not knowing anymore what is real and what isn't, and can feel her sanity slowly slipping away between her fingers. She must escape from her prison or else risk going insane from the horrifying visions that plagues her mind every day. But how can she flee, when his violet eyes are always keeping watch over her, hunting her down and determinedly dragging her towards the darkness that marked their childhood? How can she flee from the man she loves and hates in equal measures, the only person that can make her feel whole and normal and whose touch set her body on fire?
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Between Dreams and Nightmares
Chapter 1 – From the Ashes
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She wasn't always who she is today.
She remembers, vaguely mind you, that there was another name she answered to during her earlier childhood. She remembers a stern-faced young woman with chocolate brown eyes and an older man with a booming laugh and wide, kind smiles to give. She remembers a small but cozy wooden house and the smell of herbs that the woman would use to treat their villages' people when they were hurt or fell sick.
She remembers the sun shining down in her bare back, after she had bathed in the river together with other children, while their mothers would be washing their clothes close by. She remembers the freedom in the wind wiping her hair away from her face as she ran down the beaten path, past the houses and trees, roughhousing with the boys and ignoring the disapproving clucks from the women at her 'improper' behavior. She remembers her uncle's warm embrace, being lifted high in the air by a pair of strong arms and deposited on broad shoulders. She remembers listening to her aunt's soft voice as she explained a plant's various medicinal uses and being tucked in bed later in the night after a hot meal.
She remembers the smell of white lilies.
Sayuri.
That had been the name she was given by the woman that birthed her. Lily, for the first flower her mother had seen before dying from childbirth.
A part of her, the one that was less Sayuri, the darker one, broken, sarcastic, jaded and more than a little insane, wanted to cackle loudly at the name. Lily, she had been named. Lily of the Valley, they called her. She had been named after a flower that symbolized purity.
She was anything but pure.
So you can see why she doesn't go by Sayuri anymore. Sayuri had been an innocent little girl, all happy smiles and wide, naive eyes, who liked her life just the way it was and wanted it to never, ever change.
But change is an inevitable fact of life; it comes for everything and everyone, regardless if they are ready for it or not.
Little Sayuri's life changed the day she turned seven. It was the day she watched her whole life burn in front of her eyes. She burned too, even if her flesh remained unscarred. Her heart and soul felt the heat of the flames as vividly as the rest of the villagers did that night, and that had been more than enough as far as she was concerned.
Little Sayuri died the day she turned seven.
And from the ashes of what was once an innocent child, the only one that remained was a wretched, broken thing called Nie.
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She had her first vision when she was five.
- The sounds of children laughing, a red ball soaring through the sky; a young boy with brown hair and eyes and a mischievous smile, running after the ball; a dark clearing, deep into the forest, where the trees blocked out almost all the sunlight. The redredred ball had stopped right in the center and then a flash of golden eyes and grey fur, gleaming, sharp white teeth biting down in his -her- shoulder-
-The world exploded in pain and he -she- screamed.-
She had been sleeping, safe and warm, tucked in by her uncle, and when she woke up crying and screaming bloody murder he was there in a hurry trying to calm her down.
"It's alright sweetheart, you're safe. It was just a dream, just a silly little nightmare. There's nothing to be afraid of."
Eventually, she stopped crying and nodded, dismissing the vision as her mind playing tricks on her. Maybe she should have listened to her aunt when she told her not to listen to Old Man Inue's horror stories. They clearly weren't meant for a little girl. Comforted by the knowledge, Sayu turned on her bed and went right back to sleep.
Just a nightmare, like Uncle said.
It hadn't been just a nightmare.
The next day, nearing the night, a man had come searching for her uncle, asking him if he had seen a boy named Michi.
"Nine years old, brown hair, always got a smile on his face. Ryouken's son, remember Kiyoshi-san? He has been missing since this afternoon."
Her Uncle had shaken his head and asked to be included in the search for the missing boy. He returned hours later, crest-fallen and blinking away tears, and told her and her Aunt that the boy had been found dead in a clearing deep in the forest, apparently running after a ball, and had been attacked by a wolf while trying to retrieve the toy.
Wolf attacks weren't exactly uncommon around her village, remote as it was, though it was still rare for them to come down the mountain this time of the year. Normally, they would come when winter had settled in, when the prey grew scarce and the hunger came. It hadn't been terribly surprising that a child had been killed by it. No, what surprised her was that she had known. She had known, before her Uncle stepped foot outside their house to search for that lost boy that they would find nothing but a mangled corpse.
She had known.
And that terrified her more than anything else ever did.
(She didn't understand what death was back then.
She learned.)
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Sayu had another dream the day of Michi's funeral, after meeting and giving her condolences for the dead boy's grieving parents.
She dreamed of a delirious woman lying in a bed, sweating and coughing in the sheets. She dreamed of a men floating face-down in the river near their village.
No one was surprised when Misaki, Michi's mother, became sick with grief barely three days after the burial of her only son. They were, however, surprised when she died barely a week later, and horrified after finding the body of her husband, Ryouken, in the river after he had successfully committed suicide.
That is to say, everyone but her.
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When she turns six, Sayu finally works up the nerve to tell her aunt about the dreams. They came irregularly, and seemingly without reason; sometimes weeks would pass by without her having a single nightmare, while other times she would spends three days unable to close her eyes, terrified of what she would see behind her eyelids. Her guardians weren't blind to her state, but they didn't know exactly what she dreamed of, and thus assumed this was a just a childhood phase that would go away eventually.
Sayu would have agreed, if it hadn't become increasingly obvious that it wasn't going away.
So she opened her mouth. She told Aunt about the nightmares.
She received a slap to the face for her troubles, and a warning not to ever mention her strange dreams again.
As if to spite the order, she spends the next week bedridden, muttering gibberish and screaming until her throat bled and they had to gag her to keep her from biting her own tongue off.
Since her aunt can't figure out what's wrong with her, they call a doctor from the next village over, having to pay an exorbitant amount of money to cover the man's fee, only for him to tell them that there's nothing physically wrong with her, apart from suffering what he calls 'night terrors' that resulted in her developing a case of insomnia. He gives her guardians a medicine that will help her sleep at night and things return to normal.
(That is to say, the nightmares don't stop.
She is beginning to understand that they never will.)
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Sayuri spends most of her time so heavily medicated that she begins to savor the moments I which her mind is not being clouded by visions or by a potion. It is during one of those lucid moments that she wakes up and goes outside, straight to Makino's, the village's seamstress, house. She knocks, and when the woman opens her door, Sayuri tells her not to let her husband work that morning.
"He will get hurt Makino-san. He will be bitten by a snake and die."
The woman is furious, thinking this is her idea of a prank, and drags her back to her house by the ear. Her aunt spanks her soundly and she has to complete the day's chores without the promise of food.
Makino's husband goes to work on the fields. He gets bitten by a venomous snake. By the time the man's friends find him and carry him back to the village, it is already too late.
In the midst of her grief, Makino remembers Sayuri coming to her house that morning, warning her of the danger coming her husband's way. Her grief turns to fear (how could she have known, that's impossible, how, how, how), that turns into anger (she knew, she knew, she let this happen), that turns into hate (she caused this! It's her fault, that little witch-!).
Her uncle Kiyoshi contacts a monastery and the monks perform an exorcism. It hurts and she's scared. She's a six years old girl and they tell her she's a witch, that she's been possessed by a demon, and force her to drink vile potions that makes her unbearably ill afterwards. They tie her down to her bed (as if she could leave even if she tried) and start chanting around her, spraying her body with holy water and burning incenses all around her. People congregate at the front of her home, listening and trying to watch everything going on inside. Sayuri cries, feeling like a freak, like the demon they accuse her of housing inside her body.
She pleads with her family, promising she will be good, she won't talk about her dreams anymore, won't even sleep for the rest of her life if need be. Her uncle shakes his head, telling her it is for her own good and her aunt covers her face with her hands, as if she's so ashamed she can't even bear to show herself to the world and that… hurts. It hurts worse than anything the doctors and monks have tried on her, hurts more than the pain she feels every time she's forced to share the fate of the people in her visions.
It hurts, but she bears it because if she can survive this, everything will go back to normal, right? Makino-san will stop spreading mean rumors about her being a witch who cursed her husband and will jinx the whole village, and that she deserves to go burn at a stake. Her Aunt will stop avoiding her as if she can't stand the sight of her own niece, Uncle will take her into his arms and twirl her around like before, and no one will ever cry again. The dreams will go away forever and they will be a happy family again.
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(What a naïve, naïve child you are. Haven't you learned already?
There is no happy ending for the likes of you)
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She dreams of never ending field with grey, dead grass growing tall from the black earth, with rivers that are red instead of blue and the fish swimming there are nothing more that translucent faces twisted in pain and horror. The sky is a dark purple with few stars and no clouds, the only light coming from the full moon. It's a cold light, and it gives her no comfort. The wind that lifts her pale hair from her shoulders is accompanied by tortured moans she thinks can only ever be uttered by the truly condemned.
There is a rustle behind her, followed by a growl that makes the hair in her arms stand on end. Slowly, Sayuri turns around, and screams.
It's a white wolf, or she thinks it's white. The fur is too dirty and tangled to be sure. It's huge, bigger than any wolf should ever be, but it's also thin, so very, very thin. She can count all of its ribs with no problem, being that the wolf is literally only skin on bones, the front and back legs looking more like twigs than anything else. Sayuri has never seen such an obviously sick animal before in her life, and she would pity it if she wasn't consumed by her own fear. The wolf is glaring at her, huge, lamplight eyes boring in her own. They are the color of blood, so dark it sometimes appears to be black. Or maybe it does turn black, and keeps switching between one color and the other. It doesn't matter in the end, because it's staring at her with such a hungry look, as if it wants to devour her whole, gobble her down into his stomach and oh, Kami-sama, she's going to die,she'sgoingtodieshe'sgoingtodie-
The wolf gives her an abnormally wide grin, showing off yellow, pointy teeth, that makes her wet herself in fear. The monster (because that's what it was, not a simple animal. It was a monster, a devil, a nightmare-) howls at her, its own version of laughter, and Sayuri falls on her bum, tears pouring out of her eyes and terrified out of her mind.
"Stay away! STAY AWAY!" she screams, begs, cries, crawling away from that horrifying creature. The demonic wolf lunges at her, one big paw covering her whole ribcage and crushing her under his weight, which shouldn't be possible seeing as the wolf is so skeletal it should weight much less than this.
She gags, resisting the urge to vomit when the wolf lower his head enough that she can smell the stench coming from his open mouth. His breath smells of stale blood, of rotting corpses left to warm under the blistering noon-day sun. Then there is the rough, disgusting feeling of a long tongue licking at her face, from her jaw all the way up to her forehead, leaving behind a repulsive slime that makes her lose complete control over her mouth. The wolf lifts his enormous paw and she rolls around, lifting herself on her hands and knees. She loses all the contents of her stomach on the black earth, and there is another growling laugh coming from behind her.
Mine, a voice whispers in her head, and Sayuri wakes up screaming.
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She dreamed of fire the day she turned seven. Dreams splattered with blood and the sound of wailing ringing in her ears. She dreamed of death and desolation.
But when she tried to warn them, they didn't believe her. Didn't want to believe that such a great misfortune would befall their little, peaceful village.
And they all burned for it.
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It is the middle of the night when they come, like monsters under the bed, just waiting for the children to drop their guard and fall asleep after being tucked in bed by their parents.
Silent shadows, they slipped inside her little village, each one carrying a weapon, ready and eager to spill blood in the name of their dark God.
The sentinels posted around the village were the first ones to die. Their deaths were swift and mostly painless. Some didn't even notice they were dead until they saw their life blood staining the grass red before their souls left the earthly plane.
They were the lucky ones.
After that, came the fire.
They had set Old Man Inue's wooden cabin on fire, and the man himself when he had come out yelling. The bright flames spread in quick motion, hungrily devouring anything and anyone in its way. Before long, there were people screaming while their bodies were set aflame.
Men and women ran around in terror, pushing at each other while trying to find a way out of the inferno they found themselves trapped in. Children easily got lost from their parents in the chaos, getting trampled by animals who had escaped from the corrals or by the desperate adults themselves. Some brave souls attempted to douse out the flames, running back and forth, carrying buckets full of water.
After the sentinels, they were the next to die.
And it was only when them were on the ground, bleeding out and writhing in pain, that people began to notice the strange men wielding terrifying scythes and wicked swords.
But by then, it was already far too late.
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She was trapped in her home when the flames reached the house. Smoke clouded her vision and clung to her throat, making it impossible to breath and bringing tears to her eyes that vanished almost as soon as they appeared, the heat quickly evaporating them.
It wasn't until she felt arms wound themselves around her middle that she realized that she was saved.
Later, she would wish they had left her there.
But for now, she laid gasping and coughing in the grass, trying to re-learn how to breath, and gratitude and love swelled in her heart when she felt her uncle's big hands pat her back, pushing her silver hair out of her face. You still love me, Sayu thinks, you still care.
For a second, only a second, she felt peaceful among all that chaos, like she was in the eye of a hurricane. The moment was broken when her father pushed her into her aunt's arms, yelling at them, "Take Sayuri and run!"
"No! Unclu!" she cried from her aunt's hold on her shoulders, hand reaching out for Kiyoshi.
Kiyoshi's eyes softened and he kneeled down to look at her at eye-level.
"Don't worry, baby girl. I'm going to be fine."
But he wasn't. Seven years old and she knew, she knew, that Kiyoshi wasn't going to be fine.
Seven years old and she already knew her uncle was going to die.
(She always knew.)
She tried to struggle out of her aunt's embrace, but Hana had a death-grip on her arms and dragged her away from their burning house while her uncle ran back to stand with the men trying to control the pandemonium around them.
"Oji-san!" she yelled again, but her scream was drowned out by others', and Kiyoshi didn't look back to watch his wife and adopted daughter escape.
That would be the last time she would see her uncle alive.
That thought, the absolute certainty of it, so much so that it was practically a consumed fact already, was enough to bring Sayuri to her knees. Hana took advantage of her shock to take her in her arms, carrying her away with the rest of the masses. Most girls her age were considered too old and big to be carried, but Sayu had always been small compared to the other children and Kiyoshi used to pick her up at random times, making her shriek with laughter and surprise.
It has been months since the last time her uncle did this. Now, he would never pick her up again.
And from behind her aunt's arms, Sayuri saw Hell for the very first time.
The night had been illuminated by the light of the moon hanging big and swollen in the dark sky, and by the wild fire that, by this point, had already rendered half of the village to ashes. She saw bodies down on the ground, some sporting horrifying wounds while others appeared to have been trampled by the people still running around. A few were still burning and twitching on the grass, strangled moan trying to leave their damaged vocal chords.
Little Sayuri watched all of that, and felt something inside her break.
She didn't notice when her aunt stopped her desperate running. She did notice though, when the arms holding her up began to shake.
She wrenched her eyes away from the devastation around them to focus on the thing that made her aunt stop. Then she wished she had not.
A man stood in front of them, blocking their path and wielding a black scythe. The fire illuminated his face enough so that Sayuri could see the man's aristocratic features.
Sayuri watched the white-haired man raise his scythe, bringing it down in a graceful arc to slash the man lying on the ground under him.
The man (demon, her young mind whispered) looked up to stare at her and her mother and his ice-blue eyes seemed to light up when they rested in her. A twisted smile grew on his face, his white teeth gleaming in the dark and looking more threatening than friendly.
Slowly, the man raised the hand not holding the black scythe, pointing it straight at the little girl. Sayuri felt Hana's arms tighten around her.
"I see you," the demon-in-human-skin said gleefully. His demented smile never once slipped from his face.
A shudder went down Sayu's spine while her aunt's face lost what little color she had. Hana turned around and ran as fast as she could, wanting to put distance between them and the man.
But like magic, the monster appeared in front of them, his pale blue eyes never leaving Sayuri's frozen form.
"I dreamed of you, precious girl" he whispered, almost in awe, as he looked at Sayuri. "He wants you."
Her aunt snarled. "Get away from us, demon!"
As if only now realizing that she was there, the man turned to stare at her mother. "Ah," he breathed. "You."
His head tilted to the side, as if he was hearing something in the wind. Briefly, he closed his eyes before snapping them open to peer at Hana.
"He doesn't want you. You've already served your purpose," he waved a pale hand, dismissive. "Run along now, and leave the child behind."
For a terrible moment, Sayuri really thought that her aunt would do just that. She would drop her on the ground, turn around and leave without a backwards glance.
But then the arms around her tightened their grip and Sayuri could hear the growl in Hana's voice. "Stay away from us."
The man looked puzzled for a second before throwing his head back and letting out a laugh. The sound died in his mouth as soon as it arrived, and Sayuri saw his eyes grown even colder.
"Don't test my patience, woman. Let go of the child or will make your journey to my Lord's Gardens more painful than it has to be."
"Who are you?!" Hana shouted her question, ignoring the man's warnings. "What do you want with us?!"
"I want nothing with you," he spat, looking disgusted. "We just want the child."
"Why?!"
The man shrugs, as if the why was unimportant, stalking them while waving his scythe. "My Lord wants the girl. What Jashin-sama wants, Jashin-sama gets. As one of His high priests, it is my duty, and honor, to give it to him."
It's the first time she hears the name Jashin. It will not be the last.
She knows this, like she knows that her name is Sayuri, like she knows that her nightmares aren't really nightmares, like she knows that the sky is blue and the grass is green (unless she's in that dark, dark terrifying place where dead things grow from a black earth that is watered by blood)
There is blood in her clothes, in her hands, in her eyes (they burn, burn, they are burning, make it stop, please, make it stop-) and the man-that-is-really-a-demon is gathering her in his arms, rushing and making cooing noises that she's sure are meant to be comforting but instead only make her shake more. He is brushing her silver hair with long fingers, petting her head, and smearing blood (auntie, auntie please, stand up, stand up please, open your eyes-) on her forehead. She thinks he might be drawing something on her skin but she is in too much shock to move, let alone think with any semblance of rationality.
The last thing she hears is not the screams from the villagers or the euphoric shouts of the men that are slaughtering them like cattle, or even the man-demon who's whispering how beautiful she looks covered in blood.
No, the last thing she hears before darkness claims her is the high-pitched, growling laughter of a famished wolf that has just been offered a banquet to feast upon.
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There was once a little girl who got lost on the woods, and found a beautiful, beautiful wolf, with a pelt of white snow and eyes of red wine, who offered to take her back home.
She was never seen again.
(Don't you know already this already? There is no happy ending to be found here)
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AN: So… I know I have no business writing a new story, especially when I am nowhere near done with Dark Waters yet and should really be updating a new chapter of that instead, but I just couldn't help myself. It was begging me to be written. Really, it was. I couldn't sleep until I posted this accursed thing. I kind of hate it actually. It's already 2 a.m and I want to sleep so. bad….