So as a short introduction to this fanfiction—this actually started out as an OC character story with a completely different plotline, but then I wondered, "What if I change my character to Sakura?" And once I started replacing the names with Sakura, a completely new twisted story developed! Alas, characters do much to change a story!
I plan this fic to be relatively short, or at least I intend to, looking into the future at my plans for this. As a warning, this fic is most definitely AU—I haven't kept up with Shippuden, so think 'waaay before Pain destroyed Konoha' when you're reading this. Rating will be apt to change—for language and all the bloody mature good stuff.
Anyway, let's get on with it:
I've never written a disclaimer before but I guess it's time to try one out: I'm not associated with Naruto or Kishimoto, and I'm unfortunately not writing this for profit—except for the reviews that I hope my readers will so kindly later gift me.
Prologue:
"violated, so degraded—the show has just begun"
Hearts up in their throats, they ran through the many cold dank chambers, with just one direction in mind:
Out.
"I'm right behind you!" cackled the taunting voice, which echoed through the entire underground vault.
She panicked, gasping, "Oh my god! Oh my god!" She was half-crying, half-scared, all-thrilled, the blood in her body coursing hot and spiked with adrenaline.
She clutched his hand tighter, feeling the force of his run jerk her forward—at times she skipped a step, half-tripping because she couldn't keep up with his long gallant strides, but each time, he fastened her fingers with his, making sure that he would never let her go.
Her companion looked back behind the two of them briefly, his onyx eyes holding fear that she had never seen before in his brave gaze. Sweat matted his raven locks against his forehead, but he didn't bother to push his bangs out of his eyes, in case his pace was interrupted by even the simplest swipe.
They couldn't afford to lose this chance out of this icy hell, especially not for a pesky misplaced strand of hair.
Two years they were locked in there, and they weren't going to take another second with the Devil himself.
His maniacal laughter erupted through the stone walls. "My pets are actually trying to escape—what a noble effort!"
She sucked in a breath, ignoring his taunts. "Sasuke!" she cried, not knowing what else to say. His name brought comfort to her—as long as he was there, she wasn't alone.
She could hear her teammate's heavy panting as he turned another corner.
"It's there, Sakura—we're almost there!" he exclaimed, and the two of them found extra energy to run even further, even faster.
He stopped suddenly, under an upward leading tunnel that was their way out into the light. He turned, dragging Sakura protectively behind him and hurling a fire ball back down the corridor they came sprinting in from.
Sasuke looked up and then leapt for the ladder, reaching back down to Sakura to help her up onto the lowest rung. "Come on, come on, come on!" he encouraged, racing his way back to the top, disabling the chakra seal on the rock above them and pushing with all his might.
Even from a few feet down where Sakura was, she could smell the fresh breeze of the outside. In bliss, she almost lost her grip of the ladder.
Sasuke caught her wrist and hoisted her back to the ladder.
But then pure terror pierced his eyes and she could even see the reflection of a white snake right under her. Screaming in horror, she scrambled up the last rungs of the ladder, feeling Sasuke's fingernails digging into her skin to help her up and out.
Her head popped up above the ground's surface and his mouth prepared to make a shout of victory.
Then she felt a slithering serpent's tongue snake around her right ankle. With a piercing cry for help, her head went back down into the ground.
"No no no no no no! Shit! No!" he cursed, digging his heels into the ground and pulling at her arm so hard he was afraid her shoulder would disjoint.
"Sasuke!" she yelled, biting down on her lip, knowing that she wasn't going to make it—not with the force of the snake forcing her back in.
"No!" he bellowed, sudden tears falling out of his eyes. "I won't let you go!"
She couldn't help but cry, lifting another hand to him—now all four of their hands were balled up in tight fists and knots intertwined around each other, determined to not let go.
One of his nails broke, some of the others started to dig blood out of her skin.
And still, she was descending back into the abyss.
"No no no no no!" he roared, suddenly enraged, suddenly desperate, willing to give up his soul to save her from the inevitable.
"Sasuke!" she sobbed, shaking her head, her emerald eyes telling him that she loved him and that she loved him, and that she loved him.
He hoped his obsidian eyes returned the same messages, as he felt his heart tearing apart when he noticed all he had left in his hand was just one of her hands, the sweat and blood between their skin making their hold weaker—slowly her fingers were gliding away.
They held onto each other through the last moments—blood, sweat, tears, pain, cries, yells.
"I'm coming back for you!" he promised her at the very final second, as her hand slipped out the last of his despaired grasp.
Chapter One:
"we've got everything you wanted"
If Buddhist lore was true, Sakura quickly realized that it was good she had reincarnated as a human, and not as a dog.
Digging in the ground was not a pleasant experience and probably not worthwhile for what she was going to unearth, but it was the only way to get what she wanted.
A smile cracked over her lips when she uncovered a mangled limb, and she whipped out a large vinyl bag from her back pouch, taking hold of the cold flesh and starting to fill her sack with the cadaver segments.
Once she was sure she taken hold of an entire body, she quickly checked for more pieces of corpse, tossing a hand, segment of a thigh, and a bicep into her bag, flipping it across her back. She couldn't stick around here for much longer; no doubt Konoha forces were going to be heading in her direction soon for her crime of grave robbery.
"Stop where you are this instant!" a loud voice demanded, a short distance away from her.
"Shit," she muttered, scrambling to exit the scene, half tripping over a circular rock.
"Bitch!" the rock cursed back.
"I thought I forgot something," she growled, grabbing the head's silver hair before throwing it into the sack with the rest of his disassembled corpse.
"Who the fuck do you think you are, treating my body like that?" the head snapped. "And who the hell are you anyway?"
She didn't answer, taking off at full sprint to escape from her pursuers, who swiftly trailed her, jumping from branch to branch. Silently calculating their movements, she predicted that they were planning to hone in on her from both sides once catching up to her.
But she couldn't let that happen.
"You never answered my question, whore!" a furious bellow emerged from inside the sack.
Holding some spiteful words back, Sakura pursed her small pink lips and concentrated on first getting the hell out of there.
She'd deal with his shitty mouth later.
If it wasn't for the angle of light, she wouldn't have seen the fine threads webbing the area ahead of her.
A trap, she realized, and she reached behind her to produce shuriken from her back pouch, but found that impossible to do with the heavy load that she was carrying. So instead, she borrowed the scythe that came with the body pieces that she had just stolen, lashing out at the thin strings before passing through the broken trap.
"Hey! You treat my scythe with respect, too, idiot!" the disembodied head continued.
Ignoring the voice, she blocked off the incoming kunai, bouncing the projectiles off the three curved blades of the rather cumbersome weapon.
Her emerald eyes scanning her environment, she tucked the scythe back under her arm and increased her speed, slithering chakra into the wind to help her propel faster, whipping her long ruby hair back behind her run. The bag of body parts jostled against her spine and she disregarded the comfort, knowing it was just a few more seconds before her success.
But Konoha's forces were gaining in on her—her speed was drastically affected by the extra body weight she was carrying and by the difficulty to handle a two-handed weapon in her non-dominant hand.
She had to push herself to go faster though, otherwise she wasn't going to make it.
"Calm down, woman! Take it easy and stop bouncing around like a goddamn rabbit!"
Tightening her grasp on the heavy sack and not heeding any attention to the talking head, she sucked in a breath and lifted her legs.
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"She flew?!"
And a tanned hand slammed down on the oak desk in utter disbelief and frustration.
"What the hell do you mean 'she flew'?!"
"S-she was just running, sir!" the ninja quickly explained. "And then, out of nowhere, wings sprouted from her back and she literally went up into the air and flew!"
Crazy ass flying jutsu, their general thought. The damn Akatsuki had come back for their fallen dismembered immortal comrade, with a whole new level of techniques. How they even came up with such an idea was beyond him.
He closed his cerulean eyes and massaged his temples briefly, running his hands through his already messed up blond hair.
Seeing their stressed out captain, another one of the ninja asked, "Sir?"
"Describe her appearance in full," their general replied, snapping out of his furrowed eyebrows and grit teeth. "If there's another Akatsuki member that we have to look out for, then let's add this flying girl into the database before she strikes again."
He twirled a pen into his right hand and whipped out a scroll from one of his desk drawers.
"Height and weight?"
"About 5' 3'' and probably close to 100 pounds."
"Hair and eye color?"
"Blood red hair reaching well past her shoulders and green eyes."
The writing paused. "What kind of green?"
"…something between jade and emerald," and then the ninja asked, "Why?"
"For specificity," briskly answered their leader. "Did she use any particular type of jutsus when you guys were pursuing her?"
"No…she just ran. Cut through one of the string traps and blocked projectiles using the Akatsuki's scythe."
"And um…what color were her wings?" he asked, writing in 'wings' in the 'Other Characteristics' part of the form.
"Like fire."
Out of curiosity: "So…were they tiny wings or…larger?"
"I'd guess…about the same as her arms width?" Estimating wingspan definitely wasn't in any sort of ninja training manual.
Setting the pen down, their chief thus rose from his seat and walked over to a map of the campus, placing his hands behind his back.
"Recap the whole incident, someone?"
A jounin stepped forward. "She came in from the northwest corner, coming in undetected through our security system and then made her way to the Akatsuki's corpse pieces. We caught her once she started digging but when we reached her, she—well, as you know—flew."
After a moment of thinking, their general turned his blue eyes on all of them. "Alright. Let intel know that Akatsuki Hidan is now active again—I doubt that they just took his body for a proper burial. We continue tracking Akatsuki activity as before, but with an extra lookout for the new girl. Recall that we are currently in process of locating their main resource supplier, which is suspected to be somewhere in the northeast deserts of the Land of Wind."
He ended here for a moment but then added, "And…I guess you should also let security know that we need to start being prepared for less…grounded assaults. You are all dismissed."
"Hai!" the ninja saluted their leader solidly before filing out of his office room.
A spiky brown-haired ninja was stopped before he was able to exit.
"Konohamaru?"
Said chuunin whisked around and presented a quick salute of acknowledgement.
"Yeah, Naru—I mean—sir?"
"It's okay, names don't matter," forgave his general before pausing to collect his words. "I'm sorry if I overreacted earlier with the whole…flying mess. It wasn't any of your faults—there was no way that you guys could have been prepared for that sort of escape," he eventually apologized.
"It's okay, Naruto—totally understandable," assured the youngest Sarutobi. "You had just personally taken down Hidan yourself the other day. I think it's acceptable for you to be angry that we lost him."
The general rubbed his tan face again, sighing. "You know how important it is to me to defeat the Akatsuki. It's why I created this whole taskforce specifically to take down the Akatsuki."
Konohamaru cracked his superior a smile. "It's honorable, what you're doing. Not everyone that loses their teammates can get right back up and make some change happen." He noticed that Naruto's weary eyes didn't seem at peace, and so then offered, "How about I take you for ramen later tonight? My treat."
Azul eyes sparkled and a grin spread across his chiseled face. "Now you're finally showing some respect for your general, huh?"
The younger man rolled his eyes. "Some general—you're still a genin."
"Fuck off," the blond replied, setting a steady hand down on Konohamaru's head and messing up the tidied mahogany hair before the subordinate did just that.
After Konohamaru left, Naruto paced back hesitantly toward his desk where the still open scroll lay. He frowned when re-reading the description of his newest offender.
Eyes between emerald and jade, huh?
He once knew eyes like that.
The last time he saw that shade of green was during a misplayed chuunin examination.
The last time he ever saw her—she had slipped out of his fingers before being swallowed by a white snake.
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It was like a puzzle.
"This is definitely not my right arm! This is my left arm, and it goes on the opposite side on my other shoulder!" complained the head, which Sakura had intentionally placed right-side up on a rock in front of her. "And hurry up—or I really truly will die! It took you damn long enough to find me!"
She looked up to check the position of the setting sun before quickly checking on her surroundings. She had gotten the two of them a considerable distance away from Konoha—there was no way that anyone was going to find them out here, especially because she doubted that they'd be able to track her.
They were probably not expecting wings at all.
Reaching back behind her, she scooped all of her hair up into a tight bun, sweeping all her distracting locks out of her face.
"And who are you, anyway?"
When the body-less head didn't receive an answer, he murmured, "Well clearly, you know who I am, if you know enough to put me back together again."
She didn't waste a word replying to him, and curiously held up a silver necklace that held a pendant—a circle with an inscribed equilateral triangle.
"That goes on my neck!"
Sakura ignored him and set the pendant back down on the ground aside her. She took a left hand and placed it in its appropriate place.
"Are you having fun? Because I'm not—with your dirty atheist hands all over my immortal body! At least my previous partner was good with the needle and thread…whatever the hell happened to him anyway?"
She placed his knee to the corresponding leg, laying all that aside his torso.
"You're not answering my questions!" he growled. "Who are you? Where is my partner? Why are you—?"
She snapped her fingers, and a flame danced on her fingertips, a fire that she brought dangerously close to the tattered clothing of his body.
"I can easily change my mind and have you reduced to ashes," she snarled. "So while you're still incapable of moving, I suggest you not encourage me to set you afire. Right now, I am your god, and right now, I determine your life or death."
"Jashin is my sole god," he corrected, sneering at her. "And besides, you wouldn't dare to get rid of me now. You obviously have a reason to risking your pretty ass to retrieve my body."
And for once the deconstructed Akatsuki member was right.
She ignored him like she did all the other times he had tried to initiate conversation.
"Hn," he smirked triumphantly.
Sakura quickly assembled the rest of his body together before whipping out needle and thread from her pocket. Fortunately, the stitching didn't take too awkwardly long since she had had to do a lot of needlework in her past.
Finished, she picked his head up and propped it into place, finishing the final touches and cutting the last line of thread with her teeth.
"Happy now?" she asked him in a low menacing threat.
His body clicked and he sat up, testing out each of his joints and slipping the tossed-aside pendant over his sewed neck.
"Not half as bad as Kakuzu," he remarked, cracking a few knuckles before doing the same with this head, propping his right hand against the back of his head. Then he noticed something was missing.
"You're missing my motherfucking pinky!" he cursed, displaying his incomplete hand in her face.
"I know," she said stoically, slapping away his arm. "You're going to have to deal with it."
Hidan immediately double-checked himself, looking around. His violet eyes paused on the ground before her.
"And you're almost sitting on my dick."
Disgusted, she abruptly stood, brushing the dirt off the seat of her pants vigorously with both hands, and checked the spot where she was sitting.
Noticing nothing was even there, her jade eyes turned and glared daggers at his chortling face.
Stepping forward, she raised a fair skinned arm and slapped him squarely across his jaw, but this only let the masochistic man laugh even more. His chuckling eventually faded and he slowly stood up to his full height, a full head taller than her.
His cold hand clasped her shoulder, the strength of his arm effectively pinning her down. He propped up his scythe onto his other side, balancing it with his free arm.
"Now tell me…who are you?" he cooed, a smile playing on his pale thin lips. "Give me one reason to keep you alive."
"I'm your savior," she wittingly answered, her resolve sharper than her tongue.
His dark lavender eyes narrowed. "You're not Akatsuki," he continued, his head lowering condescendingly over her, his silver hair tickling her tense jaw. "What do you want with me, pretty girl?" he breathed into her face.
"Take me to see Itachi," she spat in his face.
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While they waited on their orders, Konohamaru shifted his hitai-ate back up his forehead, hiding a sweat bead that trickled down his temple in the heat of the Ichiraku ramen shop.
"Thanks for treating me, by the way," stated Naruto, tapping chopsticks on the counter in front of the younger man. The blond still remembered back in the day when the kid was still in Ninja Academy, still hot-tempered and spoiled rotten from his grandfather's Hokage status.
Those were the days when he himself was still wearing an immature orange and white jumpsuit.
And when Team Kakashi still existed, he recalled before he could stop himself.
"No, it's my pleasure," insisted his subordinate. "After all, who gets the privilege these days to eat plain old ramen with the head of the anti-Akatsuki campaign, who single-handedly brings down S-rank criminals in one blow?"
"Lost one of those," reminded Naruto. "He's probably being stitched up back together again as we speak."
"Nah, forget that! You've really advanced your division—and I'm proud to be training under your ranks!"
"Okay, what do you want, teme?" the general asked, snapping his chopsticks at Konohamaru's face. "You've got to be complimenting me for a reason. Flattery always has a price."
"Nothing, sir, I swear!"
"And you never call me sir."
The brown-haired chuunin placed a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Listen, I just want to let you know that people really appreciate all the effort you're putting into making this world a better place. And that even if, like today, something wrong happens, it's not like you failed everyone."
Naruto returned the shoulder hug. "Aw, thanks, man."
"And well, I also forgot my wallet."
"You bastard," replied Naruto with a knowing smile, reaching into his pants to produce his frog-shaped coin purse.
"I'll make it up to you," Konohamaru sheepishly promised.
"Don't worry about it—it's on me," his superior affirmed, spilling out the clanging metal change onto the counter, but moving the money out of the way to make room for their soups. "Itadakimasu, bitch," he added, sticking a hungry set of chopsticks into the noodles.
Konohamaru returned a grin and slowly started to slurp up his meal before something else bothered his mind. He composed his thoughts for a moment and then turned to his eating general.
"So…do you mind if I ask what happened?"
The blond raised his face from his bowl, a bit of vegetable stuck to his right cheek. "What happened when?"
His subordinate hesitated. "During…you know, your chuunin exams? I mean, I only know rumors about what happened and I know that Hokage Kakashi was your team leader, but I was just curious—sorry if this is a bad time, you're in the middle of enjoying ramen and you probably don't want to talk about this…"
Naruto returned a composed smile. "It's not a big deal, and besides, ramen makes everything better."
"So…the Hokage was your team leader right?"
"Yep, old-man-Kakashi-Hatake was our team leader," Naruto explained. "Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno were my teammates. We didn't hit it off with a good start but by the time it got around the chuunin exams, we at least knew more than just each other's names."
Konohamaru vigorously nodded his head, affirming that he was still listening.
"And I don't even half remember what happened then—it was all a blur. One of the chuunin groups was an imposter and worked for this Akatsuki guy named Orochimaru. So when we were on the second part of our exams—the survival part—in the Forest of Death, the damn Akatsuki swooped in, bringing Sasuke into a fight. I fought against him with Sasuke, but man, we were just sucky ninjas back then, and Sasuke was just taken away—swallowed by a giant white snake," he continued, biting his lip.
"Sakura was there, too, and she was trying to help us but once Sasuke was gone, we freaked out and ran. She tripped on a root and her ankle twisted—I got her back up but her other foot was in the snake's mouth…and I tried to hold onto her but she just…slipped out of my hand," Naruto concluded, his voice wistful. "That's all that happened—never saw them ever since."
The younger man swallowed hard. "So that's why you decided to do all this anti-Akatsuki business. Kinda like…taking revenge on them for your teammates."
"Yup, and I never retook the chuunin exams ever again. That shit's just all a title-play anyway."
Konohamaru looked down at his ramen morosely.
"And Kakashi-sensei reacted in the same way, sorta, I guess. He just got to become Hokage before I did," Naruto finished, downing the rest of his soup in a final gulp with a tilt of his bowl.
"That's rough; I'm sorry."
Naruto shrugged—it was an incident, something of the past that he liked to think that he had already gotten over and finished crying for.
He looked over at his saddened younger friend and jutted a chin towards the remaining ramen in front of him. "Are you going to finish that?"
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"You can't just expect me to tell you information without answering any of my questions, bitch," Hidan growled lowly, not intimidated and unflinching from her hard death stare.
Her lips curled into a snarl as his smirk grew wider.
"There, there now," the silver-haired Akatsuki member coolly whispered, trailing his hand down her cheek and cupping her jaw to tilt her face up to him. "You don't have to look so ferocious—I already know you don't like me. Just relax…" and a cold thumb brushed over her soft lips in an attempt to smooth out the wrinkles.
His free hand played at the skin around the top of her collarbone—she hadn't been able to acquire new clothing for the past month. The fabric of her dark scarlet shoulder-less top was fraying at the edges and her black lace half-sleeves were growing holes large enough to fit fingers. Her greying and dirt-streaked pants were growing loose, and she had been using a ragged old rope to keep the pants tied to her waist.
"You have to tell me about yourself after all this time we've spent together," he continued, his breath eliciting chills over her skin. "You seem to know so much about me—it's time for me to get to know you better."
The fingertips of his hand slid down over her shoulder blades, caressing the odd nubs and bumps over her upper back.
"Starting with…where did you get those pretty wings of yours?"
A flash of anger arose from her green eyes and she bit the thumb at her lip.
He instantly retracted the hand from her face, shaking off the brief pain as a crooked smile danced over his jaw.
"The only person that I know that can create those sorts of inhumane masterpieces is Orochimaru," he continued.
The muscles over her back rippled in her contained hatred, even just hearing the consonants of that infamous name.
The Akatsuki's eyes lightened when his hand felt the tense knots surfacing on her skin, knowing that this was an affirmation to what he had previously assumed.
"Alright, never mind then…touchy subject," he purred, taking a lock of her hair and curling it around his finger, while the other hand continued to slowly massaged circles at her back.
His violet gaze held the intense flame color of her hair for a moment.
"Is this natural?" he questioned softly instead. "Redheads are always such a catch…"
She held her silence.
"Won't even answer that?" he crooned, tucking the strands back behind her ear. "At least your name, then? So when I think of you later in a more private setting, I can call out a name?" he coaxed her.
"Sakura," she replied sharply, unwavering to his implications. "Sakura Haruno."
"Sakura…" his tongue tested the syllables. "What a whorish name."
"Remember it when you're lying in your grave," she bitterly retorted.
He snorted. "You won't find me in one. I'm one of the more devoted ones…and chosen," he explained. "Was presented with immortality—the only problem with an everlasting life is that I forever need to deal with bitches like you."
Losing her reason to keep calm, she gathered chakra in her left hand and threw up a punch at his stomach. But the Akatsuki caught her fist and lifted her wrist up toward his mouth, pressing the soft pulsing skin against his lips, hushing her temper.
"Then how did you end up in that mess I found you in?" she mocked, taking her hand back from him.
"A stupid ass kid blew me to pieces," he explained simply.
"Served you right."
"Hey now, let's not change the subject," he chided. "I still have questions for you."
"I don't have to say a word to you."
"I think you owe me answers."
"I don't owe you anything," she snarled. "I got you out of that shithole and put you back together again. You're the one that needs to pay up—I already told you that I need to see Itachi, and you're going to take me right to the fucking bastard's front door."
"I don't have to do anything for you," the Akatsuki stated, a shadow of smile still on his face. And he leaned his face toward her, close enough that she could see the speckles of lust in his velvet eyes. "You can't do a thing to me: torture is my pleasure, dying is impossible, and I still know where your desired target is."
Her lips pressed shut.
The man was right again—she didn't have much to offer him, but he had her entire future at his hands.
"You have nothing on me," he threatened in a deep voice, a rumble at her ear. "All you have is fresh blood—and I'd love to quench my thirst right now."
She stood still, only her emerald eyes tracking his slow movements.
"It's a perfect time for a sacrifice—I'm sure Jashin wouldn't mind tasting some of your sweet blood."
But she was pretty certain there was more that he would like of her body than just her lifeblood.
Men were all the same, she thought with disgust.
There was always only one thing that they wanted from her.
And it was good that she was experienced—there was no way he'd be able to deny her any demands she'd make on him after this.
"Of course, there's one thing I can offer you," Sakura muttered, under a low breath, tilting her lips toward the crook of his neck as she rose her hands onto his chest, fingertips hooking at the ledges of his collarbones.
"Oh yeah?" he asked, an eyebrow cocked. "What can you give me?"
"Your wildest dreams," she guaranteed in a whisper, her tongue flicking at the shell of his ear as she slipped teasing fingers well down past his stiffened abdomen.
Well, now that the first chapter is over…what do you guys think? Kill or continue? Would love to hear your opinions!
Oh, and song of the update: ULTRAnumb by Blue Stahli – the story's namesake.
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