CHAPTER 2: Awakening
Pain all over. Followed by the feeling of soggy ground and freezing cold earth on the bare skin of her back and arms. Leaf green eyes snapped open as the sensations registered, obscured by the pink hair that was one of her namesakes. Sakura groaned as the stars' light above her head in the clear night sky sent pricks of pain through her skull and she closed them immediately. Her chakra was in a mess from whatever the hell had attacked her, and it wasn't responding how she wanted it to. The sudden movement of her eyelids had the young woman turning over as quickly as possible, her stomach rebelling at even the slightest motion until she was forced to empty her stomach on the ground in front of her. Of course, that spiked the pain into her head further and the result was that she passed out again.
Some time later, she woke up, feeling heavier than normal, like Tsunade had tied lead weights to her arms and legs again for training. Thankfully, on opening her eyes she found that she hadn't fallen face first into her own vomit and breathed a silent sigh of relief before making an attempt at sitting up and looking around.
'Damn…getting almost hit by lightning hurts like a bitch.' Her mind and body feeling more than a little disjointed, the kunoichi took note of her condition overall, using a bit of her chakra at a time to search for damages and see how much her energy was damaged. On finding nothing but a few bruised knees and a sore stomach, and her chakra at almost full usability, she sighed and reached a hand up to touch the back of her head, coming away with a handful of mud. 'Shit…that's gonna need a bath to get rid of…' Turning her head gingerly, Sakura looked up to see a thick wall of stone on one side of her, almost as black as the night around her. She didn't remember seeing a wall in that weird clearing though, and it took nearly a full minute to realize that she was laying in a field, beside a stone, moss-covered fence of some kind that went on for farther than she could see in such darkness. 'Geeze…wonder what strong-man built that….' The amusing thought wasn't held onto for long though as a cold wind shot up her back. When her group had gone out it had been the start of summer, with cooler nights yeah but when they had been in the clearing the days were generally hotter than anything. This place was cold, damp, and looked like it was closer to the end of autumn of all things.
It took all about ten microseconds after that for her to realize that her friends and crew were gone, and she was not in a forest anymore. Well, she was in A forest at least but it wasn't the heavy trees that were around her now, or the thick undergrowth that she remembered from what she felt must have been less than ten minutes but, could have been much longer. Feeling a cold wind on her back yet again she looked down and then over her shoulder and cursed.
"Shit, no wonder I'm cold!" The clothing on her back and backside were charred to a crisp, barely held together by a few strands of fiber. Oddly enough her skin was fine, besides the slight bruising along her ribs she had noticed with her chakra earlier and some pinkness where the lightning had apparently hit her. The clothing just hung off of her now and though she flushed in embarrassment, the medical professional in her knew that she'd come damn close to dying. 'What the hell was that energy...I'd be dead or brain-fried if it had actually been lightning...If that was lightning though...and had hit just a bit closer...ugh.' Shuddering as another cold breeze smacked her in the ass, Sakura looked around, quickly. "First things first, something to wear…" Muttering another curse or five under her breath, she shook some of the mud out of her hair, wiping it off a bit with her hands but generally just smearing it around since her belt pouch with the small change of clothing she had had was the one shed had on her back hp had been pretty much turned into charcoal in that lightning strike, or whatever the hell that had been. Spotting what looked like a copse of trees, and just the faintest lights beyond those in the distance, she let out a breath and hopped over the stone fence. Landing was a bit uncoordinated as one of her shoes flew off halfway over the fence, the heels from one and the leather backing of both having been burnt until they cracked open. Barking her knee on the stone ground upon landing, she cussed again, her inner tomboy and leaking out into her normal actions. Ripping off the burnt remains of the shoes, she looked around for a moment before finding a good spot to bury them under a chunk of loose stone at the base of the odd fence. "Good grief. Can't walk right, my ass is almost bare to the world, my clothes are pretty much gone from the back, and now my shoes? Those things were comfortable dammit." Shoving the loose rock into place, the kunoichi scowls, then looks around her for a moment. 'I should probably stop talking to myself, people here might think I'm crazy…though I have no clue where here is. Let's go find out.'
Once that was done, she took inventory. Reaching into her weapons pouch on her right hip, she pulled out a couple rolls of bandages. 'Bandages, bruise, scrape and…yes, antidote balms and syrups are still intact…wait, I can use the bandages.' The idea came instantly once she noted them. This made things easier for her in general. Having been a practicing medical ninja in Konoha, Sakura knew how to wrap bandages expertly. It was simple enough to shuck her scorched clothing and then essentially mummify her chest with one roll, and then use the last two rolls of bandages to create shorts for herself, looping the remaining two pouches containing her weapons and medical ingredients around her hips. The results were skimpy, and though she wasn't large-breasted by any means she still had some nice ones that where now a bit squished. Her new 'shorts' were also skimpy, but covered her tender areas well enough, and she had just enough to give her feet some protection as well, using her chakra to meld the ends of the bandages together so she didn't risk her new 'clothing' from falling apart whenever she moved. Letting out a deep breath in thanks that no one had shown up during her change, she started moving.
It took Sakura about five minutes running to reach the small stand of trees. Swarming up a pine like a squirrel, the ninja paused around halfway up, noting that the trees here were much thinner than the ones from her home. 'So, strong winds? Is it always cold here? Might be why the plants look stunted too, though I'll know more in daylight.' Getting to a decent vantage point and pulling a small spyglass from one of the pouches she had on her belt, Sakura looked for the lights she'd seen before…and almost dropped it at what she saw.
"...What the hell are those things." Muttering the question under her breath, the kunoichi shuddered as she watched the shambling, staggering creatures in the small village. A small village where most of the houses were on fire. This just wasn't a good night, for her or the few folks fleeing for their lives. This whole night was beginning to make her feel more than a little cranky, and the horrendous feeling that she'd never see her friends or mom again made her want to lash out, cry and generally fall to pieces. But right now, what she was witnessing through the spyglass was enough on its own to give her nightmares.
Creatures that, in the flickering light of the fires from the houses, looked human but moved much like some kind of poorly controlled puppets, were attacking and killing the humans in the village. Not just killing though, it looked like those…things, were eating them, and though she was too far off to hear everything, Sakura could still pick up the faint sound of screaming coming from the village.
'Well shit.' It didn't take a genius to know that if the whole village died, then those things would move onto other areas, possibly more populated areas. Though the tree branches were much thinner, they held up under her weight and speed combined, barely even shaking as she passed from one to the other. Once closer she heard the screams again, much louder, but much fewer. Eyes narrowing, she frowned, one hand grabbing a kunai and the other clenching into a fist as she reached an area of cleared trees. Below her in a small hilled area was the village.
The village was very much on fire, heavy smoke pouring into the dark sky in even darker clouds. Pausing on a branch of an old willow tree near a small brook, Sakura stilled her body into a nothing presence almost instinctively, lowering her energy enough just in case other ninja or kunoichi were nearby with the ability to sense it. She still didn't have a clue where she was, and even if this wasn't her beloved homeland, she had no way of knowing what else was out there besides those freaky things. Another shrill scream had her green eyes pinpointing the source and Sakura nearly fell out of the tree at how fast she reacted.
Racing for the trees was a young child who could only have been about five or six. She was tiny, dressed in a blue fluttery nightdress that made her look just like a little doll with her long blond hair trailing behind her as she ran. The child was obviously frantic, not caring when a tree branch smacked her in the forehead. Tripping and stumbling over rocks and dirt made the little one slow however and the reason for her running was what made Sakura react.
Those hideous, man-sized, shambling things were in pursuit of the child. The sight of them reminded her of Kankuro's dolls, in a meatier and much more disgusting fashion. They were like undead humans being used as dolls to chase after the child, who was sobbing now that she was getting closer, a little to the left of where Sakura was perched. "Somebody help me! MOMMA! DADDYYYYYY!" Her scream ended suddenly as she tripped over a clump of knotweed and went sprawling. The child bawled in terror on the ground, trying desperately to catch her breath as she struggled to get up. That, plus the smell that hit Sakura's nose as the wind shifted, bringing the potent stench from the ghoulish things to her, served to jar the kunoichi out of her stillness.
Dropping to the ground with an audible thud, she let out a yell as she sent one of the kunai flying, the sharp knife slicing into the shoulder of one of the creatures with a squelching sound. That didn't even deter the thing however, it just turned and lumbered towards her! "Whoa, whoa, whoa there, buddy." Eye widening as the kunai just slipped back out of the shoulder wound with a disgusting squelch louder than the one it had made going into it, Sakura raced over to the child, dodging the reaching arm of another ghoul-thing that was slightly faster than the rest. "C'mon kid." Scooping her up under one arm, Sakura proceeded to jump for the nearest tree branch she could find, a pine tree with a branch around ten feet off the ground. Catching it in her free hand, the pink haired woman grunted a little as the kid suddenly when limp, turning into a dead weight. It took a moment before she focused enough to focus her chakra enough to boost her strength with some adrenalin. After that kicked in, it took less than a second before she was up in the branch with the kid.
Settling the girl nearest the trunk of the tree, Sakura allowed some of her chakra to hold her to it, while also gluing her own feet to the branch so she didn't fall either. A quick check, both externally an internally, showed that the girl had just passed out from shock, she would rouse in a minute or so. "Okay…okay, kids okay…things…yup, still down there." The small herd, horde? Whatever those things were, they were nor clustered under the tree, arms that looked like rotten branches reaching up towards the two girls or clawing at the tree trunk. It didn't look like they had any sense of pain, like they were literally the walking dead, and a slightly twisted part of Sakura's mind found the idea of that hideously fascinating, though ninety-nine percent of her felt that this was just disgusting in the extreme. "Shit…what now…"
It took a good twenty minutes before Sakura had figured out a plan of action. Sort of. 'God, I hope this works.' Taking a moment to brace herself, the last thing she wanted was to fall into that growing collective of stinking monsters, Sakura swung down and picked up the child before scrambling to a higher branch. Undoing a length of her bandages from her feet, she tied the kid to the tree in case she woke up and started to panic. "Just relax, sister's gonna take care of you, okay?" Not sure if she heard her or not, and to be honest hoping she couldn't and just stayed asleep, Sakura then took a deep breath and scowled as one of the monsters below growled loudly. "Ah, shaddup, ya walking corpse, I'm coming." Flipping over the branch to the lower one the kid had been on recently, the pink haired kunoichi stood up on it to count how many ere below her.
'Okay, thirty of them. Not too bad, they're fast but awkward, looks like their depth perception is skewed somehow, and from what I can see they have no real use of their noses or most of their sight. Audio-based hunting? Interesting.' Green eyes shifting to the shade of frozen grass, Sakura pulled a thin, delicate looking wire from her weapons pouch and wrapped her feet it to give them some more protection. There wasn't a lot of the wire in her pouch, it was mostly used for setting traps, but there was enough to protect the tenderer parts of them, and her chakra could help with the rest of it. "This...is going to be gross." Shuddering a little at what she was about to do, she tilted her head back and forth until her neck cracked, then jumped off the branch.
She had learned a lot in the years since Naruto and Sasuke had left Konoha, even picking up a few tricks from Choji's family on how to manage weight using her Chakra. It had meant nearly an entire summer of looking much like Choji did when he was a child, all round and chubby, but she'd since dominated that energy and could freely control her own weight. Dropping from around ten feet in height, she released some of that control and hit the first creature in the head with her wire-wrapped foot with the force of half a ton. The resulting sensation of her foot going through wet, squelching flesh, the mess and subsequent stench was nearly enough to make her vomit again, but the creatures surrounding her wouldn't give her enough time to deal with that. Whipping herself into a bit of a frenzy, keeping her kunai in her hands for added protection, the ninja went to work with a disgusted look on her face.
Freely controlling her weight and strength wasn't easy when one was moving fast enough to blur, but years of training were paying off as Sakura whipped out with her legs, taking off a head at the neck and sending it, and its contents, flying into the darkness. She tried to keep her unprotected arms and body out of reach by using her feet for kicking, and it seemed to be working since the beasts appeared to be ravenous, but mindless. 'So, they don't learn from each other. That's a good thing.' . Sakura highly doubted she would forget the feeling of her legs and feet going through overripe watermelons any time soon though, and she was mildly preoccupied with the disgust about that when she noticed something odd. The first creatures she had dispatched were very much dead, she'd hit them in the head after all. The creatures nearest to the fallen bodies turned their attention away from her, a fresh source of meat, and had begun to eat their brethren.
"Oh, what the hell." The wet, sucking and crunching sounds nearly had her stomach rebelling again, but the woman didn't have time to deal with that as hands reached out and almost grabbed her shoulders from behind. Grunting quietly as she avoided the grab, her leg flashed out again in a spin-kick that sent the ghoul backwards away from her with a hole the size of her foot in it's gut. Shaking her foot vigorously to get rid of the sickening goop clinging to it "Ugh, you guys are disgusting. What the hell are you?!" The stench was so bad now that her eyes were beginning to water.
With her inner self screaming in a mixture of disgust at the mess, and glee at the prospect of pulverising creatures that could have only come from hell, Sakura let loose with a vigour that would have had Tsunade smiling in glee.
~~~~~Hellsing Organization Mansion HQ 6 Hours Ago~~~~~
"You summoned me, my master."
The familiar, cruel and all-around amused voice echoed from the wall to the left of the large desk belonging to non-other than the Leader of the Hellsing Organization. It was an organization dedicated to eradicating Freaks known as vampires and their ghoul servants, all in the name of God and the Queen of England. Silver-blond haired and sharp eyed, Sir Integra Wingates Hellsing paused from reading over a pile of report about sightings of vampires from all over England. Looking at the creature who leaned against her wall nonchalantly, a sickeningly big grin on his face showing pointed canines, the look overall of a man not only cruel, with a sick sense of humor, but also more than a little insane.
"Alucard, yes. There's a little town called Menoc that I want you to check, I have another job for Seras tonight. There's been reports of increased ghoul activities around the town, though there isn't a freak apparently, no one has stepped forwards to claim their servants according to the last reports by the police precinct there. None of my operatives have returned from it so far so I want you to take care of it. Send Seras to me before you leave, it's sunset in a minute and thirty seconds. Dismissed."
Alucard grinned toothily, showing a set of sharp canines longer than what was normal for a human. His red hat and round sunglasses worn inside and outside reflected some waning sunlight from the enormous windows in Integra's office as he responded with "As you wish." and bowing. Sinking into the wall once more back the way he's come, the vampire king grinned wider, the expression showcasing the glee he felt at the chance for slaughter. Even if the ghouls were already dead, it just meant he wasn't needing to hold back too much. Reappearing in his dungeon home to prepare for his departure, it only took moments to alert Seras Victoria, his pet and essentially his daughter-slash-apprentice, that she was needed in Integra's office before he was gone again into the shadows.
I'm going to post this little notification here:
To those folks to tell me to kill myself because I made this story feature a romantic connection between Sakura and Alucard? Please grow up and stop whining. Your personal preference for romantic partners in a story truly has absolutely nothing to do with me and I would appreciate you to keep your negative opinions to yourself.
My choice for combining Sakura Haruno and Alucard in a Mature crossover story was one of the first ones to actually have been posted on here 8 years ago, the fact that I am updating this now is my own choice, and if you do not like the combination, please feel free to read something else, there is PLENTY available on here after all.
On a side note to this topic: I love constructive reviews of my storytelling skills, if you'd like to comment that you love the story or want to see more, feel free to post that, I get a lot more encouragement from those than tips on improvement, but I still love them all nonetheless. Love you guys!