Bloody Memory

"All things truly wicked start from an innocence."

Ernest Hemingway

The moon was full tonight, his silvery light bathing the village hidden in the leafs in an ethereal glow. Rustling trees and the soothing song of the winds, was filling the nightly air. Sakura was sound asleep, her window tightly locked and sealed shut to ward of the icy gusts of winter air that still haunted Konoha even when the winter was slowly fading away and the snow was long gone. Dark forest green satin curtains were closed but not able to block out the silver of cold hard moon light. Shadows dancing on the walls and floorboards, awaking legends of monsters and demons to a new live.

A ray of white light was dancing over Sakuras face. It was just a pulse of chakra, merely a faint aura of it, imprinting itself in her senses. She had never felt it before, analyzing every aspect of it, cold like frozen earth, hard like Iwas mountains, suffocating like she was buried alive. Her eyes snapped open blazing green, blue specks glowing like liquid ice in the cold reality of a full moon, as she felt the harmful killing intent seeping through her window freezing her in fear.

Her heart was pounding, kicking her senses in over drive, sharpening them with adrenaline to a nearly painful clarity. Prickling started on her skin as the seal at her window broke into pieces, scattering like glass. A disturbance of her curtains, the heavy rustle of the fabric and a gust of cool night air sent a shiver through her, her mind was working but her body was frozen. She heard her window slid open, ears registering every bump and disturbance in the frame as it slipped upwards.

Her floorboard cracked, it was the ninth from the right corner, as a foot made contact and suddenly stilled all movement. Despite that she just seemed to be unable to move her mind was still working, like always analyzing all the details. It was a man, a shinobi, standard regulation sandals from Iwa, the soles thick and with heavy profile. Mud was caking his shoes, but the last rain was more than two weeks ago, the earth still frozen and dry in most places, he must have entered over the training areas. There was the earth muddy and wet from hundreds of kantons fired up, heat emitting and melting the last remains of frost away.

He started to move again, she closed her eyes, her body going very very still. But she could still feel his movements tracking them with her Chakra sensing skills. Years of training with the Black Ops had this particular ability honed to the point when it was of the charts. The shinobi was moving careful, but he was emitting charka from his feet to avoid any more unwanted sounds. She felt the effects of a genjutsu lick over her skin invading her senses and clocking the invader. But she could still feel him. The proximity was to close for her not to notice his exact location; he was going through her books and scrolls. Faster than before she felt the genjutsu trying to pull her under, into darkness and the black sea of monsters that was full with atrocities, the sadistic glee in the jutsu was unmistakable. It made her insides churn, so vile felt in on her skin.

Sakura didn't know what he was searching for but she had nothing of importance in her room, it was an early lesson to handle scrolls with utmost care. But her thoughts where stopped short when she felt another signature enter her room and a second one in her grandmothers bedroom three doors down. The genjutsu had taken full affect; she felt it heavy and suffocating, laying over her, like a metal blanked. Working around the effect of her cloaked senses was easy, they didn't suspect her to be trained in these departments, but she was excelling in her skill as a sensor, and could work every genjutsu out. This was easy, but it frightened her, how easy and cold her mind was analyzing the structures and patterns. C-Rank or very low and bad executed B-Rank was the result for this particular technique.

She felt nausea rolling in waves over her as the signatures in her baa-chans room started spiking; they were moving rapidly inside the room. The first move her body was able to coordinate was curling itself tighter together; the foreign shinobi in her room shrugged it off as a normal sleep movement. What he didn`t know was that this would be the first mistake that would bring on his demise. Casual dismissing of minuscule details.

There was a violent lashing of foreign chakra and then the blood curling scream of her grandmother. The door to her room banged open and crashed against the mint green wall. Her body jolted hard back to attention and her eyes snapped open. It all happened in a flash, one moment she was still in her bed the next she was pressed against the body of a shinobi. The hard muscle was straining against her back and the arm over her throat tightened, slowly choking her and cutting of her air supply. Struggling would be useless, as he laid his hand over her mouth, stopping all noise, the perfect position to snap her neck every given moment.

She could barely breath, it was just enough to stay conscious. Franticly her eyes where scanning her surroundings. The shelves were in total dismay, the contents strewn over the ground or ripped like scrolls. She could see both shinobi clearly, in their mid-twenties and from Iwagakure no Sato, the village of the Hidden Stone. The body of her grandmother was shaking with spasm after spasm, her chakra felt different than before, she searched for a reason. It was glaring at her, a seal; black, swollen red and angry, was pulsing directly over the jugular of her neck. Like a choker were kanji and intricate forms and designs winding around her neck. The centerpiece a sign that stood for death and felt to her like it was emitting it in waves of pure darkness, situated over the main chakrapoint in her neck. Shutting off every spark of chakra her grandmother would ever produce, forever.

"Long time no see Shasai, or should I say thundering harpy. Do you remember us? 18th platoon, Iwagakure frontline, barely out of the academy." She saw recognition flash over her face, her breath growing even more rigid, the one who was holding her, brought her to her knees.

"Yes, you should have killed us, when you had the chance, when you where uprooting whole battlefields, beating us with our own element. You know some even called you an earth bender, but it was your chakracontroll, wasn't it. I saw your chakra, the ultimate defense around the yellow flash. Must have killed you from the inside out when he died. Do you know that Iwa was celebrating his death, burning puppets that looked like him?" Sakura nearly puked from the sensation and feeling the chakra was sending out. Her grandmother was crying.

"Don't you dare say a word about Minato, we let you live, because they send mere children to the frontlines. He was a better man and shinobi than you could ever dream of being." Never in her live had Sakura seen her face so hard and unforgiving cold. The forest green eyes of her Shasai glistening with the salty liquid that was flowing down the porcelain like skin of her cheeks, the specs of silver in her eyes cold and hard like weapon steel. The grip on her neck tightened, fear, bone deep fear seeping in their chakra. Sakura could taste it in her tongue, instinctual fear for the captured predator.

"Tell me did he love you? Because you were never even graced with a kunai, nothing could hit you, always gone before the impact. But even if we actually hit him, our weapons screechingly dissipated into dust, a crushing moment later your remains were mixed with the earth you could command, curtsey of the harpy."

"You aren't here to tell stories of the past, what do you want?" Sakura knew she should feel frightened as the grip around her throat tightened a little further with her grandmothers' words. But she just couldn't, she knew she was in a shock, the processing of her mind on the bare minimum, to follow the happenings.

"You were closest adviser of the fourth Hokage, tell us everything you know, everyone of his, yours and the hidden Leafs secrets, or your little girl here will die. How about we start with where his corps is buried, and then on to that rumor that he had a kid, perhaps this is his daughter, who knows, Konoha was the best in keeping secrets." Shasai let out a hollow and dead sounding laugh, and then she smiled, like you would smile at a foolish child.

"Oh dear, even if I could, I never would tell you. Do you really think we were that foolish, we thought we would never live to see another day, every breath could be our last, and every mission could be a ticket to a torture chamber. Do you want to see Minato's first Masterpiece? It's a seal, under my tongue, I can't say or write a word of my knowledge down, try to enter my mind and it is wiped clean of everything that is tied to that seal, try to break it and I die the second your chakra makes contact. Minato was the only one I could talk to, and only when we were meshing our chakra, so yes it killed me from the inside out when he died." She smiled and this smile was sinister, the smile of a kunoichi, that had killed more than she could count. The smile of this woman could let hell freeze over. And somehow Sakura know, that the second page that was ripped out of the bingo books, was the one her grandmother occupied, that she wasn't just some messenger kunoichi.

Her grams was the faceless woman they called thundering harpy in the academy lessons, face and nameless like the Yodaime Hokage, whose name she now knew, whose face was on countless pictures in her grandmothers photo books. Her mind's eye conjured up some of the pictures. Sunny blond hair with sparkling blue eyes and sun kissed skin, a tall build man with a dazzling smile, wearing a bloody and battered Jonin-uniform an arm thrown around her grandmother when she was barley thirty smiling and caked in mud, her own ten year old mother hugging her leg with a relieved and shy smile. Another one of her wearing the short black battle kimono, with a jonin vest and a young boy hugging her waist; while smiling cheekily at a gray-haired man with red markings in his face. There was a whole box with photos of a young Minato Namikaze and she started drifting.

There one with his brats, the name grams gave his genin team.

… with a beautiful redhead, laughing, Shasai scolding Jiraya, his sensei…

… a blond boy running from her clothed in only a towel as she was hauling kunai at him, punishment for peeking…

… a pink-haired teenager carrying a sleeping blond toddler …

… her grandparents holding a bundled up baby while a busty blond medic was hitting a blond teen behind his head…

… a pink-haired girl playing with a blond boy that wore orange…

… a freshly promoted Chunin piggybacking a blond boy; Minato…

… a pink-haired girl caked in paint, from head to toe and a boy with paint stained hands and cheeks; Naruto…

… blond hair; Minato – blue eyes; Naruto … chubby cheeks… with whisker marks… without… cheeky smile… Minato – blue mischief twinkeling eyes – Naruto…

Minato, Naruto, Naruto, Minato, Minato, Minato and the redhead Kushina, Naruto.

A blood curling scream and the blurring images stopped.

Blood was staining the floor, painting the lips of her grandmother a deep sangria red, flowing in a steady stream over her chin, gliding down her pale throat, sliding between the valley of her breast, disappearing; staining the light sleeping yakuta crimson. On the floor, bathing in a bloody pool was a lone kunai, shining in the light of the full moon; coloring the liquid nearly black, next to human flesh.

They had cut out her tongue, Sakura felt her cheeks getting wet, she was crying, her breaths were to short to get er enough oxygen, to think clearly, to truly grasp what was happening. One Iwa shinobi grabbed the crimson stained hair, that shimmered like silver in the moon light and ripped her had back, a new wave of blood came gushing over her lips; painting skin and floor red. The only sound Sakura could hear was the gurgling of the red liquid.

It hit her then like a ton of bricks, they had cut out her tongue, with a kunai. Just cut it off. Had sealed her Chakra and cut out her tongue, making her mute. Sakuras eyes widened and hot salty liquid streamed down her cheeks like rivers, a fist connected with a jar and Sakura heard the bone break and screamed as more blood, deep sangria, splattered on the floor. The shinobi that was choking and restraining her reacted in the blink of a moment. Her scream died as her back hit the wall, her throat was pushed together, every ounce of oxygen left her lungs and her airways cut off.

One…

Two…

Three… Four…Five, Six, Seven

Twenty-one…

She sucked the air back in as soon as the grip at her throat, which was holding her up a wall, loosened enough. Another bone broke, her left arm, a fragment pocking through flesh and skin, shining eerily in the brutal reality of silvery light.

"Listen, and listen good little girl. You can get out if this very much alive, if you are nice and quiet, because we are going to bestow the same privilege on you that we got a long time ago, cause you are just at the wrong place to the wrong time." His breath fanned against her ear as he spoke. She doubted every word he spoke, with every stroke he did, from her hip, up over her waist and to her ribcage and back down, doubted it with every breath he took against her skin, pressing himself tighter against her.

Sakura started to struggle, but froze when she registered the sound of tearing fabric, clattering of metal and the broken wail of her grandmother. Her head snapped to the side, she saw her battered, bruised, broken and naked lying limply under on shinobi. Dead eyes stared at the ceiling as he grunted while pounding into her, abusing, shaming her and broke her further and further apart.

Something deep inside her snapped and scattered to pieces, she didn't know if it was part of her sanity but she knew it was tightly linked to her humanity. Years of her own bruised and marred skin flashed rough her mind in seconds, pictures of a bloody bamboo rod, broken hands and black bruises, her grandmother crying when her father had hit so hard that her skin broke. It was insanity that was crawling and clawing its way through her very being, it finally broke through when a cold hand squeezed the naked flesh of her tight.

She started trashing like a caged animal, her mind on autopilot. The picture of her grandmother forever burned in the back of her mind. She wanted to tear, to rip, to cut and shred. Sakura wanted to destroy these men in every way possible. She wanted to paint the world red with their blood, tear them apart mind body and soul. She wanted them to suffer like they never did before, to scream and beg for mercy that they would never become. And she would make them; create their own hell for them, she thought as her body became still because he was choking her again.

Still like a doll she let him hold her, touch her, her mind cold and calculating, focused on the task at hand. Never before was she able to create medical chakra, let alone potent enough to inflict harm, and harm in the scales she thought about. But somehow she just knew she would get the end result she wanted, craved with the darkest part of her mind.

It was a thin tendril of chakra that slithered around her wrist, glowing blue not green like she intended, circling up her arm and then down her body, to the inside of her tight where he had started stroking her. Malicious glee filled her as she felt her chakra inside his system, she giggled, she was insane, and she knew it the moment she thought about the way to make it last the longest. He looked up, brown eyes, she smiled beautifully.

"You are dead."

It was a whisper falling from her lips, swallowed by his scream as she tore his hand between her tights apart. Warm liquid and gore splattered all over her as she let her chakra run up his arm, tearing, slashing and exploding. He fell to the ground; blood started leaking out of him, where she had torn open his skin with that small tendril of chakra that was tearing him apart on the inside, deforming his limbs, exploding out of his skin.

She knew the second Iwa shinobi was coming onto her when he had regained his bearings and she let him come. The second his fingers grace her skin he fell to, the genjutsu was thick and strong layered on her skin. His cried sounded like music to her insanity, while his mind conjured up his worst nightmares and fears, all the while being tortured by ghastly beings of your imagination. It was one of the genjutsus that were recently developed, with help of the Yamanakas, it was tearing your mind apart, peeling layer for layer, only to shred it, to be forever lost.

A third scream filled the night air as another part of her chakra started in its destructive path, bathing the unconscious body of her grandmother in the blood of the one who disgraced her. She watched every second as she tore these shinobi apart and screams filled the night air of her 10th birthday, as their blood painted her walls red.

When they were ripped apart and open, their hearts still beating, she let her chakra burst on last time. Two hearts exploded and one mind tripped into insanity as it rained fine sprayed drops of Iwas blood on Sakura setting in her hair and on her skin, staining the remaining white parts of her sleeping shirt.

It soaked and spread slowly into the pristine white Anbu vest of the three agents that slit through the open window, rolling down the smooth porcelain of their masks as they starred motionless at the scenes before them. Starring at the girl that looked like a ghost, holy, in the slivery moonlight, splattered in blood, hair nearly glowing as white as her skin, vivid green eyes with glacier blue specs starring without really seeing as tears started to trek down her cheeks mixing with deep sangria red blood from beating hearts.

In this night the hushed whispers started, of a girl that they called deadly hollow, because even bathed in blood she looked like an otherworldly being, a deity from the other world, a ghost haunting the living, a fairy executing the damned.