Chapter Four: Flight or Fight

The sound of the bullet was a sharp, deadly crack of noise, similar to thunder in that it rumbled through the air and ground before it was literally heard. Time seemed to slow for the pink haired kunoichi, who heard the noise first and began to turn towards it. Simultaneously Lizzie, the child in her arms now, twisted sideways violently and proceeded to push both of them underwater, stunning Sakura a little at the child's strength. Alucard frowned slightly at the sudden maneuver while his bullet rammed itself harmlessly, more or less, into a tree across the pond. Not one to normally miss anything – scratch that, he NEVER missed – the vampire looked out into the water as the mud disturbed by the two bodies roiled up from the bottom of the pond. Cruel, cold red eyes watched intently as the water in the pond stilled and grew mirror like, the silt settled, and a frown tugged at his lips. Stepping out of the shadows fluidly, the vampire walked to the edge of the pond slowly, then nearly snarled as he noticed that the pond was clear of any bodies. Somehow that woman and her child had escaped him. The scent of water nearby with the aroma of warm human flesh and the tang of exhaled air caught the master vampires nose a moment after the realization had hit. Alucard's frown turned to a sly grin "How...interesting."

Once Lizzie had spun the two of them into the water and having caught a glimpse of why, Sakura had kicked up the mud and silt at the bottom of the pond to block their escape route, the kunoichi had knocked the…child, creature, unconscious as they had made their escape using a batch of thick brush to the left of the pond with just enough overhang to provide them some cover. The small creature was unconscious now under her arm as she froze just under a different thick bush as the other creature, a male this time, stepped into view. Holding herself silent, the woman scowled. Her charge wasn't human, that was obvious from the red eyes, sharp teeth too big for her tiny mouth and that absurd strength that the child had displayed when protecting them both. Of course, Sakura wasn't just going to kill her – she hadn't just tried to kill her after all – and from her strength and speed, the little one was entirely able to have attacked and even killed the kunoichi when she had rescued her, there had been countless times where she could have attacked her.

It was just a matter of time before she was spotted, even with her chakra hiding their heart beats and most of their other tells in the moment, she had no idea if their scents or chakra itself could be sensed. She didn't know so much about this strange land and internally she was wanting to lash out and pulverize everything in sheer frustration. She was beginning to think she was the only human in this land, anything could happen that could give her away and apparently this man was a hunter. Judging from the mans watchful posture, Sakura could tell that they weren't out of danger 'I'm not even sure if this little one is even a child…those teeth and eyes…her strength…I'm gonna have bruises from her pushing me, and I knew she wasn't using her full strength.' Thoughts whirling, Sakura froze. At least they were more or less clean now, though wet and cold. 'Okay. Get out. Find shelter. Grill the girl. First up is get away.' Picking up Lizzie using movements designed to not draw attention, the ninja girl shifted some of her chakra to gag the child with a bit of her dress, then shuffled the limp weight to her back, using her energy as well to toe her back to back with Sakura. The last thing she wanted was to have the girl wake up with her fangs near her jugular, even with a gag in her mouth.

From there, the woman took a chance. Standing up out of the brush, she jumped for a thick branch a meter or so away, caught it and swung up into the trees where she could run faster. Then she was off like a shot, heading west towards some higher ground.

Alucard spotted her instantly, having just pinpointed the location just before she stood up. He watched in mild surprise as her form appeared to vanish into the shadows, heading upwards using the branches of the trees in what he would have normally assumed would be a difficult and treacherous route compared to the solid dirt of the ground below. He would never admit it aloud, but the sight of a child-vampire had twinged something in him. Children were always difficult creatures as humans, when they were Turned, often in or during a nasty invasion by another vampire, they were generally twisted, evil creatures who nearly always lost their ability to contain their human-like forms for very long. That meant he needed to remove her from the pink-haired woman as soon as possible or else Integra would be very pissed off. To be brutally honest, he really didn't care about the child, it wasn't one of his own creations and though he could entirely see the uses for such a creature, Integra had violently opposed the idea in the past to use orphans for this purpose, even though many more of them were virginal, able to be turned and his control over them would be impeccable, unlike how this creature appeared to be. All that mattered now was that he was temporarily free to do nearly as he wished. So long as he returned within two days to the mansion and had dealt with the problem of the village before he returned everything would be fine. Considering the whole village was gone now, he was almost entirely free to track these two odd creatures. Alucard, in all his many, many years, had never seen all-pink hair like that of the woman he was now after. 'I wonder if she tastes as sweet as she looks...' Somewhere in his mind, he realized what it was he had been thinking and slowed his pursuit a bit, frowning slightly in thought. 'A full moon tonight...must be affecting my thoughts more than normal, in ways I am not fully certain of...Perhaps death is the better option for the two.' No longer hesitating, the vampire slid into the shadows once more in pursuit of the two.

Two hours later...

It was nearly dawn, and he was having too much fun to simply end the game now. Over the last couple of hours Alucard had figured out that the woman who ran, not the child, was the one he was after most. Not out of any sort of sexual reason - he'd given inclination that up decades ago - but for curiosity. The woman had a strange scent to her, whenever he'd managed to catch it with his nose. Cinnamon and cherries, sweet but spicy at the same time, and it piqued his interest further into who she was. Most humans smelled like walking bags of perfume or cologne, deodorant or just plain unwashed bodies underneath the ever-present scent of their individual blood, which also contained its own fragrance depending on how much care the person took of themselves. An obese person with a penchant for alcohol may smell like the bourbon that they like, with undertones of spicy O negative whereas a thin person with an addiction to Heroin may smell like rancid milk and old socks under the flowery aroma of AB positive blood. Depending on the type of person, their health and habits, sometimes Alucard may at times find a rare human who had a decent body scent under their blood scent...yet he had never smelled blood and humans together as cherries and cinnamon of all things. He was very curious as to which was the body scent, and which was the blood.

At times he'd been nearly close enough to touch her, the odd cloaking ability she had seemed to have worn off slowly over the course of their chase, so at first, he was considering the idea that she was on drugs of some kind, or some sort of new technology was aiding her. A slightly closer look revealed the latter option to be impossible unless she had the tech embedded inside of her 'Those clothes certainly do not leave anything to the imagination.' He never got too close, enjoying his freedom more so than the chase, even more so than his interest in the two, and let them run. Her speed, obvious strength and the sheer endurance alone would have had him preparing to bring her back to headquarters, but the uncanny way she seemed to slip in and out of his perception was intriguing, and in many ways the vampire was testing her. Only one thing made him stop the chase, that was the sunlight. The blasted sun was going to be coming up in less than an hour now and he had no coffin, no basement or shelter to take cover in yet. So, reluctantly, Alucard stopped following them as they passed through a tiny glade close to the mountains in order to prepare his shelter for the daylight. Her complicated, fascinating scent, and that faintly diseased smell of the child vampire, was still with him as he began to prepare for the day.

He would end this game upon awakening.

It wasn't easy to keep up the pace, and with everything else that had happened before he had shown up Sakura was starting to tire faster than she normally did. For two hours the creature had been following them, and she'd had to use some force in order to make the child-creature-thing fall unconscious again twice over the run. 'She's not going to be happy when she wakes up I think...' The only way she knew to find this man, who appeared as though he had an ability similar to Orochimaru's in that he seemed able to hide and travel in the shadows, was a certain blankness in the darkness around her. She'd catch a glimpse of him every time she went to slow down or stopped for a second just to catch her breath. The fact that he could stalk her at such heights and speed was terrifying, and it took every bit of her training to stamp that fear down. Lady Tsunade and so many of her teachers had taught her the need for moving past fear when on a mission, not so much that one became foolish like Naruto, who seemed to have no sense of fear whatsoever ninety percent of the time, but enough so that she was able to think and function to survive. As soon as she began to slow for the last time, she was a good kilometer away from where she had sensed him last, near the base of what was apparently a small mountain of steep hills and cliffs. She now had no idea where she was, and with the sky beginning to lighten slowly as the sun began to rise, the woman sought some form of defensible shelter. Her run had nearly dried her off, but the child...creature, was still soaking wet in her thicker fabric dress and long hair. Sakura had no clue if the kid was able to catch a cold or chill but didn't want to risk it. The child might have answers she could use to get an idea as to where in the world she was.

Finding a small cave just barely big enough for the two of them, made from solid stone that didn't crumble when she touched it, the pink hired kunoichi settled into it, moving fast but silent in order to find the driest twigs and sticks she could. The kid had awakened shortly after Sakura had found the cave and after a quick, quiet word the kunoichi set her down in the farther part of it away from the rising sun. Lizzie watched as Sakura got a tiny fire going, just big enough to offer some warmth without too much smoke. Once that was over, and shaking like a cut cat now that her adrenaline was fading, along with close to the last of her chakra reserves. As a medical ninja, the young woman knew she was finally dealing with the shock of everything that had been going on, and there was literally nothing she could really do about except let her body sort itself out with the shakes, possible vomiting, nausea and/or heart palpitations if her body so chose. She could control her own heart rate to a certain extent, which was fine, but was not looking forward to the other stuff. Instead of sitting down, the kunoichi sort of...collapsed in a heap on the cavern floor. Lizzie looked at the human in front of her and tried to get closer, only to squeal as a shaft of sunlight almost immediately raised red welts along the back of her hand. The pain was enough to send the little girl scrambling backwards to the back of the cavern where she looked at Sakura...then burst into tears.

She was too young to know what she had been turned into, and didn't seem to understand what was wrong with everything. The push she'd given to Sakura in the pond earlier had been purely reactionary; Lizzie hadn't known what was happening when she'd heard the gunshot, but her body had and reacted accordingly to avoid injury. Having seen the scenario play out, watching as Lizzie scrambled backwards, and having realized that the quiet sniffles and nearly-silent sobs were coming from a child who was, if not human, then certainly still just a child, Sakura sighed. Edging over carefully when her legs proved nearly useless now that she was in full-blown shock, the young woman moved closer into the dark of the cave and tugged the little one into her arms, rocking the both of them a bit awkwardly as Lizzie sobbed.

Having no idea what was going on, Sakura took many deep breaths over the course of the morning as the two settled down slowly. So many thoughts went through her mind, and as the child dropped into what could have only been described as a coma, the human was left to consider everything and make a plan of action.

'So. Stinking creatures that move around and look like rotting corpses. They explode if I inject chakra into them. Disgusting but good to know I guess.' Using her fingers to think things through, the kunoichi frowned in thought. 'A tall guy in a red outfit with a really big gun, can move through the shadows as fast as I can, or nearly, and who doesn't seem to have any kind of chakra or anything that I can sense, which leaves him as a blank space in my detection...so he's not entirely undetectable. Oh, and he looks like a psychotic killer.' Gritting her teeth in anger at that thought, Sakura scowled and finally got to her feet again. Hunching a bit as she shuffled closer to the back of the small cave where wind and old storms had shoved leaves and finer detritus, she carried the limp body with her, noting the near lack of heartbeat (one beat roughly every ten minutes) and the wound from the sun having healed once the child had fallen unconscious.

Her own body was aching, and she was cold and hungry. She was exhausted and had no idea where she was, or even possibly, when she was. There were too many unknowns and Sakura was on edge...but that would need to wait apparently. She was too tired, and with the adrenaline rush having faded and the shock as well, there was nothing left. The last thing she remembered before passing out beside the little one was the sight of the sunshine making a puddle of almost-warm light on the cave floor about four feet from the entrance.

A little after mid-afternoon her stomach woke her up and Sakura stretched slowly to limber her muscles up after having not moved for a good six hours. It was easy enough to put aside her hunger, it wasn't to the point where she was starving yet though her rations had also been destroyed during her sudden transfer alongside her clothing. In no time, she had the embers from the fire going again with a few twigs and sticks from the pile at the back of the cave and had checked the child over carefully. Lizzie's clothing was dry now, and with the sun slowly beginning to set over the mountain, something about the darkness seemed the best option for her to move Lizzie anyways, since she was apparently extremely light-sensitive. As a medical ninja, she hadn't ever come across a person so sensitive to the sunlight, though there had been records of ninja and regular folks that had that condition. It wasn't a disease, but just how their bodies worked against them with the UV light from the sun, so they burned ridiculously easily. It was a painful condition. She was glad that Lizzie had a fast healing rate apparently, so any injuries were quickly able to be dealt with. Hopefully.

It had been a decent day for hunting at least, two squirrels had run past the cavern, easily picked off by shuriken from her pouch that she had left. Roasting them over the hot coals of the fire once it had burned down enough, Sakura had a small meal and some for the child as well. As the sun set over the mountain, the child woke up and Sakura's suspicions were proven true. 'She can't handle the sunlight, sleeps or becomes comatose somehow, a state of suspended animation perhaps, during the daylight hours and awakens once the sun is down. This is good to know, now I can-' Sakura stopped all thought processes seconds before finishing them just as a flash of red caught her attention across the small open area in front of the cave. Lizzie was sitting up groggily as Sakura stood up slowly, then scrambled to the edge of the cave to hide behind the woman when she sensed the other vampire outside of the cave. Her eyes were noticeably red now, and she couldn't seem to force her fangs into her gums. The child was terrified, but overall felt...hungry.

With the brim of his hat hiding his eyes, though not the sharp nose, pale skin and calm position against the backdrop of the darkened forest, Alucard was watching the cave as the two appeared. He held the Jackal in his hand loosely, but with obvious ability and though Sakura had her kunai in hand, she knew immediately that she was cornered. Choosing the cavern had been a bad idea, and to not move on as soon as possible was proving to be what was most likely a mistake. Lips lifting in a slow and arrogant smirk the vampire spoke first, his eyes blatantly looking over the grown woman, though only with what could possibly be seen as lust. The look he gave her was creepy; a mix of intrigue, calculation, a predatory response to new prey and, perhaps a bit of lust for her figure. "Not a bad place to hide for a day, it's too bad you didn't make it farther."

Eyes narrowing slowly, Sakura watched the vampire with a deadpan expression, not answering him at first. Her ready stance put her in front of him, between him and Lizzie, who had wrapped both arms around her belly instead of Sakura's legs. A faint glow spread slowly, unnoticed, from Sakura's fingertips and up to near her elbow.

Narrowing her eyes, Sakura watched the vampire with a deadpan expression, her ready stance never shifting though a faint glow began to form around her free hand, the light sharpening and lengthening to form a blade of light that enclosed her flesh. It wouldn't cut flesh on its own yet, but it would act much as Kabuto Yakushi's Chakra Scalpel did in slicing the body up internally. She liked to think that her abilities were possibly better than that traitors' ability, though Sakura knew in a fight her better choice of weapon would be to use her strength and kunai, and probably to aim for the more sensitive parts of this man. Alucard on the other hand...had absolutely every intention of bringing the pink haired woman to Integra and killing the child. After all, he couldn't die.

The two adults stared at each other before the vampire spoke again "Move aside girl, the creature is to be disposed of." For him, he spoke pleasantly, even coaxingly. To Sakura, his wording and tone grated on every. Damned. Nerve. Her eyes narrowing further for a moment before she responded with a minute head shake. "No." One word only, but it was enough. Not glancing back when she felt the faint presence of the child behind her, somehow less obvious than she had been yesterday, Sakura muttered quietly "Get on my back Lizzie, and hang on." Her inner fashionista was hollering that the guy was ridiculous for wandering around at night, in the pitch-dark forest wearing sunglasses, but considering his obvious skill in using the giant gun in his hand there wasn't any need to point that out. She barely got the last syllable out before the man was nearly on top of her. Considering how fast she had been moving last night to run, she should have remembered that he appeared to keep up easily with her, she cursed as the gun came up and tapped her lightly on the forehead. "Don't be a fool. The monster will soon become too starved to remain even remotely human, it will tear out your throat without a second thought." Alucard didn't say the words so much as hiss them, amusement gone from his expression at her defiance. He was close enough now that she caught a whiff of his breath that was...unsettling actually. His breath smelled like lavender and rose oil, really weird considering his fangs were very obviously not meant to chow down on fruit and vegetables.

Resisting the urge to back up in case his trigger finger was itchy Sakura growled in frustration. She scowled as her hand came up. The energy-coated hand was razor sharp, truly nasty and when wielded by a medical ninja such as Sakura, the chakra sliced cleaning into the vampire's tissues. The result was that though she appeared to just tap his arm at the elbow and wrist, not so much as bruising his flesh where she touched it...but internally every bit of muscle, sinew, vein and bone, was sliced clean through. As his arm went limp from the elbow down Alucard blinked. He was impressed that she seemed to feel no fear even though he had gotten so close. He was impressed that she seemed to feel no fear even with a gun to her head. He was shocked at what such a... gentle attack, had done to him though. Even a strongman wasn't able to bend his pinky normally (he had tried that back in 1604 or so) and this was...a very odd sensation to have one's own arm be sliced clean in half...with the skin completely intact. As his arm flopped over, taking the gun away from her and the surprise distracted the vampire for a moment, the kunoichi performed a Substitution Jutsu, replacing herself and Lizzie with a bundle of sticks she'd prepared a way off, and the began to run again.

"...Fascinating." Murmuring quietly as he watched her go for a moment, Alucard narrowed his eyes as his flesh began to knit back together. He hadn't been damaged enough to need to 'liquefy' as he'd done before using the shadows when badly damaged. One thing he noticed about this injury was that the pain was nearly nonexistent. As though she had applied anesthetic to it before cutting him internally, he felt nothing from the wound even as it knit back...together...backwards. '...What.'

He had no control over how he healed it apparently. 'Intriguing...so this is a special human indeed...' "Well that was stupid." Grinning cheerily now as the fun escalated; he turned around to catch at her scent, smoky from the now-dead fire in the cave entrance, but with that added lushness that was all hers. Alucards eyes narrowed in anticipation of another good run, another good fight...though this time, the ending would make him the winner. Well, the fight would be fun, but he'd received a call from Integra earlier on in the daylight hours while he was underground, and he'd been instructed to herd the pink haired enigma towards the town of Morganssen. Chuckling as he began to follow the two, his laughter echoing in the still forest,

Six Hours 2 More Bullets Later...

The first bullet after the Substitution Jutsu slammed into Sakura's shoulder, burning hideously as the slug tore through skin, fat, muscle, veins, bones and vice versa, shooting through her so that the slug itself lodged in a tree branch as she sped past on a thick flat branch. The sudden explosion and rich scent of the human's blood had Alucard almost drooling - it smelled so good - even better than Integra's had been after his long imprisonment below the building his master called home.

The pain brought a shout, more like a bark, from Sakura as she stumbled on her next footstep. That turned into a leap that boosted her upwards so quickly that she seemed to vanish. When the ninja disappeared, he assumed she'd fallen from the branches they were all racing across as nimbly and agilely as cats and he paused a moment to look down. Of course, true to her training, the foot smashing into his face proved him wrong when he paused the branch she'd been shot on as she used him like a springboard to bounce to a higher branch just ten or so feet above the original branch.

Bleeding heavily from the shoulder now, her chakra covered hand over the wound trying to close it, Sakura landed on the branch above the one that Alucard had been vacated from forcefully. She watched with cold eyes as the vampire plummeted a few dozen feet before hitting the ground below. Hard. The sound was...crunchy. 'Broken bones. Good, maybe...nope. Shit.' Cursing mentally as the body below lay still for a second then began to move again.

He had a solid print of her foot on his face for a split second before he sat up, sunglasses broken and falling off a broken nose that cracked audibly while it fixed itself. His ribs on the left side popped audibly back into place while both of his femurs and both forearms crunched loudly as they forcefully healed. His jaw popped back into place a split second after all of that and he stood up. "Nice kick. Not as powerful as my gun however; you should try silver plating if you want to hurt me, it's much more painful."

'Oh great...this freak is lecturing me on how to HURT him? He's insane! No... he's smart. Too smart, how'd he manage to NOT hit any of my vitals? Another inch and I'd be bleeding out right now...geeze, he's either really good or I'm just really fucking lucky.' Feeling a strange sensation on the wound in the back part of her shoulder, Sakura didn't take her eyes off of the vampire as she began to move again, quickly racing faster, using her chakra to boost her jumps and running leaps until she wasn't much more than an indistinct blur of peach-tinted speed in the dark.

Her burst of speed was a bit of a farce however; she was losing strength with her blood and the chakra she had only lasted a few more minutes before she couldn't control it any longer. Jumping one last time in an effort to reach a far branch, the kunoichi cussed viciously as her jump proved to be off, and she hit the ground hard on her knees, the internal crunching sound and burst of pain on one telling her she'd just broken her left leg spectacularly.

It wasn't going to be an easy fix, even with her chakra at full capacity. She needed to find rest, food for herself and Lizzie who was still latched onto her back, plus keep them both away from the freak with the gun. 'He's obviously not normal. No one falls from more than a dozen feet and heals in seconds, not even Kakashi or Tsunade. I've never seen anyone pull themselves together like that...he must have some kind of ability since he attached his arm again...the wrong way...is he a ... a smart idiot?'

Leaning sideways, the kunoichi grunted in pain as her leg protested viciously, then reached around in time to feel a small tongue flick out and lick her bloodied hand like a dog licking up water. More than a little dizzy and in too much pain to be fully coherent now, Sakura let out a yell that startled the demon-child enough to make her stop licking at the blood flowing from the kunoichi's shoulder. With a sharp shove, the vampire child slammed her small hands onto Sakura's back in a move that sent her sprawling with a sharp yelp of agony as the little vampire sprang backwards.

Landing on her feet a few paces away, Elizabeth finally revealed her new form to Sakura. Her face was…lined, as though she were drying out slowly from the inside. Her eyes were burning red coals in sunken sockets, and her fangs were much too large for her mouth as she opened her mouth to breathe in the scent of Sakura's blood greedily. Her expression flickered between bloodlust and terror for a few seconds before settling into a look that made the kunoichi shudder.

Lizzie wasn't Lizzie any longer. The look she had was disdainful, older and somehow more evil than any expression Sakura had ever seen before. In nearly perfect words, no stuttering or mumbling, the…creature wiped her bloody hands on her dress, staining the already dirty dress with red besides the stuff spattered onto it from the initial gunshot. "Good grief. I knew humans were messy meat-bags, but I'd thought I'd finally found a decent servant. Now that you're too injured to move properly, I suppose I'll need to find a different way to escape that horrible vampire. Too bad really, your blood tastes absolutely amazing." Looking down her nose at the woman on the ground, Elizabeth twisted her lips in disgust and then turned to leave "Have fun with th-"

CRACK!

The gunshot was louder and closer than the one that had gone through her shoulder. Sakura watched as one side of the tiny child-vampire's head exploded from the shot. A small hole at her other temple the only indication of an entry wound. Elizabeth didn't even have time to blink before she died. As the body slowly slumped over, knees buckling until it hit the ground and began to turn to dust, Sakura looked over to see the tall, red figure striding forward through grey tunnel vision. "Well now. You made it much farther than expected. My master will be happy with this assignment having been completed."

Holstering his gun, the third and final bullet for the night having been fired, Alucard stooped and picked up the now unconscious, delicious smelling human woman from the ground as she passed out entirely. Tsk'ing under his breath, Alucard shook his head at human frailty, their useless strength and their completely naïve trust in anything seemingly young. For some reason he couldn't help but glance down several times at the unconscious figure in his arms as he strode the thousand or so feet to the edge of the forest and a highway where a military troop awaited orders. She never would have escaped them, even if she had been able to keep running.

And that's chapter 4! Hope you guys like it! :)

Guest 1 & 2: Thanks so much for your support guys!

9tailedspartan: It IS a pretty odd language, English seems to be one of the worst languages to learn actually, since it's got so many root languages associated to the common English we know today. At least with y'all most folks know it means you all XD