Author's Note: AH! I finally finished another chapter! Aren't you guys proud of me? Sorry it took so long though. I'm a little out there now-a-days. Anyway, read and refer for me, all right?
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Naruto characters. The belong to Kishimoto-sama, although I do own Hana, Sayuri, Kyo and Ryu, okay?
Chapter Eight
When the Past Meets the Present
I haven't been home in the past few days still, and I wonder whether my dad worries about me or not.
I'm only semi-sure he does.
Kakashi and Sasuke are in a screaming match, and I'm not sure what they're screaming about.
Karin, Suigetsu and Juugo are with them, leaving me completely alone in Sasuke's room.
Why I'm not in mine, I'll never know.
Karin has joined in the yelling, and now Suigetsu has too.
I can hear Juugo, but he's trying to keep his voice quiet and still trying to be heard.
"Just let him come over, Sasuke-kun!" Karin yells, and I don't need to see her to know she's crossing her arms.
"No, Karin!" I hear Sasuke snap, slamming a fist on the table. I hear it break, crumble, just like that. "He's gonna take her away!"
"She's not Hana!" Kakashi yells at him, losing his temper, "Stop acting so selfish!"
Naruto jumps into the conversation too, yelling like them, and I hear somebody walking up the stairs to this room.
"Sakura-chan?" says Hinata, walking in, "Are you okay in here?"
I smile at her. "Of course I am, Hinata-chan," I say, patting the spot on the bed next to me, "Why aren't you with Naruto?"
She sighs as she sits next to me. "When you're with someone for two centuries, you eventually run out of things to talk about."
I nod, like I know what she means even though I really have no idea. "So who's Hana?"
She suddenly tenses and looks at me like I know something I'm not supposed to. "Where did you hear that name?"
"They keep yelling about her downstairs," I shrug, "Who is she?"
Hinata sighs. "It's not my story to tell, Sakura-chan," she tells me,watching my reaction, "I'm of no right to tell you."
I don't notice the yelling downstairs has stopped until Sasuke walks into his room.
He looks at Hinata and she nods back, standing up from the bed, "I'll see you later, Sakura-chan."
I nod at her and smile as Sasuke sits down next to me, his arms behind his head as he leans on the head board.
He watches me and I look at him expectantly.
He sighs and sits up straight. "Somebody's coming to visit us," he tells me.
"Who?" I ask him, tilting my head at him in confusion.
"That's not important," he tells me, shaking his head.
"Who?" I say again and he stays quiet. "Who?"
He looks me straight in the eye, not bothering to read my memories but studying my reaction.
"My parents," he says, but his voice tells me there's more to it.
"And?" I ask, looking at him with an expectant eyebrow.
"My brother."
They stand in front of the door, and I bow politely to them.
"You must be Sakura-chan," his mother says, smiling sweetly at me.
"Yes," I say, nodding, "Nice to meet you, Uchiha-san."
"I'll have none of that," she tells me, waving it off, "Call me Mikoto."
"Mikoto-san?" I offer, confused.
"Mikoto." she says, finally, "And this is my husband, Fugaku."
"It's nice to meet you, Sakura," he says, his eyes stone cold and hard, "Just call me Fugaku."
There's somebody with them, somebody who wasn't in the flashback that Sasuke showed me.
"Hi," I say, smiling, "I'm Sakura."
He looks at me with those eyes. Black and empty, darker than Sasuke's and more devouring than swallowing.
I hold my hand out for him to shake, and I feel Sasuke glare a hole between us.
"Itachi," he says blankly, taking my hand and placing a kiss on my hand, "Nice to meet you, Sakura-chan."
Sasuke's arm grabs my shoulder and pulls me back a bit, just enough to get away from Itachi.
"Nii-san," he greets through gritted teeth.
"Otouto," Itachi nods, still blank.
Sasuke squeezes my arm a little tighter, and I wince a little.
"You're hurting your donor," Itachi tells him, still blank.
Sasuke's hand immediately leaves my shoulder, slightly panicked. "I'm sorry," he mutters quickly and I sigh to myself.
This is gonna be a long night.
"Stop being so tense about it," I scold him, narrowing my eyes, "They've been gone for days."
He sighs, but stops being so tense.
"Speaking of being gone for days," he says, looking at me, "When are you going back home?"
I scoff and roll my eyes at him. "If you want me gone, then just say so."
"I just asked you when," he says, smirking.
I sigh. "Tonight," I tell him, but I don't want to and he knows it.
"Do you want me to drive you?" he asks me, looking at where I am.
"No," I say, shaking my head at him. "I've been gone for weeks. Having you there would make it complicated."
"Don't you want your father to know you're my donor?" he asks me jokingly.
"Oh, now you wanna have a sense of humor."
I stand in front of the door, taking a deep breath and trying to calm my heart rate.
I open it, trying not to find the creaking noise scary. "Daddy?" I call inside, "Are you home?"
"Sakura?" I hear him call from the kitchen, "Are you finally home?"
"Yeah," I say, walking into the same room as him, "Are you--"
I freeze as I look at the knife in his hand, a big slicing knife, like the ones you would use on Thanksgiving to carve turkeys and ham.
"Daddy?" I squeak, my eyes going wide.
"I missed you, Princess," he coos, his voice complete with fatherly tone, "I missed you so much."
"Why are you holding that?" I ask him, sounding as scared as I always have, "What are you doing?"
"You went away for a long time," he tells me, shaking his head as if he disapproves, "Little girls shouldn't be doing stuff like that."
He steps closer to me, and I step back. He goes again, and I back away again.
"You're scaring me," I say, and he grabs my wrist.
"Stop running away from me!" he yells, obviously mad, "You're never gonna leave me again! I love you!"
"Stop it!" I yell, trying to wring my hand away from his grasp, "Stop it!"
He throws me onto the floor, and the blade cuts the outside of my arm. He kicks at me and tries to slash me, and I do everything that can possibly keep hm away from me.
"You won't leave me! Not like your mother did!" His kick gets my head, and everything goes black as I hear glass shatter and a bunch of yells of "Sakura!"
Nothing hurts. This is weird.
I'm not throbbing and in pain, but in a way, I'm not me.
"Hana?" I hear a voice ask, and I turn my head to see Sasuke there.
He's talking to a girl, and I'm breathless when I see her.
She's got long, violet-colored hair and big, sapphire-blue eyes. Like a little doll, or a painting.
"Sasuke-kun," she greets him, smiling.
Wait, Hana?
Her skin is the same color as mine, and we're the same height.
I wonder for a second if Sasuke is showing me all of this.
"Do you have to go?" he asks her, wrapping his arms around her lithe waist and placing his chin on her head.
She responds by wrapping her arms around his shoulders and chuckling. "The village needs me," she says, "And they won't like it very much when they find out I've been hanging out with a vampire all this time."
He pouts. "But I need you too," he says inhaling her scent, and I know what's coming next as he moves all her hair to one shoulder.
He drinks from her, and their grip around each other tightens as he drinks his fill.
This girl is Hana. And she looks exactly like me, except for the hair and eye color.
When he's done, she just kisses him the the lips and she walks out the door. I follow her, trying to see where she'll go next.
She's on her way to a village, taking an empty road through a forest, and immediately, she stops.
"What are you doing here?" she asks aloud, and I wonder who she's talking to.
Sasuke's brother, Itachi, comes out from behind a tree, obviously in hiding.
"Ita-kun," the violet-haired girl says, obviously unfazed.
"Hana-chan," he says, walking up to her, "Have you thought about my question?"
Her eyes are strong and determined, firing up in a way mine never could.
"I answered you the day you asked," she tells him, eyes narrowing, "I love Sasuke-kun, and I will not leave him for you."
"Do you not see what I'm offering you, Hana-chan?!" he growls angrily, grabbing her arm, "I love you! I can give you more than my idiot brother ever could!"
"What's wrong with you, Itachi?" she asks him, tears springing into her eyes, "You loved Sasuke! He's your brother! Why are you acting so selfishly?!"
He slaps her across the face, his eyes now blank and empty. "Because you walked into our lives."
He lifts her arm up the her face, and sprouts claws from his nails.
"This will look like a suicide, Hana-can," he tells her calmly, "You're wrists will be slit, and you'll run out of blood."
He cuts her wrists with his claws, and the blood pours out of them. He's trying to hold himself back from drinking from her and I can tell as his eyes turn ruby red and his fangs grow.
He cuts into her deeper and she screams.
"I love you," he tells her, and just like that, she stops.
And she's not breathing anymore.
He props her up against a tree and makes it look like she cut herself.
And then he leaves.
I wake up, cold sweat sticking to my forehead and I notice almost automatically that I'm at Sasuke's place.
"Sakura?" I hear somebody call, but I can't really tell who it is right now.
"Hinata?" I guess, and the sigh of relief I hear in response proves that I got it right.
"We were so worried about you!" she exclaims, and she hugs me.
I catch her scent automatically, and feel two things prodding at my lower lip.
She smells like sunflowers and rain. Have I noticed that before?
"Oh my," she says, noticing me, "I'll be right back. Just let me call Sasuke."
He walks in a few moments later, and I try not to notice how his throat looks.
He sits on the bed, right next to me, and looks me in the eyes.
I'm afraid that he'll see what I found out about Hana, but he doesn't because he looks at me with great understanding.
My eyes widen and I gasp.
He changed me.
"You're thirsty," he says, even though he doesn't have to confirm it.
"No," I say, shaking my head and backing away from him, "No. I-I'm not."
"You've always been such a bad liar," he says, and he makes the nail of his thumb sprout into a claw.
He drags it along his bottom lip, slicing the flesh open and suffocating me with a rusty, metallic scent.
I feel myself lunge at him, we he falls onto his back on the mattress.
I'm biting at his lower lip, sucking the blood away from him and then the cut is healed.
I'm still thirsty so I make my way down to his pulse, lightly scraping my fangs along his neck.
I bite down and I feel him tense under me.
"Sakura," he says, but his voice comes out in a hushed whisper, "I'm sorry."
I know what he's apologizing for, but I don't know if forgiving him is something I can do.
He's bonded with me and now I'm not even a person anymore. Not really.
Soon, I'm not thirsty anymore and I feel my fangs go back to a normal size.
"You know I don't love you," I tell him apathetically, "But you changed me anyway."
He says nothing and I feel semi-empty. Like a cliche.
"Do you like me because I remind you of Hana?"
Author's Note: Don't you love the smell of suspense? Doesn't it make you feel all tingly inside?
No? Well, it should.
Don't forget to review on your way out!
Tokki Trigger, LAND HO!!
