Chapter 29

Slowly things started going back to normal, but there were somethings that remained different. Sakura was rather liked by everyone but now there were a few people who chose to keep their distance and avoided her at all cost. She didn't mind; in fact she preferred it that way. If those closeminded people came up and expressed their concern to her she probably wouldn't be able to control her temper. Out of everything that happened she became more determined to prove the naysayers wrong. There was no reason that she shouldn't be with Sasuke . Sakura had been rather passive all these years and allowed these people to whisper things behind their backs. But she wouldn't tolerate it anymore.

She was just finishing up a shift at the hospital when she finally lost her patience. Sakura's patient was a young hunter who had been gravely injured in the most recent vampire attack. He had deep gashes in his left arm and his chest. His arm had taken the brunt of the attack cutting the flesh all the way down to the bone. He had nearly bled to death before making it to the hospital. Luckily, it looks like he would survive even if he would have some tough rehab ahead of him.

"Poor thing, I'm glad he's going to be alright," Sakura said as she left the patient's room. Someone snorted rudely behind her and she turned around to see one of the other nurses glaring at her with her arms crossed in front of her chest. Her name was Megumi. She was a few years older than Sakura with long dark brown hair. Sakura only knew her as a coworker but she had seemed relatively friendly up until now.

"That's rich coming from you," the other girl sneered.

Sakura was confused. "Why wouldn't I care about a patient?"

"How can you pretend to care about these people when you're fraternizing with the enemy?!"

Sakura was beginning to understand why this girl was seemingly mad at her for no reason. And she wouldn't stand for it. "Sasuke isn't an enemy. He had nothing to do with this. He would never hurt an innocent person."

"That's a lie!" Megumi yelled, attracting the attention of some of the other nurses on duty. "The very existences of monsters like him are what causes innocent people to be hurt and killed. He killed my father when he showed his true colors the night he ran away!"

Now Sakura was getting mad. "That wasn't his fault!"

Megumi laughed bitterly, "How can stand there and say that? He even attacked you. You sound like a girl with an abusive boyfriend. That rabid animal beat your skull in but you eagerly open your legs for him as soon as he comes back."

Normally, Sakura would feel bad for Megumi; it was difficult to lose family. But she wouldn't stand for her placing all the blame on Sasuke. What had happened that night was tragic and she knew that Sasuke felt horrible for what had happened.

"You have the gal to stand here, pretending to care for these people when at night you go home and cater to a monster. It would be better if they were all whipped out. It's good that the thing you were carrying died before it could cause any damage," she shouted.

That was the last straw.

Before the other nurse could react, Sakura had thrown a bone breaking punch to her face. The devastating blow knocked her back into the wall and she had to quickly raise her hands to defend herself from Sakura's assault. Between Sakura's blows she managed to return the attack with a few of her own.

Sakura was pissed. One punch wasn't enough to express how furious she was at her coworker. They exchanged blows and it was clear that Sakura was a much better combatant.

Too soon for Sakura's liking she felt arms wrap around her, pulling her away from the bleeding girl. She fought the people who were restraining her but they kept a tight hold on her not allowing her to escape. There was murmuring and some shouting in the hall but it was all white noise for Sakura. She vaguely heard someone tell her that she was getting sent to the head of the hospital for repercussions. But she didn't care. That girl deserved everything that she got.

While Sakura was being led away the other girl swayed unsteadily on her feet and clutched her bruised and bloodied face. "You're just as barbaric as that thing you call a boyfriend," the injured girl screamed at her. Sakura was about to turn around and yell back but a firm grip on her arm kept her in place. Sakura continued to stew in her rage as she was marched into the office.

She was left alone to wait in the office by herself until they were ready to deal with her. It was extremely rare that they had an internal case involving assault. There might be an occasional crazy patient that tried to swing at a nurse, but it was never two workers fighting.

Sakura knew that she was in trouble and also at risk of losing her job. But even with the severe consequences looming before her she didn't regret throwing the first punch.

When the door opened and quickly slammed again Sakura flinched. She didn't look up when Tsunade sat down at her desk and leafed through the incident report that she brought with her.

"Assaulting a coworker. Minor injuries acquired," Tsunade began to read bits of the report out loud.

"I was provoked," Sakura argued, she knew it was a lame excuse but she couldn't help but try to defend her actions.

Tsunade raised an eyebrow and paused her assessment. "So tell me what happened."

Sakura told her aunt about how the other girl was talking shit about her and Sasuke. Even reenacting the event made Sakura's fist shake in anger.

Tsunade frowned as she began to understand why Sakura reacted the way she did. When she was first informed about the incident she was stunned. While she knew that Sakura had a temper, she also had very good self-control. But now that she was hearing Sakura's side of the story it wasn't a big surprise that the other girl walked away bloodied and bruised.

"While I don't blame you for what happened I still need to punish you accordingly. If I don't they're going to accuse me of favoritism." Tsunade would have probably done the same thing if she were in Sakura's shoes, but unfortunately it happened during work hours and she had to treat her niece like any other employee.

"As much as that other girl deserved it, I'm going to have to suspend you," Tsunade said while massaging the bridge of her nose.

Sakura sighed and hung her head. She knew that she would be punished but that didn't make it any less upsetting. "For how long?"

"A few weeks. But that doesn't mean you're off the hook," Tsunade began to explain, "Since you're now free of your hospital duties you can put in more time at the organization.

Sakura went from docile to alert. "What do you need me to do?" It felt like just the other day she was on light duty but now she was ready to get back into the heat of things.

Tsunade pulled out a different folder from her bag. It was stuffed with multiple papers and files, all the information that they had been gathering so far. Looking at the tattered folder and the bent corners, Sakura could tell that these papers have been looked over many times. "I want you to help me analyze the reports we've received within the last month. I have a feeling that things are about to get really bad. The vampire numbers have been increasing substantially and so have the number of attacks. There has also been an increase in disappearances."

They had been struggling to keep up with the vampire attacks and if they continued to sit there and allow the enemy to make all the moves they would definitely lose.

"Maybe fresh eyes will see something that I've missed. We can't afford to remain stagnant any longer." Tsunade said.

Sakura gripped the folder tightly. She had only been thinking about herself recently and completely ignored the war that had been steadily approaching. Now was the time to put all personal issues behind and focus on the danger ahead.


After she left the hospital she went straight home and began sifting through the papers her aunt had given her. It was mostly a bunch of separate mission reports that seamed unrelated to one another. But by looking at the dates the events were happening more frequently than before.

She ran her hands through her hair frustrated, it was a lot of notes that didn't hold much useful information. The attacks seemed scattered, there was no real pattern to it.

She was so focused on trying to come up with some kind of retaliation plan that she didn't hear the door open.

"You're home early." Sakura jumped when Sasuke came up behind her. He leaned on the table and looked over her shoulder at the mess of papers cluttering the table.

"I got into a little bit of trouble," Sakura said. She began to straighten some of the papers to prolong her answer. "I'm suspended."

Sasuke was shocked. For as long as he could remember Sakura never got into trouble. Of course there was always the small slap on the wrist now and then but never something as huge as a suspension. "What did you do?" he asked.

"I got into a fight with one of the other nurses. A fist fight not just a verbal one," Sakura was ashamed to admit.

Sasuke sighed and shook his head. Sakura had a temper but it was pretty well controlled and normally it was only Naurto who saw the hard end of her fist. He knew there must have been more to her story but he refrained from asking. If she wanted to tell him she would. "So what are you working on?"

Sakura's pushed her shame aside and began to explain. "Tsunade wants to take action against the vampires but she's unsure where to strike. I'm going through all the data we've been able together to hopefully develop a strategy."

Sasuke pulled out a chair and sat next to her. He grasped the closest stack of papers and began to leaf through them. After going through most of the notes the only thing they could conclude was that there was a large number of people going missing in the last few days than the past month. Sasuke mentioned that when he had encountered vampires in the past they had been recruiting people who were desperate for a change in their life.

"But look at some of these missing people," Sakura pointed out, "A lot of them don't seem like the kind that are desperate enough to follow some sketchy character into a dark ally." Some of the people missing were shop owners, people with families, students who had just finished college, and similar others. None of which seemed to be unhappy with their lives. "And there is even an increase in children disappearances. What would they want with children?"

"This is very concerning, but we still don't have any idea where to strike," Sasuke said. "I know this is supposed to be confidential but can we show this to my brother? He's been keeping an eye out for any strange activity and maybe he saw something that the guys who's been doing these reports did."

"Sure. I felt like it's been a while since I saw him anyway," Sakura agreed.

After a simple call Itachi arrived at their home shortly after. Sakura greeted him with a quick hug before they went back to work. They sat around the table messily covered with papers and caught him up on what they had discovered so far. Sasuke could practically see the gears turning in his brother's head.

Once their explanation was complete Itachi pulled a pile of missing persons to him. After flipping through the pages, he pulled out a few of them and placed them on the side. Sakura desperately wanted to ask him what he was doing but she held her tongue, to wanting to disrupt his concentration.

When he was done Itachi picked up the much smaller pile and spread them out. There were only five pages that really stood out to him. "I remember seeing these people," he said.

"Where?!" Sasuke jumped to his feet.

"They were all in a different part of town but when I saw them they were with one or two possible vampires," Itachi recalled.

"Possible? You couldn't tell?" Sasuke asked. Vampires had a rather distinct musty smell. It was hard to tell the difference between normal humans and vampires just by looking at them. But their smell is what made them easy to distinguish to those with a heightened sense of smell.

Itachi shook his head. "It was confusing. I was sure they were vampires but they were out during the day."

That was a new discovery. But it also shouldn't have been much of a surprise since they had already confirmed that they were working with Orochimaru.

"It's not impossible," Sakura said. "Were they doing anything strange when you saw them?"

"Not really. Two of the missing people seemed very nervous when talking with them. The others seemed comfortable, almost confident. If they're using their old methods then they're getting these people on their own by bribing them with something," Itachi said.

But that didn't explain why there were missing children. If they were still collecting adults just fine why would they also start taking in children. When a vampire turns someone, their aging is slowed down immensely. What would be the point in creating child vampires?

"I followed one of them to the older part of town." Itachi pointed to the right side of the map. That part of town consisted of much older buildings that weren't as busy as the newly developed middle and left side of town. "They entered a three-story building here and I didn't follow them any farther. There were other people moving in and out the building so maybe it's some kind of cover."

"That sounds like a good place to check out. At least we have a better lead now." Sakura was very grateful for Itachi. If it wasn't for him they would still be running in circles without any direction. "We can send an assault team to check out the building. They wouldn't have been able to move the entire coven into that spot yet so hopefully we can take out a large number of their resources."

They still had eyes on the outskirts of town where they had found the tunnels. As far as they knew the majority of the vampires were still outside the city.

"Are you going to be coming with is?" Sasuke asked his brother.

Itachi shook his head. "No, I don't think the hunters will be too keen about me suddenly showing up. But I'll be near incase anything goes wrong."

"We can just tell them that you're on our side," Sakura argued, "I'm sure that they would appreciate all the help we can get."

"Not everyone is as accepting as you are," Itachi smiled at her. He truly believed Sakura to be something special. She was open and unprejudiced against any species or person. For what seemed like the hundredth time he thought that his brother was lucky to have found her.

Sakura pouted. He was right. They would probably freak out if Itachi just showed up. Most of them barely tolerated Sasuke.

"Be careful. We don't know what they're hiding in that building," Itachi warned them. He would feel better if he could go with them but they already established that his presence would cause more harm than good.

They had been on the defensive for long enough. It was time for them to finally strike back at their foe.


When Sakura explained what they found to Tsunade she made sure to leave Itachi out of it. Even if she was convinced that her aunt wouldn't care, Itachi preferred to remain unknown. While she spoke with Tsunade, Sasuke and Itachi went back to take a better look at their target location. They wanted to stake out the building during the day just to give them an idea of the number of civilians if any were around and what the general area looked like.

The building Itachi showed them turned out to be a rundown apartment complex. There was some people moving in and out but it didn't look very busy. How were the vampires working out of a place that people frequented? It was going to be difficult to fight without getting innocent people involved, but this was their only lead.

It only took a day for Tsunade to round up a group to raid the building in question. The group was rather large consisting of about 20 people. It would be hard to not to draw attention to themselves with such a large group all armed with knives and guns but they didn't want to be unprepared. There were also more groups waiting in nearby locations that would act as backup as needed.

Sasuke and Sakura, along with all their friends, were in the first group. Many of them were anxious, this could give them an advantage over the vampires or it could go very wrong and many people could get hurt or even lose their lives. There was no room for error.

They began to move in around two in the morning. They wanted to make sure that the rest of the residence of the building were asleep. They managed to break the lock on the front door without raising any alarm.

Everyone spread around the open area of the entrance looking for any kind of clue to give them an idea what the vampires were doing here.

"This is stupid. There's nothing here," one of the men grumbled. More murmurs of frustration began springing up around the group.

"Shut up," Kiba hissed. Just because they couldn't find anything doesn't mean that they should let their guard down. They stifled their grumbles and continued to search.

"Can you smell anything?" Sakura asked looking toward Sasuke and Naruto. Sasuke had opted to stay in human form for the beginning of their raid just in case they came across any civilians.

"There's definitely a weird smell here," Naruto sniffed, "But I can't really pin point where it's coming from."

Sasuke took that as his que. He transformed making the other hunters next to him jump. Some of them backed away quickly while others gripped their weapons. Sasuke ignored their reactions and focused his attention on locating a scent trail. He also didn't notice how his friends glared at the other jumpy hunters. Sasuke claimed to not care about what people thought about him, but his friends were much less tolerant. There were many occasions were Naruto would cause a fuss but it normally didn't end well since the 'demon' was not very welcome amongst their ranks either.

Sasuke lifted his head and began to sniff the air. The vampires scent was covered by the hunters and the other humans that frequent the building but it was still traceable. Locking onto the scent he slowly began to follow it down the hall.

His ears were perked trying to catch any sound that might indicate that their enemy was aware of them. Finally, he tracked the scent trail to the last door. He huffed and tilted his head toward the door, telling the others that the scent was coming from behind the door.

Shikamaru stepped up and tried to pick the lock on the door. Just waiting on some menial task was nerve racking. If anyone, vampire or human, were to show up they would have no place to hide. After a few nail biting seconds, they heard the tumblers move and the lock open. The deadbolt was just as easily disarmed.

"Fuck," Shikamaru cursed. When he tried to open the door it only cracked open a fraction before it was stopped by two chains that were latched on the inside.

Not wanting to wait any longer, Lee gave the door a forceful kick. The settings of the chains broke and the door was slammed open.

"Idiot! We're supposed to be keeping a low profile, not wake the entire building," Tenten hissed at him.

"We're also exposed just standing in the hall," Lee tried to explain.

While the two of them bickered the rest of them filled into the room. It looked like an ordinary apartment with the minimal necessities and furniture. It consisted of a small kitchen, living space, and two rooms. They began to search for anything that would point them in the right direction.

"There's nothing here," one of the men declared after not being able to find anything that was out of place.

"There's got to be something. We're just not looking hard enough," another said.

After being unsuccessful herself, Sakura turned toward Sasuke. They may not be able to see anything suspicious but hopefully Sasuke could smell something.

And she was partially right. Sasuke was trying to pinpoint where the strongest scent of vampire was coming from, but it was harder than he initially expected. Besides just the scent of the party here there was a residual smell of all the other people that had passed through here before. If anything, that proved that there was something going on in this room. If it belonged to one person or family then it would only have a few additional scents, but this apartment was carried the scent of many different people.

After wandering from room to room with his nose hovering close to the ground he stopped in front of a closed door in the bedroom. Sasuke looked over his shoulder to see Sakura behind him. He pawed at the door, signaling her to open it. Sakura nodded and complied to his request. The open door lead them into an empty walk in closet. It was very spacious, with enough room for both her and Sasuke to stand in without crowding each other.

Sakura tilted her head in confusion. This couldn't be right. She stepped inside and began checking the empty shelves. There had to be a reason for Sasuke to point out this room.

"Did you find anything?" Naruto asked and poked his head in.

Sakura stopped her search and turned her head toward him, "No not yet. But Sasuke thinks there's something in this closet." Naruto nodded and stepped forward to help her search.

After a couple steps in Sakura's eyes widened, "Stop!"

Naruto instantly froze midstep. "What?"

"Did you hear that?" she asked.

"Hear what?" Even Sasuke swiveled his ears trying to pick up the noise Sakura was talking about.

Sakura moved next to him. "When you took a step it made a different sound," Sakura explained. She crouched down and began tapping on the floor in different locations with her knuckles.

Naruto didn't really understand what his friend was up to. So, what if this guy had a squeaky floor board. But then he heard it.

When Sakura tapped the ground for a fifth time it made a different sound. It wasn't a creek like Naruto suspected but a lighter sound. A hollow sound. He kneeled down next to her and began examining the floor with her.

After crawling around on the floor Sakura found a lose board along the side wall that lifted up. Beneath the board was a metal ring. With Naruto's help they pulled on the heavy ring that turned out to be attached to a chain. Their tugging pulled up a panel of boards to reveal a hidden passage way. It was a flight of stairs that moved farther underground.