Chapter One
"Hah! You can't catch me!" A pink haired girl ducked below the arm of her caretaker, and made a break for the cliff overlooking the sea.
"Hime-sama, get back here right this instant! Sachiko-hime!"
Sachiko ignored the calls of her caretaker and dove off the edge of the cliff. With a burst of chakra, large, feathered wings erupted from the matching tattoos on her back and she caught an updraft that lifted her into the sky.
She glanced back only once at the enormous island floating in the sky that she called home. Her caretaker was struggling to keep up with her flight, not having the speed or maneuverability that she did.
Sachiko soared fast towards the land attached to the sea, her wings only beating when she realized that she was not quite high enough to clear the trees.
Her wings shimmered in the morning light, the pastel pink and blue hues catching in the light. She would have been clearly noticed by those on the ground, had they not already been engaged in battle with each other.
On the ground, a blue haired girl around her own age stood defensively in front of two boys who had been defeated and now lay unconscious. One hand clutching her side and the other holding a kunai, she glared fiercely at the five larger shinobi that were advancing on her.
Sachiko had never been one to sit back idly and watch things happen, and so she changed course and dove down sharply like a bird of prey that had caught sight of its next meal.
Barely fifteen feet from the ground, she tucked her wings close against her back and fell the rest of the way, landing in a graceful crouch in front of the blue haired girl. She rose to her feet and gave the advancing shinobi a feral grin.
Behind her, the girl gasped in surprise and stumbled backwards. "An angel…?" Her awed whisper barely reached Sachiko's ears.
Sachiko could not help but blush, and she glanced back with a smile. She had forgotten that she was still wearing the jewels that denoted her rank. "Put your hand back on that injury, okay?"
She turned her attention back to the shinobi in front of them and placed her hands on her hips. "Are you sure you're ready to face the crown princess of the skies in battle?" Even if they said no, she knew she would have to kill them now because they had seen her wings. No one would believe the blue haired girl if she claimed to have seen a girl with wings, but five shinobi was another story.
Whatever shock the five shinobi had felt didn't show, because a moment later they all, except for one, vanished into puffs of smoke to hiding places nearby so that they could watch the girl.
Sachiko focused her attention on the one remaining shinobi in front of her and slowly walked towards him. "I find it deplorable that you would gang up on a couple of shinobi that are clearly not at your skill level. Don't worry, though, because karma is a bitch and I'm here to settle the score." She cracked her knuckles and retrieved a kunai from her pouch.
The battle was over before it even began; Sachiko had struck before the shinobi even had an opportunity to move, her kunai gliding across his throat with practiced ease. Blood splattered across the ground, and Sachiko flipped backwards into the sky to defend the blue-haired girl and her unconscious companions from the other four shinobi that had moved in for the kill.
Sachiko's wings whipped up a powerful gale, sending three of the shinobi flying in separate directions, laced with devastating wounds from the force of her winds. They would not be getting up again.
A handful of shuriken came flying at her from the last remaining shinobi, and she shielded the blue-haired girl and her companions with one wing, while throwing her kunai with deadly accuracy, the blade penetrating the shinobi's throat, while his shuriken burrowed into her wing.
Once she was certain that the enemy shinobi were dead, Sachiko relaxed and plucked the shuriken from her wing, frowning at the large feather that came loose with them. It was only a feather, so she supposed it didn't matter all that much.
"You…" The blue-haired girl spoke finally, and Sachiko turned to face her. "Who are you…?"
"Here's the deal, beautiful, I don't want to kill you for seeing me. So, what's gonna happen is, you're gonna promise to never speak a word of this to anyone, and I'll pretend that I got caught in a tree." She gestured towards the ruffled feathers on the wing she had just pulled the shuriken from. "Deal?"
The blue-haired girl nodded slowly, staring at Sachiko with amber eyes widened in awe. "Deal." She said softly. "Thank you."
Sachiko offered her a grin before she launched herself back into the sky, a few feathers coming loose from her wing and floating down to the spot she had occupied moments before. She glanced back at the girl once before turning back to her home, not wanting her caretaker to catch her too close to the scene she had just left.
For days after that, she thought about the beautiful blue-haired girl she had saved, not realizing that five years later they would meet again under reversed circumstances.
Chains rattled against the cold stone floor as Sachiko was dragged from her tiny cell, light spilling into the room from a single candle.
Sachiko snarled at her captor, shoving him away and standing tall. "I can walk." Her voice was hard as flint, and her eyes colder than the glacier farthest to the north that she had once flown to with her mother.
Even after four years of captivity, she had never lost her pride or her strong will to survive. Even in chains, she walked with dignity, as if she weren't bruised and broken and unable to even free herself.
"Keep acting like that, and you won't be able to for long!" Her captor snarled, shoving her against the wall so hard that her head cracked against the cold stone.
"Just so you know, when I get out of these chains, I'm going to cut your heart out while you're still alive." Sachiko promised, her voice deadly soft as she was shoved down the dark hall, towards whatever new hell was awaiting her.
"Threaten me all you like, you'll never be free of these chains. Doesn't matter which village you get bought by, you'll never be free. What's like to be wanted only for your use as a weapon?" Her captor smirked from beneath his hood.
Sachiko stayed silent, walking with the pride she refused to give up, never showing a trace of her fear or exhaustion. It was all she had left now, and she would be damned if she would let anyone take that from her as well.
They finally came to a door, which opened into a large stage, where other people were all lined up, wearing chains like she was.
The line up ranged of several sorts of people; some were like her, including a little boy that she had been taking care of throughout the duration of her captivity, Kaii, and another older woman, who could hardly use her chakra well enough to summon her wings; the others were assortment of outcasts with strange kekkei genkais, including an Uchiha and a Kaguya.
Many of them were low level shinobi, overwhelmed by the sheer number of rogue nin that had come after them for their unique gifts and talents. Others were merely civilians that had tried to distance themselves from shinobi as much as they could, only to find themselves in the grasp of someone who would sell them for their unique talents.
Sachiko was different. In an attempt to establish themselves among the Five Great Shinobi Countries, her village had proposed a marriage between herself and a high-ranking shinobi from one of the lands, which she could not even remember the name of, in secret. It had been a trick, and the shinobi a liar, who had barely managed to restrain and sell her like some sort of rare animal.
When she spotted the little boy standing on the furthest side of the stage, she made her way over to him, ignoring her captor's protests. She wouldn't be separated from him, no matter how hard they tried to do so.
She stopped next to him and stood still, overlooking the audience, or rather, their potential buyers. Many of the faces in the crowd were ones that she recognized; many of them being previous potential buyers that hadn't found what they wanted in previous sales.
Sachiko knew she didn't have to worry about the familiar faces. If they had wanted something like her, they would've bought her or Kaii the first time.
Several more potential buyers straggled in through the door in the very back of the room, taking their seats. More faces that she didn't recognize, and more chances that she would be separated from Kaii.
"And now, we'll start the bidding." A short woman with perfectly done makeup and a voice as hard as steel spoke as she walked onto the stage. "For the Uchiha, we'll start at fifty thousand ryo."
Sachiko tuned out the sound of the woman's voice as the price went higher and higher, feeling bad for whatever hell the Uchiha was going to go through once he'd been sold. As always, she was more focused on searching for any opportunity to set herself and Kaii free, and the others if she could manage it.
There was never a chance to escape; the place was always too well guarded, and with no access to her chakra, Sachiko lacked her greatest weapon. Her strength, while still impressive, had been drastically cut because of the conditions she'd been kept in, and there were too many enemies to fight with just her fists anyway. Every time, it was a losing battle, and there was very little she could do about it.
A sound caught her attention, the sort of sound that was hard to miss if you weren't hoping to hear that very sound. It was distant, and barely audible over the voices in the room they were situated in, but it sounded very much like an explosion going off somewhere deep within the underground complex they'd been brought to.
Whoever it was, friend or foe, this was Sachiko's opportunity to get Kaii and herself out during the chaos. She just needed to take care not to act too quickly.
By this point, the short woman running the auction had moved down the line past the old woman and a little girl with curiously old eyes, to the Kaguya, who was shaking in his oversized boots.
"We'll start the bid for the Kaguya at two million ryo. Any takers?" The woman spoke flatly, blissfully unaware of the hell that was about to be unleashed on the room and everyone in it.
When the first blast came from directly to their left, debris flying in every direction, Sachiko had already moved, placing herself in front of Kaii to shield him from the flying rubble.
Sachiko awkwardly lifted Kaii into her arms, trying her best to work around the chains that connected her wrists together. "Hold on tight, little one." She whispered, blinking the dust out of her eyes.
Then she made a break for it, moving as quickly as she could with her chained ankles, towards the source of the blast. She knew this was her chance, while the dust was still thick in the air.
She didn't make it very far before her captor noticed what she was up to and tackled her to the ground, one hand grabbing her by the hair, and the other trying to rip Kaii from her arms with little luck.
"Let me go, you son of a bitch!" Sachiko snarled, struggling against his grip as she kept both arms protectively around the scared four year old in her arms. Her snarls grew angrier when her captor yanked her head back enough for her neck to crack painfully, but not enough to break.
Sachiko jammed her elbow backwards into the man's gut, making him loosen his grip just enough for her to wiggle free. She shifted Kaii in her arms and then set him down once they were far enough from their captor, making him walk in front of her.
As the dust settled, she caught sight of the intruders. There were several of them, all belonging to Amegakure. Most of them she didn't recognize, having not had much contact with those outside her own village.
There were two, however, that she recognized from so many years before. The red-haired man that had been unconscious when she'd first seen him was a formidable opponent, and fast. But it was not him that had caught her attention.
Instead, it was the beautiful blue-haired woman that she had saved once upon a time.
hewwo, i suddenly revisited this abandoned idea i'd never posted and rewrote it! idk how long this will be but? i hope you all enjoy it!