i. among seas of blood and glass.

tw: blood, gore, violence, character death, etc.
feedback is very much appreciated!

BEFORE

EIGHT MONTHS AGO, almost a week before Christmas, Sakura Haruno's life ended—and it was not in the way you might believe, because she was most certainly not dead. She had never died. Perhaps stepped on its door and knocked, waiting for an answer, only to be pulled away, maybe by an angel, who refused to let her wait and see who opened it.

That 'angel', she knew, had not been an angel, but a demon in disguise.

She just hadn't known it then.

"MY DAD'S GOING TO be pissed when he realizes we won't be home in time for Mom's big pre-Christmas dinner." Naruto Uzumaki slammed his head back against the headrest with an agonized groan. From the passenger seat, deftly stealing a handful of pretzels from a bag sitting in the center console, Sakura watched her best friend—perhaps her best friend in the entire world—despair over his future encounter with his father and, consequently, his mother. "Oh, man, Mom's going to kill me if he doesn't! Sakura, are you sure we really need to take a week-long camping trip? There were murdered people found there, y'know—"

"Yeah, maybe a month ago." She shoved a pretzel into his mouth and took one for herself, resting her feet on the dashboard. She watched him eye her legs warily, about to say something about how if they crashed, her knees were going to impale her chest, but she continued speaking as if she hadn't noticed. "Whoever did it has likely moved on already. And, anyways, aren't you excited? A whole week of nature, no city lights, no smog, just the trees, the sky, and animals in their natural habitat."

"And mosquitos, and snakes, and all other kinds of stuff I really don't want to think about."

"That too, but the trip outweighs the cons."

"... I wish Hinata were here to control you, I can't even stop you from dragging me into your own plans."

Sakura smiled and, with a light laugh, nudged his shoulder with her fist. He took it good naturedly, even feigned pain, one hand slipping across the wheel and jerking them sideways. Though he righted them back on the lane, which was unusually empty and barren, she still felt her heart lurch into her throat. "But you love me, right?"

"Sadly." He sighed. Then, with a mischievous smile, he turned down the faint echoes of his radio so he could speak without interruption. "So, about that guy you've been seeing—"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she sang, trying not to choke on her pretzels, and reached for the music knob. He slapped her hand away and battled her when she reached forward again. "Really, Naruto, it wasn't like it was second date material—"

Naruto almost inhaled his spit when he barked out a disbelieving laugh. "Kankuro, the co-CEO of Sands Holdings, isn't second date material? Sakura! I'd make it second date material for that kind of cash!"

The glare she sent him made his smile wither. "Really? Alright then, you play victim to his ridiculous shifty eyes. If he wasn't sky high the entire night, I'll eat my hat and call it a day." She paused. "Maybe more than high; he looked like he'd been doing some seriously hard drugs. I wouldn't be surprised if he had been seeing two of me. I thought he'd been looking at the waitress…"

"Only you, Sakura." The blonde shook his head mockingly, letting out a ragged sigh. "What's this, the third possible addict that Shikamaru's sent your way?"

"Don't get me started on Shikamaru," she grumbled. Shifting in her seat, she stretched her legs out and reclined the seat back, shoving the remaining pretzels back into the baggie and zipping it closed. Pulling her phone out from under her thigh, she checked her messages and the time, pursing her lips when she found a text from the male in question. She cut it off and tucked it into her bra. "I don't know what his deal is."

Naruto hummed and turned off onto a suspiciously unpaved road off the highway. She peeked at the GPS and found it was the right way to go, but the sudden arrival of trees blocking out every angle of sight made her anxious. If a deer leapt out at them, they would be none the wiser until it was too late. "Me either. Last I heard, Temari had kicked him out of their flat in absolute hysterics. She hasn't spoken to anyone since."

Sakura snorted. Temari was the only good one to come out of that bunch, if she had anything to say about it. Between Kankuro and Gaara, she was run ragged trying to cover up their various scandals (drugs, in Kankuro's case, and for Gaara, most disturbingly, several cases of domestic violence, coupled with vehicular homicide) to keep her family safe. She remembered watching Gaara on the news, his face blank, still covered in blood from the woman who had launched through the windshield and ended up in his car, and say that,"No, he didn't know what happened," and that, no, he "Didn't remember any of it". Despite his therapist's claims of a separate personality disorder, he had ended up with a hefty probation sentence, and enough bribes with the court to pull him out of the deepest of crimes. Without Temari, that entire family would burst into flames and leave nothing but ashes, she had no doubt.

"Did he say anything about it?" She was a notorious gossip—it came with the territory of being twenty-two, virtually a hermit, and living vicariously through others' drama. Naruto, however, was happy to oblige in her less than savory behaviors, if it was docile enough.

"I dunno." He shrugged loosely, the scratchy fabric of his nylon jacket making unpleasant sounds when he moved. She hated that jacket, but he refused to wear anything else. "He seemed almost dazed, y'know? Like he wasn't all there. Fishy, if you ask me, but I haven't seen him since."

Sakura's eyebrows furrowed. "Weird. He didn't even go back home?"

"Not that I know of."

"How do you know that?"

Naruto had the shame to look guilty, if a little proud of himself. "I might have bribed the old lady next door to give me updates when something happened."

"Naruto!" She gasped in mock surprise, slapping his shoulder a little harder than she normally would. He did wince, then, eyes darting to the road to make sure he didn't swerve into the tree line. "How dare you! And Hinata said you would never stoop to my level!"

"Hey… It's pretty interesting when you have nothing else to do." His nose scrunched as if he had remembered something particularly distasteful. "Which is why I think you'll be fascinated to hear—"

"Naruto. What the hell is that?" She sat up in her seat, eyes fixed on the road. Maybe ten or so yards on the gravel flat, as still as a statue, stood a blackish blob, nearly invisible against the dark green of the canopy. She hadn't spotted it until she'd turned her head, coincidentally, the color catching her eye, just too vibrant to be something in the background. As the car idled closer, it didn't move, staring them down—unafraid. "Naruto?"

The car kept going. "Maybe it'll move if we get close enough? Wild animals are afraid of cars."

Closer, closer, and closer—still, it didn't move.

"Naruto, it isn't moving," Sakura warned, reaching for her seatbelt and locking it in place just in case. When she looked over, her eyes gradually widening in fear, she noticed the lack of seatbelt around her friend's hips. He was still driving, unconcerned, not even sparing her a glance. "Naruto!"

"It'll be fine," he reassured her, but his tone was off. It was dull, monotone, and her stomach rolled when she could visibly hear the motor pistons whirring as he increased the gas. The needle ticked up, up, up, until he was hurtling towards the black animal thing at over seventy miles an hour. "Just gotta scare it a little bit."

"Scare it?!" She screeched, reaching for the wheel. His hands didn't budge. It was like trying to rip it out of a statue's fingers. "Naruto, stop! Stop the car, you're scaring me!"

"It'll be fine," he repeated. His eyes, wide and blue, filled with unshed tears. With one hand, he casually rolled down the window, the wind ruffling his hair and making her ears pop. "It'll be fine."

"Naruto!" She screamed, locking eyes with something large, furry, and with impossibly sharp teeth before it was lunging through the window, propelled at an impossible speed against the window frame, fangs digging into the delicate flesh of her best friend's neck. Blood blossomed from the wound and splattered onto the windshield, soaking the faux leather dashboard, and splashing into Sakura's face and eyes. Vicious growling, deep and thunderous, filled the car, still hurtling towards the mass in the middle of the road, the glass slick with vermillion liquid.

There was a sickening thud as the body hit the front of the car, knocking up the hood and shattering the previously pristine glass. Showers of sharp blades nicked Sakura's skin, and she was keenly aware of larger pieces lodging into her belly and arms as she blocked her face from most of it. Then fur and saliva was touching her, all over her, and then pain—searing, impossible pain, as the wheel was nudged by Naruto's head falling forward and across a ditch. There was a moment where Sakura felt like she was flying, teeth boring down into her arm, heart in her stomach, and then they rolled and rolled and rolled, and then she felt bark on her skin, felt it rip at her shoulders and face, felt hair being pulled from her scalp—

A screech of metal, and all was silent.

Warm blood dripped into her mouth and onto her face. The teeth no longer moved in her arm, disappeared as if they had never been there. She watched, vision blurring with blood and trauma, as the twin black masses converged and shifted into taller, lithe shapes, no longer lupine but human, gesturing and—and laughter. What had been so funny, she wondered?

"Naruto," she croaked, reaching for him instinctively. Her knuckles dragged against the roof (upside down, she realized belatedly) and glass rained down at the movement, plinking off the frame. Her fingers met soft yellow locks and a nauseating gush of blood. "Naruto, we… You need to get up…"

He didn't answer her.

Sakura fumbled for her seatbelt. She needed to help him—had to pull him out somehow. She unlatched it and fell to the roof, her scalp splitting open on the edge of the torn frame, and she winced, putting her hand up and feeling for the wound. When she pulled her fingers away, they came away bloody. She swallowed the bile in her throat and reached for her friend, only to pause when she pulled his shoulders back to reach the seat buttons. Brain matter sloughed from his skull, impacted by the steering wheel and a long, thick branch that protruded through his temple and out through the side of his neck.

"I—what—"

"One's alive!" A man's shout reached her ears, the same one that had been laughing. She ignored it in favor of staring at the piece of brain that had fallen to the grass peeking through the car window, dousing the green strands in red, as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world, except it made her lunch crawl up the back of her throat. "I thought we'd killed them, for sure."

"Resilient, of course. As always." A sigh, then a ponderous noise, followed by a long, spine rattling howl. It made ice creep up her spine when she heard it, her eyes finally pulling from Naruto to the bare and bloody feet standing just outside the passenger door. "And there they are. Let's get going."

A pause. "You aren't going to kill her?"

"No." She heard a derisive click of the tongue. "Come, boy. Let the mutts clean up the rest."

Sakura listened to them leave, their footsteps growing fainter and fainter until she couldn't hear them at all, and when she was certain they were gone, began to worm her way out of the window. She could feel her skin catch on the glass shards, but she was too far gone to care about it now; the adrenaline was wearing off. She needed to find her phone, to call for help, and maybe then she could figure out—

"What do we have here?" When she looked up, lemon yellow eyes regarded her with an immense measure of curiosity, but not of the curious type—this was positively malicious, dragging her lunch out of her belly. She vomited into the grass, unaware of the thin, pale hands pushing her hair back from her face. "Well, isn't this interesting?"

"Alpha?" There was a strange shuffling sound that she didn't immediately register as shoes against gravel. "What do we do?"

The man before her ignored the question. "Who are you?"

She wiped her mouth with her hand. It came away bloody, streaked with pretzel grounds, and she collapsed onto the ground, those strange fingers dragging across her cheek as she rolled to her back.

"Well?" He pressed, amused.

What was so funny?

"Sakura," she mumbled, squinting at the sky. It was so bright, and she was so tired. "Sak…"

"Sakura," the man tested, her name rolling of his tongue. "Very good. Hello, Sakura. My name is Orochimaru."

She closed her eyes and drowned in a sea of blood.