Chapter 5

-XXX-

"Get her." Neji ordered everyone else to go after the currently fleeing girl and bring her back, expecting complete obedience from the rest of this household. But apparently the boys have a different take on the matter.

"This is stupid. Just let her do as she pleases." Sasuke sighed and stood up from his chair. He shoved his hands into his pockets with disinterest and made his way towards the staircase leading to the rooms Gaara had left earlier.

"Oh! It's unusual for Sasuke to be this fired up about something!" Naruto said with a laugh, ignoring the murderous looks from the raven haired boy.

"Shut up, dobe." Sasuke objected, but in no mood to argue with the world's most hyperactive vampire.

"I don't like this. I don't know how good or bad her blood is, but she's acting as if she's a high quality product." Neji doesn't like this human girl and has no problem showing it. People without discipline who don't know their place always irritate him to no end.

"I'm out. You guys do as you please." Shikamaru suddenly woke up, and even with too much speed for him, he got up from the couch and headed up to his room.

"What's up with that attitude? You all should learn to have fun for a bit..." Naruto said disappointedly when he saw that his friends didn't share the same joy as he did about the new toy.

"Nuisances should just disappear anyway... But we can't do that now. Make sure the girl doesn't get out first." Neji looked at Naruto and Konohamaru. Neji wouldn't even trust these two guys to do the dishes, but right now they were the only ones who would listen to him and show some activity.

"Teddy, are you listening? Let's cut her up nicely, okay?" Konohamaru said with a mischievous grin and disappeared after his prey in a blink of an eye.

"Oi! Konohamaru! Wait for me, damn it..." Naruto yelped in offense and immediately went after his younger friend, hunting down their new pretty friend.

-XXX-

'I could swear it was here!'

Panting and with tears streaming down her face, Sakura ran to the bottom of the staircase where a crystal chandelier caught her eye as she entered the house. However, her surroundings seemed completely different now. Nowhere did she see the front door she had come in through. Darkness, high ceilings, supporting columns and various labyrinth-like corridors everywhere.

Sakura turned right and ran past a tall window with black curtains. The storm was still making itself known, and Sakura felt increasingly hopeless as she looked out the window.

"I'm pissed off... A delicious feast has just passed before my eyes." Sakura let out a yelp of surprise when she heard Konohamaru's voice behind her. She turned abruptly and her gaze faced the familiar little devil squeezing his cuddly toy in his arms.

"A feast? Don't be ridiculous! I'm a human!" Sakura snapped at the boy, who suddenly went from an angry expression, to putting on a look of absolute disgust.

"Are you making fun of the situation? To us, humans are pretty much food." Konohamaru explained as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

"She's really an idiot, huh?" Konohamaru lowered his eyes and complained to Teddy.

Sakura didn't wait for Teddy to give him an imaginary answer. She ran past Konohamaru and ran down the hallway away from him. Something about this boy worried her, even if he was just a kid.

'I mean, it's a vampire kid, for crying out loud!'

…

Sakura continued running down the corridor, which was still the same in appearance, just winding.

"Phone!" Sakura saw a rotary dial phone on a cabinet against the wall, right next to a lamp and a old vase. Sakura grabbed a handset and started dialing her father's number.

The phone, however, seemed to be deaf. Could it be that the phone wasn't plugged into an outlet? Sakura ran her hands along the cord that suddenly ended in her hand.

'The phone is cut off?!'

"I told you that you wouldn't be needing a phone during your time here, Sakura-chan." Even though Naruto is the most 'friendly' of all the roommates, Sakura still doesn't want to be in his presence. Maybe because he's too friendly and a vampire. Especially that second part.

Sakura put a handset back down and continued running down the hallway. Surprisingly, she found herself back under the crystal chandelier, but this time she noticed the red carpet that led to the massive front door.

Was she so frightened that she hadn't noticed? Sakura felt like this whole house was messing with her sanity and mind. But she would argue over that when she gets out of here. Without hesitation, she ran to the front door that separated her from the outside world and her sense of safety.

'Locked?!'

"Help! Someone help me, please!" She screamed, pounding her fists on the door that kept her locked inside.

There was a thud, and Sakura was startled by the presence of someone else. Someone's hands on either side of her head had just trapped her between these locked door and that person's chest. Sakura immediately turned around and saw the face of someone who was definitely not going to help her open that door.

"Sa...Sasuke-kun... Right?"

"Don't scream and listen." He told her in annoyance. Running all over the house for one human being wasn't his style, so he waited nicely at the door for this girl to run to him herself.

"You can't get away now. You shouldn't have come here in the first place. You don't even know what you've gotten yourself into..." Sasuke said in a lower voice and stared at the girl in front of him.

Sasuke thought about looking away for just a moment and letting this girl get away. For one thing, she's been here for a while and already the whole house is upside down because of her. He doesn't care what happens to her, but it always makes Sasuke pleased when those above have problems. And looking around town for a runaway girl who knows too much and is also a potential sacrificial bride would bring a lot of trouble.

"You're right, I don't know what I've gotten myself into or what's going on here." Sakura replied in return, uncomfortable with the intimacy she was in with the boy. "So you're telling me to stay here and get eaten, or even... get killed?"

Sakura looked at Sasuke in desperation with pleading eyes, as if hoping that Sasuke would actually give her advice and help her out.

'Don't look at me with those eyes...' He ordered this girl in his mind, whose emerald and bright eyes looked at him in hopelessness. Those eyes still held life in them. Something that had disappeared from his own eyes long ago.

Sasuke has to admit that the girl is right. No one in their right mind would willingly put themselves in danger. After all, there are other creatures than mere humans with survival instincts.

Sasuke's brows furrowed at the pressure he felt, but he leaned closer to Sakura and said in a low voice: "Listen, your only option is to remain obediently here. If you leave this house now, they'll find you, bring you back, and at best you'll end up tied up and on the verge of death down in the dungeon." Sasuke honestly doesn't know why he's telling her all this. In his head, he rationalizes this behavior by saying that maybe this girl is the key to getting to him.

Sakura, however, saw his warning as nothing more than another threat. "Let me go, you monster!" She shoved her palms into Sasuke's chest when he was momentarily lost in his own thoughts. When he took a few steps back to regain his balance, she ran away towards the staircase again.

'If I can't make it downstairs, I'll try upstairs.'

-XXX-

Sakura ran up the staircase where the living room was. She had already been here today. This time, however, it was empty. Sakura didn't stop and continued ran up to another floor, and another, and another. Before she knew it, she was on top of this mansion with no way out, only back down.

'Am I in the attic? What now? Should I climb down the eaves? Or hide somewhere?' The first option would probably kill her at this height, so finding a place to hide sounded the most sensible.

First door - locked. Second door - locked. Third door - 'What? Why is there a lock and chain dropped on the floor in front of the door?'

'No time! Don't look a gift horse in the mouth!'

Sakura entered into the room and closed the door behind her. The room was obviously unused and the dust everywhere indicated that this room wasn't even maintained. The table, chairs and bed, in short all the furniture... was covered in sheets.

As she looked around, she noticed that there was jewellery and numerous perfumes on the dressing table. "So there was a woman here at some point."

The closer Sakura walked to the window, the more she felt like her mind was playing tricks on her again. For she saw a woman on the balcony, her back turned to her. But that was impossible. What would she be doing there in dark and in a storm? 'Am I hallucinating now?'

"Hello? Excuse me..."

So many strange things have happened today that Sakura simply doesn't question the fact that the woman behind the window is really standing there. She may not be able to see her face, but she can tell that she has beautiful long blue hair with pink strands in her hair and a dress as black as night, decorated with light blue patterns of stars and moons.

"Madam, excuse me..." Sakura tried to get the woman's attention again, so she knocked gently on the glass door.

….

One turn of her head and one single look into this woman's eyes.

That was all it took for their mutual eye contact to cause an incredible stabbing pain in Sakura's chest. Her heart began to clench, and the pain resembling a hundred needles didn't even allow Sakura to breathe properly.

"It... It hurts. Help..." She tried to breathe, but the pain was too numbing.

The pain continued unabated. Sakura didn't even notice that there was a giant bookcase behind her back before she slammed into it with all her weight and slumped to her knees. Several books fell to the floor under the impact. Luckily most didn't fall on her, but one book landed on her shoulder and fell into her lap.

Sakura held her hands over her heart for a while longer, trying to take deep breaths as the pain slowly began to subside. She glanced over to the window where that unknown woman was standing earlier. However, that woman was already gone.

Sakura instinctively began to look around the room to see if the woman had already entered from the balcony. However, she didn't find the woman anywhere. The only thing that caught Sakura's attention was the book that had caused the minor tingling pain on Sakura's shoulder.

'No, it's not a book. It looks like an old diary. And there's a photograph sticking out of the diary.'

Sakura carefully grabbed the diary and pulled out the photo.

There were two people in the photo, standing in front of the church gate. An elderly man, dressed in the vestments of a priest, holding a little girl with light pink hair and beautiful green eyes.

"Is this... Me?" Sakura could tell at a first glance who the child in the photograph was. However, words cannot explain the confusion that comes from this photo. Why is there a photo of her as a baby in this strange house? What's going on here?

Sakura glanced at the back of the journal she held in her other hand. "Is this father's diary?"

"But how?" Sakura began to read aloud the page where the book had accidentally opened when it fell to the ground.

"Sakura gives me happiness."

"The fact that she is not actually my child means nothing now."

"I am only grateful for this great blessing every day I live."

…

When it seemed to Sakura that nothing more could surprise her today... It gave her a headache. What should she worry about more? The fact that apparently supernatural beings somehow existed? Or the fact that this diary claimed that her father, Kizashi Haruno, was not her father?

"What does this mean? What is my father's diary doing here?" Each word was heavy on her throat.

"Am I not my father's daughter?!" Her tears slowly fell onto the journal page, smearing the ink.

She had no reason not to believe these words. She had gotten to know her father's handwriting very well during her 18 years living with him. She would recognize his handwriting anywhere.

"Of all the rooms, you had to pick this one to enter." … Sakura turned in surprise at the voice. Even through her eyes blurred with tears, she could see very clearly that all the occupants of this house were in the room with her right now.

"This is a room that we have sealed off so no-one may enter. I will have to fit it with a new lock." Neji continued with that broken lock in his hand.

"That's for sure." Naruto confirmed, kneeling down in front of Sakura. "How did you get in here, Sakura-chan?" He cocked his head to the side and looked at her curiously.

"Please stay put; you're my prey." Konohamaru said coldly, standing next to Naruto with his teddy bear. Naruto and Konohamaru seemed to be very close. They always appear together.

"I'm nobody's prey!" Sakura retorted directly. No one's going to play cat and mouse with her. Not anymore.

"Enough excuses." Gaara thrust his fist into the bookcase and more books began to fall on Sakura, who was sitting on the floor. This time on her head as well. Sakura yelped in surprise and hid her head with her hands.

"Oh, you! Not again, Gaara." Naruto said with sympathy. As if he wanted Gaara to stop scaring Sakura.

"Shut up!" Gaara snapped.

Naruto reached out to Sakura and gently grabbed her chin. He turned her head to the side so that her eyes were looking directly into his blue eyes.

"That's the look..." He gently began to wipe away the tears falling into her lap with his other hand. "that gets my juices flowing." He added with a chuckle.

"Do you want to join? What do you say, teme?" Naruto suddenly put on a serious face. Sakura was surprised, because up until now Naruto had only smiled and been creepily nice. The look he was giving her now... That was someone else looking at her.

"Mind your own business, usuratonkachi..." Sasuke replied irritably as he rose from the chair where he had been seated. Like he's lost interest in this whole thing and this girl. Maybe his temper had gotten the better of him, or maybe he didn't want to see what would follow between his friends and that innocent girl. And he certainly wasn't going to share their new victim with the whiny blond.

"I want a taste too." Konohamaru leaned down to Sakura with a plea.

"You have to be fully aware of only one fact. That you will never escape us." Neji's words raced through her head like an unpleasant echo seeping into her brain.

'Never? I'm never leaving this house again?'

"I'll never get out of here, will I?" Sakura asked weakly, to no one in particular. There was so much going on today that her body and mind couldn't handle it anymore. She's so on edge that she feels her body will soon give in and collapse.

"Get straight to the point. Just tell her that if she tries to escape, she's dead. You're prolonging this unnecessarily. What a drag..." Shikamaru reminded Neji. Immediately afterwards, however, he fell silent. Which is not surprising because he was sprawled on the bed the whole time and did not utter a sound.

"Just a little taste, Sakura-chan. Don't worry, I'll be gentle with you." Naruto said, fangs ready above Sakura's neck. Konohamaru didn't wait long and joined Naruto. They were both so close to sinking their sharp fangs into the soft skin of their new victim.

"St...Stop..." She pleaded. "Stop it! Please! Let me go, I'll do anything! Help me, someone!" She screamed hopelessly in the throes of crying. But it seemed that Naruto and Konohamaru weren't going to give up their dinner easily. Only a miracle could save her now.

*CRACK!*

The sound of glass shattering echoed through the room. There was a crash caused by a painting of a landscape falling from the wall, its framed glass shattering into a thousand pieces.

"My bad, I knocked it over."

Sasuke said nonchalantly and slowly made his way to the door, out of the room.

That was the last straw, when Sakura's body gave in to stress, grief and fear all at the same time. The last thing she saw was Sasuke's face before it too fell into darkness and disappeared into the black nothingness of unconsciousness.

'God, if you can hear me... Help me, I beg of you...'

-XXX-

End of Chapter 5