There's a vampire over Sakura's bed. The way his fangs met her skin, the way his acid canines melt her skin, the way he rips off the skin. She is all bloody, all nausea, all nerves and all madness. She is being eaten alive, devoured away by a vampire. A monster. The fangs of the man reach once again, but this time, it hurts severely differently — he grabs a tiny bit of flesh, and then, mere seconds apart, he steals the skin. He chews it off.

There's a muffled scream alongside the lines of "help me" and "I'm sorry", but damned is the child because Sakura is useless. It begs, it begs, it begs, and it's kind of nauseating because Sakura is a doctor and doctors serve and they do help and then why is she not doing so? The doctor inside Sakura begs, fights, claws tight against her ribcage. Do something. Do something. I'm sorry. That's the quiet answer. Uncontrollable. A scream bust her lips too, and then the vampire is also on her skin but then he is not a vampire and so why is he on her neck?

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It makes her go blind, sick, terrified in the heart. The other girl, dead. Soon, she'll be kissing holy ground too. She was way too weak, emotional, twisted in the core and in the heart and in the mind. Her breath fails her. It hurts. It hurts. Blackout. No happy endings for this story.

There are flickers of violence. Gore. Go, go, and when someone has a busted head and then you taste brains in your tongue. How does it hurt this much? With nothing left to say, nothing left to understand and nothing left to yell, how much can it hurt? But it hurts. It hurts the way your skin melts off and the meat becomes putrid and you go down and heartbroken and it hurts. It hurts the way gore haunts someone after the war and it hurts the way you deserved better, but hey, did as wanted and not as told and then you can guess what happened later.

It's raining, thunder creeping at the ears. And it's fucking painful. It's white-hot pain and it reassembled snow, the thing is, there is no snow. Snowflakes should have dance. The shimmering blanket of harm stings on Sakura. It hurts. It's cold and it burns on your skin. It's December. It's Sunday. What does it even matter? It was December and it was Sunday and then what else does it matter to look at each other if you're blind and you're dead and you're insane, what else does it matter if Sakura crosses her fingers if the world is still unfair and it won't change and what does it matter who they once were? Left on a bench, but now it's hot and that time was hot and now she is nearly dead but oh, wasn't she nearly dead then too.

The flickers dance across her eyes, the white goes wild. It smells like sanitizer and you can clearly hear the commands and the sparks of people way too busy to catch a breath. It is the hospital, Sakura realises. It's okay, it's okay. Don't get too stressed, she tries to say to the nurse at her side, it will be quick. Is she a doctor? Is she hallucinating herself into one appointment? Is she dying? Is she wishing to do so? Is she having a reprise?

She is tired. She hears someone gasp, and she swears she hears someone she knows, but so be it. She is tired. Tired. Tired. She wants to sleep.

There's a vampire over Sakura's bed. He is feeding off her, chewing her pale skin and it hurts because it's natural, it should hurt, but she has grown accustomed to it. Defeat nowadays has her signatures all printed, spread over it. She was weak. She is weak. There's a vampire over Sakura's bed. He drinks from her neck and savours her blood, and soon, he is hugging her neck. He says mine, mine, mine. And she nods and nods and nods. Yours, yours, yours. Greedy are the hands of pain once they attempt to reach at the back of her head.

She aches. The vampire, dark eyes and dark hair but hot crimson eyes dripped on her, as some sort of watery little thing. He is not, of course, by any means, a little thing. But she is intoxicated by him. Right there, dying under him, it feels right. It feels delicious. It feels good and she just gives in.

"Her pulse is rising again!"

Except she doesn't not give in this time. It feels hot, sticky, accusatory in the skin and it prickles. It feels uncomfortable, rather unamusing. It feels maddening and it hurts and it somehow dwells in her skin. She gets up as fast as she can, but the lights make her go dizzy and they put forceful hands over her, trying to hold her down.

Her left arm starts aching. It feels tingling and then it goes numb, a fast path walked towards her left leg. It doesn't exactly hurt, it's much more a kind of numbness. It makes her uncomfortable, still, so she tries to shrug it off.

Someone else orders. Let me do, let me do. Sakura agrees. Let her do. It feels and sounds and looks blurry.

"Sakura, Sakura," the stern voice says. "Can you hear me?"

Silence.

"Sakura, can you hear me?"

There's a vampire over Sakura's bed. And she attacks him.

Sakura feels strands of her hair, of her sanity, of her well being slipping away while she brutally grabs the vampire. It's a woman, after all. It doesn't matter, really, because she is dark-haired and kind and light and the figure over her was nothing but broody and dark. Sakura fears. These things change fast, she realises. She grabs the woman by the collar, and once her hands steals the frail neck of the vampire, she squeezes it. It feels right. The numbness just won't go away. She squeezes. She squeezes so hard she can hear and see the strand of life falling from her frame as if she were slowly being deconstructed. Her body aches and her neck feels hot and stuffy.

"Sakura, Sakura!" a voice desperately calls.

What, what? She tries to say. What, what? She thinks. She is too busy choking the woman in front of her. Divine justice. Soon, her hands go fully white by the strong grip and people are petrified to interfere. She cries, desperate. Just die. Just die. Please, just die. She cries and she begs.

A second vampire gets in. Her skin feels weird, kind of itchy. Blonde and tall and gorgeous and everything a vampire it is; she even has that mystic shade of purple it looks so good on her. Is she crying? Sakura is doing so. Not two steps ahead and closer to her, she brutally squeezes one last time the poor neck of the vampire woman, almost making it snap. Then she pushes her away with violent impetu, and she quickly lands her feet in the ground and her hands over the neck of the other vampire. She pushes her farther and farther and then, she hears it. BAAM. The head of the vampire has struck, full force against the cold and harsh window's glass. She shakes her a second time and a third one and every time hits her roughly against the glass.

It feels eternal. Soon, shinobis are entering, scared and perplexed. Sakura finds annoyance in their perplexed state. Yeah, vampires are tough and terrifying, but someone must do the dirty work and if Sakura is the one then she is the one. The moonlight shines against them, the open curtains making it all much easier to see the clear pale light. It's dark, in the night, but is natural because vampires only live and attack and die at night.

She feels scratches, the vampire, desperate attempts to hurt her. It does little to ease Sakura's madness. They hurt, and are painfully obvious, but she just can't stop. How could she? Left on a bench that night but lucky she was when he left because only through pain and enduring you can achieve, you can become. She can't risk it. It hurts. But she has to keep through because what will be of the other poor kids? Vampires suck, life, breath, love, maybe humanity because Sakura knows that's what she lacks.

And a vampire has killed another poor kid. Oh, Sakura, repent. Oh, Sakura, it's all your fault. And he whistles, unamused, by my hand it comes your forgiveness and by my hand comes to strip it. Lucky Sakura. She is alive. And she will avenge the poor kid.

She hears a thud. They are on the floor, Sakura mercilessly banging the head of the gorgeous blonde vampire on the ground, squeezing her neck. It feels unnatural, cruel, inhuman, but she has been bitten, so it's normal. Vampires lack the humanity she once craved so much. She was never good enough, never enough, but at least she was human — now, vampire in the flesh and in the rotten mind, oh Sakura, beautiful terrible thing you have become.

She hears the slow and sensual whisper. A callous hand caressing her pink strands, touching her pale face. It feels like a melody. And then it goes:

"Oh you, you beautiful thing; you, beautiful thing; you, beautiful thing, you," and she goes inhuman, "terrible thing."

She is now a vampire. A vampire, because otherwise how would she be able to mercilessly steal the breath away from someone?

A quick and painful thud hits her. She can sense blood drawing from it, quite painful in the moment. Soon, she is tackled. She is being held, caged, brutally held captive between the arms of someone and she gets restless. She kicks and screams, terrified. It hurts. She soon hears gruesomeness: craaack, and she can bet on two broken bones. Losing the last strands of self-control, oh, you terrible thing, have gone mad. Her leg just won't stop itching, and it's starting to hurt. Still, she fights, screams and cries and begs.

"Shhh, Sakura," a male voice coos, trying to soothe her.

How the fuck was he not in insufferable pain that blinded him?!

It's Shikamaru, who holds her tightly, hugging her with intensity, caging her. They are also on the ground, with Sakura fighting and trembling and crying. The shinobis all stare, petrified of the student of the former Hokage, too caught up on the outburst of Sakura to dare to move any step closer.

"Sakura, Sakura!" he warns her, angry and desperate. "Sakura," he coos, trying to calm her. "Everything is okay, everything is okay."

There is blood, all the leftovers.

The vampire laughs. He bends down to reach her, and when he kisses her, not hungrily and not out of lust but out of possessiveness. His whispers become a lullaby, mad is the man on the moon and tired is Sakura.

His lullaby is not tired, though. He scolds her, you have lost self-control, that's not how vampires work.

"Oh you, you, terrible thing; you, terrible thing; you, terrible thing you; terrible thing, you," he scolds her, just like when parents scold their kids, all angry but too soft, "beautiful thing, you; beautiful thing, you; beautiful thing, you; beautiful thing, you."

Sakura gets lost, maddened in the heart and too caught up in fists and being strangled by a man and terrified and twisted and sick in the heart. His voice coos her, it feels delightful, creamy, it dances across your ears and travels for your spine, making her go lost and beloved and sticky and bewitched, drunk in ecstasy.

"TERRIBLE THING, YOU!" he angrily scolds her, shouting at Sakura, lost in ecstasy. "Terrible thing you; terrible thing; you, terrible thing you…!"

Sakura cries.

"... You, beautiful thing."

Oh, you beautiful thing.

Oh, are you catching up with the game?


I can guarantee you that ever since last episode was published, I haven't stopped writing (and much before first episode was even published), but mere twelve hours apart from publishing it something happened; something that changed my life forever. It's truly painful and made me change the story from its original main plot COMPLETELY, and I've always been more of the cynical type, mind you, so I hope you start to get used to this story containing some irking descriptions.

As in this episode, don't give up on it yet, and let me give you a clue: don't ignore big things for obvious nor small things for irrelevant. I'd suggest you to give a second reading to the story, truly, and don't get anxious, things are gonna get in movement soon, and oh boy... And for those two wonderful persons that saved my story and even liked it, BIG THANKS, you were truly one of the main reasons for me to keep going on. Expect third chapter soon!