A/N: THANK YOU to all of you who fav, follow, or review this story! You guys keep me going. :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

XXX

He looked just the same as if he'd walked right out of my textbook. As if I could run my finger over his face and it would feel like the flat surface of a piece of paper.

The planes of his face danced with the shadows of the flickering flames. His eyes hard and unwavering as he stared into my own.

My knees shook and I slid down on them to the floor. Hands shaking, I brought them up to my mouth, to cover my lips lightly.

"How…" I whispered, barely able to get the sound to come out.

He remained standing, staring down at me. His face an unreadable mask.

This couldn't be real. This wasn't possible.

No.

"What are you doing here?" his voice came out fast, breathy. He appeared calm, though his eyes had changed from a blankness to comprehension.

He knew who I was. He'd met me before. Many years ago, when I was still a young girl.

He took a step towards me, causing my eyes to focus on his dark boots. They stayed glued there, unable to look back into his eyes.

"Sakura," his voice was quiet, smooth through the air. "What are you doing here?" he repeated his question.

There was no way the voice from my memories was Sasuke Uchiha.

His hand came into view, and I flinched away from it, almost completely falling backwards, but I was able to dig my heel harshly into the ground to stop it from happening.

I gritted my teeth together, refusing to speak.

His hands gripped my shoulders, and I wanted to shove out of his grasp, but he didn't let me do so.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said.

The sadness in his voice had me look up, made me need to see his expression.

I know, I wanted to say, but still couldn't find my voice.

He kept his grip on me and brought us back up to a standing position. His eyes held mind, as dark as the forest in my dream was, pulling me in and holding me there.

"Help me understand," he pleaded, his eyebrows knit together.

And I saw them then, in the parting of his lips laced through his words, were fangs.

It was easy for me to put the impossibility of him being alive to the back of my mind when I wasn't really looking at him. But now, it was staring at me straight in the face. As if he recognized what my gaze was focusing on, the fangs in his mouth retracted, replaced by a normal set of teeth, and then he closed his mouth in a grim line.

Sasuke Uchiha really was a vampire.

How did the village get that wrong? Maybe they knew all along, and gave us a different history. I didn't want to think on the components of that.

"I…" What could I say? Years I'd been wondering as to how it would feel if I were to ever know the owner of the voice, and now that I was at that point I had no idea what to do with the information given to me.

"You found her!" Suigetsu came rushing into the hall behind Sasuke. He was relieved at the sight of us, but then when he looked at Sasuke's expression, he stopped completely.

I was glad for not being able to see it as he'd turned away from me, it must have been truly terrifying based on the way Suigetsu looked like he wanted to run away and keep on running.

"What have you done?" Sasuke's voice came out even with an undercurrent of cruelty. His arms brought me in closer to his side, though I wasn't sure if he knew he was even doing it.

Suigetsu brought his hands up before his body and waved them a few times. "Hold on, hold on. Don't kill me before you hear me out!"

Sasuke didn't reply, so Suigetsu took that as his moment to explain.

"When I heard her name was Sakura, I just acted." His eyes danced over my face before looking back at the angry male beside me. "I wanted you to talk to her."

Sasuke let out a deep breath. "Go."

Suigetsu nodded and was gone in a breath, his zooming form rounded the corner and then we were alone.

I rolled my shoulder, it was uncomfortable being pressed so close to him.

As soon as I'd done that, he let me go, taking a few steps back. When I looked at his face, I didn't see any of the anger that no doubt had been there just moments before.

"Will you come with me?" he asked, holding his hand out for me to take.

I stared at it, neither of my hands raising to accept. "Why?" I rasped.

"Afterwards, I can take you anywhere you need to go, wherever you were before Suigetsu brought you here." He leveled my expression, trying to see which way I was going to go. "You can always tell me to take you back, and I will do so right away. I won't question it."

I should go. Tsunade, I needed to get back to Tsunade.

But, I couldn't leave yet. I wanted answers, and this would possibly be the only time I was going to get them.

I didn't take his hand, but I nodded. His fingers slowly clenched into a soft fist to rest at his side before he turned and walked down the hall from where I came. I followed after a few heart beats, and found that I wasn't as afraid anymore.

Curiosity enveloped me instead. It drove my legs to move forward, step by step.

Sasuke knew where he was going, confidently making the turns down the confusing labyrinth.

The hall we were in stopped at a final door. He opened it and held it open for me. I walked in warily, my eyes on his form the whole time.

The room was much like the one I'd woken up in. Simple, very few items. The sheets were dark, and there were more candles to light the area along the walls.

I didn't venture too far into the room, stopping very close to the door. When he shut it with a click, my shoulders tightened, and I immediately moved into a defensive position. He took one look at me and moved quickly to the other side of the room, far away from the door, obviously giving me some semblance of perceived safety.

Both of us waited for the other to start this painfully awkward process. When this became quite clear, Sasuke straightened his back a bit and exhaled slowly.

"Firstly, I apologize that Suigetsu has gotten you into this situation. That was never my intent."

I bit the inside of my cheek, weighing his words.

"Who are you?" I needed to hear him say it.

At this question, he grew uncomfortable. He rocked on his feet just a smidge, but I still caught it.

"You seem to have recognized me just a little bit ago."

I stared at him, waiting for him to give me a straight answer.

And then he did something I wasn't expecting him to do. He ran his hand through his hair. The action reminded me of Naruto, which was a strange juxtaposition considering how apparently opposite the two males were.

"My name is Sasuke. Sasuke Uchiha."

Hearing it from his lips made it more real. I felt stupid for wanting to reach over to the inside of my elbow and pinch the skin there to see if I was dreaming or not.

"You're a vampire," I dumbly pointed out.

He gave me something like an apologetic expression.

"What happened? You're supposed to be dead."

I'd triggered him then, because his eyes flashed a dazzling red at the reminder he really didn't need.

I jumped back, hitting the door with my back. I quickly righted myself, however. "You're a Prophet. You can see the future." They were so rare, vampires with special powers. I thought it would have taken me a few more missions, a few more years, to run into one.

His eyes regressed to their normal darkness then, as if he'd reigned himself in. "Yes."

What has he been able to see with his gift? And if he was able to see the future, then why hadn't he seen me coming?

I backed up a step, putting my hand on the door knob, torn between making a run for it or to stay for answers.

His eyes briefly touched over my hand and looked to the floor before his own feet. He closed his eyes then and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"This isn't right. You shouldn't be here."

My body became hot, boiling over in my anger. "You can blame your friend for that."

"I'll take you back to where you were." Obviously, he had regretted bringing me here, stopping whatever it was he wanted to even talk about in the first place. His fingers twitched and then he was at my side in a second, whisking across the room in a flurry of movement.

My hands went up instinctively before I threw a punch to his face. His speed startled me into action.

His cool hand wrapped around my fist easily, his grip firm yet gentle. He examined it thoughtfully, turning it over to open my fingers, revealing my palm in the process.

The expression on his face was regretful, beautifully sad. He traced a finger along the contours of my palm, running over them slowly as to keep from surprising me again.

A shriek from down the hall pierced through the door, catching both of our full attentions.

"You have to go," he rushed, angling his body in front of mine before opening the door. "They've found us."

"I want my weapons!" Something very bad was about to happen, and I was not about to stay unarmed any longer.

He shut the door and raced to a trunk at the end of his bed. In a blink, he was standing in front of me again. Pushed out in front of him, he presented me with a beautiful sword. It looked just like mine, only the colors on the hilt were reversed.

"This isn't mine…"

"It's mine." He shoved it into my hands, not waiting for me to grab it. And then I was in his arms, and we were careening down the halls.

My hair whipped back from the speed, and I kept careful watch over where we were going. Like before, everything still looked the same to me, but I wasn't sure when something new would leap out and attack.

Actually, it could be Tsunade doing this. I couldn't believe it'd taken me so long to think of that possibility. Maybe she was here to take me back. I glanced up at Sasuke, keeping a tight grip on the sword as I did so.

His face was blank, focused on the task at hand. His determination to get me out of here was something that I couldn't understand. Why was he going through all this effort for me? We've obviously met before, that's how I had his voice running rampant in my head for so long, but if it had truly been a more meaningful meeting then why hadn't I remembered what he looked like? If we'd talked about anything.

A few seconds meeting in passing seemed like a hard thing for a vampire to remember, considering what long lives they had. The amount of time we were together was practically nothing, so why did he care so much about me?

I knew it was stupid, possibly one of the dumbest things I've done my whole life, but I found myself believing that Sasuke wasn't going to hurt me. That he was really looking out for me.

Stupid.

But that thought was all I had at the moment. If what Sasuke was worried about was an even worse vampire coming to attack, then I had to hope that he was on my side. Otherwise, I would be facing off against two vampires at the end of this.

I took a peek behind us.

A burst of red flew in our direction, a live flame dancing about the halls. Gaara stared straight into my eyes in surprise. He wasn't expecting to see me again, especially not in the arms of a lethal vampire.

I turned back to Sasuke. "Did you steal from Gaara?"

His lips twitched in amusement, trying to hide a smirk.

"I can't believe it." Sasuke was the vampire Gaara had been chasing? Sasuke Uchiha. Why hadn't Tsunade said anything?! "Do you really think you'll be able to walk in the sunlight with whatever it is you stole?"

A blast of fire singed past us, the heat was almost overwhelming as it brushed over my head. Sasuke let out a growl and increased his speed.

I could hear Gaara chanting something in a foreign tongue behind us, and ahead of us another person burst out of the hallway on the right. It was a girl with short, spiky blonde hair, the color of desert sand.

Her dark eyes scanned us and she threw a handful of knives at in a flash. Hunter. She must have been one of the hunters Tsunade said Gaara was traveling with. From her looks and clothes, she was definitely from Suna.

Sasuke bent his legs and pushed off, we flew threw the air, effectively dodging the knives. His body twisted so his feet were able to hit the wall and push off again, careening us above and past the blonde hunter.

He landed softly and kept the same speed.

I kept my eyes on Gaara and the blonde hunter. "You can leave me with them, you know. They'd get me back to my sister."

The look on Gaara's eyes was desperate, and when he made eye contact with me they grew livid. Like he couldn't believe that Sasuke had somehow gotten his hands on me. I could only imagine the scenarios running through his head about what happened to Tsunade that I was in such a place right now.

And the world disappeared, my stomach flying up to my throat as we fell downward at an alarming rate.

Below us, the world opened up, the forest an ocean spreading out on the horizon. Looking up through my whipping hair, Gaara and the female were staring at us through a small opening on the side of a cliff. They shared a fierce conversation before turning back to the tunnel and disappearing from sight.

Sasuke's grip tightened around me, as he calculated where he was going to land.

Like a million feet down.

I watched in horror as the trees that were once small and insignificant were rapidly growing in size and intimidation. Tears welled in my eyes and escaped out of the corners from not blinking as I stared straight into my doom.

Sasuke crushed me against his chest as his feet met the dirt. His body resonated from the impact, yet I could tell he tried to make it so that I would feel as little as possible in the way he held me. A billowing cloud of dust erupted from us, and I sucked a lungful through my mouth, causing an annoying coughing fit.

He straightened and walked at a brisk pace away from the smoke, setting me down slowly, allowing me to gain my footing after all that activity.

My knees wobbled only a little before I forced them to still. I gripped the hilt of the sword, ready to unveil it at a moment's notice.

"What is going on? You stole from Gaara, you don't want to let me go with them...I feel like the picture is still forming in front of me but I can't quite finish the puzzle."

Sasuke faced away from me, cutting me off as he turned to the side. "Do you really want to know?"

His solemn voice filled the air, dancing around us like a snake ready to strike.

"Yes," I whispered.

His hand exposed to me clenched into a fist, and his head jerked back to face me in an instant. "I want to show you something. But, I still want to take you back and away from this mess."

He was torn, and so was I. He was messed up in something serious, something that our world had never seen before. For a vampire to walk in the sunlight could possibly throw the hunter world into complete and utter chaos.

And yet, he wanted this meeting to continue. I could see it in his eyes, the set of his jaw in that determined expression. I wanted it to keep going, too.

And I hated myself for it.

Just an hour with him and I felt trust seep through us. I didn't know him, but it felt like I did. This pull was drawing me to him. I should fight it, should run away from here.

"Show me," I couldn't stop the words from escaping past my lips.