Hi everyone! I'm glad you all like the story, I was really happy with all of the positive feedback I was getting :D I'd like to thank all of my anonymous reviewers, especially Hana, DJ, Mayumi, MeMe, Silvermoon, and Sweetangel823, since I have no other way to thank you personally. Thanks again for being constant reviewers, you guys rock! All of you! Aishiteru, Sarang Hae, Mahal Kita, Wo Ai Ni!

Disclaimer: (Here's my attempt at a freestyle) Yo, my ho-mee, I don't own Naru-to-...me?

Chapter Eight: Your Heed

The sound of her footsteps echoing in the vacant hallways was unnerving. The fact that only her footsteps were audible only intensified her anxiety. She knew he was trailing behind her at a safe distance, but the silence made her feel alone.

Kakashi stopped and turned around, his visible eye crinkled into what was surely a reassuring smile. Exhaling for the first time since who knows when, Hinata walked into the door that Kakashi held open. Just before he closed the door behind him, she was sure something black had slipped through the crack. It was impossible; how someone could be both svelte and toned at the same time?

"Hinata, was it?"

"H-Hai..."

She really wished she could rip off that surgical mask so his reassuring smile could have its full potential. "I just want to talk with you. So don't be afraid. I don't bite!" His red-tinted eyes widened when he saw her face lose color. "Ah..too soon for jokes I see. Hehe..."

Maybe it was to break the thick, heavy tension, but Kakashi reached behind him and produced a large, worn out cigar box. He placed it on the table in front of Hinata, beckoning her to take it. Self-conciously picking up the well-worn box with her quivering fingers, she flipped the lid open cautiously, expecting some voodoo vampire talisman trinkets. Inside was...

...pictures. They appeared to be plain, ordinary photos at first but upon closer inspection, Hinata realized that some were paintings. Small, wallet-sized portraits of the group of friends she had grown quite fond of. Taking the first portrait out of the box, she could feel the smile spread across her face. It was absurd: Naruto and Gaara were leaning against a railing, wearing...collars. Frilly, lace-trimmed collars. She felt sadness when she noticed the spots where the paint had chipped away. It was a shame, the thought of destroying this priceless painting. Sifting through the top pile, she realized most portraits were of Naruto and Gaara.

"They were the first."

"The...first?"

This time his smile held a hint of bittersweetness. "My first companions."

Flashback

Kakashi was sitting in one of his usual caves amid mounds of rotten food and litter. He was leaning against a wall, staring into the darkness of the cave when he heard a woman scream. Kakashi quickly ran out of the cave; this wasn't the first time vampires had attacked in this area.

When he tracked the sound of the woman's uneven breathing, he turned and saw a young boy, no older than 17. You could have preceived him as any normal vampire, with his slitted blood red eyes, bared fangs, and outstretched talons, but something gave it away as his first hunt. You could clearly see in hesitation in his muscles as he inched towards the beautiful, frightened woman. It puzzled Kakashi as to why a vampire would hunt a human when they were clearly against it.

But first thing's first, he picked up the woman and ran full speed towards civilization. The woman was too in shock to notice that she was moving, and still had that terrified look on her face as he left her in the middle of a crowded town hall. He ran back to where the boy was, positive that he would still be there.

The boy's eyes were wide and shaken. "You're one too."

"One of what?"

"A monster." The blood in his eye washed away, revealing a clear, blue pigment.

Kakashi smiled at the boy. "Not if you don't want to be."

The boy shook his wild blond hair. "No, I have to be. He tells to me to find more."

"More what?"

His lower lip trembled. "More who smell like me."

Kakashi's visible eye widened in shock. "Who's your maker?"

"The Snake."

"And why does he want you to find people who smell like you?"

"He wants to build an army, to take over Konoha."

Kakashi had heard about the Snake. No one had ever seen him before; he was so quick and agile that he attacked his prey like a snake. He would bite his victims, and leave them to writhe in pain as they underwent their transformation. After about three days, the maximum it took to transform, he would come to collect his new member of the coven. The civilians called him witch, but he was something far worse.

"Do you like to kill humans?"

"I've never killed one yet..."

"Then come with me."

The idea clearly tempted the boy, but there was a battle going on inside of him. "I...I can't. Not without Gaara."

His eye crinkled. "Then we'll go find this Gaara, and together we can leave. That sound good?"

"I..Okay."

The break-in hadn't been easy, but it was as Kakashi expected. The Snake had hundreds of minions at his beck and call. Gaara, who had the ability to manipulate sand, had sustained the least injuries with but a few scrapes while Naruto fared the worse. Kakashi had two broken ribs, a deep gash in his side and a deep cuts in his limbs, but it was nothing to what Naruto had. He had one dislocated shoulder, one broken leg, a fracture in his skull, and many cuts in him. But still..

The boy was remarkable. By the time they had reached another of Kakashi's hide outs, several hundred miles away, his wounds had closed and by the look of his shoulder, he fractures in his bones were regenerating at an alarming rate. Faster than anything had every seen. By dawn he was goo as new. One thing was sure, he knew exactly how good Naruto had smelled while he was human. A perfect candidate for vampire material.

End flashback

"But, you said this snake had hundreds of helpers, how did you...escape?"

"Well, once your a vampire you're near indestructible. To kill a vampire, you need time and numbers. You must cut them into a millions pieces, them burn them. Or else we can heal any injury we sustain. Hinata nodded, sifting through the photos and came across the first picture of a woman who vaguely looked like Tenten.

Kakashi picked up where he had left off. "That day, the three of us have made a pact that we've kept to this day. One, we are never to feast on humans. Ever. Two, we are not to bite anyone without their consent, and if there are no other possible alternatives. And lastly, this is where you come in, Hyuga Hinata. We are to find people who smell exceptionally delicious, protect them, and make sure we save them from the same fate as us."

"Ever since then, we've been sniffing around for humans who smell especially nice or have special abilities, because this was the type of people whom the Snake targeted. There were a few close ones, but people like Naruto or Gaara don't come around too often. Then, half a century later, we found her." He pointed to the portrait. "She was not only very attractive, but Naruto and Gaara followed her scent around for weeks. I, for one, hardly notice human scents anymore. Anyway, we followed her around, observing her, keeping her out of dark alleyways and what not. Most of her free time was used doing archery or throwing spears. I never saw her miss the bulls eye."

Hinata looked sadly at the painting. She knew which direction this story was going in.

"We tried to prevent it of course, but we couldn't follow her everywhere. That would creep her out. It'd creep me out, anyway. But we noticed she hadn't come home in two days, so I used my nose to search for her. Naruto always told me I was like a dog. In more ways than one...But back to the story. When I found her in the forest, I checked her pulse and knew I was too late. Her heart was minutes away from stopping, where the transformation would be complete. So we did what we could. It's always easier to convert newly made vamps because they've never tasted a human before."

The first primative photographs were taken around the time that Shino and Kiba came into the pictures. It was quite a laugh seeing Kiba with his hair slicked back to match the current eras.

"Kiba and Shino were easy to get a hold of. Although Kiba was much tricker to convert; he always was the more vicious one." Kakashi shuddered as he remembered his past experiences with the Inuzuka. "It was the last one, before your cousin of course, that was the problem." Hinata gulped; this was the story she had been most anxious to hear.

"We found Sasuke when he was just a boy. He wouldn't talk about why he was alone, or where his family was. He didn't talk much. But we did what he could to train him. I fought him the basics, Naruto helped him build stamina, Gaara and Kiba and Shino would spar with him, and Tenten would improve his accuracy. He showed tremendous potential but even he knew; there was a steep hill between us which he could never cross."

"A-And, so what happened?"

Kakashi grew deeply troubled as he reflected on the past. Hinata could clearly see that Kakashi had a special bond with the boy since he had raised him from adolescence. It was his first encounter with a human child. "Eventually, Sasuke would observe our enhanced abilities with envy in his eyes. He...He asked us to transform him." A gasp unconsciously left Hinata's lips as she leaned in closer to hear. "Sasuke was very persistent in his demands, but all of us were very firm in our decision." He smiled wryly at Hinata. "Humanity is a very precious thing, Hinata. Something that we had all lost unwillingly."

The handsome, statuesque man in front of her inhaled deeply. "When it became clear that none of us were willing to bite him (though Naruto did come laughable close), he did what he could to get his way. He left."

"To, t-the Sn.."

"Yes. To the Snake. He was 13 when he left; we didn't seen him for four years. We thought we'd never see him again until one day he showed up on my door step, drenched in blood. You could hardly recognize him though; his face had lost its childhood roundness, his eyes had darkened and formed wrinkled, and he was too thin and pale. We all knew...he was changed."

"I see...so that was when he hunted...hu...hu-"

"Humans." Kakashi groaned, looking closer to his age for the first time since Hinata could remember. Obviously, Sasuke's betrayal had deeply affected his surrogate father. "He never turned anyone into a vampire, though. He spared them their souls; he always sucked them dry, killing them."

"You're not the first human who's had this affect on me." They turned to see Sasuke, who had come out from thin air. He looked directly into Hinata's eyes.

"Ah, but she is the first who you've kept around for more then 2 days." Kakashi leaned in close to Hinata, cupping her ear with his hands. "Usually he does something to scare them off for good," he whispered. Kakashi put a finger on his chin thoughtfully. "Although, I thought the Haruno girl would never leave." He rubbed his arms, wincing. "That one can bite."

Sasuke grabbed Hinata's arm, and dragged her out of the room. Kakashi retained his smile until the two teens left the room. He sighed; Sasuke sure was rash.

It was everything she could do to keep from becoming road kill as Sasuke pulled her along the long corridors. He stopped in front of the closet and, after looking for witnesses, pulled her in. As soon as he shut the door, he pushed her against a wall, trapping her by placing both hands on either side of her. "I killed people. Most of us did at some point in their lives. What makes you think you're any different! What makes you think you won't be dead tomorrow!"

Hinata looked away from him, focusing on a towel behind him. She leaned against the wall, creating space between them, but she cautiously reached for his hand. "I don't know...everything, about you guys and what happens, but Kakashi said you guys would help me. And, I trust him." Hinata looked into his eyes. "I trust you."

Cupping her small face with his long, thin fingers, he closed the gap between them. At first it was just a normal kiss, but he pulled her in closer, deepening the kiss. His long fangs were running over her tongue, leaving small trails of blood along her tongue. When the taste of her blood reached his tongue, Sasuke's eyes went wide before turning blood red, with three tomoe (1) rapidly circling around his pupil. Hinata cringed as Sasuke moved his hands to her wrists, strangling them with his death grip. She tried to pull her hands out of his grasp, but it was useless. He was too strong. The strong, forceful kiss was hurting her jaw, and her tongue was starting to burn from all of the small cuts.

He slammed her against the wall when she tried to pull away, leaving a few cracks in it. Hinata started to feel light headed, and just when she was positive that her hands would become dismembered, Sasuke pulled away from her, running to the other side of the closet.

"FUCK!" He punched the wall, leaving a nice-sized hole in the wall. Taking a few deep breaths, he waited until his eyes had gotten their usual coal hue. He turned to face her. Stroking her hair, he could feel a small bump forming on her head, and saw the dark purple rings around her smooth, white skin.

"Do you see how fragile you are? It's so easy for me to kill you, that if I get carried away, I'll do it without even noticing. And you still won't run away from me?"

Taking a deep breath to calm her rapid heart beat, she resisted the urge to rub her sore wrists and tried to calm herself down, repeating in her head that she was now out of harm. "If you w-want me to leave, S-Sasuke, just ask me and I'll do it."

Sasuke lowered his hand from her hair, turning away. He grew tense, rubbing his knuckles under his chin. "I can't do that...so I'm waiting for you to run away."

Despite all of the fear, the worry she felt, the rapid beating of her heart, and the fact that she had been a mere inch from her potential death, she knew what her answer would be.

"I'm not going anywhere..." unless you're there too...

-----------------------------------------------------

1. Tomoe are the coma-looking dots in the Sharingan.