Lost Paradise
Chapter One- It All Begins
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, please.
When Sakura woke up, she saw Yuki holding a glowing hand over her forehead and panicked.
"Relax. I'm just using a healing spell. It won't bite." Sasuke's cousin, Yuki, said with a hint of amusement.
"Why am I in the infirmary?" Sakura asked hoarsely.
"You sort of passed out in Tsunade's office," Yuki answered, "luckily for you, Naruto caught you before you hit your head on the floor. But he did squeeze you too tight though. You almost stopped breathing."
"So, all that was real?" Sakura asked weakly. They are so doing a hell lot of explaining.
"As real as can be." Yuki replied lightly then touched a glowing finger to her own temple and murmured, "She's up. Get in here."
Seconds later, Naruto burst through the door with Sasuke and another Yuki in tow, only the second Yuki was wearing her uniform, and, Sakura noted, the Yuki sitting beside Sakura was dressed casually.
Sakura's first comment on the subject was, "You have got to be kidding me."
The Yuki that sat beside Sakura stretched out her hand and the other Yuki touched it and got sucked into the first Yuki's palm.
"What the-?" Sakura stared open mouthed.
"It's a Doppelganger spell." Yuki grinned mischievously.
"Okay, then. Could someone please tell me what's going on and why you're all in on the secret?" Sakura asked as calmly as possible.
"Long story short, you're one of us now- one of the Blessed. And from what I know, you've been Blessed by Apollo and Artemis. They gave you some superpowers or something." Naruto rambled.
"Talents, Naruto." Sasuke corrected.
"Uh, right," Naruto continued, "So, the superpowers are called Talents or Blessings, whichever you prefer."
"Oh, and once a Blessed one realizes his or her full potential, which means, when they discover all their Blessings, they receive a Mark from their Patron…or in your case, Patrons, who for you are Apollo and Artemis. Oh, and remember that the Mark cannot be seen by mundane humans, or what I like to call 'mundies'" Yuki added. "That's about it, any questions?"
"Wait…You expect me to believe all this crap you're throwing at me?" Sakura said incredulously.
"Yeah, why not? You already wrote it down in the first place. Remember this?" Yuki threw something down on Sakura's lap.
"My story…the one I wrote for the school paper."
"Good. Now read this." Yuki tossed her another bunch of papers. "We call that the Chronicles. It documents how we, the Blessed, came into existence."
"It's basically exactly the way you wrote it…except yours is missing the ending." Yuki shrugged as Sakura quickly browsed the papers Yuki gave her.
"So what's the real ending?"
"Even though their bodies were hidden away, the immortal souls of gods and goddesses still roam this earth, and the search for the ones who will find Olympus and free their immortal bodies. Thus, they give a bit of their powers to humans, while they are at their most vulnerable state— as newborns."
"So that means that the gods and goddesses are still alive…in a manner of speaking." Sakura's mouth hung open.
"Yep." Naruto answered.
"And we aren't human?"
"We are…enhanced humans…in a way. You have to believe us. How else can you explain this?" Yuki held up a glowing hand.
"And this." The Naruto whole hand had suddenly set ablaze.
"Okay, okay. I believe you!" Sakura said quickly, with a bit of panic, "Put that out, you might trigger the alarm."
"How many Talents can a single Blessed person have?" Sakura asked.
"Well it depends on the god or goddess, see, some gods, like Zeus, usually like to show off and his blessed ones usually have a lot of Blessings, but sometimes he gives only one Blessing." Naruto replied.
"And you're Blessed by who?" Sakura asked, pushing away the small feeling of betrayal that had settled in her chest.
"Hephesteus, the god of the fire and the forge," Naruto's tone was proud as he pulled up his shirt and showed Sakura the tattoo of a large fire, that was as big as a volleyball, on his toned abdomen.
"Zeus," Sasuke said with pride, "and Hades." He pulled up both sleeves of his uniform and right there, in the middle of upper arm was a glossy five-inches-long white-blue lightning bolt, and on the other arm, a black and silver eye-catching shadow of a helmet."
"Hecate, the goddess of the dark moon, crossroads and witchcraft," Yuki pulled down the neckline of her blouse, a shimmering black crescent moon the size of her palm was tattooed an inch below the hollow of her neck.
"Then, I'm assuming that a new Blessed kid popping up isn't out of the norm," she mused with suspicion in her eyes, "but then, why were they all surprised when they saw me?"
"Well, you're special." Naruto grinned sheepishly, "You got two Patrons, which is extremely rare. We call it 'double-Blessed'. Sasuke's like you, too."
Sakura nodded blankly then she asked sadly, and adopted a hurt expression. "Why didn't anyone tell me about all this before?"
"Oh, Sakura, it's not their fault—they couldn't tell you. Tsunade made me place a silence spell on those who knew, especially a strong one on those two, so that they couldn't tell you or anyone who doesn't know about this whole mess." Yuki said comfortingly as she sat beside Sakura on the bed.
"But why?" Sakura asked, a bit louder than her last question.
"Some of the things we do are considered…" Sasuke paused to find the right word, "...immoral... by most mundane humans.
"This isn't all fun and games. Power comes with a price you know, and it's especially expensive for us." Yuki said sadly, "We were kinda hoping that you wouldn't end up like us."
"Why? What happens?" Sakura asked curiously.
Sasuke simply shook his head, "It differs, from person to person."
"Then what happens to you guys?" Sakura asked.
"This happens to me," Yuki replied as she covered her eyes with her hand, which flashed a quick blue light, before uncovering and opening them. Her irises, which were once the darkest kind of brown that could pass for black, were now so white that you couldn't tell if she had irises and pupils at all.
"Can you see?" Sakura asked curiously.
"Well, I know you're sitting on the bed, but I can't literally see." Yuki answered with a grim smile.
"I…change." Sasuke said slowly.
"Into what?" Sakura asked.
"A little kid's worst nightmare." Naruto answered for him.
"What does that mean?"
"You'll find out someday," Sasuke drawled, 'and hopefully not so soon.' he added in his thoughts.
"I lose control…and I spontaneously combust at random times." Naruto said bashfully, then he saw that Sakura's pout and sad eyes had not faded.
"We're sorry for hurting your feelings Sakura, but we thought that if we kept quiet about this then nothing would happen to you." he said, dropping the suffix for Sakura's name to show that he was truly serious about this. Sasuke stood beside him looking guilty and gloomy and just plain sorry.
Sakura immediately forgot about her feelings of rejection and pulled both of her boys down to the bed so that she could give them a big group hug.
"Aww…" Yuki cooed then yawned, "Damn, it's still too early for me to be up- it's still noon. I'm going back to bed now. Bye." Yuki raised a hand, and the uniform-clad Yuki reappeared beside her, then the original Yuki disappeared.
"And she just leaves?" Sakura asks no one in particularly.
Sasuke, the Yuki clone, and Naruto simply nod simultaneously.
"Hmm…alright then, we should be getting back to class now." the Yuki-clone said.
Sakura checked her watch and saw that it was half-past noon. She'd been out in the infirmary for four hours. Ino must be worried sick right now. Then something occurred to her.
"Aren't I supposed to have a cover story?" Sakura glanced at Naruto then at Sasuke.
Naruto dropped his serious expression and laughed sheepishly.
"Don't worry, Sakura-chan, we told everyone that you collapsed, which, BTW, actually happened." Naruto said.
Sakura nodded, "Okay then, let's get back to class. And Naruto, never say 'BTW' ever again; it makes you sound gay."
"Seriously?" Naruto asked honestly.
Sasuke shrugged and got up from his comfortable seat on the really soft bed.
After assuring Ino and a few other concerned people that, "no, I didn't really fall down the stairs," (because, apparently, Naruto found it funny telling every single student that came by that she fell down the stairs and knocked herself out-literally), Sakura noticed that the teachers gave her strange looks, and she knew it wasn't about her hair because she was pretty sure that after more than half a decade of studying at this school, her pink hair wasn't that strange anymore. But still, it led to this:
"Sakura, did you notice the teachers staring at you earlier?" Ino asked curiously after classes.
"Uhm…no?"
After everything that had just taken place in the past five hours, Sakura found herself realizing something, and she sighed.
This is troublesome.
"And how exactly did I not notice this before?" Sakura stared wide-eyed at the huge metal door in Tsunade's office that wasn't there before.
"Easy. It was behind that bookshelf." Yuki pointed to the mahogany bookshelf that had been pushed aside.
"O...kay?" Sakura mumbled disbelievingly.
Yuki punched in a code at the security panel beside the door, and it swung open to reveal a flight of stairs going down, leading to another door.
Sakura snapped out of her shock and paid attention to Yuki "...your own code. You better not forget it. We had to replace that security feature hundreds of times. One time Naruto melted it, and the next, Sasuke short-circuited it...and don't even get me started on Gai-sensei. He always insists on-oh wait a minute," Yuki paused to unlock the door at the end of the stairs, "As I was saying, he always insists on pounding in the code."
They stepped into a wide hallway, and Yuki pointed out rooms and little trivia and warnings.
"This is the Olympic-sized pool- did you know that Sasuke can't swim to save his life?" Yuki mentioned as Sakura bent down and dipped a hand in the still water.
"It's warm."
"It's always heated, like 24/7. If the heater breaks, we just get Naruto."
They walked out and stopped outside a door.
"These are training grounds one, two and three," She pointed out three consecutive doors, "four, five and six are above ground. I'll show you where they are tomorrow. And don't forget to check the schedules before you open the door. One time, I forgot to check the schedule, and when I opened the door, I almost became a shish-ka-bob."
They walked further down the hallway, with Yuki gesturing animatedly and Sakura feeling like her head's about to blow from all the info.
"And this is the armory," Yuki knocked on a door before swinging it open. "There's a shooting range up in TG4. TG is short for training ground, by the way."
They entered a large room with hundreds and thousands of shelves. "Whoa. And these are all arranged?" Sakura stared wide-eyed at all the weapons.
"Yeah, by kind, you know, guns in one corner, blades in the other, bows in the back, and projectiles in between. But if you take anything, you have to list it down if you could, for inventory. And if you want to put in a request for something not in stock or something they don't have, you have to put in an order with Tsunade. She'll just let you know when it's there."
"The lab is behind the infirmary upstairs, there's a hidden door behind the medicine cabinet. The lab makes poisons and antidotes, so if you want to learn more about poisons and antidotes or how to make your own, Shizune will be able to help you."
"Okay?" Sakura said outwardly, but inwardly, she thought, 'Why would I need poisons?'
"...from here, we go straight then turn left. The elevator will lead us straight to the hallway outside our rooms. Yours is the one after Sasuke's, the one with the blank nameplate. And this," She held up an ornate gold key, "is the key to your room. They got your stuff from your place a few hours ago, and Tsunade has arranged everything."
"Wait, what!" Sakura froze mid-step, "I can't stay here! What about my parents? And my clothes? What about if Ino comes over to my place tonight?"
"Relax. I know it's a lot of change, a bit much for a day, but you'll adjust. You'll get used to it," Yuki said with a confident smile, "Everything's been taken care of. Your stuff is in your room. You can visit your parents over the weekend or something. But it's too dangerous for you and them if you stay with them, so it's best for everyone if you just stay here, okay?"
"...Fine." Sakura sighed. 'Goodbye, life as I knew it.'
"If it helps, you can hang out at any of our rooms for as long as you like. No curfew."
Sakura nodded before letting out a big sigh.
Later that evening, Sakura found herself sitting on a soft black leather couch on the balcony of Sasuke's room. She admired the view of the school gardens, and the small pond with the occasional jumping fish.
Sasuke silently took a seat beside her and gave her a bottle of fruit soda.
"Thanks," Sakura muttered as she popped it open and took a sip before she set it on the class coffee table in front of them. "You know, they want me to move in here tonight. They made me get my stuff from home earlier. But I don't want to stay in…my…room. It just feels weird." Sakura said without a hint of sadness in her tone. Sasuke nodded to show that he had heard her.
The Blessed all lived on Konoha territory, specifically, the school grounds. The entire east wing was for the teachers and staff and the west wing of the school was dedicated to the Blessed students. It was mostly deserted since there are only a few of them.
"I don't know if I can. I mean, it's all just so fast. How could I tell my parents about this? I know Tsunade said she would handle it, but, you know, I can't even believe I have special powers. I left my home this morning thinking that it would be just another day. And now…" Sakura sighed and leaned her head on Sasuke's shoulder, "The whole Chronicles thing was just plain coincidence, I swear. I mean, how can I be special? I'm five-foot-four. Average height. I've got normal body parts. I don't have any particular talents. "
"That's not true," Sasuke whispered to her, "Sakura, stop doubting yourself. You're...special." He took a sip from the can of root beer in his hand.
Sakura was surprised when Sasuke complimented her. Praises from him are few and far in between.
"Sasuke?"
"Hm?"
"Why are you being so nice to me tonight?"
"When I found out that I was Blessed, I was surprised, too. Fortunately, I had someone to rely on. I can understand what you're going through."
Sakura gave a small smile as Sasuke opened up a bit of himself to her. She treasured moments like these and knew that they meant as much to him as they did to her.
"Thank you."
They sat there in comfortable silence for the rest of the evening.
That night, Sakura slept on her new bed and dreamed of witches and bonfires and suns and moons and a dark haired knight in shining armor.
Hello, I'm back and here with the first chapter of Lost Paradise. Uhm...about the summary, please bear with me as I still can't find something I'm satisfied with. I think I've changed it about five times in the past three days so...yeah. I'll gladly accept any comments and suggestions to fix up that summary.
Please DO review because that's where I get my inspiration and ideas. I'm really hoping for some critique. And don't be afraid to speak your mind. I like constructive criticism and lot's of love, but flames are fine...just don't overdo it.
A lot of people hate OC's being main characters. So I understand if you hate or maybe (hopefully) like Yuki, my OC, just tell me why and I'll see what I can do about it.