Quick thanks to those who have been patient for an update, and another thanks to those who are new to this fanfiction and wanted to see what was going to happen next. You all mean a lot to me, and I know that waiting is a big pain in the ass, but it's always rewarding when you see it c: A lot of stuff is taking much of my time, but I will try to manage time for this and my other writing.
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=xxx=
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Stealing is a considerable Sin.
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Jealousy is another that will haunt the mind.
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So, one thing that is a wonderment to one's self…
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What happens when you Steal the very thing you're Jealous of?
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Tasting Flesh
Chapter Twenty-six
Sasuke stood beside Naruto as other Uchiha guardsmen picked up Karin's limp body into a sitting position, Suigetsu kneeling down with his arms on his knees as he inspected Karin's bloodied form carefully. He watched as Suigetsu carefully tilted Karin's chin upward, revealing the nasty slice of her neck for him to see, making the white-haired man frown with a look in his eye. It wasn't until Suigetsu ordered his companions to give Karin to him with a bark in his voice that Sasuke decided to approach him with the Demon noble now in his arms.
"Well?" Sasuke asked as Naruto caught up to speed with him, staying dutifully by the prince's side.
Suigetsu's lips broke to expose his sharp teeth, and a soft growl erupted from his throat. "They dug a knife into her neck pretty deep," he spoke out, "but all this blood is Karin…"
At the sound of her name, Karin's brows scrunched and her red eyes opened just a crack. A bubbled groan came from her blood-stained lips as she began weakly squirming in Suigetsu's hold, her messy hands pushing up to Suigetsu's chin, trying to force him away. Some blood mixed with saliva dribbled from the corner of her lips as she opened her mouth.
"Stop that," Suigetsu hissed, not bothering to mask his anger anymore. His tone didn't bother her though, and she kept pushing and shoving at his chin with the more energy she was gaining after moments of waking up. "Oi! Quit that shit, right now! I'm trying to-!"
Karin let out an angry growl, thickly covered with the blood lodged in her throat. She was trying to get out of Suigetsu's grip and stand up herself, struggling to regain all her energy as fast as possible. As Suigetsu struggled to keep hold of her, Sasuke took the moment to completely stop Karin from moving by grasping the top of her head, tightly gripping her hair to hold her still, shocking both Suigetsu and Naruto by his sudden reach.
Karin instantly stopped and opened her eyes wide at Sasuke, who remained emotionless as he spoke.
"Who was it?" he asked in a low voice, looking completely bored of the whole situation.
But Karin knew better, knowing him since the time they were all tiny, tiny brats running amok the Uchiha Compound. By the feeling of the tight grip, yanking her roots, Karin bit back a whimper of pain as she locked eyes with him. She could see it perfectly: the anger. The craving Sasuke was forming in his soul to gut the one who took Sakura, skinning them alive or torture them like the Demon God originally were, back in the old days.
"Karin." Sasuke gripped a bit harder, making Karin stiffen in Suigetsu's arm, but not under Sasuke's hand. She couldn't have Sasuke feel her fear, incase it were to set him off. "Who took Sakura?"
Inhaling through her nose and out of her mouth, Karin coughed weakly as she closed her eyes. Her expression slowly slipped to a relaxed feature, as if she was sleeping, and continued to regain her breathing, clearing her throat, to form her words.
"I couldn't tell," was all she whispered.
Sasuke's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "Not a scent? Not a single chakra signal that could have told you who took her away from me?" As he continued to talk, the more harsh his tone became and the tighter his grip on Karin's head made her whine silently.
"Sasuke, let Karin go," Naruto pressured in a shout, shoving his friend away from his blood relative. With the sudden push, Sasuke released Karin from his grasp, making the red-headed Demon sigh in relief and rest her sore skull on Suigetsu's shoulder, mumbling incoherent words about her wounds. Naruto stood between Sasuke and Karin, keeping the prince away. "You don't need to hurt Karin any more than that! We'll figure out who took Sakura-chan and bring her home, 'ttebayo!"
Sasuke didn't say anything, keeping his eyes locked to Naruto's blue orbs that were just daring him to try something. Behind him, he could sense more of the party arriving, the Nara and Yamanaka approaching, and one particular person being quicker than the others.
"What happened? Where's Sakura? Did you find her yet?" Ino nearly screamed as she practically stopped herself onto Naruto and Sasuke, tears evident in her eyes. "She's okay, right? And the kids; they're not harmed, are they?"
"The kids woke up a while ago," Naruto stated calmly, settling Ino by placing both hands on her shaking shoulders. "Their bodies are healed already and they are being taken home. Ma is with the kids. Karin just woke up, though."
"And Sakura-chan?" Ino demanded angrily, nearly ready to hit Naruto.
Naruto, in return, shut his eyes and shook his head. "We haven't found her yet. We're having anyone available come out to help us, and even the villagers are offering anything to help out."
"Then," Ino hissed, "why hasn't anyone found her? If no one can find out where my best friend is, I swear to fucking God I'm going to make them try harder! I want Sakura back!"
Shikamaru and Inoichi came up behind the blonde Demon, both noticing her behavior getting more out of hand when her first tears fell from her eyes. Her voice cracked, yet she looked extremely angered. "I want her back! She can't just be taken just like that, you know. What the hell happened that she was taken?" Ino's pupiless orbs looked to Karin, appearing to be pleading to the injured Demon. "What happened to Sakura-chan? Where did she go?"
Karin, in return, looked just as upset about the situation as Ino was. She really couldn't say anything to help with the distraught Yamanaka. She broke the eye contact and hid her face into Suigetsu's armor, right where his neck and white hair could shield her own tears. Ino blinked hard at this, and began hunching her shoulders and wrapping her arms around herself.
"Where is she?"
"We will find her, Ino," Kakashi said in the midst of the Demons in emotional distress. He placed a hand on top of Ino's soft hair and offered her a smile behind his mask. Being gentle as possible to the fragile Demon woman, Kakashi gently turned her around to have her face Inoichi and Shikamaru and let her go back to her father, who wrapped an arm around his only child.
Looking back to Sasuke, Kakashi offered a tilt of his chin, making the Uchiha prince glare menacingly in response. From Naruto's perspective, he wondered if Kakashi was sending some sort of secret message to his friend. Before he could ask what it was about, Kakashi turned his back to the group and began strolling further off from the clearing; a few steps, Naruto watched as Sasuke himself began to follow his teacher with the same angered stare focused on Kakashi's back.
Knowing he shouldn't leave his best friend alone, Naruto hurried to reach Sasuke's side, following the back of the adopted son of Uchiha Madara to a thick brush, where Inoichi's wife, Chi, waited politely with her hands behind her back and a gentle look on her soft face. When noticing the arriving men, Chi's posture straightened instantly at the sight of Sasuke.
"Kaka-chan!" Chi squeaked loudly and waved her hands in frantic movements, as if trying to wave off a stench that was in her way. "Here! Kaka-chan, here!"
"You sure, Chi-san?" Kakashi asked with a smile in his voice, to which Chi nodded hard and pointed an accusing finger to something that was blocked off from their view. "We can't go assuming things right now. We're trying to find Sakura-sama for Sasuke-sama right now."
Chi nodded again and waved to Naruto and Sasuke, telling them to come over quickly. Sasuke kept at his usual pace and Naruto remained behind Sasuke, taking a moment before both of them froze on the spot.
"What the hell is that smell?" Naruto nearly cried out as he used both hands to cover his nose and mouth, muffling his speech as Sasuke pinched his nose shut and furrowed his brows. Naruto stomped his feet on the dusty floor and groaned. "Chiii! What did you eat?"
Chi's brown eyes narrowed dangerously as she growled at the Uzumaki noble. "No, no! Chi found it!" she declared, bending down to lift up the pile of vines and leaves, revealing decomposing, almost ash-looking pile of meat. It seemed to be cut poorly, or ripped, as the flesh lacked even the closest thing to a normal color - a greying-blue with a tint of brown-black on the pile of rotting meat. Sasuke and Naruto leaned away from the sight of it, stiffening when Chi actually knelt down and picked it up with one hand and held it out to them.
"What is that?" Naruto shivered as he hid behind Sasuke, who was trying to keep the growl in his throat from coming out. Naruto nearly gawked when Chi simply smiled at their reaction, not actually answering.
"It's a camouflage," Kakashi answered for them, seemingly not reacting to the horrible smell that was burning their nostrils. "It is actually the intestines from a Lowlife, most likely."
"Uhh, it stinks!" Naruto whined loudly.
Sasuke's eye twitched as he stared at it in Chi's hand. "Chi, how are you able to hold it and not struggle with the smell?"
Chi grinned then, looking proud of herself. "Chi was taught! Chi was taught well," she sing-sang. "Like Kaka-chan!"
Sasuke looked to Kakashi, who strolled to the happy Demon and was passed the meat over to his hold. "When I was a child, and Chi as well, we would be taught to grow a tolerance to the smell by having to cut open a Lowlife Demon, or a prisoner of the Kingdom, and pull out their insides. Lots of us would pass out from the smell, but we eventually got used to it, with our living conditions. Sometimes we had to eat it."
"What is this suppose to mean, huh? You and Chi are cousins now?" Naruto yapped lowly, shrinking away when Kakashi teasingly held out the meat towards them. Sasuke, too, flinched away from it. "Stop that!"
"Chi-san is actually on the lowest-of-low branch of the Hatake," Kakashi explained. "Chi's branch was morely slaves of the royal family; they were beaten and used as bait since they were children. When Chi was just a toddler, she was used to lure in Lowlife Demons and would get hurt, mostly in the throat area."
"Why Chi can't talk well," Chi hummed, patting her throat with the tips of her fingers. "Sometimes hurt - talk too much."
Kakashi nodded and looked back to Sasuke and Naruto, where their eyes started to water. Noticing it to be too much for them, Kakashi threw the meat away a good distance, at least to keep them from passing out.
"I have reason to believe that I have found who took Sakura, thanks to Chi," Kakashi nodded to the Yamanaka, who smiled and noticed the arriving part of her husband and child, as well as Shikamaru and Minato in tow. "Sasuke-sama, this may bother you, but I think that the Hyuuga Kingdom has kidnapped your wedded wife."
It was, at that exact moment, when Sasuke everything in red.
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Stripped from protection, she's caged.
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She could not use her strength, her newfound power.
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She was frozen in Hell, watching them die…
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At least, only she thinks they died.
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Sakura's head was pounding, like she had a rock rolling around inside her skull and her cranium was made of the most fragile porcelain. She was cold, too. Remembering that the weather outside was warm and sunny, and that the breeze was gentle and gave her cheeks warm kisses. Feeling herself waking up from her pitch black nightmare of eerie silence and throbbing headaches, the Forbidden Flower's closed eyes scrunched tightly as she nuzzled her face into her hands, when they felt equally cold as the tiled floor she was sleeping on-
Tiled floor?
Sakura coughed and shivered into a ball, her green eyes cracked open to the neon-bright white of light putting a spotlight on her. Peeking down to her body, seeing that the sandals Ino picked out for her to wear today were removed and little spots of dirt and tiny scratches were on her pale skin, like she was dragged after her feet were stripped of her footwear on rocky flooring. Her sight clearing up, Sakura pushed herself up by her elbows, preparing herself to stand up when a faint noise of a growl came from off the spotlight she was placed upon.
"Who's there?" she demanded, suddenly feeling a bit confident in standing up to whoever hurt Karin and the children, and then knocking her out! "When Sasuke-kun finds out what you did, he's going to-!"
"I'm afraid your Sasuke doesn't make me cringe. Now that I have you here, after all," a voice, sounding so familiar, echoed in wherever Sakura was in right now, shutting her up. Looking around, Sakura was still struggling to see clearly, due to black dots peppering her view. "And you don't bother me, as long as you're behaving this time."
Using the back of her palms, Sakura rubbed furiously under her eyes to rid the tiredness. Blinking a few times, Sakura's eyes adjusted better this time, seeing herself in the room. Although the spotlight piled on her took out most of the clarity in the rest of the room, Sakura could make out tall, scrawny people with covered faces standing in the outer ring of the light, as if caging her inside. Their hair stuck out in messes, and their armor was what it looked to only be worn-out leather and torn cotton underneath…
They all looked tired and messy, but none of them were speaking to her.
"Where are you?" Sakura spat, rolling herself to her rear and holding herself up by her arms. The throbbing in her head continued slowly, and she could feel herself getting tired all over again. "Only cowards never show their face! Your behavior is pathetic!"
"I'm not the one who couldn't slip out of the grasp of a starving Demon," the voice taunted, making Sakura freeze on the spot for a moment. One of the men stepped aside and let a new body in, but this time, he came into the light.
Sakura nearly felt her heart jump into her throat when Hiashi stepped into the light, looking down to Sakura with barely any interest.
"You're Hinata-chan's father," Sakura swallowed thickly, her chest twisting and head pounding. "You killed Karin-chan and-!"
"I gave Sakumo the exact instructions to take out anyone who would interfere in bringing you here," Hiashi said with a bored tone, looking to his side where, Sakura would assume, Sakumo stood with a blank stare into nothing and only blinked when Hiashi spoke of his name. "And don't speak of that brat's name...she's not my daughter anymore."
Sakura's anger spiked at this. "Hinata-chan is not a brat! You should be grateful to be blessed with having Hinata-chan as a daughter - How dare you!"
Hiashi's lip twitched, slowly his mouth was forming into a tight mocking smile. "How dare I?" he chuckled teasingly, crossing his arms. "How dare you, Forbidden Flower! Dare to strike a King infront of other royalty, nobles and aristocrats; to act so childishly when you turned your back on me that your Sasuke had to come and watch over your back when you couldn't! Stories say that the Forbidden Flower can take care of herself; that she can hold her own when her mate isn't by her side, and even protects her companions when in danger."
Sakura bit her lip, recalling the sight of the children getting injured in front of her and when Karin's throat was cut opened. When Sakura mentally told herself that she was trained well enough - that she knew how to get out of the hold, thanks to Kakashi! - to escape and rescue her friends in time. The time when Sakura ignored the gut feeling while she was tending to a struck Hinata that someone was going to hit her, and Sasuke had to come and stop it, resulting Sasuke to leave for three days…
"How dare you call yourself a Forbidden Flower," Hiashi growled, grabbing her jaw and forcing her to look at him. "When you can't even do the most simple things that other Forbidden Flowers could do."
"Shut up, you asshole!" Sakura screamed at the top of her lungs, feeling sudden force in her palms as she shoved them in front of her. The force of her hands on his chest blew his whole body away, having Sakumo break his impact by catching him, heels sliding painfully on the tiled floor until they met the wall with a dark Crash!
Sakura attempted to stand, causing the rest of the guards to stand in ready-position. She stumbled on her bare feet, feeling the cold spread to her bones as her whole world spinned. Her hands ached to hit something-someone, to destroy her confinement and run back to the Uchiha Kingdom, somehow… Her fingers twitched as she narrowed her vision to Hiashi, tears threatening to slip from her emerald eyes.
"I was scared…" she heaved out, taking a shaking step towards him.
The guards watched as she stumbled, but forced herself to stand anyway. "I'm not back home - in the Human World - and I don't know...how things w-work here!" Her eyes dropped for a moment, letting the tears fall in streams that burned her cheeks. "I haven't been with Sasuke-kun in ten fucking years, and I'm only just starting to remember!"
Her body was shutting down, she could feel it, but she kept pushing herself because she craved to hit Hiashi with her fists. Rin's familiar, soft hands tightly grasped her shoulders, as if trying to keep her upright.
"Sakura, don't," Rin urged. "You're going make yourself feel worse. Please, just-!"
"And I don't care what Itachi did to your Kingdom," Sakura screamed at Hiashi, who now is returning the hard stare. "I didn't do anything, neither did Sasuke-kun or his parents! We didn't do anything to your family, so why are you tearing our own apart?"
Falling hard on her knees, Sakura ignored the pain in her joints as she cried out in anger, feeling Rin's invisible arms wrap around her. "What did I do to make you do this to me?"
Heaving in exhausted breathes, Sakura didn't break the eye contact she had with the Hyuuga King, who suddenly changed expression into a somewhat sorrowful look with anger mixed. She wanted to keep screaming at him, demanding that he let her go back to Sasuke and see if she could heal Karin and the children before it was too late. She wanted to make him take back every word he said about how she is failing as the Forbidden Flower, even if it was true…
I'm simply desperate, Hiashi had said, but Sakura couldn't hear in his whisper, but could make out the words when he finally looked away.
"Sakura," a new, softer and gentle voice spoke to her left ear, making her tiredly turn her head and meet the same pale eyes that Hinata has. Dark brown hair and masculine features, Sakura would've nearly mistook the man for Hinata. He looked concern, standing out from everyone else as he knelt down and got on his knees.
Rin's fingers dug into Sakura's flesh out of caution. "This man…" she whispered.
Sakura blinked slowly, looking at him when he suddenly offered a small smile. "Who are you?" she slurred, like her tongue was swelling in her mouth. When his inviting hand began to reach for her face, Sakura drunkenly leaned away from his touch. "Who…?"
"I wouldn't expect you to remember me," he confessed sadly, but the smile remained. The tips of his fingers just barely grazed Sakura's jawline, as if to hold her head for her, and the throbbing in her head began to burn-!
Yellow eyes, looking just like snakes.
"Come to me, darling. Let me make you feel better."
Snow. Lots of snow on the forest floor.
"SAKURA!"
Blood splattering on her skin.
"Sasuke-kun..?"
Blood. Blood everywhere
"You shouldn't have done that, Sasuke-sama…"
Sasuke's blood.
"Don't cry, baby…"
Sasuke's blood on her skin.
"I'll get better soon."
Sasuke laying on her bed. Unmoving and looked borderline dead.
"You're dying!"
And it was all her fault.
"He will be okay, Sakura-hime."
It was her fault, and a man with pale eyes would gently pat her head.
"Don't be afraid, Sakura-hime."
Sakura lurched forward, barely supporting her numbing body as she screamed at the sudden memories of blood and Sasuke and the yellow eyes and she was eightandshecauseditallandtherewas-!
"N-Neji..?"
Sakura could only weakly whimper the man's name before slipping out of Rin's grasp and back into the dark nightmare she felt trapped in.
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It was never lies. No lies have ever been told.
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Accomplices will bring light to the ripped pages of missing chapters.
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Of how she was eight, and she caused her current situation now…
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All thanks to her, it was her fault.
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=xxx=
AUTHOR'S ENDING NOTE - Ready your pants for the next chapter with new characters and secrets revealed: The truth of why Sasuke and Sakura were separated until her eighteenth birthday.