Chapter Text
1 – RELENTLESS
run, run, rabbit
chapter one • ash and dust
Waking up wasn’t anything of an odd sensation or even a strange occurrence. It should have been something she did every morning when her alarm went off to mark the start of another long day. Only Haruno Sakura remembered dying, the life draining from her body along with her lifeblood, and that in itself made the feeling of waking up all the more confusing.
Air brushed against her skin, cold and biting, the sensations of it bringing her to full awareness, even as she took in a ragged breath. Something was wrong. That was a fact Sakura knew in her very bones. There was something off. Her eyes opened, eyelids feeling as though they had been glued shut as a dark ceiling swum into view. Pain pulsed in her temples, and, out of instinct, she reached for her chakra, sitting up sharply when she couldn’t find it. Her breathing stilled, panic pulsing beneath her skin before she quashed it down.
Think, she reminded herself, training coming back to her in a blur as she calmed herself and put her big brain to use. Her hands went to her chest, searching for the wound which had killed her – but it wasn’t there, and her shirt was intact. She stared down at herself, yes, there was some blood on her which explained the scent of copper in her nose—wait. Sakura blinked, lifting her hands up into the light of the moon which streamed through the window.
She sucked in a sharp breath, because those were not her hands. They were the hands of a young, probably civilian teenager, going by the lack of callouses. “What the…?” she trailed off, the words escaping her mouth coming out in a completely different language.
Frantic, her brain ticked over the many options, going over what she knew for certain. One, she had died, that much was undeniable. Two, her heart was currently beating, and she was, all for the medical definition of the word, alive. Three, this was not her body, because her hands were too small and her hair was a chestnut brown rather than the pink she knew and loved. Four, she was in an unknown location which was very likely hostile if the blood on her shirt was anything to go by.
The body she was in might well have died – scratch that, or so Sakura mused as she eyed the blood staining the ground and the way a large portion of her shirt was stained in it. The trousers she was wearing were also pulled down, the pants down around her ankles, and her body was sending her signals of pain from that region. Her stomach roiled, the reminder that she herself hadn’t been raped comforting her even if only by the slightest of margins. Because who the fuck would go after a young teenager like that?
Someone she did not want to meet, that was for sure. Not in the condition she was in, underpowered and likely in a smaller body than what she was used to.
Her eyes narrowed, the likeliest conclusion coming to her then, even as her brain worked overtime. She had died. That much was obvious, unless her memory was failing her – but that was a rabbit hole Sakura didn’t want to fall down, so she decided her memories were real. A girl had also died, younger than her, and in a terrible, gruesome manner that she wouldn’t wish upon anyone. Somehow she had woken up in that girl’s body, in a strange, likely hostile environment which she needed to escape from—
“You’re still alive…” The soft voice sent shivers of dread down her spine, and slowly, ever so slowly, she turned, meeting those cold eyes which looked at her hungrily.
Fear shot through her, even as she scrambled to her feet. Or she tried to, at least, the trousers around her ankles tripping her up before she could even take a step back. Chuckles rent the air and she scrambled for her chakra, remembering too late that it wasn’t there. Her chakra was gone.
Yet something answered.
Deep in the recesses of her mind, it stirred. A presence. What exactly it was, Sakura wasn’t sure. All she knew was that it reeked of strength. Perhaps it wasn’t the strength she was used to, but she called it forth, blinking as it surged forwards like a tidal wave. Too late, Sakura realised what it was doing, the presence, dark, primal, and hungry consuming her mind. It surged around, as if trying to drown her, its tendrils of power curling around her limbs.
Stop, she told it.
It didn’t listen.
Sakura gritted her teeth, grabbing a hold of the presence in her mind in the blink of an eye in a way she was well practiced with. Her mind had always been one of the strongest things about her, along with her iron control over it, and she proved it then. I said, stop! she hissed, and finally, the thing listened and was still. Do not try to drown me out, she commanded, eyeing the man who seemed to have some sort of bloodline limit, if the fangs and claws he was growing were anything to go off of.
Not a bloodline limit – those didn’t exist there – rather, a vampire, part of her normal brain told her, and Sakura blinked as the pulsing headache started, trickles of images flooding through her brain—and no. Sakura pushed them away, telling herself she would deal with the odd influx of memories later. She needed to escape and secure her safety first. The image of a man in a wheelchair with dark brown hair sprang to mind.
“Seems like I’ll get more of a meal out of you,” the man—vampire said, voice full of a dark, hungry glee. “Sara, darling, has anyone told you how delectable your blood is?” He tilted his head. “Such pure blood, and yet somehow a mix of my two favourite tastes… though rare is it I get to taste one of them…”
Mentally, she turned, addressing the presence in the back of her head then, not needing to focus on the rhetoric of how her blood tasted. You need me, and I need you if you want us both to survive, she told it, her grip on its presence there firm and unrelenting. Lend me your strength, but don’t try to push me out of your mind or drown me within it, she ordered, releasing it then, almost daring it to try and consign them both to death so soon after she – and perhaps it as well – had found life once more.
Fine, she thought she heard the thing say. It almost sounded sullen. But no glow.
Sakura frowned. Glow? she wondered, shuffling back, grabbing her knickers and trousers up from where they were at her feet. Ignoring the vampire’s tut at that, her eyes darted about, narrowing as they caught sight of the rusty old poker lying discarded under one half-rotten bedframe. There had been a fireplace somewhere there. Or maybe whatever fates had dumped her there had been kind enough to leave her with a terrible weapon to avoid an impending death. Trousers back in place, she rolled over, grabbing a hold of the poker, even as clawed fingers ran down the side of her arm in an almost loving embrace.
“I can’t wait to—”
She didn’t wait for him to finish whatever he was about to say. Fire, decapitation, or staking through the heart. The methods to kill the vampire floated through her brain without so much of a hello, how do you do, and Sakura bared her teeth. Fire and decapitation were out, given she didn’t have the tools. Staking through the heart it was. Even with a blunt and rusty poker as she was saddled with.
The thing in the back of her head leant her the much needed speed and power as she whipped the poker out from under the bed. The crack it made when it impacted the side of the vampire’s head was music to her ears, and Sakura wasted no time once it was stunned. She lowered the blunted tip, ignoring the widened eyes which stared at her and the staggered movement it made. Sakura was faster, and she and the presence in the back of her mind relished in it.
Tightening her grip on the poker, she slammed it up into the vampire’s heart, grunting as her grip nearly slipped on the sweaty handle as it met resistance. Stabbing things without chakra there to aid her was hard, yet she had the thing in the back of her brain. The same thing which had leant her strength so they could both survive.
A heavy thud of a body impacting the ground met her ears, the coppery scent which had been faded and muted when she first woke up coming back in full force. Silence met her ears for a few moments, before the tell-tale sounds of movement elsewhere in that house made her spring to her feet in alarm.
There were more of them in that house.
Her eyes darted over to the window, part of her grateful when she saw nothing but open space where glass ought to have been. Less chance for her to be heard. Though being seen was still an option. Being smelt was also a problem, given how she smelled of blood. She smelled like dinner to a vampire. How she knew that, Sakura wasn’t entirely sure. She would figure it out eventually. There was no other option than that.
She was a shinobi, no matter her very civilian body in that moment, and they were masters of survival amongst other things. Bare feet planted themselves on the windowsill, sharp eyes peering along the side of the building, relief flooding through her when she realised there were no windows on that side, which only left directly beneath her. Sakura peered around, eyes settling upon a heavy-duty drainpipe leading down the corner of the dilapidated house.
Silently, she prayed it would take her weight, given it was the only viable way she could see herself getting down to the ground out of sight of a possible window and quietly at that. Jumping down would be too risky, especially considering she was barefoot. Climbing down the drainpipe it was. Carefully, all too aware of the corpse in the room behind her and the other vampires afoot, she edged out of the window, fingers and feet finding handholds on the craggy grey stone which made up the house.
The drainpipe was silent as she grabbed a hold of it, hands making quick work of the climb down, and the window on the first floor came into view. Breathing quietly, she lowered herself down as quietly as she could, dropping soundlessly into the grass once she was close enough to the ground. She stayed as low as she could, hearing murmurs of conversation in the building. Her heart thudded in her chest like a drum, panic encroaching in her veins as she started to crawl through the grass, aiming for the fence on the side of the house. Once she was over that, tall as it was, she would be safer. It was tall and wooden, with no slats nor gaps. As soon as she was over that, she could run like a bat out of hell and get further away before anyone noticed the dead bloodsucker in the room upstairs. The further she was away when that was uncovered, the better.
Every howl of wind sent shivers racing down her spine, and Sakura only gritted her teeth and soldiered on. She needed to get to safety somehow, and at least figure out what in the blue blithering blazes was going on with her life.
The fence seemed to crawl into view so slowly, and by the time she reached it, she was almost shaking with relief. Her new body – it was seemingly hers for the time being at least – hadn’t seemed to have much prior exercise and the thing in the back of her head had its limits, or so she was working out as she risked a glance around, stood, and practically launched herself over the fence and into the little alley beyond.
Small rocks and stones cut into her feet, drawing blood, but Sakura was too focused on escaping danger to care or really notice the injuries she was obtaining. Too used to being able to heal injuries like that in a heartbeat. She swallowed, legs pumping, feet taking her through a maze of streets and streetlights until artificial light surrounded her.
Her breath came in short pants, the sheer unfamiliarity of the world surrounding her giving her pause, because—a large vehicle honked at her as she stood there, and Sakura stumbled back, looking around frantically for anything familiar in sight. She needed familiarity. She needed safety.
“You there,” a soft voice called, and Sakura frowned as she turned to face the speaker. A lady strode towards her, hand on something on her hip which seemed to be part of a uniform or something. “Are you in need of assistance? What’s a girl as young as you doing out so—”
“Is that blood?” her associated blurted out, and Sakura blinked at the pair of them, watching as the man pulled out a communications device and frantically started speaking into it.
“Help?” Sakura murmured, part of her vaguely aware of how the world was starting to spin. She had pushed her new body too far, it seemed, she acknowledged dimly. “Help,” she stated, eyes rolling back into her skull as she crumbled to the ground in an undignified heap.