I am a demanding creature. I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable. But I am your servant. When you starve, I will feed you; when you are sick I will tend you. I crawl at your feet; for before your love, your kisses, I am debased. For you alone I will be weak.
-Koschei the Deathless
(Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente)

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Sakura's heart was hammering in her chest as she took the stairs two at a time. She could feel her phone through the pocket of her jeans and every time she stretched it bumped up against her bones like a sick reminder.

Stopping just outside the apartment door, she shifted the bag of sweets from one hand to the other to reach into her back pocket for her key chain. They came out in a loud clattering of metal on metal before she found the right one for her door. Her breath was a white cloud on her lips as she panted in anticipation. Her key was stuck again, so she had to wiggle it just the right way for it to catch and turn.

Click

Her door swung open and she was sidestepping inside, catching the door with her foot before it hit the wall and kicking it back till it closed with a solid thud.

The apartment below and beside her to the left were empty, and the kids who owned the apartment to her right were freaks who kept her up enough on their own to ever bother complaining about the few times she slammed her door shut. She was only nineteen and already she knew she was scared for life. Moving in after turning legal might not have been the best decision she ever made.

Thankfully, the couple were away for the weekend, meaning the apartment complex was nice and quiet. Sakura liked all the old people who lived in her apartment, and they liked her. It was hard not to when she was constantly bringing them cookies and treats leftover from her part time job at the speciality bakery.

Sakura smelled like sugar and frosting and it made her teeth tingle. She hated sweet things, but couldn't deny that she was pretty talented at making them quickly and efficiently without cutting corners like the other bakers did. That was one of the reasons they liked her so much at work.

Sakura glanced at the clock and cursed under her breath. It was later than she intended it to be. She only had less than half an hour to get everything ready and that would mean cutting things close. She could do it, but she liked having cushion time she could fall back on. 'Better safe than sorry,' she always did say. Next time she would remember to say no to extra shifts.

She was a blur as she moved from one room to the next, changing out of her uniform into skinny jeans and a black long sleeve. Back in the kitchen, her land line rang. She was brushing out her hair for volume as the answering machine picked it up.

'Hey this is Sakura, try my cell if you haven't already. Sorry I can't come to the phone right now, please leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can, thanks.'

Beeeeep

"Sakura, this is Karin, you freaking ran off on me today. I need to know if you have someone to bring with you to the five year reunion party. I said I would, but we're running out of tickets so let me know if I should keep one for you. If not than skip reunion and get a boyfriend already. You're on your ow too much. Everyone else is bring a plus one but you. I'll call you later, ta."

Karin's voice cut off with a low beep and the answering machine clicked off.

Sakura was grateful she hadn't bothered to answer it now. Karin was being nosey again. Sakura loved her girl fiend, but the dang woman couldn't keep her nose out of matters that didn't concern her to save her life. Ino had been bad enough when they were younger, but after graduation the pair gradually drifted apart and no one was there to nag Sakura about her singleness until Karin came along. It was uncanny how her two unrelated friends both chose to harp on the same issues, regardless of time or place. Neither wanted to see Sakura single, convinced it was the source of all her unhappiness.

If only they knew.

Sakura paused to look at herself in the mirror. Her hair was full and curled around her face, framing it nicely and making the wings of black at the corners of her eyes stand out. She rolled a stick of red over her lips and kissed to make it spread. She looked fatal.

"You'll do for tonight," she said to her reflection.

With only ten minutes to go, Sakura rolled out the mat with the deign traced out for her to paint in the lamb's blood she kept stored in her fridge. A tuber-wear container under the coffee table held a dozen and one candles she placed strategically around the ring. Using a match, she lit them one by one.

She looked to the clock on the wall, watching as the minute hand teased her with the promise of midnight. She had done this plenty of times before, she didn't know why she always go so anxious about the timing. If anything, it should have been the part where she has to cut herself open that gave her chills, but no, it was her fear of being late that sent tingles down her spine. If only her professors could see her now, they would be proud of how paranoid they made her about punctuality and deadlines.

She stared down at the mat and the multi ringed eye of red and black stared back up at her. It was cryptic and frightening and utterly distasteful. It looked like it belonged in a Hot Topic outlet, not on her living room floor.

One minute to go.

She positioned the knife over her palm, the blade dipping into her flesh, ready to separate folds of skin to expose the liquid red.

The second hand passed over the thirty second mark and the ticked up closer and closer till it was ten seconds till.

Sakura applied pressure and pulled the knife free. She heard the rip before she felt the heat. It was a shallow wound, but it was deep enough to bleed. The clock was at midnight and the chimes went off. Sakura flexed and the blood flowed a little faster. Turning her palm over she slammed it onto the center of her mat.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

The lights flickered and the room shivered as a large cloud of smoke sprang up from between her fingers. Her room had been warm before, but with the smoke cam an unnatural chill. Everything was choked and obscured in ash colored clouds, causing her to cough.

Through the dim she saw the figure who cast the impressive shadow over her walls and up her ceiling. A rack of horns grew from his skull, twisted and glorious like any crown of horns should be on a monster with sharp teeth. His eyes were dark and glaring, the same ruby red as the mat she had used to summon him from. His chest was bare, but tribal tattoos decorated his shoulders and the upper half of his chest. Wings cut from the sky at midnight stretched out behind him, gradually lowering as the smoke pulled away. A few stray feathers drifted free.

He was a monster often mistaken for a devil when the worlds that separated hers from his broke down and trembled under his will. One could see clearly enough that he carried the fears of a thousand people in his stride, that he was a creature who knew why others trembled before him, and relished in it. A selfish mouth, unreasonable fangs, and a tongue that danced with all the crushing power of a broadsword on the battlefield, he was a fiend and he was in her living room.

His eyes found hers and her heart nearly stopped.

"Mortal," he breathed. His voice was a pearl of thunder sunk into velvet. "Why have you summoned me?"

Sakura's breath was ragged as she struggled to form the words racing through her head. "Ino got back together with Shikamaru!"

"What?" the devil roared, his wings expanding behind him. "When did this happen?"

Sakura made a face, pulling out her phone to show off the picture. "Today, or last night-yesterday. It was all over facebook. It looks like they hooked up again and he's letting her hang on him, but they're a 'couple' now."

"What? After last time?"

Sakura raised an eyebrow, understanding his confusion and shock. "I know right. You have to wonder what she sees in him."

Madara rolled his gorgeous red eyes and flicked a strand of ebony hair over his shoulder. "You tell me. I can manipulate the fabric of time and cut through the barriers to the raw, undaunted chaos of a thousand worlds, but I still don't understand what she sees in that kid."

Sakura threw her hands up in the air before falling back into the cushions of her couch. "No one does. Everyone knows he was with Temari last week, and that foreign chick before that. He's not even that cute. How does he get girls to like him like that?"

Madara shook her head. "That girl needs to get her priorities in check. She can't keep looking for a man to define her. It's unhealthy."

"Speaking of unhealthy." Sakura reached out and then held up her box of cupcakes. Madara nearly squealed, reaching to grab them out of her hands, ignoring the way his claws curled around the cardboard and poked holes. Even though he was a crafted agent of darkness, he could be delicate when he needed to be.

"Oh love, I knew there was a reason I didn't eat you alive the first time we met. Just you wait, I'll make you my queen of chaos yet."

Sakura grinned quietly to herself, tying up her bandaged hand. "You keep telling yourself that. Turn off the lights, Game of Thrones is on and you promised to watch it with me."

Flicking his wrist over his shoulder, the lights turned themselves out, allowing Madara to climb onto the couch and settle next to the smaller woman with pink hair. Wrapping one wing around her, he bit into one of her cupcakes and moaned. With frosting still on his lips he bent down to peck her cheek. She squealed and tried to push away, but he just pulled her closer.

"Don't doubt me love. You would look lovely in horns."

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An idea popped into my head and I had to write it down. Originally I saw a picture of a girl summoning Cthulhu form the great beyond to talk about boys, but then I was somewhere else (tumblr), months later, and thought about what Madara would look like as a monster and got to thinking, 'oh yeah, I'd summon that if I could, anyone would.' Thus, this drabble came about. It's short, I know, but it's something to snicker over, right?

Please review, please and thank you!

Vesper chan