From the moment the sun touched her skin she knew nothing but agony.

Every inch of body felt like it was engulfed in a thousand-degree acid, no acid would be more merciful than this. Acid would eat away at her nerves until she no longer felt its burning sting until it found fresh turf to burn. No, she was vividly aware of her every cell being set ablaze over and over again.

Boiling blood gave turned to steam in her veins as it twirled throughout her body leaving nothing but misery in their wake in an attempt to escape her body. There was no mercy from this pain, no break, no reprieve. Just more pain.

It was pain beyond death.

"Sakura!" She heard Naruto shout. His arms engulfed her, pulling her close to try and protect shield her from whatever was assaulting her. She could hear his heartbeat, feel it, all it did was remind her of the hunger that was growing inside her.

The pain of hunger was almost enough to deafen the rest of her pain. But it wasn't enough, instead, it added to it, a building mountain of pain that blocked off every part of the world around her aside from that infernal sun that glared down upon her with a scornful wrath that made her body weak.

She should have passed out by now. She should be dead by now.

"What's happening to her?" Naruto's frantic cries echoed from above. "It's it a jutsu? Is this because of the Kyuubi? A genjutsu?"

Then the pain took hold of her, flaring up like the snap of a campfire, dazzling her with sparks each of which was a twister of glass that tore through her body taking away the skin, meat, and bones, until all that was left was her nerves, each one in more pain than she had ever felt in her life.

She could feel the icy tendrils of death piercing into her heart, ready to claim her at a moments notice. But that release never came, it was halted by the fires of her pain if only to make her spend a few more hours of this torture.

"Please," her breath tore against her throat like knives. "Make it stop."

She didn't hear their reply. Only some small comfort as Naruto's jacket was placed over her, blocking the sun's burning scorn if only for a moment. His heart beat against his chest, each thump like a lion's roar in her ear that sent a chill down her spine that gathered in her stomach. With that melodic roar so close to her ear and the burning barely an echo Sakura allowed that pain of hunger to take her, as a new feeling washed over her.

A need for sleep.

It was short-lived, being violently ripped from her when Naruto's jacket was ripped from her, exposing her once more to that blistering sun. Her skin was on fire this time, burning bright hot, and sharp.

She was placed onto a bed, blankets covering her, the fabric thin, allowing bits of sunlight to stab at her at any chance they got, forcing her to stay awake. They buzzed around her like bees now, a bunch of nurses and doctors their medical babble was not lost on her. They were lost, frantic.

"What's happened here?" Tsunade's voice rang out among them, snapping the hive into order with but a word. That was her master, making others in the field that much better simply by being there.

The blanket was moved and she saw her Master's gaze upon her for just a moment before she felt the sun upon her. She screamed. Hard, long, and without pause. Her body thrashing against her own control, moving the blanket and causing more of that hellish pain to wash over her body.

Another blanket fell on top of her, then another, shielding her from even the most persistent rays of the sun. "Something is causing her to be hyper photosensitive."

"Then don't take any pictures of her!" Naruto's frantic shout sounded close. She could still hear his beating heart. He was worried about her.

"Someone get that idiot out of here!" Tsunade barked, the hive scrambled, pushing Naruto out. "Shizune, start prepping a surgery room, I want all the windows closed, and as few lights as we can get away with! Just hang in there Sakura, I'll get you fixed."

A mask was slipped over her, and a sweet gas filled her mouth. She took deep, long breaths, awaiting the tender sleep that it would bring her. Her head began to spin everything was whirling in a dervish of pain centered around her stomach.

"I can't find her pulse."

"I can't draw any blood."

"How is she still alive?"

"Shut up!" Her master barked. "You, check her heart, you, go get her a blood bag, she's blood type O, she donated once a week, you should be able to find some of hers in the storage, You quit standing there like an idiot and go help Shizune with the room!"

"Don't worry Sakura," Tsunade said once again. "I'll fix this. I swear."

Time was a blur, the gas only half worked, making her body numb to the pain and relaxing her to the point where she couldn't open her eyes. She could hear their breaths, the blood rushing through their veins, the sweat gathering on their foreheads. The commands Tsunade delivered carried out without question. But it was their beating hearts that lulled her away from the here and now.

Awareness came jarring into her when she felt something warm enter her arm. It burned like hot water through frozen pipes tearing through her vascular system and pushing the hunger away. Tsunade loomed over her, the lights above her were dim, but still buzzed with the wrath of a thousand bees. But beside her master sat that tantalizing red liquid slowly dripping into her veins, teasing her.

She had never seen anything so beautiful, and so red.

Her master pushed a tear from her eyes and looked down at her with pity. "Go back to sleep Sakura, we're making progress, we'll have you back in a heartbeat."

"Blood," she could practically taste the word on her lips, that sweet, almost iron salt like taste, that came from licking her own wounds as a child. But better. Better than dango, udon, or any of her favorite sweets. "Need more, blood."

"I know," Tsunade whispered, bringing a hand up to touch her face, "You lost a lot of blood, but its working, so just go to sleep okay? Save your strength."

This was worse than any diet. The strength in her arm was gone, and her chakra had never felt so thin. Tsunade's fingers traced along her forehead, chakra flooding into her head, and the world fell out from under her.

XXXX

Voracity snapped her into the dark reality of her room, it controlled her, body, mind, will to consume. To feed. Three heartbeats were just beyond the walls. She knew one of them. She knew it well. But that didn't matter. She was hungry. Her bare feet hit the cold slick floor, the covers dropping helplessly around her.

A glimpse of red caught her eyes, dangling there like a tantalizing apple upon a metallic tree, barely a drip was reaching her body now. It wasn't enough. She needed more. She needed all of it. Right now!

She grabbed the half-empty blood bag, tearing into it with her mouth. That sweet sanguine liquid poured into her. Pushing away the hunger, and the headache away like she was wiping them from a whiteboard. It spilled on her bathing her in that glorious crimson color, she had always loved red, but now it was truly a wonderful color.

When the bag was depleted and every single drop inside was consumed, her mind finally woke up to find her body naked save for a simple hospital gown, wires, IVs sticking out of her like some kind of science project. Then there was the blood that covered her hands.

Logic and training told her to wash it off, instincts said lick it up. Bringing her hand up to her mouth Sakura took a small lick of the substance. It had such a unique and pleasant flavor. It was, her? This was her blood. How did she know that? Why did she know that?

"What happened to me?" Her voice was different, but still the same, it was deeper, more seductive, and hungry. She licked her hand again, getting between her fingers to keep a growing hunger barely at bay. Tsunade had performed an operation on her or had done something.

The room was dark, and not a recovery room where they kept the patients, those had windows, sunshine improved moods, improved moods increased recovery. But here in a room completely devoid of light not only could she see everything with the sharpness and contrast as she could in the brightest of days, but she also felt at home.

Like she belonged her, engulfed in a blanket of darkness.

"A chart," She muttered pulling the remaining, wires and IVs from her body, the heart rate monitor gave an annoying beep, that she silenced with the flip of a switch. Tsunade was through, never leaving even the slightest detail unchecked, Shizune even more so. "There has to be a chart."

It hung off the end of her bed like the precursor of a tombstone. Even in the darkness, she could read with ease, finding each and every character somehow crisper than before. The medical jargon was not lost on her, even in her master's sloppy notes. "Subject was introduced to an unknown substance."

That would be the liquid that Kabuto had splashed on her in his desperation to escape. She thought she had the upper hand, but that proved to be a folly, Kabuto was toying with her, just waiting for her anger to get the better of her, waiting for her mistake. And she did charging at him in his lab. Dammit. She was still weak.

"Extreme sensitivity to sunlight - even the smallest amount would cause the skin to blister, recovery is quick," she looked at her arm, unmarred from scars, only a single drop of blood that she had missed. Not anymore. There were no wounds, but she remembered the pain. She remembered that all too clearly. Not something she wanted to experience again.

"Extremely anemic - subjects red blood cell count was almost zero, recovered quickly once a Blood transfusion was in place, but levels were still low and dropping." Other notes dotted around this, thoughts on the cause, a pathogen that was targeting blood cells? A virus? Some new disease? A jutsu? None of them held out. "Subject kept mumbling about blood? Self-diagnostic most likely."

She read past the dozen or so pages of failed tests that ran on her. There was a line about being moved to a separate room for recovery. No quarantine? "Naruto Uzumaki, Yamato, Sai, were all healthy and after a check up allowed to return. Likely some aggressive chemical Orochimaru developed as a weapon."

That was right, she reached beyond the wall of pain that scared her memory of what happened the last time she was awake. They were searching for Sasuke with the information she got from Sasori, and then she ran into Kabuto, got separated, fought him. And then she punched that vat that contained a pink liquid that spilled over her. He dodged.

She nearly died because she was too weak, too stupid, to useless. She ground her teeth, running her tongue against their back until she felt a sharp prick. Were her teeth always that sharp? Or that long? Wait, no it was just her mind playing tricks on her, they weren't that long.

"Long story short," She tossed the chart onto her mattress standing to look about the room once more, a storage room, one of the few places in the hospital that wasn't drenched in sunlight. "I look like shit right now."

But she felt fine. Better than fine even. Like this was the most alive she had felt in a long, long, time. Everything felt fine. Aside from that gnawing hunger in the back of her head. Did the nurses leave her anything?

Like a big, red, juicy, steak, barely cooked on the outside so that the blood would explode into her- blood? She wanted blood. She craved blood. That wasn't normal. Not by a long shot. Her teeth felt sharp again, sticking her finger in she found that she had two, long fangs where her incisors once were. Far, from normal.

Placing a hand over her heart, Sakura felt her own pulse beating in her chest, faint, distant, a pulse so low it shouldn't even exist. "What the hell happened to me?"

Food first, emotional crisis later. The nurses should have left her something to eat, anything. Ahh, a tray right next to the bed. Nothing fancy, just the usual garbage stuff they served in the hospital. But that jello would be good, a jiggling red mass like congealed blood, just sitting there waiting for her to stick her fangs into it and suck.

"Okay, clearly I'm just having hallucinations due to low blood sugar, just eat some food and I'll be fine." She cracked open the jello, wincing at the overly sweet smell like it had been allowed to ripen for far too long. Probably just her nose being overly sensitive. Besides, it looked like blood.

Ash. The food turned to ash in her mouth filling her with a dry chalky filling that left her wincing after every bite. It wasn't just the jello, the fruit, vegetables, even the bred, all crumbled to nothing but a foul-tasting paste the moment it entered her mouth. It was hard to keep down. Okay, so she lost her sense of taste. That was fine.

She probably just needed more blood. Not to eat. Just that her taste buds weren't functioning because of how anemic she was. That was it. Her stomach gurgled and she was sent to the nearest trash can, puking up everything she shoved down her throat. And the answer was clear. She needed blood.

"No," She pushed back against the urges, finding her way to her bed once more, and sat there shaking. Feeling colder by the second. The blanket didn't help. Nothing helped. The hunger was there, a constant reminder that she needed blood. "This can't be happening to me."

She closed her eyes, trying to wake up from this twisted dream. Only the beating of a heart, strong, healthy, full of life - full of blood - awaited her when she closed her eyes. It wasn't hers. She knew whose it was.

"Naruto?" It sounded like he was on the other side of the door, he was sleeping, sitting down, head tilted to one side. A red flash screamed across her eyes, flaring with his every heartbeat, growing from around his chest, and filling out his cardiovascular system. It all looked so tantalizing.

Her body moved on its own, gliding towards him without sound. The door creaked as she opened it into the hallway, where a piercing white light blinded her for but a moment. It was not the sun, just the inward lights of the hospital.

And there she saw Naruto, asleep in a chair opposite of her door, head braced against a pillar that jutted out from the wall ever so slightly, his jacket serving as a crude blanket. He was waiting for her. That was almost sweet.

His neck was exposed, blood rushing through the main vein of his body, just ripe for the taking. All she needed to do was sink her teeth in. It was so alluring, so mouthwatering. It was everything that she wanted and more.

No. She stopped herself, just an inch from his neck, fangs bared, ready to bite. There was blood elsewhere. Much more blood, better blood. Blood that didn't belong to Naruto. She licked her lips, staring once more at that tantalizing bit of neck. She wanted it so badly. To the point of arousal.

An image flashed, of him shirtless, pressed against the wall, as she exploded his muscular body while a bit of blood spilled from his neck as she sucked greedily on him.

"Sakura," Naruto moaned in his sleep.

Crap, he was waking up. She needed to leave, what would people think if they saw her wandering the hospital at night to try and get more blood.

The shadows were her friend, and the blood storage room was close. Her mouth salivated as she thought of those two refrigerators filled to the brim with blood. Just the thought was enough to satisfy her for the moment. Whatever self-control she had vanished when she got there.

Ripping into the first bag she poured the contents into her mouth, moaning as it filled her up. Making her feel more alive than ever as the hunger was nothing but a distant memory. She didn't even remember opening it and found herself fangs deep into her second bag, blood dripping from her mouth like she was a two-year-old eating pasta.

Her reflection caught her eye and brought with it a sense of dread. Rather, it was her lack of reflection, in the dim light, the reflective metal portrayed a warped image of the world around her, her bloodstained gown, the blood bag hanging from her mouth. But she was missing.

"What the hell?" She scrambled around, looking in every surface she could find, trying to find her, what she looked like. All of them told the same story. She had no reflection, though she could clearly see herself.

"What's wrong with me?"

AN: I had writers block. So I wrote Sakura into a Vampire. I'm starting Halloween early. Updating Blooming in Concrete next.