Feeling a bit dark, fwiw. Inspired by Little Red Riding Hood, which is one of those stories that NEVER seems to get a good film adaption. Ever. Thinking this will be in three parts. It's supposed to read somewhat sparsely, like a fairy tale.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or its characters

Hunger drives the wolf into the town – Estonian saying

Don't cry wolf, she thought. Don't stay out late or the wolves will get you. Look out for wolves in sheep's clothing. Proverbs echoed in her head as Sakura hauled her garden tools from the small shed near the house back to the plot of land that grew the vegetables her family tended behind the house and thought of how easily a shovel could become a weapon. Her father had tried to awkwardly talk to her about that very topic not three days ago now that the raids had become more aggressive on the various village livestock. He had pointed to the pitch fork and shuddered as he explained how easily it could be turned against a beast or a man. Sakura knew her father and mother did not have the stomach to fight, but Sakura knew in her heart she could do what needed to be done to defend her village and her family. Briefly, she wondered if this made her a bad person just a little bit.

Squash, carrots, beets, turnips, garlic, potato… despite their spindly look they looked delicious and Sakura pushed back the desire to dig out a sweet potato and gnaw on it. Bad weather earlier that year had assured smaller harvests and it was going to be a lean enough winter if she couldn't get control of her baser instincts. Hunger made everyone cranky with that edge of fear that came from wondering if this year you'd eat every day. The Harunos were lucky, growing plenty of fruit and vegetables that they preserved and sold, but the family orchards were miles into the woods and at some point the last portion of the harvest would have to travel. Sakura found her mind wandering back to the pitch fork.

"Hey, I knew I'd find you here since I could see the light reflecting off that huge forehead of yours all the way from my house." Ino was wandering over, a pack full of aromatic herbs the Harunos would use for canning slung over her shoulder.

"Your screeching will break my ears one of these days." Sakura called back with a wave. Ino always had a way of drawing Sakura from her dark inner world into the funny gossipy one the rest of the village girls seemed to occupy.

"How's playing in the dirt today?" Ino sniffed and pretended like she didn't have many of the same chores. Her own family grew all the medicinal and edible herbs that people used in the village.

Sakura just grinned and dusted off her hands. "Better than picking at flowers like you. What's the news? You would have dropped your package off with my mom if you weren't dying to tell me something."

"Stop being so clever, maybe I just won't tell you now." Ino began playing with the end of her ponytail as if Sakura had stopped existing.

"Don't be like that. You know I would wither up and die without you feeding me news." Sakura couldn't stifle the accompanying eyeroll but Ino ignored it entirely.

Ino went from disinterested to excited in the space of a second, her pretty face lighting up as she tossed her long blond ponytail over her shoulder. "Well, if you put it that way… Kiba and Akamaru finally found some evidence that it hasn't just been wolves after the sheep! Now there's going to be a meeting tonight and my dad thinks Tsunade will authorize a war party to investigate the woods!"

"Hold on, what do you mean by more than wolves?"

"People! Maybe they're bandits! Or another village…" Ino seemed breathless at the idea of bandits. "It's been a long time since we had problems with another village."

Sakura leaned on her shovel and raised an eyebrow. "You almost sound sad about that. Looking to see a little bloodshed? A nice feud?"

"Well nothing ever happens here does it!" Ino cried defensively. "The most thrilling thing we see is when Naruto and Lee compete to see who can toss hay bales faster, or who can run the most laps around the village."

While she was completely right about how dull things had become in their corner of the world, Sakura wasn't sure she wanted to see anyone fighting, necessarily.

"You'll see, Sakura, I bet Kiba got it wrong anyway. This is all just a storm and it will pass and then it's back to harvesting and preserving until we're boiled ourselves." Ino scrunched up her face in distaste.

He who fears the wolf, should not go to the forest - Estonian saying

Sakura ran her hands a few times through her bright hair to get out any tangles. Grandmother was not a fan of tangles, or anything else that seemed particularly messy. Sakura, who had never had the flair for fashion that set Ino apart or the delicate beauty that made Hinata popular, relied on her vitality to charm people. Grandmother still hoped for better, eyeing Sakura warily like she was practicing to be a spinster just to spite the old bat. Her new-ish red dress, reworked from one of her mother's, would have to impress as Sakura helped with the apple harvest.

It would take half a day to walk to the groves, the better part of two weeks to complete the picking which had already been started by her grandmother, and then Naruto would arrive with a borrowed horse and cart to haul all the barrels of apples back to the village. In prosperous years they had to bring in people outside the family to help with the picking, but her grandmother had sent word that this year it would not be necessary.

Autumn was coming early, and Sakura clutched at her cloak to block the stiff wind blowing at her back. Even if the rains came now they couldn't make up for the unusually dry year. The scent of the forest seemed to drown everything else out as she tried to sense for danger. Tsunade had decided the possible threat relied on too little evidence to spare men from the harvest, but everyone was told to stay wary and be armed. The skinning knife, old and rusty from disuse, which had been lying on the ground in the shed was the only weapon-like thing that had made sense for Sakura to bring. Rumors weren't going to get those apples picked, and so even though her parents were uneasy about letting her go Sakura found herself alone on the path to her grandmother.

As she neared her destination, eyes as pale as lichen tracked her progress.

Where you talk of the wolf, there it is. – Estonian saying

Grandmother was getting old. It was a realization that hit Sakura as she was greeted at the door and folded into a stiff hug. Wrinkles she hadn't noticed earlier this year stood out in the dimming afternoon light. The tightening in her heart was a combination of the dread of eventual loss and the knowledge that the Harunos would have to make a decision about this distant orchard as well. Her father's desire not to be trapped isolated from the rest of the village could mean Sakura would have a difficult decision in her future, and her medical training with Tsunade had only begun a couple years ago.

"I see your father can't be spared this year." Sakura's grandmother, dark green eyes snapping, regarded her affectionately even as her words sliced.

"The farm is struggling." It was the same conversation they had every visit. Sakura shrugged off her travelling pack and unstrapped the skinning knife from her side.

Snatching it up, her granny looked from the rusty knife and back to Sakura with questions in her eyes. "This looks like it would sooner fall apart than hurt anything."

"It was all we had." Sakura held out her hand to take it back, as if she could stem the tide of criticism that was about to flow forth.

"If he expected you to run into trouble in the forest then you'd think he'd at least sharpen this. A rabbit wouldn't even fear you with this in your hand. My son never understands what it takes to survive in this world."

This wasn't what she came here for, granny's vitriol for the son that practically abandoned their orchards and their home, it was just a bonus added to the weeks of hard work in front of her. Sakura disciplined her face into a polite smile while inside she seethed. It hadn't been like this when grandfather was alive, but so much can change in two years.

"I'll show you your grandfather's scrapers and whetstone and then you can take care of this while I prepare some supper. You need to eat more, I swear I can count your ribs through that dress."

The comments about her lack of womanly figure at seventeen would be next, she was pretty sure, but at least she wasn't checking her teeth or taking her measurements like that one time. If she could write to a friend in another village and offer to trade her for a better granddaughter, Sakura thought she wouldn't even blink before the letter was out. Before Sakura could school her face back into a placid smile, her grandmother had returned with the sharpener.

"The knife was because wolves have been attacking the flocks. Haven't you seen anything of them here?" The abrasive scraper took care of the rust more quickly than expected as Sakura talked. In the nearby kitchen her grandmother stirred a steaming pot over the cooking fire and grunted.

"Wolves don't care a whit about apples."

"My friend thinks it's more than wolves." Oiling the whetstone, Sakura carefully began to sharpen the way her father had taught her. Gentle deliberate strokes as her keen eyes did the best they could in the low light. She'd always had a head for precise work.

"And what did Tsunade do?"

"Nothing. She said we should continue the harvest until we're certain it isn't wolves."

Her grandmother nodded, smiling a little bit. "The woman has sense. Take care of the people around you first, before you waste energy on what is probably a wild goose chase. People just want to be angry at things they can't help."

The skinning knife glinted in the dying light through the window as her grandmother set down a bowl of stew and part of a loaf of bread in front of her. Sakura was pleased with her work and thought that now it looked like a weapon, even if she didn't know how to wield it like one.

Help a wolf and you will be bitten – Estonian saying

Three back breaking days in and Sakura was getting sick of apples. The stickiness of them seemed to cover her and the scent of them was overpowering. At first it had been wonderful, to experience the sugary sweet deliciousness that tasted of every lovely treat from their celebrations. Memories of apple pies, apple candies, tarts and turnovers, even juicy raw apples or spicy cider gave way to nursing scrapes from the branches and cursing those apples that looked ripe but just didn't want to be plucked from the tree. The squishy rotted apples on the ground also had to be gathered for the compost heap, and that was saved for the end of the day as Sakura bent her sore back to wheeling the barrow. Farming was one thing, but her muscles never seemed to be ready for endless reaching into the heavens.

Later, she would appreciate the apples, she knew that, but she let herself swear and carry on under her breath as her grandmother worked a few trees over. It rankled that the old woman was so much faster and better at this, but Sakura knew she had a lifetime of practice and it wasn't fair to compare like that. She competed with herself to keep her energy high, imagining a shadow of herself picking just a little faster and reaching just a little higher. Naruto had taught her that trick, and it worked like a charm. She wished her friend were here with her, sneaking apples and laughing with her, instead of the insect noises and her own curses to keep her company. Sometimes she hummed to herself to break the monotony.

Grandmother had gone in to start making dinner, and Sakura was left to the compost but she just wasn't feeling it. Setting the wheelbarrow next to the tree she slumped down by the trunk and let the breeze wash over her. The humming of her tired muscles, the chirping of birds not yet migrated south, the dapple of light and shadow through the trees all served to lull her into a seeming trance. Sakura felt like she blinked once, twice, and then suddenly she saw something glow red at the corner of her vision. It didn't seem like much but she eased her head around the side of the tree to try to identify what she had hoped in her heart was an unusually large bird.

With a low hiss to mask what would have been a yelp of surprise she saw a man. At first she thought boy, but she amended it to man as she noted the height and the musculature through the strange clothes he wore. There was a handle at his hip, attached to a short sword with a curving blade that fully looked as scary and deadly as it was meant to. The house seemed like a lifetime away. She would never be able to escape being as tired as she already was, and the skinning knife was still sitting in the windowsill next to the kitchen so fighting wasn't even on the table.

Control your breathing, Sakura. She tried to reassure herself. The man was ravenously eating apples and paying her no mind. If he wasn't paying attention then he probably hadn't seen her. So if she just continued to pretend like she didn't exist then he would leave and she could warn her grandmother and then… what? No one would be here for days. Kiba had been right, blast it, and he'd never stop bragging when he found out. First things first, she had to get ready to run.

Collecting herself, she edged up the trunk slowly with her back to it touching the bark like a lifeline all the way. Once she was fully standing she felt her blood pump furiously as she tried to calculate how fast she could make it to the house. Quickly shifting her head to the side she no longer saw the man and immediately she knew something had gone wrong.

"Don't." His voice was so close to her ear she could feel his breath. Something sharp prodded her back and he shifted so he was no longer behind her. The sword point lay just above her bellybutton and she could attest to its sharpness already.

Beautiful, was her first thought, and she felt it was unfair a man got to be that pretty. He didn't look like anyone she knew, from his rust colored hair to his exotic clothes that seemed to hang off his too lean frame. His cheeks looked hollow from hunger and his eyes wore bags under what appeared to be smudged khol lining the edges.

"You're from Suna aren't you?" Ino had been given some khol by her mother once, telling her it was special makeup they used in Sunagakure. Ino and Sakura had promptly made a mess of it, but it was a good memory. Her words unsettled him enough that he shifted stances, but the sword pressed into her more insistently, it would draw blood soon if it hadn't already. Those green eyes that mirrored her own regarded her slowly and she wondered why she was still alive. "Why are you so far from your home? Do you need help?"

He said nothing but stepped close to her and grabbed a fistful of her flower petal hair, sliding the insistent point of his sword from her middle. Her scalp burned and as he got closer she could smell sweat and spice on him, foreign and terrifying this close his breath was sour with apples.

"I don't need anyone's help." She would have thought him calm, but he spoke through gritted teeth. This close she could see how pale he was, and the sheen of unnatural sweat to his skin. Disease? Poison? The pain in her scalp made it impossible to form coherent thoughts. "Tell anyone of me and I'll kill them and the old woman before I come for you."

He withdrew from her so quickly and completely that the sword he had rested at her side sliced through her dress and into her waist shallowly. The sensation was familiar, reminding her of when she had cut herself chopping vegetables a few weeks ago. There was the shock followed by pain, and she bit her tongue rather than cry out. The man's eyes searched her face before he ran past her, stumbling, and seemingly melted into the dense woods. Just think of it as being bitten by a wild animal, she told herself. Next time she would not leave the knife at home.

What is the women's wisdom? To avoid the wolf and stay at home. – Estonian saying

Her grandmother scolded her that night, as she cleaned and wrapped Sakura's wound. Handing her the sewing supplies afterwards she told Sakura to mend her own clothes and remember to be more careful in the orchards. Despite her harsh words, she gave Sakura two warm rolls instead of one with dinner and Sakura tried not to let the old woman's severity get to her. The encounter with the man had given Sakura far too much to think about.

No matter what his threats were she should tell her grandmother and then the village, but he looked fully ready to carry through on violence and she wasn't even sure if she'd see him again so what purpose would telling serve? His sweating and the dilated eyes told her he was probably suffering from something so it was possible he wouldn't live, which would mean the only purpose of telling would be to search for the corpse. Her training with Tsunade would resume once the harvest was over and the thought of finding a corpse on her own for analysis and anatomy study was exciting if a little grotesque. Those heavy anatomy books were fascinating but the beautiful detail of their illustrations so flat and lifeless. Then again, a corpse wouldn't be any livelier. Tsunade had told her that a real body was mostly runnier and to memorize the basics first and ask questions later. Wasn't she ready now?

Exhaustion allowed Sakura to sleep but nerves woke her early, and she practically snuck out under the cover of darkness through the dew damp orchards, knife in hand, towards the place she had encountered the man last. Her side still throbbed as a memory, or a warning, but she pushed forward as if finding him were the answer to a question her brain couldn't stop asking. The forest canopy was so dense it felt like true night when she finally found him, sprawled not a hundred paces from the site of her assault. He had collapsed in an awkward heap, and the jerking rise and fall of his side told her he wasn't dead yet.

Leaving him there didn't even seem like an option, however she did pull the sword from his waist and hid it in a rotten stump. Granny would never believe she had just found him in the edge of the forest before anyone with any sense was awake so she dragged him to the edge of the orchard first and with shaky hands checked his temperature and his breathing. His twitching looked too much like death throws with his sunken cheeks and sightless green eyes darting around. That foreign red hair was dark with sweat, and Sakura wondered how long he had been suffering from what looked like mushroom poisoning. The hallucinations and shakes would pass if he hadn't had a lethal dose, and she wondered if she should worry at how dispassionately she evaluated his condition. The dim sunlight peeking through the trees told her this moment in time was up and she rushed off to complete her cover story.

Bringing in a bucket of well water with her to fill their drinking jug, her grandmother simply shrugged at her. At least no questions would come from that quarter. It was another beautiful almost autumn day and Sakura wondered how long she could safely delay before calling attention to her patient in the grove.

Humans look for the straight path; the wolf looks for the most secure. – Estonian saying

There were only two beds so Sakura had given up hers. It had been quite the afternoon, pulling the unconscious boy, ("he can't be older than you" Grandmother had said) back to the house at lunch and wrapping him in a blanket. They had removed the loose outer layer of his clothes for laundering and had left him in his black underclothes, ("it isn't decent for a young lady to see a man without his clothes on" Grandmother had said). He seemed to have nothing identifying on him barring the strange tattoo.

No other tattoos anywhere else, Sakura had noted. That you could see so far, her naughty brain supplied.

There had been more work to do, but her grandmother allowed her to stop a little early to tend to her patient. Her first patient! Tsunade might be proud once she found out, but she could just as easily be annoyed. This was infinitely better than finding a corpse. Probably. Sakura's emotions swung back and forth with indecision.

In the evening, in the soft lantern light, he looked younger and less severe. Maybe, she thought as she sponged the dried sweat and forest grime from his face and arms, he had only attacked her as a product of his hallucinogenic mind. But as he woke up under her ministrations and those eyes fixed her with a predatory stare she thought she might be mistaken in that hope.

"Who are you." It was a question but he didn't say it like one. His voice was deep and monotone.

"Sakura. I…" say what was technically true, always remember your grandmother, her mind supplied. "Found you this afternoon in our orchard passed out. Did you eat any mushrooms? They would have had a red cap, possibly with white spots?"

He was still twitching involuntarily, and every time it happened his mood seemed to darken even more. "Where am I."

"You're in my family's house. You're safe."

"You should have let me die." He closed his eyes again and either feigned falling asleep or actually did. Whatever the truth was, Sakura didn't care, because she was trying to conquer her own burning anger at his ungratefulness.

A corpse might have been less upsetting, now that she had had time to reflect on it.