Previously: White Rabbit (Raise it up)

Red Fox: Drumming Song

There's a drumming noise inside my head
That starts when you're around
I swear that you could hear it
It makes such an all mighty sound

-Drumming Song
Florence + the Machine

Sakura reviewed her travel bag of toiletries and removed a switchblade. She held the spring loaded pocketknife up before using it on the seam of the wallpaper. Behind it she found the original wall with all the distressed seams and marks from tenants past. As she suspected, there was a patch of white plaster over the hallow sound of the wall.

Sakura put her knife away and used her fist this time. The plaster gave way like loose snow, raining down in thick chunks over her knuckles. Sakura shook it off and reached inside, fingers grasping for substance until they found a brick shaped box.

There was still plaster between her fingers but she ignored it as she slipped the box out and palmed it. It was just as small as she remembered it and wondered how that was possible. She had been much younger when she hid away these memories from fairyland.

'Put away these foolish thoughts, remove anything that would cause you to be need to put away the things that lead you to these lies.'

Lies.

There was a creak down the hall and Sakura dropped the box into her bag and shouldered it. The plaster would take too long to completely remove, but Sakura sweat most of it away, under the bed, with the back of her hand and then pressed the wallpaper back into place. The old glue stuck, but only just barely. In a few minutes, hours, maybe days, it would roll right back like a bad habit and the evidence would be visible.

That was fine. She didn't plan on coming back anytime soon.

Sakura waited by the window of her old bedroom and held her breath. There were footsteps in the hallway coming close and closer. Sakura closed her eyes to make the sounds sharper in her ears. Her heartbeat slowed as the door creaked open and a figure looked in.

The room was dark but the light switch was right next to the door. From underneath the windowsill Sakura watched as her mother glanced into the child's bedroom, sighed, and then closed the door again, never noticing the plaster or the cut in the wall. If the dust was anything to go by, no one had been in this room since Sakura last left it.

As the footsteps faded Sakura pulled herself up onto her window sill while opening it with her free hand. It creaked awfully once it got to the halfway point, so Sakura had to stop it there and shimmy out onto the slanted roof or risk summoning her mother back.

Once outside, Sakura readjusted her pack and closed the window. Climbing down the sycamore tree to the front yard and following the driveway to the street was impossible to mess up after having done the same thing hundreds of times in the past.

This time was different though.

When she got to her car Sai was slouched down in the passenger's seat looking tired and frail. Shisui was spread out in the backseat, sicker looking still. It would be a while before he could push himself again.

"Sakura?" Sai whispered her name, more from lack of energy than from wanting to wake the sleeping fay. He reached for her weakly and she handed him her pack instead.

"I got the things I needed. Come on, I'll take you somewhere we can rest."

"Home?"

Sakura shut the door behind her and buckled up. Through the trees in her rearview mirror she could still see the slanted roof she had just climbed down from. The yard was still shabby looking but hearty with happy weeds. It was odd to look at anymore.

"No, not home, but it's somewhere we can rest." She reached over and pat his hair back. "Try and rest. I'll carry you in if I have to."

Sai nodded, sagging further in his seat and closing his eyes. "Mmm, okay. But do me first before you worry about him."

Sakura glanced over her shoulder before starting the car and pulling out onto the main road. Shisui didn't, which meant that none of the other fay Sakura had knocked out mere hours ago were up either. She would drive until she couldn't drive anymore and pray that it was enough to separate her from them.

"Deal," Sakura answered in a whisper.

Her stunt bought them a day, but a day was all she needed to pack up her life in the back of her car and make tracks. She was too well equipped with the ability to disappear from one place into the next; sometimes that meant a new world altogether, and sometimes that meant the Motel 6 of the interstate highway where the rooms were cheep and the questions scarce.

There were things she grabbed from Sarutobi's manor stashed against the far corner and a pile of books Sai chose to take with him, but they had been so rushed with worry there hadn't been time to pick up everything Sakura would have wanted. She only had time and room for the things she needed. Her books had been left behind, along with the handful of framed photos of her and Ino.

God, what had become of Ino?

'God's not going to talk to you tonight, much less answer such a silly question.'

As she sifted through her things she realized she was missing PJs should could actually be seen in. For the foreseeable future she would have to share close quarters with two other guys, and the nightshirts she owned, while comfortable, were a little too risqué for her comfort level.

She had taken her phone charger too, but had been too afraid to turn on her cell and too scared to smash it. She didn't know what to do.

"Shisui is waking up."

Sakura looked up from her things to see Sai standing stiffly in front of the only full sized bed in the room. It was a good sign and a terrible sign all at once. Shisui waking up meant Itachi was waking up, and Sakura didn't want to be foolish and assume he wouldn't track them down once he was able. Still, she was eager to hear from the Black Rabbit that had almost given up his life for her once.

Shisui rolled over in bed and reached for the fabric front of his shirt, pulling at it and tugging it away from his neck. His eyes cracked a second later and he stilled before shooting up like a bullet from a gun. The harsh edges of his body went rigid until he saw her and then relaxed.

"Where?" He wavered a bit where he sat, head bobbing back and forth as he struggled to regain equilibrium. Sakura watched as he blinked and attempted to forces his eyes to focus.

"It's not much to look at," Sakura answered, standing behind Sai's shoulder. "We're in a motel room. We're about a hundred miles from Carnation manor and Danzo."

Shisui nodded before his eyes settled into focus and narrowed in on Sai. Sakura saw red and moved before Shisui's hands could wrap around Sai's neck. The Uchiha lunged and Sakura caught his hands, falling on him and dragging him down to the bed where she wrestled him into submission. He gave in almost as soon as he felt her around him, but the glaring and angry sounds didn't stop.

"He knew!" Shisui hissed, changing his direction and instead pressing himself closer to Sakura, glaring at Sai all the time. "He was working for Danzo and he was prepared to sacrifice you to him. What's he still doing here? Why haven't you killed him yet?"

"Sai isn't our enemy, shhh, stop it, don't look at him like that." Sakura squeezed Shisui and pulled him to her like she would an angry cat. He was still agitated but she could feel him settling into her arms and calm, little by little. "It's not Sai's fault. He didn't plan any of it. He was just a pawn."

"Pawns can be dangerous."

"Sai helped us, he had nothing to gain and everything to loose but he still chose us over the only family he's ever known." Sakura looked up at Sai even as she pet Shisui's hair down. "He made that choice at the end."

Shisui's hands spread wide around her elbows and gripped her tight. "He was working for Danzo and the old alchemist is known for brainwashing his spies. You can't trust him. He's lying to you."

"I trust him."

"There is no reason to trust him, don't be stupid. Please, let me kill him."

Sakura saw Sai's shoulders hike a fraction but he never ran or reacted more than that. Sakura watched him and he watched her back, black eyes unblinking.

"I trust him."

"Why."

"I don't have a reason you'll accept, but I choose to trust him, and you're not allowed to hurt him." She squeezed his shoulders and felt his eyelashes shudder against where they rested on her shoulder. "Besides, you're still weak and need to rest."

He groaned and Sakura moved to lay him back down while Sai retreated to his corner of books to make himself scarce. Sakura wouldn't let Shisui do anything to him, but that didn't mean Sai wanted to hang around the Uchiha.

Shisui complies with a bit of prompting and Sakura manages to get him under the covers. His eyes are more focused but start to go fuzzy as Sakura pushes his head to the pillows. "Why do I need so much rest…what happened at the end?" He takes a deep breath and then his eyes don't open anymore, though Sakura knows he is still awake and waiting for her answer.

"That was me. I used a banishing bell, the Harrowing class."

Shisui's eyes snapped open and he nearly sprang up from the bed. Gone was the black of his irises, both eyes were spinning with the red pinwheel designs his fay court was known for. "You what?"

Sai looked up from the boo he was reading but didn't say anything. Sakura doubted he had ever heard of such a thing and wanted to know what the big deal was for Sakura to have used a banishing bell of such a forbidden class.

"I'm not fay, it doesn't bring me any danger." Sakura tried to play it off by waving a hand over her shoulder but Shisui caught to way those same shoulders stayed up high. Her body language betrayed her.

"It might not have been a danger for you to use, but that doesn't change the fact that it was Harrowing class. What did you have to give up?" His eyes were searching, fading back to black.

Sakura looked away and caught Sai staring. "Harrowing means that the magic is fueled by sacrifice. The cost of magic is payed by the user giving something up that is equal to the power of the magic they wish to preform."

"That's different from fay magic." It came out as a statement, but somehow, Sai's words sounded like a question.

It's easier to look at Sai and answer his statements like they're questions than it is to look at Sai and feel the weight of his blatant questions.

"Your magic comes from you, Sai. You were born with magic inside you, right next to your soul. I wasn't. The Fay are born with their magic interwoven into their very soul. You can't take magic from them without killing them, not like you can with a wizard or sorceress. Changelings …if they don't have magic, they are mutated to make room for the magic. But there are ways in which we can use magic that isn't even a part of us. It's useful because even if we're spend and have nothing left, we can still pay to use that power. Some pay in pain, some pay in memories, some pay in meat, some pay in blood, some pay in promises, and some pay in sacrifice."

Sai blinked. "I did not know this, but I had no need to know such a thing before."

Shisui glared at the younger male through his lashes and reached for Sakura's wrist, running the pads of his fingers along the underside of her veins. "I've been out for so long, I can feel it. That was no small power."

Sakura didn't meet his eyes.

"What did you give up?"

After a pause Sakura's hand reaches for the fabric over her heart. The tattoos are there, her victory icons, but not in the same way she remembered them. At the bottom of them all was a wishbone that protected her memories and mind. She had told Itachi that much, but she hadn't told him the other thing it did.

When she checked her icons days earlier, when she first changed out of that silver dress and heels, she saw the broken wishbone split at the joint into two uneven halves. The memories she had stolen were now free.

"One of my icons broke. It no longer works."

"Which one?" His eyes look to her shirt as if he could see through the fabric to the marks above her heart. "What does that mean for you?"

'You want to tell them what you did? What a horrible friend you were to the people who were willing to die for you?'

'I was protecting myself!'

"Protecting yourself from what?" he asks her and Sakura is startled to realize she spoke the last thought out loud. Her face heats and she wants to look away, but Sai's staring at her now too.

"I'm sorry, but I can't talk about it right now. I need some time to process it I-"

She feels her words still in her throat and she hates herself for how the taste of rotting apples makes her feel sick, but when she looks up, she sees it's only Sai creating something out of ink. He was in charge of sending out ink cats and birds to watch around the motel and every few hours they needed to be redrawn. She hadn't flinched when he did it the first few times and had all but ignored the taste of magic.

"If you need time We'll wait. I understand. You can't go back to the home of Sarutobi, but I can take you to my home in fairyland where you will be safe from their reach. In the morning I will take you there and-"

"Danzo has already taken it by now," Sai interrupts.

Shisui glares hotly and the younger boy. "What do you mean? A mortal can't just take my lands so easily."

Sai shrugged, sending his ink cat off. "No, but Itachi could. We didn't have to do anything."

The mention of Itachi is enough to silence Shisui and infuriate him all at once. There is no mystery on the balance of power between the two cousins. Itachi is the stronger one and it's not hard to imagine him taking something over that once belonged to Shisui. What was difficult to imagine was Shisui taking that thing back. His lands were lost to Itachi and he had no way of overpowering or outclassing his cousin. Shisui was fast, he wasn't strong.

"What else did Itachi take?" Sakura asks, knowing Shisui wants to, but can't form the words himself.

"Not many other places. Danzo locked most of the other manors and castles in the Uchiha court up in pocket times."

"He shouldn't be able to do that, he's not a wizard!"

Sakura felt something sick in the back of her throat at the sound of Shisui's words. He was right, this was supposed to be impossible for Danzo who was not a magic user like Sarutobi. Alchemists used magic by manipulating the elements already pre existing in nature. What Danzo pulled off was more than any alchemist had ever been capable of.

"Sai?"

The boy looks up from his books for her.

"Is Danzo a changling?"

"I think he was when he was my age, but I do not know that for sure. I only know that he has icons as you do. I do not know where he got them from or even what they all do."

Sakura can't breath for a second as she struggles over the memory of Mito's hands in her body and the trials and the transition from fully human to not quite human.

When caterpillars spin for themselves a chrysalis to live it, they enter a new stage of life where they do more than just transition. If you crack open the flaky layers of a week old chrysalis, you won't find a caterpillar slowly turning into a butterfly, or even anything recognizable. During metamorphosis the body of the insect breaks down into a formless mass of goo that is then reshaped in a new, grander image. The caterpillar is literally unmade and then shaped into something new. There is no slow evolution, only the destruction of what was once true into something new.

'What was once this can not just become that.'

Trials prep changelings for the last great test of their metal.

"How much do you know of his icons?" Shisui asks, leaning forward. It doesn't seem like he will go back to bed and rest anytime soon, no matter what Sakura says. She doesn't interrupt.

Sai looks back down at his book and turns a page before answering, never once lifting his eyes. "He never showed anyone all his icons, and no one knows how many he as exactly except maybe himself. But I know he has at least two. He has used both in my presence."

"Has he used either on you?" Sakura guesses, unable to ask anything else.

Sai's eyes stop scanning the page. He doesn't look up, but Sakura can tell he's no longer reading the book. It's enough of an answer even if he doesn't say anything. Sai was too broken for Danzo not to take advantage of. Of course the man would use whatever power he had on Sai. That's what evil men do.

"Sorry," Sakura quickly amended. "Don't feel like you have to answer that."

She wishes she was back in the wine cellar of Sarutobi's manor with a mug of hard cider to match Sai's. He had promised to share the drink with her, and she had told him he was still too young, but he would have ignored her anyway. What was a little hard cider to someone who had tasted fairy wine? In the cellar on the floor they would talk and admit things, share things, confess things. He'd tell her a little about what he felt and she'd tell him a little about what she saw. Maybe he'd even tell her what Danzo did to him to make him so uniquely broken.

She looks to the clock on the end table and tries to remember what it said when they first checked in. It was November second, All Soul's Day and it was nearly over.

"We need our rest. We can figure out what happened and what needs to happen next in the morning. Sai, how are the ink patrol?"

"We're set for another eight hours." He looks down at his book again.

Sakura nods and turns to Shisui pushing him into the covers. He glares at her all the way down. "You need rest and so do I. Don't get up or make too much noise because I need my sleep too."

Sakura stood and moved to the bathroom to change and brush out her hair. It had gotten longer and needed to be braided over her shoulder for when she slept. Maybe she would cut it, but she didn't feel like it when all her brain could think about was surviving and the broken wishbone. In the morning she would tell the what it meant.

The Hall of Cups was more like a golden dungeon.

In the center of the room lay an iron cradle curved up to hold a man or woman, but never a babe. Three of the four walls had long tables pressed up against them and the ceiling was vaulted to make room for all the dripping chandeliers that were far too common in the house of the Fox High Queen. She loved things that sparkled as much as any fay and never denied her indulgence.

On the tables sat cup and chalices, mug and goblets of all manner of metal and shape. Some were large and dazzling, others humble and small. Each one had a substance inside it. Each one was unique.

There were two fay on either of her arms, and Sakura barely felt it when they led her to the iron cradle in the center of the room. They pulled at the silk robe over her body and it fell into a moon colored puddle around her ankles. She remembered sucking in that breath and holding it behind her teeth as her skin stood to attention at the exposure. One of the fay maids picked her her hair braided it up to keep it off her neck. The other took a wet cloth to rub all of Sakura's skin raw.

Ready, they led her to the cradle's side and helped her in, then left her there.

Time didn't have a name for how long or short Sakura waited in the metal. Candles lit didn't melt wax, and no sun or moon moved in the windows. Time didn't move, but Sakura felt herself exist for longer than a second. It was Fay time, it wasn't her time.

"Our time means nothing to you. You will know this if you ever leave here," someone once told her.

Sakura remembered asking when she could go home and hearing only laughter. There was no retreat from the bargain she had made. A foolish child deserved a foolish fate. What else was meant for selfish brats?

Sakura didn't hear the door behind her open, but she felt the air in the room shift and change, like ever inanimate object turned in attention to the new presence. For a human, Sakura couldn't help but feel a little overwhelmed when she saw the outline of the high queen of the entire Fox Court. Mito was as lovely as they said, and twice as terrifying for it.

The queen of flaming red hair and fox fire eyes stood before the first table and perused the cups before pinching the grasses out of one and adding it to her mortar. She moved to the next table and did the same, choosing leaves from a taller goblet with wide sides. Before moving on she took the colored flowers from another low chalice.

At the last table she paused, glanced back over her shoulder and then reached for the herbs that came from a shabby looking cup. The herbs were ugly and barbed and Sakura felt sick at the sight of them.

Compared to such a beauty Sakura doubted she looked any more appealing than a thorn in the mud. She was a weed among wild flowers. She had a decade of feeling inadequate and out of place, but the way the queen looked at her made Sakura feel ten times worse.

When Mito spoke it was like the sound of metal ringing prettily. She sounded like bells, a thing that nearly all fay hated and some even feared. Many stopped the ringing of bells as soon as they hear it.

"Each child from my iron bed is a unique bled of life. The last girl that lay there was not made of such things as yarrow or mistletoe. She was too big for such things, too far gone for molding. But you…you're a ugly thing that has what we don't. You're quite empty, nothing next to your soul and no sparkle behind it. That's why you know how to feel."

Mito brought up her mixing mortar and ground the parts of plants together. She paused after a moment to consider the mixture and then began again. Sakura didn't dare speak while she waited.

"Did you think she would survive because she was fay? Is that why you let her win the last icon from the trials?"

Sakura shut her mouth and then her eyes. She pressed them both closed and kept them shut. She didn't want to hear the High Queen's words and wished she could shut her ears too, but her hands were pressed to her sides and she kept them there. There was no way she could ignore the sound of the powder being scraped out of the mortar into something else.

"You thought you were being humble, or was it selfishness?"

Sakura braces as her iron bed is tilted up so her head and upper body are inclined above her knees and ankles. When the bed stops moving she opens her eyes and sees Mito watching her. The High Queen is smiling.

"I think there is much my sons and daughter could learn from a creature like you. We know no such feelings of longing or desperation, it's not in our nature to feel such a way…at least, not until it is taught to us."

"Please," Sakura whispers, feeling her heart stutter in her chest. "I just want to go home. Let me go back, please. I'm sorry for what I asked for, please just send me back."

"That's why you're here. Didn't you say you would give anything for your precious home?" Mito holds up a small bowl and runs a single, perfect, pale finger along the edge. "So here your are, giving me what I want so that you may go home."

"What is that?" Sakura asks, already knowing why she had been chosen but not understanding the implications of becoming the Rabbit Nomination. She had just wanted to survive the trials alongside her friends and go home. There were too many horrors.

"I want victory, sweet beast, the kind that comes unending for generations. I want dominion, I want power, I want submission. There are a great many things I want, but what I will take from you is the title of this Rabbit Game. You will run for us better than any other Rabbit before or after you. None will know how to run as well as the fearful and the desperate."

Mito stepped forward and lifted the cup in her hands to Sakura's face.

"I'm not a fay. I wouldn't be any good for you," Sakura whispered, watching as the cup drew closer. She wanted to go home, or back to Karin, but she couldn't move once bound my the magic thrall of the Iron Cradle.

"Not to worry, grotesque one."

Mito pinched Sakura's jaw and tilted the cup to the human girl's lips. The concoction went down smooth like honey and bitter like Granny Smith apples. Sakura felt where it settled in her stomach and closed her eyes to the echo of it, burning her like a spoonful of soup on a cold day. It was almost pleasant at first, but that did not last. Next, it was hot, and then after that, it was burning her alive from the inside out.

Sakura screamed, unable to do anything more. No longer girl, no longer human, Sakura was a scream; she was nothing more and nothing less than the sound of pain that owned her completely.

Mito's voice was too perfect to be human. It came like a chirp of pitched metal. Her eyes were too wide and well painted and too lovely to look at. Her voice was more of a coo. "We have a whole year to train you up after I make you in our image…. I will leave you fearfully and wonderfully made."

Then Mito stuck her hands into the mess that was Sakura and made her anew.

You know what you will find when you break open a butterflies' chrysalis? You know what you will see?

There's a drumming noise inside my head
That throws me to the ground
I swear that you should hear it
It makes such an all mighty sound

-Drumming Song
Florence + the Machine

AN: So here it is, I'm going to be submitting weekly updates, sometimes twice a week if it's well received, about my fay au Sakura and her rouge bunch on the run. White Rabbit ended with no final romantic pairing, but you'll see a lot more 'ust in this sequel. A lot more sexual tension and stupid fan service peppered in there alongside the actual plot. This was my Nano novel, so I was just really having a lot of fun with it more than anything.

I hope you enjoyed and stick around. Please review and let me know what you thought. I'm truly and honestly trying to better myself and want to work on this with that sort of goal.

Vesper Chan