New Territory: Chapter One (19/07/17)

I: A Place Unknown

A cry, a sob, a scream. It's her, she realises, but she can only see black, a void. She screams again, louder. The darkness is polluting her mind, insanity destroying her from the inside out. She tears up, frustration, anger and hatred clawing at her.

Then, there's a soft hand. There's a calm voice, one that speaks with a solemn reassurance. The hand rests on her head, stroking her hair with the utmost care and delicacy. She leans into it, clinging onto it with hope.

'There are a million ways we should have died before today, and a million ways we could die before tomorrow. But we fight, for every minute we get to spend together. Even in the hell we call reality, Sakura, I don't want to give that up...'

For a moment, a single second, she thinks she's safe. She cries out in relief, but the voice slowly fades away, and the hand disappears. She reaches out, desperate. Where did they go? She's cold again, the warmth dying rapidly. She shivers.

'Don't go!'

She gasped, shooting upright as the last remnants of her dream fading away. It was a strange dream, a nightmare, but as she tried to grasp onto it more fragments slipped away.

Sakura shook her head, clearing her thoughts, and slowly opened her eyes. She vaguely noticed the dull ache of her arm as she sat up, the rough texture of the bark beneath her scratching at her elbows.

"What happened?" She muttered, squinting to shield her eyes from the bright light of the sun. She tried to recall the events from the night before but her she couldn't remember anything. Her head pounded sharply, almost like it was protesting at her effort.

Her drowsiness immediately disappeared. Alarm rose within her, accompanied by worry and fear. Sakura's hands fell to her kunai instinctively, fingers curling around the cool metal. The weapons brought her comfort and eased her but only slightly. She didn't know where she was. Or why. She breathed steadily, calming her nervous heartbeat and narrowed her eyes.

Where was she?

"I'm lost," she said, stating the obvious moments later. "In a strange forest with trees double the sizes of those in Konoha." Her mind scrambled for an explanation, but anything she thought of only pointed towards more questions.

"I could be drunk," she mused, only half-serious. "The symptoms are there."

Her theories died out one after the other, all either too unrealistic, too confusing or just plain ridiculous. She sighed, defeated.

"I should just look around. Maybe there's still someone here."

She wandered around the forest aimlessly but cautiously, hands never straying far from her kunai. She was pulled back abruptly when her sleeve caught on a twig and tore her skin. She hissed, the blood already staining her clothes.

She knelt on a branch and used her chakra to heal the gash, closing up the wound easily, but her sleeve was still drenched in red. She looked at it and sighed in annoyance.

When she was about to start scouting the area again, she noticed a dark splatter of red on the grass across her. She paused. The pools of blood created a path deeper into the forest.

"Might as well," she said, following the trail from the trees.

She found herself in a clearing that was undisturbed and almost peaceful. She couldn't help but feel that there was something off about this place though, an odd feeling of unease twisting in her gut. She shook her head and examined the place, eyes immediately zoning in on the face of a dead man.

From what she could see, the corpse in front of her had the eyes of someone who'd seen pure horror before his death. His eyes were wide and his face was engraved with lines of fear. The expression sickened her, reminding her too much of her comrades she'd seen fall in battle, but she leapt down to take a closer look anyway.

She placed the back of her hand on his skin, pouring her chakra into his body to scan his injuries, and furrowed her brows in worry when she felt traces of his quickly diminishing chakra latching onto hers.

The body felt fresh — very fresh. No longer than eight minutes, she would guess. Instantly, she tensed, eyes darting around in caution. She'd have to be quick.

She coated her hands in makeshift chakra scalpels and cut off the body's unusual clothing which she only spent a few seconds wondering about.

He wasn't a ninja, nor a samurai considering his lack of armour, but he definitely couldn't be a civilian. No civilian would have callouses on their hands or scars across their skin. No civilian would be armed with those strange blades either. She tilted her head, trying to categorise him, but stopped when the final layer of cloth fell the ground.

Her hands covered her mouth in horror.

"What the..."

Sakura widened her eyes in surprise and shock, bile rising up her throat. She swallowed, heart beginning to pound again with an emotion she'd come to detest — fear. She closed her eyes, the sight a gruesome contrast to the peaceful land around her.

Shakily, she palmed the man's cheek, slowly opening her eyes with a final steady sigh. She steeled her eyes and prepared to examine him.

He was completely severed in half.

She sanitised her hands using a quick jutsu and peered closer, gently pushing away the arm that rested on his stomach. It was nothing she'd ever seen before, and she'd seen more than she would ever wish on anyone.

It was as though someone, or thing, bit off a chunk of him and left him to die. There were teeth-like marks scattered all over him, too large to be anything human. Intestines spilled out of his body, a disturbing dark red staining the ground.

She shivered, but not from the cold that nipped her skin. She held her breath as the smell of flesh wafted into the air, scrunching her nose. Only years of working as a medic stopped her from gagging.

Respectfully, Sakura closed his blank eyes and whispered a silent prayer. Whoever or whatever did this was beyond cruel.

"I'm sorry." She swallowed.

She was about to leave, too disgusted to stay any longer, but spotted a green cape a few feet away. She looked at, hesitantly walking over. It was fairly clean, and would keep her warm. The design was tacky but at least it looked comfortable. It wasn't like the man would use it anyway.

She took it, ignoring the guilt and discomfort that rose up as she accidentally looked at the body again, and wrapped it around her neck.

She spared a last glance at the corpse, a foreign feeling of fear tightening itself in her heart, and jumped back to the tops of the trees.

Author's Note: This story was inspired by Alstroemeria, a currently very short ongoing crossover by AyakaSakurai which I absolutely adore and hope you check out! I've received her approval a long time ago so I'm happy to finally post this! Also, please let me know if you find any mistakes. I did check this chapter several times but after rereading a piece of text over and over, even obvious mistakes are hard to spot. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading! I would love to hear some feedback :)