A/N: Now posted on ao3 as well! I made a cover photo for each chapter of Utopia, you can see them on ao3, or use the link on my profile if you're using the app (I tested it, and you should be able to copy it).

A shout-out to Jacpin2002 and Alexia for leaving such delightful reviews! Thank you for the suggestion, Alexia: I've read Zero Hours after Renaerys, which I loved, but I haven't gotten around to reading Abyss yet :)

And now for some magic!

Chapter 2

Stirring the Sleepless

The pain was gone.

Sakura stood riveted to the spot in front of her mirror. Her breath hitched in her chest, and her throat convulsed on a sob. She couldn't deny that there was witchcraft at work here now that she had the evidence branded on her flesh.

She threw up into her sink.

The shock barely registered as nausea wracked through her. Sakura leaned over to rest her forehead against the cold mirror. She felt hollowed out like she'd just retched all of her internal organs down the drain. She pressed her forehead into the glass, trying to rid herself of the feeling, and yelped when it fractured. Blood welled from the fresh cut, and she lurched back in bewilderment. There hadn't nearly been enough force behind her touch to break the mirror, but the sting told her that her injury was real.

Sakura brought up a hand to assess the damage and watched the multiple copies of herself in between the cobweb-like cracks in the glass do the same. A surge of something danced across her fingertips, and a faint green light flickered in and out of existence, so quickly that she would have missed it if she'd blinked. The sting in her forehead vanished immediately, and Sakura wiped away the blood with a trembling hand. The wound was gone, and if it hadn't been for the blood and her broken mirror, Sakura would have a hard time believing she had been cut in the first place.

"What is happening to me?" she whispered, her voice cracking sharply in her throat.

Her dress slipped off her body and pooled onto the ground around her feet. She kicked it away and turned on the tap after seeing the disgusting state of her sink. Hopefully, the drain hadn't clogged with her vomit.

So much for all that fancy food.

Ears ringing and mind numb, she collapsed onto the closed toilet to remove her boots. They landed on top of the dress when she shook them off, but she couldn't be bothered to rescue the fabric off the floor. She needed a shower. Her skin was starting to crawl, and she quickly stripped out of her underwear. She bit her lips viciously to stop the chattering of her teeth and stepped into the cramped shower stall.

The pipes groaned when she turned it on, and icy water dripped on her where she stood underneath the weak spray. The plumbing inside the building was ancient, and Sakura banged her fist on the wall beside the shower-head for the hot water. There used to be a tile there, but it had broken after Sakura's continued abuse, leaving behind raw cement. The shower sputtered and released an intermittent torrent of scalding and freezing water. She came back to her senses when she ran out of hot water.

Shivering, Sakura noticed that she'd been rubbing the skin on her chest raw. The scorpion glared at her, and she quickly turned off her shower and stepped out, dripping water everywhere. She avoided looking into the mirror as she dried off and went through her bedtime routine on autopilot. She put on her sleepwear, brushed her teeth, and even put out a bowl of tuna onto her fire escape balcony for the grumpy old stray cat who lived in the alleyway below.

It wasn't until she was sitting in her bed, her back against the wall, that her focus returned. Sakura knew that she shouldn't waste electricity by keeping her lamp on, but the thought of being plunged into darkness was more frightening than she cared to admit. Furious at her own weakness, she flicked it off.

Sakura pressed her forehead to her knees and willed the tension building behind her eyes away. She focused on taking calming breaths, her ears piquing at any unexpected noise. The sounds of shouting and echoing laughter rang from the streets below, accompanied by the heavy beat of bass playing from passing cars and the distant sounds of traffic and sirens created a cacophony of a city that never slept.

Plagued by thoughts of monsters lurking outside her window, sleep was the last thing on Sakura's mind, and sitting alone in the dark did not help her overactive imagination. Did the red-haired man know that she'd witnessed everything, that she was now privy to the stuff of nightmares? Would he care? Bile rose in her throat when she remembered how his threads had stripped that rich guy of his will. Even the monster that had dragged itself out of the shadow, its essence dripping off its body like it was diseased, couldn't compare to the horror of becoming a slave to one's own body.

All it took was a flick of his finger, and another human had essentially become his puppet.

Minutes dragged into hours and hours turned into a new morning, and Sakura had a horrific crick in her neck when daylight forced its way through her blinds. At some point, the hubbub of nightlife had turned into the hailing voices of vendors working the morning market, contending with the blaring car horns as drivers stuck in traffic expressed their fury at being late for work.

Sakura groaned, feeling close to death as she tried to smother herself with her pillow.

Seeing the light brought a new perspective, and she chided herself for having given in to her paranoia-fueled thoughts so quickly. She slumped to the side with heavy eyes and stretched her aching body as she melted into her mattress. Unsurprisingly, she fell asleep almost instantly and drool smeared against her sheets as she started to snore.

Hours later, the sound of her phone ringing from somewhere inside the apartment jolted her back to reality, and Sakura felt truly rotten when she rolled out of bed to hunt down the damned thing. It was in the pocket of her jacket, and she peered at the ID with dry eyes.

Ino.

"Hey, pig," Sakura said, clearing her throat when her voice came out cracked and worn.

"Morning, sunshine. You sound like shit," Ino greeted happily. "How's it hanging?"

"I'm hanging up if you're going to be rude," Sakura sniffed and staggered into her kitchen to drink some water. She drank directly from the faucet, vindictively holding her phone so Ino's voice was drowned out by the sound of running water. It washed away the sour taste of old vomit and toothpaste from her mouth.

"Are you done?" Ino asked dryly, unimpressed by Sakura's pettiness.

"Yes," she said primly.

"Good. Get your ass to the shop. I'm starting to feel depressed and bored," Ino said, emphasizing bored like that was the worse crime. Then again, it probably was in her mind. Sensing Sakura's hesitance, Ino pulled out the big guns. "I have coffee."

"Fine," Sakura sighed, cursing her weakness for a good brew. The Yamanaka's had some of the best coffee in town. It was store-bought, but it never tasted the same when she tried to make it herself. She suspected witchcraft. "I'll see you in twenty."

"Bye," Ino sang as she hung up.

"Witch," Sakura muttered as she put her phone on the table. She needed a shower. The one she'd taken last night had made her feel greasy, and Ino was bound to give her crap if she saw the state of her hair.

Whatever, she felt fine now.

Her tiny bathroom looked like a disaster zone. Dried blood and broken shards of the mirror speckled the sink, and her nice dress lay trampled underneath her boots on the floor. Sakura kicked the clothing out of the bathroom, so she had room to walk around. She suffered through another freezing shower, quickly lathering her hair with shampoo and jumped out the moment the suds were gone. Even the miracle of concealer did little to hide the bags underneath her eyes.

Sakura sniffed at her reflection in the shattered remnants of her mirror. She felt refreshed — that was a lie — but didn't look it. Her bloodshot eyes and pallor were not helping the case that she was trying to make against herself.

She was definitely not fine.

Sakura lowered the towel to peer at her chest. Yup, the mark was still there. She blew out her cheeks and poked at it. The pain from yesterday was nowhere to be found, and it felt like any other part of her skin. She wondered if she could do the same trick as she did yesterday with her fingers and heal it. Trying to dredge up the force she'd experienced yesterday, Sakura stared at her fingers, willing the green light to flicker into life.

Nothing happened.

There was no surge of inexplicable power, and Sakura was left feeling silly.

Shaking her head at herself, Sakura decided that it was for the best. There was no need to open that can of worms again. She grabbed her boots off the floor on her way out, leaving the mess in her sink to clean later, and pulled on a black thermal shirt and a pair of sweatpants, desiring comfort over her looks. Ino could cry in a corner over her fashion choices this time.

A single coin lay forgotten on the last step of her stairwell. Someone must have dropped it. Well, another person's loss was her gain, and Sakura took it as a sign that the odds were in her favor today and bent down to pick it up.

"Finders keepers," she sang as she stuck it into her pocket.

A throaty and judgmental 'meow' halted her step and she looked over her shoulder. The ugliest cat she had ever the misfortune of laying eyes on sat on the railing. He peered down his squashed nose at her with one judgmental eye.

Sakura turned to him with her hands on her hips. "Oh, so you're back now, huh, Jiji?"

He blinked. There was some gunk sticking to the creases beneath his eye. Sakura itched to clean it but knew better than to approach him without a sedative first.

She still had the scars on her arms from saving his life all those months ago.

He'd truly been in a wretched state when she found him behind her dumpster: fur so mangy and crusted in foul-smelling dirt that Sakura couldn't tell his natural color at first; his one orange eye glaring at her in feral fury as she tried to coax him towards her with a dried sardine, the other a gaping and pus-ridden sore in his head.

It was a miracle he pulled through when she finally nabbed him to the vet.

"Find any tasty rats? You didn't touch the tuna I left you. So ungrateful," she pouted but resisted the urge to scratch his chin when he yawned.

His balance remained perfect as he lifted a paw and started to clean between his razor-sharp claws. A warning.

She still wanted to pet him.

If only she could brush his fur. The vet had bathed him while he was still under and for a while, Sakura had been in awe of his sleek black coat, puffy and the softest she had ever touched. Now, he was back to being a stinky old man — though he somehow had the bearing of one of those purebreds, those with a pedigree a mile long that the upper-echelon salivated at the chance to flaunt around in those stupid cat-shows she guilt-watched on TV.

He sniffed dismissively and licked a furred shoulder.

She pulled out the big guns.

"I'll see if I can't get the old man to give us some fish for you tonight."

He perked up at 'fish' and Sakura wanted to coo.

For a feral cat, he was remarkably intelligent. He was also an unrepentant asshole and a prickly nuisance at the best of times. In the following weeks after she'd found him, when he was too weak to stand on his own, Sakura had nursed him back to health out of the goodness of her heart. Caring for him in her own apartment no less, despite the strict ban on any house pets. Between foolhardy plots of escape to one memorable coup d'état — Ms. Adachi from down the hall still gave her the stink eye whenever they met in the laundry room — and his preoccupation with stealing her socks, the damed creature had managed to worm his way into her heart.

Even when he took to yowling in vindication for his cruel imprisonment.

Their cohabitation may not have lasted for long after that, but she always found him snooping around on her balcony. Which was on the eighth floor.

Crazy cat.

"You like the sound of that? Some juicy fish-guts? I'm going to Ino, I'll see you tonight." Sakura waved, but he'd already skirted off the railing with a parting grunt.

Her hand hung in the air for a moment. She could have sworn that his eye gleamed red before he left.

Must have been a trick of the light.

Sakura shrugged it off and sighed, "So demanding."

Deciding against driving her bike to Ino because the traffic during the afternoon was especially dreadful, Sakura ambled down the sidewalk. There was always traffic, the price of living in such an overpopulated city, but it grew even more chaotic when people were eager to get home from work. As a pedestrian, Sakura was able to walk faster than the sluggish line of moving cars. Their continuous and futile honking grated on her nerves, though and she wished she'd grabbed her earphones.

The feeble March sun tried to push its tendrils way through the smog with little success, and Sakura huddled deeper into her red jacket as it started to drizzle. Konoha was an odd district. It stretched well into the wealthier parts of the city where she and Ino had dined last night, but it also made up the majority of the Fringes. It wasn't the poorest part of the city by any standards, not nearly as decrepit as corrupt Oto, but it wasn't as touched by the technological advancement as the other districts either, especially near the Founder's Village, which was deserted for the most parts.

As the modern metropolis Sakura lived in today had grown, technological advancement leaping forward at a pace they could hardly keep up with, the ruins of the village were pushed to the side to allow for new development. The village now hugged the outskirts of the Forest of Death, which no sane person stepped into willingly. There was a reason for its gruesome name.

Tales of souls lost to creeping monsters and creatures were kept alive by the retelling of old wives' tales and horror stories to young children in an effort keep them in line. Not that those tales had done any good to control rebellious teens, Sakura could attest to that, but people in these parts were superstitious by nature.

Sakura couldn't help but wonder if there hadn't been a grain of truth to the stories after all.

From what she'd had seen, nature was well on its way of swallowing the abandoned remains of civilization and Sakura remembered the night she'd visited those parts with her friends. They'd frightened each other with tales of ghosts and demons that were rumored to haunt the Founder's Village and egged each other on to walk the streets and break into dilapidated and forgotten buildings. Nothing truly frightening had happened, beyond the time they'd run into some squatters.

However, now, years later, her old fears of being stolen away and eaten were starting to return.

Sakura shook away her morbid thoughts. There was no way she was going anywhere near that forest after what she'd seen. That ruled out taking the subway to Ino because it still followed the tracks through the old station there despite it having been years since they closed it.

She was waiting for the lights at the intersection when something odd happened. It felt like a hairy spider was scuttling up her spine, and Sakura shuddered violently at the disgusting sensation. She snapped her head to look over her shoulder and froze.

There was a man with shaggy black hair standing beside a cart carrying mangos.

Sakura wouldn't have given the stranger a second thought if he hadn't stuck out like a sore thumb. It wasn't the expensive suit he wore, thankfully no red cloud pin in sight, though the vendor was practically salivating as he shouted prices at him, or his oddly colored eyes — Sakura could have sworn they looked yellow in the flashing lights of the vendor's neon sign.

No, it was the familiar thin blue thread that was embedded in the back of his head.

He looked her way.

Sakura threw herself behind a vending machine with her heart lodged in her throat. Shit, shit, shit! Sakura was sure of it now. She was cursed, and this was only the tipping point. If she weren't careful, she'd be the picking between the teeth of a shadowy beast before she knew it.

Peeking around the corner, Sakura hunched back when she made direct eye contact with yellow eyes. Fuck. She needed to get out of here and fast.

There was a tram station up ahead, and people were trying to cram themselves into the full wagon. Deciding to take the risk, Sakura dashed to it and jumped onto its rear as the bell rang to alert its departure. She wasn't the only one hanging onto it, and no one gave her a second glance, but when she looked over at the fruit vendor again, the man had vanished along with his string.

She didn't believe for a second that this would be the last she saw of him. The tram lurched forward and she tightened her grip on the rail. There was a trickle of black sand that had somehow gotten on her sleeve, probably from the filthy wall she'd crept behind, and she brushed it away. It fluttered down like soot, but Sakura paid it no mind. She had bigger problems to worry about than some dirt on her clothes.

She didn't notice when the soot changed its descent like it had a mind of its own and clung to the back of her boot.

Sakura felt exposed hanging like this. Why had she worn her red coat today of all days? It was bad enough that her hair was naturally an attention-grabbing pink, but the white circle of the Haruno crest blazed on her back. She might as well be wearing a target!

The moment she was out of the neighborhood, she let go and landed in the middle of the road. The other drivers didn't slow down around her and bleated their horns at her angrily as she darted across to safer ground. Thankfully, she made it onto the sidewalk with all of her limbs intact.

Yellow-eyes was nowhere in sight, and Sakura had to double back a block because her spontaneous tram-ride had taken her further than she needed. She walked down the street with a new sense of foreboding, feeling like she was stuck in some deranged game of cat and mouse. She fully expected the red-haired man from yesterday to spring out at her, cackling like a witch, and place another curse on her.

Sakura rounded a corner, and the familiar storefront window of Yamanaka Flowers came into view. The street lay along the edge of a suburb but wasn't very busy today, so only a couple of street vendors were inhabiting it.

A bedraggled homeless woman dressed in rags sat in front of a laundromat and disturbed passersby with deep guttural screams. A fair number of mad people roamed the streets of Konoha, and this woman wasn't the first to let loose with outlandish behavior in public. People were used to it, and the reaction was always the same. Their eyes passed over her like she wasn't even there, and adults pulled their children away as they stopped to stare at her in open fascination.

She threw her head back and wailed again, and Sakura was tempted to join her and cry as well.

That was until the old crone swiveled around and hissed at her with bloodshot eyes.

Sakura took a step back but pulled out the coin she'd found by her building and flipped it into the woman's ragged paper cup. She may be poor, but at least she had a house over her head. Besides, the coin hadn't brought her any luck today despite her dire need of it, but it might brighten this woman's day.

Her screams died in her throat, and she looked down into her cup in queer astonishment. She seemed to shrink in size and bowed her head to Sakura, once, before turning and dragging her bag into the laundromat, presumably to use her new coin to clean her clothes.

The Yamanaka Flowers didn't keep any of their flowers outside the store, wary of thieving hands, but always kept a fresh display in the bright storefront window.

Ino manned the counter. She was tying together a bouquet of white flowers and looked up when the bell rang as Sakura pushed open the door.

"Finally," she groaned in greeting the moment Sakura stepped into her store. She put down her scissors and brushed the bouquet aside to plant down her elbows and prop up her chin on her palms as she gave Sakura an assessing look.

She was obviously found lacking because Ino cringed at her attire.

"What the everloving fuck are you wearing?"

"Eloquent," Sakura grunted, huddling deeper into her coat to hide her hair from prying eyes. "And yes, hello to you too, Ino! How am I doing? Oh, I'm grand, thank you for asking!"

Ino ignored her griping and moaned in despair. "Sweatpants? At this hour?"

Sakura noted with a pout that she looked like a runway model even though she was just wearing a plain off-the-shoulders purple top and a pair of high-waisted black jeans underneath her white shop-apron.

The world was so cruel and unfair.

"What happened to the bomb-ass babe I was with yesterday?"

"She spewed her guts out after you fed her oysters and caviar," Sakura muttered, disgruntled at the reminder of her former glory.

Ino peered at her and seemed to find it in her heart to forgive Sakura's fashion faux pas with an emphatic, "Ew."

Even Ino's theatrics couldn't distract Sakura from the monumental mistake she'd made by coming here. It was unbelievably stupid for having risked leading a potentially lethal threat to Ino's shop — to her home. There wasn't much Sakura could do about it now since she was here, but she should get into the habit of thinking ahead for once.

"I was promised coffee," she said with a calm she wasn't feeling.

"It's in the back, you leech." Ino pointed her thumb over her shoulder and added. "There should be some chocolate there as well — and a hairbrush! I know that you haven't even had breakfast today."

"Thanks," Sakura said dryly.

"Love you," Ino sang after her.

The familiar surroundings of the dinky little room at the back of the store eased Sakura's stress. She had fond memories of sitting on the wooden stool that sat in the corner as Ino made them coffee while they gossiped, or 'shared intel' as Ino liked to call it. If she hadn't been so determined to take over the family business from a young age, Sakura swore Ino would have thrived in government surveillance or intelligence gathering — or perhaps interrogation. Ino could be absolutely ruthless sometimes.

Bless her heart, Ino had already set the coffee machine up, so Sakura only had to press the red button on the screen to turn it on. It buzzed to life, and a stream of black coffee trickled into the ready mug. Sakura had her own cup, a testament to how much time she'd spent here — it even had a cute little sakura blossom on the side. She plucked a piece of chocolate from the small bowl and let it melt on her tongue as the coffee machine 'plinked' to signal that it had finished its job.

Lo and behold, there was a hairbrush. And a bowl of hair-ties. Sakura grabbed one and brushed her hair into a hasty bun. It sank a few inches, and a few strands escaped to flutter around her face. Sakura tried to rearrange them to frame her face but gave it up as a bad job.

She plucked another piece of chocolate for Ino before she joined her out front and tossed it to her. Taking a tentative sip from her mug, she let out a long sigh as the tension melted from her shoulders.

"Next time, I'm taking you back to Genma's. You've never hurled at his place," Ino announced, tearing a white ribbon down the middle and curling the strands artfully on the edge of a pair of scissors.

They always went to Genma's Place on Sakura's birthday. Genma, owner and cook of Genma's Place, ran the whole business from his garage. His tempura was the stuff of legend, and Sakura was wholly ready to kill and die for a taste of it right now.

He also happened to be an arms dealer on the side, but everyone had a hobby.

"Mmmm," Sakura hummed, close to drooling at the thought of his deliciously crunchy fried seafood. While Ino drooled beside her at the thought of flirting with the roguishly handsome cook. They had a weird relationship of Will-They-Won't-They but would probably never do anything because Ino had her eyes on someone else.

Still, it meant they were given a discount whenever they dropped by.

"Who are those for?" she asked Ino, nodding her head at the white bouquet, regretting her question almost instantly when she saw the elegant wreath of chrysanthemum.

"You remember Mrs. Yamada?" Ino didn't look up.

Sakura blanched. "Shika's neighbor? No!"

Ino touched a fragile petal with the pad of her thumb. "Yeah, double homicide. A hit and run, and she lost both her husband and son in one night."

"Shit, how's she holding up?"

She didn't know Mrs. Yamada's son very well. He was much older than them, having moved out when Sakura and Ino had just met, but Mrs. Yamada was always warm to them and made the best sweet tea on the block. Sakura would sometimes join Shikamaru, Ino, and Choji during the summer when they cleaned her stairs for some of that tea.

"Well, Yoshino is helping her with everything, but…" she trailed off and tugged a stray leaf from the wreathe. Sakura could see that there were faint shadows underneath Ino's eyes, veiled beneath a smooth layer of concealer, and knew how taxing this must be for her.

It seemed like everyone had someone to grieve nowadays.

Ino straightened and cleared her face of any melancholy. "Hey, you still got that weird rash?"

"It's just a stupid little bug bite." Sakura shook her head. It was better to keep Ino in the dark for now. Or at least until she figured out what was going on.

Though her involuntary tattoo had already caused her a lot of grief, Sakura couldn't help but be a little intrigued by it as well. It was a mystery. A distraction she wanted to latch onto and rip apart.

"Well, you'll tell me if it starts spreading. We don't need you to start a new epidemic," Ino said with a sharp grin, and Sakura rolled her eyes at her.

"I'll let you know if I start losing my limbs," Sakura bit back sarcastically.

"You better. That reminds me, I need to return our dresses," said Ino.

Sakura winced, remembering the state she'd left it in. She'd have to stop by the dry-clean before Ino could see it.

"Where'd you get them?"

"Oh, Tenten's mom intended to put them on display, so I gave her our measurements," Ino said, and Sakura drowned in another surge of guilty for having left it on the bathroom floor with shards of glass.

They'd studied together at Konoha's Academy for Troubled Young Adults, but with a name like that, it didn't surprise many that the dropout rate was higher than anywhere else in Konoha. Tenten was a year older than them, having been kept a year back, which wasn't unusual. She was one of the few classmates Sakura had kept in contact with after graduation, and one of only three girls graduated in their year, Ino being the other, so they stuck together.

"I'll bring it over tomorrow." Sakura placed her mug on the table and played with the end of a ribbon. Ino started to pull together a new arrangement, this time with red roses and calla lilies.

"You haven't been to the Blossom in awhile," Ino remarked after a moment.

Sakura couldn't meet her eyes.

Tenten ran an old-school dojo with her friend and old sensei which became a staple for Sakura to work on her aggression. 'The Youthful Blossom' was renowned both for its martial arts and for its owner's eccentricity. It been too long. Sakura almost missed having her ears bleed at frenzied proclamations of the 'Springtime blossoming of youth!'

"Yeah, I've just been busy," she said, and even she thought her excuse sounded weak. The last time she'd seen all her friends in one place was at a funeral with two empty caskets, and Sakura wasn't excited to relive her emotions by meeting the gang again so soon.

Sakura looked away and thanked the high heavens that she did.

Her suited stalker was on the other side of the street. She quickly ducked behind a display of carnations and hoped that she would blend in with the pastel pink blossoms.

It was too late, he'd seen her, and Sakura dropped down to the floor in a crouch.

Ino eyed her in question, and her gaze darted to the window to see what had her so spooked.

"Alright, what's going on, forehead?" she asked with her hands on her hips.

"See that guy - the one who's standing by the laundromat?" Sakura said, and Ino nodded, her eyes narrowed into slits. "He's been following me."

"The one with the golden eyes?" Ino's frown turned downright vicious. They'd both had their fair share of men who refused to take a hint.

"Yeah," Sakura affirmed. How Ino could see his eye color from across the street was beyond her, but she was glad that Ino believed her without hesitation.

"Well, you better get a move on because he's heading this way," Ino scowled, nudging Sakura further out of sight. "Use the back door. I'll distract him and try to find out who he is."

"I'm sorry I led him here," Sakura whispered, genuinely worried for Ino's safety, but knew that it would only be worse if they were to confront him inside the store.

"Shut up. You were right to come to me," Ino snapped and took her station behind the counter, hiding Sakura behind her. The white-knuckled grip she had on her scissors gave away her anxiety. "Now scram!"

"Thank you," Sakura said and stayed in her crouched position as she scuttled through the store and into the back. The jingle of the front door warned her that he was inside when she stepped out into the back-alley.

"Hi, welcome to Yamanaka Flower. How can I help you?" Sakura heard Ino ask in a sugary sweet voice as she closed the door behind her gently.

Thinking fast, she jogged further into the alley and jumped onto a closed dumpster before leaping up onto an empty fire escape. She climbed up quickly and swung her legs up onto the roof. It was slick with rainwater, and she almost slipped but rolled back to safety. Water seeped into the back of her jacket and was soaked to the bone.

Sakura jumped up with a growl.

"Fucking perfect!" She didn't notice how the black soot, which had clung to her since the tram station, partially seeped off her as it got drenched, too busy berating herself as she rolled her shoulders to keep the wet fabric of her shirt from plastering against her neck.

Struck by a sudden thought, Sakura went to the edge of the rood and looked down to determine which way her stalkers thread lead, positive that the redhead was manipulating it on the other side. She would head in the opposite direction. It was pulled taught from underneath the flower shop's front door, and Sakura frowned, already regretting her decision of leaving Ino alone with the puppet-freak.

She hovered in a moment of indecision, torn between turning tail and getting as far away from her stalker and his master as she could, and to return to Ino's side. The decision was taken out of her hands when the front door opened, and the man stepped out again. He didn't appear ruffled from a fight, so Ino hadn't resorted to using her scissors.

Sakura threw herself back with a gasp when his head snapped back at an unnatural angle and stared up at the place she'd been moments ago. How had he known where she was? Not willing to wait and find out, Sakura scrambled back and ran across the apartment block and launched herself up onto the neighboring roof. She skidded on the wet stone but kept her balance as she sprinted as far as the building allowed her. There was a five-meter gap between the one she was on and the next, and Sakura threw caution to the wind and launched herself off the building.

She made it.

Her heart thundered in her chest as she rolled with her rough landing. The scent of cooking wafted towards her and Sakura realized that she was nearing the food district. There weren't any more buildings for her to jump onto as most of the market was made up of cramped stalls, so she quickly found another fire escape to travel down.

She darted across the street and tried to blend into the crowd of people emerging from the entrance of a subway station. The market was packed with people looking for an early dinner, but Sakura knew her way around the place. She'd frequented it daily for most of her life. Until a few months ago.

A loud bark of laughter had her stumbling. The sound was so familiar that she made the unforgivable mistake of letting instinct rule her. She stopped. A pang rippled through her chest when the familiar aroma of Ichiraku's ramen filtered through her senses. Of course. Forgetting her pursuer, Sakura stared at the little ramen stand, the desire to push the flaps out of the way and see Naruto sitting in his chair choking her.

He would be there, eating his third bowl of ramen and laughing at his own stupid jokes as he spoke to Teuchi, and maybe he'd dragged a sulking Sasuke along—

Frigid water doused the treacherous, fleeting, false hope growing inside Sakura's chest when a stranger pushed the flap to the side. He was the source of laughter, and he and his companion waved to old man Teuchi as they left.

Sakura backed away, tears prickling her eyes at having been so stupid and her back knocked against someone's chest.

It was her stalker.

Her hands inched into her jacket's pocket, fitting her fingers into the reassuring coldness of the steel-looped handle of her dusters, ready to strike if he made any move towards her.

But he didn't grab her like she'd anticipated. Or give any inclination that he'd chased her across half the city. His hands stayed non-threateningly at his sides.

Sakura shivered.

Up close, he looked like a shoddy imitation of a human. His hair was the only thing about him that seemed real. His skin had a wooden quality, and his jaw had deep gauges that ran down to his mouth like one of those ventriloquist dolls. Sakura expected it to unhinge at any moment and reveal his hollow insides. His lifeless eyes bored into her. They were unnatural as well, with two horizontal lines stretching from his irises and through the whites of his eyes.

He didn't blink.

"Excuse me," Sakura said stiffly.

He stared at her blankly but didn't move.

Thoroughly freaked out, Sakura shouldered past him and hurried back to the subway entrance. She apparently couldn't outrun him, but she might be able to lose him there. A stream of people slowed her down as she thundered down the stairs, but she broke off into a run when she entered the station. Security was a breeze after they'd installed a new scanning system and Sakura chose the train that was only a minute away. She had to sprint down an escalator. There were plenty of other people in a hurry, and Sakura tagged on behind them as they created a way through the crowd.

The hot air from the subway and the smell of burnt rubber assaulted her nose as she made it down to the platform. Sakura didn't think before she jumped into the nearest train and glued herself to one of the poles. That way she had quick access to the door and a better vantage point to see down the entire length of the subway car. Fewer people were on board than she'd anticipated. A quick look at the sign inside of it told her why.

It was the Red Line.

The only train that passed through the Founder's terminal.

Just her luck.

Yellow-eyes stepped in on the other side of the car. The doors slid shut, sealing them in. Sakura shivered, but he appeared content to stand there and watch her. The train lurched forward and picked up to a speed that made Sakura's ears pop. She spread her feet to keep her balance and stared back with a confidence she wasn't feeling.

Much too fast in her opinion, the train started to slow as it transferred onto the rickety tracks of the old station. They didn't stop, but Sakura could see that weed had taken to grow between cracks in the floors and walls of the platform.

The roof was partially caved in, and the dark sky peeked through. In the distance stood tall trees, their thick canopies just visible in the pale moonlight. Fresh rainwater dripped onto the floor and created a small pool of gray water on the moss-covered concrete. The sweet, pungent scents that usually accompanied a thunderstorm tickled Sakura's nose, and her mind started to fog up as she breathed in the smell.

Time seemed to slow down to a stop, the train barely moving, and Sakura blinked with heavy lids as a thin bolt of yellow lightning struck the pool on the platform. No one else seemed aware of the extraordinary image the light created. It shattered into a thousand pieces and melted into a mirage of colors that then split apart, each growing long spindly legs and morphing into individual shapes. In the midst of a fever dream, Sakura's vision swam as her head tilted forward, feeling inordinately heavy.

She'd never believed in any of the nonsense about 'auras' and 'chakra' that Ino was so fond of. Sakura took it back now. This was the trippiest shit she'd ever seen — not even Shikamaru's skunk weed could compare — which was astonishing, considering just last night she'd seen a monster.

The lightning beings raced across the floor, changing colors sporadically, and disappeared through the cracks in the walls. They vanished as suddenly as they'd appeared and Sakura's head slowly cleared.

Her mind sharpened, and she became fully aware of her surroundings as the train announced its approach to the next destination. A plan started to form in her mind as they began to slow down. She was exhausted and beginning to feel the effects of running on an empty stomach for the entire day. It wouldn't be much of a brawl if he caught her now, though she was spoiling for a fight.

It was time to lose Yellow-eyes once and for all.

Sakura walked over to the nearest door and watched her stalker do the same two doors down.

The doors opened, and she pretended to get off.

She stalled, letting the flow of people surround her as they got onto the train. She could see his shaggy head bob among the crowd as he looked for her. Good, Sakura thought vindictively, allowing the people getting off behind her to elbow their way past her without complaint.

The train chimed to signal the closing of its doors, and Sakura threw herself back inside.

Yellow-eyes stood rooted to the spot, and she watched him recede into the distance.

A/N: Re-written and characters added! (11/9/2019). More to come, so stay tuned!