Hello everyone!

I just wanted to take a moment to introduce you guys to this story. I've been working on it for years, constantly scrapping, rewriting, revising and everything else in between. I struggled a lot with this story, even with Aiko and other writers' help, and even now (the first of 2016) I'm still revising.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy the chapter. I present to you: Chapter Zero.

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Author: Amaya
Editor: Aiko
Rating: Mature (see warnings below)
Characters/Pairing: [Sakura X Pein] [Sakura X Sasori] [Sakura X Deidara]; Akatsuki
Themes: Romance, Drama, Action, Adventure, Angst
Warnings: Violence/Gore, Strong Language, Sexual Content, Mature Situations

About the Story & Disclaimer

This story does not completely follow the Naruto-verse timeline. This is completely fictional and takes place after the
Fourth Great Shinobi War.
Furthermore, I do not own Naruto.

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Prologue

Streets dyed red with blood.
Cherry trees and pink roses,
the war has begun.

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People never truly understand what panic means until they experience it for themselves. Your body freezes, tenses; and you're so terrified of what you're not doing that you don't realize what you are. You would think you would speak or scream—maybe even cry. But Sakura didn't. She couldn't—even if she tried. That was the scary part.

Sakura just floated there, hovering between life and death with half-lidded eyes and bubbles trickling from the corners of her mouth. Sunlight flickered in her vision, tearing through the undulating surface with its vanity and almost mocking attempt to console her. Her throat burned with trapped air, and she could hear nothing but the low rumble of the water around her. She couldn't take it anymore. Death clawed at her throat; it pulled and tugged at the little bit of air she actually had left, and she began to feel dizzy. The corners of her vision began to darken then, and she swore she once saw the sky—but she couldn't find the way to safety anymore. Not with all that murkiness.

Her vision flashed and she saw herself floating in lonely greens and rocketing grays, with her throat closing fast. Everything was slow; lonely. Her sinuses were burning and her stomach twisted but they seemed like nothing compared to the rocks angrily beating against her body.

Get out, her mind screamed,get out!

She couldn't move. Her body was too weak now, and her mind panicked with her sudden paralysis. Her lips parted, she sucked in a breath but found only salt burning against her lungs. She coughed—or at least, she swore she did—but only found her lungs burning more intensely as the water rushed in. Bubbles obscured her view. She suddenly felt her stomach flop—differently this time. Her head bobbed above the surface for a moment—once, twice, three times—and she coughed and wheezed, wishing for air she could not have. Then the burbling tide pushed her under again.

Why didn't she scream? Or swim, or wave her hands for help?

How did she even get there?

Everything was getting dark. Even the dappling rays of sunlight breaking through the water had begun to darken. She was getting weaker. Her muscles loosened, her fingers twitched and her chest compressed. She knew she couldn't fight anymore; it was just too hard.

Don't stop fighting.

An odd bubbling hum broke the eerie teem of the underwater world, and her body jerked as something wrapped around her. Her body slumped, but she didn't bother to resist. There was no point, anyway. A loud huff, a burbling roar and sudden brightness overwhelmed her senses. She heard a voice—a man, definitely—and then her head slammed against something hard. Everything was too bleary to see, but she swore she saw gold. She thought she smiled.

Something pushed down on her chest—it hurt!

Muted warmth brushed her lips and an odd sensation eased into her lungs. She felt sick again, and the water burned as it traveled up her throat. She could feel it moving higher and higher; it was disgusting.

Please, stop. Just let me die…

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The Making of Legends

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There was pain—a horrific, nauseating pain that made Sakura's belly churn taut and her lungs smolder.

She could feel everything—the unsettled stomach, the splintered bones; the poison seeping through her winding veins. She could feel every single breath of air that was stuck against her throat and the individual pores running along her tongue. She just wanted to sleep, perchance to dream; to let go of the wine-like wisps tethering her to consciousness. Her lids were heavy, anyway, so all she needed to do was let go but the damned ache refused to let her forty winks bear purchase. She didn't know where she was, really, and the realization made Sakura's insides bubble and twirl with confusion and panic. Her fingers twitched, her arm lifted—or at least, she thought it did. It hurt too much to know for sure if she moved or not.

"Stay still, kunoichi." The voice that spoke petrified her. It was husky and profound, almost croaky in a way that rumbled deeply within the man's chest—it frightened her. "Stay still," he had ordered again, but how could she with all this agony? Sakura couldn't quite recall much of what happened; she just remembered the smothering scent of decaying earth and the stench of blood, and some strange shade of blue. Maybe she heard a voice or two, but what did they say? It hurt her head too much to think of anything more.

A scream bounced along the surrounding walls then, terrifying Sakura, but then realization perforated deeply as she realized that, that horrid shriek had come from her own parched lips. She shifted on whatever she was on, her eyes rolling down until they hurt so she could catch a glimpse of what had happened. A pair of men stood before her, staring down at her with such blank expressions she thought them masked. Their faces were blurs, the colors of their eyes lifeless; their surgeons' masks were black with blood. One of the men circled around Sakura and set his tools down (they looked so macabre and outdated to what she was accustomed to). He came from behind, by her head, and he took her hands in his and pulled them up above her head, pinning her down in a way that made her hips and back lift from the table. Those cold, cold hands moved to the joints of her elbows, where his fingers locked vice in place. "Go on," the man above her urged the other, his grip tightening.

A paroxysm ensued as a blade dug deeply into the skin at Sakura's waist. She gasped and whimpered, unable to scream, and fought against the man above her with all the will she could—it wasn't much. It was vulgar and wrong, the way she felt; her belly seemed to upturn and flop, her heart heavily beating. The urge to retch had overcome. How wretched it was, to sit there in her own waste?

She didn't like the vulnerability.

"The poison," she heard the man above say. "It's starting to take effect. We need to remove it now before it reaches her heart."

Sakura's body twisted and contorted with the desire to steer away from this unknown man, but the bitter zing of skin like metal seared her wrists and kept her still. Lips, rough and just slightly dry, pressed against her abdomen, a tongue licked and his lips sucked—she felt a wash of watercolor rush over her. He was, oh Kami—he was sucking her blood. "Stop," She screamed, but she knew he couldn't hear her. She couldn't even hear herself. The world around her began to dim, the sounds began to fade and the pain suddenly dulled. Tired, she was tired. Vertigo made her head sway, then, and the man's words were lost to her. Disorientation made her vision smudge. She could feel ghostly cold fingers intertwine with hers; could feel her body slowly swaying with a dance between black and white, and the handsome face of the unknown smiled at her.

Their music was faint, like a slow waltz melody; and she distantly wondered if she'd stepped on his foot.

She felt Death's coldness crawl up her body, its sharp claws digging into her bones with its ascent, and then her heart stopped as it bitterly frosted over. It was weird feeling so lethargic and numb, but Sakura knew she sort of enjoyed it. She was dancing with Death and He seemed to welcome her company. But then suddenly, a jolt of electricity enveloped the cold shadows of her bereavement, and her throat burned desert dry. Her body jumped and twitched; her corpse convulsed out of Death's arms in painful desperation. She felt it again—that damned jolt—and once more, again and again.

The icy fingers of her conscious suddenly disappeared.

"Where am I," She wondered, and she blinked in surprise at the vivacious flashes of black and orange blurring across her pulsating vision.

"Just sleep, Sakura," another voice said. It was deep, but not as much as the first; it was familiar somehow. It was almost soothing, like the gentle rumble of rain against the windowpane or the hum of a lullaby. She liked it. They spoke of things she couldn't exactly comprehend—broken bones and fractures, poisons and water; torn muscle tissue and such. She didn't really care. She was just too tired.

Morpheus held her now.

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Wars, bloodshed and tears;
cry! For this is the true life
of a warrior.

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