"Get out of here, boy!" Mei seized Naruto by the collar and drug him over to the window as Sakura's mother continued to hammer on the locked door.

"Sakura-!" Are you gonna be alright?" Naruto struggled to worm his way around Mei's grip.

"Go!" Sakura hissed, her brain finally kicking into gear. She ran into her bathroom, grabbing a robe as she did so and tearing out of her civilian disguise. She dunked her hair under the cold water drawn in her bath, no doubt by Mei before she realized Sakura wasn't there. Wrapping her hair in a towel and smudging perfumes on her skin, she threw a bathrobe around her before appearing back in her room just as Mei opened the door.

"Apologies Lady Haruno-" Mei was interrupted by a sharp slap to the face. She even spun around a bit before falling to the ground, clutching her reddened cheek. Sakura gasped, she had never seen her mother this angry before. Her green eyes burned like a torch in their sockets, her lips even snarled a bit at the corners. A crowd of servants and guards stood watching in the doorway, all of them looked horrified but like a train wreck, they just couldn't look away.

"Mother! What is going on?" Sakura cleared her throat, did her best doe eyed stare of innocence. Her mother hesitated, fooled for a split second. But only for a second.

"Get dressed now and come with me." Her voice was as hard as stone. Sakura did not need telling twice.

Several minutes later, there they were. Two guards hauled Mei by her upper arms, practically dragging her down the corridor behind Sakura and her mother. Lady Haruno's heels stabbed against the marble pavement in a way that made Sakura wince. Slap, slap, slap. No one would look at them either, everyone they passed would flatten themselves against the wall then scurry away with their eyes fixed on the ground.

The doors to the sun room were thrown open by her mother when the servants moved to slowly. Blinking through a haze of golden rays, Sakura's heart sunk she was met with her father's face. Next to him sat her cousin, Souta and his parents. His father looked almost identical to her own, if it weren't for his coal black eyes.

If they all had looked upset then Sakura wouldn't have been so scared. Anger was a volatile emotion, tell an angry person what they want to hear and that makes them a happy person. Easy to deal with, except that none of them looked angry. Not at all.

They looked bored.

"Close the door please, Mei. Let's all take our seats." Sakura's father motioned with one hand. Mei's dignity already on the floor, she scrambled to do was she was told. Sakura kept from watching her too much as she took her own seat across from what felt like a death panel. There was a tea set on the table, with small biscuits out and everything. She had the strangest inclination to laugh.

"We heard some news this morning and when you were not up and ready at your normal hour, we grew troubled. Sakura, are you aware of the time?" Lord Haruno asked, fixing the hem of his cuff. There were new golden pins with small emeralds shining at her there.

"No." She sat back in her seat, feeling like she just strapped herself in to a sinking ship.

"It is nine forty-five, almost ten. We heard that Sakura Haruno was seen in the streets, walking in the back alley ways by herself like a common whore. It gets better, apparently, she met up with Naruto Uzumaki, a low-class second rate ninja." He practically sneered at her, yet his expression never changed. Even Souta next to him was creeped out a little bit.

"Wow, the rumours people will come up with, huh?" Her aunt gasped and a few of the servants even let their jaws hang open.

"Excuse me?"

"Forgive me, but I've been sleeping in lately to fight off bags. I've been feeling a little stressed lately because of the wedding and now your coronation, Mei told me about this folksy treatment that is supposed to keep your skin refreshed. That's all." Sakura layered on the stupidity thick, waving her hands and rolling her eyes like a little brat.

"You mean the six week pomegranate treatment?" Souta was the one to speak up and everyone turned to give him a double take.

"Yes, exactly! Right, Mei?" Sakura turned to look at her handmaiden, crossing and double crossing her fingers that she would continue to play along. A frazzled looking Mei blinked at her a few times then bobbed her head up and down. Sakura turned back to her father and smiled, folding her hands over each other. He smiled back at her, as if he was having a pleasant every day conversation.

"Oh, so that's what it was then? How convenient." There was a scrape of a chair being pushed and then a loud thud as Mei was thrown to the ground. Sakura's father pressed his boot down on Mei's skull, she cried out and whimpered in pain as Sakura watched on the edge of her seat in horror. Next to her, her mother watched like a vulture waiting in the wings to pick on the scraps. No one else looked as shocked as Sakura felt, the other servants just had this look on them like Mei was getting what she deserved. "You ungrateful little worm, if I ever hear your name in the same sentence as Naruto Uzumaki's then there will no longer be a place for you here. Think about your actions, musume, they always affect others." Her eyes the size of dinner plates, Sakura watched as her father put his full weight on Mei's head.

She started screaming.

"Okay! Okay! I will never disobey you, otousan!" Sakura threw herself at his feet, bowing and grovelling like a dog. Peering through her hair that had fallen forward, Sakura made eye contact with Mei and knew she would never forget the look in her eyes. You never forget the first time you see someone dying.

"Good." When he lifted his foot from Mei's head, Sakura moved to help her servant but her mother snared her grip on her shoulder with a hiss. The only sound that filled the room was Mei's desperate and ragged breath, coughing and choking for life. "From now on, you don't eat, you don't sleep, you won't even lift a finger, unless at least five of my personal servants are watching you. They will make sure nothing but the truth reaches my ears and one of the nasty rumours leak out to tarnish our name." Sakura watched as the Head of the Haruno clan picked up a glass and finished the dark liquid inside.

"Yes, sir. You know what is best." Sakura mumbled, already she had begun to shake.

"Of course I do. Now, lets go Souta, I have much to show you." There was a lot of commotion as the room emptied. Sakura remained where she was on the floor as her relatives practically ran out. Her cousin shot Mei one last look of loathing before flipping his hair with a gloved hand. Her mother paused behind him, then turned around as if she had something to say to Sakura.

The seconds turned into a minute.

"Hmph." The door slammed shut.

Now the servants moved to help Mei, crowding around her in a tight circle. Sakura wobbled to her feet but couldn't take more than a few steps before she was pulled back by two other servants. Her ears ringing, she tried to fight past them but they were bigger and stronger than her. The last image she ever had of Mei, the woman who practically raised her, was of her on the ground, crumpled and broken like a doll.

"What do you mean she went to the Hokage?"

Inhale of breath. Pause. Exhale smoke.

"This morning, the heiress met with her friend, the Uzumaki boy, and he took her to the Hokage. Of course, I did not tell her father this."

Fingers tapping, a thoughtful stare.

"This is not good. Not good at all."

"Obviously we need to put ourselves in the right position. We could turn this into a positive."

"Its not our business to meddle with clan politics."

"Then lets make it our business."

In the stillness of the night, Sakura felt the heat press down on her like a weight. She could barely breathe under her layers of silk blankets, tossing and turning, she just couldn't shake her restlessness. After the day she had had, all she wanted to do was fall asleep and forget about existence. Was that to much to ask for?

Flopping back over to her stomach, she let out an angry sigh and kicked off the rest of her covers. Sitting up, she watched the amber glow from the flickering oil lamp on her night stand. It was soothing at least, almost hypnotic. She couldn't take her eyes away. The heavy incense in the air made Sakura's head groggy and her eye lids droop, it smelled like the first bloom of flowers after the winter.

Wait, no one had lit any incense, and she didn't leave her lamp on. Sakura didn't even have an oil lamp.

Shaking her head, Sakura scanned her darkened room on edge. Her nerves were screaming the worse case scenarios at her, that there was someone in her room watching her with the intent to kill or steal. Where there had been nothing, now stood a figure robed in dark red.

And around his neck? The Haruno crest.

"Are you my kinsman?" Her voice came out clear and confident, even though she did not feel it.

"Yes, I am of Haruno blood. I have come to see you, heiress, because we know what you have been doing." The stranger leaned forward, materializing out of the dark. There was no mistaking his heritage, his eyes were hers but just a few shades darker. Unlike any other Haruno she had ever met, he had the air about him, the power running beneath his skin.

He had the presence of a shinobi.

"Are you going to tell my mommy and daddy on me? Too late, they already have an idea." Even Sakura was shocked by her mocking tone. She was a bit angry that this stranger had invaded her space in the middle of the night, a man even. Her only defence were her words.

"Your parents want to believe your lies for now. We don't want to end you, Lady Sakura. Going to the Hokage troubles us, however. We can help you in ways the Godaime and Naruto Uzumaki can not."

"Who even is we?"

Her question put a small unsettling smile on his lips.

"Put on your cloak and follow me." He floated on by, quietly opening the door with the brush of his palm. She scrambled to her feet after him, throwing on her grand red kimono in a rush to trail after him.

In the courtyard the full moon illuminated the ground in an eerie silver glow. The sheer linen curtains hanging in the courtyard drifted out towards her like reaching fingers. It was so quiet Sakura could hear the blood rushing in her ears. What time even was it? Where was everyone? The guards, servants, and relatives were all gone. It felt like she was walking in a dream, floating along without any real idea why, following a figment of her imagination.

As she travelled farther and farther into the bowels of the manor, the reeking perfume of incense grew stronger and stronger until it festered in her lungs. The strange familiar feeling returned, a sleepy intoxication induced by the powerful aroma. She didn't even recognize which part of the estate she was in by now, the walls were bare and the floor was dark. Dust swirled at her ankles and with the swish of her cloak, the house groaned around them like a ship at sea.

"They are excited to finally meet you." The stranger spoke up at last. He had kept a considerable distance the entire time, his voice so near to her gave her a start. The door, a false panel made to blend in with the wall, opened silently. Sakura was allowed to walk in first, into a small room panelled with wood from floor to ceiling. A single lamp hung from above in the middle of the room, casting a pool of faded fluorescent light she stood in the centre of. Four other shinobi stood inside, each in their own corner like a child in time out. Sakura would have giggled under normal circumstances.

"Lady Sakura Haruno." One of them spoke but she could not tell which. In one fluid motion, the ninja all bowed at her feet until their noses scraped against the floor.

"What is going on? Who are you guys?" She turned on her heel to stare at the fifth ninja, the one who escorted her there. He had removed his hood and the others followed suite as well. They were all men and very young, perhaps only a few years older than her.

"We are here to serve you, Lady Haruno. Have you ever heard of the Order of the Red Blossom?" Another spoke to her right, and she whirled around again.

A shake of the head 'no'.

"Of course not, now you have."

"You serve me? Why not my father or grandfather? They have made it pretty clear that I am not capable of leading anything." Sakura spat angrily, mentally picturing them made her see red.

"They do not know we still exist, and we don't want them too. It is time the House be cleansed, and we will be your tools for the purge." Again, they all bowed together and chanted something in a language Sakura never heard. All of this was too surreal for Sakura, she had to be in a dream. A vivid, strange, and off the wall dream. Just like all the others.

Right?

"What are you talking about?" Her voice came out in a whisper, looking each of them in the eye. The ninja who found her in her room was the one who spoke up next.

"To assume your birthright without wedding your cousin."

Maybe it was the vapors, the sleep deprivation, or the strangeness of the situation that sent the room spinning. One deep breath and she felt this strange confidence flood through her, as if in one split second she had changed in to a new person. A better person, the person of her dreams.

"How?" She held her head just a little bit higher. On cue, a smile spread across their faces in unison.

"Tomorrow at the ceremony when your father will takes his place, the wild fire will start and clear the fields."

"And you will take yours."

I know, I know, I said the next day and the next day turned into a few weeks, sorry!

the next chapter will more than likely turn back towards canon sakura and flippity-flop between AU and canon, or just more canon, we'll see

reviews and the like are greatly appreciated