Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Out of the Smoke, into the Fire

Part the First:

Sapientia

At first, all he can see is a pair of matte crimson eyes staring at him from the darkness. He freezes on the spot, held captive by them, until slowly his own obsidian eyes adjust, and she becomes visible.

"Hello, little one."

Her voice quietly enters his ears. It resembles the sound of sand paper being chafed together. The slight rattle of chains follows soon after as she shifts in the cold, damp cell she has been forced into.

Sasuke swallows heavily. "H-hi. Who are you?"

A small, hoarse chuckle. "The Sentinels haven't told you about me? Are you even aware of the existence of vampires, little one?"

He nods, her lifeless crimson eyes never leaving his as she pushes herself weakly to her feet.

"Take a closer look, then," she says. "Do you see my eyes?"

Another nod.

"Do they look normal to you?"

A moment of stillness, and then he shakes his head, heart pounding away.

"Have you ever seen a vampire, little one?"

Another shake.

Her chapped lips pull up into a small, emotionless smile. "Congratulations."

Sasuke watches as she raises her arms, as if to hug him. Dust fills the air at the movement.

Her crimson eyes flash with fire.

"Now you have."

"What is your name, little one?"

He draws his knees up till they touch his cheeks, eyes cast upon her as she fiddles with her chains. "Sasuke," he murmurs.

"Handsome name for a handsome little fellow."

For some reason, he feels as if she is speaking the words without really knowing what she is saying. Her mind, he feels, is off in some place that he can't dream to reach.

"And how old are you, Sasuke?"

"Eight."

She grows silent, the metallic clicking of her chains the only sound that disturbs them.

Sasuke looks at her in full, taking in the long pink hair that flows down her back, the dull crimson eyes focused but not really seeing.

"What about you?" he finds himself asking.

"What about me, little one?"

"What's your name? How old are you?"

The pink-haired vampire sighs, and finally meets his searching gaze. "Haruno Sakura. As for my age, that depends. What year is it, pray tell?"

How long has she been down here?

"1998," he responds softly.

She barks out a harsh laugh. "Has it really been a hundred years? Funny how the pain makes time fly by so fast."

He simply stares at her as she sighs once again and presents him with a wry smile. "That would make me seven hundred and thirteen, little one."

He stills. The rate of his heartbeat immediately quickens.

"Impossible," he blurts. "You don't look older than twenty!"

"I stopped aging when I was twenty-two," she answers. "If your elders told you anything about my kind, you would know that it's completely impossible for me to die. I'm immortal."

"So you'll live forever?" he breathes.

"Unfortunately. If I had a choice, I'd have you kill me right here and now. Eternal life..." Her eyes take on that faraway look again, and he wishes he could take all her pain away. He's only known her for two days, but already he feels she is someone unlike anything he'll ever encounter. "...is something I'd rather do without."

Sadness. That is the word he most associates with her. A never-ending, infinite sadness.

"Why are you here, Sasuke?" Her hoarse voice brings him back to reality. "I haven't seen anyone down here since they first locked me up."

He frowns. "I'm allowed two hours of free time each day. I was making my way back to my room yesterday when I saw a crack in the wall, and when I pushed on it it opened up into a hallway. You were here, at the end of it."

"Nobody knows you're here?"

He shakes his head.

"You're going to get yourself in trouble, Sasuke," she says softly. "There's no telling what the Syndicate would do if they found out that someone was talking with me behind their backs."

Curiosity gets the better of him, and before he can stop himself he questions, "Why? What could you have possibly done to make them hold you down here for so long?"

She snorts. "I'm a Pyte, little one. That's enough reason in their books to keep me locked up for eternity."

"That's not fair," he lets out, tiny fists clenching as he rises and comes to stand in front of her cell. Her dull crimson eyes flash upward in surprise. "If you didn't hurt anyone o-or do anything bad then there's no reason -"

"I never said I was a saint," she snaps, and for the first time her eyes take on a hint of life. They spark with anger, drilling him into silence with their fury. "Just because I talk and seem human does not mean I'm anything less than a monster. The number of people I've killed, the number of defenseless people I've hurt..." Sakura draws in a heavy breath. "Maybe it's better that I'm here after all."

"That's not true." Sasuke refuses to back down, even as she glares at him relentlessly. There is no way this being before him, with her long, flowing pink hair, her pale skin and her crimson eyes filled with so much loneliness that trumps even his, could possibly deserve such a fate. "No one deserves to live like this for the rest of their lives."

"And what are you going to do about it?" He can tell by her tone that any hope she might have harbored has long since died off. In her heart, mind, and soul, this emptiness is all that awaits her.

"I'll get you out, somehow," he finds himself saying. "Trust me."

Sakura gives him a melancholy upturn of her lips. "I wish I could, little one. I wish I could."

"Tell me a story."

"About what?" Her voice is quiet, barely teasing his ears in the cold room.

"Anything." Sasuke turns to look at her. He watches as she stares blankly up at the ceiling, hundreds of years undoubtedly flashing through her mind. To be so old and have seen so much...he can't even fathom. "Your life. Your experiences. Anything."

"Nothing could possibly be of interest to you, little one."

"That's not true." His response is immediate. She blinks in surprise as she shifts her dull crimson eyes to him. "I want to know everything about you."

A small, despondent smile curves her lips. "Maybe when you're older, Sasuke. Maybe then."

He opens his mouth in protest, but then closes it. "Promise?" he whispers.

Sakura blinks again, seemingly lost. Then she smiles wholly and responds, "Promise."

"You need blood."

Sakura raises a slim pink eyebrow.

He's been with her long enough, however, to see the inhumane hunger dilate her pupils, narrow her eyes, make her tongue flick out to lick her lips.

She's thirsty, he can tell.

"Fetch me a bag and I'll be happy to receive it," she answers promptly.

Sasuke frowns for a moment. "I don't know how I could get one without anyone seeing," he says dejectedly. He looks down at himself, trying to think of a way, and then his gaze is drawn to the small vein pulsing at his wrist. "Here." He shoves his wrist into her barred cell as far as he can reach. She's huddled in the corner, but if she were to pull the chain as far as it could go her mouth would be able to meet his exposed skin.

Instantly, she bares her teeth at him, and a deep, guttural growl escapes her chest. It's the most frightening thing Sasuke's ever heard. The sound sends deep chills down his back, raises goosebumps on his skin. He forces himself not to flinch back.

"Get away," she snarls.

"You need to drink, Sakura, so you can get out," he coaxes, trying to push himself further against the cold silver bars of her cell.

"If you don't move away from me right this instant," she growls, "I swear to God I will kill you."

She isn't joking.

Reluctantly, he backs away. Only when he is safely on the other side of the room does she drop her gaze and cease the animalistic noise.

"Don't," she breathes, eyes closing and hands moving up to clutch at her head, "ever do that again, or I'm afraid I won't be able to stop myself next time."

"I'm sorry." His voice is low. "I was just trying to help." For the first time since his parents died a year ago, he feels tears threaten to spill over in his eyes.

"Oh, Sasuke, don't cry, please don't cry." He hears her chains rattle and looks up to see her wobbling unsteadily toward him. She's so weak she can barely walk, and yet she still refuses help. It makes him want to cry even more, to see someone who acts so strong be forced to give in to a frailty even she can't hide from.

"I didn't mean to frighten you, little one. I just don't want to hurt you," she tells him quietly, looking down at his smaller form with her crimson eyes full of anguish.

One tear escapes his eyes, and he wipes it away angrily with the back of his hand. He told himself he'd be strong no matter what happened; weakness wasn't something he was supposed to succumb to.

"It's not fair that you have to be kept down here," he says harshly. "I'm gonna get you out of here, Sakura, and I'll find a way to get you some blood. I promise."

He ends his little speech with a firm nod and a determined gaze.

"You don't have to promise me anything," she replies, her tone gentle, the complete opposite of what it was not minutes before. "Just worry about yourself, little one. I don't want you to put yourself in harm's way by associating with me. Honestly, I think it would be best for you if you didn't see me again."

That isn't an option. Although he's only known her a little over two weeks, he can't stand the thought of not being around her everyday.

"I'll get you out of here," he repeats with emphasis. "I don't care how long it takes - I promise I'll save you."

"Okay, Sasuke." Sakura smiles a small smile, and he can tell she's just going along. "Just make sure you think of your own safety before you come close to considering mine. You do that, and I'll try to help you in any way I can."

She says that, but he knows he'd put her safety before his own any day. Somehow, in the last two weeks, she brought out something within him he believed to have died along with his parents.

I promise, he repeats to himself as he heads back to the world above.

I promise I'll save you.

He can't remember ever being this happy, he thinks as he nearly leaps down the steps of the long, dark hallway. The bags of blood in his hands sway dangerously at his quick movements, but he has a hold on them tighter than stone, and he'd rather stab himself in the heart than drop them.

"Sakura! Sakura, I got you some blood! It was hard and I almost got caught a couple of times, but look!"

He skids to a halt in front of her cell, holding the bags out proudly as he beams.

Her red eyes widen in disbelief. "You - you foolish child! You could have gotten yourself hurt! I told you trying to help me was idiotic and asinine and -"

He tosses one to her. Her reflexes have her hand shooting out to catch it automatically. In a split second, her eyes grow dark, turning from a dull red to a stormy wine color, and she licks her lips despite herself as she stares at it.

"Turn away," she says softly, never once looking up.

He does as she asks, but she can't conceal the soft moan that escapes her as she allows her fangs to drop and tears into the bag.

Not even ten seconds later, he hears her sigh delightfully. Her voice, when she speaks, is smooth and honey-rich, nothing like that hoarse rasp it's been for the two years he's known her. "More," she breathes out. "Please, Sasuke. More."

He has to turn around to give her the next bag, and when he looks up he nearly gasps in astonishment.

Her eyes, instead of the lifeless red he's become so accustomed to, are now a bright, vivid green. They spark with warmth and delight, compelling him toward her as she smiles.

He's never seen anything so beautiful, he thinks to himself. He fights the blush that threatens to stain his cheeks.

"Thank you, little one," she says with most sincerity he's ever heard.

He can only nod, purposely averting his gaze away as heat burns the tips of his ears, and hand her the next four bags he was able to take with him.

If this is what it takes to bring out such happiness within her, he'll sacrifice his own soul to make sure she is satisfied for the rest of her eternal life.

Sasuke coughs up blood as he dry heaves on the sparring mat, glaring at the man standing above him. Shakily, he rises to his feet, wipes the blood away with the back of his hand, and lowers himself into a fighting stance.

"Again," he snaps.

Kakashi merely chuckles and does as he asks.

He trains like this as much as he can. When he's not in class or with Sakura - because nothing comes between him and the two hours he spends everyday with the most important person in his life - he's here, in the large gym-sized room the Syndicate has designated for the training of its Sentinels, its warriors.

He's fourteen years old now and easily the most talented Sentinel in his age division. Not Lee, not Shikamaru, not Kiba - no, he wouldn't allow himself to fall behind even by the most minuscule degree.

How else could he possibly think of getting Sakura out of the hellhole she's been kept in for the last century? If he doesn't work himself to the max every day she will never escape, and he just can't stand the thought of her being forced into confinement for the rest of eternity.

Not when he has a say in it.

As a Sentinel, a destroyer of the vampires that plague the earth, he's destined to protect all things good and pure in the world.

Which is exactly why he considers himself Sakura's personal guardian. No matter what the Syndicate shoves down his throat or what they try to drill into his mind, there is no way Sakura's even remotely close to the level of her kin.

While the vampires he is trained to hunt down and kill are nothing but impertinent leeches roaming the world solely for the purpose of drinking and killing, she is a Pyte, one of the few naturally born vampires in existence. Only one Pyte arises every hundred years, and it is the Syndicate's main goal to capture each one when it is born. Currently, they have all but two Pytes - that they know of - in captivity.

Pytes aren't like the others. Aside from needing blood to keep themselves strong and the fact that their senses and abilities are about a hundred times more adept than a human's, they are generally kind creatures, content to exist in peace with humans. The Syndicate's high-strung wariness, however, has them locked up in silver-enforced cells, deprived of blood. And for that Sasuke despises them.

Unfortunately, Pytes are the most sought after because they are the reason the other leeches even exist. Only Pytes are able to create artificial vampires, who then in turn can create their own, and for that they are deemed Satan's spawn. Nothing short of pure silver chains can apprehend them, for they are wholly immortal, made impossible to be killed.

It's that fact, the assurance that no matter what happens Sakura can never be taken away from him, that allows him to fall asleep soundly each night. If there were any possible way she could be, he would be a fervent insomniac and would forever live outside her cell, protecting her from any danger that could possibly come her way.

"Nice one," Kakashi remarks as he blinks up at the younger boy.

Sasuke allows the corner of his lips to tilt up, and he gracefully leaps away, releasing the Head Sentinel from the choking grip around his neck.

"Again," he merely says.

His first night patrol was when he was eleven. Usually adolescent Sentinels weren't allowed to do so until they were twelve, but Kakashi insisted that he was far more talented than most of the thirteen-year-olds at their base, and so he went.

The night before he rushed down to Sakura's cell and excitedly told her the news, pleased beyond himself that he would finally be able to start proving himself to her.

She frowned, warned him that if he got hurt she'd castrate him - he asked what that meant, and she just told him he should focus on not getting hurt because if he didn't it wouldn't be fun - and then told him to go kick some vampire ass because she wasn't able to do it herself.

He did just that, coming home with his first kill at the age of eleven, and all for her.

"What happened to your parents, Sasuke?"

The question is unexpected, and he takes a few moments to compose himself enough to answer.

"They died eight years ago, when I was seven." His tone reveals nothing.

"Vampires?"

His voice comes out a quiet whisper. "Yes."

"I'm sorry" - he clenches his teeth and fights the urge to snap at her; those two words grate on him in ways he never thought possible when spoken to him in regards to his parents, and he thought Sakura, out of all people, would understand that they are the last things he wants to hear - "that several of my kind were stupid enough to think changing humans into vampires was a good idea. A bunch of idiots that lot is, if you ask me. Maybe once I get out of here I'll track them down and give them a piece of my mind. That should let your parents rest easier, don't you think?"

Now that - that is exactly what he needed to hear.

Sasuke feels his lips twitch upward. "I think it would."

"I'll make sure to mark it on my to-do list." He watches as she nods with a deadly serious expression.

And he thinks to himself that this time spent with her everyday - her mere presence - is more than enough to make all his troubles seemingly disappear without a trace.

"I got a girlfriend."

Sasuke says this nonchalantly as she sips from a bag of blood, but he can't help the way his eyes shift over or the way his heartbeat skips into overdrive, hoping for some sort of reaction.

Jealously. Just one ounce of it from her and he'd be floating in bliss, although he doesn't quite know why. His sixteen-year-old brain can't for the life of him decipher this need that has so consumed him.

"About time, I would think," she remarks easily. "In my day if a girl wasn't married by the time she was fifteen she was considered undesirable."

Any hope instantly flees from his body. He stares hard at the cold ground before him.

"So, tell me about her." Sakura tosses the empty bag aside and fixes her bright, curious green gaze upon him. "What's she like? What special quality does she harbor that could possibly draw the attention of the almighty, heartless Uchiha Sasuke?"

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. "She's pretty, I guess." A lie. He doesn't find anything about her attractive.

Sakura laughs softly. "That's it? You 'guess' she's pretty?"

He nods stiffly and refuses to look at her.

She sighs. "You're no fun, Sasuke. You need to lighten up a little or you'll never find a girl."

He doesn't want a girl. No mere human girl could possibly satisfy him.

"What about you, then?" he snaps back. "Where's the man in your life?"

Silence instantly incases them, and Sasuke knows he has just made a mistake. Because not only has she been trapped in this damned cell for the last century, but there's a good chance any relationship she ever wanted was ripped away from her because of what she is.

"If you must know, I was married to a nice young man when I was fourteen, back before the change came about and I was forced to flee. I went back to check on him forty years later and he had died of some unknown disease."

There is only a faint sentimentality in her tone - not the anger he expected - as if she were remembering a particularly sunny day from her childhood.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly.

"Don't be," she instantly replies. "I might've loved him for a while, but what's done is done and there's no going back."

He finally finds it in him to look at her, and blinks when she smiles a large, easy smile.

So beautiful.

"Now, really, tell me about this new girlfriend of yours. She must be delightful," Sakura continues sincerely, clapping her chained hands together.

Sasuke can only roll his eyes.

He hears the screams long before he reaches the end of the hallway, and in that very instant he has launched himself forward at a speed that shocks even him.

"Sakura!" he shouts, bounding down the dark steps, his heartbeat pounding away through his skull. "Sakura, are you oka -"

He stills, eyes widening.

Kakashi turns to look at him with anger in his one visible eye. "You? You've been the one feeding her, Sasuke?"

Sasuke registers the words in his mind, but his gaze is locked on the pink-haired woman backed into the corner of her cell. Her fangs have dropped in her mouth, her green eyes flickering to the red he hasn't seen in years, all the while clutching at her left arm that is pouring blood.

Or, rather, what is left of her arm. Just below the sleeve of her musty grey shirt the bottom half of it dangles by what seem to be mere tendons. Ten men crowd her cell, each yielding a gun pointing straight at her head.

"Sasuke," Sakura hisses lowly, deep crimson eyes never leaving those of the men before her. "Run."

Rage unlike anything he's felt before floods his veins, rushes through his head, consuming him.

"You're hurt." He can't even recognize his own voice, so deep and low and furious it is.

"Get out of here, Sasuke!" she screams.

"Shut up, you bitch!" one of the men shouts back, enforcing it with a silver bullet to her leg. She cries out in pain and falls to her knees.

Before he knows it, he has reached for his own gun and has it aimed at the man who harmed her, who dared to touch the one person he cares most about. The safety clicks off with a ominous metallic ring.

"Lower your gun, Sasuke, or I'll be forced to hurt you." Kakashi's stern voice sounds in his ear, and he feels cold silver press to his temple.

Only then does Sakura's gaze meet his, and when she registers the silver-haired man threatening to take his life she lets out the most inhuman roar he's ever heard.

The length of her chains allows for easy access to the men before her. She snaps the closest one's neck with a slight flick of her wrist and moves to take care of the next one in the same movement. By the time any of them can respond, three lay lifeless on the cold stone floor.

"Shoot her in the head, goddammit!" one of them growls. "It's the only thing that'll stop her!"

What? No, she told him she was immortal. She told him there was no possible way she could die -

The bullet blows straight through her skull, sending brain fragments splattering across the wall in a horrific fashion. Instantly Sakura drops to the floor, lifeless, her head an unidentifiable gruesome mass.

Sasuke feels his body begin to shake, and he knows he's about to go into shock. The image of her lying there on the floor, covered from head to toe in her own blood, is the last thing his mind allows him to see before blackness takes over.

He knows it's an image he'll have engraved in his soul for the rest of his sad existence.

Sapientia (Latin): wisdom

A/N: Well hello there good people of the world. *waves* I hope you all are enjoying this little project so far. (Yes, I know, I've been neglecting my duties as an authoress for not updating my other story those of you who follow me know all about. But this concept would just not leave my mind until I finished it, so bare with me.) This'll probably be around five chapters in total. I'll update within the next day or two most likely. But beside that, peace out and I hope school sucks as much for you guys as it does for me.

Also, review?

Please and thank you,

Silver Echo

P.S. The whole "Pyte" and "Sentinel" concepts I got from R.L. Mathewson's Pyte/Sentinel series. I tweaked them big time though, so don't expect them to be alike in more than one or two ways.