Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ The Colour of Your Blood ❯ Chapter Four: Seeing Red ( Chapter 4 )

The Colour of Your Blood

 

A Sakura-Gaara Story

 

Chapter Four: Seeing Red

 

Gaara had left the rooftop when the sky began to turn grey. Sakura decided to stay for a while and watch the sun rise. When the first sliver came over the horizon, the girl had to shield her eyes; she had spent four days without seeing the sun and she was painfully reminded how bright it was. Sakura stretched herself out under some of the potted grasses and watched the sky slowly change colours. She dozed for a while, basking in the warm rays. It was cold at night in the desert and the girl was eager to soak in some rays.

 

After a while, Sakura began to look around at the garden. Although the plants were yellowing they looked like they could be saved. Sakura sat up and cleared her throat. “Um, excuse me?” she began, feeling like a fool, “Servants? Could I possibly get a watering can? Please?” Her voice was high and squeaky with embarrassment at the thought of speaking to herself on a rooftop in a dead girl's garden, but a full watering can soon came bobbing up to her. “Thank you,” she chirped. She began her work, going around and liberally showering the plants with water. The minute the liquid touched their soil, the plants seemed to perk up (or perhaps Sakura was going crazy). Once she was done, Sakura gave the vast rooftop a pleased glance before settling down in one of the lawn chairs.

 

“Excuse me?” she called again to the invisible hands, “Could some one please bring me the huge book in my room?” The servants obliged, and within a matter of seconds, the book came zooming out of the doorway and landed in Sakura's arms. She didn't feel in the least bit tired so she decided to get a start on reading “the book” so that the others wouldn't be able to give her any grief.

 

 

Sakura woke up to a painful burning sensation all over her skin. She winced and found that her face felt very tight. She opened her eyes and saw Gaara standing in front of her with a puzzled look on his face. As Sakura's brain slowly began to function once again, she started to realize what happened.

 

“OOOWWWWWWWW!” she jumped up and began to run to her room, “SUNBURN!”

 

Sakura ran through the corridors of the castle like a madwoman. On the fifth floor she ran into Naruto who gave her his signature stupid-look before bursting out laughing. Sakura would have slapped him, but it hurt too much to make unnecessary movements, and so the girl continued on her way to her room.

 

Once she arrived she screamed for a salve to soothe her skin, which took fifteen agonizing minutes to arrive because it had to be fetched from the village. Sakura slathered herself in the sticky solution and rolled around on the cold stone floor to try to ease the pain. She stayed like that for hours, with Naruto sticking his head in the door have a laugh at the pink haired girl's expense every half an hour or so. Eventually she dragged herself off of the floor and barricaded the door (she had to push her bed over).

 

 

The next night, TenTen nervously knocked on Sakura's door. The pink haired (and now pink skinned) girl had slept on her bed where she had left it to block the door. After much huffing and puffing, Sakura pulled the huge frame away and swung the door open.

 

“Every one is—what's wrong with you're face?”

 

“I got a sunburn yesterday,” Sakura said smugly.

 

TenTen gave her a worried look. “Anyway, everyone has sort of congregated in the entrance hall. Do you want to come down?”

 

“Is Sasuke-sama there?” Sakura asked eagerly.

 

“I guess,” TenTen shrugged.

 

“Alright, let's go!” Sakura shouted as she grabbed TenTen's arm and began to hurdle down the hall.

 

 

Sasuke was leaning against a wall away from everyone else when the two girls arrived. Sakura bounded over to the raven haired vampire and chirped “Good evening, Sasuke-sama!”

 

Sasuke gave her a strange look. “You are pink,” he stated flatly.

 

Sakura looked down at her still-tinted skin. “Oh, sunburn,” she explained and laughed infectiously (horribly).

 

Sasuke grunted in reply. He pushed himself off of the wall and walked around the girl.

 

“Where are you going, Sasuke-sama?”

 

Instead of answering, he walked slowly up the stairs.

 

From where he stood with Temari, Gaara watched Sakura with cold eyes.

 

 

Gaara stood in his private room. It was a mess, like his study, only with sheaves of paper strewn across the floor instead of books. He looked down at one of the papers at his feet. He used to draw, until she died. Sketches of Kaiyo were everywhere, it was all he ever did while she was asleep.

 

Slowly, Gaara gathered up every last scrap of paper and burned them over a candle, one by one.

 

 

“She loves me, really,” Kiba was saying to Sakura, “I just annoy the hell out of her.”

 

“Oh,” Sakura replied, wondering if Kiba were right or just plain stupid.

 

The humans had been ushered into the dining room once again for their first meal of the evening. Everybody always rotated seats during meals to even out socializing. It seemed to Sakura that that was the only thing that the humans ever did. That, and…donate blood.

 

It was the next night and Sakura's sunburn was almost gone. She and TenTen had stayed up the day before, the older girl trying to explain the slow pink haired girl the old English text. Only about a quarter of the information got through her thick skull.

 

Sakura had just started on her eggs when the door swung open and a blonde haired girl bounded in. Sakura choked.

 

“Hey, forehead girl!” the new arrival chirped.

 

“Ino-pig!” Sakura cried, “What are you doing here?”

 

“I was the sacrifice!” Ino sounded absolutely thrilled. She ran over to Sakura's side and elbowed in between her frenemy and Kiba.

 

“Oh, my god!” Ino cried out, “Have you seen how hot Sasuke is? I am soooooooooo glad that I got him! We are a perfect match in everything! It must have been fate…”

 

Ino continued on while Sakura ground her teeth. Ino-pig had ended up with Sasuke. But Sakura was sure that Sasuke wanted her, not the desperate girl beside her. Sakura felt it in her bones; it was love at first sight, and Ino was intruding. Sakura vowed that she would make Sasuke love her, even though she wasn't his human.

 

 

Sakura sat herself down on the dented, wobbly lawn chair (A/N: I trust you all remember why it's that way). Gaara once again stood at the edge of the roof, looking out at the endless sands. He went to the garden every night, and Sakura couldn't quite understand why. On the second and third nights since the girl's arrival, he had spoken to her twice in the garden, but not on the three nights since. Sakura wasn't sure why she kept going back.

 

“What do you think about?” Sakura asked suddenly.

 

“Many things,” Gaara replied. Sakura noticed the troubled tone of his voice. She got out of the rickety chair and crossed the space between Gaara and herself. She didn't say anything further to him, but he understood her intent.

 

The redhead vampire slowly let the air out of his lungs. “Kaiyo left that way,” he nodded out towards the horizon, “She was going to the village to but some things for the castle. She said it was a bland as uncooked tofu and she had had enough of it.” Gaara was almost smiling at the memory, but his eyes were clouded. “She was only supposed to be gone a day. I went out looking for her, and I found her body halfway between here and the village. Her throat had been slit and all of her fingers were cut off and the sand had gotten in her blood and made it dry on her skin in lumps—” Gaara's voice broke. He wasn't crying, but a pained expression had twisted itself on his face. Sakura's throat was heavily knotted and she could barely gulp down air. She had no idea what she should do with herself. She might have hugged Gaara, but there was a certain type of horror and sorrow that went beyond comfort.

 

Gaara kept his eyes locked on the horizon as his breath rushed in and out of his lungs. He didn't know why he was telling Sakura about Kaiyo's death; it was an unwritten rule that human companions not know the fate of their predecessors. After a while, Gaara found the strength to continue. “She was tortured and killed by him because I didn't protect her.”

 

“Gaara, it wasn't your—”

 

“Yes, it is!” he cut her off harshly, “Because I should have been there, I could have stopped him! Kaiyo is dead because I wasn't protecting her like I should have been! If I had have gone with her or stopped her from going all together, she would still be here with me and you would still be in your village.”

 

The last remark stung. He as good as admitted it: he didn't want Sakura with him. She supposed that it made sense. Kaiyo had been the love of his live for almost three centuries before being ripped away and he had been forced to take Sakura. Sakura felt like her insides had been ripped out and replaced with fire. She could think of nothing to say but a mumbled “I'm sorry.”

 

For the first time in three nights, Gaara turned to look at the pink haired girl. “Sakura, I didn't mean it like that,” he said in a low voice.

 

“I'm tired,” Sakura tried to sound normal, but her voice came out higher than usual, “I stayed up all day reading that stupid book. I'm going to go to bed.” She slowly walked down the stairs to the door and quietly closed it behind her. Gaara didn't try to stop her, he just looked out at the sand.

 

 

It was daytime again, and TenTen was sitting cross-legged on Sakura's bed, the book propped open in her lap. She was about ready to take a kunai to her wrists.

 

“I still don't get it,” Sakura said.

 

“What is it you don't understand?” TenTen nearly shrieked in frustration.

 

“If the human shares the vampire's immortality, how come we still die?” Sakura asked, very confused.

 

“We don't die natural deaths,” TenTen explained for the zillionth time, “But we can still be killed, just like the vampires. It's just easier to kill us.”

 

“Oh,” Sakura chirped, “I get it now! That sucks for us, though…”

 

“Yes, it does,” TenTen said, lifting the book back up, “Now, onto the next chapter.”

 

“Hey TenTen, can I ask you something?”

 

The girl sighed. “I guess.”

 

“Is it possible to switch vampires?”

 

TenTen's jaw dropped. “Is it—but—what?” she spluttered.

 

“I want to be with—”

 

TenTen cut her off. “Shut up!” TenTen hissed, “If Gaara hears you…Well, he isn't entirely stable, now is he? Are you crazy? Switch vampires?”

 

“But I don't love Gaara, I love Sasuke-sama.”

 

TenTen shook her head. “No,” she said firmly, “You don't, you just have a silly crush on him. You'll love Gaara, take my word for it. No body is paired up for no reason.”

 

Sakura looked sceptical.

 

 

It was the middle of the day and the curtains were tightly drawn shut against the sun. Sakura opened her eyes and found two intense jade orbs hovering over her. She nearly jumped out of her skin; Gaara was centimetres away from her.

 

“I've always wondered what it would be like to die,” Gaara half whispered, “Just to break up the monotony.”

 

Gaara crashed his lips into Sakura's.