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“That was uneventful.” Sasori sighed softly, the sound of the heavy rain muffling the footfalls of the three people walking down the darkened street.

“It was BORING.” Came the reply of his companion, this one female. It was a soft, breathy whisper, her voice. She stood in the middle of the trio, flanked on either side by her taller male companions. The woman was short, looking to be around the age of 19 or so. Her companions both seemed to look around that age as well.

The three looked like they had just come from an elegant dinner party, with the men dressed in suits and the woman wearing an elegant black cocktail dress.

“Most Meetings are.” Sasori agreed, stuffing his hands into his pockets. Their third companion held an umbrella over the female—Sasori leaned in so that he was shielded from the rain as well—and his stoic demeanor didn’t seem to change at all even as the other two conversed. He didn’t offer any input, though his two companions had come to expect that of him.

“At least Madara-kun kept the Meeting from running over.” His female companion murmured softly. “It would have been DREADFULLY annoying if he hadn’t remarked on the lateness of the evening.”

Sasori nodded in way of agreement.

“Madara-san seems very attentive to your needs, Sakura-hime.”

Both Sakura and Sasori turned to their red-haired companion, surprised at the fact that he had voiced his opinion. Gaara rarely spoke if he didn’t need to, often relying on Sakura to relay his thoughts to others.

Sakura merely raised one slender eyebrow. “If I didn’t know you better, Gaara-kun, I would think you sounded almost jealous.”

“Mm.”

The pink-haired woman known as Sakura laughed a bit, the sound echoing hauntingly in the rain. “Well, either way I suppose it’s good that he wants to impress me. It keeps me from having to ask the others to stop the Meeting myself.”

“He has some descendents who live in this town, doesn’t he?” Sasori finally asked, after a moment of silence in which the three allowed themselves to be serenaded by the harshly falling raindrops.

“I believe so. The Uchiha family owns a large company here.” Sakura nodded. “Why do you ask?”

“I believe I saw one of them the other day, leaving from school.”

“Oh really?” Sakura seemed intrigued. “What did he look like? Madara-kun always keeps his face hidden so it’s hard to remember how handsome those Uchihas are.”

Gaara seemed to stiffen beside her, and Sasori’s lips thinned a bit, but he answered her. “His hair reminded me of the back of a cockatoo.”

Sakura placed a hand over her mouth as wild laughter bubbled up to her lips. Her shoulders shook a bit as she tried to compose herself. Finally she managed to suppress her mirth to a few faint giggles, before looking back to Sasori. “Truly? I can’t believe—”

She stopped mid-sentence, eyes narrowed a bit, even as they flitted with a dangerous kind of hunger. The other two had stopped as well, and all three were looking off into the distance, where a darkened street turned to the right.

Blood.

A lot of it.

They moved as one, mere blurs to the human eye. Gaara amazingly kept the rain from hitting Sakura with the umbrella as the three landed in front of a large house.
Sakura’s nose wrinkled a bit as she smelled the metallic tang of new blood. It couldn’t be more than a few hours old. Some of it was still fresh. The home itself looked like a disaster. Windows were shattered and the door had been forced in, several pieces of splintered wood littering the front steps.

A body lay in the doorway, as if the person had tried to escape. Rainwater was washing away the last traces of blood off of the corpse. It wasn’t as if there was much blood left, anyway.

Gaara shifted beside Sakura, tilting the umbrella a bit more to make sure that the rain didn’t hit her. Sakura’s eyes shined a bright jade as she took in the scene, swallowing her hunger. She’d eaten a few days ago, but the smell of blood was always enough to excite her.

However, she couldn’t help but sneer at the incompetentness of the vampire who had done this.

“It’s sloppy.” Sasori drawled, his own brown eyes half-lidded. “They couldn’t even get inside without breaking in? Pathetic.”

“I’d think you’d have done the same thing.” Sakura murmured lazily. “You hate to be kept waiting, especially when you want to feed.”

Sasori merely smirked.

“But I agree.” Sakura continued. “And look,” She spread a pale hand out towards the corpse. “The vampire didn’t even bite for the best blood flow, he just attacked the neck and bit where he could.”

"Perhaps he was newly made, experiencing his first bloodlust.”

Sakura nodded. “So it would seem…” She pursed her full lips, before sneering. “It was one of Orochimaru’s new pups. I can smell the snake from here.”

Gaara nodded. “From the scents left behind, there were several here.”

“So Orochimaru let his animals run loose again.” Sakura sighed. “I wondered why he seemed so inattentive at the Meeting.” She turned to Gaara. “Gaara-kun, call Jiraiya-kun and tell him that someone needs to come and clean up this mess.”

Gaara nodded, handing the umbrella to Sasori before pulling a cell phone out of his pocket and walking off towards one of the few streetlights in the area, the phone to his ear.

“I don’t appreciate Orochimaru coming into my territory.”
Sakura continued coldly, “He has his own lands and he should leave mine alone. This town is owned jointly by Madara-kun and myself and he has no claim here.” She began rummaging through her pocketbook. “It seems I’ll have to have a word with him later.”

“Do you think these were some of Kabuto-kun’s experiments?” Sasori murmured.

“I wouldn’t doubt it. He and Orochimaru love that kind of thing.” Sakura bit out, disgust evident in her usually gentle tone. “The only civilized person in that entire group is Kimimaro-kun. It’s a shame Orochimaru got to him first.”

Sasori said nothing, merely nodded.

Gaara walked back a second later, soaked to the bone but looking as calm as ever as he grabbed the umbrella back from Sasori.

“Jiraiya-san says that he will send someone to clean it up. And he will arrange a meeting between yourself and Orochimaru at the earliest possible convenience.”

Sakura nodded. “I will call Jiraiya-kun later. He should know that I don’t take kindly to being put on a waiting list. I will speak with Orochimaru tomorrow. If he continues to try and protect his friend he will only end up vexing me.”
Sasori couldn’t help but smirk at that. He’d seen what happened when Sakura was ‘vexed’ and he didn’t think he’d ever want to be on the receiving end of her anger. Even if Jiraiya and Orochimaru were old friends, self-preservation would probably kick in sooner or later and Jiraiya would learn that siding with Orochimaru would only get him pain and grief.

There was a sudden rustle of leaves and all three turned to see a small figure stumble out of the bushes.

“A child.” Sakura murmured, as the blood-covered young boy stopped in front of them. His brown eyes were large and filled with fright, but even though he shook, he seemed to be completely calm. The rest of his face remained emotionless.

Shock, Sakura suspected.

“Are you in my dream too?” The little boy asked softly, and Sakura could only blink in surprise.

“Dream?”

The boy nodded. “Evil people came and ate my family in my dream. Are you one of the evil people?”

Sakura wasn’t quite sure how to answer that question, so she opted not to do so.

“Sakura-hime, it is getting late. We were expected at the car a few minutes ago.” Sasori finally spoke, impatience clear in his voice.

Sakura merely waved him off, looking down at the little child. “Why didn’t the evil people eat you as well?”

“The one with glasses said he wanted to see what would happen to me if I lived.” The boy answered back truthfully, still seeming to be in shock, his voice a neutral calm.

That sounded like something Kabuto would say, the sick bastard. But why would he want the boy to live? Another experiment, no doubt. Perhaps he wanted to see if another vampire would come and kill the child after being drawn in by the scent of blood? Or did he want to see if anyone would take the child in? He probably just wanted to study the psychological damage that seeing your parents ripped apart by vampires could bring.

“Are you going to kill him, Sakura-hime? We are late.” Sasori spoke again.

“Do you want to go with your parents, little boy?” Sakura finally asked.

The child remained silent for a moment, before shaking his head. “I don’t want to go where they did. It seems scary, and they screamed a lot.” He ended it in a whisper.

“Very well.” Sakura nodded. “I am going to give you a very big gift. I am going to allow you to live with me and I will train you to become very strong. And then…you can kill the people who did this.”

“The man with the glasses?”

“If that is what you wish.”

The boy looked down at the ground, before looking back up and smiling at her. “Ok, okaasan.”

Gaara and Sasori both turned to Sakura, waiting to see her reaction to the name. Her usually cold gaze softened a bit, and a small smile tugged at her lips. They should have expected this, really. Sakura had always wanted to be a mother. No doubt she would spoil the child rotten. But…why hadn’t she killed him?

It wasn’t unusual for them to come across another vampire’s kill and find one still alive. They’d made swift work of them, never hesitating. It didn’t matter the age of the victim, though Sakura shied away from children or pregnant mothers. Her reasoning was that, like with deer hunting, you weren’t supposed to kill a doe with her fawn. If you did, then there would be one less mother to have another baby, and one less baby to grow up to become a meal and have more children. It was a twisted truth, but one that all vampires followed for the most part.

But still…it just seemed so strange to see Sakura acting compassionate. She was usually apathetic toward the human race. She loved toying with them, because she found that humans were nothing more than passing amusements. Rarely did she find a human that she was intrigued by. And when she did—well, that was why Gaara and Sasori were now standing beside her.

“What is your name?” Sakura finally asked.

“Atsuko.”

Sakura knelt down next to him, and her eyes seemed to glow. His own eyes drifted shut, and he slumped forward. At Sakura’s unspoken order, Gaara picked him up effortlessly before he hit the ground, cradling the child with one arm and holding the umbrella with the other.

“Let’s go.” Sasori muttered, his voice laced with annoyance at being so late. “Tomokazu is bringing the car around.”

--

This is just an idea I had…I think I may do a series of these vampire pics with small stories. This was done in like…ten minutes so it’s probably not that good but bear with me. XD And the reason Sakura calls Madara and Jiraiya ‘kun’ is because she is a very old vampire, older than they are. She turned Gaara and Sasori into vampires and now they act sort of like her chevaliers (guardians that protect her, for anyone who has never seen Blood+). Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Madara are also elder vampires, just not as old as Sakura. Meetings are kind of like…council meetings with the eldest vampires to go over rules and things, or just to tell news. But each elder vampire also has their own territory (the town they’re in right now is overlapping between Madara’s and Sakura’s) and the other vampires are supposed to stay out of it. Not all vampires belong to an Elder. These are rogue vampires that the Elders usual hunt down and kill. Wow…there’s a nice bit of background for ya. XD

Anyway, about the picture…if any of you want to color if feel free to do so. But I wanna see what it looks like when you finish. And since this was really spur of the moment don’t expect the next one for a while, lol.

Forbidden...the Meeting [link]

©Naruto characters belong to Kishimoto

© artwork and Forbidden storyline belong to Lady Hanaka

Description
“That was uneventful.” Sasori sighed softly, the sound of the heavy rain muffling the footfalls of the three people walking down the darkened street.

“It was BORING.” Came the reply of his companion, this one female. It was a soft, breathy whisper, her voice. She stood in the middle of the trio, flanked on either side by her taller male companions. The woman was short, looking to be around the age of 19 or so. Her companions both seemed to look around that age as well.

The three looked like they had just come from an elegant dinner party, with the men dressed in suits and the woman wearing an elegant black cocktail dress.

“Most Meetings are.” Sasori agreed, stuffing his hands into his pockets. Their third companion held an umbrella over the female—Sasori leaned in so that he was shielded from the rain as well—and his stoic demeanor didn’t seem to change at all even as the other two conversed. He didn’t offer any input, though his two companions had come to expect that of him.

“At least Madara-kun kept the Meeting from running over.” His female companion murmured softly. “It would have been DREADFULLY annoying if he hadn’t remarked on the lateness of the evening.”

Sasori nodded in way of agreement.

“Madara-san seems very attentive to your needs, Sakura-hime.”

Both Sakura and Sasori turned to their red-haired companion, surprised at the fact that he had voiced his opinion. Gaara rarely spoke if he didn’t need to, often relying on Sakura to relay his thoughts to others.

Sakura merely raised one slender eyebrow. “If I didn’t know you better, Gaara-kun, I would think you sounded almost jealous.”

“Mm.”

The pink-haired woman known as Sakura laughed a bit, the sound echoing hauntingly in the rain. “Well, either way I suppose it’s good that he wants to impress me. It keeps me from having to ask the others to stop the Meeting myself.”

“He has some descendents who live in this town, doesn’t he?” Sasori finally asked, after a moment of silence in which the three allowed themselves to be serenaded by the harshly falling raindrops.

“I believe so. The Uchiha family owns a large company here.” Sakura nodded. “Why do you ask?”

“I believe I saw one of them the other day, leaving from school.”

“Oh really?” Sakura seemed intrigued. “What did he look like? Madara-kun always keeps his face hidden so it’s hard to remember how handsome those Uchihas are.”

Gaara seemed to stiffen beside her, and Sasori’s lips thinned a bit, but he answered her. “His hair reminded me of the back of a cockatoo.”

Sakura placed a hand over her mouth as wild laughter bubbled up to her lips. Her shoulders shook a bit as she tried to compose herself. Finally she managed to suppress her mirth to a few faint giggles, before looking back to Sasori. “Truly? I can’t believe—”

She stopped mid-sentence, eyes narrowed a bit, even as they flitted with a dangerous kind of hunger. The other two had stopped as well, and all three were looking off into the distance, where a darkened street turned to the right.

Blood.

A lot of it.

They moved as one, mere blurs to the human eye. Gaara amazingly kept the rain from hitting Sakura with the umbrella as the three landed in front of a large house.
Sakura’s nose wrinkled a bit as she smelled the metallic tang of new blood. It couldn’t be more than a few hours old. Some of it was still fresh. The home itself looked like a disaster. Windows were shattered and the door had been forced in, several pieces of splintered wood littering the front steps.

A body lay in the doorway, as if the person had tried to escape. Rainwater was washing away the last traces of blood off of the corpse. It wasn’t as if there was much blood left, anyway.

Gaara shifted beside Sakura, tilting the umbrella a bit more to make sure that the rain didn’t hit her. Sakura’s eyes shined a bright jade as she took in the scene, swallowing her hunger. She’d eaten a few days ago, but the smell of blood was always enough to excite her.

However, she couldn’t help but sneer at the incompetentness of the vampire who had done this.

“It’s sloppy.” Sasori drawled, his own brown eyes half-lidded. “They couldn’t even get inside without breaking in? Pathetic.”

“I’d think you’d have done the same thing.” Sakura murmured lazily. “You hate to be kept waiting, especially when you want to feed.”

Sasori merely smirked.

“But I agree.” Sakura continued. “And look,” She spread a pale hand out towards the corpse. “The vampire didn’t even bite for the best blood flow, he just attacked the neck and bit where he could.”

"Perhaps he was newly made, experiencing his first bloodlust.”

Sakura nodded. “So it would seem…” She pursed her full lips, before sneering. “It was one of Orochimaru’s new pups. I can smell the snake from here.”

Gaara nodded. “From the scents left behind, there were several here.”

“So Orochimaru let his animals run loose again.” Sakura sighed. “I wondered why he seemed so inattentive at the Meeting.” She turned to Gaara. “Gaara-kun, call Jiraiya-kun and tell him that someone needs to come and clean up this mess.”

Gaara nodded, handing the umbrella to Sasori before pulling a cell phone out of his pocket and walking off towards one of the few streetlights in the area, the phone to his ear.

“I don’t appreciate Orochimaru coming into my territory.”
Sakura continued coldly, “He has his own lands and he should leave mine alone. This town is owned jointly by Madara-kun and myself and he has no claim here.” She began rummaging through her pocketbook. “It seems I’ll have to have a word with him later.”

“Do you think these were some of Kabuto-kun’s experiments?” Sasori murmured.

“I wouldn’t doubt it. He and Orochimaru love that kind of thing.” Sakura bit out, disgust evident in her usually gentle tone. “The only civilized person in that entire group is Kimimaro-kun. It’s a shame Orochimaru got to him first.”

Sasori said nothing, merely nodded.

Gaara walked back a second later, soaked to the bone but looking as calm as ever as he grabbed the umbrella back from Sasori.

“Jiraiya-san says that he will send someone to clean it up. And he will arrange a meeting between yourself and Orochimaru at the earliest possible convenience.”

Sakura nodded. “I will call Jiraiya-kun later. He should know that I don’t take kindly to being put on a waiting list. I will speak with Orochimaru tomorrow. If he continues to try and protect his friend he will only end up vexing me.”
Sasori couldn’t help but smirk at that. He’d seen what happened when Sakura was ‘vexed’ and he didn’t think he’d ever want to be on the receiving end of her anger. Even if Jiraiya and Orochimaru were old friends, self-preservation would probably kick in sooner or later and Jiraiya would learn that siding with Orochimaru would only get him pain and grief.

There was a sudden rustle of leaves and all three turned to see a small figure stumble out of the bushes.

“A child.” Sakura murmured, as the blood-covered young boy stopped in front of them. His brown eyes were large and filled with fright, but even though he shook, he seemed to be completely calm. The rest of his face remained emotionless.

Shock, Sakura suspected.

“Are you in my dream too?” The little boy asked softly, and Sakura could only blink in surprise.

“Dream?”

The boy nodded. “Evil people came and ate my family in my dream. Are you one of the evil people?”

Sakura wasn’t quite sure how to answer that question, so she opted not to do so.

“Sakura-hime, it is getting late. We were expected at the car a few minutes ago.” Sasori finally spoke, impatience clear in his voice.

Sakura merely waved him off, looking down at the little child. “Why didn’t the evil people eat you as well?”

“The one with glasses said he wanted to see what would happen to me if I lived.” The boy answered back truthfully, still seeming to be in shock, his voice a neutral calm.

That sounded like something Kabuto would say, the sick bastard. But why would he want the boy to live? Another experiment, no doubt. Perhaps he wanted to see if another vampire would come and kill the child after being drawn in by the scent of blood? Or did he want to see if anyone would take the child in? He probably just wanted to study the psychological damage that seeing your parents ripped apart by vampires could bring.

“Are you going to kill him, Sakura-hime? We are late.” Sasori spoke again.

“Do you want to go with your parents, little boy?” Sakura finally asked.

The child remained silent for a moment, before shaking his head. “I don’t want to go where they did. It seems scary, and they screamed a lot.” He ended it in a whisper.

“Very well.” Sakura nodded. “I am going to give you a very big gift. I am going to allow you to live with me and I will train you to become very strong. And then…you can kill the people who did this.”

“The man with the glasses?”

“If that is what you wish.”

The boy looked down at the ground, before looking back up and smiling at her. “Ok, okaasan.”

Gaara and Sasori both turned to Sakura, waiting to see her reaction to the name. Her usually cold gaze softened a bit, and a small smile tugged at her lips. They should have expected this, really. Sakura had always wanted to be a mother. No doubt she would spoil the child rotten. But…why hadn’t she killed him?

It wasn’t unusual for them to come across another vampire’s kill and find one still alive. They’d made swift work of them, never hesitating. It didn’t matter the age of the victim, though Sakura shied away from children or pregnant mothers. Her reasoning was that, like with deer hunting, you weren’t supposed to kill a doe with her fawn. If you did, then there would be one less mother to have another baby, and one less baby to grow up to become a meal and have more children. It was a twisted truth, but one that all vampires followed for the most part.

But still…it just seemed so strange to see Sakura acting compassionate. She was usually apathetic toward the human race. She loved toying with them, because she found that humans were nothing more than passing amusements. Rarely did she find a human that she was intrigued by. And when she did—well, that was why Gaara and Sasori were now standing beside her.

“What is your name?” Sakura finally asked.

“Atsuko.”

Sakura knelt down next to him, and her eyes seemed to glow. His own eyes drifted shut, and he slumped forward. At Sakura’s unspoken order, Gaara picked him up effortlessly before he hit the ground, cradling the child with one arm and holding the umbrella with the other.

“Let’s go.” Sasori muttered, his voice laced with annoyance at being so late. “Tomokazu is bringing the car around.”

--

This is just an idea I had…I think I may do a series of these vampire pics with small stories. This was done in like…ten minutes so it’s probably not that good but bear with me. XD And the reason Sakura calls Madara and Jiraiya ‘kun’ is because she is a very old vampire, older than they are. She turned Gaara and Sasori into vampires and now they act sort of like her chevaliers (guardians that protect her, for anyone who has never seen Blood+). Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Madara are also elder vampires, just not as old as Sakura. Meetings are kind of like…council meetings with the eldest vampires to go over rules and things, or just to tell news. But each elder vampire also has their own territory (the town they’re in right now is overlapping between Madara’s and Sakura’s) and the other vampires are supposed to stay out of it. Not all vampires belong to an Elder. These are rogue vampires that the Elders usual hunt down and kill. Wow…there’s a nice bit of background for ya. XD

Anyway, about the picture…if any of you want to color if feel free to do so. But I wanna see what it looks like when you finish. And since this was really spur of the moment don’t expect the next one for a while, lol.

Forbidden...the Meeting [link]

©Naruto characters belong to Kishimoto

© artwork and Forbidden storyline belong to Lady Hanaka