Sarada folded her basket of freshly dried laundry, humming nothing in particular. Three whole days all to herself. Today's breakfast would be freshly made bread with cinnamon sugar apples. Lunch would be a fresh chopped salad with boiled egg, garlic croutons, and a cucumber and dill sandwich.
But before she could decide on dinner, Cho-Cho darted out from the tiny hole between the wooden shutters. She was in quite the panic, squeaking and scampering, pointing with her usually curled tail.
"What? What's wrong?"
Cho-Cho covered her bulging hazel eyes with her brown toes and peeked at her through the crack. A signal that Tsunade was on the way... But that couldn't be right.
And that was when Sarada heard a light scraping, and the subtle grunting. A dull thud. And the thuds continued in succession, getting progressively closer. Someone... Someone was climbing up her tower?!
Sarada abruptly dropped her favorite dress and started pacing, her hands tense in fists at her sides as she scanned the room for options. The evil-doers who wanted to kidnap her for her eyes really did exist. And they just found her.
She read in books that heroes fought with swords and knives, but could she do it? Could she really end another human being's life? Or should she just take her own before it was too late?
She went into the kitchen and grabbed both a knife and the heavy cast iron skillet on the stove, planning to defend herself for as long as she could. The adrenaline pumping through her limbs and making her hands shake was quite a contrast to the usual numbness that accompanied her thoughts of death.
Sarada crouched behind the kitchen door.
The familiar creaking of the hinges on her window shutters resounded, heavy footsteps thudding against the wooden floorboards as the intruder dropped from the ledge into her room.
"Woah... What is this place?"
The voice... Was lower in pitch than hers. It probably belonged to a man. Not that she would know; she'd never seen one before save for the illustrations in some of her story books.
Should she look at the intruder and make him cry? Or would that give away her identity as the cursed girl? Who was she kidding. No one else would "accidentally" stumble into a tower in the middle of nowhere that no one had ever found for the past 18 years.
Tsunade always said that looking into her eyes awakened the darkness inside of people's hearts. It deepened their regrets, their vengeance, their hatred, and turned that into an overwhelming strength. Her powers came from a strange silver flower that her mother drank as she was giving birth... And in that moment, her mother screamed that she would regret dying without seeing her child's face.
At least she was loved before she was born.
If she let this intruder look her in the eyes and he had ill intent... It would only amplify it. She leaned closer to the kitchen door, trying to listen for any other signs of what the man on the other side of her door was really after. But he was relatively silent, just walking around.
And then...
"Hmm... I guess the person living here is a girl. Let's see... 83, 62, 85? Maybe 86? Give or take a few centimeters. Not a bad taste in underwear either."
It was decided. This guy was definitely a bad guy.
Sarada didn't want to give herself away... But maybe she could lure him into attacking distance with the sound of her voice. "Pervert! Back away from my laundry!" She made sure to keep an eye on his boots through the crack in the door and realized that one of her dresses was dangling from his hands.
YOU ARE READING
Twisted
FanfictionTHERE ONCE was a cursed girl who knew nothing of laughter, her fate sealed to the tower in which she remained. That is, until a bright-eyed prince steals his own crown right out from under the guardsmen's noses, flees his kingdom, and stumbles acros...