This story takes place in a small town in England in 1876, inspired by the manga entitled Hana to Akuma. I wrote this one AGES ago...back...well back when I first started my AkaSaku phase I think. There was this, Sweet Fairest (an AkaSaku retelling of Snow White), and Belonging...and we know which one got written out in full =P So I thought I'd do Timeless the honor of being put up here. This is what might have been if Belonging hadn't been the story chosen. (Sweet Fairest has a spinoff tale entitled Household Chores that I'm reserving for my 30th story on FFnet that I've literally been working on and off for the last...almost nine months now? Whenever Belonging first started...or maybe even before then...basically whenever I first started tossing around the idea of writing retellings of fairytales with Naruto characters...)

Please do enjoy and leave reviews~!

Title: Timeless

Genre: Romance/Drama/Humor

Warnings: Supernatural beings

Pairing: AkaSaku (All Akatsuki members including Pein and Tobi, but not Madara and Konan)

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Sakura is woefully innocent, having lived a very sheltered life as the ward of a group of immortals called the Akatsuki. And they will stop at nothing to keep their mortal girl out of the danger presented by demons, spirits, and boys.

Disclaimer: I dream about owning Naruto someday. Someday.

Timeless

Takes place in a small town in England in 1876.

He was nervous. Beyond nervous. In fact, there could not be anyone more nervous than him at this very moment as he stood in front of the front door of the ornate Victorian mansion, waiting for someone – anyone – to come answer it.

But, in spite of the knee-knocking terror running through his system, he knew this would something he would undoubtedly do for his beloved Sakura-chan. There was nothing he wouldn't do for the innocent little rose-haired girl in his class at school, and that included bearding the proverbial lions' den to see her.

Why did she have to live with such terrifying people?

A jolt of pure panic shot through him as one of the large double doors creaked open…but the emotion pumping adrenaline through his veins quickly changed to joy at the sight of the pretty, pale face that peeked out.

"Sakura-chan!"

Large moss-green eyes blinked at him sweetly. "Idate-kun?"

=*~*~*=

"Idate-kun, are you alright?" she asked, wondering why her classmate was so tense as she led the way to one of the mansion's smaller guest parlors. "You seem…nervous…"

"I-I'm fine, Sakura-chan," he reassured her with a grin that shook a little at the edges. He was lying through his teeth and he knew it, but he couldn't exactly tell her that he was terrified of her family. He wasn't about to mention that triviality to the beautifully dressed girl beside him, speaking of which…she really did look lovely. In spite of being dressed in a day gown of beige and burgundy with black trim and ribbon accents, she looked alluring. The rosy curtain of silken locks spilled from the black bow holding up a portion of her hair in a sweet little half updo. "Th-there's nothing wrong…"

"If you say so," the girl replied dubiously, flipping her waist-length candy-colored hair over her shoulder in an unconcerned gesture. She decided Idate must be feeling out of sorts; he was never like this in school, but they had been on holiday for the last week. It was entirely possible that he'd gotten ill over the break and hadn't gotten back to his usual good health just yet. "Would you like anything in particular while you wait, Idate-kun? I'm not sure how long it will take for me to hunt up my old classical music records…"

"Oh…um…j-just tea is fine…"

"I'll let Itachi-san know then," Sakura replied with a small smile as she stepped into the parlor. "Please make yourself comfortable, Idate-kun."

"O-of course, Sakura-chan…" he replied faintly, his eyes glued to the luxury of the parlor. 'I knew Sakura-chan's family was wealthy but…' It definitely was a sight that would have stunned even a discerning eye, well trained to riches.

An ornate couch that would easily have seated three large individuals and a loveseat of a similar style flanked the sides of a beautifully carved and lacquered mahogany coffee table. Another two armchairs stood at either width-end of the coffee table, indistinguishable from one another except by the fact that an ottoman accompanied one while the other was devoid of a footrest. A number of beautiful oil paintings decorated with walls, creating tasteful breaks in the rich burgundy wallpaper with its beige fleur de lis pattern. Elegant little ornaments adorned the mantle above the unlit fireplace.

For a boy from a family with a relatively modest income, it was a lot to take in.

"Ano…Idate-kun…you can take a seat…"

He flushed to the roots of his dark hair, and quickly settled onto the sofa. "Sorry…please, the music records?" He didn't want to rush her, but the sooner she went to get them the sooner she'd be back, and the sooner he'd be able to forget that he was sitting in one of the mansion's parlors for the first time in his life.

A shy flush warmed Sakura's cheeks. "Of course, Idate-kun, I'll be right back," she assured him, stepping out for the parlor and down the hall to a small study where she knew Itachi would be.

"Itachi-san?"

"Sakura," he greeted, his lips curving into an alluring smile as the ebony-haired male slid gracefully to his feet. "You know we prefer you to leave off the honorifics." They'd been trying to get her to stop since she'd turned sixteen nearly half a year ago, but to no avail yet.

"S-sorry Itachi-san…it's habit," the girl explained with a tiny stammer, her cheeks still tinted faintly crimson. "It's just that Idate-kun has come over and you make the best tea…"

"I thought I felt a presence entering our house," the obsidian-eyed Uchiha said easily, fixing the younger girl with a warm gaze as he traced the curve of her cheek with a gloved finger. "Sakura, you must know that you need not merely imply that you need my skills. You are-,"

"I don't care, Itachi-san," Sakura replied, her smile heartfelt as her fingertips gently brushed over his cloth-covered knuckles. "I prefer asking."

"Then, as you wish," Itachi responded with an answering curve of his lips as he retracted his hand. "I will make tea for yourself and your…guest. Will you tell the others that you have someone over?"

The viridian-eyed girl nodded, hearing the gentle command in his voice. It was a rule of thumb that all others were warned if anyone came to visit. True, she'd never had a guest before today and the others didn't entertain often, but it was a good rule to have nonetheless. "I was going to do that right now, I just thought you'd be closest."

"Smart Sakura," the older male chuckled softly, playing with a lock of strawberry-milk hair that slid over her shoulder. "Go now."

"Yes, Itachi-san…"

He shook his head as the girl disappeared off, a small frown of annoyance finally skating over his aristocratic features. He could feel the boy in the other room, and his affection for the girl with the carnation-pink hair was obvious for all to see…all but the girl in question. Trust Sakura to be oblivious to male advances. She was that way towards all men, even the ones who lived in the mansion with her as her 'cousins'.

"Sakura…when will you see past all this and realize how we feel for you?" Itachi wondered with a melancholy shake of his head as he strode off to the kitchens.

Meanwhile, Sakura had made her way upstairs to her chambers, having run into none of her other housemates, and found to her surprise that the classical music records that she had been meaning to look for were now piled neatly on her bedside table.

"How…"

"Sakura?"

"Ah, Zetsu-san!" she greeted with an open smile. "Were you the one who found my classical records?"

The bicolor male nodded in response, his chaotic mop of verdant hair falling into keen amber eyes. "I was hoping to borrow them for the conservatory. I read in an article recently that music helps plant growth."

"Does it really?" Sakura asked in surprise as she collected up the records, carefully dusting off the record jackets. "That seems like such a strange concept…"

"I was hoping to test it out, actually," Zetsu confessed. "It probably isn't true. But we ought to try…"

"Here, why not try Vivaldi's Four Seasons?" she offered, placing the record into the male's unresisting hands with an impish grin.

"Mischievous girl. Thank you, Sakura," the amber-eyed man told her, glancing to the stack she still held in her hands. "Are you planning on doing something with the rest of them?"

"Oh!" Sakura gasped, feeling embarrassed at her own forgetfulness. "Idate-kun from school is here because we were covering baroque and classical musicians in music class today and he said he'd never heard any before…"

"So you invited him over?" Zetsu asked, his grin laced with sardonic humor. "Sakura…"

"N-no!" the girl denied vehemently, shaking her head until the rose-colored locks danced down her back. "I only said that he should perhaps come over to listen to my records some day…I didn't know he would take it as an invitation to come over today!"

The bicolor male chuckled as he brushed some wayward strands of her hair out of her eyes. "I didn't mean anything by the question," he reassured her with an easy grin. "But perhaps I can do you a favor and warn the others about your little…guest?"

"You don't have to, Zetsu-san," Sakura replied with a shy smile. "I don't mind looking for the others…"

"Perhaps not, but we'll find the others anyway. You'll want to go straight back downstairs."

Sakura glanced up into the more feral expression on Zetsu's face that always appeared when his darker side spoke up. The look had scared her once, but time had a way of eroding such fears, and now the change merely made her feel even more protected by the amber-eyed male. "What do you mean, Zetsu-san?"

"Your classmate might be just a boy, but he apparently had enough of an aura to attract some notice because I'm pretty sure I saw Hidan and Deidara making their way downstairs not too long ago…"

Verdant eyes widened as a gasp issued from Sakura's lips, nerveless fingers losing their grip on the stack of music records she'd been carrying in her arms. They clattered loudly to the carpeted floor as the blood drained from her face.

'Oh no…'

=*~*~*=

"Admiring the décor, un?"

Idate gasped, jumping in surprise and nearly dropping the glass figurine he'd been studying. "I-I'm sorry?" he stammered, quickly replacing the ornament to the mantle as he spun around to face the speaker and his companion as they stood in the doorway.

The one who had spoken was most likely the blond with the ponytail, though it was hard to tell. He hardly looked like someone concerned with a response, instead fiddling with the chain that looped from one pocket of his sable waistcoat to another, as if bored by the entire situation. The young, auburn-headed boy missed the hooded cerulean eyes that followed his every movement with keen intelligence tempered with a touch of disdain.

The other was grinning openly, and the expression did nothing to bolster Idate's confidence. It was a full-blown smirk that was beginning to border on menacing as its owner took several sauntering steps into the parlor.

"You bloody well would have been sorry if you'd dropped it, tosser," he said offhandedly, in the same manner as someone offering a thinly veiled threat coupled with a rather meaningful cracking of knuckles. "What're you doing in our house?"

"I'm h-here to see S-Sa-Sakura-chan," the young teen stammered, his bravery crumbling under Hidan's intimidation.

Deidara's half-hooded eyes narrowed. "Sakura-chan, is it, un? And you were…"

"Morino Idate," the boy, he was really nothing more than a boy in Deidara's eyes, replied as staunchly as he could. "I'm Sakura-chan's classmate."

"Of course," the blond replied, his voice taking on the same quietly sinister quality as Hidan's. "Come, take a seat, I'm sure Itachi will be here with tea soon, un." Deidara smiled as he sank into a seat at one end of the couch.

Idate warily sat at the couch's other end, Hidan throwing himself onto the loveseat as the parlor descended into an uncomfortable (at least for Idate) silence.

"So, brat, what half-arsed excuse did you use to see Sakura?" Hidan asked offhandedly, face devoid of a smile. "Schoolwork?"

"Art?" the blond interjected with another knife-blade thin smile.

"N-no…music…"

"And are you always this impolite?" a mahogany-haired man asked, casually leaning against the doorway, the rolled-up cuffs of his white shirt showing off a number of stitched up scars crisscrossing his forearms to match the ones that marred his tan features.

"What do you mean…impolite?" the teenager asked, a note of doubt creeping into his voice.

The other three exchanged smug looks. "You just showed up to Sakura's place, unannounced and unexpected, hoping to use the excuse of music to spend time with her?" the new arrival asked, raising an eyebrow disparagingly. "She would have let us know if she had invited someone over because Sakura," he added with a hint of a sneer, "was brought up to have manners."

"Sh-she did invite me!" Idate protested. "I mentioned that I'd never heard half the pieces our teacher mentioned in class today and she said I should come listen to her records some…day…" The blood drained from his face.

"Someday."

And that single word was enough. He was an unwelcome interloper at a private party.

"Figures our girl would end up having this brat-faced excuse of a boy for a classmate, bas-,"

"Idate-kun!" the girl in question appeared at the doorway, her cheeks flushed, arms empty of records with a distinct expression of relief appearing in her eyes.

"Sakura-chan!" he yelped, flushing dark crimson as his voice cracked on her name. "I-I…I'm sorry, something very urgent came up, Ineedtogorightnow!"

"O-oh…okay then…" she replied, somewhat nonplussed. "I'll see you at school tomorrow?"

He nodded hastily as she trailed him to the front door and waved goodbye, his face the shade of a ripe Red Delicious. "I'm such a f-!" Pain erupted in his chest as he collided with a tall figure and fell hard against the cobblestone walkway leading to the mansion.

"Oh? Did we have a guest today?"

A shudder coursed down Idate's spine as he struggled to sit up among the autumn leaves he'd landed in. "S-sorry…" A knife-blade of pain lanced through his lungs as he gasped in fear.

The man staring down disdainfully at him raised an eyebrow, the afternoon light glinting off of the piercings that lined either side of the bridge of his nose. Orange hair fell into hypnotically terrifying eyes.

A scream of terror died in Idate's throat as the man swept past him and into the house.

=*~*~*=

"Did you have a guest today, Sakura?" Pein asked as he shed his overcoat in the entrance hall.

"Sort of," the sixteen-year-old confessed with a small grin as she led the way down the hall to the mansion's 'family' parlor.

Here there was much more space, a corner of the room taken up by a burnished, burgundy baby grand piano with bookshelves of fiction lining the wall behind it. An ornate chandelier hung above the gilt-edged coffee table, with its intricate pattern of cherry blossoms inlaid in mother-of-pearl on the surface. A couch, three armchairs (this time two with and one without an accompanying ottoman), and two more loveseats, ranged around it. Above the fireplace hung a beautifully executed oil painting of nine men and a single, strawberry cream-haired girl.

Deidara, Hidan, and Kakuzu were already there, Itachi appearing at a far entrance with a tea service in hand, when she and Pein arrived.

"Here already?" Sakura asked, her voice a little too devoid of suspicion. "That was fast."

"You know we like the family parlor best, un," Deidara replied cheerfully as he patted the portion of the loveseat he was at that remained unoccupied.

"Of course," was her wry response as she ignored his gestures and sank into the single, ottoman-less armchair across from him, smiling impishly at his disappointment.

"Sakura-chan is mean, un," he mock-whined, arms crossing over his chest in a manner that would have been petulant on a younger-looking individual.

The girl refused to be baited. "That's what you get for chasing away Idate-kun. He's a classmate you know; I'm going to have to see him tomorrow and the day after and for weeks and months and maybe even years. He's probably terrified of me now."

"So what?" Hidan asked carelessly as the rest of their little 'family' filtered into the room. "Bloody hell, he was a rude little brat."

Sakrua giggled. "Isn't that rich coming from you, Hidan-san?" she teased, pulling just out of reach when the silver-haired man tried to snag one of her candy-colored locks to tug.

"He's a guy; he should be more cautious in coming over," redheaded Sasori remarked as he scooped two spoons of sugar into his tea.

"Yes, what if he was mean to you, Sakura-chan!" Tobi, the youngest of the males, added, his voice loud with agitation. "You have to be careful!"

"We are all here for your protection, Sakura," Itachi agreed as he handed her a cup of honey rosehip tea. "From everything, including little boys like Idate." He smiled as she blushingly accepted the drink from him. "From things like him especially."

"Th-thank you, everyone," she managed; her cheeks warm as she sipped her hot tea. "I always appreciate your protection…"

"It is our pleasure," Pein responded for the group. "You are our ward; we will always be looking out for you."

As the afternoon dissolved into its usual quiet chatter, he wondered whether Sakura was aware of just how true that statement was for all of them. They held a unique bond with her and she was their precious girl, their little princess, and there was nothing they wouldn't do for her happiness.

TBC

Akatsuki Mansion, Teatime

The front door opened with a forceful bang as a young girl in an ornate gown dashed through, almost forgetting to close it after her as she sped down the hall.

"Sakura?"

Acting as if she hadn't heard, the rosy-headed girl dashed past two of her surprised housemates, her pounding footsteps echoing through the halls.

"What the bloody hell is up with that girl?" Hidan asked, frowning ferociously after her as he leaned back against the wall, crimson-violet eyes glaring down the hall Sakura had disappeared down.

Deidara, standing next to him, shrugged. "I have no idea, un."

He and the silver-haired man followed the loud noises of the girl's rush through the house, joined in a few minutes by the rest of their household, until they reached the girl who frantically shuffled through her belongings, turning her neat room into a rather chaotic mess in very little time.

"Sakura. What is going on."

The girl's head came up with a jerk of surprise, a flush deepening her cheeks as she turned and locked gazes with one of her favorite members of the household. "Pein-san!" She glanced around, as if finally realizing what a mess her room had become. The color in her cheeks darkened further. "I…I…"

"Tell me."

"I…"

The soft touch of a hand on her bare arm made her turn in a flurry of rose-cream hair, her emerald eyes wide. Itachi's obsidian gaze hypnotized her with a seriousness that seeped into her fluttering heartbeat, calming her better than a mug of warm milk with honey would have.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, glancing shamefacedly around her messy room. "I didn't mean to make such a commotion. I…"

Pein shook his head nearly imperceptibly. "Tell us downstairs. Tea should almost be ready."

Sakura's flushed face wavered, and a slow smile spread over her features. "I'll tell everyone everything, though you guys will probably laugh. I was looking for the photographs we took three years ago. My classmates wouldn't believe we attended a duchess' ball."

Pein, about to let Sakura know that the photographs she had been looking for were kept in one of the folio's of the mansion's extensive library, exchanged a glance with Itachi and checked himself. He could remember the pictures clearly and, in spite of the grainy quality of the photographs that could not match up to a true canvas painting, Sakura had been a rather adorable figure.

The last thing he wanted was for someone in her class to see her in the exquisite gown their family friend, Konan, had made for the rose-haired girl.

"I don't believe I have seen those photographs in a while, Sakura," he said with perfect honesty as the unique family made their way downstairs for tea. "Perhaps one of us could vouch to you friends for you?"

I think I added a lot of Pein in this fic...but for once I wanted a balanced spread between my Akatsuki members (I'm ALWAYS favoring Itachi or sometimes Deidara and Sasori over the others), so I let Pein take more lines. The style of the story was meant to be old-fashioned (so I made a mistake in using the word "guys"...but hey, I'm not perfect), and somewhat more slice-of-life for a few chapters before getting into any drama. But the basic storyline is that Sakura's a mortal and she's living with all these immortal men (you can hardly tell they're immortal except in that one scene with Zetsu) who love her and have protected her for years. But she's known for a while that she'll continue to grow older and eventually die and they won't change, so she takes matters into her own hands and tries to win herself immortality in the Other Realm.

I peppered the basic story spread with lots of tea (both the first chapter and the extra scene end during tea) and trips to the Night Realm (also Other Realm or Dark Realm) and supernatural beings...but who knows if this one will actually become a chapter fic. It might just end here...

Amusing note, I made Hidan's swearing "British" XD hence the reason why he kept saying bloody. I thought it was a funny idea, also because I don't actually swear in real life so it feels really strange to be writing a character who curses like a sailor and "bloody hell" never seemed like that big of a curse to me...

Your reviews keep the muse creative, so please leave me one! ^^

Aria, out.