A/N: Hello all :D Yes, another story. This isn't a High school fic, which is different because usually that's all I write during my spare time, but I'm still going to give it a go anyway. It's slightly AU, and after receiving a few PM's, it looks like Kiba and Sakura takes the cake ;) So I hope you enjoy it, if you don't like it, then don't comment telling me how much you hate it, just leave and read something else. Thanks. Anyway, enjoy!

Isn't it strange how the smallest of actions can turn into such a big chain of events?

Seventeen was not the right age to be in prison. Prison was meant for adults, bad people who had committed horrid crimes, and people who deserved to be hidden away from the public… forever. No, prison was not where a seventeen year old girl belonged. Having men force themselves upon her, guards mistreat her, officer's abuse her... it was no place for a girl. Especially Sakura.

There seemed to be a lot of things that were completely unnecessary and cruel happening around her. Her town was being invaded by who knows who; one day everything was normal, and the next there was nothing but wreckage, mess and death everywhere. The questions that had occurred over and over again in her head went on unanswered. Who were these people? What did they want? Why were they invading? But not a single person around her knew. The only information she could gather from the people and family surrounding her was that it had been subtly coming for months now; food in the markets was becoming scarce, livestock was being stripped away from farmers and properties, workers were being laid off causing many families across the village to fall into poverty, and money was becoming severely limited.

Sakura's family had never had much money. They were born into poverty many generations ago and would remain that way for a very long time to come. They did, however, have enough money to survive and live off through staggering winters and long exhausting things got hard after the invasion… really hard. Strangers roamed the streets stripping villagers of everything they had, even shop keepers and workers were being bullied and belted into giving up everything they owned. The streets were torn down and trashed until there was very little left except the rubble and rubbish which covered the ground. Soon enough going in to hiding and having to steal to survive sadly became a necessity. And then, one day out of nowhere, stores started to re-open again, and food and clean water was back with only one exception; either pay an extremely high price for very little supply, or sell something of yourself. And for most women, that meant themselves.

But Sakura was stronger than a lot of other girls her age, and she often used this to her advantage. She had always been a rebel; getting into mischief with the villagers and caught misbehaving was a part of her. So when the time came where her family had finally hit rock bottom, they relied on someone who was willing to take risks to help them survive and unfortunately Sakura was their only option.

It was during the middle of one of Konoha's coldest winters. It was early in the morning and most of the villagers were sleeping or hiding away. The ''Strangers'', as Sakura liked to call them, were usually all asleep at such an hour as well. Their fat overweight bodies usually rested comfortably in the finest of homes that they stripped away from the higher class villagers. Sometimes at night when Sakura couldn't sleep she could hear loud voices coming from their houses as they celebrated with food and woman they had picked up from off the streets. It made Sakura sick to her stomach.

As she made her way through early morning fog, she tried to ignore the icy sting the air left on her bare arms. She walked carefully behind the backs streets making sure she avoided the main roads where guards were usually on patrol. Sometimes she had been extra risky and taken the main streets, just so she could get a look at the faces on some of the guards and try to figure out what village or country they may have come from. Most of them were large and rounded, obviously well fed and far from malnourished. They all seemed to have a very pale complexion; maybe from a village that had very little sunlight? She wasn't sure. But one thing she knew was that where ever they came from, there was more to come. When they attacked they flooded in like locusts, taking out all of south Konoha's military forces like they were ants. And week after week more of them arrived with heavy machinery and weapons that Sakura couldn't even recognise. But that morning she didn't bother going through the main streets. There was something about the place that day that didn't seem quite right; it wasn't as quiet as it usually was. She found herself constantly jumping as pieces of steel fell from half demolished buildings and houses and at the sudden appearance of enemy officers. A few guards were even wondering around the back streets which was unusual, so Sakura kept her head low. Some of the things she saw that morning were haunting; bodies of little children appeared every now and then on the side of the road, their body's skinny and ruined from starvation. At some stage she came across a woman who would have been in her mid-twenties, walking half naked down the centre of the street. Her clothes were ratted and torn off by force, and blood covered the little pieces of clothing that remained on her. The girls face was cold. She continued to walk past Sakura without even acknowledging she was there, her face lost in a world that was no longer real.

Sakura knew she should have stopped there. Just stopped in her tracks and turned around and ran home as fast as she could. But that wasn't her nature; when she set out to do something, she set out to finish it. So when she finally did reach the small corner store in the centre of the village, she spotted a guard asleep behind the counter. He was covered in deep red and bronze armour with a deep gold emblem that she couldn't recognise embedded on the back and chest. Her heart pounded and her body wanted to freeze, but she pushed past it and grabbed the closest loaf of bread she could and started to run. No way was the bread going to feed Sakura's family but it was enough until the next food run... whenever that may be. She ran and ran, the cold air burning her lungs as she breathed it in with panic. It wasn't long before a loud bang was heard and Sakura found herself running no more, and instead falling to the ground with a sharp, excruciating pain tearing through the bottom of her left leg.

That was the last morning Sakura Haruno saw her family.

Prison was no luxury. Especially when the strangers were in control of it. For three gruelling weeks, Sakura had been sharing a dirty cemented cell with seven other men and one female. The walls leaked with cold, dirty water, causing the walls to grow mossy and mould ridden, the place was almost fully dark with only one window no bigger than a book at the back of the cell providing very little insulation or air, there were no toilet or bed facilities and food rations were extremely scarce. There was barely enough room to move around with it being so crammed with people, and the stench of rotten wood and human wastes made the air reek of a thick must. It was a closed in hell. The living conditions in which some of these innocent prisoners lived were beyond cruel and utterly inhumane.

The men, in which Sakura had the callous opportunity of sharing a cell with, had to be in their forties. They were all large men-much larger than Sakura- who had been locked up months or even years before Sakura was thrown into such a sickening place. Their crimes varied from rape, to theft, to vigorous assault, to murder. The woman, however, was in there with the same pathetic reason Sakura was; driven theft to keep her family alive. She was worried at first, Sakura, about a lot of things. Death, for one. Then the fear of never seeing her family again, of getting abused and assaulted by her inmates, and then of course what was going to happen to her. She was only seventeen; Christ, she was still a kid. And now she had to deal with this because she was trying to survive? None of it was fair. But fair wasn't a familiar word to the 'strangers', and wasn't going to be for a long time to come.

''Eat,'' Kurenai said, picking up the food scraps off of the filthy floor. From what Sakura could make out, they seemed to be some sort of vegetable peeling. It was too dark to make out what type, but that didn't matter; she was in no mood to eat.

"I'm not hungry,"

"Rubbish Sakura." Kurenai grabbed a hold of Sakura's chin and forced her mouth open. She placed the peelings in her mouth and shut it, keeping her hand over Sakura's jaw. "It's been three days since we got our last rations. Savour this while it lasts; you'll never know when these fucking pigs will decide to feed us again."

Kurenai had become like a mother figure to Sakura since her days began in the cell. She was an older woman, ranging somewhere between her fortes and fifties, who like Sakura, was slowly withering away to nothing. Sakura often looked at her and pictured what she may have looked like when she was younger. She could tell she would have been a beautiful woman, her long dark hair and fair complexion was Sakura's idea of beauty. But none of that was anymore; instead she was looking at the weak, bony remains of a woman who had endured it all and was on the verge of giving up.

"And plus, you need to quickly eat what you can before any of the scumbags in this cell decide to take it from you."

"Let them try," Sakura gritted her teeth and forcefully swallowed the rotten remains of food scraps. "I'd like to see how far they'd get."

Kurenai looked at Sakura with a pathetic expression. "Don't act like a hero Sakura, not in here. You of all people know what they're capable of; loud talk won't get you anywhere but beneath their filthy grimy excuses for bodies."

Goosebumps made their paths down Sakura's mud stained skin. The thought of the things they'd do to her in the middle of the night circled like a massive storm cloud inside of her head. Waking up to old men grinding their heinous, sweaty bodies on top of her and knowing there was nothing she, Kurenai or the guards could do to stop them made her feel sick to the stomach, the place between her legs started to ache painfully, and the urge to vomit started to build up inside of her.

"I've heard rumours from the other prisoners that there's going to be some kind of shift movement." Kurenai continued, changing the subject, chewing on an apple core which she found amongst the scraps of food. At first Sakura refused to feed on such vile things, but after a week in the hell hole she soon worked out that she needed to eat whatever the hell she could if she wanted any chance of surviving.

"Shift movement?"

"Yeah. New prisoners are getting shifted to this prison, and some of our prisoners getting transported to other jails across the country. I for one would love to get the hell out of this revolting place before I end up like that woman in cell six."

Sakura shivered at the thought of what happened to the woman in cell six. Like Sakura and Kurenai, she had been repeatedly raped by cell mates and guards for weeks, leaving her bloodied and bruised to the point of death. At last the woman couldn't take it anymore and killed herself by repeatedly slamming her head into the cement wall in her cell, until there was barley any face left to slam.

"Where did you hear this from." Sakura said sternly, now becoming suddenly interested in Kurenai's words.

"Apparently one of the people a few cells down heard the guards speaking. But you can't believe too much of the stuff that's said around here."

"What exactly did they say?"

"I'm not exactly sure, it was something about shifting us away so we could work. You know, slave for them or something. They were doing some shifting, or 'rearranging' as they called it, so they could pick out the fitter ones from the lazy ones." She forced more scraps into her mouth unwillingly. "Then that way, the tough ones are separated from the weak ones and so on."

"How long ago did you hear it?"

"Would've been about two days ago now."

Sakura shifted position, making herself more comfortable against the cold rock wall. All of a sudden forcing as much rotten food scraps into her mouth as possible sounded like a great idea. Puzzled, Kurenai stared down confusingly at the pink haired girl stuffing her face beneath her. "Sakura, what are you doing?" she asked as she scoffed down her scraps. Kurenai couldn't quite wrap her head around it; wasn't this the girl who refused to eat earlier?

Sakura paused from eating her rations and lowered her voice so the men in the cell couldn't hear. "Kurenai, don't you see it? This can be our chance to get out of here! Eating, eating will help us put on weight, weight will make us look healthy and strong, it'll be our escape out of here!''

The determination in Sakura's eyes made Kurenai's heat sink. She had only known this rare, emerald eyed girl for 3 weeks and she was already one of the bravest, strongest people she had ever met. She knew that Sakura was going to get out of there. She had no doubt that if anyone was going to survive whatever the hell this was, it would be Sakura Haruno. Of course, Kurenai knew her own fate was going to end here in the very cell she was sitting in, no matter how much foul food scraps she forced down her throat, or how many men she managed to push off of her during the night, her days were set to end in the prison.

"Here," she said, handing almost a full, perfectly fine apple over to Sakura. "Eat this dear. You'll need it if you're going to get out of here."

"But what about you? You need it too, we're both getting out of here remember? You have it." Sakura handed the apple back over to Kurenai, who only refused it.

"Oh, I've had my fair share for the day. Don't you worry about me. Now eat up."

Sakura nodded, and sank her teeth in what had been the closest thing to luxury since three weeks ago.

Muffled voices and commands echoed through the cell, followed by a series of jagged footsteps. It was the next morning. Sakura stirred, her tired eyes fluttering open to the sudden noise, and pushed the greasy old man that was resting upon her beaten figure off of her. Her body once again ached. She was confused as to why there was so much noise at that time of the morning but it didn't take her long to figure out the reason.

Her heart jumped. Her eyes shot open. Her mind seemed to suddenly register what was going on; They had started the shift movement!

"Kurenai, Kurenai!" Sakura whispered, shaking her shoulder in an attempt to waken her. "Kurenai, wake up!"

Kurenai rolled her exhausted body to face Sakura and shrug her hand off. But when she too heard the hustling and sounds of movement from the other end of the building, a sickening feeling washed her stomach. Sakura expected her to be excited, expected her to feel something similar to what Sakura was feeling, I mean they were finally getting out of here... The both of them. Right?

Before Sakura had time to tell Kurenai to get up, there were three men standing at the door of her cell. Two of the men were in what seemed to be some kind of military uniform; similar to what the strangers wore, except instead of the deep red uniform it was dark grey, with a deep gold emblem pinned to their chests. Now that she had the opportunity to look closer, she could notice that the emblem was thick and round, with an eagle centred in the middle. She couldn't recognise it from man in the middle made Sakura frown. He was obviously the leader, or some kind of commander or something, the one who seemed to be in authority. But what confused her was that he only looked to be three or four years older than herself. His long, brown hair hung neatly against his back, almost reaching his waist. He wore a white blazer type jacket, with black pants and black leather shoes. His wide, violet eyes scanned Sakura's form; and she couldn't help but shift uncomfortably as he inspected her. If they were only taking stronger ones, she couldn't help but wonder if she would make the cut? She had after all lost a lot of weight since she was first convicted. But she was still strong, still willing to work or slave or whatever it was they were going to make her do, as long as it would get her out of here.

"That one." The man with the violet eyes commanded, nodding in Sakura's direction.

"That one sir? She doesn't look strong enough…" The soldier to the left responded. "What about the men, they still have a considerable amount of weight on them, they look like the more suitable choice."

"Strong they may look, but looking at them now makes me wonder how much they are willing to work. I won't accept any indolent degenerates on this project, soldier, now do as I ordered."

Sakura gazed quickly at the men lying beneath her feet, most sleeping in their own faeces, too lethargic to drag themselves to a position where they were unable to roll around in their own filth. The door to the cell opened, and before Sakura knew it there was a soldier on either arm of her, dragging her forcefully out of the cell."She comes too," Sakura said as she tried to pull them to a halt, nodding at Kurenai. They kept walking. "Hey, did you hear me? She comes too; we're not leaving her here."

"Stop talking." One of the soldiers hissed, continuing to drag her.

"Hey, hey! Stop! Kurenai, get up!" Sakura attempted to pull her arms free. "Kurenai, you need to move! I can't leave you here!"

"You need to go," Kurenai said calmly, so softly that it brought a tear to her own eye. "My time is up Sakura. Yours is only just beginning. You're an amazing girl miss Haruno; it's up to you what happens with yourself. Promise me you won't let them push you around."

"Kurenai!" Sakura yelled franticly, now at the point of tears. She had already left one mother behind, she wasn't going to let it happen again. "This wasn't what was meant to happen; we were meant to get out of here together!"

"She's not going anywhere." The man in white said solemnly. "She's too old, too brittle; she would be useless to us. Leave the dark haired one behind."

As she watched Sakura try and pull herself free from the tight grasp the soldiers had on her, Kurenai smiled softly. "Good luck, Sakura."

That was the last time Sakura Hsaw that woman.

They led her to a truck, one they most probably used for transporting cattle, as there was quite a lot of space inside and it smelt of manure. It was raining outside so the hay which had covered the floor was becoming damp and making her raw skin itch. She glanced around at all the other people sitting against the truck walls; they were mostly males, and surprisingly looked in good condition. There were some females, mostly older ones though, families with tiny children, and a select few which surprisingly looked her age. As they threw her in with an unsympathetic force, all eyes turned to her.

She walked down the centre of the now silent truck looking for a spare space against the wall. All types of eyes watched her, making her feel intimidated for the first time in her life. In the back of her head she knew that all of these poor, mistreated people, had also felt what she was feeling at that moment, the nervousness, the fear, the feeling of utter confusion, all the emotions would be more than familiar to them.

"Mmm, fresh meat." One man grumbled sleazily, keeping his deep black eyes focussed on the Pink haired girl before him. A sickly grin crawled upon his face.

Sakura felt like vomiting. Her heart started to race as her idea of freedom seemed to be turning into a familiar image she used to experience in the cell.

"I call first go, you can all have your turn after I'm done," Said another.

"Give it up Rakon," said a scruffy brown haired boy from the back of the truck. He looked a little bit older than Sakura, although younger than the other men. But for some reason there was something in this boys voice, something that intimidated the others. Sakura stopped. 'You won't go near her, or else."

A/N: So, what do you think? A little slow, but it's only the first chapter. Those who wanna see a bit of Kiba in action should stick around, he's not far off as you can see ;)

R&R! x