Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Puppet in Pink

4. Small Thoughts

...heaped high with hidden treasure, stored there

Years before by the last survivor...

...ancient riches

Left in the darkness as the end of a dynasty

Came...

-Beowulf

Naruto sighed as he and Sasuke waited for Kakashi (late, as always) to arrive at the training grounds. It had been two days since Sakura announced that she'd be taking the month off from training; already he missed her presence. So what if she was always punching him for calling Sasuke a bastard. So what if she always rejected him. So what if she ignored him, acting as if she was on an endless mission to win Sasuke for herself. There was still something about her that almost made him think the impossible- that they were similar in some way.

"Yeah right.." he muttered to himself, shaking off the nagging instinct. He and Sakura were almost opposites. She had a kind, smart, caring mother, or at least used to have one. He couldn't even remember who his parents were. Surely there was nothing worse than having to grow up without a mother and father by your side, to shape your life as you grow. Surely being an orphan from birth was sadder than living with someone who would guide you through your childhood, day by day, night by night...

What worried Naruto was that he hadn't seen Sakura since she'd made her announcement. In fact, nobody had. Yamanaka Ino, Sakura's half-friend and half-rival since forever, had even stopped by the shabby Haruno residence out of concern, only to find the door locked and the window shades pulled down. More- there was an undeniable atmosphere of terror around the place, like an unbreakable, unseen barrier to keep out intruders. Normally, Ino was pretty poor with her aura-detection (a fact that she preferred to keep private), but she swore that it was as if the aura was meant to be felt, and feared.

Is that what losing a parent can do to a person? Naruto wondered.

Not in the way you think...

Naruto wasn't usually one to think deeply on any subject that didn't concern himself, but Sakura seemed so much like him...he couldn't put his finger on what made him think that. Once again he pushed the thought away in frustration. What was he thinking anyway? Sakura and Naruto: opposites. As different as night and day.

Who is the night and who is the day? Is that a trick question? Pray that nobody finds the answer too soon...

Sakura flipped open the ancient scroll and skimmed through the flowing, ribbon-like calligraphy that spoke of a bygone age. She giggled with glee as she read. Most of the scrolls in her possession had been found while rummaging through trash on her long walk home from class each day; people threw out the ones in the hard-to-read script of earlier times –the dead language of their ancestors, opting instead for the more convenient text versions from mediocre hobbyist translators. Even the Ninja Academy had forsaken the ancient scrolls, choosing to rely on the same unskilled translations. It was a shame.

How many facts and hints had been left out in butchering the tongue of the founders to fit modern views? How many passages had been garbled by those fools who called themselves scholars, with their poor interpretations and misread characters? Haruno Keiko had been one of the last true students of the scrolls, and what she hadn't taught her daughter had been learned from experience.

At least Keiko had been useful for something. Thank the gods she never actually noticed how many scrolls Sakura would carry home. Thank the gods she never checked their contents...

Sakura knew all too well that she had to bring her strength up to match, or exceed, her intelligence. So many years of forced starvation left her with only a greater hunger. What use was impeccable chakra control without chakra itself?

At last she found the jutsu she had been searching for. Forgotten by eventhe most elite shinobi, it was one of the nameless snippets that had been weeded out by the translators as unnecessary. That is just as well, Sakura thought, a smirk spreading across her face. Their loss would be her gain.

Luckily, that particular jutsu required little chakra, yet a precise command over the small amount used. Sakura knew that she was more than up to it. After reading through the instructions carefully, she drew a symbol on a scrap of paper and channeled the chakra into it, much the same way as talismans would be made. Concentrating as the scroll demanded, Sakura opened the nearby window just a crack and allowed the paper to drift out. She guided it with her consciousness towards the communal training grounds. If there was anywhere to troll for unfamiliar (and potentially useful) new skills, it was there.

Relaxing slightly, she allowed the half of her mind that rode with her talisman on the wind to study what went on at the training grounds, while continuing to read through her scrolls. Several of them contained unusual taijutsu moves and other martial-arts techniques that had been abandoned over time. It was hard to fathom how much knowledge of the original death-bringers, the shinobi that had forged Konohagakure, had been lost in translation. How odd, she laughed to herself. To think that today's ninja of the Leaf are feared. If they had half of the techniques that the translators had left out, the Leaf ninja could be practically demonified, if there even was such a word.

Noticing that someone was approaching her house, she sent out another part of her mind to test the intruder's chakra. A friendly aura, friendly yet worried- light blue in color. Yamanaka Ino. Sakura laughed ruefully. Ino was a reminder, another last lingering note of Haruno Keiko's ultimatum of control over her little daughter's life. As soon as she'd seen Sakura befriending someone, especially someone so vulnerable to joining the crowd of Sasuke-groupies, she'd seized the bull by the horns and ordered her to break her friendship; to snap it like a twig, unless she wanted to be the one who was snapped instead.

In the end, Sakura had succumbed to her mother's demands, as always. And as Ino gradually faded into no more than yet another gnat hovering at Sasuke's side, Sakura didn't really regret the forced decision. Now she pitied Yamanaka more than anything else.

But she still didn't want to be bothered. With a sigh of annoyance, Sakura raised the aura-shield a few levels. Even Ino should be able to feel that now, she decided. The aura-shield was one of the first things she'd worked on once her parents were gone. Sure, it took no small quantity of chakra, but Sakura needed the practice. Use more chakra, gain more chakra.

The shield did its job, and she felt the baby-blue chakra retreat nervously. Sakura laughed again and continued her studies.