Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Puppet in Pink

10. Little Things That Explode

Thy tears are for those beyond tears;

And are thy words words of wisdom?

The wise grieve not for those who live;

And they grieve not for those who die—

For life and death shall pass away.

-The Bhagavad Gita

Yamanaka Ino's footsteps crunched over the leaf-covered ground as she scurried through the darkened forest. Her watch, its numbers glowing in an eerie circle on her wrist, told her it was half-past eight. But surrounded by shadows, it felt so much later...

She'd only meant to stay for a few hours in the woods, just long enough to relax, enjoy the scenery, and pick some of the rare flowers that were not sold at her parents' flower shop. But the blonde-haired girl had wandered off the path one time too many. Oh, she knew where the trail was...but it was so far away...

Ino had always been afraid of the dark. She remembered the times when she was only a few years old, when her 'friends' would dare her to stay in a locked closet for minutes, sometimes hours, at a time. She remembered the time when they pushed her in there, into the blackness, and forgot to let her out.

She could feel it now, the sensation as the dark had pressed on her from all sides, squeezing out the last bit of light with a force too powerful for words. Her pace quickened. And how happy she'd been when her parents came with the key and opened the door and the light ate up the black. But there were still times...still times...when she wondered if, one day, the black would come to eat her up instead.

Of course, that was childish thinking. She was almost an adult now and had no room for her fears. If only those fears would listen to her words...

Ino shuddered. The dark never seemed to go away.

A sudden chill raced up and down her spine. This aura...it seemed so much like what she'd felt at the Haruno house...it was here?

A drop of sweat trickled down her the blonde-haired girl's cheek, in defiance of the chilly night air. This aura was stronger, more so than before—Ino could almost see its greenish-blue essence as it filtered through the branches of the trees. It was not a welcoming one. She wondered where it was coming from, but only for a second. Then her fears overtook her curiosity, and she ran for the path to safety.

"So-o-o...did you get us a mission?" Naruto badgered his silver-haired instructor. "Did you? Did you?" Kakashi silently made a movement of his head, so small a movement that you couldn't tell whether it meant "yes" or "no", or if it was meant as an answer at all.

Naruto took it as a "yes" and began to run around in circles, waving his hands and yelling. "Oh yeah! A mission! Finally!"

Sasuke frowned at his teammate's antics. Kakashi seemed to be acting a bit...odd. Well, more odd than usual. Though there could be exceptions, the teacher had always given them a straight answer on matters of missions... unless he had a reason not to.

Then he remembered Sakura.

Of course—that was it. Kakashi knew that the pink-haired girl was going through a difficult chapter in her life, and that she would not be at her best in combat. She would be even weaker than she normally was, and the rest of the team would have too much on their hands to be perpetually worried about her emotional state. But Kakashi also knew that Sakura wouldn't take kindly to being left out of anything, even if it was for her own good.

"Well, come on, out with it! What's our mission!" Naruto just didn't give up. Kakashi coughed slightly.

"The mission Hokage-sama offered," he began, stressing the word 'offered', "...is a retrieval mission." His voice was quiet, as if daring someone to ask for more. Naruto took him up on the offer.

"Yeah...and?" The blonde boy pressed on. Kakashi couldn't resist a sigh. He didn't want to have to say this, not with Sakura around. One word, one misplaced syllable could cause a breakdown for the delicate cherry blossom and her mentality. But he wasn't going down without a fight.

"This isn't going to be a normal retrieval mission, Naruto. We're retrieving a person, not a scroll or a lost pet." Once again the silver-haired teacher awaited Naruto's response.

"Oh, c'mon, just spill it, Kakashi! The whole thing!" Naruto was getting impatient. Kakashi had no choice but to comply.

"The only child of one of Konoha's wealthiest non-ninja families is being held for ransom by a group of no-name thugs. According to our information, their hideout is located in Sand country and most members of the group have at least genin-level ninja skills. None of them are very dangerous...as far as we know."

Both Naruto and Sasuke looked a bit disappointed. "Why do we have to waste our time going after some kid?" Naruto wanted to know. "If the mom and dad are so rich and all, wouldn't they pay the ransom instead of bugging us?"

Kakashi flinched mentally at Naruto's blunt choice of words. He'd had a feeling that one of his students would say just that, just go ahead and blurt it out right in front of someone who...

"Even if the ransom was paid, we cannot guarantee that the child will be...returned. The parents want their child home safely. That is reason enough," Kakashi spoke, in a low voice that bordered on a whisper. Naruto stopped whining and stared blankly. When the meaning finally hit him, he dropped his stare to his feet. How could I not know? He chided himself, as quiet settled in. He deserved to suffer in the silence; how could he not know? His poor Sakura-chan...she no longer had parents of her own that would be there for her when she got into trouble...

Just imagine how much he'd pity her if he knew she'd never had them...

Kakashi continued to look anxiously over at his pink-haired student. She was standing off to the side, the way she always did. To a careless eye, she looked like any other girl, if you ignored the black ninja dress she was wearing in place of her faded red one. He hoped that she hadn't heard too much of what he'd said to her teammate, but if she had, nothing about her gave it away.

Same decidedly gloomy aura, same slouching posture, same blank expression. When had his student gotten so hard to read?

Sakura couldn't resist an inward chuckle. My, are they worried about me. Do they really think I'm that simple—that I'd break down just because our mission involves a child and its parents? The pink-haired girl knew that if she had been kidnapped while her mother was still alive, Haruno Keiko would have done the same thing as any "normal" parent. However, her teammates...they all assumed that the parents wanted their child kept safe out of simple emotional attachment. Love. Sakura didn't know this family's reasons, but she would have known Keiko's. She'd never seen her daughter as a person. She'd seen her as live bait for a dream that she couldn't hook on her own.

And yet... a small part of her wondered why other parents were so dedicated to their children. Why a mother and father would do anything, sacrifice anything, to keep their child secure and happy. And why she'd never had those parents.

"Anyways," Kakashi said, raising his voice back a normal level now that the initial danger had passed. "That's what the mission is."

"Count me in!" Naruto exclaimed, returning to the cheery persona that everyone counted on him to have. Sasuke simply nodded, glad to have a mission, any mission, to relieve the frustration of training. And then they all turned to their pink-haired teammate.

"You don't have to go, you know," Kakashi told her, instantly regretting the words as they left his mouth. No matter how you said it, no matter how understanding your tone, those words always had the feeling of a taunt; a challenge.

Sasuke hoped Sakura would say no. Hoped that, for once in her life, she would realize just what a deadweight she was to them, how she was just a weakness and nothing more...

"Yes. I'm going."

Three words. Three expressions, on the faces of her teammates.

Surprise.

Happiness.

Disgust.

"You're sure you can handle it?" Kakashi asked tentatively. He felt like killing himself, knowing that these words, too, sounded demeaning no matter how they were spoken.

"Yes."

And then silence.

Which, as always, was broken by Naruto. "And the mission is when?" he asked eagerly, ignoring the seriousness that tinted the atmosphere.

"Tomorrow," Kakashi replied. "Be at the training grounds by six-fifteen sharp." Without further ado, he vanished in his usual puff of smoke, leaving Naruto to fill the silence with mutters about how he would be the one that was late.

Sasuke glared openly at the pink-haired girl. Why did she always have to do that? Even when it was made clear the she was unwanted; that she was a hindrance and nothing more, she refused to refuse. How he hated that girl, hated her for her lovey-dovey fantasies, hated her for her perfect life...Someday he was going to give her a bigger piece of his mind than she could handle.

That someday would be today.

He strode over to where she was standing. Six words to sum up his thoughts.

"Hey, Sakura, don't get left behind."