NOTE: My computer is having some difficulties with Javascript, which has been affecting everything from the QuickEdit on this website to the format of my chapters. I've tried to fix some of the Java-caused errors in this chapter, which explains why I decided to repost it.

I don't have a clue as to how to fix the problem, so anything that seems odd about spelling, etc. is probably not my fault. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Puppet in Pink

14. Dust Motes

Arise therefore!

And with the help of thy Spirit

Lift up thy soul:

Allow not thy soul to fall.

For thy soul can be thy friend,

And thy soul can be thy enemy.

-The Bhagavad Gita

The village looked like the barest of specks from far away. Just another dot, joining others of its kind among the swirling sands; a darker grain in the midst of a reddish-gold sea. Nothing but a spot.

Appearances could be deceiving, though. Appearances were always deceiving, whether intentionally or just out of habit. A fact taught to the students of the scrolls, though remembered and practiced by few.

What looked like a speck; what was scrawled on the crude hand-drawn map as a 'village', was anything but. It was a city. A sprawling metropolis, like black mold creeping across the sand, it was home to all walks of life and some walks below it—from the shifty namelesses in shacks of cardboard huddling at the outskirts, to the jaded oil-sheikhs resting in brick palaces in the heart. One thing was clear to all who stepped foot inside its boundaries: this was no 'village'.

"Holy shit!" Naruto made no attempt to hide the expected feeling of awe. He gaped up at the skyscrapers that lined every street, creating a giant maze. "This place is ten times bigger than Konoha ever was!"

Refusing to be astounded by the vastness of it all, Sasuke grunted and shrugged at nobody in particular. No gaping at the towering buildings ahead of him, no straining to hear the exotic tongues babbled on the street corners. Not so much as a sideways glance at the thousands of pathetic mortals that stalked around him.

For he was Sasuke. Uchiha Sasuke. And Uchiha Sasuke was never 'in awe' of anything. Everything was in awe of him.

"Ummm...err..." Naruto stuttered, struggling to put his thoughts into words. "How exactly are we going to find the bad guys in a gigantic place like this? And don't tell me we're gonna have to run around the whole city like we usually do"

The silver-haired teacher gave the boy a resigned look and said, "All right. If it helps you, I won't tell you that. But that's what you'll have to do." Even Sasuke couldn't resist a groan. It might take days to comb the entire city for one group of kidnappers. There wasn't even any information as to where their hideout might be.

This is impossible!

That little voice again. Sasuke growled at it to shut up. All the voices around him were getting on his nerves as it was. Nothing was impossible for the Uchiha.

"Impossible" doesn't even exist in my vocabulary! He snarled at himself. How he despised the word, right this second, when it was used to describe himself.

Yet he used it nearly every day...

"But Kakashi! It's going to take years to find those freaks if we gotta do that!" Naruto whined, his enthusiasm for the mission growing stale.

"I'd suggest you get started, then," Kakashi replied coolly. The blonde-haired boy looked at him with a pleading expression that was almost comical, but the teacher just shook his head. And without another word, he disappeared in a swirl of smoke, leaving his three students alone on the busy street.

Muttering under his breath about how he always had to do the dirty work, Naruto glanced around. Where was the most likely place for a bunch of no-good, low-down dirty kidnappers to hide? He ducked onto a random side-street.

Bad guys, real bad guys that were gangsters and not ninja, usually holed up in bars or old warehouses, right? Make that whorehouses.

What was more important, Naruto had spotted a ramen shop at the end of the narrow lane. Yes, that was definitely more important.

Though he would never have admitted it out loud, he was beginning to take a liking to this enormous citadel that swarmed with people. Here was a place where the streets would never be dark and silent the way Konoha's were, where there was a light in every window—even if it was just a neon one. Here, he could let the noise flock over him; let it drag him away from the horrors that prowled the quiet.

Sasuke pretended to scan his surroundings carefully, a cool, collected look plastered on his face. Inside, though, he was roiling. Seething. Seething at the incessant sound that enveloped him; threatening to pull him under. The people. The noise. Goddammit, he was going crazy. He couldn't think. None of them noticed him as they rushed by, nobody stopped to comment on his obvious good looks the way they did in Konoha. Nobody even saw him.

He took to the rooftops.

Sakura stood still in the middle of the street, letting all the voices wash over her. She felt for the sensation—the aura of a nervous child, separated from her parents.

This scroll required the user to be absolutely devoid of emotion. One's own feelings would block out the others one sensed for. She cleared her mind of everything, anything, and focused on the multitude that thronged around her.

Kakashi materialized in front of his pink-haired student, a slightly annoyed look on whatever could be seen of his face. "What do you think you're doing, Sakura?" he asked, a bit incredulously, regretting the words as he spoke them.

The flash of color. Sakura had been waiting for it, but it came quicker than she'd expected. Anxious, plaintive baby-blue, twined with gray worry. That was the one.

Kakashi waited for her to say something. Say anything. She'd done stuff like this on other missions—just stood there while the boys ran off to find the scroll, or whatever it was they were in search of. Then, when he'd asked why she was doing that, doing nothing, he would get a lecture on how a real woman lets her men do the dirty work and that she was the brains, not the brawn.

Lifting her head slowly to meet her teacher's eyes, the pink-haired girl shot out an indifferent glare with lime-colored eyes. The green flashed.

Kakashi had prepared himself for the speech. He had prepared himself for the breakdown. He had not prepared himself for what Sakura did.

--Mind your own business.--

But before it could register in Kakashi's mind, the green disappeared. Without a word, without a sound, Sakura turned back to her work. Whatever it was that she was doing...

Reaching into the ripped shoulder-bag, Sakura tore a corner of papyrus from a scroll. He shouldn't have interrupted me, she thought languidly.

As soon as Kakashi vanished once again, Sakura let the captive scrap of paper free, allowing her mind to follow the white speck as it blurred with so many others, floating towards an unseen destination of blue.

Once again, sorry for any confusion this chapter may have caused. I just felt compelled to fix whatever errors I could! (bows rather sheepishly) I'm not a computer expert, so please bear with me on this one...