I'm trying to pick up the pace in updating, but I still look back wistfully upon the days when I could post every other day (sigh)...but school is rather demanding...
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Puppet in Pink
15. Shortness of the Long Road
Whence this lifeless dejection,
Arjuna, in this hour, the hour of trial?
Strong men know not despair,
Arjuna, for this wins neither heaven nor earth.
-The Bhagavad Gita
Sasuke leapt the gap between slate-shingled rooftops, casting a careless eye down at the dark alley below him. He'd been searching for at least an hour now, maybe more.
At least it was quiet up here.
You know you're never going to find the child like this, the little voices babbled in his head. The kidnappers won't be hiding out on some roof.
The voices were reprimanding. Like he'd done something wrong?
But he had to admit... the voices were right. The voices were always right. They always had been.
No. He didn't have to admit that. Sasuke erased the thought with a vengeance.
Correction, he informed the voices, not that they were listening. I am right. I am always right. I always have been...and I always will be.
Yes. That, of all things, sounded correct.
At least it was quiet up here...
Yeah right.
"Hey! Come back here, you thieving little brat! You didn't pay!" A blonde-haired boy ducked out of a restaurant just in time to escape the sight of an angry chef wielding a frying pan. The man glanced around and went back inside his shop, muttering under his breath.
With a sigh of relief, Naruto hoisted himself out of his trash-can hiding place. The people in this city weren't necessarily the friendliest lot, but the ramen sure was good. So good, in fact, that you almost didn't notice the iron bars on the windows, or the bullet-proof glass.
This was a life that he could get used to...
Three men surrounded the pink-haired girl in the alley.
"Ohohoho...what do we have here? Whaddaya say, boys... how 'bout we take this girlie home for the night," the tallest of the group jeered, fingering his dark moustache.
"Why so quiet, sweetie? Just gonna accept your fate? Don't worry...I like that kinda chick...heh..." One of the men, with a mop of greasy, sandy hair, lifted the girl's chin and stared into her eyes.
Jade eyes.
The green flashed.
"Huh? Gomi? Are you alright, man?" The sandy-haired one was frozen stiff, his face a still-life spasm of horror.
"What did ya do to Gomi, bitch?!"
"Whatever she did, she's gonna pay, big time. Right, bro?"
The two circled their prey, focusing on the emerald lights in the shadow. Not their first mistake...but it was their last.
In two different minds, the green flashed and pulsed. Sakura vanished in a blur of speed, leaving the three twitching bodies in the darkness of the alley.
That will do for a warm-up, I guess...
A few feet ahead, an innocently pale scrap of papyrus drifted with the wind.
I hope this wasn't too awkward a chapter...I just felt this unreal obligation to post something.
"Deity-of-death"-sama...you really do flatter me (bows) Back when I was on vacation, I was able to update practically every day. My muse isn't really that stubborn...well, it is, but in a different way... that's what forces me to write these chapters when I should be listening to a science lecture! It's odd that my inspirations are so persistent...
To "dark-anime-junkie"-sama: Where do I get the poetic quotes? Well...I have these two books. One of 'em is The Bhagavad Gita; the other is Beowulf. Both are written by that infamous 'anonymous'. They have one other main similarity as well...care to guess what that is?
Why do I use these two poems? Well, that's kinda related to that similarity I was talking about...heh. (n.n;;)
Please remember to review if you have ideas or suggestions!