Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Puppet in Pink
23. Day at a Time
"And then pride grows in his heart, planted
Quietly but flourishing. And while the keeper of his soul
Sleeps on, while conscience rests and the world
Turns faster a murderer creeps closer...
He's helpless."
-Beowulf
A rumble, low and barely noticeable, reverberated softly through the trees. The raven-haired boy felt the ground shiver delicately under his feet, but then it was gone.
It was nothing, he told himself. Probably just some explosion or something. Not a monster. Monsters don't exist. They never have and never will. Whatever it was, it was nothing. He moved on.
The leaves rustled nervously among themselves, but made no comment.
Sakura smiled wanly at her handiwork. Three huge trees lay prone in a clearing, covering the gaping holes that had once held wide webs of lace-like roots. Clumps of black dirt rained down, like a black snow mixed with the essence of neon-red. It was beautiful, truly beautiful.
In a morbid, macabre sort of way.
The pink-haired girl pulled the kunai out of her hand ever so gently, watching the single rivulet of blood spiral like a manic thread around her wrist. It beaded brightly as if of spun glass, and then the bead chipped off, making the slightest spot on the earth below. After three days, she was finally getting the hang of this.
With a sigh devoid of either exhaustion or satisfaction, she leaned up against a towering oak tree. It was hard to believe that this thing was a plant, that it was ever a little seedling huddled under the ground, that there was a time when it could have been flattened; its insignificant unthinking life terminated in a split second. And now it was this, this monster that had morphed to skyscraping proportions. A giant among its peers.
Some difference that made.
Under her throbbing hand, a small crack formed between the ridges of the bark. It widened, deepened into a yawning hole. Sakura leapt away as the majestic giant split in two, revealing the moist black-brown hollow of a rotten core.
Maybe she did need to practice some more.
It was odd, she thought, how so many of the techniques worshipped by modern ninjas involved blood. Needed blood to 'work'; though half-rate as they were, a gallon of the red wouldn't make a difference. To require something so unwieldy, so messy, for a jutsu...it was an inconvenience. Or maybe more.
The scrolls knew that blood was not a necessity. A shinobi who had to rely solely on the physical realm was not fit to be called anything more than an amateur. So why was it so popular now? Could an entire nation forget things this quickly? The blood had never been a necessity. Why was it used? Was it for intimidation? Bluffing? To put on a show for the enemy; to give an illusion of staidness and stoicism?
Yes, she decided. That was it. Surprisingly, the bluffs seemed to work. Maybe, for some, it was worth the sacrifice. Most likely it wasn't.
Sakura cast a glance over to the twin halves of tree that sat silently nearby, frowning in disgust.
She really had to work on that.
A blonde-haired boy in blaringly orange clothing raced helter-skelter along the path through the forest. He'd given up at last on finding his Sakura-chan, and the next best option was to locate the Uchiha, bastard though he was. This was important, he had to tell somebody.
Naruto had news.
Letting some unknown, unnamed instinct take the wheel, he veered off the trail, bounding over bushes, devil-may-care. He didn't know where he was going, but something did, and that was a good enough excuse. Following the spaces between the trees, he sped deeper into the woods.
From the corner of her mind, Sakura detected the approach of two auras.
One was farther away than the other. Orange, edged with white nervousness and the flashing red of an urgent message.
Naruto.
And the closer one, a crazy swirled yellow-white-gray-black, outlined in the black of false self-confidence, striped with magenta of misguided revenge.
Sasuke.
The pink-haired girl had the urge to laugh. She'd given the Uchiha a month's worth of nightmares, and he decided to come back for seconds. She sneered. She should have known. Sasuke was not the type to learn from punishment.
He was the type to grow addicted to it.
I'm really sorry for the long wait, but my teachers seem to have made some sort of pact to give all their tests on the same day. (Friday, usually the gift of the gods, ended up being the day when we had a major test in every subject...how can you study for that?) At any rate, I am once again nearing an awkward part of the story, so point out whatever minor mistakes you see. I'm more than willing to reload chapters if it'll make the story better. (n.n)