Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Puppet in Pink
24. Lethal Injection
Out from the marsh, from the foot of the misty
Hills and bogs...
Grendel came, hoping to kill
Anyone he could trap on this trip...
He moved quickly through the cloudy night,
Up from his swampland, sliding silently
-Beowulf
Ino sighed and leaned back in her chair. Business had been slow for the Yamanakas' flower shop—surprisingly, most people preferred to pick their own flowers during these warm summer months, rather than pay for them here. Not that her family's flowers were expensive or anything...was twenty dollars a bunch really that much to ask?
The blonde-haired girl's golden ponytail bobbed like a bundle of silk threads as she scanned the rows of blooms with a careful eye. Exactly twenty-three bouquets, a little voice whispered. A little voice that quickly grew into something more.
Her face contorted; she tried to keep it down, running after Godzilla with a doggie leash. A warning from her subconscious sent a pained tingle through her spine. Followed by an unwilling expression of shock, bordering on paralysis. Usurping her brain.
What?!?! That all-too-familiar voice screamed crazily. That purple bouquet has a blue ribbon and one of the flowers is bent! The daisies were tied with beige string! You should have grouped the pansies in fours, not fives! The daffodils look...
She'd heard enough.
As if some mad scientist had taken the wheel, Ino sprang out of her chair. It clattered to the ground. She grabbed at all of the bouquets, gathering them in her arms, untying them and screaming at herself for mangling them more. At last, she threw the plants down in a heap and sobbed, struggling to regain her grip on reality.
Why was it always like this...?
She wasn't someone who looked like an obsessive-compulsive. She'd never had an outburst at school, or on a mission, or with her friends. Only when she was alone. Alone with the flowers. It was the flowers that did it.
The psychiatrist had said her only hope was to conquer the obsession. "To solve the problem, spend more time with the cause." But the psychiatrist had said a lot of things. Big talk it was, big talk from someone who'd never had to deal with the need, the absolute sudden necessity of keeping every petal straight, every string in a perfect bow, every stem neatly aligned with its slender comrades.
Her parents had done everything they could, drowned as they were in the psychiatrist's flowery language. She didn't blame them for that; she didn't blame them for anything—they supported her, which was all that mattered.
The blonde fought to subdue the obsession, until she finally felt it give up in retreat. She could hear the faint little demon-thing laughing in the distance, though, and knew that it knew just how weak she was. With a forced smile, Ino began to sweep up the broken stems lying in a heap on the tiled floor, all which remained of her twenty-three works of art.
Sasuke was not surprised to see the pink-haired girl. Sure, so she hadn't shown up in his Sharingan sight. So what? That was alright, perfectly alright. All part of the plan, the voice told him. Make her think she's on top, and the victory will come so much sweeter.
The girl didn't glance in his direction. Didn't even see him. What a weakling, not fit to be a genin or anything else, his mind babbled incoherently, a river of endless encouragements. Forget the 'Fountain of Youth' crap; here was real rejuvenation—a perpetual wellspring of it.
The Uchiha heir drank deeply to intoxication, and marched on.
Sakura looked at her teammate with an expression of mild disgust, and something more. Pity. She pitied him, though he would never have believed it. He didn't have the vigor to stand up to his demons, the poor idiot, no matter how much chakra he hoarded. It was sad. Yes, this was the much-worshipped god-idol, the Uchiha-san Sasuke-kun-bastard. Bursting with vitality, yet webbed with a filigree of hairline fractures.
A human time bomb, dangerous only to himself. Liable to self-destruct at the slightest application of pressure.
Sakura pitied him, but there was no other way. Send him to the brink of death, leave him standing on the edge. See which side he chooses—walking off the cliff, or returning to disturbingly firm ground.
The Uchiha stood before her, radiating meaningless power, trivial comma-like Sharingan wheels spiraling aimlessly in his eyes. He had chakra to burn, and he was burning it like he meant it, like he thought it would make a difference. He didn't seem at all puzzled that Sakura's chakra didn't show up in his overblown excuse for x-ray vision. Because he had other things on his mind...or rather, in his mind.
Sasuke stood tall, decisive yet undecided. Half of him felt like giving a premature victory speech, to say something heroic. Words that would echo in his victim's ears as he mowed her down like the pathetic insect that she was.
He couldn't think of anything.
Instead, he rushed at the girl, wanting to relish the fear on her face. Why didn't she look at him? Why?! Look at me! He screamed in his mind, blowing a stream of red-orange fire like a human dragon into the locks of pink hair.
Let it burn!
Let it burn!
Let it burn!
The pink bubbled like cherry-blossom soup and faded away into nothingness. Sasuke whirled and threw his shuriken randomly, forgetting every lesson Kakashi had taught them. The fire was only a warm-up, he reminded himself. Only a warm-up. Even that missing-nin Zabuza had had a hard time avoiding the shuriken.
Of course, Naruto had been a help, but just barely. He'd come up with all the details, though he had generously allowed his teammate some credit.
Yeah, that's it. Don't wanna brag...
The raven-haired boy looked around in anticipation. His weapons had to have hit Sakura, he knew, and she would probably drop conveniently out of some tree any second now. The hated pink hair would float in a pool of red, arms and legs splayed in a star-shape, body riddled with blades as a warning of what happened to those who dared challenge the great Uchiha. Any second now, any second now...
And before he could blink, there she was in front of him. But not in the way he'd counted on. Arms crossed indifferently, standing straight with her eyes closed. In her hands she held six shuriken, spread like gleaming fans of death on either side of her body. She said nothing.
Sasuke snickered. It was a frightening, unearthly sound, the laugh of a man living on his last strands of sanity and liking it way too much. He gave a surge of chakra, a call for his weapons, his shiny circular wheels of black to return to their master.
No response.
A glowing bead of silver-white dribbled from between the fingers of the pink-haired girl. Then another, and another, as the bead turned into a flowing stream of molten metal pouring to the ground. The earth drank the silver greedily, soaking it up like so much water, until nothing remained but a dark splotch in the dirt.
No more shuriken.
Sasuke refused to gape. He had no time to. The next thing he knew, his vision was swept with green.
"Gotcha."
As his brain went under the painful anesthetic, he thought of only one thing. Sakura had beat him to his victory speech.
Written during study hall—I know dobyuk princess-sama said to take it easy, but my muse doesn't seem to have a particular schedule...none that I know of, at least.
Deity of death-sama: Wow...you actually mentioned me in your profile...(tries to bow, but faints instead) Anyway, glad to know you're working on the fan-art when you can—teachers never seem to accept the excuse that you've got better things to do than algebra and essays...
Dobyuk princess-sama: About your questions...to me, it seems that Haruno Keiko had a preoccupation with the 'damsel in distress' stereotype. Perhaps (even I don't know everything about this story) she thought that by being more approachable (read: vulnerable), Sakura would be able to spend more time with Sasuke when she was 'under his protection'. She'd been pushed into the act when she was young, and it probably became a habitual behavior. Again, I'm not entirely certain; but you're right about the story being cryptic. (n.n)
And of course, my little ending blurb: review if and when you can!