A Little Bit Of Dust

Kasek: Oops! I meant to get this oneshot posted ages ago! My bad! Now there's probably one just like this somewhere! For those of you waiting on my other things, I can't make any actual promises (except those of you waiting for that shiny new Grand Line Waterbender chapter you've been told I'm working on- that'll hopefully be done soon enough, I plan to finish that before I finish anything else I'm working on), but I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things soon enough.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

Kurotsuchi had always wondered how the old man flew.

Sure, people said that his special brand of ninjutsu, "Dust Release", allowed him to control dust in such a way that he could lift himself through the air. That would normally be a perfectly acceptable explanation, in fact- other ninja were capable of self-propulsion when it came to the air, Deidara-nii included.

That did not, however, explain how those that the Tsuchikage touched were able to fly of their own volition for a limited period afterwards. A totally autonomous jutsu was unheard of. Speaking of unheard of, the jutsu's special... requirement, was also unique as far as jutsu went.

You had to 'think happy thoughts'.

The very idea that you needed to think happy thoughts to fly was absurd to Kurotsuchi. The thought was so absurd, in fact,that she was unable to actually think of any happy thoughts at the time the jutsu was first applied to her due to how much of a skeptic she was about the whole deal. As a result, while Akatsuchi took to the jutsu like, well, a bird to the air, she remained firmly grounded in her own concept of reality.

She decided to examine herself and her emotions, and she discovered a disturbing truth- she had no happy thoughts. She had been so indoctrinated as a tool of war that she didn't really care for much of anything. She tried to think as hard as she could about something that would make her smile- anything at all, no matter how small, would be enough. Of course, that made her wonder about whether 'happiness' altered one's chakra signature and whether that allowed the jutsu to bond with you.

She became frustrated with this affront to her reality, and she did the first thing that came to mind when she became frustrated- she blew stuff up. As she casually threw her exploding kunai at Akatsuchi, which the Tsuchikage oddly allowed, she smirked at his panicked form that clumsily dodged the fiery flowers. Something seemed to shift within her, and she realized that she was floating- the jutsu was now working.

Apparently androgynous looks were not the only thing she had in common with Deidara. Explosions could make her smile, even if nothing else did. As she chased Akatsuchi, who was now very narrowly dodging her attacks, a thought occurred to her- what did the old man, regarded as one of the most unhappy old coots in existence, consider "happy thoughts"?

The earth came to meet her quite suddenly.