Chapter One

The curtains were opened, allowing sunlight to filter in through the hospital windows. Ino sat in between the two hospital beds which held her teammates. Tears filled her baby blue eyes as she wrung her hands together needlessly. They weren't going to wake up anytime soon, that's what the doctor had said. It was just short of a week already and they had yet to awake. Asuma-sensei was in the next room over, however he was conscious and had been for about a day now.

If only she hadn't of convinced Shikamaru to outsmart the Hokage to send them on an escort mission. After Sakura's team had gotten back from their escort mission in the Land of Waves, Ino had been exceedingly jealous because they got to go on a real mission. A mission that sounded easy yet paid better than all of the miscellaneous tasks that were D rank missions. And Team 7 had completed the mission successfully. Ino hadn't gotten very many details out of Sakura however, but now, thinking back, she remembered Sakura paling and fidgeting before she changed the topic.

Now Ino knew why. Their mission hadn't gone smoothly, but they weren't allowed to give out details except to the higher ups. Ino's stomach lurched and she lowered her head into her hands cautiously. Her team's escort mission had failed… terribly. Shikamaru and Choji had almost died and she had been left bleeding out in the mud while Asuma desperately fought off rogue nin. Ino had blacked out eventually from the blood loss and the pain and when she had awoken a day or so later she was in the Konohagakure hospital. At night she still heard the screams from her teammates as they were cut down trying to protect her and the overwhelming helplessness that had wrapped around her heart and held like a vice. Every morning she came to in her bed, her sheets soaked with sweat and sometimes urine, and she would rush to the restroom to heave out her guts until there was nothing left.

Her dad was helping her work through the mental strain and PTSD caused by the event, but she was holding onto it. Holding onto the memory, the moment of complete helplessness and devastation as her teammates rushed to protect her from an onslaught of attacks that ended up nearly killing all of them. Holding onto those thoughts and feelings created a fiery anger at herself that welled up deep within and slowly hardened and cooled until all she was left with was determination to never let it happen again.

Never again did she wish to see her teammates and sensei dying in front of her, never again did she want to feel like she did nothing while her team did the best they could without her, never again did she wish to be left out of the team. They were the Ino-Shika-Cho trio, and she had let them down and almost killed them simply because she froze up and didn't know what to do besides use her mind.

A thought hit her. Her mind. Of course, her mind! Why didn't she think of it before? Ino stood up and, with a last glance at her teammates, walked out of the room.

A/N: Hey everyone... I've been gone. A lot. This is the first bout of inspiration to write since 2019 started and that kinda really is disheartening for me. And I know, it's short, very short, and I'm terribly apologetic about that, however I felt that it was a good place to end the chapter and I'm actually almost excited to continue writing. Male Gender, those who have read it, I have no idea when I will post another update as I am completely stuck on where to go next. I deleted the original version and so I don't have a baseline to look back on, nor do I really want one because honestly the first version of that story was pretty bad, like, awful. Sorry for that, and sorry for not consistently updating or updating at all really. Tell me what you thought of this glimpse of a story though, I've had a rough idea for this story for months now but I was suddenly hit with a will to write it today, so yeah. I hope life has been treating you all fairly. Have a good day everyone, and thanks for sticking with me for so long.

Love,

~Fluttershy 2059123~