Hidden Candles

A/N: This story was somewhat derived from my other Naruto story, Himawari, when I was brainstorming. It's funny how I was never really interested in Ino, but ever since I chose to make Himarwari a Team 10 centric story, I've grown fond of her. ;)

Summary: Medical ninjas can't make mistakes. Mistakes were fatal. Medics had to be perfect. So how is Ino suppose to accept that she gave birth to imperfection?

Chapter 1

Ino didn't want to know how it happened. Shikamaru of course forbade her to take any missions while she was pregnant. She was fine with that since that meant she could concentrate her energy on her baby and her work at the hospital.

But now, she didn't want to regret that she might have done something wrong. Regretting forced her to admit that she had made mistakes that she could never go back and fix. Medical ninjas weren't allowed to make mistakes. They just couldn't. Mistakes lowered confidence. Without confidence, more mistakes would be made. One thing just fed off the other and kept rolling through an endless cycle. Ino couldn't let that happen. She was required to be perfect.

But in her arms was a flawed baby. What could have gone wrong? The fact that a medical ninja bore a sick baby was one of the biggest ironies in Konoha.

All people could do was pity. Pity that she would have to spend her months – no, years with this small dependent baby. Pity that this baby took away her job as a ninja. Pity that her son could not grow up to be a strong man.

Many in little Ike's generation silently mocked Ino. Hinata's daughter had just started crawling. Yesterday, Tenten's son had ran to his first day of school. And Sakura's son enjoyed his days training with his eager father.

Shikamaru would often tell her that the most important thing that a ninja must protect was the next generation. At this time of need, that was the one thing that she needed to hear the most from him. But even he was saddened by young Ike's presence so he focused his attention on his older son. Ino wished to see Shikamaru's joyful face once again. But every time he looked at Ike, Ino felt that she had failed him. He grew ignorant of Ike, not because he didn't love him but because he loved him so much that he could feel his future pain. She wondered why her body brought a child like this into the world of shinobi. And she couldn't do anything that would help, anything that would heal her precious son. She was powerless.

Ino continued to take care of Ike, wondering what the point was. Every morning, she cursed at the sun because it introduced another day of captivity. But for some reason, she was still attached to this kid. Perhaps it could have been the result of holding him for 9 straight months. That's when it hit her. Ino loved Ike even before he was born. He didn't talk. He didn't walk. He didn't do anything except drain energy from her. And even with that, she still loved him. He was a part of her.

The only thing that was lost when he was born was her hope in his future. Ino hated to admit is but Sakura was the one who rebuked her.

"Naruto was hopeless at first, too," she had giggled.

"Naruto-kun wasn't crippled," Ino had retorted.

Sakura looked out towards the Academy, where Iruka still taught. Her gaze fell on the empty swings. "But he was emotionally crippled," Sakura had reminded her. "And he overcame it. Don't let Ike-kun be emotionally crippled as well."

Ino had rolled her eyes. "It's not like he could overcome his paralysis," she had said in a cynical tone but hearing her voice say that had pieced right through her heart.

Sakura closed her eyes. After trying to remember something, she had said, "Legends aren't born great." She turned to Ino and smiled at her sympathetically. "If a person was born perfect, perfection is the only thing that people expect from him. But if a person was born imperfect but achieves greatness that is when people start talking. That is when legends are made."

But Ino didn't put much faith into Sakura's words of hope immediately. She just assumed that Sakura only said those words to cheer her up. But for the first time in Ino's life, she wished that Sakura would prove her wrong.

A/N: I don't know how long it will take me to update considering school. And if I do update I can't guarantee that the next chapter will be this long as well. But please review/ criticize even if it's just spelling and grammar errors. Those always bother me. :/