Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto.
Inoichi looked himself over in the mirror, smoothing down his dark formal uniform before he turned to the door. His hand moved to grab the handle, but it faltered as his gaze came to rest on an old photograph sitting on top of the bureau, its frame covered in a thin layer of dust.
The picture had been taken so long ago that he almost couldn't recall the memory. Pieces of it emerged, but others filtered away like sand through a sieve, and he was only left with a vague impression. In the sunlight, three figures stood: one large and smiling, one golden and somber, one dark and indifferent. How strange it was, to see them as they had been then… to know them as they were now.
Blowing the dust away from the glass, he replaced the frame on the bureau, giving it one last smile before leaving the room in darkness.
Inoichi Yamanaka sat on the back steps of the Academy, watching as the sun made its way up over the horizon, piercing the mist to cast a golden haze over the quiet village. It was still early morning, so early that even the instructors were only just arriving, blinking with bleary eyes at the young man sitting patiently outside the building. A few that knew him offered quiet greetings, but most just passed by without speaking, eager to get that early morning cup of tea before the day's trial began.
After about half an hour, the first of the other students shuffled by. None of them so much as acknowledged his presence, aside from a few nervous sideways glances and a cough or two that may or may not have been forced, just to pierce the silence. Eventually, when enough of them had passed by, Inoichi stood slowly, leaving his place on the steps to join the rest of his class in the cold, damp little training room, the one that was hardly big enough to house one squad, much less an entire Academy class.
Inoichi sat near the middle of the room, where the cold was least penetrating. And despite the fact that the room was overcrowded, Inoichi never shared a desk. The seat next to him was perpetually empty.
"Today, class, we'll be reviewing the basic form of the clone jutsu. Now, if you remember from last time…"
Inoichi sighed inwardly, watching as the pedantic old man picked up the chalk and began drawing out diagrams on the board for a technique he had mastered weeks ago. He dropped his chin onto his fists, his eyes going glassy.
This was going to be a long day.
"Hey look, it's the Yamanaka brat."
Inoichi stopped in his path at the sound of his name, turned and assessed. Behind him, two of his classmates were glowering at him, their figures shadowed in the half-light of the sunset. One was short and skeletally thin, the other of average height but slightly stocky.
Inoichi didn't answer their retort, merely stared with unblinking eyes.
"Well, looks like His Highness won't even deign to speak to us." The one who had spoken sneered, cracking his knuckles as he and his lackey loomed closer, falling into offensive fighting stances. Inoichi would have recognized them from a mile away.
"We'll just have to make him talk." The other one grinned dangerously. Inoichi shifted slightly, watching their movements. He didn't want to fight, but if they forced his hand…
In an instant, the first boy sprang forward, his leg outstretched to catch Inoichi in the side. He seemed sure of his movement, and the other boy remained slightly behind him, ready to step in if something went wrong, but sure all the same that his comrade wouldn't fail.
But when the leg should have made contact, Inoichi wasn't there. Both boys spun around, dumbfounded. The exasperation of losing their prey only heightened their anger.
"Hey, brat, come out and fight like a real man! If you're really the top of our class, prove—"
The last part of the thin boy's sentence was cut off abruptly as he went flying through the air, hitting the dirt path with a resonating thud. His companion followed shortly. Both of them lay prone on the road, their heads spinning slightly.
"What the—" A golden shadow loomed over them, and the two boys looked up, their wild eyes hazy with pain.
"Is that enough?" came the quiet voice.
Inoichi regarded them, his sea-green eyes inscrutable. Then, without waiting for an answer, he turned away, continuing on his path as though nothing had happened.
He was a few yards farther down the road when a shadow fell over his shoulder again.
…but he had been expecting it. His hands folded into the last seal.
His attackers, both with fists raised, froze in place, their eyes unfocusing strangely.
Inoichi turned back for the second time, shoving his hands in his pockets. This time, they wouldn't be bothering him again.
He hoped he wouldn't be late for dinner.
"Good evening, mother!" Inoichi called, his voice echoing through the large house. There was no response, so he set his bag by the door and walked to the back of the house, his bare feet padding quietly along the carpet. As he got closer to the room in the very back of the house, he heard a strangled sound, like someone was trying to muffle a sob. Knowing what to anticipate, he slid open the back door, sticking his head out to observe the woman sitting out on the terrace.
"Mother?"
A head full of shimmering gold hair turned to look at him. His mother's grey eyes were ringed with red, and she sniffled slightly, making no pretense to cover her crying.
Inoichi sat down quietly across from her, putting his hands over hers, which were clasped around a flowerpot that contained one sad, solitary, wilted plant.
"This one lasted longer than usual." He commented, attempting to smile at her.
She responded with a sad, burbling chuckle. "It did, didn't it?"
"Overwatering?" The question was a valid one. Over the past few days, the plant's health had begun to rapidly decline, and in an effort to save it, Inoichi's mother had begun watering it at least twice a day while he was home, if not more while he was off at the Academy.
"I don't know..." She shrugged, looking at the poor thing with a disconsolate expression on her face. "I tried so hard with this one…"
"I know, mother."
Removing his mother's hands from the sides of the flowerpot, Inoichi picked the plant up and wandered out the back door and into the bushes with it. A few withered grey and yellow leaves, which only days before had been full and green, fell away from the stem as he carried it across the yard, some scattering beneath the bottom branches of the shrubs, others flitting away into the wind, carried across the vast expanse of their estate. He dumped what was left of the flower into the dirt. Using his hands to dig out a little hole in the earth, he fashioned a small grave, a final resting place for the pathetic little plant. When that small ceremony was finished, he picked up the empty pot and trudged back, placing it delicately in his mother's hands. He regarded her with his solemn, owlish eyes as she stared at it.
His mother said nothing, merely stared.
"I hear petunias are good to have in this kind of weather." He offered hopefully. "I can go try to find one tomorrow. If you'd like."
Then his mother smiled, a sad smile, but a real one. She put a hand to his cheek.
"My precious boy. What would your poor old mother do without you?" She stood, brushing the remaining bits of potting soil from her skirt. "Now, enough of my silly laments over flowers. Come along and we'll get started on supper."
Inoichi ate his dinner voraciously; he had been unaware of just how hungry he was until he sat down. His mother watched him with increasing amusement as he downed two, then three, then four bowls of the soup, finally sitting back with an expression of utter exhaustion on his face.
"How was school today?"
He shrugged, staring at the ceiling with his hands folded over his stomach.
I got into a fight today, Mom. He thought. Won handily too. We learned about techniques I already know, and I passed the test without even looking at the book. The instructor got mad at the Akimichi boy for eating in class today, especially when he tried to put it on my desk and make it seem like I was the one who ate it.
I still don't really have any friends.
"It was fine." He mumbled, practically rolling out of his chair to collect the dishes and place them in the sink.
"Good." His mother said simply and Inoichi let out the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. He was glad that she didn't inquire further; reflexively, he scrubbed at the place on his arm where the boy had grazed him with that kick this afternoon.
"Have you heard anything more about team assignments?"
Not as done with the topic as I'd thought. He realized with an inward sigh.
"They'll assign them after everyone finishes their graduation exam."
"Which is when?" His mother pressed, coming to stand beside him as he scrubbed the bowls out.
"Next week, I think." Inoichi shrugged, and his mother clucked, tousling his short blonde hair with a slender hand that shook ever so slightly.
"You'll tell me how it goes, won't you?"
"Sure." Inoichi washed the last bowl and placed it on the drying rack. "I'll tell you all about it."
"Good." His mother beamed at him, but the smile didn't quite reach her eyes.
It made Inoichi terribly sad to see her so distraught, and he knew it wasn't just about the plant. But he returned his mother's smile anyway and told her he was going off to his room to study, telling her he'd come back later to say goodnight. As they moved off to their separate corners of the house, Inoichi wondered what it might be like if it weren't just the two of them left. Maybe then his mother wouldn't be so depressed all the time. Maybe then he could do something that might make her happy. Really happy, and not just that fake happy that she wore like a mask when he was around.
He shut the door to his room soundlessly, sinking into a meditative pose, but after a few moments of restless inability to concentrate, he gave up and sprawled out on the floor instead, staring at the ceiling.
Truth be told, he was worried about his graduation exam, or at least what it meant for his future. Sure, he could pass the tests, but then what? He'd be assigned to a team and a sensei, and then if he was really good, he'd be sent on missions. But what if something happened to him on one of the missions? What if missions meant leaving his mother here all alone and she hurt herself – or did something even worse – while he was gone? He wouldn't be able to live with himself.
His eyes followed the motion of the slow-moving ceiling fan, rotating around and around in lazy, endless circles. He let it lull him into a state of complacency, and his thoughts began to slip away, floating away like the dead leaves of that flower, carried away by the breeze. His body succumbed to sleep borne of emotional exhaustion, and he didn't wake again until the sun pressed through the window the next morning.
A/N: So here it is! My next big project. To be quite honest, I've been wanting to work on a story like this ever since I got about halfway through writing Shadows of the Leaf. I think the whole Ino-Shika-Cho team and the connection of their clans is fascinating, and what better way to explore that than through the original team themselves?
Couple things about this story now that I've dived into it: Yes, it will be largely Inoichi-centric, but that's merely for the sake of keeping the perspective a bit simpler. I might change my mind about that at some point later on, but I wouldn't count on it. Also, this story is directly tied to Shadows. That's not to say that if you haven't read Shadows you won't understand it at all, because you will, but if you have read Shadows, you'll immediately be clued in as to what's going on in the "present-day" scenes. Also, I'm trying to be as accurate to canon as possible, but if I make some little tiny errors, please be forgiving, okay?
Otherwise, I really appreciate feedback since this is a very new direction for my FF writing, and it's a write-as-I-go type deal, so I don't have it completely sketched out yet. I do have several of the next few scenes already done, however, so I'll be trying to release those as I get them sufficiently edited. And speaking of editing, keep in mind as you read future chapters, I don't have a beta for this story, so all editing is done by yours truly. Please feel free to point mistakes out to me... but nicely, if you don't mind.
Well, hope you all enjoy!