hi i'm here with more naruino
Asuma's parting words to her replay in her mind over and over again: "don't lose to sakura in ninjutsu or love."
She wonders, somehow, if Asuma would ever know the effect of these words on her. She knew he didn't say them so that she would begin to resent the other girl-it was something that was supposed to be motivational. But instead, it ate away at her and left a bad feeling at her gut.
Over the years, she was more than aware of the gap growing between her and Sakura in terms of a kunoichi. Where Ino had quietly been moving along to improve for the sake of the sixteenth generation of Ino-Shika-Cho, Sakura had been growing for herself; like she had something to prove to other people.
It is only at her own father's funeral after the war that she takes these words to heart.
Asuma's death was like losing another father. She expected to go on shopping trips with him until he couldn't walk anymore and planned on teasing him without any mercy about his relationship with Kurenai-sensei. A piece of her broke when she couldn't heal him-when she could feel all his organs failing and her chakra control was slipping farther and farther away from her as the rain started to pour down on them. She knows that it was heavier for Shikamaru who connected with their teacher deeper than she and Choji ever had and his refusal at any help with carrying the body to Konoha was evidence enough.
Ino felt her father die, too. There were no vitals shutting down underneath her chakra infused hands, instead, she could hear his thoughts as his death grew closer and closer. She could feel his mind panic about all the things he never got to teach her or that he didn't get the chance to tell his wife that he thought she was beautiful before they had marched off to war. She could see his memories flash over and over: when he became a jonin and when he, Shikaku, and Chouza all announced their wive's pregnancies at Yakiniku, his wedding, her birth, it is all there in vivid color and Ino cannot look away.
And then it is black.
The numbness fills her instantly. There is no regret, no anger seeping into her blood-only numbness. She doesn't want to fight the war, doesn't want to kill anymore. She just wants to grieve. But there is Shikamaru's voice, telling Choji not to waste tears on either of them, and she knows, if nothing else, she must maintain her father's honor.
At the funeral, Sakura is holding her hand because her mother is gripping the flowers so tightly that Ino thinks they might burst, if that were possible. She still does not cry. Instead, she stays for hours, staring at her father's tombstone. She knows that it is a ninja's honor to die for their village, but she wonders, now, what her village will do to honor her father.
She gets better at ninjutsu because it's her job to improve as the clan head. The Yamanaka elders teach her every jutsu in the book and continue to train her until her mind feels like it's going to explode, but she likes it. When Ibiki approaches her with a job at Torture and Interrogation, she is more than ready to take her father's role. Ino walks other's minds as easily as her own and breaks locks in them with ease, so much so that they consider her for ANBU, to which she greedily accepts.
The love part of the equation is something that comes slower to her. After the war, everyone pairs off immediately, as if fearing another one and not being able to speak their mind. Ino, however, can't speak at all.
A year after the war is over, rebuilding makes everyone stronger and the village brighter, but Ino still can't speak to her father. There are a million things built up inside of her but the words get stuck in her throat with all the tears that she never shed and all the anger at the world for starting a war in the first place.
One day when the cosmos are in bloom and she misses her father more than she usually does, she runs into someone at the front of the gate. She is too busy staring at the arrangement in her hands and he is too busy staring at the tombstone in front of him and Ino doesn't think that she and Naruto have ever been the quietest people in the village, but there was a time for everything.
"Sorry," she mumbled, instead of the 'Watch where you're going!' that initially threatened to fight its way out. He nods his head in reply, and she looks over to the tombstone that reads "Namikaze Minato" and the one on its right reads "Namikaze Kushina" and then she doesn't know whether she is apologizing for running into him or for ostracizing him when he was a kid or if she is just sorry for every card that life has dealt him. So instead, she drops the bouquet of cosmos and baby's breath onto Kushina's grave, bows, and walks to her own father's grave. She is sure he can wait another day for the flowers.
It seems that Naruto is at the graveyard as much as she is. Ino had never noticed him before, but he was always visiting someone new. Sometimes it was his parents and sometimes it was Jiraiya and other times it was Neji-san, one time it was even Asuma, and they shared a nod as she left and he arrived.
When it rains on her nineteenth birthday, Naruto thrusts flowers at her that she is sure came from her own store. The lace ribbon that is wrapped around the bouquet of yellow roses is her favorite, which only her mother would know. He sits next to her on her father's grave, and because she does not talk, he does.
Naruto talks so evenly that she thinks that maybe he has grown up, but the way that he jumps around from topic to topic makes her feel like they are twelve again and all he is good for is proclaiming his role as the future Hokage. He tells her father about how she has been promoted to ANBU and while he can't give any specifics, the fact that she is still alive is proof enough that she's cut out for the job. He talks about how the village is still rebuilding and how he has had to go back to school in order to become the next Hokage and that she is doing a fine job at leading the clan. He tells her father all the things she could not tell him.
It is not the last time.
There is no set routine between the two of them. If they are there at the same time then they will sit at her father's grave and Naruto will talk and talk and sometimes, they'll go out to eat afterwards and he will walk her home to the compound. More often than not, her mother will insist that he stay over for dessert and they end up on the roof talking about the stars and their dreams. She teases him about being taught by Iruka-sensei again and he will call her vain. It is the lightest that she has felt in years.
It is seven months later when she finds herself in front of her father's grave sobbing about how much she misses him and how she can't bare any more responsibilities being thrown at her. She openly complains about her duties as clan head and of the heartlessness required in ANBU and how she is not ready for anything because he hadn't taught her how to be alone. She accuses him and berates him for hours until her throat runs dry and when an ugly orange jacket is placed on her shoulders, she almost laughs.
"I really miss you, dad. I promise I'll make you proud."
They return to his unusually clean apartment with ramen takeout and talk about the plants he keeps in his apartment before they drift off to sleep in the couch. It is so unbelievably comfortable and so easy to fall into forever with him that she can feel his warmth radiating onto her. She feels alive again.
She visits Asuma when she wakes up the next morning. "Your words always stuck with me," she starts. "Sakura and I are too different to be compared... in ninjutsu and love. She's off marrying her tall, dark, and handsome but..." Ino trailed off. "I wonder if you knew that I could never lose to Sakura in ninjutsu or love because we were never running the same race. We were always on two different tracks. If you didn't know that, then shame on you for trying to pit me and Forehead against each other, but part of me knows you were too smart for that."
She leaves the bouquet of sweet peas with the rest of the flowers that Kurenai has probably tried to grow on her own and smiles fondly before turning and heading back to her new home.