I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

This is my Secret Santa present for Sakura~Kitsune at H&E but since that is now finished, I thought I might put it here. I was intending to make it a much longer oneshot but there wasn't enough time. There might be hints of DeiIno here but I didn't rate it as a romance genre purely because there aren't enough of those moments to qualify it as romance in my opinion.

I also just realised that this little oneshot leaves the ending a little open, but I don't think I'll be expanding it into a multi-chapter. It was intended as a oneshot and while I do have a few ideas I doubt I would be able to write something long and worthy out of it. But yeah, anyway, here you go.

Shell Shock

This is great, just great, Yamanaka Ino fumed silently to herself as she made her way down the spiralling staircase, dipping below to the murky darkness of ANBU Interrogation's underground dungeon holdings. She snatched a flaming torch from the wall as she descended, scowling. The flames hissed moodily and cast wavering dancers on the stone walls. Everyone's out celebrating and here I am thrown out of the party loop. I hate my life.

"Disbanded as Akatsuki may be, we know that Pain was among those that escaped. We risk him reforming another Akatsuki if we don't do our best to find him as soon as possible." That had been Tsunade's reasoning. And as much as Ino resented her new duty and her father for conveniently landing himself in hospital during the last battle, she knew the Godaime was right. Which was why, while her friends were at Ichiraku Ramen, she was trapped behind these depressing walls, getting to work.

She sighed. The things I do for this village…

There was an ANBU agent standing guard to the iron door at the bottom of the stairwell. At least she wasn't the only one missing out. Ino handed him a scroll. "I'm from Interrogation. Orders from the Hokage." She tried to make her voice sound clipped, professional. She was sick and tired of people judging her based solely on her age and appearance.

The ANBU cracked open the seal and took a moment to read over the document. Then he nodded, burnt the scroll with a simple Fire jutsu, and began undoing the seals on the door. "So it's true then," he murmured. "About Akatsuki."

"Yes. But the Godaime is reinforcing security in case they strike back again. I'm here to question the prisoner; see if he knows where Pain might be."

Falcon stood back and held open the heavy door for her. "I will wait here."

"Lady Tsunade tells me there are seals?"

"Hai. They were checked this morning. Cleared and in perfect order. He is unable to mould chakra; you have nothing to fear."

Ino frowned. "I wouldn't be afraid either way," she said a little frostily.

"Of course." Falcon paused for a moment, and then shut the door.

Ino felt around for the clasp she knew was there and hooked her torch onto it. It illuminated the darkness, though barely penetrating the thick mist of black. What is it with dangerous individuals and their problem with light?

"It's loud outside." The voice froze her, made her clench her fist. "Tell me what's going on, yeah?" She was surprised he could hear through the thick slab of concrete. A thin sliver of moonlight peeked in from the high reaches of the barred window set twelve feet above the ground of the cylindrical cell.

Ino gritted her teeth. She formed seals with her hands and blew lightly on the flame of the torch she had brought with her. At regular intervals around the room, torches embedded in the walls flared with light and warmth. She saw a wooden table, a chair and a bed. He was lying on the bed, half his body hanging over the side. His eyes were closed.

"You should've made them go bang… like this!"

Ino flinched as a resounding note bounced off the walls and echoed continuously. Idiot, she berated herself. He was just stamping his feet.

Laughter. "I got you there, didn't I? Got you, yeah. Haha…"

She controlled her heart rate and her temper. "That's enough from you!" She tried to mimic Tsunade's commanding tone. She and Sakura had dubbed it The Bark and it generally succeeded in cowering others. "Stand up, against the wall."

His chuckle was shadowy. "It's a round wall there…"

Ino ignored him. Tried to, anyway. Her hands flicked into handseals and she tapped her foot. The wall behind the prisoner cemented around his wrists and ankles, binding him effectively. Chouji might have commented that it was 'eating' him. There was a torch set beside his head, casting a warm glow on the pale skin of the young man before her.

The last she had seen of him, she had been in the same dungeon for a medical checkup. Checking if any internal conflicts had made themselves home in his body, changing the dressings for his bandages. He had been unconscious and drenched in sweat that time, his hair lank and plastered to his forehead. What else did you expect of someone who had blown themselves up?

"You wanted to know why it was loud outside?"

"Yeah."

"It's because we defeated Akatsuki and forced it to disband. That's why."

Deidara gave no hint that he was devastated or even disappointed at all. In fact, he seemed not to care at all. "Were you there fighting?"

Ino's brow pulled together. "I'll be doing the questioning here, thanks," she said firmly.

He gave her a thoughtful look; his light cerulean eyes flickered over her figure, resting on her face, her eyes. "You're a pretty one, yeah."

I. Am. Not. Blushing. "Wh-what the hell are you on about?" she demanded.

"So… I take it you weren't going to ask me for a date?"

The kunai was in her hand before she even had an inkling of how it had gotten there. It was pressed against Deidara's exposed neck, biting into the collar of the shapeless grey tunic he wore – and more, if it was what she willed. She made sure he knew this. "I'm not allowed to kill you but I am authorised to use any form of painful torture to make you speak. Any more smart talk from you and I'll start getting nasty, got that?" She forced the warning out through gritted teeth. He didn't need to know that, regardless of the pain she was capable of putting him through, she would get her answer in the end. Never let the prisoner feel that he is in power, Ibiki had taught her. What could she say? Yamanaka Ino was a fast learner.

He gazed into her eyes (and was it just her or were his eyes dark and serious?) as he said, "Whatever you say."

Ino tore her gaze away and withdrew her kunai. "Did Pain tell you of a plan in case Akatsuki disbanded?"

"Sounds to me like he escaped this attack of yours."

"Master of the obvious, aren't you? Is that a yes or a no?"

"No." Deidara paused in contemplative silence. "I was going to say that even if I did I wouldn't be that much of a backstabber and tell you… but it doesn't really matter what I say, does it?"

Ino's eyes narrowed. "No." For the first time since reacquainting herself with the imprisoned missing-nin, Ino found herself wondering of what Deidara knew. How deep was his knowledge of Konoha? Of those that had relentlessly pursued the traces of the organisation he had belonged to? Of… her? "You know of my family's jutsu?" she asked warily.

"Not a fickle." Her frown must have deepened or something, because he chuckled and explained. "I didn't think the Leaf Village would send a pretty girl down to get answers from a big bad S-class criminal. Not unless that pretty girl knew what she was doing, un."

Fancy that… one of the first outsiders to look past my appearance – a missing-nin.

She took a step forward and brought her hands for a set of familiar seals. "You're right about that one. It doesn't matter if you're telling the truth or not; I'll dig it out."

A smirk. "Don't you trust me?"

"About as much pigs could fly."

She placed her hand on Deidara's head and closed her eyes. "Don't move, or I'll end up taking out a chunk of memories, got it?" she warned him. A bit too late, she knew. She was already projecting her mind into his.

For starters, it was dark.

Ino sighed and started sifting through the foreign mess. The sensation was close to digging. Her 'hands' prised away slabs of silvery substance that she saw as Deidara's memories. It was almost daunting. Whenever she touched his mind, she was subjected to the thoughts, emotions, everything he had felt at that time. One would say she was intruding, but in all accuracy, Ino was getting to know a stranger she had no intention of ever seeing again.

Briefly, Deidara's childhood flickered by. She skimmed over those years, but she tasted loneliness, fear. Something terrible had taken his parents from him when he had been a child – she decided against going back to check exactly what. A few years on the street had twisted his morals and naivety. One word had been persistent in his mind during these days. Live.

Ino felt a tingling in her heart. This man Deidara reminded her of Uchiha Sasuke.

Gradually, the desperate desire to live shifted to admiration for art. Ino began seeing more of the blonde man. She saw the people he had worked for, the places he had bombed, the people he had killed. She bypassed and avoided the slaughters. The child who had grieved for his parents' death was already gone.

She went through his days with Akatsuki. Here, she was more thorough with her search, slowing down to pick at the finer details. Ino was gritting her teeth and wiping at her face with her other hand ten minutes into the jutsu. She admitted it; Inoichi was much more skilled at the art of their family's jutsu than she was, and could sort through a day in a matter of minutes. His daughter, while resourcefully adept and adequately skilled combat-wise, did not quite live up to his reputation at the moment.

There were pale, blank spaces where Deidara had likely forgotten an event. Alternatively, there were dark patches were Ino was met with mental restraint. Either Deidara did not want her to probe into that area or his mind had been influenced by an internal jutsu. Perhaps this was where Pain's orders were lurking… Ino's brow pulled together as she plunged into these shadows.

She saw splashes of crimson. Blood. Both his and those of his fallen foes. Lances of pain, manic satisfaction, burning hatred, terrified fear. Carnage.

A pair of glowing Sharingan eyes loomed over her. Then a bright flash – and nothing.

Ino gasped and wrenched herself out of Deidara's consciousness. She was breathing hard, sweating. This was… It was the first time she had performed the jutsu on someone like Deidara. It was terrifying but at the same time… somehow breathtaking.

Deidara had opened his eyes and was watching her with faint amusement. "Told you there was nothing."

Breathe, Ino… in, out. Ino glanced at him. Did he know what she had seen? "Pain didn't tell you anything at all?" she asked distractedly.

"Nope. He was a pretty confident guy. Didn't think it'd go wrong."

So, essentially, it had been a waste of time. I could've had free ramen with Sakura and the others… why does my life suck so much?

"Funny. You didn't come across to me as someone who'd like ramen."

Ino snapped her head around to look at him. "I said that aloud?" she blurted in surprise. Precisely a fraction of a second later, she slapped her hand over her mouth and started cursing behind it.

Deidara raised an eyebrow. "I knew you'd be interesting, yeah."

Her eyes narrowed. "And I knew you'd be an ass," she shot back.

He chuckled as if the insult was a compliment, and it irked her immensely.

Why am I still here? Ino wondered. She decided to remedy that; she still had to give her report to Tsunade after all.

"Aww, you leaving?" Deidara grinned.

"You don't have the information we want, so that's the end of it. I'm out of here."

Ignore him, she told herself. She was at the door, retrieving her torch, raising her hand to knock on the iron sheet, when he called out to her again. Against her better judgement, she paused to listen.

"Oi, aren't you going to let me down?" He was still 'swallowed' by the wall.

Ino felt a sly smirk on her features as the door opened to reveal the Falcon-masked ANBU on duty. "Do me a favour," she told him, "and release that jutsu at the end of your shift?" Childish, she knew, but it did offer her a little satisfaction.

She saw the man's eyes flicker toward the prisoner. He gave a small nod. "Are you finished interrogating the prisoner?"

"Yes. He doesn't know anything."

"Hey, hey." Deidara again.

"What?" Ino called irritably over her shoulder. 101 for dealing with smart-assed missing-nin, anyone?

He was grinning. "What's your name?"

She glared at him long and hard before answering. "Yamanaka Ino."

"Heh, I'll remember that… and I'm sure you'll get around to it someday, un."

"What are you talking about?"

"Flying. Hmm, that should be my next artwork: the Flying Pig, yeah."

"… Shut up." She was glad the light from the torches gave her face an artificial cerise tinge. It helped conceal the embarrassment and humiliation flushing her cheeks.

"Ne, one more question?"

"I'm not obliged to answer any more of your stupid questions," she scowled.

"Hey, come on, don't be a spoil sport. I'm the one who has to get stuck to the wall for five hours."

True… "Fine. Just one."

Even from across the chamber, she could see Deidara hesitate.

Ino sighed and glanced apologetically up at the ANBU. Falcon nodded and eased the door shut.

"You were looking through my memories, yeah?"

"Yeah. So?"

He seemed to lift his head a little. "Did you see a really big explosion near the end? My art?"

Must have been that big flash… "What if I did?"

"It was beautiful, wasn't it?"

Ino pursed her lip. It was likely the same explosion that had taken out miles of forest, the same one which had basically torn its creator into rags. He had been intending to kill Sasuke in one suicidal detonation. Had he not been discovered by Sakura's team, Deidara would undoubtedly be dead. According to the pink-haired girl, he had barely been intact. Ino had seen the gleaming scar tissue marring the man's chest, had seen the blackened soil where swaths of trees had once stood.

It was terrifying.

"It was one hell of a killer blast, that's all I'm saying," she murmured. He still heard her despite the low tone, and he seemed to stare at her strangely, his head cocked. As if just seeing her for the first time. "What are you staring at?" Ino demanded after a moment.

He gave her a smile. A genuine smile of appreciation. "You're a bombshell, Yamanaka."