summary: It's probably the whole dark and damaged thing he has going on. Emotional transference is pretty common in her line of duty. She figures she can deal. Naturally, she's wrong.
pairings: Madara|Ino. Fave guy. Fave girl. Total crack.
note: I attempt to write action sequences. I also attempt to write in the canon time frame.

if tomorrow never comes
1.

Ino had done remarkably well on the battlefield despite the fact that she had yet to pull her shintenshin no jutsu from her back pocket. Shikamaru warned her to put that technique away unless he was around to catch her; and Ino wasn't really the kind of girl to stray away from orders, especially when it came from somebody who knew her so well. Regardless, she'd managed to get by without any real serious casualties to count compared to the rest of her squadron but she was being uncharacteristically modest about the shallow wounds littered over her body. Maybe if this battle came three years earlier, she'd prance around and wear them like trophies or badges of honor, the kind of stupid grandiose thing only a naïve twelve year old would do.

But even Ino understood this was still a war. For all she knew, she could be dead by the next morning.

Still, she was grateful with what she had and could've actually stayed a couple days or more to help with the wounded on the field. But like most of her expectations, chance decided to turn her on a different course as she was called back unceremoniously early in order to infiltrate the brain of a new captive. With her father's occupation as the operation leader at the Intelligence Division in the base camp of Konoha, there seemed to be an extra strain placed on the members of the Yamanaka clan, especially with the new influx of hostages.

Ino strolled through the grounds, shooting glances through tents that nobody caught. Her stomach churned and she brushed a lock of her dull blond hair behind her ear as she caught sight of Ibiki near the center hold of the camp next to the tent that belonged to the interrogation unit. For what it was worth, Ino found it as somewhat of a relief to see such a familiar face, even under these awful circumstances.

He led her through the folds of the tents, "Physical torture proved ineffective. He's a tough one."

"What're we looking for?" she asked.

"A contingency plan. People like him always have a backup when their first priorities don't work out," Ibiki stated grimly, "we'll need you to break in."

Ino creased her brow in agitation as she made her away around the canopy that divided the entrance of the tent with the center room where she found a very incapacitated looking Uchiha Madara sitting in his lonesome. He was body bound to a wooden chair with chakra infused chain links enclosed around him from neck to toe. Just as she lifted her chin about to meet his gaze, she realized he was blindfolded.

From what she could surmise, blinding him was probably to prevent him from throwing any last ditch attempts at genjutsu. Not that it really mattered since those chakra chain links cut off any possible chance for him to activate the sharingan.

Still, they would have to take every single necessary precaution they could.

"Finally given up?" Madara snapped, sincerely entertained at the thought of having his mind probed by kunoichi, "Sending in a woman to do this job?"

How he was able to determine her sex by the sound of her footsteps, she would probably never understand. Then again, she supposed it probably came from the smell of herbs on her fingers beneath all the sweat and grime from the battlefield. Working in a Flower Shop could do wonders and her knowledge in botany had helped tremendously with the strain of wounds in her squadron. Casually, Ino shifted all her weight to one foot, crossing her arms over her flak vest as she eyed him carefully up and down—down and up again.

She'd heard all sorts of things about him. Who hadn't? He was incredibly notorious, especially in the shinobi world. And of course she would know. He was almost embedded into Konoha history. Despite being written off as an all-around-typical-bad-guy with sick intentions, she had to give him credit where it was due.

He was a fighter. Not that anybody would ever admit this aloud. Madara was probably one of the strongest shinobi of all time next to Hashirama.

And here he was now, a half-dead zombie in the midst of a war that didn't seem it would be playing to his favors any time soon. A war that shouldn't have even mattered to somebody like him. Because Madara already lived his time and made an imprint on his own era. But persistence and tenacity must've been his specialty because here he was, utterly taking her era by storm.

She supposed it must've been an ego thing.

Ino took a self-assured step forward, hand hovering over the top of his head.

"His mind is probably booby-trapped with genjutsu blocks," Ibiki stated passively, "be careful."

"Gotcha."

"Good luck," Madara quipped with an inkling of a smirk while he reclined and relaxed into his chakra laced seat.

Ino spared her captive only a half glance before closing her eyes and taking the plunge.

Bodies littered for yards on end in the barren acreage of what seemed to be an almost unrecognizable and abandoned battlefield while Ino sauntered through sluggishly, sweat beading over her brow.

From what she observed, the clothing these carcasses were wearing was archaic. The kind of stuff nobody in their right mind would wear today: long, dramatized robes with clinks of armor over the shoulders—heavy, inconvenient things. Ino knew this time period. She'd studied it in grade school. And she took in every extraneous detail she could before continuing along the barren wasteland.

A rift of sunlight filtered through a thin patch of opening in the sky, veiled in shades of gray. Ino lifted her chin, smoothing out the kinks in her neck as she arched her head back, rubbing vehemently against the soft pressure point with her thumb and forefinger. She came to a slow halt under the flood of light from the sky and looked over the cavern that loomed over endless miles and miles of fragmented earth and paraphernalia of kunai, katanas, tantō blades and shuriken stabbed into the ground.

There he was—in the distance. She could see him from where she stood. The first thing she caught sight of was Madara's looming figure at the base of the cavern, his signature gourd shaped fan resting over his shoulder blade as he stared up at her with a half-smirk on his lips, bodies littered around his feet in a cornucopia.

Ino felt her jaw go slack as she dug her fingernails into the palm of her hands while she watched the barely alive man lying on the ground next to him reach for his ankle.

It was almost too easy to say this was his era. And she was an invader stepping in on what seemed to be a war from the depths of his memories.

Madara lifted his hand up with his index finger outstretched as he curled it up once, tempting her to come after him.

He was stronger than her. With the territory alone, she was already at a severe disadvantage; and she knew people could build one hell of a defense mechanism against outsiders. But the trick with the mind was that it could be deceived in an instant if it came under the right circumstances. There was a reason why people had nightmares; and Ino could be anybody's worst nightmare if she probed the sweet spot of the deep, dark recesses in their dreams.

After years of experience in infiltration, she could manipulate almost anything to her tactical advantage if she played her cards right.

Slowly, she reached her hand to relieve an itch at the side of her face. She wound up with a layer of grime wedged under her nails in course black and she accidentally nicked herself in the cheek, feeling the sharp sting of sweat trickling into her shallow wound.

But another problem with the mind was pain. Truth is, it was all in her head. But the human mind controlled what the human body felt. And Ino could feel every single ache littered over her body from her physical reality, along with every single nonexistent ache in this illusory war field. She could feel the beat of the sun wear over her fair skin, the gravel in ridges under her sandals—she could feel the pain of a meaningless scratch on the side of her face. Pain.

It just left a bad taste in her mouth.

Soundlessly, she stuck one foot against the vertical lining of the cavern wall. Even though she was dreadfully low on chakra, she still had her battles to choose. She could either circle around the entire cavern to walk down, which would probably take around two or three hours of menial labor; or she could save herself those hours and cut it down to five minutes of wall climbing. Considering the fact that she didn't know this place at all, and knowing full well she was blazing a trail in genjutsu laced territory, she placed her bets on the latter short-cut route.

The closer she came to Madara, the deeper she could delve into his mind. Figure out what else he was hiding.

The idea that the long path could single-handedly lure her into the endless buffer of Madara's illusory block terrified her; but Ino knew herself, and she knew the human body through and through. From this distance, she could at least keep her eyes on him without losing track and sight of what he was doing.

But that didn't mean she was going to face Madara in a taijutsu battle. No—that wasn't her plan. She still understood that this was just another one of his illusory blocks. That he could actually manipulate the environment any time if he wanted. Besides, Ino wasn't a taijutsu fighter and she would be a fool to challenge him in his own territory.

She just needed to keep this illusion moving. She just needed to physically get closer to him. The longer she took contemplating things, and the farther away she strayed from him, the faster and easier she would get trapped in this block. And that was something she refused to consider at all.

A minute went by as Ino made her way down the cavern wall, feeling the ache in her back as she strained to keep her composure straight. She was maybe several hundred feet above around, give or take. One miscalculated step would have her flying down the walls into her very imminent death. Even in a dream, dying was terrifying. But Ino cast this fear aside with logic along with the skip in her chest as she quickened her pace down the wall into a slow run.

Sprinkles of gravel stuck to her skin like fairy dust as a wall of wind swept up from below. Ino winced and blinked rapidly in succession as she lifted her arm in front of her face in order to block the blow.

There was a crack.

She paused and froze in mid-step as she cautiously veered her gaze over her shoulder, feeling a kink in her neck wind up.

Ino's bright blue eyes widened in horror as she noticed a small stream of gravel trickling down from high above.

Another thick crack pierced the air and she found herself turning back towards the downward fall of the cavern wall—and running for her life.

There he was: Madara was only inches away from her face as he sped up and she caught a fantastic shadow of his profile as he slipped next to her, on his way up the wall. He spared her a quick glance with a smirk on his lips as the fan whipped across the side of her face. While he was running up towards destruction head first, Ino was falling into hers.

He would sacrifice himself in order to have her die in this dream. Ino mused this contemplatively while she lifted her hands to perform the right seals.

When Madara turned to spare her another glance, he discovered her body physically missing from midair. But this was no trick of the eye; and as he turned to face the upward falling onslaught of rocks from above, a very familiar blond-haired shinobi materialized above him in a pop while the rock closest to him disappeared simultaneously from sight. He could only manage a grimace as he dodged narrowly the foot that nearly made contact with the side of his face.

Speed was his specialty. And in less than a second, he had her by the ankle, pushing upwards as he loomed dangerously close to the side of her face.

"Amateur tricks won't work here," he breathed, hot breath against her ear, "you lose."

Ino should've known better than to go after him with a substitution jutsu. Uchiha Madara would be damned before he fell for such a mediocre academy trick. She knew and reflexively, her stomach lurched as she closed her eyes and accepted her inevitable fate while instinctively grabbing Madara roughly by the forearm.

Her chakra failed her as her foot slipped off the side of the wall. Her stomach did another single flip backwards and she let her muscles unwind and relax while she watched the shadow of the wall above her collapse into ruins.

Ino snapped her eyes open and sucked in a sharp breath.

Slowly, she retracted her hand from the top of Madara's head and let it fall limply to her side. Her eyes stung with tears and she held her breath tight with monumental effort in order to even her breathing out and compose herself properly.

When she regained full consciousness, she discovered three bloody crescent shaped cuts imprinted in her left hand. Slowly, she clenched that same fist and let the blood flow as she relaxed, unwounded and wiped what she could off her side, leaving a very apparent red smear against the dull green of her flak vest. Slowly, she turned her gaze back to the man sitting in front of her with the pretentious smirk on his face.

Dying was never easy. And living in a dream was always better than dying. But Madara had made an easy sacrifice—he let those cavern walls cave in on them. He hadn't been afraid; he accepted his fate while Ino tried to fight it.

He knew dying also meant waking up in real time. It wasn't Ino's usual method of climbing out of somebody's mind and she usually sought to it as a last resort. Like she said, dying was never easy, not even in dreams. But Madara knew. He knew it would hurt her.

"Pathetic," he remarked haughtily, obviously unimpressed.

Not quite. Pathetic wasn't exactly the right word.

But she could sort of see where he was coming from with the insult. Ino hadn't been able to pull through with her plan with the collapse of the cavern wall. She had intended to approach the man who'd been reaching for Madara's ankle but with the circumstances, she knew she was better off trying to avoid the pain of death while he sidestepped her into a corner.

Adjusting wasn't her strong suit and usually, it was Shikamaru who was good at adapting to change. Too bad he couldn't help her here.

She hadn't even made it past the first barrier in his head. It was only natural for him to relinquish any thoughts of her being a respectable kunoichi.

For a fleeting and transient second, she actually considered having a heart to heart with him but squashed all notions of that and decided in the end that he was just another war criminal with an exceptionally long rap sheet trailing and extending after him wherever he went. Madara was just like most of the Uchiha men she knew which shouldn't have come to much of a surprise. They seemed to have this stupid tendency of creating messes and expecting people to clean up after them without fail.

But Ino had always been somewhat of an up-stander, or whatever the hell that meant. Pulling people from the ashes—the kind of girl who chased away other people's bullies. The kind of girl who cleaned up after her teammates. The kind of girl who was good at this shit.

And as long as she held onto that mantra, nothing could faze her. Not even Uchiha Madara.

Then again, she seemed to forget the fact that Madara was the bully in this case—in almost every case. He always had been and he probably always would be.

But maybe she could actually turn this into one of her senseless mind games. She was a girl after all, not to mention her clan specialized in brain infiltration. Presumably from what she'd read from numerous stories in her history book, Madara may have been prepared for something like that. So she had to quell her excitement. It may actually never work with a man like him.

Then again, with the mental blocks she'd seen in his mind, she had little choice and really couldn't think of another method better suited.

Ino pulled up a chair from the far corner of the room and plopped down right across from him, crossing one leg over the other as her foot hovered dangerously close to his knee. Ibiki made a motion forward but Ino gave him a reassuring grin over her shoulder to let him know everything would go according to plan. At least, her new plans. She could do this, this time. She was good at this kind of stuff.

Rational had never been her forte. And ever since she was eight, she always wanted to make her own imprint on Konohagakure history. This could actually work to her advantage if she played her cards right. And she could definitely afford taking a risk this time; this was Uchiha Madara, after all, and she would be a fool if she thought taking the safe path would help her reel in anything helpful. And that was her only mission, in essence: figure out his contingency plan.

She couldn't let her village down.

She shifted her gaze slowly and gave Ibiki a terse nod, "I'll call you back when I'm done."

It took him a moment to register this before he conceded understanding, stepping wordlessly through the folds of the tent as he departed from sight.

Ino veered her gaze back to the very pacified looking Madara sitting in front of her.

"So talk," she stated dismissively, "tell me about your interests. Your likes. Dislikes. Dreams. Ambitions."

"Imbecile," he retorted, mock gingerly, "don't pretend."

Unable to hide her surprise (she was silently thankful for the fact that had he a blindfold on, else he'd surely mock her lack of self-control when it came to burying the emotions on her pretty face), Ino snaked her arms around her chest, "Pretend what?"

"You ask me to talk about myself. You expect me to tell you the dangerous, lucrative secrets of my life from the olden days. You lie about something tragic about yourself in an attempt to relate when we both know you're a mere, spoiled, not to mention incredibly mediocre kunoichi," and he paused but didn't make an attempt to take a deep breath, "you pretend to care for whatever it's worth. I concede defeat and let you know exactly what you should be looking for."

He smirked, "You're naïve to think something like that would work."

She paused and leaned back into her chair, feeling her heart palpitate erratically as her face burned a brilliant shade of red. Madara had seen through her plans and that must've said something considering the fact he couldn't see anything at all. It helped that he was physically blind because Ino had a hard time hiding the incredulous look written all over her face and she was sure he would give an additional world of insults along with his already existing critiques. And she felt compelled to say something to him—anything, really; but suddenly, her mouth went dry and the silence became suffocating.

Leaving aside the fact that Madara was a total sexist pig, Ino had to give him credit where it was due. He was a smart man—a smart shinobi. He could read people with no sweat. And she was eons away from ever reaching his level. She knew she was taking a risk when she considered having a heart-to-heart with him; she knew playing mind games with him would be like taking a huge gamble, not to mention it may actually never work in this case. He seemed to read her like a book, which was painfully ironic.

"I'm older than you know," he snapped tartly, "but don't fool yourself into thinking I'm senile. Your expectations are far too high if you think a therapeutic talk will work."

But then again, she was Yamanaka Ino. She wasn't an idiot. If there was anything she excelled at, it was reading people. There was a reason why she worked in espionage and interrogation. There was a reason why she was always the first pick when it came to undercover work, and not Sakura.

Ino was the best damn actress in Konohagakure.

"You got me," she conceded, swiveling her foot around casually, a bad habit she hadn't kicked up since she was eight—since her mother spent an hour lecturing her about the bad luck that came with shaking her leg, as if all that shaking could be translated into losing all the money she would earn in the future. But Ino was not that kind of girl and the very notion of luck made her stomach clench, "I underestimated you."

Because there was a fate—and it was the fate she created. She would never own up to where she ended up because of luck or chance.

"So show me," she offered coolly, "if you're so afraid of talking."

Madara arched a brow, "Don't tempt me, little girl."

But Ino was unmoving—stolid from where she sat, "Oh? Is that a challenge now?"

"You wouldn't understand a challenge if it shot you in the face," he replied offhandedly, "as we've witnessed in your last failed attempt to infiltrate my mind."

"But that's a lie, isn't it," she explained to him with a wince of amusement, "that battlefield—that was from the First Shinobi War, am I right?"

"Naturally," he was still unimpressed by her feeble attempt to relay viable information.

"But there was a man lying by your foot—I mean, I almost missed it because there were thousands of bodies scattered over the course of the field around you. But there was one man who was reaching for your ankle," she admonished, putting a finger to her lower lip in a cutesy attempt at contemplation as she turned her gaze to the far corner of the tent, "who wore the same Uchiha uniform as you but in shades of blue."

Finally, she veered her gaze back to Madara as her foot halted its profuse swiveling, "He was your younger brother, wasn't he?"

That was the trick with mind blocks. No matter what kind of genjutsu barriers people had in their head, they always gave a little bit of themselves away accidentally. Sometimes, Ino could dig up more than just the obvious on the surface; sometimes, she discovered childhood fantasies, dreams, the stuff that people buried into their unconsciousness the older they got. And with Madara—she'd only gotten a slice of a clue. But it seemed that this little piece of information meant a world of a difference as it registered slowly to him.

"Tch," he clicked his tongue bitterly and composed himself quickly; this time, there was no signature smirk, "how did you figure out he was my brother?"

"The ring on your index finger," she motioned to his hand but quickly realized he was still blindfolded, "it's a gedi ring, isn't it? You—the elder—wear the ge half of the ring. And your younger brother would wear the di ring."

He should've given her some credit. Ino could be lethal when it came to observing people—for taking the peculiar, little idiosyncrasies out of context and bringing them up under a scope. From her time on Team 10, she learned to take a few tips of the trade from Shikamaru; she had to observe and understand the situation before doing anything drastic. Learn her opponent—see him through, no matter what kind of bully he was. No matter what his rap sheet said. No matter how notorious he was.

Everybody had secrets. Everybody had things buried in the depths of their unconscious. The human mind worked in strange ways and Ino was an expert at digging them through. The fact that she'd let herself fall into the first barrier spoke volumes alone. She took her job seriously and it was always the seemingly insignificant details that had a tendency to matter the most in the long run.

"I'll admit I'm impressed," Madara finally conceded with a smirk. "So what'll you do now?"

"First off, thanks," Ino answered tersely, brimming with quiet pride, "and well, I actually thought about diving into your mind again. But I'm kind of short on chakra right now so I figure we could have a conversation or something. Learn a few things from one another. The whole shebang."

Mind games. The only thing she had to do was pretend to give a damn about him.

She was good at this. Knew this. Could see this through until the end. This was a gamble and she was willing to take it. Ino was a fabulous actress, and this kind of stuff should come easy to her. If Ino pretended to care long enough, this could really work to her advantage. She could have Madara at the palm of her hand.

"But I know you probably won't tell me anything," she continued along emphatically, picking at the dirt under her nails, "so I thought maybe I could tell you a little bit about myself."

"Not interested," Madara didn't miss a beat.

"—Yamanaka Ino," she ignored him, "I like a lot of things. Shopping. Long walks. I actually like running too, contrary to popular belief. I'm a morning person. I have a fast metabolism and I'm not just saying that in a pretentious kind of way. I run my family's flower shop when I have free time. Oh, and I'm kind of a stargazer and I can probably name you every single constellation in the sky if you want. Maybe we could go one of these nights if you behave properly."

A pause as she took in the full view of a very piqued Madara, "There's not a lot that I hate but I'm not a big fan of sashimi—or just anything raw in general. My dream is to get married by the time I'm twenty with a house by the Nanako River. I can't decide between two or three kids but I know I want girls. Boys are just too dirty. But overall, I just want to live a fulfilling life as a kunoichi and retire into a happy family."

After a moment of silence, Madara relented a sigh.

Admitting defeat? Ino wouldn't push it that far. But she couldn't help but feel smug and satisfied as she brushed a lock of her fair hair behind her ear, working out the rough kinks in her neck as she reclined slowly into her seat.

"So tell me a little bit about yourself," she offered casually, "or at least introduce yourself," and when he didn't reply immediately, Ino continued, "or your brother for that matter. Tell me his name. He seems to be pretty important to you, huh."

Suddenly, the air went frigid. Ino felt her spine tense up as she veered her gaze to an apathetic looking Madara with his lips stretched taut in a thin line. She immediately felt a shiver come over the back of her neck while a line of goose bumps stretched over the skin of her forearm.

"Get out."

She had to admit she was pretty spent. Tired. And she meant it earlier when she said she was running low on chakra. So the fact that he wanted her out of his tent probably meant she'd been pushing his buttons the right way. Yamanaka Ino was getting the job done.

Madara was touchy about his younger brother. Now she knew what ticked him off.

Because as much as Madara was strong, he was also awful at hiding his own emotions. It was ironic, Ino mused, how things could work out.

She pursed her lips, "Aw, that's not nice—"

"—get out," he seethed.

He was tense, shoulder cocked back with his fists clenched.

But at this point, Ino knew better than to taunt him.

This conversation probably reached its end hours ago so she stood up and soundlessly made her way towards the folds of the tent, sparing a tentative glance at him over her shoulder before she took her leave without another word.

TBC