╒═══Shintenshin═══╕

∞═══╡Book One: Mind Walker╞═══∞

Cognitive Dissonance

Is it just me, or does Shippuden's first opening kick some serious ass. Oh – and I don't own Naruto, if I did you would see romantic subplot and abundant references to cheesy eighties action movies.

Ever since I left the crib, I've been told about the importance of the separation of mind and body, spirit and physical form, soul and the living fleshy organs that reside within – it's central to most of my clan's techniques, without understanding that distinction we'd be helpless in a battle.

I don't like to brag, but I think I know about the distinction of mind and body just a little bit better than most – as it turns out, just a little bit better than I ever wanted to. I ended up as Ino Yamanaka through no coincidence, but by my own will, and I'm beginning to think that my own will did a little bit more than that. How else did everybody end up the way they did?

The brain is limited by the resonance of the synapses, the sparks that zoom through your head at around 268 miles per hour, or 12,000 centimeters per a second. Just for reference, the average human brain is 15 centimeters long, so the time it takes for a signal to reach one end to the other is 0.00125 seconds. But sometimes, when facing fate, 268 miles per hour isn't enough to register what is happening, not even nearly enough.

For instance, the time it took me to attempt to stop my best friend's suicide was astronomical. The 100 milliseconds it took for the sight to register in my brain, the half a second it took to rush towards them to slap the alcohol laced with a liberal amount of pills away from them. It all took to long, and I'm the reason she died that day. That, and her manic depression, but who am I to blame her brain for this – it's lack of forethought that kills people.

If my brain hadn't been addled by alcohol that day my reaction would have been faster, maybe her problem wouldn't have been as urgent, and maybe I wouldn't have ended up dead trying to save her. But then, where would I be now? Where would she be, for that matter?

I like to think, actually, that it wasn't my lack of foresight that killed her seeing as I'm a new person now, literally and metaphorically, but the guilt hits me sometimes all the same.

"I'm going to go up to bed for a little while." she said at the time. A blatant lie if I ever saw one, I know for a fact constant fatigue is a sign of depression, the study of human psychology is something that has remained constant from the last life to this one. I didn't see it, or if I did, I turned a blind eye.

We all died that day... well, most of us. I'm not sure what happened still myself, but doubting it will get me nowhere. All I know now is that one day I was Katherine, the next I was dead, and the next after that I was... well... let's say that the first time I was squeezed through the uterus of another woman was enough, even without me being cognizant the first time.

Before I was Ino I was Katherine, and as much as it pains me to think about everybody from back then, it's all part of my training. I need to realize that I can't possibly be both... but it's getting to me, and if I'm not either then...

It's best not to walk that road, but I have to, for my friend's and my sake. I just wish someone would give me the answers. Shika was right about thinking, in hindsight. Using my brain like this gives me a headache that is a bit too troublesome.

The room quieted down nearly ten minutes after she went upstairs, and it was decided, sober or not, that April was clearly the life of any party. The rest of my friends decided to head out – it was my house after all, but April was their driver, and she had just headed to sleep.

Had they decided to leave a minute earlier, maybe...

"Hey, Katherine!" one of my friends said "Go tell April to get her ass down here. I'm probably too drunk to walk up the stairs."

At one point he had charcoal lines on his face, like a football player, but two drinks and a few games that I don't feel comfortable talking about ended up smudging them into two blob-ish things on his cheeks. They looked kind of triangle-y and... oh, right, I should walk up the stairs.

The steps seemed too small for my feet, and I stumbled dangerously for a few seconds before making it to the top.

I knock on the door once. "April?" Once again "April, come out of there, the others are leaving."

The door swings open, and my mind begins to register things, and then I begin to run, and then I begin to scream "April!" and I'm not nearly fast enough and is that an empty bottle of pills and 'oh-fuck' how many did she take and was that alcohol! And... and...

"ROSE GET YOUR ASS IN THE BUILDING!" I shout, carrying April down the stairs at speeds probably not good for one so intoxicated.

I hear a shocked gasp and the sound of feet running back inside – the commotion I caused bringing the rest of my friends into the building. The petite girl (and the only one of us studying to become an RN, god bless her soul,) was moving faster than a freight train with a panicked look on her face.

We look to April who was on the ground. Her pupils were dilated, her light blue eyes glazed over some – why did it seem like it was always going to end up this way, the only conclusion? I desperately try to stave off the panic attack as Rose attends to her.

After registering her pulse, Rose spoke. "Shit... this is bad. Has anyone called the poison control center?"

"It appears the line is busy, Rose." One of my other friends spoke, shifting his round sunglasses.

"How does that even work? It's the poison control center, it should be equipped to handle multiple calls." I ask, and we all take a second of silent consideration before cursing. "Whatever, I'll drive, we need to bring her to the hospital stat."

Rose picks up April hastily, with all the coordination I would expect from her after a party. At the very least she's the heaviest drinker out of all of us, so she was the least affected when it came to the one or two drinks we shared. Still, she stumbles on the door, and is a little off balance.

I slide into the driver's seat of the car, Rose takes the passenger's seat. (The others weren't to amused when she called shotgun). My family van wasn't the most fuel efficient vehicle to drive to a hospital, nor the fastest, but it was the only thing that could comfortably fit 7 people and a stretcher.

My boyfriend sat in the seat behind me, and looked to be struggling for words. "What can I say... confusing... annoying... unexpected?" He asks.

I giggle, despite the situation. "How about all of those at once: Troublesome."

"Yeah, troublesome – that fits just superbly. Troublesome manic depression, troublesome poison control center, and a troublesome-fucking-car. I should say that more often, it's a very versatile word. That, and, trying to think of a different response each time would be... troublesome I guess." His slender form slouches into the car seat, the amount of alcohol we all had being a bit too much to take standing.

The collective groan in the car almost lightened the mood. "Lazy bastard." I say light-heartedly "You're the one that should be driving, but I guess you love the couch a bit too much for that."

He slumps even further into his chair and involuntarily hiccups, as if to rub it in that I'm wrong.

The mood is somber in the car when we finally manage to get the stretcher in and pull out of the driveway. Maybe if they stayed behind they would be happier, but they all insisted on coming with me. Who was I to argue, I'm probably the one of us most at fault, it happened in my own house.

I stifle a very cruel laugh when I thought about the child-proof cap on that bottle of pills. I can just imagine a little April pouting as she tries to open it – something I'm sure she wouldn't have been able to do if she was even slightly intoxicated. Speaking of which, maybe we would have noticed what was wrong if she hadn't been the one who insisted on staying sober.

I pulled on to the highway at higher speeds than I should have been going, but I didn't care because I thought I was just sober enough to drive properly. Brushing my bang out of the way of my eye, I switch to autopilot. Check the rear-view mirror. Look out window, toggle high beams, there's another car approaching. Hey, that's actually a pretty big car, and why is it in my lane. No wait... why am I in it's lane?

"SHIT!" I swerve to the right sharply, but it's not enough to avoid the eighteen-wheeler that happens to be going in the complete opposite direction. There's a loud crash, and the pain, lots of pain.

Laying outside the wreck of the car, I look at Rose's pink hair and outfit, and my mind drifts to some fitting last thoughts. Rose's hair, which she dyed pink after cutting and donating it, was yet another sign of something we had been wondering for a while. She was diagnosed of breast-cancer at an early age, and something in the process permanently messed her up – her lack of assets despite her clearly hormonally induced temper shows something must have went wrong.

But my mind wasn't on her breasts, it was studying the blood around her, slowly pooling into the cracks on the concrete – noticing something else distinct. Yes, she had breast cancer at a young age, but despite that tragedy she didn't die that day. Cancer wasn't what killed her.

I did.

And that's all I've got, folks! Thanks for reading, don't be afraid to review, and make sure to check for new updates regardless.

Thrice Underneath's second chapter was put on hiatus because of a small hardrive crash and school starting. Damn Freshmen year's eating up all my free time, and I thought I would be sailing through classes by now.

If you couldn't tell, this is not actually a self-insert, mostly because my name is not Katherine. Rather, I wanted to write an idea centered around the Ino-Shika-Chō trio that was slightly AU, and then I thought: What's the best excuse to make Ino a slightly manipulative possession sue? Yamanaka's jutsu center around the mind, so reincarnation it was.

I promise Ino will look more like Ino in the next chapter, even if she has to Obfuscate Stupidity like it's nobody's business.

This will have a different theme than Thrice Underneath. Instead of the general SI theme that Déjà vu no Jutsu and Dreaming of Sunshine have, Shintenshin will have a theme of "progress", much like that of Destiny is a Hazy Thing, Look to the Stars, and god forbid Chunin Exam Day have.

Will Ino ever understand what the hell happened to her? Is Rose an expy of Sakura? (the answer is yes) Did the plot bunnies attack me viscously in my sleep? Find out all of this and more in the next harrowing chapter of Shintenshin!

Sincerely,

Everybody's favorite nonexistent dinosaur,

Phususaurus