Root to Life
Rating: Pg-15 for language.
Warnings: Angst, some use of bad language, some depiction of war.
Pairings: ShikaInoChou
Summary: Set in the Little Things universe, this is a snapshot of the ShikaInoChou team during the last day of the war.
Author Notes: Only the second time I've written InoShikaChou, so forgive the uncertain characterisation. Taking a glance back at The Little Things showed that I hadn't really given this team (or any other, for that matter….) any real time in the main fic. So while this is based on the war in the latter parts of The Little Things, it only alludes to the reasons and motivations behind it. The actual plotline of the story is left unsaid in this one-shot, so there's no need to read the other one to understand this one.
And yes, I've been away from fic-writing & reading for a long damn time.
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Strings don't snap; they unfurl.
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2 a.m.; August 5th in the fifth year of the Godaime of Konoha
The threatening dawn does not herald victory. Not quite. It is a dangerous time, a lull in between action and death. Ino's grasp on Chouji is all the stronger for it, a root to life and sanity that will feed the flinty grin she pins on as her mask of war. Cheery, with her nerves wrought tight and thin, strong and durable but liable, like spider strings (like shadow) to give way to coming dew and prey too large to remain captured.
Her nerves are shot to hell and she doesn't know how the fuck Chouji can stand there, stoic and solid without a frown on his face. It's been five years and they still haven't seen two decades on this earth, but she feels older than the carved mountains of Konoha. Breathing exercises, under her breath, aren't helping, and she feels like she may cave any damn moment.
The stillness is getting to her. A square full of shinobi, she should feel safe. But she doesn't, even though this is a fool-proof plan from nearly all angles, even though they disabled the perimeter when they came through, killing all comers on their way in. In their sleep and without a second look back – it is not war, its genocide.
It may be fool-proof, hell, Shikamaru planned it and she trusted him with everything she had and more. But that didn't put her at ease, and she figured it may have to do with the fact that this was nothing but revenge for Tsunade, what they were doing here in a Mist Village. She didn't know the details, but then Shikamaru's comments were laced with derision and contempt for her actions.
The square was a large affair, filled with shinobi armed down to their very teeth. You would expect a mass of people, even shinobi, to make some noise, but it was eerie, how silent it was. A pin could drop and it would be heard. And now they would lay in wait to consolidate their position. All over the square she can see her friends, her family, her families, and it strikes her that she may be uneasy because if, if, if this were to go wrong she wouldn't just lose her life like a good ninja and receive a burial, she'd just be one name amongst those of many, bunched alphabetically with her parents and cousins, but far away from the loves of her life.
Breath comes hard and ragged, and the mist of the blasted Mist Country rolls in from the sea, damp and clawing.
9 a.m. August 5th in the fifth year of the Godaime of Konoha
Chouji, for once, is too lost to know of Ino's whereabouts while he dispatches another body, ignoring the soft, soft crush of bone under his hands and the stuttered gasps burning out when it hits the ground. He doesn't pay the corpse a second mind, wary of others – but the whole square is alight with weapons and fast-paced hand movements, building righteous shields and swords against the onslaught of missed shinobi (returned from missions, drained). He ignores the tide of civilians, caught in patriotic pride at their weakest moments, ignores their innocence, because self-defence is the same no matter where you come from – and there's no distinguishing between pawns on a Go board, Shikamaru taught him that.
All of a sudden the swirl of activities, the shouts cease, and almost like a curtain call on a bad Academy play (he doesn't fondly recall their version of the Great Shinobi Wars – the Hyuuga overstated their importance) the mist lifts and he can see again. See beyond the red haze that had taken over.
Still, the latent satisfaction of a job well done remains, and Chouji casts a glance around for Ino so that they can move on to secure their sector once more.
It takes a while, and he's close to shouting her name out in frustration (and panic, a lot of panic he realizes) when he finds her throwing up in the mouth of an alley, back bowed low, hair held back with a shaky hand.
"Ino? Eaten something bad?" Chouji jokes, because hell it happens and even though she's a girl, she's a kunoichi, their kunoichi. But the look she gives him, wiping bile and spittle away with the back of her hand, sends all jokes and platitudes out of his mind, and its confirmed when she doesn't come back with some smart-ass half-expected reply with a tagged on fondly-spoken 'fatass'.
He's at her side the moment tears begin to fall, and he hugs her close when she starts shivering, keeping her warm when she opens her mouth to speak.
And freezes.
"I quit. Chouji. I can't do it anymore- I can't--."
He rubs her back, says nothing and hopes it passes. And thinks, what flower for this occasion?
When Shikamaru hears, the colour drains from his face in a way the others haven't seen since the attempted rescue mission of Sasuke nearly half a decade earlier. Papers drop from his hand back onto the table. He can only hope that this is something transient, that it will pass and she will return to be theirs. Because that's the only way forward for them, and certainly the only way forward for her because she cannot succumb to this and return to active duty.
Konoha knows its guardians will be mentally unstable at some point. It's keeping it an open secret that is all-important.
No one really notices his lapse though; Chouji is pressed to his side whispering this bad news into his ear.
In the stillness of the town, pre-occupied with prisoners of war & ambush, Shikamaru slips out of the tent with Chouji, hurrying towards the edge of town where they'll find her waiting for them.
The town goes by like a blur, the square is left behind and suddenly they are in an alley that has Shikamaru thinking of dark disasters, expecting the smell of death and being met instead with the smell of vomit. She's not-quite shuddering, loosely wrapped in on herself, huddling against the wall – oddly composed for this kind of situation. They approach her with guarded steps, and Shikamaru thinks of the deer painted in their family albums, how they approached them with light steps, hands folded out & open in supplication. In fear of scattering them.
"Ino?" and he's surprised at how tremulous his voice suddenly sounds. His heart is beating under his chest in way he hadn't imagined possible. She looks up at them with wide eyes he's never seen that innocent and broken. They take her into their arms, huddling in the damp and the fog and the dirt, uncaring focused entirely on her while she takes deep breaths. Pudgy fingers wipe at her eyes, slim ones rub reassuringly along a bony spine.
It helps. Eventually she stands up, sniffles at a stop.
But she doesn't retract the statement. And they don't ask, fearing for the worst and hoping for the best to come the day after.
The problem with teamwork is that it requires that very basic ingredient, a team. And they were a team. Their teamwork, their bond was unparalleled. Burnt into their genes, that instinct to work with each other – like their parents before them and theirs before them, stretching to the very beginning of Konoha history. No matter the age, there was always a three-person team of the Nara-Yamanaka-Akimichi variety. And they were it for their generation, boxed into their parents' expectations. And in some respects, exceeding them despite the lack of a large-scale world war. Until now.
10:56 p.m. August 5th in the fifth year of the Godaime of Konoha
"What do you think it is?" Chouji asks, raiding the rations cupboard for anything he can find. Shikamaru feels a flaring urge for a cigarette, and passes the rest of his meal to Chouji without a word.
The fog is heavy enough to enter their tent, and Shikamaru is sure he can hear the tell-tale shush-shush of the ocean, rolling the fog into their minds.
"Stress. We've all been under it. Ino's just snapped. She doesn't mean it." Shikamaru waits for Chouji to back him up, but he remains silent, keeping his own counsel.
"Really?" he finally breaks the silence, wanting to believe. But his face is serious and the food isn't disappearing. "It can't just be this. This – this has been easy in comparison."
"It's been a long year."
"A few long years." Chouji remarks and Shikamaru is surprised at the dryness of the reply.
"Fuck." Shikamaru sighs out, aware of Chouji's sidelong glance and nod.
"Yeah. We fucked up." He agrees.
Dusk has long set, and the wait for dawn will be hard.
Tenten is on night-shift, which is just as well because Ino wants the rest. Shikamaru and Chouji knock on her tent, or rather scratch at it, begging for entry. Reason of years (and promises made) make her give in at their insistence. She's the strength behind their eyes, pushing on forward.
Their eyes are glassy when she finally meets them head-on. There's a silence, and they crouch, full combat-gear, in the mouth of the tent while she shelters under her regulation blanket and mat.
She licks her lips – the boys take note of them - chapped, her ashen face, hair limp – against the contrast of the living pink of her tongue. There's life in her body yet, waiting to be drawn to the surface.
Her patience is thin, and she lets them know it with a well-placed sigh and a half-hearted roll of the eyes. Expectant, waiting for them to cajole, plead, beg and finally, perhaps, threaten her into returning.
"So." Shikamaru starts. And stops. Evidence of how very uncomfortable he is, and she thanks him for being here nonetheless.
"We thought…." Chouji attempts. Shikamaru nods, entreating him to continue. He stares off to the right of her.
"Ye—s?" Ino snaps out, patience rubbed raw like a roll of shinobi wire.
Chouji coughs, the metal plates of his uniform clank awkwardly in the silence as he brings up a hand to his mouth.
"We thought…" he begins again, babbling, "We thought that, when we get back, perhaps we should all look at taking a vacation somewhere. You know. Just the three of us. You can choose, it's totally up to you. No pressure. We don't have to come if you don't want us to. Or you know. You could ask Sakura maybe. Although she seems a little pre-occupied with Lee and Naruto and Sasuke. Or ask Hinata. I mean it's up to you really…." he dwindles to a stop, worrying his lip, unsure of what they are expecting.
Ino is stunned. This really had not been expected on her part, and she's touched that they were thinking of her rather than the team. It's enough to bring tears to her eyes, that they care.
"Uhh. Ino?" Chouji hesitantly asks. Shikamaru seems frozen in the spot.
Ino wipes at her face and Chouji traces those fingers with the memory of his doing the very same thing earlier.
"So—" she laughs, and it is a beautiful unimpeded sound, launching clear of her lungs, "I hear the Fire Coast is great this time of the year."
Ino finds herself crushed under the tender embraces of her two team mates, shaking with relief, and they know it will be ok.
Somehow.
Fin.