Disclaimer: I still don't own the characters.
The next day she returned home from her training trip with the boys and Choza learning about the Big-boulder technique. Ino was finally home. Safe in her room, barely dotted with blue and green bruises from training. She was safe now. Resting off muscle aches and bruised ego. Asami clenched her hands in the fabric flowers patterning her dress. She had mauled them with nerves twisting and plucking at them while she waited at home after she had finished her debrief with her captain. In two hours, she had gone from chiseled and painted with ruddy lips in a flattering dress flirting information out of her mark in Tako-no to being a mother. A very worried mother. Nervous instead of deliberate and controlled. She was so much lighter at home. In the eyes of the Hidden Leaf she was a Clan head's wife: beautiful, enviable with a beautiful healthy living daughter.
She wasn't like the late Lady Hyuuga or Uchiha or even Yoshino-san. She could play the part of dutiful wife, but she still worked in that dark twisted part of Shinobi life. She was a seductress, an impersonator, adaptable enough to get inside someone's head and take their secrets and leave bodies on the floor. Asami had worked so hard to keep her work outside of their home because Inochi deserved better, and Ino needed her to be emotionally available she had to be better for them. She left the dark twisted and unbeautiful parts in the job, Inochi had wanted her to continue her work and leave her destruction and poison on the weak masses and they had never taken the work home. They filled their home with flowers to raise their little princess. She was their miracle baby born against the rules of being actively involved in the Infiltration corps. There was so much scandal in the Clan after Ino was born whether she really was Inochi's after they had only been married seven months that was disproven when they saw her eyes. Only the Yamanaka and Hyuuga had those pupilless eyes and they still squawked after her beautiful daughter and she damn as hell wasn't carrying the Byakugan. As if Asami would be stupid enough to carry a child for that clan who was notorious for kidnapping those unworthy and branding both baby and mother for service as servants. It was when Ino was five and started learning the Clan techniques did they finally stop whispering behind their backs after all surviving the mind arts needed a genetic trait no other clan could handle the strain. No one ever spoke directly to Mother or daughter about the suspicions of her being a bastard, Inochi would have killed them or worse; calmly left them trapped in their nightmares left as vegetable drooling on the floor. Even that sunflower pretty boy had his darkness especially after entering and pillaging the secrets of the nation's enemies. Both golden haired and united in the dark twisted dregs of Kohona.
In the day's following Tsunade-sama's visit Inochi and Asami had spent nights whispering in their bedroom about Ino-chan. Whether they would even let her stay on as a Shinobi or Clan-heir. Mazukado's daughter was pregnant they could pass the title and duties on to another close branch of the main family. Ino wouldn't need to stay in danger and be exposed to this dark world Inochi and Asami belonged. They would lose only a little standing but they had the flower shop and specialized in poisons and trade. Inochi still was a part of the original trio and was on the council. Ino could work and learn safe at home. No dangerous missions, no threats of being raped if captured, no mental and physical torture why not let the rest of these juggernaut clans take the risk? Asami sighed and realized her foolish hopes wouldn't last because Inco climbed everything, every challenge. She scrapped her knees, she beat up Choji's and Shika's bullies, she saw and pulled up Sakura-chan she was never not going to be in the thick of conflict and Inochi had raised his little princess to take heads physically and mentally. Ino had seen the world and she was never going to sit back and not be a part of the fight. Stupid Grandmother Senju. This was not the way she wanted to speak with her Great Aunt. Well third cousin at this point the Senju line was so twisted and buried into the lesser clans of Konoha it was hard to keep track. This was not how Ino should meet the last of the Senju's.
Coral manicured hands glided down her skirt as the heels of her soft hands smoother out the wrinkles in her dress as Asami finally worked up the courage to speak with her firecracker daughter. It would be better to speak her directly and then bring Inochi into the mix. He may walk through the human mind but Ino-chan didn't need a professional she just needed her mother. She made her way up to Ino-chan's room on the upper floor. Her room faced the east wing of the house, strategically nestled in seals and oleander creeping along the outer walls of the house to detract against unwanted visitors. It's grey bark and purple tinged flowers were the perfect deterrent along with strategic air disseminating seals put in place after Cloud's attempted kidnapping nine years ago on another Konoha heiress. "Ino-chan can I come in?" the soft demure voice of a mother ringing out, it still was foreign after all these years. "Sure", Ino replied bright sounding.
TBC.