You're my white whale, Holy Grail. Nemesis is what propels me forward. I will prevail.
Ino swore dispassionately as she struggled to treat the Aburame.
"You!" she snapped waspishly, ambushing Iruka as he entered the room "Help me get this off"
One did not resist professional Medics on duty, much less volatile ones.
Chastened Iruka let himself be manhandled into assisting her into divesting Shino of his trademark long coat.
And nearly lost his arm as his shoulder was almost torn out of his socket. That coat must have weighed at least eighty kilos! The heavy fabric leeched strength from his fingers, clung possessively to skin at the slightest contact. He let it plummet with a dull thump, eyeing the small impact crater with apprehension.
"Careful" Ino warned belatedly. "That thing's heavy." Her mind was already absorbed in diagnosing the medical problem at hand.
Shino's torso was a pale canvas of color: blue contusions and red abrasions dominated a patchwork map of overlaid wheals and welts. Iruka winced as Ino worked in silence, occasionally clicking her teeth as her hands soothed bruised flesh into dormancy.
At last the blue green aura faded from her arms. Slumped, Shino appeared much recovered although weakened, expelled his thanks in slow controlled breaths.
Relived Ino, tucked a wayward strand behind here before realizing exactly who it was she had accosted. Knowing the issues at hand she eyed both of them disdainfully.
"Men!"
Ino exited in a cloud of haughtiness, unwilling to stand the growing tension.
Iruka waited till her footsteps had faded. "I need to discuss..."
Genma appeared bearing a flask of iced tea and two cups. Wordlessly he stepped around Iruka, poured a generous amount and served them both.
Flabbergasted Iruka accepted, only to nearly drop the stoneware as Genma suddenly dissolved into a swarm.
"Genma is posted on the northern gate entrance" Shino said calmly sipping his tea, dismissing the fact that he undergone high intensity fast paced combat whist maintaining rigid control among three-no-four separate facades for over the better part of an hour.
"Drink your tea"
Iruka took a sip.
It was good tea he decided.
"It isn't poisoned" Shino disclosed a moment after Iruka swallowed.
Coughing Iruka gave Shino his best glare which had as much effect as willing a mountain to dance.
"Enough games." Iruka declared. "Shino, you've got to understand. Whatever you and she shared its over. Sakura isn't the girl you fell for. She's had to grown far faster, had more responsibilities than the entire ANBU corps since the last war. You know what she faces. Kohonoa's future lives or dies by what she can accomplish."
"You don't know a tenth of what she had to do. She can't afford unnecessary distractions. Remember you chose to leave because you weren't ready. You still aren't. We've been together for months. She means more to me than you could possibly understand.
You may have known her first but she's with me now. I know her moods, her fears, her joys. I won't just let her go on your say so."
She's a twenty one year jounin with the face of a fourteen year old girl. She has different needs, ones you have no experience with."
"I know what she needs." Steeling himself, Iruka played his trump card "Intimately."
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For a long time Shino cultivated silence while the kikia scribbled hypnotic patterns on the wall behind him.
With each passing moment he grew more and more still, an empty shell whose spirit had fled. Iruka might have as well been alone with a statue. The only sounds were the clattering of tiny mandibles intermingled with the dull rhythmic roar of the crowd. Gradually these also faded and still there was no reaction. The void grew until Iruka was sure he had forgotten what the very sounds meant.
"Genjustu is a demanding art. Other minds construct must stories to make sense of the world; they improvise reality in order to accommodate their needs. An illusionist must perceive the world in minute detail and the barest of impressions simultaneously."
"This same awareness lends itself well to tracking. But to be truly successful one must study his quarry intently, to discern the patterns and systems to not only determine her present course of action, but the insight to predict her reaction to future events as well."
"From nature," he counted off. "Scent. Taste, Touch. You visualize very millimeter of her body, inside and out. Every. Single. Feature. You know her quirks and habits, her perfect imperfections; you know her voice when she doesn't speak: her quiet sighs; her breathless moans. The combination of education and imagination is what torments you.
To picture someone else physically with her is an exquisite torture. "
For the first time Iruka was subjected to the full unmitigated influence of the undivided intensity of what lay behind the Aburame's eyes to the exclusion of all else.
"That sort of passion could drive a man to ruin and madness." Shino whispered "Who knows what such men are capable of?"
Shino turned away and Iruka remembered to breathe again only to feel his heart freeze at the casualness of Shino's next words.
"I begin to understand the Uchina now"
Iruka did not dare to begin to puzzle out the hidden implications in those words. Some traps were best left untriggered.
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"You may have temporarily sated her physical needs little man, but true hunger comes from within. Our souls sparked as one. We share a connection that transcends limits, ideals no language can express. That type of intimacy never truly ends."
Stubbornly Iruka rallied "This isn't about you or me. It's about Sakura. What's best for her."
"How do you think she would react, how she would feel to know the two who profess to love her were scrabbling like ….like this" words failed him.
But not Shino.
This..." He gestured encompassing them both without moving his arms,"... is the world Sakura fears, the world that exists in a microcosm. Two entities desiring the same objective; one that cannot be shared or divided, resulting in the total destruction of all involved."
"Sakura returned to change a specific sequence of events, one that resulted in the annihilation of Konohoa and all those involved in it. To that end she will do anything, sacrificing much of herself and although she is close to accomplishing her goals, she has lost, or forgotten who she is. As long as the threat exists she will continue to diminish."
"Unless someone intercedes. Unless some one becomes the vigilant protector, the shield that the world will break upon. The rock that can unite the lost in times of tempest and destruction. A man who can inspire others to the greatness inherent in all mankind. A man who gives a damn."
"I WILL be that man. And I WILL not do so alone."
"My battle, in comparison, is straightforward. I am fighting for a world where she no longer has too. It is simple. Save the world. Save the Girl."
"When that day comes… she will remember who she is ….and what she wants."
"That day is closer than you think"
With great deliberation Shino arose, secure in his victory, a conqueror declining the formality of executing the finishing blow.
"There is no need" Shino enunciated each syllable clearly "to fight you at all."
