Title: Between Sun and Moon.

By: Kaara.

Disclaimer: … Do I have to go through this mundane routine again? Fine. I don't own Naruto. Happy now?

Warning: Serious lack of explicit fighting scenes. I love them. I hate writing them. You can't make me write them. Live with it.

Please Read.

Aa… I was amused, to say the least. It seems like last chapter's 'Review or I'll 'accidentally' delete the next chapter' remark sparks quite a few /different/ responses. Allow me to point out that I have a rather… twisted sense of humour and I thought Chapter Two's 'mutated killer squirrels' had made it quite plain. Apparently not. I was /not/ threatening anyone (specifically all of you) to review; I was merely humouring myself when I typed it. Would a sane writer delete his/her chapter after all the sweat and time devoted to finishing it? If there /are/ such writers, I'm glad to admit that I'm not one of them. My apology if you found it to be unbefitting and such. I was, am and will always be a Fool at heart.

Thank you.

xxx

Chapter Four: Andante.

xxx

Ino placed her sandals on the footwear rack, sighing as fatigue finally wormed its way into her system after all the excitement. The day had been a rough one, both mentally and physically. Yawning, Ino rubbed her knuckles over her eyes, yearning for a hot bath to wash away the collected sweat and her comfortable bed to sleep away the weariness. And to think that they had another meeting tomorrow morning. Well, Kakashi-sensei better be early for once and not planning anything downright sadistic again this time, she thought wryly. The girl was fairly surprised to see her parents sitting by the dining table when she pushed the back door open, as if they were waiting for her. Suppressing another yawn, Ino ambled in and closed the door behind her softly.

"I'm home," Ino unnecessarily announced, unnecessary being that Inoshi and Saeki had turned towards her direction when she had first opened the door. Her mother had a gaunt expression on her lovely face; her cheeks slightly flushed and had dry trails that looked suspiciously like tears running down her face. Inoshi, face unnaturally impassive, raised his hand to greet Ino. Smiling tiredly, the girl joked, "Are we having a family meeting now? 'Cause it won't do to wake up our neighbours if Mom starts throwing plates at Dad like the last time."

Inoshi laughed at that, though it sounded oddly strained to Ino's ears and she caught the fleeting glance the jounin spared towards Saeki. The blonde girl frowned and despite wishing that she could just go upstairs, had her shower and snuggled into Mr. Snuffles, Ino found herself pulling back a chair, the sound of scraping of wood against tiles breaking the silence inside the space. Her mother's manicured fingers were curled tightly around a mug, pensively staring into the dark, swirling depth of the coffee without a word. Ino had no idea of what had gone wrong between her parents but somehow, she felt like it had something to do with her, one way or another. If not, they would've gone to bed and sulked at each other for the rest of the week, instead of waiting for her. Was her mother still upset over her decision to become a ninja? Or was she dissatisfied over her achievements?

"Ino," her father's even voice snapped Ino out of her short trance. She tilted her head up to meet the jounin's eyes. "How was your dinner at Iruka-sensei's house?"

A grin eased its way onto Ino's supple lips. "It was great! We played Scrabble before that — Naruto cheated tons of times — and I helped Iruka-sensei with the ramen and rice. He's a really good cook." She glanced at Saeki and hastily added, "But not as good as Mom, of course!"

Saeki's grip on her mug tightened noticeably.

Her father nodded, albeit distractedly. Then, he squared his shoulder and scratched the back of his right ear, an impulsive reaction that he did everytime he was hesitating about something. "And this… Naruto, what do you think about him?"

There was something in the tone of Inoshi's voice that made Ino sharply looked away from her mother and stared at the jounin. That was the second time someone asked her what she thought of Naruto. Her curiosity was kicking in again, full force. "Why?"

Inoshi scratched the back of his ear again and asked, "Why what?"

"Iruka-sensei asked me the same thing," the girl revealed, her eyes narrowed to slits in suspicion. She drummed her fingers against the wooden surface of the table, waiting. "Is there something you're not telling me, Dad?"

"We… are just concerned… uh, about your teammates," came the stammered reply, and Inoshi was practically clawing at his ear by then. He was never a decent liar to begin with and Saeki, the better one between them, was not helping at all. The jounin sneaked another glance at his unresponsive wife and groaned inwardly.

Deciding that the sooner this 'interrogation' end, the earlier she could escape into her room, Ino impatiently said, "Naruto's stubborn and stupid. Sasuke's cold and annoying. Can I /please/ go now? I'm so tired and we have this meeting tomorrow morning and I'm dead sure that Kakashi-sensei will be late /again/." She was whining but Ino was beyond care. Shower and bed! Shower and bed! NOW!

"Do you like the Uzumaki boy, Ino?"

Ino blinked at the question, impatience swallowed by the insistence in her mother's voice. There was the hidden urgency, the need to know her answer that overwhelmed Ino. What is it with everyone and Naruto? "… Yeah, he's okay. At least he's not brooding and angsting around like Sasuke."

"You like him even though he's stubborn and stupid?" Saeki's tone was flat, persistent and flat. It was starting to unnerve the blonde girl. Her mother /never/ used that kind of tone before, not even in her worst temper. And she would rather face a yelling Saeki with plates in hand than this kinda silent Saeki if she were given an option.

And because she /hadn't/ been given an option, the girl had to think fast.

"I… Naruto always tries his hardest, really," Ino finally said, earnestly. "He told me he failed the Genin Exam /three/ times before he passed. And I don't know why but almost everyone seems to hate him. He's a really nice person when he's not yelling or complaining about my vegetarian ramen. Or calling Sasuke names, but that's unavoidable. And there were these two old hags at his apartment… You won't believe how horrible his apartment is! It's old, and smelly and, and…" she trailed on, remembering her promise to clean said apartment that coming weekend. Looking up, Ino was taken aback when she realized that Inoshi and Saeki were both staring intently at her. She also realized that her fingers had clenched into tight fists on her lap, the end of her dark purple skirt twisted between the slender digits. Visions of that brief flash of loneliness in Naruto's eyes and the disgust-filled sneer from the two old women flitted through her mind. Bowing her head, Ino said, almost pleadingly (though she could've sworn afterwards that she /did not/ sound like /that/), "Please don't hate him."

Inoshi placed his calloused hand on his daughter's shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. "That's enough, princess." He turned to face his wife. "Don't you think so, Saeki?"

The dark-haired woman closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. Her fingers slowly stopped strangling the mug, her hands rested palms down on the table. Then, she smiled, a small, watery smile that somehow whisk away the frightful gauntness that dominated her face earlier. She looked almost like the ordinary Saeki that Ino knew and loved. "Of course."

"Okay, now that everyone's not acting all weird anymore, is anyone going to tell me /what/ exactly is wrong with Naruto?" Ino blurted out impatiently, glaring at her parents with as much authority as a twelve year old could possibly garner.

Which accumulated approximately to nothing.

"I have an idea!" Inoshi interjected with enthusiasm, as though he hadn't heard a single word that Ino had said. "Why don't we invite your teammates over for dinner tomorrow? You can help your Mom prepare the dishes and maybe you can even make that lovely chicken soup Grandma taught you."

"But, about Naru—"

"Don't forget the sensei, dear," cut in Saeki, wits pieced back together and was readily obliged to prevent any future unpleasantness that might arise between her daughter and a certain teammate least the secret uncover itself. She smiled her 'don't-worry-your-teammate-is-NOT-a-demon' smile at the bewildered Ino and placidly asked, "Kakashi, isn't it?"

"Yes, but Naru—"

Inoshi exclaimed, louder than necessary, "I heard Kakashi had to stand Guard at the Gate this entire week; Genma complained about that this morning. Said something about the slacker reading porn while working."

Ino was bordering exasperated, a breath away from pounding her fists on the table to demand attention from the two adults. "Naru—"

"Our daughter's sensei reads PORN?" the jounin scowled at his slip and cowered underneath his wife's towering figure as she advanced menacingly towards him, an equally menacing-looking frying pan in her hand. "Yamanaka Inoshi, answer my question!"

Uh oh.

"Can you please listen to me—"

"Please, honey, put /down/ that pan," somehow, Inoshi managed to squeak under the wrath of his wife, totally ignoring Ino. Though perhaps it would be kinder not to mention that the act was not due to his mission to distract his daughter from possible secret-digging. It was done solely on the basis of him coming out of the kitchen with his limbs intact and his skull free from pan-size crater. An angry Saeki with kitchen utensils was always a deadly combination, even if he /was/ a jounin.

"What is it about Naru—"

Saeki took another step forward. "Why didn't you tell me that our daughter's /sensei/ reads /unsuitable adult-rated reading material/ in PUBLIC?" The frying pan was by then gleaming dangerously under the artificial lighting of the kitchen and looked pretty much capable of amputating a jounin if it was given a chance and with proper handling. Saeki was a professional.

Huffing loudly, Ino crossed her arms against her chest and scowled. There was no way in hell her parents were going to tell her anything; not with Inoshi still trying to talk his way out of death by kitchenette and Saeki attempting to do just that. Sometimes, adults could be such children. Children with dangerous ideas and dangerous toys. The blonde girl heaved a sigh and quietly slipped away, remembering that she had a shower and a warm bed waiting for her upstairs. She managed to stow away some innocent plates that were within her mother's grabbing reach and inched towards the stairs with stealth that would have impressed even Kakashi-sensei. Flicking on the light switch, Ino staggered to her bed and flopped face down onto the soft mattress.

She had just defended /Naruto/ in front of her /parents/.

Ino groaned into the mattress, hands splayed above her head.

"I need a shower," she mumbled, willing her fingers to undone her ponytail and allowed her pale golden hair to pool uncomfortably around her face. Her elbows sunk into the mattress when she propped herself up, blinking blearily at her reflection across the room. A pale girl, with strands of hair sticking out in the most inelegant of ways all over her head greeted Ino. For a second time within two minutes, she groaned and repeated, "I need a shower."

It was a mystery how she survived the trip to the bathroom, pulled on her pyjamas (she might've missed a few buttons here and there) and crawled into her bed, as everything was a blur of memory to Ino. The last thing she remembered before collapsing into a dreamless comatose state was her mother's appalled screech and the black, beady eyes of Mr. Snuffles.

"YOU READ THAT PATHETIC EXCUSE OF A BOOK?"

Followed by a series of expensive crashes that echoed well over the neighbourhood.

xxx

The next morning was… calm. In the mildest of terms. Ino had woken up fully recharged and ready to yell at everyone and everything. It was bright and sunny outside, warm sunlight pouring inside her room once the blonde girl leaned over and unlatched the windows. The sky was beautifully cloudless, painted with the lightest shade of blue and buzzes of cheerful conversations reached Ino's ears from nearby marketplace. The girl lazily stretched, a satisfied smile playing on her lips as a few joints popped with the movement. She gathered some small articles of clothing that lay strewn across her room from last night and trudged into the bathroom, humming contentedly to herself as rivulets of water proceeded to soothe her sore muscles. Ino picked out a different outfit today, a short-sleeved dark purple top and a pair of black shorts. She eyed her reflection critically, smoothing visible wrinkles and grimacing in distaste when she found out that the top had clung tightly onto her body, showing off more curves than her usual clothes ever did.

Apparently, her mother had been too upset to do the laundry and left the poor girl with limited choice. Either the dark purple, tight top or a particularly pale pink dress shirt. With frills. It was unquestionable which one she would rather be found dead in. Drying her damp hair vigorously with a towel, Ino glanced at the electronic clock on her bedside table, the bold red numbers told her that she had half an hour to do her hair, wolf down breakfast and arrive in time for her team meeting. She flung the towel away, reaching for the hairdryer and hairbrush at the same time. Five minutes later, Ino was hopping down the stairs, trying to fix a couple of buttons on her shorts so that her thighs would not be as exposed as it would've been if she left the buttons on their own. A roll of gauze clamped by her teeth, Ino's colourful profanities were thankfully reduced to mere muffles and the occasional grunts as she skipped into the kitchen. The buttons finally admitted defeat after more fumbling and Ino slid with ease onto a chair.

"Morning, Dad," the girl chirped, smiling a little to brightly at Inoshi. The jounin was supporting a dark bruise underneath his left eye and Ino sharply observed that the set of imported plates her father had bought for her mother two weeks ago had disappeared from their place inside the glass display. Smirking knowingly at the frowning jounin, Ino poured some cereal into her bowl and popped open a carton of milk. "Where's Mom?"

"Outside. With flowers," Inoshi grunted, took a sip from his cup of coffee and leafed through his morning newspaper as to further ignore his daughter.

Ino chewed on her soggy cereal and pouted. Swallowing, she said, "It's not my fault you made Mom angry, you know?"

Her father shot her a betrayed glare before turning to his newspaper again.

"I was dead tired last night and it /was/ your fault to mention Icha Icha Paradise in front of Mom. I have to go," draining her glass of orange juice, Ino bounced to the door. "I'll ask the boys for dinner and somehow blackmail Sasuke if he don't want to go. Do you still want me to invite Kakashi-sensei?"

"NO."

The blonde girl shrugged happily and put on her sandals. "Okay then. See you later, Dad." And off she went, stopping at the flower shop to say goodbye and gave her mother a peck on the cheek.

The clearing was devoid of any living being except two distinctive figures that looked as though they were trying to kill each other from the distance. Ino, knowing better than trusting Naruto with Sasuke, sprinted towards them, fervently praying that they hadn't claw each other's eyeballs out. Or rather, Sasuke did the madman clawing part and Naruto play the hapless prey. Trying very hard not to imagine Naruto's face with two hollow sockets spurting forth blood and two dripping eyeballs clasped in Sasuke's pale hands, Ino increased her speed. When she arrived, her chest was flooded with an immense sense of relief. Naruto still had his eyes where they belonged and Sasuke was still pretty much… well, Sasuke. The blond boy was lying spread-eagled on his back, chewing on something that looked suspiciously like a celery stick as he watched the sky. Sasuke had resorted to his favourite pastime, tossing shuriken and kunai at an innocent tree somewhere to his left. She exhaled loudly, catching the attention of her two teammates.

"Ino-chan, you're late!" yelled Naruto accusingly, raising his head to glare at Ino from his lying position.

Sasuke acknowledged her presence by ignoring her. Typical.

Ino sauntered towards Naruto and sat besides the boy. "Kakashi-sensei's bad habit staring to rub off on me, I think."

"That's really serious," Naruto teasingly nodded, before rolling on his side and laughed loudly. Gasping for breath, the blond sputtered, "Imagine, Kakashi-sensei being contagious! Everyone would be late for everything and that dirty porn writer's going to be filthy rich. And the /Hokage/ with Icha Icha!"

"Yeah, you've got a point there," grinned Ino, brushing her bang away. She stared up the cloudless sky, thinking that Shikamaru would've been disappointed as he couldn't laze his ass around because his favourite cloud-watching activity would be futile if there was no clouds. Thoughts of Shikamaru somehow chained itself to a pink-haired girl with excessive forehead syndrome. Sakura must be off somewhere, with Shikamaru and Chouji… training… or yelling at Shikamaru to get off his butt and Chouji to stop eating. The grin on Ino's face widened; Sakura was stuck with Konoha's Sloth of the Century and a human vacuum cleaner while she had the overenthusiastic Naruto and the Uchiha survivor. Life couldn't have been better. Somewhere amidst entertaining herself with Sakura's possibly scarring experience with her two childhood friends, Ino was acutely aware of eyes burning invisible hole on her. She frowned and looked down at Naruto, who was looking up at her. "What're you staring at, you lech?"

"You," the boy answered, deadpan.

Pink tinges started to creep onto Ino's cheeks, much to her annoyance. "Why?"

Naruto chuckled somewhat embarrassedly, sat up and scratched the back of his head. He was still staring, though. "I dunno… I thought you look different today."

"I am?" Ino self-consciously smoothed her palm over the fabric of her dark purple top, frown darkening. "Is it the good kinda different or the bad kinda different?"

The boy took some time to consider his answer, before coming up with a, "It's the /good/ kinda different. You look—"

"Ino."

Both blondes looked up at the curt voice, only to find Sasuke standing inches away from Ino. He was glaring (was that murderously?) at Naruto and Ino's earlier images of an eyeless Naruto and Sasuke with extra eyeballs popped up most inconveniently from her memory box. Appalled, Ino shooed the images away and smiled at Sasuke. Hey, at least the Uchiha was making an attempt to start a conversation! That's a good development in his social department! … Which made the situation even more suspicious than it should. Why /was/ Sasuke talking in the first place? Ino figured that the best way to know things was to ask the very source of her curiosity. She mentally patted her back for such bright idea. "Yeah, Sasuke?"

"… There's something in your hair," that said, he extended his fingers and sifted them gently through Ino's ponytail, brushing out few bits of grass. Task done, Sasuke removed his hand and thrust it inside the pocket of his white shorts. His dark eyes were fixed on Ino's azure ones and the raising colour on her cheeks.

Ino swallowed and grinned awkwardly. "Uh, thanks. Didn't realize when those get in my hair."

"Hn."

To be brutally honest, Ino was actually expecting Sasuke to turn around and do whatever cool and boringly broody things that he usually done whenever they had to wait for Kakashi-sensei. That usually meant that he would be a clear twenty feet away from them with dangerous, pointy objects in his hands and an unsuspecting tree in his vision line. However, to her surprise, Sasuke opted to just stood there, a faraway look on his face and his lips thinning into a grim line. It was like watching a refined marble statue, except that statues did not go around freeing people's hair from the evil clutches of wild grass and Sasuke just did. Ino blinked in vexed confusion and glanced at Naruto, who were glaring obtrusively at the Uchiha. There was some kind of tension looming over those two, something that was unknown to Ino. And it royally pissed her off. She was sorely tempted to shake Naruto until he tell her what was going on but before she could do just that, a poof of smoke announced the arrival of their ever-late sensei.

"Yo."

Naruto and Ino automatically sprang onto their feet. "YOU'RE LATE!"

Kakashi-sensei's eye curved into a happy crescent and he held up a finger. "Aa, I was running through the forest when I ran across a giant panda—"

"LIAR!"

Sasuke grunted in time. "Hn."

"Well, we're going to the Hokage Tower today," the silver-haired jounin cheerfully declared, jumping off from the branch he appeared on and landed in front of the three genins. "You're doing your first mission today."

"YEAH!" Naruto roared, punching the air. "A mission! Will there be a runaway princess that needs bodyguard, or, or a priest on a secret mission to retrieve some holy things stolen by the mob, or, or, protecting a cook with a secret recipe that could make people live forever, or, or—"

Kakashi-sensei held up a hand to stop the tirade. "Hai, hai. You'll see once we get the mission scroll, Naruto." His one visible eye blinked appreciatively when it landed on Ino. "Changing your fashion style, Ino?"

The blonde girl furrowed her slim eyebrows and glanced down at her attire. It was still the same top and shorts she put on this morning; nothing too out of ordinary. "What's wrong with my clothes?"

"You have some nice cleavage line there," the jounin cheerfully (if not a bit too innocently) pointed out, a wide grin stretching underneath his mask. "You should ditch that old outfit of yours and wear something like this often."

A stunned silence met the statement.

"YOU STUPID, PERVERTED SENSEI!"

A very surprised Kakashi-sensei was forced to avoid a giant ball of flames and a dozen yelling 'Naruto's at the same time, propelling himself with an elegant arch onto a branch twenty feet above his students. Being a jounin, and the infamous Sharingan Kakashi nonetheless, the silver-haired ninja quickly assessed the situation and concluded after five seconds that two infuriated boys and a /ticked/ girl was not worth his life. After all, Konoha needed him for about twenty more years or until some berserker missing ninja killed him in a mission. His pride as a Konoha shinobi denied him of being killed on the ground that he had sprouted a dirty joke about his student. Naruto and his cluster of shadow clones were glaring heatedly up at the jounin while Sasuke opted for a more cool glare, looking as unruffled as he hadn't just attempted to barbecue his sensei. Ino was positively seething.

"That's sexual harassment, you idiot sensei!" Ino screeched heatedly, glaring daggers at the jounin. Her eyes were narrowed dangerously and her cheeks were painted brick red, no doubt from the bubble of mortification swelling inside her head. "I could've had you reported!"

Holding his hands up in defeat, Kakashi-sensei drawled out with as much innocence as an innocence-less jounin like him could muster, "It's just joke."

"Don't include Ino-chan in your dirty jokes, perverted sensei!" bellowed Naruto, one hand on his hip while another was pointed righteously at Kakashi-sensei.

Jumping down for the second time that morning alone, Kakashi-sensei chuckled good-naturedly and planted his hand on Naruto's head, avoiding a punch intended for his grinning face and messed up the blond spikes. "I'm impressed, though. You and Sasuke finally worked like one functional team, even if it was to kill me."

"Hn," Sasuke snorted and looked away.

The blond boy, however, had his jaw hung open in horror. "Sasuke-bastard and me did WHAT?"

"I guess I should thank Ino for that, eh?" the silver-haired jounin winked at the frowning girl. "Maybe I'll pitch more dirty jokes at you to get the boys working together in the future."

"Don't you dare!" hissed Ino acidly, pure malevolence radiating chakra-like from her and Kakashi-sensei, being the genius, knew which line he shouldn't cross and when he should quit poking at the girl. Ino wrapped her arms around herself defensively, the frown darkening. "Let's go to the Tower and get our frickin' mission already!"

At least /that/ made Naruto forgot his justified indignation at the jounin.

TBC

Review or I'll pair up Gai with Tsunade at the end of this fic.

Kaara