Chapter IV
"You really shouldn't be wandering around a shinobi village late at night, you realise. If a patrol had found you instead of I… well, things might not have been so pleasant," the other woman remarked curtly as they reached the inn.
"I lost track of the time," Ino replied. "Thanks for the help, Miss…"
"Nii Yugito," the other answered.
"Thank you, Yugito-san. My name is Ino. Would you like to come in for a bit…?"
Yugito shook her head, "Not tonight, unfortunately. I'm busy. Was this your first day here? I don't think I've seen you around before now."
"Yes, it is. Too much excitement, I suppose," she added with a grimace. While that wasn't the reason behind her collapse, obviously, it was true. She had had a bit of trouble getting into the country unnoticed, though she had managed to "convince" a local daimyou to give her documents proving that she was one of his citizens.
Yugito smiled slightly, "You should probably arrange to speak with the Raikage soon, especially if you're planning on staying here for a while."
"I'll take that into consideration, thanks," Ino replied.
Yugito frowned, "On second thought, perhaps you should get yourself checked out at the hospital. Fainting spells aren't all that normal."
"I…" Ino started to decline, before wondering if this might be one of those opportunities of which she should probably take advantage. But announcing her presence to a whole bunch of people at the same time in such a manner wasn't a risk she really wanted to take just yet. Smothering a yawn, Ino shook her head, "If it happens again, I will. But right now I think I'd rather rest."
"All right. Have a nice night," Yugito replied, running off and disappearing into the night, leaving Ino in front of the door to the inn.
Ino stared after her for a moment, deciding against doing any more work tonight. She knew she'd have a difficult time explaining why she was wandering around if things went poorly again. A pity she hadn't been able to get Yugito to stay, however. She probably would have been able to get a lot more interesting information out of her than she had managed with Deidara, who hadn't been from here any more than she had.
Still, it was better to take things slowly with a mission like this.
She turned around and opened the door to the inn, quickly making her way back to her own room. Upon reaching it she frowned, glancing around. Something was wrong, she sensed, but she couldn't figure out exactly what. Her bag was still sitting on the table in the corner, but was that the exact angle at which she had left it?
Damn it, Ino thought. She was supposed to be trained to keep track of things like this. Irrationally nervous, she walked over and opened the bag, checking to see that nothing was missing. One glance inside the bag and she bit back a curse. She had a peculiar way of packing things; how to pack bags in a specific, signature manner had been one of the first things her father had taught her. While you could not necessarily stop someone from going through your things, you could ensure that you could always tell whether such an invasion had occurred.
Grimacing slightly, Ino noted how every item in the bag was in a slightly different position than it had been before. Whoever had gone through it was certainly good at what they did: everything was almost perfectly placed. However small hints that only Ino would have been able to pick up on were still there.
She quickly sorted through the items, making certain that her hitai-ate was still there. There was no reason to think it wasn't, of course. Any shinobi careful enough to almost perfectly memorise the order in which the items had been placed wouldn't undo all of his work by stealing something so obvious, but Ino still breathed a sigh of relief upon finding her forehead protector at the bottom.
She pulled it out again, cursing herself. She'd been an idiot leaving it like that; what was she going to do now? She was afraid to leave it in the bag, in case someone else chose to look through it again in order to ascertain something, but she was more wary of taking it out. If the shinobi of Kumogakure knew who she was now, her only advantage would be that they didn't know that she knew.
Assuming, of course, that it had been Cloud ninja who had searched her room. She could not imagine who else might be interested, but she still knew that such could be a dangerous assumption to make.
With a weary sigh, Ino returned everything to her bag and pulled out several kunai. She hadn't slept that well or often on the journey from Konoha to Kumo, and had had a taxing time of getting clearance to enter the foreign village at all. The soul transfer jutsu was an incredible advantage when it came to such goals, but it definitely had its shortcomings. She couldn't have simply used it heedlessly on random custom officials and have expected to pass unnoticed, of course.
The episode with the owl had also taken its toll on her, Ino realised. She was exhausted and rather low on chakra. She didn't know how easily (or how safely) she was likely to be able to sleep tonight, but doubted she would be able to function all that well tomorrow if she didn't get any rest. And if her cover had been blown, as was almost certainly the case, she doubted she'd be able to survive that much longer without a clear head.
Determined to decide how to continue in the morning, Ino locked and carefully booby-trapped the door and window, unfurled the futon and hid a pair of kunai under the pillow. It wouldn't be that great an advantage if she was stormed during the night, but it still made her feel a bit safer. In any case, she figured that if anyone had been ready to take immediate action, they would have already been waiting for her when she reached the room earlier.
Thus attempting to reassure herself, Ino climbed into bed, fighting back her fears and uncertainties.
Sleep was a long time coming, and dawn even longer.
When morning came, Ino was happy to find herself still alive and undisturbed. Eating a quick breakfast, she tried to figure out what she was going to do now. Even though someone in Kumogakure must have figured out that she was a shinobi of Konoha, this didn't necessarily prove that she was here for any particularly nefarious reason. If she could throw off the suspicion that she was here as a spy, she could probably still finish her mission.
Easier said than done, she realised, knowing how difficult it was going to be to get something done while she tried to convince everyone around her that she wasn't trying to do that very thing.
She would have to figure out just who had gone through her bag, and how far the news had spread. If most of the powerful or influential shinobi in Kumo now realised that she was from Konoha, it might be the best course of action to simply identify herself as a Konoha nin on vacation. Or perhaps even on the run, she considered, thinking of Sasuke. That would probably make more sense after having hidden her hitai-ate.
She didn't want to have to resort to such a plan except as a last resort, and certainly not unless her identity had become common knowledge.
Finishing her breakfast, Ino gathered herself and left her room and the inn, trying not to look suspicious. It was a doubly hard façade to manage, since she had to both fool the people who didn't know who she was, without being careful enough to indicate that she realised that somebody had already discovered her origin.
Well, she thought to herself, at least they have no way of knowing about the signature Yamanaka jutsu. Of course, considering the fiasco of the night before, she didn't really trust herself to use it again just yet. Not to mention how difficult it could be to hide that jutsu. She doubted she would be able to continue to pass it off as a fainting spell indeterminately.
It would probably be best if I took it easy for today, Ino thought; at this point anything she could learn about Kumo or her own precarious position wasn't worth the risk of destroying her chances once and for all. No, she'd be better off spending the day relaxing and trying to throw off suspicion.
Ino wished that Yugito had told her where she lived. She thought it very unlikely that the other woman knew who she was yet (unless Kumogakure shinobi had a penchant for midnight meetings), and realised that if she was going to have to build up a plausible back-story, she was going to need an unsuspicious audience.
Ino wandered through the ill-kept streets of Kumo, trying unsuccessfully to banish her nervousness. The roads were much more crowded than they had been the day before, and a vague sense of being observed plagued her. Every time she couldn't stop herself from looking, however, everybody nearby seemed to be ignoring her. Perhaps too much. I'm going crazy, Ino lamented, wondering how much of a disappointment she would be if she simply fled the village.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw several shinobi training. Another pair on the corner was doing something that didn't remotely involve practice, and Ino felt herself blushing. Everyone was much too busy to be paying any attention to her, but the feeling of eyes persisted.
Think, she ordered herself, forcing herself to get a handle on the situation again.
It wasn't as if Yugito was the only person in Kumogakure she had met, she reasoned. Deidara might not be as ideal a candidate, considering that he wasn't from Kumo either, but if she hadn't been here to gather intelligence, she would have wasted no time getting to know a good looking stranger. Such behaviour wouldn't get her very far in learning anything new, but would probably be one of the better ways of throwing off suspicion.
Not to mention, it would be a lot of fun.
Feeling better about her situation for reasons she didn't care to look at too closely, Ino continued down the street, better able now to ignore the vague sense of being watched that still refused to disappear entirely. She remembered the basic location of the Ginkawa Inn; she'd reached it in the few brief moments before she had lost all control whatsoever of the owl's mind. Ino shook that particular memory away; she'd been an idiot to try to use that jutsu in that manner already, and couldn't afford another blunder like that.
Observing the buildings from the ground was considerably different than looking at them from the sky while losing grip of her sanity, Ino noticed. As she moved to the northeast along the dirt roads of Kumogakure, she watched in fascination as the quality of the structures around her slowly began to improve. She wondered if the southern section was a lot poorer than the rest of village, and why, in the wake of such destruction, nobody had bothered to put enough effort into rebuilding it.
Whoever owns these houses is rich, at least, she thought, stopping in front of a side road that led to a group of similarly constructed buildings, all of which seemed to bear a family crest. Her first thought was of the section of Konoha once inhabited by the Uchiha Clan. More than once in her childhood, before tragedy had befallen them, at least, she had been curious about where Sasuke had lived, and had followed him home.
The thought was unpleasant, and Ino tried to force it out of her head.
Unfortunately, she couldn't as easily force herself to move away from the spot. She didn't have the faintest idea who lived here, but she found the contrast between this section and the rest of the village she had seen so far disturbing. Ino frowned, now reminded of the Hyuuga clan back home, and the horrific story about it that had come to light during her first Chuunin Exam. Did this family possess some sort of advanced bloodline as well, and did they suppress their own clansmen because of it? Perhaps not, but I'd bet that they control the rest of the village, she decided, biting her lip.
Well, I'm not here to investigate clan politics. Not yet, at least. The feeling of being watched returned tenfold, and once more Ino could help but turn around to figure out who else was around. Yet again, she was greeted by the sight of an empty street, and forced herself to calm down and move on.
Luckily for Ino, right next to this clan's compound was a small flower shop. Delighted at finding something so familiar in this alien and hostile place, all thoughts of politics fled her mind, and without even stopping to wonder what a flower shop was even doing in a disaster ridden village, she went over to see just what they had. Part of the shop was open air, and there appeared to be a mixture of live and planted flowers and the cut variety. The shopkeeper, a middle-aged woman reading in a corner, looked up at her curiously before turning back to her book.
The climate here must be really good for plants, Ino decided, noticing how much bigger some of these were compared to the ones she grew back home. She wasn't overly surprised, though. She supposed they got more than enough rain in the Land of Lightning, even if there wasn't as much sun as was theoretically ideal. She recognised most species, though there were several that were likely local.
"I like this one best, yeah," a familiar voice rang out. Surprised, she turned to see Deidara standing in front of a plant with marvellous purple blossoms. He was wearing the same black outfit that he had the other day, and Ino found herself wondering what he'd look like in a different colour.
She forced the ridiculous thought from her mind, far more concerned with where he had come from, and how he had managed to come upon her unawares. So far, he hadn't really acted much like a shinobi, but she didn't like the concept that a normal person might be able to sneak up on her like that. Well, at least I won't have to go all the way to the Ginkawa Inn after all, she thought ruefully.
Moving closer to get a better look at the flower he was still watching, she said truthfully, "It's beautiful." Ino didn't recognise it, but had to admit that it was one of the lovelier flowers in the shop.
Deidara smiled—well, on anyone else, it would be a smile. In his case, she actually wasn't sure yet whether that expression was a smile or a smirk. He reached out and plucked one of the flowers, twirling it thoughtfully between his fingers. "It only blooms for a day, you know," he told her, his tone a bit too intrigued to be matter of fact. "One day, and then it fades and dies, yeah."
Ino wasn't overly surprised (though his rapt manner was a bit disconcerting); it was hardly the only flower with such a short lifetime about which she had heard. She watched in silence for as he continued to admire the flower for a moment more before without warning crushing it in his fist and letting it fall to the floor. She frowned, staring at the ruined blossom, "Hey, why did you do that?"
For an instant he looked surprised at the question. "Why not, hm?" he asked, with a slight shrug, his surprise settling into mild amusement. "It was going to die anyway. At least you'll remember it now, yeah."
That's for sure, she thought to herself, reanalysing her earlier conclusion that Sasuke was the more mysterious of the two. Shaking her head, she said, "Still, that wasn't necessary. There are ways to preserve flowers, you know, to keep them looking fresh for a long time, even if they only bloom for a day. It's not that hard for a florist."
She wondered why she was having a conversation about floristry with an almost complete stranger, but oddly enough found herself rather enjoying it. Her closest friends back home had very little interest in the topic, after all—Chouji was only interested in plants that were edible, and Shikamaru saw no point in discussing them at all. The finer details in life just weren't of interest to most shinobi, she thought ruefully.
The dangerous look in Deidara's visible eye drained all enjoyment of the situation from Ino, however, and almost made her reach for the kunai she'd hidden away (possible blown cover or not, she didn't feel remotely comfortable walking around a foreign shinobi village completely unarmed). What had she said to offend him?
The look was gone as quickly as it had come, however. "How are you going to preserve something, hm? Strip away everything that it is, leaving just an empty shell? Something of beauty isn't meant to last forever, yeah. It can't," he finally said, much more mildly than she'd have expected a second ago. Trying to keep up with his rapid mood swings, Ino felt slightly stunned. What did flowers and shells have to do with one another anyway?
He misinterpreted her confused look, and continued, "You think you can keep something beautiful forever, hm? Well, you can't. How long do you think you'd have continued to look at that flower and see beauty, hm? How long before you'd have stopped seeing it as anything at all? Either it fades to nothing in reality, or it fades to nothing in your own mind, yeah."
The volume of his voice was slowly escalating, and Ino found herself looking around nervously, hoping he wasn't making too much of a scene now. He seemed to realise how loud he was getting, because when he continued, he was considerably less manic. "Better to just destroy it. That's the only way you can make it worth remembering, in the end." Coming back to his senses, Deidara hesitated for a moment before saying softly, almost to himself, "What's the use of surrounding yourself with undying beauty if you're no longer alive enough to feel any of it, hm?"
Ino stared at him speechlessly for a moment. Sakura would probably take this opportunity to call him crazy, but Sakura was far too book smart and not nearly perceptive enough. Shikamaru was by far the most intelligent person she knew, but she had never heard him say anything remotely like that. Sasuke had been hot, and definitely mysterious, but she wondered now how much of that mystery had been illusory, her own desire for something exotic.
This… Ino hadn't yet decided whether or not she agreed with him—any knowledge she had had concerning the nature of beauty revolved around its various uses in accomplishing missions. Philosophy wasn't of much use in the shinobi trade, after all. She couldn't imagine someone with such an outlook coming out of a ninja village, and decided that despite his various peculiarities, he had to be just a commoner. A rather eccentric commoner.
Oddly enough, the thought fascinated her.