Cloak Mask waited politely for her to watch Sai go- or more probably, the bastard just didn't care- and then prodded, "Danzou has purchased a mission, tailored to your skill set. Please go collect it at the mission center at once. No one else will take it, but don't dally." With that, he spun on the spot, and was gone with a whoosh and a cloud of dirty grey-brown smoke.
Ino gaped at where he'd stood for a moment, fanning the oddly industrial-smelling smoke from her face, then pushed her face into her cold, damp palms for a moment, shaking. The tears were quick and involuntary, and when she lifted her head again, they blended invisibly with her already wet cheeks. A couple warming jutsus later- not her strong point, fire or heat, but every ninja who didn't want to get frostbite on a winter mission learned such things- and her clothes were mostly dry, though her hair was a frizzy mess.
"Whatever," she growled half-heartedly to the creek as she pulled on her boots. It only kept burbling merrily away into the shadowed trees, reflecting a softly shattered version of the blue sky and arching branches above. For one more moment, sitting there with impending tears still hot in her throat, she closed her eyes and listened, placing a hand on the smooth sun-warmed rock Sai liked to doodle on.
Then she stood up, took a few deep, deliberate breaths, and headed towards the Hokage tower, keeping her face carefully neutral. When she emerged from the Training Ground gate, Konoha was bustling with its typical early-morning business chaos. Traveling merchants scurried in every direction, preparing to hawk their exotic wares in one of the village's three big marketplaces. Local shop owners prepared to open, and huge ox carts bearing fresh produce from the southern farms were clattering up and down the streets. Ino's nerves were too frayed to stand it; she only lasted five minutes before taking to the rooftops, bounding uncaringly ahead with too little caution and too much chakra.
She fell once. She was too lost in her own panicked head, too caught in her own pounding heartbeat to stop herself from missing a step, and she skinned her palms and knees all to hell when she managed to stop the fall, ending up clinging with chakra to the side of the building, only ten feet from the unforgiving pavement.
"Fuck," she said, panting, desperately glad nobody was there to see her stupid Academy-student level mistake. She scrambled back up to the roof, ignoring the trail of smudged, bloody handprints she left on the dusty stone wall.
This carelessness wouldn't do. She was a kunoichi. Even better, she was a Yamanaka. She was literally born and bred for intrigue, and she would gladly die before endangering Konoha. This was it. There would be no second chances, no forgiveness. She might have to endure this for years. She might have to alienate her friends and lose all hope of reconciliation with her family just to survive this, let alone actually help Tsunade and Sai and the rest of the victims trapped in Root, but if she could-
"Pros and cons," she whispered to herself, letting the hot wind whip her river-scented hair about her face as she leapt, the roofs' tiles rattling beneath her grey boots. Shika was a huge proponent of pros and cons, though he'd never go so far as to actually sit down and write a real list; he just did it all in his head, in an instant, and the best way he'd ever managed to explain his sometimes baffling strategic decisions to her was that 'it was an equation'.
"Cold," she'd told him, and he'd only watched her with frightening old-man eyes, while stubbing out his stupid cigarette like the scared teenage boy he really was.
But-
It wasn't the worst way to approach something like this, something big. Ino made most of her decisions on the fly, the very opposite of her genius teammate, and she could unblushingly say that she usually had pretty good instincts.
Anyway, things often just seemed to work out for attractive people, which she knew and took shameless advantage of, but Danzou was an animal of an entirely different species. He had far-flung tentacles, a hundred eyes, and a thousand venomous fangs. All she had was good camouflage, maybe, like that stupid iridescent beetle, which had looked just like a damp stone at first glance. If she crawled too fast or moved her antennae too much, bam, he'd squish her dead.
"Are you, uh, okay?" said Tenten, flying next to her.
Ino squawked and nearly missed the next rooftop. "Holy shit! Hey, I didn't even see you!"
"No worries," said Tenten cheerfully, pushing off from the next house with her hands and doing a backflip midair. If Ino didn't know Tenten's insanely competitive teammates, she'd have accused the other girl of being a showoff. "Saw you from over by the clock tower. What's the rush? Me and Hinata were wondering if you wanted to hang out later."
"I can't," Ino lied, too distracted to really be proud once she noticed she wasn't out of breath, even keeping up with the notorious Tenten and her backflip skills. "Sorry. I really need a mission tonight. I might be out all night, who fucking knows."
"What, you need one all of a sudden? How come?"
"Eh, I forgot to pay a bill," Ino said darkly. It took no acting skill at all to make that one sound real.
"Aw," said Tenten sympathetically, shadowboxing the air for a moment at the height of her next jump. "That sucks! Well, maybe next time. Um, you've got… something green in your hair, by the way. And you're bleeding…"
Ino could already tell this was going to be a pain in her ass, this entire ludicrous thing, but more specifically, trying to hide things from keen-eyed ninjas. If she hadn't spent her whole life already doing so, she might have lost it and screamed at Tenten to butt out. Instead she just snorted, pulled the river weeds out of her bangs, and said, "Hey, sometimes things get wild, if you know what I mean!"
Tenten just shook her head and said laughingly, "You're nuts, Ino!" before peeling away towards the Hyuuga compound, with a little wave and a back handspring off someone's balcony rail.
"Tell me about it," Ino said to nobody, watching pale rooftop tiles appear and reappear beneath her boots, interspersed with gardens and sidewalks and stomach-turning empty air. By the time she skidded to a halt in front of the Tower, she was much more controlled, at least on the outside, and she took a moment to finger-comb her windblown hair into some sort of order before strolling in.
The missions board was pretty full. A lot of jobs had piled up during the lockdown, it seemed, and Ino took her time reading them. It wasn't until she saw the small, square notice tucked into the corner that she was fairly positive she'd found the correct one.
'Needed: Private gardener/landscaper capable of discretion, working with foreign plants & in a greenhouse. Some herbal knowledge a plus. Three years experience necessary. Chuunin and genin only: long term assignment too time-consuming for jounin rank. Tools provided. Contact upon request. Pay negotiable. D-ranked.'
It was good, worded perfectly to be uninteresting to most ninja, who almost to the man despised the idea of doing the same thing, day after day after day, as would be necessary for a private gardener. Unless they were weirdos like Iruka, anyway. The low rank combined with the rather stringent requirements would weed out any Academy genin teams, too. For Ino, however, it was tailor made, and she did indeed meet all the requirements and then some.
Still, she wasn't absolutely certain until she saw the tiny scribble in the corner. It looked like an accident, but when she really stared at it, it was clearly meant to be roots, webbed and delicate like veins.
"I'll be taking this one," she told the jounin lounging behind the counter.
"'Kay. I need some ref- oh wait, I know you, okay, you're good. Wow, we just put that one up, Councilman Danzou'll be happy," the guy said, bending down to rummage for something. The light glinted off his hitai-ate, and she realized with a wince that she still hadn't bought a new one- but then, with her new 'job', when on earth would she have time to even leave the village?
"That's who it's for, then?" Just as if she didn't know.
"Yup. I guess he's redecorating, or something. Whatever you call re-doing a garden. Man, I wish I could afford to hire some genin to redo my apartment. I hate painting." The jounin, whom she was pretty sure she did not know, resurfaced with a small gray folder and a clipboard, both of which he thrust at her. She signed her name on the official mission acceptance form without really looking, then slipped away from the tower, tucking the original mission statement into one of her hip pouches before finding a remote bench and cautiously cracking the folder.
There was a simple map of Konoha inside, the kind she'd seen a zillion times, marked with a little red dot- Danzou's house, on the rich side of town, nestled between some weapons storage warehouses and what seemed to be a park, or maybe just some undeveloped acreage.
He both lived in comfort, and had arranged his home so that there was almost nobody nearby who might inconveniently see or overhear something villainous. Sneaky, and clever. Ino wanted to frown at the map, but didn't- she kept her face smooth.
She was almost certain now that she was being watched. There was no chakra to be felt around her, not a stray breath or a single broken twig to confirm her suspicions. There was only a faint, warning tingle racing up and down her spine, but Asuma had always said it was entirely possible to feel someone's eyes. If Ino could do anything at all, it was to know when she was the center of someone's attention.
Beside the map, the folder held only a small slip of paper, on which was scrawled, "Come by at eleven, please, any day of the week." That was all, and she knew 'any day' certainly meant 'today'.
It was only nine-something in the morning, judging by the sun overhead. She had so much to do. She needed to fix her hair. She needed to talk to Shikamaru about everything, she needed to steel herself to look the devil in the eye and lie, but mostly she felt like she needed to go find Sai, to try and repair things.
Another glance at the sun told her she had time. The fresh, tender scabs on her knees broke open as she pushed herself upright and took a flying leap onto the nearest roof, but she didn't care. Sai lived clear across town from Danzou, and she had two hours to spare, but that didn't mean she could lollygag. Anyway, the exercise was calming.
He wasn't home, even when she banged on his door long enough to induce some neighborly shouting. She waited as long as she possibly could, then, panicked and with no other choice, she left.
Danzou's house was lovely, but surprisingly modest. It was definitely swanky, and large enough to house the family he didn't have and then some, but it wasn't anything like some of the gigantic palatial mansions she'd seen in this part of Konoha. It was only one story, wrapped around entirely with a low traditional porch, all painted a calm rusty red with some ivory accents.
It was meant to be welcoming and pleasant, refined, as befit a councilman of Konoha. She could think only of blood and bones; the house was a monster, crouched in deceptive beauty among the carefully tended trees and bushes, waiting to devour her. She went and knocked on the door anyway, locking her knees to keep them from trembling and lacing her hands together for the same reason.
A strawberry blond boy, probably two or three years younger than she was, opened the door. He bowed reflexively, then looked at her with startlingly green eyes like she'd rarely seen on any Konoha locals, far more poisonously bright than Sakura's more gentle color.
His eyes reminded her of Gaara, actually, and his sister Temari. She wondered suddenly if he was an orphan from Suna, if Root had kidnapped him somehow, if he had parents out there who still wondered where their child had gone.
No, Danzou wasn't the type to leave loose ends. This boy's parents were surely long dead.
"Can I help you?" he repeated, politely enough. She hadn't heard him the first time at all. Upon the repetition, though, she recognized his voice with an internal lurch; he was Cloak Mask from earlier, sans the lame incognito outfit. If Danzou tried to make her wear one of those stupid poncho cape things, she was going to throw a fit.
"Yes, please, I'm interested in the gardening job Councilman Danzou posted," she said respectfully, fishing out the little flyer. "I've got all the experience. I can't- uh, I can't exactly give references, but I worked in the Yamanaka flower shop and the clan gardens my whole life." There, she'd reminded him both of her disgrace, and of the exceedingly valuable connections natural to the Yamanaka name.
He didn't move a muscle. His eyes were bright in color, but blank. She noticed uneasily that there were some suspicious lumps beneath his simple civilian clothing, likely weapons. Her palms were sweating, but if she wiped them on her skirt, he would notice, as surely as a hawk could spot a mouse tail from a thousand feet in the air. "I see," he said, just a shade too long after she'd stopped talking. "Please come inside. I'll show you the gardens."
"Okay. Did I… get the job?"
He stood aside to let her enter, closed the door, locked it, then said calmly, "It was designed for you, after all. In the future, you will enter and leave the gardens from the side gate of the front yard. You will never enter the house unless you are invited." There was no warning emphasis on any syllable; indeed, the last sentence was delivered totally deadpan, but it was a threat nonetheless.
"I'm guessing I couldn't get inside even if I wanted to," she mumbled, shivering a little as the tell-tale chill of strong security jutsus rippled over her skin.
He caught some cue in her behavior and smiled like a puppet. It was worse than Sai's old attempts, nothing more than a rictus baring of teeth, and Ino's uneasy feeling increased along with her pulse. "Correct. If you require the facilities, there is a small outhouse in the rear gardens, and of course there is running water."
"Yeah, for the plants, but is it safe to drink?"
Cloak Mask only shrugged. "I assume so."
"Right, okay, thanks." She'd bring her own water. Konoha had a pretty sophisticated sewer system, but even in a forest veined with countless rivers, clean water could be expensive in such a heavily populated place, and most people didn't bother putting the good stuff on their lawns. Danzou's outside water was probably pumped straight from one of those rivers onto his property, unless he had a well- and even well water might not be trustworthy. Sometimes it had way too much mineral content to be good for plants; she'd have to test it.
Anyway, she really didn't want to risk getting poisoned or something. And she needed to focus, not get distracted by stupid gardening-related things that Danzou's zombie minion surely didn't care about.
"Are you cold?" said Cloak Mask, watching her with those stunning eyes.
She wanted suddenly to weep and shout, and it took a strong effort to hold it back. He was young, and he had exactly the sort of beautiful cheekbones she'd have swooned over a few years ago, before strong shoulders and thighs took (slight) precedence over a pretty face. There was still a remnant in him of the life that could have been, in the faint sunburn on his freckled nose and the chapped skin of his lips; he was like the glossy, translucent shells cicadas left behind on trees, perfect and hollow, split in half by what had been lost.
It was wrong. He should be playing with the other genin, learning how to be part of a team, or maybe even a civilian, living a happy life eating ramen. He should at least have had a chance, a choice. "No," she said with great effort, and then, finally remembering that she was supposed to be the easily manipulated, airhead type, "I've just never been in a real live Councilman's house, you know? It's super neat, but I wish I'd had time to do my hair properly and stuff! I feel underdressed."
"I see," Cloak Mask said, and again, it was just a bit too long after her own words, as if he didn't quite understand the rhythm of a normal conversation. He led her on silently into the dark house, past elegant mahogany furniture and minimalist decor, all in muted tones. The place felt like a damn funeral home, she thought, shuddering.
"So what now?" she asked, once he'd taken her into a small windowless room that sizzled with jutsus and closed the door. She rocked on her heels and twisted her hands together, a defenceless pose, as if she could never in a million years anticipate an attack. All her ninja instincts were positively afire, and she was distantly proud of the placid look she managed to keep plastered on her face. Finally deep in the danger zone, after so many hours spent fretting and worrying about it all, and yet felt like an absurd dream. Adrenaline tingled in her blood, but she pushed it away, buried it like a seed and left it till spring.
"Now I tell you the rules," said Cloak Mask. "You will come work for Danzou on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, at eleven o'clock precisely. You will leave each day when your work is complete, or no later than five. You will never enter his house. We'll give you a key to the outside gardening shed, and you can use any tool you find there. Danzou wants his trees and bushes pruned properly, his herb garden and greenhouse tended to, and everything watered. If you have questions, knock on the front door and I will answer them. If you are unsure what work needs to be done, or if you cannot perform it, then you may leave now."
"I- leave- leave to go work?" she stammered, swallowing. Her airhead armor still held, but she felt a few invisible cracks beginning already.
"No." Cloak Mask's young face was skeletal in the poor light. There was a thin, silvery scar on his chin that she hadn't noticed before. "Leave this house and never speak to Danzou again."
"Ohhh." He didn't only mean work that needed to be done in the garden, either; that was a pretty broad hint as to the unsavory sorts of things she might have to do in Root's employ. Well, her question had been genuine confusion, prompted by Cloak Mask's rapid-fire delivery of about ten million details, but it had added to the airhead impression, so it wasn't all bad. "Okay. No, I know what to do. I can do pretty much anything in a garden. All my fingers are green. And I can be discreet. Like the ad said. That's definitely not a problem, believe me."
He exhaled slowly. "Good. We tolerate nothing less. You will be paid at the beginning of every month, a sum appropriate to your position here. When we have other work for you, we will find you and tell you. Until then, do nothing except continue about your normal routine. You may take missions outside the village as long as a day's notice is given. If you tell anybody about Root's existence or about Danzou's involvement in it, or try to flee, we will find you and kill you. We will be reading your mail and tracking any financial or legal accounts you may have."
It was Ino's turn to breathe out roughly. Good luck tracking my finances, you meddling jerks, it's not like I have any. Then she rallied, turned her head coyly to the side, and said breezily, "Okay, yeah, that's fine, but what if I have something I wanna tell Danzou about? You guys haven't even asked why I wanted-"
"It was assumed that you simply needed more income to cope with your new living situation. We also thought your clan abilities might become useful some day."
Apparently Root collected tools, whether or not they were needed. Smart, to build a web like that, and it made Danzou dangerously adaptable; who knew what connections he kept buried deep down? "Oh. Um, well, it's- so you guys know it all, then, about my clan kicking me out and stuff?"
His faint huff of breath was confirmation enough, so she pressed on, twirling the end of her ponytail absently around one finger. It felt awful, to wear such an innocent skin- the guise of her past self, really, if she were to be brutally honest- and yet say the hideous thing she was about to bring up. There was no help for it, though, and her father was already warned by Tsunade- he would be safe. She had to believe that, or she simply wouldn't be able to do this at all. "Yeah, so I kind of actually, uh… I was hoping, um, Danzou could help me with that. If you know what I mean. My dad's been talking about getting me a job in Interrogation, you know, and he just wants me back in the clan, the old goat, but I was thinking. If I take it, I'm sure I could get information Danzou would find super interesting. You know? And then maybe someone could dish out a little... karma to my dad." She waggled her eyebrows and grinned, acting her heart out, despite it probably being wasted on this guy.
If he bought it, she couldn't tell. His expression didn't change in the slightest. He only said, "That's a very interesting offer." He was a liar! She was certain Danzou had kept the concept of using her to infiltrate Interrogation in the back of his mind. He was too cunning not to have thought of it, given her heritage. "If you take that Interrogation job, let me know. If you need to tell Danzou something, knock on the front door during your work hours and I will inform him if necessary."
"O-kayyyy," she said dubiously, frowning at the ceiling and dimpling her chin with one finger. "I can remember all that. Yeah, definitely. Does he want the gardens just maintained or does he want any new beds put in? What about seasonal rotations? Is there a fertilization schedule?"
Cloak Mask hesitated, apparently thrown by her saying something of actual substance, then said, "I am not sure. For now, simply maintain the existing landscaping."
"Gotcha. Hey, you need to lighten up a little." He said nothing, shockingly. She rolled her eyes. "Well, can I talk to Sai about it? He's already my friend and stuff, and he works for Danzou too, right? Plus you kind of showed up in front of him this morning, so the cat's out of the bag."
The green eyes showed nothing. "It is not advisable to do so."
She frowned harder, mouth opening automatically to ask why the hell not, when it struck her.
Her flimsy excuse this morning, about putting together something her father had said long ago about Danzou and Root, had not worked. They still wanted to know just how she'd connected Danzou with his shadowy organization, how she'd heard of Root in the first place, and why would they think anything but what was most obvious?
It was shinobi rule #13: When you hear wingbeats, think sparrow, not dragon. In other words, the simplest explanation was usually the right one, and the simplest explanation for a girl suddenly appearing with knowledge she should not have was that her friend Sai- a Root member- had told her.
But they know about his secrecy seal, she thought frantically, standing frozen beneath the deadly searchlight beam of Cloak Mask's merciless stare. They know he can't have told me. So why would they still suspect him?
Unless-
His seal wasn't foolproof. "Oh!" she gasped.
Cloak Mask shifted his weight. She said, with a knowing tone that was pure instinct, the first ridiculous thing that came into her mind. "He's in love with me, isn't he? And he probably told you all about it, and now you don't want me to hurt his feelings! I get it, I do. I won't say anything to him." She winked and mimed swallowing a key. "I'll just stick to light stuff when we talk, like, friend stuff!" And quick, she had to explain why she knew Sai was a Root agent in the first place, to further take the blame off him- "I was so surprised when you showed up this morning, too, I'm really sorry if I was rude when I attacked you," she said earnestly. "You know, I thought, since I was with Sai and all, that you must be a real enemy! I didn't think you'd show up when I was with anyone, like, I didn't get it at first, that he was one of you guys!"
Her laugh was a shade too nervous, but that was the only sign of the fear coiling coldly in her guts. Did her excuse work? Did that even make sense? Yes, it did, even thought up on the fly, but would they buy it? Was she overdoing it? She wanted to scream.
Cloak Mask only nodded. "I apologize for startling you this morning, but a Root agent must never let their defense down. Sai is indeed a member, but we do not discuss our work amongst each other. Each of us is but one leaf on a great tree, and the trunk does not need to know why the branches sway to support them."
Oh, how fucking creepy. "Yeah. That makes sense. So should I start now?"
"It's Tuesday."
She blinked. "So- oh, right, I don't work Tuesdays. I'll see you tomorrow, then!"
"Yes," he said tonelessly, leading her back through the dim house.
"Hey, what's your name?" she asked impulsively, as he opened the front door for her with oddly impeccable manners.
He paused, then simply shrugged. He did seem to like shrugging.
"Can I give you one, then?" she persisted.
Another shrug. What a surprise.
"Hmm… well, I'll think on it," she promised, giving him another wink before trotting off into the hot dusty sunlight, careful not to look behind her, careful not to let her feet move too fast, careful not to show the brutal fist of ice gripping her tingling spine.
She made it to her apartment. She pulled all the curtains, locked the doors and windows, and crawled panting into her shower. Even with the water turned on, thundering artificial rain into her ears till her rapid heartbeat was overpowered, she still didn't feel safe.
"Sai. Open up."
"Go away."
"No. Let me in. I have news."
"Go away."
"I'm not going anywhere, okay? Let me in already!"
"Go away."
"Sai, we can do this the easy way, or I can go get Sakura and let her break down your door. Or your whole apartment."
"Go away."
"Please! Please. Come on," Ino begged, crossing her fingers and for once not caring how it stung her pride.
Silence for a long moment, then the lock clicked. He didn't open the door for her. She had to let herself in, and he was leaning against the side of his art desk when she did, his arms crossed and his expression flat and perfectly empty. The hilt of his tanto was visible over his shoulder.
"Sai," she said pleadingly, suddenly frightened all over again in the face of his immovable cold. "Are you-" She took a step towards him, a hand outstretched, but let it fall when he didn't move. Looking like this, he reminded her of Cloak Mask, defending himself against her with indifference.
He might not care, but she did. She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and began to explain.
At least she tried. Instead she began, out of nowhere, to sob the instant she parted her lips; fat, giant sobs that tore from her throat without her consent, like her very soul was trying to climb out and find someplace safer. "S-sorry," she choked, horrified, her chest heaving as she flung up her arms in something like a plea. She was hysterical; how humiliating. "Sorry- I'll g-go-"
He crossed the room in three swift steps and gripped her wrists with both his hands. "What's happening to you?"
"I'm crying, dumbass," she managed, though with much less rancor than she'd intended, considering her nose was undoubtedly bright-red.
"I-" He shook his head slightly. "I know that. But the only people I've seen cry like this were about to die. What happened?"
"I'm not supposed to talk to you about it," she snapped, stepping on one of his feet accidentally-on-purpose in revenge for his daring to manhandle her. "And I came here to warn you."
"Warn me?" he said softly, hands gentling immediately on her wrists, a tiny apology. "Warn me that Root believes I somehow broke my seal? That I told you about their existence? I know, or I assume. It's only obvious, considering what happened this morning. Why do you think I'm armed?"
She stared at him, aghast, still shaking spasmodically from the force of her dwindling tears. She had done this; she had selfishly, without even asking, put the life Sai had made for himself in danger, because- well, her intentions to help him and Konoha were good, but that wouldn't mean much if Root assassinated him, and they would without a second thought if they thought it necessary.
Damn it! The thought of poor Sai being hurt because of her had Ino grinding her teeth almost frantically, her hands clenched above Sai's grip. "Yes, but I think I put them off the trail, that's what I meant to tell you so you didn't ruin the story! And you can tell them the truth when they ask, because you never did tell me about Root, I found out on my own from my dad! They- you've got the seal, still, on your tongue, and without totally solid proof, they won't get rid of you. You're too valuable, close to Naruto like you are." If there were any spies lurking outside his house, they'd hear her protest his innocence. She almost hoped there were. It was why she'd mentioned her father.
He dropped her wrists like she was on fire and spun around to lean on the windowsill, presenting her with his vulnerable back in an entirely uncharacteristic way. "What do you mean?"
"They told me not to talk to you about the stuff I do for Danzou," she said miserably, scrubbing at her face and trying not to hiccup. "I sort of panicked. I said I was surprised when we got ambushed this morning, because you were there, and I said I had no idea you were in Root at the time. I don't know, I think it was enough, but I'm gonna stick to it. And with your seal, you can prove you never informed me about Root, they won't hurt you!"
He still didn't turn around, but his shoulders bunched. "Why are you doing this, why did you even want to join," he hissed.
She closed her eyes against the subtle, surprising pain in his voice. For once, she was glad she couldn't see his face. "I made a list, in my head, pros and cons," she told him. His heavy wards were snapping static on her skin, and probably it was safe to speak. Just in case, though, she walked up behind him and leaned in close, letting her hair fall forward and hiding her mouth by his shoulder to foil any lip-reading visual bugs that might have been planted in his apartment, and speaking in the barest whisper. "And the cons are that I could die, obviously, or be tortured for- for being the Hokage's plant in Root. I'm her spy. I'm going to take Danzou out."
There, she'd done it. She'd told him. This was reckless. This was exactly what Shikamaru had told her not to do, but she couldn't seem to stop. She trusted Sai, and maybe it would be the stupidest and last thing she ever did, but it was too late now.
A cold, deep part of her added in her father's voice: "And he'll be useful. The things he knows might keep you alive."
She ignored it ferociously. His love for Sakura and Naruto and Kakashi, for his art, for the cool river water, would prevail over whatever brainwashing Danzou had put him through. She had to believe that. "But the pros are way bigger. Konoha could be safe from Danzou, who just wants to make it a war machine like the old days. And maybe you could find your family, or just do what you want. And be happy." She wasn't whispering any more, nor trying to hide her mouth, but if he wasn't stopping her, than either his security was good, or she was about to get them both killed.
He turned so abruptly that his broad shoulder nearly clipped her nose as she jerked back. Taking her wrist again, though in a much less forceful way, he towed her into his bathroom and nodded at the toilet. "Sit down before you fall down. You look even worse than usual."
"I don't want to," she sniffled irritably, wiping her face again before sitting down anyway and pinching him behind the knee for being so rude; he only grunted unsatisfyingly. At least Sai's bathroom was reasonably clean, unlike every single other teenage boy's bathroom she'd been in, which usually had strange things multiplying in the corners and toilets that she wouldn't touch to save all of Fire Country. "What are you doing?"
He knelt down and began rummaging in the cabinet beneath the sink, keeping quiet; she hummed sourly and took the opportunity to look around, picking idly at the chipped remnants of lavender polish still on her nails. Sai's bathroom was small, with a standing shower only and no bathtub, and strangely enough, no mirror above the sink.
Her chest began to ache as she stared at the square of slightly darker paint, where the missing mirror had obviously once hung. "Sai," she said again, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them as fatigue swept over her. "What are you doing?"
"Your hands and knees are hurt," he muttered, banging his head on the underside of the sink as he continued hunting for something. "And they've scabbed too well to be healed right now with chakra. Sakura taught me that. It leads to infection. I'm going to clean them."
Her eyebrows shot up. She knew she'd probably made a fool of herself more times today than during her whole life, but she didn't need to be nursed back to health like some swooning civilian maiden, whether or not she fell off buildings like one. "Sai, you moron, I'm fine, I got worse than this on my first D-rank mission, you can't be serious. Come on."
"No. You're already under qualified for this mission. I doubt an infection will make it easier."
"Sai-"
He emerged from beneath the sink, a little ruffled, and set a bottle of disinfectant and a pair of tweezers on the counter. "Wait here," he told her, trotting off; a moment later, he came back with what seemed to be an old t-shirt.
Protests were obviously useless, and he was too fast for Ino to be able to dive past him out the door. She gave in, watching in resignation as he poured some disinfectant on the shirt. "I hope that's clean," she mumbled, unfolding her legs compliantly as he settled on his haunches beside the toilet. "Go on, then, whatever, I'll probably be dead in a week anyway, but at least I won't have scabby knees."
"You are not going to die," he said, dabbing roughly at her left knee and ignoring her hiss as the disinfectant began to sting. It smelled like vinegar, and she wondered absently if he'd made it himself. Was this his attempt to be soothing? How sweet and pathetic. She awarded him an absent pet on the head, which he didn't seem to notice. "You are going to be fine. I still don't understand why you decided to do this, but I'm going to help you."
The wave of relief that hit her at those words nearly knocked her off her porcelain perch. "It's safe here, to talk, right?" she said, even though she knew it was now.
He nodded. "Yes. Shikamaru did not only help me with the seal on my tongue. We also adjusted my security."
Huh. Apparently she needed to go find Shika even more now, and she had to come up with a safe way to get messages to Tsunade and Ibiki too, but she was so tired. "At least there's somewhere I can talk about it."
"Yes." He glanced up at her for a moment, and the crinkle was there between his brows. "What happened? Did Danzou make you fight someone? Was it torture? Were you attacked?"
Torture- yes, the bad guys had sandpapered her knees, that was it exactly. Yet she hadn't really explained anything, she realized, and she patted his shoulder in apology as he moved to her other knee.
"No, I just fell," she admitted. "I didn't even see Danzou today, but my part in Root is going to be working part-time as his gardener, and now I have to convince my dad to get me a job at Interrogation too. I told Cloak Mask I'd feed Root some confidential stuff. As far as I can tell, it all went really well, except for when they told me not to talk to you. Oh! And Sai, I think- I mean, from the way the guy talked, like it was an actual valid possibility you had told me about Root- it means there's definitely a way to disable your seal! There has to be, or they'd never even have suspected you in the first place. If I get Shikamaru to help, I bet we can defuse yours. I know it didn't work last time but now we know there's a way! Isn't that great?"
"Yes. Then why were you crying like that?" he said bluntly, prodding her knee and then reaching for the tweezers; she winced and gritted her teeth as he began fishing a tiny piece of rock from under her skin. She really should have just taken two seconds to apply chakra and heal it up when it happened; now she'd have to deal with scabby knees during shorts season. And why wasn't the jerk all excited about her big news? She'd been expecting at least a little worship, dammit.
"I was- worried about you. And afraid I'd screw it all up. I don't know, it was just adrenaline or something, it's been a long weird day," she said, yawning. She was too tired to yell at him like he deserved, though she wasn't tired enough to forget it. "Sorry. I guess now I'm a Root agent I should toughen up, huh?"
"There was blood on my door when I came home, and traces of your chakra in the air," he told her knee. "I didn't know what had happened."
Ino studied his face. The crinkle was still there, and his mouth was tense. It looked like maybe he'd been chewing on his lower lip, though he undoubtedly didn't even realize it. She'd have to force him to use chapstick, like she'd done with Shika- why did all men let themselves suffer with cracked lips when the fix was so easy? "I'll clean it up."
"That is not the issue."
"Are you trying to say you were worried about me too?"
"I don't think it's considered polite to leave blood on other people's belongings. Even you should know that."
A typical Sai non-answer. He still didn't realize that avoiding saying anything was an answer in itself. "Yeah, I'll try not to do that in the future, thanks," she said dryly, presenting him with one hand.
He scrubbed away industriously, ignoring her sharp inhales and wriggling. "I wish you hadn't told me of your status as a mole," he said eventually. "If they ask me if I informed you about Root, I can honestly say no, but I can't do the same if they become suspicious of you and directly ask me your intentions. You've put yourse- you and your mission are in even more danger."
She shivered, toes curling against the linoleum, and said with false confidence, "I'll just have to keep them from suspecting me, then. And we'll have to really rush working on your seal."
The t-shirt paused, but Sai stayed silent. He'd left one door to the sink cabinet partially open, and now that she was looking, she saw a sewing kit. If not for the curved needle, she'd have simply thought he kept stuff in a random sort of place, but she'd worked in the hospital for a long time, and her best friend was Fire Country's second-best medic. That was a needle for putting stitches in flesh, and next to it was a pair of surgical scissors, forceps, and several rolls of linen bandages.
"You do a lot of your own doctoring, don't you," she said, not really asking.
He was still avoiding direct eye contact as he moved to her other palm. "Yes. Many of my injuries would cause questions if I went to the hospital," he said finally. How could he discuss it with her, if his seal were still active? Was it malfunctioning- no, it must be a loophole, allowing those within Root leave to discuss it amongst themselves. Otherwise they'd never be able to work together on their creepy illegal missions. Ino sighed.
Probably being on a team with Sakura, who could blithely heal almost anything in half a moment, was very convenient for Sai. Ino hated that the thought even occurred to her, but she had a feeling she'd be questioning everybody's motivations for everything.
"So I guess part of my mission will be doctoring myself, too," she mused, pulling her knees up again and letting her head drop onto them. She really needed to fix her pedicure. "Yay."
"Most likely," he agreed, wringing the t-shirt out in the sink with a swirl of pink water, before dampening it with disinfectant again and kneeling to finish the job.
She watched him swipe at her other palm, then let her eyes close, just for a moment. Sai's house was suffocatingly warm, like all of Konoha right now, and she was becoming aware of a sodden exhaustion that reached clear to her heavy bones. She'd felt it before, the engulfing black fatigue that followed extreme fear and adrenaline; it was why ninja on non-emergency missions were allowed a full twelve hours back in the village before their reports were due. Most wanted to simply sleep it off, in the aftermath of the things they had to bear. She herself preferred a long bath first, but Shika and Chouji would both flop down onto their beds fully armored and covered in gore if she let them.
"This all sucks," she whispered when he was done, and her knees and palms were stingingly clean and sticky with a little fresh blood. He stood, then hesitated, seemingly at a loss. She took pity on him and got to her feet with a flip of her hair. "Thanks. And don't worry, I promise you I'm not gonna give you up. I'll watch your back, I won't say anything incriminating, all right?"
He rubbed a hand over the nape of his neck, staring at his feet. "All right." She moved past him into his living room, and he followed like a ghost; it was only when she had her hand on his doorknob that he offered her tea, albeit with a totally unnecessary, "Since you look so exhausted and unsightly," which she chose to ignore, at least for the moment.
"Fine. Thanks," she told him. He motioned politely towards his well-worn couch and set the kettle to boiling. The couch was a little scratchy, but soft, and she sank down into it with a sigh.
He brought her mint tea, in an ugly off-white cup. She only managed half of it before falling asleep.
When she woke up in the orange evening light, disoriented and, for a moment, terribly afraid, it was the scrape of his charcoal on paper that calmed her down.
"Do you always jump onto the ceiling when you wake?" he asked mildly, peering up at her from his seat at his desk. There was no one else in the room; her trust had not been misplaced. If he'd been planning to betray her to Root, there could be no better time than when she stupidly let herself fall asleep and be vulnerable in his own fricking apartment.
She scowled, embarrassed, pulling her chakra from her hands and letting herself drop. "No! I didn't know where I was!"
"Ah." He kept working on whatever he was drawing. "Your tea's on the table, but it's cold."
She eyed it, pushing her wild hair off her face; heavens only knew what she looked like, after the day she'd had. She could probably take out a dozen enemies, just by letting them get close and giving a real good glare. "Thanks anyway. Look, I gotta go do a million things, but Sai, I was going to tell you. I didn't want you to find out the way you did, and think I was just some traitor to Konoha. I was just nervous, I didn't want you to- I'm actually not supposed to have told you anything real, okay, so please don't mention this to Shikamaru. Or Sakura! She doesn't know I'm undercover, or about Root at all." Oh, that one hurt. "It's only you and Shika and Tsunade that know I'm undercover, but Sakura doesn't know anything, okay? And as far as Tsunade and Shika know, you think I just wanted to join Root for real, you don't know I'm a spy."
"You took a very large risk, bringing me into your mission," he said, rather blankly, and his mouth lifted in a false smile for a moment before he stopped himself. "As far as you know, I am only the enemy. And if you survive Danzou, the Hokage will be displeased anyway. Why did you tell me you're a spy?"
"It's me, I have to talk to somebody about stuff or I get really bitchy," she said with false lightness, straightening her sleep-tangled clothes and feeling that it was about damn time she got her shit together and started being Ino Yamanaka again. She'd changed after her shower at home, but only into shorts and a big shirt that had been Asuma's, and she knew she looked like a slob, which was just unforgivable. "Listen. Are you coming to train tomorrow? I need to keep up appearances, and it's helping. Plus I enjoy beating on you, now that I can finally do it. It's relaxing. Therapeutic, like lip gloss."
He doodled something, then nodded silently.
"And you… forgive me?" she persisted, aware of an uncomfortable and unusually large number of butterflies rioting in her stomach. She was not Ino Yamanaka yet, though she was a hell of a lot closer than the crying, whiny blob she'd been; maybe her life was getting rougher, but Ino- and her father, whom she'd stolen the saying from- had always firmly believed that when the going got hard, the tough got tougher. To really be her usual naturally tough and perfect self, she needed a fresh coat of nailpolish, ice cream, and maybe some better traps in her apartment. Perhaps she'd steal that acid-flinging bit Sai used. That had style.
"Yes," he said immediately, with stark honesty that she knew he was unable to fake. Her breath caught at such total absolution. Maybe right-now Ino wasn't so terrible. "That's what friends do, isn't it? Forgive each other when they do strange or foolish things?"
"I- uh, yeah, basically. See you tomorrow, then."
He did not look up to watch her leave; he only kept working diligently on his picture, whatever it was.
Sai wasn't sure what he was expecting when he headed towards Training Grounds Seven the next day in the cool blue blur of early morning, but he did know that his head was pounding and it seemed harder to move his feet than usual. Vaguely, he anticipated more crying- Ino was a very weepy girl, despite all her loud protestations to the contrary- and maybe also some more shouting. She seemed to like that too, and afterwards she always seemed calmer. Other than that, he was only aware of a kind of bone-deep fatigue.
She, spying against the man who owned Sai, body and soul, had done a foolish, tactically unsound thing in giving him the truth. The entire mission was unbelievable too, so dangerous that his feet grew even heavier, but Ino's choice to inform Sai was a massive mistake. Whatever she thought, he knew his Root seal was permanent; it was as inevitable and natural as his ten fingers and two black eyes.
By telling him, she had put a giant red self-destruct button on her entire mission, and her life. All Danzou had to do was ask Sai point blank: Is the Yamanaka girl working against me? Or: Can she be trusted? Or simply: Is there anything dangerous going on I should know about, Sai?
There were a million ways both accidental and deliberate that her truth could be wrested from him, and all he could do right now was hope it didn't happen. Hope- pathetic, and ineffective, and worst of all, it was stupid, and all this danger was purposeless. She had told him for no reason at all, and he couldn't understand it, no matter how he tried; instead he kept it raw in the back of his mind and worried it like a sore tooth.
He was tense enough that his headache was worse by the time he found Ino. She did not look as she had last night, or for the past few days, disheveled and wild. Instead she was a glowing pearl among the still-shadowy trees, her excessive hair brushed till her ponytail shone like a waterfall of molten gold in the patches of early dawn filtering through the branches. Her boots were lying abandoned on the shore, and she was up to her ankles in the ink-black creek, staring out softly at nothing.
Sai rubbed his fingertips together slowly, suddenly aware that he was itching for a paintbrush, though he'd painted all day yesterday and into the night. She sensed his chakra then and turned around, her chin held high and brows drawn together stubbornly. "Hey, Sai."
"Hello." He held back his automatic smile, as she'd asked, but she smiled at him anyway. It was the same predatory, hungry-wolf flash of teeth that she'd shown him after the Sasuke negotiations, and there were extra kunai glinting on her hip today.
His worry was unnecessary, and his head stopped pounding. Ino was Ino again, bafflingly strong in unexpected ways, and she had trusted him. She would persevere, would survive the worst just like a weed; he was suddenly certain of that.
She tilted her head, lips twitching. "Why do you look so determined and serious all of a sudden?"
He didn't know his face had even moved. Sai swallowed once, then shrugged, squinting as a sudden blaze of dawn light slanted through the trees to drench them both in warmth. For once, his lack of appropriate words didn't seem so grievously wrong. "Let's begin."
hey guys. i'm really sorry it took so long to get this chapter up, but it's fairly long, so hopefully that helps. I have like 3 other multichap stories i'm working on, ugh, and college and work, so that's why. Sorry. Anyway, the plot THICKENS and also some unresolved sexual tension makes an appearance :) The next chapter should be much less, um, 'complex plot heavy' and more action-y, so yeah. Thanks for reading, guys. We're gonna get some ACTUAL romance soon too, promise- i just can't make myself rush Sai's emotional development.
OH, and thanks to proma for being my beta! bless her heart, she made this so much less confusing than it originally was, haha. Mm, and I have no idea what canon was as far as members of Root talking amongst themselves- so to explain why Sai can discuss Root with Ino despite his seal, let's just say it's a loophole that allows agents to talk among themselves. or something. Naruto canon is complicated, haha.
thanks for reading! hope you enjoyed :) :)