Time passed like a river, and Ino watched it like a stone at the bottom, cold and afraid, slowly wearing away to different edges.
For her first two weeks as a Root employee, she trimmed Danzou's lawn, pruned his hedges into passive-aggressive, perfect cubes- because he was a square if she'd ever seen one- and put in three new vegetable beds, along with a hopeful little gingko sapling. The site of so much evil deserved something cheerful, she thought. Plus it was a female tree, which meant in a couple years Danzou was going to have a very stinky yard. If he was still alive, of course, but it helped her keep the stress boxed up in the back of her brain, where it needed to stay for the moment.
Compartmentalization was hard, very hard, and the fact that she had years of experience pulling on different faces as needed made it no easier now. She thought it was because she was lying to everybody who mattered to her, except Sai and Shikamaru, and because she was so lonely inside her secret. It sucked, and she promised herself she'd never pull another spy mission at home again. She didn't like feeling like a traitor to Konoha. Not a single Yamanaka in the history of the village had betrayed the Hidden Leaf, and like hell she would be the first.
In the third week, Cloak Mask appeared beside the gingko, reddish hair gleaming in the sun like a bloody halo as he stood over her. He didn't say hello. Apparently, the pleasantries were a facade kept strictly for those who still needed to be deceived.
"Time for something new?" she managed, mouth as dry as the summer soil. It took a lot of effort not to flip the trowel in her hand around to proper stabbing position.
"Yes," he said simply. She brushed the dirt off her lavender gloves and stood. The fact that Sai always offered her a hand up made it stingingly obvious when Cloak Mask didn't. Then again, he might feel scaly to the touch, like the creepy, bottom-dwelling thing that he was. Maybe it was better he didn't extend his 'manners' to trying to touch her.
They went into the crouching-bones house, and he locked each door behind them until they were again in the small, windowless room. "Well?" she asked, security jutsus pricking at her awareness.
His green eyes were flat, but still beautiful. "It's time for you to take the Interrogation job offered by your father last week."
Ah. She'd wondered when they'd take the bait. Her father had been landing with unnecessary violence on her roof each night on his way home from work, the only way he could lend support or scold her- she wasn't sure which it was. At least he wasn't trying to visit, now he'd figured out where her apartment was. "Okay. Done. They'll probably ask me to start Monday. I have no idea what department I'll be in, though, but I asked Dad for a position in the archives. So I can have access to whatever information you need."
A red-gold eyebrow twitched, just slightly, just the barest hint, and maybe she was imagining it. "That was wise planning. Do not, under any circumstances, make any decisions yourself. Danzou will direct you when and if he needs anything done. If you are caught, you know what we will do to you, if Interrogation doesn't get there first."
She did. Traitors to Konoha were executed publicly. She could only hope it'd be Danzou's head that ended up rolling in the dust, not hers. Ino nodded, then stopped herself- he didn't care. He probably only barely knew what it meant. "Okay. I'll update you next time I work here."
"Yes."
She followed him out of the red monster house and returned to the shade of her gingko, letting her frizzy bangs fall forward to hide whatever was in her eyes.
It might take years before Danzou trusted her enough to reveal anything useful, and she was already withering.
Shika was waiting at her door when she came home. "Didn't try to break in again?" she laughed, pulling a grin from somewhere.
He snorted and kicked idly at the ragged carpet. "Takes too much chakra now."
"Ex-act-ly." Ino preened.
"Smug. I could if I wanted."
"I know. Come on, I'll make tea. Want food?"
"Nah." He flapped a hand and followed her inside, wrinkling his nose as she flared her chakra to disable all her traps for a moment. "It's about time you did something with your security."
Ino sighed and put the kettle on for tea, then glanced up at the nearly invisible, shimmering seals Sai had scrawled all over her ceiling last week. He'd then proceeded to pass out on her couch for nine hours; he'd used way too much chakra on them. "Yes, yes, O Wise One. So what's up?"
Shika flopped down on the couch with an extravagant moan of relief. "Just wanted to see how you were doing. And I'm supposed to invite you to the Akimichi's barbeque this Saturday."
"Ooh!" There was nothing like the spreads Cho's family put out at their infamous barbeques. "Yeah, I'll be there with stretch pants on." She rubbed her stomach in anticipation of stuffing it with Mama Cho's pork dumplings. The barbecues didn't always coincide with her sporadic diets, so they were either absolute Ibiki-level torture or heaven; this time, she'd gotten lucky.
"Good."
Something in his tone made her stiffen- but she couldn't ask outright what he was up to, not with Root surveillance on her place still possible despite her new security. Highly probable, even, to be honest with herself. Maybe agents would have a hard time getting in, but eavesdropping was both much easier to do and much harder to fully prevent. Sai's sealed, jutsu-ed fortress of an apartment was the only place she dared talk about it, and even that practically gave her hives. "Talk to your sand princess lately?"
He kept staring straight ahead, but she grinned when the back of his neck went ferociously pink. "Nah. She's busy with some kind of treaty negotiations."
"The life of a royal diplomat," she sighed.
"What about you?" he said idly, giving her an innocent opening to tell him how her undercover mission was proceeding.
She hummed a little and leaned a hip on the counter, watching pale steam curl up from the spout of her battered teakettle. "I think I might go work for my dad, actually," she said. "I'm kind of feeling like I need a change. Or a direction, maybe." Which meant (and of course he would understand what she was implying; they'd been having weirdly coded meetings like this once a week so he could keep Tsunade, Ibiki, and the rest of the team up to date) that despite having progressed to Interrogation, and thus presumably being trusted enough by Root to at least be a possible spy for them, she hadn't found anything that could put Danzou behind bars.
"Huh," said Shika, accepting the tea she handed him and letting his next sigh cool it down. "Well, maybe you'll like it there. You are big on secrets and things."
"Yes indeed," she said, making sure to look cheerful. She wasn't sure he was buying it, but it was worth a try. "So, what time's the feast?"
"Two."
"In Nara time or actual time?"
"Actual time."
"Okay." She took a sip of her own tea, letting the floral steam soothe her scratchy eyes, and clicked on the television. Shika patted her on the shoulder, and when she blinked at him, he managed to convey sympathy and support and love with the lazy arch of one dark brow.
Well, the love came with his next words, actually. "So apparently Kiba's got some plot going to enter his horrible dog in a civilian dog contest this weekend, too. The prize is one hundred pounds of of elk jerky. Can you believe it? So much work."
"Isn't that cheating, to enter a nin-dog?" she said dubiously.
"I'd assume."
"What, you're not an expert on dog shows like you are on everything else?"
Shika, annoyingly, refused to be baited. "Not quite. It's around six on Saturday, I think. He was running from Tsunade earlier and he dropped the flyer."
Ino cackled, and she was distantly surprised when it felt entirely, devilishly real. Trust Shika to know what she needed. "Ooh, this is gonna be fun. I love you."
She didn't sleep much; after maybe four super restful hours staring at her ceiling, Ino managed to beat Sai to Training Grounds Seven. The sun wasn't even up yet, though the sky was a gentle, slowly-warming purple. She walked out onto the surface of the river with hardly a thought, keeping her boots on and letting her chakra puddle in the soles of her feet, tingling and gentle, moving and swirling in perfect symphony with the water beneath. The river had waves, of course, and was moving too fast to be perfectly clear, but if she held still she could sort of see the bottom, full of greenish sludge and softly rounded rocks worn smooth by time. A few shimmering minnows came up to investigate her shoes. She crouched down to wriggle the tips of her fingers at them, and they darted away into the emerald depths.
"Ino?" said Sai from behind her, sounding just a little uncertain.
She jumped a little, even though she'd expected him, and stood up with a tiny good-bye wave to the fish. "Yeah, I'm coming. Hi."
"Hello." He gave her the almost imperceptible squint of his eyes that she'd dubbed the 'Happy Sai'. "You're early."
"Or you're late."
"That doesn't- make sense?"
She smirked a little. He was so fun to confuse. He tilted his head to the side like a bird. "We still on for tea after this?" she asked. Today was a day off for both of them, luckily.
The faint 'Happy Sai' disappeared entirely. "Yes," he said, voice even, but she knew that he knew what she meant. Ino had things to tell him that could only be said in the sheltered, sealed silence of his apartment.
"'Kay." She crooked a finger at him on impulse.
He understood that too, and came strolling out onto the water, feet glinting with his dark chakra. She grinned up at him and settled into their usual stance for the beginning of their kata routine, but Sai didn't follow.
"Would you be averse to trying something new?"
She blinked. Sai being Sai, he probably hadn't meant that the way it sounded. "No?"
"All right. Let's fight, then."
"Fight fight? Just, like, no katas, no moves to practice, no you yelling at me about my shitty technique?"
"Yes," he said calmly, adjusting one of his gloves. "I need to gauge how much your skills have improved, and I'm a fairly realistic judge of my own proficiency, so it should be an accurate measure."
He was talking like a ninety-year-old grammar tutor again, and his face was perfectly expressionless. He was nervous, probably about what her news was going to be, and he was getting anxious about her safety again, which was why he suddenly wanted to test her against himself. Against a Root agent.
She swallowed, touched, and took a few steps back. The best thing she could do for Sai right now would be to fight her hardest, to show him he didn't need to worry about her. She'd take it seriously. It had been a while since she'd been in a real match, not just a friendly spar or a little light boxing, and already adrenaline was singing sweetly along her tingling skin. "Rules?"
He unclipped his utility belt, drew a kunai, and tossed the belt to shore. "One kunai. Tap out if you're done."
At least he'd said if, not when, though he'd given her an advantage by getting rid of his ink and scroll, which was annoying. Ino steadied her breathing and threw her own belt to shore, along with the kunais she kept in each boot and the waxed package of sealed, poisoned senbon she had tucked in her chest wrappings.
Sai didn't mention all the weaponry, thankfully. "It makes me feel better," she explained anyway, with a shrug.
He nodded solemnly at that, like he was trying to make sure he remembered it, and pulled chakra to his fists with a visible glow. "On three."
"Three," Ino said, rocketing towards him.
He wasn't expecting the overt aggression. He half-fell beneath the surface of the water to escape her spinning kick, and she cracked him on one shoulder blade with the hilt of her kunai as she dove completely under.
She was gone when he sprang up from beneath the water, circling around behind him beneath a camouflage jutsu while two clones went swimming off the other way. He dispatched them both speedily enough with two precise blows to the throat and stomach, then slipped beneath the surface, heading straight for her.
"Shit," she gargled silently, letting the camouflage jutsu fade and shooting back up to the surface. She'd forgotten how well Sai could swim, and no matter how much chakra she used to help, he was still faster.
Ino bounced off a riverbank tree to reverse trajectory and meet him head-on as he lunged. It was a flurry of misty spray and clanging kunai as they spun together for a few moments, jabbing and ducking too fast to even see, moving on instinct, and she was using her blade in earnest now, because Sai wasn't messing around. She skidded away, bleeding from two gashes on her arm, dizzy from a solid right hook she'd taken to the jaw, and Sai stood there shaking his head, obviously reeling from her answering kick.
She ignored the pain and immediately dove back at him while snapping out two more clones. Her effort was rewarded when she managed to sweep his feet out from under him and send him right back down into the water. He snatched her by the wrist as he went, though, and his superior strength had her beneath him and underwater in a moment.
She headbutted him in the face, took four retaliatory blows to the ribs, then slithered away with too much careless chakra, lungs burning. He followed like a shark. His next punch was aimed right at her gut. She wasn't fast enough to dodge. The little breath remaining in her lungs whooshed out in a fat bubble.
She choked, flailed, flung out a hand towards the surface- Sai's dark eyes went wide as he reached for her-
"Ha," she crowed, exactly three seconds later from her position atop his chest with her kunai to his throat, back in the rocky riverbank shallows where she'd flung them. "You fell for it!"
His brow furrowed. "Sakura is always very concerned about spinal injuries, and I don't think even she could cure a kunai to the spine."
Ino twitched, then twisted her head around to see Sai holding his blade to her lower back. Fuck. "Dammit, I thought I got you."
He tapped her twice on the shoulder, signaling an end to the spar, and she felt the cold tip of his kunai leave her damp skin. "You are dripping on me."
"I have a lot of hair, it gets extra wet," she said sulkily, rolling off him and lying there in the lapping shallows, half in and half out of the water, pouting with all her might.
"That wasn't bad."
"Liar! You liar! You had like eight chances to straight-up kill me and you didn't," she pointed out, folding her arms behind her head and wondering how muddy and disgusting she would be when she stood up. She'd have to dive back in and clean off.
"So did you."
Damn him again. She glanced at him as he propped himself up on one elbow. "Yeah, well, I didn't want to hurt you. Men whining annoys me. It's so shrill." There was a reason most teams had at least one member with medical training on hand at all times. In a serious spar, injuries happened. It was part and parcel of playing with sharp objects and powerful jutsus, and whether or not you meant to strike an inch too far to the left and slice off your teammate's ear, it was still shitty. She had indeed held back just a bit, unable to move beyond their usual careful, practiced, safe-ish dance, but apparently so had he. It would just take them some time to get used to the possibility of really hurting each other, that was all.
"In Root, the first thing we are taught is that all lives are meaningless parts of an unfathomably greater whole," he said quietly, looking down at her with water dripping from his chin and beading on his dark lashes. His mask was all gone now, and she watched the way his full mouth grew stern in the vibrant morning light. It felt like he was bleeding out, warm and vital, showing her the things inside he never showed anybody, and out of instinct, she kept her mouth shut for once and listened. "Ours, and the lives of our targets. Victims. We are taught that our own lives are less than the completion of a single mission, whatever it may be, however inconsequential it may seem. If I had truly been sent to remove you, I would not engage you in a full frontal battle, even though I am still stronger. You've improved too much, and the outcome of the fight could not be predicted with full confidence. I would take time, learn your movements and your routines, and I would kill you before you had ever seen my face. You would not have a chance, because you would not know I was coming."
She looked at the tiny furrow between his wrinkled brows, and for a moment her fingers itched. "You do know all my routines, Sai, am I supposed to be afraid? Is this you warning me off? Trying to scare me? Screw that! I hang out with who I want to hang out with. Besides, literally all my friends could assassinate me if they wanted. It's kind of a ninja thing. And I could totally poison you, so." They could be being watched, right now, so she added reluctantly, hoping he'd understand what she actually meant, "I knew how dangerous Root was when I joined. I'm glad I did. It's been worth it or whatever. Root was the right choice for me, and I believe in them."
It still felt nasty to call herself a member of Root. She'd never get used to that.
He breathed out slowly, still watching her, and then he slipped the mask back on and stood in the blink of an eye, offering her a hand. "We should continue this exercise until you improve more, I think. You're very resourceful in combat. Practice will perfect that ability to improvise. But I won't fall for that false drowning trick again."
"All right, so we'll tie again tomorrow," she grinned, letting him heave her to her feet. Just as she'd predicted, she was covered in sand and muck. "Lemme rinse off and we'll go have tea. Listen, you had better have put some real food in your fridge like I told you, because I'm starving and I expect breakfast."
Sai's version of breakfast was only tea and toast, but she scarfed it down anyway. She was back in favor, apparently, because he'd given her the pretty floral cup.
"So," he said after a while. "What did you need to tell me?"
"Oh." She squirmed, then laid her head down on his kitchen table with a groan. "I'm starting in Interrogation soon. Danzou's orders. So things are, uh, moving forward, I guess. Really, really slowly, but forward."
Sai looked down at his hands, then twisted in his own chair to stare at the wall. Ino winced to herself. Even if he didn't quite know it, he was still upset with her for dragging him into all this, for joining the organization that kept him like a dog on a leash, and despite all his efforts to support her, it bothered him so much he couldn't look at her while she spoke of it.
"I see," was all he said. "It seems your mission is indeed progressing."
"Sai," she said patiently, trying to remind herself yet again that he was a gigantic idiot, even more so than most men. "Part of why I'm doing this is for you, dumbass. And Cloak Mask, and all the kids Root stole and brainwashed. It's for a good purpose. It's to save lives, to help people who've never been helped in their whole lives. I'm not just doing this because I feel like seventeen's a good age to die, all right?"
"All right," he parroted half-heartedly, sipping his tea, then peeling both his gloves off and dropping them inside-out on the table with unusual carelessness. "I'm going to go shower."
Avoidance again, but she'd let him run. "I'm going to take a nap," she said cheerfully, rubbing her hands together in glee at the prospect of sleep. They'd fallen into a sort of routine lately, since she had to be at his house so often to pass along information or ask questions about Root, and he never seemed to mind when she overstayed her welcome. She overstayed it a lot, if she was being honest with herself, but now probably wasn't the right time to examine that particular… weirdness. "I love days off!"
It was true, because on her days off, she could pass out on his couch, safe in the knowledge that she would probably wake up. Even when she did manage to sleep at home lately, it was sleep of the tossing, turning, sweaty, not-very-restful kind, and the shadows under her eyes were so not pretty. Anyway, she tended to get really mean when she was sleep-deprived.
He nodded, clearly very far away inside his head, and went to his bedroom. Ino took a moment to turn his damp gloves properly right-side out, and hung them over the back of a chair before curling up on his scratchy couch, head pillowed on her arm. Closing her eyes, feeling the sense of safe wash over her, was an overwhelming relief.
Sai shook her out of her doze only twenty minutes later, and she blinked her way back to being mostly conscious. "Whaaaat," she whined, batting at him and yawning til she squeaked.
He dodged easily. "Now that you're joining Interrogation, Root will present you with a test, very soon," he told her, sitting on the other end of the couch down by her feet, which she obligingly pulled out of his way. He'd changed into ink-stained sweats and a loose grey shirt, damp at the shoulders from his hair, and she realized with sleepy amusement that he had a cowlick she'd never noticed, usually covered by his hitai-ate.
"Okay, yeah, I figured. They're gonna do it fast, too, huh? Danzou doesn't seem like the sort to waste a whole lot of time, and this is a really good way to figure out if I'm really in."
"Yes."
"So, what, they're gonna tell me to steal something really important and valuable? Some kind of incriminating file that proves I'm all in, that gives them some leverage?" she asked, sitting up and shaking away the grogginess. So much for her nap.
Sai hesitated, then leaned forward, linking his hands between his knees and hanging his head. It was a pose of pure fatigue, whether or not he knew it, and she realized suddenly that he had dark smudges beneath his eyes, too. "I am going on a mission tomorrow night, and I might be gone for up to a week," he said at last. "You may come here if you need to. You know how to get in now. I've added more defenses recently, but don't come unarmed."
Ah, more high-level security jutsus. That explained the weirdly low levels of chakra he'd had last Monday. "And I assume you're going to be hiding all the things you still don't want me to know?" she said archly, rolling her eyes. "Sai, I promise I won't go poking around in your stuff. I won't go in your room or go through your desk or anything. I promise. It's okay for friends to have secrets from each other." It meant a lot, for someone as private as Sai to allow her into his one sanctum, and more annoyingly, she couldn't quite tell if he knew what it meant, or if he was simply being practical and providing her with an extra place to hide.
He blinked at his hands, hyper-focused, and she half-wondered if he'd even registered her words. "It's possible they may ask you to steal something valuable, yes, and if that happens, Interrogation will be able to help you without appearing to do so. A wound, or several, will add authenticity." His hands tightened, long pale fingers woven together. "Danzou rarely trusts anyone he hasn't seen bleed. I never quite understood it, considering how Root strongly emphasizes defensive skill."
"Okay," she whispered. That much she'd assumed, and Shika would help her work with her father and Ibiki to develop a proper plan when and if the Root request came. As for the bleeding- well, she had war wounds already. A few more wouldn't hurt. "Okay. So what if that's not what they want?" she asked, one hand creeping up to rub her scarred shoulder.
"They will most probably ask you to kill someone," he told her bluntly. "It's a more accurate way to test the depth of an agent's loyalty, as it is both more difficult and more dangerous to accomplish."
"Oh." She sat back heavily into the cushions. It made sense. Danzou, paranoid and cautious enough to actually grow his own army, to create a cult of the most loyal warriors possible by warping them for their whole lives, would not pussyfoot around or take chances. He would throw her right into the deep end, let her swim or let her drown, and get the testing of her dedication decisively over. "Oh, shit. Someone who's not- someone who has no idea I'm a spy. Someone innocent." She'd killed before, of course, she still dreamed of the kunoichi who'd been her first- they'd been the same age, almost, all those years ago- but Ino kept aging while the face in her nightmares stayed young and terribly afraid. This kill would be different, though, and a sudden, ferocious urge for her father swept over her.
Sai's head hung lower, and his shoulders bunched tightly. He understood, too. "Yes."
She put a hand over her mouth, then whispered, "You'll miss the barbecue if you're not back by Saturday. And I was going to ask you to help me fuck with Kiba."
"... What?"
"Chouji's having a big barbecue, and I was going to tell you to come, because afterwards I'm going to put a dog whistle to good use, and it's the sort of thing you'd think was funny. It'll give you lots of, uh, ammunition for future insults, too. Which Kiba totally deserves."
He still obviously had no idea what she was talking about, but he gave her a tiny Happy Sai eye-crinkle. "I will try to return by Saturday, though there is no guarantee."
"Good," she said quietly, and then, with all immediate practical matters out of the way, she let herself curl up and cry into her knees. Sai shifted. After a long while in which the familiar faces of all the Interrogation employees she might have to murder flashed in her mind, he placed a tentative hand on her arm.
She edged over and put her head on his shoulder, and he didn't shove her off, though he did indulge in some copious bitching about the mascara she was smearing on his shirt.
"Be really careful on that mission," she told him later, before leaving. Nothing had happened to him yet, but the possibility, and Root's mistrust of him, were still hanging over her head like a dark cloud.
"Don't be such an ugly nag. I have common sense, so I am always careful during dangerous situations," he said solemnly, and she walked away from his apartment feeling a thousand years old, nowhere near seventeen.
big thanks to the amazing professor-maka for being my beta on this! :) sorry it's so short, guys, i figured you'd rather have a tiny update than nothign at all, and i've got a toooooon of personal shit going on lately, so yeah. thank you for reading though! Hope you enjoyed! the inosai is coming, slowly but surely ;)