Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. I am not profiting from this.

I never thought I'd come back to this, but here I am.

EXTRA 2: Random

Story 1:

He was having a good dream until a small hand smacked his face, forcibly dragging him back to reality.

"Shikadai, you know it's rude hit your parents and wake them up like this," Shikamaru yawned.

"You were talking about a boar in your sleep," his child answered.

"What's it matter to you if I'm dreaming about a boar?"

"I was curious."

"So you decided to assault me in my sleep?"

"Yeh." His kid was kinda weird. Maybe all kids were kinda weird. Ino certainly was.

"I was dreaming about Ino. She's not a boar. She's a person."

"I'm telling mom you were dreaming about a girl." This kid, really.

"You're being troublesome. Also, your mom knew her."

"Who is she?"

"She was my childhood friend and teammate."

"Was?"

"Yeah. Was… Wanna go visit her?"

"Okay."

"Ah, Shikamaru, it's rare to see you up so early. Good morning, Shikadai-kun." It was Sakura.

"Hello," said his child.

"Hey, just gonna visit Ino and Inoichi-san. Temari's out right now though. She'll come by later," Shikamaru replied.

"I'm on my way, too."

Sometimes, Mirai wondered about the girl named Ino. Dad said she was his student. He also said she took his place. Mirai didn't understand without enough context, but she could put together a few things. Whatever this Ino person did, she saved her dad. For that, Mirai was grateful.

Sometimes, Mirai wondered if she and the girl named Ino could have been friends.

"Asuma-sensei, you're here, too?"

"Yo. I see you're up early," said man greeted the party of three. His eyes were tired but it was far from empty.

"Really, I can get up early, you know. I just choose not to," Shikamaru sighed. Shikadai snickered.

With both Inoichi and Ino out, Santa had taken up responsibilities. He swore only for a moment, until things settled down and the clan could find a proper leader, but it'd been years. Santa was still running the clan. Rei never failed to laugh at his fate.

Rei led the four visitors toward the back, where the garden sat quietly. Where the fallen rested peacefully.

"Hey, Ino. Inoichi-san. It's a nice day out."

note: I honestly don't know anything about Shikadai and Mirai so I BS'ed this part

Story 2:

"HIDAAAAAAAAAN!" a voice screamed.

"WHAAAAAAAAAT?!" another voice screamed back from somewhere else.

"COME HEERREEEEEE!" the first voice screamed again.

After a few silent minutes, a man barged out from between the palm trees. He had an impressive scowl on his face.

"WHAT!? WHAT DO YOU WANT!?" the man called Hidan screamed at the owner of the first voice. It was a young woman with bright eyes.

"Someone landed on our island!" she exclaimed.

"Great. We can finally get off this fucking shithole," he answered. As he started stomping toward the beach, a hand grabbed at his shirt.

"But what if they're not friendly?" Hidan thought she asked the dumbest questions.

"Are you dumb?"

"Yeah, I'm really dumb!"

"DUMBASS! If they're not friendly, I'll just kill them and take their damn ship."

"Okay, good luck with that! I'll cheer you on!"

"Wh- YOU'RE NOT GONNA HELP ME?!"

"I'll help if you look like you need it." Then she had the audacity to smile at him.

"Captain, what should we do about… that?" a tall man with a rifle asked the red haired man, clearly referring to the loud voices just a few meters into the trees.

"Eeh, let's just wait for them to come out first," said the captain.

And soon enough, the man called Hidan shoved his way out toward the beach in all his glory. There wasn't much glory to be said, considering he and his companion had been trapped on the island for at least seven months. They were both going a little stir-crazy.

The young woman the newcomers had briefly seen earlier poked her head out from behind a tree.

"Hello!" she chirped. "Are you friendly?"

"Depends on who's asking. How do you feel about pirates?" asked the captain.

"Pirates!" Hidan hissed. "Ino, they're pirates. They're gonna kill us if we don't get them first." He held up a shabby spear as threateningly as possible. He was doing a good job at that.

"Ah, we don't go around attacking random people, so if you don't attack first, we won't either," the captain held his hands in front of him in a non-threatening manner.

"Look, Hidan! These pirates have more manners than you!" Ino laughed.

"SHUT UP, YOU'RE NOT HELPING!" he yelled back.

"Now now, no need to be so rude to the young lady," a man with a bandana spoke. His bandana had the word YASOPP written on it.

"THAT BEAST IS NO LADY!" Hidan screamed as he switched his target from the newcomers to his companion. She only laughed and skipped away from his attacks.

"Captain, we came across some very interesting characters," said the man with the rifle.

"Sure seems like it," the captain answered.

note: Sometimes, I like to imagine Ino and Hidan are on another adventure. Usually, I imagine they end up somewhere in One Piece or something.

To answer some questions:

Ino refers to herself as she/her. Inoichi calls her his child in general. He calls her his son/daughter only sometimes, but that's more to let her know he accepts and embraces all of her.

Looking at her reflection in the mirror is very jarring for Ino. She knows it's her, but at the same time, it just looks wrong. She likes to avoid mirrors and other reflecting surfaces because of that.

Many members of the Yamanaka clan are involved in T&I since their abilities are very helpful in that regard. But it's not like everyone wants/enjoys being there. I don't want to generalize an entire group of people.

Chouji thinks of Ino as a kind and gentle person. For the most part she is. But she has a compartmentalized mindset. She separates her life with friends and life with work. Chouji has never really seen Ino at her work before. The glimpses of darkness he's seen before are nothing compared to how she can be.

And that's it. I don't remember any other questions/things I wanted to clear up. So yeah. The end. Bye.