Pandabot: Hey there everybody. Welcome to yet another chapter of Ino: Shippuden. I hope everyone's still enjoying the story and the characters etc. So anyway, this chapter isn't really that important. It's kind of a bridge chapter into the start of the next arc. So read, review and enjoy.
Chapter 14: Trouble, Trouble
A week later and Shikamaru's team had barely made any progress as a team. Individually they were fine, much better than they had been, but Hijame still spent more time ordering the team around then working with them. Akihiro was still trying to do things alone and Tenzo was still unresponsive to everything around him.
It was driving Ino mad and, currently, she was covering her face in disbelief as yet another team exercise went horribly wrong and her own team waltzed through Team Six's defenses to assassinate their target with ease. If anything, they were getting worse.
"Get out of my way, you idiot!"
"Your way?! You jumped in front of me!"
Hijame and Akihiro were currently nose-to-nose, screaming at each other. Tenzo stood off to one side watching impassively, arms folded while Team Four shook their heads in exasperation at yet another argument. It was all starting to get annoying.
Ino exploded.
"ALRIGHT, ENOUGH!"
Silence immediately fell as Hijame and Akihiro looked around in surprise, swallowing hard at the look of undisguised fury on her face.
"I have HAD it with you three! You aren't shinobi! You're a joke!" Ino growled angrily, shaking her head.
"Playing with kunai and jutsu...This does not make you a ninja! Fighting and dying and killing, that is the life we live. And no matter how good you think you are, you can't do it alone!" There was a long pause as the members of Team Six looked shell shocked; Kazuki and Kana looked annoyingly superior in the back of the group. Finally, a familiar, lazy voice came from the trees above their heads,
"It's troublesome but she's right." Ino looked up in surprise at the sound, smiling as Shikamaru gave her an impassive nod, crouching in the trees. He looked dirty and tired; he must have just made it back to the village. He dropped from the trees and hit the dirt next to Ino,
"Leaf Village shinobi work in teams. That gives us the best chance for survival on the missions we take on. If you can't work as a team, I'll just send you back to the Academy. You guys are troublesome anyway."
Ino half-expected Hijame to start arguing with Shikamaru but apparently the threat of being sent back to the Academy was too high a price to pay. They at least had the decency to play at looking ashamed even if the facade was awfully see-through. Ino closed her eyes, forcing herself to remain calm as Shikamaru grunted.
"We're training tomorrow. Now get out of here," he said bluntly, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. After a long tense moment, Shikamaru's team left all at once, bowing under the cold look of their sensei. He sighed, lighting up a cigarette,
"Troublesome..."
Looking at her own team, Ino figured they may as well leave as well too; they weren't going to do any significant training today. Before she could speak, however, Shikamaru exhaled a puff of smoke and spoke lazily.
"You should leave too. I gotta talk to Ino." Her genin looked at Shikamaru in surprise before looking to Ino for confirmation. She nodded and Kazuki shrugged, saying something quietly to Yomiko who nodded and they leapt away. Kana stayed, frowning at Shikamaru in confusion.
"See you tomorrow, Kana" Ino said pointedly, forcing herself to ignore to smoke rolling around her head. With a final look the blonde girl left, leaving Shikamaru and Ino alone in the woods. He took another drag at his cigarette, blowing the smoke lazily with a sigh. Ino coughed,
"Dammit, Shikamaru. Will you put that thing out?" He gave her a calculating look then grunted, throwing it to the floor and standing on it.
"Troublesome..." he mumbled, shovelling his hands into his pocket. Ino shot him a look but didn't bother giving him a lecture about smoking; he only did it because it helped him stay connected with Asuma-sensei. Besides, she had more fun things to talk about.
"How did your trip go? Did you have fun with your girlfriend?" she teased, a smug little smirk making it's way across her face. Shikamaru rolled his eyes but didn't say anything and Ino giggled,
"That's so cute. I bet you and Temari didn't get any planning done, did you?" She had forgotten how fun it was to tease him about her. As sexist as he was, he still loved her; it was adorable. He grunted,
"We got a little done. After she got out of hospital." Ino pulled back in surprise, a worried expression crossing her face, any thought of teasing disappearing out of the window.
"What? What happened?" His expression momentarily showed disgust but he managed to rearrange his face into it's usual bored expression.
"The day before I got there, someone attacked Gaara. Temari got hurt protecting him...You can imagine what Gaara did to them." Ino could imagine, not that she wanted to, but it just added to the scale of this threat. Assuming it was the same group, they were pretty fearless, going after Gaara and Kakashi.
"Is Temari ok?" Shikamaru grunted,
"Yeah, she's ok. Just angry at herself," he said in a bored tone that wasn't fooling anyone; she could only imagine his panic when he arrived and heard that Temari was in hospital after being attacked.
"Are you ok?" He gave her a strange look,
"I'm not the one who got injured," he said with brutal practicality. Ino gave him a look,
"You know what I mean." He merely grunted, his go-to response for most situations, but he didn't bother saying anything else. Ino, taking the moment to rearrange her ponytail for the fifth time that day, bit her lip.
"Looks like you were right then," she said, allowing a look of worry to cross her face. He raised an eyebrow questioningly.
"Kakashi was attacked too. And they got Darui." Shikamaru looked surprised for a moment, after all Darui was the Raikage's right hand man and he was a very skilled ninja. Then his expression turned thoughtful and Ino could see his incredible brain click into gear.
"Was Darui the target or the Raikage?" Ino shrugged, Naruto hadn't mentioned it, probably thinking it unimportant or maybe Kakashi hadn't said. Shikamaru thought for a second,
"It sounds like they're going after important people from the war." Ino looked at him, understanding his reasoning,
"Right. They went after Kakashi who led one of the units and stopped Obito. They went after Gaara, the commander of the army. Darui, who stopped one of the most dangerous resurrected enemies, the Gold and Silver brothers. Or the target could have been the Raikage. Me?" Shikamaru nodded and gave her a calculating look,
"You re-directed the Juubi's attack so it missed the Shinobi Alliance. You helped finish it off. And you stopped Uchiha, even if it was temporary. Without you, he would have killed Naruto and then no-one could have stopped him." True enough, even if Ino rarely thought about it like that.
"Ok, so who would they go after next?" Shikamaru thought for a second,
"Tsunade? She's the only reason that the other Kage survived after Madara went to fight Naruto. Naruto is obviously a given but Sasuke is the only one who could handle fighting him, no matter how good the trap was."
Ino groaned, this was getting insane. Who the hell were these guys, going after some of the most powerful shinobi in the world? Shikamaru sighed,
"We can't figure this out alone. We need to wait until everyone else gets back and gather information." Ino nodded, and he kept speaking, pulling out another cigarette,
"Besides, the Chuunin exams are in two months." He yawned as he went to light his smoke and Ino raised an eyebrow,
"Have you even been home yet?" He shook his head, taking a drag and sighing contentedly; Ino groaned.
"You idiot. Your mom's gonna lose her mind if she knows you didn't go straight home." He blanched for a second before regaining his composure and grunting with displeasure,
"Ugh. I guess I'd better go." Ino rolled her eyes,
"Yeah maybe" she said, heavy on the sarcasm. He pulled a face, staring longingly at his cigarette; his mother hated him smoking anywhere near the house and she would smell it on him.
"Tch. See ya later Ino." He leapt away into the trees, leaving Ino shaking her head in disbelief; he really should move out of the house if he was that scared of his mother.
Deciding to work on her taijutsu in one of her rare moments of free time was a recent development; the Ino of five years ago probably would have thrown a fit. On her way to her favorite training ground she reflected on how she had changed. Losing Asuma and then Chouji had really driven home the realities of the shinobi world.
She grinned, energised by her first chunk of free time since she had taken on her team; she could hardly wait to start working on some new forms. Not that she was meant to use this training ground at all. It was actually supposed to be for Naruto and the other highly ranked jounin but it was hardly ever used.
It was also very well outfitted with specially reinforced poles for high level taijutsu techniques as well as automated attack dolls that could be triggered if the user wanted. On top of that, there was a stretch of stream that was perfect for working on her water jutsu.
She paused as she approached - there was already a chakra signature there, a massive one. A chakra that large could only ever be Naruto but she was surprised that he was here. It didn't seem like he got any time to train anymore.
She began to move closer, slowly approaching through the thick screen of trees; maybe she could get some sort of insight into his behaviour here. Now that she knew it wasn't just Sasuke that was playing on his mind.
She sat on a thick branch as she came to the edge of the training grounds, watching Naruto unleash on one of the poles. He had every attack doll on at the same time, forty five wooden dolls trying in vain to hit him. There was a certain grace in the way he fought, seeming to simply flow through the attacking dolls until he reached his target, Rasengan ready to go.
The spinning ball of chakra ripped the pole apart, literally tearing it to shreds under his hand. Instantly, he was back on the move as another pole sprung up from the ground, firing a short burst of senbon.
He actually blurred as he accelerated, moving easily past the needles as he formed another Rasengan, bigger than before, in his right hand. A split second later, he smashed into the pole and utterly destroyed it like before.
Before the wood had even hit the floor, Naruto had turned around and was plowing through the attack dolls, smashing them apart with his fists and feet with single-minded efficiency. It was a very impressive display but the mindless brutality of it worried Ino. It wasn't like Naruto.
As the last piece of splintered wood fell to the ground and Naruto stood still, facing toward her, eyes closed, Ino was finally able to make out the distinctive markings around his eyes that indicated Sage Mode. That explained the destruction if not the reason behind it.
"Are you going to sit there all day?"
She should have known he could sense her presence; it had been the main reason he could stop the Zetsu clones during the war. She grinned cockily as she leapt down from the tree, landing just inside the clearing.
"I didn't wanna get in your way. I like my face the way it is thanks." He laughed aloud, losing the eye markings and brushing a hand carelessly across his forehead; At least he's cheerful today.
"You never change Ino," he laughed, shaking his head. Ino shot him a grin, giving a mock-modest shrug,
"What can I say? I gotta keep up the looks. Who else would the boys chase?" He shot her an odd grin, almost indecisive about something. Ino decided she might jump ahead of him, keep his mind away from whatever it was that was eating him. After all, if there was one thing that Ino Yamanaka had mastered, it was the art of keeping boys distracted.
"Hey, can you teach me how to do that?" Naruto gave her an uncertain look as she stalked closer,
"Use Sage Mode? I don't know, if you get it wrong you get turned into a toad statue..." She gave him a strange look,
"A toad statue? Seriously?," she shook her head, "Wait, no, that isn't what I meant. I meant the Rasengan. Can you show me how to do it?" He raised an eyebrow at her sudden interest in what had become his signature jutsu. Suddenly his eyes widened and he leapt backwards, arms raised defensively,
"Woah!" There was a long pause as Ino stared incredulously at Naruto as he stood, ready to defend himself,
"What the hell are you doing?" After another few seconds he relaxed cautiously, giving her a huge grin and rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment,
"Sorry, I thought it was some crazy trap." Ino closed her eyes in disbelief, shaking her head and slapping a palm to her face,
"Are you always this stupid?" His embarrassment evaporated,
"Hey! I'm not stupid! I'm awesome!" Taking a deep breath, and deciding to pretend that the last few moments hadn't happened, Ino stepped forward again.
"Can you teach me the Rasengan or not?" she said, the slightest hint of irritation finding it's way into her voice. He pouted, folding his arms across his chest,
"Maybe I don't want to now." Ino smirked, sashaying closer,
"Oh, Naruto. You can't say no to me." She slid closer as he looked suddenly nervous, glancing around for an escape route. She let her eyelids bat lazily, drawing his attention back to her face, a small smile making it's way across it.
She grabbed hold of his wrist and stepped around him, pulling the arm with her. She yanked his arm up behind his back, hooking her fingers over the back of his collar. Then she placed her foot against the back of his knee and forced him to the ground.
"Told you," she said sweetly, leaning over him to look down into his face. He growled in annoyance but Ino tightened her grip slightly and tutted.
"Ah, ah. I'm in charge now" she said slowly, leaning a little closer. It shut him up, it always shut the boys up, but the look of defiance informed her that it was time to change her tactics.
She released his arm but before he could get up she draped herself over his shoulders, leaning close to his ear.
"Please?" she whispered and he blushed bright red. Suddenly Ino was aware of what she was doing. Flirting? With Naruto?
What the hell am I doing?
She pushed him away, flushing with embarrassment. There was a long awkward pause as Naruto slowly clambered to his feet, avoiding looking at Ino. He cleared his throat,
"Uh..." Before he could say anything, and Ino thanked the heavens above for the timely interruption, an ANBU leapt into the clearing. The mysterious ninja inclined their head at Naruto in an informal sort of bow before they turned to Ino.
"Ino Yamanaka. The Hokage wishes to see you." At her nod of acknowledgement, the ANBU leapt away, disappearing into the trees. Ino turned to Naruto,
"I've gotta go," she said awkwardly. He gave an awkward cough and a nod and Ino turned to leave. She leapt into the surrounding trees, awfully aware that Naruto was watching her back.
What the hell just happened?