A/N: Thanks for all the lovely reviews! I decided to emphasize the fact the title of my story has to do with chess by putting little quotations in the front of every chapter from chessquotes dot com. They all have a little to do with how the chapter relates to the story.

I guess Shikamaru plays shogi more than chess, but they're pretty similar from what I understand and I don't know much about shogi at all. My chess metaphors work a lot better than any attempts at shogi metaphors I could make.

Chapter Twenty-Six

"On the chessboard lies and hypocrisy do not last long." - Emanuel Lasker

Interlude

They arrived in Kumo just as the sun starting to set. Ino lingered in the immense gate taking in the sights. On their way, they had climbed higher and higher until the air and tree line thinned. Kumo was truly hidden in the clouds. The landscape was so foreign. All the eye could see were the white clouds, the harsh browns of the mountains and the occasional green of the pines down below.

"What do you think?" asked C of Kumogakure.

Ino crossed her arms over her chest proclaiming, "It's no Konoha, but it'll have to do."

He chuckled and said, "Come on, I can show you around before it gets too dark."

Ino turned back to her companion. "Come on, Shikamaru. Keep up."

"Troublesome," he muttered as he watched the blonde haired Kumo shinobi pull Ino away.

Darui halted next to him in the gate, watching them go too. "Do you think she'd go for a guy like C?"

"Hm?" asked Shikamaru.

Darui stuck his hands in his pockets. "He seems pretty taken with her."

"She's a Konoha kunoichi. I doubt it would work out."

Mei Terumi and Shiranui Genma stood beside them in the gateway. "I don't know about that," mused the Mizukage. "With all the collaboration between nations during the war, I wouldn't be surprised if some law got passed making it easier for ninja from different villages to marry."

Genma grinned at her. "Wouldn't that be nice?"

"Let's go, Shiranui," said the Mizukage. "I've heard that Kumo has excellent hot tubs. I think we should investigate."

"A worthy pursuit, Mizukage-sama," Genma laughed, following after her.

Darui chuckled wryly, "I think I can guess which of the Five Kage is going to propose that new law."

"Yeah," said Shikamaru.

Darui took a step forward with his hands in his pockets. "Come on, can't let C have all the fun."

Uzumaki Karin

In her mind, her time at the Torture and Interrogation Department could be broken out into two segments: the first of which she called Pre-Ino and the second of which she called Post-Ino. After hearing Ibiki raving about the girl for a nearly two months, it was hard to imagine her living up to the hype. But she did and then some.

Interrogations and Information gathering went two, three, or four times as fast when Ino was part of the team. She was only working part time, but even with the shorter number of hours, she was the most prolific of the team when gathering information.

By far her favorite things these days were their joint information gathering missions. When Ino and Karin were brought in to interrogate a suspect, they automatically fell into their Good Cop and Bad Cop roles. Ino, all blonde and pretty and angelic, was the Good Cop. The suspects where putty in her hands. When she wasn't reading their minds, sometimes they would just give up the information to her.

They had a great repartee as Good and Bad Cop. She had enjoyed her job before, but she liked it even better now. Ibiki was a funny old bastard, but Ino was a total riot. They would get together outside of work sometimes too. Ino had that flower shop where there was always a flurry of academy students and Kakashi's most trusted jonin flitting in and out of. Karin didn't understand it.

Ino was perched on the metal table in the observation room, filing her nails as she watched Ibiki interrogating a suspect. Karin was leaning against the wall, looking into the two-way mirror trying to read the suspects chakra.

"I don't know who they are!" the man cried out. "I've never see their faces."

"Do you have any identifying characteristics? Hair color, body shape, age, gender?" demanded Ibiki.

"I don't know!"

"He's lying," said Karin. "Tell Ibiki."

Ino put down her nail file and made a handsign to communicate telepathically with the tokubetsu jonin in the other room. She picked back up her nail file, saying, "I told him. He'll pursue."

"Good," said Karin peering closer at the terrified man in the chair. "It's amazing to think that no one's ever seen them. How can someone be completely invisible?"

"It's amazing that they'll trust leaders who don't trust them enough to show them their faces," mused Ino.

"Let's try this again," said Ibiki in the other room. "I know that they go by POSSUM, SPIDER, and DRAGON. Which one have you met?"

"I've met DRAGON, but he was wearing a mask and a cloak. I couldn't tell anything about him."

"So he's a man," said Ibiki. "What did he look like? Was he tall or short? Thin or fat?"

"I don't know, he was wearing a cloak, it was hard to tell," said the man. "He was tall. He wasn't too bulky, normal size."

"Did you get to see his hands? What did they look like?"

"He was wearing gloves," said the prisoner.

Karin sighed, "It's amazing that we've had two Root operatives now that have interacted with DRAGON. We've never had that before. I wonder why the man's come out of the woodwork. He usually just makes RAT relay all the orders to the operatives."

Ino nodded. "Doesn't bode well does it?"

Karin rubbed her eyes. "It makes me nervous. SPIDER and POSSUM on the other hand are still in the shadows."

"They can't hide forever," said Ino.

"So he's tall and not fat," said Karin. "That's easy enough to manipulate by slouching or wearing lifts or using a transformation jutsu. It's no help to us. He could even be a woman using a transformation jutsu."

Ino pursed her lips. "Which conveniently narrows it down to approximately 100% of the village's ninjas. A man or woman who is tall or short, fat or thin or perfectly average. Awesome."

"Did you see him use any jutsu?" asked Ibiki in the other room.

"No, nothing," said the suspect.

"So Ino, with your telepathy thing. You can send thoughts to other people, but can you read their thoughts too?" asked Karin.

"Yeah," said Ino, "I can read thoughts. I transmit a thought and the other person just thinks a response and I'll get it."

"Cool," said Karin. "Can you do that right now?"

'Sure,' said Ino in Karin's mind. 'What did you want to talk with me about?'

'I think we might have a mole in the department. When we released the prisoner after you gave him a mind wipe, he was killed the very next day. It's like Root knew what was happening and what our plans were.' Karin thought to herself. It was so weird communicating this way.

"What do you know about your leader's plans?" asked Ibiki from the other room.

'It is a little weird," Ino answered in Karin's mind, "but you get used to it. I agree with you there, though. Root has probably infiltrated every department in Konoha. I would be absolutely in their best interest to infiltrate this one because we're the ones looking for them. Information can be a powerful tool.'

"I only know what the missions they send me on," said the man. "I don't know their plans."

'I'd bet money that those men: POSSUM, SPIDER, and DRAGON are all in high ranking positions in different departments in Konoha," Karin thought.

"Tell me about these missions," asked Ibiki's cool voice.

'That's not a bet you're likely to lose," answered Ino.

"I've been keeping dibs on people that DRAGON asks me to. Trailing them and reporting back on their movements: who they see, where they go, what they're doing."

'Ino,' thought Karin in her head. 'There's one other thing. It's not about POSSUM, SPIDER, and DRAGON.'

'What is it?' answered Ino in her head.

'I can sense that you're pregnant. I can sense the chakra signatures.'

Ino didn't answer back. But the suspect filled the silence between the girls. "I've been following Hatake Kakashi, Kato Shizune, Haruno Sakura, Nara Shikamaru …"

'You're what, four months along? Have you told anyone?'

Silence, but the subject kept rattling off names. "…Yamato, Sai, Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke…."

'You're already showing, those baggy clothes and flak vests will only take you so far,' continued Karin. 'You can't stay here for too long. It's dangerous for a kunoichi to use chakra while she's pregnant. You're taking an awfully big risk.'

"…and Yamanaka Ino."

'I-I don't know what to do.' Ino finally answered, stepping closer to her.

"Yamanaka Ino? We've had you in custody for two weeks. You were following her before that?" asked Ibiki.

"Yes."

'If you need any help, you only need to ask,' Karin continued. 'The baby's chakra signature resembles another chakra signature I know very well. I spent months following it after all. I'm not sure how you came to be carrying his child, but it seemed he was cognizant of it. That explains a couple things.'

"You mustn't tell anyone," Ino answered in Karin's mind.

Interlude

Ino crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. "Why are you being so rude, Shikamaru?"

Shikamaru glared back. "That's none of your concern."

They were standing inside Shikamaru's hotel room that the Kumo ninjas had provided him for the night. Ino's room was down the hall. They were in one the buildings built into the craggy peaks of Kumo. The place was pretty quiet; their ninjas were still only trickling in from the front. Some would never return; some would never be the same. The majority were still convalescing at the veritable city of medical tents that the Allied Shinobi Forces had set up south of Kumo.

Ino sighed in annoyance. She leaned close to him, hissing, "We're guests in their village. Did you realize that? It wasn't for the ties we've formed with other villages because of the war we wouldn't even be allowed to wander around in here like we please."

Shikamaru crossed his arms over his chest. "I think you're enjoying yourself too much."

Ino sat down on his bed. "What's wrong, Shikamaru? You haven't talked with me but to snap at me since we found our father's bodies. I wish you would talk to me. You're the only one who knows how I feel."

Shikamaru leaned against the wall next to the bed. "Maybe you should go talk with C. I'm sure he'd like to know you better. After all, he's beautiful and romantic and gentle too, right?"

Ino frowned at him. "Are you…are you jealous?"

Shikamaru only glared in reply.

Ino waved a hand at him. "C's my friend. He's been really nice helping me through my shifts at the medical tents and talking about dad and the war."

"Then why aren't you sitting on his bed?"

Ino jumped up and slapped him across the face. "I won't sit here and be insulted. You can come and talk to me, Shikamaru, when you've grown up."

"I hope you're happy together," Shikamaru snapped as she slammed the door behind her.