Year Five

Climbing the Ladder

"Congratulations on your promotion!"

Itachi spat it with as much venom as he could possible muster with that low and forced voice of his. He always had it when he was at least two steps beyond mad. Ino had exited promptly after offering to take Ibiki's place, Itatchi's tricks had lost their effect on her. She knew it was a wet dream of theirs to have her lead T&I and it would make them leave her daughter alone to be a child for a few years longer.

"Please Itachi!"

Ino had almost run into bad aim girl who was waiting outside the door like she hadn't been the least interested in what was going on inside, more specifically what had been going on between Ino and Itachi. Of course she was there, she just had to show up to make things better. As if Ino wasn't fuming enough from the meeting.

"Don't please me, it's thank you. You must be thrilled."

Ino stopped promptly in front of the exit. She was standing by two large potted plants when she turned around to face Itachi and that cursed woman. Just seeing her made her blood boiling, it was already hot from the meeting but Ino was fully roused by now. Couldn't the building collapse on that wretched woman?

"I'm not thrilled! And I was talking about that bitch of yours! Keep her on a leash or something!"

Itachi had rolled his eyes. It was always so effective on him when Ino did it and the immature action was a just reaction to her immature words. She seemed bothered too, hands turned into fists and she was breathing heavily. He could see her chest rise and lower as she inhaled and exhaled. The piece of hair she had constantly been pushing out of her face had fallen back again. She didn't even notice it this time around.

"Then why did you suggest it?"

"Did you see her results? It would have all been about formalities when she started rising in ranks, she would be at the top in no time! I don't want my daughter to be a hired killer before she reaches double digits! Just look what happened to you!"

Itachi leaned back his pose no longer defensive, he looked back at his girl but he knew very well she had no idea what Ino was going on about either. Everyone knew about Itachi, but only his most inner circle knew what it had caused him. The posttraumatic stress that was still shaping and shifting his life today. They all knew the happy hero who gave everything, but is now reunited with his kid brother so everything had to be fucking fine!

"I took that job so that they wouldn't take her and now I'm willing to stay so that they don't destroy her!"

A million things were rushing through Itachi's mind at the same time and he had difficulty grasping the thread, the memory, the knowledge he was looking for.

He had heard word outside their town before he returned, news that would eventually force him out of hiding. He had heard about the blonde that made everyone talk. He had heard how scum and lowlife criminals feared her and some avoided Konoha all together.

They would want someone like that doing what she was good at.

But it had cost her. It had made her sick before, lose her will to live. That was what little she still had left from the war. Still if her child was taken away from her she would be worse off than ever, or would she be back to where she had been. She would be broken none the less. He had seen her when she told him that Inokoto was going to die that first time. He had seen eyes like that once before, he had felt the vibes of intense sorrow after losing everything once before.

Ino would do everything for her child. She didn't go back for herself, she went back because loved her daughter and now she was willing to spend her life in misery just so that her child would stay a child. He had himself been robbed of much of his childhood. He knew firsthand how it was to be forced into a life he wasn't ready or wanting to live.

She was giving her life, her happiness so that her daughter would have hers.

And she hadn't told anyone. She was shunned and stamped as heartless for abandoning her child, she hadn't told anyone. Nobody was to know because if they did word would come to Inokoto and she would have to live with the guilt of what her mother had done for her and all would have been in vain. And he was the one who had started the crusade.

"You didn't have to, we would have found a way."

"NO!"

Itachi hadn't been there when they came. Told her how accidents happened all the time. Told her that many shinobi held a grudge against her and wanted her dead for what she had done. Told her how sad it would have been if someone came to her home to take revenge for what she had done to their sister, brother, mother or father. It would have been a shame if she had a miscarriage. It would have been such a shame because then she would have two lives on her consciousness.

She didn't have the power to protect herself. She was too clouded by fear to realize that they would never hurt the unborn child they so desperately wanted. She had only come up with the deal. She knew they wanted her back, they had kept asking her until the pregnancy was know. It was the only thing she could do for her daughter.

She had made the deal and planned to never tell anyone.

"Then you refused me to see my own daughter because I am a horrible monster. All I do is to torture and inflict pain. How could I forget that when I came home to my daughter? Since I don't try peaceful methods, and have other tasks, I just torture people all day long and what if I forgot that I was home with my daughter one day, I wanted her to tell me where he had hid my jacket, she wouldn't tell me and I just chopped of her toes. Was that something that worried you? Was that why you refused me to see my daughter?"

Itachi took a step forward even if he knew that only made her take a step back. There was a crowd that had gathered around them. That was no surprise. They were in the Hokage Tower of course around the time evening missions were put up.

"But I see you're still with this whore. If you think for a second that she'll ever replace me as Inokoto's mother I'll murder her and I mean it!"

The woman took a step forward laughing, a chuckle from the back of her mouth. It sounded almost like gargling. She was feeling particularly brave after hanging on Itachi's arm like a piece of jewelry. If it came to it, he would protect her against Ino.

"You haven't been on a mission in years, you've had a child, you let your body go. Let me tell you, I've been a much better…!"

She never finished that sentence. She down on the floor. Ino had her in a deadlock, hands on her back and a kunai on her throat. Blood was dripping on the floor. Ino wasn't playing gentle. It took every strain of self-control she had not to end her life right there and then. Have it over with, never have to worry about her again.

"I'd kill you easily, but perhaps I'll feed you poisonous flowers instead of slashing your throat. Make you suffer."

Itachi ripped Ino's hand from his mistress throat before he picked her up and tossed her on the floor. Ino landed on her back, looked at her left hand to see fresh blood over the blood stains she hadn't gotten off after she was so rudely and abruptly interrupted.

Ino had broken her skin, made her bleed. Could have killed her right there and then. Could have ended her life and she had wanted to. She saw how this was going to end up.

"Ino, you're a fucking crazy, bitch!"

Ino laughed. She was crazy. She always had been. She had also been branded a bitch many years ago. This was nothing new to her. She had heard it before and it didn't bother her, not at all. Not even in the slightest.

"But that's nothing new to you, Ami."

Sakura's childhood bully had grown up to be just as horrible, if not worse, than she was as a child. It had taken Ino longer than she wanted to admit before she realized it. Out of all the girls in town Itachi just had to go for her. The laugh that left her was bitter.

Someone threw themselves over Ino and she had sensed her coming a long time before she made impact. A fist was waiting for her when she first came. This was how they fought. Dirty, because words were no longer enough for them.

Ino tossed her on the floor and quickly climbed her. With one hand she captured her hands and with the other she found a little bottle she carried with her. She found it and used her mouth to open the cap as spat it out.

"This is what we use. We have so much information that if anything should ever happen we're instructed to kill ourselves so we always carry it with us. Wolfsbane. Grown in the mountains, us Yamanaka's are experts and have been able to make the poison highly effective."

She held the bottle over her head at an angle. Ami started struggling like a madwoman and screaming. Not the smartest move to keep your mouth open when someone is threatening to feed you poison.

Even if the story was true she hadn't realized that this bottle was empty. Ino let go of her and got back up on her feet.

"But don't worry, Itachi. I don't hold a grudge that you're keeping me away from my own daughter because you, out of everyone, think I'm a monster."

Ino turned around and had almost made it to the exit when she felt a hand on her should. It was easy to see that it was his.

There were many things she wanted to happen between Itachi and her. This was not one of them. This would have to be one of the worst days she had since the war, since doing what she did and seeing what she saw and losing her father.

"Tell her I'm dead for all I care."

It would be the best thing. That way she hadn't abandoned her. That way her mother hadn't left her and that was the way Ino was feeling. But her daughter would see her around town, she wouldn't believe her father.

"Itachi! No!"

Inokoto had gone to see Kakashi having grown bored of playing with Fugaku. He never wanted to steal his father's weapons, mainly his sword. So she had gone to see Kakashi who let her do whatever she wanted until someone picked her up. She hadn't found him so she went looking. She had looked through all the stories but couldn't feel him anywhere.

That was until she came downstairs, she had gone straight ahead to the room. She stopped when she felt her father in there too. Something had told her to stop and she had. She had stood there eavesdropping.

She had heard her mother. She was mad. She had heard her so clearly for the first time in so long.

Someone else come and waited with her outside the door. The woman had ruffled her hair and told her she was cute. She smelled like her father uses to smell like sometimes.

First out the door was her mother, to mad to notice her daughter, then followed Itachi chasing after Ino. His eyebrows had been furrowed and lips tight. Inokoto had never seen her parents like this. She had been scared and rushed in to see Kakashi in the same state.

"Follow through with this, not only will you ruin this little, innocent girl's life but I'll make sure to make yours a living hell! All the little you have left!"

"Kakashi!"

They had locked eyes. She didn't hear anything the old people had said. She just saw his eyes. They were blank. Tired as they always were, but they were different now. They had been talking about her, she knew that. They wanted her to do something, her parents didn't.

That was why they were mad, but why were they mad at each other?

Inokoto vowed to do whatever they wanted her to do if it made her mother happy, if she would be able to spend time with her again, if it would make her parents friends again.

"I'm scared."

He hadn't even collected his papers and rushed over to the trembling child. He didn't know how much she knew, what she had heard but she was frightened. He noticed her biting her bottom lip fighting back tears.

He held her arm and bent down.

"Don't worry, we will sort it out and everything will be fine."

"I want my parents, not just my father."

Kakashi pulled the small child in for a hug. Hoping the elders would see how fragile this child was. See how they would destroy her if they forced her to become a grown up too soon. Unlike Itachi and him she had had a happy childhood. She had had a mother and father who loved her dearly. She wasn't pushed, she didn't know violence and death.

If they did this to her it would be better to let go of her, but who would have been able to commit such a crime against this child?

Kakashi guided the sobbing child outside to hopefully still catch her parents. Both of them because this child needed them both.

He hadn't expected to introduce her to this scene. Ino was sitting on another girl threatening to kill her, talking about her job and how she might one day have to kill herself. This was the first introduction for Inokoto to see just what her mother was.

Kakshi had tried to push through the crowd. It seemed impossible especially with the little child attached to him.

Inokoto let go of him after a while when she saw them move towards the door again. She moved easily and fast across the sea of legs. No one in this town fought like Itachi and Ino, it didn't happen often they had come to learn, but it was always worth watching. The one today had been a fight for the ages and the best was yet to come.

She yelled out for her father but they both turned their head to see their child standing there with puffed eyes and pink cheeks. Still there was one thing that shocked them before she took off running. Kakashi had seen it too and the look of her parents told him it hadn't been just in his mind.

Inokoto had pupils.

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Sorry about another delay. I went out, again. Had to cure a bad case of blue Monday. So the be frank, I didn't bother to put up a chapter when I got home. Reviews have been slack so I was thinking I could allow myself to be slack too! Don't misunderstand me, I won't hold back chapters, they might be delayed from time to time. I also extended the chapter again so I hope we're good!

Guest: I totally agree with you actually, but Ino didn't reproduce asexually. So her kid isn't a Ino-clone, she has other genes too.

Yara: Thank you! I know, she's been struggling so hard and she's been getting hate in return.