Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own Naruto or any of its affiliations…I am merely borrowing its characters and settings to indulge my own fantasies and then share said fantasies with other people who equally do not own Naruto. I am not making any profit off this.

Author's Note: Well, turns out there was more I wanted to explore in this universe. I hope you all won't mind the shifts in POV for these installations. I'm not considering this a sequel necessarily, since these stories go beyond what I consider to be the plot of Expedient.

o o o

and cursed are the eyes that have seen where you've been

o o o

The skies had calmed but the settling night was heavy over her.

Ino thought it was a different type of storm around her then – a mixture from the smell of spilled blood and waste, the residual hum of expelled jutsu and chakra, and the darkness of fire smoke covering the moon. Not a lot of wind to bring a chill to her skin, but the drawn out whimpers and moans, curses and prayers from the injured and suffering inspired the same unpleasant prickling of hairs on her flesh. Every now and then a light flash would go off and the boom of thunder would follow from the movements of Kumo nin.

The last pockets of fighting had ceased before evening and the commotion she heard then was the aftermath of battle, though some of the urgency had calmed with the passing hours.

No one had stumbled across her.

She was in something of a hole made of building and stone debris, the walls of which twisted up around her in a narrowing conical shape. Head space was plenty, but the area was tight and she didn't have much room to either side of her. Underfoot the ground was a thick, uneven padding of gravel and dust and rough shapes of various materials. A solid slab that bore embossed carvings of a store moniker served as a seat for her.

Most of the available space passable for reclining had been given to Sasuke.

He was out cold and had been since the end of the battle. He'd been placed where he laid by Itachi and hadn't stirred in hours. There was something like a sickness clinging to him after the forced retreat and sealing of Orochimaru's chakra. The last motion Sasuke had made was a strained convulsion and a raspy exhalation as his fever broke. His pallor and stillness was worrisome, but Ino didn't think his physical health was in any imminent danger.

As for his psychological and emotional health... Well, that was a different case.

Sasuke's mind was a tangle of scars from abandonment, torture, confusion, and helpless fury. Ino had seen it up close, had seen the terrible things Sasuke hid from most of the world behind his mask of indifference and isolation. She had felt his suffocating burden of the division between his internal and external presentations. He was stunted and hurting and very lonely.

But he was also determined. There was no perspective for Sasuke outside of power and revenge; he didn't allow himself that much. Sasuke had only his goal to confront Itachi and then to kill him. Beyond that, nothing.

Ino thought the truth of the Uchiha Massacre might break him.

"You should use this moment for your own mourning, Ino-chan."

A muffled scrape as Uchiha Itachi landed next to Ino, having dropped from the slim opening above. Itachi was without his cloak and looking more tired than he had when he left; paler and drawn out like a bending thread of spider silk about to blow away. Battle might not have drained him, but one conversation with Lady Tsunade had him stiff with fatigue.

They had agreed beforehand that Itachi wouldn't tell Tsunade the truth behind the orders for the Uchiha Massacre or anything else incriminating, as Ino had thought it would be a bit cruel and ill-timed and Itachi hadn't exactly been adamant for the go-ahead. He had gone to talk with her about Sasuke's status with Konoha.

Itachi's Sharingan picked up the light from the scroll and his eyes were a warm gold as he waited for her response.

"It's shock, I think," she answered, looking away.

Or was it rather that Ino studied Sasuke so she wouldn't think about her father?

Sounding a bit wry and a bit listless, she said, "I can't help the dead."

An audible quivering touched the last word, betraying her surfacing emotions, and Ino shut her lips tight. She shouldn't have said the word. Her father would never know all the things she wanted to tell him and she would never know his reactions. No laughter or scoldings or reassuring arms around her shoulders.

Ino put her hand to her mouth and pushed back at the ache growing in her chest.

Itachi noticed her discretion and hesitated closer. "Ino..."

"How did everything go?" She asked, interrupting him. It had sounded for a second like Itachi was about to comfort her and Ino couldn't handle such a gesture at the moment — or possibly ever, not from him. He was too — "Your situation, the two of you, it's been cleared up?"

Going along with her change in subject, Itachi allowed himself a soft exhalation to profess his weariness.

"Tsunade-sama has decided to keep my brother under probationary guard and medical surveillance for the duration of his recovery. She is perplexed by our circumstance, the positions we each took in this conflict, and less than reassured by my words."

Ino pinched her brows together and a question on her lips made her drop her hand, but Itachi didn't give her a chance to speak.

"The Fifth's cooperation is more than I should have ever expected. I am inclined to say that she could not dwell very long over the issue of two deserters, that her concern lies with greater, more immediate matters crippling our village."

'Our village' and Ino heard the words like coming across a rock in a smooth path. A snag in the line, maybe. It made her falter. She hid it behind a smart comment.

"Tsunade-sama must have trusted you to some extent if she let you walk away from her." But the injection of humour didn't take and her observation was flat.

Itachi was despondent at the bleak point. "...Perhaps I was more insistent on making my exit than she preferred."

"Had to flee, did you?" Ino managed a little smirk.

"I merely took advantage of those aforementioned matters and, without wanting to bother our Hokage-sama, quietly excused myself."

"He hopes to atone and yet only on his terms," and her teasing was more evident.

Itachi joined Ino on her stone slab and eased into a more relaxed posture. He returned the banter, "I believe I have admitted to being a selfish man."

His undertone carried some of his tiredness that he couldn't entirely dismiss and it was obvious he was trying to appease her. Attempting once more to offer some comfort, if not with a more subtle approach.

He was trying.

She raised her knees to her chest and snuffed out the tentative, amiable atmosphere.

Ino hadn't expected Itachi to turn himself in to the village – what authority and structure remained of it – but she was curious about his plan of action. They had danced around his answer before the fight, grasping at a vague concept of 'hope.'

Hope in itself didn't imply any sense of direction or purpose.

There was little chance Itachi would tell her his next move, so Ino went with a different question. Looking between Sasuke and Itachi, she asked, "what are your motivations now?"

"Sasuke has always been my priority." They both understood that it wasn't a proper answer and he seemed to struggle with his exact thoughts. A moment passed as she waited. He was slow and quiet, speaking again, "as for what you will do now... When you said before that you were thinking about my brother because you cannot help the dead, does that mean you intend to help him?"

She thought Itachi was asking because he was planning to leave. A smart move on his part.

Dropping her knees to the ground, she turned more fully to him and he did the same in kind. Ino nodded. "I'll look after him. I won't let him be alone."

But he was asking for a different reason. "Why do you try so hard, Ino-chan?"

Ino was taken aback by the question, having not expected anything like that from him.

He saw the defensive straightening in her shoulders.

"Pardon me, I misspoke. However... " Itachi moved his gaze back to Sasuke, pensive. "I know what I did to my brother that night."

"What do you mean?" Ino was confused.

"I still had the blood of my parents in my mouth when I told him to be like me – like the thing I was in that moment – in order to become strong." There was no detachment in Itachi's voice as he spoke. It was real and there with him and he didn't deny the reality to himself, did his utmost to keep it palpable. "I thought he would reject anything that monster said. ...Become like that thing in order to be strong. And I thought there was no way he could ever emulate such a thing, could ever believe there was value in the ramblings of a cold torturer and murderer.

"My brother held too much esteem for me, even for that demented version I presented that night, and he was unrelenting in following that perversion of advice. He isolated himself to become like that. I was hoping he would shun my ways and turn to the village for support to spite me, to reject his treacherous older brother."

Softly then, he said, "all he wanted was to become like that thing. I made him what he is."

Ino listened. Itachi blamed himself for the misery that was Sasuke's life and a part of her agreed with the assessment, but there were other parties pulling Itachi's strings back then, too. There were others who were much more responsible for the injustices, who should have born all his guilt and a hundred fold more. ...But she understood how he blamed himself.

"You were young," she said eventually when he had stayed quiet. "Despite the burden of praise adults put on you back then, you didn't have perfect wisdom and foresight."

No one ever does, not really.

Itachi had been manipulated and that was the world he had always known; it was not a leap in logic for him to then go and attempt to manipulate Sasuke in kind. He had been a chess piece playing at being the master.

Not for the first time, Ino thought that in one way or another, every member of the Uchiha family died the night of the Massacre.

"I do not... I cannot expect you to help Sasuke," Itachi said.

"He's not an easy one to crack, that's for sure." Ino shifted some, scratched at a loose piece of stone in the seat between them. "I knew he was by himself after everything. I saw it. I recognised his loneliness. It might have been simple of me, but I thought he just needed someone to reach out to him, touch him, acknowledge him, remind him he had support there for him. I used to think he pushed me away because I was a girl. I tried to be something else for him, but the truth was I wasn't anything comparable to what he had lost."

She had been a poor imitation, insipid cheeriness that belied the absences Sasuke endured.

"You were a vestige of his past. Something from before and someone who knew him as he used to be." He trailed off, unable to say again, 'before I ruined him.' "I do not think he could tolerate to be around you because of that connection. It must have pained him."

"Maybe," Ino said, shrugging a shoulder. She took a long breath. "When I was in his head tonight, I did learn something. As much as he rejected his friends in Konoha, he did open up to someone eventually. A few people. He has a team back in Otogakure. He trusts them, as much as he can, and Sasuke thinks of them as worthy comrades. He does have bonds, Itachi, even if it isn't with the people you might have expected."

Definitely not with her, Ino lamented.

"Reassuring news, certainly."

Itachi leaned forward in his seat to rest his elbows on his knees and steeple his hands. A thought took his mind away for a moment and then he was easing from the position. His hand returned to the stone surface between them and she watched the tendons there flex and relax. His skin was cool where it leaned against hers.

Sharing his contemplation, she said, "that kind of existence, that lonely path... it is consuming."

Ino had seen as much.

"There's still hope," she determined, and a brief smile bounced on her lips. "He's still here with us, isn't he? It will be difficult and he'll hurt, but he will get better. He will find a new purpose in life one day and he'll have peace."

In the dim light, their eyes met and it was a dragging long second before they both looked away.

Another stretch of silence.

"Thank you for trying, Ino. My brother might not have understood you, but," Itachi was quiet and soft in his tone, a low rumble like there was something in his chest making it hard to speak, "thank you."

Ino didn't say anything, and she hadn't the words. She felt a swelling mass beneath her breasts, pushing into her lungs and up her throat. Warmth in her cheeks and down her neck. Her eyes were hot and pulsing to spill into something more. She changed the pressure in her chest to a short laugh.

"Let's – let's not get ahead of ourselves," she said.

But they had gotten ahead of themselves, Ino thought. It had happened the moment she inadvertently invaded his mind and conceded her own. A part of her wanted to wave away that truth, the openness and ease that pervaded the space between them. It was too much.

She returned her attention to Sasuke.

"I'll help with his recovery from a more objective place, maybe. There's plenty to address before we even get to the truth of the Massacre." Ino didn't know when it would be an ideal time to present her findings to Tsunade. There were a lot of delicate things to consider before she went ahead and accused the war-ravaged village of buried atrocities. "He might not be very pleased with what was done to his curse seal, but our first objective should be to eradicate Orochimaru's chakra. I'll start there."

In her peripheral vision, she saw that Itachi's face was impassive, angled away from hers.

"And I will do what I can to minimise the fallout of Akatsuki."

"Plenty to keep us busy," she reiterated. Other things to keep them occupied, to pile up as obstacles before their goals.

Ino and Itachi were quiet.

For months and months she had been rushing to some glorious, righteous revelation and suddenly Ino found she had nothing to do but quiet the injustices calling for her voice. Next to her was a man who had for years been trudging diligently to his death and suddenly he was without the resolution to his sins.

His hand was against hers, warmer now, but she felt a cool dread inside her.

They each had wondered after the other's intentions as to what they would do next, and while it was not the answer they had admitted aloud to one another – resisted fully admitting even to themselves – for the immediate future, they were each running away.

o o o

Getting into someone's head didn't always mean Ino got to see that person's internal retreat. There wasn't always what she referred to as a 'mindscape' in which she could hang out and get an idea of what constituted that person's internal life. Sometimes her technique went directly into the person's senses and she was inhibiting their body without any mental interference.

Sasuke was somewhere between the two groups. Ino had taken over his body immediately and been assaulted at the same time by a torrential loop of mental anguish. Unrecognisable, terrible static from a spectrum of feelings. Noise, constant and demanding, and it had nothing to do with her presence. It was just the normal operation for Sasuke's thoughts. She had seen flashes of discordant memories and feelings, and she wondered if that were normal for him as well. For all his cool detachment and cunning actions, he was ragged with fear and uncertainty on the inside and it was a draining thing to witness, let alone live.

Ino thought of the house in which Sasuke had grown up alone, how its long, silent hallways and stained, empty rooms must have driven the noises in his mind louder and louder every day.

Itachi's image of a nurturing Konoha taking in his brother and raising him with love and attention had never manifested. After the Uchiha Massacre, no one had committed to realising and calming the turbulence in Sasuke.

Inside the temporary room serving as Sasuke's private medical bay, Ino recalculated that estimation: it wasn't that no one had tried to reach out to Sasuke, it was just that the only ones who tried had also been children. Most ardently and prominently so being herself and Uzumaki Naruto.

Standing to Naruto's side as they both contemplated the unconscious boy in front of them, she remembered the challenges proclaimed from one boisterous boy to another sullen one. The call for attention and, she understood now, a friendship. A different approach to her own, but Naruto had also seen the loneliness in Sasuke and tried to breach it. After the formation of Team Seven, she might have guessed Naruto had been marginally more successful in his efforts, but now she wasn't certain. Here she was with him, both of them considering Sasuke, and Naruto looked about as lost in the situation as she felt.

Naruto was wrapped hand to foot in bandages, sat in a wheelchair with one of his legs positioned straight out in front of him in a splint. He was only miserable from his thoughts about Sasuke.

"Look at this smug dipshit sleeping away like I ain't got nothing to say to him," Naruto mumbled without much heat.

Sasuke had been awake earlier when Ino had first come to see him. She hadn't said much beyond hello and a recitation of his physical condition, but it was obvious he had not been engaged with his environment. He hadn't looked in her direction or acknowledged her being in the room. Beyond a sly tugging at the restraints on his wrists there was little evidence he was aware of anything around him.

Ino had accepted the clear rejection at the time, but Naruto's appearance had made her curious.

Thus far, with Sasuke's unconsciousness, there hadn't been much to see.

"He was unresponsive earlier, too," she said, thinking to ease Naruto's feelings.

Naruto blew air through his lips, annoyed. "Yeah, so? Sounds just like him."

He hadn't always been that way, Ino wanted to remind him. But Naruto knew as much.

"When this bastard wakes up, I'm gonna kick his ass. He's going to tell me why he went along with that snake-hole's attack against Konoha. I want answers."

'I want him to talk to me.'

"Did he tell you why he was leaving back then?" She asked, referring to the Retrieval Mission Shikamaru had led years ago.

"...That guy promised to make him stronger, the hell that means, and this cocky ass believed him."

After all his time with Orochimaru, she wondered if Sasuke had started to carry animosity towards the village. If he had started to see its many shortcomings and faults.

"Could've just asked me," Naruto continued. His glare softened but there remained a growl in his voice, sadness that he covered with anger. "I would've helped him."

Ino shifted her weight from one leg to the other and tried to shake away the twisting knot in her gut. It was not very comfortable knowing more about Sasuke's situation than his own team mate. Knowing more than Sasuke probably would have wanted.

"Come on," Ino murmured, taking a hold of Naruto's wheelchair, "we should let him rest."

Naruto grumbled but agreed, 'for now.'

Ino thought there was no point to letting their various regrets tangle up the atmosphere any more than it already was. She could almost feel Sasuke's barriers fortifying against their good intentions and what he must have always seen as pointless, hindering endeavours.

Each successive visit remained just as stagnated. The more Ino had to keep from saying to Sasuke, the greater the distance became between them. If only she could tell him the truth... If only he knew about Itachi's actions and motivations...

Because then, she thought, he could address his turmoil.

Knowledge and answers could do that, could bring some sort of resolution and path forward.

o o o

Weeks went by and the Village Hidden in the Leaves persisted despite its losses. Shinobi cleared rubble, healed the wounded, catalogued the dead. Civilians salvaged what they could of the clean water supply, viable food stuffs, and trade relations. Tsunade and Yamato grew forests and produced short term barracks and housing. Nin from both Iwa and Suna remained to help with infrastructure and plumbing. Another team procured generators and got the basis for an electrical grid operating.

Ino spent her time between general clean up of the village and assisting where she could at the newly consolidated hospital. She spent anywhere from one to three hours a day with Sasuke. Sometimes she would meet up with her co-conspirators in the Uncover Village Genocide Club, stuffing themselves into a canteen booth to swap stories and drinks. Depending on their availability, the group varied in size from one night to the next, but she made sure to find everyone at least once a week.

Most of them shared her ongoing state of uncertain eagerness and anxious discontent. They all knew there were repairs to make but they didn't know which should take priority. They didn't know when to put aside the work and allow themselves to grieve. They all thought perhaps there was simply too much that needed to be done, and so many people who needed help, and, damn it, feelings could definitely come later.

Rock Lee and Sai – strangely enough – were the most resilient and palpably energetic of the group. Neither had lost anyone close during the Battle of Occupation and this seemed to allow them some liberties the others didn't share. Sai had made friends. He often enjoyed testing the best things to say in order to get a ridiculous response from Lee (the most successful thus far having been about sex and concerning Neji).

Ino rolled her eyes at the memory of the resulting commotion Sai's 'joke' had kindled and laughed to herself. She was alone for the moment, sitting on the edge of her barracks' roof and bouncing her legs in a restless way, and she wanted to spend her time smiling and laughing as much as possible. Difficult when by herself, but she persisted.

Later that evening she was meant to report to her clan's central compound and she wanted the afternoon to pass slowly.

Her father's body had been recovered and there were arrangements to finalise and see through.

The view of the village in front of her was in part a strange combination of new construction next to piles of ruin, and then in part a forest, barely a month old but as grown and wild as if it had been there for a millennia. Some of the trees were charred from battle or even knocked over. One not far from her had a chunk missing from its middle, as if it had been hacked away on purpose. More damage from the fighting, she thought.

In the midday light, everything was oddly desaturated to her eyes and it made her wonder when the point would come that she might stop seeing the rubble that stayed in the city. When she would look over it without pause and go about her business, not thinking of war.

There used to be a cart with flavoured ice that would have been out on a day like this in the Konoha she knew before. Maybe that man or his family was also preparing for a funeral. Maybe no one remained for the planning.

A time would come when she stopped having thoughts like that, and the Battle of Occupation would be dull and distant to her.

Ino stopped kicking her legs and frowned.

One of the scroll pockets on her chuunin vest warmed against her chest and she startled from her musings. It was a notification that the person who had the corresponding scroll wished to talk with her, but she was surprised to hear from the man so soon. She opened the scroll and read the encoded message within inquiring if she had a private moment to talk.

She waited until she was back in her quarters to reply in the affirmative.

Ino thought Itachi would write asking after Sasuke and she was unenthusiastic about the information she had to share. No progress to lift anyone's spirits and she mentally rehearsed a gentle, disappointing answer. Before another message could arrive, the scroll spit out a web of seals throughout her entire flat. Ino identified some being close to what was used in summoning seals and then there was smoke obscuring her sight.

Uchiha Itachi arrived unannounced in her cramped barracks quarters.

"You know, we didn't really discuss that aspect to the scroll when you gave me one," Ino greeted, unimpressed.

Itachi looked different, exhausted and there were frays around him she hadn't seen before, edging on unkempt. He was paler, too, and not just his skin but his hair. His expression was more open than she remembered seeing before, a cracking in his normally calculated, barren front. Almost like he was upset.

"What's wrong?" Ino recovered enough to step forward, hands out to help steady Itachi's wavering stance. She dropped them and let him settle himself. "What's happened?"

"I had an encounter I did not foresee," he said, vague, and he took a moment to scope her cramped quarters. A rectangular room, wooden in structure, with a high, open window along the outer wall and a door to the hallway opposite. He secured the makeshift hangings Ino had put up as shades against the morning sun, reinforcing them with seals she supposed diminished noise or kept others from listening in. He did the same along the ceilings, floors, walls, and doorway. Then he regained his composure, to some extent.

"Akatsuki?"

"Former Akatsuki, yes."

"Did you neutralise them?"

"I did not." Itachi didn't say anything further on what he had done while away. He switched abruptly to talking about Sasuke. "Is there any change in his condition?"

With nothing positive to say, Ino lifted a shoulder.

"Yesterday he got frustrated for the first time," she said. "He didn't respond to anything directly, just an eruption of impatience. ...It wasn't exactly good and there was a little bit of an overreaction. They took away my clearance to see him and raised his security."

"What did he do?"

"His emotions weakened the counterseal containing Orochimaru's chakra. The senior medic got scared. He thinks the solution is keeping Sasuke subdued on a chemical cocktail anchored into his arm. Sasuke's high risk so no emotions then no problem, I suppose, is his reasoning."

Itachi's mouth was a flat line and Ino read his thoughts.

"It's just a new form of torture for him."

"Unacceptable," was his curt answer.

"I know," she agreed. "It's tough seeing him cling to that same goal. He still hates you. He's single-minded about his goals and can't seem to separate himself from his revenge. It's everything there is to him."

She rubbed at one arm and sighed. "I can't wait for things to be different. I just want him to know the truth about you."

Itachi scoffed, a short and derisive sound. "A pleasant conversation, I imagine."

"Yeah, no. I don't think so..." Ino eyed the way Itachi brought a hand to his temple. She asked again, "what's wrong?"

"It was never meant to be this way. He was never meant to know our transgressions."

"I know." Her empathy wasn't as consoling as she wanted it to be and it only seemed to irritate Itachi.

He paused the massage he had started at his temple and looked coolly down at her. "Oh, she knows, does she? Yes, she believes she knows such a wonderful amount of things."

"What?" She almost recoiled. "Now you're upset with me about that?"

Ino tried to keep her voice level and her defences from springing up. "I thought you were... You knew he was going to find out. We talked about this. It's going to happen eventually."

"The inevitable unveiling, yes, due to your reckless actions. If you had not so stubbornly dug into that history, I could have given him a different life."

"You shouldn't be so certain that a 'different life' would have been better." She thought the evidence of how miserable a life Sasuke had was rather surmountable.

Itachi was on a track, though, and it didn't seem as if he had heard her comment. A drive possessed him and he seemed coldly ethereal, but his sharpness was real.

"Why did you have to get involved? No one was looking for this truth to surface. You could have let it be."

"This sort of truth should never be forgotten." Ino shook her head, caught off guard by his sudden disagreement. She wondered from where it was coming. "How can you be okay with the village betraying your family like that?"

"My family betrayed the village first."

"And the response is to kill everyone? A manufactured plague released without warning and a lie to cover their own cowardice. There's no way you can defend that."

"I volunteered for it."

Ino returned the hard stare Itachi gave her, challenging her to refute his statement, and she refrained from parroting her opinions about how he had been manipulated.

Itachi stepped away, hid his face behind another pressing at his temple.

"Did you come here just to argue with me?" She asked after a moment. "You really want to fight me that badly?"

He lowered his hand, a flat expression in place.

"You are a sight to behold, truly. Talking smartly from your righteous, ignorant throne. Inebriated on lofty ideals. Blind to your own staggering indiscretions and poisonous intrusions." No inflection or tone in his voice. Instead he sharpened his words to needle points and each one was a slow puncture to her center.

Ino didn't look away from him, didn't wilt from his accusations. He wanted to hurt her, she thought, and he did. It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling and she was numbed to the effect.

"You're not saying anything I haven't already thought about myself," she told him.

Itachi was scared, Ino could see it plainly in his actions. She berated herself in the same way when her fears overcame her senses, too. Not that she had thought he would turn his doubts on her. Stepping closer to him, she traced the lines tense around his eyes and watched the way he winced at her touch. Something in her memory clicked and she tilted her head, inquisitive.

"Is this because of that thing you invited inside your head?"

The ritual. The voice of Jashin.

The question was the right one to ask. His response was a quick snap. His fingers were tight around her wrists in a move meant to inspire her to jerk away but one she thought only succeeded in trapping her closer. She wondered if he saw the flaw, too, if he could name his own contradictions.

"You should stop assuming I am a good person, Ino. Doubt me more. Drown that person you think I am."

He failed to intimidate her and she shot back, "why are you so convinced you can't still be that person?"

His hold slackened and she saw another break in his mask, a flickering of something.

"You should be able to move on from what the village did to you and what they made you do," she told him. "Itachi, you deserve forgiveness."

It was the wrong thing to say.

"Forgiveness?" Said like it was a foreign word to him. His anger collapsed into a confounded, abused sort of pity. "Is that your thought? I deserve forgiveness."

He wanted her to feel foolish for the suggestion. She didn't. "Yes."

Seconds ticked by and she watched a resolve harden his features. There was a wavering in his gaze and Ino watched as the black shapes within the red of his Sharingan started to move. Spinning.

"Would you like to see it? I can show you what I did to my brother."

Ino had been in Itachi's head, so it was only right that he put himself in hers.

"In this world, I can have you watch the very same thing I made Sasuke relive for hours and days."

Inside her head and she found herself standing in a familiar place. She had walked through the area recently enough to recognise she was in the Uchiha district. They were outside the tailor's shop. Night time and the store was dark inside. The sign hanging in its window was still flipped to 'open.'

The Tsukuyomi had her standing in the past. She could feel and see every detail in the scenery. Itachi had burned the memories into his mind and they were stinging in clarity as he presented them to her.

But there was something else shaking in the world around them. Distant and like the steady thumping of drums.

"Sasuke might not want me to know as much as that," she said finally, turning from her observations to consider Itachi. Ino blinked hard, found something else to look at and had to stop a weak constricting in her throat, a pathetic noise that wanted to escape.

The drums were gaining momentum, a vibration humming up her legs.

"Yamanaka Ino clawed up the truth and I thought at first to kill her for it," Itachi said.

"That's no surprise." She had understood as much when they first connected through her jutsu. She had felt his cold ire and watched as he snatched it away and buried it deep inside him. More than his genius and his ninjutsu, the duality of Itachi's nature scared her most, made her want to turn and run.

And yet... Ino glanced back to Itachi and away again. He walked closer, bringing the the steady hitting of drums with him. More shaking around her like a jumping pulse. His pulse.

"I could do the very same to you," he thought aloud. "I know the circumstances of how it went... Would you like to see your father's death?"

"Please don't." Ino closed her eyes tight and the tears there fled down her cheeks. She couldn't bear it.

"In this world I have complete control."

The crescendoing noise around them and the fracturing white lines growing bolder told otherwise. That and one other thing.

"I could take your bones to splinter a thousand times if I wanted." The drums nearly overwhelmed his words as he came to a stop just within reach. He assured her, "all that matters here is at my leisure."

The throbbing rocked her like a white hot blister swelling bigger on each beat of his heart. She fought to stay standing while the drums called for her collapse.

But his were hollow threats, she thought.

"Complete control." Ino said the words back to Itachi lacking any of the force he had used. She couldn't stomach being harsh with him, not the way he was right then. She asked, as gently as she could, "do you ever wonder if this place is a reflection of how little control you have in the outside world?"

He frowned and the drums ebbed away. "What?"

"I know you brought me here to show me how you tortured Sasuke. To your little brother, I'm sure the image you're presenting now was rather frightening." Ino let the words hang in the air, sad at how they confused Itachi. "But to me, seeing you as you were on that night only reaffirms my thoughts about how you were used by the adults around you. You were just a child."

Standing before her was Itachi, donning his special ops uniform, wet katana in hand, and all of thirteen years of age.

He was slow to realise this. The weapon fell from his grasp as he inspected the gloves over his small hands. He stepped back as if to separate himself from the truth but he couldn't leave it.

For all Ino had said of Sasuke being stunted from the trauma in his past, she saw the same applied to Itachi. He wasn't going to leave the night of the Uchiha Massacre until the day he died, and he had wanted to leave it while in his brother's arms. He had wanted the earth to claim both his body and the misery of his family.

She had taken that wish from Itachi when it hadn't been her place. She had never seen it as a possibility, had been just as blind and ignorant as he had claimed.

"I'm sorry." Ino could have apologised for many things, and she wanted to apologise on the behalf of so many others, but compromising Itachi's chance at personal redemption was nothing she had ever wanted. He shouldn't have that taken from him, too.

Itachi raised his hands to his neck, the thinness of youth there, trailed fingers up his jawline. His eyes were wide and shining from under the conflicted draw of his brow. He dropped to his knees, a silent collapse to the ground, caught his upper body on his knuckles as they dug into his thighs.

The drums had quieted but he continued shaking.

They were in her quarters without any warning of transition. Ino was back to having to tilt her head up to look at Itachi when they were so close. His eyes were shut and she watched the trembling of wetness under his lashes. His fingers around his wrists relaxed and he lowered both their arms on one long exhalation. The tension left him and she saw only his tiredness remained.

"Are you... Has it subsided, Itachi?"

He made a indeterminate noise from behind sealed lips and didn't move.

Ino stepped forward, guided Itachi back to the edge of the cot behind him and hushed him into taking a seat. His hands left her wrists reluctantly but he hooked them on the back of her knees before she could step away. She hadn't intended to anyhow.

"Why do you forsake yourself in this way, Ino?" Itachi asked long after she had started to comb her hands through his hair. His head was bowed forward, a gentle leaning under her ribs. "Meeting this abuse of mine and still you insist on seeing the worth in others. I do not understand."

Ino didn't have an explanation. She said nothing, followed instead the way he drew slow, placating patterns over her skin. Felt the whispering of his apology, pressed warm and sincere against her middle.

The late afternoon hours passed slowly.

o o o

"I feel weird. The whole thing was weird."

Ino pulled at the sleeve of her new robe and gave the beautiful silk a petulant look. She had barely gotten used to seeing her father in his robes as the Yamanaka Clan Head and now here she was with her own set. It was wrong, she decided. So soon after her father had been laid to rest and already she was stumbling into his role.

Sort of like when she had been a toddler dragging around in his sandals.

Shikamaru grunted from where he walked beside her. He had been the only one of her classmates in attendance for the ceremony announcing her new position and altogether it had been a small, mildly unhappy affair. Invitations were by word of mouth, last minute, and most everyone was in demand elsewhere. There wasn't a lot of opportunity for such traditions, even if some clans had no other choice but to name their successor.

"Eh, imagine how it went for Hinata. From what her clan used to be down to that small number of people at her commencement? That's tough."

"Not exactly the consoling answer I had been fishing for. Now I just feel guilty." Ino stuck her tongue out as Shikamaru's unabashed slouch. "I need Chouji here! Where is he? At least he manages to have some measly bit of tact."

She was teasing Shikamaru and it was an established habit that fazed neither of them. They both knew Chouji was working a night shift for heavy lifting in a construction project a few blocks away. Rebuilding the village went a lot faster with ninjutsu in play.

"You good for the night?" Shikamaru asked. They were outside the door to her quarters.

"Yeah. I'm overdue for my nightly diary entry."

"Oh, so you've managed to keep up the habit."

"I have had recently very good reason to appreciate the value in accurate record keeping, so...yes." The routine was nice for her; it was a constant, tangible fixture in otherwise hectic days.

Shikamaru made an agreeable hum and loitered at her doorway as she said goodbye. Before she turned away completely, "G'night. Stay safe, okay?"

"What? In our profession?" She said, smirking, but he was serious. A little more evenly "right back at you."

Ino reached out to his arm and their conversation continued privately between their thoughts.

"Are you worried about something in particular?" She asked.

"The Fifth is away on her goodwill trip to Iwa."

"Yes, so?" Ino had been there at the Hokage's departure, had been part of the team drafting the plans for the teaching hospital the Fifth was helping set up in their allied country.

"So – if you're still in contact with Uchiha Itachi, then you should understand this would be a convenient opportunity for the Elder Advisers to make a move on him."

"They can't make a move on a man who isn't here, Shika."

"But you're in touch with him."

"I am, but no one knows as much. Aside from you. Obviously."

Shikamaru snorted and rolled his eyes.

"I know you're being cautious, but I mean it, watch your back." He squeezed her shoulder, clearly wanting to shake some of his sense into her.

She ended the mental channel and nodded. "I'll see you at drinks tomorrow."

He waved a hand as he walked away. "Yeah, yeah. I might make the next one."

On her own again, Ino sat on her cot turned desk and work area, and unsealed her diary and the papers she kept with it.

From the pile slipped a photo and it fluttered to the floor.

The portrait of a young, fresh faced Team Ten landed upright. It was the small copy Ino had kept on her genin uniform, tucked into the folds of her head band. The paper's edges were soft and most of the colour printing had flaked away or was rubbed over with old grime. On the back there was Chouji's scribbled message of, 'I TOLD Ino we would be on the same team and she DIDN'T believe me.' He'd written it the day each member of Team Ten had gathered for lunch to open their envelops from the photographer together. Ino had ordered copies of the portrait in multiples of every dimension and the boys had both ribbed her excessive order.

The other copies were lost now.

Team Ten. The famous Ino-Shika-Cho. She thought she couldn't possibly fit better anywhere else and wondered how the village could steal that security so effortlessly if it wanted.

She tucked the photo back under its paper clip and got to writing.

Ino had taken to using a jutsu that recorded her memories like a video tape so that every entry she made, the feelings and reactions she wrote down, could be as accurate as possible to her recollection. The next step of the jutsu was to seal the memory somewhere where it could be watched at a later time and available to anyone who knew how to access it. In a preliminary technique, she had asked Sai to help her with transferring mental images to ink drawings.

For a long while after she had printed the picture onto the page, Ino stared down at the ink rendition of the crowded room in which she had accepted her new mantel. The smudge across her mother's face was an ambiguous expression in the drawing and Ino thought maybe that was in some ways a more truthful depiction than what she had seen in her memories.

A light tapping came from her door.

Ino shoved her papers together quickly, made a hasty pile of everything before sealing them back into their secured scroll. She stood up, calmed herself, and then jumped to the door with a gasp as she recognised the chakra waiting patiently on the other side.

"What are you doing?" Ino hissed, grabbing Itachi by the arm and yanking him into the room before anyone could see him. "And what are you wearing..?"

Itachi was out of his normal ninja uniform, in its place a kimono. Traditional layering, formal cut and length, simple colour palette, an Uchiha fan pattern at the sleeve hems. She remembered older members of the Uchiha clan on occasion having worn something similar.

"I did not want to intrude without an invitation. Again," Itachi said, graceful in his embarrassment. He raised his eyebrows as he looked over her own outfit. "A change for you as well."

Ino flushed. She hadn't yet taken off her robe from the ceremony and wearing it in private was a little eccentric as it was specifically for pomp and circumstance rather than lounging around.

"Oh. I forgot," she said, sliding off the silk. "I actually didn't... It's still new to me. I only just... My swearing in was earlier this evening and I just...forgot. And actually..."

Her hands were shaking as she tried to fold the fabric.

"I'm not ready for it," Ino said.

"No one will reprimand you for not wearing this." Itachi put a hand over her frustrated wringing. "But this sort of piece is not stored away in a drawer."

His free arm reached around her to the pouch on her back and he pulled away with two kunai and wire in his hand.

"Do you mind?" He asked, a little belatedly, and Ino shook her head.

She was curious as she watched him. In a moment, Itachi had strung the wire through the robe's sleeves and had it hanging between the kunai, perfectly situated on the wall above her cot.

"Within reach for when you are ready," he said of his work. Itachi gave her a small smile. Smoothly, "you do wear it well, Ino."

The flush revived itself, a pleasant warmth across her cheeks, and Ino stalled. She recovered with dry teasing and an arm around her middle in a self-conscious habit. "Oh? I'm glad this visit is one for sweet talk."

"No sweet talk," he said. Then, admonishing himself, "though I do intend to improve upon my last visit. I was out of line...what I said to you in that place. It was reprehensible."

He had been out of line – especially while they were inside his Tsukuyomi – Ino agreed. And he had hurt her.

Yet... She hesitated. There had been something about the technique that intrigued her, once she had recovered from its blaring, hurtful truths. She had thought of it in the morning hours when sleep evaded her and mourning trapped her.

"What is it?" Itachi didn't entirely keep the worry from his voice as he watched her hedging.

"No. It's just... Actually there was one thing I've been thinking about. I don't even know if it's really possible, but I thought from the way you talked... maybe..." For a kunoichi it was probably a shameful thing to ask, but Ino didn't care about her pride when it came to Itachi.

He'd seen all of her, hadn't he?

"Can you help me see my dad?" She asked. "I know it won't be him. Not really. But if he were tangible for even a second, if I could hug him, feel his chest hum when he laughs, just one more time..."

Itachi was quiet. Her chest started to cool and she was about to back pedal when he said, thoughtful, "I have never used that technique for anything other than an attack."

"Oh. Right. Never mind, then. I was..."

He cut her off, "I will do it."

"You will?" Her heart gave a hard beat against her chest.

"As long as you are certain. It is an illusion, Ino." His sadness and conviction was plain. "It can only ever be an illusion."

She didn't have to, but she stepped closer to him. The same distance between them from when she had used her technique on him, the same as last time when he had used his on her. "I know."

Itachi brushed the long fringe from her face, kept it back with his hand, and drew her to him with the movement.

At the same moment they both tensed.

Another knocking echoed in the room and Ino swallowed her heart down from where it had lodged into her throat. She breathed out a short cuss. They both glanced at the door.

"Just a minute," she called while trying to shoo Itachi away, not wanting anyone to see him. He didn't move. Ino gave him a confused frown. "Be right there!"

The door smacked into the wall as someone forced it open. An ANBU. Outside and making their way in, were three other ANBU, a jounin Ino didn't know, and Nara Shikaku.

"That was fast of them," Itachi said, low and unamused.

Ino understood suddenly why he had come to visit that night. He had let Konoha track him. He wanted them to find him.

"You're not... Are you turning yourself in?" She could barely raise her voice.

No. No, that wasn't a good plan.

"Interesting," the unknown jounin said, her voice loud and clear. She was older, straight lines in posture and form, and she carried herself with the ease of someone well accustomed to holding authority. Ino placed herself between the woman and Itachi, and the unknown jounin sneered an unkind sound. "I'm somehow less than surprised to find Uchiha here with you, Yamanaka-sama."

Yamanaka-sama. Ino hadn't heard that in regards to herself very often. She supposed she would be hearing it more often now.

Turning to the man next to her, the jounin said, "well? Go on, Nara-san."

Shikaku coughed, clearing his throat. He gave Ino an apologetic look and opened a scroll.

"By order of the Criminal Investigative Division," he started, "on the charges of Abandonment of Post in Time of War on two counts, Forceful Coercion of Village Assets on nine counts, Unlawful Trespassing and Manipulation Against Village Intelligence on forty-six counts, Breaking and Entering Onto Village Properties on twelve counts, Unlawful Seizure of Village Property on two counts, and for Conspiracy Against the Sanctity of Village Security, we are hereby ordering the arrest of the Yamanaka Sixth Clan Head, Yamanaka Ino."

An icicle cracked down her spine and Ino didn't breathe. Behind her Itachi was silent. They each remained unmoving, expecting more.

"Ah, that's all." Shikaku rubbed at his neck, noticing the way they were waiting. "We have direct orders from the Fifth not to engage Uchiha Itachi. So..."

"You are here at this moment by coincidence?" Itachi asked.

Ino shook her head. She laughed, short and bitter.

"No," she told him. Itachi stared at her, incomprehension apparent in his eyes. "You're here by coincidence. This person waited until tonight to arrest me."

As Ino talked, an ANBU yanked at her arm and began to incapacitate her chakra pathways. He was saying something that she ignored.

"The law has certain stipulations for clan leaders," she said. The Uchiha were never given the chance for a trial and Itachi left before he succeeded his father, so she wasn't too surprised he didn't know as much about village law. Ino met the woman's unyielding gaze, and guessed, "are you the one responsible for the argument?"

"I am."

"Then you're the one using those stipulations to your favour. Sure, take me in. Good luck getting me to talk."

The jounin narrowed her glare.

"From where did these accusations originate?" Itachi asked.

"Mind yourself, traitor." The woman was fast and cool in her response, a snap in her attention going from Ino to Itachi. "I know more than either of you two would presume. You best act carefully."

It was a threat, certainly.

Ino hard more to say to the woman, more to ask, but stopped short as a veil dropped over her face. It was part of specific protocol when taking a Yamanaka into custody to keep them from sending or receiving information through their ninjutsu. The ANBU yanked at her arm again, telling her to walk.

"Itachi," Ino tried to speak over her shoulder as she was turned around and marched, "don't do what you came here to do. Okay? Don't worry, I'll handle this. Everything will be fine. Nothing you care about has been compromised, okay? Don't do anything. Don't do anything rash."

She shut up after that and did her best not to show any sign of resistance. Shikaku was with her, after all. Ino would be fine. Nothing would happen. She was trembling from anger, not from fear. She had nothing to worry about. Certainly not from a village that had carried out and hidden a genocide against its own people. The same genocide she was planning to publicly expose.

Ino was fine. She was fine.

She was terrified.

o o o