The moment I could escape from the meeting, I made a break for it. First to my house to struggle out of the kimono and get changed into something more comfortable, then to the Nara compound.

"Hello, Yoshino-ba," I said brightly when she answered the door. "Is Shikamaru back yet?"

Yoshino smiled warmly at me. The four Ino-Shika-Cho kids bounced around all three households frequently enough that seeing one at the door was a frequent occurrence. "Hello, Inoko. I'm afraid he's not," she said, opening the door wider. "He should be back soon, though. You can wait in the living room if you want. Let me know if you need anything."

"Thanks, Yoshino-ba! Is it ok if I get some water?" I asked, following her inside. "That meeting was so boring and I ended up getting in a fight with Akio-san again. He was being rude again and I told him so, and I also might have told him to go you know what himself with a rusty kunai, and man, you should have seen the uproar that caused."

Yoshino burst out laughing as she got a glass down from the cupboard. "Inoko, if you think I'd be impressed by that, you should have seen what I told the Nara elders when I got married. We nearly had a civil war right then and there."

Once I had acquired my water, I tracked down the shogi board that floated around the living room and set it up. I ended up staring blankly at the pieces for quite a while. I had a bunch of things to think about, and playing shogi with Shikamaru usually helped me think. Hm. Maybe that's why I always lost to him, I was distracted every time.

"Most people ask before they come over," Shikamaru said dryly as he entered, still wearing his formal kimono.

"At this point, I'm practically a Nara by adoption," I shrugged. I gestured to the board. "Pick a side."

He glanced at the board and said, "White." I spun the board around in response. We played in silence for several minutes, the clacking of the pieces being the only sound.

"What's bothering you?" he finally asked.

"Who says anything's bothering me?" I defended. He raised an eyebrow as he moved a piece.

"You only play shogi with me when you're bothered by something."

I sighed. He knew me too well. "Fine. I'm nervous about tomorrow."

"Liar."

"Says who?"

"Says nine years of experience of dealing with you," he shot back. I stared at the board.

"I don't want to talk about it," I muttered before moving my Silver General. He captured my bishop. I promoted my knight and gave him a level stare. "I just need to think a bit. I'm fine."

"You always say that, and yet you never are," he said evenly. "Check." I sighed, knowing it was just a matter of moves before he ended up capturing my king. Still…

"How would you know?" I countered. "I'm the one learning psychology. And I'm sure that I'm fine." I moved my king out of check, planning to move one of my pawns to defend it from his bishop. He caught my hand as I pulled it back to force me to look at him.

"You know that I will help with whatever I can, right?"

"It wouldn't be too troublesome?" I smirked, pulling my hand free. Hm. No matter how I looked at it, I couldn't see any move that would allow me to stay in the game for longer than a move or two. "I concede. Good game, Shika."

"You're avoiding the issue," he said. He began to help me reset the board. The clacking of the tiles being moved to their appropriate places was soothing. The conversation, not so much.

"There is no issue. I can't play a game with my best friend?" I stared at him. A hint of frustration entered his eyes.

"I really regret the day you decided to make psychological profiles of everyone in our class," he complained, placing the final pieces down.

"Just the people I like, and even that was pretty boring. I've always known your buttons, Shika," I replied, eyes on the pieces. "I just put it down on paper. Can we not do this? I just want to hang out and play." Play and think on my choices for tomorrow night.

"... Fine." I could almost hear the 'for now' in his voice. He might pretend to be uncaring and lazy, but he invested in his relationships with people. Especially his special ones.

"Ah, shogi," Shikaku said as he entered the room. "What's the score?"

"One concession from me," I said. "If we play this game all the way through, he'll have two wins." I scowled at the board as I abruptly realized the ploy Shikamaru was using. I moved one of my lances in front of my rook. He promptly moved his bishop into a currently unused corner, but one that I had been angling to get in to make a side attack at his king. Damn.

"You underestimate yourself," Shikaku chuckled. He moved one of my gold generals for me, forward against Shika's remaining silver general. The look of consternation on his face was one I would treasure for a while.

"No, I just know that I can't beat your son." I rolled my eyes and made another move, taking advantage of Shikaku's intervention. True to my prediction, Shikamaru ended up winning that game. I made my farewells and left after that, knowing that it was getting late for other people.

I could go home, or I could wander around Konoha for a while, enjoying the nightlife. No choice, really. Konoha was fascinating when it got late, and it was generally pretty safe as long as you stayed out of the red light areas. Not as safe as it was back when the Uchiha were around, in my oh so humble opinion, but when one had a few tricks under her belt, there wasn't much an observant maybe-almost-genin couldn't handle from a civilian.

My parents were long since used to my night wandering. I had started to do it shortly after I turned seven. I could only read so many books while waiting to fall asleep for so long. The first time I went out, Dad had panicked when he looked into my room and realized I wasn't there. After the whole Hyūga debacle, he thought I had been kidnapped, which was. A fair assumption, honestly. He found me at a late night ramen stand getting some food. I still occasionally dropped by there for their taiyaki; it was near legendary.

Anyway, I was forbidden after that to leave the house after ten. I reread all of my books twice, and by the time a week had passed, I was ready to go out again.

I was having a fine time - running and climbing on rooftops, nighttime window shopping, and so much more - up until an Inuzuka, who I was fairly sure had been returning from a mission, suspected that I shouldn't be out at two in the morning. His dog partner went full floof - it looked like a very big shiba inu - and I couldn't resist. I was a cat person all the way, but all dogs were good flupper pupperoos. The moment I went in for petting, he pounced on me and picked me up by my collar.

Dad hadn't been very happy to be roused in the middle of the night to accept his wayward child.

When I was eight, Dad and Mother gave up on keeping me inside at night. Dad had used a regular lock, then a seal when I kept getting out. It took Ino's complaints that she couldn't get water or go to the bathroom and the realization that I was climbing out the window to stop that.

What could I say, I'm a free soul at heart.

Finally, they sat me down and worked out an agreement. They understood that I was bored and had wanderlust, but they were very concerned for my safety. If I was to be allowed to roam at night, I had to promise to be careful and be back in time for breakfast.

It worked for everyone involved.

I watched people slowly filter from the streets and read a new book on how chakra activity affected the brain - fascinating read, honestly, it explained so much and yet raised so many more questions - until all the businesses were dark, and the only sound was frogs.

Checking an old watch I had gotten for my birthday when I was nine, I noted that it was now one in the morning. I still wasn't very tired. I sighed heavily, then hopped down from my perch on a telephone pole and began to make my way to one of the many training grounds in Konoha.

One good thing about the Academy was that its basic training allowed you to pull off ridiculous stunts, at least ridiculous by my previous life's standard. Once you've tried jumping from one roof to the other, you'll never want to walk again. Especially if you used to play Assassin's Creed.

I may or may not have taken the leap of faith more than once. Or twice. Or seven times.

As far as I knew, no one else visited training ground twenty-three. It suited my purposes just fine, a place to practice my kata and the couple earth jutsu one of my clan members had taught me four months ago. I spent a lot of time here, and it was secluded enough that I wouldn't bother anyone with whatever I was doing. Within ten minutes, I had worked up a decent sweat. I had beaten the living daylights out of a practice dummy with everything I knew, and switched consciousnesses with an owl. Birds were generally pretty hard to catch, but this one was just sitting and staring at me. Piece of cake.

It was pretty cool, being a bird. I flew around for a bit inspecting Konoha before returning to my body. Konoha from the air was gorgeous.

I checked my watch again, the blinking face telling me that it was now two eleven in the morning. A yawn told me that it was high time to go to bed. I gave a tired wave to the night guard at the Yamanaka clan compound gates. They were also used to my nightly wanderings.

I was nearly asleep on my feet by the time I was locking the front door behind me. I took a deep breath, slowly letting it and any remaining tension leave my body. I suppose that it was part of being a Yamanaka, but the smell of flowers permeated everything. It was nice.

Ino was breathing evenly in her bed as I carefully shut our bedroom door. She'd changed out the flowers on my end table. I ought to thank her in the morning; the lavender soothed my frazzled nerves even more. Practically falling into bed, I snuggled into my heavy covers, relaxed, and let sleep claim me.

I wanted to die. Like, right now. "No human being should ever have to wake up this early," I whispered, eyes still half closed with sleep as I sat at the kitchen table. "It is a crime that should be punished by death. A violent, slow death."

"Don't be such a drama queen," Ino snorted. Still, she began rummaging around in the cupboard for mugs. "It's only seven-thirty."

"... I will cut your heart out with a spoon if you do not give me a large cup of tea right now."

"And this is why you don't have a boyfriend." She set the mug down in front of me, the heavenly aroma rising with the steam.

"Bold of you to assume I want one." I took a large mouthful of tea, burning my tongue. "Ow. Wait a minute… why don't you have one if that's the case?" I didn't have to see her to know she was glaring at me. "Waah! Daaddy! Ino's throwing dishes again!"

Konoha wasn't much like it was in the Plot. For one, it literally was hidden in the leaves. It was very much a village built around the forest. Some places you couldn't see the village for the trees. The market place was a bit clearer, but for the most part, there were trees everywhere. In the streets, against buildings, on buildings, and the notable example of the Academy, which had a Hashirama tree growing straight up through the building, evidently grown the day the first day of lessons at the Academy. Legend had it that the Nidaime nearly committed fratricide that day.

The streets were twisting and a maze to anyone who wasn't a native. There were numerous dead ends and roads that lead to nowhere in particular. It had gotten easier over the years to find one's way around, if only because we started building up. Literally. There were no skyscrapers or anything, but we got a good ten floors out of some of our taller buildings, and that wasn't counting the basements.

Certain buildings were designed to be even more confusing. The Hokage tower, for one. The Academy as well. Most kids spent their first year constantly getting lost. As a graduating student, I was more than accustomed to the police box-like labyrinth our school was.

When we got to the Academy, we were instantly told to take our seats and given our tests by Mizuki-sensei. I could see Naruto a few rows ahead of me, nearly pulling out his hair. It's not that hard, I mused as I began to fill out questions. Honestly, you just need to have cracked open a book sometime.

I gave a casual glance around me. Ok, maybe not, then, a lot of my classmates were looking stressed. Score one for smart kids! Or maybe score one for kids who had been a college student in their past life and as such already had a good deal of this knowledge already somewhere in their head, and in this life was able to go into their brain and retrieve it.

I ended up finishing my test fairly quickly, and spent the rest of the time poking Shikamaru to make sure he finished his test after double checking my answers. We knew each other so well.

The second part of the test was the taijutsu portion. Iruka-sensei was grading us on this while Mizuki-sensei graded our papers. I hated taijutsu. It was one of the more compelling reasons to become a psychologist instead of a ninja. It wasn't that I was bad at it, it was just… Ok, so maybe I was a little bad at it. I was passable.

Granted, 'passable' wouldn't be good enough. Not if I wanted to save people.

Joys of crippling anxiety of the future.

Thankfully, I was paired with Ami, so I proceeded to happily beat the crap out of her. It was very cathartic. She was even worse than I was, desperate to show her 'soft and feminine side' to Sasuke. He had yet to notice.

Afterwards, we all had lunch. Sasuke sat as far from everyone else as he could as usual, while Kiba and Naruto tried to entice Shikamaru and I into a game of ninja.

"We're going to be ninja in a couple hours," I said slowly, frowning as I absently braided my hair. "Why do you want to play that?"

"Because we're going to be ninja in a couple hours!" Kiba shouted. "After today, we will be adults! We should act like kids while we can!" I stared flatly at him. I seemed to be doing that a lot with him.

"I guess your logic makes sense, but I'm too tired after all that taijutsu," I complained. Shikamaru grunted in agreement.

"Why are you so lazy?" Naruto whined. Akamaru barked in agreement, but then he crawled into my lap.

"Because I can be," I deadpanned. "Now sit down. Just watching you is making me tired." He groaned and collapsed spread eagle on the ground. I adjusted Akamaru into a more comfortable position for us both. "Are you a traitorous doggo?" I cooed at him. "Are you a very good snuggly pup?"

"I hate you both."

"We hate you too." I cheerfully made sure to give Akamaru good ear scratches for being such a good boy.

Ino and I were one of the last people to get tested on ninjutsu. I smiled at my sister as she pranced out with her new hitai-ate around her head. "You better not fail," she grinned. "It'll be a shame if one twin makes it and the other doesn't."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. I'm sure Akio-san would be thrilled if I failed." I rolled my eyes as I entered the room, then gave a lazy wave to both my sensei. "Yo."

"Hello, Inoko-chan," Mizuki-sensei smiled. Honestly, if I didn't know what a douchebag this guy was, I never would have guessed. He had his easy going nice guy facade down to a point. "If you could perform a henge, a kawarimi, and three bunshin." Oh. This was going to be easy.

Transforming into my father was easy; I had done it dozens of times before when he was helping me practice. The kawarimi was a bit harder, but switching with objects was something I had been doing around the house for years, much to Mother's annoyance.

I had always found the bunshin easy, which drove Naruto crazy whenever I tried to help him with it. "It's too hard!" he had complained once after nearly an hour of attempts.

"It's an Academy jutsu for a reason," I replied patiently. "It's not too hard." Closing my eyes and sighing heavily, I continued, "Well, the problem isn't a lack of effort."

"I already told you that, dattebayo!"

"Maybe it's your control?" I mused. "Bunshin are kind of delicate, so if you aren't careful enough, you fry them."

"You think that might be what's happening?" he frowned. "Crap. How do I fix that?"

"More practice~"

"No!"

"Your bunshin?" Iruka-sensei sighed, snapping me back to reality. Right. In the middle of a test. Really ought to focus.

"Oh. Right. Heh, sorry about that, Sensei." I summoned my chakra and twisted it into three bunshin. The other Inokos blinked at each other before one of them finger gunned another. "Hey there, sexy." Yup, those were mine alright.

"That was satisfactory," he nodded, then offered me a headband. "Congratulations! You've passed." I whooped and ran out the door, barely pausing to grab it. "Eat that, Kiba!"

"Oh, you did pass," he said with a toothy grin. I tied it onto my forehead, relishing in the weight. There was still some paperwork to be done, but I was more or less officially a genin.

"Don't be a pest, dog-breath," I said, pulling Akamaru off his head and placing him on mine. I got a lick on my new hitai-ate. "It makes you look dumber than you already are."

"Hey!"

I looked around our group, searching for one particular blonde. Even with all my help, had he still…?

"Ino, have you seen Naruto?" I asked. She and Sakura were in the middle of a glaring contest. "Earth to Hormonal Girls. Where's Naruto?"

"Who knows?" Sakura shrugged. "I don't think he passed, though. He was looking pretty upset." Damn it. I had a choice here. Either find Naruto and talk him out of his insanely stupid plan to steal the Forbidden Scroll, or let the plot take its course. Tonight would be a very important event for him, but augh I promised myself to derail the plot!

I felt a finger on my nose. "Hey. What's up?" Ino retracted her hand, smirking a little. "You had that look on your face. You know, the 'pondering mighty things' look." I waved her hand away, annoyed and bothered. Help him or leave him.

"I'm fine," I said irritably. "I'm going home. Tell Shika I said bye." I didn't give her time to respond before I jumped the wall, forcing myself to not track down Naruto. I was going to go home, take a shower, and throw myself into one of my textbooks. No interference. Absolutely none.

"Inoko, is that you?" Dad called from his office as I shut the front door behind me.

"Yup," I responded. The more I thought about it, the better a shower sounded. I heard the noise of his chair rattling - Mother had been reminding him to get the wheels tightened for ages, but he never got around to it.

"Well, look at you!" Dad was beaming at me from the doorway. "Looks like one of my babies is a genin now."

"Very observant, Daddy," I muttered, pulling off my shoes. "Ino got her hitai-ate too, so the elders will be happy. Except Akio-san. He can suck my-" He pulled me into a hug before I could finish.

"Long day? You sound upset."

"Very." Dad planted a kiss on my head and began pushing me to the stairs.

"Go take a shower, sweetheart. Do you want any tea?"

"You know me so well." After I finished soaking in the steaming water, I wanted nothing more than kiss the person that invented indoor plumbing. "You are my favorite right now, Daddy," I said, hugging him from behind upon seeing a steaming cup waiting for me. "I almost love you as much as sushi."

"I've moved up then," Dad smirked. He pressed a kiss to my cheek. "I have some paperwork to finish in my office. I'll be done in about an hour."

"Ok, Dad, I'll be in the living room." I flopped down onto the couch with my biochemistry book, opening it up to a dog eared page.

I'd offhandedly studied biochemistry a very long time ago as part of my degree, but like I said, it had been a very long time ago and I didn't remember much of that class even before I… Plus the inclusion of chakra made everything so much more different and interesting. What is chakra? How is it made, stored, used? How does it affect the body when used, why does chakra drain affect people when I know that people can quite easily survive without chakra?

Honestly, I could go on.

So many questions, so few answers, so little time. I wanted to learn sealing as well, but after a distant cousin experimented with a sealing scroll a bit too much… well, long story short Dad pretty much forbade me from experimenting with seals outside of a teacher, which in case one wasn't aware, was really hard to find.

So yeah, seals were a nope. Which meant that ninjutsu was probably my best bet at brute forcing my will onto the Plot. Somehow. I'd figure it out later.

After a good twenty minutes of trying to read the same page over and over again, still not really seeing the words, let alone understanding them, I came to the conclusion that I was approaching maximum sleep deprivation and needed to crash.

I cheerfully slammed my book shut and went upstairs to promptly pass out on my bed.

Ino woke me up three hours later by slinging the door open. Despite her repeated apologies, I could not sleep for the rest of the night.