Ch4... of Ino-cence
"Holy flipping- mmmpfhhh!"
"Shut the fuck up Naruto," Sakura hisses, "don't swear in front of the fucking baby!"
"Yeah, boss..."
"Ugly, are you menstruating or broody?"
Shizune, now one of Naruto's senior aides, tactfully intervenes by dragging Konohamaru and Sai away from the former apprentice to the Godaime and current Head of the Hospital. Sakura has been known to refuse treatment to Sai until her temper cools. Even if she is being a hypocrite.
Naruto pouts. "Mou, Sakura-chan, how am I supposed to know what you do with babies?!"
"Baka- what did you like as a baby?"
That gets an immediate ray of sunshine grin, as wide as it can go, and Naruto crows triumphantly, sure in his answer, "Ramen!"
There is a pause while everyone digests that yes, this is Naruto and yes, that would be his reply. Sakura, cradling her infant charge, abruptly contains a snort of fond laughter. She begins to explain to their hyperactive friend.
"Naruto, babies need to be kept warm and dry and clean, and they need food-"
Shizune waves Konohamaru and Sai out of the Hokage's Office, documents completed, and tells the receptionist to let the next appointment in.
Ino enters, ignoring how the receptionist gives her a scathing up-and-down examination.
"Ino-san," Shizune greets, "what can the Hokage do for you today?"
"My mother's sent me for your order but I can come back if you're busy," Ino replies, looking at Sakura and a baby and Naruto and the Hokage's desk with a questioning head tilt.
Shizune smothers a chuckle. "Sakura's team had a civilian die during premature childbirth a month ago. The research cluster was working on a chakra-enhanced stasis unit, originally designed for field operations but they figured starting with a small/non existant chakra signature as a trial run would be more stable. That there is a baby that appears to have had enhanced growth from enhanced chakra exposure. It looks closer to two months old than what would be a three week old- ah, I'm rambling, you'd have known that from your med-nin training."
"The same material from new teachers brings fresh insight," Ino demurs, mind already pondering what it would be like to use Shintenshen no jutsu on the baby. Is it the mind that's grown too, or is it just the body? Could this be used on all children, even after birth? If they grow faster, will that continue out of the stasis unit? Will they die faster? "Is it going to stay in the Orphanage?"
"Well, Sakura brought the little test subject in for appraisal by the Hokage, but she said she has an observation plan-"
As if on cue, Sakura without looking brushes her chakra against Ino, dismissing her as a threat, and begins to tell Naruto she plans to foster the child with Hana Inuzuka for the next few months, reviewing every month, before moving to the Orphanage.
"We need Hana on active duty though," Naruto objects, "the Haimaru twins have been requested by three civilian contracts over the next six weeks, dattebayo!"
Ino watches as Sakura rocks back on her heels and begins to hash out the specifics of the research project with her former Team 7 teammate. She turns back to Shizune and asks for her botanic order, listening to two topics as she scribbles down notes on a spare scroll.
"Brilliant, Shizune," she purses her lips, scanning down the items, "I reckon we'll be able to source most of those quickly- we cultivated a succulent patch in the greenhouse a month ago in time for the season change."
"That's fantastic. Say hi to your mother from me." Ino turns to leave but Shizune hesitates, "Oh- and, um, one more thing,"
"Shizune-san?"
"One of the chunin was looking for you, Takishi Idekyo? Broader set, usually in the Messaging Squads?"
Ino folds her expression carefully into a smile. She had needed to intercept a couple of messages and Idekyo-san was an easy route in. Couple of 'happenstance bump-into's, a little hint or two, and some teases in public were enough to convince him she was so desperate she'd visit him at work for fun. She'd pickpocketed and duplicated his keys in the time you could say 'freshen up for round 2'.
Shizune picks up what kind of relations they might have and her lips thin into a disapproving line immediately. "Ah. Do I tell him I haven't seen you recently?"
"That would be great, Shizune-san," Ino agrees on her way out.
She returns to her mother's greenhouse to drop off Shizune's order and then sets herself to an afternoon of flexibility training. The satisfying feeling of pushing her limits and sinking into splits and backbends is as usual, but she's decided to add wrist and ankle mobility today. Her toes curl as she folds double in an easy exhale.
The first part of flexibility is passively getting into the stretch. The second, harder part of flexibility is gaining the strength to achieve that full range of motion actively. She takes a rock and twists, using it as an improved weight to aide her in freeing up her spine.
Choji has dropped off some of his steamed shrimp, spring onion and cashew sauce at her flat. She slinks in through her window and spots the dishes neatly left on her table, the door to her kitchen/living room combo open where she left it closed this morning.
He moved through her house with an ease and right to be there that she appreciates absentmindedly while she picks up the dishes. They're still faintly warm, part of his batch cooking. She'll shower and bring them over to the clan household as a token for dinner.
Ino strips, taking the fluffiest towel she owns, discarding her clothes along the way to the shower. Her wardrobe is prestigious, but kami knows she'd like towels that are literal clouds. She takes a moment to inspect her skin while the water warms up- there's a small bruise on her left knee which can stay, but her collarbone has a scrape that'll need disinfectant before it becomes red.
With a sigh she steps into the shower, soaking herself with liquid rivulets. Ino gets on with the scrubby shampooey conditionerey bits while her mind wanders.
The danger with Yamanakas is sometimes if they mentally wander, their spirit will wander too. She feels her links to herself fade and grow as she dissociates and then returns to the present only to move on again.
Going to the clan household this evening will do her good.
She finishes wringing out her hair, blonde tresses sliding over her shoulders and the water slipping down, tracing paths along her thighs and calves and back. It's beautifully soothing, and absently she tries to use her chakra to guide it to the muscles that feel sorest.
Other chakra dances on the edge of her senses, rolling but restrained, locked down. Ino stiffens, reaching up silently for the kunai she keeps above the showerhead. Turning the water off will alert whoever is in her apartment, waiting for her. So she keeps the shower running and gets ready to pad out as quiet as possible, chakra steady and placid. She'll only get one shot to surprise them first.
She relaxes when she hears rustles in the kitchen. Either this is no threat, or they're trying to be nonchalant. A loud sniff, and then stepping feet, curious, and-
"Well fuck me," Kiba grins at her playfully, sweeping his gaze over her dripping nudity. His shoulders are tense.
"I wasn't expecting company," the Yamanaka heiress says, straightening up and chucking her kunai at him in irritation, "what the hell are you doing here?"
"I smelled food," he shrugs, snatching the kunai out of the air almost too easily. His eyes meet hers but quickly go back to drinking her in, as if dazed.
"Uh-huh." She's unimpressed, but hiding her body seems like it would give a message she's ashamed of it, which she isn't. It's a tool, and a damn fine one at that. So Ino doesn't fold her arms and turn away like she wants to, just stares at him. Naked without being remotely sexual.
"Had your fill yet?"
"No," he quips, smiling. But his eyes return to her face to watch her.
"I do have dinner with clan tonight."
"Ah. I scented Choji's cooking. Do I get a 360 while you get dressed?"
She rolls her eyes and, because she wants to, flips him the bird. He laughs, amused with an edge, and meanders back over to the kitchen corner. She picks up her clothes and wanders to her wardrobe to find a suitable dress for family dinner.
"You got tea?" he says, in the quiet that unfolds between them, over the noise of fabric rustling.
She nods- "top shelf, help yourself", and the Inuzuka stretches up gracefully, shaggy hair catching the light in shades.
He takes the old fashioned tea set, which surprises her a little, and sets a kettle to boil.
It's fascinating, the way Kiba sets out the cups and moves through a rhythm which looks both hesitant and practised.
Ino throws whatever dress is in her hands on and brushes her mind along his.
He's got Hinata in his head, the sensation blurry and wavering, mimicking the movements he's seen her do fifty times. His hesitancy is because he's never done it himself. Underneath it is still a vast pool of aggression, thrumming, and an almost obsessive mantra of smell (god does Akamaru really smell like that to Kiba?) and pack is fine and pack is fine and pack is fine and get tea and pack is fine.
He's visibly calming at the familiar smell and way the steam curls and the same routine, even if the cups are a different pattern and the guest coming to sit next to him is blonde, rather than a sedate Hyuuga.
"Let me," she says, making her voice soft and demure like Hinata's, and pours for him like she would. Serene, slight blush, happy to be in the company of her teammate. Timidity belying graceful strength.
"Thanks". Kiba's voice is hoarse, and his gaze fixes on the way she makes his tea, like it's a life saver. He inhales deeply, and sits in silence for a while.
Ino looks up to the heavens and then over at her clock, because she did not forsee playing therapist to a beast-man but the gods have smiled on her; she still has a full forty minutes until her mother and father expect her.
What would Hinata do now?
She'd ask, wouldn't she.
"Rough mission, Kiba-kun?"
"Hell." He grunts, sipping even though it must be scalding on his tongue. "Don't be like her."
Ino tilts her head and sits back, because isn't the whole point of this to mimic something that works to get him rational again?
The canine floating in Kiba must like that movement, because his cheek twitches, like he's suppressing a snarl.
She pauses, observing him, and slowly shifts her damp hair to hang over her other shoulder. His pupils dilate and his breathing steadies.
"Good?" she checks, and he nods, slowly.
"I'm gonna need a voice, wolfman," she chides, keeping her voice light and playful.
"...Yeah. Good." He coughs and sips again.
Ino recognises this is a moment filled with- she wouldn't call it tension, exactly, because they're not in conflict, and it's not quite sexual. Maybe this is a moment filled with Potential.
She threads her fingers through her hair, gold shining in the late afternoon light. His eyes follow her fingers, steady as they slide across the strands.
He swallows.
"Good?"
"Good."
Ino double checks with her eyes that he's happy, and then moves her hair, a lock at a time, so it hangs straight down her back. His gaze is becoming clearer, less dazed, each 'good' a little surer.
"More?" she asks, when her hair is sat as it normally would, hung loose and free.
He says yes, sipping his tea, chakra starting to recentre itself, to become fluid and easy.
So Ino kneels up and starts to plait her own hair, reaching up and around and dividing it into three. Suits her, she was going to wear it that way for her family dinner, and her eyes close for a second as she visualises narrating this to her parents. On second thoughts, maybe not...
She feels the atmosphere shift, hears the hitch in Kiba's breathing. When she opens her eyes again, Kiba's watching her with a darker, hungry look. She knows that one in her sleep.
"More?"
"Yeah." He rumbles, and it feels like walking a tightrope. Ino likes this type of tension, it means her work is going well.
She keeps arching her back to plait the end of her hair, then smooths her hands back up to her skull, lightly massaging her temples.
"More."
She smiles at him, sly and wicked, and sips her tea and places it down with a sense of ceremony before replying.
"You'll get more for every question you answer. Good?"
He rolls his jaw, clearly thinking about it, instinctive stubborn guards going up- but Ino innocently lets out a breathy sigh which firmly decides it for him.
"Good."
"Solo or team mission?"
"Team." It's a ready answer, so she drags her perfect almond nails down her cheeks, tracing her jawline with an artful flourish, cradling her own neck. Her eyelashes flutter, shadowed against her high cheekbones.
"Long trip?"
"Yeah," he says, shifting where he sits, "ran half the night yesterday." He sounds breathless, transfixed by her and whatever connection Ino has unwittingly managed to create. She rewards him by stroking her thumb, long and smooth along her décolleté, to just the top of her dress. It's a scooped neck, loose to be off the shoulders where she wants.
"Hate those ones. Anyone with us die?" Ino keeps her tone neutral as her fingers roam over the fabric along her chest.
"Classified."
Ino can read between the lines. She's been involved in enough cover-ups (at the periphery, obviously)- if the answer were no, there'd be no need to answer classified. She hasn't asked what the parameters are or who the targets were. Kiba would have known not to come to her if it were the kind of mission that "did not take place."
She tilts her head just so, to make eye contact with him, brush up against his mind. He's watching her steadily, eyes clear and shadowed, his self centered. But his mind is still steadily burying layers of emotion, a little angry, a little possessive. To her surprise, some of that emotion is directed at her.
"Am I pushing you too much?" She wonders.
The great thing about minds is even if the subject ignores you, even if they pretend they didn't hear, even if they lie to themselves, even if they've mastered the body- just by floating an idea, a mind reacts to it.
The terrible thing about minds is that associative thought, and how thought is experienced, can be extremely abstract.
Kiba's response to her seems to be a flashing tumbling sense of gravity falling, gritted teeth and feeling her hair slide against his shoulder, laced with tea smells and fresh dew and dirt on his right knee, and watching spiders with Shino.
It took her four months to be able to interpret Shikamaru's thought patterns, and he is infinitely more verbal and linear than Kiba.
Kiba breaks the moment by sipping the last of his teacup, absently disorientating her back into her own body. His eyes flick towards her clock understandingly, and a smirk steals onto his face.
"You know, you're meant to see the prize after you jump through the hoops, Ino-chan," he teases, "It's just basic dog training."
She snorts at him, and he grins back.
"Alright wolfman. I'm going to be late if I don't make a move soon."
She rises and goes to put the tea set in the sink, but Kiba stops her.
"I'll take care of it. Fix whatever beauty shit you need to put on. It'll have my nose running away from you."
"Oi," Ino glares. "It's not beauty shit. This is my place so you can just leave, alright."
Kiba just leans against her counter, lazy smile and fangs peeking through. He seems totally confident in himself.
"You know what, Ino? I dig the bitch vibe... After your family dinner, we'll get you to smell right."
"No deal. Since when do you get to set the terms of this practice stuff? You're invading my flat and I could make you sleepwalk yourself out of it right now."
"Fair enough- drop me a scent trail or a messenger bird when you're not busy, I guess," the Inuzuka responds with a delighted smile and a shaking head.
"What's got you so pleased?" Ino feels a little like she just lost the upper hand somehow.
"Nothing," he hums back, and quickly rinses and puts away her tea set while she moisturizes her legs. As she's unpacking her make-up pallettes, planning tonight's ideal daughter look, Kiba retreats to the window.
"Thanks," he says, and his soft voice makes her look up.
"You're welcome," she says, and finds herself meaning it.
Ten minutes later, she's presenting Choji's dishes to her mother, ignoring her auntie's despairing looks and smoothly stepping around cousins.
Yamanakas are a loud and exuberant bunch, with strong opinions often engaging in wars of psychoanalysis.
Her second cousin, Inari, is holding court with the children and teenagers of the family. He's telling them in exaggurated whispers how Inoichi and Shikaku helped deliver the peace treaty for the Third Shinobi War, the Yondaime (who is the Nanadaime's father, by the way) watching over every step they took.
Ino continues into the kitchen and hustle and bustle as the dishes get ready to be served, mouthing along with her mother the punchline to one of Sora's jokes.
"And then they decided, if they were of one mind, they could never argue at all!"
Inoichi steps into the room and heads towards the dinner table, and things fall into quiet respect.
"Otou-san," Ino slides into a seat on his left. The head of the clan and their family sit at the centre of this long wide table, with each other family intermingled and mixed as they please around them.
"Ino-chan," he greets her, stately before everyone else. "How is my blossoming flower?"
"Seeking your good health as its sunlight," she responds, tracing a bush clover etched into the dark wood.
Inoichi inclines his head as his wife begins to lay their spread before them, and similarly others up and down are filling the table.
"With a gardener such as my love, I cannot fail to flourish," he smiles.
Ino's father has lived a life of lucky near-misses. He was there for the Third Shinobi World War, the front lines of the Kyuubi attack, dealt with Suna treachery, and Pain's defeat. Those are all the stories that the rest of the clan will chatter about, equal parts worship and analysis. But he came the closest to a loss in the Fourth Shinobi World War, and that is the part they don't talk about.
Ino still remembers his voice curling into her ear, saying goodbye to her as a Tailed Beast Ball hurtled towards HQ.
He suffered intense chakra burns, and partially severed his spine from falling debris. The spine healed, and his chakra remains present, if stunted. As long as his mind has remained sharp and steady, he continues to give for his village and clan until he can give no more. The clan respect him, but they worry behind closed doors, and watch him carefully for any signs of deterioration. Inoichi bears this attention with grace, knowing that fortune smiled upon him and gave more time; for both him and Ino.
Shikaku was not so lucky.
She still hasn't fully untangled Shikamaru's careful web of distractions over losing his father- he buries it so deep and repressed and places all sorts of mental blocks to avoid addressing any sort of grief. Ino knows one day, when they live in a better world, it will all come out. She wants to be there to write down the words he'll say, when being head of the Nara clan and Chief Strategist and Jounin-sensei and Codebreaker extraordinaire all starts being plain sailing.
That makes her remember something Kakashi said to her once, and she half smiles, mentally locking it away, and takes her small personal plate and chopsticks patiently from a little one who babbles that 'kaa-san say give Ino-oba-san'.
"Are you kept busy, Ino-chan?" Inoichi asks, reaching for his pickled fish and sipping on water, "My love mentions you have not been in the greenhouse much recently."
This is his way of checking in on her duties, given that they are in public and most of Ino's T&I work is not common knowledge.
"Hai, otou-san. I've been spending some time with Shika and Cho, but I think I'll be needed on a mission soon."
A quiet smothered snort down the end of the table; one of the clan Chunin, who is just aware enough about what the young Yamanaka heir does.
Ino steadfastly ignores the comment several minutes later to 'watch her like a hawk, no doubt she'll be practising her skills before the 'mission'- bringing shame on us everywhere she walks', with a salacious wink.
Her mother catches her eye, sat opposite her, and offers Ino's favourite seasoned rice and peppers.
They joke about Choji rubbing off on her as she happily digs in, smoothing out her dress, and sightings of Uchiha Sasuke and how Sakura and Lee are definitely getting engaged soon and how well Sai is coming on and bets on the next set of genin teams flow over her. Nanami, Inari and Inoryuiko are squabbling a little to her left in a debate over how sharing dreams is possible.
Ino joins in with conversations, wishing she could capture and bottle the essence of how the clan's chakras all flicker and dance, collectively happy and safe.
As dinner is winding down and the sake comes out and the men sit forward, in anticipation of discussing business amongst themselves, Ino excuses herself to visit her old bedroom for a second- she's pretty sure she left a medical scroll back there which might have included the various stages of infant growth, and the spectacle of the baby this morning (she's mentally named it Speedigro, which she's aware is a terrible name and that's precisely why it's just stuck in her head).
She searches in what's left of her belongings; Ino moved out when she was 18 to the flat she has now, but she kept a token box or two of stuff. She doesn't have any luck, but in the moment of peace her mind idly drifts back to Kiba's pleased expression.
What was he so happy about when she essentially turned him down?
Ino actually hates puzzles. Those are Shikamaru's forte; her approach is usually to solve it by getting more information, or get Choji so mad that he destroys it.
But the only way to get more information is to dig into Kiba, which is, well, not turning him down. She'll have to go see, won't she.
Is it the only way? She's pretty sure he won't have told Hana or Tsume anything, and he definitely doesn't seem like the type to share this sort of practice with his teammates- oh kami, she can just imagine Hinata's face if Kiba told her he'd essentially agreed to do pheremone training with Ino which, one presumes, will involve a lot of physicality...
Ugh. Fine. Mr. Dogbreath won that drop-in encounter, but Ino will win the next one.
A/N: Thank you for reading, and hope you and yours are well in these strange times :)
Feel free to review/fav/follow/pm me if you've got an idea or scene you want to read for Ino/Kiba!
~featheredblades