Of course, things became somewhat awkward when they realized they still had to escape.
Ino turned around, getting dressed again quickly. He knew her well, she'd likely not mention anything about the last five minutes for a while.
"So." He finally asked. "What's the escape plan?"
"Ah." She blinked, finally facing him. "True. I never told you. Now… where did I stash them, again…?"
Ino rummaged through the little cave, digging behind some rocks with her arm, wincing when she had to reach farther inside it. She said nothing for a while, her face scrunched in concentration. She looked pretty cute, Naruto had to admit.
"Aha!" She exclaimed. "Got them!"
Ino threw some clothes as well as some supplies down. Then she held up two wooden passports.
"With this…" Ino continued, proudly. "We'll be able to pass through the checking station and leave with a boat, no trouble."
"…Why a boat?"
"The controls are much tighter through the land exits, I can assure you. There have been plenty of people leaving the Land of Lightning since the start of the war, particularly to the Land of Tornadoes, the island to the East. Kumo doesn't particularly care about them, so the security is a bit more lax when it comes to leaving through there."
Naruto took a closer look at the passports.
"…Kusumoto Akira and Kusumoto Chiyo? From Rironobe, in the Land of Tornadoes?" He said with some amusement. The fakes were very well-made, and he wondered where she had gotten them.
"It's just easier to pretend we're married!" Ino defended herself. "Kumo will overlook a couple of farmers easier, because they tend to marry young."
"Were you just looking for a reason to roleplay?" He wiggled his eyebrows.
"I'm going to fucking kill you." She muttered, teeth clenched.
"I'm joking, Ino."
"…"
"Now come here and kiss your darling husband." He laughed, before catching the wooden passport she threw at his face in between his teeth.
"This is the last time I'm helping you break out from jail, you… you…" Ino raged.
She paused, blinking, before starting to chuckle.
"I'm not even sure why I still get triggered so easily." She admitted.
"It wouldn't be you otherwise." Naruto smiled.
Ino disguised both of them as farmers, which might well be the only way his build might make sense.
She had clearly planned around it, and got him clothes about his size, that downplayed his obvious strength as much as possible.
"Once we board the ferryboat…" Ino said, applying reddish brown dye to his long hair. "After an hour or so, we should be far enough to jump."
There was no real point in waiting until they were at sea, of course.
"…Do we really have to blacken our teeth…?" He asked hesitantly.
"That's what they do in this area of Tornadoes, so yeah." She said, rubbing them with the wax. He followed soon after.
Ino blended some dyes together, before applying the resulting mix to his face, neck, arms and legs. She added more pale yellow, and did the same to herself.
"…For real? A fake beard?" He asked. "Won't that be even more suspicious?"
"Well it's real hair, so…" She laughed when he grunted in answer, not too happy about that specific piece of information.
She checked him over.
"There you go!" She smiled in satisfaction. "How's your Tornado accent?"
"…What did you say?" Naruto asked, squinting his eyes in concentration.
"…Nevermind. Just answer by yes and no when asked, and I'll do the talking." She gave him a weak smile.
They bought two overpriced fare tickets to the land of Tornadoes, not intending to complete their journey.
Moving to the checking point, Ino took their passports out of their bag — she had bought one on their way there, because a couple of farmers would likely use one, instead of relying on sealing scrolls.
Finally, they were at the front of the line. The Kumo officer behind the booth looked at them sharply. He was about twice Ino's size, with an almost shiny bald head.
"Next." He grumbled.
"Hullo." Ino said with a thick accent.
"Hello. Identification, please."
Ino put the wooden passports on the counter. Naruto hoped they looked convincing. They did to him, but what did he know about this…? Not much.
The officer looked at it for a moment, raising one eyebrow. He looked at Ino, passing her over, then at Naruto. Then down at the passport.
"…You're kinda big for a farmer, aren't you?" The mans's brows furrowed.
Naruto blinked, staring at him dumbly, as Ino had instructed him.
"What's wrong with him…?" The officer asked.
"He's not very social." Ino apologized for him, waving it off.
"Sociable." The man corrected with a grunt. He stared some more.
"Whatever you say, boss." Ino chirped happily.
"…What sort of farmers are you, exactly?"
Naruto grunted in answer. "I make thangs grow. Animals, too."
The officer mumbled something rude about country hicks, rolling his eyes, but handing them their passports back.
"Yeah, okay. You guys go through, then." He waved them off. "Next!"
They managed to get aboard the boat with no trouble.
People were packed on the small vessel like sardines. Some of them were obviously fleeing for their lives, some held hope that the Land of Tornadoes would be spared from the ongoing war, some saw better opportunity there. It was strange for a liminal space, a contradiction of hope and despair, of misery and relief.
There were a few Kumo shinobi onboard, which meant they had to keep a low profile, huddling next to a few other people, all of them going for the full trip as well.
"I heard you talk with the checking officer and I couldn't help but wonder…"
Naruto heard someone say, noticing Ino was making a point of not looking at the person in question.
"You guys are not from the Land of Tornadoes at all, are you?" The woman asked, in a quiet voice.
Naruto knew Ino well, which was the only reason he noticed her stiffening. Instead of showing that she had been rattled, she turned around with an amused expression.
"And why would you say something like that?" She said, the accent just as heavy as before.
"Mostly because I've been around there recently, and I know that there are no farmers left in Rironobe, since the drought and saltwater intrusion."
"It's something we used to do, before." Ino said, with just the right amount of wistfulness and longing and offense in her tone. Naruto was impressed, as he definitely was not a very good actor. "Don't think nobody from Kumo ought ta know."
"And did you know this accent you're using was only found in the southern part of Tornadoes?" The woman asked.
"That's where my family was originally from." Ino lied easily.
"All of them?"
"Yeah."
"Ah, alright, then." She nodded.
Ino looked somewhere else, thinking this was it. The woman continued.
"That's amusing, because I was lying. This is an eastern accent. And going from Rironobe, which is to the west, crossing through the no man's lands that is the middle of the country to go to the east…" The woman paused. "Yeah, that's pretty unlikely. What's more likely is-"
"I think we get your point." Naruto whispered evenly, not even bothering with the charade.
She raised her arms up in the air. "I don't mean anything by it. Everybody has their own reasons for leaving."
Ino shot her a distrustful look. "Who are you?"
"Nobody important, really."
"If you're going to be blackmailing us, I think you've got a decent angle, right here." Naruto shrugged, fingering his dagger. "Get on with it."
The longer they could keep her talking, the closer they'd get to actually escaping.
"And who said anything about that?" She looked amused. "I'm only looking forward to meeting fellow refugees."
"I'm sure." Naruto nodded, keeping his face even.
"Can't I simply be curious?" She asked.
"You could be."
The woman seemed to look for something in his eyes. She seemed to find it, because she nodded in satisfaction, a strange light burning into her own. The worst part was the fact that he was almost certain he had seen her somewhere before.
Naruto stayed on edge the whole time, ready to break his seals.
"Yes." The woman muttered. "Yes, I could be."
Ino stared at the strange woman, with long flowing white hair — despite not looking a day over thirty — and golden eyes that made her seem much older than the hair itself did.
Her fancy clothes did not fit at all in a boat full of people trying to escape Lightning. The woman had resumed staring at the river shore. Honestly, if she were trying to look like a mysterious outsider, she had the part down to a tee. They would reach the delta soon, Ino knew.
Hopefully, this weirdo would leave them alone.
Just for curiosity's sake, she tried to get a surface reading of her thoughts. It was tricky, considering the extremely limited amount of chakra she could make use of right now, but she was not considered — had been considered — the most talented Yamanaka of her generation for nothing.
Though she didn't show it, she was greatly disturbed by what she found there. The only thing she really felt was a lazy detachment for… well everything. No, she amended herself. For almost everything.
There was something that burned brightly within her, eclipsing everything else, that made all of it seem irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
She could pretend to be a curious passerby as much as she wanted, the mind would not lie. Ino didn't dare reach deeper, because she knew she would get caught in the process.
Whoever that woman was, she was not as average as she said she was, far from it. Not that Ino had believed it.
Ino remained wary, almost itching for a fight.
No good opportunity to leave smoothly presented itself, with the Kumo shinobi staying too close, and soon they were down in the delta, switching to a bigger ship.
The woman spoke to them again.
"You know, if you're trying to make a break for it, now might be your best chance." She said with knowing eyes.
Naruto just stared, trying to figure out where he could possibly have seen her.
"Why don't you just mind your own business?" Ino said harshly.
Bansai Fortress, at around the same time.
"Sasuke." Toru called.
His tone made Sasuke pause from reading the report that had been given to him. He stood up and followed him silently.
Once they were out of sight from the rest of the Konoha camp, he stared at Toru, now worried.
"You disappeared for the last few hours. What's happening?"
Toru seemed to think about it for a second. "I think I need to leave the village."
Sasuke stared for another moment. There was no question about what he meant. "You wish to become a missing ninja?" He asked with a flat voice.
"I don't want to. I need to."
"Is this about the war?" Sasuke asked, thinking fast. The war took its toll on all of them, no matter how much his cousin and he tried to put on a strong face. "Look, I understand. We can probably find you someth-"
"I knocked two ROOT agents out and left them in the forest. Danzō is going to know, for sure. They sent a messenger already."
Sasuke breathed out.
"That's… Why did you do that?" He stressed out the last part. As an Uchiha, that would put Toru in a complicated position. And Danzō didn't fuck around. Ever. "Look… I'll speak with Itachi as soon as possible, I think we can probably work something out, instead of jail and-"
"Nah." Toru interrupted. "It was a Culling operation. I stopped them from killing someone marked as a target."
"Fuck." Sasuke said darkly. "...Who was it? And what happened?"
"Eiji and Kei. Hanabi is in possession of a way to get rid of the Caged Bird seal."
"…" Sasuke knew exactly what that meant. And this was Hinata's sister they were talking about.
"Yeah." Toru nodded. "Pretty bad."
"Who gave it to her?" Sasuke asked, suspicion obvious in his tone.
"Neji, of course." Toru said with some dark amusement.
"Should've known it." He cursed. Of course it was fucking Neji causing trouble again. He wasn't even in the damn village.
Toru continued, unimpeded. "So yeah, while Danzō's in power, at the very least… I need to get out. Hanabi too."
"That's still-" Sasuke stopped himself. Madness? No, madness would be staying. "Where would you even go?"
"Out and about." Toru shrugged.
"Toru." Sasuke growled. He clearly had no plan.
"You can help me by arranging a pardon in the coming years, though." Toru chuckled. "I was getting sick of this war business, anyway."
"Is there no way I can get you to reconsider?"
"Of course not. I never back down from my promises." Toru paused. "Well, except when they're not to my advantage anymore, of course."
Sasuke closed his eyes in consternation. "…Will you manage out there?"
"Of course, of course." Toru waved off.
"Is there anything I can do to help, at least? Besides the pardon."
"Sure, sure. Name your first born after me if it's a boy." He laughed. "Nah, wait he'll be a Hyūga…? Maybe not, then. I don't-"
Sasuke cut him off by pulling him tight into a hug. Surprised by the fact Sasuke, his emotionally stunted cousin, — well no, he was actually very expressive for an Uchiha — who usually wasn't too big on public displays of affection actually hugged him, it took him a while to return it.
He patted him on his back, before releasing him. Then he realized something was going on.
"Ah, fuck." Toru said, wiping his eye. "I've got terrible allergies. They're making water run down my face."
Sasuke's own eyes were a bit shiny. "Yeah." He sniffed, too. "Mine, too."
An old Uchiha inside joke. They shared a laugh and Sasuke pressed a pouch into Toru's hands. "Take this, at least. There's enough cash to keep you afloat for a while."
"War bounty?"
"I'm afraid I can't answer this." Sasuke chuckled.
"I'll take it, then."
"And please." Sasuke finally let out. "Please. Be careful out there."
"Aww. Of course, bro." Toru grinned. "You know me."
"...Exactly."
"I'll find a way to contact you that doesn't drag you into my shit, then." Toru continued. "And well, see you… whenever the old fart dies, then. Hopefully you don't have grandkids, by then."
Sasuke took a long breath. "Yeah." He said weakly. "See you then. I'll get your pardon. Please, no crimes against humanity in the meantime."
All he got in answer was a wink.
Toru turned to leave, and Sasuke didn't need the Sharingan for the image to stay with him.
"Ah." Toru hesitated. "Say goodbye to my brother for me. He… will understand. And to Itachi, too. Tell him thanks for everything."
Sasuke's voice was thick. "I will."
Anko's snakes relayed the information to her.
"An Uchiha and a Hyūga, out of Konoha and on their own, then?" She muttered to herself.
They likely would get into a world of trouble as soon as the word got out. There was no village that would not try to either sway them, or kidnap them outright.
Thing was…
That was as good an opportunity as it got. Sensei would definitely give her shit if she didn't at least try her hardest to get them to come aboard.
'Well.' She thought. 'Time to bring out some good ol' Anko charm.'
They just so happened to have a few great seal-masters on hand. Naruto would only be too happy to help screw with Konoha — if the younger women had managed to get him out of jail already. That ought to make the deal a sweet one, indeed.
She stood up, and moved to meet Uchiha Toru and Hyūga Hanabi, ready to make good use of her first-mover advantage. Oh, sure, there was the whole "Hokage murder" thing, but she could explain that one away. Hopefully.
Anyways, she was sure most people liked islands more than cut-throat politics.