Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.


Bathing in Blood

17. The Proof is in the Pudding

They are bound by hundreds of vain hopes.

Anger and lust is their refuge;

And they strive by unjust means to amass

Wealth for their own cravings.

-The Bhagavad Gita

Ino watched her hands intently. They rested on that distant desk so far below, curled numb and useless on the scarred veneer, as though seen through a patina of hazy gray. Dead hands, without life or reason to live, bony and blue-veined. Like the hands of a corpse, they were.

Now how would she know that?

The misty curtain thickened, layer upon numbing layer, until all that remained of the outside world (What 'outside world'?) were a few flickering shadows; garbled signals too weak to travel further. She was practically swaddled in it now, in the miasma of anesthesia that she called peace. It was just as they'd always said. Ignorance was bliss. How many times had she heard that before? 'Don't ask, don't tell.' 'Ask no questions, tell you no lies.' Things of that sort.

(Tell me no lies, no matter how pleasing, no matter how flattering?)

Well, maybe they'd been half-right.

Far away, behind the dull charcoal fog, the snowy fingers clenched against a background of moldy tan. Twitching with a senseless mixture of frustration and accomplishment. Yes, she had passed the Chuunin Exams. Information filtered through sinewy nerves in rogue bursts of enlightenment, fading as quickly as they came. Yes, she had passed the Chuunin Exams.

With the grating of rusted machinery, the golden head lifted, robotic blue eyes scanning the surroundings with meticulous inaccuracy. Danger, alert, a flash of cherry-blossom. Houston, we have a problem.

Yes, she had passed the Chuunin Exams.

But so had Sakura.

Teeth ground together in remote-controlled anger. Like the pilot in the cockpit, she neither felt nor understood the sudden burst of futile emotion pulsing through the circuits. Nor did she want to understand. (Where's the instruction booklet when you need it most?)

Strange, that she'd forgotten so many things lately. There were some things that she'd forgotten that she had forgotten. But it wasn't so bad, after all.

Because Ino had a goal now; a real, recognizable, definable goal. Defeat Sakura, that ingrate, that demon who had taken all she valued and thrown it on the floor like it meant nothing at all. Defeat the one who had stolen her only pleasures, her personality; the one with the impossibly perfect existence who showed no respect for that of others.

Yes, defeat Sakura, and then win Sasuke as well (just for kicks, you know)...and what a prize that would be! Winning the last sane person in this village; in the world, perhaps. A fine and worthy goal.

Subtle against the mossy slate of the blackboard at the front of the classroom, a vague black shape swirled into a tall figure. Its trench-coat swung jauntily in an authoritative manner to reveal glimpses of a mesh bodysuit. Was it a man? A woman? Or could she stay safe, and call it what it looked like—an it? Did she care?

The mouth of the figure opened jerkily, like that of a clumsy marionette. Forming words, the blonde-haired girl supposed, pretending to fool herself into believing she was thinking rationally. Its voice was hoarse and husky, shouting yet wavering in and out of reach. (The second part of the Chuunin Exams, did it say?)

As if in slow motion, and still far too quickly, the genin surrounding her (goddamn them, stupid brats) stood as one, filing methodically after the new arrival without so much as a word. And Ino followed them, of course; what else was there to do? And she followed them, winding effortlessly through the maze of hallways that she swore she'd never seen before.They could have just been one of the many memories that had slipped her mind.

Or perhaps it was because she could see, all too clearly through the murkiness of her self-woven shroud, that morbidly cheerful flash of sunrise pink (goddamn her, too!) standing out in the achingly normal background of blacks and browns. So far ahead that it wasn't even funny.

What was that other saying, again?

The blonde clutched at her head in anguish, shivering with the unexpected arrival of fear. The overwhelming fear of herself.

That old wives' tale, remember?

Ino didn't want to remember. But that didn't matter in the least here.

Red sky in morning, sailor take warning. Isn't that right?

Painted fingernails burrowed into the meticulously moisturized scalp. (But this isn't morning!) So much effort, wasted. So much going down the drain.

Well, it sure ain't night, hon.


Ibiki watched as the last of the students fled in an orderly fashion from the brightly-lit hell that was Room 301. Smart kids. Accepting their fate without question. He couldn't help but focus on the blonde-haired whorish one, the onewho'd attempted the astral projection jutsu.

Someone taught her a real lesson. He thought without pity. And she deserved it.

And, heartless as that may have sounded, he knew it was the rule of thumb in the real world. The shinobi world. Weed out the weak from the strong.

And if the weak protest, give them freaking medic-nin jobs! He smiled a private smile. Pathetic as it had become, Konohagakure's ninja academy had managed to keep most of its dirty little secrets to success just that—a secret.