5 – Not Enough
The night of her failure at chunin exams, Ino hunted down her father at the bar and dragged him home with a cursory glance at the elder Akamichi and Nara ninjas. She shoved her father toward the kitchen table and thrust a hot cup of coffee into his hands.
"What's this about, Princess?" he asked, gamely sipping the drink. Ino plopped into the seat across from him, blue eyes focused.
"I need you sober right now. I'm still all hyped up from the exam—and I've got so many questions!"
Inoshi's lips never left the coffee mug and he gestured at his daughter with a roundabout waving motion. Well, come on, out with it.
"Sakura and I had a double-knock out in the preliminaries."
"Really? Well, I'm proud of you for making it that far-- fighting the preliminaries after 5 days of a brutal survival race in the Forest of Death is no joke, especially for a first year genin."
"No kidding! It was hard. And scary too! It's a good thing I'm way too pretty to die young." Ino's father had no reaction to this; he was far too used to it by now. "But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."
Inoshi was now leaning over with his elbows on the table and the coffee mug held tenderly between his hands like a kitten or some other furry, beloved infant animal that needed to be petted and clung to. Coffee. Coffeecoffeecoffee.
"I used the Shintenshin no Jutsu in my fight against Sakura in the prelims. She--"
"How'd you trap her?"
"--what? Oh, I cut my hair and lured her to stepping on a chakra bridge I made of it. Anyway--"
"Really?" He squinted at her, and his gradually-less-drunk vision finally picked up the fact that her gloriously long ponytail was, indeed, suspiciously absent. "That was clever of you; it's too bad about your hair though."
"Would you pay attention, Dad!"
"Sure sure. Ask your questions." He went back to his coffee, which wasn't likely to yell at him for something.
"As I was saying, I used the Shintenshin. I caught her in it perfectly too—her Dogan was just this big empty space all purple and blue and black, she must have no imagination!—and though I had a limited amount of chakra left, I was this close—" she held out her thumb and forefinger and waved it in her father's face to demonstrate, "—to making the word 'forfeit' come out of her mouth. I should have been able to do it too, but she stalled me with this bizarre split personality, and I ran out of chakra and she overpowered my jutsu."
"So... what was your question again?"
"Sakura has a split personality! And the other one was scary as hell! I had her under my control; why couldn't I control the second one too! And how does she even have two minds like that?"
Inoshi shrugged noncommittally. "Some people have a dissociative personality disorder, and they have two or more selfs. If she really has a split personality, it's possible the second one has never manifested beyond her own mind, never taken control, so then it's not surprising you didn't know. It's possible the conscious Sakura isn't even entirely aware of her other self."
"But why was the other one so strong? Why couldn't I beat her-- I've taken over Sakura's mind once before and both that time and this time it was easy to get in with the Shintenshin."
"Ino, controlling split personalities require a more skilled approach to the Shintenshin no Jutsu that you might not be capable of yet, and may never be. You can't guess which of the halves is stronger and should be overcome first, and you might find it taxes your abilities and your chakra reserves to take the time and energy to overcome both of them. On top of that, a person with multiple personalities might be prone to developing more, even spontaneously— you don't know how many you'd have to fight. Most of the time I'd recommend against using the Shintenshin and go for a different jutsu."
"But what if I have to?"
"Then, try to overpower the dominant personality, and be quick. If you're fast enough, you might get them to obey you and be out again before they have a chance to put up a fight. The longer the mental battle, your chances of winning are diminished. And mind your mind— you don't want any of her little bits following you back when you return to your own body."
Ino sighed and put her chin in her hands, eyes drifting gloomily to the table. Her father made a face at this. He wondered if he should try offering comfort or some other fatherly duty. But she might not take it well; he was new to handling this strange almost-teenage creature that, a year or two ago, would have been happy with just a hug and piggy-back ride.
"Don't look too sad, Ino. Take into account that Sakura might also just be a naturally strong personality that's apt to resist mental techniques. Some people are harder than others, and your level of charka right now is not enough." He raised his mug for another sip, and frowned. "Damn, I'm out of coffee."
"I'll make you some more— if you stand right now you're liable to faint on the spot. And I'm not really sad, Dad. I was just thinking about Sasuke, and how much I would have liked to beat Sakura in front of everyone to prove to Sasuke and the rest that I'm the better shinobi than her."
Inoshi shrugged again; it was his standard reaction to everything when drunk or barely coming out of being so.
"Practice more."