A/N: Government Warning: This chapter may be AU-ish. I didn't remember everything that happened and everything that was said, so I'll make up the scenes. Don't kill me!
This chapter comes during the 'Sakura-was-knocked-out part'.
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Ino was walking near 'the benches' (I don't know the place, somebody please tell me!) when she noticed her pink-haired friend lying motionless on one of the benches. Fearing the worst, she ran to Sakura's side and felt for a pulse. Getting a small pulse, she sighed and smiled. Her friend was not dead but merely unconscious. Inside her mind ran the same thought over and over again…
'Whoever did this to her will pay!'
She stood up and looked around. The only other person she saw was wearing a black shirt with a fan printed at his back.
'Sasuke! I'm sure he saw whoever did this!'
With that, she ran towards Sasuke. She slowed down beside him and matched his walking speed.
"Umm… Sasuke-kun, have you seen who did that to her?" she asked, but she got no response, not even a nod.
"I'm sure you beat them so bad, they'd wish they weren't even born!" Ino punched the air as if it was one of the 'bad guys'. Sasuke still remained silent. He lowered his head a bit. The moonlight (no, not the coughing ANBU) shone on his face, but his hair covered the upper portion of it in shadows. The only visible expression on his face was a frown, but within a few seconds, it turned into a smile. This relieved Ino, but all that was lost as soon as he started talking… in a cold voice.
"Ino… are you sure you want to know what happened?" Sasuke's smile turned into a grin.
"Y-Yeah… I-I guess…" Ino stuttered, sensing the coldness in his voice.
"It was me, Ino. I did that to her!" he said as he lifted his head quickly, revealing his killer eyes (small iris and all that other stuff).
"You're kidding… r-right, Sasuke?" she asked as beads of cold sweat appeared on her face.
"Why would I be joking?" Sasuke's face turned from the evil grin into the cold-blooded, Itachi-like face, without the lines.
"B-But Sasuke… you wouldn't… do it, right?" Ino's face shifted from confused to frightened.
"Oh… just like that dobe wouldn't even be a Gennin?" Sasuke yelled. Ino just silenced herself.
"At first, Naruto was always the weakest… nobody wanted him… everybody hated him… but as we grew, he kept on surpassing me in many other things… Even though I'm the sole survivor of one of the most powerful clan in Konoha, Sandaime had his eyes on the dobe, constantly watching over him… at the Academy, even though I was the top in our class, Iruka-sensei would keep his eye on Naruto…" Sasuke said, clenching his fists and gritting his teeth.
"But… you had a lot of people care for you, right? I'm sure they found you to be more important than him." Ino tried comforting Sasuke.
"You're mistaken! Even if a lot of people took care of me, I didn't have the most powerful person in all of Konoha look after me!"
"Relax, Sasuke. The Hokage is dead. You're both on the standing on the same ground."
"What do you mean? Even if Sandaime's dead, Godaime's still looking out for him! It makes no difference!" Sasuke yelled at her, all the while glaring, "…Not only that! I may have the famous Copy-Ninja teach me the Chidori, but Naruto has one of the Legendary Sennin… no… two of them. He learned the Rasengan, the Jutsu that was said to be Yondaime's! Not only that, he has already learned to summon! He's already left me in his dust! And recently, when Itachi returned, he refused to fight me and insisted on finding Naruto."
Ino stood silent. She pitied Sasuke for the way that he felt, but somehow she knew that everything he said was true. After all, being trained by an elite Jounin is nothing compared to being trained by a Sennin. And that being cared for by two Hokage was nothing compared to being cared for by the entire village. But she was still unable to believe Sasuke's selfishness. She did know that he was selfish, but not this much.
"Sasuke-kun…" Ino trailed off before putting her hand on his shoulders. Sasuke glared at her before throwing her to the ground.
"Get your hands off me! I don't want to have anything to do with this pathetic village! After what I've seen, I won't be powerful just by sticking around! I'll go out and become more powerful!" Sasuke shouted as he started to walk in the opposite direction of Konoha.
"W-What? But Sasuke… you can't leave! You'll be a missing-nin! They'll send Hunter-nins after you!" she grabbed his arm.
"I don't care! If that's how I will become powerful, then I'll do it!" he said while delivering a punch to Ino's stomach. This caused her to coil up and fall on her knees.
"Sasuke…" she managed to look up with weak half-opened eyes and saw Sasuke glaring down at her.
"You're pathetic… just a single punch and you're down… you are a weakling… like all the people in Konoha…" he trailed off as he turned around and walked away.
"Sasuke… don't…" Ino stretched her hand and tried to reach him, but he was already too far away until he eventually disappeared into the darkness of the night. Ino's consciousness followed soon.
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(The next day)
Naruto was walking around town with 'the big brother he never had'. They had just finished having a Ramen eating contest, which Naruto won. The payment was not much of a problem since Hizachi was doing a lot of missions for the past week… including shopping with Shizune and Anko.
"Geez… I never thought you such a monster at eating… I ate 20 bowls and you ate 30…" Hizachi said, with a 'Hakkai-like'smile on his face.
"Me? A monster? You ate 20! That makes you a monster as well!" Naruto yelled back.
"Right. Right." Hizachi said when he noticed someone on the rooftops. It was Yondaime, who was, surprisingly, not using any Genjutsu. Yondaime signaled Hizachi to go follow him before poofing away.
"What's wrong? Did you see something?" Naruto asked as he kept looking back and forth between Hizachi and the rooftops.
"No… it's nothing." He put on his carefree smile again, "Listen, I hate to leave so soon, but I still have stuff to do."
"It's alright. I'm pretty sure it's important. At least you're not like the perverted hermit."
"Umm… I guess I'll take that as a compliment… well, see you later!" Hizachi waved before poofing away as well, leaving Naruto all alone. With a full stomach and nothing better to do, Naruto wandered around the village. He eventually reached the lake where he first saw Sasuke when they were kids. Looking for some time to get some flashbacks, he ran towards the platform that stretched into the water. When he was near the end of the platform, he saw girl about his age, wearing purple, in contrast to his orange, and lightly blond hair on the edge of the lake. He immediately recognized her and ran towards her instead.
"Ino-chan!" Naruto called gleefully, but the girl, who either ignored him or didn't hear him, hugged her knees and buried her face in it. Naruto, after seeing this, knew that she was probably depressed and decided to cheer her up.
"Let's eat ramen!" Naruto shouted but Ino was still in a trance-like situation. Letting out a sigh of defeat, he sat down next to his teammate and decided… if making her laugh or smile was impossible, he'll just have to share the pain. After all, if you can't beat them, JOIN them.
"Hey, Ino-chan… what's wrong?" he asked.
"It's Sasuke… he left…" Ino said with a barely audible voice.
"What? Where did he go?"
"He left… to find Orochimaru."
"WHAT? He left to find the snake hermit? Is he not fed up with old Sennins? There's already two here! There's no need for a third one!"
"He said he wanted to be more powerful… so he left…" Ino said, putting a hand on her stomach where Sasuke punched her.
"Ino…" he said when he noticed the pain on her face and the gesture her hand made, "what's wrong with your stomach, Ino-chan? Does it hurt?"
"Of course it hurts, you dimwit!" Ino yelled at him before returning to her depressed state, "he punched me there before he left… and it still hurts…" Ino's tears started to flow, unnoticed by Naruto.
"S-Sorry…" Naruto looked down to the grass below them.
"All I wanted was to stop him…" Ino continued as her sobs became more evident. When Naruto noticed this, he also saw another thing… restraint. She was suppressing her emotions.
"You know, Ino-chan, there's no need to stop yourself… It's alright. You should cry, while you're still able to."
Upon hearing that, she literally crashed into his chest, crying herself out on him.
"I tried to stop him… I tried to make him stay… I didn't want him to leave… I wanted our team to remain intact… but instead of talking to me properly… he just… kept glaring at me…" her crying went down a couple of levels… but she was still crying." She said in between sobs.
"Ino-chan…" Naruto didn't know what exactly he needed to do, but all that changed when he noticed that Ino's arms were already around his neck and her head was rested on his shoulder. He wanted to move her so that he could stand up, but he found out that she was already asleep, after all the crying. Unconsciously, he moved his arms around her waist. This stirred up Ino and woke her up completely. She looked at their position and redness covered both their faces.
"Naruto…?" Ino asked, with a few tears still evident on her face.
"Uhh… Ino-chan?..." Naruto asked childishly.
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to be continued…
A/N: Sorry if the last part sucked… I'm having a close shave with 'Writer's Block'. Anyway, Hizachi's smile is like that of Cho Hakkai from Gensomaden Saiyuki… so I called it 'Hakkai-like' and 'carefree smile'. Please review! See you in the next chapter!
