The candle pulses in the blackness, seeking its own kind. But there, in isolation, there are no others to be found.

Aching all over and completely soaked, Ino sat up, blinking as she adjusted to the sudden change in lighting. Where the light had been almost blinding up above, she was now in almost complete darkness – the only faint signs of light emanated from somewhere far in the distance.

Trust it to Shikamaru. She thought wryly. Only he would think of something so completely simple. Practically the first thing you learned in training as a Genin is the technique for balancing on the water. For an experienced shinobi, it's second-nature. They would never think of actually entering the water.

Ino tried to focus on her new surroundings, but her head was still spinning from the fall. It took a few moments before she had even a semblance of clarity, and even when her eyes adjusted, it revealed precious little.

She scowled.

"I swear, when I find you, Shikamaru…"

She had only mumbled the statement, but she stopped when she realized that her voice was being amplified and carried down the thin corridor ahead of her. It bounced off the walls and away from her, slowly fading into nothingness.

"Hello?"

At her normal volume, the echo was practically deafening. Ino cringed at the sound, half-covering her ears.

She waited for a moment, listening. Above her, a few drops of water dripped down, hitting the floor with a distinct echo. She held her hand out, trying to get some idea of where it was coming from, but to no avail.

Though she had no idea of the ceiling's clearance, she decided to risk standing. Using a hand to balance, she tried to push herself upward, but she instantly crumpled to the ground, a wave of pain radiating up her arm. Her quiet shriek bounced out and away into the distance.

She felt her wrist – it was tender in several spots, bruised at the least, and possibly fractured.

I must have fallen on it, she realized. But then again… I'm not actually here. I shouldn't be feeling physical injuries.

This was worse than she thought.

Pushing that thought to the back of her mind, she lifted herself up, using her good hand for leverage. That knowledge would do her no good if she didn't figure out where here was.

She put a hand on the wall near where she had fallen. Water trickled down in rivulets, redirecting over and around her hand. The wall beneath was smooth as glass, no doubt worn down by the steady flow of water.

Ino traced her fingers along the length of the wall, treading carefully toward the faint source of light that she'd seen earlier. At first, there was no change; the wall remained smooth, and she had no trouble finding her footing, though the floor was slightly slippery where she had fallen. But as she progressed, the wall grew increasingly rough beneath her fingers, jagged like rock. Finally, she had to pull her hands away, fearing that she would draw blood on her fingers if she continued to drag them across the wall.

The light too was growing brighter by the moment: not the blinding brilliance of the island world above, but more of a glowing luminescence. At first, Ino thought she might be reaching the end of a tunnel, but then she turned a corner.

She had to blink a few times to clear her sight, to confirm that she was actually seeing what she thought she was seeing. But there it was, clear as day.

In front of her lay the most expansive collection of rough gems she had ever seen in one place. From cracks in the wall, bits of ruby, emerald, sapphire and countless others shone out, interspersed with the rock – some of them, Ino didn't even recognize.

The ones closest to her were the roughest, only bits of color sticking out here and there. The little polished surface that showed through was dull.

Ino put a hand on the wall, but immediately pulled it back. Touching the rock was like someone had sent a shock through her fingertips, straight up her spine. Her head was fuzzy, and for the barest moment, she felt as though she were elated and utterly despondent at the same time.

When she finally recovered her mental faculties, she stared at the wall again, trying to make some sense of the sensation. There did not appear to be an electrical charge running through the rock, but she did notice that the place where she'd placed her hand was an intersection, a place where two different types of stone met and merged. Testing a theory, she stuck just one finger out.

Touching only one type of stone was similar to the feeling she'd experienced just moments before, but this time, she didn't feel as though someone were trying to rip her brain apart from the inside. It just felt… muddled. She got a vague sense of despair, like someone had blown a grey fog all around her, obscuring her vision and sapping the strength from her limbs. It took great effort to peel her hand away from the wall.

So each one is different.

Shaking the last remnants of stupor away from herself, Ino continued down the wall, to the place where the gems were more exposed, smoothed down by some unseen force. As she progressed through the cavern, they began to reflect the light, producing flickering images that faded like phantasms. She tried to catch a glimpse of one, but it slipped away from her, just a trick of the light.

Or so she thought, until she reached the second bend in the cavern.

Here, the gems did not merely reflect the light; they reflected images that weren't there. Shadows of faces played across their surfaces, cast in gold and green, red and blue and darkest black. And in the shadows, she began to see things she recognized.

In a smaller red gem, she watched a battle played out, watched as some shinobi succeeded while others made fatal mistakes. Some faces were familiar, but only had a passing recognition, names she had seen on a mission report somewhere.

She moved onto the next one. Reflected in the surface of a large green crystal, she watched Asuma and Kurenai's son take his first steps, toddling across the floor before falling back with a snaggle-toothed grin. In the background, Kurenai grinned with pride, tilting her head and mouthing words so that she seemed to be speaking directly to Ino, but no sound came out.

Like she would be if she were speaking to Shikamaru. Ino realized. So did that mean these were memories?

In the same instant, she dismissed the idea. These couldn't be memories; Kurenai's son was mere months old, nowhere near walking yet.

So then… what were these?

Tsunade stared through the glass, having mostly adjusted to the sound of Choji's soft snores. He had fallen asleep in the corner, slumped across the chair and supported by the wall. Tsunade had tried to send him home multiple times during the day, but each time, he refused more vehemently, insisting that he was going to be here when Ino and Shikamaru returned. Tsunade couldn't help but admire his optimism – though she would continue to encourage him to leave the hospital for a short time, it wasn't her first priority to dash his hopes.

Listening to the even rhythm of his snoring only reinforced how tired she was. Tsunade felt as though she'd been awake for days. It had truly only been about twelve hours, but neither Ino nor Shikamaru had so much as twitched, and she was starting to get anxious. She had known going in that this would not be an easy process, but…

Her thoughts were disrupted by the opening of a door, and a short, imperious figure strode through, her unruly hair waving gently as she walked.

"So?"

Tsunade suppressed a sigh; while Anko Mitarashi was excellent at her job, her timing was often… less than ideal.

"We've not received anything in the last twelve hours, but that's not to say that she hasn't had successes. The monitors show her brain function is normal, and his is relatively unchanged from what it was before she started."

Anko pulled up a chair, raising an eyebrow as she looked at the pair in the next room.

"Relatively unchanged?"

Trust her to catch that, Tsunade thought wearily.

"We've had a few small spikes in activity."

"And you don't think that's significant?!" Anko practically shrieked, and Tsunade glared at her, gesturing at Choji, who merely grunted and turned in his sleep.

Anko frowned, but she lowered her voice. "And you don't think it's important that he's showing spikes in brain activity?"

"Of course it is," Tsunade muttered tiredly, massaging her forehead. Twelve hours doing nothing but staring through glass was beginning to make her head ache. "But what are we supposed to do about it? Anko, you work with the Intelligence Division. You know as well as I that that girl in there is the only one who is going to be able to make any sense of what we're seeing out here. And she's rather busy at the moment."

"Yes," Anko acknowledged slowly, "but we can't sit around waiting for her forever. You give her an ultimatum?"

"Only vaguely."

"So how long are you actually giving her?"

Tsunade paused, unsure if she wanted to admit this, even to herself.

"Three days."

"That means we're one-sixth of the way there." Anko calculated, glancing at Tsunade to confirm her assessment.

Tsunade merely nodded.

"And if she doesn't get out in that time?"

Tsunade flexed her hands against the window sill, her mouth settling into a grim line.

"Then things get complicated."

Possibilities. The answer came unbidden to her; she realized it before she had really even processed all the evidence. For a moment, she felt as though Shikamaru were standing behind her, whispering the answer in her ear.

Ino looked at the other gems, each one a short scenario playing itself out. Some she was able to make sense of, but others were so abstract as to be impossible, mere snatches of images repeating over and over. Each one was a picture of what might be, the thousand scenarios that the genius of the Hidden Leaf was playing out at any given moment. The rougher gems were mere emotional possibilities – happy ending, sad ending. The gems she saw now were more focused, more tempered. Time and experience had made them sharper, more defined.

There was one that captured Ino's attention above all, and she couldn't quite place why she kept coming back to it, other than that it unsettled her. The scene was simple enough – seen through Shikamaru's eyes, it was a conversation with Temari of the Sand. She said something scornful, or so it seemed, and then watched as he replied, responding with a short bark of laughter. Then she laid a hand on his shoulder, murmuring something unintelligible, and she… smiled. It was the smile that made Ino's stomach flip, the same way it always had when she had heard Asuma-sensei praise the technique of another kunoichi of their year. There was something… wrong about it, though she was not ready to admit what it was.

For a moment, an irrational anger came over her. What right did Temari have to be smiling at him that way? Was she the one probing the depths of his mind to save the idiot? Before she could allow rationality to return, Ino's hand clenched into a fist and she threw a blow at the wall, temporarily forgetting the sheer insanity of the action.

As she swung, it occurred to her that punching a wall of solid rock was at least going to bruise her knuckles, if not worse, not to mention the fact that she'd been stupid enough to use the hand that was already injured. But it was too late to pull the punch, so she gritted her teeth against the impact, willing herself through the pain.

Her fist connected, and for an instant, she felt an excruciating pain, but then it drained and her arm went numb, just as it had the first time she'd touched the rock. But this time, she was not overwhelmed by the sensation – instead, the numbness spread up her arm, until slowly, she began to feel herself fading, as if the act of touching the wall was slowly causing her to dwindle from existence. Slowly, she began to forget who she was, where she was, ceasing to be anything but air and solid, a loose lattice of barely coherent connections.

"Ino?" Shikamaru's baritone was clear.

"What did you call me?" Temari's response was immediate, and decidedly not happy.

Ino recognized those voices – and in an instant, she was flying back from the wall, landing on her wrist again, and she cried out in pain, sharply reintroduced to reality.

Was I… in the possibility? Her head swam, and she cradled her wrist, wishing she knew why physical injuries were manifesting this strongly. But even the pain was not enough to keep her from wondering about what had just happened. She had touched the possibility, and she had begun to fade. Like in that reality, she was…

In that world, he was forgetting me, she realized. But why would it even matter?

"Damn it, Shikamaru." She rested her head on her knee. "I don't understand you at all."

For a few moments, she just sat on the ground, trying to catch her breath. From her new vantage point, she could see that the gems lined the cavern from floor to ceiling, going beyond even where she could see. As she stared, she began to notice veins in the rock, milky lines running through the field of light and dark.

Standing slowly, she traced the main line with her eyes, quickening her pace as she followed it down the corridor. The discovery quickened the flow of blood through her veins – something about this felt right. How had she not noticed it before?

After she walked for what seemed like hours, she found the place where the lines converged. An enormous crack in the rock revealed a gem that was almost clear, and reflected light like a mirror. Careful not to get too close, Ino surveyed the fissure.

In the bright surface, two figures sat facing one another, one pale and dark-headed, the other pale and blonde. It took Ino a few seconds to realize that she what she was looking at was not some projection of the future, but…

…now.

As she neared the rock, she saw her own reflection as well – her green eyes looked hollow, swallowed by dark circles, and she had a cut at her temple that was slowly leaking blood. She put her good hand to her forehead; sure enough, it came away sticky with blood.

Hoping this was not just another trick of her imagination, Ino tentatively stuck her hand out, bloodstained fingers touching the smooth reflective surface.

In the darkness, the candle brightens, its own light reflected back upon itself in the smooth surface of a mirror.

A/N: If you're reading this, you're a fantastic person, because I really can't believe that someone would still be reading this after the ridiculous amount of time I took to update. Thank you so very much.

That said, I'm really, really sorry about how long it took. If you need further explanation, just go take a gander at my profile. I'm not going to say that this chapter means I'm back to writing and regularly updating because, much as I would love to be, that probably isn't true. But I am going to try my hardest to work on my stories and keep them updated for my readers.

Anyway, I hope you all like this chapter. I lost my notes (aka packed them in one of the boxes with all my dorm stuff, which is now many miles away), so I had to rebuild a little from memory. Still, I think I remembered most of it. As always, I love to hear what you all think.

Thanks to Airi-Shirokuro, little-hina, The Clawed Butterfly, kiwi4me, SeiraXD, Xo56oX, SultanaV, LittleStars08, BleedingSaro, Alyssa009, chikitets1016, cozieatbrains, Otowa Nekozawa and especially the anonymous Guest for your reviews. You all deserve hugs and copious amounts of baked goods for the amazing things you say about my stories and the encouragement you've given me. I can't thank you enough.

- Senka

OH. And to the person on tumblr who wrote a post about this story a while back (if you're still reading this) and to all the people who have liked and reblogged it, that seriously made my week when I saw it.