The shadow is flickering. Even in the darkness, he can see it stretching, itching to find the source of the flame, a brightness against which the shadows can thrive.

Ino opened her eyes to pitch darkness. If not for the solid presence of the floor beneath her fingers, she would have sworn that she was still unconscious, that this was just some strange, demented fantasy of her sleeping mind.

But, no… she realized as she sat up. I'm still here. This is still his mind.

At the edge of her consciousness, the wisps of a memory tugged at her, but she couldn't make sense of it. Something to do with Shikamaru and smoke and… Her head was still fuzzy. Maybe it was nothing.

As she sat up, the space lightened, revealing a room much smaller than any of the ones she had been in previously. The walls and floors were white, and the room was empty. There was not even any evidence of the door that she'd fallen through.

Running her fingers along the floor to reassure herself that she wasn't just imagining it, Ino couldn't shake a nagging familiarity about this place. It almost looked like…

The pieces snapped into place almost too quickly, and Ino scrambled to her feet, spinning around to confirm her realization. The white walls, the starkness… it was the room in the hospital.

Panic pulsed through her.

"Shikamaru? Shikamaru, are you here?"

Was she awake now? She had just assumed, since she had woken up alone, that she was still in his head. That it had only been a temporary blackout, that she had gotten herself back under control. But what if she hadn't? A second wave of panic washed over her as the implications became clear. If she was here, in the hospital room, and Shikamaru wasn't, did that mean she'd failed? Had she been kicked out of his head without actually finding him?

Or worse, had she done irreparable damage in her attempts to save him?

"Oh no." She whispered. "Oh, no, no, no… I can't have screwed this up, I—

In the midst of her rambling, a noise sounded behind her. It echoed strangely in the small space, and there was no denying – it had definitely come from inside the room.

Setting aside her panic for a moment, Ino whirled on her heel, unsure of what she was about to see.

In the center of the room, a shogi table sat on its side. The game pieces were scattered across the floor, as though someone had thrown them there in a fit of rage. But as for the culprit… there was none to be found.

Scanning the room carefully, Ino crept toward the table. She was alone in the room – that much was certain – so how…?

A wave of sudden relief rushed over her. This room, the appearance of the table…

"I'm still in his head," she muttered.

As she edged toward the mess in the center of the room, a familiar sight caught her eye. She recognized the shape of the pieces, the grain of the wood… though she'd never played with them herself, they were unmistakable.

"Asuma-sensei…"

She caught herself smiling slightly at the familiarity. It was many a long afternoon that she'd spent daydreaming about Sasuke while Asuma and Shikamaru played with this very set. Gently, as though carrying a child, Ino picked up the table and righted it, then swept the tiles all into a pile next to it.

Nothing happened.

Tapping her fingers anxiously against the surface of the table, she began to sort through the pieces, separating them by rank. When she had them cordoned them off properly, she began to set up the table.

She had seen the set up a thousand times – it was almost a mindless act, arranging the straight rows. She could picture Asuma-sensei, one hand wrapped around his cigarette, the other slapping the pieces onto the board. The memory was lacking, though. Try as she might, she couldn't remember the explanations he gave, the various rules behind each placement. If she was being totally honest with herself, she really didn't even remember the names of most of the pieces, only the way the tiles looked when she set them on the board.

Shogi had never been a pastime of hers. It was Shikamaru's game, the one that once and for all sealed his genius in the eyes of their sensei. Even if she had wanted to try to play the game, she would have been poorly matched against her teammate. Asuma had never even bested him, so how could she have expected to even come close?

She had only ever taken in an interest in learning once, and that had been a total disaster. When Asuma-sensei was alive, she went on and on about how boring it was, but after his death, it just didn't seem right. One afternoon, while she'd been over at Shikamaru's to talk about an upcoming mission, she'd spotted the Shogi table off in the corner, and casually mentioned it. She had never expected Shikamaru to jump at the chance to teach her the game, but she also hadn't expected the vehemence of his refusal. In retrospect, she realized the mistake of her request. It had been too soon, that was certain – with Asuma's death only a few months behind them, Shikamaru still hadn't been ready to handle the memories associated so closely with their beloved sensei. Even aside from the pain of his loss, Ino recognized now that Shogi was, and always had been, out of her league. Even if Asuma had asked her early on to learn, she would have been too caught up in chasing Sasuke to even give a second glance to the game that was largely regarded as an old man's pastime. Now, much though she would have liked to learn, it was too late.

So she stared at the board, running her fingers over the smooth rows of tiles. They were well crafted and beautifully painted – not an overly ornate set, but clearly the careful work of an artist. She thought she remembered seeing this set in Shikamaru's room, and she vaguely wondered if Asuma had gifted it to him at some point.

Her fingers stopped on the king, the piece to be protected at all costs.

"Asuma's last words to you…" she breathed quietly, wondering if Shikamaru could even hear her. Four layers in, the idiot ought to be able to hear her, but who knew how many layers there even were?

"Is this it?" she mused aloud, "Is it some kind of puzzle about the king? Because, if it's not, and you want me to play a game of Shogi, you're going to be disappointed."

The silence gave her no answer. She picked the piece up off the board, turning it over in her hands where she sat.

"I don't know what you want, baka."

She could remember Asuma-sensei's words as easily as if they had been burned into her brain. It had taken her a while to pull them out of Shikamaru – the final words Asuma had whispered before he died.

The "kings" are the unborn children who will grow up to take care of the Leaf.

But what relevance did that have here? Frustrated, Ino tossed the tile across the room. It clacked over the floor, coming to rest near the wall.

And a dark line spread out beneath the arc.

Ino stared at the path the tile had taken. In the middle of the stark white room, a shadow fell across the floor, stretching from Ino's hand to the tile. It was strangely reminiscent of the shadow from the mirror… which gave Ino an idea. Moving slowly, she followed it across the room. When she put a hand on the tile, the shadow vanished.

Just like the Shadow Possession, she thought.

It wasn't much to go on, but it was something. Racing back to the table, Ino sat cross-legged in front of it and replaced the tile. In the stillness, she tried to think. What would Shikamaru do?

Shikamaru was a planner. He would never do anything hasty, especially in a game of Shogi. No… Shikamaru would take time to plan. He would strategize… Images slowly clicked together.

Carefully, Ino assumed the pose she had seen him take so many times during games of Shogi. Fingertips together, palms facing inward, eyes closed… even as she completed the motion, it felt stupid. Sitting like Shikamaru was not going to suddenly going to make her a Shogi master. What was the point of…?

Her eyes shot open as a familiar sensation crept over her, like ice inching up her spine. For a moment, her entire body was immobile. Then her hands were moving pieces against her will, responding to an invisible opponent across the table.

She could count on one hand the number of times she remembered having this technique performed on her. Though Shikamaru occasionally used Shadow Possession to defend her body from attacks while she was using the Mind-Body Transfer, she had spelled out in no uncertain terms that he was not to use it on her while she was conscious, unless the situation was dire.

She supposed now was as dire a time as any.

The logic of it still escaped her though. If Shikamaru was trapped, how was he able to exert this control? And what on earth did it have to do with Asuma-sensei? She was certain there had to be some connection, but like the strategy of Shogi, it was clearly over her head.

She watched the board as her fingers moved of their own accord. She had witnessed enough games of Shogi to know that she was winning handily.

Trust it to Shikamaru, she thought wryly.

In a matter of minutes, the game had played itself out. Ino stared at the finished game, relieved. Shikamaru had guided her through all the moves. She was done.

But… didn't that mean something ought to happen?

The room stayed strangely silent, the tiles motionless.

Mrs. Yamanaka closed the door behind her guests, plunging the house back into silence. It was always quiet these days – while it had never exactly been a noisy household, between her husband's passing and Ino moving out to live on her own, the place almost seemed abandoned nowadays.

Mrs. Yamanaka sank into a chair, allowing her muscles to uncoil a bit. All of the effort that had gone into maintaining her composure while Tsunade was there quickly melted away. After her Inoichi's death, she had hoped that some of the constant fear would melt away, but it hadn't. Instead, she had just redirected her concern to worry about Ino more. It was her daughter's decision to become a shinobi – no one had forced it upon her.

Still… a mother had a right to worry.

But now was not the time to succumb to worry. Taking a deep breath that failed to quell the shaking in her hands, Mrs. Yamanaka stood and walked down the hallway to the back of the house. Something about what Tsunade had said was nagging at her.

Entering the next to last door on the left, Mrs. Yamanaka moved immediately to the row of filing cabinets against the wall. When he was younger, she had teased Inoichi mercilessly about his habit of keeping records – journals of his battles, detailed diagrams of team formations, documents all the way from his days as a genin. For most shinobi, that much filed information would have been a nightmare, a security hazard of the highest order.

Now, however, she thought he might not have been so crazy.

The particular file she was searching for would be from back in his days as a Chunin. She remembered the incident as clearly as if it had been yesterday. She had gone to visit him in the hospital afterwards, holding his hand as he lay deathly still, despite the fact that he manifested no sign of outward injury. Then, she hadn't had the faintest inkling of what was actually happening to him. Though she hadn't told him about it at the time – they hadn't even been dating then – she could still clearly remember the burning fear in her gut, could see the guilt in the face of one Shikaku Nara when he'd come to visit. At the time, his expression seemed like the guilt of a teammate who had allowed his comrade to be injured.

In light of her daughter's current predicament and the information she'd given Tsunade about Inoichi's experience with mind-probing, his guilt struck Mrs. Yamanaka as something a bit different.

After a few minutes of searching, she came across the file she was looking for. It was a handwritten entry, scrawled across the page in Inoichi's neat script. The sight of it made her eyes sting a little.

She read through it once, just to establish that it was the correct document. Satisfied, she went to find her coat and head out to the hospital.

Ino stared at the pieces remaining on the board, at a loss about what to do next. She could feel the jutsu slowly receding as a tingling sensation returned to her limbs. She flexed her fingers uncertainly, wincing when she moved her right wrist the wrong way.

Still injured. She grimaced.

Finally, the last of the Shadow Possession dissipated. Though Ino usually would have been glad to be rid of the invasion of privacy, this time it felt like more of a loss. For at least that brief instant, she had felt like she wasn't undertaking this mission completely on her own – somehow, however briefly, she was connected to Shikamaru.

But now, in the quiet room, with full control of her body, staring at a shogi board that meant nothing to her, she felt more alone than ever.

Resting her forehead on her uninjured hand, she let out a long sigh.

"Thanks for the help, Shikamaru, but you really could stand to be a little more transparent."

"If there's one thing that boy is, it's definitely not transparent."

Ino's breath hitched.

A-am I going crazy? That sounded like…

She kept her head down, not daring to move it. Maybe that fall earlier had caused a more severe head injury than she imagined. Was it possible to have hallucinations within someone else's mind? She had never read about it, but this whole mission had been a series of firsts.

But that smell… Ino raised her head just slightly, breathing in the unmistakable scent of that particular brand of cigarette she knew so well.

Still skeptical of her senses, she dared to look up.

A grinning face met her gaze. He waved genially at her from across the table, taking a drag of the cigarette in his hand.

"Hello, Ino."

She let out the breath she had been holding.

"Asuma-sensei?"

The flame is brightening faster, a circle of light beating back the darkness. The shadows dance against the light.

A/N: Hello, dearies. I hope this finds you all well.

I know it's been a long time, and I'm sorry. I won't try to explain or atone, but know that I do sincerely apologize. That said, I'm not ready to give this up!

Thanks to scarlet letters in the snow, sumtyms, Guest, SI5EVA, FFNRocks, onceuponabloodynight, untouchable hexing witch, Otowa Nekozawa, Mary, The Clawed Butterfly, star's dreams, Shikainoisthebest, Guest 2, Dawnstar95, Anie92, Gerren, MoonGoddess700, greatgirl22302,iIndefiniteReader and everyone who has faved/alerted this story over the past nine (yikes) months. Your support and enthusiasm deserves copious hugs and mountains of baked goods. You guys rock.

Please, please continue to let me know what you think! Until next time (which will not be nine months from now, I swear)!