Ino knocked on the wooden door in front of her, darkness covering the slim figure. It was late at night, the neighborhood was quiet if not for the occasional noise of some animal in the far alleys. She saw one or two homes with lights on, but everything was very calm and peaceful.
Even making sure no one was paying attention to her nervous appearance that night, Ino needed to come inside. She felt vulnerable, and the stress of keeping her guard high was causing a painful discomfort, her mind seemed to be running at an alarming rate that she had learned to identify as too dangerous to be acceptable.
She was a Yamanaka, and knew that the stress and overload she was suffering could cause alarming damage to her body.
She needed to get in.
Ino knocked on the door again. She knew he was there, felt the warmth of his sleeping chakra. She knew the house was protected, but her body was still too fast on adrenaline, and even unintentionally her sensory ability manifested herself for the comforting presence.
Ino didn't want to look desperate or weird, but her head was hurting like a bitch and her vision was starting to get dark, soon her eyes would fail and that couldn't happen considering she needed to be awake in the morning before dawn, in readiness.
Going around the house, she propelled her body until she reached the ledge of a specific window, using the little control she had left to stay steady on the small piece of wood.
Almost instantly, probably alarmed by the presence, Ino felt that the hot chakra had expanded, denouncing that it had finally awakened its possessor.
"Ino? What are you doing? "Naruto's sleepy, confused eyes stared into the darkness, clutching the curtains to see if the blonde hanging at his window was real or some kind of hallucination.
Entering the window, Ino threw her body onto Naruto's bed, bringing both hands to her head and pressing down on the sides.
"My head hurts." She grunted, her mouth dry.
"Are you back from a mission now?" He asked, still looking confused.
Ino looked like a mess, ANBU's black uniform was torn and dotted with dried blood, there were red bruises on her arms and cuts on her neck that Naruto was certain the blonde could easily have healed even in her worst condition, but his biggest concern was the dull, dry eyes that stared at him almost desperately.
"Can I spend the night?" She asked.
Naruto nodded automatically, without considering much, sitting beside her on the bed. He hardly cared that the girl was dirtying his clean sheets, making a note to change them later.
"Wanna talk about it?"
Ino shook her head silently, rising to the dresser. She pulled out a lilac towel and went out to the bathroom, her armor clinking as she walked.
Naruto watched her walk away, his eyes serious on her figure.
Ino's presence at his house had become almost recurring.
It had started on a shared mission when they were still Jounins shortly after the war. The mission had gone well, uneventful, Ino's help had been essential, but for some reason the blonde seemed misfit when they arrived in Konoha at night. As if sad or disappointed.
Naruto knew that Ino was still getting used to a life without father and mother after the heroic death during the war, and for a minute found himself thinking about his own depressing and dark past.
That night, almost on impulse, he invited his recent mate to eat something under the excuse of wanting help in completing the mission report, given that surprisingly Tsunade had trusted the hyperactive ninja to lead the team for the first time. Ino was suspicious, almost surprised, but reluctantly accepted.
They had eaten, talked superficially, and then ended up at Naruto's house, though neither of them even remembered how.
It had been a purely sexual encounter, on both sides, they agreed. Naruto blamed the exhaustion and Ino blamed the loneliness, but either way it had happened and couldn't be undone.
After that day the two spoke little, until Ino appeared again at his door on some night, looking empty and sick.
It was always like this, his home, on random nights, sometimes months without seeing each other, sometimes Ino appeared a week in a row. For Naruto was fine, enjoyed the company, and the sex was hot, didn't require much emotional connection. Ino rarely wanted to talk, which he had learned to deal with.
At first it was strange, she was so quiet and focused at night when with him, but sometimes when he saw her during the day with her friends, she looked the same old Ino, playful and petulant, exuding the arrogance Naruto had known since childhood.
He didn't understand, but accepted the way it was.
With a sigh, he rose from the bed and removed the sheets that had been stained with dirt and a few pieces of grass. Throwing in some corner of the room, he quickly replaced them with clean ones in time for Ino to leave the bathroom, her hair wet and her body wrapped in the towel.
She sat on the edge of the bed and simply reached out with a plastic brush. Naruto took it and gently started running through her soft blond hair.
It was a habit he had found so much fun. Ino even in her depression and sadness still cared a lot about appearance, and vehemently refused to sleep with wet or tangled first time he had combed her hair was strange but lovely, he had no idea girls liked that kind of thing. It was common now, and the way Ino reveled in the caress, tilting her head toward him, warmed his heart, he had to admit.
When it was over, he quickly gathered some chakra in his hands and conjured a simple wind jutsu, blowing the water off the pale hair strands, a technique he had learned especially after the blonde complained about the lack of a dryer in his house.
He had earned extra rewards for the effort to learn that justsu.
"Thank you," she murmured, unrolling the towel off her body and lying on her side of the bed, nestling against Naruto's chest, her nose tucked into his t-shirt, breathing in his heady scent of aloe vera.
"Ino ..." Naruto strangled a grunt, feeling the feminine curves press against his body.
"I'm tired." She answered quietly, although her body unfolded to reach extremely specific points on Naruto's body.
"Ino!" He warned again, pulling her so that she was sitting on his lap, her naked body so perfect that it made him think again how the hell he had managed to bring someone like Yamanaka Ino to his bed.
With a thick smile she pulled his face in a kiss, her hands running down his ribs to meet the edge of the shirt, pulling it over his head and parting their lips for seconds, but quickly resuming it with the same hunger.
Naruto's hands gripped her hip, rubbing them against the lump formed in his shorts, pulling a hoarse moan from Ino's throat. Her sloping torso gave him a perfect view of her bare breasts, and his fingers automatically trailed to the pinky nipples that lit up happily while his other hand continued to keep up with her hip.
"Oh, Naruto ..." Ino broke the kiss, dissatisfied with the thick fabric that separated her sensitive flesh from his throbbing pleasure. With wet kisses on his large chest and green eyes locked on the satisfaction of her lover's face, Ino slid across the bed until it was waist level, reveling in the urgent look on Naruto's face.
With her agile fingers, she played with the ninja's stupidly orange shorts bar, slowly pulling it down until she found what she wanted.
Hot sex with Naruto relieved the tight spots in her mind, Ino concluded as she fell to the soft mattress on the bed. She had arrived in physical and emotional troubles, ready to lose control of her own game, which would never be acceptable, and now, after having sex with the blonde ninja, she felt normal again. As if the pain in her mind was just a distant memory.
It would be the pinnacle of happiness for anyone to discover that a disease, or whatever, could be cured with sex. To her it was scary.
"They want me to take over the clan soon," she whispered, the only indication in the silent room showing that Naruto wasn't sleeping was the latent, warm tingle of his chakra poking from his body beside her.
"What do you mean?" Naruto turned his head slightly to see Ino staring at the ceiling, her arms crossed behind her head on the pillow.
"I came back from a mission yesterday, I was three weeks away, and the elders demanded a meeting at that time. Nonetheless, no excuses. They want me to take over the clan, Shikamaru has already done that. They want to start training tomorrow. "Ino said, her eyes fixed on the wooden ceiling. She found it interesting . She used to always find some weird sand or dirt on his walls, but now everything was very clean.
"Are you the Yamanaka heiress?" Naruto asked looking confused, his brow furrowed.
"Didn't you know?" This time Ino turned her head to look at him, one brow arched.
"I always thought you were just… a Yamanaka. Hinata and Shikamaru have a giant compound, you live in a flower shop, I didn't think it was something like ... an heiress? "
It drew a soft laugh from Ino, though it didn't really come to her eyes, but it was light and fun. She turned her body sideways so that she could better see Naruto, his hair falling to the sides of his face. She put her face under her cheeks, still smiling.
"We don't really live in the flower shop… I mean, sometimes we happened to spend a day or two there. The store belonged to my grandparents, they lived upstairs, and now that I ... I live alone, I prefer to stay there at night. The Yamanaka compound is farther, near the wildflower field to the north. "She explained. "Since my father died I knew of my responsibility to the clan… but it's not something I'd like to do, you know? Dad would one day teach me, I've known that since I learned the meaning of having a clan ... but I don't see myself that way anymore. "
"And you can't, like, resign?" Naruto scratched his head, he really didn't understand much about clans, although he now knew he belonged to one.
"I could, my cousin would love that, but… I can't really. Firstborn heirs have been leading my clan for hundreds of years. There are jutsus that only my father knew, and now ... I don't know. "Ino flinched and bit her cheek, every time she spoke of her father the bittersweet feeling of longing hit her so hard it burned her chest. "It's so much. I think it's hurting my mind all this, sometimes those itches make my head hurt a lot. "
Ino shifted uncomfortably. Normally she wouldn't talk to Naruto that much, she should have been asleep already, but her mind was tired and she needed to unload the burden of stress crammed into her body.
She thought of the wrinkled face of Hibari-Sama, the oldest Yamanaka elder, the long hair that came almost to his heels, and his milky blue eyes betraying an almost blindness, which did not prevent the old man from staring at her with such intensity.
The conversation had been long, unexpected. She had just landed on the compound, the porcelain mask still on her face, the fresh battle bruises on her skin waiting for her to come home to heal them properly, when Yata-Sama announced that the old Yamanakas were requesting her presence.
Ino had been on a clan council only once without her father, right after the war. It had been fast, confusing and sad. She bitterly remembered all the required code of conduct, and was not happy to use it.
In addition to Hibari-Sama and Yuta-Sama, there was Inaia-Sama, the only woman on the council, and the most despicable of the three. Ino found it interesting that, except at board meetings and official ceremonies, she never saw the elders around the compound, it was as if they didn't exist for the rest of the days, or were hiding waiting to have any complaints before they could appear.
Yuta had praised her stance as ANBU member, Hibari asked about the shifts of the Torture and Interrogation division with Ibiki-Sensei, and Inaia criticized her lack of commitment to the clan.
She needed to take over as leader, the Yamanaka were without leadership, Ino could not allow her cousin Daisuki to continue making decisions in her absence. She needed to train the clan's secret jutsus, it was forbidden to be passed on to anyone but the firstborn heir by right. The lineage could not be lost. It was her responsibility, and it was bad enough that she was a woman.
Responsibility.
"It's normal?"
"What?"
"The pain in your head?" Naruto looked worried, and Ino was silent. It was cute that Naruto cared about her health, and God, it had been so long since anyone wanted to know anything about her, but she wasn't ready to share such particular things about herself and her genes.
"Yes," she said simply, keeping her eyes on the ninja's face. "I should leave."
Ino sprang to her feet, grabbing her uniform pants and shoving one leg through them. She would need to shower again later, one way or another.
Naruto rose to his elbows, watching the girl stroll around the room gathering her things.
"You can spend the night, Ino-chan."
Ino slipped from his hands like water, looked like a risky and suspicious wild animal. Very different from the teasing and playful kunoichi he always saw on the streets of Konoha clowning around.
The first few times she came to his house, Naruto thought they would build some kind of relationship. After a while he realized that Ino was looking for some kind of reparation with him, as if it were an emotional crutch for her delicate state.
He was fine with that, and unlike what he expected, he had not been disappointed by the lack of feeling in what they were doing.
But there were times like this when he wanted Ino to let him in.
"I better go. I need to wake up before dawn, and you don't have to wake up for that either. "Ino opened the window and looked over to where Naruto was, his messy golden hair, the white sheet around his waist contrasting with his tanned skin.
Ino approached, half uncertainly, and bent to seal their lips in a quick kiss.
"Thank you." She said sincerely softening her expression before covering her face with Anbu's mouse mask and jumping out the window.
Naruto blinked in surprise, taking a few minutes to restore his normal numbness, scratching his head in confusion.
. X.
Konoha's summer wind whistled in Ino's ear as she made her way over the roofs of the houses, her long hair whipping behind her, still loose from her previous adventures.
(Sometimes she wondered if civilians really had quality nights sleep in that central area, considering that all day and night the ninjas walked in soft steps across their rooftops.)
The path to the southernmost Naruto neighborhood was relatively far from the Yamanaka compound, where she intended to spend the night. She could use more effective ways to get home quickly, but the fresh wind path clouded her thoughts, and that was comforting.
She didn't like to think about specific things, and precipitating future events was a trap from which she kept her distance. On the contrary, she liked to think of random things that didn't require much effort.
She thought of Sakura, tried to remember her schedule to know if she would be on duty tonight at the hospital now that she headed the entire surgical area. She was immensely proud of her best friend, but she couldn't deny that the promise to Asuma still glowed in her head at times, and sporadically she found herself calculating the technical level of her own skills with Sakura's in order to decide who was leading the way. higher ninja level, which always ended in absolute stalemate, as their careers had nothing to do with each other.
From time to time her thoughts drifted to Chouji and Shikamaru. Chouji seemed happy in a totally unpredictable relationship with Karui, a foreign ninja who had been allied in the war. She had no idea where this romance had come from, but it was cute and very pure, though sometimes it was stressful to hear Chouji sighs around her longing for her girlfriend.
In the same vein, Shikamaru also seemed to have developed some kind of weird relationship with Temari, sister of Suna's Kazekage, although this was more to be expected. Her heart was still jealous when she saw the older blonde accompanying her former teammate on visits to Konoha, but her feelings for Shikamaru were just confusing remnants of pre-teen.
Anyway, it was undeniable that the ShikaChou part of the old team 10 had a romantic complex for foreign ninjas.
As if Konoha's kunoichis weren't enough, stupid men.
She missed her friends.
Chouji was still the most available among the three, taking missions here and there to maintain his active form, although he was much more focused on studies to teach in the early years of the academy. Shikamaru had assumed the post of chief of the Nara clan, while along with Naruto (although he believed the blonde was far less applied to the extent that Shikamaru was lazy) he took lessons daily for the future Hokage's counselor post, something that had impressed her so much. In return for their busy schedule, Ino's own routine made it almost impossible to find any time to meet.
It killed her.
It was as if everything had changed very quickly, and soon they were no longer like Big Team 10, climbing for every possible joint mission. Now they were known, who met sporadically as they walked down the street, with an occasional "we need to mark something together again" that never came to fruition.
After her father's death, she hoped as selfishly as possible that her connection with Shikamaru would intensify and they could share their pain as a healing process.
However, Shikamaru seemed to cope better with his pain by suddenly turning into a responsible adult man, while Ino (and this she admitted without remorse) fled to Ibiki and was content to torture prisoners, as if the pain inflicted on them would make up for it. her own personal pain.
He was sadistic, but Ino had learned to enjoy mild wickedness.
She knew 13-year-old Ino would be having unpleasant shivers at the thought of working with Ibiki, but just as her father had led the Torture and Interrogation department, she felt comfortable inside the underground walls and even more so in and out. of sick minds, discovering their own limits by playing with the whole mental chain of people who didn't deserve a second chance.
Her work was dirty and unglamorous, but it was something someone had to do, and for her it was fine.
Sometimes, when her thoughts fled to darker places, she wondered what her father would think of how life had changed.
She was a good tool. It met Ibiki's expectations during the day, and was a key weapon for ANBU when it came to reconnaissance and espionage.
In those moments she forced herself to gather her thoughts back to the curve.
Suddenly stopping in her tracks, Ino frowned when she felt a familiar chakra current nearby, though she couldn't identify where exactly it came from, which was unusual considering her sensory abilities and the power charge the chakra had. .
It was impossible not to notice and it was so familiar, and yet she could not find the source.
And in a single moment, as she pondered her closest pursuit, it was gone.
Ino's eyebrows arched even further, astonished by what had happened.
Should she report this? Or would it be silly?
It was common for ninjas to sometimes exhale more chakra than usual, considering their level of strength and power, especially in cases of adrenaline, but she still found the odd feeling creeping up her spine.
It wasn't her patrol night, she decided. If she at rest had felt the chakra, surely the alert ninjas at work should have felt that too. Perhaps that was why it had disappeared so suddenly, someone should have looked into the situation.
And the chakra was familiar, so it must be someone she knew, maybe she hadn't identified because it wasn't part of her daily life.
There was no danger.
Finding her resolve at least decent, Ino returned to her path, a brief glance over her shoulder to make sure everything was all right.
Ok guys, so let's go for some considerations.
I hope you enjoy it, and if you want to update a new chapter, please let me know what you think.
English is not really my native language so it may contain some grammar and concordance errors, if anyone qualifies for proofreading it would be great.
I really don't know where this is going, I just wrote some ideas on paper after thinking that Ino really has the capacity to be much more than Masashi Kishimoto gave him, hey, a Yamanaka's mental abilities are incredibly powerful.
About pairing, I'm really in doubt. Sasuke will be in it, but I also want to put Naruto and Neji at the same time as I don't want to stifle the story with too much romantic drama, so eventually I'll have to choose one of the two N's to fix in the love triangle, so if you have opinions, please tell me
