Title: Seeking Rin
Chapter: 10 - Dissonance
Author: Killaurey
Rating: T
Word Count: 4585
Summary: When Sakura, newly in a relationship with Kakashi, finds out about Rin, she makes a choice that's hard on them both. Even worse, there's a mysterious illness cropping up in Konoha that even Tsunade can't heal. And what does Ino have to do with it? Kakashi x Rin, KakaSaku.
Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me. It's Kishimoto's and I just play with it. Part 10 of ? Unbeta'd.
The honeyed ice in Ino's eyes only serves to make Sakura angrier. She hears Shikamaru say something, probably trying to get her to stop and she's unsurprised that Temari does nothing (why should she? this isn't her problem) but mostly, what Sakura knows about the moment is the harsh thrumming of blood in her ears and the way that she really, really wants to hurt Ino.
She shouldn't want to and she knows that. Ino is sick.
Ino is looking at her like she's the stupidest little girl on the playground and that she can't believe she's spent years hanging around her. Ino is the one who has been lying to her. Ino is the one who has stayed with her through everything.
"Don't," Sakura says, barely recognizing her own voice. "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?" Ino asks easily.
"Like that," Sakura says firmly. "And stop lying. I deserve more than that. You'rethe one that's been trying to pound that into my head, aren't you?"
Ino's gaze turns a little colder. "You don't have any idea of what you're talking about," Ino says. "If you did, you wouldn't be reacting like this."
"You're ill," Sakura cries, keeping enough of her composure, barely, to keep from shouting it. "And you've been running missions like that!"
For a moment she thinks that Ino might deny it, might tell the truth and say that it isn't true, but Ino's gaze doesn't change and Sakura's left wondering how much she's known her friend the last few months.
Not as well as she'd thought, she realizes.
"Can you prove it?" Ino asks, clasping her hands behind her back in a position that looks silly and coquettish and that Sakura knows Ino can reach most of her weapons from in a heartbeat. She wonders if Ino would draw a weapon on her. "If I have been, don't you think it would be on Hokage-sama's orders?"
Sakura almost has to admire the way Ino is keeping it all in the hypothetical. Almost.
But Ino's words are like a glass of cold water to the face. The worst part is, it's not a lie. What Ino said was written right down in the dossier. She's seen it with her own eyes. It doesn't stop her from saying what she does next. "Hokage-sama is the one that wrote the protocol for ill shinobi," Sakura says. "She wouldn't do that."
"The protocol only applies in situations where the village is safer if it is followed." Ino's lips curve up in a smile that Sakura's never seen before. "In this case, Hokage-sama chose the path that keeps the village safest."
"You're lying!" The words rip out of her mouth as Sakura glares at Ino.
"You don't even know what you're talking about," Ino says. "Whatever you've learnt-you really think that it's the whole story? Or were you really that eager to cause a scene?" Ino looks unreachable, which is ridiculous, Sakura knows, when she's standing not even a foot away from her.
Sakura is distantly aware of the fact that she's shivering violently. Shock, she realizes. It's hard to care about that when she's not getting the answers she needs and Ino has been… has been up to something involving corpses and Kakashi's mission and being very veryill.
"Shizune-san did what she thought was necessary," Sakura says. A second after, she realizes that she's given away her source of information.
It's just one more drop into the turmoil of her thoughts.
While it's tempting to blame Ino for the slip, Sakura can't. That can't be explained away by Ino's powers- but it would be so easy, Sakura thinks, to claim that Ino is using her mind. The mind that everyone underestimates.
As it turns out, even she's done that. And Ino is her best friend.
"I didn't," Ino says, something unreadable in her eyes. "You'd be better forgetting anything you think you know."
"I won't," Sakura says, low and viciously. "You won't makeme either."
Ino has the nerve to laugh. "Forehead," she says, like this is an every day ridiculous sort of argument, "if I did, it would be on orders." Ino's gaze is as sharp as razor blades. "You'd never know."
That has the ring of truth to it and Sakura seethes over the fact that if Ino is telling one truth that she knows she might be telling others. Ino often follows truth with more truth and has never told more lies than are needed and…
Sakura has no idea how many lies Ino might feel are needed right now.
"I would," Sakura says, "because we're friends."
Then let me preserve that, Ino's voice whispers in her mind and then, before Sakura can react, her body is no longer under her control.
She struggles against Ino's jutsu but the suddenness of it and her own upset leave her off-balance and before Sakura can free herself and reclaim control over her own body, Ino has forced her body to move.
Sakura watches in horror as her body (everyone will think it's her, she thinks and is horrified) lashes out at Ino's with a vicious punch. Ino's body makes a good, but entirely faked attempt to get away.
Ino, clearly, isn't supposed to be suspected of expecting a blow.
(Sakura, from her unique vantage point almost has to admire the play acting even while it leaves her cold.)
The blow connects.
Abruptly, Sakura is back in control of her body. She recoils as Ino crumples to the ground in a heap.
Thoughts rush around her brain. Ino can't stop bleeding. Any injury is dangerous in that state, never mind a blow to the head. What has Ino made her do?
How will this preserve their friendship?
She makes a move to go to Ino-she needs to fix her, then shake her, and then maybe cry because what the hell is going on?
Before she can take a full step, however, she finds that she's frozen in place.
"Right," Shikamaru says, his voice deeply displeased. "Do you want to explain what's going on?"
She knows that Shikamaru doesn't like getting in-between arguments between Ino and her-he has long since given up on getting them to get along without everfighting-but Sakura supposes that, from Shikamaru's point of view, after watching her hit Ino, after hearing about how Ino is sick (which, Sakura realizes, must be why he's stayed around-he hasn't known either) was crossing a line that Shikamaru won't tolerate.
Sakura struggles to turn her head to look at him. She needs to explain that it wasn't her, it was Ino who moved her body, and she can't do that with the spine-tingling worry that Shikamaru will stab her.
Shikamaru snorts at her efforts and turns so that she turns with him.
Sakura opens her mouth-
"Shikamaru," Temari says sharply. "The girl's gone."
Sakura's head snaps to look at where Ino had lain. Shikamaru's done the same thing, of course. Shikamaru swears. "A bunshin?"
"Impressive," Temari decides and Sakura spares a moment to hate her for saying that. "We've been with her for hours without knowing."
"Kage Bunshin," Shikamaru says. "But Ino's not got the chakra for that."
Kage Bunshin. Kage Bunshin. Sakura knows who does Kage Bunshin as easily as breathing. She thinks back to the way that Ino and Naruto had been while she and Kakashi had talked and Sakura tries to think of another solution and another reason for this to make sense as she stares into an idea that she doesn't want to think about.
The thing she doesn't-can't-understand is that the idea of Ino and Naruto working together… and how could they have managed this? It had been Ino's powers that had forced Sakura to move…
Has she read something like that before? Where was it?
"Fujiwara's theory," Sakura chokes out. The shadow lets her go and she collapses, ignoring the splinters that stab into her knees. "She's had a chakra boost from someone who cando it."
Naruto doesn't have the skill to enact that theory. His chakra control is too erratic. Ino has that skill.
Sakura's not sure how they managed to work together but it-feels right. And horrible.
Has Narutobeen lying to her too?
"Should we be talking about this here?" Temari's voice, drawling and pointed, feels like a dagger digging into her heart.
Shikamaru scowls at the world and then grabs Sakura's arm. "We'll head to point 17005. Will you handle-?"
"I've got it," Temari says, before he even finishes his sentence. "Get going."
He nods and disappears in a swirl of leaves, forcing Sakura to go along with him. The last thing Sakura sees is the mildly impressed expression on Temari's face as the Suna kunoichi kneels down where Ino had stood, ignoring the remnants of the broken table and the squawking of civilians around her.
Ino wasn't even there.
It's a bitter, horrible thing to know. She doesn't even know when Ino switched. She'd left the apartment with Ino that morning. Had that been a Kage Bunshin as well?
Where was the real Ino?
She lands, with Shikamaru, on a wooden platform that sways under their weight. She blinks at their surroundings and realizes she's having trouble seeing because she's started crying. Rubbing at her face, she tries to steady her breathing; Sakura tries to think of something rational to say.
Shikamaru's never been impressed by tears.
Neither is she, right now, but that doesn't mean she can just stop them. She shivers at both the thoughts that are spinning around in her head and at the way the platform they're on sways. She's not quite sure where they are. A glance at the trees tells her that they're still in Konoha and Sakura suspects that they're at a resupply spot in the Nara lands, simply because of who has brought her here, but she's not sure at all.
"Why did Temari-san stay behind?" she asks, when she's certain she can say it without her voice cracking. It doesn't sound as confident as she'd like but she forgives herself that.
Shikamaru snorts as he sits down, his back to one of the corners of the platform. He looks comfortable out here, in a way that he seldom does in the village proper, and he looks dangerous too.
Sakura remembers that he probably hasn't liked a single thing he's heard and that he still thinks she hit Ino (even if it had turned out to be a Kage Bunshin). Shikamaru's never been fond of people who hit girls.
Which, the tiny part of her that isn't wrapped up in the things she's trying and failing to understand observes, is rather funny when he's dating the girl who everyone knows will hit back and win.
"You're really out of it, aren't you?" his voice is rough and she notes the way his hands rest near each other. He's treating her like she's dangerous. If she makes an unwise move, he'll trap her in his shadow again. The whole place is blanketed in shadows-it would be easy for him here. "She's stayed behind to clear up the mess you caused by blurting things out in where anyone can hear. Everything you said is going to be spread over the village before the hour is out. Temari's going to deal with the ANBU who'll be showing up."
"Deal with-?"
"Talk to," he says flatly.
"How can she?" Sakura asks. "She's not even a Konoha-born shinobi."
Shikamaru doesn't answer her.
Sakura shivers. Now that her anger is fading she finds that it's cold out here, despite the sun that struggles to peer through thick foliage.
Or maybe it's the fact that she's never had to deal with Shikamaru when he was upset before. She wishes that she'd never had to. It's not very comfortable at all but then none of this is.
Rubbing at her eyes again-she wishes she could stop leaking tears, when she's managed to stop sobbing-Sakura makes herself breath deeply and tells herself to calm down. She's a kunoichi of Konoha. If talking fails here, she can't afford to be captured by allies. She needs to... to find Ino and find Kakashi and yell at her Hokage and she can't do that if Shikamaru wraps her up in his shadow and refuses to let her go.
"I didn't hit Ino," Sakura says abruptly.
He arches his eyebrows skeptically at her.
"I didn't," she insists, a wobble in her voice. "Ino took my body over."
Shikamaru studies her like he's not sure she's telling the truth. "How sick is Ino?"
Sakura looks at his face-it's unreadable-and then looks away, knowing her doubt about his concern shows on her face.
"Don't give me that," he says darkly. "I've been Ino's teammate since we were twelve and her friend before that and just because we've grown up-we're not like yourteam."
Sakura flinches, the way he likely meant for her to do, and swallows. "Sick," she says. "She's been sick for months. Hokage-sama hasn't found a way to cure her."
"Symptoms?"
She hesitates another long moment, knowing she's damning herself further with another breach of security and knowing, too, that she's already done so and that doing it more at this point is hardly going to be the worst thing she can do. Then she tells him what the folder had said about Ino's condition. The dizzy spells, the fainting, the loss of weight and the inability to sleep The way her blood isn't clotting and the way that she's healing slower and how her body is losing the ability to digest food properly and the constant pain from nerve damage as the illness progresses and Sakura keeps talking, listing off everything on the report.
When she's done, she falls silent and, after waiting, breathlessly for a minute, then two, then three, for a response, she dares to look at him.
He's pale and there's something violent in his eyes-protectiveness, she realizes, and rage because he's not been told and she knows that his jibe about his team not being like hers is true. The former team ten didn't, hadn't, ever kept secrets like this from each other.
She's envied that before.
She's not sure she envies that now. Not when Shikamaru looks like he's had a foundation pulled out from under his feet.
She can sympathize.
"And so," he says, his voice dangerous, "you thought it would be a great idea to hit someone who was suffering from all of that?"
"I..." her throat closes up and she coughs to clear it. "I didn't. It wasn't me."
Sakura doesn't know if he believes her. She's not sure if she would, in his place.
"If you hadn't hit her," Shikamaru says, "I'd have had both of you in my shadow."
"Ino wouldn't have let you," she says. "Ino knows your jutsu better than almost anyone." She can't bring herself to look at him any longer and stares down at her nails and her knees and the way they're hurting now. She pulls out a few splinters and shifts so that she can get to the rest of them.
Shikamaru lets her. She supposes that it doesn't count as much of a threat for her to be healing herself. Or perhaps, she thinks, he's in shock. She's still feeling off-kilter and upset herself. She needs to talk to someone.
She's not sure she can talk to him. They've never been friends though they've always been friendly.
"I don't understand why she wouldn't have told us," he mutters and Sakura knows he means him and Chouji.
Sakura's thought of an answer though. He won't like it. That's one of the reasons that she says it. "She was keeping to herself," Sakura says. "You've been busy with Temari-san and Chouji's been learning how to run his family since his dad formally stepped down. She's never learnt to put herself over everyone else."
Not even over her village. That, Sakura thinks, with a sinking realization, is likely what Ino has been up to. Self-preservation has never been Ino's strongest point. Of course Ino would put herself last.
From the way Shikamaru looks, like he's swallowed a lemon, he's come to the same conclusion and likes it not at all.
"She should have said something," he murmurs and she wonders if he's trying to convince himself or her or even Ino, who isn't here to hear this.
"Why should she?" Sakura says, feeling like she's drowning despite not being under water. "We were all busy with our own lives and she was playing support to them."
Shikamaru grimaces. "She's been around less than usual lately."
"Because of me," she says, "and because of you and because of her missions." Sakura still doesn't know what those missions have been. What missions were so important that they had to be run by a sick shinobi?
"Because of you, I get," he says, frowning at her. "And because of her. What's this about me?"
Sakura looks at him. She's never been sure what Ino sees in him but, as Ino has never been sure what Sakura has seen in Kakashi, they've both agreed to disagree. It's never mattered. She wonders if it has mattered, now, in ways that she doesn't fully understand. Ino and Kakashi are in this together after all.
Shikamaru's face is a study in contrasts. She remembers him calling her a talentless kunoichi with no specific ability, once upon a time. She hadn't been able to say anything (though she'd grimaced something horrible) because back then, it had been true. The only thing she'd had was her intelligence and even that had been wasted on paying more attention to a boy than on learning more jutsu to keep herself and her team safe.
"Sometimes," she says, "you're the idiot."
It's gratifying to be able to say that and mean it and know that it's true. Sakura has no idea how Shikamaru can ask that to her and honestly not see how it's partly his fault.
"Ino hasn't been around you," she says, "because she's liked you for years and you're with Temari-san now. How do you think she feels?"
He looks dubious. "Ino isn't the sort to just-"
"Give up? Shut up?" Sakura finishes for him. "She's not. But she's the sort to want people to be happy. You've been happy. She weighed that and made up her own mind. Just-just like she's done with this, though I don't know how."
A dreadful thought occurs to her: what if part of the reason Ino has caved so gracefully to Temari and Shikamaru's relationship is because Ino doesn't think she's got the timeto properly make a rivalry of it?
Sakura relists the symptoms to herself.
It's plausible, she realizes, heart sinking. And it makes sense, leaves a knot tight and cold in her stomach.
There's a swirl of leaves and Temari stands on the platform with them. Sakura's not sure if she's grateful for the interruption or not. She's absolutely sure that she doesn't want to talk to Temari about Ino's feelings for Shikamaru.
Now that she's blurted it out, she feels guilty enough talking to Shikamaru about it.
And yet, she can't stop the shivers that make her think that, yes, talking to Shikamaru was the right idea. Sakura is smart. People call her a genius in her field. Shikamaru is a genius in hisfield and if anyone can spot the plot and figure out what's going on from the information that Sakura's got… he can. He has to be able to.
"What's the situation in the village?" Shikamaru asks Temari.
"Tense," Temari says shortly. "People are worried about the idea of their Hokage sending them out on missions while ill, especially when it's the Hokage's protégé that was going around shouting about it."
Sakura winced. No, there was no way to bury this mess under the rug and forget about it.
"And ANBU?"
"They've allowed us to have custody of her." Temari jerks her head in Sakura's direction. "For the moment, she's free to move around so long as she's with us. On orders from the Hokage."
Sakura's brow furrows. That makes no sense. A quick glance at Shikamaru says that he's as caught off-guard as she is. "Well," he says slowly, "that does make it easier. You up to a puzzle?"
"Something puzzles you?" Temari sounds intrigued as she leans against one of the supporting trees. "Try me, sure."
Shikamaru glances at Sakura again-his look is one she can't read-and then he turns to Temari and begins explaining everything Sakura's told him, making certain to differentiate between fact and conjecture and how they've theorized things as they stand.
Sakura sits and listens and despite all of her upset (she's still shaking, she's still trembling) part of her marvels over Shikamaru's memory recall. She wonders if he realizes that he's mimicking her tone and inflections. If he knows that, he gives no indication of it.
One thing surprises her: he tells Temari about Ino's feelings for him and doesn't even look uncomfortable about doing so.
Sakura feels a pang of anger for that. He should, at the very least, feel bad about that, she thinks, and she's not sure what good knowing that would do when added with the rest of the evidence.
She darts a glance at Temari but the other kunoichi's face is distant and faraway. Sakura doesn't really want to know what Temari thinks. When they move the conversation into murmurs she tunes it out and pulls out the journal she and Ino have been sharing. She flips back to read what Ino wrote before.
Sakura, I know you're confused about pretty much everything right now. I'm sorry for that. I just want to let you know that I'll always be on your side.
Love, Ino
Sakura swallows the lump in her throat and wonders how much Ino means what she's written here. She pulls out the pink pen and, after rereading the words again, begins writing down her new questions for Ino. It's futile-how will Ino get this journal?-but it makes her feel better to ask her what she's doing and why and what does she have to do with Kakashi?
Sakura's pen stills at that.
According to Ino's report, Kakashi is clinically insane.
She wonders when he went insane. She wonders if it's even true that he did. She wonders if Ino has kept that from her for a long time and if that's why Ino has never liked Kakashi all that much.
Sakura writes those questions down before she can think better of them. They're not very fair questions. Even if she gets answers, she doesn't know if she'll be able to trust them.
"Haruno," Temari says, impatience in her voice. "Would you care to join the conversation?"
Sakura blinks up from her writing, realizing for the first time that, yes, the hum of talk from the other two has subsided and they're both looking at her with varying degrees of impatience. "Sorry," she says, flushing. "I was just-" she falters, "-writing to Ino."
Shikamaru's face tightens. "To Ino?"
Her flush deepens. "We've been passing a journal back and forth, that's all. I don't know that she'll get it back, this time..."
There's no certainty in her any longer and that's hard to swallow when she's so tired of upheavals in her life. Everything she's known has been turned upside down and how is that fair?
Chin up, Forehead, Ino's voice murmurs in her head, with a soft laugh that sends shivers down Sakura's arms. Life isn't fair.
"Ino?" she blurts, her head snapping up. Sakura climbs to her feet, the journal falling to her feet, the pen clenched in one hand. "Where are you?"
"Haruno?" Temari says, like she's certain Sakura's gone insane.
"It might be her," Shikamaru says, sounding disgruntled. "I've told you some of what the Yamanaka can do."
Temari nods shortly.
Ino doesn't say anything further. Sakura turns to them. "She sounds-so tired," Sakura says, sounding lost and hating herself for it.
"Not surprising," Shikamaru grunts. "If she's been ill and maintaining a Kage Bunshin for days. Even with support that's a massive drain on her chakra that she can't afford."
Sakura picks up their journal and stuffs in it her bag. Temari's eyes follow it and Sakura bristles under the gaze. "There's nothing in here that would help," she snaps.
"I never said there was," Temari says dryly, with a shake of her head.
"In any case," Shikamaru says, looking thoughtful. "We need more information. If Ino is working on orders-and there's no reason to think that she's not-then we have to consider whether we have the right to interfere."
"Of course we do!" Sakura says furiously. "Ino is sick, maybe even dying, and she shouldn't be on active duty. Do you even care?"
Shikamaru's gaze freezes her in place. She's seen Ino go icy before. She's never seen him go so still. It's scary. "Ino is a big girl," he says, his voice carefully controlled and measured.
She can't tell what he's feeling underneath them, except that he's very very angry right now. "She's made her own decisions about this. Hokage-sama knows her condition and has still placed her on active duty. There must be reasons for this. Moving before we know what these reasons are would likely prove disastrous."
"In any case," Temari says, "we don't know enough. What is Project Rin? How does this tie into Hatake's madness and the fact that he got back from his mission a week late? How did your Hokage knowthat Project Rin would be needed? Who developed it?"
Sakura's hands shake. Her mind knows these are good questions, smart questions: the ones that she should be asking.
But all she's thinking about is the hug that Ino gave her, promising that it would all be alright and the list of things that Sakura had told her she'd feel if she lost Ino too, so soon after losing Kakashi.
After, she reminds herself, giving up Kakashi. And now she doesn't even know how much of that was hermaking the decision.
That puts a bit of steel in her spine and she swipes furiously at her eyes. "We should locate Kakashi first," she says. "Unless he's already been taken into custody by Hokage-sama, he'll be the easier one to track than Ino. He might know some of what's going on."
Shikamaru and Temari exchange a glance.
She knows Shikamaru hasn't forgiven her for saying what she did about him and Ino when it's Temari who speaks up. "We'll head there."
Shikamaru nods, rubbing at his face. As they head out, Sakura hears him murmur something about wishing Chouji was here, but he's out on a mission and unreachable.
Sakura, for her part, tries to tell herself that this will go better, has to go better, that the sinking feeling in her heart thinks it will.
Kakashi hadn't been himself last time they'd spoken, not until Ino had gone.
What did that even mean?
Sakura forces the despair-and the quiet fear, under it all, of what her punishment will be when this is said and done-away. They need information more than they need her falling apart.
How many mistakes has she already made?
Sakura can't count them.
What did you all think? Thanks so much for reading!
