Title: Seeking Rin
Chapter: 16 - Stretto
Author: Killaurey
Rating: T
Word Count: 4251
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 16 of ? Unbeta'd.
Notes: It's my birthday today, so you get a chapter. :)


Naruto hates that Ino is sick.

Ino knows that, in the same way she knows most things these days: she gets it straight out of his mind. It's harder to keep from reading other people when she's hopped up on a multitude of drugs just to keep her alive a little longer.

It's all right, she thinks at Naruto, who is washing his hands, now that she's stopped coughing and can breathe again.

"Of course it is," he agrees, with the cheerfulness in his voice and sorrow in his thoughts. It's a dissonance that she's become used to. "You're going to be fine."

They both know it's a lie but it's a lie that Ino lets him have. There'd been a time when, between friends, she'd ripped into any lie in order to force people to be truthful. Older and wiser and sadder, she knows that sometimes a lie between friends is something helpful.

Do you know where Hatake went? she asks, rather than say anything about the way Naruto's hands tremble slightly as he wraps his warm fingers around her cold ones. She squeezes his hand lightly, not being able to manage more than that.

"Rin's leading him," Naruto says, his eyes going distant, searching for the chakra signature. "He's heading for the containment room. You good with that?"

It fits the plan well enough. Beyond that, Ino doesn't care. She doesn't have the energy to waste in feeling sorry for a man she's never liked. And Sakura?

"She should be waking up soon," Naruto said quietly. "What she does next will be her move." He hesitates, eyes troubled. "Are you sure that she had to...?"

Yes, Ino says. Even if I live, which she still doesn't believe will happen, I'm no good for the role I was supposed to play. I can't sustain Rin and I can't undo Ran's choice. Sakura's going to have to do that.

"You think she can?"

Ino can feel Naruto ruthlessly crushing all of his other questions, the sadder, harder ones. The ones about her survival, about how Sakura is going to do all of this when Ino is still around, still in the equation, when the equation was never meant for the two of them to be there.

I think Sakura can do anything she wants to do, Ino says honestly. I always have. She's just got to have confidence in herself.

She's never doubted that. Ever. Not even in the bad years when Sakura hadn't talked to her, hadn't wanted anything to do with her, and yet had always, always had time to argue with her.

Naruto sighs, feeding chakra through his hands into her depleted pathways. "I'll have confidence in you then," he says. "Sakura-chan's great. But this is... she doesn't know what's going on."

She knows more than she did. Ino tries to smile at him. It doesn't really work. And when she wakes up, she'll have a way to find out more. She just doesn't know about it yet. You'll see. She won't be in the dark forever.

"I know about the journal," Naruto murmurs. "I'm still not sure that was a good idea, Ino."

It was my choice.

"Not arguing that," he said, leaning against her bed. "Not even going to argue about not telling the old lady. But Ino, are you sure it was a good idea?"

Yes. Ino is definitely sure. Sakura is amazing, Naruto, but she tends to falter without encouragement. There's no one left right now to give that to her. Especially not now that she's in the Miyagi Labs. I don't think she'd tell her parents, she doesn't trust Shikamaru and Temari-san, and she knows Shizune-sensei and Hokage-sama are compromised. Ino studied Naruto's hands. They were nice hands. They gave her time to think. She might talk to you but, again, being in the lab makes that impossible without her knowing that something is extremely wrong with your participation.

"It's not wrong," Naruto says, though he looks shadowed. "I mean, yeah, okay, it sucks ass. But it's not wrong. I know what the old lady and you are doing. I don't follow all the science talk but I get the goals and I can agree with them, even while I don't like them-which I don't. But Sakura-chan..." he sighs. "I guess I still just want to protect her."

You don't need to.

"I know that," he says, laughing though there's nothing particularly funny about it. "But, man, she's still one of the most important people in my life. I'm not crushing on her any more but she's still my teammate, my family. I don't have much of that."

I know, Ino says gently. But Sakura will be absolutely okay. Everything is going to be absolutely fine.

The shadows in his eyes grow. "For her, I hope so," Naruto says. "For me, yeah, Kyuubi fights off anything contagious no problem. Kakashi-sensei's chances are pretty iffy though and yours..." He trails off.

It's going to be okay, Ino tells him again. Even if that happens.

"It won't be okay," he disagrees. "You'll be gone. I am not okay with that part of the plan."

Ino laughs, her mind's voice a soft snickering echo and nothing more. It wasn't part of the plan, she says. It's just how it's turning out.

He looks anxious. "But you're not going to give up, right?"

Never. That much is true. I never give up.

Also true.

But Ino has been here, losing ground by inches for months, and she knows that with every day that passes that there's a greater chance that this is going to be a fight that she's not going to be able to win.

Naruto is studying her carefully, though, and she keeps her doubts from showing on her face. It's something that will help him. He takes a deep breath and lets it out. "Want to go outside?" he offers, instead. "We should probably deal with Shikamaru and Temari."

I still want to know what sort of pull Temari-san has with the ANBU, Ino muses thoughtfully. I wouldn't mind, if you've got the energy.

"You know me," Naruto says. "I might not have brains but I never, ever run out of energy."

Don't insult yourself, Ino chides him. Want me to clear the excursion with Hokage-sama?

Naruto hesitates. She knows he wants to say to hell with that and that they can apologize after the fact but maturity wins out. "Yeah," he says, "check with her."


Ino likes the feel of fresh air against her skin. She knows that in the lab, the real her, the original her, is there, holding Naruto's hand. She grins over at the Naruto beside her, both of them shadow clones, and stretches. It doesn't matter. These days, being a clone, carefully alterated to look like she's 'supposed' to look, feels like freedom. "Where to first?"

Naruto laughs. "I don't think we're going to get a chance to decide that," he says. "Shikamaru, incoming. It'll take him maybe a minute to get here. He's probably been searching for your chakra signature."

She takes a seat on the rooftop, letting her feet dangle off the edge, and plays with the ends of her twin braids. Naruto sits down next to her, with a sigh that sounds a lot like contentment. He leans back, resting on his elbows.

He looks good, Ino thinks, a bit ruefully. She tucks that thought away before it goes beyond just one thought and ignores that she's been having to do that more and more lately. It doesn't matter anyway, not now.

"Anything you want to tell him?" she asks.

Naruto just shakes his head. "Your party," Naruto tells her. "I'll follow your lead."

"As you should," she laughs, shoving his shoulder lightly. "I'm your better."

"Keep believing that," he tells her. "And five… four… three… two… one."

His shadow reaches her first. Ino doesn't move as his shadow curls around her ankles and just leans over to look down to the street. Shikamaru looks up at her, Temari by his side. "Coming up?" Ino asks, wriggling one foot as much as she can just to be a brat. Beside her, Naruto muffles a laugh.

Shikamaru doesn't laugh and he's still not laughing, not even smiling, when he's on the roof a moment later. The shadow remains around her ankles and Ino thinks it would bother her a lot more if she couldn't just... disappear, if it came to that. He settles down next to her and Ino wonders what they'd have done if Chouji was here too. Naruto wouldn't want to move but her team would have priority for sitting on either side of her.

It doesn't matter.

(Except that it does, if just to her feelings.)

"Hey," she says, nudging Shikamaru gently. "You look like a storm cloud."

Temari slowly takes a seat on Shikamaru's other side, a bit awkward, like she's not sure if she belongs in this scenario. Ino is pretty sure that she doesn't and even while Shikamaru studies her with sleepy-eyed intensity, Ino reaches her mind out to see what she can find out. Tsunade-sama is keeping things from her and Ino gets that, she does, but it doesn't change the fact that Ino likes to know.

And her control over reading peoples' minds is faulty enough these days that if she picks something up, she can just blame it on that.

"You're a shadow clone," Shikamaru says finally. "Where's the real Ino?"

"Technically," Ino says, "a shadow clone is the real person. Anything I learn, I'll know." Temari's mind is curiously blank and Ino probes at it carefully ghosting her mind against the shield (and it is a shield, she realizes, a few seconds later).

He gives her an extremely flat look even as she feels his mind ticking through a number of responses. She wishes he'd use the first one that springs to mind rather than going way down the list to pick one that's gentler. "You're sick," he says, "I want to see you, not your clone. Please, Ino."

"For security reasons, I can't do that," Ino says, sighing. "And stop coddling me. It's irritating."

Irritation crosses his face when he realizes what that has to mean-that she's getting his thoughts. Ino would feel worse about it, since she doesn't actually like prying in her friend's heads, especially when she's loved Shikamaru for years and years and he's been in love with someone else. It's uncomfortable to hear that sort of thing.

Especially, she realizes, now that Sakura's told him of her feelings.

Ino sighs and leans against Naruto, rather than leaning against Shikamaru like she might have done a week ago. Shikamaru's lips flatten. "Get out of my mind," he says. "We've never done powers against each other except in training."

She kicks her feet out pointedly, as they're still tangled with shadow. "I can't fully stay out of your mind," Ino admits. "My control is pretty awful right now." It's both true and a good excuse. It doesn't make it any more fun to have to say it though. She's always been proud of her control.

Temari shifts uncomfortably but Ino doesn't outwardly give any sign of having noticed. Ino's mind continues to look for weak points in the shield even as she verifies that it's not her family's work. She'd recognize their signature anywhere.

Interesting, Naruto murmurs in her head. Though it could just be that she doesn't like it because people don't like having their minds invaded.

We are ninja, Ino says agreeably. Privacy is a premium.

Shikamaru's shoulders are rigid. "You can't stay out of my mind." She feels his thoughts whirl as he puts that together with everything Sakura has told him (and Ino has to be impressed at Sakura's giving Shikamaru everything she'd learned about Ino's condition-Shikamaru's not a medical nin but he's smart enough that he could do some damage if he wanted to go poking around; looking at him now, she thinks that he wants to go poking around with a vengeance) and comes up with an answer that he doesn't like at all.

"Yeah," Ino says softly, before he can say anything. "You're right."

She's dying.

He looks at her, the weight of his gaze making her stomach squirm, and asks just one question, "Why?"

He doesn't think it's worth it, Ino knows that. She also knows him well enough to know that saving the lives of the village won't be enough to make it worth it, not to him, even if he might agree that it's necessary.

Do you want me to handle anything? Naruto asks.

No. Shikamaru is her teammate. She owes it to him to talk to him herself. Even if it would be easier by far to let Naruto handle it. Watch Temari. She's got a shield over her mind that isn't of Yamanaka make.

Naruto's surprise wafts through her and his body shifts, ostensibly to support her weight better, but it puts him more in line to see what Temari is doing while looking like he's not doing just that.

"I won't wait for you to figure out a lie," Shikamaru says, his voice lined and tight with worry. "Ino, you shouldn't even be like this."

"I chose this knowing what the risks were," she says softly. "I didn't choose this expecting to die. I'm not that stupid-"

"I don't think you are," he snaps.

"-but you know that sometimes things don't go as planned."

He does know that. "What can I do?"

"I don't want you to do anything," she says, feeling the words slice into him like a knife. None of it shows on his face, just the slightest tightening of skin around his eyes as he realizes she's serious. "I want you to be happy and to keep your distance."

Shikamaru's smile is deeply cynical. "Not going to happen," he says quietly. "You want to try that again?"

Ino's fingers curl into the fabric of her skirt. "It's got to happen," she says, just as quiet. "We can't have more people knowing what's going on. You're too vulnerable." She takes a breath that feels painful. Probably because her heart is lodged in her throat. "If you can't stay out of this, Shikamaru, I'm going to be forced to stop you."

She doesn't need to say how she'll do that. It wouldn't even be hard. Just a wipe through his mind. The information he's got isn't very old, it wouldn't be hard to get rid of.

With enough time, she could take herself out of his memories entirely but Ino doesn't want to do that. She doesn't want to do any of it.

But she will, if she has to. That's what being a ninja means. That's what the scarlet spiral that lurks under the sleeves of her blouse means. Duty and orders have to come first, even if it kills them to do so.

"Orders?"

She can't bring herself to look away from him. "Orders," she says softly. "Yeah."

He sits back, looking displeased. "Sakura's knowledge then," he says. "What was that?"

He always was the quickest of all of them.

"Planted," Ino says. For a moment he looks hopeful and she hates herself for having to crush that hope. "It's true enough, regarding me," Ino continues, watching his face go blank. "But planted."

"Are you going to die?" he asks. "Sakura says you should be dead already."

Ino smiles faintly. "Sakura's all heart." Not that she blames Sakura for her thoughts. "Nothing is for sure but... it's the most likely outcome."

"And you're okay with that?"

Naruto's hand tightens on her elbow and she peers up at him, knowing that her answer means something to the both of them. "If I die, it will be for the village," Ino says slowly, wanting to tell the truth but also telling it in a way that will make them understand. "I can't say dying for the village is a bad thing. It's not going in my sleep with a loving husband and a legacy to leave behind but it's not bad. In theory, I don't mind it."

"Don't tell me the theory," he says. "Just tell me the truth."

"I don't mind dying," Ino tells him, watching him flinch. Naruto's grip on her elbow tightens painfully. Not enough to dispel her clone but... enough. "I don't. It doesn't mean I don't want to live though. I do. It's complicated. If I die, the reasons I'll die for satisfy me. If I live... I'll be happy. That's the only answer I've got."

From the tenor of Shikamaru's thoughts, it's not enough. She'd known that when she'd started speaking but it still distresses her. Ino wishes that it didn't.

"But you're not counting on living," he says, his voice rough.

"I can't," Ino says.

Ino, Naruto says, just...

I know. I'm sorry. But she can't take the words back and she wouldn't anyway. They're the truth and while her life is tangled in lies and shrouded in secrecy, she's loathe to lie about herself here and now.

Shikamaru meets her eyes and she knows he wishes that Chouji was here, that he feels like he's done something wrong, if that's the way she feels about things.

Let me go, Naruto, Ino says, leaning forward. Naruto does without argument, knowing she hadn't meant for him to drop the chakra line that kept her clone going. "Hey," she says to Shikamaru, "none of this is your fault."

Watch Temari, Ino orders. I'm going for a walk with Shikamaru.

She feels Naruto's assent even though he doesn't bother to think anything as a direct confirmation. "Let's go for a walk," she says to Shikamaru, offering him her hand.

Slowly, the shadows tangled around her legs fall away and he takes her hand, pulling her to her feet. "Yeah," he says. "All right."

The stupid little girl part of her that's never gotten over him is pleased that he doesn't look at Temari as he agrees. The rest of her knows it has nothing to do with how important or not Temari is to him but that he's reeling with the fact that she, his teammate, is dying.

Ino knows she's important to him, she always has, even if it's not the way she wished she was. (She still sort of wishes that but... life happens.)

"We'll catch up," she tosses to Naruto and then she and Shikamaru hop off the roof, down to the streets. They stroll along, she with her hands clasped behind her back and he with his hands shoved in his pockets. He's slouching and she's looking around brightly.

It's a pretty ordinary picture except for the way that they don't talk to one another.

Ino gives him time, trying hard not to listen in on his thoughts as he draws his own conclusions. They wind up on one of the minor bridges far from where they'd started. She perches on the railing, her braids trailing behind her. Shikamaru leans his arms on the rail beside her, the wind tugging at his ponytail and a pensive expression on his face.

"I hate this," he says. "Chouji should be here."

"He's not though," Ino tells him, not looking at him but rather staring out over the water. "You're not so bad at dealing with things yourself, you know."

His laugh is low, disbelieving. "Don't start lying to me now," he says. "Not more. Not to my face."

Ino makes an indistinct noise in the back of her throat. "Maybe you are," she says, tilting her head up to catch the sun. "But you've always seemed pretty good at it to me. That's not a lie."

He says nothing, though the press of his thoughts against her mind is almost painful. It would help if she'd listen but she does her best not to.

"You don't want Chouji here, do you?" his voice is accusing. "That's why he's gone. He's not usually sent on long term missions."

"His skills are suited for the mission," Ino says automatically, the same thing she's told herself repeatedly. Under Shikamaru's steady glower, she relents. "Yeah," she says, "I didn't want him around. You, I can deal with. He gets under my skin in different ways."

"And yet you and I-?"

"There is no you and I," she tells him, hating the way her heart twists at the very words. "Not the way I wanted. I wasn't ever going to tell you."

He doesn't feel the same way-she can feel that and she hates that too. Ino doesn't, can't, blame Sakura for telling him.

But she hates that he knows. It was easier to deal with when he didn't.

"I'm glad I know," he admits.

"Why?" she asks scornfully. "So you can feel like you're all macho and shit for having two beautiful girls into you?"

He opens his mouth to say something, then shakes his head and pulls her into a hug. She lets him but doesn't hug him back. "No," he says, when he lets her go. "Not because of that. You don't believe that either. You're only saying that because you're upset and defensive."

It's the truth. Ino doesn't respond to that and just waits. Shikamaru is patient but there's few things he hates more than someone trying to outwait him.

Eventually, he cracks. "I'm glad I know," Shikamaru says, "because it explains a few things I hadn't been able to pin down about your behaviour since Temari and I got together."

"Well, that was fun, you know," Ino says, sighing. "I know you care about her."

"I care about you too."

"I know that," she replies. "And I appreciate it. It's just... kind of a disappointment too."

He nods slowly.

"I mean," she says, "it's not going to mess things up because," she laughs, "there's not really time left for it to be all messed up and the only way I'd even get somewhere would be a 'hey, I'm dying' plea and that's way too desperate for me. I didn't want you to know," Ino says plaintively. "You're thinking it's partly because of you and I wish you'd stop."

Shikamaru sighs. "I wish that you could stay out of my head."

"I'm trying," she snaps.

"I know," he says. "I trust you."

"You don't know if you do," she says, because the words are pounding in her face and it hurts more than she'd expected it to. "Can you not lie to me when your mind is practically shouting the truth at me?"

He turns his face away.

"Look," Ino says, "this whole thing? Yeah, I didn't want you to know. It really had very little to do with Temari-san and more to do with the fact that I just... didn't want to deal. Didn't want things to change. Then I got this mission and even if I'd said anything, it wouldn't change in the end. I'm dying Shikamaru. I'm going to be gone soon. I'm not going down without a fight but, seriously, some fights I'm not doing so hot at winning. Naruto knows," she adds, "but he doesn't want to deal with that. I think I love him more than a little too. Which isn't fair since I'm going to be gone soon."

"Stop it," Shikamaru says. "You're not." We'll find at way, his thoughts add.

Ino smiles slightly. "Maybe I won't be but I can't plan for that. I can't. I know just what the odds are and I need to be able to look them in the face. If I don't make it, right here and now, I won't be satisfied. But that's why I'm still here. There's still a few things I need to do and then, if I die, I'll be okay."

"I don't want-"

"You don't want to think about it?" Ino laughs and it sounds cruel and tinny to her ears. "How do you think I feel? I haven't had a choice! And then you've been around, clueless, with Temari-san and I've been busy messing with my best friend's mind and crushing her boyfriend's sanity into pieces in order to facilita-"

Her eyes narrow as she realizes that there's something her mind should be reporting but isn't.

"Ino?" Shikamaru sounds worried.

"Naruto's gone," Ino says. "I can't find him."

She keeps looking. Her mind skimming and scanning every mind she can track, filtering through shinobi and civilian alike in an attempt to find him. She can't.

"Temari?" Shikamaru asks.

Ino scans again, more slowly-Temari's mind isn't as familiar to her-and finds... "Nothing," she says, worried. "I can't find either of them."

"We're not done talking," Shikamaru says. "But let's go find them first."

She nods, searching for the chakra trail that Naruto feeds into her. It makes her blood run cold when she realizes that she can't find it. The only chakra she's got is the chakra already in this body.

"Shikamaru," she says, "I'm not going to last."

He looks at her and his eyes narrow.

"I'm just a clone," she says, lifting her shoulders helplessly. "Naruto's been maintaining it whenever I want to go out. My chakra is tied up in the experiment."

Ino hates this. She's so vulnerable in a way that she hadn't expected.

"We'll find him," her teammate promises. "Let me know when your chakra gets low."

Slowly, she nods.