Chapter III: Team Ino

"Honey?" Mebuki called out, peeking into Sakura's room as she opened the door. She was holding a plate filled with diced apples, crackers, and cheese. "I brought you two snacks!"

Sakura looked towards her mother from her position on the floor and sighed to herself. She thought about yelling at her mother to please, for the love of god, knock before coming in—and hey, actually, how about not coming into her room at all because this was like, the third time she'd done this since Sakura had dragged Ino here an hour ago—but what did it matter?

"Thanks, mom." She tried not to sound too dejected.

(Her mom didn't seem to notice. But then, people didn't seem to be noticing much these days.)

"Of course! I'm so glad you invited Ino over to visit..."

Sakura looked around her room, her eyes briefly resting on the stack of manga sitting on the floor next to her. Ino had finally stopped going through her belongings and generally invading her personal space and was now lounging comfortably on her bed.

Sakura had hoped that her house would have offered a little bit more privacy, but Mebuki was making things difficult. She had, in all honesty, immediately regretted dragging the blonde to her house. But then, what choice had she had? The whole village would have known by now something weird had been going on...

Sometime earlier.

"What are you talking about? Of course I'm the real Ino!"

"No you're not," Sakura repeated, dragging her further down the alleyway. Did she have to talk so loud? "The real Ino would never have said something like that about Asuma, or quitting the team..." She had a good twenty-four hours, she should have at least managed to figure out the basics... "And do you even recognize me?! You didn't even say hello earlier."

"Just because I was too busy to talk to you doesn't mean anything," Ino glared at her.

This girl was really annoying.

"And not knowing who the Hokage is? That's pretty careless of you."

"Well I am the real Ino!" Ino insisted, ignoring this latest piece of evidence. "And you can't prove otherwise. Shikamaru and that fat kid'll even back me up on it!"

"His name is Chouji, and you shouldn't call him that. You're going to make him upset."

"Well, I'd be upset too if I looked like that."

"That's not the..." Sakura stuttered, "Okay, look—"

"Well, you know what I think?" Ino interrupted. "I think that maybe you're not the real Sakura!"

"What?" Sakura scoffed. That was completely uncalled for! "Of course I'm the real Sakura! That's ridiculous. Besides, if I wasn't the real Sakura, then how would I know that that you're not the real Ino?"

"Maybe you're just trying to draw suspicion off of yourself! Well, it's not going to work, because I'm onto you."

"Of course I'm going to be suspicious when my best friend since we were kids doesn't even say hello properly to me on the street," Sakura said, crossing her arms defensively. "You're lucky that I didn't go straight to the Hokage! It's only because I wasn't sure that I decided to talk to you privately. We are friends, after all..."

"Oh," Ino said. She stopped talking and stared at Sakura, apparently not sure where to go from there. "Well, thanks for the concern, but since there's nothing wrong with me, you really didn't have to." After a moment, she added, "So this conversation is over."

With that, Ino shrugged out of Sakura's grip and turned to head back out of the alleyway.

Wait... She hadn't even gotten to talk to her yet! Over? This conversation hadn't even happened.

"Wait!" Sakura shouted, dragging an irritated Ino back into the alleyway. "I'm actually not the real Sakura, though."

"Huh?" There was a beat of silence. "Ha! What did I tell you? You were so obvious, it wasn't even funny."

Sakura sighed.

"I'm surprised you made it this long without someone calling you out."

..Really, Ino?

"Wait! Does that you're really not from this world either? That's awesome, I thought I was the only one! Do you remember anything the world you came fr—"

That was about as far as Ino got before Sakura lunged for Ino's mouth, acutely aware of the man passing down the main road who had stopped to gawk at them. Damned Ino.

(Obviously, the odd look had everything to do with Ino shouting at the top of her lungs and nothing to do with Sakura effectively groping the girl in a dark alleyway.)

"Shhhh, someone's going to hear you!" Sakura whispered before moving to lead her back out of the alley. "Let's go someplace quieter..."

..And so that's how they found themselves in Sakura's room. It had been a painful hour, but she had managed to gather a lot of useful information about Ino.

Sakura learned, for instance, that Ino was also suffering from memory loss and similarly did not remember her own name.

She also learned that Ino did not like to listen when other people talked.

And that she, in all likelihood, did not comprehend how shouting out sensitive information about the plot of Naruto in the middle of a busy street was kind of a terrible idea.

And, oh, that Ino was just in general a complete idiot.

On top of that, Sakura was having a hard time trying to figure out exactly how much Ino knew about Naruto. She seemed to know some oddly specific (and potentially incriminating) information, while at the same time casually forgetting basic knowledge that any fan should know. In the end, Sakura was left frustrated and at her wit's end, because Ino also did not like to answer questions in any way that could be described as useful.

"So, Ino," Sakura said after her she was sure Mebuki had disappeared, "I know we went over this before, but, can you maybe tell me a little bit more about what you know about Naruto? For real this time?"

"You're not very bright, are you?" Ino rolled her eyes. "Why are you so obsessed with talking about that, anyway? Don't you realize where we are?"

Sakura felt herself deflate. "I'm trying to—"

"We're in Naruto! One of the most popular, action packed anime on the market! We're literally ninjas who can teleport and shoot fireballs out of their hands!"

"We're also living in a world of child soldiers," Sakura interrupted, "who are about to be thrown headfirst into a war. People die here all of the time, and if we mess things up or get found out, we could be tortured or worse—"

"Oh, whatever. We're not going to get tortured. Naruto is a shonen manga. They only add those kinds of details in to make it feel dark, but at the end of the day, it's all about Naruto learning cool fighting moves and saving the day."

"That's—" Sakura stopped herself. There was no use in arguing with her. "That doesn't mean we should be drawing attention to ourselves. If someone figures us out—"

"I'm not an idiot," Ino huffed. "Of course I'm not going to go spouting out that I'm not Ino and that I'm from another world. Everyone would think I'm crazy or worse, they might believe me and lock me up."

Oh, thank God.

"But that doesn't mean I'm going to sit here and not do what I want to do. This isn't an anime anymore. From here on out, nobody knows what's supposed to happen except for us, so how could anyone know that we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing?"

"Ino... if you keep acting completely out of character, what are people going to think?"

"We're twelve, right?" Ino had resumed walking around her room, bristling with energy again. "Obviously, it means I'm going through puberty."

"No," Sakura sighed. They had already gone over this at least three times. At least. "They're going to think—"

"Are these shuriken?" Ino said excitedly, apparently having found Sakura's stash as she continued to rifle through her belongings. "This is so cool!"

Exasperated, Sakura leaned back into the bedpost behind her with a little too much gusto. There was a loud crack as her skull made contact with the post.

"I mean, all my life I've had to put up with being normal. Everything in my life was just as boring as anyone else's. Nothing about me was special, you know?"

Sakura moaned, cradling the back of her head with both hands.

"And now something cool has finally happened! And it's real! It's not just a trick or my imagination or anything, it's really real!"

God damnit, that hurt. Was her bedpost made of metal?!

"So we can't just sit here and let this opportunity be wasted! We need to go do something with it!"

"Do.. something.. with what?" Sakura said, still moaning.

"I'm a ninja now!" Ino said. "We both are! We've got a chance to fight epic battles and save the world and become heroes. Hell, we could become super heroes here!"

"Okay, I think... we need to back up for a second..."

"Back up?" Ino wrinkled her nose. "The only way to go is forward!"

"Yeah, but, um, about that..." Sakura said helplessly. "Look, it's nice that you're excited about losing your memory and waking up in someone else's body and all, but I don't think you understand exactly where we are. There's a lot of complicated stuff that's going to go down soon, and I mean, I know it's shonen, but people are going to die for real and if we're not careful, one of those people could be us—"

"Don't be an idiot. I'm not going to die—I'm the heroine here, and the heroine never dies." Ino said before placing both hands on her hips. "I mean, sometimes the heroine dies, but if she does she always gets brought back to life. So my point still stands."

"Ino, this isn't a story anymore." Ino looked like she was about to start arguing with her, so Sakura quickly amended her statement, "And even if it was, Naruto's the hero, not you. That's why the manga is called Naruto and not Ino. If anything, I'm the heroine of this story, and to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I can—"

"You're not thinking about this rationally," Ino stated with a huff.

Sakura bit her lip to stop herself from screaming.

"Sure, Naruto was the hero before. He was your typical underdog who goes from loser to world champion by the end of the story, eventually reaching his full potential and gaining the respect of everyone who'd ever doubted him. Or so it seemed." Stopping for a moment, Ino cleared her throat. With a flourish, Ino pointed an index finger at Sakura. "Suddenly, from no where appears a seemingly ordinary school girl who has been transported from the real world into a land of ninja! Who sent her there? What mysterious power dragged her to Konoha? Follow Ino as she unravels this thrilling mystery and discovers her destiny, while saving the characters she knows and loves from the cruel hands of fate!"

Sakura stared blankly in Ino's general direction. What was she even supposed to say to that? Maybe… Maybe she should try changing tactics.

"Um, okay... but Ino, let's say you go on doing whatever it is you want to do that involves... um, saving the characters of Naruto..."

(That doesn't even make any sense... No, just go with it, Sakura!)

"Don't you think," Sakura continued, "That it might be useful to go over what might happen, so you can use it to your advantage?"

Sakura tentatively looked back at Ino. Oh thank God, she actually looked interested. And she hadn't even interrupted her yet!

"..I guess, maybe. It depends," Ino narrowed her eyes.

Don't screw this up, Sakura.

"Also, you might have noticed that some of the technology here is different, right? I mean, they've got television but most people don't seem to watch it very frequently. And they don't have computers like ours, or guns... if we started mentioning technology that doesn't exist, it could be dangerous. So even if you want to re-write the 'plot', it's still important for us to learn more about this world."

"Why the hell would they have televisions but not guns?"

"Um..." Sakura started, "Well I-I mean... how should I know? I'm not the author."

"That's stupid. Why the hell should I waste my time learning a bunch of boring stuff about some world that doesn't follow basic logic when I could be learning how to shoot fireballs out of my hands? Hey," Ino interrupted herself, "You know a lot about this place. Teach me how to walk up walls."

"W-well, I haven't exactly figured out how to do that yet..."

"Ugh!"—Ino sounded truly disgusted— "Well, we're just going to have to work harder. And the first thing we need to do is find someone to teach us how to do stuff."

"Yeah… but, um, actually, that's what our genin teams are for. You know... Shikamaru and Chouji and Asuma..."

Ino immediately rolled her eyes. "You're kidding me, right? I'm not going back there! I spent an entire day with them and all we did is pull weeds and shovel manure. I don't have time for that. No, if we want to do something, we're going to have to do it ourselves. We're going to have to start our own team!"

Several seconds passed as Sakura attempted to wrap her head around this.

"Um... Ino, I don't think it works like that."

"It does now."

"No, it really doesn't. And besides, I'm already on Team Seven."

"You'll just have to quit, then. They'll only get in the way of our training, and I'm not interested in teaming up with slackers."

Okay, obviously, Sakura had not explained the way Naruto worked well enough...

"Listen, you can't just... quit your genin team. We'll... we'll get fired." They would get fired, wouldn't they? That was a thing, right? "You have to be on a genin team in order to be a ninja."

This did not sit well with Ino.

"They can't force me to be on a team if I don't want to be," Ino said hotly. "And I'm already a ninja! It's in my blood. What are they gonna do about it, tell me I can't use magic and beat up bad guys unless they say so? I'd like to see them try!"

Sakura took another long, deep breath. "Ino..."

Two hours later, Ino still refused to drop the idea of creating her own team.

Sakura had, however, convinced her that it would be advantageous to stay on their actual legitimately real and not totally made up genin teams, and that they would just have to schedule their own "training time" around that.

"Remember," Ino said as she left Sakura's house, "Team Ino meets tomorrow at 8 AM sharp! If you're late, you'll be sorry!"

Sakura wanted to say, Actually, I think you have to meet with Team Ten tomorrow morning like normal and I'm pretty sure we decided you weren't going to up and quit. No? You don't remember hearing that? Huh, how weird.

But she didn't. Sakura had decided that although she had never actually attempted to have a debate with a brick wall, it probably would have been similar to arguing with Ino.

And also, I'd rather be reading the next volume of Majou Shoujo, so with all due respect, Ino, maybe we can continue this conversation never.

"Y-Yeah. See you tomorrow, Ino..."