Warning: Not beta-proofed and an evil story.
Rating: Just to be sure.
Disclaimer: Don´t own Naruto.
-Drink, my sweetheart-
Ino pedalled with her legs, panically plowing through the akward water. It was more than bare water, it was enriched with slimy substances which gave the water a turquoize colouring and made it thicker than it should have been. It was smudgy and greasy and what one couldn´t do was swim in it. As stupidly only the fact that the old woman had pushed Ino into this basin, whose edges lay meter away over her head and which walls were so smooth that they didn´t give any hold. She would drown.
Above in the door stood the old woman and smiled.
How could Ino let herself be gulled so easily? By this harmless old woman? Were the others, who had accompanied her on this mission discovered likewise? What would become of them? But this thoughts flashed only for a moment in her mind, then she swallowed the first water and coughed. The arms wipped desperately the foamy surface.
"Drink, my sweetheart.", the voice croaked in her ears and the old woman watched avidly how she gradually lost the fight and her head got under the water surface.
And while her body finally sank into the brackish depths, the old hag looked still.
"Drink, my sweetheart, drink..."
Ino cried. Panically she threw herself around, tried to pedal free her legs and flailed with her arms. Firm hands grabbed them and pressed them down.
"Ino!"
She gasped for air like a drowning.
"Ino!"
Someone slapped her on the cheek.
The blond kunoichi blinked and opened her blue eyes. "What..."
Choji and Shikamaru stood next to her bed and pressed her arms on the mattress. Behind them bright light fell through white curtains into the hospitalroom.
Shikamaru rubbed his firered cheek with the free hand and considered her with an irritated glance. "Will you stop it already?"
Ino blinked unsomprehendingly. "With what? ... What...?"
"You had a feverish dream, suddenly you started struggling for breath and flailed... ", Choji explained. "You did a good job on poor Shikamaru there... We were concerned about you."
Ino pressed one of her hands against her temple. "A feverish dream? It was just a dream? But... how..."
"You don´t know anymore? The mission... We entered the house and seperated. Then we lost you but our teamleader was able to find you and brought you here.", Choji explained helpfully.
Ino pressed the other hand also against a temple, the sea-blue eyes were opened wide. Her feet were caught in the blanket, therefore she could not move them. Shikamaru groaned and stroke his hair. "Man, that you always have to do such troublesome things. I thought our last hour has come because they discovered you."
"Yes.", Choji agreed. "Your stupidity could have killed us all."
Ino´s whole body trembled and she shook her head, her eyes turned towards the untidy blanket. "He saved me? Our... teamleader...?"
Shikamaru blew the air ennerved through his teeth. Choji answered for him. "Yes, our teamleader."
"Who... who shall this be?", Ino asked slowly.
The two others gave her a strange look. "Who this shall be? Asuma of course."
"Asuma?", her voice was hardly more than a confused wisper.
"Asuma. He was our teamleader when we started our training, and will ever be."
The fists at her temples began trembling uncontrollably and brought her perfect hair-style in disorder. "Asuma...?"
Choji regarded her disturbed.
"Asuma...?", she repeated. "But..."
In her eye angles Shikamaru´s face blurred and seemed to change.
"But... Asuma,... he is dead."
Dark blood dripped from Shikamaru´s nose, ran over his mouth and dripped down from his chin. Choji smiled at her with closed happy eyes, his rosy cheeks radiating, while infinitely slowly and mockingly the blood flowed from his hair beginning over his forehead an his left eyes.
"So what,", he said. "so are we."
Ino tore her eyes open. Over her was the gleaming, the flickering glittering of the surface, it was going away. The tired arms and legs continued to pedal without energy, long no more they found resistance and slackened. Schlieren whirled before her eyes, in blue and turquoize. Then they became red pulsating, and finally black, until the black dots covered all.
"Drink, my sweetheart, drink!"