A couple days later they stopped in a town to restock on supplies.
The town was not allied with any of Konoha's enemies, but it was too small to warrant its own shinobi, so Ino wouldn't be able to get any help. But it was big enough to have a stable trading partnership with several hidden villages, so perhaps she would encounter a visiting ninja.
Walking through the bustling marketplace, Kabuto kept his hood pulled up as far as it could in order to not draw attention to his unique appearance. But still, his dark cloak still drew weary looks. He finished shopping as quickly as possible. He didn't want a paranoid civilian calling the local militia in.
Ino was delighted when Kabuto informed her that they would be spending the night at an inn. That meant a proper meal and a bed, luxuries she had not had for months fighting on the frontlines.
Tilting her head back under the hot stream of water, Ino silently thanked whoever it was who had invented showers, and conditioner. Raking her fingers through the tangled knots, she watched the blonde strands swirl around her feet and down the drain. Hair as long as hers really was inconvenient on missions, maybe she should cut it short again.
Reluctantly stepping out of the shower, for fear Kabuto would walk in to see what was taking her so long, she wrapped one of the deliciously fluffy towels around her head, and the other around her body. Cooing with delight, Ino turned to face the generous array of cosmetics the room had to offer.
She loved being a ninja, she really did, but the career choice made it hard to be a girl. And deep inside, while, maybe not that deep, Ino was a bit of a girly-girl. She enjoyed working in her family's flower shop, and made many of the arrangements herself. She always tried to stay fashionable and loved shopping for the latest trends. But being a shinobi left no time for things like clothes and makeup, so she was going to fully grab this opportunity.
Scented body lotion, face moisturizer, hand cream. And they even had a nail file. Ino carried a brush with her on the road, but the hotel brush was so much nicer. They even had a tiny makeup kit with just the essentials, foundation, blush, eyeliner and moisturizing lipgloss. Maybe Kabuto really had killed her and she was in heaven.
But the knock that interrupted fifteen minutes later informing her that Kabuto would go to dinner without her if she took any longer eliminated that theory. Dabbing on the last of the lipgloss, Ino brushed her hair over her shoulder, deciding to leave it down for once, and hurriedly got dressed. It was too bad that she was stuck wearing her dirty traveling clothes, but at least she looked good.
Kabuto was waiting at the door, looking the same as always. "Aren't you going to take a bath?" She asked.
He rolled his eyes. "No time after yours" he replied. "Dinner is served at seven and I want to get there before it gets too busy." He reached to open the door, but hesitated, staring at her strangely.
Ino flushed slightly as his eyes skimmed down her body, then back to fix on her face. "I-is something wrong" she asked, feeling suddenly self-conscious under his scrutiny. Did he disapprove of all her self-pampering?
"No, nothing." He said finally "you look nice is all." With that he twisted the knob and stepped out into the hall.
Ino followed him out feeling strangely giddy. A complement from him of all people shouldn't make her happy. But she was so unused to being told that she looked pretty, as she was constantly beat up, dirty and surrounded by other ninja that she couldn't help feeling a bit pleased.
As Kabuto had hopes, the dining room wasn't yet crowded when they arrived. He lead the way to the table in the dimmest, emptiest corner of the room. Ino was a bit disappointed. There was a group of people around her age towards the front who looked like they were having a good time. Maybe if she promised to come back Kabuto would let her go off alone after dinner…
She mentally smacked herself. This wasn't some kind of vacation, she was on a mission! She couldn't keep forgetting so easily! Sobered, Ino turned to her companion. She needed to get as much information out of him as possible. She would worry how to get word to the others later.
Kabuto had the menu open on the table in front of him, but didn't appear to be reading it. His golden eyes scanned the room behind his glinting glasses. His face was an emotionless mask. Suddenly starting a conversation seemed a lot less likely to happen.
Oh well, no harm in trying. "So, erm, Kabuto." She started awkwardly. What the hell was she supposed to talk about? She was a medic, not trained in interrogation, or any of the mind games needed in this situation. That was it! They had common ground; they were both trained medical ninja, maybe that would give them something to talk about. "SO" she said again, voice too loud due to nerves. "Where did you learn to, you know, resurrect the dead and stuff?"
He stared across at her with a raised eyebrow. Okay, that sounded a bit weird. But it was on the right track to finding out stuff that would be useful. She leaned forward with a bright grin on her face.
He sighed and leaned back in his chair, running his finger absent-mindedly through the condensation on his water glass. "From Lord Orochimaru" he said. "I thought you would have known that."
Darn it of course she had, but he could have at least elaborated for her, to help the conversation along. He had seemed so chatty earlier, but didn't seem at all interested anymore. Luckily the waiter chose that moment to arrive and take their orders.
The rest of the dinner passed just as unproductively. Kabuto warmed up a bit to her prompting, but that made it worse because it seemed he was an expert at twisting to conversation topics to his desire. Finally Ino just gave up and absorbed herself with enjoying her meal.
She had ordered a delicious bowl of sweet pasta with fire-roasted cherry tomatoes. After what had seemed like an eternity of bland traveling rations, it was heaven. Looking over at Kabuto, she frowned. The guy had ordered a simple rice stir-fry and had eaten it plain. It was as if he was just eating to fill his belly, which actually wasn't that farfetched an idea.
Kabuto paid for the food, leaving the waiter a rather generous tip. He had quite a bit of money, Ino had noticed, his purse jingled fully as he put it away. That night be useful to her…
Back in the room, Kabuto took a quick shower. With nothing to do, Ino sat on one of the two twin beds and desperately tried to think of a plan. She really should take advantage of being in a populated area; it would be easier to do something when it wasn't just the two of them.
Kabuto came out of the bathroom while she was deep in thought and stretched out on the other bed. It was the first time Ino had seen his without his engulfing cloak on. He appeared considerably smaller and more vulnerable without it. He wore a loose, black long-sleeved shirt that exposed his collarbone. The glossy silver scales that decorated his face continued down the sides of his neck and fanned out over the top of his chest. She wondered distractedly if his whole body was covered in them.
But seeing his stretched out on his back finally lit the spark of an idea in her mind. And for the half hour until Kabuto flicked the light out, she developed her plan.
She had never tried the mind possession jutsu on a sleeping person, so she had no idea if it would work. Waiting until Kabuto's breathing evened out, Ino sat up in bed and mentally went over her plan.
She would try to transfer herself into Kabuto without waking him. She would then leave in his body and run as fast as she could towards Konoha. It would be tricky, as he was strong and might be able to break her hold on him. But that's why she was doing it while he was asleep. His mind would be more relaxed and open in the dream state, and he wouldn't even wake up while she traveled. Or that was her theory, at least.
The best-case result would be that she made it all the way to the village in his body. There she would allow herself to be captured, explain the situation and then go back to her own body. Kabuto would be the prisoner of the village and they could question him all they liked. It would be perfect.
But there was a good chance that he would wake up partway there and force her out. That wouldn't be so horrible, she would have managed to separate herself from him, and in a crowded town like this one, it would be hard for him to find her trail, and she could flee. That would suck because she had no usable info from him yet, but at least she could get away.
She didn't need to worry about her own body either. She would take Kabuto's money and pay the hotel owner to keep the room and look after her body. There was enough to guarentee the woman's loyalty, and she would also promise more money once she returned.
Breathing deeply, Ino took the stance and focused her mind. She felt the familiar tugging and feeling of weightlessness flooded her before she was sucked back down into Kabuto's body.
Every person's mind was different, and had a different feeling when she possessed it, but this was a whole other thing all together. At first she just thought it was because this was her first time in a sleeping body, but it wasn't that. It was hard to describe, but it was almost as if Kabuto's mind was…sick somehow.
It was cold, but an unnatural kind of cold, and it felt kind of…cramped? How could a mind feel cramped? She looked around blindly into the dark. Since Kabuto's eyes were closed, she couldn't see anything either, but the darkness wasn't black. It pulsated in a way, moving and changing colour, and yet, she couldn't see it. It was all very confounding.
She might as well start trying to possess his physical self as well. But as she began to settle herself in, a presence flickered at the edge of her consciousness. Scared that Kabuto was waking, she turned wildly scanning the gloom.
But it was worse than that. Ino's heart stilled in her chest at the sight that greeted her.
She had only even seen Orochimaru a few times, but what she had seen terrified her. Even from a distance she had felt the absolute evil that the man had extruded in life. And the stories of his malicious deeds, and seen the results first hand in the faces of her friends. But she had never imagined she would come face to face with the man, mainly because he was supposed to be dead!
But there he stood, and it was unmistakably him. The pallid skin and lank, ink black locks. And he had the exact same snake eyes that Kabuto did. As she stared at him in horror, his face split into a wide grin.
"It looks like we have a visitor," he crooned, appearing to address the small, lumpy bundle he held in his arms. "What fun! We've been so lonely these days"
He directed his attention at Ino now. "Very impressive my dear. I never would have guessed that you were so talented." He tenderly stroked the gray thing in his arms. "But really, it's not very nice of you to attack poor Kabuto when he's in no shape to defend himself." The gray wrapping fell away from the top of the bundle to expose….
…The head of a small child. Ino blanched. What was this demon of a man doing with a toddler? Orochimaru ran a lanky hand through the little boys silver hair.
She gasped in recognition. The tiny child had soft gray hair falling around his face. Perched on his nose was a pair of familiar round glasses that looked far too large on suck a tiny face. His delicate fingers were curled and rested between his chest and that of the man carrying him. He was dressed in a plain beige shirt and the faded blanket drooped around his waist. She was looking at a child version of Kabuto.
Orochimaru smirked and put a finger of his free hand to his lips. Cradling Kabuto's tiny body, he rocked him gently back and forth. "It would be best if you leave." He murmured not looking at her. "Wouldn't want to have to wake the baby…"
Ino backed away, unsure what to make of the situation. What was going on here? Why was Orochimaru in Kabuto's mind, and why the heck was Kabuto looking so young? It was too risky, she decided. Who knows what would happen if she tried to continue her plan now. Taking one last look at the pair in front of her, Ino retreated back into her own body.
Coming to slumped over in the dark hotel room, Ino breathed heavily for several minutes to calm herself down. Staring across at Kabuto's slumbering form she tried to make sense of what had just happened. She knew Kabuto was different, that he had changed since his time in the leaf village, but to find Orochimaru hiding out in his mind! She just didn't get it. No wonder it had felt so crowded in there.
Shivering, Ino wrapped the blanket around herself and rolled to face the wall. That had been beyond creepy, it was downright disturbing. To have someone else living in your mind, that was just unnatural. Orochimaru was dead, how did a piece of his soul live on?
She pressed herself into the mattress, wishing she could just disappear. She would not sleep easily this night.
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Kabuto woke to sun in his eyes. It was getting harder and harder to pull himself from the dreamworld these days. Maybe sometime in the future, he just wouldn't wake up. Standing up and stretching, he looked over at Ino's bed.
She was curled up in a tight little ball with all the blankets piled on top of her, despite the mild temperature. He stepped closer and peered at her face. Her eyes were scrunched closed and her makeup from last night had smeared into the pillow. Gently brushing his fingers against her forehead, he found it covered in a thin sheen of sweat. At his touch, her whole body trembled.
Hmm, must've had a rough night. It looked like she had had a nightmare or two. Too bad, he had slept unusually well, with none of the usual haunting dreams. He had felt calm even, the best nights rest he could remember having since before his parents were killed. And that was a long, long time ago.
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Is that plot development? I dunno, it could be. And I am trying to throw tiny splashes of romance in there, but it's hard with the positions of these tow characters.
I'd like to share some art I've done for this story, a few pieces spoil a bit of the ending XP
.com/art/Hanashika-s-Pairing-Meme-193117762
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I made Ino order Pasta with tomatoes because apparently cherry tomatoes are her favourite food
I don't own characters.