Alternate Hosting

By TwinEnigma

Warnings: AU

Tail Seven:

Ino was a special girl and she'd known it for as long as she could remember. It wasn't just the symmetrical markings like a fox's whiskers on her face, nor that nagging occasional temptation to go snapping after birds – and the latter wasn't too unusual, when she considered some of her classmates. It also wasn't the fact that she'd come from greatest clan of mind-specialists in the whole of Fire Country.

It was because she was the living prison of the Kyuubi.

Unfortunately, this also meant her family's very useful technique for the temporary control of another's body was Just Not an Option, with capital letters to emphasize the absolute seriousness of how much it was not an option.

Ino understood, of course. She liked her body just fine, thank you very much, and her disagreeable, noisy mental shut-in would totally make a wreck of it.

Kyuubi had always been very keen making sure Ino knew exactly what it would do if she so much as stepped out even for a moment. And while the Yondaime Hokage's seal kept the Kyuubi inside of her body, there was no telling what would happen if her spirit wasn't there to keep it shoved in its little corner where it belonged.

Although, from what she'd gathered from both Jiraiya and the Sandaime, it wasn't supposed to be able to talk to her at all. Her father supposed that it might be because Yamanaka minds were more open than others and it was tied to her chakra system. They'd trained hard so she could master ways to shut the damn thing out, too, but there were times it didn't work and she just wanted it to shut up and go away.

Shikamaru was as close to a twin as she could have and he didn't get it. He'd never begrudge her though – he knew, better than anyone, that if the Kyuubi had been a day earlier, he might have been the one with the seal, not her. Chouji didn't get it either, but he seemed to know when she was having bad days and went out of his way to try and help take the edge off.

Sakura understood a little – she had a voice in her head – but it wasn't the same. Her voice was all bottled up emotions and suppressed impulses. It was a voice, but it was still Sakura and it didn't really hamper her as a ninja. Sakura's teammates may have begged to differ, but they only ever got a thrashing at the other Sakura's encouragement when they'd truly deserved it, which was more often than not.

Gaara understood implicitly. Oh, he was bloodthirsty and ten kinds of screwed in the head, but he knew exactly what Ino was talking about when she told him the Kyuubi talked to her. After she'd beat some sense into him during the invasion (a knee to the balls would wake up any man, induced slumber or no), she bawled and blabbered out her secret, telling him all about how hard it was to keep standing up to that thing and telling it to shove off, and he'd understood. They were connected – call it destiny, red string of fate or whatever – and it was a connection neither of them really wanted to lose.

Of course, that brought her to the present and the decidedly awkward situation that was currently unfolding in the Akimichi House of BBQ.

On one side of the table, Gaara's siblings were sitting with twin expressions that warred between disbelief and absolute terror. On the other, Ino's parents were seated, looking torn between resignation and desperate concern for her well-being. Next to her, Gaara looked amused and simultaneously very nervous as he fiddled with his chopsticks.

"Ino-chan!"

It was Sakura, out of breath and flustered like she'd just run halfway across the village without stopping. Ino had never been more relieved to see the girl in her entire life.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"S-Sasuke has been kidnapped by Orochimaru!" Sakura managed, gulping down giant breaths of air. "Shikamaru's scrambling a team to rescue him and he won't let me-" Sakura paused, staring at the table's occupants and then at her friend. "...Ino, are you on a date?"

AN: Priorities, Sakura, priorities. Poor Temari, poor Kankuro, and poor Inoichi - Gaara and Ino are going to give them white hairs.