It was well on its way to evening by the time the injured patients began to trickle into the hospital. The first to be treated was an older man, at least by shinobi standards; he was perhaps a bit younger than Ino's father, but despite his age, his injuries were relatively minor. Ino helped to treat the preliminary wounds, but then was sent on an errand by one of the chief medics to pick up some additional supplies from the laboratories. According to the reports the hospital was now receiving, the treatment of the remaining two living patients from the unit would be nowhere near as simple as the treatment of their comrade.

Ino ticked the first patient off the list she'd started in her head. One of four. No bodies yet, but no sign of Shikamaru either. The prospect of worse injuries made her cold with fear, but somehow she kept her legs moving, speaking clearly and calmly to the lab technicians who had access to the supplies she needed. She brought them back quickly, finding upon her arrival that the second of the patients had been admitted to the hospital. It took all of her strength to make herself read the name when she looked down at the chart they handed her.

Female. The profile of the patient was distinctly one of a woman, and she felt her heart sink a little further in her chest. That sinking feeling had to be quickly washed away, though; the medics needed her help in surgery. The preparation seemed to be a blur to her, but all traces of fear were erased when she entered the operating room.

This girl was considerably younger than their last patient, but her wounds were extensive and they ran deep, extending beyond mere flesh wounds into the delicate networks of chakra. Several of her main chakra receptors were damaged almost to the point of irreparability. Ino quelled the shaking in her hands, focusing every ounce of her concentration on reconnecting the delicate links with all the precision she'd gained from her training in recent years.

The meticulousness required by the procedure meant that it took a considerable care to execute, so by the time Ino had finished the specific connections she needed to repair, five hours had passed. The medics exited the operating room exhausted, but the surgery had been successful. The girl was still in critical condition, but, for the moment, she was stable.

Ino washed her hands outside, smiling occasionally at her comrades as they passed her and offering congratulations on a successful surgery, but her mind had already turned back to the remaining two squad members. One alive, but in critical condition, the other well and truly dead… Ino tried to get her mind past the block that seemed to form every time she attempted to think about the possibility that the latter might be him, but she was redirected every time, unable to face the reality that everything she had felt and been incapable of expressing might be wasted in just a few short hours.

The hospital was beginning to quiet down as the night deepened. A few medics moved between rooms, checking on patients, but Ino was left to sit and wait, off-duty until she'd had at least an hour of recuperation from the surgery. One of her colleagues suggested that she go home and get some sleep, but Ino politely declined, giving the excuse that she wanted to be around in case any extra patients came in from a mission. The other half of that truth that she neglected to mention, however, was that even if she'd wanted to go home, she wasn't sure she could make herself leave this building until she saw that he was here safe or…

Or…

The mental block sprang up again, and she shook her head, hanging it between her hands. She must have been more tired than she had originally thought, because in what seemed like the next instant –despite the fact that it had been a full fifteen minutes— she was startled by a door banging open at the end of the hallway. A team of medics poured out, not speaking to one another or even looking one another in the eye. Ino jumped up, knowing exactly what that meant. She searched frantically for a familiar face, finally spotting a flash of pink hair near the back of the group.

She caught Sakura by the shoulders; the look of defeat in her green eyes was all the confirmation Ino needed.

"What…"

"The last of the surviving patients from the four-man squad." Sakura threw a weary hand over her shoulder back toward the operating room she had just exited. "We were so close, but he…"

She trailed off, shrugging at Ino with sad resignation.

Even though the words were heavy as lead on her tongue, Ino forced them out of her mouth.

"Who was it?"

"One of the senior Jounin from the Interrogation unit. I don't remember his name."

Ino bit the inside of her cheek until she thought it would bleed.

"And the one that didn't survive… has the body been brought back?"

Sakura gestured listlessly at the double doors at the end of the hallway.

"I heard they recovered it quickly enough for the coroners to examine it. We're still not sure who did this, so they have to search the body for clues." She sighed, running a hand through her hair, which was now falling out of its messy bun. "I've got to go sit down. I'll see you around, Ino."

Sakura's footsteps receded down the corridor, and Ino was left alone in the hallway, her senses overwhelmed by the resonant silence and the intense aroma of antiseptic. She blinked a few times, trying to clear her thoughts, but they just wouldn't come together.

Four-man squad, two survivors, two dead. She'd seen the two survivors; Sakura hadn't known the one who had died in surgery, which only left one body.

One person who that body could possibly be.

Down the hall, two doors opened, and Ino recognized two of the coroners, their faces solemn as they left the room. She only heard a snatch of the conversation, but it was enough.

"...poison, certainly. We need to get one of the experts up to the lab to identify it, but I'd bet money that it's a belladonna derivation."

"So young." The other murmured. "And unexpected too. I wouldn't want to be the one to tell the family that their only son..."

They turned the corner, passing out of hearing range.

The pain started as a dull ache, like someone had lodged a rolled up paper bomb in her throat. She couldn't make herself walk through those double doors, couldn't see who might be lying on that cold slab of marble.

Ino walked down the hallway, her steps out of rhythm, as though one of her legs had suddenly become much heavier than the other. Her vision blurred in front of her, but it wasn't from tears. A haze had settled over her; she was barely aware of her own consciousness as she glided toward the exit, steered solely by instinct. The cool of a night breeze broke across her form, but she didn't feel it. A light mist was settling in, leaving droplets of dew across her skin and uniform, but it didn't faze her. Even when her hair came loose from its messy updo and fell around her shoulders, she barely registered it. She felt utterly numb, unable to come to grips with the term that he was gone.

She didn't know when exactly the tears started. They simply began flooding out, no sobs, not even a sniffle, just the silent drip of water as it was funneled down her cheeks onto the pavement, the stiff fabric of her uniform, the tangles of her hair. She kept walking, not bothering to look where she was going. If she just kept walking, maybe eventually she would find what she needed, though she didn't have the faintest idea of what that was.

Meanwhile, the voice in the back of her head berated her endlessly, hitting her with a barrage of chastisements for every mistake she'd made.

'Stupid, stupid girl. You loved him, so you yelled at him. You wanted him to be safe, but instead of showing concern, you let your fear get the best of you. What if you had told him about it, would that have made him stay? You might have been the reason his life was saved instead of this hollow emptiness. Was this what you wanted?'

"It wasn't." she whispered, her vocal cords only managing half the syllables through her tears.

She sank onto the curb, her chest aching as the sobs finally broke free, quiet and utterly hopeless.

A/N: Relatively short chapter, for various reasons that include but are not limited to being swamped in work, lack of inspiration, etc. The ideas for my writing haven't exactly been coming together well recently. Hope this chapter wasn't too much of a disappointment, and I'll try to get the next chapter out very soon. It'll be worth it, trust me. As always, thank you for reading!

- Senka Hitomi