Shikari's mouth opened. Somehow, the words didn't reach Ino. She rubbed tired, burning eyes.

"I can't hear you," Ino said. Maybe if she tried…? Ino tried channeling yin chakra to her ears. The immediate burning sensation made her clap her hands to her skull.

Shikari eyes were blown wide. She tilted her head, letting black bangs fall in her face, before bringing a hand up, gesticulating rapidly.

Ino squinted. It looked like the signs Daddy, Uncle Choza and Uncle Shikaku used. As usual, they flew over her head.

Eventually, Shikari stopped, sighing inaudibly. Then she brightened.

The next gestures came much slower, but Ino could pick up the beginning of Konoha's shinobi sign alphabet.

D-O Y-O-U U-N-D-E-R-S-T-A-N-D

Ino nodded her head.

A-R-E Y-O-U O-K-A-Y

Ino paused. Was she okay? She was tired, but she was almost always tired. Her ears and eyes burned a bit, but she was… Okay. She guessed.

She nodded again.

"Where's Hitomi?" she whispered. Ino looked at the clock. 20:35. Her eyes widened. Mama would check on her any minute, and she wasn't ready for bed, or even started with her reading homework.

She looked back at Shikari, who somehow, seemed to understand.

I-W-I-L-L-B-E-B-A-C-K

That was a bit reassuring, and a bit scary. Without another sign, Shikari flew through the ceiling.

Ino readied herself for bed hastily, turning her body and bare wrists away from the door. She had just closed her eyes before her mother came to say goodnight.

Maybe she underestimated the nature of the day, or how tired she really was, because she was asleep before she heard her mother's greeting.

—

By the time she rose to the roof, she found Shikari, Chokichi, and Shisui, but no Hitomi. They all appeared to be deep in conversation, conversation that stopped as soon as Shisui spotted her, zooming over to stop her flight.

"Where's Hitomi?" she greeted.

"Good evening to you too," the Akimichi muttered, crossing his arms.

"You know, I was coming here to ask you the same thing," Shikari said. "She's been missing the past couple of weeks." She was looking at Ino a bit strangely, the same sort of sad expression Hitomi had before. "Tomi's fond of Yamanaka brats, being one herself. We got the wrong brat this time."

Shisui squinted. "I asked every Yamanaka I could about your friend in the past three weeks, and all of them said there was no Hitomi in their clan."

"Hitomi is a Yamanaka," Chokichi said, a bit too sharply. The markings on his face glittered ominously in the night sky.

"Relax Kichi," Shikari muttered, rubbing his arm. She looked back at Ino and Shisui. "Hitomi is a Yamanaka," she stressed. "She just… wasn't born in Konoha."

Shisui squinted. "Where was she born, then? Wouldn't there be records of her if she was born on a mission?"

"Not the most important fact right now," Shikari said. "I have another idea of who Hitomi could be with. What's more important is why you needed Hitomi in the first place." She looked at Ino then.

"Shisui mentioned you could turn into a type of ghost, and that you're able to exchange memories and feelings while your body is sleeping. I thought it was just a Yamanaka fluke before, but this is way past Hitomi's knowledge."

This is way past Hitomi's knowledge.

Ino had held onto hope for so long. Just a thread, just something to get her through the day. Through morning and afternoon classes, through therapy and trying her hardest to get back to normal.

Ino hiccupped. Shisui immediately turned to her, eyes so very sad, and she broke.

She couldn't speak over her tears. Ino tried to wrap her arms around herself, but she could barely feel the cold comfort. Shisui was talking, but the world was black and red and it would never be simple again.

Would Ino ever sleep again?

"We can still help!" Shikari exclaimed. Ino looked up, blinking her tears away. Chokichi stared at the floor. "Information is still worth something to your clan, right?"

Ino sniffled, before nodding. She didn't know how any of this could get better.

"You both haven't been spending much time with anyone besides Uchiha ghosts, have you?" Shikari said. She floated down to the floor of the Yamanaka compound and sat. Chokichi followed, still staring at the ground.

"We've been busy trying to teach Ino to fly," Shisui said, gently pulling Ino's tether to the floor. And it was true. For the past three weeks all Shisui had tried was getting Ino to fly on her own. He poured his all into it. She never quite managed to control herself, but she was gaining form. She didn't flash as much anymore.

She also learned more about Shisui. He had moments where he could go into long silences, and moments where he wouldn't shut up. From the way he looked at the red bean bun stand when they passed, he had a sweet tooth. He also was a bit of a speed demon while flying, though he slowed down for her.

"You won't learn anything about being yurei that way," the Nara said with a frown. Yurei. The same name Hitomi called the ghost she almost tripped over, a lifetime ago.

"Yurei describes all ghosts, of which there are countless types. To understand them, you need to understand their source of energy."

"Energy?" Ino asked.

"Humans can't see ghosts because of the energy they have," Chokichi muttered. "Humans are beings of chakra. Yurei and yokai are made of qi."

"Qi?" Yokai were real?

"The equivalent of chakra for us. It's not as powerful as chakra, because there is no 'yang' aspect. Qi is pure spiritual energy, like yin chakra. Only the most powerful yurei are able to affect their surroundings. The rest of us just stay here until we fade or get reabsorbed into the spirit world." There was a real spirit world?

"We're getting off track," Chokichi said. Shikari flicked his ear.

"It all depends on how you died and how you form, but there are four main categories yurei fall into." The arrow in Shikari's neck flashed into sight, and back. Chokichi said nothing, but wrapped an arm around her shoulder. Interesting.

"There are the shiryo, who make up most of the ghosts here. Me, Tomi, Chokichi, even Shisui." Said shiryo blinked. "Pretty run-of-the-mill ghosts. Their obsession isn't too strong or specific, or their personalities in life were calmer, more balanced. The Uzumaki ghosts, for example, are mainly funayurei, the ghosts who died at sea, but we would call them shiryo."

Uzumaki ghosts? As in, Naruto?

"The second most popular are the onryo." Shikari adjusted her green cloak, making a face. "Ghosts who died a particularly gruesome death, or have some strong, specific, violent obsession. These ghosts can get powerful very quickly from their obsession. Shiryo can become onryo if their obsession changes or if they lose themselves to anger. Most of these yurei burn themselves out with their anger, and their essence fades to the spirit world. Or they just fade out of existence."

Shisui looked pained. "Is there any way to stop that from happening?"

Shikari shrugged. "I guess if you manage to remind them of their purpose, what they stick around for. But once they're gone, they're completely gone."

The Uchiha…

Shisui's face crumpled. Ino would give him a hug, if she could. Instead, she pushed one index finger out, brimming with chakra. Ino thought of the things that made her happy: Sakura telling her a new fact, her annoying cousins, beating Sasuke, a good dream. She pushed the feeling towards Shisui.

Her mentor smiled down at her: a real, small smile. "Thanks, Ino."

She matched it.

Someone made a garbled noise. Ino and Shisui turned back to Chokichi, who was actually interested in looking at Ino, for once. Shikari had a similar expression of surprise.

"Did you just use the Yin Link… to cheer him up?" Shikari asked haltingly. Ino nodded slowly. The Nara stared hard at her.

"I told you that already," Shisui said, bemused.

"It's different from seeing it in person!" Chokichi cried. "Do you know what we could have done with that—"

Shikari elbowed him, removing his arm from her shoulder. "Don't be like that." Still, she looked at Ino strangely, the way Choji looked at all the snacks during Hanami parties. "We can come back to that later. There are the goryo, who are very rare in Shinobi nations."

"Why rare?" Ino asked.

"They're usually samurai, noble people, or their descendants." Chokichi shrugged. "The key here is they die in a noble way, and they control their obsession, it doesn't control them. These ghosts have more power over their surroundings than essentially any other ghosts, except maybe some nasty onryo, and our last yurei."

"Who would that be?"

"The ikiryo," Shikari said slowly. "The living ghost."

Ino stopped breathing.

"The ikiryo are the rarest type of ghost," Chokichi said quietly. "Almost always an anomaly. Some have special jutsu, like yours, Ino. But the mind transfer is just a chakra technique. True ikiryo walk among the living and fly alongside the dead." Like you, went unspoken.

"Why are you both looking at her like that?" Shisui finally snapped.

Shikari and Chokichi shared a glance. "Qi and chakra do not mix," she explained. "They're oil and water. When yurei form, they have a solid core of qi, made from their obsession. It enables them to fly, to grow. For Ino to be able to touch humans and ghosts, she has to have qi in her yin chakra. It's hard to balance qi and chakra, something other ikiryo struggled with."

At that, she perked up. "Others?"

Shikari winced. "Well—"

"They've either gone crazy or been killed by other spirits." Chokichi interrupted. "Usually both."

Shikari shot him a glare. "Are you incapable of tact?"

"She cries like us. She flies like us. If she shows off that feeling ability to any yurei around, she'll be thrown to the wolves. I was trying to help!"

"This is why I need Tomi, you're impossible—"

"But I'm not wrong!"

As they bickered, Ino looked at Shisui. He had that sad, empty look again, as if he'd been scooped out of his body too. When he noticed her looking, he waved his hand and began to sign.

O-K-A-Y-I-F-N-O-T-O-K-A-Y

She tried to smile. But there was too much to process.

Ino wasn't…she wasn't as alive as she thought she was when she woke up this morning. Would she ever get to dream again? Would she ever get to feel safe again?

She didn't want to walk with the dead. Shisui was nice, but if she could trade never getting to know Shisui with the ability to dream again, she would.

If she could switch all of this, if she could never know yurei existed and dream and live her life fear free, she would switch. In a heartbeat.

"How does Ino learn to fly? To…gain more control?" Shisui asked. Shikari and Chokichi stopped bickering.

"Meditation," Shikari said promptly, looking at Ino. "A lot of it. It'll help you control your yin chakra. The key to longevity here is meditation. More than probably anyone around, even with you being a Yamanaka. You'll go insane without it."

But she hadn't really meditated since the Uchiha died. "Daddy said I should meditate as little as possible because of my yin chakra."

Chokichi scoffed. "You'll never learn control over your flight if you don't meditate. It'll only get worse. How are you even still alive—"

"Don't listen to him," Shikari said, cutting Chokichi off. "But you do need to meditate to gain control. It's possible to gain control, I mean, the Kato family managed it."

"The Kato cannot be the best example you give," Chokichi scoffed. Shikari ignored him, just like Ino.

"Let's try a meditation, shall we?"

Until the sun rose, Ino meditated with Shikari and Shisui. Keeping track of the breath in her body, scanning her body for pain, for discomfort. Focusing on a center, an anchor. Returning to the breath. Returning to the breath. Returning to the breath. She didn't feel as uneasy in the air, in her skin, as she was used to. For a few moments, the world felt a little bit safe. A little bit peaceful.

When the sun finally broke the clouds, Ino crossed the roof by herself. She felt like a toddler, wobbling in the air, but Shisui cheered as she made it from one end of the Yamanaka compound roof to another. Shikari smiled, and even Chokichi had nothing sour to say.

As Ino and Shisui sunk through the floor to Ino's room, she could still feel the lingering warmth of the accomplishment. Her first win in a while. She could also feel the thoughts she'd been trying to force back.

How human was she? How dead was she?

"You're going to get it, you know," Shisui whispered. "You'll get more control, and you'll learn to fly. I'll even race you, when you're ready."

Ino tried for a smile. Instead, translucent tears ran down her face. She threw herself into his arms.

A flash.

Warmth flooded her bones, her skin. The arms around her only tightened. The body hugging her smelled like fresh jasmine. Ino bundled herself deeper.

"It doesn't matter to me, son." A woman's voice, soft and muffled. "I love you as you are. Always, Shisui."

Ino startled, and withdrew. She expected Shisui to be upset. Instead, he gave her a small, fragile smile.

"You're going to be okay," he said softly.

Ino swallowed. She couldn't agree just yet. She turned away, towards her body. "…Does this mean you'll stop helping me? Since Hitomi won't be able to help?" her throat betrayed her, closing without her direction.

There was a beat of silence, and cold wracked her body once more. She forced a glare at a grinning Shisui, unable to explain the relief flooding her. "You couldn't get rid of me if you tried, Ino." He beamed. "I'll see you later."

She hid her own smile, and slowly fell back into her body.

—-

"Ino! Tell me everything!"

Ino blinked at Ichiko, standing outside the Academy. They had a few more minutes before class started, and Ino was furiously trying to finish her reading work. "What?"

"Your cousin Yua told Honoka who told Sakura who told methat you went on a date with Sasuke!"

Oh. Oh, no. How could she have forgotten?

….She learned she wasn't human, and she had spent over a month wasting her time trying to fly when she should have been meditating. She learned she'd have to learn how to be an ikiryo, or she'd go crazy, and she learned she'd probably never get to sleep again.

Ino pasted on a smile. What to do, what to do. Her annoying cousins wouldn't talk to her, but sure, they loved to gossip.

Did she tell the truth? Sasuke and I had post-therapy dinner and my mom made fun of Naruto so he started to leave but then he saw me drawing his dead relative's eye and stormed out.

Sasuke and Naruto may as well not have a rivalry if Sasuke's willing to stand up to my mother for him.

I don't even like Sasuke anymore he's so annoying—

She spent the first year of the Academy gushing about Sasuke. Ino stopped talking to her best friend because of Sasuke, losing two friends in the process. If she wanted normal, she'd have to pretend.

Ino hid a grimace. "It was great! Sasuke-kun was such a gentleman," ugh " and we walked the Gardens together."

The girls around her sighed as they walked into the classroom.

"I bet he was so dreamy!"

"Yua said he met your mother!"

"Does that mean you'll become an Uchiha?"

At that, she could barely hide an eye roll. As if.

They reached the classroom, and a hush fell over the girls. Inside, everyone was looking at one person, writing in a notebook Ino remembered from dinner and after-school classes. Uchiha Sasuke.

And he was sitting right next to her usual seat.

Sakuya help me.

Ino kept her grin on, and looked at Ichiko, who was bouncing with glee. "Do you mind, Ichiko?"

"Not at all!"

Ino walked to her chair with wooden legs, and finally sat down. "You know they're going to think we're together," she whispered.

"I don't care," he whispered back. "Why were you drawing that eye?"

"What eye?"

"Don't pretend—"

"Why are you so protective of Naruto?" she interrupted. Sasuke made a face, but didn't respond.

"Ino, Sasuke, I'm glad you both are becoming good friends, but we're about to start the lesson." Iruka-sensei smiled at them, and began erasing the board. "Save it for later, okay?"

The girls in the class giggled. Sakura, Ino noticed, glared out the window. She groaned inwardly. Great.

Sasuke tried writing Ino a note. She looked at it, looked at him, and looked back at the board. He tried signing to her. Nothing. He even tried calling her name, again.

"Do I have to separate you two?" Iruka-sensei warned. He could feel Ino's dirty look burning the side of his face.

"No, Iruka-sensei," he said quietly.

During their outdoor training, Ino took the time to run, rather than walk and talk with her friends. Sasuke, infuriatingly, while close, wasn't able to catch up. She must have really been training, lately. But that was fine. He had a plan.

"You know, you look very intense right now," Shisui whispered during recess. Sasuke jumped slightly, scraping his back alongside a tree. His cousin, who seemed all but missing the past few weeks, was sitting on a tree branch, which seemed counterintuitive. He couldn't touch the tree, wasn't he just floating? "Like your dad when he found out I was dating a Hyuuga."

Dating a Hyuuga? "Wait, what?" Sasuke whispered, looking at Shisui from the corner of his eye. His annoying cousin was smiling, but a lot softer than his usual grin.

Then he realized.

"You're trying to distract me," Sasuke muttered. He stared at Ino, who was making a beeline for Shikamaru and Choji. "Why?"

"I'm not doing that."

"How were you in ANBU? You're a terrible liar."

"You're so mean, short-stack. Just a small ball of cruelty."

Sasuke shot Shisui a glare. He noticed, however, that Shisui wasn't looking at him.

No, he was looking over at Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji as Ino brought out her sketchbook and Choji must have begun telling a story, because he was eating a talking and waving his bag of chips around. Shikamaru snorted at something he said.

It was odd. There was something familiar about the smile. Sasuke had seen it before: when Itachi first mastered his kunai trick, and Shisui bought him dango. When Aimi started learning the Fire Dances, and landed her first flip. When Sasuke learned his first song on shakuhachi and performed it for Izumi, Itachi and Shisui. When Izumi became a chunin.

It was pride. Familiar, fond pride. Confusing pride.

"What aren't you telling me?" Sasuke asked desperately.

"…It really wasn't my place to say," Shisui said, still looking at Ino, "Ino made me promise not to. If I've learned anything from getting to know both of you better the past few months, it's that you're both incredibly stubborn. I think Ino's probably more stubborn than you, but both of you, what you're able to do...the implications are kinda terrifying."

Sasuke went still. His hands floated over his lunch, but he was no longer hungry. He didn't even know what im-pli-ca-tions were, but...

Both of you.

Ino made me promise not to.

"What?" he croaked.

Shisui gave him a beaming smile. "I'm not saying anything else. But tell her I said I was right."

And with that, he flew away, leaving Sasuke alone, speechless.

Ino was still laughing at Choji's story when chaos came. Choji stopped laughing, and Shikamaru opened one bored eye. Sasuke stood in front of them. He fidgeted, hands in his pockets. "Ino, can I talk to you? Please?"

Shikamaru blinked at Sasuke in pure surprise, before tilting his head. "What a drag." He finally sighed out. He turned a bored eye towards Ino. "If you don't talk about him during training, I'll let you copy my reading homework."

"Deal," Ino said immediately, then winced as Shikamaru and Choji began to leave. "You don't have to go—"

"I've heard you talk about this for far too long," Shikamaru said, already dragging Choji along. He kept glancing at Sasuke curiously. "We don't need a demonstration."

Sasuke's annoying eyebrow raise was back. Ino's cheeks reddened. "I'll kill you."

"No you won't," Choji said. "The Hanami parties are a month away. My clan is already deciding what food to bring."

Ino still glared poison at Shikamaru, who didn't react, instead slapping a piece of paper on the table from his notebook. "C'mon, Choji."

The Yamanaka glared at the backs of her supposed second and third family, before grabbing the offered paper, beginning to copy from Shikamaru's mess of handwriting with no trouble. "What?"

"We share a schedule," Sasuke said, but his voice sounded odd. "We were going to have to talk sometime." Ino looked up to see Sasuke staring at her, like he expected her to do a flip. Eye contact was getting easier.

"What is with you today?"

He fidgeted again, still giving her that odd, quiet stare. It looked too much like wonder for her comfort. He sat across from her, looking at his hands.

"He's annoying," Sasuke said finally. Ino blinked. Who was he even talking about? "He tries too hard and he wants to be everything to everybody."

"…Naruto?"

At that, Sasuke blinked. Something like realization dawned on his face, but he shook his head. "Shisui."

Ino stopped breathing. She never expected Sasuke to talk to her about Shisui. He still talked about him in the present tense. What was she supposed to say? She wasn't supposed to know anything about him. How could she explain away knowing his sharingan?

"I'm sorry for your loss," Ino decided to say. "I was just messing around in my sketchbook, I'm sorry if it looked like something you knew."

"You smile like him, too." The wonder was growing. "You smile just like him."

Ino didn't know what to do with the pang of grief she felt for the boy in front of her. Annoying as Sasuke was, she couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose everyone. To see reminders in the people around you. If she could give Sasuke her ability, let him be with ghosts while she got to sleep, she would.

"…Thank you," she said when the silence had stretched on too long.

Recess would be ending soon. Ino continued copying Shika's homework. She didn't have anything to fill the silence with.

"You see them, right?" Sasuke whispered. She looked back at him. The words were spilling out. "I doubt Shisui would lie about this. I don't think…He's lied about things before, but not this." His black eyes were wide, a little desperate, Ino thought. "Do you see him? Do you see…them?"

From Iruka-sensei's voice, recess was over, but Ino couldn't worry about that. How could she, when realization washed over her like a thousand buckets of cold water. She dropped her pencil, took off her bracelets, and looked.

Her eyes burned a little, but in a nearby tree, Ino could see the Shisui's telltale grin, and a wave, like she was casually passing him by. He kept his hand in the air.

T-O-L-D-Y-O-U

G-O-O-D-F-R-I-E-N-D-S

And the memory popped up like a tiny peony. When Ino was desperate to find Hitomi at the beginning of their search. You both may be able to… understand one another, in a way that other people can't. He had guided her back to her body, and he had known the whole time but hadn't said a word.

"I'm going to kill him," She breathed, matching Sasuke's growing wonder, his matching agreement. "He's so dead."

Her homework wasn't done. She was an ikiryo, and she didn't even know what that entailed, besides incoming madness. They had to talk about dinner. But for the first time in months, she wasn't alone. It didn't even matter that Sasuke was annoying. She wasn't alone.

Ino wasn't sure when she moved, but when she threw her arms around him, Sasuke let out a grunt.

By the goddess, the entire class was probably watching from the window. Still, Sasuke didn't move away immediately, instead giving her back an awkward pat, before withdrawing. Her cheeks stretched wide with her grin, and Sasuke matched it with a much smaller version of his own.

"Ino! Sasuke! Do you want detention?" Iruka-sensei bellowed from the door.

"No, Iruka-sensei!" They chorused.

They shared a glance, and together, they ran.

—-

The cave, unmarked on his map, gave nothing of their features away. He had made sure of it. His business partner had made their own precautions, judging by the way layers genjutsu unfolded over the small enclosure.

"You're late," he said quietly. The flame in their midst barely picked up his associate's frown.

"I am a busy person," came the hoarse reply. "And you have given me a nearly impossible task."

He resisted the urge to roll his eye. "I've seen your capabilities. I gave you my most talented sensor, just as you requested. I gave you materials, time, and funds. You said it could be done."

"….I need more time. It is delicate work, even with a sensor like yours. Sealing, carving, activation tests, chakra compatibility tests…" A pause. "Perhaps, if I had more samples…"

"Absolutely not."

"….Very well. I will need a few more weeks for the finished product. I can deliver it—"

"Have my sensor deliver the finished product." He said immediately. "Fū will know where to go."

"As you wish. And the boy?"

He waved a hand. "The Yamanaka stick their heads in places where it doesn't belong, but he is otherwise undisturbed in his compound, besides some wards. The ANBU are no longer watching him."

"Excellent. Your prosthetic will be completed in the coming month. I will send an associate for the boy."

He couldn't help the spike of satisfaction that rose. "Thank you, Orochimaru."

Another weapon in their arsenal. Konoha will remain the strongest village in the five nations, and he would be rid of the Uchiha, once and for all, no matter what that fool Sarutobi got himself up to. He would make sure of it if it was the last thing he did.