Ricochet

Protocol dictates to stop the bleeding first. To comfortably stop the bleeding, I'd have to get her arm free. Or cut it off. If I try to remove the arm from the trap, there's the risk of bloodclots. If she gets a bloodclot in her brain or heart while the baby's still in her womb it's Game Over. Maybe it's best to try and have her deliver quickly?

Ino dug through her weapons pouch until her fingers came across a small, round object. Quickly plucking it out, she pressed it to Noriko's lips.

"Eat. It's a blood pill, it'll replenish some of your hemoglobin."

The woman obliged her and Ino spared another glance at her arm, wanting to touch it but not really trusting herself to be gentle enough for a close inspection.

"Is it a sharp pain or a dull pain? Do you feel faint?"

Noriko shook her head. She was a little breathless, Ino noted, and lightly sweating.

"No. At first there was a really intense pain, but I don't feel it now."

Ino nodded. She was probably having an adrenaline rush, that was good, mostly because she had nothing to give the poor woman for pain. Ino bit her bottom lip, then moved down the side of Noriko's body. Sure enough, her water had already broken.

"Okay Noriko-san, I need you to bend your knees so I can check how far dialated you are."

Noriko obeyed and Ino moved to the bottom of her feet, silently cursing Midwife's premature demise. All Ino knew about delivery was the bits and pieces of information the nurses shouted that carried into the hallways of the hospital. She could only do her best here, and hope that would be enough.

Nervously, Ino lifted Noriko's skirt to the top of her knees.

"Could you...?"

She motioned for her to part her thighs more and Noriko complied. The blonde frowned; she didn't see anything. That couldn't be a good sign. Noriko screamed again, and Ino realized that she should probably time the contractions, but even as she sat there and lamented over her misfortune, in the back of her mind her intuition warned that this was an unprotected area and that enemies could strike at any minute. She wished for walls, water, Shizune, anything. Anything for this not to end badly, and she had the sneaking suspicion that that's the way things were quickly headed.

"I need you to push, hard as you can. Ready?"

Noriko grit her teeth and pushed, making a sound somewhere between a wail and a roar. A shiver ran down Ino's spine and she felt bad that she couldn't offer her anything more than words for comfort. Nothing looked any different down there, but she tried to reassure the woman with a small smile.

"You're doing great. How do you feel? Is your head fuzzy? Heart racing?"

Noriko shook her head and Ino sighed in relief. Two minutes later, Ino asked her to push again.

Ten minutes in, Ino started to worry. She knew it was common sometimes for labor to go on for hours, but they didn't have hours to spare. Noriko didn't have hours to spare. Ino watched as with each push, her volume dropped a notch and her face looked more drawn. Her adrenaline rush would be completely gone soon, and then it would be all Ino could do just to keep her conscious and her heartrate steady. Ino fed her another blood pill and rubbed her ankle with her thumb.

"This next one, I need you to push with everything you have. Like, realllllly push until you can't anymore, okay?"

She got a nod in response, though Ino suspected she would've received that same answer no matter what she had said.

"3...2...1. Push!"

Noriko made a strangled noise in her throat and pushed. Ino prayed. Then, slowly, she could see something start to come out.

"I can see it! I can see it! Keep going, the baby's coming out."

Noriko heaved and gasped for air. Ino patted her foot.

"Come on, just a few more pushes."

She pushed again, and Ino's excitement turned to dread as she recognized that the baby was coming feet first.

A breeched birth?

She put a hand on her forehead and tried not to panic. This was wrong, this was very wrong. She didn't know what made it so dangerous, but she did know that the hospital nurses had gone into a frenzy the one time she'd heard of a baby coming feet first instead of head first. Ino moved to grab Noriko by the wrist and read her pulse. Her blood pressure had already dipped dangerously low.

"Am I...going to die?"

Startled, Ino met Noriko's eyes and tried to tell her No, of course you won't. I'm here, remember? but the words wouldn't come out, she knew it to be a lie. The best she could give was a Maybe, and nobody wanted to hear "maybe" as an answer to that question.

"...I can save your child, but..."

"It's too late for me?" Noriko finished, voice straining to be heard. Ino dug her nails into the palms of her own hands with tight fists.

"No. I could save you, but...your baby won't be able to come out the natural way. To save your child, I'd have to cut you, and I don't have... If you weren't pregnant-"

"I see." Noriko held a hand up, she didn't need to hear any more. "Save my child."

Ino hesistated, then fixed her hands into a seal. The least she could do was put her in a nice genjutsu before making the cut that would seal her fate. When Noriko's eyes clouded over, Ino reached and pulled a kunai from her thigh holster. Then she popped the buttons at the top of her skirt and unwrapped it from her waist, leaving her lower half clad in her black shorts. She set the material aside and positioned her hand over Noriko's stomach. Holding her breath, Ino pressed the kunai into the skin and made a long, shallow cut from bellybutton to pelvis.

Yellow layer. Fat.

She re-traced the cut with more pressure. Fluid wept out, and she pushed the sides of the incision open before sticking a hand in to feel for the baby. She tried not think about the fact that her hand was inside someone's body and focused. There! Towards the left she felt something different. Ino reached in with her other hand and lifted the tiny infant out.

It's a boy.

Balancing the newborn on her hand and forearm aganist her chest, Ino used her other hand to wrap her skirt around the bundle. That done, she cut the umbilical cord and glanced at Noriko's face. The young woman had passed on already, without having held or named her son, and Ino almost cried for her. Softly she turned the little boy over and stood up, patting his back to clear his lungs. He cried, and she wished his mother could hear it. At the very least, she wished she could give her a proper burial, but she knew she didn't have time for that. Maybe when they completed the mission, she and Sai would have a chance to bury the dead, for now, she would-

The sudden, forceful impact of something large crashing into her back sent Ino's slight form flying forward and she remembered just in time to twist and land on her back, for the baby's sake. The back of her head collided with a headstone and she hissed in pain. Seven people emerged from the trees and bushes and Ino sat up, one hand bracing her weight on the ground, the other gently holding the screaming infant. Two of the people drew dull knives from their clothes and advanced towards her. Ino took her weight off of her supporting arm and put her hand into a seal.

"Shinranshin no Jutsu!"

In the space of twenty minutes, Sai had managed to put an end to a group of attackers almost the size of a small army with just his tanto's blade and was even able to keep Yellow Teeth alive. As the last few bodies hit the ground he paused and listened for a second wave of attackers. Pure silence sat in the air, and after a minute, Sai sheathed his blade. Looking over at Yellow Teeth, he appeared to have more injuries than Sai did, but none looked life-threatening. Sai gave the man some seconds to catch his breath before they started off on the route toward their safety spot in Hayashibara, the next district over. As they neared the edge of the woods and the entrance to the cemetary, the pale shinobi could hear sounds of an infant crying. Wordlessly, he signalled to Yellow Teeth to hang behind him as he approached to investigate. He scaled a tree for a good view of the immediate area and silently peeked through its leaves. From this height he spotted seven bodies strewn about the graves: guerillas from the same group he had fought just minutes earlier. Still, the cry of a baby rang out from somewhere nearby and Sai jumped down, intending to check it out. As his feet his the ground, he drew his tanto on reflex and blocked a swipe at his neck. He was reminded of the day he met Naruto, when the orange-clad ninja had launched himself at him in a full frontal attack holding only a kunai. At least Ino had tried to catch him unawares, he had to give her that credit. Metaphorically speaking, the tiny blonde female had a bigger dick than Dickless.

"Sai? It's about time you got here."

His blonde teammate glared at him and withdrew her weapon, angrily sliding the blade back into a pink sheath. Sai smiled at her.

"Your technique needs work."

"Shut up."

"I didn't know they issued pink tantos these days."

Ino's glare faltered at that, and a small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

"They don't; I had to have it custom modified."

She had never planned on buying something so distinctive but it had become necessary: soon after she made chuunin rank Shikamaru was always 'borrowing' her tanto. The lazy genius's excuse was that he perpetually lost track of his, and since he was always borrowing hers, Ino found she had to sharpen it a lot more often. So she had the sheath and hilt re-painted cotton candy pink in a fit of spite. Shikamaru hadn't touched it since.

Sai signalled for Yellow Teeth to join them and Ino retrieved the baby from a hiding spot cloaked in genjutsu. Yellow Teeth spoke up.

"We passed Ryuutaro-san and Kotomi-san on the way here. How is Noriko-san?"

It took Ino a second to realize that Yellow Teeth was referring to Balding and Midwife. She suddenly felt guilty that she had never bothered to learn their names. She handed him the baby and told him apologetically that the little boy was all that was left alive of the woman. Yellow Teeth cried, and the Konoha shinobi gave him some minutes to collect himself. When he was mostly done, Ino came over to tend to his wounds. She swore when she felt her chakra wavering halfway through healing a gruesome gash and had to stop before she ran out. Using the Shinranshin on seven targets had usurped more of her chakra reserves than she had planned, and she couldn't risk being completely tapped out, not until they'd reached their safe spot. Ino stared at the wound thoughtfully, then took the baby out of Yellow Teeth's arms and handed him to Sai, who looked to be the veritable picture of discomfort. Her patient started to speak but she hushed him, placing a piece of stick straight from the ground into his mouth and instructing him to bite down. Sai, understanding the nature of what was about to happen, wandered some feet away with the baby.

Ino dug into her pouch and pulled out a needle and thread.

Ino sucked in a breath when she saw Horikawa Emiko, their employer, according to the mission scroll. She was completely identical to Mizushima Noriko in physical appearence, which made sense when Emiko told the group seconds after their arrival that she and Noriko were identical twins. As Sai briefed her on what had happened, Emiko rocked the baby in her arms and listened with a stony face. When he was done, she was frowning and shaking her head.

"I thought something like that might happen. I warned Noriko that three civillians wouldn't be enough to protect her."

Yellow Teeth, whom Ino learned was actually named Yoritomo Shuya, bowed his head in shame. Emiko didn't notice, and put her attention on the infant in her arms.

"This was really a bad plan wasn't it, nephew? This wasn't what I planned at all."

She hugged him closer to her chest and Ino looked incensed.

"Wait, you planned this? You plotted to kill your own sister?"

Emiko looked shocked at the accusation.

"No, it's not like that! It's not."

"Then I think you better explain yourself."

Sai's gaze shifted to Ino and he wondered if he should intervene. Emiko started explaining. It turned out that Emiko was the wife of the Daimyo's eldest son and she had not only known of the affair, but had planned it. An attempt on her life with food poisoning some years back had the adverse effect of leaving her sterile, unbeknownst to her husband, who badly wanted children. So Emiko came up with the brilliant plan of asking her sister to bear his children, and Noriko had agreed to help her. At the time, neither of them had considered the possible consequences of their actions. It was still unclear how this information had been found out, given that Emiko's own husband wasn't even aware of her sister's existence, but somewhere down the line things had become dangerous.

Ino relaxed after hearing the details and, after a full night's rest, she and Sai returned to Konoha.

"The hospital is that way."

Neji's pale eyes trailed over the form of the petite kunoichi on his doorstep. Outwardly the mindwalker looked fine with only some nicks and cuts to show for her mission, but with his depth of vision Neji could spot an area on Ino's side where the subdermal tissue was still mending. He'd reprimanded her before about half-assed healing herself, medics were just the worst when it came to tending to their own injuries. He would have to have a talk later with whoever had allowed her to sustain damage; as many missions as he'd been on with Ino, he'd managed to never let her walk away from battle with any more than some bruises and shallow cuts. She was one of the few people he trusted to patch him up, and truth be told, he was a little peeved that his personal medic was in less than top condition. Ino huffed.

"Save it. I'm not here to see you anyway. I'm here to see your wife."

She'd caught him by surprise with that and Neji's eyebrows shot nearly to his hairline. His body was blocking most of the doorway, but Ino brushed past him anyway, smirking in her victory. Neji glowered, but soon realized the blonde was serious.

"TenTen."

He called his wife in a slightly raised voice and Ino amused herself by checking out the decor. She'd never been inside Neji's house before (at least, not long enough to have a good look around), but it was tastefully decorated and Ino wondered how much of it was his doing and how much was TenTen's influence. She took a seat, plopping rather unceremoniously onto a heavily padded wooden chair that looked like it costed a fortune, and Neji watched her inspect the intricate engravings on the chair's arms.

"I presume you're not here just for friendly chit-chat?"

Ino's inquisitive expression soured.

"Nah, I've got people for that." She picked up a priceless decorational piece from a shelf mounted on the wall and turned it around in her hands. "I'm here because Sai says my tanto skills are some shit."

TenTen emerged from the back of the house, her surprise apparent as her eyes landed on the Yamanaka unexpectedly seated in her front room. Ino stood when she saw her and quickly returned the figurine back to it's position on the shelf. TenTen shot Neji a look that clearly said What is she doing in our home? and Ino, suddenly sheepish donned her notoriously disarming 'can't-help-but-love-me' smile. She didn't like to ask favors, really, especially when she wasn't particularly close to the person she was asking, but she had little choice. TenTen was easily the biggest expert on every physical weapon in existence; if Ino wanted help from the best, there was no other option. Plus TenTen had been one of the fastest kunoichi Konoha had ever raised, mostly thanks to Gai, who aspired and succeeded in creating the fastest team ever. Help from her could improve Ino's evasion remarkably.

"Hey, TenTen. I know it's kinda sudden and I don't really have a right to ask you this, but" , Ino gave a small bow to the older girl hoping a sign of respect might convince her. "Could you give me a lesson on wielding tantos?"

A / N: This chapter was troublesome due to the dialogue. Rewrote it a bunch of times and evetually cut a lot out because it was unnecessary. Next chapter will have more action, more tension, and more NejIno. And hopefully I won't be so slow writing it.