At this moment, there is one simple truth in life. One single fact that must be adhered to or the entire universe will be in peril.

Yamanaka Ino must die.

I know she's my best friend and I know that she can get somewhat unbearable. But nothing prepared me for the evil plot she had just hatched.

I was very happily enjoying a day off. That is twenty four hours away from the hospital, training with shishou and even my beloved kunoichi cell. But I needed a break. Or at least Tsunade-shishou convinced me of that.

Okay, maybe it was due to the fact that I put someone in a full body cast when they only needed a finger splint.

I had things to get done anyway. So I got up early, wore something cute and started to run a few errands.

I knew something was wrong when people kept whispering around me. I figured it was probably part of being the Hokage's student so I tried to ignore it by holding my head high and appearing unfazed. It was a great plan until some guy let out a low whistle and called to me like I was a cat.

"Excuse me?" I said, whipping around to face whoever had just volunteered to get pummeled into the ground.

But before I could find him to give him a piece of my mind, there was a flash of green and Lee suddenly appeared.

"Sakura-san!" he cried, his eyes already glistening with tears as he grabbed my hand.

"L-lee…" I started, sure I was turning a lovely shade of red as the entire marketplace turned towards us.

"Please do not open yourself to the distrustful masses of men! As a beautiful flower of Konoha, they will no doubt try to take advantage of your innocence and purity. I am already tall and my hair is dark, so please tell me how to be mysterious enough so that you might turn your affections towards me and not some stranger who would seek to…"

And it went on.

Somewhere in all that, I saw the newspaper folded carefully inside his vest. There was a large red circle around what appeared to be a classified ad. But when I got a bit of a closer look, I snatched it quickly away from him.

Cherry blossom seeks tall, dark and mysterious man to fill the gaping void in her heart. Very shy so please make the first move. I like to play hard to get but I really just want to be caught.

"INO!" I shrieked, cutting off Lee's romantic speech and silencing the entire market as they cowered in fear.

An hour later, I had called Tenten and Hinata over to my place under the pretense of a mission briefing. It wasn't an actual, Hokage-assigned mission but it was important and I needed them here.

"Operation Get Ino a Boyfriend?" Tenten asked, reading the slide I had just put up on the screen.

"Yes!" I replied. "Is that a problem?"

Tenten looked at me with a quirked eyebrow. "It's more the fact that you own a projector for your computer, a presentation screen and… you put together a slide show for this?"

Why is she looking at us like we're insane? Inner suddenly demanded from inside my head.

"What? What's wrong with that!" I demanded, echoing the sentiments of my other half. "We need to be organized!"

"Yeah… but…"

"Ah, please Sakura-san," Hinata interrupted, putting a hand on Tenten's arm to quiet her down. "Continue with your plan."

I nodded, glad that someone was taking this seriously. "Since we have started this team, Ino has made it her mission to make our lives a living hell. If it's not pushing us into uncomfortable positions," I continued, clicking the presentation forward to a photograph of Ino pushing Naruto onto the seat next to Hinata at the ramen shop. "Or forcing us into things," up came the picture of Ino preparing the Shintenshin no Jutsu on Tenten. "She's absolutely HUMILITATING US."

I pressed the button on the remote a bit harder then I would have liked but they'd see soon enough why I was so angry. The picture of the newspaper personal came up on the screen.

"You made… a slide show," Tenten said again.

"Ano, this is about you? But you are not shy."

"THAT'S NOT THE POINT!" I yelled, ignoring the fact that Hinata had latched onto Tenten for dear life.

"Okay, fine," Tenten relented, attempting to get her arm back. "What is the point?"

"I looked it up in some of my psychology books. Ino," I stated firmly, "is attempting to live vicariously through us. What she is trying to tell us is that no one is searching for a boyfriend for her when that's all she really wants."

I pressed the remote again and the 'Objectives' slide came up. "Each of us, today, will pick one boy from the following slides and convince them to take Ino out on a date. Failure is not an option. We will succeed!"

HELL YEAH! Inner cheered.

I ignored the way Hinata and Tenten were looking at each other. I was the unspoken group leader and I knew both of them would follow orders if it came to it. "Let's begin."

The first slide came up.

"Okay, so this is Akimichi Chouji," I continued as I pointed to the slide. It had all the most important information we would need. "Height, weight, blood type, astrological sign, interests and dislikes," I rattled off as I walked over and got the large poster board. I pulled the cap off the marker and wrote Yes and No at the top of it.

"We'll separate them first by viability and then pick from the list of survivors! Any questions?" Tenten raised her hand but Hinata quickly pulled her arm down.

"Ch-chouji-san is very nice, but… ano I do not think Ino-san has any interest in him romantically."

I nodded and started to add him to the No side.

"I don't see why we're dismissing him so quickly," Tenten said, forcing me to stop writing. "I mean, they've been friends since childhood and on a team for the last few years."

"So dating a teammate is okay?" I asked with a small smile in her direction.

She glared at me and adopted a rather sour looking frown. "Put him in the 'no' category."

At least we were making progress. I pulled the next slide up. "Nara Shikamaru. Same problem as Chouji, plus there's the whole Temari thing."

"Wh-what Temari thing?" Hinata asked. I guess the surprise on my face was better then words. "I thought they were just friends."

"Please," I replied. "Every time she comes here, he's always hanging around her."

"It's more like a forced partnership courtesy of Hokage-sama. Temari says he's always complaining about how 'troublesome' the entire situation is," Tenten added.

My head snapped to stare at her. "You talk to… Temari?"

Tenten nodded slowly. "Sure."

"But she… well the first chuunin…"

Tenten let out a deep sigh. "Yeah, I got beat by her pretty badly. And sure, it made me all depressed and moody for a few days but then Gai-sensei told me that I should look at it as an opportunity to grow. He said rivals are important for becoming a better shinobi."

I snickered. "Oh… you didn't."

Tenten bristled slightly. "What? Having an eternal rival isn't a bad thing."

I could barely contain my laughter. "What's your… record?" I managed.

Apparently, not that good since all I got was a withering stare and two terse words. "Next slide."

Kiba was the next specimen and I looked directly at Hinata for her input. She took a few moments to think about it and then shrugged. "Well, Kiba… ano Kiba is…" She frowned. "Kiba is very nice and considerate of people but… ano…"

Tenten rolled her eyes. "He's socially inept. Every time we all go out for ramen, he has Akamaru with him and they eat out of the same bowl. Can you imagine what happens if he takes Ino to a movie and the three of them have to share the popcorn?"

Hinata smiled a bit. "It would be fun to watch though."

I put him on the No side and proceed to the next slide. "Aburame Shino?" I didn't think it was possibility. After all, the idea of going out with a guy who had bugs crawling all over him…

"Ino stepped on a spider once in front of him," Hinata said. "I don't think he has forgiven her for that."

A smack to the forehead later, I quickly added him to the No column. "Guys, come on! There aren't a lot of choices left." I advanced the show forward and up came the information for Hyuuga Neji.

"I guess we can just skip this one," I said, getting ready to press the button.

"Why?" Tenten asked, anger creeping into her voice.

I looked at her, suddenly very aware of the fact that she had at least twenty weapons on her I couldn't see. "Well, it's just that… you know…" I floundered.

Hinata stepped in to save me. "It's just that… ano you and Neji-niisan always train together and…"

Suddenly, Tenten stood up. "That's great. You know, I'm used to it from other people but I guess I was an idiot for hoping it wouldn't be the same in this group."

"No wait, I didn't mean it that way," I tried, suddenly realizing that she was not simply angry. She was genuinely upset.

"Yeah, you did." Tenten said in a dejected tone. "Do you have any idea what it's like to be just 'that girl that trains with Hyuuga Neji'?" Hinata looked distressed and I was at a loss of words. "So what, my greatest accomplishment will be advancing to 'that girl that dates Hyuuga Neji'?"

Inner was quiet and I knew she was hiding in the back of my mind. I wished I could join her.

"You should understand," Tenten continued. "After all, we have 'that girl that's always nervous around Uzumaki Naruto' with us today." Hinata shrinks into the couch. Well that's just cruel. Not everyone thinks that.

"And to the front we have 'that girl that's always pining after Uchiha Sasuke'."

My stomach sinks. I'm ready to tell her she's wrong but…

She's not wrong, Inner whispers.

"We've spent our entire lives as 'that girl'. We've been defined by the men in our lives," she added. "But think about Ino. Does anyone refer to her as 'that girl that follows around Nara Shikamaru'? Or 'that girl that has dinner all the time with Akimichi Chouji?'

"No, she is Yamanaka Ino. Not one person in this village would ever refer to her as anything else. So yeah, it's really annoying to have her on our cases sometimes. But I don't think she's living vicariously through us at all. I think she's trying to bring us up to her level. She's trying to remind us that we're not just 'that girl'. We're kunoichi and we should be able to be known for that fact alone.

"So if it means that I have to tolerate a bit of hair brushing or being forced into clothes or even being subjected to a bit of humiliation, it's okay. I get it. I need to accept the fact that I need to be more outwardly feminine, just like Hinata needs to be a bit bolder and Sakura needs to move on."

She collapsed back into the seat. "I'm sorry," she finished. "It's just…"

Hinata shifted a bit. "You're right. I know…I need to speak up more. And last week… last week I did," she smiled.

I blinked. "Wait. You mean it was you at the council meeting?"

Hinata nodded. "Yes. I didn't think I could do it but…" She clenched her fists tightly. "But I just thought of all of you and I just knew I had to."

"Hinata," I started but I could already feel the tears welling up.

Hinata panicked and started flailing her arms. "I'm sorry! I just meant to say that Ino-san isn't the only one to help me get stronger. She is the main instigator but I know you all are concerned for my welfare."

Even Tenten seemed to be concerned by the fact that I was about ready to burst out crying. "I'm really sorry, I shouldn't have been so… mean about it," she tried but I shook my head.

Not because I didn't accept her apology. She was right. God help us, she was right. Ino, in some warped and twisted way, was really trying to help us. And if that meant she was right about Tenten and right about Hinata… then…

I started to cry. Not because of anything anyone said here but because I realized that Ino was right about me most of all. This whole mission idea had been because I couldn't face that fact that what she did was try to get me over him.

But I couldn't. It was like someone had just ripped something right out from my chest. And I tried to fill it with missions and training and anything I could think of but it didn't go away. I just couldn't get past the day he left.

I started this group because I wanted to help other kunoichi grow stronger. And I didn't realize I was one of the people who needed it most. It doesn't matter that I train under the Hokage herself. Or that I'm leader of this cell. Or that I went with Sai and Naruto and fought against him. In some ways, I'm still Haruno Sakura, age 13, standing in the middle of that street at night watching him leave.

Hinata had disappeared and Tenten was attempting to comfort me by placing an arm over my shoulder. She was trying to not look uncomfortable but I doubted she had ever been in a situation like this. She never struck me as the hysterical female type.

By the time Hinata returned with a tray of tea, I was starting to calm down.

"I really am sorry," Tenten said again.

"No it's not that. You're right you know. I do pine," I laughed. "I mean, I try not to but…" I sniffled and Hinata handed me a tissue followed by a cup of tea.

"I'm so pathetic," I managed, destroying the first tissue and moving on to the next.

"You're not at all," Hinata replied.

"Yeah I am. I know he's not coming back and even if he did, he's not the same person at all. I just miss the old him, which is stupid and illogical and…"

"Everything that love is, ne?" Hinata smiled.

"No one is saying that you have to forget that memory of him," Tenten added. "But I think Ino, if we ignore the total invasion of privacy, had the right idea. You're always so busy with work or training but you need to be happy too. And workaholics are not happy."

I snorted. "Unless they're prodigies."

Hinata and Tenten laughed a bit and I managed a smile. "You know what the worst part is? If Ino finds out, she is," I sniffled, "going to be impossible to deal with. I mean worse than now. It'll be a whole new level of annoying and meddling."

"Convincing Hokage to send her on a mission isn't going to work," Tenten added sagely. "I tried." We both looked at her in surprise. "I'm kidding," she whispered, looking a bit sheepish.

"We could convince Hokage to give her a genin team," Hinata said.

"No!" I cried out in mock terror. "Then in a month there'd be Ino and three mini version of her harassing us."

"Okay, I'd take a mission to the Akatsuki stronghold over experiencing that any day," Tenten laughed.

"So we don't tell her that she's right," I told them with firm resolve.

"But we do listen more," Hinata added.

Tenten frowned. "Even if it kills us… which I'm pretty sure it will."

"Well at worst, we have a bit of fun on the way down," I said. But I could tell from the looks on their faces that no one was buying it. And why would they? We were saying that Ino was right. We were pretty much giving her license to enter into our lives and meddle.

Yeah, there was no way she was ever going to find out.