"All Kill Landing Edge"
By Nes Mikel
Acknowledgment;
I hereby acknowledge that the work of fiction presented here is for my own personal amusement and entertainment purposes alone. I hereby also acknowledge that while this story is mostly based on Kishimoto Masashi's "Naruto", crossover elements from other fictitious sources also exist, which will be named as they arise. Thus, I acknowledge that the original story concept and ideas, while heavily altered for the sake of the crossover, are copyright of all its associates.
For non up-to-date readers, this fiction will contain spoilers up to the latest Naruto manga chapters.
With that said, enjoy.
"All Kill Landing Edge"
- Chapter Five -
"Indigno"
Esperanto – "Indignation"
There were mainly two things Ino wanted to do if she ever had the opportunity to go back in time.
The first one was obvious. She would go back to that snowy night of two years ago in Nakano Shrine to undo her mistake of ever leaving Sakura's side. The other thing she wanted to do, however, was also equally important. She wanted to redo their first meeting all over again, for it had been terribly embarrassing.
Ino had often fantasized about how their meeting would've gone differently had she ever had the chance. Back then, Sakura had been frequent targets of bullies like Ami in the Academy, so Ino sometimes pictured herself as the hero that came to her rescue by chasing the bullies off for her, and from there they could've become friends. Perhaps she would even give Sakura a ribbon as a present, a red one maybe, to draw attention to the cuter features of her forehead as Sakura's wide forehead was primarily the reason why she was bullied to begin with. Ino could see herself doing just that, for in her imagination she was the embodiment of kindness and caring. Not to mention kickass.
What happened in actuality was pretty much the opposite. Although Ino had seen Sakura during classes in the Academy, until they were properly introduced she never really knew her. Ino knew Sakura was being bullied by Ami and her followers, but she never lifted even a finger to help Sakura and had turned a blind eye to it all. Although Ino never directly contributed to the bullying herself, Ino's opinion of Sakura back then was not much different from that of Sakura's antagonizers. Ino thought of Sakura as someone dark and anti-social, for she was always alone, sitting far away in the corner of the room, never really talking to anybody. Ino even went as far to think that Sakura had brought the bullies on herself with her attitude.
So it had come to her as a surprise when it was her dearest father, of all people, that introduced her to Sakura first.
It was Ino's birthday back then, and in her excitement she had forgotten all about her Daddy's promise of picking her up after class and headed straight for home when her Academy classes came to an end that day. Realizing her mistake when her mother reminded her about it, Ino then decides to hide herself in the large shoe closet right next to the house's entrance so she could get the jump on him when he came home. So when she heard the crack of the door opening she gleefully jumped out from her hiding spot in an effort to perhaps surprise her dad for once, but rather than surprising him she only ended up scaring the little pink-haired girl that was standing next to him instead.
After the ensuing chaos died down, Ino is told by her father that he had found Sakura drenched in dirt and tears in the back bushes of the Academy playground, victim in the latest strings of Ami's bullying. In his kindness, he had invited Sakura to their home in the spirit of their clan's tradition of the violet flower so she could join him on celebrating Ino's birthday.
In essence, what her father was saying was that his birthday present for Ino was, in fact, this Sakura. He had hoped Ino would accept their clan's ethics and welcome Sakura as her newest friend, in her first step in continuing the Yamanaka's tradition of candid love and comradeship.
The discovery did not make Ino happy in the slightest. Outwardly she thanked her father for it, but jealous rage boiled inside. In her childish fit of fury, Ino was angry, if not downright mad. Today was supposed to be her day, and Ino felt as if Sakura had stolen the red carpet right underneath her. She even went as far to mentally accuse Sakura of daring to steal her Daddy away from her, and it was at that moment Ino decided she was going to have some revenge. She was going to make Sakura pay.
The opportunity for it came pretty quickly. Putting on an act as the perfect daughter in front of her father, Sakura, and the rest of her family, the party continued without incident, and when Sakura excused herself to go to the bathroom Ino decided to pounce on the chance. Quickly excusing herself from the room on the pretext that she too had to go to the bathroom, she dashed across the hallway just in time to see Sakura turn a corner in front of her. Doing her best to quietly sneak up behind Sakura, Ino she readied her shintenshin no jutsu, the Yamanaka clan's Mind-Body switch technique she learned from her father just a fortnight ago. The plan was to take Sakura's body, and while she was in control she was going to make Sakura wet herself in the middle of the hallway. Ino hadn't really gone through with her plan all that much, obviously, as her Mind-Body switch technique was still imperfect and even if she did succeed in taking over Sakura's body, she was the one that actually needed to do the necessary deeds. But her newly turned seven-year-old mind back then was clouded with immaturity and rage. It had never occurred to her that the plan was doomed for failure.
The plan had ended up failing in the most unexpected of ways, though. Immature as it was, her shintenshin actually succeeded in briefly taking over Sakura's body. But because her jutsu was still unrefined, when she invaded Sakura's mind her technique had somehow jolted the totally unanticipated inner personality of Sakura wide awake, and in the hijinks it left behind a completely traumatized Ino and Sakura, both of them crying loudly as they both had ended up wetting themselves in the end.
Although they had since then made up and became friends for real afterwards, it was a memory Ino could certainly do without.
"Ino-chan… hey Ino-chan, wake up."
She was roused from her slumber in her sofa when she noticed her other friend shaking her shoulders. She opened one eye, and then another, and then pushed away her friend's hand away and stifled a yawn.
"Mornin' Naruto… what time is it?"
"It's almost ten, I think. They arrived." He answered her as he pushed a small bun into her hand after removing the orange jacket that was draped over her shoulders. "Here. Something to eat before you go see her."
"Mm." She said as she took a quick bite out of the pastry, quietly thanking Naruto for bringing her breakfast.
The two of them had spent the entire night at the hospital reception room. It wasn't the first time Ino had spent the night here, twice previously in fact; once, when her friend was carried in for the first time, and the second, just a week ago when her father had broken the news to her that Sakura had finally woken from her coma. In the latter's case, she chose to spend the night at the hospital after the hospital staff denied her access to her friend's hospital room on the grounds that visitor access was prohibited. She was told that the only ones who were allowed visitor's access to Sakura was her immediate family. As Sakura had no 'real' siblings, her parents Haruno Mebuki and Haruno Kizashi were the only ones that had fit that category.
A week had given Ino some time to accept the fact that Ouka, Sakura's inner personality and mental sibling, was no longer within Sakura. When Naruto, who had in turn received the news from her father Inoichi, first broke the news to her, it was a difficult pill for her to swallow. But as the famous saying went, although time did not mend wounds, it did to a degree heal them. Telling herself that it was Sakura who was in the hardest position of them all made her feel a bit easier.
"Sakura-chan's parents are at the reception desk. I'll be going now, Ino-chan. Give Sakura-chan my best regards, okay?"
She nodded back at him. They had spent the night in the hospital in anticipation last night as Ino was finally given permission to see Sakura along with Sakura's parents today. Although Ino had insisted for Naruto to come with her, Naruto had politely refused her offer on the grounds that he knew perfectly well that his presence wasn't altogether welcome in the hospital. They both knew the reason why.
Ino quickly slapped both of her cheeks together as she rose from the reception room's comfortable sofa to ease out the sluggishness from sleep. She was finally going to get to see Sakura awake for the first time in two years. The fact alone was enough to completely banish the slowness out of her body.
She had a feeling that today was going to be a great day.
They walked into Sakura's room just as the doctors removed the bandages around her eyes and had her vision returned to her.
It was, without doubt, the absolute worst timing.
Her mother. Haruno Mebuki. Her father. Haruno Kizashi. Those two she could understand. She mentally prepared herself for the encounter after all. But her, the blonde-haired girl that followed in her parent's footsteps. She looked slightly different than the boyish girl in her memories, slightly taller, more mature. But there was no mistaking it. It was Ino. Her best friend.
Why? She wanted to scream. Why did she have to be here, of all times?
"Sakura," Her mother began. "Your friend Ino is here to see yo-"
"Get out." She spoke suddenly.
"…Sakura?" Ino stepped forward. "It's me, Ino. Sakura, I wanted to see you for so long…"
"Please, get out." She repeated her demand, stronger this time. "All of you."
"Sakura, what's wrong?" This time it was her father.
"Sakura?" Her mother.
"Sakura…" Her best friend.
It was torture. Just torture.
"GET OUT!" In desperation, Sakura screamed. She clamped her eyes shut and hastily cradled her head in her arms, as if trying to run away from the reality of it all. She never wanted to see them like this. Not like this. Never like this.
Not with the black lines of complete death scattered all over them.
"…Are you certain about this?" The Third Hokage asks from behind his desk. His normally soft eyes sharp, they were no longer the caring eyes of an gentle old man, but that of a leader of a village full of ninja. The report he was receiving from the head of Information and Espionage was something that was not to be taken lightly.
"Unfortunately, Hokage-sama. I am certain of it."
Yamanaka Inoichi cleared his throat before he gave his final answer.
"Haruno Sakura has come in possession of the chokushi no magan." He concluded. "The 'Mystic Eyes of Death Perception'."
"All Kill Landing Edge"
- Chapter Five -
-END-
Author's Notes:
Chapter five.
Barely made the deadline. Daily updates are harder than I thought. You can probably tell I rushed it as I'm sure it's full of errors. Will edit later.
And alas, the crossover element finally revealed. Unsure of how readers will react to this, but we shall we.
Thanks for reading!
- Nes Mikel
All Kill Landing Edge, Chapter Five "Indigno", First Edition: February 20th, 2013, Last Edit: February 24th, 2013