Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

REVISED: 11/30/16

Sweet Misery

Chapter 2

For the next few days Ino had to endure lesson after lesson about being the village liaison. She had no idea how much there truly was to being a representative of her village. She was starting to feel for Shikamaru, it really was such a drag. There was so many things she had to learn, behaviors she needed to know and/or stop (at least when being formal), and lots and lots of homework. Practically every day she would be writing some type of report for either her village or Suna. Ino was not looking forward to that. Her brain was starting to hurt from all the things she had to learn throughout the week. Of course having Shikamaru there helped out a bunch. He was giving her shortcuts and advice on how to write certain reports or how to handle the delegates.

'My brain feels like it's going to explode,' Ino thought tiredly as she stifled a yawn by holding her breath. She idly looked down and picked at the loose thread on her skirt.

"Yamanaka, are you listening?!" Ino flinched at the yell, nodding automatically though she had been zoning out more often than actually listening.

Tsunade frowned at the almost vacate look in the younger blonde's eyes. She rubbed her forehead irritably.

"Look, I know this is really boring but you only have two more days before you leave. We need to get this hammered into your head!" Ino sighed. She understood that but everything was all formalities, and presentation.

All Ino had to really do is look good, be formal, and go into meetings about better relations between the villages. That part all she had to do was sit there and listen. There was another village liaison there that would still be there for her first month. The second liaison she would be replacing so she wouldn't necessarily have to partiapate that first month until after her partner left. It would all be up to her and that part almost scared the shit out of her.

"I know I just…am worried…" Tsunade raised an eyebrow in question.

"Ino, that isn't like you. There's nothing for you to worry about."

"What if I cause an international incident!?" Tsunade tried her best to keep a straight face she really did, but before she knew it her head was thrown back and she was laughing at the young medics worry. Ino instantly frowned and shot up from her chair. "What the hell Lady Tsunade! I pour my heart to you and you laugh at me!" Her red and flustered face only served to make the older woman laugh harder. She was holding her stomach and gasping for breath.

"I'm….I'm sorry…" Tears leaked from the corners of her honey colored eyes. Ino went to speak but Tsunade brought a finger up to keep her from talking. Ino huffed with her arms crossed as her Hokage tried to catch her breath, "Really Ino…" she coughed in her hand trying to conceal the smile threatening to spread across her face, "I wasn't laughing at your concerns honest, it was just the look on your face. Also if Naruto hasn't caused an incident yet then I don't think you have much of anything to worry about."

Ino kept her eyes narrowed but she knew where her Hokage was coming from. If Naruto hadn't screwed up then she would have to do something truly outstanding and out due Naruto himself to be really worried. Still the out of place feeling and worry stuck though she managed to grumble a response.

"Fine…"

Tsunade shook her head bringing her game face on. "Ino, this is very important once you're by yourself without the other liaison everything is up to you. I need you to understand that there will be meetings about trading, communications, and there will be a lot of scrutiny upon you. You must be fair, but at the same time you can't let them walk all over you either. The Kazekage can only help you so much. He'll be in the room with you and always accompany you at all meetings but he can't decide anything for you." Tsunade turned towards her desk reseating herself and started writing in a scroll. Ino returned to her seat.

She knew she could do this, it wasn't as hard as everyone believed (sure there was a bunch of learning the trading, and operations plus the rules they went by but it wasn't anything none of them weren't familiar with) but a sense of nervousness ran through her at the thought. Tsunade was counting on her; the village was counting on her. It almost made her want to back out.

'No! I have a mission to do and I can't back out of this now!" Ino thought clenching her fists; she brought her eyes up to stare into Tsunade's.

"I won't let you down, Lady Tsunade. I know I can do this." A smile came to the Hokage's lips. She nodded.

"Good to hear. I have some documents for you to read over about the trading system and what to expect while there. The Kazekage will have many more for you to look over once there but otherwise were done for today." Ino nodded and brought herself to stand.

She bowed towards her villages' leader before taking the scrolls containing the import information and heading out.

"Ino." Just as she was out the door the blonde turned to look over her shoulder. Tsunade held a softer smile than the last with such tenderness to her eyes that Ino was stunned to her spot. She only ever gave that smile to Naruto and sometimes Sakura. "Inoichi would be proud of you; I'm proud of you."

Ino just barely remembered to breath. Tsunade had so much trust in her it almost made her spill her guts to the older woman.

Almost.

"Thanks, that means a lot to me," Ino said softly, allowing a shaky breath to release from her lips before leaving. She felt a great sense of guilt overriding her earlier nervousness.

What was she gonna do?

Everything was set to motion and there was no turning back now. She had to go through with her plans; no matter what! Ino walked down the halls in the tower as she made her way out. It was so mechanical to nod in greeting and smile in reply as she went deep into thought. It was all leading down to her true mission.

Her father didn't commit suicide.

He was murdered.

She didn't know how but she knew her father would never take his own life. It had to be staged! Inoichi Yamanaka had too much to live for to even think about taking his life. He knew his clan and his name would be disgraced and he would never do that. But what was said and known about him couldn't change hard cold facts. There was a kunai in his gripped hand with his blood on it. And his throat was slit. The evidence outweighed the knowledge his friends and family had of him.

Ino just couldn't wrap her mind around it. Tsunade had personally done the autopsy on his body but there was no foreign substance that could force him to commit such a heiness crime. There was nothing she could do but label it a suicide. Many protested but to no avail. There was no way to manipulate the body once rigor mortis set in. Tears burned in the back of Ino's eyes as she made her way outside the building and to the bright sunlight outdoors.

It was just a surveillance mission, nothing out of the ordinary. Inoichi and Shikaku Nara had been the only two assigned to the mission so they all assumed nothing bad would happen. They were all wrong. Shikaku told the Hokage and council everything he knew and remembered but for some odd reason the events leading up to her father's death were wiped from his mind. Everyone started assuming that he was knocked unconscious from an unknown ninja yet the whole thing didn't make sense to her. There was something missing that just wasn't putting the pieces together.

If someone really knocked Shikaku out then why wasn't he dead too? Not that she wanted him to die, but if he was caught by surprise so suddenly then why not go for the kill instead of knocking him out? There was the possibility that Inoichi was forced to commit suicide to save his comrade, but that was very slim. Ino knew her father too well to know he would have found a way that didn't result in him killing himself. She just knew it was against his will. There was just something more going on there. No investigations were being conducted and that pissed her off even more. The more time they let pass between the horrible incident to now would only make things harder to figure out.

Shikaku knew something was amiss too.

He didn't feel like he was knocked out by a physical blow. Plus that would give him the feeling he knew something but couldn't quite remember it. Unfortunately the council had forbid Ino from invading her father's teammate's mind to figure it out. She was considered too close and emotionally compromised (she hated that damn word!) to even be considered jumping into his mind. They used another Yamanaka who wasn't quite as skilled as she was. Even Shikaku tried throwing his ass around saying Ino should be the one to check but once more it didn't help.

So now she had a new mission.

Ino was going to find out who killed her father and get revenge.

She already had Shikaku backing her up, no doubt the genius man figured her out the moment she told them all a few nights ago about her vacation/mission….

Ino looked at everyone as they got quiet to give her their full attention. The only noise was Mirai eating.

"I decided with the way things are going that I…need a vacation." Everyone seemed to feel a bit deflated as though thinking it was going to be more than what was said. Ino rolled her eyes and went on, "I'm going to Suna for a few months for that vacation and its going to double as a mission." That perked their interest.

"A few months? But Ino…" Chouji looked to be lost for words. Shikamaru sighed beside him.

"It's her choice." Yoshino took a quick sip of her water.

"Well honey, what are you going to do about the shop?" Ino frowned returning to her seat.

"I need to hire another person to run shop while I'm gone for so long I just haven't-."

"I would love to help out!" Yoshino suddenly interrupted her, smiling brightly at the younger girl. Ino slowly returned the smile. That would surely take the stress of looking for another qualified person to take her place while gone. Plus it made perfect sense, she wondered why she hadn't asked her best friend's Mom before. Yoshino worked at the flower shop plenty of times before. Ino remembered being very young and playing with Shikamaru as Yoshino helped her Dad around the shop. She was told that the older woman and her father had been close before her meeting Shikamaru's Dad.

"Really? Are you sure? I know you have other things going on..." Yoshino waved off her concerns.

"It's no trouble for me to help, I have done it many times before plus it'll get me out of the house for a few hours." She gave her son and husband a wink with her impish smile. Ino felt a laugh bubble from her throat at the look.

"Thank you so much Yoshino."

"Should you really be doing this Ino?" Shikaku questioned, his arms were crossed over his chest with a stern look on his face. Ino forced herself to not flinch at the look and nodded her head with confidence.

"It's something I feel I need to do and nothing," Ino's stare harden from across the table, "nothing will stop me from what I believe is right…for me…" The look on her best friend's father's face turned grim before giving her a slow nod. He understood. Ino knew he had already figured out her plans probably even before she had formed them. The Hokage forbidding her from entering his mind was the only thing that stopped them from doing it. Shikaku then smiled gently raising his drink to her.

"Then we should make what we have left of tonight and enjoy ourselves." Yoshino scuffed, smacking her husband on the chest playfully. Shikamaru rolled his eyes but then never once left Ino's presence. She didn't have to feel the dread to know he probably had caught on to her plan too…

"Spacing out is considered a rookie mistake Ino, even you should know that." An eye roll was her response. She turned around to found Kakashi standing behind her with his ever present book in his hand. He briefly looked up from it as if to say 'hello' before drifting quickly back to his book. Ino shook her head and started walking away knowing he would fall in step with her.

"So where have you been hiding recently? Sakura says she can't find hind or tail of you lately." Kakashi shrugged his shoulders as he flipped a page over.

"She wants me to take my yearly exam…I just don't feel like it…" Ino sighed and once more rolled her eyes. Men were such babies! Shove a kunai in their shoulder and they barely flinch; show them a large syringe to take a sample of their blood and they almost faint.

"You know it's only a matter of time before she catches you. What's to stop me from turning you in?" Ino asked playfully, knowing there was probably no way in hell she would be able to catch him, much less turn him in for his yearly. Kakashi looked up from his book giving her what she assumed was an 'as if' look.

"First of all, fat chance." Ino laughed lightly at his deadpan voice. "Second of all, I'll be gone from Konoha for the next few days." Ino felt her interest peek out.

"Oh? And where will you be heading?" She knew he couldn't actually tell her but it didn't exactly hurt to ask. Kakashi abruptly closed his book as he stopped walking. Ino turned around halfway raising an eyebrow in question.

"I'll be heading to Suna…as your escort." That threw her for a loop.

"What? I thought Lady Tsunade was going to send me with Naruto? He's been whining about wanting to visit for a while now…" The older man shrugged his shoulders.

"I believe a mission in the near future needs his…special attention…" Ino blinked once more. Special attention? That only meant one thing.

Sasuke Uchiha.

"Oh…okay then. Well I guess I'll see you at the front gate two days from now…" Kakashi brought his hand up in a simple 'goodbye' before disappearing from sight. Ino started off again.

She hadn't heard that name or even thought about that person for a long time now. After being declared a missing nin she kind of forgot about him. Sakura's face popped up in her mind. Not entirely forgotten though. Sakura was still head over heels for the young Uchiha even with his new status. It hurt Ino to know she couldn't exactly help her best friend out; only time could heal her wounds and no amount of medical ninjutsu could change that. Naruto, on the other hand, he wasn't going to give up on Sasuke anytime soon. It wasn't a matter of convincing him as more of just catching the bastard before some other village collected his head.

Not that Ino didn't have faith in Naruto, but it was only a matter of time.

Last she heard (which wasn't all that recent maybe a few months to a year old) Sasuke was traveling around the country with his team doing what it was that he found purpose in. After coming to Konoha and killing Danzo (not such a waste there) he left almost like he never existed. Not before trying to kill his team that is. During the Fourth Ninja World War Sasuke had at first been an enemy but seeming (Naruto) had changed his mind at the last second joining the good side at the last final moment and helping them take out Madara Uchiha and Obito Uchiha. Kabuto was still missing. At the end, Sasuke and Naruto ended up battling it out. Ino remembered watching the chaos that ensured. She still couldn't believe what she witnessed firsthand.

They both had their strengths and played to them, but were too evenly matched and Sasuke escaped. Once getting back home for celebrations they learned that while away Karin had escaped as well (most likely from the other two missing teammate's of Sasuke's).

Ino looked up into the sunlight shining brightly overhead. She brought her hand up to block most of the light from blinding her.

"Oh I wonder where Shikamaru could be hiding during this time of day?" Ino questioned out loud, not caring if she got random looks at her speaking to herself. She then took off from her stop easily sprinting up the side of a store before jumping across the roof tops. There wasn't a cloud in the sky so she knew he wouldn't be at one of his favorite cloud watching spots. So her first stop was his apartment.

She knocked maybe five times but there was no answer. Ino considered kicking the door down but that would be useless if he wasn't really home and she couldn't hear any movement going on in the small apartment so she guessed her lazy teammate wasn't within. Turning on heel, she then set off again. She ended up visiting Asuma-sensei's grave hoping to catch her best friend only to find the spot empty. Ino gingerly fixed up the flowers lying upon the grave before running through her mind other places he could be at.

Chouji's favorite eatery was one opinion, but so was her other teammate's apartment. There was also the Nara family home to consider and tons of more places. Ino felt her head start to slightly throb.

"Guess I'll go the easy way," Ino mumbled as she pressed her hands together before slowly leaking her chakra outward allowing her to sense all nearby chakra signatures. She wasn't the best at this by no means, but that didn't mean she wasn't pretty damn good at it. Ino wasn't exactly a sensor ninja but knowing the mind and with the amount of precision for her jutsus allowed her to be able to somewhat pass herself off as one and maybe become one in the near future, but for now she wasn't near that level.

She breathed slowly through her mouth allowing her other senses to reach out while her eyes closed. The lower chakras' she picked up on were civilians with a few higher levels being ninjas. But what she was looking for was a specific chakra. One belonging to a Shikamaru Nara. Ino could expand it outward for quite a ways. If she was standing in the center of Konoha she could expand her sensory abilities to maybe a mile or two right outside the wall surrounding the giant village. Clearing her mind slowly she opened herself up more to the air and atmosphere around her. She needed absolute focus otherwise she wouldn't be able to find him. Had she been a normal sensor ninja she wouldn't have to go through all this, but she wasn't so hard work and concentration was a must.

Searching for a specific chakra was quite tricky.

You had to know the person quite well to be able to recognize their chakra pattern. Everyone's chakra moved in different ways and was never the same much like DNA. Even the color could be different even though chakra for the average ninja was a light sky blue in general it could also change to lighter or darker depending on mood or strength and exhaustion. But the thing that most differed for ninja was the pattern, and so Ino was searching quickly through the surrounding chakras to find the certain pattern that belonged to her lazy teammate.

'Gotcha!' Ino thought happily dropping her stance and taking off towards Shikamaru's apartment. It seemed he had returned during her adventure of locating him. Go figure.

The blonde teen dropped down right next to his door just as it was shutting. She shot her hand out stopping the door completely and letting herself in. Shikamaru blinked at her before shrugging while setting a bag of food on the counter in his small kitchen.

"Why am I not surprised to see you," Shikamaru said blandly, starting to put away his recently bought food as Ino walked over to sit at his kitchen table.

"I just got done with Lady Tsunade's lesson," Ino started out folding her arms on the table, "it was murder by the way. I got a scroll from her to look over and I was hoping you could help me with it. In case I don't understand something." Shikamaru nodded as he placed a bag of rice in a cabinet above the stove.

"So you're really going through with it?" He questioned next. Ino blinked in confusion before realizing what he meant.

"Uh…yeah…" Ino looked away from his piercing eyes. She knew it was only a matter of time before he confronted her about her plans. This was Shikamaru.

"You know what I'm talking about," Shikamaru stated, a frown creasing his lips and forehead.

"Ya know frowning is only going to give you wrinkles early," Ino commented as she leaned back in her seat. Shikamaru whipped around from his fridge, letting the door slam shut. She jolted in her seat but otherwise didn't move. The shadow user glared heatedly at his best friend.

"Stop joking around, Ino! This is serious!" Ino flinched at the volume and tone of his voice. She instantly sat up straighter and glared with the same heat at him.

It wasn't like she didn't know what she was getting into. She knew it was serious and she knew it was dangerous too. This was something Ino needed to do. She needed to find the true killer and clear her father's name, and her family's name. As a second thought Ino realized she sort of understood Sasuke's way of thinking. Not that she thought herself an avenger or anything, but she understood his need and drive to bring justice to his family. She couldn't just walk away from this; she needed to find the bastard who killed her father much like she needed to breathe to stay alive. She knew Shikamaru understood this too; they've been here before not too long ago.

"I know it's serious! This is something I have to do, Shikamaru! You of all people should know that!" Apparently Shikamaru wasn't going to be lazy and take this lying down. He walked over to stand above Ino who quickly stood as well. She wasn't going to be intimidated!

"Yes, but not alone…" His voice came out low and dark. His eyebrows knitted downward and his whole expression was left in shadows. Ino tried to stay pissed off and angry at him, but she couldn't keep a grasp on those emotions.

How could she?

Shikamaru was only concerned about her. Everything he did and said was out of concern. Ino felt bad about leaving him out of the loop (that didn't stop him from figuring it out though). His father was already involved; Ino just didn't want to get anymore of the people she cared about involved in something that could potentially be dangerous. They had no idea who took her father's life and that ninja had to be strong and smart to get away with murder that looked like suicide and leave a witness who remembers nothing. That scared Ino to death, but she wasn't going to back down and she wasn't going to add anymore lives to her problem.

"I won't be alone. But even so I can do this on my own. I'm not a little kid Shikamaru," Ino scoffed at the end, crossing her arms with her head turned away. She couldn't look him in the eyes; she feared that she would start to tear up like the other day. A sigh reached her ears just as his arms encircled her in a hug.

"I just worry about you…a lot. You're one of my best friends; I can't afford to lose you…" Ino blinked away the tears watering in her eyes. She breathed in deeply and hugged him tightly. His embraces always were warm and strong, she always felt stronger and better after receiving one of them.

"Way to be mushy, Shika!" Ino exclaimed in a teary voice as she tried to keep her emotions in check. It wouldn't do to cry all over Shikamaru again. After a minute they pulled away from each other smiling lightly.

Shikamaru scratched his cheek before turning away from her to go back to his food. Ino smiled happily feeling a great weight come off her chest from finally talking a little bit about this with him. She was sure Chouji would be next in confronting her before she left. At least now she would be better prepared for it too.

"So about that help…"…

A/N: There you go! Chapter two done! Yays! This one I had practically written most of the beginning at work when it was slow. I had like five long sheets of register tape folded in my pants pocket with this story written in it. Lol! Anywho I hope you guys like it and let me know what you think?

I've never really liked Shikamaru with Ino romantically because it just doesn't seem right to me. Their friendship is so awesome! I love reading about their friendship and interactions with each other. Their so cute! I'm out….

ALCzysz17 ^_~