Chapter 10 - Luna Moth
Shikake decided to go home, after Inou passed out for the second time during training. "Seriously, dude, it is not worth keeping this up if we have to keep waking him up like this. Wasn't yesterday like this, too?"
Chouko, wringing out a cloth, glared at her teammate, and dabbed Inou's forehead again. "Inou-kun is trying very hard, Shikake-chan. Please be a little understanding."
"Yeah, but there's a difference between 'trying hard' and 'trying hard to kill yourself.' I'm freakin' out of here."
And Chouko sighed and waited for Inou to come to.
"I'm fine," he said, when she asked him if he was okay. His eyes were almost closed, like it hurt to even be awake. "I feel a lot better, honest. Let's get back to work."
He could barely stand, skinny shoulders shuddering, but his eyes were hard and determined.
So they had continued, because he wanted to.
But when his knees buckled and he ran to go throw up in the bushes, Chouko finally put her foot down, softly. "Inou-kun, sweetheart, are you okay?"
"M'fine, m'fine. M'totally fine." He spit on the ground, his eyes watering from some unidentifiable mix of emotion. "Just… need to rest for a bit…"
She rubbed his back for him, feeling his muscles tense, holding his hair and his necklace of three silver rings out of the way. When he was done, she offered him her handkerchief, but he refused to use it.
"Don't wanna get it dirty… M'fine, let's just keep going, I feel better now."
She wiped his face off for him anyways. "I think we should call it a day," she told him.
He paused, for a moment. Then, he asked, "What time is it."
"I don't know."
"What time is it."
Chouko sighed, took her hands off of him. "I'll go check."
It was 5:32 PM, according to the clock in the nearby park. They'd been training together for a little over seven hours, minus breaks, of course. Even for ninja standards, and even though Inou couldn't stand to work on Uchiha techniques and physical jutsu for more than an hour at a time and had to space them out with Yamanaka techniques (which he hated and hated and hated), it was absolutely ludicrous, especially given how hard Inou was working compared to Chouko or (especially) Shikake.
But Inou was operating under an entirely different set of rules.
(Counting his morning exercises, his rooftop scans, had been training for almost ten hours. But he told neither of the girls this. Or his father.)
(His father wouldn't believe him, anyways.)
"We can keep going. We can. Another hour, I can make it."
He was still sniffling, trying to wipe his ugly tears away. He didn't want to touch the vomit left on his shirt.
His knees and his hands were shaking, badly.
"I'm taking you home," Chouko said.
"No, no, I can't go home, not yet."
"Inou-kun…"
"Dad doesn't get home until seven. I can't be home before then."
"Then we'll rest up and leave after then. He won't know the difference."
"Yeah, he will... He knew, last time…"
Chouko picked him up like a father picks up a sleeping child with her big, soft arms, and began carrying him home. He was too weak to really resist.
As they were walking, she marveled at how very light he really was. The only thing that really made her aware of his presence in her arms was the fact that he was shaking so badly.
His mother gasped when Chouko knocked on the front door and asked to be let in, putting Inou down and supporting him with his arm over her shoulders. "My goodness, Inou! What happened to you?"
"M'fine, Mom, I swear…"
"He got sick during training, Ino-san." Chouko sounded apologetic. "I thought to bring him home."
"Well come inside, both of you," his mother said.
"Mom, I'm fine," Inou said. Chouko set him down on the foyer step, and despite his words, he started taking off his shoes, but he couldn't get a strong enough grip on them to get them off entirely.
"Oh, Inou, honestly. Here." His mother knelt down and took them off herself, like she had done when he was little. His face flushed. "Look at you, you're a mess… What in the world happened?"
"Nothing."
"He threw up, Ino-san."
"Chouko-chan!"
"I'm not going to lie to your mom, Inou-kun." Chouko held her elbows, biting her lip, and looked at his mother. "He fainted during training today and yesterday, too. From exhaustion, not-"
"Shut up, Chouko-chan…" Inou's shoulders rose. "It was only for a few minutes, anyways…"
His mother set his shoes aside and sighed. "Inou, I told you not to exert yourself so much, it's not good for you."
"Well, then, what else am I supposed to do?" He stared at his bare feet, not wanting to get up. "Gotta try my hardest."
His mother sighed. "Let's just get some food in you, it'll make you feel better. Thank you, Chouko-chan. Say hi to your father for me."
"Will do, Ino-san," Chouko said. "Feel better, Inou-kun."
"Thanks."
She left. Inou still didn't feel like standing up.
After a while, his mother sat down beside him, hands folded neatly in her lap as she looked at him. His hair fell over his right eye, just like hers did. "Your father's not going to be home for another hour, Inou, at least. I'm not going to make you wait for him."
"I might as well," he mumbled. "Show how sorry I am for skipping out on training. Since this means so little to me, obviously..."
"Inou, that's not true. You can't help that you got sick."
"Yeah, but he'll still find some way to blame me."
"Inou."
"What? It's true. If I had more stamina I wouldn't have fainted. And if I'd trained harder I'd have more stamina."
She sighed. "Inou, please."
"And Takeru wouldn't throw up like a weakling after training all day." He looked like he was either going to cry or scream. Or both.
(He refused to admit to himself that, maybe, his weakness here was due to the fact that he had tried to work on Uchiha techniques for more than two hours.)
(What a disappointment he was. He was supposed to be able to handle this.)
(Yamanaka techniques didn't do this to him. He could scan minds for hours without feeling tired at all.)
(What was wrong with him.)
His mother sat there, staring at her hands. She was quiet for a long time. Then, she said, "Takeru isn't perfect, Inou. And it's not your fault. You probably just ate something that didn't agree with you."
Inou didn't answer.
She put her hand on his back. "Come on, let's go inside. I'll make you something to eat, and then you can take a nice bath. That'll have you feeling a lot better."
"I guess," Inou said. He finally got up, though his knees still felt like water. His head hurt.
"I'll tell your father that you're coming down with something, and that you were such a trooper for lasting so long," she continued, walking down the hallway with him to the kitchen. "You've just been working yourself to the bone. You need some time to rest."
He couldn't bring himself to smile, but still, he said, "Thanks, Mom."
Nadeshiko was actually home, sitting at the kitchen table; though she was silent, her presence was heavy, like an omen or a stain. She looked up from her book as they entered.
"Take your shirt off, so I can wash it," his mother said, so Inou did, and she left to go put it in the laundry room. He lingered awkwardly in the doorway, arms folded over his chest, feeling the cold rings around his neck against his skin.
He tried not to look at Nadeshiko.
She asked him a question. "You feeling okay, little brother?"
Inou didn't respond.
He didn't hate his sister, but he still felt unwilling to talk to her, sometimes. A sort of revulsion by association.
Nadeshiko blinked her large, feather-lashed eyes once, twice, before going back to her reading. Inou caught a glimpse of it as he pretended to look out the window behind her. Black and white and grey print. A graphic novel, one he didn't recognize.
Nadeshiko loved to read. There were, in fact, three bookcases in her room, each nearly filled to capacity. The first, closest to her desk, held her books on botany, gardening, flower-arrangement. It wasn't terribly filled, so it was also where she displayed her handiwork, beautiful arrangements of ikebana, in the space of books. The second held her novels, her encyclopedias. And the third was devoted almost entirely to manga, art books, light novels. Everything was arranged alphabetically, and very, very neatly. Everything had a place.
Most girls her age preferred reading things like romances; the typical boy-meets-girl-meets-boy-meets-whoever plots, with gauzy art and enormous, sparkling eyes on every page. Either that, or screwball comedies. Family dramas. Harem-like wish-fulfillment. A million variations on the themes.
Nadeshiko's library was inhabited by the stories of a warrior telemarketer, who only wished to live a simple life; a wandering baker, whose bread changed lives; a doctor with a patchwork face who treated any patient that came her way, be they man or monster. The only volumes she owned that were even remotely typical of a girl her age were from a series called No. It concerned the life of a young actress trying to make it in the world of traditional theater, despite being a woman. The art was beautiful and it was by far Inou's favorite. He had no idea which ones she liked most, though.
When he was younger, Inou liked to go into her room and read them himself, when she was out of the house, which was mercifully often. He'd sit on her bed, burying himself into her pillows, losing himself for a few hours at a time in those strange stories, surrounded by the smell of the flowers in the shelves and the marigolds in her window planter, until either she or his father came home, whichever happened first.
After Sasuke caught him there, the first (and the last) time, he started stealing them from her room, one volume at a time, and reading them where he could, hoping that she, that his father wouldn't notice.
If she did, Inou didn't know, and he told himself he didn't care.
Being like her was a sin.
He didn't even like reading all that much, anyways. Really. Especially not the girly books that Nadeshiko liked so much.
He had no idea why he still did these things.
But he did, and he just continued to disappoint, like he had been born to do it.
His mother returned with a new shirt for him to wear, black, long-sleeved, and he put it on. He didn't stop shivering. "What do you want to eat?" she asked him.
"I don't care."
"I'll make you some soup, then. "
It was quiet as she turned the gas on for the stove, and started heating up some broth in a pot. She looked over her shoulder. "For goodness sakes, Inou, sit down!"
He didn't want to sit at the table. Not with her there.
"I'll get out of the way if you don't need my help."
Nadeshiko had closed her book and gracefully gotten up, her eyes closed. Her hair was very long, and it brushed the table surface as she stood.
"Nadeshiko, you don't need to do that," his mother said.
"He'll be home soon. I don't want to make things worse."
Her words were painful, true, and inarguable. She went upstairs, leaving her book on the table.
Inou waited until he heard the door of her bedroom close before sitting down. He slumped over the table, resting his head on his arms.
"Oh, honey. You just take it easy, okay?" he heard his mother say.
He didn't respond. His mother began chopping some green onions.
His eyes drifted over to the book Nadeshiko had left on the table. It had a green cover, and he weakly slid it toward himself with his hand.
He almost had to laugh when he saw the title: "Hokage!" with an illustration of the Hokage Mountain on it in colored pencil. Having nothing else to do, he flipped it open and began to read.
It was obviously for children, the art style simple and eye-catching, with furigana beside even the simplest of kanji - seriously, like you needed to know how to pronounce "Hokage"? He managed to smile a little as he turned the page.
The history presented by the book was almost hilariously simplified. But, then again, it was for kids. Kids didn't want to hear about the politics and the ethics and the ambiguous morality of real history. They wanted to hear about how Senju Hashirama had battled it out with Uchiha Madara in what was now the Valley of the End. You know, Good Guys Versus Bad Guys. Clean-cut, black and white. And, above all else, really cool.
Inou turned the page. Simplistic structure, really, but it was entertaining, which he supposed was the point. There were seven sections, one for each Hokage, with their contributions to history - only the important stuff, though, the cool stuff. The memorable stuff. The First Hokage founded the village; the Second organized it; the Third took up the mantle not once, but twice, to preserve it; the Fourth sacrificed himself for it; the Fifth protected it; the Sixth rebuilt it; the Seventh made it flourish. You learned those things early as a kid, when you were in school. They quizzed you on those sorts of things.
(And Inou always got perfect scores on his quizzes. He remembered everything he read.)
(But all his father would ever tell him was "You should have higher grades in the physical arts. Go out and train.")
He turned the page, ignoring the mild ache that budded in his temple with his thoughts. There were more things to laugh about. The Day of Pain, for example, the most devastating act of terrorism against any one city in the world? The damage was depicted in a series of cartoon houses with bandages drawn on them, and the most cheerful exclamation that "Thanks to the work of the Fifth, and the future Sixth and Seventh Hokages, very few people got hurt, and the village got to work rebuilding right away."
No mention at all of the death toll of that day. With such extensive damage, there had to have been hundreds of losses. Inou had seen photographs, in books, at the library, when he was trying to stay out of the house. (Those books, curiously, made no mention of a death toll, either.)
But this was a book for children. Inou started to wonder why Nadeshiko had even been reading this. Then again, he didn't know what kinds of things she liked, really.
He turned the page. He could smell the soup cooking. He was feeling a lot better.
The book made mention of all sorts of people who'd helped the Hokages along the way, through the years. Naturally, the Sannin were mentioned - students of the Third, comrades of the Fifth. Teachers to the Fourth and, later, Seventh. That seemed to be a recurring trend here, teachers.
(Ishi-sensei was nothing special. He was largely absent, those days, leaving Chouko in charge of things, but he still had enough presence to nominate them for the chuunin exams that year.)
Inou turned the page when he saw his father's name mentioned near the end of the book, in the chapter about the Seventh Hokage. He didn't want to see how they treated the Fourth War.
(The book all but skipped over the Uchiha Massacre, the stories his father had told him about the martyr that was his late uncle.)
"The Hokage is a very important title, given only to the strongest ninja of Konoha," the book declared, with an illustration of all seven Hokages in a row, smiling, wearing the same clothes. "But any ninja can become Hokage! Maybe even you!"
Somehow, Inou doubted this.
He heard the front door slide open. He held his breath. "Mom, m'sorry I'm so late! I had to help with - you started dinner already?"
He exhaled. It was just Karai. She took off her shoes with lightning speed. "I'm just making some soup for Inou, I won't be starting dinner for a while, yet," his mother called to her, down the hallway.
"Inou's home? When did he get home? Dad's not home, too, is he?" Her breath quickened, and she zoomed down the hallway in a whirlwind of worry, gasping when she reached the doorframe.
"No, Karai, your father isn't home," their mother said, patiently, stirring the soup. "Calm down, everything's okay. Inou's home early because he got sick during training."
Inou shoved the Hokage book aside and put his head on his arms again. "I'm fine, Karai," he told his sister.
The clock on the kitchen wall said 6:27. He'd spent almost twenty minutes on the stupid book. Lost track of time. It had only been a kid's book.
He didn't even like reading all that much.
His headache started to come back.
"You're sick? Oh, no, are you feeling okay…?" Karai wandered over to him and put her hand on his forehead. He squirmed away.
"Hey, get off, will you? I said I'm fine," Inou said, and rearranged his arms so that he didn't have to look at her.
"Inou, be nice to your sister, she's just a little worried about you. And why don't you start chopping up some vegetables for me, Karai?" their mother said. "It'll make things go by faster." She turned the stove off, and poured the soup into a bowl for Inou, and placed it in front of him. "There, this should make you feel a lot better."
Inou stared at the bowl for a while, before reluctantly eating. He didn't feel hungry. It smelled good, and it was warm and that was nice, but he just didn't… feel like eating.
He ate anyways. Karai talked to their mother about what they were making for dinner. And then she talked to him.
Are you sure you're okay, bro?
Karai loved talking to him without talking. He almost regretted teaching her how to do it, years before, when he was eight and she was five. He had only done it because he had no one else to practice with. Their mother was always busy, Hajime was always busy, Nadeshiko was… what she was.
And his father and Takeru were both out of the question.
Karai was the only real option.
Butt out, I'm fine.
Is that your book? Dad's coming home soon, you should probably hide it.
I know that, stop bothering me. It's not my book, anyways.
Okay. I'm sorry, Inou.
He sipped spitefully at his soup, not really tasting it. It wasn't really helping.
Do you want me to take it for you? Dad will probably believe me if I say it's mine.
"Shut up," he said, quietly.
Their mother looked over her shoulder. Karai paused for a moment, and then resumed her work.
He felt like he was going to be sick.
He slammed his spoon down, loudly. "I'm gonna go take a bath," he said, and got out of the kitchen before either of them could respond.
His stomach calmed down by the time he made it to the bathroom, and he got undressed, and spent a very long time washing his hair. He hated the smell of the shampoo that his father and brothers used, but he used it anyways, because he always seemed to get a lecture when he tried anything remotely flowery, even though he preferred it. The smell made him woozy. Everything was starting to ache.
"You spend so much time on your hair already, it's embarrassing."
His father wasn't even home, but he could still hear that criticism in his head. He stepped into the bath, trying to ease the hurt.
His father came home with Takeru, while Inou was in the bath. As usual. Inou closed his eyes and imagined that he was dissolving into the water.
The conversation was muffled through the steam and the distance from the bathroom and the kitchen, but he caught bits and pieces.
His father asked about him. His mother covered for him, and so did Karai.
His father didn't believe it, and his mother asked, what, did she have to show him his shirt? He was honestly sick.
Inou dipped his head below the water, not wanting to hear any more.
He had to surface, had to breathe, after a while.
They were still talking about him. His father was shouting.
He kept his ears below the water for what felt like an eternity, not bothering to try and listen for any more.
He slid down, further and further, into the bath, until only his nose, his eyes, his knees were the only things kept dry, and cold.
His whole body relaxed. The hurt started to go away.
And, suddenly, he was dreaming.
The Forest of Death. That was where he'd fallen, two years before.
The day had been hot and humid and his shirt was clinging to his chest and his hair was a mess and he was thirsty and tired and he just wanted to go home but he couldn't.
He'd told Shikake and Chouko that he'd go on ahead and scout for another scroll for them, Shikake called him a moron and he said that he wasn't, he'd go and get it and then they'd be all done, they'd be fine, so he went ahead to go scout for another scroll, he'd be back before they knew it.
They could depend on him, and he was gone before they could miss him.
It had been nearly a day and a night and he was starting to really get scared. He wanted to find somewhere to hide, to maybe possess the mind of a bird and look for Shikake and Chouko, wherever they were, but he was scared that maybe someone would find his body and do something to it while he was out of it, and that scared him the most. He needed a spotter; that, or the world's greatest hiding place.
…yeah, right.
He hated this. He hated that he needed to depend on others. He could do this by himself. He had to do this by himself.
…no, he couldn't. He was twelve years old and he had no idea what the heck he was doing, the only thing he could really fall back on were either his mind or Shikake and Chouko and he couldn't find them and there was the snap of a branch and he grabbed a kunai and he held his breath and he found somewhere to hide.
There was a team passing through. Three genin, older than him, from… Cloud, by the looks of it. A girl with hair like spun sugar and a boy with greasy black hair and a much older boy, gangly, eyebrowless. Did they have a scroll? They had a scroll, they had to have at least one, they were still all together.
He listened. They were talking about… having both scrolls, they were making their way to the tower.
They had both scrolls.
This was his chance, this was it, this was his chance.
Inou followed them, he followed them for a long time, from the trees. Very quietly, waiting for the right time.
They stopped to take a break. He observed very carefully, which one had the Heaven scroll - that one.
Arms out, chakra focused and suddenly he was looking through a new pair of eyes and he excused himself and said he had to use the bathroom and he took the scroll and he was gonna bring it back to his body and he'd bring it back to Shikake and Chouko and there was something by his body and he froze.
It was a strange thing. Crouched and tiny, child-sized, with enormous, enormous black eyes. It was poking at Inou's body experimentally worriedly and Inou froze and what was that, what was that.
There had been rumors, stories, of things that lived in the woods, a woman, the Woman, and they had told everyone not to believe in them, they were just stories, there had been investigations into these things, but what was that thing, maybe it was just another ninja from another country, but he couldn't see a forehead protector, and Inou climbed up the tree but he couldn't shout at it because then the Cloud nin would hear and then it would be ruined, he'd be doomed, for sure.
He reached his body and the child-thing was already climbing further up the tree, away from him, with incredible speed, unnatural. The thing could climb, oh, wow, no, it could run. Inou's hands were shaking. He could feel it watching him with those enormous, enormous eyes but it was leaving him alone so he ignored it, it was nothing, and he put the Heaven - oh no.
No, no, no.
He'd grabbed the Earth scroll, no, no, how could he, he was so stupid, this was, no, and there were those eyes still watching him, watching him, and he just had to go down and just act like nothing had happened and then release control and act like nothing had happened and just get out of there and try and find Shikake and Chouko and pray that they'd found a scroll of their own, he'd find a way to find them. He left the Earth scroll with his body, just in case, just in case, y'know, he needed it.
He was such an idiot. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he got back to where the Cloud nin were gathered and said he'd done his business and then he released control and he heard, from away in the trees, his buddy, the eyebrowless, asking whoa hey you okay man?
The big eyes were looking back at him again and Inou almost yelped what was that thing?
Would have yelped had he not fallen out of the tree and onto his back and there were spots in front of his eyes and he couldn't breathe he couldn't breathe they had heard him fall for certain oh no he was doomed he was just so doomed he was dead he was dead no, no, no.
"You stay in there any longer, you're just going to make yourself more sick."
That was his father's voice, wasn't it.
Inou opened his eyes.
And there was his father, standing above him. He didn't look worried or concerned or particularly anything, he was just staring.
How long had he been asleep? Inou's fingers felt wrinkled.
"Fall asleep in the bath, did you?" his father asked.
Inou sat up, drawing his knees to his chest. He never took his necklace off, and he felt the rings against his legs.
He'd received them as a genin, and his father, of course, had had a huge argument with his mother about the matter.
Inou was their Yamanaka heir, because there had to be one and for some reason it just couldn't be Takeru. But Sasuke refused to let him get his ears pierced.
"Do you want him to look like a girl, Ino?" he had said.
Wearing them around his neck was a compromise. Though Inou personally wouldn't have minded if they had pierced his ears. He thought that, maybe, it'd look nice.
Maybe if he became a chuunin he'd finally have it done.
…no, when he became a chuunin. He (or his mother) would be able to persuade his father about it. It was stupid, but he wanted to have a say in something, have a sign that he'd actually done something worth noting.
Chouko had already had it done, anyways, when she became a chuunin.
(When she had first become a genin, she had, in solidarity, decided to wear a set of rings on her hand, while having the traditional rings in her ears at the same time, so Inou wouldn't feel so out of place. It was the first sign, to him, that they'd actually be good friends.)
(Shikake hadn't even bothered.)
"I'm getting out soon," Inou said.
His father stared at him for a moment more, and then left the bathroom. "I don't want to see this happen again."
He shut the door behind him.
Inou dipped his head under the water again and stayed there until he felt like he was going to pass out.
His family had eaten dinner in the meantime, but he wasn't hungry. He went to his room instead and put on his pajamas, and opened a book on chakra-concentration techniques that he'd gotten from the library, and began to read.
He didn't even like reading but it was too late and he was too exhausted to train, but too humiliated to sleep, but he had to do something useful.
He didn't even like reading.
When he woke up a few hours later, there were wet marks on the pages that had not been there when he'd started reading, and a blanket on his back. The light was still on, to maintain an illusion of busy-ness.
He did not sleep well that night, after that.
As it happened, he was not alone.
In her bedroom across the hallway, Karai kept herself awake by reading scrolls on shuriken techniques, waiting for Inou's light to turn off.
In his kitchen, Kakashi nursed a fresh nightmare and poured himself another cup of tea, trying not to think of the Land of Waves.
In a hotel room paid for with threatening words and glances, Yuki sat awake at the foot of his bed in the room he shared with his brother, and he prayed for Kiine's safety.
In a city street, Benio called for Yukio, again. Her hair was wet from perspiration and worry. Haruhi had long ago gone home, saying he'd make dinner and wait for her to return. That was three hours ago.
In his office, Naruto sat and waited and tried very hard not to worry about Yukio - but how could he not? Even Benio and her boyfriend and Yamato couldn't find him, and they were all jounin. It was like he had disappeared off of the face of the earth. And Kiine was still missing, and the men from the Taki syndicate had come back in the evening about that, after Yamato came back to report that nothing had been found and he had to go home. Naruto had just smiled and borne it and said that they were doing as much as they could, just waiting for them to leave. He told Andou to go home after a while, but Naruto stayed. Benio was still out there, so there was hope. There was still hope. They'd find Yukio. And Kiine, too.
In an alley behind a restaurant, Yukio gasped for breath, staying as concealed as possible, making use of those last three weeks of training, compounded with years learning about stealth and hiding and making oneself unseen, waiting for an opportunity to escape. Eyes on the gate.
She had to run.