Title: Are You Ready?
Chapter: 24 – Self-Imposed
Author: Killaurey
Rating: T
Word Count: 5,294
Summary: AU. Sakura gives up on Kakashi as a teacher after Team 7 falls apart. Too bad fate, enemy ninja, and sheer bad luck have other plans.
Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me. It's Kishimoto's and I just play with it. Part 24 of ? Unbeta'd.

Her unseeing, headlong flight through the estate ends abruptly as she trips up the stairs to the gazebo where she and Ino had hid their things the night before and Sakura collapses against the cool stone of the ancient bench.

She scrubs at her face, though tears still slip down it.

How can Hatake-sensei just—I could have—I didn't mean to-

Even in her thoughts, she can barely look at what he'd said. She takes everything, everything back because she'd rather he scold her for her weaknesses a million times over than to let her know that, had he not been so very in control, that she… she could have killed Ino.

Sakura tucks her knees up close to her chest and buries her face in her knees.

How am I supposed to face either of them ever again? Will he tell Ino? Will he make me tell Ino? What if Ino hates me? It's not even like it would have been an accident—it would have been something even worse, because I wouldn't have meant it but I wouldn't have been paying any attention either. It would have been a dreadful, awful mistake.

And on the heels of that comes:

And Hatake-sensei still wants to train me tomorrow. He doesn't think that this is the end of the world. But how? It so easily could have been!

She shivers, cold more from emotional stress than the weather, and tries to think.

No, that… that's what he said, isn't it? That's what he meant, right? That what could have happened doesn't matter now because… it's in the past… even if that past is the very, very near past. So the only thing to do is…

Even in her thoughts, she falters there.

Is to accept that I could have killed Ino, that I didn't, and figure out how to never, ever do that again.

She wishes desperately that someone could do what they did to Hatake-sensei, abduct her and switch her with another her, and then she wouldn't have to face this at all. Abduction, unfortunately, doesn't happen on command.

But would that other Sakura know that this could happen? Would that other Sakura work to figure out how to make it not happen? That other Sakura doesn't exist…

It's just her and she's the one that's got to figure out how to fix what feels like everything.

The only… the good thing about this is that this is just my mistake, no one else's, and no one actually got hurt, except for me, at thinking of what could have happened.

And Hatake-sensei wants her to think of her own punishment. Sakura puzzles over the whys of that decision for awhile.

I think… I think… it's because nothing actually happened. If Ino had really gotten… well, that would… there would have been no just talking with Hatake-sensei, I don't think. Not even a little. But because this was a could-have-been, he's leaving it up to me. Maybe this is also a test? Does he want to see how seriously I took everything we talked about?

Sakura thinks about that for awhile, resting her chin on her knees, gazing at what's around her but not really seeing it.

So… if I don't know how I should be punished for—being careless, as nothing actually happened—maybe it's not really about punishing me at all so much as making me think about way to prevent what could have happened from ever actually happening.

She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

That's something Hatake-sensei would do, for sure, she decides, turning the idea over and over in her mind. It sounds right. Some of what he said about my meltdown and how I'm going to feel now and in the future wasn't very nice but he… I think Hatake-sensei was speaking from experience. And even though I messed up in how I broke down, by going for a weapon, he wasn't cruel to me. He didn't make me feel like my feelings didn't matter. He'd…

Validated them. Helped her see that the edges of all those awful feelings wouldn't always be quite so sharp.

He helped me. He helped me and listened to me like I was… not a peer of his, but not a child either. Like I was old enough to be talked to for real and actually understand what he was saying.

Even if some of it hurt. It was probably going to keep hurting but Hatake-sensei had also said that that was alright, that some pains lingered as people figured out how to grow around and over them.

Actually, he never really treats us like we can't understand where he's coming from. Kakashi-sensei did sometimes and… I think, looking back, he was right to do so. We were so young back then, though we didn't think we were.

It's only been a year since then and it seems like so long ago.

I don't feel grown-up anymore. I used to, when I put on my hitae-ite, and head out to training and missions. I don't feel like that these days, but I'm not the child I really was back then any longer either. Maybe that's the real secret to growing up? That you can't really do it until you stop feeling like you already are.

That also sounds right, though she nudges at the idea carefully, like it might come back to bite her.

So, if that's the case, then Hatake-sensei thinks I'm grown-up enough to understand what he really meant by punishment. It's not punishment, really, it's prevention. How can I make sure that my team isn't harmed by… me? And by anyone?

Chewing on her lower lip, she tries to decide what she can do. It's hard, in here, when it's just them and nothing else. There's no books, no one to ask for help figuring out an answer—

But maybe that's a good thing too, if she ever wants to stand on her own two feet, strong enough to protect the people she loves.

Hatake-sensei didn't say it was wrong of me to feel things. So… I think… I think, when I get out of here, I'm going to see if I can pick up a class on emotional control. I know those are held sometimes; I've seen the flyers for them. Feeling isn't bad, it's just… handling them. Maybe that will help me. Maybe I can find some books that will help with the same thing. So that's me, not set, but started."

As for looking after her teammates…

I don't actually know much about how to protect people, Sakura realizes. Ino's going to need that, if she uses her Clan jutsu in active battle. Shikamaru and Chouji had her covered on Team Ten, but I don't know how to do that. I should learn how to defend Ino when she can't move, when we can't leave a spot because she's doing something. That's both useful and something that she can't do for herself.

She doesn't think Ino will mind. Not when Ino is used to having back-up that knows what they're doing when she suddenly collapses on purpose.

I bet Tsunade-sama would teach me how to properly monitor her condition too, so that I'd know if something went wrong on the other end of Ino's connection with someone. I wonder if I would be able to break the jutsu if Ino couldn't for some reason?

That's something she'd have to ask Ino about and, for a moment, Sakura hesitates because she doesn't know if Ino will even be able to tell her that. It's probably a pretty big secret.

But I can always ask. Asking doesn't hurt anyone. And if the answer is no, she can't say, or no, there's not, then maybe she'd have some ideas for things I could try. A signal to tell her to retreat? One less obvious than shouting at the body she's taken over? Hatake-sensei would have some ideas too, I bet. I don't know if he's ever done bodyguarding work for longer than a mission but, well, anything is better than nothing right now.

Sakura allows the idea to sink into her mind. Anything is better than nothing.

So maybe when I've figured out how to control my emotions better and I've learned to be strong enough to protect Ino when she can't do it, then maybe I'll have figured out how to be strong enough to figure out my own path.

Tsunade-sama has been great about it, really great about it, but Sakura looks at the path she was on, the one before Hatake-sensei was in charge of her team and then looks down the path she's placing herself on now.

This is the start of it, it really is. I don't even know if it will work. I'm probably going to suck a lot, especially right at first. But… that's okay, isn't it? If that's what I really want to do?

She rubs at her face, grimacing at the way it feels, and pushes herself to her feet. She aches.

I have to get through dinner and then… then I'll talk to Hatake-sensei and see what he thinks about all of this. And when we get back to the village proper, I'm going to have to apologize to Tsunade-sama, and now I don't know if she'll actually help me with figuring out how to monitor something like Ino's status while she's using her bloodline. Because… because…

"I'm never going to become a medic-nin," she says firmly. "That's not going to be my way as a ninja."

Saying it aloud, for the very first time, feels like freedom.

Sakura laughs unsteadily, both giddy and terrified at her decision, but not taking it back.

Then, with an eye on the slowly setting sun, she breaks into a jog—she needs to get around the perimeter and back inside before it finishes going down.

I don't think I can do a shell that's completely separate from me, Ino muses, walking through the depths of where her mind and her chakra intertwined.

She is not actually walking, of course, but it's the simplest way for her conscious mind to understand what her unconscious mind knows.

In reality she doesn't exist here at all, except for how she does.

Clan secrets are part of why they don't share anything about their abilities with others, but this conundrum of perpetual existence and non-existence is another of the reasons her family doesn't even try to explain their bloodline to others.

It makes sense, but for it to make sense, you have to dance along the razor thin line between two very different states of being.

Digging gloveless through a bed of roses would be easier than explaining... this.

So, if I can't completely separate it from me, then I have to figure out how to hide the root that leads to me, and gives away that I'm not Hatake-sensei.

It's easy to say. Less easy to do.

But she's barely gotten started.

Hatake-sensei said he believes I can do this.

Ino cranes her neck back to look up into the depths of her center speculatively.

I wonder if I can apply the net jutsu to this. We're not drag searching, but instead if I used it as the anchor. It wouldn't leave me trapped either.

Ino has no intentions of ever being trapped, jailed, by her own mind, no matter how complex an undertaking she spins with it.

I'd have to hide the edges somehow, but maybe if I made the places where they meet the underneath... floaty... like water, almost. If the edges can't be defined because they're constantly moving...

She allows the idea to drift, there, only a possibility for the moment, as she turns her mind to the puzzle of how to create her seeming of Hatake-sensei.

A modified henge would give her the physical appearance.

I don't need that though. The ward doesn't have eyes.

But maybe if I started with a henge, filled it with my mental impressions of Hatake-sensei and then stripped the physical seeming away while expanding the mental until it's large enough to be an umbrella the real me can hide under...

It's as good an idea as any to start with. She can't begin to rule out what doesn't work until she's made a few mistakes and even the way she fails will help her.

That's the nice part about working inside my mind, she thinks, sitting cross-legged and fixing her gaze on a spot five feet in front of her. Failure can't hurt me here; it can only help. Even if what I try backfires, since I'm only testing, it's not for real.

Once she's found a working concept, turning that into something that reflects upon the real world enough that Hatake-sensei can sense the change and judge if the wards will accept it or not… that's where failure has the potential to hurt her.

So before it gets that far, we fail as many times as possible, in as many ways as possible, in order to make certain that the real thing is less likely to fail at the worst possible time.

"Bunshin no Jutsu!"

At her words a clone of herself appears where she's looking. They meet each other's eyes before her clone shrugs and races her fingers through, "Henge no Jutsu!"

Then, Ino is left looking at a picture-perfect version of Hatake-sensei. Inside of her head, she doesn't have to worry about chakra or have to change herself as well, the way she would on the outside. She probably hadn't had to do the jutsu hand seals either but—

Daddy always says it's been to practice those no matter where or what you're doing. Being sloppy inside your mind means you'll be sloppy outside of it.

Now, though, there's no hand seals to do here. She's not moving her mind into her clone and she's not taking control of it physically either—two things both very similar and yet not similar at all. Instead, carefully, she creates a connection between the two of their minds.

Her own thoughts are suddenly doubled, over-lapping, yet viewing the same situation from (literally) different angles.

So while I push-

-I pull.

How long it takes them, she doesn't know. Pouring not her own mind, but rather, everything she's known and observed and felt about Hatake-sensei into a clone of herself is hard. Even with that clone helping her.

Because, in essence, her clone is erasing herself.

Thrice the clone puffs out of existence because the flux of memories between them and the nascent 'Hatake-sensei' throws them badly out of balance. Each time, Ino grimly starts over.

Feeling her own clone re-writing her personality, embedding another into it, makes them dizzy and ill. Ino closes her eyes so that she doesn't have to see the her that looks like Hatake-sensei. Across the five-foot divide, she knows when her clone closes her eyes as well.

This seems to help, removing one feedback loop from the equation.

Ino presses on, losing track of the failures, and focusing on the successes instead because, with each one, she gets a little bit closer to what she's trying to do.

Time passes and she pays it no mind. In here, there is no time, no chakra, nothing but her, her other her, and a Hatake-sensei that is ever so slowly spilling over into her clone, re-printing and re-writing, so that the henge in front of her feels less like a henge and more like reality.

The final clicking into place, that locks 'clone Ino' out of existence and 'Hatake-sensei' into existence is fiddly and frustrating and twice Ino has to take a deep breath, pull back, and count to a thousand before she tries again.

Finally, though, she opens her eyes—

And Hatake-sensei is looking back at her.

Ino stands, forcing herself to do a few stretches, though the weariness is all mental as none of it can be physical. Through it all, Hatake-sensei watches her, and makes no move to, well, move. Or do anything.

But when she reaches out with her mind, he's the one she feels.

Ino walks around him thoughtfully. It feels weird having something like a second personality in here. It kind of reminds her of what had happened with Sakura, during the Chuunin Exams.

But this time I'm in control of the secondary personality instead of being surprised by it.

She rubs her wrist absently as she thinks.

I definitely don't want to make this as permanent as Sakura's secondary layer seems to be. Daddy says hers comes from not being comfortable in her skin and should fade as she becomes more confident in herself.

Ino had asked her dad after about it after the Chuunin Exams. He'd been of the opinion that the most unusual part of Sakura's secondary layer was how strong it was, even after the Academy. It was pretty common for little kids to have them, fleeting and intransient, as they worked out how to behave and what was acceptable to say and what wasn't.

But I already knew that Sakura had no confidence in herself. Of course she'd hide a lot of her inside her head when she was so scared of people seeing the real her.

Setting aside the mystery of Sakura's brain, Ino studies Hatake-sensei. He studies her back, looking down from his greater height, his one visible eye unreadable.

"Hey," she says, having an idea. "Do Kage Bunshin no Jutsu."

Sakura had said that Kakashi-sensei had been able to do it. Hatake-sensei ought to be able to do it too.

He can.

His hands flash through seals too quickly for her to read and then—there's a number of Hatake-senseis around her.

Ino grins. "Okay," she says, "original Hatake-sensei, please step back. Clone number one, step forward."

The clones shuffle around, determining which is number one without her input, as the original Hatake-sensei takes up a spot behind her. It's feeling a bit crowded in her head, but Ino ignores that. She needs these clones or else she'd have to start from the very beginning every time.

Because now comes the hard part, she thinks, even though the first half of this had been plenty hard enough. Now I have to unravel the physical part of this clone without unravelling the mental part of it.

Her first attempt goes wrong almost immediately, which she'd expected. Dispelling the henge and the bunshin was too rough for the mental seeming to maintain shape.

So we do this the long, slow way.

Ino takes a seat in front of clone two's feet and stares at them intently, reaching out and seeking the slimmest, slightest tendril of the henge jutsu and ever so gently tugging on it. It comes loose in her hand and she keeps pulling.

She makes it halfway up one of his toes before the clone disintegrates on her. Rolling her wrist to stretch it out, Ino frowns.

I'm going to have to adjust to the fluctuations of 'chakra' inside the clone and match my own to it or else the sequencing falls apart and my pulling is either too much pressure or not enough, which causes it to backlash into itself.

It takes her four more clones before she makes it past Hatake-sensei's ankle. Ino pauses there, breathing deep, and knowing she's going to have to pull out soon.

Because this is work. Mental work. But work.

But she can feel, like a sheer curtain, something filmy and diaphanous and that resonates like Hatake-sensei against her hands when she reaches out to where his foot had been. The seeming of him is still there.

This is working. Given enough time, I think it will work. I don't know what Hatake-sensei will think of it or if it will pass an inspection by the wards but I think I should eventually be able to get this spread out over top my mind.

For now, though, she sighs and drops the invisible thread she's been tugging. The clone dissipates.

"Aside from Original, all of you dispel," she orders. They do and immediately part of her headache disappears.

Ino eyes the original Hatake-sensei speculatively. "Lay down and go to sleep," she orders. "Maintain sleeping existence until I come back and talk to you."

He does so in eerie silence compliance.

I don't know how long he'll last like this, she muses. But seeing how long it takes him to break apart without my active presence manipulating reality here… that's also useful knowledge. We'll just have to see.

With that settled, Ino begins the process of waking up. In short order, she's opening her eyes into the real world, feeling stiff and achy.

Hatake-sensei, the real one, is by her side immediately. He helps her sit up a little better, then hands her a water flask.

She drains it, actually feeling the water run through her, re-hydrating her and making her feel a little less like she's been kicked around all afternoon. Blinking at the training ground, she notes the sun—it's almost sundown now and the growing twilight is painting everything orange and gold.

"How are you?" he asks, once she's capped the flask and has looked around.

"Sore and headachy," Ino admits, carefully getting to her feet. "Stiff too, but I'm alright. Where's Sakura?"

"She finished training earlier," Hatake-sensei says, and even as tired as she is, Ino doesn't miss the way that doesn't feel like the whole truth.

"Is she okay?" Ino asks.

"She will be," he says, which is an interesting answer. "How did it go?"

"I think I've got something that might work," Ino says, frowning a little as she works the kinks out of her body. She's pretty sure she spends half her life stretching right now. "But mental work is—challenging. I'll know more tomorrow about the viability of my idea."

"Alright," he says. "Are you well enough to walk the perimeter?"

Ino grins up at him. "My mind's tired, Hatake-sensei, not my body. I'll feel better after the walk."

He claps her on the shoulder. "Good, when you're done that, head back to the guest house. Sakura and I will be there."

Ino nods, waves, and after handing back the flask, she sets off on the walk. Rather than mulling over her progress, though, she finds herself wondering what happened to Sakura. She hadn't gotten much off of him, just that Sakura had done something and…

He's making her come up with her own punishment?

That was interesting but, after puzzling over it for a few minutes, Ino shrugs a little and turns her attention to memorizing what she can of the perimeter's layout.

If he's making her decide on her own punishment, I should probably stay out of it anyway. It's really none of my business. Hatake-sensei knows what he's doing. Forehead will be fine.

"Besides," she says aloud, with a laugh, just to hear herself, "I haven't figured out my own training yet. I shouldn't be helping anyone before I've got that solved!"

Nothing but birdsong, the hum of insects, and a breeze answers her, but that's alright. She knows that's the right answer.

Dinner is a quiet affair. He makes rice, which he'd only brought with them because they hadn't left the village. It's too bulky to bring on out-village missions. With that and dried fish, they have a fairly decent, if not exciting meal.

Ino is turned inward—she's still pondering the details of making her escape route work, though when he asks, she doesn't give him any details.

"After all," she says, "when it comes to this sort of thing you only need to know if it works, right?"

Kakashi agrees with her on that, though he doesn't like it. It itches at him, that he can't follow where his student is going. Not because he doesn't think she can do it on her own, because she does, but because he can't help her in this.

Sakura is quiet too. She's taken the time to clean up and now her arms sport neatly wrapped bandages, hiding her bruises from view. She is also turned inward, though she brightens visibly upon seeing Ino up and well. Kakashi gauges her preoccupation and decides that it's alright: it's a thinking sort of inwardness, not a brooding or upset one.

Ino does give the new bandages a look but, after a long, considering glance at both him and Sakura, she says nothing about them, merely teases Sakura about spending too much time in the cold showers. Sakura sticks her tongue out in response. He rolls his eyes.

It feels good. It makes him tentatively hopeful that he didn't screw everything up with how he handled Sakura.

Minato-sensei never had to work through something like this. At least, he doesn't remember anything like it. He, Rin, and Obito had always been pretty confident in themselves and their own abilities. Sometimes too confident. It had just been their teamwork that Minato-sensei had really struggled to make gel. Obito and I weren't much help, and Rin stuck in the middle… we thought we could conquer the world but, instead, the world conquered us.

Looked back through the lens of this team, Kakashi feels very nostalgic. A lot of terrible things happened, things that still ache and keep him up at night, but this—

Sitting here with Ino and Sakura reminds me of the times before everything fell apart for my team. Only now I better understand how Minato-sensei felt. His frustrations and his pride and his fear. I want to protect them. I want to see them grow. They're going to drive me absolutely mad one day and I've had more headaches since I started teaching than I ever had before.

But I like this. I didn't think I would.

Liking this had crept up on him, when he hadn't been looking.

"Hatake-sensei," Ino says, "is it okay if I use one of the rooms by myself once the dishes are done?"

Both he and Sakura look at her.

"For what?" Sakura asks.

"Nothing jutsu or chakra related," Ino says, with a side-long glance at him before she focuses back on Sakura. "I just wanted to see if I can diagram out a few ideas for what I'm doing with the shell. Since it's Clan related, I know Dad would prefer I do it in private."

Kakashi very carefully doesn't smile. He doesn't know if Ino has made up an excuse to leave him and Sakura alone or if she really does want to work on private Clan things. Either way, it works out well for him.

And for Sakura, who looks a little relieved at not having to figure out a way to talk to him by herself.

"That's fine," he says, after considering it. "Use the room you two cleaned for me and leave the door open. We'll stay away from the room unless we hear something."

Ino looks mutinous for a moment before she nods. "Yes, Hatake-sensei."

"We really can't look at drawings?" Sakura asks curiously.

"It's not really the drawings themselves you can't look at," Ino says, frowning a little. "It's more… more the concepts behind them? They're not really pictures the way a painting someone does of a pot of flowers is."

Sakura still looks confused, but Ino just shrugs a little helplessly.

"Sakura, the drawings are more like a blueprint or a clothing pattern," Kakashi says. "They're likely going to be at least half math and various symbols private to the Yamanaka Clan. Possibly some seals, though I don't know how the Yamanaka Clan handles that aspect of it."

Ino doesn't react to give that information away whether in the positive or negative. She might be lagging a bit in regular training, but her Clan training has been thorough and strenuous. A negation can tell as much as a positive.

"Oh," Sakura says, then makes a face. "You can keep your weird brain math, Ino-pig."

"Thanks, Forehead," Ino says brightly. "I will. Race you through the dishes?"

"I can dry as fast as you can wash!" Sakura says and it's on.

"I'm not judging this," Kakashi says, as they bicker cheerfully through the chore. He stays and listens, though, closing his eyes, briefly.

In short order, the kitchen is again spotless and Ino is flouncing out crowing about a victory because she got two cups on the counter waiting to be dried for approximately half a second before Sakura caught up.

Children, he thinks, but it's fond.

Kakashi shakes his head, straightening in his seat as Sakura fusses a little with the damp dishcloth she'd used to dry. Now, it's clear she's a bit nervous. He says nothing, just waits for her to speak to him.

"Hatake-sensei," she says into the silence, "I've decided how I want to be punished."

"Come take a seat, Sakura," he says. "And tell me what you've come to and how you came to this decision."

She sits carefully, fingers anxiously straightening the hem of her shirt as she does, but when she looks up, settled, her green eyes are resolute.

"I've been a terrible teammate," Sakura says. "I've always been the one to be protected. No matter how hard I tried, I was never good enough to really protect someone unless it was for long enough for stronger, better help to come."

Kakashi doesn't interrupt her to point out that—there's a strength in that, to be able to hold out. That's not what this is about.

"And what could have happened today…" Sakura shakes her head. "It didn't happen, and you said dwelling doesn't work, so I won't dwell. I want to make sure it doesn't have the chance to ever happen with any comrade of mine."

She pauses there, clearly searching for words.

"There's classes I can take to help me figure out better ways to handle my emotions," she says. "When we're back in Konoha, I want to take a few."

"I don't think that will be a problem," he says. "Though I'd like you to run the times past me before you sign up, just so I know what's going on when."

She nods easily, clearly having expected that. Now, though, she hesitates.

He waits it out patiently. Already he's proud of how well she's thought this through.

"I haven't been a very good teammate," she repeats, leaning forward, her hands gripping her knees so tightly that her knuckles are white. "I was too busy thinking about all the things I didn't, I couldn't, do and not enough about what my teammate needs me to be able to do. Hatake-sensei, when Ino uses her bloodline limit in battle, I don't know how to protect her. I need to learn how. And even if she's not using it in combat, what if she's focused on scouting or is hurt or otherwise can't defend herself? I need to know how to do that. Shikamaru and Chouji knew how, it was part of their teamwork as Clans allied together.

"So… so I want to officially withdraw from medical training, Hatake-sensei. I want to become someone who protects, not someone who heals. I want to be the first line of defense, not the last. I want to be Ino's guardian. I know, I know that I'm not very good right now, and I know that I'll probably suck a lot at first but… that's what I want to be.

"That's my punishment. Is… is it a good one?"