Title: Are You Ready?
Chapter: 26 – Damsel
Author: Killaurey
Rating: T
Word Count: 4,924
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 26 of ? Unbeta'd.
Ino doesn't bother actually going to find Hatake-sensei when she leaves Sakura behind. It would be, she deems, a total waste of effort. He'll find her and, unless she misses her guess entirely, he was planning on doing so in any case.
Instead, she slips through the guest house to a secluded open-air balcony on the second floor on the opposite side of the house. It's one of the farthest places away from their room, and not so incidentally, Sakura, but that's not actually why Ino heads here.
I was right, she thinks triumphantly. It's a firepit.
Like everything else around here, it's old and dirty, so Ino takes her time in carefully inspecting it to make sure that it's still safe to use before she starts a fire in it. In the early evening, it's not cold (it rarely is in Konoha) but the fire throws off a welcome warmth anyway as she carefully builds it up. It illuminates the balcony enough that Ino decides against seeing if she can light any of the lamps—which are just as old and dirty and likely to be out of oil in any case.
Once that's done, Ino begins the painstaking work of ripping her drawings up into small, irregular squares and dropping them into the fire. No two squares are torn from the same edge at a time and she makes sure each one is fully burned and gone before dropping another in.
Paranoid, maybe, but it's better to be safe than sorry.
And by doing it on the balcony, she hasn't directly disobeyed any of Hatake-sensei's orders. She hasn't left the guest house, even though this is definitely bending the order, since he'd meant-don't go outside.
She's maybe a quarter of the way through her pile of papers when Hatake-sensei appears across the firepit. Illuminated by the flames, Hatake-sensei looks like a demon or a spirit—something otherworldly and dangerous.
I mean, I guess right now, he is both?
Dangerous is a given and… well, Ino's not sure if time travel makes someone otherworldly but she's willing to believe it.
Ino very carefully tears another three squares, letting them burn up into nothingness, before she says anything. Partly to see if he'd talk first—but no, he waits for her, which Ino appreciates.
"How much danger was I actually in this afternoon?" she asks.
He shifts, which sends the shadows dancing wildly about him. "Minimal," Hatake-sensei says. "Her focus was me and you were immobile and unlikely to draw her attention."
Ino nods thoughtfully, ripping off another square and watching it crisp and burn. "And if you hadn't been there?"
"Still minimal," he says evenly, after a moment. "Until I drew her focus, she was narrowed on the training dummies."
Two more squares burn before she decides what she wants to say to that. "Sakura is absolutely convinced that the worst-case scenario only didn't happen because you prevented it."
"Good," Hatake-sensei says. "It's something I want her to remember. Just because it didn't happen doesn't mean it couldn't happen and there won't always be someone around who can prevent the worst-case from occurring."
While he's right, with the last part, it's the part in the middle that Ino doesn't like but, then, she's never—
"Did she really lose control to the point where that was a real scenario?" Ino asks finally.
Hatake-sensei is quiet for a long time, then, as he thinks. Ino keeps burning paper, one small square at a time. She chooses not to listen in on his thoughts, wanting instead the explanation he'll give her when he's worked through them. Sometimes it's useful to see how someone gets to a conclusion—and sometimes it's better to wait.
Especially when a good half of anyone's thoughts are absolutely inconsequential to what they really believe and who they choose to be.
Everyone was tired sometimes, had thoughts they wouldn't ever share, things that were unfair blips of irrationality. Aberrations in how a person really was. Knowing how to sift through the chaff and find what was truly valuable was one of the hardest parts of her training.
He sighs.
She feels a twinge of sympathy for him but, since she's not sorry, she doesn't say she is.
"Ino," he says, and stops.
She looks up and meets his gaze.
"Control is a cornerstone of your existence," Hatake-sensei says finally. "You've been drilled in control since before you were aware of it, both emotional and mental, simply because of how your Clan is. If you weren't so carefully taught control—the results would be traumatic and disastrous for both yourself on a personal level and for your Clan as a whole in how it relates to the village. Have you ever reacted without any control whatsoever?"
Ino considers that question seriously as she finishes with her burning squares. "I've made other people believe I have," she says. "And I know how to act as if I'm out of control. But… no, I don't remember ever acting without control being present on some level. It doesn't mean I don't make bad choices or mistakes sometimes but—they're not unthinking choices or mistakes."
It sounds arrogant to say that but—
It's the truth and that's what he wants from her instead of a pretty, modest lie.
Hatake-sensei nods. "That's what I thought," he says. "You're smart enough to realize that your level of control over your thoughts and emotions isn't the norm for your age-group."
"I mean, I guess," Ino replies, frowning a little over the fire at him. "But it's not like it's that unusual either? Shikamaru's almost as controlled, when he's not being lazy, though he'd deny it."
"Ino," he says reprovingly, though she can tell he's amused.
Now it's her turn to sigh. "I guess," she concedes reluctantly. "But Sakura's usually pretty—"
Together? That's not the right word, since Sakura's mind is layered in a way that clearly means she's not all together. Sakura's also incredibly over-dramatic and emotional (which, hey, Ino can relate), but she's also—
"—Sakura thinks," Ino says, feeling like that's an inadequate descriptor of it. "She's always thinking. If anything, she's usually over-thinking things."
"She does," Hatake-sensei says agreeably. "And one of the reasons she does is because she's both more emotionally fragile and higher anxiety than you are. You know this."
Ino shrugs a little. "Well, yeah, I mean it's pretty obvious even without factoring in the way I can literally hear her thoughts-especially when she's overwrought. She practically shoves them down my throat."
But that's not really under question here.
"Are you saying that because she thinks so much there's going to be times when she stops thinking at all?"
Because Ino is... honestly not super keen to have someone like that be her protector.
Not that she wanted a protector in the first place. Ino kind of wants to just heft both Sakura and Hatake-sensei off the balcony for even coming up with this whole stupid plan. Had they even stopped for a moment to consider the position it would put her in if she went along with this?
"Right now, yes, that's what happens," Hatake-sensei says. "She thinks until her emotions get the best of her and then she just reacts. Sakura has a plan to work on that."
Ino frowns, sifting through all of the impassioned babbling Sakura had dropped on her.
"She mentioned taking a few classes to improve her control," Ino says, crossing her arms. "Which, good for her, Dad says they ought to be mandatory for all shinobi, not just those who want the training."
"But you don't like it," Hatake-sensei states.
"I hate it," Ino confesses, though 'hate' doesn't seem quite strong enough for her visceral reaction to it—loathing. She loathes it. "I don't need a... a guardian or a knight or protector and she's all wound up about not making the same mistake again that it feels like she's going too far in the other direction. I'm a ninja too and I can protect myself."
Hatake-sensei looks at her for a long moment. "Even while using your bloodline limit's abilities?"
That question almost feels like he's cheating but, no, it's a fair one to ask.
"It's harder for me to work with some aspects by myself," she admits, since she's not going to shy away from that either. "But I can work around it. I took over Sakura's body during the Chuunin exams when we were fighting one-on-one after immobilizing her. I don't need a dedicated guardian."
She narrows her eyes at his thoughts. He thinks of Shikamaru and of Chouji and of how they must have worked on Team Ten. He doesn't even know them, and he thinks about that, just from what he knows of their families.
He thinks she wasn't the hard hitter there and he's not wrong but-
Ino tosses her good intentions in not reading and responding to his thoughts out the window as she says: "In my old team, that was a different situation entirely. That was just good strategy that utilized all of our skills to their best effect. It wasn't about guarding me, it was about maximizing our efficiency and minimizing our risks as a team. This isn't about making the team stronger, it's about making her feel better at the cost of my autonomy and I won't let you!"
The incredible unfairness of all of this bursts out of her and she doesn't try to stop it. She knows her voice is rising, pitched with fury, and underneath that hurt, and she embraces that, uses that.
"I won't ever be someone's damsel in distress so that they can save me and feel better about themselves! I don't care who it is, I don't care how much I love them, if my Daddy told me I had to be a good little girl and let someone else do the rescuing I'd shout at him too!"
And she would. Her dad got a lot of privileges others didn't but even he didn't get that. Just like how it was fun to dream about handsome men sweeping her off her feet into a romance but, when she pictured how it would be after the initial sweeping, it was a team that worked together.
Not… not whatever garbage this is.
Hatake-sensei's attempt to interject is summarily ignored now that Ino has her temper riding her and she lets it. If he stops her now, will she ever get to finish? She refuses to take that risk.
"I'm not a princess! I'm not a damsel! I'm not going to sit back and let someone else decide anything about how I handle myself on the field! I will fight my own dragons and win! So what if my bloodline isn't the best at direct combat! Ingenuity is something every ninja ought to use! I'll figure it out! I'm not going to be a prop for Sakura to use to get stronger and how dare you let her think that was a good idea without seeing how I felt about it first.
"I lead my training! I decide my goals! You might be my teacher but that doesn't mean you own me or my progress! The village owns my loyalty, my family owns my love, but I am the only one that owns me!
"And one day I'll be leading my Clan in my way and I'll never be able to do that playing the damsel in distress!"
Ino glares. "I don't care if Sakura wants to go for a physical role! That's great! I'm happy for her! I love her and want her to succeed! I'll train with her, I'll support her, I'll work with her—but I won't stay behind for her! I won't stay behind for anyone."
She draws in a breath and nods sharply. That's what she's wanted to say and now that she has, she eyes the fire speculatively before she ruthlessly suppresses the unwise desire to kick it over. Second floor of a building and all. She wants to go storm off, heading outside, far away from all this, but she isn't allowed to leave the building.
Ino settles for stalking off the balcony, slamming the door behind her as she goes, leaving her teacher behind to deal with the fire. She is done with it anyway.
Hatake-sensei doesn't follow her.
Good, she thinks. I don't want to deal with him anyway.
Kakashi follows Ino's chakra signature until it comes to stop—inside the guest house. He decides that he's going to—just let that go. She's not in one of the areas that they've cleaned but she hasn't left and that's good enough for now.
If she had left, then I would have had to go after her.
But it's like she said—she's still thinking, even though she's absolutely furious, and she's still obeying his orders.
Bending them in places, certainly, both with this balcony and with where she's gone off to now, but nothing I have an actual problem with.
Kakashi crouches down, studying the fire carefully, and finds himself impressed with the care Ino had taken in making sure it was a functional firepit before she ignited it.
She's methodical and practical and her work did need to be burned. This is the only place that would count as 'inside' while also being outside and it's safer than using any of the fireplaces or one of the oil lamps.
He rubs a hand through his hair and gives into the urge to sigh.
I think I'll leave her alone for tonight. She's not like Sakura, who would take that as a rejection. When she's upset, Ino wants space. It's easy enough to give it to her and until she calms down, we can't address this. And as for how we're going to address this…
That's a whole different problem.
Thinking about it, he reaches out looking for Sakura's chakra—and breathes a sigh of relief. It's the calm, smoothness of sleep. She has not heard Ino's impassioned refusal to allow Sakura's plan to go ahead.
Okay, so tomorrow, I can begin walking Sakura through some basics that any will help her with any team configuration. She's so far behind when it comes to combat where she's the hard hitter that I have no lack of things I can show her that will do her good. None of that is impacted by Ino's difference in opinion. As for Ino…
Kakashi glumly reviews what Ino had said and what Sakura had said earlier and comes to the conclusion that he's been an idiot.
I should have predicted that Ino would have a problem with Sakura's wanting to be her guardian. It's not something I can just dismiss as an episode or a fit. It's not even just her pride, though that's always a factor with Ino, or the terminology used. I forgot that Ino is her Clan's heir and the bulk of her objection absolutely reeks of Clan politics. She's right that she literally cannot afford to be seen as the one being the weaker—the protected—party on this team. Especially not when her only teammate is a first generation kunoichi. Sakura… I don't think she even thought of that or knew to think of that.
I should have, though. I'm aware of the politics and how hard it is for girls to succeed as Clan leaders. They absolutely
must excel, either filing their flaws down until they're minimal or they must own their flaws in such a way that they turn them into strengths. That's how it was in my time. I can only imagine it's gotten harder since then, with the decline in the quality of training girls are receiving.
Kakashi doesn't pretend to even consider that the standards of ability for Clan leadership would have relaxed—if anything, they'd have only gotten tougher. Especially on the girls. Every Clan had their own standards, of course, but—
I've already seen that, when it comes to her Clan training, Ino is extremely well trained. She's incredibly talented. Her Clan will expect the same level of skill for the rest of her abilities. Anything else would be a weakness. I should have remembered that. It's one of the reasons Ino is so violently driven—she has to be, if she wants any chance at a level playing field with her male peers.
Kakashi stands, tilting his head up at the moonlit sky. It gives him no answers.
Sakura's right that Ino will sometimes need someone to cover for her. We're going to have to work on that. There's times when any and everyone needs someone at their back to protect them. But it's going to need to be an equal partnership, not Sakura being Ino's escort or bodyguard or—guardian. That does imply that Ino is the weaker of the two.
His memories of Minato-sensei and his team have nothing to offer him. Both he and Obito had been from Clans, albeit in entirely different situations, but nothing had been expected of them except that they succeed as well as they could.
He'd been the last member of his Clan, Obito hadn't ever seemed to care about the line of succession of his. Rin had gone into medicine and excelled there.
And that's an important, useful profession. It really is.
Now, though, he's got two girls who neither want to be trained in it. On one hand, he supports that, on the other… there's a reason women tended to go into healing. Not only was it something they had a natural leg up on, as most women had naturally finer control over their chakra, right from the word go, but…
They all start with half the training of the guys, with the kunoichi-only classes cutting into their physical training time while during the Academy. It's only natural that those who want to succeed play to their strengths. Which leads a lot of them into medicine and we always have a use for medics.
It's one of those quiet, unspoken cycles that Kakashi had never had to apply to himself.
Now, though, it's one that Ino has been pitting herself against since she was born. Sakura has just decided to deviate from the path she's 'expected' to take. She'd have made a fantastic medic-nin. She's chosen not to become one.
He's going to have to start to care a lot about this, Kakashi realizes. He's not going to be able to ignore any facet of it, not if he wants them both to succeed in their chosen areas.
And I do.
There's a lot of things he wants right now, here in this time, but—however it all falls out. He wants them to succeed.
So we scrap Sakura's guardian plan and come up with ways to make it an equal partnership, the way it should be. Now I just… have to decide how to do that in a way that will make both of them happy…
Asuma loves his apartment.
His apartment is soothing in a way that basically nothing else is these days, other than a cigarette. It's a mess, but it's his mess. He knows where everything is. Right now, even talking with Kurenai is a bit fraught, not because she judges him, but because he thinks that she might have reason to and that's... it's shameful. He doesn't care what the desk Chuunin say or the shinobi who've never talked to him. He does care what Kurenai thinks of him.
Maybe more than he wants to admit.
So... this time he's going to face the problem. He's not running away from it or her or anything which, while tempting, would only make things worse for everyone but himself and Asuma likes to think that he's grown up at least a little from the shinobi who left the village once upon a time and took years to come back. This, too, will pass.
But only if he actually deals with it. Given everything that's happened, he's already dealing with it too late. His team has spun out of orbit, broken and shattered, and now he's left to figure out the pieces of what's left and how to fix it.
Asuma resists the urge for a cigarette, setting the folder with Ino's words in it on his coffee table and heading for the kitchen instead to fry up some rice. It's a little chilly out, more metaphorically than literally, and fried rice has always been a comfort food to him.
He's putting off Ino's words but, this time, just for a little. Just to get sustenance in him because already he knows that after he reads it, he's not going to eat. Trouble has always put him off food and all the training in the world hasn't cured that.
Once he's eaten his rice (filling and warm and not all that comforting, given what he still has to read), Asuma makes a cup of hot chocolate on a whim. He doesn't even like it. It's too sweet.
But it had felt like—like what it was. A time filler.
He leaves his hot chocolate to cool and congeal in a mug on the counter and takes a seat on his couch. Then, before he can think better of it, he flips the folder open. No turning back now, he's entered the free fall because, if he stops now, he'll never get to know.
He doubts Tsunade-sama would give him another copy of this. She hadn't wanted to give him this one. Asuma closes his eyes and then opens them, frowning. So. He must work with what he's been given. Leaning back into his couch he takes stock of what he's looking at.
The transfer forms.
Ino's writing is very neat. Other than her father's signatures (both at the top and at the bottom) and Kakashi's signature (at the bottom, signifying that he, along with her father, have approved the transfer request), the entire thing is filled in with her precise, meticulous strokes.
She'd always been the one to take point on writing reports for Team Ten.
His eyes skip over the preliminary details—her name, rank, time spent as a Genin, the number of missions assigned and completed and what ranks those have been. Had she failed any missions, there is a section for that, too, demanding the circumstances of the failure, but Ino's the only one of his three that doesn't have to worry about that box these days.
Shizune, Tsunade-sama's apprentice, has signed off on Ino's health, giving her a clean bill both physically and mentally.
Her current team (names, ages, ranks, and ninja registration numbers) and their status. Chouji's noted as inactive – medical leave, while Shikamaru and him are both active. No surprises there.
The surprises start in the section about the team she'd applied to be transferred to. Team Seven, under Hatake Kakashi.
Ino has written their names (only Haruno Sakura's and Hatake Kakashi's as the currently active members of Team Seven), ranks, and ninja registration numbers too. While Sakura's noted as active, however, Kakashi's is blacked out.
What on earth?
As is, he realizes, the number and rank of missions that Kakashi has done. His age too, when he double-checks, thinking he's just missed it on auto-pilot. What the…
Troubled, Asuma pauses there, committing this information to memory. He doesn't know what it means but he won't be able to show anyone this, the document self-destructing once he puts it down. So he takes his time.
Both Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto are listed as nominally still being part of Team Seven, though their designations are both… odd. Inactive – compromised? Missing-nin status indeterminate for the last Uchiha, while Naruto's is Inactive – apprenticeship.
For a moment, he's tempted to wonder if Ino realizes she's on a team with Naruto, but—of course she knows. She wrote all this down. Though he does wonder where she found out about Uchiha Sasuke. By all rights he should have been declared a missing-nin by now.
But he hasn't been.
What that means is hard to say, though he's heard of the promise of a lifetime, through the rumour mill. Maybe Tsunade-sama actually believes Naruto can do it.
Asuma doesn't know how to feel about that and, for now, it's not important. Ino is.
And he ignores the small voice in the back of his head that suggests that maybe, just maybe, had he treated her like she'd been important before all of this—
Well.
If wishes were fishes, he thinks wryly. I did what I thought best at the time.
He keeps reading.
Her evaluations of their last three missions as a team are almost verbatim to her last three reports. He doesn't know if she remembered what she'd written for them or if she'd pulled the reports to copy the pertinent information down. He suspects the former.
Large portions, entire sections, are missing after that and he is both concerned and intrigued that they're, without fail, sections that would pertain to Team Seven.
It's obvious that something is up-and it's equally obvious that whomever had blacked out this application for his reading pleasure had done so with an incredible level of thoroughness. He suspects Shizune. Even he knows she's the one that organizes most of Tsunade-sama's work and he's tried not to know things like that.
His father is dead. That's what it all meant.
They hadn't had the easiest of relationships from the very start, back when Asuma had barely been able to toddle (this he knows more from stories than memory) but... complicated history or not... it's with mixed feelings he thinks about someone else wearing the Hokage's hat.
Minato hadn't bothered him the same way-partly due to the war, partly due to being out of the village a lot, and partly because his father had chosen to step down, not been killed.
He sighs, shakes his head, and turns his attention to the things that he can change rather than the past. Even the near past, he can't do anything about.
Except mourn, in his own way.
Besides, his old man wouldn't want him to turn his face away from the truth, no matter how shameful it is. He reads on.
Finally, he reaches the section he's been looking forward to the least.
Explain your reason for requesting a transfer.
Asuma pauses there, but not to stop-rather, he pauses to get a pen and a clean sheet of paper.
(He is also careful to not let go of the application at any point-it would be beyond terrible if he accidentally let it go now and it immolated itself.)
He spends a few moments jotting down the irregular details he has been permitted to see and what sections are missing. This information isn't immediately useful but... something stinks about that this situation.
And Ino isn't under his command any longer but-
Just in case.
Ino's writing, if anything, gets more precise for this, the most important section.
Explain your reason for requesting a transfer:
Because I was approached by a long-time comrade and offered better training that I was being given. This is no personality clashes or emotional drama driving this decision. It is undeniable that my teamwork and ability to excel within Team Ten, under Sarutobi Asuma, are well within expected parameters, if not having exceeded them.
But I want more than that. I want training that forces me to stand on my own two feet instead of always being one part of a team of three. I want to excel as myself, in addition to benefitting my team, and in the past year Sarutobi-san has consistently failed to balance the building of team synergy with increasing the strength and functionality of each individual member of the whole. Repeated attempts to encourage further physical training were summarily ignored.
A transfer to Team Seven, under Hatake Kakashi, will force me past my own, personal limits while also giving me the tools to become a better team player without having to rely on alliance and clan bonds. I believe that this will strengthen me as both a person and a shinobi in service to Konohagakure no Sato.
The attached Schedule A is a detailed overview of life on Team Ten over the course of a two-week period. Note that due to the disruption of the current team formation, brought on by both the Chuunin Exams and the attack that occurred during the finals, these two weeks occurred prior to the start of the Chuunin Exams.
The attached Schedule B further details my expectations and goals should I be reassigned to Team Seven.
Thank you for your consideration.
It's signed off by Ino, her father, and Kakashi and he grimaces when he realizes that neither schedule has been included with the application.
Of course not. They expect me to know how the team was run and Ino's aims for herself.
There's nothing, either, about how Team Seven would benefit from the transfer. Not in Ino's writing and, more tellingly, not in Kakashi's writing.
In fact, there's really not a lot of detail at all, and that's frustrating.
But not as frustrating as the fact that none of this, literally none of this, is news to him.
He'd heard her.
He just hadn't listened-and now, now he's got a fractured team and a shredded reputation.
And I think I deserve both.