Title: Are You Ready?
Chapter: 28 – Slide
Author: Killaurey
Rating: T
Word Count: 4,935
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 28 of ? Unbeta'd.

Ino rises up out of her trance, scattering the pieces of progress she'd made across her mind like so many rose petals. They aren't gone, she'll be able to find and reassemble them tomorrow when she comes back, but in the meantime, should anything happen, no one will be able to put together what she was doing in the depths of her mind.

She opens her eyes to Sakura and Hatake-sensei sparring by the training dummies. The sun is crawling towards the horizon, but they've got at least two hours of sunlight left. Her head pounds—the reason she pulled out of her trance—and she decides that, until her eyes have adjusted to the light, she's not going to draw attention to herself.

Besides, it means she can observe the two of them.

No, she decides, after watching them for a few minutes, it's not a spar, it's Sakura working on emulating what he's shown her.

Ino watches as Hatake-sensei patiently walks Sakura through the flow of the move. She doesn't recognize the style but, then, it might not be from any school in particular.

Hatake-sensei is known as the copy ninja, after all, and while that's mostly because of his ninjutsu repertoire... he's no slouch at taijutsu either, not when Maito Gai calls him a rival.

She watches for a little bit but, eventually, the fact that she's been on the ground for far too long, in the same position, means her body demands she get up and move before it decides she's never, ever moving again.

Ino reaches for her canteen, getting it open and taking a drink from it—which, by itself helps with reducing the headache almost immediately—and by the time she lowers it, Hatake-sensei has called a halt to Sakura's training and they've both come over.

Sakura helps her stand, her green eyes studying her intently, then backs off.

Ino eyes her for a long moment then turns her attention to Hatake-sensei. "I'm fine," she says, before he can ask. "I think what I'm doing will work but it's going to take a few days to get it from inside of me to outside of me, where you can confirm."

"Do you need a painkiller?" Sakura asks. "You're rubbing your temples."

She drops her hands, feeling weirdly guilty about being caught out. "It's not like I'm snoozing while you're working out," Ino says, though she keeps the heat out of her voice. "I'm using… a different sort of muscle, that's all. I'm not used to working with my mind this way and I have to go even more carefully because there's no one from my Clan here keeping an eye on me to guide and make sure nothing goes wrong."

And right now, she'd give a lot to be able to run what she's doing past a cousin or aunt or dad. She thinks her theory is solid but if there's any weaknesses… well, how is she going to know?

"I'll be fine," she adds, rather grudgingly. "I just need to do something that isn't mind work for a bit."

"There's no rush," Hatake-sensei says. "We can delay and extend as long as we want."

He pauses, there, and then adds: "Though if the mission goes on longer than two weeks, I imagine your father is going to be quite put out with me."

Ino smiles. "Yeah, probably. He'll worry. So long as we come back okay, though, it'll be fine. He knows that mission timelines are usually just guidelines. And there's nothing pressing back home that means we have to be there."

Sakura doesn't mention how her family will react to an unexpectedly extended mission, but Ino hasn't expected her to. Sakura's family is… a weird topic. She's known this for years.

"Alright," Hatake-sensei says. "Then we'll extend as long as we need to—I presume you're determined to get your shell viable?"

"I mean, now that I've started, I'd be pretty offended by myself if I couldn't get it right," Ino says. "So, yeah, I don't want to move on until I do, if that's okay. I don't want to hold you two up either, if you're really determined to move forward with the mission. I can make do."

"No," Sakura says. "No, that's not fair. We've got the chakra blades going, so we should make sure your shell is working too."

Ino doesn't even get a word of protest out—life isn't fair and she knows it—before Hatake-sensei holds his hands up.

"No arguing," he says wearily. "Please."

"We weren't really," Sakura says, though then she looks uncertainly at Ino. "Right?"

Ino kind of wants to crawl back into her trance and go back to ignoring the two of them. She's still a bit irritated about—about the entirety of last night, though it does seem that they made things at least a little better. She thinks.

She's too tired to go snooping in their minds to find out what went on quite yet.

"We weren't arguing," Ino says, taking another long drink of water. "Believe me, Hatake-sensei, if we were, you would know."

Sakura laughs even though it's completely true. Hatake-sensei wouldn't even have to look far for proof of that, should he ask almost anyone back in the village.

"I don't doubt that," he says, so very dryly that she almost misses the amusement that lurks in his eye. "Alright. You say you need to do something other than mental work. Are you up for training with us?"

Ino considers that. "What, taijutsu?"

"It's kind of taijutsu," Sakura says, glancing up at Hatake-sensei. "Though it's less about a specific form and more about what to do to disengage from a fight and get away. Escape taijutsu?"

"Sometimes the best way to win a fight is to get away from it," he says, in explanation, once Ino has mouthed the words 'escape taijutsu' back at Sakura because, like, taijutsu was meant to be close quarters combat. Ninjutsu or genjutsu were more traditionally used to escape. "And sometimes, you're not going to have the chakra to use for translocation or even kawarimi."

"Alright," she says. "That sounds interesting. Give me time to stretch out first, though?"

He nods and Sakura pumps her fist.

"Join us when you're ready," he says. "Sakura—"

"Back to it, right?" she says, grinning at both Hatake-sensei and Ino, then darting back to the training dummies. "Hurry up, Ino-pig!"

"Shut up, Forehead!" Ino says, mostly because responding to that is just… she has to. It's not something she can let go unanswered.

Hatake-sensei lingers by her for a moment. "After supper," he says. "We need to talk."

It's an order, not a suggestion.

"Yes, Hatake-sensei," she says, since she'd expected something like that. Even if he gives her a dressing down for how she reacted, well, she'll deserve that too, because while she'd spoken her mind—he was still her sensei, by her own choice.

He just nods and heads back to where Sakura is. As he approaches her, Sakura says something Ino can't hear, then laughs.

It is nice to see that Sakura's in a good mood. Ino is pretty sure that means that Hatake-sensei has fixed it, like Ino had demanded he do.

So whatever he says to me will probably be pretty fair, Ino decides, as she falls into a series of stretches, feeling her muscles complain as she works the stiffness out of them. And as long as it's not as irritating as Sakura's plan last night, I can probably work with it. She's not mad at me either, though I'm not sure what to think of her… watchfulness.

Kind of strange, really, but not unwelcome. Just different.

Like she's trying really, really hard to not look after me. Ino smiles as her forehead touches her knee. Even though she totally wanted to fuss about my headache.

Once Ino is done stretching, she walks over to her team, standing at the edge of what she gauges to be their main practice area, and waits.

She doesn't wait long. Sakura falls out of her ready position and Hatake-sensei waves her over.

Ino joins Sakura, standing side by side. "So," she says, "how does this work?"

"He hasn't explained why we're doing this yet," Sakura says, in a fake whisper. "He was waiting for you to join us."

"All afternoon?" Ino wonders.

Sakura shrugs at her. "We just worked on the physical side of things. I got explanations for that."

"When you're done comparing notes," Hatake-sensei says, though this time he does sound amused. "The reason we're working on this for now is two-fold. This is something both of you will want to master. This won't be immediately useful on most of your missions but it will become much more important once we start running regular missions outside of the village. You are already familiar with the concept of a mission being more important than your lives. I'm going to tell you right now that missions like that, outside of wartime, aren't that common. What is common is that your pride and capabilities are second to who you're escorting or what information you're carrying. You will need to know how to get away and stay away from confrontations to achieve your jobs with a minimal amount of risk."

And Hatake-sensei is all about minimizing their risks while maximizing their efficiency. It's actually one of the things that Ino appreciates about him the most.

For the rest of the afternoon, she and Sakura take turns escorting each other around the estate, each of them the shinobi-guard and the helpless civilian in turn, switching each time they're 'killed' over the course of the 'mission'.

Which happens a lot.

It's hard playing helpless civilian and it's also hard being the sole guard in charge of getting the scared, helpless civilian out of danger.

Hatake-sensei pulls his blows but, by the time they're dismissed to run around the perimeter, they've each picked up new bruises and a new appreciation of how hard it is to move someone who doesn't 'know' to work with them.

"Good work," he finishes with, nodding. "It's actually a good thing you're both so close to each other in height and weight—you'll both know exactly how hard it is to move yourself. Once you're more used to this sort of exercise, I'll play the civilian."

With that threat? Promise? He waves them off.

"Do you think you can move Hatake-sensei if he doesn't want to be moved?" Sakura says, as they start their run.

"Not easily," Ino says, frowning. "Not if he's not working with us. He's bigger than we are in all senses and he's not letting us use chakra for these exercises. We're strong but if he's going to play deadweight then it's going to be rough getting any sort of speed to escape. If he is working with us, then that's easier, but even still…"

"We're going to need to work on our strength," Sakura says. "Which, we already knew, but this just really—drives it home. Hatake-sensei isn't a big man. He's tall but he's pretty slender compared to a lot of men."

"He'll be heavier than a lot of civilians," Ino muses. "Because muscle weighs more than fat and—he's basically all muscle. Most active Jounin are, really, aside from their gear."

"Most civilians are going to be more awkward though," Sakura notes. "Because their clothing won't be as practical and is likely to get in our way and they're also more likely to complain about pain and indignity."

They're both quiet for a few strides.

"Hatake-sensei is probably going to enjoy being the absolute worst civilian to escort," Ino says finally. "The only good thing is that we're going to be taking turns trying to kill him."

Sakura laughs. "Yeah, but to do that, we've got to get through each other first and that's…"

"Probably really good practice for us," Ino decides. "Besides, it's not going to be a straight fight. Hatake-sensei isn't going to let that happen, not while he's busy being his absolutely best worst civilian."

They're quiet then until they're nearly done their run. They don't push themselves to go as fast as they can, knowing that this is more about cooling down and memorizing the lay of the land than anything else.

"I just want to say thanks," Sakura says, breaking the silence. "For the way that you—you asked Hatake-sensei to talk to me."

Ino glances side-long at her but Sakura avoids her gaze. "That's kind of his job," she says, finally. "I figured it was about time I started letting him do it."

"Ino, you know what I'm—" Sakura cuts herself off and shakes her head. "I don't want to fight. I just… thanks. A lot. For everything."

"Everything?" Ino asks, nonplussed.

"You know what I'm talking about," Sakura insists.

Ino can feel the press of Sakura's swirling thoughts against her mind's shields. Some of them slip through, mostly because Ino is curious, now, as to what on earth she's supposed to know. All she'd done was set Hatake-sensei off to straighten Sakura out.

Except that… that it is apparently a lot more than that, to Sakura.

Ino carefully disengages her emotions from her thoughts, even as she continues to explore, a little more cautious in her mind's touch. Since Sakura is waiting for an answer, Ino says, "You're welcome?" as they draw up close to the guest house.

The setting sun is turning the clouds a brilliant red, like smears of blood across the darkening sky.

Sakura hugs her, tightly, then darts into the house before Ino can even figure out how to respond to that.

My head hurts. Why's she dragging all of that Academy stuff up now? I've already forgotten about it.

Well, forgotten isn't quite the right word, but—

Ino looks up at the sky.

"Ino," Hatake-sensei says from behind her. He sounds like he's far away, though when she looks back, he's only a few feet from her. "Get inside."

"Yes, Hatake-sensei," she says, though she glances back up at the sky for a moment longer before she heads in.

Anyone could have done what I did. What's the big deal about it?

She mulls over this all through her shower and getting dressed and combing her hair out before she decides to just shelve it away with Sakura's other oddities and just… let it go. Even if it leaves her feeling weird to be thanked, it had been important to Sakura, and it's not really that much of a pain to just… let her be thankful, Ino supposes.

Especially since Sakura hadn't complained once about Ino being her guard for parts of the afternoon.

So Hatake-sensei definitely fixed the whole guardian issue thing.

Ino heads to supper feeling pretty okay, actually, though her headache never really leaves. Even the discovery of them being out of her favourite flavour of ration bars can't dampen her mood too much.

"Are you okay?" Sakura asks, once they've eaten, and are cleaning up. "You keep staring out the windows."

Ino blinks. "I do?"

Sakura frowns at her. "You hadn't realized?"

She shrugs a little. "I didn't really think about it," Ino says. "It's no big deal, though, is it?"

"Probably not," Sakura reluctantly allows. "But you weren't doing it yesterday and you're normally a little more focused."

Ino takes a moment to take a quick internal inventory of how she's feeling and if there's anything foreign that might be influencing her. She can't find anything, but she promises herself to keep a mind's eye on that, just in case.

"I feel fine," she says, shrugging again. "It might just be because I've been spending so much time dedicated working on my shell."

"More mental muscles?" Sakura asks.

"Something like that," Ino says, since that's the best guess she's got. "If it gets worse, I'll let you know."

"And, I hope, you'll let me know," Hatake-sensei says, with a very slight emphasis on the word 'me'. "On that note, Sakura, Ino and I need to talk about her training."

"Yes, Hatake-sensei," Sakura says, though she glances at Ino before she leaves the kitchen.

Ino decides to fill the silence Sakura leaves in her wake with, "You weren't so obvious when you wanted me to go away so you could talk to Sakura yesterday."

Hatake-sensei laughs softly. "I didn't need to be. Does it bother you that Sakura knows we're talking?"

"Why would it?" Ino says, shrugging. "She had to figure we would so what's the point in dancing around it?"

"And that's why I didn't bother with subtle," he says. "Take a seat."

Since he doesn't tell her to come over and take a seat by him, Ino hops up onto the counter, hands against the edge, which is cool at first but warms quickly under her fingers. She resists the urge to click her nails against the countertop.

He studies her thoughtfully as she gazes fearlessly back.

"I trust I've fixed things to your satisfaction," he says, finally.

Ino shrugs a little. "I think so? So far? Sakura's less… desperate, anyway, and that's a pretty good start. She should really still take those classes though."

"And she will," Hatake-sensei says. "Now let's talk about how you reacted last night."

"I'm sorry I was disrespectful and that I left without your permission," Ino says. "I'm not sorry for what I said though. Just… maybe how I said it."

Maybe. She still hasn't really decided if she needs to be sorry about that. After all, it had worked, right? She'd gotten her way.

"Alright," he says, and she thinks he's a little amused at her gall. "I presume you understand that, had we been in a more precarious place, that your outburst would have been completely unacceptable."

"Yes, Hatake-sensei," she says simply.

"Tell me why," he says, and she knows this is a test.

Ino tilts her head slightly, her loose hair brushing her face with feather-light touches, as she thinks.

"Insubordination," she says. "And breaking cover. I got loud and, had anyone else been around, they would homed in on that which would have put the entire team in danger. Particularly Sakura, as she was separate from the rest of us and would have been easier to pick off.

And insubordination because in the field, your word is law, and I was directly in rebellion against it, which, had we been in a true battlefield situation could have gotten us all killed."

He nods. "Good. I'm glad you're aware of all of that. So why did you react the way you did?"

She hesitates a little at that question, considering how to put it. It was one thing to know the why inside of her own head but—

"A lot of reasons, I suppose," she says, finally, with a bit of a shrug. Ino isn't trying to be dismissive, it's just… "Partly because I really was just that angry at the idea of being devalued and protected by my own team without my input. Partly because Sakura ought to know better than to have thought that would be a good idea for me."

Those are the easy answers and she knows that she could leave it there and Hatake-sensei would probably accept that, give her a slap on the wrist, and it would be fine. It could all be fine. But—he's been handling all of this really well, like the way a sensei is supposed to, from everything her dad had ever said they were meant to do.

And that means, if I really want to grow, I have to start giving him more trust than I have been. Even if it means having to admit to things I normally keep to myself.

"Part of it was because Sakura had gotten away with physically attacking you with a complete loss of self-control and your reaction made me curious," she admits. "I… hadn't planned on pushing the envelope, to see what would happen if I threw a fit, but once I was angry, it was easy to… just keep on being angry, just to see what would happen."

Hatake-sensei is far too good a Jounin to let his reaction to that show on his face but Ino can feel his utter exhaustion at the very idea of what she'd been doing. Yanking his chain.

"More trust exercises," he says, very dryly. "I suppose I was overdue. Anything else?"

Ino shakes her head. There's a few, other niggling things but nothing… nothing that's concrete enough to even begin to try and explain.

"Alright," Hatake-sensei says. "Let me think."

She does, glancing out the windows as she waits, and finding her gaze drawn to the deep navy of the sky. The sun is gone and, while there's clouds scuttling across the sky like creeping shadows, it's the blue that holds her.

"Ino," Hatake-sensei says and she blinks, frowning a little. It doesn't sound like it's the first time he's called her name and, when she turns her head away from the window, he's left his seat and is beside her.

"Hatake-sensei?" she asks. "What's wrong?"

He frowns down at her, but it's concerned, not disappointed or angry. "Where were you?"

"I was here," she says, puzzled, because she hasn't moved from her seat. She tucks part of her hair behind one ear. "I guess I'm more tired than I thought and just zoned out. Sorry about that, Hatake-sensei. I didn't mean to worry you."

His frown goes nowhere and Ino sits patiently through his examination when he grabs her chin and tilts her eyes up to the light, the better to check for dilation. He also checks her for a fever, which Ino thinks is kind of sweet.

It makes her feel a bit silly for testing him the way she had but—she knows herself and she's probably going to do that again, too, in the future. Hatake-sensei is turning out to be a pretty great sensei but she doesn't forget that he's also, somewhere, Kakashi-sensei's past.

And the two of them really don't line up all that well, when she stops and thinks about how he is and what she knows of Sakura's experiences with Kakashi-sensei.

"You seem fine," he says grudgingly, like he doesn't want to admit it. "Do you still have a headache?"

"A little," Ino admits. "Food and water helped. Sleep should take care of the rest of it."

His frown deepens. "What can you explain to me what you're doing to the inside of your head? I know what you told Sakura about stretching muscles. What muscles are you stretching?"

Ino frowns back at him. Her first reaction, her gut reaction, is to shut down that line of inquiry immediately. That's clan stuff and none of his business, even though he is her sensei and that does give him certain rights and her a certain amount of leeway regarding clan secrets.

It's his honest concern that gets to her, slipping right under her shields.

Ino sighs.

"I can't tell you everything," she warns.

"I know," he says, taking a seat on the counter beside her. "But tell me what you can. Please."

She tries to figure out how to put it, discarding several ideas before she settles on: "I've basically created an internal 'you', that's connected but separate from me. Kind of like… an off-shoot of me that's been tie-dyed in your presence? I can't think of a better way to explain it, Hatake-sensei. It's me, right at the heart of everything, but it's also my interpretation of you. It's… not an independent entity; I'm still in charge. But it's… almost like a secondary, temporary mind inside of my own."

Hatake-sensei thinks that over.

Ino doesn't know if it made sense to him but, when he doesn't speak, she says, "I don't think the false you is causing me any problems. I notice the difference but it's more like… carrying backpack when you're used to not carrying anything. Something that, if I was really tired, might be a problem but when I'm not… isn't? Especially since, before I leave my trance, I put 'you' to sleep, so that you're less of a… presence and strain on me."

"But it is a strain on you?" he asks.

She wiggles one hand back and forth. "It's a brand new thing," Ino says. "So, like learning a new jutsu, it's taking some time to wrap my mind around it. Just like it takes time to figure out how to form my chakra properly for a jutsu I've never done before. How Sakura and I have been tired after practicing our chakra blades."

"You've also never had to carry a new jutsu's strain on you twenty-four seven," Hatake-sensei says shrewdly.

"I haven't," Ino admits, idly kicking one of her feet out. "But that shouldn't make me prone to zoning out. If anything, it just means I'm going to sleep extra well due to the slow but constant drain on my resources. Which, in its own way, is also good training."

"Does this strain your chakra at all?" he asks.

Ino frowns. "Yes and no? It's not an active drain on it but, well, since everything we do is connected to our chakra, since it's how we know we're alive… yes? I suppose so? Passively?"

He's quiet.

"I'm sorry," Ino says and actually means it. "I really don't have better answers from you. I know what I think I'm doing but, unless you were a Yamanaka, I can't bring you into my head to actually see and understand what I'm doing and how I'm trying to accomplish it."

"Alright," Hatake-sensei says. "We'll proceed as we have been tomorrow but if this gets worse… keep me in the loop on how your head is feeling. If you need to take a break, then take a break. This doesn't have to be done."

"You'd prefer that it was, though," Ino points out. "And I might not know everything, but I'm pretty confident about the inside of my own head. Other than being tired, I don't think there's anything to worry about, Hatake-sensei. I really don't."

He studies her seriously and she meets his eyes.

"Get some extra sleep," he says. "And when we're finished with this mission, tell me how you think you should be punished for your insubordination on it."

"Yes, Hatake-sensei," she says, then adds, because she really can't help herself: "Are we always going to have to decide our own punishments?"

He ruffles her hair and she knows she's not really in trouble. For any of it.

"It makes you two troublemakers really think about what you've done," he explains. "And, by hearing your opinion on how you think you should be punished, I get a better idea of both the thoughts behind the original problem and how much thought and culpability you're willing to admit to."

"Oh." Ino… really likes that he explained that to her, actually, it makes her feel like he takes her seriously. "Thank you for explaining, Hatake-sensei."

"You're welcome," he says. "Now get to bed."

And, she knows, she could take the early bedtime as a punishment, but that's hard to do when she can literally feel his concern.

"Good night, Hatake-sensei," she says, keeping it simple as she hops off the counter.

"Good night, Ino."

He watches his blonde student leave the kitchen and, out of habit more than anything, follows her chakra signature until it reaches Sakura's and, by extension, the bedroom.

What a joyride this has been, he thinks, sarcastic even in his own thoughts. But I'm glad she decided to admit what she was doing and I like that she knew what she was doing enough to be able to admit it. I haven't been underestimating her level of emotional control.

Kakashi looks out the window that had left Ino almost… entranced. He doesn't sense anything from it or from the view beyond it, not even the niggling sense of unease that happens when his intuition picks up things his conscious mind hasn't figured out yet.

But he doesn't like it.

I need to keep an eye on both her headaches and her zoning out. She's right, she knows her head better than anyone, and what she's working on is new to her and that could very well be what the problem is. I don't need to borrow trouble.

At the same time, he's going to keep an eye on it. Just in case.

Someone has to.

If I were given the chance to leave this team, I don't know that I'd stop keeping an eye on them at this point, Kakashi shakes his head. Even if this job, being a sensei, was taken from me now… at this point, they're both... part of my team. The part that doesn't care about what's official or not.

It's more than a little terrifying, if he thinks about it too hard. He's out of time, stranded, and now he's getting attached to two girls who, if he gets yanked back to his original timeline…

I'd miss them. It'd be awful. They'd be so little, they wouldn't know me, and they wouldn't… I wouldn't be their sensei.

Kakashi rubs the back of his head.

But that's enough of that. So far they haven't found anything that could reverse this and, until they do… we've got better things to do. First, though, I need some sleep before I start zoning out every chance I'm given.