Title: Are You Ready?
Chapter: 31 – Insubordination
Author: Killaurey
Rating: T
Word Count: 5,318
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 31 of ? Unbeta'd.
It's just past noon when Tenten leans against the doorframe and gives Lee a long, long and deeply unimpressed look.
Lee's eyes widen, a touch of apprehension ghosting over his face. She can see the way he braces himself, which, if he wasn't still in the hospital would be warranted for she'd be shaking him good and hard.
But he is in the hospital and that's the problem with what she'd been informed of as soon as she set foot in the hospital today.
"You idiot," Tenten says severely as she actually enters Lee's tiny, tiny (but private) room in the long-term care ward at the hospital. "The nurses told me what you did! What were you thinking?!"
The thing is, she knows what he was thinking even before he frowns at her, the expression equal parts abashed and rebellious. It's the rebellion that has her all riled up because-
"I was feeling better," he says, shifting a little, a grimace of pain that he tries to hide crossing his face. "I didn't mean to overdo it. I just wanted..."
Tenten takes the chair by his bed with a flop, the books she's carrying hitting her knees with a solid, satisfying thump. It's basically her chair at this point, since Neji only visits when he's here for check-ups himself and Gai-sensei is barely in the village, let alone has the time to really visit for longer than a few minutes between missions and getting caught up on sleep enough to head out again, and... well, it's the long-term care ward; most people here don't get regular visitors, if they're not really, really close.
She doesn't know if she'd call herself really close to Lee but, well, in Gai-sensei's absence, she's the de facto leader of the team simply by virtue of being the only one uninjured and it seems wrong to not keep up with the health of her teammates.
"I know," she says, with a sigh. Honestly, he's a terrible patient, but she understands and maybe that's why she visits. "You're going stir-crazy stuck in here, unable to properly train, so when you were feeling better, you pushed too hard. And now you've set yourself back. The nurses say Tsunade-sama will be coming to check in on you later, make sure your spine is okay. I just..."
She really, really wishes she could hit him. Tenten settles for kicking the side of his bed. Gently. She'd be the one needing a hospital bed if she kicked it with all her strength.
From the expression on his face, Lee kind of wishes she'd just hit him too. Now he looks ashamed. "I'm sorry for making you worry, Tenten."
"Idiot," she says. "Who'd worry about you?"
Lee smiles slightly. He knows what she means. They've been teammates for what's edging closer and closer to two years now. Then he frowns at her, looking her over. "You're here early," he says. "Normally you come much later."
Ah.
Now it's her turn to shift, jiggling one leg. "I signed up for a class," she says. "It starts at one, so when the nurses stopped me on the way in, I thought I'd swing by and kill some time before it."
"A class?" Lee echoes. "A medic-nin class?"
Lee is weird and over-enthusiastic and dresses like a lunatic but he's never been stupid.
She sees the fire in his eyes coming and, before he can really start crowing about springtime and youthful determination and send sparkles and flowers everywhere, while he gushes support, she raises a paper fan she'd folded on the way here and levels it at him.
"I will hit you with this," she warns. "Spine injury, remember?"
It would be one thing if he had a broken arm or leg or rib, even, but Tenten never, ever forgets that it's only because Tsunade-sama had returned to the village that Lee will even be able to be a ninja again. No other medic-nin could have done that. The fact that it takes time to recuperate is just-it's so much less than the price he could have paid.
And, yeah, she shouldn't threaten to hit him with that spine injury but with Lee it really is the most expedient way to deal with this sort of thing.
He sighs but his grin is blinding, literally, as it sparkles at her. "Are you pursuing your dream to be like Tsunade-sama? That's wonderful, Tenten! How marvellous!"
Something twists inside of her as he gushes. She still doesn't know what the hell she's doing.
"It's nothing that exciting," Tenten says, when Lee stops to take a breather. "I... I don't want to become a medic-nin, you know? That's not really what drew me to Tsunade-sama. I want her strength and power. Her skill."
Her beauty, her heart whispers, but Tenten doesn't share that with Lee. First, he's a boy and, secondly, and much more importantly, he'd just go on and on and on about how she's already beautiful.
Which is sweet but she knows what she sees in the mirror and she's nothing special. Brown hair, brown eyes, an alright face.
Lee looks at her curiously. "Then why are you taking a medical course?"
She looks down at the notebook she'd brought and the book the course had assigned to her and tries to decide how to put it to him. He waits attentively, patient as a stone as she organizes all the feelings that had led her to this point.
"Because I'm mid-to-long range while you and Neji and Gai-sensei are all close-range fighters. I'm the one most likely to be the last one standing if things ever go really wrong on a mission because I'll have the most distance."
Lee nods seriously.
"This isn't a course that's designed to make me a true field medic or a medic-nin," she says. "It's very specifically built around teaching people how to stabilize their wounded companion's conditions enough that they can be moved and, hopefully, last long enough to get real help. I won't be able to heal injuries, but... hopefully I'll learn enough to keep you idiots alive long enough to get home, even if I have to carry you back myself. The course description called this sort of thing 'first response'."
First response. Stable enough to travel.
Tenten still is pretty sure she doesn't want to be a medic, a real one, but when she'd gone looking at courses to take, this one had seemed like a no-brainer. This kind of thing would be helpful for every ninja to know.
"You... Tenten," Lee says, "why don't you seem happy about it? It sounds like a very useful course. Do you think they'd let me take it?"
"Probably not this session," she says, looking up and meeting his eyes. "But I don't see why you couldn't. Most of this doesn't have anything to do with having to use chakra. It's about gauging the severity of wounds and triaging them."
"That's good to know," he says, and then he waits.
That's the worst part about Lee, really, when he's actually being serious. He pays attention and doesn't forget when someone tries to slide past a question without answering it.
"I don't know why I'm not happy," she admits, after another few seconds. "It will be useful. It's...," something to do, "good knowledge to have. I just..."
She shrugs.
She misses her team. She misses doing missions outside of the village. She misses training so hard she wants to fall over against people who are training just as hard. She's lonely.
But she doesn't say these things to Lee. They're all true but they're also things that would hurt him, make him feel guilty for not being out of the hospital, and...
No one talks about me.
She can't talk to anyone about that. It sounds terrible. Shinobi don't chase fame.
"When I figure out why, I'll tell you," she says, then looks at the time. She's got about five minutes and gets out of her chair. "I've got to get going-I'll swing by after, okay? If Tsunade-sama comes by, I want to hear what your prognosis is."
"You're always welcome here," Lee says, smiling, though as she leaves, he looks thoughtful.
Tenten resolutely doesn't wonder about what he heard that she didn't say. Borrowing trouble, that's what it would be, if she did that.
The classroom she heads into reminds her of the home-ec classroom back at the Academy. Long, wide tables with sinks embedded into each one. Plenty of counter space. High stools to sit on and a white board, rather than the Academy's black board, at the front of the room.
She picks a table close to a wall, puts her back to it, and gauges how it will be to work here before deciding it should be fine. The board is easy to read, she's not right up front or right in the back, so she'll be easier to overlook in a crowd.
Tenten takes a moment to organize her notebook and the textbook to her liking and then, absently twirling her pen around her fingers like a senbon, she takes stock of the others in the room.
There's not that many of them. A handful compared to what the room could hold, and she thinks she understands a little better why Tsunade-sama is so determined to train up more medical ninja who are fit for the field.
A couple of kunoichi a few years older than her are seated near the front. She doesn't recognize them by name but she does recognize them by Clan. The Akimichi kunoichi nods amiably her way and, while the Yamanaka doesn't have the blonde hair of her clan (it's a light brown, cut short around her ears) she does have the pupil-less blue eyes, Tenten sees when the other kunoichi looks to see what caught the Akimichi's attention. The Nara girl, woman really, being at least seventeen, has deep blue hair and doesn't bother to look. Tenten only knows her by her companions and, when the Nara stretches, the Clan symbol on her jacket.
They're not Genin teammates, Tenten knows this. She's done all the research. But it's obvious both that they're close and also that they're used to working with one another.
If I didn't know there hadn't been any kunoichi-only Genin teams in thirty-four years, I'd have guessed they were one. I wonder if they're Chuunin and work together now. Or if they're just friends outside of their teams?
But it seems like such a waste to not put such a combination together when it's clear that it works so well.
Maybe they had different graduation dates?
It's hard to tell when they're all older than 'young' but younger than 'old'.
Tenten studies the rest of the room with the same casual scrutiny she's given the trio. Since most of them are giving it right back, it works out okay. A couple of men, these ones definitely grown, are at the back. One is idly flipping through the textbook while another is rubbing his temples like he's got a headache. They're both nondescript enough that she can't tell their clans, if they're part of one, right off the bat. A few more, maybe three, four years younger than the men are spread out throughout the classroom and for a moment, Tenten thinks she's the youngest in the room until she spots the small boy, Academy age, but on the younger side of that, maybe seven or eight, sitting with a teen who must be his older brother. They have the same solemn, serious expressions as they look at their shared textbook.
Another textbook thumps down onto her table and she glances over to see who did-
Tenten drops her pen as Shikamaru takes a seat on the stool next to her.
"What are you doing here?" she says, making sure her voice is low enough that no one who isn't trying to hear won't. There's no helping the pen, as she picks it up again, but she can at least avoid making a scene.
"The same thing you're doing here," he mutters back, looking annoyed at the question.
He scowls a little, not at her, but at-
Tenten doesn't laugh, though she does smile a bit at the sarcastic wave he gives to the Nara kunoichi across the room who rolls her eyes at him and turns away.
Shikamaru grumbles something low in his throat that Tenten doesn't think are actually words, just discontent.
"Was she making sure you were here?" Tenten wonders.
"What's she going to do?" Shikamaru scoffs. "Tell my mother?"
"From what I hear of your mother, if you were supposed to be here and didn't show up, you'd be sorry."
Shikamaru's glance at her is a little more considering, at that. "True," he allows. "But Mom had nothing to do with this. Like I said, I'm here for the same reason you're here."
Tenten nods slightly.
He's not entirely wrong. Or right. But her presence here, after Neji and Lee nearly died, is hardly much of a surprise when looked at that way. The rest of her motivations he doesn't need to know.
"I'm not sharing my notes with you if you try and sleep through this class," Tenten says, a sly note in her voice.
Amusement flickers across Shikamaru's face and the tension in his shoulders relaxes slightly, like he's a little more sure of his welcome, not that she's implicitly agreed to his presence. He'd been nervous, she realizes, about sitting next to her.
"That was different," he says, and while he keeps his voice light, she can hear the seriousness under it. "I'm choosing to take this course. Be my partner?"
Tenten eyes him. "Don't you think girls are annoying?"
"Most of you are," he says, rolling his eyes as the clock atop the door ticks over to a new hour. Their teacher is now officially late. "Be my partner anyway."
More amused than offended at both his insult to her gender and his casual arrogance (she'd never have survived a team with both Neji and Lee if she couldn't cope with arrogant boys; Lee might be nice, but he, like Neji, is arrogant), Tenten considers that demand.
"What's in it for me?"
Because she's just as arrogant as everyone else on her team, make no mistake.
Shikamaru's amusement kicks up a notch and Tenten has the feeling that he's used to that sort of question. "What do you want?"
Tenten considers that. She hadn't expected him to be as open to her demand in response to his own as he seems. Usually, she'd ask for a training session but-
"I'd accept an I.O.U.," she says, as the teacher, a dark-haired woman who looks deeply frazzled. "In writing."
He hums low in his throat. "Standard restrictions?"
If she hadn't been on a team for almost two years with Neji, hadn't known Hinata and Ino so well, she'd have been so incredibly irritated by the way he just expects her to know what he means. He doesn't even seem to realize that just because she's not a first-generation shinobi that she's not part of a Clan.
But she had been, and she does understand. It's all making sure she doesn't ask for things that are kept from those outside of the Clan. Tenten has never been interested in the Nara Clan as a whole, though, so it's easy enough to agree to those terms. She'll have to really think about what she wants as neither their medicine nor their shadow appeal to her.
She shrugs. "Yeah."
"Done."
"And done," she says, a little bemused that the boy she'd had kicked out of the library the last time they spoke is now going to be her... "Partner."
"Sorry for being late," their sensei says, standing at the front of the classroom, having managed to organize herself into a semblance of control. She smiles brightly. "I'm Shizune and I'm looking forward to working with all of you over the next three months. I know most of you are on active duty, so if you miss a couple of sessions, don't worry about it, I'll make the time to go over the missed material with you."
Shizune-sensei doesn't bother to take attendance and that makes sense. This is a voluntary course. She does make them introduce themselves, name only, though.
Then she claps her hands together sharply. "Let's get right to it and not waste your time. Has everyone read the first chapter of their text?"
Only about half of them have. The half that has includes both Shikamaru and herself. Tenten's read most of the book and Shikamaru mutters something about why even bother taking this class if they're not going to do the reading?
The first chapter had been nothing more than a refresher on Academy-level first aid. Tenten suspects some people hadn't read it because of that fact alone. It had been boring but she knows the value of keeping data fresh in your memory.
When Shizune-sensei makes the half that hasn't read it, read it, and then give the rest of them a written test on the material, Shikamaru just sighs and pulls a pen out of a pocket.
She doesn't hear him say that it's troublesome, though she suspects he does, but all the same, when she looks up from her test, he's done his too. He's also found the time to write her I.O.U. down on a piece of paper, signed and infused with his chakra signature. When she puts her pen down, he slides it over to her and she pockets it with a nod.
It's settled. It's also very strange.
Tenten doesn't have time to mull over the strangeness of it, however, as Shizune-sensei chooses to grade their tests out-loud and in front of everyone. Shikamaru gets berated for not writing down all the steps while she gets scolded for being too concise. Neither of them has something wrong when it comes to the facts.
Once Shizune-sensei has swept away from their desk, they share a long look and Tenten's not the only one biting back a bit of a smile for having been scolded for what works out to being basically the exact same issue.
By the time they've all got the material for chapter one down to Shizune-sensei's exacting, demanding standards (her initially soft, frazzled demeanour belies a very sharp tongue), two hours later, Tenten is nursing a headache as she frowns at her notes. She hadn't expected to have to take notes, not on chapter one, but Shizune-sensei was a lot more thorough than their Academy instructor had been.
She's also assigned them homework. Not only do they have to review both chapter one and two of the text, but they have to review their own supplies and bring them in for Shizune to exam next time.
Given that her 'medical kit' consists maybe of a spare roll of bandages and a few extra painkillers and soldier pills, Tenten strongly suspects that a) she's going to get scolded again and b) that she's got some shopping to do before the next class, in three days.
Tenten glumly kisses some of her money goodbye but then reminds herself that she literally signed up for this. And it'll be worth it, if it keeps anyone alive out in the field.
But, ugh, homework. The very word is unappealing.
"Does your sensei know you're taking this?" Shikamaru asks as they leave the classroom together.
"No," Tenten says, then at his frown, realizes what he's getting at and her temper bristles. "I've been a Genin for over a year. I don't need my sensei's permission for things like this. And even if I did, what, you think he wouldn't approve? Does your sensei know you're here?"
"I left him a note," Shikamaru says. "But I didn't have to either, you know."
She shakes her head, deeply irked at even the slightest implication that she's been insubordinate by doing something behind Gai-sensei's back. "Gai-sensei would back me one hundred percent," she says. "He'd probably make the boys sign up with me, once he'd gotten done enthusing about my cleverness and drive to improve myself. My sensei trusts my judgement."
And that's a dig maybe a step too far as Shikamaru's face tightens.
Tenten changes the subject before he can snap at her. "I'm going to go see Lee. Are you coming?"
Shikamaru blinks. Then eyes her. "Am I… allowed?"
"Don't be stupid," she says coolly. "Lee would love to see you."
"Yeah, but just now..." He shakes his head. "You are annoying. Yeah, I'll see Lee." Then he frowns. "What's he doing still in the hospital? I thought Tsunade-sama had healed him. That's why he went to help us."
"For a genius, you're an absolute idiot," Tenten says. "He'd just barely been through surgery on his spine when he hared off after all of you. He's here until Tsunade-sama says he can leave because of that stunt. It's his spine. He kind of needs that."
Shikamaru's face—it doesn't fall but, she thinks if he hadn't had such good control over his expression that it would have. It closes in on itself. "How bad is it?"
Tenten really considers just saying the word spine again, since for crying out loud, but she doesn't, mostly because while he's a bit of an asshole, Shikamaru's been okay today, and she knows he's taken the mission very, very personally.
Part of her vindictively thinks he ought to because she could have lost both her teammates but, really, Lee had chosen to go on his own. It's a whole different matter.
She sighs. "If he can just sit still and behave, he'll be fine. He overdid it today, but his overall prognosis is good. His biggest problem is that he's not giving himself the time for his body to recuperate. Chakra healing can do absolutely miraculous things but—"
"—the body still has to pay for it," Shikamaru finishes. He looks troubled but also less anxious now and Tenten is surprised by the fact she's glad for that. "Do you think he'd want to see me?"
"Have you even met Lee?" Tenten slaps him upside the head with her paper fan, lightly, and, just because she's annoyed at him, grabs him and heads for the stairs, ignoring the perfectly good elevator. "Come on, let's go see him, and you can tell him to sit down and heal and maybe it'll stick with you since, mission interloper or not, you were still technically his commander during that mission."
Shikamaru scoffs and he grumbles the entire way but, yeah, he's super irritating himself but the aggravation is worth it for the beaming, megawatt smile Lee gives them when they end up in his room.
Ugh. Boys.
Something's wrong with Hatake-sensei.
Ino doesn't share that thought with Sakura, concerned that she might be overheard or—interfered with.
My head is killing me and I can't say anything. Not here, not now.
Instead, she follows along casually, matching Sakura's easy pace and keeping half an ear on Sakura chattering to Hatake-sensei about the progress they've made in their latest room. Most of Ino's attention, though, is on studying Hatake-sensei's back covertly and trying to decide… what's wrong.
Something is. But I can't… I can't put my fingers on it.
Nothing is really obviously wrong, but there's something… off?
I don't like it.
Ino hesitates a moment, as they pass near by the kitchen and the-oh, that's perfect-
"Hatake-sensei," she says, interrupting him and Sakura. "I'm just going to use the bathroom."
She doesn't ask if that's alright because, honestly, unless they're in the middle of a battle he's never cared.
He just waves for her to go, proving her right. "We'll wait for you," he says, and that's fine, that seems normal. It ought to be normal.
Maybe it's just her paranoia.
Because something is still wrong.
"I won't be long," she says, and then Ino hurries to the bathroom, trying to make it look more like 'she's really got to go' than 'she's up to not good' and since neither Sakura nor Hatake-sensei call her back or seem suspicious she thinks, maybe, that she's gotten away with it.
Or they're hiding their real opinion just like she is.
(But at least she didn't mess up with the basics and do something stupid like claim she'd drunk too much juice when they hadn't had juice at all since they entered the estate! She does take comfort in that.)
Once Ino is securely locked in the bathroom, she takes a seat on the toilet lid and closes her eyes. Her hands grip her knees because this time, this place, she's deliberately disobeying an order from her sensei and there's really no excuse for that.
Unless there is.
And that's the part that bothers her enough that she drops her shields. She needs to know.
There's an almost dizzyingly rush of exhilarated defiance to having her mind free to do what she wants to do instead of obeying orders and toeing the line. She's hated having to lock herself down, no matter how good the reasons for it have been.
Focus.
Ino takes a moment to orient herself in herself and then looks.
She has a split second to go wait, what? before she falls, her mind and senses tumbling through a kaleidoscope of snapshots she can't make any sense of. There's too many presences, some oddly doubled, and it's like they're drenched in moonlight and washed out by darkness and, belatedly, Ino realizes it's because if she doesn't get a grip, she's going to pass out.
This hasn't happened before!
But it's her mind and the mind is her playground and fuck you all very much if whatever this is thinks it can best her in her own head.
No.
She tumbles, spinning and freewheeling, and spins out tendrils of thought, finer than spiderwebs, turning the descent second by second into something that she can control. Ino doesn't try to come to a stop, not yet, not when she doesn't know why she's fallen inside her own head in the first place.
What if it's more dangerous to stop moving?
Instead, she carefully, painstakingly turns her fall through-memories? Senses? There's too many thoughts to sort through-
She weaves her thoughts and tosses them up behind her, where they balloon like a parachute. There's a horrible jerking sensation and then, then, she's slowed herself enough to look around.
What the fuck?
(Her language always deteriorates inside her own head. It's decidedly not ladylike or cute but, when it's only her that knows, who cares? Sometimes… sometimes the only way to express her opinion is by swearing.)
She can't close her eyes like this and she doesn't dare pull back, reassess, and try again (partly because of time but also because Ino honestly doesn't think she'd dare to do this a second time around).
Ino swallows hard, the physical sensation feeling foreign and… and dizzyingly far away. Like it belongs to someone else, in some other country, and she's only aware of it because they used to be close.
(She knows that's a bad sign.)
Then she makes herself focus on the weird, achy and washed out layers of minds going on.
I don't understand. Why are there-
Ino struggles for the count, the sorting of each mind not coming easy in the slightest even though the numbers aren't high and yet... they're impossible.
Sakura's there... I think twice, it's got to be the weirdness in her brain that's making it like she's more than that, like there's four of her, but... I know that particular resonance, that weirdly fractured but also whole dissonance. I don't know the other one at all. They're not a duplicate of anyone else though, they're distinct. Who is that? Hatake-sensei is only there the once but he's nowhere near... no, wait, he is. There are two of them, but they're not the same. And me... how can I exist three times over when I haven't done anything?
The coldly rational part of her (the part of her that is larger than most people ever imagine) notes that there are several ways for ninja to be in two places at once. If that was the only problem, it wouldn't be one. Kage Bunshin no Jutsu is supposed to create and be exact real copies rather than flimsy, intangible replicas a la Bunshin no Jutsu. Kage Bunshin can bleed, have arguments with themselves.
(But she's never tried dropping her shields when Naruto was using his clones. She has no idea how her abilities and that jutsu would interact; would there be one mind or would there be as many as there were clones and the original? Would they overlap like this?)
But none of us have done anything! Sakura and I don't have the chakra to use that jutsu and what purpose would Hatake-sensei have for doing something like this? It doesn't make sense! And who is the stranger?
Ino tries to sort through the minds to figure that out but with herself overlapping with herself it's all but impossible to delineate boundaries solid enough to give her a change to grasp the intricacies of the mess she's dropped herself into.
And it's weird because I'm me but these are also me and I don't think a clone can be created that doesn't know it's a clone. I can ask Hatake-sensei later, but this... this goes beyond cloning. ... right?
Carefully, so carefully, she sifts through the hers in existence.
We're not all the same! Why do they have memories that I don-
But when she goes to look at them, afire with curiosity and wanting to know, she's gently, carefully wrapped up in a presence that she knows better than anything because it's hers, but she's never been swaddled in it like a babe in arms, gauzy and delicate and ferocious. Then she is pushed out of the other copies of her mind, and it's her voice that says, you'll find out eventually, with confidence and fondness and-
Ino opens her eyes in the real world, solid and almost heavy after all of that. The lid of the toilet is warmer than her skin, she's freezing, and when she tries to move, every inch of her screams in protest.
Her head, though, is clear. Almost empty, actually, hollow without any sense of the headache she should be having at this point (a migraine, truly, if not just a complete blackout) but there's... nothing. At all.
At that realization, her insides go as cold as her outsides.
I don't have my bloodline! I-I can't-
Chopping off the rising panic (it doesn't stay chopped though, which pisses her off, in addition to her terror) Ino reaches out with her mind, the way she's been doing from the day she was born, instinctive and reckless and-
She can't. She can't.
It's like the essential thing that's made her a Yamanaka is just gone.
Staggering to her feet, thrusting away the pain, she looks in the mirror, not at all reassured to see that whatever's gone wrong inside of her hasn't changed her appearance. She's still got her Yamanaka blonde hair and blue eyes and-
Nausea hits her like a sack of bricks and she vomits.
There is nothing delicate or dainty or feminine about it. She coughs and chokes and it's disgusting feeling the bile burn her throat, the chunks of her ration bar coming back up, and tears streaking her face because she's never been able to puke without that happening.
She's not crying. She's not. She refuses to let herself.
But what if I'm not a Yamanaka anymore?