Title: Are You Ready?
Chapter: 39 – Shifts
Author: Killaurey
Rating: T
Word Count: 3,280
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 39 of ? Unbeta'd.

Ino stands in the master bedroom and blinks: once, twice, thrice. Then she shakes her head.

When did I…?

Her head feels overstuffed, like if she took a step she'd reel like a civilian drunkard, and she's all alone in an empty room.

But it wasn't empty a moment ago, was it?

She remembers the monster being asleep on the bed. She remembers a glowing light, soft and gentle, and she remembers talking to someone who had been beautiful. She tries to remember who but a feeling, soft as the brush of feathers, ushers her away from those memories. The thing is–

Ino sits down, right there on the floor.

Why would I do that? That's my memory block! I don't even have access to my bloodline right now! And why would I ever block myself outside of practice?

But the memory block has an answer for that too, though it is a frustrating one: she does but she doesn't have access to her bloodline and now, now there's a part of her now knows why.

Ino huffs, pressing fingers to her temples as she turns inwards only to be gently, lovingly rebuffed by herself.

It's too bad I didn't decide to share the answers with the rest of the class, Ino grouses, dropping her hands and looking at the room with thoughtful eyes. But I feel…

She feels good.

The headache that had been plaguing her, a low level throb, has faded away. She's no longer as bereft, internally, as she'd felt before.

And the block is mine but not the one I'd use under duress. Which means that, whatever happened here, I chose to do this to myself at the end of it. Willingly.

Ino doesn't know her reasons for it, can't know her reasons for it, but she trusts herself the way she trusts no one else besides her dad.

So, I'll get my abilities back in due time. I did this because it was important enough to me to do this. Whoever I talked to must've been really convincing and I… I'm not easy to convince. Especially not for something like this. Dad's going to be pissed, too, when I tell him I'm training this way. He'll accept it but he's not going to like it…

The feathers brush away the way that training hadn't been the original cause of the blockage. That it had been–

It had been something else, something that she'd braced herself to get in trouble for, but now that reason is gone. Something to do with a bathroom?

Ino smiles faintly. Well. At least I got myself out of deeper trouble, whatever it was.

That feels right, though she doesn't have the memories to back it up.

That's going to get annoying, she decides, but there's nothing to do but shrug about it. It'll dissolve when it dissolves, I guess. And it's true that this has been a really hard training exercise for me, doing it all without my bloodline. That probably means I need the practice of it anyway.

Carefully, Ino stretches, running her way through the cycle of her favourites, working out the stiffness in her limbs from being immobile for too long.

What time is it, anyway?

There's no clock in the bedroom and, even if there had been, after all these years… she doubts it would have worked at all. The windows peer darkly back at her, too dark to be near dusk, though something tells her that, now, they're closer to dawn. That most of the night is gone.

That means it's probably just about time to wake Sakura and Hatake-sensei up, she realizes.

There's no hurry in her, no fear or need to rush. She doesn't know what's been going on–last she remembers, there'd been the wall of green flame, Sakura battered and unconscious behind it, and then Hatake-sensei engulfed in a wall of darkness–and by all rights, Ino knows, she should be worried sick.

But part of her, now, does know what's going on and she just… can't… be scared anymore.

Creepy, she decides, even though it's her own mind that tells her all is going to be okay. But I… I think part of this is going to suck, some of it is going to suck for a long time, but that everything…

EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE.

That's the foundation of my memory block, Ino realizes even as that foundation takes her thoughts and scrubs them clean of concerns. I know what to do, I know it'll all be fine, so there's no need to fuss about it.

Ino stands up in one smooth motion and makes her way to one of the windows, looking out into the night.

Soon, she realizes. Soon, I'll need to move and, when I do I'll need to move fast.

"But I'm good at that," she murmurs. "And I know how to get what I need."

It'll be dangerous. She knows that. All the confidence and knowledge tucked away into her subconscious can't change that. She's going to be flinging herself into a situation where there's so many variables. Something can always go wrong.

Are you ready? murmurs her own voice, up from the depths of her, a memory distorted and the impression that it hadn't been her own voice, once upon a time saying it.

Ino knows the answer though. She's always done great on practical exams.

"Yes."

And, slowly, the sky begins to lighten.

Inner stares at her like she's totally lost her marbles and, given that Sakura is pretty sure that Inner is at least half of those marbles, that's… vaguely concerning.

"It's a plan," Sakura says defensively. "And it's one that doesn't involve us behaving like small children denied candy. And it's one that no one would expect. That's not the real urn, anyway, right? Just our mental representation of it."

Inner frowns at her. "You're babbling."

Sakura tries to shut up, she does, but how is she supposed to explain herself if she doesn't talk? Briefly, she wrestles with this, then puts her free hand on her hip and sets her chin.

"I am babbling," she says. "And that's okay. Isn't that what you're trying to tell me around all of the insults?"

Inner shrugs.

"You're the most infuriating piece of personality," Sakura grumbles.

"You literally made me that way," Inner observes.

Sakura heaves a deeply put-upon sigh. "We can argue about it later. Can you think of anything that would be terrible if we broke this fake urn in our subconscious domain? I might be the primary but you're the one that always exists down here."

"It's hard to say," Inner admits, after a long moment of silence. Her poisonous green eyes, when she glances at Sakura, are troubled. "Usually, I'd say that there's a likely chance of your suggestion being the best."

For once, Inner doesn't say, but Sakura can fill in that blank herself. Anxiety pinches at her before she grimly tells herself to quit being stupid.

Based on what she knows, her suggestion isn't a bad one. No matter how insecure she is about it.

"It's a start," Inner observes.

"Never mind that for now," Sakura says hurriedly. She's had about enough introspection to last her for… a good while. "What's wrong with my idea? You said 'usually'. What's different, right now?"

"I don't like the way the urn is glowing," Inner says. "That's not me and I don't think that it's you doing that either. Was it glowing when you passed out?"

Sakura frowns up at her body, the altar, and yeah, now that she's looking, there is a subtle glow about the urn, one nearly subliminal due to the sheen of the ceramic and the glitter of gold in the wavering light.

Was that glowing when I passed out?

"I don't remember," she admits, a little sheepishly. "I had other things on my mind. Mostly that I hurt everywhere and that I couldn't see a way to rescue myself."

Sakura hesitates, then, and adds: "But they were doing something with it on the altar, right before I was dragged to it. It had looked like they were putting it back together? Which…"

She glances back up at the urn.

"That much is reflected," she settles on.

Inner looks at her for a long moment and then narrows her eyes speculatively at the tableau above them.

"It's a risk," Inner says. "It could be a trap. On the other hand, it doesn't appear to be the same trap that is shaking our world apart and us with it."

"Are the earthquakes still happening?" Sakura asks.

"Yes," Inner says. "The snow globe is flaking apart with each shift of the so-called land. We're just too deep inside to feel each reverberation."

"Oh." Sakura looks up, past her body, to the ground they'd seeped themselves through. "But this isn't the same trap as that?"

"It doesn't feel the same," Inner says impatiently, like Sakura is a particularly slow student. "It feels like there's a different mind behind each of them."

"You can feel that?" Sakura doesn't even know where to begin looking for something like that.

"That's because you don't know know your own mind," Inner says. "But yeah, they both feel foreign but in different ways."

Sakura has a lot of questions about that but, with a look at herself up above (is she growing a little translucent? Or is that just her imagination?) decides that now is not the time for them.

"Does this one feel less threatening?" Sakura asks, instead.

"It's less immediately obvious if it is a threat," Inner says. "Just that it is present and invasive and potentially could become an issue. Whereas the other is an immediate threat that will be fatal if not dealt with."

"So this one could wind up being worse," Sakura says. "But we won't know until we know."

Inner is a fae thing, with edges that are sharp enough to bleed, as she grins. "Exactly. So… what do you want to do?"

"I hate that you're doing that just to piss me off," Sakura complains. "Even if I am the primary here."

Inner shrugs.

Sakura chews on her lower lip, thinking hard about it. She'd rather not have to make a choice like this at all, but–

It's not really a choice, is it?

"We're going to have to risk it," Sakura decides. "Breaking the urn, I mean. We have no guarantee that we could wake ourself up with a tantrum, whereas breaking the urn will be a much sharper shock to the system, one that should be impossible to ignore. It might kill us but the shaking definitely will kill us so we're going to have to take the risk."

"Oh, good," Inner says. "You are capable of weighing the odds even when it's only yourself to protect. I had wondered. You've always been at your strongest with others behind you but that won't save you in here."

"I don't have any weapons," Sakura says, realizing that even while her pouches have returned to her, along with her hitae-ite and feel full, they're empty inside. "But… you're my best weapon for this, aren't you?"

Inner's eyes glitter with malice, for once not directed at her. "Oh yes."

Up goes the coin. Then down and Ino catches it, bounces it over each of her knuckles, then tosses it up again.

It's a way to pass the time but that's not why she's doing it.

With each repetition, each brush of skin, she's sinking her chakra into it a little more, imbuing the coin with her signature. Other Clans, she knows, would use different ways. Some would meditate over it or use special inks to draw characters over it.

The Yamanaka Clan use a skin dance.

There's many different variations on it but the basics are always the same. The object must be in non-continuous contact with the skin, there must be a pattern to the contact and lack thereof, and it must be repeated over and over, each brush and bounce weaving chakra further into the object, like a sewing project.

In and out, up and down, in this case are the same thing.

The coin is small enough that it won't take very long to gain her signature. The charge of it won't last long either–which is why she's doing it now, mere minutes before she's going to need it–but that's fine. She doesn't need it to last.

Dad would kill me for doing this out in the field where anyone could see, she muses idly. But I know that no one is going to see me now. It's not breaking the Clan's secrecy.

She's not really supposed to know this yet. It's a Chuunin level skill. One that Ino, now, wonders if is really used as a sensor-type training exercise.

Did Dad know I was a sensor-type? He taught me this nearly a year ago. I thought everyone could do this and feel the breadth and weft of their chakra as it was woven into the material they used.

It would be very like her dad to have known and to have given her a training exercise to strengthen her abilities before she was ever aware of them.

I can't even blame him for not telling me, she realizes. They covered that in the Academy. Sensor-types are rare and those whose abilities come to full flower are even rarer. Most shinobi wind up being able to sense their own chakra, which just makes sense since it belongs to them. Some can sense those they're closest to on a rudimentary level. Alive or dead, that sort of thing, but have almost no range.

And then there's a true sensor. The one who can find even unfamiliar signatures, who has range, who can judge intent by feel. No two sensor-types are exactly alike. It makes training complicated because a lot of it must be self-driven to find what's best for each sensor. There's a lot of variation in range and capability too.

For all of them, though, the most important thing is that a sensor-skill cannot be forced into existence. There's the workarounds that Hatake-sensei uses to mimic the ability. But the actual skill to

sense is one that either wakes up or it doesn't.

It feels weird to know all of that and to look at the coin she's been tossing in neat little circles and wonder at just how much she doesn't really know.

I suppose that's why I'm just a Genin, she decides. Mine's woken up and I'm in way over my head. I have no idea what I'm doing or how strong I'll wind up being. But Daddy's been having me train with this for ages and I've never had…

I've never had problems finding people. Even on missions with Shikamaru and Chouji or during the Chuunin Exam. Finding them hasn't been a problem. I just…

She'd always thought it was her bloodline.

But what if it had been her sensor skills seeping into her everyday life?

I'll ask Daddy, she decides. When we're out of here. Now that I'm aware of their existence and begun using them, I'll need more training in it anyway. There's more sensors in the Yamanaka Clan than in most. I already knew that. They'll have tools to help me figure out the best way to work with mine. But for now…

She tosses the coin up, dances it over her knuckles again, then repeats the cycle once more for good measure before snapping the cycle, and her chakra's connection to the coin, like scissors cutting thread.

The coin all but gleams to her. It feels like her.

Ino tucks it into one of her pouches, bounces on the balls of her feet, then walks over to the door and deliberately pricks herself on one finger with a splinter. Blood wells out, dark in the luminous, uneasy half-light of near dawn cast in green.

A drop of it forms, then spills away from her, falling, falling, and hitting the floor.

The monster forms one the bed. Writhing and snarling, impossible to define and furious at its own torturous existence.

Ino's smile isn't very nice at all. Underneath the bubblegum she's always been made of steel.

She flings another drop of blood at the monster, catching its attention.

It goes still. Like a predator sensing prey.

"Catch me if you can," Ino challenges. Then she bolts back the way she'd come.

Behind her, the monster screams in blood-curling, howling rage, and a million claws scrabble and scrape after her, giving chase.

Ino's grin is tight, her eyes intent, and despite the very real danger should she misstep or stumble or get caught on something unexpected and the monster catches her… she's also enjoying this thrill. All she has to do is get it right.

And she does.

The training Hatake-sensei has been giving them, in sticking to the oddest things, to moving no matter what position they're in, to making their way over whatever obstacle that may wind up in their paths proves useful as she hurtles back down the hallway, through Hatake-sensei's childhood bedroom with their leftover, forlorn dreams, and then out the window.

Cool air brushes her overheated skin like a kiss of rain but Ino has no time to pay attention to that. No time to pay attention to anything except getting up onto the roof as fast as possible, the monster boiling, frothing out of the window behind her screaming and clamouring with hunger denied.

And now, now the monster is outside.

Where they hadn't been sure it would be able to go, where they'd thought they were safe, and Ino knows, without knowing how she knows, as feather-soft feelings nudge her memories away from it, that they had been safe, that they had been right about the monster.

But now that restriction is gone.

It can't go far from the Main House, Ino thinks, reaching the roof and booking it over the aged, worn tiles of it. Chakra stabilizes her steps so she can continue her reckless race with the monster. But we're not leaving it, not really. We're just… on the outside of it.

The clattering, mind-shattering skitter of long claws, sharp as needles, behind her tells Ino that not only has the monster reached the roof, but that it is gaining on her, a beast borne of things more and less than human and all the faster for not being tied down by a mortal coil.

It doesn't matter, Ino thinks grimly, with a wild exaltation underneath it nonetheless. Because we're almost there!

Ahead of her, the green smokescreen forms a pillar that reaches up into the night.

A part of her wonders if they can see it from the village and, if so, what must they think about it, but she keeps going.

She reaches the place she'd hidden on the roof, where she'd signaled to Hatake-sensei that she'd been present and he'd answered her. There's no time to stop and see how Sakura is doing. It kills her a little on the inside but, if all goes well, everything will be fine.

Dawn is there, turning the night sky into reds and pinks and oranges and yellows and it makes the darkness that has subsumed Hatake-sensei more obvious. A simple square. A box sitting on a flat bit of the roof, taking up that one section.

Unerringly, without hesitation, Ino flings herself into that darkness, trailed by the monster.