Title: Are You Ready?
Chapter: 43 – Moments
Author: Killaurey
Rating: T
Word Count: 4,182
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 43 of ? Unbeta'd.
The first time Sakura wakes, she doesn't wake long. Just swims to the surface for a few moments, hazily notices the machines, the bite to the air, and fuzzily thinks, ah, the hospital.
Then she is pulled back under by the tides of exhaustion.
The second time Sakura wakes, she wakes due to shouting. The words tumble half-formed through her drugged, uncomprehending state and, before she can even begin to shake off the collywobbles and cobwebs that cloud her mind she's pulled back under.
Don't worry about it, Inner tells her, strong and confident. It has nothing to do with you. You'll find out when you wake up for real.
So, Sakura sleeps and allows her body to work on healing unimpeded.
In the early morning, Ino wakes up abruptly and all at once.
Then, because she's well trained in subterfuge, she doesn't move at all, just considers where she is without opening her eyes.
Hospital, she decides. She still feels grimy and gross but that's fine. That's what showers and baths were invented to fix. Though I don't remember needing it.
That's what gets her to open her eyes, pushing herself up into a seated position as she does so.
Her eyes land on Sakura, hooked up to a couple of monitors and looking rather a lot like death, and then to Hatake-sensei, who is lingering in a chair between their two beds. She is vaguely amused to note that he's put the chair precisely between them.
"Yo," he says, his eye crinkling with a smile. "There's a bottle of water beside you."
He, she sees, is clean and has changed. Ino tells herself it's ridiculous to be envious of that, but as she twists the cap off of the bottle and sips her water (it's not cold but, as hydration wakes her up, she's kind of glad for that; cold water upsets her stomach if she hasn't drunk anything for awhile) she is totally a bit envious of that.
"What's wrong with Sakura?" she asks. "What happened after I—passed out?"
"You over-extended your chakra," he says, with an ease that relaxes her a little. Surely, surely he wouldn't be so nonchalant if Sakura wasn't going to be okay, right? "Once you're done drinking and Shizune-san or Tsunade-sama have looked you over, you'll be able to go home. Sakura will be here for a few days."
Ino considers that thoughtfully, staring from him to Sakura and then looking at the bottle of water she holds.
He didn't answer any of her questions, not really, and that's weird because he usually does.
Look underneath the underneath, she reminds herself and then grimaces.
"Are you in any trouble?" she asks.
He nods approvingly at her. "Not especially, but protocol is protocol."
"Okay." She doesn't like it, she hates having to wait for answers, but… but yeah, she gets why protocol is what it is in this case. Their training mission had gone so far off the rails it had careened itself through several walls.
She can't really be mad at protocol for wanting to make sure everything was above-board. Ino hopes they hustle with it, though, so she can ask her questions plainly and get the answers to her questions.
"Sakura's going to be okay, right?" she asks, figuring that a question that general should be permissible. "And has my dad been told I'm here?"
"Sakura will be just fine," he reassures her. "A few days in the hospital, then she'll have to take it easy for a few weeks with training, but she'll be back in top condition by the end of the month."
She sighs with relief even as part of her mulls over the 'few weeks' of taking it easy. With Tsunade-shishou having been the one, she assumes, to have healed Sakura…
Whatever it was, it was bad, she realizes and, as she does so, knows she can't ask anything about that right now. Hatake-sensei probably shouldn't have told me that much but he did it so blandly that he didn't actually say anything they can complain about…
"And my dad?" she asks.
"He stopped by," Hatake-sensei says. "One of your old teammates was here, the Nara boy. And one of your girlfriends, the one with the buns."
Shikamaru and Tenten? Ino frowns. "Do I want to know what that has to do with my dad?"
"The girl said she'd stop by again," he tells her, and she nods. "The Nara asked your father about when you'd be transferring back to your old team and took rather loud exception when your father said he had no plans to have you transferred again."
Ino winces.
He yelled at my Dad?
Shikamaru is not nearly as cool and collected as he pretends to be. She's well aware of his temper and his pettiness when angry. They are, after all, very old friends.
Even if they're straining the bounds of that friendship right now.
"That's going to hit the gossip mill," she says, making a face. "Even if he doesn't spread it around in a fit of pique, people are going to talk. And Dad's going to be on damage control. Great."
Maybe if I beat him up, he'll get over whatever snit he's in, she ponders. Though Dad probably wouldn't approve of that, given the ripples in the Clan connections right now.
But it's so tempting…
Maybe if I do it under the guise of training. No one could blame me for winning a training bout…
Even being charitable, knowing he probably reacted the way he did because of worry doesn't soothe her. She tamps down on her own ire and tells herself to deal with it later.
"Was Tenten here for that?" she asks.
"Looking like she wanted to crawl under a bed," Hatake-sensei sounds amused. "But yes, yes she was."
Okay, so debrief with Tsunade-sama, then once I'm clean, fed, and tidy, and have hugged my dad and any of the cousins that come wandering around to see if the rumours of my imminent demise are true… go see Tenten and get the details from her. Maybe do that publicly, where everyone can see it's all nonsense…
There's other things she'll have to figure out but, for now, she figures that's a good start to what she can do.
"I don't want to change teams," she says fiercely. "I like this Team Seven, Hatake-sensei."
"Even though a training mission went drastically wrong?"
Ino looks at him and laughs. "That's really, really just Team Seven's luck, isn't it? But yeah, Hatake-sensei, I'm happy. The mission was awful at times but I want to stay."
He looks… he looks relieved and, for the first time, Ino realizes that however fond she is of her new team, her new sensei seems to be equally attached.
I mean, I knew he was determined to have us succeed, but…
But it's a bit different, knowing that his care isn't just out of a desire to do the job of being their sensei properly.
I'd say something about it but I don't want to embarrass him. And he'd totally get embarrassed if I started teasing him for having feelings. I don't even really want to, since I like that he does, no matter how tempting it would be… it's just, it's a far cry from our start, where I barged into his apartment and lectured him.
So she finds something else to say.
"Hey, Hatake-sensei," she says, "do you know how to train me up to defeat a shadow user even, like, in a grove of bamboo?"
It's the first thing she thinks of.
He looks at her.
"Just wondering," she says innocently, crossing her fingers behind her clear, plastic water bottle and knowing good and well he'll see that.
"Ino," he says, then shakes his head with a soft laugh. "Ino, you're going to get me in trouble."
"But?"
"I have a few ideas," he admits, his gaze shifting towards the shut door. "We'll go over them later."
She mimes locking her lips and throwing away the key. Then, because keeping quiet is not her thing, she immediately breaks her silence by asking, "Do you think anyone would care if I had a shower? Or should I wait until they come check me over? Did Dad leave me clothes?"
Ino rolls her eyes when Hatake-sensei laughs again but, like, she really doesn't mind it.
This moment… it's nice.
The third time Sakura wakes, she doesn't really.
She just hears wisps of conversation in familiar voices and laughter and then, contentedly, tumbles back under the covers of unconsciousness, secure in the fact that her team is safe and happy.
Ino, it turns out, does get her shower.
And there's something about it that hits different when you've woken up in the hospital!
Hospitals always have a miasma to them, a scent that clings, something she thinks is made of the traumas endured, joys achieved, bodily fluids secreted, medications prescribed and cleaners used. Though…
It doesn't seem that bad today, she allows, scrubbing shampoo through her hair. I wonder why that is?
No answers occur to her, then, so she just shrugs and goes back to reveling in the feeling of being absolutely, totally clean. Even better, her dad had brought her clothes, so once she's stepped out from under the spray and towelled herself off, she wriggles right into wonderfully clean clothes.
She folds her towel neatly, setting it to the side so the hospital staff know it has been used. Her dirty things, she shoves into the bag. She doesn't bother putting her hair up into a bun or ponytail, just leaves it loose. Glancing at herself in the mirror, Ino decides she's as cute as ever but maybe a little tired looking.
Which, really, it could be worse.
So, shrugging, Ino heads back to the room she and Sakura are sharing.
When she gets there, she finds Hatake-sensei talking to Tsunade-sama, both their voices quiet though she doesn't know if that's because of Sakura in the bed or because they don't want people to hear them.
Ino knocks on the doorframe as she enters the room, just because it's the polite thing to do, and then, since it is her room, she goes ahead and drops her bag on the bed she'd been sleeping in.
"Hokage-sama, Hatake-sensei," she greets.
"Yamanaka-kun," the Hokage says, and Ino realizes this is going to be all business, even though Tsunade-sama is smiling at her. "Please, come with me."
And what else is she to do? She's a proud shinobi of Konoha.
"Yes, Hokage-sama," she says. Ino glances at Hatake-sensei. "Guard my bag with your life."
"My solemn duty," he says agreeably.
She grins at him as she follows her Hokage out the door.
The fourth time, Sakura doesn't wake at all.
Caught in a formless nightmare, she shifts restlessly, anxiously, until her hand is taken and held by someone.
A low, soothing voice chases the nightmares away and acts as a talisman to keep them from returning.
It's absolutely beautiful out, with the afternoon sun still high in the sky, closer to noon than night, and Chouji is sitting with his dad and going over recipes on the roof of one of their larger restaurants when he spots Yamanaka Inoichi on the street below. That wouldn't really mean anything except that Shikamaru's with him and—
And—
Shikamaru looks mulish and Ino's dad looks like he's so very, incredibly done with everything.
"Dad," Chouji says, tilting his head at the tableau below.
His dad leans over the side of the roof, frowning slightly, then looks back at him. Chouji tries not to look too worried—but he is.
"Looks like they're heading for the Nara forests," Chouza says slowly.
"Should we go see?" Chouji asks.
"No," Chouza says immediately. "Better to stay out of whatever mess that is. We'll hear about it later, if it's important."
Chouji sighs but, his dad's right, he knows that, and in this instance, refusing to pay the cost of admission is the price of freedom. He can stand being ignorant for a little while.
Because, honestly, he's tired.
Just from the way the two of them look, he can make guesses as to what—or, really, who—it is about and he doesn't really want to hear it, from either side, not right now.
"I wonder," he says, half an hour later, "if that means Ino's back in town."
While he doesn't want to deal with the whole mess of his tangled hurt feelings, which are part of why he struggles to condemn Shikamaru's stubborn displeasure at Ino's so-called betrayal; emotionally, he gets it, even if intellectually… he sees why she left… but he would like to see her.
She is one of his oldest friends, after all, and they might no longer be on the same team but, as far as he's aware, they're still friends and allies.
It'd be nice. Just to talk to her.
"Maybe," Chouza allows. "If she is, though, give her a day or so. You know how tired you are after a mission. Give her the courtesy of a chance to rest before you go see her."
Chouji smiles, some of the twisted anxiety about being caught between Shikamaru and Ino emotionally melting away.
"I'll do that," he says.
The fifth time, Sakura is disturbed.
Someone infringes upon the silence and the low voice stops talking. She's poked and prodded and shifted and can't even make a sound in her own voice to protest. All she can do is endure it.
Don't worry, Inner murmurs, I'll keep an eye on it. They're helping us.
So Sakura, huffily, allows Inner to tuck her deeper into the depths of her own mind, to a place where she's unaware of the outside world.
Sleep, Inner says.
It's only as they leave the outskirts of the village and enter the cooling calm of the Nara forests that Shikamaru's temper settles enough for him to realize that—
Shit. I'm in deep shit.
-that he'd fucked up pretty bad by taking his stress out on Ino's father.
Maybe if Ino's father had been just Ino's father, then it could have been fine, but Yamanaka Inoichi is also the Clan Head of one of the Nara Clan's closest allies, the Head of Intelligence, and one of his father's closest friends.
Mom's going to murder me, he thinks soberly. And that's only if Dad leaves anything of me left for her to deal with.
Nara Shikaku was, usually, content to let his wife handle the daily running and average discipline of both their son and the Nara Clan at large. When something came up that his dad had to handle, however…
Shikamaru shoves his hands further into his pockets to ward off a shiver. As far as motions go, it is pretty ineffectual.
Just like everything else I've done lately, he thinks, and that thought sinks like a stone in his stomach. With that thought, even though it was healed right after That Mission, his broken finger aches fiercely.
He flexes his hand, trying to work out the pain that, he's been told, is all in his head, and—
"Sorry," he says, fixing his eyes on the ground in front of him.
"Well," Ino's dad says, after a few moments, "that's a start."
He doesn't sound impressed.
Shikamaru squashes his entirely irrational resentment of that fact—he knows good and well that his parents aren't going to be impressed either. Not with his actions, not with his thoughts, not with his paltry apology.
He's supposed to be a genius. That's what they say anyway and he's aware he's smarter than most of his peers the same way he's aware that Chouji's got reddish-brown hair and Ino's eyes are the exact same shade of blue as a sunny summer sky. It just is.
His feelings don't give a shit about logic. His emotions don't fall into neat, tidy, predictable patterns that he can exploit.
Ino's dad doesn't say anything else and Shikamaru doesn't dare because, if he tried, he thinks he might start crying.
Maybe he really isn't cut out for being a shinobi.
Back in the hospital, he thinks of the way Temari had dismissed his fears, made him feel small by saying men were surprisingly fragile. He thinks of his father asking if he was just going to run away. His father telling him that, if he quit being a shinobi, his friends would continue to go on missions with or without him. That if he wants to be better, he should work on it.
Then Ino in a hospital bed, from a mission he hadn't been on, and he—
Yamanaka Inoichi stops.
Shikamaru looks up to see his father, sitting cross-legged in front of a shougi board.
"I'll take it from here," Shikaku says. "On behalf of the Clan, I extend our apologies for the way my heir spoke to you. Please tell Ino-chan we hope she's up and about soon."
Shikamaru doesn't hear what Ino's dad says in response—Yamanaka are like that sometimes, just staring at people and then leaving, a conversation entirely inside their heads—then he's left alone with his dad, in the depths of the Nara forests.
Nara Shikaku waves for him to come up and take a seat across from him.
"We're going to play," he says, "and while we do, you're going to explain to me exactly what you think you've been doing lately."
The sixth time only happens when the low, soothing voice comes back. Sakura doesn't remember any nightmares that would have necessitated that.
Just accept it, Inner advises. Take it as a gift and do what it wants you to.
Since all the voice wants her to do is rest, Sakura does, feeling very safe, guarded both inside and outside by people who care about her.
"Tenten," her mom calls. "You've got a visitor!"
Tenten looks up from her notes–she's trying to learn enough sealing to make her own weapon scrolls instead of having to procure them from–and before she can even get up to go and see who her visitor is–
"Ino!"
Ino grins at her. "Thought I'd drop in," Ino says casually, leaning in the doorway to her bedroom. "Let you know I'm not dead and all, since I heard you stopped by at the hospital while I was sleeping."
"Get in here," Tenten orders, pointing her pen at Ino. She can't help but grin back. "And puh-lease, I saw your chart. I wasn't worried at all."
"That's an invasion of my privacy," Ino says, not sounding concerned. In fact, she sounds rather pleased with Tenten's audacity. "Do you mind if we go out, instead? Make sure people see me?"
Tenten frowns. "Why do people need to see you?" she asks, even as she closes her notebook and begins rolling the scroll she'd been working off of up.
Ino rolls her eyes. "Mostly a precaution," she says, "because I think my dad took care of most of the problem but, like, it can't hurt for people in our three Clans to see me up and active."
Right. The Shikamaru problem.
Tenten snorts. "Yeah, I'm not surprised." She ties off the scroll and stretches. "Alright, we'll go out."
They clatter down the stairs chattering about nothing important at all and Tenten takes a moment to study the other girl covertly. She still looks a bit tired and it's a little strange seeing her with her hair down but, other than a few small bandages on her arms and legs, Ino looks fine.
It isn't until they've found themselves a spot on a patio at one of Tenten's favourite tea houses that the conversation shifts to more serious things. Under the early evening sky, Tenten thinks their home looks beautiful.
"How are you, really?" Tenten asks. "What happened?"
Ino leans back in her chair, blue eyes watching the street. "I'm fine," she says dismissively, then she smiles. "Honest. Give me another night's sleep and no one would even know anything had happened to me."
"Good," Tenten says, and means it.
"As for what happened…" Ino shrugs. "I can't say. But I do think it was my first run-in with what Sakura calls Team Seven's curse."
Tenten laughs. "A curse? Really?"
"Bad luck does tend to follow Team Seven around like a cloud of doom," Ino says, tucking a strand of hair behind one ear. "Which… Sakura is currently Exhibit A over at the hospital."
"And yet you came out mostly unscathed."
The conversation drifts into a momentary lull as their tea is brought out to them. Once they've both poured their cups, Tenten raises an eyebrow at Ino.
Ino makes a face at her. "I'm pretty lucky," she says. "Always have been. Guess that counteracted Team Seven's bad luck."
Tenten hums thoughtfully as she crosses her legs.
Yamanaka are known to be lucky, for whatever reason, and after a moment, Tenten shrugs. Who knows? Maybe that really was it.
"I'm glad you're okay," she says. "It'd be super boring around here without you."
"Obviously." Ino laughs. "And Sakura should be fine. Tsunade-sama said so. It went sideways but, like, as long as we're all okay after it… what's life with a little more excitement?"
There's something there, Tenten realizes, in the way Ino's blue eyes are a little too cool, that suggests she's not as blasé about it all as she sounds. That something probably happened that will take a while to move past. A catastrophe composed of more than just Sakura's injuries.
Tenten won't pry. It's not her place to and Ino, when she clams up, is all but impossible to cajole information out of.
"Speaking of excitement," Tenten says, "you might want to deal with Shikamaru."
Ino sighs moodily. "I might just drown him," she says. "At this rate, anyway. Even though Dad's probably doing damage control, I don't know how to get Shikamaru to back off. So what if I was in the hospital? Even if I'd been injured as badly as Sakura… so what? I'm a shinobi. It happens. There's no reason for him to go about losing his temper at my dad and demanding I be moved back to Team Ten."
"Don't drown him," Tenten says. "The fish don't deserve that."
She doesn't mind Shikamaru. He's been alright to her in her class. They're friendly enough.
Tenten finds she doesn't know what to say to Ino, not really sure where to offer advice. She doesn't know anything about the way Ino's clan intersects with the Nara and Akimichi Clans and if that gives any reason for all of this.
She'd been right, though, that it was going to be a thing.
A smile flits over Ino's face. "I suppose they won't. I want to challenge him to a fight," she says, "but I'm not going to rush that. I want to make sure I can win, but, even if I do, that's not going to change his mind. I'm trying to treat it as if he's like sand, sand that's hurt my feelings. Dumping water on it won't solve the problem."
"What is his problem with you anyway?" Tenten asks.
Ino wriggles one hand back and forth. "He's mad I transferred teams and then he was probably upset about seeing me in the hospital, unconscious–"
Tenten rolls her eyes. There had been no 'probably' about it.
"-and the Nara tend to be a male dominated Clan. For whatever reason, their bloodline is usually stronger in the guys. So they're used to looking out after the girls of their Clan and I think that's extended to my and Chouji's clans too."
When Ino pauses, Tenten takes a sip of her tea and then says, "And you guys are friends, too, right?"
"Well, we usually are," Ino says. "And, yeah, I know I play the argumentative, antithetical foil to him a lot—"
"Such a dream girl," Tenten teases.
"—but, usually we do mostly get along. This is… this is just exhausting, you know? Bad enough to get back from a mission but now…"
Tenten frowns. "Hey," she says, "is there anything I can do?"
Ino smiles at her. "If I think of anything, I'll let you know. Right now, just talking is enough. Thanks."
The seventh time, Sakura really does wake.
Ino is sitting on the edge of her bed, reading a scroll with a knitted brow. For a terrible, agonizing second, Sakura thinks about the ninja who had worn Ino's face as they'd hurt her but, when this Ino sees that Sakura is awake, she grins, and Sakura's fears melt away like sun-warmed snow.
"Hey, Forehead."
"…Pig," Sakura rasps.
Ino laughs and she hops off the bed to get her a glass of water with a straw.
Sakura manages three sips and then falls back asleep to the sound of Ino happily telling someone else about the last few moments.