Title: Are You Ready?
Chapter: 44 – Sway
Author: Killaurey
Rating: T
Word Count: 5,358
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 44 of ? Unbeta'd.

Shikamaru folds himself down in front of the shougi board with trepidation. His father stares at him with dark eyes, their expression… Shikamaru feels very small, seeing that expression and the way that the skin around his father's mouth is crinkled with displeasure—no, with disappointment and more.

The very worst part of knowing his father is angry with him is that Shikamaru also knows that his father knows he knows and, in knowing, is content to have him stew in misery of his own devising rather than putting him out of it.

Knowing that this is part of his punishment, his just deserts, doesn't make it any less uncomfortable.

That's probably the point.

He keeps his eyes trained on the shougi board and waits for his father to make his move both on and off of it.

When it comes to the important things, measured deliberation and careful consideration are his father's keywords before any action is ever taken. Especially when angry. His father's temper is slow to rouse, unlike his mother's, but now…

"I have already apologized to—"

"Your so-called apology was completely inadequate," Shikaku says, interrupting him and moving his first piece. "You think a muttered 'sorry' is enough for our Clan to save face due to your transgression? You lost your temper and yelled at an allied Clan Head in public. Tell me why you did this."

Shikamaru feels his ears start to burn with shame mixed with anger. He's still angry. He's been angry since Ino left their team.

He can't seem to help it.

"I—" He clamps his mouth shut and struggles to think of a strategy that will fix this, win this and the game spread out in front of him.

Nothing immediately presents itself but, by being quiet, he at least manages to shut up the part of him that wants to protest that it hadn't been in public. It had been in Ino's hospital room.

That's public enough. He knows that. He knows that. So why had he…

Shikamaru slides a pawn forward one space and tries to ignore the yawning pit of inadequacy that's opened up deep inside of him.

"I'm sorry, Father," he says. "I don't know what to say."

He's still angry, is the thing, and he can't seem to get rid of it. Not even now, when he's fucked up this badly. Part of him is still smarting at the injustice of all of everything. Can't they see that it had been better, before Ino had changed everything?

Why is he the only one still angry?

Even Chouji, whose feelings had been hurt badly by Ino's leaving is more ambivalent about the whole matter these days.

"That's not good enough," his father says. "You're a Chuunin now, not an Academy student or even a Genin. Your world is much bigger now and you must grow to meet it. Your actions matter. You're also my heir and you've embarrassed both the Clan as a whole and myself as your Clan Head and father. You are meant to be my successor. The opinions you espouse and take action upon matter."

Shikamaru swallows hard.

"Your mother will be devastated," his father adds in a cool, thoughtful voice. One that Shikamaru has never heard before. "What you have done reflects poorly on us."

It feels like the insides of him are trying to tie themselves into knots, pretty curlicues twisted and twined about each other in an attempt to get away from the words that are drilling themselves into his head.

His eyes burn.

"Tell me why you've done this." Shikaku moves his next piece, giving the floor back to Shikamaru.

He wishes he knew what to do with it. He wishes they could go back in time, before the whole stupid exam. Before he'd grumbled and bitched and moaned his way through it, their team skirting by on intelligence and skulking rather than power. Before the village had been attacked. Before Uchiha had left.

Before Ino had felt so badly about their team that she left it entirely rather than trying to fix it again.

He stares at the board but he's not seeing it.

He's a Chuunin? He's a piece of shit.

He'd nearly gotten Chouji and the others killed—Chouji had nearly died even with Tsunade-sama, the greatest medical ninja of all time being in the village—and Ino had left. Had left their team.

Insidiously, the thought happens, like a devil's voice in the back of his mind, telling him that that he might've not helped with Ino's situation but that it had been Asuma-sensei's job to make it work, to solve that problem. That it hadn't been his fault.

But hadn't it been?

Hadn't it, hadn't it, hadn't it?

He'd been the one who'd played all those games with Asuma-sensei while Ino had complained and nagged and asked when they were going to one of the practice fields.

And he'd ignored her, tuned her out, let the team morale migrate lower and lower until it didn't exist because, fuck, Ino talked all the time. She talked constantly with no one listening until she'd up and left and now there's a great, gaping hole in their team where she used to be.

It's too quiet now. Her silence is louder than her words had ever been.

And he—he maybe couldn't have changed Asuma-sensei's mind but he could have, at least, paid attention to her a little more. It wouldn't have been hard. They were supposed to be friends.

A Chuunin?

He can't even be a friend.

Then he'd seen her, there, in the hospital and he—

(he's still so angry about everything, about how everything has spun out of control, about his own failures; he's angriest at himself)

-he'd lost his mind. He might have failed her as a teammate and as a friend but she'd never wound up in the hospital because of him.

Tears squeeze themselves out of his eyes, tracking in thin, uncomfortable rivulets down his cheeks.

His father says nothing about them.

Shikamaru grits his teeth, makes his next move, and slowly, haltingly, starts to talk.

About the poison Team 10 had turned into, from a team built on synergy and clan alliances to a failure grown off the back of his own inertia, Chouji's ennui, Ino's drive, and Asuma-sensei's assumptions. About his own fury and the feelings he doesn't know how to manage.

About how Chouji has been quieter lately. How Asuma-sensei still hasn't done anything. About how small Ino had looked, in that hospital bed. How he doesn't know what to do or how to fix it.

It hurts.

Hatake-sensei eventually shoos her out of the hospital and, as night falls, brilliant and starry, and Ino still feels refreshed, almost insomnolent, so she takes her sweet time meandering home.

Part of her wants to stay with Sakura, to be there when she wakes up for longer than a handful of minutes, but Hatake-sensei hadn't been wrong in that her own rest was important too. Even if she doesn't feel like sleeping.

Still, by the time she's home, Ino can tell that no matter how awake her mind is that her body still would appreciate more rest. She knows good and well that chakra exhaustion, at the level she'd had it, is the most dangerous once a person feels like they're fine—because it's easy to overestimate a recovery, not rest enough before using chakra again, and then fall into a deeper problem.

So she hasn't used any, in wandering around today. Not even to stick herself to a wall long enough to get up onto a roof.

It'd be irritating, being grounded and restrained by her own good sense if, by the time she got home, she hadn't been able to feel the weakness in her limbs.

But I can so I know it was the right choice. Points to me!

It doesn't quite distract her from how weird it is to be Just Ino instead of Ino-on-Team-Seven again but that, she suspects, is due to the fact that they'd all been up in each other's business for far too long with no one else to talk to.

I'll get over it, she decides and dismisses that particular matter.

No one's home when she gets there which Ino had expected but it's also nice to have a chance to take another shower (being clean is the best) and change into soft pajamas before combing her hair out with her fingers and wandering into the kitchen in search of snacks.

At some point I'm going to need real food, she admits, even as she scrounges for something that's easy and that, hopefully, she doesn't have to cook. Rather than ration bars, café drinks and treats, and now snacks. But I'll deal with that tomorrow. I'm too tired to cook.

She puts tea on, figuring that that's always a good step when nothing immediately appeals to her, and it's just as the water starts boiling that her Dad's chakra reaches the edges of her senses.

Ino tilts her head.

I wonder…, she muses, consternation niggling at her, even as she gets another cup down for him. I wonder if…

But there's no time to properly get that thought in order, turn a supposition and a vibe into an articulated concept, not when her dad's just unlocked the back door and stepped inside.

"Daddy!" she chirps, beaming at him.

He sweeps her with a glance and then she's swept up into his arms in a hug that, until she'd gotten it, Ino hadn't realized how badly she'd needed one.

"I made tea," she says, though she also makes zero move to get away from him.

She's bigger and older than she used to be, with all the independence that entails, but he's still the person she feel the safest with, the most herself around.

He laughs and she feels the vibrations of it as he smooths one hand down her hair. "I missed you," he says. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," she says, rolling her eyes with fond exasperation as she wriggles free to get their tea. Over her shoulder, she says, "Daddy, really, all I really needed was a nap."

"I knew that," he says mildly. "I still had to ask."

"Well," Ino says, "I promise I'm fine, Daddy."

His gaze is heavy on her, though when she checks, his expression is good humoured, and she shakes her head a little at the ridiculousness of parents as she sets their cups down on the table and then goes and gets some crackers for her to nibble on.

It's only once she's settled down that he speaks again. "If you're fine," he says, "and I believe you, but I also have to ask—why have you locked down your mind?"

He doesn't have to say he asks because he's both her dad and the head of her clan. He also doesn't have to say it's because he loves her.

She knows all of this and that makes it easy to shoulder his concern even though she's totally fine.

Ino wrinkles her nose. "Nothing bad," she says glibly. "There was a monster thing, maybe something the enemy brought in, on the mission and it was making me sick if I reached out with my mind. So Hatake-sensei ordered me to not. Then I realized that, even with my mind shielded, I was… sensing things. I think I'm a full Sensor, Daddy, and Hatake-sensei agrees."

He nods thoughtfully. "I suspected as much," he admits.

"I knew it," she crows. "That's why you taught me that chakra infusing trick, isn't it?"

Raising his cup to take a sip doesn't hide the way his lips twitch with a smile. "Perhaps," he allows.

She grins at him. It was so totally because of that. "Anyway, while we were there, I decided that taking it a step further was safest for me—so I locked down entirely, and I haven't unlocked yet because I want to explore these new abilities without everything else. It's weird how things are different but not all different. Even the hospital…"

Ino trails off thoughtfully.

"The hospital?" Inoichi prompts.

"I didn't hate the hospital as much as usual," she says, frowning. "In fact, I barely hated it at all. It wasn't as horrible as it normally is to be in there."

"Ah," her dad says. "Yes. That's part of our bloodline. Even passively, without deliberately reaching out, the hospital has so many thoughts and feelings, many of them traumatic, that the building itself is… has become a melting point of contentious and conflicting subliminal messages. Essentially, the building is contaminated by them. With your mind on full lockdown, rather than standard shields, the emotions and thoughts can't bleed over onto you."

Ino considers that as she breaks a cracker into two pieces before she eats one half. "So as soon as I unlock my mind, I'm going to hate the hospital again?"

"Yes," Inoichi says.

She makes a bit of a face. "Oh well," Ino says, shrugging a little. "It's not like hating it keeps me from going there when I need to and that's really the important thing, right? That I don't let an aversion prevent me from seeking aid."

"Correct," he says. "As Clan Head, I make certain that everyone in the Clan seeks the help they need, if they do not seek it out themselves."

Ino eats the other half of her cracker finding that, now, she's not really hungry. She feels restless, instead, even though she knows good and well that she's too tired to go and do anything.

Across the table, her dad seems perfectly content to just exist, drinking tea and keeping an eye on her.

"It's okay, right, that I locked my mind down for now?" she asks. "So I can work on figuring out my sensor abilities?"

"A strange time to ask, once you've already done so," Inoichi murmurs and she flushes at the mild reprimand.

"Hatake-sensei—"

He holds up one hand, a silent 'hold up' and 'you need to calm down' all in one.

She settles. A bit mutinously. But only a bit since she usually does listen to her dad without problems.

"I understand that you needed to protect yourself," he says. "And that Hatake-sensei ordered you to not use your abilities. For clarity, he did not order you to lock your mind down, did he?"

Ino shakes her head quickly.

"No, Daddy," she says. "He just told me to not reach out with my mind. That it was too dangerous when we didn't know what we were dealing with. I made the choice to lock my mind down."

She speaks confidently, certain of her words, even while a part of her recognizes that she's very carefully treading over shaky ground. That something else is being held back, something that she doesn't currently know. That there's a blank spot in her reasoning for this but also that she'd approved of her doing this.

And that one day I'll remember.

Ino trusts herself.

She did this, so she has a good reason for it.

And, even though sensor training hadn't been the main goal, it's still a good goal. A good reason.

And I'll work my ass off to master it.

"I am sorry I didn't ask for your permission first," she says, which is true now, mostly because she hates it when he's disappointed in her. "But…"

Ino trails off, shrugging a little helplessly.

Her dad hums thoughtfully and then drains his tea. "I'll allow it, for now, for the purposes of training your sensor abilities. Eventually the two skills will need to be integrated… however, undoing a mind lock precipitously can cause its own problems. How long were you planning on keeping it?"

Ino tilts her head slightly. "I suppose it depends on how my sensor training goes."

Which is true—after all, it's not like this is something as easy to gauge as scrubbing a bathtub or a sink clean. It also allows her to ignore the eddy of contemplative confusion from behind the block in her mind.

(Ino really wishes that she'd left herself with a clue about all of this. It would've been nice.)

He nods slowly.

"Daddy," she says, because there's a question she needs answered, "did Shikamaru really yell at you?"

Because she trusts Hatake-sensei but that's… that's… that's a lot.

"He did," he says. "Shikaku's dealing with it."

The way he says it doesn't invite more questions. Even for her, his heir.

Ino thinks about that. Thinks about how proud and prickly both their clans are, in their own ways, and how it's one thing to insult her, since she's Shikamaru's contemporary, literally born one day apart, but how it's another thing entirely to insult her dad.

The Nara Clan like her, but they don't always take her seriously. Same with some of her own Clan. She doesn't like these facts but, that's what they are, just the facts of it.

(She will change their minds.)

Her dad, on the other hand, is a very well-respected man. A Jounin. A genius in his field. An old friend of the two other Clan heads.

"Daddy," she says slowly, "people are going to know. At the hospital, people heard."

Which, in turn, means that all of the Akimichi, Nara, and Yamanaka will know. There's no way of keeping the cat from escaping that bag. Not when it's already gotten loose. It won't mean open fighting in the streets or anything like that… but it will mean petty, catty comments. Conversations cut off. Friend groups turning a little more insular, less welcoming.

Trust is a fragile little flame, it could burn out.

Ino doesn't know what else it could mean but there's nothing good, when an heir of one clan yells at an allied clan head who out-ranks him in every sense of the word.

If she'd been dying, well, it could have been passed off as just over-wrought emotions. She could patter out the party line for that easily herself, just in case, without even having to think about it.

He was just worried and scared, they're such good friends after all, you know how it goes…

But all she'd been down with had been chakra exhaustion and, so long as she looks after herself, a mild case at that.

She hadn't been dying. She'd just needed a good night's sleep.

"Shikaku's dealing with it," her dad repeats. "I daresay you'll be seeing him in public soon enough. He hopes to see you out and about."

Ino nods, looking into her tea. "Yes, Daddy. I'll thank Uncle Shikaku for his well wishes."

It won't fix anything but, being seen in public with him will help off-set the rumours of any possible schism in the alliance between their Clans.

Her dad stands and sets his empty cup on the counter. Then he rests his hands on her shoulders.

"It will be fine," he says, and presses a kiss to the top of her head. "You sent the first wave and Shikamaru has further rocked the boat, but we will all weather this storm."

She looks up at him, feeling very tired. "I didn't mean to—"

Ino trails off because, well, she had meant to leave her team, seek out more training. Learn loads of things.

But—

"Get up," her dad says. "Go to bed. You need more sleep."

And the conversation is over.

The soreness of a good training session is always wonderful. It means she's worked hard and her body acknowledges her efforts. As she meanders down the street she knows has one of Sakura's favourite shops (she'd asked Ino yesterday) Tenten smiles a little.

She hadn't wanted to get flowers for Sakura, since Sakura's got Ino on her team and Ino knows more about plants than the rest of their friend groups combined, so she's looking for something else.

Something small, since they're friends but she doesn't know Sakura that well, not the way she knows Hinata or Ino.

And shopping is always a nice way to take a break after working her butt off for an entire morning.

Besides, once I'm done shopping, Mom wants me in the store this afternoon and then I'd wanted to go back to figuring out that sealing scroll. I wish I was better at sealing but, you know what they say: practice makes perfect!

Since she's out to buy something, it really only makes sense for her to take her time and see if there's anything she wants to buy too. She deserves a treat, after all, right? Obviously, it's true that she does.

That's the reasoning Tenten uses for first a bubble tea and then a paper cone full of konpeito, colourful hard sugar candies, to munch on as she window shops.

Mom's birthday's next month too. It won't hurt to keep an eye out for anything she might like. She always says she doesn't want anything but, like, presents are always nice. I know she's been talking about a new emollient—something to do with a different formula that she wants to try—but buying moisturizer for my mom seems a little low effort. Let's see if I can't find something else…

And if she can't, well, it is nice to have a backup plan.

A little bit later, while she's examining sun catchers, and admiring the tiny, specular glass beadwork of them and wondering if her mom would like the cranes or the koi fish better, that–

"A-Ano, Tenten-san," Hinata says and, when Tenten looks over, Hinata smiles. "Good afternoon."

Tenten blinks as she realizes that Hinata and Kurenai-sensei are out shopping together. Each of them are carrying a bag with the same logo on it. She might think it was work related except the logo is for a very popular bakery.

And no one trains to be a ninja by buying pastries.

I knew they were close but there's something… there's something really sweet about them spending spare time together.

"Hey," she says, and sketches a half-bow to Kurenai-sensei. "Hello, Kurenai-sensei. What are you two up to?'

Hinata's pale eyes sparkle. "We were about to go to lunch," she says, smiling up at her sensei.

"Would you like to join us?" Kurenai-sensei offers, which makes Hinata's smile widen.

"Oh, no, I wouldn't want to be an imposition," Tenten says quickly.

"I-It's no bother," Hinata says quietly, looking hopeful and almost… tentative. "You're my friend."

A glance at Kurenai-sensei seems to indicate that it's also alright with her. Tenten can't help feeling a little wrong-footed and awkward at the idea of going to lunch with a friend and their sensei. She'd never invite anyone to hang out with her team, no matter how fond of them she is, because her team is absolutely nuts and rather a lot.

But Hinata looks so happy and Kurenai-sensei, well, Tenten's never heard anything bad about her, and now they're both looking at her expectantly…

Oh, why not?

"Well…"

"Then it's settled," Hinata decides, which makes both Tenten and Kurenai-sensei laugh.

"You picked that up from Ino," Tenten accuses, even as she falls into step with them. "But, yes, alright. My arm has been twisted and I concede defeat. Where are we going?"

They wind up at a small restaurant with dark walls, soft cushions, and apparently the best curry rice in the village, according to Kurenai-sensei.

"What were you looking for?" Hinata asks, once they've all ordered tea. "You were pretty intent on your shopping."

Tenten shrugs a little. "My mom's birthday's coming up," she explains. "And I was also looking for something for Sakura. She got banged up pretty bad on her last mission, so I thought it'd be nice."

"S-She's back in town?" Hinata asks and then, as what Tenten had said sinks in, she flushes. "She's been injured? Are, that is…"

Tenten thinks it's really kind of amazing how red Hinata can get when she's embarrassed.

"Team Seven is back in the village?" Kurenai-sensei asks and, well, she doesn't need to probe details because Tenten really doesn't know much.

Besides, what little she does know, Tenten is aware that at least one member of the team would want her to share. Ino hadn't said as much, in so many words, but Tenten doesn't need something to be painted in the sky as an aerial display of ostentation to get the hint.

"They're back in the village," she confirms. "Saw them with my own eyes. Ino was asleep for a bit with a case of chakra exhaustion, but she's up and about now, no real injuries. Hatake-sensei—"

Kurenai-sensei frowns but doesn't say anything when Tenten pauses, looking at her inquiringly.

After a moment, she goes on.

"—Hatake-sensei had a few bandages on but, given that Tsunade-sama hadn't shoved him into a hospital bed, he's probably okay. I don't really know what was wrong with Sakura, but she'll be in the hospital for a few days. Tsunade-sama says she'll be just fine, given the time to recover."

Well. Technically Shizune-san had said so to her, but she'd said she'd heard it from Tsunade-sama. And Shizune-san's own training was also in the arts and mysteries of medicine. Tenten figures that, if anything could go wrong, Shizune-san would know.

"Do… do you know what happened?" Hinata asks, and Tenten strongly suspects that Hinata's holding onto the sleeves of her coat under the edge of the table. A security blanket. It's one that Hinata has been doing less and less lately.

Tenten shakes her head.

It's not even a lie. She had no clue what their mission had been. It's probably better that way.

"Sorry, no," she says. "Ino says it's just Team Seven's terrible luck rearing its ugly head. I think she's planning on using Yamanaka luck to counter it."

This, of all things, makes Kurenai-sensei laugh softly. "I don't think luck works that way."

Tenten laughs as Hinata giggles.

"I wouldn't tell Ino that," Tenten says cheerfully. "Once she decides on something, well, the world had better watch out. If anyone could twist luck to her advantage, I'm pretty sure it'd be her."

She's glad to see that Hinata looks relieved and calm again. "If it's her," Hinata says, "then I would believe it."

Kurenai-sensei looks politely, mildly bemused.

Likely, Tenten decides, because Kurenai-sensei hasn't actually encountered Ino when she really wants something to go her way. Her loss. It's always great watching Ino steamroll right over someone.

"Anyway," Tenten says, "after this, I'll have to get back to looking for presents. What will you two be doing?"

She could bring up the whole Shikamaru Thing but she decides not to, not in front of Kurenai-sensei. It seems like such a tacky thing to say in front of an adult who isn't directly involved.

It is just as easy to talk about it with Hinata later, since I'm sure it's going to come up. She might have some good ideas on how to deal with the whole mess of it. Hyuuga might run their clan differently than the Yamanaka but Ino and Hinata are the only two girls around our age who were raised as clan heirs. The rest of them are all boys.

As such, for now, Tenten chooses to focus on the things that she can control and listens to Hinata's plans for the rest of the day. She tries to ignore the pinch at not being able to do anything. Ino had said just listening was enough but Tenten prefers action.

I'm not clan affiliated though and the only thing I've got on the Nara is that one I.O.U. from Shikamaru. Which… I don't think I could leverage the favour he owes me into his continued good behaviour anyway.

Still…

I'll think about it. Later.

Sakura wakes up in the dead of night.

Her chest feels like something has been stomping on it and she still feels weird, wrung out, and tired, but she also feels like herself.

It's pretty nice.

She blinks up at the ceiling, watching the lines of moonlight filtering through the curtains dance across the tiles. A crisscross of waves in motion. Sakura watches it for a while, half-dazed and still drowsy, but also safe. She hurts but she'll be okay.

A monitor beeps next to her and she shifts, her eyes idly studying it, not sure what the chakra-green numbers on it mean.

Someone else in the room shifts, too, and she realizes she's known that he was there since she woke up.

"Sensei," she says, and the word is raspy. She grumbles about that, in a rumble that's not words, a motion that makes her have to blink back pinpricks of pain.

Okay. Okay, so she's healing but she shouldn't do that. Not yet.

"Don't push yourself. Hokage-sama will have my hide." He laughs, soft and quiet, like there's a joke to be shared and as if it's not the middle of the night. Like he hadn't just 'tut, tut, tutted' her without so much as saying the words.

Despite herself, she smiles faintly.

"Here's some water," he says, and helps her drink.

The water is cool but not cold and there's no beads of condensation to drip down from the bottle. It's been out for a little bit, then, but she doesn't mind.

"Thank you," she says.

He settles down in the chair next to her. "How are you feeling?"

It's strange, having someone watch over her so intently. Sakura thinks she likes it, but it also makes her heart hurt.

"I'll be alright," she says softly. "Do… do my parents know I'm here?"

Under the cover of her blankets, she crosses the fingers on one hand. If they don't know, it will be easier to—

"Yes," he says. There's a terrible sort of kindness in his voice. "They've been informed."

The rest of it, he doesn't need to say. They're not here now and they're probably not coming.

Sakura studies the splinters of her heart the same way she'd studied the monitor and is glad of the ethereal haze of the night, of whatever it is that has her so removed from her feelings.

I wonder what I've been dosed with? she ponders, though that thought doesn't hold up against the rest of them.

Doesn't hold up against—

"Oh," she says, even more softly. Then—"Where's Ino? She… She was okay, wasn't she?"

Vaguely, like it happened to someone else, a lifetime away from the here and now she thinks she remembers Ino getting her water, hopping off a bed and laughing.

"Ino's fine," Hatake-sensei says firmly. "I ordered her home to sleep. She'll be back first thing in the morning."

Sakura's gaze goes back to the monitor. "Did she say that?"

"Yes," he says, very gently.

"Oh," she says, again. She doesn't know why this makes her want to cry. Ino always keeps her word. "Thank you for staying with me, Hatake-sensei. I… I think I'm tired again, if that's okay…?"

She's not but she also doesn't want to compare and contrast the people in her life right now and she will, if she has to keep thinking about it.

"Of course," he says. "Go to sleep, Sakura."

"Y-You'll stay, though, right…?"

Hatake-sensei wraps her hand in his.

The touch is enough to make her turn her head, to actually look at him. He's silvered by the moonlight and shadows cross his face like ghosts.

"Right here," he says, nodding to their hands. "I'll get some sleep when Ino shows up. We're taking shifts."

She nods slowly and, after a while, almost relaxes enough to drowse again, anchored to the world by his hand, and the quiet, hurting bit of her that wonders why her parents couldn't do this.

If he notices when she turns her head away and cries silently, hot tears lashing down her cheeks, he gives no sign of it, and Sakura is grateful for that small kindness too.

His hand is enough.