AN: Sufficient Velocity and Space Battles are super far ahead, and the Pa tre on is on CH 107. You can find the link on my profile if you wanna just get there.
I'ma update this more often than normal for a couple of weeks to catch it up, but you know, go elsewhere if you want the chapters now.
"You can bring anything you want, just summon some bandages or something-" Coaching her through how to fix her wound probably isn't how her best friend expected to spend the first few minutes in her mindscape, but Sakura can't help but be very grateful for the generous and kind help. It only takes a little focus and a lot of visualization before she finds she's holding a First-Aid Spray.
The cold can is dragged into her mindspace by her mental focus as easily as she breathes the imaginary air here. Uncapping the bottle and getting to work with the mystery spray brings about much needed relief in the form of a misty breeze. The curing mist itself is green and potent, covering her wound with a powerful enough barrage of chemical goodness that she gets to watch her leg fix in real time under her ministrations. Her flesh bubbles, and is soon enough formed back into exactly where it needs to be. It doesn't fix her clothes, but she gets an idea a moment later, and with a little focus on the concept of summoning what she's wearing over the missing parts, she finds those are restored to perfection in the same way a tailor's mastery would allow.
"Wow, you took to that incredibly fast." Ino's gasp of fascination draws her attention away from her busy work. She finds Ino staring at her, having found yet another reason to show her the utmost admiration. It's awkward and unprecedented, but their faces are nowhere near each-other so at least she doesn't have to flee again.
One would think Ino would have a little more self control, but maybe she's just that in love with her? This is a pretty intimate act, she hopes this doesn't skew their friendship any further… It will, it absolutely will.
"I've kind of been in my own head for a while now," Sakura admits, tossing the empty can away and stretching out her previously wounded leg, "it's easy."
Ino shakes her head at her, but doesn't press the issue. Instead of pushing her, she grabs a brush from the sink and gets to work running it over Sakura's locks. Apparently falling down a giant hole and getting sliced messed up the style of her hair. It doesn't feel like a particularly urgent matter, but Ino's the expert here so she just lets it happen.
"Self care is important inside too!"
"We're searching through your important memories, the stuff at the forefront is heavily influential," Ino explains as they exit the bathroom, "my main job is to ensure nothing particularly weird and damaging is there. No treason, no psychotic snapping, no torture, no alterations… I'm especially worried about that third one."
"Why?" Sakura asks, bumping into Ino when she stops mid-step to stare back at her, "Ino?"
"Nothing," Ino shakes her head, only to look out at the room, "oh, wow we've walked into one such forefront memory already. I wonder what it's about."
Taking in the room, Sakura can't help but note how simple it is. It's changed a lot over the years, this was back before she had her own dedicated PC. It only takes a few moments of looking around for Sakura to place exactly what this is, the hint is in the girl standing in front of her bed. Little Ino is fumbling about while little Sakura is nowhere in sight. "This one's good." Sakura giggles to herself.
"What's this-oh, it's one of these." Ino's flat glare is a lot stronger than Sakura's giggle, but she's not to have her joy ruined. What she gets to see in front of her is a very young Ino dancing out of the way of a very young Sakura's hand as it darts at her from under the bed. It comes once, then again, and even again.
"Oop, she got her," Sakura teases Ino, watching as the younger blonde gets pinched by the younger pinkette, "given your extra training from your family, that had to be embarrassing."
"Ow! Sakura stop!" the younger Ino's cry catches their attention, "guh, you suck!" It's then that young Ino does something that would normally be considered odd. The small blonde girl intentionally steps into a pinch, forming a hand seal-
And suddenly the bed is high in the air, falling to the ground out of place and to the side. That's not the important part though, even if it crashing to the floor fills the room with loud clunks and thuds. The important part is that young Ino falls from where the bed previously was, landing on young Sakura with a decisive growl and slam on top of her. "That's cute," real Ino rolls her eyes, "but why is me substituting with your bed a frontal memory?"
The two girls roll around on the floor, young Ino trying to restrain young Sakura's hands and avoid getting pinched. "Sometimes little stuff is a lot more significant than it seems," real Sakura answers, smiling at the two fighting girls, even as a few punches get thrown, "to you this is violent and awkward and probably a pretty bad memory, but to me this was one of my worst mental breakdowns. I was being kind of a bitch and you just refused to leave. I don't even remember what it was about, but I remember you."
The kids roll into a wall, then back, slaps ring out and fill the room. Despite her words, this is a lot more violent than Sakura remembers it. To be fair she barely remembers anything from this time period, let alone how often the two of them might have traded blows. They were ninja in training, fighting was probably pretty constant.
She takes real Ino's hand into her own, and rests her cheek on her best friend's shoulder. "This was the first time I remember looking up at you and thinking you were pretty cool. The substitution jutsu only works when you take damage, you got hurt intentionally to get to me while I was actively trying to push you away."
"Being that forceful isn't necessarily a good thing, Sakura." Ino points out with a frown that frames her features so poorly, Ino should never do anything but smile, Sakura's sure of that.
"For me it is," Sakura says, "you know that well."
"I do." Ino sighs to herself, while young Sakura gets a punch off on Ino's face. Sakura flinches at the sight, but Ino seems to find this entire event so unremarkable… She finds her friend rolling her eyes at the scene.
"You were my hero here." Sakura admits to her best friend.
"You get I wouldn't have done this if I didn't like you, right? This was purely selfish." Ino points out with a bored grunt.
"I don't think that matters." Sakura gives her a small beam, squeezing her fingers, just as she watches young Ino kick her while she's down "wow, you were a lot more violent when we were younger."
"Yep…" Ino trails awkwardly, "kids suck I guess. I don't remember this at all. I mean, I remember you pulling this stunt a dozen times throughout our childhood but I couldn't tell you which time this was."
"I think you're why I started hitting Naruto?" Sakura admits, "I don't blame you, very different situations, I just think I took lashing out violently as okay because of stuff like this. The Academy training didn't help."
"Well, uh, it's not okay, glad we figured that out as we got older." Ino gulps, looking anywhere but at the scene. "Right now we need to move on, not only is this memory fine by the criteria I'm searching for, but I'm not sure I like that one of your first core memories is me literally beating you into submission. It's a little awkward to watch."
"I needed it." Sakura points out.
"There were other ways." Ino grimaces, watching as the two girls collapse against each-other, panting and worn out from a bedroom brawl.
"Not for me." Sakura shakes her head. "I'm broken, and I don't even know how to express it. I'm hoping this whole adventure will show you everything I need to tell you, so my lack of words won't matter. Maybe that way some good can come of all this."
"I don't like that either," Ino winces, pulling away from her to look into her eyes and give her disapproval in a way that Sakura can only call stunningly visual, "why do I get the feeling this entire thing is going to suck?"
"Speak for yourself, I hope they're all this tame." Sakura shrugs, finally letting her go and walking towards the doorway on her own.
"How is me beating you senseless tame!?" Sakura doesn't answer her savior. She opens the door and moves onwards.
"No, you're right, that was tame." The spot they find themselves in next is as violent as it possibly could be. There's a pool of blood that's up to their ankles, and despite the mist that overtakes the room, they can see everything clearly. Sakura can remember perfectly well how blind she felt in this chamber, so seeing it all so openly is nice. Even if being back here for any reason has her heart trying to pound out of her chest. They can see all the hatred flying around and the lethality of it all. Gato truly wanted to kill them with everything he had, and to be fair, the memory of taking him out is almost sensual. She gave it everything she had, and they came out alive, while he didn't. That's all that matters at the end of the day, the strongest survived while the bastard fell. This could have gone so much worse.
"Yeah, this sucked," Sakura admits, "I went blind here."
"You-what? Sakura you can see, you can't just go blind in random places and still see." Ino scolds her, she's about to launch into another rant when she sees the Sakura in the memory grab a shard of broken floor and put it into a pair of goggles. "Sakura, you're uh, you're not gonna wear those ri-oh dear."
"You can see through the glass," Sakura explains, "this mist is normally too thick to see through but that let me know when the attacks were coming, and where the enemy was. The glass in those goggles actually broke several times, so I kept having to replace it."
"Sakura, that's probably the most unhinged thing I've ever seen." Ino deadpans, giving her an odd look that says so much with so little.
"We needed it, this was life or death, like hard life or death," Sakura explains, "we killed a vampire in Wave, this was that."
"Vampires don't- you know what, I'll just watch. Let's just, watch." Ino regrets watching shortly when blood starts flowing out of Sakura's goggles, well, technically they're Sasuke's.