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.
Meat patties drenched in cheese and shoved in between or sometime inside of bread is a recipe that exists everywhere in some form or another, and Sakura can't fault its existence when her stomach is gurgling and it's sitting in front of her. It's a little overdone, she's bought something leaking more grease than the paper it was delivered on can handle too, so it looks quite gross… "I know you're not a fan of stuff so messy you can't play while eating, but I didn't have a lot of time, we're not at your computer, and you would not believe my last week. I deserve this." The pretty girl sitting across from her eating her own greasy abomination looks a little worse for wear. It's odd, of the two of them she's the one chained up, but Ino looks like she's been through something indescribable. She has dozens of cuts. Her face is scratched, her cheeks are pale, and she has deep bags under her eyes that remind Sakura of herself not too long ago. That's all just what's visible, she's wearing very baggy clothes at the moment, it makes Sakura suspicious of why she's hiding her chest so well.
"Are you okay?" Sakura can't help but ask her interrogator. The setting and context doesn't truly matter to her, Ino's her best friend and she's grateful for the opportunity to sit and eat with her. That they'll be cracking her open and looking deep inside of her soon is secondary when Ino looks like she's trying to hide so much pain. It invokes rage in her, and if she was allowed to have her sword in here, she has no doubt she'd be up and about trying to hunt down whatever asshole dared to touch her friend.
"I'm fine, I just volunteered for something that I maybe shouldn't have." The blonde mindwalker shrugs, taking a generous and greedy bite of her food. She looks so hungry, it seems that Sakura was eating better in a dungeon than Ino was with whatever she was partaking in. "I learned how to heal though, well, somewhat. I learned the basics. Herbs, methods, medical tools, and how to use a little medical jutsu. How not to get taken out so you can provide care. It's not much but… it should be enough. Worth a week of my life, at least."
"Oh… That sounds great, you should teach me sometime," Sakura gives her a timid grimace, not liking the implications that come with Ino looking like this while knowing healing jutsu, "um, when we're both free, I mean."
"Yeah, I figured, uh…" It's awkward. Ino's coming off so tired, and that's not a very good sign for her near future. They have a journey to go on together, and it's not going to be pleasant. "So they said I just needed to make sure there's nothing too concerning on the surface level of your brain, and make sure you haven't been tampered with, so it should only be a few hours."
"What if I have been tampered with?" Sakura asks.
"Could be a lot longer… If I need to rest, it could be a couple of days," Ino answers her with a little grimace at the thought, "I'm pretty tired, it might be a couple of days either way."
"They pulled you out of something crazy for this, huh, are you sure Inoichi shouldn't do it?" Sakura asks, "I promise I trust him, it'll be fine."
"You don't trust him like this," Ino shakes her head at her, taking another bite between partial scoldings, "we have two main ways of interrogation. We can walk in peacefully, or we can brutally break in. In the second way, we're safe, in the first, you're safe."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sakura asks her, giving her a frown that says more than it should, she can tell Ino doesn't see it. Ino's too tired for this. She'd like to send her home, but…
"It means we'll get hurt if your mental defenses activate and we can't get out in time. You could close down and trap us in there, or attack with monsters or something else just as stupid. It has to be someone you'd never hurt, or they need to go in full force and break things." Ino explains softly, giving her a trusting and patient look that in no way gets across the gravity of what she's saying. Luckily for Sakura, her words are very clear. She might end up having a fistfight with herself over Ino.
"I'll protect you." Sakura's promise seems to lift Ino's spirits a little, but it doesn't cut the tension in the room in the way she would like it to.
"It's that attitude which tells me that you won't have to." Ino gives her a beam that brightens her heart. There's a flutter there, it's so nice to see her friends happy. She'd give anything to graft that smile onto all of them permanently. She doesn't remember the last time she smiled like that, but that doesn't mean she hasn't, she's not particularly self aware, and she's self aware of that.
"Ino, you're not going to look at me the same." Sakura warns her.
"I didn't think I would." The tired girl says, brushing Sakura's hair with a high quality brush in one hand, and with roving fingers in the other. Supposedly they need to lull her into a comfortable place with her, or else Ino won't even be able to enter. It's working so far, she just wishes it could work after Ino got some damn sleep. She looks so tired, it's painful to see her neglecting herself for her. She wonders if that's how she looked for everyone before recently, and if so, just how long did everyone want to say something? Did anyone want to say something at all?
Is anyone grateful to Kakashi, or is everyone? Do people care about her like she cares about them? She hopes they do, but either way, she finds she's grateful to Kakashi for putting his foot down and forcing her to change and grow. "I mean it, like, I'm not the same girl as I used to be, I'm damaged and things are different and…"
"Sakura, you have red eyes, the only good and well adjusted situation where that suddenly happens is the one where you find out you're secretly an Uchiha… And if records are true, that's not a good and well adjusted situation either. The Uchiha were nuts."
"Sasuke's much saner than me." She admits, and watches Ino grimace at the thought quite hard, before turning her tone around entirely and pushing forward.
"Regardless, no one thinks things are going well for you." Ino laughs, genuinely tittering at her with a melodic tone that rings in Sakura's ears nicely. "You're currently being interrogated after attacking a teammate mid mission, because you've been deemed potentially unstable or tampered with outside of your sensei's gaze. I know you're in a strange place, I would have said no if I wasn't willing to see every part of you."
"Even the scary parts?" Sakura asks, leaning her head back, so red eyes can gaze into pretty greens.
"Especially the scary parts, Sakura, I love you. You being a ninja isn't going to change that." A hand on her cheek soothes her in an odd way. It's not news to her that Ino feels that way, and she can't deny Ino makes her feel good about herself, but it's just not the same. It hurts to hurt her like this, she'd love to love her back, to make everything right in the world.
But all she feels is pity and shame, and that's not how one should feel about their best friend's feelings. She feels even guiltier about it every time it comes up, and she has to wonder if one day she'll feel the same way back and not realize it, or if she's just incapable. Whatever the case, she feels good at her best friend's touch after such a long and painful mission. Ino's assurances gnaw at her anxieties, but in a good way, severing tendons and letting her fears trip and bleed out.
Ino's comforting and powerful and poignant, but actually opening up her head and letting her best friend dig around is a huge ask. The possibilities hurt, and she finds herself resisting the idea itself, but not Ino. She could never resist Ino's guiding touch, which is ultimately what lets her in.
"Sakura, what the fuck." Ino's immediate reaction to her mind's gates gets a snort out of Sakura.
"For someone who was all like 'it's fine Sakura, we know you're not normal,' that's not the reaction I was expecting." Sakura teases her, gently punching her shoulder and looking out at the vast sands in front of her. It's not what either of them expected, but it seems pretty fitting to her. Ino's given her details before, about minds. Some people have pearly gates, some have the entrance to their home, some have a comfort place right at the entrance.
Sakura's mind palace gate is in the middle of a desert plane with nothing around for as far as the eye can see. Well, except one small hole in the sand, with teeth. It's just a cavern that falls seemingly forever, with thousands of sharp tooth-like rocks sticking out all the way down. They slowly shift and twitch, alerting the both of them that this pit is probably alive.
"Are we supposed to climb down using those?" Sakura asks, pointing into the dark hole. It stretches forever, "I don't want to climb down into what is possibly a giant worm."
"Neither do I!" Ino throws her arms up, "your mind's entrance is supposed to be something you're comfortable with! What does this even mean? Who has a mind entrance they don't want to traverse?"
"I mean, it's a dark and cozy pit with a defensive entrance to keep others out, seems pretty self explanatory to me, Ino." Sakura snickers, kicking a stone into the pit-
- And watching the pit slam shut and tear the rock to a terrifyingly fine powder that puffs up and about a moment later. Even without the opening closing suddenly, the horrific mandibles moving to shred it paint a disturbing picture. "Seems pretty safe to me." Sakura nods, giving Ino a thumbs up and a big grin.
"Eh, I trust you." Without a moment of hesitation, Ino takes a step forward, and falls into the pit just as it opens back up.
"Wait, that's not-" Cold insidious fear runs through Sakura's soul as she watches her best friend disappear into the hole, and she moves on instinct. Her hand latches onto Ino's just in time for gravity to drag her in too, and before she can grasp the moment she's hurtling down the pit's depths. A sharp tooth gets dangerously close to Ino's face, but before she can even shout a warning the rock shifts out of the way and lets the blonde pass by untouched. The dirt around them is alive, and avoids Ino like she's infected with something, refusing to come into contact with her at all costs.
"Ow!" She can't help but notice it doesn't do the same for her, a sharp lance of agony flowing through her leg as a knife like stone tears through it on the way down. It's fierce, it's hot, and it takes all of her attention just long enough for her to suddenly find they've come to a stop at the bottom without having any idea how they got there.
Laying on a bed, staring into the eyes of her best friend for the second time in a very short period, the pink dusting on Ino's cheeks is the most obvious thing in the world. The second most obvious is the way Ino goes for her lips.
She does what any normal girl would do in this situation, and throws herself off the bed as fast as physically possible, slamming her leg into the floor and collapsing as blood gushes from it.
"Damn-it!"
She hopes her mind's version of her room has her First-Aid Kit.