AN: Sufficient Velocity and Space Battles are super far ahead, and the Pa tre on is on CH 111. 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.
Formatting on FFN has been pissing me off lately, you should really be reading somewhere else, this site sucks. It's not saving spacing anymore for some freaking reason? I'm willing to bet I'm messing up fixing it and it's hard to read.
"Hey, so this is concerning, right?" Ino asks with no small amount of waver to her reassuring voice. Her fingers poke and prod the status menu floating in front of her face with a curiosity unlike anything she's seen grace Ino's countenance. Ino's always been smart, but she's never been the curious, exploratory type. She knows what she wants, and she's headstrong about it. She's got the full screen in front of her, and lays both palms along it, pressing against the oddly cool texture and taking it in for the first time. Sakura can admit she spent a bit of time doing that as well, truly just, getting into the vibe that this is her reality now. Ino has the advantage of knowing this isn't a Genjutsu, or a mind art, because it's her specialty to know that stuff.
"A bit." Sakura admits, nodding along while very focused on the moving box in front of Ino. Anxiety is one feeling she has while looking at the break in reality. Gratitude is another, Ino knowing her weaknesses will help keep her alive. Any tools Ino can get to keep herself safe is something Sakura would move the world for. She also can't help but feel a strong desire to go to sleep and let someone else think over the implications of all this, as she'd very much like it to be someone else's problem. Whatever the case, things have changed drastically. Like astronomically so. The world isn't the same as it was before, and she has no idea how to deal with it or its insane implications.
Because they're not in her head right now. They had to leave, the shields wouldn't stop getting in between them and they couldn't move onto the next memory with them there. Her entire mind locked down and refused to let Sakura go anywhere near Ino, which was necessary for them to move on through the same gates, and it was required for Sakura to be there for Ino to be sure of what she was looking at going forward. There was also the issue that the odds are high that her brain would have considered Ino an invader and attacked if Sakura wasn't there to contextualize the mindwalker being there and having free access to where she needed to go.
Or, more accurately, it might attack if Sakura wasn't contextualizing 'this is Ino' for her depths in real time. She's pretty sure that part about her being there isn't really the issue with how fiercely protective her mind seems of the girl.
"What do I even do with this?" Ino asks, moving it around in front of her, looking at all the numbers, contemplating her relative level. So many things are clearly running through Ino's head, but Sakura can only really think of one thing.
"Well, my life is over." It's simple, and yet despite her earlier panic, she finds she barely cares. Looking at the status screen, she finds she's barely lucid. "Your dad's going to rip me open and let all of Konoha enter my head to touch that thing. I'm going to be drooling frothy braindead juices."
"Don't be so dramatic," Ino rolls her eyes, "that's not going to happen."
"Really? Why not?" Sakura asks, giving her best friend a furiously doubtful look while contemplating her own doom.
"Because I'm not going to tell anyone about this." Ino says, using her fingers to loop-de-loop the status box and admiring the way it moves up and around and side to side. It's so customizable, Sakura can't help but feel a little awkward; she never tried to resize the boxes. She just assumed the UI was fixed! "Also, because this proves nothing. I can see my statistics, so what? It doesn't mean it'll function for me like it does you, and even if it does, there's no guarantee that it'd work for anyone else."
"There's a chance." Sakura points out.
"There's also a chance that we could figure out how to give everyone the Byakugan if we tore the clan apart and gave the data over to Tsunade and Orochimaru in a joint research endeavor." Ino snickers at her. "We don't do that because, well first of all it'd set a bad precedent which would cost us a lot, second because we don't like human experimentation, and third, because losing the Byakugan isn't worth the attempt."
"..." Sakura has to think about that. Really think, it's a lot to take in. That bit about Orochimaru is true, they kicked him out for experimentation, it's unlikely they would turn around and decide that's the way to go now. Too much is racing through her head, and it's not all necessarily valid or reasonable. Panic and rationality smash together as quickly as physically possible, pressed on by her high mind stat and her willingness to doubt even herself.
"All we know right now is that I, your best friend, was able to march into uncharted territory and press my hand to a hidden device that revealed itself to us because you trust me enough it didn't care that I was there. I can also now see a few little meaningless tidbits about myself. We have nothing else." Ino explains, expertly attacking Sakura's nerves with years of practice.
"There's a chance it self destructs if we force our way in, there's a chance this info isn't even usable, there's a chance it doesn't work on literally anyone else. There's a chance it can only work on two people, and there's a chance it's hereditary but won't be passed down if we screw you up and ruin everything. Even beyond all that, it even being a problem to solve relies on me spilling the beans about this. I don't plan to do that."
"Wouldn't not telling anyone about a valuable asset be treason?" Sakura asks.
"Ninjas have secrets, Sakura, we're allowed to keep them. What goes on inside your head, unless directly a danger to the village, is a Yamanaka clan secret because we have to use our arts to access your head," Ino shakes her head, "so stop worrying about a stupid status screen and tell me what all this means. I never did get into games and stuff like you did. Almost everything I know is from listening to you talk." Ino tabs into her skills and traits, looking through them. "And why does whatever this thing in your head is look down on me so much? I do more than look pretty, you know. Are we even sure this information is accurate? This could just be what you think of me."
"Impossible," Sakura denies with a firm shake of her head, "you'd be a lot stronger than that if it was what I think of you."
"That's… flattering." Ino decides to land on, after a few seconds of looking around. "Well, I didn't see anything on the surface that'd be considered treason or dangerous, so I'm going to have daddy sign a few papers and release you for today. We can meet back here on the weekend."
"... What?" Sakura squeaks in surprise.
"You're a citizen of Konoha, you were only held against your will because we had reason to believe that you might be a danger to yourself, others, or the residents of Konoha. Now that your frontal memories have been investigated and don't seem to hold anything extremely concerning, you are to be given your rights back." Ino clarifies for her. "You'll be required to report back here this Saturday so we can continue. Do not take any missions that would take you outside of the village until we are done."
"Ah… Your father made it sound like I'd be stuck here." Sakura admits, her fingers scratching at her arm.
"We thought you would be," Ino admits with a shrug, closing her statistics screen to look into her eyes, "we thought we'd find something incriminating or disturbing enough we'd have to investigate, not a bunch of childhood memories and a game system."
"Errr. what'd you expect to find?" Sakura can't help but ask with a wince at the implications that they genuinely thought she'd be some kind of loose cannon.
"Something," Ino shrugs, "literally anything besides what we found. We didn't expect to discover you're a little girl with a gaming problem… We probably should have though. That's just kind of how I would have described you before being given this mission."
"But um, you made it seem so much worse inside…" Sakura trails a little pitifully, giving her a long and effort filled pout..
"Oh, no, as your friend I am absolutely terrified." Ino clarifies, throwing a hand up to stress the statement, "make no mistake, your issues are far worse than I could have possibly imagined. We need to do something about that before whatever it is inside you that's malfunctioning causes you to snap and kill yourself or worse."
"Worse?" Sakura asks, only to watch Ino shake her head and not answer her in the slightest.
"But, as far as the village goes, you've passed the preliminary testing and are allowed to go back home with restricted rights. Please use them." Ino hops out of her seat, stretching lightly before approaching quickly and pulling a key from her pocket. She wastes no time inserting it into the lock on Sakura's chains. "Go home, hug your mom, take a shower, and please tell Kakashi you're free. I fear he's continuing their training while you're in here and I'll move the underworld itself if it means getting in the way of that asshole."
"He is kind of a dick, yeah." Sakura agrees with a smirk.
"Kind of?" Ino asks with a loud scoff, "give me five minutes and then you're free to go."
Sakura's left wondering what any of all this means while watching Ino go.
And also like, what to do about Ino seeing her stats and skills?
Will the others see it the way Ino does if they find out? Should Ino even hide it? She said it'd be fine but, Kakashi said surprising the Hokage was the dumbest way to die.
She has so much to think of, but for now, she needs to do some stretching and then go take a long shower.