AN: Chapter title: Round Five.
'Great. It's my turn for this PPP thing.'
PPP, short for the Praetorian Protection Program. Named by the Kunoichi in charge of it: Anko Mitarashi.
Just like she had done for the past week and a half, Anko Mitarashi met them outside the tower, taken them all aside before they could step inside.
And she had thrown her the garish headband she had made Shikamaru, Kiba, Shino, and Hinata all wear. She said it was to help identify them but it didn't need to be neon green with 'PRINCIPAL' written in hot pink.
'I knew this was coming and it still sucks.' Now she could look forward to being stuck with the clones who hated her for an entire day. 'And they're glaring at me already.' Ino stared at the group waiting for her and already wanted the day to be over. 'Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll kill me so nobody sees me in this thing.'
She dared to hope as she tied the headband into place.
Mitarashi clapped her hands together as she moved ahead of her, the smile on her face showing her fangs.
"Don't you all look happy to be here! You know your roles. Tribune Yamanaka is going to be your responsibility for the next twenty-four hours. Your unit will be graded on how well you collectively do." Ino saw her black and yellow eyes glance to her, felt uneasy with the way she looked at her:
Prey.
She wasn't an ally or an enemy. She was just something to be hunted, to be chased down by the superior predator.
"And you know my role." Her smile was a flash of her fangs. She turned back to the clones. "Just make sure to protect your Principal from harm and you'll do fine. Maybe you'll even do better than all the others." She seemed amused at the glares on their faces. "I'll give you two hours. Past that?" Whatever expression her face morphed into, Ino could see the clones jump. "I won't take up any more of your time. And remember: Have fun. I know I will."
She vanished in a cloud of smoke and swirl of leaves, the Yamanaka not even sure if she was really gone. Mitarashi could be watching them right now for all she knew.
'Might as well get this over with.' She stepped up to the clone who looked to be in charge, the Optio. It was always an Optio, never a Centurion in charge of whatever this was. She did her best not to let the fact the clone's hand never left his sword get to her. 'It's just one day.'
Mitarashi had told her everything she needed to know, left her to figure out the rest over the next twenty-four hours.
'Just one day.' She repeated the thought as the clone glared at her. He didn't say anything before leaving with almost half the clones that had lined one side of the lobby to the tower.
"Tribune Yamanaka. As the esteemed Praetorians of Caesar's Orange Legion, we will see to your protection to our utmost ability." One of the Decanus left behind stepped away from where he was speaking with two others. As he did so, the other two took their Praetorians out of the tower while the remaining clones formed up behind him. None of them seem to like her but seemed willing to work with her. "My men will be at your sides at all time while you remain our Principal. I'll coordinate with the others. If you require something, it is best to inform me ahead of anyone else or attempting to act on your own." He couldn't hide his grimace as he reached to his side, drew out an earpiece. "I insist that you wear this to remain in contact with us throughout the day."
"You're the expert here." It was easier to agree, to accept the earpiece and not question it. It was easier to work with them. It was just for the day. She could make it through a day. "We can't remain in the tower once the two hours are up so what do you suggest?"
"Visit Tenten Ken. I'll contact her guard to make arrangements." The Praetorians at least gave her something new to think about.
She didn't know Tenten had a guard assigned to her, didn't know if Naruto or Sasuke did it.
'When did that happen? And why didn't I know?' She only nodded at the Decanus, agreed with the clone. As she headed back the way she had come in, blue eyes met tired green.
Sakura's worry was so obvious on her face, the near terror she felt at the idea of Ino being alone with Naruto's clones.
'There's at least one good thing about this: Sakura doesn't have to be left alone with them if I'm stuck with them. I don't think Mitarashi is insane enough to suggest that. Hopefully.'
The other Tribunes needed to head into the tower, go about their day like it was normal. Mitarashi hadn't ordered them not to interfere, to stay out of the way, but it was obvious they weren't to get involved. With the way she had 'smiled' at them, the way she had flashed the sharp teeth filling her mouth, the threat was clear.
The best the Yamanaka could do was offer her friend the best reassuring smile she could before there was a Praetorian on either side of her shadowing her footsteps.
'I can get through a day.' Clones or not, Ino didn't like losing as much as anyone else. So far, Anko had gotten to ever Principal and claimed the 'TARGET' headband. Every group of Praetorians had failed to last the full twenty-four hours. 'I can win this if I put my mind to it.'
She was a, even if only recently promoted, Chunin of the Hidden Leaf. She could do this. This was just another mission. It was the same as any of the Academy exercises about guarding a client, like the one Iruka-sensei had them do when he taught them basic formations.
'So, what do I know?' It was a good question to ask.
'Shikamaru said that Anko didn't use projectiles with him, closed the distance and engaged all the clones with Taijutsu before grabbing him.' That had been an interesting memory to see. 'Kiba said that Anko only used flash bombs and smoke bombs on his day.' The Inuzuka had come back to the tower still reeking from whatever concoction Anko used to make them. Akamaru hadn't even stayed with him, jumped to Sakura's arms almost as soon as he spotted her. 'Hinata…didn't want to talk about it.'
She, and half the Praetorians, had shown up to the tower at the end of the day covered in a rainbow of paint.
Even days later, some of the Praetorians seemed to still be struggling to fully clean it off their armor.
'Shino's so far been the closest to lasting all twenty-four hours.' Twenty-three hours and forty-seven minutes exactly. Anko had announced the time when she had shown up with a sleeping Shino and a bound and gagged Optio thrown over her shoulders. 'And that was probably thanks to his kikaichu. It's hard to sneak up on an Aburame but Anko still managed it.'
'That's not something I can replicate. And Anko still caught him anyway. So it didn't work in the end.' He had lasted the longest but he had still lost in the end. 'So it doesn't matter if I know what's happening around me. And she's not testing my reaction speed. She's testing the clones. So what do I know about them?'
She thought back to what she had seen after every failed attempt, how she had spotted Praetorians sulking in the tower when they thought no one was nearby, the frustration that was mixed with shame when she saw them.
'Easy thing to see: His Praetorians don't like failing. They consider it an insult and, so far, they've failed every day.' She had to remember everything she knew, consider not only the 'enemy' in Anko but her 'allies' in the Praetorians as well. 'Any bodyguard has to protect the Principal. If Mitarashi manages to get me then that counts as another failure.' She spared the clone on either side of her a look.
They hadn't stopped glaring at her since she had arrived.
They hadn't taken their hands off their swords either.
They still hated her.
They so clearly despised her.
'OK. Nothing new there. Moving on.' She spread out her senses.
She could only sense a handful of clones around her, no more than ten and that included the two at her side. Two-man teams covered north, south, east, and west. But she had no idea where any of the rest of the clones were.
'Huh. They must've spread out pretty far while I was still in the tower.' Increasing her range would require more focus than she would like, was something she could only really do when she had her team with her and not something she would ever do when surrounded by Naruto's clones. 'As much as I don't like them, that's pretty impressive.'
Her range wasn't anywhere near a Hyuga's level but she was still her team's go-to Sensor on missions.
'Let's think about that later.' She didn't shake her head to clear it, wouldn't so something so obvious. 'What else do I know?'
She kept walking, headed towards Tenten.
'Is she just testing the Praetorians, seeing different skills? Shikamaru's group was tested on close quarters, Kiba's was about misdirection, and Shino's was maybe about guard duty. But what about Hinata? Was that just about embarrassing them?'
'So many pieces and nothing to really go on.' If she wasn't surrounded by clones she would grab at her hair in frustration. 'There's nothing to go on here. She's got a plan but there's no way to know it without getting more information.'
She didn't have a choice. She would need to play her role to see if she could figure it out with any new evidence.
"We really can't do anything?" Sakura's question was answered by silence.
Shikamaru remained seated. Quiet. He didn't meet the searching eyes of anyone in the room, his gaze focused on the far wall. Choji stood next to the Nara, the Akimichi's face a mask that didn't do much to disguise the worry he was feeling.
"Ino's going to be fine." Kiba scratched Akamaru behind the ear as he spoke, leaned back in his seat. "The worst that's happened to any of us is when Hinata got covered in paint."
The Hyuga wasn't with them in what had unofficially become the Tribune's Lounge in the tower. The Praetorians that patrolled the tower had quietly added it to their patrol routes instead of simply placing sentinels at the door to the floor like the rest of the tower's mostly unoccupied floors.
"But they wouldn't hurt Hinata if they thought they could get away with it." Tired green eyes turned to the window. Even if she knew it was impossible to see the street, to catch sight of Ino as she left, she still looked out the window. "You've seen the way they look at her. If they think Naruto would like it they'll…"
Kiba gave a pointed look to Akamaru. The ninken leaped out of his lap and trotted over the floor to the Genin.
"Ino's in good hands. Even with whatever's going on with her, Anko Mitarashi is one of the Hidden Leaf's top Shinobi. If she's in danger from anything, clones or otherwise, she'll keep her safe. Ino's no slouch either. Even if he hasn't been in the village, she's kept up Asuma-sensei's lessons." Shikamaru broke his silence, met Sakura's tired green eyes. "Alright?"
They darted back to the window.
Shikamaru sighed. He shared a look with Choji. The Akimichi frowned but nodded, shifted his stance to be ready to push off.
Shino looked to Kiba, earned a reluctant nod from the Inuzuka. Judging from the grimace on his face, he didn't like it but he was on his feet instead of sitting down.
If Sakura noticed, she didn't show it. Her focus shifted from worry for Ino to where Akamaru laid across her lap.
"What's the real risk to Ino?" Shino spoke to Shikamaru.
"Not nonexistent but not high either." Shikamaru admitted as much, noticed the way Sakura wilted in her seat. 'If she wasn't so exhausted, she'd have probably made a break for the window by now.' He wasn't the only one. "But us getting involved isn't on the table. That's only going to cause problems. Even if we wanted to, thought we needed to, we've still got Mitarashi's order to stay out of her way. She's our superior and gave us an order. We can't pick and choose when we listen. We're her subordinates."
"The Hokage wouldn't have put her on the squad if he didn't think she could handle Naruto and his clones." Kiba didn't sound as confident as he would like.
None of them were.
Despite seeing Anko make sport of fighting the Praetorians before, of how most of her attacks ended in embarrassment instead of injury, the clones could leave anyone uneasy after seeing them these last few days.
Every defeat made them angrier, made them harder to predict when they ran the risk of simply flying off the handle.
The longer Anko's Praetorian Protection Program ran, the closer the clones could get to doing something drastic, something disastrous.
Something stupid.
'Maybe they can keep it together until Sasuke comes back.' His rank as Legate, the authority it carried and the respect the Uchiha cultivated, would maybe be able to drag everything back to order. 'Dammit. I'm I going insane or is the situation really going to get that bad?' The Nara sighed at the fact he was earnestly wishing for the Uchiha to be back already.
"You are to remain with your guards at all times."
"Alright."
"You are not to stop until we reach our destination."
"Ok."
"You are not to speak with any villager."
"Alright."
"You are not to diverge from the route I've assigned you."
"Ok."
The Decanus went on and on with everything Ino could and couldn't do for the next twenty-four hours as they walked the slowly filling streets of the Hidden Leaf. The Chunin was hardly even half listening to everything the clone said.
'I almost prefer the silent glaring.' The Decanus was still glaring at her but was more focused about listing all the new rules they were going to make…her…follow…
Ino stopped.
The Praetorians stopped with her.
"Wait a second." She finally turned to face the clones at her back, realization shining in her blue eyes. "You have to listen to me, don't you?"
The Decanus rose a blonde eyebrow. "As a Tribune and as our Principal." He already seemed set to dismiss her.
"Good." Ino turned on her heel. "Try and keep up."
The Decanus scoffed, stepped forward. "We're escorting you to Tent-"
Ino left to the rooftops without another word, left the four Praetorians to merely stare at where she had been for a moment. Red eyes vanished, replaced by blue as not a single one could help but stare at the empty spot. A few blinked, one covertly rubbed at his eyes.
"Try and keep up!" Ino called down from above, didn't waste any time as she went from rooftop to rooftop.
"After her!" The Decanus was the first to snap out of his shock at Ino's sudden action, jumped after her as his hand reached up to his earpiece. "Where is she?"
"Traveling east! In pursuit!" The Praetorian he had posted on the outer perimeter of the formation radioed in quickly, clearly rushing after the Yamanaka.
Watching from the fourth floor of a half-finished building, Anko rose a blue eyebrow at this unexpected move.
"Did one of you suddenly get clever?" She spared a glance to the Praetorian currently trapped in a headlock. His eyes had turned red but his struggles were worthless, earned him just as much air as his partner's did. He tried to bite her palm again to no avail, not even his new fangs helping. "Alright, I told you how I felt about the biting." She finished choking him out, let him fall to the ground in a heap next to his partner.
She hogtied the two with their capes, left them gagged as well. Even if they came to, they wouldn't be able to do anything.
"Hmm. Looks like I was wrong. One of you didn't get clever." She had marked all of the Praetorians involved in today's run of the PPP, didn't need her eyes to see the chaos as they tried to follow after the suddenly fleeing Yamanaka. Her smile showed off the fangs filling her mouth. "It looks like Ino's making the decisions now."
She almost wished she had made the Yamanaka Heiress go first for her little experiment. None of the others had thought to deviate from what the Praetorians told them, what they had planned. They had been predictable every time because of it, made it easy to grab the Principal.
But Ino seemed to have decided against following the plan.
Thrashing came from behind her, muffled shouts. Anko spared a glance to where one of the Praetorians had come to, seemed infuriated with the way he and his partner had been tied up. It was enough to make her laugh.
"Up already?" Anko's question earned a furious, and muffled, shout. And probably a slew of curses. "Looks like somebody needs another nap." One swift kick to his helmeted head left a dent in his armor and sent him back to sleep.
And partially terrified Anko.
She didn't feel anything from the hit.
The nails turned claws on her feet had nearly punched through the metal.
"Not now." She turned back to where Ino was running. "Focus on the mission."
She moved on to the next pair of traveling Praetorians.
'This isn't a bad set up.' She caught up to the two, locked one of her hands around one's face to stop him from screaming. The other was turning, eyed wide in shock, even as she tackled him with the same motion. The three of them, two unwilling, slammed into the side of a building. 'Three rings of varying security. Outermost is designed to scout, alert the leader of any threats, engage them.' Anko anchored herself to the wall with Chakra from her feet and let the Praetorian who had taken the majority of the impact slip to the alley below. The other was still fighting her to no avail, couldn't even call out that something was wrong. She ended his struggles when her arm slipped around his neck and choked him unconscious. 'The middle ring can support or draw back to help make a stand. And the innermost ring is designed to be the most visible, deter any concealed attackers the first two miss.'
She set about hog-tying and gagging the two downed Praetorians with their capes.
"I wonder how many more of these pairs I can take out before they notice something's wrong." She had been careful so far, striking quickly and without giving either the chance to raise the alarm. "Let's see…" She made sure both Praetorians were unconscious before she decided it was time to leave, find a new perch to observe the moving formation from. "The outer and middle rings have about twenty each. That's ten pairs for each. Outer ring is down to seven and middle is still at ten."
She noticed a pair from the middle ring up ahead and blurred forward, snatched one out of the air in the middle of his ascent onto a rooftop. She threw him back down and into his climbing partner before diving down after them. She had a crushing grip around both of their throats before they hit the ground. Both promptly tried to lash out at her, thought they could free themselves with her seemingly having no ability to block their simultaneous blows.
Neither managed to land a blow when a webbed hand emerged, her coat saved from being ruined by long slits in the back. Both not only had their blows blocked but had the air forcibly driven out of their lungs when the giant hands slammed them deeper into the ground.
Yellow eyes burned above them as the dark spots in their vision spread wider and wider until it was all they could see. They slipped into darkness.
"I'm getting good at this." She left another pair of hog-tied and gagged Praetorians in the alley, headed off to continue her chase/hunt.
She already had another two in mind, was rapidly closing the distance between her and the next pair of Praetorians.
'I wonder if she can actually make this fun.' Anko spotted the flash of a platinum blond ponytail, followed the girl easy enough as she ran off. 'Or am I going to have to use Haruno?'
Personally, she was hoping that the blonde heiress would fail. She was more interested in seeing how the Praetorians reacted if their own success was with the pinkette they clearly hated.
AN: 4/5 for this update.