Sky on Fire: Slow Burn - Chapter 4 Part 3
Title: Slow Burn
Chapter: 04 Reformation
Author/Artist: Skylar Inari
Pairing: Yamanaka Ino/Nara Shikamaru
Theme: 03. Tossing a coin
Word Count: 8742
Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me. It's Kishimoto's and I just play with it. AU immediately after the Sasuke Retrieval Arc. Part 4 of ? Unbeta’d.
Ino stared at the ruined, blackened bits of hair that lay limply on her desk. Shizune-sensei's ideas about how to go about her 'Hair Tie no Jutsu' sounded good in theory. Practise though needed a bit more work.
"Right," she muttered to herself, sweeping away the remains of that failed attempt and tugging a few more strands off of her hair brush, "I'm so, so glad I listened to her." It had been Shizune-sensei's idea, yet another one, to practise the jutsu out on free bits of hair first before trying anything that was attached to her head.
Creating a jutsu - even one as small and insignificant as what she wanted to do - was a lot harder than it seemed, Ino was finding. She had a small scroll nearly covered with theories and ideas all that worked out just fine on paper, but flaked out when she attempted them gamely one after the other. Thank goodness that even with her hair cut Ino had more than enough that had been brushed out to do it this way so long as she stuck to only a few strands for each attempt.
Marking a little red 'X' against yet another failed theory, Ino narrowed her eyes and read through the next one on the list. Surely one of them would be what she was looking for. She’d come up with enough scenarios - her father had suggested that - and Ino had acknowledged it as a good idea.
He’d said, “If you really want to do something, be thorough.”
Ino had done her best, but it was really frustrating when attempt after attempt failed on her. The first three had gone up in flames, quite a few hadn’t done anything, two had writhed like she’d electrocuted them and this one had lit up for a few seconds before falling apart and leaving burn marks on her desk.
It wasn’t, she thought grumpily, like she hadn’t animated her hair before. Ino had been pleased with herself for managing to do it in the Chuunin Exam preliminaries. Sending her chakra through the hair as a conduct to trap Sakura had been easier than this.
Chewing thoughtfully on her pen, Ino grit her teeth in determination and set an old, broken pair of glasses (she’d gotten them when she was three) near the hair and ran through the seals she’d scribbled down. The hair twitched towards the glasses - and for a moment Ino thought that she might be getting somewhere - and then with an audible snap! the hair curled in on itself. That was new.
Carefully removing the glasses from the table, Ino didn’t have many spares and was loath to have them get ruined, she narrowed her eyes at the twinned curls of hair. Waiting a few minutes - just to be safe and sure that they weren’t going to explode or anything - Ino gently poked the right curl with her pen. The pen skittered on the surface of the curl. A quick check of the other produced the same result.
Gingerly Ino picked up a curl and turned it over in her hands. The jutsu had caused her hair to fuse together and become solid. Ino checked back in her notes trying to see what had caused that reaction.
Some time later, and a few attempts more, Ino was pulled from her studies by the sound of her mother coming up the stairs talking to someone. The shop was closed today, so that wasn’t the odd thing, but Ino hadn’t heard anything about visitors - she hadn’t even heard the door!
“Ino-chan!” Her mother said brightly as she opened the door and ushered Shikamaru in, “Shikamaru wanted to talk to you - I didn’t think you’d mind if I just showed him straight up.” The last was said with a faintly uplifted eyebrow.
Ino scowled down at her hairbrush. Her mother had been trying to get them to reconcile from the party and Ino was getting tired of having to explain that she didn’t really want to talk about what was really going on.
Still, Ino knew from the look on her mother’s face that the best thing she could do was put on a good face while Yamanaka Mui was in the room. Besides she could always be cranky at Shikamaru who, Ino noted, looked rather uncomfortable. Ino forced a smile on her face, “It’s fine, Mother.”
Then they were left alone. Ino did a quick survey of her room, glad that she’d always been a tidy person and so didn’t have embarrassing articles of clothing hanging around everywhere. She did hope that he didn’t notice the medical scrolls near her bed though. Ino didn’t feel up to explaining that to him.
He shifted uncomfortably.
Ino abandoned her chair for her bed, moving carefully. Her back was still sore - Tsunade-sama’s idea of a ‘bit stiff’ was not her idea of it and it had been bad enough yesterday that Asuma-sensei had taken one look at her and sent her back home to rest - but Ino had promised herself a bath later if she managed to get through the day without using a painkiller.
“Take a seat,” she invited, “if you’re going to stay for awhile.”
A frown creased his forehead as he looked at her, “I wanted to see how your back was. Asuma-sensei was worried.”
“It’ll be fine in a few days, Tsunade-sama said.” Ino told him as he took a seat, “I’m just not allowed to participate in ‘overly strenuous’ training until then.”
He looked down, but not before she caught the guilty expression on his face. Ino very carefully didn’t roll her eyes - Shikamaru was hard enough to deal with lately without her having to upset him further. “It’s not your fault.” Ino told him bluntly, “I’m blaming Asuma-sensei.”
“I’m the one that couldn’t recover fast enough to avoid hitting you.” Shikamaru said finally, “And I hurt you.”
“It’s not serious - “ Ino began only to be cut off.
“That’s not the point! It could have been.”
“Well then,” Ino retorted, “It’s my fault too then because I didn’t sense you at all until it happened! Looks like I’ve got to work on sensing that as well.”
He stared at her for a few moments before shaking his head and muttering something that sounded a lot like ‘troublesome woman’ before saying, “Look. I just wanted to say I’m sorry for hurting you. I shouldn’t have.”
Shouldn’t have? What was she, glass? “Shikamaru, it was a training accident. I don’t blame you.” The fact that it gave her the time to work on theories for her jutsu was just a bonus. It wasn’t the first time, and she doubted that it would be the last time, that Ino had gotten hurt during training. Training injuries though were a lot better than getting hurt while on a mission.
From the set of his face though Ino knew that he blamed himself. She sighed, not knowing what to else to say. Shikamaru fiddled with the hair on her desk, frowning as he took in the burn marks on the protective covering she’d put over the hard wood. “What are you doing to your hair?” He asked sounding dubious.
“I’m trying to create a jutsu that will let my glasses stay on while I’m fighting.” Ino told him, getting up with a wince to walk over to her desk so that she could better show him what she was talking about. Shikamaru was out of the chair in no time and Ino took it when she realized that arguing with him that it hadn’t been necessary would be merely wasted air. “I did learn something at least from Asuma-sensei’s idea of a first day back. Did you want to look at my theory?”
Shikamaru shrugged slightly, “Sure.”
Ino tugged her scroll over so that he could read it. Shikamaru leaned over the back of her chair, his hands resting carefully on either side of her. She hunched her shoulders slightly, unsettled a bit by his closeness. “What do you think?” Ino asked somewhat nervously after he’d been quiet for a few minutes.
“Your third attempt failed because you neglected to compensate for the repeated rabbit seal.” He said thoughtfully, “That’s the only thing I see wrong with it. Most of your ideas seem sound.” Ino could feel him frowning above her, “From the looks of your desk though I take it that they aren’t working?”
Ino huffed, then winced at the movement made her back ache worse. “You want to see how badly it’s working?” She handed him one of the fused curls from earlier, “That’s from attempt number twelve.”
He turned it over in his hand and reached out to tug the scroll closer. “Hmm.”
This was how it had used to be, Ino thought moodily. He’d make the plans and criticize hers while she’d lead the team around and together they had managed to get things done. Shikamaru always had been better at things in the abstract than she was.
Shikamaru sighed, “I can’t see anything wrong on paper. Did you want to go through the next few attempts with me here?”
Ino blinked, tilting her head up to look at him. “You want to help me?”
It was hard to see his face from her angle, but Ino thought that he looked slightly annoyed that she’d even think he wouldn’t want to help her, “Well, those glasses of yours are a liability at the moment.” He told her grumpily, “I don’t like them - there were a few hits you should have been able to dodge with Asuma-sensei. They’re cutting down on your peripheral vision.” Shikamaru was the only one she knew who could sound quite that unhappy while being completely logical. The thing was, Ino knew all of that already and was taking steps to fix that problem.
“They’re for training.” Ino told him smartly, tapping him on the arm, “Father’s the one who told me to wear them.”
His sigh of exasperation was long suffering, and Ino could tell Shikamaru was rolling his eyes at her, “You going to tell me what they’re supposed to help you out with then? ‘Cause as far as I’m concerned it’s only a hindrance.”
Ino hit his chest lightly with her head, “It’s for training. Clan stuff, you know how that goes.” She didn’t feel like elaborating for the moment, couldn’t he just let her be?
To her surprise, he dropped it and they focused on the glasses. When he left a few hours later, they hadn’t gotten it to work, but Ino thought that they were on the right track. He’d had a few good ideas about the execution of the jutsu while at the same time working out a way for it to not be a total drain on her chakra. That had been something that Ino had fretted about. The drain, however small, wouldn’t be so bad while she was still only allowed on D rank missions but anything more than that would be pushing it if the mission took awhile.
Cleaning up the mess of hair on her desk Ino bit her lip and blinked back tears. It had be alright today, but she doubted that he’d let her do what she could while on the field, and they hadn’t said anything about the fight at their party. It had been between them, an invisible barrier of sorts, the entire time that he’d been there.
And when he’d left, Shikamaru had muttered something about having to be more careful during training and that had made her bristle. Only her mother’s presence as she had shown him out had kept Ino from snapping at him. If he wanted to improve his reaction time that was fine with her - but she was a full member of Team 10 and not going to let him forget it. If he wanted to shove her in the back where she’d ‘be safer’ then Ino wasn’t going down without a fight.
“Theory meet practise.” Ino murmured as she went and found her place in the current medical text that Shizune-sensei had assigned. Why did boys have to be so confusing? Shikamaru wasn’t making any sense at all lately. Perhaps if she worked harder it would start to make sense? At the very least Shikamaru wouldn’t know what hit him. He’d given no indication of noticing her medical books.
“Teach him to underestimate me.” She muttered vilely to her book.
---
Her hands trembled as she zipped up her coat. Hinata frowned at them until they steadied. This was no time for her to be backing out. Not at five in the morning on November 1st. Naruto had asked for her to come - Hinata would rather die than disappoint him. Not when he’d seemed so unsure if she would be there.
All around her the compound was quiet.
Mostly an illusion she knew, while it was early, the servants would already be stirring, and on the training grounds there would be a few of the family already hard at work. Hinata was glad of that. It would make her excuse, if she was stopped, that much more believable. With one last look around the room to see if she’d missed anything, Hinata took a deep breath - she could do this and she wasn’t going to faint - and slipped out of her room.
She was stopped not three steps down the hall by Hanabi’s sleepy voice.
“Nee-san? Where are you going?”
Hinata turned and gave her sister a smile, her excuse coming to her lips without hesitation, “Tenten-san promised to help train with me.” Hanabi looked like she’d just been getting a glass of water before heading back to bed with her nightgown askew and her hair rumpled.
“Will you be back for training later?”
“I should be.” Hinata shifted from one sandaled foot to the other, “A-no…”
Hanabi yawned, “Go train, nee-san. I’ll see you later.”
Luckily, Hinata managed to make it out of the compound without another interruption. She had a brief glimpse of Neji-niisan, he did not see her, as she passed the training grounds. Hinata promised herself that she’d work hard on being as good as she could be - after she’d seen Naruto.
When she arrived at the eastern gates Hinata was surprised to note that the Chuunin guards were no where around. Leaning against the wall as nonchalantly as she knew how Hinata activated her Byakugan, ducking her head so that it wouldn’t be immediately obvious what she was doing. It was the matter of a few moments to confirm that while the Chuunin were gone, two ANBU were watching the gate carefully in their stead. No Hokage would ever be so foolhardy as to remove all security. With a relieved sigh, Hinata released her Byakugan.
Time passed slowly while you were waiting for someone. Hinata had shown up early in the hopes of having more time to talk to Naruto, but it was looking like he hadn’t thought to do the same. Tugging his letter out of her jacket, Hinata smiled fondly at it, even though it was too dark to read it without making an effort. She knew what it said anyway from having read it more than once and wondering if he really meant that she could see him off.
“Hinata-chan?” Naruto’s voice, sounding surprised to see her startled Hinata out of her reverie.
Her head jerked up, and she was glad that it was dark enough to mostly hide her blushing. “N - Naruto-kun.”
“You really came,” He said walking up with a tall white haired man just behind him, “I wasn’t sure you would.”
Her hands trembled and she clutched at the hem of her coat to hide it, “W - why wouldn’t I?” She asked while cursing her stutter. Hinata had been, since the Chuunin exam getting better at not letting it through, but Naruto was flustering her.
Naruto laughed and she stiffened, wondering this had been just a joke at her expense, but before she could say anything around the sudden lump in her throat he spoke, “I just thought you might be busy.” Naruto said with a shrug, “Sakura-chan said you’ve been working hard.”
Sakura-san had said that about her? Was that what Tenten had mentioned about Sakura-san putting in a few good words for her a few days ago at training? “I do have t - training,” Hinata admitted after realizing that Naruto was waiting for an answer, “But it’s a little bit later than this.”
“Going to introduce me?” The old man asked Naruto, “Or should I just leave you and your girlfriend alone for a few minutes?”
Hinata flushed even as Naruto managed to squawk his outrage, “She’s not a girlfriend, ero-sennin! Hinata-chan’s just a friend!”
Ero-sennin? Hinata wondered even as she struggled to regain her composure as Naruto continued rail at the man. She shuffled nervously, unsure of her place in this scenario - Naruto had called her a friend, for now that was enough for Hinata.
“Anyways,” Naruto said brightly turning back to her, “Ero-sennin’s known as Jiraiya of the Sannin, but my name suits him better. Don’t ever talk to him alone, okay Hinata-chan?”
Naruto was training under one of the sannin? “O - okay?” Hinata said watching Jiraiya-sama roll his eyes behind Naruto’s back and give her a smile and a thumbs up. She smiled helplessly back at the both of them. “If you say so, Naruto-kun.”
“Good.” He beamed at her then scowled so ferociously that Hinata almost took a step back, “And don’t let Neji boss you around! I won’t be here to help you out, so you’ve got to stick up for yourself!”
They talked for a few minutes longer, Hinata trying not to stutter and Naruto having to slow down so that she could keep up with his train of thought. Eventually though Jiraiya-sama coughed and said, “We’ve got to get going squirt. Tsunade’s Chuunin flunkies will be coming back any minute.”
Naruto scowled at this even as he turned to go. “I’ll talk to you when I get back, Hinata-chan!”
Before she quite knew what she was doing Hinata reached out and grabbed his arm. He looked at her curiously and Hinata stared determinedly at the ground knowing that she wouldn’t be able to keep it together if she stared at his face. “A - ano, I hope your trip goes well.” Hinata peeked up at him from behind her bangs and flushed.
To her surprise his face was gentle, “Thanks Hinata-chan. It means a lot to know there’s someone cheering for me.” He paused then said in a rush, “Ero-sennin said I could write letters to Sakura-chan and Obaa-san, if I did the same for you would you respond?”
Hinata felt faint and it was sheer determination that kept her upright and coherent at the thought of Naruto wanting to write to her. “I - I would be honored.”
He hugged her. Startled, Hinata couldn’t figure out how to respond before it was over and he was grinning sheepishly at her. “I’ll send them to Obaa-chan, she’ll make sure you get them.”
“Come on, brat! We’re on a schedule!”
“I’m coming, ero-sennin!” With one last shared smile, Naruto bolted through the gates after his sensei.
Hinata slumped against the wall for a few long minutes, before managing to regain her composure enough to head off to the field where she liked to train. She didn’t even try to hide the smile on her face, even though it was the last time she’d see him for a good three years.
The day was, she thought, pretty close to perfect.
---
Chouji was heading home from training - if you could call watching his team rip apart at the seams training - when he saw her. Sakura looked tired and her pace was slow as she headed the other way carrying several heavy books and a scroll piled haphazardly on the top. The whole thing looked like it was going to topple at any second.
He was hungry. Chouji though, for some reason, decided to go and talk to her anyway. Perhaps Sakura would be able to shed some light on... well, on the current situation. After watching Shikamaru and Ino both behave like five year olds for the last week and a half Chouji couldn't lay the blame solely on either one of them. As far as he was concerned the both of them were to blame.
He was getting sick of it. Something had to change.
"Sakura-san," Chouji greeted her cheerfully, "You look exhausted. Hokage-sama working you hard?" She blinked at him for a moment and he wondered just how tired she was.
"Yes." Sakura said unconvincingly after a few moments too long of a pause, "It's a lot of work."
Chouji frowned a bit and looked her over more carefully. He wished he knew her well enough to pry - Sakura looked like she needed someone to pry right now. Filing the thought away for a time when he could do something about it, Chouji gently tugged a few of the books out of her hold. “I’ll help you.” He offered serenely, as if he hadn’t noticed anything amiss, “Which way are you headed?”
She smiled at him slightly, though he could tell her heart wasn’t in it, “I was just going home.” Sakura’s shoulders slumped slightly and Chouji decided that, really, talking to Sakura didn’t have to mean he had to go hungry.
“You hungry?” He asked her, “We could stop by and get a bite to eat - there’s a dango place next street over that’s not too bad.” While Chouji knew that others joked that he was willing to eat anything, he knew that being an Akimichi only meant that you were pickier in what you did like.
Sakura’s smile this time was a little more genuine, “If you want to. My parents aren’t expecting me back until later.”
Leading the way to the restaurant, Chouji drew Sakura into a few more details of her training. “You have to memorize all of these?” He asked incredulously as they entered and found seats that afforded them a good view of the rest of the place.
Situational awareness, Chouji could hear Asuma-sensei lecturing him, was something to be practiced at all times. Not just when he felt like it. Letting Sakura take the seat that had the best view, Chouji sat with his back to the door despite the way it made him slightly uncomfortable.
He’d been practicing lately and it was making him jumpy - not to mention hanging out with Shikamaru and Ino was becoming a time when he needed to keep a constant eye on his surroundings. They placed their orders with a friendly waitress and Chouji let his mind wander as Sakura talked about was she was learning as the Hokage’s apprentice.
Yesterday Ino had tried to nail Shikamaru with a Katon jutsu during a spar, only she’d misjudged the distance and nearly hit him. Asuma-sensei hadn’t been happy with her. Ino at least had been genuinely contrite when she’d apologized to him after training. Chouji had forgiven her but had made sure to stand further away during training today. He wasn’t going to risk being fried when she was still learning the jutsu.
“ - and then Tsunade-shishou told me to practice it a hundred times daily… Chouji? Are you listening to me?” Sakura’s voice brought him out of his musings about his team. Ino had been especially cranky today - her knee to Shikamaru’s crotch hadn’t been an accident no matter what she said. Asuma-sensei’s lecture on proper protocols when training had made Chouji think that he wasn’t the only one who thought that.
“Ah sorry, sorry.” He rubbed his head sheepishly, a thought occurring to him, “Hey, Sakura-san? Do you know what’s going on between Ino and Shikamaru?”
To Chouji’s surprise, Sakura looked suddenly uncomfortably as she fiddled with her napkin. “Well…” she said slowly, “what do you know about it? We could compare notes.”
The turnaround of his question gave Chouji pause. Luckily it went unnoticed because their orders were brought out. They were silent as they ate for the first bit, but Chouji had been thinking about that answer for awhile. “It’s a bit different for both of them, though you have to watch them in action to really get what’s going on. Ino’s pissed at Shikamaru plain and simple - though I don’t know what about - and for the most part Shikamaru’s the same way. Getting them to train together is like asking cats and dogs to get along.” Chouji chewed thoughtfully, “But it changes when he’s got to make the mission strategy. Every time he puts her in the most easily defensible position which only makes Ino madder because that’s often back up. Ino’s bad at being backup.”
Sakura rolled her eyes, “Ino’s got to have it her way.”
There was nothing he could do but nod his head, it was true. “What do you know about it?” Chouji asked hoping that she could shed some light on the whole situation before it became unfixable. Asuma-sensei was looking more dispirited with everyday that passed and things staying the same.
Waiting for an answer Chouji watched as Sakura took a long sip of her water, stalling for time but Chouji was willing to let her so long as he got a response. “How has she been treating you?” Sakura asked finally, looking frustrated. He could understand that - if Ino had told her more then Sakura wouldn’t want to betray a confidence.
“Me?” Chouji shrugged, “Just like normal actually.” Which meant when it came to Ino, berating him half the time, snubbing him slightly when he sided with Shikamaru, being a good friend when he needed it and being able to work together no matter what.
“And your sensei?”
He frowned at her, not seeing where she was going with this line of questioning, “Same as usual. What are you hinting at?” Chouji couldn’t stand it when Ino danced around a subject and it was no less irritating when Sakura did it.
She blushed prettily, “Well, if Ino’s change of behavior only really affects Shikamaru, right? You might ask when it started and then look around for possible causes from that. That’s what I’d do anyways. ” Sakura looked at him pleadingly, “I can’t really say anything more.”
Chouji nodded, already thinking about what she had told him. They paid for their orders and headed out. They were near Sakura’s area of town when Chouji said abruptly, “It’s that mission, isn’t it?”
“Well,” Sakura said with a peculiar smile on her face, “That was the start of it at least. I’ll see you around.”
He watched her go wondering what on earth that was supposed to mean. Chouji was disgruntled to realize that he wasn’t any closer to figuring out what to do than before. He headed home to train. Sometimes it was easier to think things through when his body was otherwise occupied.
And his dad had promised to start showing him another jutsu.
---
Training with Hinata wasn’t at all like doing it with Neji, Tenten mused as she flung another brace of kunai at the girl whose eyes were narrowed in concentration. Hinata had approached her, a few months ago, of her own volition to ask if she would have the time to help her train.
Turning down a request from Hinata had never even entered Tenten’s mind. For one thing it was nice to work with someone who treated her like she was doing a favor (even though Hinata was doing Tenten one as well with the extra practise) and for another it gave her a chance to make another friend.
At the Academy Tenten had grown used to mostly hanging out by herself - most of the girls in her class had been more interested in the more traditional kunoichi arts like genjutsu - whereas she’d always been fascinated by the many types of weapons there were and the novelty of having friends, girl friends of her own had yet to wear off.
Tenten had taken to Hinata the first time that they’d been formally introduced. It had taken her some time though to get the shyer girl to open up and talk to her. Spinning and flinging the last of her shuriken at Hinata, Tenten found that she had to dodge quickly because Hinata managed to deflect them back at her.
Behind her a buzzer went off. Tenten fell out of her ready stance, easing her hands away from a few senbon. Hinata, further out in the clearing, came to a full stop and let her Byakugan drop. “How did I do?” Hinata asked her as they went and gathered up the weapons.
“You’re doing a lot better.” Tenten said cheerfully, “Soon I won’t be able to hit you at all.”
The Byakugan was, as far as she was concerned, an unfair advantage against a weapon reliant shinobi. With a field of vision so wide, Tenten found it hard to score hits that they could dodge - her favorite tactic so far was to simply bombard them with projectiles until Hinata and Neji went down. There was power in numbers after all.
“How’ve you been lately?” Tenten knelt and carefully ran her hands through the long grass. Senbon were notoriously hard to spot. She winced slightly as her hand found one, gently tugging it out of the grass with a care for her other fingers.
Hinata handed her another one, which Tenten accepted with a smile and tucked it into her shirt. “Father is unhappy with me.” For once the Hyuuga heiress managed to look unaffected by that news, “He doesn’t like that Neji-niisan and I have no wish to marry.”
“Does he know who you have in mind?”
Hinata blushed, “A - ano, I didn’t think that it would be prudent.”
That was probably right, Tenten decided as Hinata ran one last scan of the training area with Byakugan to make sure they hadn’t missed any weapons. Hyuuga Hiashi wasn’t likely to care for Naruto thanks to his clanless state. “Has he written to you since he left?”
Hinata shook her head but didn’t seem disheartened at all, “It’s only been a few days. Naruto-kun always keeps his promises.”
Tenten wondered what the boy had done to earn such devotion. While she’d been a year ahead of Hinata and Naruto in the Academy she hadn’t ever noticed that Naruto had gone out of his way to treat Hinata any differently than anyone else. When Tenten had first discovered that Hinata liked Naruto she hadn’t been able to resist prying for more information. Strong, brave, and kind were things that a lot of guys could have applied to them. What kind of a ninja was a coward?
“I’m sure he does.” Tenten agreed cautiously. She wished that she’d had a chance to get to know him a bit better during the exam.
“How has Ino-san been doing?” Hinata asked, obviously changing the subject.
Tenten smiled. Ino had just gotten the all clear yesterday from Hokage-sama to resume full out training and had tracked her down for another hour long dodge practise. She’d done better than the first time, though by the end of it, her arms and legs had still been quite bloody. “She’s just fine, working hard though.”
And the problems with Ino’s team hadn’t gotten any better from what Tenten understood, but that wasn’t something that she felt Ino would want spread around. It was a bit strange, Tenten felt, that she’d managed to make friends not with the kunoichi her age but with the ones the year below. Some of the time she wondered what it would have been like to be in class with them and if anything would have changed.
“A - ano, isn’t that Neji-niisan?” Hinata said with a faint frown on her face, “I thought he had training with Father this morning.”
“Well, we’ll see what he wants this time.” Tenten crossed her arms over her chest. Neji had actually come and talk to her - Hinata had asked her if he had - about the marriage arrangements, but that didn’t mean that she’d entirely forgiven him. She would, but Tenten thought that he could stand to suffer her displeasure a little longer. If only he’d suffer a little more obviously!
“Hinata-sama, Tenten-san,” He greeted them smoothly with a slight bow of his head for Hinata, “A letter came for you, Hinata-sama.”
“A letter?” Hinata blushed slightly, “A - ano, but from whom?”
Neji looked slightly discomfited, “A frog gave it to me, something about the Hokage’s orders.”
“A frog?” Tenten snickered at the image of Neji having to talk with a frog. Interestingly enough, Hinata had gone beet red at the mention of Tsunade-sama’s orders. “What orders does the Hokage have on your letters?” Tenten thought she might have a good idea.
“N - Naruto-kun promised you see… but my Father… and Hokage-sama said that she’d make sure I got his letters.” Hinata confessed, looking like she wanted to sink into the ground without the aid of a Doton jutsu.
Well how about that? Tenten thought, watching Neji assimilate the fact that his cousin liked the boy that had beaten him in the Chuunin Exam. Maybe he does keep his promises.
---
A day’s worth of hard training had done her good. Asuma-sensei had, the night before, told them not to show up for training in the morning - Ino suspected that it was mostly that he was getting sick of dealing with them and needed a break. She'd spent a great deal of it with Shizune-sensei at the hospital. Shizune-sensei had started teaching her the way to close small wounds, and they’d done a bit of review on identifying common poisons and what their antidotes were.
Ino was smiling as she entered through the back door of her house - she did enjoy a good lesson, and these days with the way that Team 10 was going her medical studies were the only good part of the day. Well, and her Clan Jutsu. To her surprise, Ino found her father fussing with some flowers at the kitchen table.
"I thought you had a mission?" Ino asked him curiously as she got herself a glass of water.
"I do." He said absently, most of his attention obviously caught up in the arrangement, "I leave tonight."
She watched him fret with some gardening wire for a few minutes before asking, "Do you think you could teach me some taijutsu?" It had been something she'd thought during training today. After all, she figured that if he was teaching her the right way to use the Clan Jutsu then it only made sense that she learn to use taijutsu the way he did as well.
He looked at her, "Right now?"
Ino shrugged nonchalantly. She was aware that he was busy - but if he was willing to put it down to help her out then... "When you can - not that I'd say no to a lesson right now - but I've finished reviewing everything that the Academy teaches, and Asuma-sensei will have Chouji to worry about."
She was well aware that thanks to having been in the hospital for so long, that Chouji would be taking up most of Asuma-sensei's time when it came to one-on-one training. It didn't bother her that much. After all, she wanted Chouji to do well. But it did mean that she had to look further than she might have for additional training. Ino had asked Shizune-sensei about it but the woman had confessed that her style relied too heavily on medical jutsu for Ino to get much good out of it.
"Right." He said firmly, glaring at the arrangement. "Let's consider this a failed experiment. Help me clean this mess up and we'll head outside - I'll need to see where you are before I can teach you anything new."
Ino helped him gather the scattered blossoms, and rinse out the tall clear vase he'd been using. That done, and the kitchen table returned to its former pristine condition, Ino followed her father outside.
She was very glad that he'd left his staff behind. Ino wasn't sure that, yet, that she wanted to learn how to use one. The fact that she hadn't yet reached her full growth was a concern - what use was a staff if you had to constantly adjust it for your height? Ino knew for sure that she had a few more years before she hit the height she'd be for life - neither of her parents were short and she doubted that she would be.
The fact that Ino thought she'd look fantastic tall had nothing to do with it. Well, at least, not very much to do with it. She was just a girl after all, and certainly not against looking wonderful.
Walking with her father was something that she hadn't done for quite a while. Ino quickened her pace until she was next to him and impulsively slipped her hand into his. She ignored his sidelong glance down at her but smiled when his hand squeezed hers gently. So what if she was considered an adult legally? This was her father.
"Got something on your mind, princess?" He asked as they walked, leisurely, through the streets. They were heading out near the Nara deer fields, back when her father had still been only Chuunin, Nara Shikaku had given him a bit of land to use as a place to practise.
The Nara Clan was a large one, it was odd that Shikamaru was an only child really, unlike her Clan, and they had the land to spare.
These days, she knew, that if her father had wanted to he could have bought a small training area closer to home. Ino never asked him why he didn't. It had something, she guessed, to do with how their friendship worked.
Ino didn't mind the walk, besides. It was a nice fall day. She shrugged, lightly, in response to his question, "Nothing out of the ordinary." Just lessons, training, and Shikamaru, really. She'd done her good deed for Hinata - Sakura had told her that the shy heiress had gotten a letter from Naruto, so that was out of her hands. Ino tried to keep in touch with Tenten, their plan for meeting up weekly was proving harder to match schedules than they had anticipated. Mostly because of the difference in caliber of missions their teams were taking.
Shikamaru though, she frowned, for some reason these day's everything she did came around to proving him wrong. To her dismay he was being stubborn about it. According to Asuma-sensei though that was par for the course when dealing with Nara men. He'd mentioned something about Nara women and dodging frying pans when she'd asked him about the other half.
Her father laughed, bringing her out of her thoughts, "Then tell me what's the ordinary with you these days? I hardly see you except for lessons."
Ino flushed. It was true though that she was busy, lately. "Sorry, Father."
He squeezed her hand tighter, "There's nothing to apologize for - you're working hard, and I'm proud of you."
Ino rested her head against his shoulder briefly before looking up at him, "Did you want to hear about my training with Shizune-sensei?" She had told him before about it in vague generalities, preferring to spend most of her time with him working on their Clan techniques. Besides, the medical jutsu she was learning now weren't going to be the sum of her use. No way. Ino wasn't going to stand for that, no matter what Shikamaru thought she’d do better behind the scenes.
That got her a smile, "If you want to talk, then I'm willing to listen. Anything you want."
Ino started talking. Her hand slipped from his so that she could show with her hands better what she was explaining. She was walking him through the way that Shizune-sensei was showing her how to heal small wounds - hardly more than scrapes at this time - with nothing but her chakra and a fine understanding of what she was doing. Each layer of skin had to be repaired separately, which meant that you had to be highly careful not to miss a layer - else the wound would heal wrong.
By the time they reached the practise field Ino was walking a few steps in front of her father, facing him, so that she was walking backwards and talking about it with enthusiasm. She was so caught up in her recital of what she was learning that she very nearly crashed into the wooden fence.
Her father chuckled as she scowled and both of them leapt over the fence with ease. After that it was just a little ways further to the field that they used for training. Sometimes Ino wondered if Shikamaru had ever been here - she’d been avoiding this area mostly so that she could feel safer knowing that he wouldn’t be able to see what she was practicing. Ino doubted that she’d be bothered while she was with her father. Clan secrets and all that.
When they reached the area, both of them fell to stretching. Ino made sure that she watched her father to make sure she was doing it right. Asuma-sensei had shown them a few different stretches but Ino found she preferred her family’s way of doing things. Once that was done, her father settled into a ready stance across from her.
Slightly nervous - what if her father thought she wasn’t any good at taijutsu despite all of her practicing? - Ino did the same.
“Straight taijutsu only, sweetheart.” Her father said firmly, “No weapons and I don’t want to see how quickly you can pull off a ninjutsu this time around. I want to see what we’ve got to work with alright?”
Ino nodded her head, taking a moment to put her glasses off to the side. She was working on a jutsu to help keep them where they were supposed to remain but at the moment she hadn’t managed to work all of the kinks out of it. Her jutsu kept burning the hair it came into contact with. Ino had no wish to go around with half her hair burned off. It was bad enough that it was taking so long to grow back. “I’m ready.”
“Good.” Her father shifted his stance slightly, “Strike to kill, princess.”
Ino’s eyes narrowed at the slight. She knew that the only reason he’d said that was because there was no way in hell she’d be able to do that. Not against a Jounin - the only Genin she knew that might be able to take a Jounin on in a straight taijutsu battle was Lee-san from Tenten’s team. This was her father’s way of encouraging her.
She charged. Ordinarily she would have wanted to draw the enemy to her - but this wasn’t a regular fight and she had to show off what she knew how to do. Less than two feet away from her father, Ino went low, both of her feet kicking out at his ankles as she used her momentum to get behind him.
A swift kick to the stomach sent her flying. Ino managed to get her feet back under her before she landed and without taking a chance to reconsider her actions flung herself at him again. This time he grabbed her trailing hand as he dodged a blow to the face and yanked her sharply to him. Ino twisted like an eel and used one foot to stomp on his instep and when his hands loosened she used her other foot to kick up dangerously close to his groin. He sent her crashing into a tree.
“Your mother,” Her father said conversationally as she scrambled to her feet, “would be terribly unhappy with you if you continued that line of attack.”
“Ha,” Ino settled into a ready stance again, “Guess you’d better watch yourself.”
What followed next was best summed up in one word: humiliating.
Every attack that she launched was easily repelled - with a few scathing words to match - and what few blows she managed to land didn’t seem to affect him at all. When it was over Ino slumped to the ground and wondered how sore she’d be tomorrow. Gingerly touching her jaw, Ino winced.
If this was what it felt like to have her father go easy on her then she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to fight him for real. Ino, with a sigh, managed to push herself into a seated position. Her father tossed her a canteen which she drank from greedily.
He settled down in front of her, legs crossed, and looking none the worse for wear. “Feeling pounded, princess?”
Ino glared at him, “I hate you.”
Her father laughed and she scowled harder, “Don’t look at me like that, all of that did serve to give me a good idea about where you are.”
“I need loads of training don’t I?” Ino was, she had to admit more than a little glad that she’d thought to reinforce all of her old taijutsu with more study. She shuddered to think of how she’d be feeling if she hadn’t.
“Well,” A smile crossed her father’s face, “Yes, but you didn’t do all that badly.”
She snorted.
“Alright,” her father admitted, “You did - but it’s fixable. What’s your schedule like?”
---
"Right," Asuma-sensei said in a defeated sort of voice, "That's enough for today. You lot go home. Shikamaru, I want to talk to you."
He watched Chouji's shoulders slump from the corner of his eye and winced away from the withering glare that Ino gave him. Shikamaru said nothing as Ino turned smartly on one heel, pink glasses firmly on top her head - had she made any progress on that jutsu he’d helped her with? - and without another word left for the day.
Stretching carefully, not that he really needed to as it was hardly past eight in the morning and they hadn't done much, Shikamaru wondered just how much longer this was going to go on.
He didn't know what her problem was. Didn't she see that he was trying to protect her? Asuma-sensei had given him the task of planning for the team and he was doing his best. Shikamaru knew though that his best was going to have to get better if Ino kept up this way. Why was the most infuriating kunoichi in Konoha on his team? It would have been so much easier if Ino were only a bit less spirited.
Chouji left, reluctantly, looking back over his shoulder.
"What did I tell you when I gave you command?" Asuma-sensei asked wearily.
Shikamaru scowled at the ground. "That I was to deal with any and all problems that arose unless a mission was misranked."
He knew that. It was just that Ino was driving him up the wall and for some reason he couldn't make rational decisions about her. His and Chouji's teamwork had remained flawless, and he hadn't had any problems with Ino working with Chouji.
It was the two of them that couldn't get anything at all accomplished. They were dragging Chouji down with them though and Shikamaru didn't like that. This was their fight, if they'd been a little more grown up about it then it would have slid right past for now. Enough that they would be able to go on missions anyway.
Shikamaru had never thought that he'd get bored of just doing training exercises. Two weeks of them had proven him wrong in that disregard, but Asuma-sensei had been firm about it. No missions until they could complete an exercise together.
Somehow, Shikamaru didn't think that would be happening any time soon.
"That's right," Asuma-sensei said, "so why haven't you done so?"
This struck Shikamaru as unfair, "I'm doing my best - it's not my fault that Ino's - "
"While you are the commander of a team, anything that they do is your fault." His sensei said sternly, normally kind eyes hard, "It's written right down in the rules. You should know that. While Ino and Chouji are under your command it is your responsibility to make sure that everything runs smoothly. Do you understand?"
Shikamaru could feel himself flushing, "Yes, sir." He said it stiffly, knowing that he was failing miserably to hide his irritation. It wasn't like he'd asked for the command - Ino would have been happier in the position that had once been hers, and he would still have been able to make his plans.
"Good. Then, I'm ordering you to fix this. I don't care if the two of you can't be in the same room when you're not on active duty. When you are, I want the two of you to work as a team. Make it happen, Nara."
Shikamaru winced at the use of his family name. Asuma-sensei didn't do that unless he was really mad. "Yes, sir."
There wasn't much else that he could say to that. It was almost like he was tossing a coin, Shikamaru mused, as he was dismissed and left the training area feeling Asuma-sensei's eyes on the back of his head. He had been the one given responsibility of leading Team 10 so long as nothing went seriously wrong (what a troublesome thing it was turning out to be, even as he did his best) by Asuma-sensei. Now his sensei was telling him that he had to fix what was wrong.
Shikamaru had his pride.
He hadn't wanted to go and ask anyone if they had a different perspective on what he was doing. After all, he had Ino's loud complaints and Chouji's suggestions to take into account and Shikamaru had thought that that would be enough for him to make it work. It was proving though that it wasn't going to be the case.
Two weeks since they'd first reformed. They hadn't managed to work together on a single exercise that Asuma-sensei had set them. Ino kept messing up his patterns. Now, though, with Asuma-sensei's order, Shikamaru knew that he was going to have to get off his fence and actually do something about it.
As he saw it, there were two choices. He could go and try to talk to Ino - something that was almost guaranteed to fail, but then he'd be able to say to Asuma-sensei that he'd tried... or he could take in the order in the spirit that it was intended and go and talk to Yamanaka Inoichi.
Shikamaru really didn't want to go and talk to Ino's father. Yamanaka Inoichi had this way of looking at him that made him feel like he was being unbearably slow. That the man only took things seriously when they pertained to his wife or daughter didn’t help.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to learn what Ino had been saying about him to her father. Shikamaru knew too, from listening to his father, that Yamanaka Inoichi was where Ino had gotten her willfulness from.
The idea of facing a grownup male version of Ino to talk about his daughter made
Shikamaru want to ditch the idea of ever doing something about the situation. Only the fact that Asuma-sensei had made it an order kept him from doing just that.
That Inoichi was a Jounin only made Shikamaru feel worse about the whole situation - if he offended the high strung man… Well, Inoichi could flatten him like a pancake. Shikamaru didn't kid himself that Inoichi wouldn't know how to combat the Shadow Jutsu of the Nara Clan. Shikaku, Shikamaru's father, had been on the same team as him after all.
It all made Shikamaru want to just wait the whole situation out - surely this fight would end soon and Ino would see that what he was doing only made sense.
Then he remembered the look of despair on Chouji's face. The resigned air that hung about Ino when she wasn't yelling at him, and the way that Asuma-sensei looked like he was watching everything fall apart.
With a sigh, Shikamaru made his decision. He'd go and talk to Yamanaka Inoichi...
Soon.
But first he’d see if his dad had any good advice to offer.
Previous Chapter // Chapter List // Next Chapter
Chapter: 04 Reformation
Author/Artist: Skylar Inari
Pairing: Yamanaka Ino/Nara Shikamaru
Theme: 03. Tossing a coin
Word Count: 8742
Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me. It's Kishimoto's and I just play with it. AU immediately after the Sasuke Retrieval Arc. Part 4 of ? Unbeta’d.
Ino stared at the ruined, blackened bits of hair that lay limply on her desk. Shizune-sensei's ideas about how to go about her 'Hair Tie no Jutsu' sounded good in theory. Practise though needed a bit more work.
"Right," she muttered to herself, sweeping away the remains of that failed attempt and tugging a few more strands off of her hair brush, "I'm so, so glad I listened to her." It had been Shizune-sensei's idea, yet another one, to practise the jutsu out on free bits of hair first before trying anything that was attached to her head.
Creating a jutsu - even one as small and insignificant as what she wanted to do - was a lot harder than it seemed, Ino was finding. She had a small scroll nearly covered with theories and ideas all that worked out just fine on paper, but flaked out when she attempted them gamely one after the other. Thank goodness that even with her hair cut Ino had more than enough that had been brushed out to do it this way so long as she stuck to only a few strands for each attempt.
Marking a little red 'X' against yet another failed theory, Ino narrowed her eyes and read through the next one on the list. Surely one of them would be what she was looking for. She’d come up with enough scenarios - her father had suggested that - and Ino had acknowledged it as a good idea.
He’d said, “If you really want to do something, be thorough.”
Ino had done her best, but it was really frustrating when attempt after attempt failed on her. The first three had gone up in flames, quite a few hadn’t done anything, two had writhed like she’d electrocuted them and this one had lit up for a few seconds before falling apart and leaving burn marks on her desk.
It wasn’t, she thought grumpily, like she hadn’t animated her hair before. Ino had been pleased with herself for managing to do it in the Chuunin Exam preliminaries. Sending her chakra through the hair as a conduct to trap Sakura had been easier than this.
Chewing thoughtfully on her pen, Ino grit her teeth in determination and set an old, broken pair of glasses (she’d gotten them when she was three) near the hair and ran through the seals she’d scribbled down. The hair twitched towards the glasses - and for a moment Ino thought that she might be getting somewhere - and then with an audible snap! the hair curled in on itself. That was new.
Carefully removing the glasses from the table, Ino didn’t have many spares and was loath to have them get ruined, she narrowed her eyes at the twinned curls of hair. Waiting a few minutes - just to be safe and sure that they weren’t going to explode or anything - Ino gently poked the right curl with her pen. The pen skittered on the surface of the curl. A quick check of the other produced the same result.
Gingerly Ino picked up a curl and turned it over in her hands. The jutsu had caused her hair to fuse together and become solid. Ino checked back in her notes trying to see what had caused that reaction.
Some time later, and a few attempts more, Ino was pulled from her studies by the sound of her mother coming up the stairs talking to someone. The shop was closed today, so that wasn’t the odd thing, but Ino hadn’t heard anything about visitors - she hadn’t even heard the door!
“Ino-chan!” Her mother said brightly as she opened the door and ushered Shikamaru in, “Shikamaru wanted to talk to you - I didn’t think you’d mind if I just showed him straight up.” The last was said with a faintly uplifted eyebrow.
Ino scowled down at her hairbrush. Her mother had been trying to get them to reconcile from the party and Ino was getting tired of having to explain that she didn’t really want to talk about what was really going on.
Still, Ino knew from the look on her mother’s face that the best thing she could do was put on a good face while Yamanaka Mui was in the room. Besides she could always be cranky at Shikamaru who, Ino noted, looked rather uncomfortable. Ino forced a smile on her face, “It’s fine, Mother.”
Then they were left alone. Ino did a quick survey of her room, glad that she’d always been a tidy person and so didn’t have embarrassing articles of clothing hanging around everywhere. She did hope that he didn’t notice the medical scrolls near her bed though. Ino didn’t feel up to explaining that to him.
He shifted uncomfortably.
Ino abandoned her chair for her bed, moving carefully. Her back was still sore - Tsunade-sama’s idea of a ‘bit stiff’ was not her idea of it and it had been bad enough yesterday that Asuma-sensei had taken one look at her and sent her back home to rest - but Ino had promised herself a bath later if she managed to get through the day without using a painkiller.
“Take a seat,” she invited, “if you’re going to stay for awhile.”
A frown creased his forehead as he looked at her, “I wanted to see how your back was. Asuma-sensei was worried.”
“It’ll be fine in a few days, Tsunade-sama said.” Ino told him as he took a seat, “I’m just not allowed to participate in ‘overly strenuous’ training until then.”
He looked down, but not before she caught the guilty expression on his face. Ino very carefully didn’t roll her eyes - Shikamaru was hard enough to deal with lately without her having to upset him further. “It’s not your fault.” Ino told him bluntly, “I’m blaming Asuma-sensei.”
“I’m the one that couldn’t recover fast enough to avoid hitting you.” Shikamaru said finally, “And I hurt you.”
“It’s not serious - “ Ino began only to be cut off.
“That’s not the point! It could have been.”
“Well then,” Ino retorted, “It’s my fault too then because I didn’t sense you at all until it happened! Looks like I’ve got to work on sensing that as well.”
He stared at her for a few moments before shaking his head and muttering something that sounded a lot like ‘troublesome woman’ before saying, “Look. I just wanted to say I’m sorry for hurting you. I shouldn’t have.”
Shouldn’t have? What was she, glass? “Shikamaru, it was a training accident. I don’t blame you.” The fact that it gave her the time to work on theories for her jutsu was just a bonus. It wasn’t the first time, and she doubted that it would be the last time, that Ino had gotten hurt during training. Training injuries though were a lot better than getting hurt while on a mission.
From the set of his face though Ino knew that he blamed himself. She sighed, not knowing what to else to say. Shikamaru fiddled with the hair on her desk, frowning as he took in the burn marks on the protective covering she’d put over the hard wood. “What are you doing to your hair?” He asked sounding dubious.
“I’m trying to create a jutsu that will let my glasses stay on while I’m fighting.” Ino told him, getting up with a wince to walk over to her desk so that she could better show him what she was talking about. Shikamaru was out of the chair in no time and Ino took it when she realized that arguing with him that it hadn’t been necessary would be merely wasted air. “I did learn something at least from Asuma-sensei’s idea of a first day back. Did you want to look at my theory?”
Shikamaru shrugged slightly, “Sure.”
Ino tugged her scroll over so that he could read it. Shikamaru leaned over the back of her chair, his hands resting carefully on either side of her. She hunched her shoulders slightly, unsettled a bit by his closeness. “What do you think?” Ino asked somewhat nervously after he’d been quiet for a few minutes.
“Your third attempt failed because you neglected to compensate for the repeated rabbit seal.” He said thoughtfully, “That’s the only thing I see wrong with it. Most of your ideas seem sound.” Ino could feel him frowning above her, “From the looks of your desk though I take it that they aren’t working?”
Ino huffed, then winced at the movement made her back ache worse. “You want to see how badly it’s working?” She handed him one of the fused curls from earlier, “That’s from attempt number twelve.”
He turned it over in his hand and reached out to tug the scroll closer. “Hmm.”
This was how it had used to be, Ino thought moodily. He’d make the plans and criticize hers while she’d lead the team around and together they had managed to get things done. Shikamaru always had been better at things in the abstract than she was.
Shikamaru sighed, “I can’t see anything wrong on paper. Did you want to go through the next few attempts with me here?”
Ino blinked, tilting her head up to look at him. “You want to help me?”
It was hard to see his face from her angle, but Ino thought that he looked slightly annoyed that she’d even think he wouldn’t want to help her, “Well, those glasses of yours are a liability at the moment.” He told her grumpily, “I don’t like them - there were a few hits you should have been able to dodge with Asuma-sensei. They’re cutting down on your peripheral vision.” Shikamaru was the only one she knew who could sound quite that unhappy while being completely logical. The thing was, Ino knew all of that already and was taking steps to fix that problem.
“They’re for training.” Ino told him smartly, tapping him on the arm, “Father’s the one who told me to wear them.”
His sigh of exasperation was long suffering, and Ino could tell Shikamaru was rolling his eyes at her, “You going to tell me what they’re supposed to help you out with then? ‘Cause as far as I’m concerned it’s only a hindrance.”
Ino hit his chest lightly with her head, “It’s for training. Clan stuff, you know how that goes.” She didn’t feel like elaborating for the moment, couldn’t he just let her be?
To her surprise, he dropped it and they focused on the glasses. When he left a few hours later, they hadn’t gotten it to work, but Ino thought that they were on the right track. He’d had a few good ideas about the execution of the jutsu while at the same time working out a way for it to not be a total drain on her chakra. That had been something that Ino had fretted about. The drain, however small, wouldn’t be so bad while she was still only allowed on D rank missions but anything more than that would be pushing it if the mission took awhile.
Cleaning up the mess of hair on her desk Ino bit her lip and blinked back tears. It had be alright today, but she doubted that he’d let her do what she could while on the field, and they hadn’t said anything about the fight at their party. It had been between them, an invisible barrier of sorts, the entire time that he’d been there.
And when he’d left, Shikamaru had muttered something about having to be more careful during training and that had made her bristle. Only her mother’s presence as she had shown him out had kept Ino from snapping at him. If he wanted to improve his reaction time that was fine with her - but she was a full member of Team 10 and not going to let him forget it. If he wanted to shove her in the back where she’d ‘be safer’ then Ino wasn’t going down without a fight.
“Theory meet practise.” Ino murmured as she went and found her place in the current medical text that Shizune-sensei had assigned. Why did boys have to be so confusing? Shikamaru wasn’t making any sense at all lately. Perhaps if she worked harder it would start to make sense? At the very least Shikamaru wouldn’t know what hit him. He’d given no indication of noticing her medical books.
“Teach him to underestimate me.” She muttered vilely to her book.
---
Her hands trembled as she zipped up her coat. Hinata frowned at them until they steadied. This was no time for her to be backing out. Not at five in the morning on November 1st. Naruto had asked for her to come - Hinata would rather die than disappoint him. Not when he’d seemed so unsure if she would be there.
All around her the compound was quiet.
Mostly an illusion she knew, while it was early, the servants would already be stirring, and on the training grounds there would be a few of the family already hard at work. Hinata was glad of that. It would make her excuse, if she was stopped, that much more believable. With one last look around the room to see if she’d missed anything, Hinata took a deep breath - she could do this and she wasn’t going to faint - and slipped out of her room.
She was stopped not three steps down the hall by Hanabi’s sleepy voice.
“Nee-san? Where are you going?”
Hinata turned and gave her sister a smile, her excuse coming to her lips without hesitation, “Tenten-san promised to help train with me.” Hanabi looked like she’d just been getting a glass of water before heading back to bed with her nightgown askew and her hair rumpled.
“Will you be back for training later?”
“I should be.” Hinata shifted from one sandaled foot to the other, “A-no…”
Hanabi yawned, “Go train, nee-san. I’ll see you later.”
Luckily, Hinata managed to make it out of the compound without another interruption. She had a brief glimpse of Neji-niisan, he did not see her, as she passed the training grounds. Hinata promised herself that she’d work hard on being as good as she could be - after she’d seen Naruto.
When she arrived at the eastern gates Hinata was surprised to note that the Chuunin guards were no where around. Leaning against the wall as nonchalantly as she knew how Hinata activated her Byakugan, ducking her head so that it wouldn’t be immediately obvious what she was doing. It was the matter of a few moments to confirm that while the Chuunin were gone, two ANBU were watching the gate carefully in their stead. No Hokage would ever be so foolhardy as to remove all security. With a relieved sigh, Hinata released her Byakugan.
Time passed slowly while you were waiting for someone. Hinata had shown up early in the hopes of having more time to talk to Naruto, but it was looking like he hadn’t thought to do the same. Tugging his letter out of her jacket, Hinata smiled fondly at it, even though it was too dark to read it without making an effort. She knew what it said anyway from having read it more than once and wondering if he really meant that she could see him off.
“Hinata-chan?” Naruto’s voice, sounding surprised to see her startled Hinata out of her reverie.
Her head jerked up, and she was glad that it was dark enough to mostly hide her blushing. “N - Naruto-kun.”
“You really came,” He said walking up with a tall white haired man just behind him, “I wasn’t sure you would.”
Her hands trembled and she clutched at the hem of her coat to hide it, “W - why wouldn’t I?” She asked while cursing her stutter. Hinata had been, since the Chuunin exam getting better at not letting it through, but Naruto was flustering her.
Naruto laughed and she stiffened, wondering this had been just a joke at her expense, but before she could say anything around the sudden lump in her throat he spoke, “I just thought you might be busy.” Naruto said with a shrug, “Sakura-chan said you’ve been working hard.”
Sakura-san had said that about her? Was that what Tenten had mentioned about Sakura-san putting in a few good words for her a few days ago at training? “I do have t - training,” Hinata admitted after realizing that Naruto was waiting for an answer, “But it’s a little bit later than this.”
“Going to introduce me?” The old man asked Naruto, “Or should I just leave you and your girlfriend alone for a few minutes?”
Hinata flushed even as Naruto managed to squawk his outrage, “She’s not a girlfriend, ero-sennin! Hinata-chan’s just a friend!”
Ero-sennin? Hinata wondered even as she struggled to regain her composure as Naruto continued rail at the man. She shuffled nervously, unsure of her place in this scenario - Naruto had called her a friend, for now that was enough for Hinata.
“Anyways,” Naruto said brightly turning back to her, “Ero-sennin’s known as Jiraiya of the Sannin, but my name suits him better. Don’t ever talk to him alone, okay Hinata-chan?”
Naruto was training under one of the sannin? “O - okay?” Hinata said watching Jiraiya-sama roll his eyes behind Naruto’s back and give her a smile and a thumbs up. She smiled helplessly back at the both of them. “If you say so, Naruto-kun.”
“Good.” He beamed at her then scowled so ferociously that Hinata almost took a step back, “And don’t let Neji boss you around! I won’t be here to help you out, so you’ve got to stick up for yourself!”
They talked for a few minutes longer, Hinata trying not to stutter and Naruto having to slow down so that she could keep up with his train of thought. Eventually though Jiraiya-sama coughed and said, “We’ve got to get going squirt. Tsunade’s Chuunin flunkies will be coming back any minute.”
Naruto scowled at this even as he turned to go. “I’ll talk to you when I get back, Hinata-chan!”
Before she quite knew what she was doing Hinata reached out and grabbed his arm. He looked at her curiously and Hinata stared determinedly at the ground knowing that she wouldn’t be able to keep it together if she stared at his face. “A - ano, I hope your trip goes well.” Hinata peeked up at him from behind her bangs and flushed.
To her surprise his face was gentle, “Thanks Hinata-chan. It means a lot to know there’s someone cheering for me.” He paused then said in a rush, “Ero-sennin said I could write letters to Sakura-chan and Obaa-san, if I did the same for you would you respond?”
Hinata felt faint and it was sheer determination that kept her upright and coherent at the thought of Naruto wanting to write to her. “I - I would be honored.”
He hugged her. Startled, Hinata couldn’t figure out how to respond before it was over and he was grinning sheepishly at her. “I’ll send them to Obaa-chan, she’ll make sure you get them.”
“Come on, brat! We’re on a schedule!”
“I’m coming, ero-sennin!” With one last shared smile, Naruto bolted through the gates after his sensei.
Hinata slumped against the wall for a few long minutes, before managing to regain her composure enough to head off to the field where she liked to train. She didn’t even try to hide the smile on her face, even though it was the last time she’d see him for a good three years.
The day was, she thought, pretty close to perfect.
---
Chouji was heading home from training - if you could call watching his team rip apart at the seams training - when he saw her. Sakura looked tired and her pace was slow as she headed the other way carrying several heavy books and a scroll piled haphazardly on the top. The whole thing looked like it was going to topple at any second.
He was hungry. Chouji though, for some reason, decided to go and talk to her anyway. Perhaps Sakura would be able to shed some light on... well, on the current situation. After watching Shikamaru and Ino both behave like five year olds for the last week and a half Chouji couldn't lay the blame solely on either one of them. As far as he was concerned the both of them were to blame.
He was getting sick of it. Something had to change.
"Sakura-san," Chouji greeted her cheerfully, "You look exhausted. Hokage-sama working you hard?" She blinked at him for a moment and he wondered just how tired she was.
"Yes." Sakura said unconvincingly after a few moments too long of a pause, "It's a lot of work."
Chouji frowned a bit and looked her over more carefully. He wished he knew her well enough to pry - Sakura looked like she needed someone to pry right now. Filing the thought away for a time when he could do something about it, Chouji gently tugged a few of the books out of her hold. “I’ll help you.” He offered serenely, as if he hadn’t noticed anything amiss, “Which way are you headed?”
She smiled at him slightly, though he could tell her heart wasn’t in it, “I was just going home.” Sakura’s shoulders slumped slightly and Chouji decided that, really, talking to Sakura didn’t have to mean he had to go hungry.
“You hungry?” He asked her, “We could stop by and get a bite to eat - there’s a dango place next street over that’s not too bad.” While Chouji knew that others joked that he was willing to eat anything, he knew that being an Akimichi only meant that you were pickier in what you did like.
Sakura’s smile this time was a little more genuine, “If you want to. My parents aren’t expecting me back until later.”
Leading the way to the restaurant, Chouji drew Sakura into a few more details of her training. “You have to memorize all of these?” He asked incredulously as they entered and found seats that afforded them a good view of the rest of the place.
Situational awareness, Chouji could hear Asuma-sensei lecturing him, was something to be practiced at all times. Not just when he felt like it. Letting Sakura take the seat that had the best view, Chouji sat with his back to the door despite the way it made him slightly uncomfortable.
He’d been practicing lately and it was making him jumpy - not to mention hanging out with Shikamaru and Ino was becoming a time when he needed to keep a constant eye on his surroundings. They placed their orders with a friendly waitress and Chouji let his mind wander as Sakura talked about was she was learning as the Hokage’s apprentice.
Yesterday Ino had tried to nail Shikamaru with a Katon jutsu during a spar, only she’d misjudged the distance and nearly hit him. Asuma-sensei hadn’t been happy with her. Ino at least had been genuinely contrite when she’d apologized to him after training. Chouji had forgiven her but had made sure to stand further away during training today. He wasn’t going to risk being fried when she was still learning the jutsu.
“ - and then Tsunade-shishou told me to practice it a hundred times daily… Chouji? Are you listening to me?” Sakura’s voice brought him out of his musings about his team. Ino had been especially cranky today - her knee to Shikamaru’s crotch hadn’t been an accident no matter what she said. Asuma-sensei’s lecture on proper protocols when training had made Chouji think that he wasn’t the only one who thought that.
“Ah sorry, sorry.” He rubbed his head sheepishly, a thought occurring to him, “Hey, Sakura-san? Do you know what’s going on between Ino and Shikamaru?”
To Chouji’s surprise, Sakura looked suddenly uncomfortably as she fiddled with her napkin. “Well…” she said slowly, “what do you know about it? We could compare notes.”
The turnaround of his question gave Chouji pause. Luckily it went unnoticed because their orders were brought out. They were silent as they ate for the first bit, but Chouji had been thinking about that answer for awhile. “It’s a bit different for both of them, though you have to watch them in action to really get what’s going on. Ino’s pissed at Shikamaru plain and simple - though I don’t know what about - and for the most part Shikamaru’s the same way. Getting them to train together is like asking cats and dogs to get along.” Chouji chewed thoughtfully, “But it changes when he’s got to make the mission strategy. Every time he puts her in the most easily defensible position which only makes Ino madder because that’s often back up. Ino’s bad at being backup.”
Sakura rolled her eyes, “Ino’s got to have it her way.”
There was nothing he could do but nod his head, it was true. “What do you know about it?” Chouji asked hoping that she could shed some light on the whole situation before it became unfixable. Asuma-sensei was looking more dispirited with everyday that passed and things staying the same.
Waiting for an answer Chouji watched as Sakura took a long sip of her water, stalling for time but Chouji was willing to let her so long as he got a response. “How has she been treating you?” Sakura asked finally, looking frustrated. He could understand that - if Ino had told her more then Sakura wouldn’t want to betray a confidence.
“Me?” Chouji shrugged, “Just like normal actually.” Which meant when it came to Ino, berating him half the time, snubbing him slightly when he sided with Shikamaru, being a good friend when he needed it and being able to work together no matter what.
“And your sensei?”
He frowned at her, not seeing where she was going with this line of questioning, “Same as usual. What are you hinting at?” Chouji couldn’t stand it when Ino danced around a subject and it was no less irritating when Sakura did it.
She blushed prettily, “Well, if Ino’s change of behavior only really affects Shikamaru, right? You might ask when it started and then look around for possible causes from that. That’s what I’d do anyways. ” Sakura looked at him pleadingly, “I can’t really say anything more.”
Chouji nodded, already thinking about what she had told him. They paid for their orders and headed out. They were near Sakura’s area of town when Chouji said abruptly, “It’s that mission, isn’t it?”
“Well,” Sakura said with a peculiar smile on her face, “That was the start of it at least. I’ll see you around.”
He watched her go wondering what on earth that was supposed to mean. Chouji was disgruntled to realize that he wasn’t any closer to figuring out what to do than before. He headed home to train. Sometimes it was easier to think things through when his body was otherwise occupied.
And his dad had promised to start showing him another jutsu.
---
Training with Hinata wasn’t at all like doing it with Neji, Tenten mused as she flung another brace of kunai at the girl whose eyes were narrowed in concentration. Hinata had approached her, a few months ago, of her own volition to ask if she would have the time to help her train.
Turning down a request from Hinata had never even entered Tenten’s mind. For one thing it was nice to work with someone who treated her like she was doing a favor (even though Hinata was doing Tenten one as well with the extra practise) and for another it gave her a chance to make another friend.
At the Academy Tenten had grown used to mostly hanging out by herself - most of the girls in her class had been more interested in the more traditional kunoichi arts like genjutsu - whereas she’d always been fascinated by the many types of weapons there were and the novelty of having friends, girl friends of her own had yet to wear off.
Tenten had taken to Hinata the first time that they’d been formally introduced. It had taken her some time though to get the shyer girl to open up and talk to her. Spinning and flinging the last of her shuriken at Hinata, Tenten found that she had to dodge quickly because Hinata managed to deflect them back at her.
Behind her a buzzer went off. Tenten fell out of her ready stance, easing her hands away from a few senbon. Hinata, further out in the clearing, came to a full stop and let her Byakugan drop. “How did I do?” Hinata asked her as they went and gathered up the weapons.
“You’re doing a lot better.” Tenten said cheerfully, “Soon I won’t be able to hit you at all.”
The Byakugan was, as far as she was concerned, an unfair advantage against a weapon reliant shinobi. With a field of vision so wide, Tenten found it hard to score hits that they could dodge - her favorite tactic so far was to simply bombard them with projectiles until Hinata and Neji went down. There was power in numbers after all.
“How’ve you been lately?” Tenten knelt and carefully ran her hands through the long grass. Senbon were notoriously hard to spot. She winced slightly as her hand found one, gently tugging it out of the grass with a care for her other fingers.
Hinata handed her another one, which Tenten accepted with a smile and tucked it into her shirt. “Father is unhappy with me.” For once the Hyuuga heiress managed to look unaffected by that news, “He doesn’t like that Neji-niisan and I have no wish to marry.”
“Does he know who you have in mind?”
Hinata blushed, “A - ano, I didn’t think that it would be prudent.”
That was probably right, Tenten decided as Hinata ran one last scan of the training area with Byakugan to make sure they hadn’t missed any weapons. Hyuuga Hiashi wasn’t likely to care for Naruto thanks to his clanless state. “Has he written to you since he left?”
Hinata shook her head but didn’t seem disheartened at all, “It’s only been a few days. Naruto-kun always keeps his promises.”
Tenten wondered what the boy had done to earn such devotion. While she’d been a year ahead of Hinata and Naruto in the Academy she hadn’t ever noticed that Naruto had gone out of his way to treat Hinata any differently than anyone else. When Tenten had first discovered that Hinata liked Naruto she hadn’t been able to resist prying for more information. Strong, brave, and kind were things that a lot of guys could have applied to them. What kind of a ninja was a coward?
“I’m sure he does.” Tenten agreed cautiously. She wished that she’d had a chance to get to know him a bit better during the exam.
“How has Ino-san been doing?” Hinata asked, obviously changing the subject.
Tenten smiled. Ino had just gotten the all clear yesterday from Hokage-sama to resume full out training and had tracked her down for another hour long dodge practise. She’d done better than the first time, though by the end of it, her arms and legs had still been quite bloody. “She’s just fine, working hard though.”
And the problems with Ino’s team hadn’t gotten any better from what Tenten understood, but that wasn’t something that she felt Ino would want spread around. It was a bit strange, Tenten felt, that she’d managed to make friends not with the kunoichi her age but with the ones the year below. Some of the time she wondered what it would have been like to be in class with them and if anything would have changed.
“A - ano, isn’t that Neji-niisan?” Hinata said with a faint frown on her face, “I thought he had training with Father this morning.”
“Well, we’ll see what he wants this time.” Tenten crossed her arms over her chest. Neji had actually come and talk to her - Hinata had asked her if he had - about the marriage arrangements, but that didn’t mean that she’d entirely forgiven him. She would, but Tenten thought that he could stand to suffer her displeasure a little longer. If only he’d suffer a little more obviously!
“Hinata-sama, Tenten-san,” He greeted them smoothly with a slight bow of his head for Hinata, “A letter came for you, Hinata-sama.”
“A letter?” Hinata blushed slightly, “A - ano, but from whom?”
Neji looked slightly discomfited, “A frog gave it to me, something about the Hokage’s orders.”
“A frog?” Tenten snickered at the image of Neji having to talk with a frog. Interestingly enough, Hinata had gone beet red at the mention of Tsunade-sama’s orders. “What orders does the Hokage have on your letters?” Tenten thought she might have a good idea.
“N - Naruto-kun promised you see… but my Father… and Hokage-sama said that she’d make sure I got his letters.” Hinata confessed, looking like she wanted to sink into the ground without the aid of a Doton jutsu.
Well how about that? Tenten thought, watching Neji assimilate the fact that his cousin liked the boy that had beaten him in the Chuunin Exam. Maybe he does keep his promises.
---
A day’s worth of hard training had done her good. Asuma-sensei had, the night before, told them not to show up for training in the morning - Ino suspected that it was mostly that he was getting sick of dealing with them and needed a break. She'd spent a great deal of it with Shizune-sensei at the hospital. Shizune-sensei had started teaching her the way to close small wounds, and they’d done a bit of review on identifying common poisons and what their antidotes were.
Ino was smiling as she entered through the back door of her house - she did enjoy a good lesson, and these days with the way that Team 10 was going her medical studies were the only good part of the day. Well, and her Clan Jutsu. To her surprise, Ino found her father fussing with some flowers at the kitchen table.
"I thought you had a mission?" Ino asked him curiously as she got herself a glass of water.
"I do." He said absently, most of his attention obviously caught up in the arrangement, "I leave tonight."
She watched him fret with some gardening wire for a few minutes before asking, "Do you think you could teach me some taijutsu?" It had been something she'd thought during training today. After all, she figured that if he was teaching her the right way to use the Clan Jutsu then it only made sense that she learn to use taijutsu the way he did as well.
He looked at her, "Right now?"
Ino shrugged nonchalantly. She was aware that he was busy - but if he was willing to put it down to help her out then... "When you can - not that I'd say no to a lesson right now - but I've finished reviewing everything that the Academy teaches, and Asuma-sensei will have Chouji to worry about."
She was well aware that thanks to having been in the hospital for so long, that Chouji would be taking up most of Asuma-sensei's time when it came to one-on-one training. It didn't bother her that much. After all, she wanted Chouji to do well. But it did mean that she had to look further than she might have for additional training. Ino had asked Shizune-sensei about it but the woman had confessed that her style relied too heavily on medical jutsu for Ino to get much good out of it.
"Right." He said firmly, glaring at the arrangement. "Let's consider this a failed experiment. Help me clean this mess up and we'll head outside - I'll need to see where you are before I can teach you anything new."
Ino helped him gather the scattered blossoms, and rinse out the tall clear vase he'd been using. That done, and the kitchen table returned to its former pristine condition, Ino followed her father outside.
She was very glad that he'd left his staff behind. Ino wasn't sure that, yet, that she wanted to learn how to use one. The fact that she hadn't yet reached her full growth was a concern - what use was a staff if you had to constantly adjust it for your height? Ino knew for sure that she had a few more years before she hit the height she'd be for life - neither of her parents were short and she doubted that she would be.
The fact that Ino thought she'd look fantastic tall had nothing to do with it. Well, at least, not very much to do with it. She was just a girl after all, and certainly not against looking wonderful.
Walking with her father was something that she hadn't done for quite a while. Ino quickened her pace until she was next to him and impulsively slipped her hand into his. She ignored his sidelong glance down at her but smiled when his hand squeezed hers gently. So what if she was considered an adult legally? This was her father.
"Got something on your mind, princess?" He asked as they walked, leisurely, through the streets. They were heading out near the Nara deer fields, back when her father had still been only Chuunin, Nara Shikaku had given him a bit of land to use as a place to practise.
The Nara Clan was a large one, it was odd that Shikamaru was an only child really, unlike her Clan, and they had the land to spare.
These days, she knew, that if her father had wanted to he could have bought a small training area closer to home. Ino never asked him why he didn't. It had something, she guessed, to do with how their friendship worked.
Ino didn't mind the walk, besides. It was a nice fall day. She shrugged, lightly, in response to his question, "Nothing out of the ordinary." Just lessons, training, and Shikamaru, really. She'd done her good deed for Hinata - Sakura had told her that the shy heiress had gotten a letter from Naruto, so that was out of her hands. Ino tried to keep in touch with Tenten, their plan for meeting up weekly was proving harder to match schedules than they had anticipated. Mostly because of the difference in caliber of missions their teams were taking.
Shikamaru though, she frowned, for some reason these day's everything she did came around to proving him wrong. To her dismay he was being stubborn about it. According to Asuma-sensei though that was par for the course when dealing with Nara men. He'd mentioned something about Nara women and dodging frying pans when she'd asked him about the other half.
Her father laughed, bringing her out of her thoughts, "Then tell me what's the ordinary with you these days? I hardly see you except for lessons."
Ino flushed. It was true though that she was busy, lately. "Sorry, Father."
He squeezed her hand tighter, "There's nothing to apologize for - you're working hard, and I'm proud of you."
Ino rested her head against his shoulder briefly before looking up at him, "Did you want to hear about my training with Shizune-sensei?" She had told him before about it in vague generalities, preferring to spend most of her time with him working on their Clan techniques. Besides, the medical jutsu she was learning now weren't going to be the sum of her use. No way. Ino wasn't going to stand for that, no matter what Shikamaru thought she’d do better behind the scenes.
That got her a smile, "If you want to talk, then I'm willing to listen. Anything you want."
Ino started talking. Her hand slipped from his so that she could show with her hands better what she was explaining. She was walking him through the way that Shizune-sensei was showing her how to heal small wounds - hardly more than scrapes at this time - with nothing but her chakra and a fine understanding of what she was doing. Each layer of skin had to be repaired separately, which meant that you had to be highly careful not to miss a layer - else the wound would heal wrong.
By the time they reached the practise field Ino was walking a few steps in front of her father, facing him, so that she was walking backwards and talking about it with enthusiasm. She was so caught up in her recital of what she was learning that she very nearly crashed into the wooden fence.
Her father chuckled as she scowled and both of them leapt over the fence with ease. After that it was just a little ways further to the field that they used for training. Sometimes Ino wondered if Shikamaru had ever been here - she’d been avoiding this area mostly so that she could feel safer knowing that he wouldn’t be able to see what she was practicing. Ino doubted that she’d be bothered while she was with her father. Clan secrets and all that.
When they reached the area, both of them fell to stretching. Ino made sure that she watched her father to make sure she was doing it right. Asuma-sensei had shown them a few different stretches but Ino found she preferred her family’s way of doing things. Once that was done, her father settled into a ready stance across from her.
Slightly nervous - what if her father thought she wasn’t any good at taijutsu despite all of her practicing? - Ino did the same.
“Straight taijutsu only, sweetheart.” Her father said firmly, “No weapons and I don’t want to see how quickly you can pull off a ninjutsu this time around. I want to see what we’ve got to work with alright?”
Ino nodded her head, taking a moment to put her glasses off to the side. She was working on a jutsu to help keep them where they were supposed to remain but at the moment she hadn’t managed to work all of the kinks out of it. Her jutsu kept burning the hair it came into contact with. Ino had no wish to go around with half her hair burned off. It was bad enough that it was taking so long to grow back. “I’m ready.”
“Good.” Her father shifted his stance slightly, “Strike to kill, princess.”
Ino’s eyes narrowed at the slight. She knew that the only reason he’d said that was because there was no way in hell she’d be able to do that. Not against a Jounin - the only Genin she knew that might be able to take a Jounin on in a straight taijutsu battle was Lee-san from Tenten’s team. This was her father’s way of encouraging her.
She charged. Ordinarily she would have wanted to draw the enemy to her - but this wasn’t a regular fight and she had to show off what she knew how to do. Less than two feet away from her father, Ino went low, both of her feet kicking out at his ankles as she used her momentum to get behind him.
A swift kick to the stomach sent her flying. Ino managed to get her feet back under her before she landed and without taking a chance to reconsider her actions flung herself at him again. This time he grabbed her trailing hand as he dodged a blow to the face and yanked her sharply to him. Ino twisted like an eel and used one foot to stomp on his instep and when his hands loosened she used her other foot to kick up dangerously close to his groin. He sent her crashing into a tree.
“Your mother,” Her father said conversationally as she scrambled to her feet, “would be terribly unhappy with you if you continued that line of attack.”
“Ha,” Ino settled into a ready stance again, “Guess you’d better watch yourself.”
What followed next was best summed up in one word: humiliating.
Every attack that she launched was easily repelled - with a few scathing words to match - and what few blows she managed to land didn’t seem to affect him at all. When it was over Ino slumped to the ground and wondered how sore she’d be tomorrow. Gingerly touching her jaw, Ino winced.
If this was what it felt like to have her father go easy on her then she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to fight him for real. Ino, with a sigh, managed to push herself into a seated position. Her father tossed her a canteen which she drank from greedily.
He settled down in front of her, legs crossed, and looking none the worse for wear. “Feeling pounded, princess?”
Ino glared at him, “I hate you.”
Her father laughed and she scowled harder, “Don’t look at me like that, all of that did serve to give me a good idea about where you are.”
“I need loads of training don’t I?” Ino was, she had to admit more than a little glad that she’d thought to reinforce all of her old taijutsu with more study. She shuddered to think of how she’d be feeling if she hadn’t.
“Well,” A smile crossed her father’s face, “Yes, but you didn’t do all that badly.”
She snorted.
“Alright,” her father admitted, “You did - but it’s fixable. What’s your schedule like?”
---
"Right," Asuma-sensei said in a defeated sort of voice, "That's enough for today. You lot go home. Shikamaru, I want to talk to you."
He watched Chouji's shoulders slump from the corner of his eye and winced away from the withering glare that Ino gave him. Shikamaru said nothing as Ino turned smartly on one heel, pink glasses firmly on top her head - had she made any progress on that jutsu he’d helped her with? - and without another word left for the day.
Stretching carefully, not that he really needed to as it was hardly past eight in the morning and they hadn't done much, Shikamaru wondered just how much longer this was going to go on.
He didn't know what her problem was. Didn't she see that he was trying to protect her? Asuma-sensei had given him the task of planning for the team and he was doing his best. Shikamaru knew though that his best was going to have to get better if Ino kept up this way. Why was the most infuriating kunoichi in Konoha on his team? It would have been so much easier if Ino were only a bit less spirited.
Chouji left, reluctantly, looking back over his shoulder.
"What did I tell you when I gave you command?" Asuma-sensei asked wearily.
Shikamaru scowled at the ground. "That I was to deal with any and all problems that arose unless a mission was misranked."
He knew that. It was just that Ino was driving him up the wall and for some reason he couldn't make rational decisions about her. His and Chouji's teamwork had remained flawless, and he hadn't had any problems with Ino working with Chouji.
It was the two of them that couldn't get anything at all accomplished. They were dragging Chouji down with them though and Shikamaru didn't like that. This was their fight, if they'd been a little more grown up about it then it would have slid right past for now. Enough that they would be able to go on missions anyway.
Shikamaru had never thought that he'd get bored of just doing training exercises. Two weeks of them had proven him wrong in that disregard, but Asuma-sensei had been firm about it. No missions until they could complete an exercise together.
Somehow, Shikamaru didn't think that would be happening any time soon.
"That's right," Asuma-sensei said, "so why haven't you done so?"
This struck Shikamaru as unfair, "I'm doing my best - it's not my fault that Ino's - "
"While you are the commander of a team, anything that they do is your fault." His sensei said sternly, normally kind eyes hard, "It's written right down in the rules. You should know that. While Ino and Chouji are under your command it is your responsibility to make sure that everything runs smoothly. Do you understand?"
Shikamaru could feel himself flushing, "Yes, sir." He said it stiffly, knowing that he was failing miserably to hide his irritation. It wasn't like he'd asked for the command - Ino would have been happier in the position that had once been hers, and he would still have been able to make his plans.
"Good. Then, I'm ordering you to fix this. I don't care if the two of you can't be in the same room when you're not on active duty. When you are, I want the two of you to work as a team. Make it happen, Nara."
Shikamaru winced at the use of his family name. Asuma-sensei didn't do that unless he was really mad. "Yes, sir."
There wasn't much else that he could say to that. It was almost like he was tossing a coin, Shikamaru mused, as he was dismissed and left the training area feeling Asuma-sensei's eyes on the back of his head. He had been the one given responsibility of leading Team 10 so long as nothing went seriously wrong (what a troublesome thing it was turning out to be, even as he did his best) by Asuma-sensei. Now his sensei was telling him that he had to fix what was wrong.
Shikamaru had his pride.
He hadn't wanted to go and ask anyone if they had a different perspective on what he was doing. After all, he had Ino's loud complaints and Chouji's suggestions to take into account and Shikamaru had thought that that would be enough for him to make it work. It was proving though that it wasn't going to be the case.
Two weeks since they'd first reformed. They hadn't managed to work together on a single exercise that Asuma-sensei had set them. Ino kept messing up his patterns. Now, though, with Asuma-sensei's order, Shikamaru knew that he was going to have to get off his fence and actually do something about it.
As he saw it, there were two choices. He could go and try to talk to Ino - something that was almost guaranteed to fail, but then he'd be able to say to Asuma-sensei that he'd tried... or he could take in the order in the spirit that it was intended and go and talk to Yamanaka Inoichi.
Shikamaru really didn't want to go and talk to Ino's father. Yamanaka Inoichi had this way of looking at him that made him feel like he was being unbearably slow. That the man only took things seriously when they pertained to his wife or daughter didn’t help.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to learn what Ino had been saying about him to her father. Shikamaru knew too, from listening to his father, that Yamanaka Inoichi was where Ino had gotten her willfulness from.
The idea of facing a grownup male version of Ino to talk about his daughter made
Shikamaru want to ditch the idea of ever doing something about the situation. Only the fact that Asuma-sensei had made it an order kept him from doing just that.
That Inoichi was a Jounin only made Shikamaru feel worse about the whole situation - if he offended the high strung man… Well, Inoichi could flatten him like a pancake. Shikamaru didn't kid himself that Inoichi wouldn't know how to combat the Shadow Jutsu of the Nara Clan. Shikaku, Shikamaru's father, had been on the same team as him after all.
It all made Shikamaru want to just wait the whole situation out - surely this fight would end soon and Ino would see that what he was doing only made sense.
Then he remembered the look of despair on Chouji's face. The resigned air that hung about Ino when she wasn't yelling at him, and the way that Asuma-sensei looked like he was watching everything fall apart.
With a sigh, Shikamaru made his decision. He'd go and talk to Yamanaka Inoichi...
Soon.
But first he’d see if his dad had any good advice to offer.
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