Yamanaka Ino (Iris)

Tseng had come through for her. Which wasn't surprising, but was always nice, and Ino had had her pick of buildings to sort through and determine which they were going to burn down in the line of duty.

Several of them were in the slums of Midgar and, Ino, after serious consideration of their locations, had set them aside. She'd take care of them on her own, later, once Sparkle had burnt himself out and she'd seen him on his way.

Sparkle was squishy in weird places. The goal was to give him something to do, not have a shouting match with him with the denizens of the slums listening in. If that happened, she'd be the one fixing that whole mess and while she didn't have moral qualms about erasing people's memories, she'd rather not have to do it en masse because she hadn't considered Sparkle's personality properly beforehand.

That was just sloppy and Ino despised that. Besides, like her mentor, Ino always had treated her Rookies well.

Not that she was telling Sparkle he was a potential Rookie. No sense in scaring him off.

The buildings that weren't in the slums posed more promise, and by the time she was at the Causeway, waiting for him, Ino was well content with her picks.

Now, just to wait for Sparkle.

[For he who is mentioned!]

[OOC: So yeah. If you're seeing this... I have no idea why you're reading Ino's journal years after I dropped her, but hi! This post was written waaay back in 2011 as a companion piece to this post over on puppy_fair's journal. (And you should go read that one because it's way, way better than this post.) Then it got lost in my inbox and I didn't feel like posting it and now I do? I'm feeling nostalgic tonight, I guess.]

It's pretty weird for you to be summoned directly to him and when you consider the fact that you've not gotten yourself in trouble--not even because of Silly--you realize that, really, he's probably summoned you to talk about the future and how to proceed with it.

And you're right, in a sick and twisted way that leaves you trying not to vomit on the carpet, as he tells you that he is dead in action and that he (not he) is sorry. He doesn't look at you as he says this. That's right, he was his friend too. You shake your head, long hair tumbling with the movement, tumbling like your thoughts, like your world is spinning and trying to realign and can't because the foundation you've found, made, used here is--

Gone.

You'd been told you had years. To change things, to fix them, to make the world a better place. That he died at some point during all of that.

You'd thought you had years to figure that out and change it. They'd let you go on thinking that, knowing you knew, and beneath the shock is a current of red-hot fury, but the shock is winning now. They lied. You're certain at least one of them loves you, but they lied and let you believe and let you wind your life around his and now… now you're all alone, in a world that's not even yours.

In a world that, maybe, you can still even save. You know a lot, though you didn't know enough.

He's gone, after all.

You realize hazily, belatedly, dizzily, that he, your boss, is waiting for an answer of some sort. Acknowledgement.

You've got none to give.

"No," you say, in a voice that might as well be dead, because you wish you were dead just then, and without hearing an answer (perhaps he gave one, perhaps he didn't) you walk out. You don't even know what you're saying no too. Just that--no. That's it, that's all there is: no. No, you refuse to deal with it. No, it didn't happen. No, he didn't, wouldn't, couldn't, just leave you like that.

No, he couldn't be gone is the same as no, this can't be happening. Except that it has and it did and you're all alone and even if you were to call someone, who would you trust? Those who knew lied to you. That means there's no one to trust. Not in your crumpled up, closed off heart that trusted little and loved few already.

You find yourself at the top of many, many stairs. You don't remember getting there. It makes sense not to go to your room, or to your other room. Too easy to be found by other people and you don't want to talk to them. If you're spoken to right now, you think you might go violent. It would be a release, since you can't cry. (Because this isn't happening. Your birthday is in a few days and he's got a surprise for you so it can't be happening.)

Your hands are trembling, shaking, when you look at them and consider the easiest way to get out of this nightmare. There's so many. Your room is filled with options, your person has others. You shake, wrapping your arms tight around you, leaning against the door and consider it.

But if you did, he wouldn't understand. That's still important to you, his understanding.

Instead, you force yourself down those steps. Waveringly, alarmingly, as they pitch and roll in your eyesight because everything's out of focus and worse, but you keep going, clinging to the railing like it's a lifeline, because it is. One step of steps, around a corner, then another. Then you start picking up your pace as you go spiralling down and down and down which is exactly how you feel and somewhere on the twentieth floor, tears start spilling down your cheeks and you keep running.

Reaching the bottom is like hitting the end of the line. You stand, shuddering, on the last step and refuse to take it. Refuse to touch rock bottom.

Instead, you turn and force yourself to go up and up and up so that you can go down again. You can't talk to anyone, you can't go outside--who knows who'll see you, and here you can at least move, run--you just have to hide from one person, that's all, because if he says anything right now, you might try to kill him and you don't want to do that just because he looks like someone who broke your trust. So you'll avoid him.

That's easy, when you don't feel like you exist anyway. What's one more layer to this farce?

You continue up and up and up so that you can go down and down and down.

And that's fitting too, whispers your thoughts, under the haze of no.

Ino had felt—good, stable, all the way out of Fandom, off the island, and into Midgar, which was her own home now (and that was something she still had to remind herself of), even while they stopped to let her change into her uniform.

It was only as Zack pressed a kiss to her cheek, in the lobby of the ShinRa building and headed off for his own orders, that Ino felt the clawing uncertainty come back.

Talk to the receptionist, she’d been told. Ino could do that, though she despised walking into a situation blind. It was a comfort, at the least, that she already had her uniform, her I.D. , and that she was supposed to be here, so far as anyone was concerned.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t nervous, still, underneath the cool demeanour. This was her first time, after all, on the job, in this capacity. Her hair was down, flowing in careful waves down her back and her shoulders were straight as she approached the mission--reception desk.

“Excuse me?”

And Ino ignored the creeping panic that reminded her she had no idea of what else to say.

[NFB, please! For them that're in the building.]

Ino shifted from foot to foot, a bit impatiently, but who could blame her? Their portal was late and they'd been early to meet it so there was no chance of them having, like, just missed it and oh that was a little perturbing.

She toyed with her hair, the movement making her earrings jingle merrily as if in counter-point to her mild annoyance, and waited for Zack, who was on the phone with Portalocity, to tell her what was going on.

( We are sorry for the inconvenience, but portal service from Midgar is temporarily unavailable due to routine maintenance. )

[Preplayed with the fabulous puppy_fair. NFB, NFI and all that jazz!]

It was—not funny, not really, how things were back to normal and yet not back to normal and even though she had fun on the missions she still felt…

Weird.

Was that unfair of her? Maybe it was. It wasn't fair at all to expect him to break confidentiality to her.

And it wasn't fair, either, to think she'd be able to help without all the information, right?

That sounded right, to her. But who knew?

Ino kicked her feet, making the movement look harmlessly adorable even while she wished she could lash out, and sipped at her milkshake. Of course, Zack showing her around missions had only lasted so long. They'd wanted to—talk to him, or something: she didn't really know. He'd looked apologetic, she'd acted dumb, and off he'd went.

Hmm. She didn't really want this milkshake any more. This wasn't exactly going great, so far as weekends went.

[NFB, NFI except for the one she doesn't know about. (And the boy. Always the boy.)]

Most of yesterday had been spent sleeping—Ino wasn't sure what Zack had done, upon waking up—she only knew that she hadn't woken until late that evening and had been up for only a few hours before falling back asleep, her body more worn out than she'd thought.

Fear and monster hunting took a lot out of a person, who knew?

Sunday, though, was so far going better. Even if she was still obviously on edge to anyone who knew her as she lay on Zack's bed and idly watched him do squats. In this room, she was okay.

And they'd been out and about a bit earlier, for food and monsters. That was enough for her.

[For that one in Midgar with her. NFB due to distance, please.]