Konohagakure no Sato, Sunday All Day
Aug. 24th, 2008 10:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
intraspectiveThe portal dropped her off in the middle of the forest. Ino glanced around carefully, trying to orient herself—she knew that the portal had set her in the right world, but that wasn’t much help in making sure that she knew exactly where she was and how to get home from here.
Ino wondered, idly, if the portal was so inexact in other worlds and what that might mean. How did portals work, anyway? It wasn’t anything she knew about.
Last time she had been in her world (nearly a year ago now, and all for a yukata) the portal had dropped Kabuto and her several hours away from Konoha. Ino suspected the same this time, though clearly, in a different location, and a quick check above the canopy of leaves proved her guess true.
It was quite early, the leaves still damp with morning dew and the forest holding fast to the hush of seemingly breathless anticipation for the day ahead.
She could make it home in four hours, Ino figured, as she made her way down the tree and then leaping the last twenty feet or so to the ground, landing light. That gave her the entire afternoon to accomplish a few things before she was supposed to be arriving at, well, home. Yamanaka Flowers, with their apartment behind and above it.
Ino didn’t know what to think. She supposed, in a way, she should be glad to be going home for a visit but all she felt was an ill-formed dread that seemed to have settled in her stomach. Her dad, Ino knew, was going to lecture her. It was the form that the lecture would take that had her uneasy—the letter telling her to come home for her mom’s birthday had been unusually terse for him.
Which, really, was a rather bad sign. Ino shook her head firmly. There was no point in worrying about that right now. Not when she still had hours to go before making even to the gates of the village.
Reaching up to tighten her ponytail, and then down a bit to straighten her pack more firmly on her shoulders, Ino set off.
Four hours. She could do it in four.
It took her five.
And then it took longer than that as she stopped, not far from the gates, for a few moments to calm down. She was burning with mortified shame and there were no words for how glad she was that no one else would know of this. No one. She’d keep that close to her chest and wonder what had happened to her. Before she’d left she’d have been able to make that in four, she knew it. If nothing else, her memory was still excellent. Runs like that hadn’t been a big deal then, no matter how much complaining Team 10 had kicked up about them when Asuma-sensei had insisted that they practice. Her for the dust, Shikamaru for the effort, Chouji for the distance.
Old words, old habits. All of them had been able to do it, and easily, but complaining about it had been part of the routine.
Ino glanced back over her shoulder, back at the forest that had paths that civilians couldn’t follow, and then at the dusty road she was just standing beside now. Off the road, so the civilians would be able to get through. Road courtesy. She tugged at her bangs, almost viciously, almost absently, and contemplated the path she’d taken.
She hadn’t done anything wrong, Ino didn’t think. It had just taken her longer than she’d thought. Which, for a shinobi, was quite bad enough. What good was a shinobi that couldn’t even accurately judge how fast they could move?
Not much, she answered herself, shaking her head furiously.
Okay. Okay, so she’d made a mistake. It wasn’t that big a deal, no mission had been disrupted, no one’s plans had been put out of shape—unless she counted hers, but even then, it wasn’t like she’d had a firm deadline either way, and it was just coming on to noon now so she had plenty of time.
Plenty of time, and no one knew, but she felt like a liar anyway. Almost like there was a blinking light over her head leaving it plain to see for anyone with eyes that she’d messed up.
Ino made herself step out onto the road, falling in a ways behind a merchant caravan, and knowing that lingering on the side of the road would only serve to draw attention to her. Right here, right now, still furious with herself over her mess up, drawing attention was the last thing she needed.
Sipping from her canteen, Ino waited patiently as the caravan in front of her reached the gates and the Chuunin guards came from their posts to fully inspect it—the merchant’s papers, the merchants themselves, the cargo, the wagons.
She watched them. Watched the way they moved with economical grace, each movement, however careless, carefully done and never leaving them open for attack. They laughed, and talked easily with the merchants, and their guards, but at the same time their hands were methodical and precise as they searched. She stared at the easy strength in their bodies, and the way that their eyes scanned the surrounding area constantly.
And then the caravan was being let through, in a slow moving rush of people leading their horses, walking beside the wagons rather than getting back up in their seats, and she knew, just from the look in the eyes of some of them, that they’ve never been here before. The one in the lead, she guesses from the confident way he moves, at least, had set foot into Konoha before, but the younger ones. Not them.
They were passing through the gates, and she was raising her chin, all outwardly brazen confidence—appearance, she knew, was more than half the battle. By looking confident, she would feel more confident, and in turn become more confident.
That was the theory anyway. And most of the time it was a good, solid theory. One that she relied on.
Now though, as the Chuunin noted her forehead protector and she stood before them—back straight, chin up, smile on—Ino abruptly felt like a stranger in her own skin.
---
She’d lost nearly an hour after getting through the gates, spending the time just… wandering, trying to determine why, exactly, she felt so out-of-place before giving it up as a temporarily lost cause and heading for the hospital. A quick check with the Mission Desk yielded her the information that yes, Tenten was out on a mission at the moment. No other information was given, and she hadn’t asked for more. That would just be beyond stupid, and even the person she was now knew better than that. Tenten would get back, or not, to the village when she did. And if she made it in the next three days, that was good, and if she didn’t, well, that was life in a shinobi village. Making plans was always a precarious business.
And she had other business, besides. A loose end that she knew she’d been lucky not to attract the attention of Temari or Hinata yet—her medical training. Out of Konoha for a year or not, Ino was well aware of the fact that, looked at under a certain light her training looked an awful lot like treason (alright, most lights, but she was trying to be upbeat about that).
Ino didn’t consider it treason, she couldn’t articulate why she didn’t consider it so though, and knew that there was no excuse that she could give anyone that would make them think of it the way she did. Nor could she really explain how she was sure that what Kabuto had taught her, he’d taught her correctly.
Days spent in the clinic though had proved that he had not taught her nearly enough, and if she ever wanted to feel comfortable there she was going to have to learn a lot more. Well and good. This would serve a dual purpose then.
She’d have the books and scrolls and access to proper Konoha training, and she’d be covering her tracks at the same time. Going ‘legal’ with her training, well then, she wouldn’t necessarily have to tell Temari, or Hinata, when exactly she’d begun her training.
A lie of omission was a great deal easier to pass off undetected than a full-fledged lie, after all.
It was, Ino realized, almost peculiar to realize that rather than hoping Kabuto came back (she missed him yes, and wouldn’t deny that to herself, but at the same time... he’d make her life a lot more complicated just by being… himself) to hoping that he didn’t, but hoping he was well all the same.
And she’d just have to hope that it all worked out the way she wanted it to in the end. Doing this, taking this precaution to both cover her tracks, and to learn more (because she genuinely did want to learn more), was a step in the right direction for that at least.
Either way, as she discovered, the first hurdle to going ‘legal’ with her medical skills, besides having to start all over again from the beginning—but this time she suspected that she’d be getting rather more information in the theory of it all, rather than mainly the practical—was the paperwork.
A lot of paperwork. They’d settled her in a small room off to the side, given her a pen, and told her to come see them when she was finished. That had been a while ago, and she was getting rather tired of filling out the same information over and over and over again. She grit her teeth though and continued filling it out.
Her ninja registration number, the date she’d graduated, her current rank, current mission stats—and Ino winced at that, but put down the truth however pitiful it looked, having spent a year on a ‘training mission’ had really killed that number good—her name, her address—and Ino hesitated there, before putting down both her home address and then her one at Fandom—and so on, and so forth.
Why she wanted medical training, what level of training was sought (and Ino had to stop and think about that one for a good bit before writing down ‘field medic’ firmly).
The nice thing, she decided, as she neared the end of the paperwork (mildly surprised even, by this point, that there was an end to the paperwork) was the fact that she didn’t have to ask for parental permission for any of this. That really, definitely, made it easier to go through with it.
After all, she was well aware of the fact that the Yamanaka Clan had their own niche, their own jutsu, and that her father would be severely unimpressed with her (even more so than she suspected he already was) if he got it into his head that she was neglecting her Clan jutsu in favour of something else.
Picking up another form to read through, the last one (and she checked three times to make sure it was the last one), Ino hoped, at the very least, that he didn’t find out about it from someone other than her. Which meant, shinobi villages being what they were, that she was going to have to tell him during this visit or else she was entirely doomed.
And then even more doomed when he caught up with her again. Ino sucked in a breath and considered how to tell him—and more importantly when--in the next few days.
She still hadn’t decided when, exactly, by the time she’d finished reading and filling out the last form—one that made certain that she knew that should she die, Konoha would bear no responsibility for it. A standard addition really. Gathering them all up neatly in her arms she made her way down the hall, making sure to nudge the door shut with her elbow as she left the room.
A familiar flash of pink hair, a familiar person turning down the hallway in front of her and talking to someone else, had her ducking behind a corner of reasons Ino couldn’t explain.
All she knew was that right here, right now, holding the forms for medical training that were so totally going to help cover her butt; she didn’t want to run into Sakura. She didn’t want to get into any sort of discussion about training, about life, about what either of them had been doing.
Not until she felt more like herself—Ino hadn’t been able to shake the powerfully unsettled feeling that had descended on her the moment she’d taken a look at the gate Chuunin and seen how different they were from her.
They had looked like shinobi. Ino glanced down at herself. What did she look like? Not like Sakura, that was for sure. Even a two second glance had shown her that much. Did she even look like a shinobi?
It was a good thing, really, that Sakura was occupied talking to someone she didn’t recognize by voice alone. Ino didn’t try to listen in, and was glad enough for the fact that in a hospital, unless you were looking for someone specific, so many people being around effectively camouflaged her chakra signature. She waited, still studying herself the best she could without a mirror to gaze at, and trying not to think about how much more of a kunoichi Sakura looked like these days.
More grown up, for sure.
A quick peek around the corner proved that, yes, the coast was clear and she slipped down the hall, turning down the hall that Sakura had come from, steady on her feet, in her steps, and doing her utmost best to radiate confidence.
You’re only weak if they know it, she scolded herself, as the medical nin who had set her up in the room lay aside her pen and smiled while taking the forms, and the payment for the first set of books—the money was drawn from her account in Fandom, not the card that her father had given her to use. In this it was all her own work that was paying for it. And it left her rather broke for the moment, but Ino didn’t mind that so much.
It wasn’t, really, like she needed to spend that much at Fandom, anyway. Ino stood hands clasped in front of her as she waited for the medical nin to file the forms and retrieve the books and scrolls for her.
This, at least, was one thing that was going right. Nothing odd about it at all. Ino breathed a sigh of relief, the chemically induced cleanliness of the hospital almost soothing while at the same time setting her more on edge. What was wrong with her?
She shook her head furiously. Nothing was wrong with her. Ino made herself smile when the medical nin came back with the stack of books and scrolls carried rather precariously. As she set about putting as many of them as she could into her pack, and the bags she’d brought, Ino listened intently as the nin went into detail about the rules and regulations she would have to follow to pursue this study. How she’d have to report to Konoha for progress checks, and jutsu practice. Not to mention testing for the next level, but that, the nin said, was a ways off.
The nin gave her a once over. “How is your chakra control?”
As she answered the questions, the nin asking others for more detail before they moved on to demonstrations, Ino was glad, at least, that her chakra control had definitely improved from when she’d left.
She hadn’t mistaken that. Thank goodness for small mercies. It would be awful if she had, and they told her she wasn’t good enough at the moment to try and learn it.
Eventually, she got free of the hospital, laden down with books and scrolls, and officially in training as a field medic. One thing down. And, she figured, probably the best thing, really. After all, she still didn’t know if Tenten was even in town, or else learning about storage options would be the best. Because that, really, was even better and more useful immediately than her textbooks. It wasn’t like she could heal anyone by whacking them with a scroll or anything.
…no, probably best not to try it. Unless she was trying to heal stupid. In which, she figured, a textbook to the head might be the best way to cure someone. Huh.
As she walked, rather aimlessly but she didn’t feel quite like going home yet, Ino tried not to pay too much attention to the shinobi in the village, but that was like ignoring the sun, or the grass. It wasn’t something that was seriously viable.
They were everywhere, and she was somewhat startled by that, it hadn’t seemed like there had been so many of them before she’d left. Or, at least, she hadn’t noticed them as much. They stood out, easily, even without trying.
There—two kunoichi examining jewelry at a stand. There—on that roof there, a shinobi was idly reading.
She glanced at the civilians, trying to figure out why it was hitting her as being so obvious. It didn’t take that long for her to figure out. Use your brain, Ino. The shinobi looked different. Not different in the sense of ‘not-human’, no that was just something from Fandom. But different in the way they stood, the way they laughed. What they wore—even the decorative was as practical as possible. She casually compared the kunoichi to the civilian girl behind the counter, and the differences were painfully obvious. The girl behind the counter was thin, sure, but it wasn’t the thinness of the kunoichi. The lean danger in every line was missing.
Looking down at herself, Ino wondered which she looked more like. Stranger in her skin, who was she?
Ino was starting to wish that she'd just stayed back at Fandom and dealt with her father's wrath after the fact. This was turning out to be a rather uncomfortable day all things considered. She wondered what people here thought of her. Back at Fandom she was counted in with the fighters, with the people who could defend themselves, those who didn't need to hide behind anyone else when danger came around.
Here though... the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, and the way her thoughts kept tying themselves in knots as she looked around, and around, and kept comparing herself to the shinobi she saw and... well, coming up short. She loathed that. Loathed that it was so easy for her to figure it out, all without having to fight, having to spar, having even to talk to anyone. She looked, right now, more like a civilian than anything else.
And that, that stung. It burned, like a thought too hot to touch and she flinched away from that idea. She wasn't, wasn't, wasn't.
She wasn't a civilian. Had never wanted to be one, never wanted to be anything but a shinobi. Follow in her dad's footsteps and all that. Ino slipped off onto the slower streets, feet moving on their own as she was too wrapped up in her thoughts to pay much attention.
Eventually, she wound up walking by the fields that Suzume-sensei had used to teach the kunoichi about plants, about culture, about passing as someone else. There was no class there today, and she lingered under a tree, staring at the fields and just... thinking about how it had been back then.
Whenever flowers had come up, Ino had always been a little bit bored. That was one topic where she'd known more than the instructor, by the time she'd been eight even, and while she loved flowers, and taking care of them, Ino had never been very enthused about having to listen to people lecture about things that she already knew. She'd always loved it a lot more when Suzume-sensei had finished talking and set them loose to go and gather flowers to make their own bouquets.
She'd been top of the girls back then, and had graduated as such. Not top of the class, no, that had been Sasuke-kun, but higher than most. Ino was starting to think though that most of her class, by now, had passed her up. She certainly didn't feel anywhere near as strong as Sakura had looked. It was a bit of a wonder, really, that she hadn't noticed it with Hinata but then, Hinata was so shy and her clothing so bulky that it was hard to tell how she'd changed.
Sakura had been easy to notice the differences. It had always been easy to compare and contrast herself against Sakura. When they'd been younger she'd always come out on top, better than Sakura, and it had always been so easy to reach out and think of ways to help Sakura reach her level. So they'd be even. So things would be balanced.
Pink and red. Yellow and purple.
As girly as anything. Flowers, shopping, gossip.
Weapons, bruises, and boys.
They'd made even during the Chuunin exam. A double knock-out. Ino doubted that it'd be the same now. Even just a glance at Sakura as she'd walked by, and a look down at herself said that much right now.
The thought curdled in her stomach, and made her tug at her bangs. It was not just being beaten that she minded--had it been fair, had they been on the same level of fitness, of readiness, of skill... well, she would have minded, to be honest, but she would have also been fiercely, viciously proud of the fact that crybaby Sakura had beaten her. That the potential that Ino had spent so much time in the Academy attempting to make it blossom into something useable, something pure and formidable, had borne out and flourished.
It would have made it easier to deal with being beaten. And she wouldn't have just let the status quo sit there, with Sakura resting easy on her perch. Ino would've trained, and fought, and worked at it until, once again, she was stronger than Sakura. And then challenge her to beat that. That was how she'd always thought it'd go. Whether or not Sakura ever really noticed what, exactly, she was doing hadn't really mattered.
Would've been.
Well. Ino folded her arms and leaned against the tree. Wasn't. It wasn't and she was going to have to figure out a way to put things right. Not with Sakura--it burned in her throat, her head, her heart, but Sakura was clearly flourishing without her.
But with herself. Half a day in Konoha had only shown how much she'd changed physically from what a shinobi ought to look like. Maybe Hinata was right and she'd gotten spoiled. Maybe Temari was right and she was a danger to any mission the way she was now. Just a liability. Just a stupid little girl. Ino flinched and shoved herself away from the tree, slipping away from the fields and setting herself on the old route home.
Ino didn't want to go home. Didn't want to face her parents.
She made herself do it anyway. Step by step, head up, smile on, confidence in the set of her shoulders, the line of her jaw, the sway of her ponytail. Bravado, yes. But bravado that let her force herself down the streets, let her slip around the back of the shop, and stand on the doorstep as twilight fell around the village, people heading home, she could hear them. Right now her mom would be closing up the shop for the night. Ino hadn't peeked in the windows as she'd slid around to the back. Coward, hissed her thoughts.
The door was right there. She raised her hand and, before she thought better of it, knocked. Once, twice. All she could force herself to do.
It opened quickly enough that she knew he'd been standing on the other side of it, just waiting for her, and butter yellow light spilled out onto the steps.
Ino looked up at her father, the light enough for her to tell that there were, perhaps, more expressions than she wanted to know the meanings to crossing his face as he took in the sight of her.
"Hi, Dad," she said, voice level in an effort to hide that she wanted to run, to hide, to not have to do this. "I'm home."
[NFB, NFI, OOC is total love.]
Ino wondered, idly, if the portal was so inexact in other worlds and what that might mean. How did portals work, anyway? It wasn’t anything she knew about.
Last time she had been in her world (nearly a year ago now, and all for a yukata) the portal had dropped Kabuto and her several hours away from Konoha. Ino suspected the same this time, though clearly, in a different location, and a quick check above the canopy of leaves proved her guess true.
It was quite early, the leaves still damp with morning dew and the forest holding fast to the hush of seemingly breathless anticipation for the day ahead.
She could make it home in four hours, Ino figured, as she made her way down the tree and then leaping the last twenty feet or so to the ground, landing light. That gave her the entire afternoon to accomplish a few things before she was supposed to be arriving at, well, home. Yamanaka Flowers, with their apartment behind and above it.
Ino didn’t know what to think. She supposed, in a way, she should be glad to be going home for a visit but all she felt was an ill-formed dread that seemed to have settled in her stomach. Her dad, Ino knew, was going to lecture her. It was the form that the lecture would take that had her uneasy—the letter telling her to come home for her mom’s birthday had been unusually terse for him.
Which, really, was a rather bad sign. Ino shook her head firmly. There was no point in worrying about that right now. Not when she still had hours to go before making even to the gates of the village.
Reaching up to tighten her ponytail, and then down a bit to straighten her pack more firmly on her shoulders, Ino set off.
Four hours. She could do it in four.
It took her five.
And then it took longer than that as she stopped, not far from the gates, for a few moments to calm down. She was burning with mortified shame and there were no words for how glad she was that no one else would know of this. No one. She’d keep that close to her chest and wonder what had happened to her. Before she’d left she’d have been able to make that in four, she knew it. If nothing else, her memory was still excellent. Runs like that hadn’t been a big deal then, no matter how much complaining Team 10 had kicked up about them when Asuma-sensei had insisted that they practice. Her for the dust, Shikamaru for the effort, Chouji for the distance.
Old words, old habits. All of them had been able to do it, and easily, but complaining about it had been part of the routine.
Ino glanced back over her shoulder, back at the forest that had paths that civilians couldn’t follow, and then at the dusty road she was just standing beside now. Off the road, so the civilians would be able to get through. Road courtesy. She tugged at her bangs, almost viciously, almost absently, and contemplated the path she’d taken.
She hadn’t done anything wrong, Ino didn’t think. It had just taken her longer than she’d thought. Which, for a shinobi, was quite bad enough. What good was a shinobi that couldn’t even accurately judge how fast they could move?
Not much, she answered herself, shaking her head furiously.
Okay. Okay, so she’d made a mistake. It wasn’t that big a deal, no mission had been disrupted, no one’s plans had been put out of shape—unless she counted hers, but even then, it wasn’t like she’d had a firm deadline either way, and it was just coming on to noon now so she had plenty of time.
Plenty of time, and no one knew, but she felt like a liar anyway. Almost like there was a blinking light over her head leaving it plain to see for anyone with eyes that she’d messed up.
Ino made herself step out onto the road, falling in a ways behind a merchant caravan, and knowing that lingering on the side of the road would only serve to draw attention to her. Right here, right now, still furious with herself over her mess up, drawing attention was the last thing she needed.
Sipping from her canteen, Ino waited patiently as the caravan in front of her reached the gates and the Chuunin guards came from their posts to fully inspect it—the merchant’s papers, the merchants themselves, the cargo, the wagons.
She watched them. Watched the way they moved with economical grace, each movement, however careless, carefully done and never leaving them open for attack. They laughed, and talked easily with the merchants, and their guards, but at the same time their hands were methodical and precise as they searched. She stared at the easy strength in their bodies, and the way that their eyes scanned the surrounding area constantly.
And then the caravan was being let through, in a slow moving rush of people leading their horses, walking beside the wagons rather than getting back up in their seats, and she knew, just from the look in the eyes of some of them, that they’ve never been here before. The one in the lead, she guesses from the confident way he moves, at least, had set foot into Konoha before, but the younger ones. Not them.
They were passing through the gates, and she was raising her chin, all outwardly brazen confidence—appearance, she knew, was more than half the battle. By looking confident, she would feel more confident, and in turn become more confident.
That was the theory anyway. And most of the time it was a good, solid theory. One that she relied on.
Now though, as the Chuunin noted her forehead protector and she stood before them—back straight, chin up, smile on—Ino abruptly felt like a stranger in her own skin.
---
She’d lost nearly an hour after getting through the gates, spending the time just… wandering, trying to determine why, exactly, she felt so out-of-place before giving it up as a temporarily lost cause and heading for the hospital. A quick check with the Mission Desk yielded her the information that yes, Tenten was out on a mission at the moment. No other information was given, and she hadn’t asked for more. That would just be beyond stupid, and even the person she was now knew better than that. Tenten would get back, or not, to the village when she did. And if she made it in the next three days, that was good, and if she didn’t, well, that was life in a shinobi village. Making plans was always a precarious business.
And she had other business, besides. A loose end that she knew she’d been lucky not to attract the attention of Temari or Hinata yet—her medical training. Out of Konoha for a year or not, Ino was well aware of the fact that, looked at under a certain light her training looked an awful lot like treason (alright, most lights, but she was trying to be upbeat about that).
Ino didn’t consider it treason, she couldn’t articulate why she didn’t consider it so though, and knew that there was no excuse that she could give anyone that would make them think of it the way she did. Nor could she really explain how she was sure that what Kabuto had taught her, he’d taught her correctly.
Days spent in the clinic though had proved that he had not taught her nearly enough, and if she ever wanted to feel comfortable there she was going to have to learn a lot more. Well and good. This would serve a dual purpose then.
She’d have the books and scrolls and access to proper Konoha training, and she’d be covering her tracks at the same time. Going ‘legal’ with her training, well then, she wouldn’t necessarily have to tell Temari, or Hinata, when exactly she’d begun her training.
A lie of omission was a great deal easier to pass off undetected than a full-fledged lie, after all.
It was, Ino realized, almost peculiar to realize that rather than hoping Kabuto came back (she missed him yes, and wouldn’t deny that to herself, but at the same time... he’d make her life a lot more complicated just by being… himself) to hoping that he didn’t, but hoping he was well all the same.
And she’d just have to hope that it all worked out the way she wanted it to in the end. Doing this, taking this precaution to both cover her tracks, and to learn more (because she genuinely did want to learn more), was a step in the right direction for that at least.
Either way, as she discovered, the first hurdle to going ‘legal’ with her medical skills, besides having to start all over again from the beginning—but this time she suspected that she’d be getting rather more information in the theory of it all, rather than mainly the practical—was the paperwork.
A lot of paperwork. They’d settled her in a small room off to the side, given her a pen, and told her to come see them when she was finished. That had been a while ago, and she was getting rather tired of filling out the same information over and over and over again. She grit her teeth though and continued filling it out.
Her ninja registration number, the date she’d graduated, her current rank, current mission stats—and Ino winced at that, but put down the truth however pitiful it looked, having spent a year on a ‘training mission’ had really killed that number good—her name, her address—and Ino hesitated there, before putting down both her home address and then her one at Fandom—and so on, and so forth.
Why she wanted medical training, what level of training was sought (and Ino had to stop and think about that one for a good bit before writing down ‘field medic’ firmly).
The nice thing, she decided, as she neared the end of the paperwork (mildly surprised even, by this point, that there was an end to the paperwork) was the fact that she didn’t have to ask for parental permission for any of this. That really, definitely, made it easier to go through with it.
After all, she was well aware of the fact that the Yamanaka Clan had their own niche, their own jutsu, and that her father would be severely unimpressed with her (even more so than she suspected he already was) if he got it into his head that she was neglecting her Clan jutsu in favour of something else.
Picking up another form to read through, the last one (and she checked three times to make sure it was the last one), Ino hoped, at the very least, that he didn’t find out about it from someone other than her. Which meant, shinobi villages being what they were, that she was going to have to tell him during this visit or else she was entirely doomed.
And then even more doomed when he caught up with her again. Ino sucked in a breath and considered how to tell him—and more importantly when--in the next few days.
She still hadn’t decided when, exactly, by the time she’d finished reading and filling out the last form—one that made certain that she knew that should she die, Konoha would bear no responsibility for it. A standard addition really. Gathering them all up neatly in her arms she made her way down the hall, making sure to nudge the door shut with her elbow as she left the room.
A familiar flash of pink hair, a familiar person turning down the hallway in front of her and talking to someone else, had her ducking behind a corner of reasons Ino couldn’t explain.
All she knew was that right here, right now, holding the forms for medical training that were so totally going to help cover her butt; she didn’t want to run into Sakura. She didn’t want to get into any sort of discussion about training, about life, about what either of them had been doing.
Not until she felt more like herself—Ino hadn’t been able to shake the powerfully unsettled feeling that had descended on her the moment she’d taken a look at the gate Chuunin and seen how different they were from her.
They had looked like shinobi. Ino glanced down at herself. What did she look like? Not like Sakura, that was for sure. Even a two second glance had shown her that much. Did she even look like a shinobi?
It was a good thing, really, that Sakura was occupied talking to someone she didn’t recognize by voice alone. Ino didn’t try to listen in, and was glad enough for the fact that in a hospital, unless you were looking for someone specific, so many people being around effectively camouflaged her chakra signature. She waited, still studying herself the best she could without a mirror to gaze at, and trying not to think about how much more of a kunoichi Sakura looked like these days.
More grown up, for sure.
A quick peek around the corner proved that, yes, the coast was clear and she slipped down the hall, turning down the hall that Sakura had come from, steady on her feet, in her steps, and doing her utmost best to radiate confidence.
You’re only weak if they know it, she scolded herself, as the medical nin who had set her up in the room lay aside her pen and smiled while taking the forms, and the payment for the first set of books—the money was drawn from her account in Fandom, not the card that her father had given her to use. In this it was all her own work that was paying for it. And it left her rather broke for the moment, but Ino didn’t mind that so much.
It wasn’t, really, like she needed to spend that much at Fandom, anyway. Ino stood hands clasped in front of her as she waited for the medical nin to file the forms and retrieve the books and scrolls for her.
This, at least, was one thing that was going right. Nothing odd about it at all. Ino breathed a sigh of relief, the chemically induced cleanliness of the hospital almost soothing while at the same time setting her more on edge. What was wrong with her?
She shook her head furiously. Nothing was wrong with her. Ino made herself smile when the medical nin came back with the stack of books and scrolls carried rather precariously. As she set about putting as many of them as she could into her pack, and the bags she’d brought, Ino listened intently as the nin went into detail about the rules and regulations she would have to follow to pursue this study. How she’d have to report to Konoha for progress checks, and jutsu practice. Not to mention testing for the next level, but that, the nin said, was a ways off.
The nin gave her a once over. “How is your chakra control?”
As she answered the questions, the nin asking others for more detail before they moved on to demonstrations, Ino was glad, at least, that her chakra control had definitely improved from when she’d left.
She hadn’t mistaken that. Thank goodness for small mercies. It would be awful if she had, and they told her she wasn’t good enough at the moment to try and learn it.
Eventually, she got free of the hospital, laden down with books and scrolls, and officially in training as a field medic. One thing down. And, she figured, probably the best thing, really. After all, she still didn’t know if Tenten was even in town, or else learning about storage options would be the best. Because that, really, was even better and more useful immediately than her textbooks. It wasn’t like she could heal anyone by whacking them with a scroll or anything.
…no, probably best not to try it. Unless she was trying to heal stupid. In which, she figured, a textbook to the head might be the best way to cure someone. Huh.
As she walked, rather aimlessly but she didn’t feel quite like going home yet, Ino tried not to pay too much attention to the shinobi in the village, but that was like ignoring the sun, or the grass. It wasn’t something that was seriously viable.
They were everywhere, and she was somewhat startled by that, it hadn’t seemed like there had been so many of them before she’d left. Or, at least, she hadn’t noticed them as much. They stood out, easily, even without trying.
There—two kunoichi examining jewelry at a stand. There—on that roof there, a shinobi was idly reading.
She glanced at the civilians, trying to figure out why it was hitting her as being so obvious. It didn’t take that long for her to figure out. Use your brain, Ino. The shinobi looked different. Not different in the sense of ‘not-human’, no that was just something from Fandom. But different in the way they stood, the way they laughed. What they wore—even the decorative was as practical as possible. She casually compared the kunoichi to the civilian girl behind the counter, and the differences were painfully obvious. The girl behind the counter was thin, sure, but it wasn’t the thinness of the kunoichi. The lean danger in every line was missing.
Looking down at herself, Ino wondered which she looked more like. Stranger in her skin, who was she?
Ino was starting to wish that she'd just stayed back at Fandom and dealt with her father's wrath after the fact. This was turning out to be a rather uncomfortable day all things considered. She wondered what people here thought of her. Back at Fandom she was counted in with the fighters, with the people who could defend themselves, those who didn't need to hide behind anyone else when danger came around.
Here though... the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, and the way her thoughts kept tying themselves in knots as she looked around, and around, and kept comparing herself to the shinobi she saw and... well, coming up short. She loathed that. Loathed that it was so easy for her to figure it out, all without having to fight, having to spar, having even to talk to anyone. She looked, right now, more like a civilian than anything else.
And that, that stung. It burned, like a thought too hot to touch and she flinched away from that idea. She wasn't, wasn't, wasn't.
She wasn't a civilian. Had never wanted to be one, never wanted to be anything but a shinobi. Follow in her dad's footsteps and all that. Ino slipped off onto the slower streets, feet moving on their own as she was too wrapped up in her thoughts to pay much attention.
Eventually, she wound up walking by the fields that Suzume-sensei had used to teach the kunoichi about plants, about culture, about passing as someone else. There was no class there today, and she lingered under a tree, staring at the fields and just... thinking about how it had been back then.
Whenever flowers had come up, Ino had always been a little bit bored. That was one topic where she'd known more than the instructor, by the time she'd been eight even, and while she loved flowers, and taking care of them, Ino had never been very enthused about having to listen to people lecture about things that she already knew. She'd always loved it a lot more when Suzume-sensei had finished talking and set them loose to go and gather flowers to make their own bouquets.
She'd been top of the girls back then, and had graduated as such. Not top of the class, no, that had been Sasuke-kun, but higher than most. Ino was starting to think though that most of her class, by now, had passed her up. She certainly didn't feel anywhere near as strong as Sakura had looked. It was a bit of a wonder, really, that she hadn't noticed it with Hinata but then, Hinata was so shy and her clothing so bulky that it was hard to tell how she'd changed.
Sakura had been easy to notice the differences. It had always been easy to compare and contrast herself against Sakura. When they'd been younger she'd always come out on top, better than Sakura, and it had always been so easy to reach out and think of ways to help Sakura reach her level. So they'd be even. So things would be balanced.
Pink and red. Yellow and purple.
As girly as anything. Flowers, shopping, gossip.
Weapons, bruises, and boys.
They'd made even during the Chuunin exam. A double knock-out. Ino doubted that it'd be the same now. Even just a glance at Sakura as she'd walked by, and a look down at herself said that much right now.
The thought curdled in her stomach, and made her tug at her bangs. It was not just being beaten that she minded--had it been fair, had they been on the same level of fitness, of readiness, of skill... well, she would have minded, to be honest, but she would have also been fiercely, viciously proud of the fact that crybaby Sakura had beaten her. That the potential that Ino had spent so much time in the Academy attempting to make it blossom into something useable, something pure and formidable, had borne out and flourished.
It would have made it easier to deal with being beaten. And she wouldn't have just let the status quo sit there, with Sakura resting easy on her perch. Ino would've trained, and fought, and worked at it until, once again, she was stronger than Sakura. And then challenge her to beat that. That was how she'd always thought it'd go. Whether or not Sakura ever really noticed what, exactly, she was doing hadn't really mattered.
Would've been.
Well. Ino folded her arms and leaned against the tree. Wasn't. It wasn't and she was going to have to figure out a way to put things right. Not with Sakura--it burned in her throat, her head, her heart, but Sakura was clearly flourishing without her.
But with herself. Half a day in Konoha had only shown how much she'd changed physically from what a shinobi ought to look like. Maybe Hinata was right and she'd gotten spoiled. Maybe Temari was right and she was a danger to any mission the way she was now. Just a liability. Just a stupid little girl. Ino flinched and shoved herself away from the tree, slipping away from the fields and setting herself on the old route home.
Ino didn't want to go home. Didn't want to face her parents.
She made herself do it anyway. Step by step, head up, smile on, confidence in the set of her shoulders, the line of her jaw, the sway of her ponytail. Bravado, yes. But bravado that let her force herself down the streets, let her slip around the back of the shop, and stand on the doorstep as twilight fell around the village, people heading home, she could hear them. Right now her mom would be closing up the shop for the night. Ino hadn't peeked in the windows as she'd slid around to the back. Coward, hissed her thoughts.
The door was right there. She raised her hand and, before she thought better of it, knocked. Once, twice. All she could force herself to do.
It opened quickly enough that she knew he'd been standing on the other side of it, just waiting for her, and butter yellow light spilled out onto the steps.
Ino looked up at her father, the light enough for her to tell that there were, perhaps, more expressions than she wanted to know the meanings to crossing his face as he took in the sight of her.
"Hi, Dad," she said, voice level in an effort to hide that she wanted to run, to hide, to not have to do this. "I'm home."
[NFB, NFI, OOC is total love.]
