Two Leaf Fires (MadaNaru)

To Know: Ino Yamanaka

He knew where he was, for the turns of the streets were integrated upon his mind after so many years of running, the gravel spoke well for direction. Though he could tell each path apart by the peaks of buildings surrounding as well, were his eyes not fixed to the ground. It was still so bright, that he assumed the time to be just past noon, for he had entered the cellar after the sun had risen but before it had reached height. He was conflicted, though the makings of a smile began to form as he thought, he allowed his head to raise a slight and see the sight of the beautiful displayed flowers in the shop just ahead of him. The flower shop an open display without any doors in the summer; even though the season had only just begun, the warmth of the day was still as tender as spring.

He saw the blonde he sought tending to a grouping of growing white lilies. Though larger than his own, her smile was vague in comparison to what it had been, slighted, shaken, and longing. It brought him to depression upon the thought, the remembrance, the blood of the soaked battlefields had cut into all that she had been.

~0~

For he had been present whence she had come onto the grounds- covered in crimson herself but energetic and ready for a battle that did not come. He had been there to watch as the understanding had fogged over her pale eyes and the horror had mounted upon her chest as she screamed hoarse; watched as she dropped to the soil beneath her and crawled in a desperate denial away from the gore in her vision. The tears had washed her face from the splatterings of blood and pooled upon her shaking hand which covered her mouth from another scream. Her royal purple clothes were stuck to her body with red, and the smears of the colour showed easily on her stomach and thighs, her hair no better as it stuck to her back with the colour. She had vomited, too inexperienced to act properly.

Naruto could recall plainly how her eyes were shot wide, as if stuck, frozen into a permanent position of grasping denial and horror. Her body had shook, and though awake, she had not been aware as a white mongrel of slime arose from the earth behind her. She had been too busy choking upon her bile, attempting to retain some measure of her mind into control to counteract the Zetsu crawling behind to ambush her. Naruto, remembered the pit formed in his abdomen as he watched her weakness, as if fearful for himself it had pushed his muscles into abrash action, his mind toiling as he moved at the concept of losing another, another person, another comrade, another friend, and he hadn't cared if she had been mean in past, no thought went into her opinion of him, he had simply found himself in action. Forming as firm a rasengan as he might with the minimal distance, and shoving it high into the supposed stomach of the creature that Zetsu was. His hands had shook, as fists afterwards, still he'd turn to comfort the woman whom -regardless of childish classroom barbs, he had come to respect.

She had turned to look at him, fear the only sight he could recognize coiling within her irises, shaken and damp with tears. He had not hid the fact that his cheeks were still wet with water, that his eyes were rimmed with pink, that his cheeks were raw and rosen from all the attempts he had made at wiping away the sorrow. Ino had known he was crying, and perhaps that had helped her stand to her feet, though shaken she had been, and her eyes strayed far from the sight of gore which had inflicted her. Fingers were shaking, he had seen, he knew that she was in shock, but as a woman with a shinobi background in her family she had bore it well, and jumped -quite literally, into the ensuing battle below.

~0~

The shock had not taken her, but it had done her harm; for after the war she had shifted away from who she had been in gayful ignorance, and instead had become a loyalist committed to the village, taking mission after mission, whenever one might be available for a jonin of her talents. She wore her chunin's vest in pride, and covered herself in the browns and greens of the forest- no purple upon her. She dawned no lip gloss, and her proud lengthened hair had been cut to a rogue's fashion. Yet, still, she dieted, she sat with her remaining comrades when she could, and drank in the bar, she had even laughed upon occasion. Naruto could smile at the memory, for several times he had been there too, though there were gatherings where he was -in precaution, not invited.