Title: Tangled
Genre: AU / Romance / Crackish.
Summary: In which Ino is a who falls from her castle, and Shikamaru is the unlucky mattress who happens to be waiting at the bottom. "I've made the decision to trust you." "Horrible decision, really."
Pairings: ShikaIno
Rating: T
Note: Should be 3 chapters.

1. Where We Begin

Wanted: Nara Shikamaru
Condition: Dead or alive
Crime: Burglary, assault, fraud, tipping over the neighborhood farm cows
Reward: Two million ryo

Nearly a millennium ago, a single drop of enchanted sunlight rained down from the heavens above. Once it touched the ground, Shinju, the tree of life, sprung from the earth.

Every one thousand years, the tree would grow a single mysterious fruit, which humans were instructed to never touch. Once the fruit was consumed, the host would be bestowed incredible powers.

Kaguya, the queen of the Otutsuki clan, kept her eye on the Shinju fruit, absorbing its powers from a good distance away. At the time, she harbored good intentions for mankind, hoping to rid the world of bloodshed and war. And while the Shinju fruit made Kaguya powerful, it also made her incredibly beautiful. Hundreds of suitors from various countries flocked to her kingdom in pursuit of her heart.

The fruit healed Kaguya. Minor injuries lasted no more than three seconds on her porcelain skin, and as a result, she remained undefeated on the battlefield.

It seemed the queen may have discovered the secret to immortal life. But rather than share its powers, Kaguya hoarded it for herself, slaying any man or woman who came near the tree. And while the suitors that pursued her eventually fell to old age, Kaguya remained ever youthful.

And so, centuries passed by, with no end in sight. The bloodshed continued, and it seemed the war had no intentions of quitting. The queen had all but forgotten her initial intentions to end violence and bestow peace upon the nation.

The Shinju fruit was lost in the trenches of mythology while Kaguya continued to thrive.

Meanwhile, a young kingdom named Konoha began to grow in the south.

Ruled by Queen Noriko and King Inoichi, the kingdom flourished. But the queen grew ill while she was pregnant—and that was when Inoichi decided to send out an expedition to find the mythical Shinju fruit.

And, as fate would have it, the fruit was stolen from right underneath Kaguya's nose.

The magic of the Shinju fruit managed to save Noriko, and a healthy child was born.

Long blond hair—bright blue eyes. The baby girl had her mother's eyes and her father's hair.

They named her Ino.

To celebrate the birth of their daughter, King Inoichi and Queen Noriko launched a single lantern into the sky, glowing with the flames of Konoha. It seemed, in that moment, everything was perfect.

And Kaguya? Well, after the Shinju fruit was taken away, her porcelain skin wrinkled. Her wounds no longer healed. Her beauty slowly faded away into obscurity.

Hell bent on jealousy and desire, her kingdom fell into shambles. And when she discovered who stole the fruit, her first thought was not to declare war on the neighboring kingdom of Konoha—but to steal back what was rightfully hers.

When the opportunity struck, Kaguya snuck into baby Ino's room in the dead of night. Reaching out, she wrapped a single bony finger around a lock of Ino's beautiful blond hair. Her wrinkles slowly receded, and the white strands of hair poking out of her scalp faded back to black.

Ino's hair began to glow until Kaguya severed the strand with her kunai. She gasped as the lock faded almost instantaneously, the wrinkles in her skin growing darker, and her hair reverting to snow white.

That was the night Kaguya trespassed into the castle of Konoha, stole Yamanaka Ino, and vanished into the night.

Konoha spent months searching for the lost princess, but despite their bountiful resources and effort, they couldn't find her. Hanging on a thread of hope, King Inoichi and Queen Noriko released thousands of lanterns into the sky on Ino's birthday every year.

A signal from Konoha that they were still searching for her.

Kaguya had taken Ino back to abandoned kingdom where she once ruled, locking her at the top of a tower. She raised the young Yamanaka as her own child, brushing her hair carefully each and every day, making sure not to sever any strands.

She'd found her magical Shinju fruit, but this time, she would make sure it was hidden well.

"How come I can't go outside?" A young Ino would ask one day.

"It's dangerous," Kaguya would tell her. "There are only people who deceive and lie outside this castle. This is the only place where you're safe. Understand, Ino?"

"Yes, Kaa-san."

But the walls of the castle could only block so much of the outside world. Ino's view was never completely obscured, and she managed peek through corners, taking in the little bit of sunlight she so desperately craved.

And each year, on her birthday, she watched in fascination as thousands of lanterns lit up the sky.

9:07am.

"C'mon—I know you can do better than that," Ino snickered.

Pakkun, the miniature pug, stared at her with half-lidded eyes.

Currently, he was lying on his back, feet against the wall after being brutally mauled by Ino's shintenshin no jutsu. He figured he'd have the upper hand since Ino wasn't so crafty when it came to hand-to-hand combat or taijutsu, but he was obviously mistaken and it seemed that the blond had more than a few tricks hiding up her tasteful pink sleeve.

"Round 34?" She quipped, taking a seat on the dresser in front of her bed.

The miniature pug sighed, flipping back on his stomach, "Isn't there something else we could do?"

"We could play chess," Ino offered, motioning to the empty chess set sitting by the window.

"We did that all morning," Pakkun replied.

"You could help me paint another mural on the wall," Ino said, closing one eye and staring at the space through her framed fingers.

She looked for a spot, but the walls were all but filled, much to her chagrin.

"The paint stings my nose," the pug replied.

"I could cook—there's this new recipe I've been—"

"On second thought," Pakkun interjected, the thought of Ino's cooking making his stomach turn, "let's paint."

Shikamaru sucked in a deep breath, racing through the trees of the dense forest. The thick brush slapped him roughly against the cheek, but he continued forth, gripping his knapsack tightly underneath his armpit.

'Mendokuse…what did I do to deserve this?'

Three shinobi from Kumogakure trailed behind him in close proximity, their haggard breathing audible from a good distance away.

Shikamaru frowned, knowing if he'd been a bit more cautious in Darui's castle, he wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. Alas, this was the unfortunate reality of his poor decision-making and greediness.

Still, at least he'd managed scrape by without any serious injuries while getting his hands on a particularly pretty tiara nestled in the storage room of the castle. The object wasn't his main mission, but it turned out to be one of the silver linings of an otherwise unfortunate, unfortunate situation.

Since the walls inside Ino's room were all covered with the paint of her prior drawings, her best course of action was to paint outside the walls. At least, that's what she told herself before Pakkun decided to call her stupid.

Sure, Kaguya told her to avoid staying near windows, but desperate times called for desperate measures. And the fact was—Ino was desperately bored.

Bored, because her daily routine had turned into something she no longer looked forward to everyday. Bored, because she was the kind of girl who thrived in spontaneity—not redundancy.

"You do realize that if you fall, you'll probably die," Pakkun stated calmly, his front paws pressed up against the window ledge while he leaned against the back of a chair with his hind legs.

He stared up at Ino, who was standing on the window ledge, "This is why Kaguya told you to avoid going outside."

"Technicalities, my dear Pakkun," Ino chimed, standing on her tip toes, attempting to get her paintbrush as high as it could go to start an outline of her new drawing, "besides, Kaa-san won't be home for another two days."

The miniature pug frowned, taking a quick glance over the window ledge.

It was nearly a hundred foot fall, which might not have been too impressive considering the number of other towers he's seen. But for Ino, it might've meant the difference between life and death. After all, she wasn't a trained shinobi.

He shifted his gaze to the outline Ino was working on.

Shikamaru was running low on chakra. He wouldn't be able to fend off the shinobi who were on the chase, so he figured his next best course of action was to find shelter to hide in.

Staring up at the sky filled with clouds, he relented a soft sigh.

'Why does this always happen to me…'

He narrowed his gaze, noticing a shift in the trees that looked out of place. Had it not been for the light that filtered through the clouds, Shikamaru might've never noticed it in the first place.

"Genjutsu…?" He murmured.

He slowed down to a stop at the base of the suspicious looking tree, tapping his chin lightly.

If this was indeed a genjutsu, then whoever created it made it with the intention of hiding a pretty giant enclosed space. For that kind of illusion to work, it would require an immense amount of chakra and concentration. He could only assume that the creator was one of the masters of genjutsu.

'The Uchiha clan…?' He pondered for only a moment before quickly dismissing the thought, knowing that the clan would never venture far from the walls of the Konoha kingdom.

"Stop right there!"

'Crap.' Apparently, he'd been loitering for far too long.

Shikamaru suppressed a groan, noticing how much longer he had to run before making it out of the forest.

Call it exhaustion or sheer laziness, but with almost no hesitation at all, Shikamaru moved forward and stepped between the trees of the genjutsu.

…Only to arrive at a completely empty grass plain, clear of trees and brush.

A waterfall led to a brook, surrounding the plain in a circle, and at the center of it all was a tall stone tower.

Shikamaru kneeled down, hiding behind a rather large boulder. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he stared up at the top of the castle.

There was a girl with long blond hair, wearing a frilly pink dress that seemed a little outdated for the times.

She was holding a paintbrush, standing on the ledge of her window.

'Does the idiot want to die?'