title: the opposite of beautiful

summary: Her father, despite the warmth in his gaze, simply tilts his head. "And yet, when the time really comes, someone who tries to truly invade your mind will enter it with every intention of tearing you apart."

pairing: sai x ino

chapter: 9. nostalgia

disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

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Ino opens the door to Sakura's apartment to the sound of crunching glass beneath her feet.

She is lucky that she has worn her shinobi gear today, with shoes meant to survive against tree bark and rough terrain, and not one of her civilian outfits and shoes that would do little to block the shards of glass. Ino looks down, and sees pink tulips, barely withered, petals in disarray and stems strewn haphazardly across each other.

Her heart drops.

Sakura Haruno cries easily. This, Ino knows, because she has found her best friend sniffling at the most absurd of things: a book, a movie, a picture frame, a thoughtful gesture, a stressful day at the hospital. No matter the occasion, Sakura likes to cry.

Crying is good. Ino knows this too. Crying allows you to breathe, to pause and let your emotions rule, for once, and plays a large role in the healing of trauma. A part of Ino suspects that it is precisely because of Sakura's emotional sensitivity that the pink-haired medic had recovered the most successfully from the war. No nightmares. No sudden flashes. Just the daily stress of running the Konoha hospital, of trying to figure out Sasuke's place in her life, of trying to juggle being the apprentice of a legendary Sannin and being a normal person.

This is why, when Ino sees the remnants of a shattered vase and pink tulips tumbled over the tiled floor, she knows something has gone horribly wrong.

Because Sakura Haruno is no longer crying. She is curled up on her couch, an empty sake bottle clutch tightly in her fist, and she is staring at the wall.

"Forehead?" Ino calls out, stepping carefully over the rest of the glass and kicking her shoes off once she reaches the carpeted section of Sakura's apartment.

No response.

"Sakura," Ino tries again.

Sakura's green eyes flutter closed. She inhales deeply but still doesn't respond.

Ino quietly picks her way over to Sakura. Gently, she pries the sake bottle from Sakura's fingers, placing it on the coffee table in front of the couch, and then settles herself down next to her best friend.

"Time?" Sakura finally croaks out, her voice weak and dull.

"Bright and early in the morning," Ino replies. "Kami, did you even get sleep last night?"

"I might have dozed off once or twice," Sakura's voice is, despite the quantity of alcohol she has clearly ingested, not slurred in the slightest. What frightens Ino is the sheer amount of resignation in her voice, the amount of weariness and exhaustion that she has only heard in Sakura's voice perhaps only two times before.

Ino opens her mouth and then closes it. When did he leave? She wants to ask but doesn't.

Some things can be left for later.

"You are too good for him," she tells Sakura, honestly, and shakes her head at the diminutive flash of sadness that appears in Sakura's eyes.

"You didn't tell me," Sakura replies. There is so much emptiness in her voice that Ino wishes her best friend had been angry, instead. She looks at the pink tulips on the floor, sighing. Stupid Sasuke. Sakura would have recognized her flower shop's bouquets.

Ino reaches out and pulls Sakura into her best hug, the kind of hugs she had only reserved for her teammates and her dad. "You should sleep, Forehead."

"I can't," Sakura mumbles, burying her head in Ino's shoulder. "The hospital. There's a boy who needs surgery."

"Fine," Ino sighs. "Take a shower, at least. Change your clothes. I'll clean all this shit up."

She can feel Sakura breathing in deep. Feel the pink-haired medic shaking off her anger, frustration, bitterness, each emotion with each breath. It's a coping technique they had all learned in the Academy; something used often after the war.

"Okay," Sakura says, and Ino offers her a wan smile. Her best friend may be heartbroken, but she's still strong.

Ino sweeps up all the broken glass while Sakura showers, tsking at the withered tulips. Sasuke should have known - no matter how pretty flowers are, nothing that pretty lasts forever.

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"You don't have to walk me to the hospital. Ino-pig." Sakura is looking better now that she's out of her apartment. With freshly washed hair and the slightest amount of chakra circulating around her forehead to ease away any hangover symptoms, she seems almost normal.

"I wasn't going to," Ino sniffs, shooting Sakura a glower. "I actually had a question for you. That's why I came to your apartment."

"A question?"

"Yeah," Ino says, and suddenly feels like she's about to leap off a cliff, she's so nervous. Then she shakes her head. This is Sakura. If anyone will hear her out, it's her best friend. "I've been thinking about creating a mental health clinic at the hospital."

This time it's Sakura who pauses.

"Psych evals are already included in the annual checkup for every shinobi," she finally says.

Ino shakes her head. "You and I both know those psych evals aren't enough. Tell me, out of the hundreds of patients you've seen since the war, how many injured themselves on purpose? How many people do you know who still can't sleep properly?"

Sakura falls silent. Ino doesn't need her to say anything to know it's been too many.

"...I think there's a way to help," Ino continues anyway, praying that her friend will understand what she's saying. "In my clan, we have mind jutsus that let one into another's mind, but we have noninvasive methods, too. Like guided meditation, or something like counseling."

"Have you tried these methods on a non-clan member?" Sakura asks. Ino tries not to show the sudden wave of relief she feels - Sakura is asking questions, not shooting her down immediately. There's hope.

"Personally," Ino swallows as she replies, "no. I've never received them either. And everyone who I knew who knew the jutsu...in the war..."

She drifts off, hoping Sakura understands.

"So you don't know the jutsu?" Sakura's lips thin into a line. They're almost at the hospital now. Ino shakes her head.

Sakura sighs, shaking her head. "I don't know, Ino. Konoha still isn't fully recovered from the war - Kakashi has barely taken over -"

"I could figure it out," Ino insists. "I've been looking through the clan library. I'm sure I'll find it written down somewhere, it's just a matter of time." She takes a deep breath and looks at her best friend.

"I can do it, Sakura," she says. "This wouldn't be about repressing feelings, or desensitizing people to loss. It isn't about making people forget. All those things we learned in the Academy, about not having feelings and obeying orders - all that ROOT training, to make soldiers emotionless - this isn't that. This is about helping people heal. The right way. The only way."

"And the Yamanakas know this way?" Sakura asks.

"No," Ino says, and the next few words hurt deep in her chest, resonating with every heartbeat. "Just one. My dad."

Sakura falls silent, studying her.

Ino is not lying. There had only ever one Yamanaka who bothered to think of applying mind jutsus to heal instead of hurt. But now, with her, there were two.

"Figure it out, Ino-pig," Sakura says quietly, finally. "Figure it out, and I'll do everything in my power to make this clinic happen."

Her promise blooms hope into Ino's chest. "I will," Ino says.

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The room around her is a stark white, a seemingly endless white that stretched on forever. Ino blinks, and all of a sudden bubbles explode into life around her, multi-colored and translucent, crowding up the room she is in. The bubbles never burst, instead floating around and bumping into others, a few gently circling ever upwards where there appears to be no ceiling.

Almost apprehensively, she studies a bubble that has lazily floated over. It is translucent enough that she can see something within, but not clearly.

"...so this is your mindscape."

Ino whirls around, and the room around her flickers sharply from pure white to a deep black, before relief overwhelms her surprise and the room returns back to its brightly lit white. "Dad!" she cries, running towards her father.

Inoichi scratches the back of his head, laughing as Ino tackles him, and leans down to sweep her off her feet. "Alright, princess," he chuckles, easily gathering Ino into the warmth of his chest and arms. "You ready?"

"Yup!" Ino leans into her dad, arms wrapping tight around her father's neck. "You said we'd be learning more mind stuff today."

"Mm," Inoichi nods, and pauses. "It's not 'mind stuff', Ino. The Yamanaka clan's jutsus are centered on the mind; this is your introduction. What you learn today will pave the road for our clan justus in the future."

Ino frowns up at him, confusion in her bright blue eyes. "Soooo," she says suspiciously, "mind stuff."

Her father pats her head affectionately. "Alright, we'll call it mind stuff." Slowly, he lowers her to the ground. Ino whines slightly at the lack of contact, but steps back eventually and stands straight, waiting.

"Where we are now," Inoichi begins, "is your mindscape. Obviously, since you haven't quite begun your training in the Yamanaka techniques, your mindscape is quite...disorganized. If you were to enter any civilian's mindscape, it would probably appear something like this: a vast room, filled with objects that contain their memories and their thoughts, with only the barest amount of organization and structure. Of course, the older you get, the more developed your mindscape will become. Now, Ino, why do you think understanding your own mindscape is important?"

"Because before entering the minds of others we must understand our own," Ino replies automatically, reciting the lessons drilled into her by heart. "The mindscape is a representation of our soul and body, the gathering of all thought. Therefore in order to navigate a different one without injury or danger, we must first become familiar with the one that exists within us."

"Good," Inoichi smiles again, and then spreads his arms wide. "Now, there are many ways to familiarize yourself with your mindscape. Just as we did before I entered your mind, meditation is one of the primary ways. Through meditation and the channeling of your chakra, you can enter your own mind, and shape it from within."

"Shape it?" Ino asks, eyes widening. "You can do that?"

Inoichi chuckles warmly. "Yes," he says, "in fact, before I teach you any of the clan jutsus, you must develop your own structure and organization to your mind. Unfortunately, it is something you must develop for yourself, as copying the mindscapes of others is impossible. Create one that is unique to you, and it will be strong."

Ino frowns, taking a look at the gently floating bubbles around her. "But..." she can't think of any way to organize her mind, beyond creating walls that section off the bubbles. And yet somehow she doesn't want to do such a thing. It seems so...crude. In fact, her mindscape is so peaceful and beautiful the way it is, with the pure white walls and soft bubbles, that she doesn't know why she would want to change it.

Inoichi laughs at her confusion. "No need to rush, princess," he teases. "You will figure it out eventually. But first you must understand what it means to have the mindscape of a shinobi. Even if you do not yet know how to perform our clan jutsus, you have studied them, have you not?"

"Yes, father," Ino says. She has gone through every scroll of the Yamanaka clan's techniques, even though many of them had been unbelievable tiresome and boring.

"So, you must think - what sort of mindscape is the easiest to break into, and what sort of mindscape would be the hardest?"

Ino turns to her father, ready to ask another question, and then gasps. Around her, the bright white walls flash red in alarm. "Father, you're disappearing!"

Inoichi looks down at himself, but as Ino says, he is already disappearing into bubbles, his image slowly distorting as he fades. "Well, it looks like our time is up. See you on the other side, Ino - and don't worry. You have plenty of time to shape your own mindscape..."

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In the real world, 10-year-old Ino opened her eyes, pouting.

"Maa, princess, don't pout at me like that," Inoichi scratched the back of his head as he, too, opened his eyes. "I set a timer for ten minutes for a reason. It's not too safe to remain in your mindscape for long, especially when you're just starting out."

Ino frowned, looking away. "But it was so..." Pretty. Her mindscape had been so pretty, with its stark white and its pastel, peaceful bubbles. She had wanted to stay, if only a little longer, and explore.

"You'll have time for that," her father told her, seeing the disappointed look on her face. "But it was beautiful, no?"

Ino nodded. "I wanted to stay there forever," she admitted.

"Ah," her father said, something softer and heavier entering his expression. "And yet we must not. Now go upstairs, princess. You still have academy homework to do, don't you?"

"But dad..."

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Ino opens her eyes.

That...had hurt. That had hurt more than she would like to admit. Seeing her father so young - no stress lines on his forehead, no tired frown between his eyes or graying hair, only laugh lines and a warm smile - had shocked her.

She hums slightly, wiggling her toes in the soft grass. Letting the plucked flower she holds in her hand fall to the ground, she rises from her seated position, breathing in deeply as she does so.

Around her stretches a field of flowers and flower bushes, blooms of all colors and sizes. Ino knows the name of each one by heart, just like she knows the placement of every blade of grass, every cloud and sweep of warm summer breeze. This had been her answer. Even now she finds this field of flowers beautiful in its serenity, and her father, once again, had been right.

A mindscape unique to her. A mindscape only she knew how to navigate.

The answer she is seeking, however, had not been in that first memory. Ino closes her eyes briefly, feeling the warmth of the sun against her limbs. She will have to search elsewhere.

Ino knows better than anyone how dangerous it is to get lost in memories. It is almost too easy, sometimes, to let her memories envelop her, to let the warmth of nostalgia and the happiness of childhood wrap her tight in its folds.

But it isn't real.

(It will never be real again.)

The warm breeze tickles at her cheek, and she brushes away a few strands of fly-away hair.

Slowly, she leans down. In front of her is a bush clover in bloom, delicate purple-pink flowers swaying in the wind.

This one, she thinks, and plucks the flower gently from its stem.

And the world around her shiFTS -

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"Again," her father says. "But...not bad, Ino. You are improving."

Ino scowled at her dad, brushing her blonde bangs away from her perspiring head with an angry huff. "It only took you a minute."

"And yet," Inoichi grins, "the first time you tried it, it only took me a second. Again."

Ino took a deep breath, and settled herself back into a meditating position. Closing her eyes, she thought of marigolds, in their brilliance of sunset orange and red.

"Ready, papa," she said, and sank -

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- "You must become better at hiding your thoughts," Inoichi says, his tone soft and yet voice booming in her mindscape. "Your traps are at times creative, and yet rudimental in nature."

She had built a replica of her living room, with patterned silk screens and old wooden tables, filled with nostalgia. Her father looks around, seemingly unsurprised by the change in her mindscape. Then he runs his hands along the wall, kneels down to do the same with the carpet. He flings open a cabinet drawer, lifts a potted plant, and turns to the window of the room, streaming sunlight in. He pauses.

"Very good, Ino," he suddenly says, pride evident in his voice. "Very good...you really are improving."

Then he strides to the window, and a kunai flicks into his hand.

Ino, safely hidden where she is, freezes. In all of their practice sessions before, her father had never pulled out a weapon.

"Forgive your old man for this one," Inoichi chuckles. Then chakra flares in his palms, zipping up into the kunai and he drives it forcefully into the window, shattering it, the room shifts again -

Ino yelps as the room twists and turns, flipping upside down. Chairs and tables crash to the ceiling, the plants overturning into a mess of soil and formerly potted greenery. Her father has figured it out.

"And here we are," Inoichi beams, and reaches out to a broken flowerpot. "Marigolds, am I right?"

And then the jutsu lifts -

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"Three minutes and thirty-four seconds. Oh, don't glower at me like that, darling. That's better than your last time, wasn't it?"

Ino huffs and crosses her arms, glaring at her dad. "What gave it away?"

"There was a little disturbance when I reached the window. Very clever, by the way. Most people don't think about giving their mind two layers until, oh, several years after they begin practicing hiding information from the enemy."

Ino flicks her ponytail behind her in annoyance. "You pulled out a kunai. Of course I got nervous."

Her father, despite the warmth in his gaze, simply tilts his head. "And yet, when the time really comes, someone who tries to truly invade your mind will enter it with every intention of tearing you apart."

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Like water. The memories are sliding through her fingers like water, like petals blown away by the wind, smooth and never-ending and oh-so-painfully preserved. Ino closes her eyes again, feeling the warm wind whip at her hair, feeling her dress flutter around her ankles.

Almost. She is almost there. And yet the memories are so pure and clear, so beautiful and familiar and warm -

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Ino looked around her in wonder.

She was underwater, and yet her eyes felt no sting of saltwater, nor did she have difficulty breathing. Spread out before her was a vast ocean wonderland: schools of fish darted around richly-colored coral, and giant kelp wavered under the soft ocean currents, their muted green turning brilliant green where the sun struck its leaves from above. An underwater paradise. She reached out to touch a brightly glittering fish, and it darted away from her, fins waving frantically.

"Ino."

Ino whirled around, a smile lighting up her childish face. "Daddy!"

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Chakra crackling in her palms, flooding the channels that ran through her limbs. Fingers that formed a triangle.

"Shintenshensin no jutsu - "

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"I am so proud of you - "

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Shikamaru crouched over her, a disgruntled look on his face. "You gotta take care of your body when you use that Mind Transfer Justu, you know? Your dad would kill me -"

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There is blood in the air and screams in her ears and smoke stinging her throat and her eyes, one of her ribs is fractured and she cannot breathe, she is crumpled on the ground but none of that matters anymore. Nothing matters because -

"Dad," she sobs, even though the war had ended three months ago and she is in her bed, not a war tent, "dad. DAD - "

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"Ino," her dad says, and Ino wants to weep and leap into his arms. Smell the scent of his aftershave, the feel of his flak jacket pressed against her chest as she buries her head in his neck. The way his chest rumbles as he chuckles. Instead she is stuck where she always is, sitting in front of her dad on a lush carpet of grass.

"A field of flowers, huh? How fitting." He looks so real. He looks so real and alive, and his smile is perfect, the only kind of smile that could make her stop her tantrums when she was little, so warm and fierce and loving. She wants to press her hands to his chest and make sure his heart is beating, feel the warmth and the reassurance of life. She wants to know that he is alive, he is alive, he is -

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The wind has turned cold, whipping at her clothes, at her hair. Ino stumbles to her feet, palms digging hard into her temples. This is her mindscape, and the wind is her warning. She has gone through too many memories already, and any more will be dangerous.

But it was enough.

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Ino opens her eyes to Sai's apartment.

His walls are no longer the bleak starkness of what they were when he was still in ROOT. Now they are filled with his paintings, still in black-and-white and yet stunning in how they capture movement.

"So?" Sai's face suddenly appears in her vision. He is concerned.

Ino is crying, she realizes. That's why he looks worried.

"I got it," she breathes, tears streaming down her face, and all of a sudden she thinks that maybe she can do this.

notes:

- hellllllOOOOOOOOOOOOO. i know its been a year and a half. I know I have been a horrible horrible author. I'm sorry. I'm SORRY. It's finally summer and I can finally breathe from school so I really hope I can spin a couple more chapters out. I love what I write but school really really kicked my butt. I'm so so so sorry guys.

- I must give credit where credit is due. This entire chapter was brought on because I read the second chapter of Killaurey's Sky on Fire I: Slow Burn and there was a scene where Ino trained with her dad. I saw the phrase underwater garden and then suddenly felt the urge to write that, a mindscape that was an underwater garden. But then, of course, the scene took on a life of its own and now you have Ino searching her dad's former teachings for a different way to use her clan's jutsus: a way not for violence, but for healing.