note: if I still remember how to write a proper story, this shouldn't be more than six chapters! Thank you guys so much for all the feedback from the first chapter. You're all so lovely.

if tomorrow never comes
2.

People were dying.

Ino pressed her chin firmly against the butt of her kunai, feeling the sting of cold metal against her parched skin. She shot a tentative glance around the vicinity while picking absentmindedly at a stubborn smudge of blood dried under her nail.

"Think, damn it," she snapped furiously at herself while she registered quickly the condition of the battlefield, blue eyes darting quickly from the wasteland's horizon to the high trees in the distance. She thumbed nervously at the weapon in her grasp. You need to find out where the hell he is.

Kidōmaru was a problematic adversary. Even with Ino's vast improvements with her shintenshin technique, there was absolutely no way she could reach wherever the hell he was, especially since she didn't have a single inkling as to where he was. With their techniques alone, Ino was already standing at a severe disadvantage. And the fact that neither Shikamaru nor Chouji were around meant she was edging further and further into a handicap corner. She was sitting in a position of complete and utter inconvenience and since the spider man was sniping away the men on her squadron like flies, she couldn't help but feel somewhat responsible for their loss.

The fact that their leader Mifune was nowhere to be seen hardly provided any relief. Their squad leader had taken off towards the forest nearly two hours ago and left no one in charge in his absence. His skills as a warrior obviously didn't translate to his proficiency as a leader and with each passing minute he was gone, Ino grew more and more agitated.

An arrow pierced through the air and she only caught it by chance from her periphery before she ducked out of the way, the weapon grating roughly through the sleeve of her black shirt before it rammed through the shoulder blade of some unsuspecting shinobi standing behind her.

"Goddamn," she muttered bitterly under her breath while she proceeded to make a quick inspection of the wound on her arm before promptly turning around to check out the condition of the wounded shinobi who'd been hit by that very same arrow.

The hit wasn't critical and Ino allowed herself the luxury of a relieved sigh when she came to the realization that it was only a muscle tear. Slowly, she reached a hand out to sever the thread of silk that speared through his shoulder.

The strand went from taut to slack in her hand before another arrow whizzed over the shoulder pad of her flak vest and pierced straight through the man's forehead.

His blood splattered over her face in droplets.

It took only moments for his face to drain of all color while a thick, fat stream of red trickled from the mouth-sized wound embedded in his head. His arm fell limply to his side.

Had it not been for sheer dumb luck, that second arrow would've no doubt taken her life.

Ino paused and her hand hovered hesitantly over the shoulder wound of the dead shinobi sitting in front of her. Taking a deep breath, she pushed herself up from the ground, fighting away the tremor in her clenched fists.

She stared pensively at the trees in the distance before she darted from the lower end of the field to the high ledge above. It was common knowledge that whoever had the higher ground had the tactical advantage in battle; but being on higher ground also meant a far greater exposure to the enemy. The theory was somewhat of a stupid thing to consider with the circumstances at hand but it seemed some of the simplest things were also the easiest things to forget.

However, translating this idea onto the field was also a risk because, in the end, this was a shinobi war.

She kept running and decided she'd take her chances. Trying to defeat Kidōmaru was no longer a viable objective. Ino knew this and instead, she decided to take her chances on a different kind of route.

She took another quick glance around, catching sight of the scattered bulk of kunai and tantō blades stabbed into the motionless bodies strewn on the ground. The morale of her surviving squadron was dishearteningly low and as much as she didn't want to admit it, Ino knew this battle was almost a lost cause. Their team leader Mifune was still nowhere to be seen and with the colossal loss of men, their resultant struggle was diluting fast into no avail. The fact that she was having her own losing battle with one of the resurrected didn't help and only reinforced the notion that she had to step up to the plate and take the reigns of operation.

Hesitantly, Ino took a pause on the ledge that overlooked the rest of the field, trying hard to digest what'd she'd seen in the past few hours.

She wasn't really sure what perplexed her to do it. Ino couldn't say she was really thinking at all. But she raised an arm and wiped her face with the back of her hand, the droplets of blood from earlier smearing across her grime caked face while she tried persistently to get the image of that dead man with the arrow in his head out of mind.

It took her a moment for her to form the correct hand seals before holding the ram symbol firmly, feeling the scabs scattered over her knuckles stretch taut as blood seeped through the thin brown patches of her healing skin. Ino started on her way again, feet hitting the dirt ground as she kept a steady hold on her consciousness.

Everybody, Ino projected from her mind, we're retreating. Head back to the base camp as soon as you can—

But this slip of consciousness lasted for no more than two seconds because in that moment, a flash of silver pierced the air and punctured right through Ino's shoulder.

Upon closer inspection, she realized it wasn't an arrow this time, but a tantō blade.

From the distance, she caught sight of Mifune standing at the forest edge, his arm raised, with a grimace tacked on his face.

"You look like an idiot."

Ino frowned while she instinctively lifted her hand to stroke at the makeshift cast wrapped around her arm. Although Mifune strategically missed her vital points, there was no doubt a very prominent pain still evident. She surmised it was his form of punishment for trying to take control of his squad, "They took off your blindfold?"

"Standard protocol," he stated, "an old Konoha mandate from the First Shinobi War. It's a requisite for hostages and prisoners to to receive mental stimulation. And blindfolding somebody is not permissible under the ninth clause."

She arched a brow and resisted the very strong urge to roll her eyes. Madara was probably that one pretentious student in class who felt compelled to answer every one of his sensei's questions, including rhetorics.

Ino would be lying if she said there wasn't something strangely comforting when he had a blindfold pinned over his eyes; and she was only vaguely aware that he could potentially trap her into a never-ending genjutsu if she screwed up even a little bit.

Then again, it shouldn't have really mattered at all since his chakra channels were cut off so the sharingan hardly even posed a threat to her at this point. The fact that she had four Anbu members in the tent overlooking their operation should've also reassured her that everything would work out all right. But she knew better than anybody that she couldn't overestimate the power of their task force. The Anbu were not known for strength; their power lied in stealth and Ino wasn't sure how much that would help her if things went wrong.

Stop telling yourself things are going to go wrong. Nothing's going to go wrong, idiot, she snapped angrily at herself.

"How do I know you're not just making this up?" she asked warily.

"You seem to forget I'm the one who founded your idiot village," he replied starkly.

That's ironic coming from the person who was caught by said village, Ino thought bitterly, biting down hard on her lower lip to prevent the retort from spitting out.

"One of two," she corrected him placidly.

Madara looked like he was considering her correction carefully. Ino's logic was sound and although he would never admit it aloud, he probably did hold some sort of respect for Hashirama. So being placed on the same level field with his cofounder wasn't so much of an offense. The only thing he was probably ashamed of was the village they established together as partners. Even Ino could understand this much.

"Why didn't you bring it up yesterday when you got here?" she asked uninterestedly, shifting all of her weight to one foot while she swept a lock of her long blond hair behind her ear. She wasn't really pressing him for an answer. This was just her passive and slightly makeshift attempt at small talk. "If you're so adamant about being treated humanely, they could've taken that blindfold off earlier."

"Does it really matter?" he asked with complete rhetoric as he met her gaze with half lidded eyes. "Don't you have a job to do?"

This was not the kind of menial task she wanted to play with him. But at this point, Ino was far too tired and detached to actually care and she didn't mind appeasing to his demand if it meant she could get on with her day. She was pretty sure when it came down to it, Madara would probably win out over her with obstinacy so arguing with him was no longer a suitable option to consider. And since it was apparently Konoha regulation, she decided to go along with it unquestioningly. She was already in enough trouble as it is and she couldn't afford to make any more petty errors.

Besides, she was pissed. Being put on probation after her little stunt out there on the battlefront wasn't exactly something she'd been proud about, especially since she'd been doing remarkably well prior to that blunder. Mifune had been absolutely furious when he caught her on the ledge and the only thing Ino could do was return back to the base camp with her tail between her legs after getting a huge lecture from her squadron leader in front of her entire team. Not only was her ego bruised, she was dirty with a layer of grime caked over her skin from head to toe, her right eye was bruised a whorish shade of green, she had a scab on her right knee that was unbearably itchy, and she had a mouth-sized lesion in her shoulder from where Mifune stabbed her earlier in the day with his tantō blade.

All in all, her day was not going well.

And truth be told, Ino was already somewhat aware of the fact that all prisoners were required to have some sort of psychological stimulation. That very basic mandate applied to all sorts of animals like pigs in farms and hostages at the interrogation unit back home, so naturally the same should apply to people—prisoners of war.

Then again Ino couldn't deny her relative surprise. It was strange that these mandates weren't held suspended during wartime. She could actually attempt to contend it but at this point, she was far too jaded and removed to even bother. Also, it probably wouldn't do her any favors in the end when it came to the mission she was tasked with.

The contingency plan. After all the uneventful happenings today, she'd nearly forgotten about it.

"Many have heard it, but nobody has ever seen it, and it will not speak back until spoken to," Ino recited tiredly like this was rehearsal, "what is it?"

"An echo," Madara replied without missing a beat, "next."

Ino snaked her arms over the front of her flak vest, sucking in a deep breath through gritted teeth while she veered her gaze around the room, decidedly irked at the fact that he already knew the answer to her first riddle. She licked her lips before proceeding, "A rich man named Takana was murdered on a clear Sunday afternoon. At the time of the murder, there was the maid, the cook, the butler, the gardener and the wife in the same vicinity. The maid was cleaning, the cook was making breakfast—"

"—it was the cook," Madara interjected dispassionately before she could even finish the riddle, "people don't make breakfast in the afternoon."

She creased her brow, feeling agitated, "A man at a bar says he knows all the songs known to man—"

"—it's happy birthday," Madara interposed again indifferently.

"There were five men going to a church—"

Madara yawned, "—it's a body in a coffin. And four bearers."

A moment of silence passed between them. Ino sucked in another breath and exhaled slowly through her gritted teeth. She resisted the very prominent urge to sigh while she promptly stormed towards the corner of the tent where she pulled out a folding chair leaning against the standing pole. She took a seat right across from him and crossed one leg over the other, meeting his gaze while she snaked her arms over her chest, feeling the painful ache in her shoulder throb.

"Finished, are you?" Madara wore his apathy like a charm while he reclined slowly in his seat, "So? What now? Is that all you have?"

Ino wasn't much of a riddle person, "That should be enough mental stimulation for the day."

Madara grimaced. He knew she was short on chakra he seemed to come to the conclusion that this meant she wouldn't be taking a dive into his mind any time soon. So he clicked his tongue and narrowed his eyes, waiting for her to say something, "Don't you have something better to do then?"

"Like you should be talking," Ino replied defensively, "I'm not the one tied up in a chair."

"I'm a prisoner of war," Madara stated coolly, words dripping distaste and reluctance, "what's your excuse?"

Ino sulked visibly in her seat, recalling the events that took place earlier this morning. It was actually kind of pathetic because there wasn't anybody here she could vent to while maintaining a certain level of professionalism. Sakura was still on the battlefield, and Ino wasn't really sure when her teammates would return. Ibiki was completely out of question if she wanted to keep her job and respect when she returned back home to the village.

She would never admit this aloud but she'd never felt quite so lonely before.

All she had was this stupid, indifferent Uchiha sitting across from her. Uchiha freaking Madara who probably didn't give two damns about her. But with no one else she could really talk to, was she really desperate enough to place her bets on the prisoner she was supposed to be interrogating?

In the end, Ino figured it wouldn't really matter because everything would congregate and assimilate into her plans later on. It would be a game of give and take. Maybe if she shared a little about herself, he'd learn to trust her. Easier said than done. Of course, she wasn't naïve enough to think this would work so easily. But she also wasn't cynical enough to write off that possibility so quickly. So she opened her mouth, not without a bit of hesitation, "I'm on probation. They suspended me for three days."

He arched a brow, the wrinkles creasing in the corners of his eyes, "Suspension? Tch. As if Konoha could afford to have their shinobi off duty."

He had a point there, Ino mused vaguely. This was a war, in the end. And she was being treated like a child in time-out. Although his morals were questionable, there was no doubt Madara was an expert when it came to warfare. Konoha needed all hands on deck and sitting Ino out in a corner was a stupid thing to do, especially since there was already a huge strain on the Yamanaka clan.

"What compelled them to suspend you?" he asked, feigning only slight interest.

She propped an elbow on the back of her seat and gave the Anbu guard with the rooster mask in the far corner of the room a look that read something like, "I can't believe I'm having this conversation," while he remained unresponsive. She figured this much.

She seemed to forget the fact that Madara could clearly see every gesture she made without the blindfold on. He glanced over at the Anbu guard impassively before veering his attention back to the very piqued looking blonde sitting across from him.

"I took charge of my squadron because our leader was missing," Ino started with a sigh, rubbing the pressure point at the back of her neck, "and because we were being pummeled by their sniper, I decided to do something about it," and then the words she never wanted to say aloud, "I called for a retreat."

"Sniper?" Madara looked only vaguely interested as he straightened his spine, sitting upright from his recline.

"Yeah," Ino admitted, chewing on the corner of her mouth, "this, uh, spider guy. He's an archer. Shoots silk from his mouth and sucks the chakra dry from his victims."

Madara considered this for a moment, "Is the silk is attached to the arrow?"

"Well, yeah—of course," Ino said, "that's how he takes their chakra."

"And you say this silk comes from his mouth," Madara repeated for confirmation.

"That's what I said. What are you getting at?"

Realization dawned. Ino met his gaze slowly, her blue eyes widening. "—Wait."

Madara arched his head back and smoothed out the kinks in his neck. He'd reached the same conclusion as she did and he had to say he was mildly impressed at the fact that it took her only a few seconds after him to deduce the same thing, "Well? What're you going to do now?"

It took a few seconds for her to register his question.

"Well…I can't really do anything," she considered this cautiously. Ino suddenly felt the sting of regret from opening her big mouth in the first place. She seemed to have forgotten that Madara was a still prisoner of war for a reason and that divulging her work on the battlefield could potentially put them all at risk if he were to ever escape. But then she came to the slow realization that she'd given almost nothing away about her technique, or the people on her squad so she took in a slow breath of relief before continuing, "I'm still on probation. It's not like I can just walk out on the battlefield and do something about it again."

Now this was what seemed to pique his interest more than her ridiculous riddles. Battle strategies. Ino sincerely wondered why he even bothered helping her but from the look of indifference plastered on his face, she assumed it was probably because he had nothing better to do. This war wasn't playing to his favors in the long run and quite frankly, he probably didn't give half a damn about the side he was fighting for. Madara didn't look like the kind of person who liked to take orders from somebody else, let alone, a forbidden jutsu that had him resurrected as a zombie.

A zombie. Ino had to inwardly scoff at that one. She wondered if the mandate he brought up earlier still applied to somebody like him.

"You're a coward."

Ino raised a brow, "Um, what?"

"You heard me the first time so don't pretend," Madara stated plainly, "but do enlighten me as to why are you so deathly afraid of your own village."

It took a moment for her to register this properly. Ino wasn't afraid of Konoha. It was loyalty that trumped over fear. She owed everything to her village. The Will of Fire, or something trite like their slogan. This village brought her up.

Then again, this was also the village that was punishing her for something so evidently wrong.

Suddenly, she stood up from her seat and darted quickly through the folds of the tent. Madara arched a brow, genuinely surprised at her sudden action before sucking in a yawn and reclining in his seat, crossing one leg over the other.

Bored, once again.

The entrance of the tent rippled. Ino poked her head through the folds with a big smile on her face before she became vaguely self-aware, her smile fading into a grimace when she met his gaze. Uchiha Madara was still a war criminal and people like him didn't deserve smiles from pretty girls like her. Even if it did seem he was doing something right.

"Thanks," she told him tersely, and she didn't bother to wait for a response from him before she slipped out of sight.

Madara glanced around the tent and came to the slow realization that his only source of entertainment just ran straight out of his tent.

This was going to be an achingly long day.

Ino breathed deep, feeling a dull ache in her shoulder while she took a quick scan of the status of the battlefield.

Sweat beaded over her brow while she ran quickly to the aid of a fallen shinobi near the ledge overlooking the field, "Are you alright?" Ino did a quick body scan and found a shallow wound embedded in the arch of his left collarbone and a deeper lesion in his right thigh that only narrowly missed his femoral artery.

He was a lucky one. Had he been hit an inch closer, he surely would've bled to death. At this point, there was still hope for him. Ino brushed a lock of his dark, brown hair behind his ear while he groaned in pain. "You'll be alright. I'm going to get you out of here—"

An arrow soared through the air and only narrowly missed the injured man's head by a margin of an inch. Ino jolted back to reality and dug her nails into the collar of his flak vest, dragging him into the shadows under the ledge with painful difficulty as she felt a sharp twinge of pain shoot through her shoulder. All the while, her hand hovered over the deep wound in his right leg, a soft green glow radiating from the palm of her hand.

The wound closed only slightly but the bleeding came to a slow halt. Ino spared him a reassuring smile, "You'll be alright. Try to stay out of sight for the next hour or so while I take care of things. Can you do that?"

"Oi," the injured man knitted his brows as his eyes widened in realization, "you're that girl Mifune-taichou put on probation, aren't you? You're not supposed to—"

"—that wound should be fine," she interjected, fishing out a wad of bandages from the pouch attached to the side of her thigh and tossing it carelessly in his direction, "make a tourniquet and you should get back to the main camp as soon as possible."

Before he could say anything else, Ino stepped off the field and back onto the high ledge where she caught sight of a glimmer from the distance. She was piqued at the fact that she'd just saved a man's life and he hadn't even the decency to spare her a thank you, and instead was hell-bent on reprimanding her for something that shouldn't have even mattered to somebody like him. But then again, Ino never became a medic for the thank yous.

Still, self-gratification only went so far and she could've really done for some reassurance at this point.

Suddenly, she was pierced straight through her lower abdomen from what she registered to be an arrow and Ino sincerely wondered how she could've gotten hit when she was yards away from where she estimated the weapon would strike.

Her body went flying back, blond hair whipping in front of her face before she finally made contact with the boulder in the distance behind her; she felt her back crack and her shoulder throbbed painfully while she collapsed to her knees, feeling a sharp and raw ache in her lower stomach. She veered her gaze down and winced at the sight of her condition.

The arrow had penetrated completely through the boulder and now there was small, mouth-sized wound impaled on the left portion of her lower stomach with a thick thread of silk speared through.

At this point, she'd be more than lucky to get out of this war with a couple of scars.

She smirked and took a hold of the thread.

Chakra always required a medium to pass through. With her shintenshin, Ino's medium was usually air. This thread was more than enough. It was better than enough. It was soaked with Kidōmaru's chakra signature and even though this was Madara's idea originally, Ino was already taking the plan for her own. But it seemed Madara already had a handle on what she was capable of because she deducted the same thing he did in the end.

His idea was to beat Kidōmaru with the sheer power of chakra alone but Ino would destroy him with stealth instead.

Her chakra seeped through quickly and her limp body hunched over as she lost complete consciousness.

Kidōmaru stepped through the trees in the distance while all shinobi in the vicinity turned to stare.

Kiba was the first to take a step forward, gesturing towards the spider man, "That's the sniper," while next to him, Akamaru let out a low growl.

Kidōmaru lowered his arms to his side, revealing three pacified Zetsu clones passed out in a small cornucopia around his feet, "Calm down, Kiba. It's me. Ino," and with a triumphant smile, "I got him."

But the smirk disappeared from his lips just as quickly as it came when Ino caught sight of Mifune stepping through the small crowd of men.

From the look on his face, Ino knew she was screwed.

"I really think we should talk about this."

"Honestly, there's not much for us to talk about."

"Come on, Shikamaru!" Ino snapped, slamming her clenched fist roughly against the makeshift table in the center of their tent. "I had a plan. It worked. That battle was ours! I don't see what the big problem is!"

"You're on probation," he stared at her fist for a fleeting second before meeting her pensive glare. Had it been a couple years back, he surely would've given in to her temper tantrums, "Mifune isn't happy that you defied his orders. He's the leader of your squadron. I don't even understand why you felt remotely compelled to do what you did."

Shikamaru had a point. It was weirdly unlike her to defy orders. Despite all the bossiness and play arrogance, when it came down to it, Ino was actually very obedient. She wasn't reckless and she wasn't the kind of girl who went around blazing trails on missions. There was a reason why she worked in stealth. She was good at following orders. She was good at listening and knowing when to stop.

"We were losing people," she groaned for what felt like the hundredth time, feeling agitated that she had to repeat herself over and over again, "I seriously don't understand how you expect me to sit around and do nothing about it."

"Sacrifices are necessary, Ino," he replied with a soft sigh, lifting his hand to rub his temples to prevent what seemed to be an oncoming migraine. Even though he could empathize with her, there was no reason for her to take order of an entire squadron. She certainly wasn't qualified. Hell, she wasn't even first seat on Mifune's team. The fact that her punishment ultimately culminated to three days of probation with every action she'd taken so far was almost a miracle in itself. "You can't walk into a war thinking people won't die."

"Shikamaru," she tried with great difficulty to even out the agitation in her tone to at least sound reasonable, "please stop talking to me like I'm a child. If the ends justify the means, then I don't understand why it's such a big deal. We took that battle and we did it without taking anymore casualties!"

"Be rational. You might've taken out their sniper, but at what cost? Mifune said he had a plan. Think about it. There's a reason why we assign squad leaders," he stated with a soft sigh, "so grow up and stop being so naïve, Ino. Get rid of the ego. You of all people can't afford to have one."

She raised a brow, "Are you telling me I should've just let all those people die? And what the freaking hell do you mean I, of all people, can't afford to have one?"

"All I'm saying is you need to stop trying so damn hard to be a hero," Shikamaru offered, shifting all his weight to one leg, "it won't do you any favors and to be honest, it'll probably only get you killed in the end."

She shot him a dirty glare and he immediately felt compelled to take back what he'd just said. He knew he was being a little too harsh but the silence between them stretched too long and it was already too late for him to take it back. Shikamaru figured she would forgive him in due time anyway.

Still, he knew that wasn't the right way to approach the situation at hand and even he was reasonable enough to admit he was wrong. He could empathize with her. She'd saved her squadron from numerous casualties. In a way, Ino was kind of a hero.

But Shikamaru knew better than anybody that in the end, war was a battle of the egos. Konoha just couldn't afford to offend any countries when they were playing a united front. They were still picking themselves up from the dust after Pein's destruction and they wouldn't be able to handle an invasion after the war. If he'd told her that, Ino wouldn't have taken it easily and knowing her, this would rile up her inner rebel. That was the last thing Shikamaru needed on his hands.

Just as he was about to open his mouth to apologize, Ino knitted her brows, turned around and stormed brusquely through the folds of his tent without another word.

She chewed shamelessly at the egg wrap in her hand.

Madara arched a brow.

"It's only egg whites," she snapped defensively at him, "I'm on a diet."

"You said you had a fast metabolism," he replied blandly, "regardless. Did you take their sniper out?"

Ino considered his question for a moment before finishing up the rest of her wrap, brushing away the crumbs left over on her hands. She chewed thoughtfully and crossed her arms over her chest, "I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and tell myself you meant it sincerely when you egged me on with the strategy. But don't think for even a second that this means we're going to talk about my work on the battlefield again. Got it?"

Madara shifted his gaze, clearly irritated, "That'll hardly be a problem now since you're being watched."

She grimaced. He was right. The Anbu squad in this room was now ordered to keep a close eye on her instead of him. It was utterly embarrassing but Ino had to keep her chin held up for whatever it was worth. Even though she was on probation for the next three days, she still had a mission to carry out. Now she could concentrate all her efforts on Madara.

Still. It bothered her. Why would somebody like him want to help somebody like her? Ino convinced herself earlier it was probably an ego thing—Madara probably didn't give two damns about the side he was fighting for. But he still had a cause to live for and she would be damned to be naïve enough to believe he'd all but given up on it.

What the hell was he planning?

"I did take him out," she said abruptly, while she fingered at the folds of the tent behind her back, "along with a few of his flunkies."

"Hm," he acknowledged her statement with placidity, "and yet, your punishment has been increased threefold. Ironic."

She would know, "We're not going to talk about this."

He didn't seem like he was going to offer anything in return so Ino slipped through the folds of the tent and departed without another word, feeling the sting from a source she never really expected.

Her village.

TBC