Ino
It is hard being a ninja in this world. Try being an omega ninja with an alpha who is far too persistent for her own good on your back and see if you’d be happy to deal with her whenever you're free.
Ino didn’t mind alphas, really. She may have come off as being harsh to them because of the way she consistently stood up to their sexist bullshit throughout her entire life, but that was only because she didn’t want anyone thinking less of her for being an omega. She wanted to be seen as an equal no matter what the cost.
She had been raised all of her life to know that alphas will always think less of her. Her parents never sugarcoated anything to her and she was grateful to them for that because it helped her to have a thick skin whenever she was faced with sexism on any basis in any form.
What she could never get over despite all of the bullshit she had to hear over the years about being an omega kunoichi—‘oh, such a pretty girl like you shouldn’t be a ninja, it’s far too dangerous! Let an alpha do it for you, dear’ all the way to ‘can’t you let the alphas have this one? Omegas are not meant for battle’—is the fact that there is an alpha out there who just won’t get the hint no matter how blunt she is with her.
It was the night before the Chunin exams started that she happened to run into her—no, more like she approached her when all she was doing was getting groceries for her family because her parents were busy, “Ino, do you need any help?”
She knows she cannot react in the way she wants to because she’s being so nice about it and the damned alpha knows that if she keeps playing nice, then everyone around her will side with her if Ino does snap. Hence why in the crowded street, she chooses to go the nice route with her, “No, I’m just fine, it’s only one bag of groceries.”
Her former friend has a look of concern on her face and yet it did nothing to placate her outrage when she heard her say it, “Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to leave a beautiful burdened omega alone at night like this in such a vulnerable position.”
Ino can feel her eyebrow at the subtle sexism the alpha masters in, forcing herself to keep her cool even though all she wants is to tell her off, “I’ll be fine. Just because I’m an omega doesn’t mean I am weak.”
“I wasn’t saying that, but it is fact that alphas and betas can take advantage of omegas through our pheromones and tone of voices. If you remember what we had to learn, omegas are extremely vulnerable through no fault of their own—it’s a biology thing. They can’t help it if they need an alpha’s help every once in a while.”
Ino remembers it all too well because she had heard that all of her life growing up every time she told someone she wanted to be a kunoichi.
“Omegas are weaker than alphas—it’s not your fault, but your biology does make you weaker than them.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be a kunoichi…you know there’s a reason why there’s never been an omega kunoichi, right? It’s because it’s too dangerous for omegas to be kunoichis or shinobis in general. I know you don’t wanna hear it, but you’re a pretty omega from a great family—ditch this ninja nonsense and find yourself a good alpha to mate.”
“And you keep on forgetting that I had to stand up to bullies for you back in the day. Alpha bullies, might I add.” Ino points out to Sakura, her stance on this strong, “I don’t need your help with something as simple as going home with groceries.”
Sakura frowns, crossing her arms in front of her chest, “I never forgot that, Ino, and I always thanked you for it. I even looked up to you for a while there, but I don’t need to anymore because I’ve grown as a person now. I don’t know why you’re being so hostile to me when all I’m doing is being nice to you.”
Calm, Ino—keep calm or else you will snap and you will look like the bad guy all over again and the entire village will being going on and on about ‘poor Sakura, that horrible Ino was being mean to her again when all she was doing was being nice to her’ for the next few months.
“I’m not being hostile. All I am saying is I can go home alone with groceries without any help. I am going to be a Chunin soon, Sakura. I’d like to have some respect for that.”
Sakura hums to this, but it doesn’t stop her from walking close to her side, “I know you’re going to try your best at the exam, but you are an omega. You should be open to the idea that you could fail because of an alpha or beta fighting dirty and using your biology against you. I mean, what if an alpha tries to corner you when you’re nearing your heat or uses some sort of pheromone to make you act on your base instincts?”
She grits her teeth, biting back an acidic reply to keep her calm around her former friend, “It’s called heat suppressants and a protection jutsu to prevent the pheromone from having an effect on me. I don’t know why you’re so concerned about me going to the Chunin exams—I did become a Genin, what’s the use of getting so upset over this now? Didn’t you think I’d ever become a Chunin?”
“It has nothing to do with that and it never has. I just think it’s wrong to make omegas do the exams alongside betas and alphas. It gives them an unfair disadvantage all while making them vulnerable to alphas who wouldn’t think twice about hurting them.” Sakura then sighs and grabs her free hand, desperate when making the request she does, “Ino, I don’t want you to go through with these exams without being mated to me. If we’re mated, then other alphas and betas won’t try to hurt you and no one will try to use your biology against you—then you won’t be so weak and vulnerable to their schemes.”
Now it’s taking her everything she’s got within herself to not chew her out right here, right now in public and make a bigger embarrassment of herself than she ever has in the past.
Forgive her for saying this, but Sakura shouldn’t be speaking like this to her for any reason at all. She has worked hard to become a Genin and she did it all without needing to be mated to anyone. She will be fine now in the Chunin exams despite whatever the hell it is she thinks of her.
“I’m not getting mated to you just because you think I am too weak to defend myself!” Ino glares her down while freeing herself of her grip on her free hand, “I can hold my own and I don’t need to be mated to be safe in the exams! I made it this far without an alpha and I will make it farther yet without one.”
Sakura huffs, a frown now on her face as her jade green eyes lock onto the light blue of the omega she’s wanted to mate for years, “You can’t make it farther yet without one. Be realistic with yourself—you need to be mated or else someone else will take advantage of you. You’re an omega, Ino: you don’t have the same muscle mass as an alpha and you’re far more vulnerable to pheromones than alphas and betas are. Whether you want to think it or not, you are weaker than an alpha because of your biology and someday, some alpha will take advantage of that during a mission, on the battlefield, or during these exams. Being mated to me would save you from all of that.”
“I don’t need to hear sexist talking points from you—”
“It’s not a sexist talking point! I’m worried for you!”
Ino pauses to this and lets her speak, wondering where all this is going and if it will end lead her anywhere new, “Look, I am worried for you, okay? I’m afraid of losing you to someone who’s not good enough for you and I’m afraid of you getting hurt. All I want is to keep you safe—I’m becoming a ninja so I can be an alpha who’s good enough for you. I know I’m probably not there yet, but I want to at least do the bare minimum to keep you safe. Won’t you allow me the chance to do this for you at the very least?”
She feels as though this would be more meaningful if she didn’t make sexist comments about omegas before saying this to her face.
Because of this, she discards what she said just now with ease, “Whatever, Sakura. I don’t want a mate and I certainly don’t need one to pass the exams anyway. If you really wanted to keep me safe, you’d have my back in battle instead of trying to shove me behind your back in general.”
“Ino—”
“No, I am not apologizing for what I said, not after all the crap I’ve heard from you just now. Deidara wouldn’t have apologized and neither will I.” she shakes her head, a wistful look in her eyes when she thinks about him for a moment too long, “I cannot believe you’d say that to me after knowing what happened with Deidara…after how badly things ended between us as friends. It’s like you just don’t care about what I have to say, think, or feel because I’m an omega and that’s all you see me as.”
Before leaving Sakura behind, she reminds her: “An alpha stole my brother away and made him into the criminal he’s become. I won’t let that ever happen to me, not when he needs me to bring him home and save him from that bastard’s control.”
Sakura is calling out her name as she moves through the crowd, her mind not really focusing on anything at the moment other than the memories of her big brother making her eyes water and vision blur.
Her big brother who had been nothing but wonderful to her. Her omega big brother who taught her to stand up for herself and never apologize to any alpha or beta for standing up to them or rejecting them. Her omega big brother who was her idol, the one she wanted to be like someday…
The same omega big brother she idolized who left the village on the night of the Uchiha massacre.
At first, they had thought he was kidnapped and killed by Itachi. They had truly thought he had been forcibly marked, raped, tortured, and murdered by the alpha Uchiha. Rumors around the village made their way to Ino’s ear as much as the muffled cries and grim conversations her parents had had with the ANBU investigating Deidara’s disappearance. She didn’t ever want to believe that Deidara—her powerful, inspiring big brother who was going to be the first ever omega from the Yamanaka clan to be a Chunin—was dead and killed by some stupid alpha Uchiha.
Then it came out over time that Deidara was alive, but it wasn’t the joyous news the clan had been expecting.
Deidara became a criminal and over the years, became known as a dangerous S-rank missing nin. There were so many awful things said about him—awful things that could’ve been said about Itachi too given his joining a criminal group around the same time Deidara did that never was. While there were some rumors of Itachi and Deidara being mated, Ino didn’t know if she could believe it or not since Deidara was so against mating in general that him mating Itachi—an alpha she knows he hated before the massacre—didn’t seem right to her. It didn’t seem like something the Deidara she knew would do, despite what others had to say about it.
In fact, she remembers a very specific conversation with Deidara that still to this day stands out so clearly in her mind.
“Hey Ino, you don’t like that Sasuke kid, right?”
The younger omega shook her head from her spot in their family flower shop, “No, why? Should I?”
He growled subtly, his entire aura changing as he went from mild mood to pissed off in a matter of seconds, “No, you shouldn’t, un. Those Uchiha bastards are all the same—arrogant, narcissistic, sexist jerks with the hugest egos around. I swear if you ever come to like someone from that crappy clan, I will hurt you, un.”
Though it was a strange threat to make, Ino took it as her brother looking out for her (since he did have a strange way of looking out for her anyway, so this wasn’t anything too out there by his standards), “Really? Well, if they’re as bad as you say they are, then I believe you! I promise I will never like an Uchiha as long as I live.”
“You mean that?”
She nods and gives him a thumbs up, “I mean it with all of my heart, Deidara.”
He smiled warmly at her, coming over to her side and hugging her tight, “Good, at least that takes a heavy weight off of my shoulders… Do you want to run errands with me, un?”
“Yeah, let’s go!”
Because of this, she has such a hard time believing he ever mated Itachi. She remembers all of his rants about the guy, how much he hated him, and the death glares he used to send his way whenever he was so much as across the street from him. There’s no way in her eyes that he is mated to Itachi, but she can believe that Itachi made Deidara go into the life of crime he is in now because there’s no way her kind brother who always liked to do things with her would ever become the sort of criminal he is rumored to be. No, she knows for fact that Itachi stole her brother from her that night and made him into the criminal he is now.
The thought of this alone is enough to make her blood boil and remind her of the main motivation she has to become a kunoichi in the first place: to kill Itachi Uchiha, bring Deidara home, and clear his name for all of the crimes he is accused of.
She didn’t know she had gotten home until she nearly walked into her own front door, but when she did, she used her free hand to wipe the tears away from her eyes and enter her home without any issue whatsoever.
It wasn’t too dark thankfully, and no one was home…but it didn’t stop her eyes from landing on the photo across the door of her and Deidara together at the shop, a week before he left Konoha with that Uchiha bastard who stole him away from them.
They were smiling, with her doing bunny ears behind his head, and Deidara making a bouquet that would go to their grandma on her birthday. It made her smile at the sight until she remembered what happened a week after the photo was taken.
Setting the groceries down on the table, she approached the photo to get a closer look at it.
She’s seen it so many times, stared at it so often, wondering what could have happened to make Deidara leave them all behind and become what he has…only to remember Itachi and his involvement in all of this. Then her resolve strengthens and she pushes herself to work harder than ever before to make her goal a reality, like Deidara would want her to.
For the longest time, it was hard to not wonder if she did anything wrong, but every time she thought this, she’d always be reminded of all the times Deidara stood up for her whenever the sexist naysayers talked down to her for her dream.
“Shut the hell up! Ino can become a kunoichi if she wants—she’s my sister, not some pushover, un! Just watch, my sister will become the first omega kunoichi and she will be the best one ever!”
“Mating, un? How stupid, my sister is too brilliant to settle for that objectification shit! We’re Yamanaka omegas and we don’t tolerate old, outdated systems like that, un.”
“Dei…” her whisper is to an empty room, to a photo of an older time when he was still around to stick up for her and help her out whenever an alpha was being too much for her to handle, “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened but…”
Her hand against the glass of the frame, her breath held in order for her to speak without any choking or sobbing, she meets his smiling eyes there and is firm when speaking, “I will bring you back. I will kill that Uchiha bastard for taking you away from us and forcing you down a path I know you’d never choose for yourself. After I pass these Chunin exams, I’ll do all that I can to get closer to going on a mission to save you and when I do, I’ll do everything that I can to clear your name so you can finally come back home.”
It will never be the same as speaking to him in person, nor will it ever fill the void he left in her heart after he was taken away by that damned Uchiha, but it’s all she can do to give herself the strength to no longer cry at the memory of him and what he has become—as well as some much needed motivation heading into the Chunin exams coming up tomorrow.