Ino
Ino, compared to her fellow omegas, has it easy after the disaster that struck the village she calls home.
Sakura had been the one to be there at the hospital when she woke up. When she did, the first thing she asked was, “What happened?”
Sakura looked down at her lap, trying to put on an air of strength when beginning her tale of what went down only hours earlier, “We were attacked by Orochimaru, his men, Gaara, his siblings, and the people they brought with them from their village.”
It was a simple summary of events that Ino would have asked her more about, that is, until a nurse came in with a forced smile on her face, “Hello dear, how are you doing?”
“Good…were we really invaded? Is my father okay? What about my mother?”
The nurse could only nod, her forced smile gone, “Yes, we were. Information is still coming in as we speak—all I can tell you is that it was all Orochimaru’s doing. I’m sure your father will tell you more when you get home.”
There’s a strong sense of ease coming over her at the news of her father being alive, though she is curious, “What about my mother? Is she still alive?”
“She is, there’s no need to worry. Your sensei told me to tell you that when you woke up.” she informs her before examining her, asking her basic questions about how she felt and whatnot.
None of it really mattered to Ino. She said what she had to get this over with so she could go home and see her mother after what happened. Having lost Deidara to Itachi was one thing—she will be bringing him home one day, but if her parents were lost to an invasion, she could never get them back.
When cleared to go home, Sakura makes the offer of, “You want me to walk you back? It’s dark out now and I don’t know if you’d feel safe going home alone or not.”
She doesn’t reject the offer for good reason, “I do…I’d rather be with someone than no one at all for a bit if I can.”
The alpha girl nods and they subsequently leave the hospital together, with Sakura telling her solemnly the moment they were outside, “Gaara was a part of the attack on the village, Ino. He and his siblings both played big roles in it.”
She snapped her head to look at her with wide eyes, “No, that can’t be right! My dad was so convinced Gaara and Lee had crushes on each other…he wouldn’t do anything like that if he liked Lee! His actions could have gotten him killed if he wasn’t careful and from what Lee told me, Gaara’s not a bad person. Even my dad didn’t think he was really a bad guy—how could they both have been wrong about him?”
“Maybe he was better at putting up an act than they thought.” Sakura seemed angrier the longer she spoke, “His actions could have not only killed Lee. It could have killed you, your family, and my family too and I cannot believe he couldn’t do the bare minimum in the end. Naruto is right; Lee would be better off with Neji because at Neji could apologize for what he did. I don’t think Gaara ever will.”
Her father being wrong on someone…it feels familiar….probably because it did happen in the past. She thought he had learned from it, though, she didn’t think he’d ever get it wrong again.
“Ino, I’m not insulting your dad, but I’m sorry if I did—”
“No, you’re not insulting him. It’s just…I thought he had learned from the last time.”
She has a feeling Sakura knows what she is talking about. She doesn’t comment on it, except to say, “He probably did, but who knows? Maybe Gaara is on the same level as Itachi when it comes down to deceiving people.”
He could be, but she wonders if he really is.
Itachi was a whole other level of deceptive that many would not be able to achieve. To play up the act he did for so long and then massacre his whole clan before kidnapping her brother and holding him hostage for years…it’s far too despicable for her to comprehend even now. Maybe it’s because of how despicable Itachi is that she cannot believe her father and Lee were wrong on Gaara.
Gaara—while intimidating—lacks that sort of deviousness Itachi possessed in droves. There’s no way he could be completely guilty in this.
That’s how she sees it as anyway. She won’t argue with Sakura over it; it’s already very nice of her to walk her home after the horrible day they all had when she could have gone home a long time ago.
“I thought so too, but I guess not.” is all Sakura said before going on to tell her more about what happened when she was asleep in the stands.
Ino is listening, but at the same time, her mind is flashing back to the first night when they had failed to find Deidara after discovering he was gone.
After she had been brought home to her parents, Ino did not get off easily.
Her attempts to find her brother were not taken well by her parents, especially her father—who had looked so worn, tired, and sick all at once when he spoke in the stern tone he used whenever he was mad and trying to contain his outburst, “What were you thinking? Why would you do something so stupid?”
“Stupid? …I was trying to find Deidara! I couldn’t let him down, not when he never did that to me!” she spoke boldly through an emerging sob, her throat sore as she did so, “You don’t understand…I couldn’t leave him. He would never, ever leave me and I know he needs my help—I know Sakura and I can find him if we’re allowed to look for him. I know my brother better than anyone, I know we can find him, dad, please let us keep looking for him! He could be scared, hurt, or worse!”
“Ino, I cannot let you and Sakura do that. You two should have gone to the academy today instead of endangering yourselves looking for your brother.”
His voice was softer, but it wasn’t without its edge. Her mother, on the other hand, wasn’t as understanding, “That’s no reason to make us worry over you like that! What if you got kidnapped? You’re an omega child, Ino—who knows what those omega auctioneers would have done to you! We could have lost both you and your brother in one go if Iruka hadn’t found you girls in time!”
“Stop it dear, Ino’s already upset. We don’t need to traumatize her more than she already is.”
“Stop it? No, I’m not going to ‘stop it’, this is not a small playing hooky from class to run around in the park with her friend situation—this was her going on a dangerous mission that could’ve gotten her taken away from us and sold away to some disgusting alpha or beta for mating! I will not stop it, not when she was being so reckless!”
“It’s not her fault for being so reckless, it’s someone else’s for daring to mention his disappearance when she was within earshot of them.”
“We don’t know if that’s how she found out about it!”
“Then I’ll ask her myself!” Inoichi took a deep inhale and faced her with a calm expression, his hand on her shoulder now, “Ino, how did you find out about Deidara going missing?”
She told them something she had thought they known, but apparently didn’t before then: “Deidara always leaves me messages on the table before I have breakfast and head off to the academy. He puts them in a sculpture of a moonflower: I usually break them open because they don’t explode like his other ones do. I found it in my room, right on my dresser, and when I broke it open, I thought it was going to be a message about a test I was supposed to take today…instead, it was him saying goodbye.”
Inoichi’s eyes were blown wide to the news, “Why didn’t you tell anyone right away? Ino, if we had known earlier, we could have possibly found him! What did the letter say? Do you still have it on you? Where is it now?”
“I didn’t tell anyone because no one was home, and I didn’t know how to reach you guys. All I had was Sakura and I was so scared for Deidara that I knew I had to find him before anything bad could happen to him.”
She hands her father the letter from her pocket, her tears filling her eyes once more when giving it to him, the words of it seared into her mind.
Ino, I know this is cruel to do, but I am leaving the village for good. You won’t ever see me again and before you do it, I don’t want you to blame yourself. I want you to blame the very thing I hate most about this place and hold it against that factor for as long as I am gone. I would take you with me if I could, but I can’t for now. Maybe someday I’ll be able to come back, I don’t know…all I know is, I don’t want to say goodbye like this. I feel like crap for having to do it and I’m sorry about that. Take care of yourself, never stop trying to be the first omega kunoichi, and always, always remember what I told: you can never trust an Uchiha. Goodbye for good…your brother, Deidara
After reading the letter, her father orders her monotonously, “Go to your room. I won’t punish you for what you did today—none of what happened or how you reacted is your fault. All I want you to do in return from now on in order to avoid punishment is to come to me or any other Chunin or Jounin you know whenever you get any important information like this in the future.”
“I will, dad, I promise.” she said before being hugged tight by her mother who could only whisper a small, “Sorry, I love you, I shouldn’t have snapped like I did at you”.
After this she went up to her room, anxious over what would come next from the letter’s discovery by her father. It didn’t take her long to learn what was thought of it; only five minutes when she was alone in her room, in her bed did she hear what her father was thinking.
“Inoichi, you need to calm down. We don’t know if this had anything to do with the Uchiha massacre from last night—”
“…Deidara hated Itachi the most in this entire village.”
“That’s not evidence—”
“Except it is.” she listens with heightened interest while he continues on with a strong, visible sense of anger in his voice when he speaks, “It is evidence—look at this letter! Deidara clearly wrote it when he wasn’t in a safe situation. The wording, the things he said—all of it reeks of a kid who was forced to leave home against his will! That Uchiha boy was always so persistent with Deidara…it only makes sense that he would be the one who took him from us last night.”
“But you yourself said Itachi was to be trusted. How can you go back on that now?”
“Because I was wrong!”
Ino felt her throat tighten when the house went silent to her father’s cry. It wasn’t until he spoke through a sob of his own that she heard why he thought this way now after praising Itachi for so long, “I was wrong about him. I shouldn’t have been so quick to trust him, I shouldn’t have been eager to believe him on every single thing he said, and I shouldn’t have ever put aside any negative feeling in my gut that came up with him. All of this is my fault; if I had gone through his mind the moment he showed interest in Deidara, I could have stopped all of this. My blind naivety is what led to the massacre of a clan and my son being gone.”
“None of it is—look, we need to calm down and contact the hokage right away before we can say or do anything else, okay?”
“…Right, I’ll do that now then.”
It was a few moments of silence after this, followed with a whisper of a goodbye from her father and her mother’s crying filling the home after the door had closed.
Ino didn’t sleep that night. She couldn’t, not when she knew Deidara was in danger, and she needed to be there to help him at any given moment.
Then, she supposes no one slept that night. The following morning, her mother’s eyes were puffy and red, her father’s face devoid of color, and her own body felt too heavy to move yet she was too wound up to sleep at the same time.
Even with the day off, she couldn’t relax, not when she knew her brother was out there, getting hurt by the very person he hated most in the entire village.
Sakura dropped her off at her house with a concerned glaze in her eyes, “You’re alright with going back to an empty home?”
“I am…it’s no big deal, my dad will be back later and so will my mom.” Ino looks her way one last time for the night, “Thank you for walking me home, Sakura. I appreciate it and I know my parents will too.”
“It’s fine, just be safe now, okay?”
“There’s no need to worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
Maybe in the past she would’ve been annoyed with her asking that, but Sakura has changed. This wasn’t said to imply she needs an alpha or beta to be safe. It was said out of genuine concern from someone who wants what’s best for her. Because of that, she is fine with her saying something like this now.
She enters her home by taking out the spare key she had in her pocket in case if her parents were out late with the Naras after the exams ended. She unlocks the door and enters a calm, quiet, dark, empty home.
It’s soothing somehow because it shows that while things have changed, at least she has one constant in her life.
She makes herself some instant ramen—not really in the mood to cook or eat much after all she had learned from Sakura along with what she had seen of the devastation from the attack—and eats it while leaning against the counter in the kitchen, not caring if the rules are to eat at the table only even if it is something as informal as instant ramen.
(It makes her want to laugh because if Deidara were here, he would eschew the rules and have all the junk food he wants in his tent after a day like today.)
At the end of her impromptu meal, she glances out the window to the backyard to see if his tent is still standing.
Luckily for her, on this bright full moon night, she can clearly see her brother’s tent in the same condition it has been over the years he has been gone. It makes her smile to know she was right to assume that, even in the worst case scenario, her brother’s tent would always be the one thing untouched by it.
Ino doesn’t know why, but she feels the urge to go out there just once to see it for herself again to be sure it really is okay. So, with a toss of the ramen cup and a setting of the chopsticks on the counter, she heads out to the backyard to check on her brother’s tent.
Over the years, her parents have tried to get rid of it.
It started in the first three months after he went missing, when her mother first said, “Ino, maybe we should get rid of Deidara’s tent.”
Ino fought it back then with a disgusted, “Mom, it’s been only three months! We can’t get rid of his tent, Deidara could be coming back!”
“…Alright, we won’t get rid of it for now, but if he’s not back by the end of the year, then we should think about it.”
At the end of the year, it was her father who said, “It’s been a year and he’s not come back. It’s time to talk about getting rid of the tent.”
“We can’t do that! Just because it’s been a year doesn’t mean he won’t come back! I can’t believe you would give up on him, didn’t you love Deidara?”
“I do love him, but it’s time for us to try to move on as a family. Your obsession with finding him isn’t healthy and will lead you down a bad path. Please, Ino, consider it—”
“I’m not! He’s still my brother and that’s still his stuff out there and I always promised I wouldn’t touch it no matter what! I’m not going back on my word to him—and when I bring him home, he’ll be happy to see I cared enough for him to keep his tent up and untouched, like he would want it to be!”
Then the next year came and went, the conversation stayed the same: her parents insisting it was time to remove the tent and Ino fighting them on it until they backed off on the idea. It has been this way for years and she knows when the end of this year comes up, she’ll have to fight them on it all over again.
Still, seeing the tent being in perfect condition up close made her smile because it always felt nice to have kept the parts of Deidara near her over the years and knowing this one thing wasn’t lost forever was the greatest relief of all, as sad as that sounds.
She sits beside the tent, feeling less frazzled and stressed the longer she by it, staring at the moon—wondering if Deidara is looking at it too wherever he is right now.