Ino
Shikamaru was told by his father of what happened the night Ino and Sakura left the village: they went to the border to see Deidara, who had confessed he was forced to leave the village with Itachi after being baited into a fight against him where he lost against the alpha’s Sharingan, ultimately forcing him to leave. Years later, he was manipulated into a mating with the alpha by the usage of his Sharingan again during a moment of vulnerability.
When pressed as to why he didn’t just leave with Ino and Sakura, he was told that Deidara couldn’t leave because he was there with his partner in the Akatsuki.
While he is taken aback to have learned that he was wrong about Deidara—of all people—this entire time, he’s not sure if he can fully believe it or not. He would have asked Ino about it, but he had been told to not do such a thing since she was devastated to lose him again and well…she certainly seemed that way the night he saw her. A few days later, it seems as though something in her changed and her eyes are always filled to the brim with a sort of sadness he’s not seen in her since her reckless brother first left.
He won’t comment on it to her. Whatever happened, it had to be rather drastic for her to have dropped all claims of bringing Deidara back as well as dedicating herself to her training more than she did in the past. She doesn’t make small talk with her teammates much anymore, gone is the vulgarity that Asuma had gotten on her about, and she’s almost always with Sakura in her free time.
For now, he’ll leave her be and wait for her to speak to him and Chouji again. It’s the least he can do after he did insult her brother right to her face without any form of concern for whether or not she or Sakura were all right.
Ino doesn’t mind it, really. She’d rather not have to try too hard to keep up a lie; it’s too soon to do that with a straight face after seeing her brother again in person years later. For now, she will focus on one day getting this village to the point where it becomes a place her brother will love enough to come back home.
She may not know what exactly her dad is planning to do to ‘step up as a father’, but whatever it is, she’s sure she will be proud of him.
Maybe one of these days, he’ll be able to be in their home again…if her mom can attempt it (no matter how much it kills her to be inside it), then she’s positive he can too one day.
Sakura had asked her the following morning after everything that happened with Deidara, “Are you okay?” and she told her, “Yeah, I think so”.
Except, ‘yeah I think so’ wasn’t exactly a ‘yes’ or a noncommittal ‘yeah’. It was a blank slate sort of answer that explained what she felt in her state of residual shock after everything that passed.
Now that the shock has fully worn off, she’s not okay.
She wonders what all she can do to make the village a place Deidara would want to live in, what all she can do to get him to see this place can evolve into something better than it ever was, but she’s been stuck drawing a blank instead.
Her whole goal in life has changed; it’s gone from saving Deidara from Itachi and bringing him home to clear his name to something so vague, she’s not honestly sure what she could do. All she knows is her brother hates this Danzo character, the elders, and the hokage with a burning passion. Going off the way he acted and what he said, she thinks he would want her to kill them all in order to bring him home—which is the last thing she’d ever want to do! She’s not going to become Orochimaru bad for anyone, not even him! She knows of the devastation the hokage’s loss has caused for the village and the last thing she wants is to make it worse.
Trying to come up with something, anything to bring him back home is causing her to draw a blank because what can she do to make the sort of changes he would need in order to come home? She’s not sure if she could make the political changes he wants to happen, happen. She’s not sure if she could bring about the sort of revolutionary upheaval he would delight in. She’s just a kid still and hasn’t had her first heat yet. She’s not going to be taken seriously by anyone here since she’s not some genius like Shikamaru or a special talent like Sasuke or Neji. To top it all off, she’s an omega Genin—they definitely won’t listen to her because she is all of the above. If she had been a Chunin, maybe they would have given her some consideration—as in, the smallest amount—but she’s not, so there’s no reason to believe she could make anything special happen on the political side of things.
Societal? Well, what else can she do there other than to keep fighting the sexist stereotypes set against and proving them wrong like she has been for years? What more can she actually do that hasn’t been done?
How much will she have to…how far will she have to go before Deidara can look at their village not in hate, but in adoration? She’s not sure and the answer honestly scares her deep down because she only sees a path of bloodshed awaiting her.
She stays by Sakura after the meeting because she’s the only one she can really talk to about this. She doesn’t want to bother her dad and her mom is already stressing herself out enough by trying to be inside their home as often as she does. The last thing she needs is to add one more stressor that could make them breakdown.
One day, Sakura calls her out on this and she’s not sure she wants to hear it, “I don’t mind spending time with you going to hot springs, training, or spending the night at your place or you spending the night at mine…but you haven’t spoken to Naruto lately. Have you seen Lee at all?”
“Just because I’m an omega doesn’t I have to hang out with omegas only.”
“I know that, but they’re your closest friends and Naruto is starting to get worried over you because you haven’t spoken to him ever since we saw Deidara.”
Ino looks away in guilt, Sakura knows this, yet she pushes the needle on the topic, “Why aren’t you talking to them? Did they do or say something to make you angry? We aren’t even dating—what’s the point in spending so much time with me?”
“Sakura, I don’t know what to do anymore.”
This took the alpha girl back, “Anymore with what?”
She met her gaze with watery blue eyes and a certain frustration she hadn’t seen since the night they saw Deidara, “I don’t know what to do anymore to bring Deidara back! I know the only way to make him want to come home is to improve the village, but the way he would want me to do it…you overheard him talking to me about it! You know he’d want blood spilled and I can’t do that for him!”
“Then don’t do that for him.”
“What can I do then to make this place good enough for him?”
“Why do you need to do that? Deidara is the one with a problem with this place; if he wants you to change anything about it, then he should have told you when he had the chance.”
Sakura groans then as it hits her like a ton of bricks, “…You’re still putting him first, aren’t you? You’re making yourself upset and doubting yourself and your goals all because of him.”
Ino fights this not because she’s mad but because she’s desperate for a real answer, “Of course I am! He was the only one who encouraged me into becoming the first ever omega kunoichi in the first place and he always put me first no matter what! I know I shouldn’t always put him first, but it’s a habit that’s not easy for me to kick, especially since so much of my own resolve into being a kunoichi was to bring him home…what will I do now that I know the only way to do it is a way I can’t?”
“Change your resolve then. Quit revolving everything around Deidara.”
She sighs when seeing the shock on her face, “I’m not saying this to be a jerk. I’m saying this to be honest with you in the way you would with me if I was in your shoes. You’ve spent far too much of your life putting Deidara first and revolving everything around him—I know it’s not something you can snap out of overnight. All I want is for you to have a goal in life that doesn’t center on putting someone else above yourself because that’s not how I want to see you live your life. I love you too much to let you do that, especially over someone like him.”
Immediately after saying this, a bright pink blush appears on her face before she clears her throat, “Anyway…you have other things in life you’re passionate about. Why not focus on one of those things instead of your brother? Why not make that your new resolve in being the first ever omega kunoichi if the title alone isn’t enough anymore?”
For Sakura’s sake, she doesn’t focus on the accidental confession. Instead, she thinks over what else it is that she is passionate about, something that could become her new resolve in becoming the first omega kunoichi now that bringing her brother home feels more like an impossible fever dream as opposed to anything grounded in reality.
Which when she thinks about it for a brief minute, is incredibly obvious.
“…Yeah… I could focus on becoming first ever omega kunoichi to give omega girls hope that they can be more than what they’re told they can be.”
“Huh, at first I thought you’d focus more on the whole ‘fighting against sexist stereotypes to make the village a better place for Deidara to return home to’ thing. Why didn’t you think of that right away?”
“Because you’re right; I can’t live my whole life putting him first and foremost in everything. I have to have my own goals outside of him, I have to have my own life outside of him, and the first step to doing that is to stop bringing him home when there’s nothing I can do to convince him to come back.” from her spot on Sakura’s bed, she leans against the alpha’s shoulder when going on, “Deidara will always have something to complain about with this village. The only way he’d be happy is if the hokage and elders are dead, which is something I refuse to do because I do think Tsunade can change things for the better if given the chance…but that won’t ever matter to him. I’ve been seeing that more when I think about our conversation. So there’s no point in bothering with him anymore, not when he won’t ever come back anyway.”
Sakura wonders then, “What about making the village a better place for omegas at societal wise? Don’t you care about that?”
“I will be making it a better place societal wise by proving myself to be a strong, capable kunoichi who’s not defined by her secondary gender alone. I just won’t be doing it for Deidara’s sake anymore. I’ve done enough for him; it’s time I really start living for me.”
She thinks this is where the conversation will end only to be met with Ino sitting up from her previous position and saying something she’d never thought she’d hear, “A part of living my life for me means stopping to care about what Deidara thinks about my dates or potential mates.”
“Is this going where I think it’s going?” forgive Sakura for sounding nervously excited, but it’s just—she never thought she’d actually see this day.
“If you think it’s going to end with me saying I want to date you, then yeah, it’s going there.” frozen in her spot from pure delight that is building up inside her, trying to get out yet trapped somehow, inner Sakura is shrieking in joy, ‘YES, cha! Ha, take that Deidara! You can’t stop this from happening now!’
She must have been too frozen or something for Ino to notice it, “Are you okay?”
“Oh, yeah, totally okay!”
…Her voice was at least three octaves too high and she’s positive she’s getting jittery all over.
She’s only lucky that it’s Ino who makes the first move: she gets off the edge of the bed she had been sitting next to her on and she moves in front of her, “Sakura, I have been spending a lot of time with you lately…mainly because you’re the only one I can talk to about things concerning Deidara, but it wasn’t for that reason alone: I also like being by you. It’s something I had forgotten after years of not getting along, but I like being by you and being by you makes me happy despite what Deidara said about it all being in my head. I don’t want to go without you much longer, so do you want to go out on a date with me one of these days?”
Her response was to be as cringey as possible, “Y-Yeah! I mean, that’s cool as ice with me—ah! No, what I mean is—”
Ino chuckled a bit before kissing her, making sparks fly throughout her body in ways she never fantasized were possible, with the effect having to be the same to Ino as well since she did nothing to stop it when Sakura took control.
When it ended, she cleared her throat, “Sorry about that…what I mean is, yes I’d love to go out on a date with you.”
“Great, though I figured you would, what with the love confession and all.”
“Y-Yeah…well…things slip out at times, I’m only human, you know!”
“I know, I know…” she has an idea that she hopes she will like, “Do you want to go to a tea shop with me? I promise it will be really good and I heard on Thursdays they serve new flavors of tea.”
“Sounds good…what time and day do you want to go?”
“I was thinking Thursday at twelve. I have to do more work at the flower shop for a while, so lunch breaks would be the best time for us to go out on a date.”
“I can work with that; I’ll stop by the flower shop and walk with you there.”
“Great!” while Sakura loves to see Ino giving her a happy smile, she does feel the need to tell her this before she forgets and Naruto chews her out for it, “By the way…you really need to see Naruto and Lee today.”
“What for? Are they mad at me?”
“No, it’s not that! I told them the lie your dad said to tell people about our meeting with Deidara and they understand why you need your space now…they just wish you’d speak to them more about what’s bothering you.”
Ino immediately looked downtrodden after hearing this, but Sakura wasn’t going to let this ruin their moment, “I didn’t want to tell you this now because I knew it’d ruin the moment, but I keep forgetting to and Naruto will have my head if I don’t tell you now.”
She raises a brow to this, her curiosity piqued, “What do you need to tell me?”
Sakura sighs deeply, her eyes full of concern when speaking, “Tsunade tried to change the laws in the village concerning adoption and protection for omegas in abusive clans, but it failed miserably with the elders so nothing was done. Because of that, Lee is going back home to his mother tomorrow.”
Ino’s breath hitched in her throat and Sakura didn’t stop her when she gave her a quick ‘goodbye, see you on Thursday’ as she rushed out of the room and soon, out of the Haruno home she had been in alone only moments before with Sakura.
Lee…of course…how could she have forgotten Lee!
Her dear, sweet friend who’s going back to a horrible home all because of those damned village elders who refuse to change their conservative ways!
She has to find Might Guy—she has to see Lee and check in on him to be sure everything’s okay.
To find Might Guy, she has to go find Asuma sensei; she knows to find him she has to go to where he is training Shikamaru and Chouji. She would have gone to the training session, but there was too much on her mind concerning Deidara and what to do now that things have changed so much since seeing him again.
…She was being stupid. She shouldn’t have ever let her brother come before her friends like this, especially when he’s not here!
It was by pure dumb fate that she was stopped by the one person she didn’t give a fair chance to for years because of Deidara, “Ino, we need to talk.”
She groaned in response, “Not now, Sasuke! I need to find Lee, I can’t do that if I’m stuck talking to you!”
“No, we need to talk right now.” he insists when grabbing her by the arm, “There’s something important you need to see.”
“I don’t have the time—”
“Seeing Lee can wait. Besides, Naruto is waiting for us and I don’t want to keep him waiting.”
She was about to fight him on it when he told her something he should have said right from the start, “He’s going to be meeting up with Lee today. If you want to find Lee, you’re better off coming with me to see Naruto yourself and talk to him about it in person.”
Giving in due to the convenience of it all, she tries her best to be civil with him, “Alright, I’ll go with you.”
“Good. Follow my lead; I’m not carrying any other omega in my arms or on my back other than Naruto.”
…Not like she would ever want him to if he can talk like he’s so desirable! Maybe her dislike of Sasuke wasn’t completely because of her brother after all…
No matter, it’s not what she’s focusing on.
She doesn’t know what he wants to talk to her about, but she doesn’t care about that. What she cares about is seeing Lee and talking to him in person about what is going on with him.