The first Ino-Shika-Cho, so it was said, won the right to join in the building of Konoha by beating Hashirama Senju and Uchiha Madara in a contest of wits.
How true is this?
As true as any other story regarding Konoha's first years. Yes, the three clans approached Hashirama as a united front. Yes, even before becoming ninja of Konoha, the Ino-Shika-Cho trio had existed and each generation fought and died together.
The ties between them were old and strong. They were not movers of mountains or users of godlike jutsus, but so long as they stood side-by-side-by-side, so long as one was the thinker and one the deceiver and one the pure unmitigated force, they were something to be reckoned with.
Ino Yamanaka thinks of these things, as she watches her son.
Theirs were battles of mettle tested, friends and lovers and parents lost. Theirs had been a world nearly torn apart. Ino had been damn sure she didn't want that kind of world for the children she intended to have, and so- with her shika and her cho- she had made sure it wouldn't happen.
Oh, Sakura had stolen the charge and Naruto had taken the glory, sure. Sasuke's return had galvanized their legend- and who could even doubt that they would be legends, in the end?
Ino tells herself she doesn't mind, and she means it, for the most part. Ino-Shika-Cho was not meant to be famous. They were meant to endure, to stand fast as everything around them ebbed and flowed. So another tale in ninja history mentioned their moniker, like other tales with other war gods. A constant footnote in history, an always and forever.
When Karui asks if they should teach their children, Ino almost agrees with her. It is a peace hard-won, and in the face of rapid and frightening progress what need is there for legends and footnotes? Their ways are changing, the seasons turning and pulling away. All worlds are destined to be passed from parent to child.
Inojin doesn't know his mother's thoughts. Inojin is obedient and observant and everything Ino could have wished for in a son, in the next pig of the best hanafuda hand ever to grace a battlefield. He learns his clan's techniques with a surety that would have made his grandfather proud, carries himself like he deserves the bush clover and he does.
Ino imagines Inojin, hand pressed to Shikadai's head, directing Chouchou like a human battering ram.
Ino imagines Inojin, mind in a dying body, panicking, trying to remember how to let go.
Ino imagines Inojin fighting his sensei's reanimated corpse.
Ino closes her eyes and presses tightly to Sai and reminds herself that she is still here, that Chouji and Shikamaru are still there and that their clans still hold strong. She reminds herself as she arranges flowers, takes missions, makes her son's meals, that no matter how the world changes one thing will remain the same.
The power of the weapon is only equal to the sum of its parts.
And yes, there are bumps. Yes, Chouchou isn't interested and Shikadai thinks it's troublesome. There's always work to be done, if you want a pig, a deer, and a butterfly to agree.
Ino thinks about what Karui says, and she decides that Karui is wrong.
If there is no room for Ino-Shika-Cho, they will make it. They will steal it, stun it, beat it bloody into the ground with fists the size of tree trunks.
Maybe it won't be how Ino would do it, not how Shikamaru or Chouji would do it.
(for one thing her son plays too many damned video games.)
Yet Ino is sure, as sure as she is that purple is her color, that Ino-Shika-Cho will be a footnote in another battle, in another place.
There are always battles, and there are always great ninja to fight them.
There's always teamwork, too, and a triad of clans who learned long ago that the weapon is only equal to the sum of its parts.
Ino Yamanaka teaches her son, and lets the world change for the better.