God would forgive me
But I –I whip myself scorn, scorn.

- Damien Rice, 'I remember'

Chapter II: Ino

She finds it amusing, now, when the target compares her to a flower.

Her male comrades know better than to make the comparison, but she encounters it too frequently during her missions. It had stung a little when she heard it the first few times, a small tugging at her heart reminding her of who she thought she would be, what she used to believe; after all, long gone are the days of girlish aspirations, of dreams shared publicly and prettily coded with metaphors of flowers and blossoming (or whatever rubbish she had told Sakura-pig all those years ago). The only flowers kunoichi can ever aspire to be are the dead ones, rotting and bleeding their colours dry for the sake of Konoha.

Or a bigger pay packet. But mostly Konoha.

These days, though, she finds herself able to laugh at the stale joke, and so she merely twists her lips into a coquettish smile, tossing pale blonde locks over a bared shoulder. Thank you, she says. Would you like to join me tonight? It's awfully lonely around here and my bed is big enough for two.

Good morning, whore. She surveys herself with brittle humour the next morning in the bathroom mirror, carefully reapplying the lipstick smudged off from last night. Even after all that has changed Ino is still as vain as ever. She gives a short, dry bark of laughter at the thought. How trite, really.

Her cunt is sore. There are raw teeth marks puncturing the pale skin of her left breast, love-bites along her throat and one more dead man sprawled across the sheets of her hotel bed. Konoha is safe for another day, thanks to the secrets she'd ripped away from him with each arch of her back, each lick of her tongue on sweaty skin. Ino wonders why she still cares.

After a moment's cool deliberation she supposes that Konoha is her home, and she supposes that she likes it and its occupants to a satisfactory degree. (It's all a lie, of course. Ino knows she's doing this because she fucking loves Konoha, loves her idiotic and beautiful friends, family and sensei - loves them so much that it hurts more than anything a groping politician or soon-dead criminal could do to her.) Funny, then, how she can't bear to live near them. Ino hasn't stayed in Konoha for longer than a fortnight since she turned eighteen, taking mission after mission, volunteering for all the jobs that take her away from her village for as long as possible. Wind, Rock, Wave, Rain. She's seen them all but she hasn't seen Shikamaru or Chouji in a month, Sakura in nearly two, has never seen Kurenai's baby or her pa's newly decorated flower store. Merely thinking of them makes her feel unclean; actually being around them is almost unbearable.

By afternoon she is back in Sunagakure, the base from where she has completed half a dozen small jobs over the past three weeks. Tsunade has simply taken to sending her on batches of such missions in and around Wind country, effectively lending her to Gaara as a further cementing of the two villages' strategic ties. She wanders through the market, buys a skewer of grilled meat and leans against the wall of a teahouse, watching the colorful throng bustling in the street and trying to ignore the dull ache between her thighs.

"Got back early?"

A familiar figure separates from the crowd and makes his way towards her, smiling affably through purple face paint.

"Hey, Kankurou." She doesn't bother smiling back. He crosses his arms and eyes her sympathetically.

"Tough mission, huh."

She shrugs.

"So you still up for dinner tonight?" He tilts his head to the side. "Haven't yet shown you that restaurant I ranted about last time and the guilt over your deprivation kills me silently inside. You'll like it, promise."

"Maybe….." She's genuinely apathetic but flips her hair coyly anyway. Flirtation is a habit now, a skill, done more out of instinct than for any real pleasure.

"C'mon, you said you were up for it last week."

"Yeah, okay." He wouldn't have taken no for an answer anyway, and Ino feels a flutter of annoyance and shame in her chest at the way he immediately grins smugly at her. I am not a charity case, she wants to say, but she doesn't because she shouldn't and he hasn't stopped finding excuses to treat her nicely since the evening he found her crying in a deserted office in the Kazekage tower, months ago, trying irrationally to wipe away the bruises left on her thighs by a particularly nasty target of hers who had a penchant for hurting his women.

"I commend you for your wise decision." He flashes her a thumbs up and adjusts the puppets hanging from his shoulders. "Pick you up from the offices at seven?"

Ino smiles faintly. "See you there." And then he is gone, and she throws her meal away and wanders down the street, feeling the grit gather between her toes and her sandals, the hot sun prickling at her neck. The Kazekage tower looms craggily in the background and she begins to amble in its general direction, planning to complete some paperwork before evening settled and Kankurou whisked her off for yet another pity session.

His reaction had hardly been dramatic when he found her, curled beneath a desk, rubbing at the bruises marring the pale skin of her inner thighs. Most shinobi knew better than to intrude on another's privacy when they were mentally or emotionally unstable. Kankurou had stayed outside the room, framed by the white glare from the corridor, watching her look away and shrink into the shadows before leaving without a word and closing the door gently behind him. She'd been surprised and wary, then, when he had suddenly appeared the next evening at the bar she frequented, approaching her corner with a bottle of sake in one hand and inviting himself to the seat beside her. She'd greeted him with no more than a curt nod; they'd seen each other around the main streets every so often, sometimes alone, sometimes with another woman or man in tow, but had never spent time in each other's company outside of work until then.

"Explored the place much by now?" he asks casually, leaning back and biting down on the rim of his bottle with a faint click. He looks faintly ridiculous in the trendy bar with perky kitty ears and face paint still on. The dim light gleams along a strong, square jaw line, cleanly shaven.

"Just the main touristy areas." She shrugs. "The plaques, the Hokage monuments. Central Fountain."

"Pretty pathetic, if you ask me."

"I didn't."

"Why don't you let me show you around?" She rolls her eyes and turns to reject the obvious pick up with a bitchy retort, but pauses; he's offering her a genuine smile and his eyes are on her face instead of her chest. Or legs. (Unlike the four teenage pups slouching across a nearby table, ogling her newly acquired tan with obvious approval.) He's only pitying her for last night, she realises, but she's too tired to care and pushes the thought away, giving him an appraising look instead.

"When?"

"I'm free most of tomorrow," he offers hopefully.

"Meet me at the main square tomorrow at three?"

"Sure thing." A thumbs up and a boyish grin; she's momentarily reminded of Naruto.

"It's not a date, you know." But she's smiling already anyway, damn him.

"Got it." His grin widens. "Not a date. 'Course not. Absolutely platonic. No shenanigans whatsoever. Nope."

And that had been that. For the past few months he'd continued to ask her out every time she returned to Sunagakure for yet another batch of missions; for reasons she'd refrained from thinking about Ino had continued to agree to them, though she had never deluded herself into thinking that his attention stemmed from anything other than pity, concern for a foreign shinobi living away from home and obviously struggling alone. Ino feels the familiar sting of humiliation when she remembers this and briefly considers canceling their dinner tonight. She can still turn back, search him out and tell him to leave her the fuck alone because she doesn't need him, not this way. Not like this.

"Ino-san." A glimpse of pale skin, a light tap on her shoulder; Ino turns around and her eyes widen in surprise.

"Hinata! Hey…..I didn't know you were coming." It's been a long time since she's last met the other woman. She scrutinizes her discreetly, noticing the way she really is standing straighter now than before, the way her hands rest casually by her side. Ino is glad for it.

Hinata smiles wistfully and shrugs.

"I'm here with Kurenai-sensei for Tenten-san," she tells her softly. "We arrived in Sunagakure just last night. Are you going to the headquarters?"

"Tenten's back already?" Ino asks blandly as they begin to walk down the street. "I thought her team wasn't supposed to arrive with the refugees till tomorrow." Hinata hesitates, a confused expression on her face.

"You haven't heard…..?"

Ino glances at her sharply. "Heard about what?"

"But I thought that you'd –"

"I've been away for the past week," she explains impatiently, frowning. "Has anything happened to Tenten?"

"Well…..something went wrong with the mission. There was a raid on the refugee train." Hinata licks her lips, keeps her eyes on the road ahead. "We think it might have been genjutsu from the rebels up north that caused it. Tenten-san, she…..she killed half the refugees before anyone could stop her. It wasn't her fault."

Half? Ino's throat has gone dry and she stops in her tracks. "That's more than a hundred dead. My God, what are they going to do to her? She could be fucking executed for that!" The Hyuuga does not reply but flinches at her words. Ino knows that it is answer enough. "Where is she now? What's happening?"

"Be careful." Hinata puts a warning finger to her lips, lowering her voice. "The civilians don't know yet; Temari-san's doing her best to control the situation, so the surviving refugees are still being kept some distance from the village. Tenten-san's being held in the interrogation cells. Kurenai-sensei and I have been given three months to find the genjutsu she was put under so we could perhaps lighten her sentence….look, I'll explain everything on our way there." She puts a hand on Ino's elbow and guides her gently forwards. "Kurenai-sensei is there already, we should hurry."

Twenty minutes later they have made their way down to the basement of the Kazekage tower, hurrying through the clinical, perfectly compartmentalized offices of the Interrogation unit. Ino feels something twist deep in her gut when she finds three of Team Gai leaning silently against the wall, closely watched by several Sand shinobi while a few feet away Temari exchanges tense words with Kurenai near a glass paneled cell. Tenten is sitting alone inside, eyes blank, shackled hands resting heavily on the table before her. She is not an exhibit, Ino thinks angrily as she thrusts forwards, not even bothering to greet the others. This is ridiculous, how can they treat her like this and oh God why isn't anyone in there to help her?

"Tenten?" she asks uncertainly, but the kunoichi can't hear her and does not even look up when Ino presses a palm against the cool glass. Temari turns and rests a hand on her shoulder.

"You shouldn't be here." Her words are hesitant and the warning half-hearted. Ino ignores her and pulls away.

"What do you know so far?" She looks imploringly at Kurenai. "Kurenai-san?"

"Not much." Kurenai is rifling grimly through several reports. "The interrogation officers here have done their best but Tenten can't provide enough information, unsurprisingly. She can't determine when the genjustsu started, only when it ended, so her portrayal of what happened can only be what the illusion had consisted of – what she had been made to see - but not what had really happened during the hallucination."

"That's all?"

"Well, we have one lead…it's not much, but we found traces of a certain type of pollen–"

"Kurenai-san," Temari cuts in impatiently, standing up straight, "she hasn't been authorized to know about the classified information. If this leaks out there'll be nothing I can do about the public reaction and God knows I've found it hard enough to keep things quiet for now. Ino-san, please -"

"Tell her." Neji's voice is cold, detached. He's refusing to look at them, but his expression is so hard Ino can see the brittleness threatening to fracture him from the inside out. "Tell her what she needs to know," he demands again, and Lee steps forward by his side.

"Ino-san is good with plants, Temari-san. Please." He crafts his words too quietly, carefully, and Ino hates the audible, almost begging lilt in his tone because for once Lee actually sounds afraid.

"He's right, I've been trained, it's my clan's secondary expertise…..I can help." She looks the other blonde in the eye. "Tsunade-sama will endorse my addition to the investigation team, I'm sure."

Hinata nods. "I can vouch for that."

"Is that so?" Temari snaps back testily, running a hand through the wild tangles in her hair. "I doubt this is a good idea, you-"

"Let me help her, damn it!" Her voice is rising because she is desperate – they wouldn't really force her to stand by and just watch her friend be condemned, would they? Could they?

"Don't talk to me like that! You…oh you know what, fuck it." Ino sees her steal a glance at Tenten through the glass and bite her lip, hard. "Do what you want," she growls, half in frustration and half in poorly concealed worry, nodding stiffly at Ino before turning on her heels and striding away. "I'll deal with the paperwork. You'll be excused from your missions for the time being. Let me know what you decide later."

"Thank you," she calls after the other blonde, but Temari only waves a hand dismissively and disappears around the corner.

"So…." Kurenai gives a little cough once she is out of earshot. "As I was saying, we found traces of pollen in Tenten's airways – lungs, trachea, a touch at the corner of her mouth. We can't identify the species from a preliminary analysis, but we suspect that it might be a kind of….not sedative, no, but perhaps a substance that could cause her to be more susceptible to genjustsu. I don't see how she could have succumbed to it for such a lengthy duration, no matter how strong the technique may be."

"Is that so…..?" Ino frowns. She has never heard of any flower that could produce that effect. "How could it have gotten into her? Was it found on any of the refugees?"

"Nothing has been found on the few bodies that we've examined so far." Hinata shakes her head. "Besides, that's assuming the attacker spread the pollen into the air from afar, which could hardly have produced the concentration we found in her airways."

"So you're saying the attacker was right next to her?" she asks, surprised. "But then how would he have managed to escape in time after casting the genjustsu? I don't understand, this would mean that –"

"The attacker's corpse might be one of the hundred and forty two we've got kept in the morgue right now," Kurenai finishes smoothly. "A suicide attack, mostly likely."

"So if we can find a body with the pollen on it…" she trails off, raising an eyebrow.

"As I said, we've only had time so far to search through a few of the dead," Hinata tells her quietly, "and Kurenai-sensei and I simply don't have the time to stay here to complete the examination. We think it will be best if we leave tonight and directly investigate the nomadic rebel tribes up north."

"Then I'll do it." Ino nods. "I'll go through the corpses and see what I can find out about the pollen for the time being. And if I find the attacker's body…..?"

"It'll help us refine the search to a specific tribe, at least. We'll be back every few weeks or so to check up on your progress." Kurenai puts down the reports and leans against a nearby table, looking slightly relieved. "I'm really glad you're here, Ino."

"We've missed you in Konoha," Hinata adds, smiling, and suddenly Ino remembers all her shame and humiliation and the reasons why she really isn't worth this sort of sentiment from her friends.

"I've been busy," she shrugs, wrapping her arms around herself and forcing a smile. "I…..I guess I should be off to the morgue, then?"

"I doubt you'd be allowed in before Temari-san completes the authorization paperwork," the Hyuuga reminds her gently.

"Then I'll stay here with Tenten."

"There's no need." Hinata gestures discreetly in Team Gai's direction. "Tenten-san will be fine, they'll make sure she's alright… I think it's best they have some time alone. It's getting late and you look tired, perhaps you should just rest for now?"

"I...no, I'm alright." Ino hesitates; she's just recalled that Kankurou's supposed to pick her up in less than an hour. God, it seems so fucking ridiculous now, going out for dinner at some fancy restaurant as if nothing is wrong and Tenten isn't in danger. The mere notion disgusts her. Kankurou will have to wait. "I'll head to the labs, check out the pollen. I'm sure I can do that, at least."

"Ino-san –"

"Good luck, Hinata, Kurenai-san. Take care." She presses a hand against Hinata's cheek, takes one last look at Tenten's prone form and flees.

It is a little past three in the morning when Kankurou arrives at the lab. She hears the door open behind her and knows it is him by the hollow sound his puppet makes as he rests it on the floor. The room is dark and cold and reeks of bleach, a small circlet of light shimmering where Ino has been working alone for the past few hours. The pollen is foreign and impossible to identify without references, but it is far too late at night to ask Temari for books on the native flora and fauna; for now she can only experiment, tease out the characteristics of the impractically small sample of red dust collected from Tenten's body.

"Still working?" He's lingering by the doorway. She doesn't bother turning around.

"You didn't tell me about this," she says instead, the quiet accusation lacing her voice with steel.

He knows what she's talking about immediately and doesn't pretend otherwise. "You looked tired," he says simply, shoving his hands into his pockets. Ino pauses, glances back at him over her shoulder with an incredulous expression.

"What, so you thought you'd be doing me a favour by keeping me in the dark? Did you think I wouldn't hear about it anyway?"

"You had enough to worry about."

"Tenten is my friend, I have the right to worry about her!"

"I'm sorry," he offers, sounding decidedly unapologetic as he walks in and leans against the lab table. Ino sighs, puts down her work and turns to face him properly.

"What do you want?" she asks irritably, too tired to care that she's being rude.

"You should rest, you know, it's what most people do every now and then."

"I'm not tired." But it's a blatant lie that falters on her lips; her eyes are red and stinging from examining the tiny specks of pollen for too long. He raises an eyebrow acerbically and she scowls. "I don't want to sleep, anyway."

"At least stop working for a while. C'mon, Ino, you don't have to be so hard on yourself all the time."

"And you care because?"

"Because you skipped a dinner date with me?"

She glances up at him quickly. "It wasn't going to be a date."

"Fine. It doesn't make a difference." He shrugs. "Want to go for a walk?"

"At this time of the night? Don't you have missions tomorrow?" she asks, skeptical. Kankurou sighs dramatically.

"Alas, I happen to be a man who is often too willing to make such sacrifices for the general happiness and well being of others," he informs her, grinning smugly when she can't help but smile a little at his theatrics. "Anything's better than letting you rot here all night. Let's go."

And despite herself Ino follows when he turns and ambles out the door, down the stairs and out of the Kazekage tower. The desert is cold at night, the air less gritty. They make their way silently to the main plaza before turning left and heading towards the eastern gate. Her muscles are aching and she knows that he must be tired, too, but they keep walking and walking further out of the village. For the briefest moment Ino lets herself pretend that she's walking away from everything that entangles her with those she loves, the dirt and the grime and the shame and the hurt and the fear. (And yet….you can never really walk away from yourself, can you?)

"You should have told me anyway," she berates him eventually while they stroll through the streets, watching the solid clay houses thin into older, dusty shacks as they emerge upon the boundary between the village and the wide expanse of desert.

"I didn't want to be the one to break the news," he admits ruefully, tugging Karasu tighter against his back and glancing at her reaction.

"Oh," she says, not looking at him. "I see."

They find a bench near the gate facing the desert. Ino shivers a little at the feel of the cold stone against her bare skin and curls her knees up, watching the gentle dunes rise and fall towards the horizon, dyed indigo in the night. She can hear him breathing evenly nearby and it calms her, somehow; the stinging in her eyes has subsided to a dull ache and she looks sideways at him sleepily, examining the profile outlined in silver by what's left of the moonlight. Kankurou has forgone his face paint for the night and she's known for some time now that he's handsome underneath it, in a rugged, boyish kind of way, different from Sasuke but not unpleasantly so. He's coarser, more roughly hewn, and she's seen the way he can look so menacing when he's irritated, almost brutish, all strong lines and thick muscle, but really he's quite nice looking and laid back most of the time with his relaxed, steady grin and she's really falling asleep now, isn't she, because she can't seem to think coherently and….

Her eyes are slowly drifting shut when he catches her looking and raises an eyebrow.

"Enjoying the view?" he teases gently, and Ino is too sleepy to respond but she can feel the corner of her mouth quirking up into a smile anyway, damn him.

The next thing she knows is that she is being shaken gently awake. Kankurou is leaning close and when she blearily opens her eyes she can see the crack of light illuminating the underbelly of the sky. Dawn is breaking; the air is palpably warmer.

"Fuck, how long have we been here?" she murmurs, stretching out and sprawling lazily across the bench. Her fingertips brush lightly against his thigh. He doesn't reply and so she turns back and they watch wordlessly as the world fractures in the dawn.

Sunrise in Sungakure is a quick affair: abrupt, explosive, brilliant. The thin gleam lining the horizon trembles beneath a vast expanse of black, before it cracks and bleeds and stains outwards; for the briefest moment in time the world is poised on the brink of light and dark. Then suddenly the sky shatters, the blackness crumbles and the harsh Suna sun coats the landscape in hot, sweaty gold. The stars melt into a hard blue oblivion.

"Not very romantic, is it?" Kankurou almost sounds apologetic by her side, and Ino fights the urge to roll her eyes.

"No," she replies shortly. A pause. "I like it better than what we get in Konoha."

Konohan dawns are slow and lingering and rosy, and Ino thinks they are lies, all lies.

"Do you." There's a strange lilt to his voice. Ino looks up sharply and finds him staring at her stomach, a wide stretch of skin exposed where she had unknowingly let her shirt ride up against the bench. Bite marks puncture the pale skin, a throbbing trail that winds steadily up and disappears under the taut fabric at her chest.

"Don't look," she breathes out harshly, mortified, jerking up and tugging her shirt down.

"Ino-"

"Don't." Her cheeks are burning.

"It's not your fault." She stands up. He reaches forwards and grabs her by the hand but she tugs away rudely. "Ino, c'mon, I don't care-"

"I don't want your sympathy," she hisses, more panicked than angry.

"It's not –"

"Stop it, Kankurou, okay? Stop it. Stop trying to be so damn romantic and kind and – and what are you trying to do, convince me that everything's just fine? That out of missions I can just conveniently revert into some innocent, chaste little thing who looks forwards to receiving flowers or getting taken out on nice dinners and watching the fucking sunrise? What I've done during missions and this -" she gestures at the desert, at the horizon where the dawn had bled itself dry, "- all these things that you're trying to thrust upon me, they can't coexist. Whores don't dream of the sun, Kankurou."

"You do." He's standing up now, so close that he's towering over her; she tilts her chin up defiantly but there's no accusation in his eyes and she feels momentarily disoriented.

"You don't know what you're talking about," she sneers, and she's grasping at the periphery of her anger, trying to find solid ground to stand upon and fight this man who seems to think he can just wash away all the dirt on her body, all the kisses that taint her skin, but she can't seem to find the reasons to push him away and he's smiling and he's kind and he's gentle and rough and blunt all at the same time. "You don't, do you," she repeats, wincing at the way her voice falters ever so slightly and exposes a fleeting rawness that betrays what might actually be hope.

But he insists: "You like spending time with me. You like it when I show you around the village and take you out to dinner. You wanted to walk with me tonight and you enjoyed watching the sunrise in my company."

"And your point is?" she snaps, flustered and scared. "Kankurou, I'm…I'm not one of your damn puppets, you can't…." she trails off when he shakes his head.

"Don't be mad at me, Ino," he says simply. "I'm not trying to fix you."

She swallows. "Yes, you are."

"I would be a fool to try to," he tells her, and when he raises a hand to cradle her cheek she finds that she doesn't really mind, finds herself involuntarily leaning into his warm, calloused palm. "I just thought you wanted a friend."

Silence. She opens her mouth to reply but closes it again when she realises she doesn't know quite how to answer. She looks down, plays with the edge of her shirt; she still feels dirty, fouled with kisses she didn't want, and the shallow cuts still hurt along her hip and breasts like stinging reminders of the men she did not choose. But then his thumb brushes across the corner of her mouth: "…..Ino?" And when she looks up again she sees kindness, not sympathy, and she finally resigns herself to the fact that they're really not the same things and that he isn't offering her a cure, but something else entirely.

So be it.

She arches an eyebrow. "A friend?" she repeats primly, allowing a small smile to flit flirtatiously across her face (and for the first time in a long time she actually enjoys doing it). She trails a fingernail softly down his chest. "I have enough friends, Kankurou." Meow.

"Well, more than a friend then, I guess," he grins widely, moving his hand up to tousle her hair affectionately. Then he leans down, pulling her close to murmur into her ear: "C'mon, Ino. Give a man a chance, will you?"

Will I? Ino wonders, but her arms are already coming up to hold him too tightly to be a no, and when she rests her forehead against his chest he is solid and safe and warm and for the first time in a long, long while Ino thinks that she will be alright.