Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters, merchandise, TV rights, ect… (I think you get the point.)

Summery

Sometimes in life you have to see things right through to the bitter end, even if you wish you didn't. (Sasuke/Ino)

Like all of my work this is just something that happened to float through the empty void inside my head. Like it or hate it please R and R as honest opinions are always welcomed, as are random acts of worship.

Lamb: As always sorry for any bad spelling and if you feel the need to throw things at me please wait until I've hidden behind the sofa kay!

Muse: On with the fic!

It's a fucking waste,
Teenage taste of me,
But if daddy cries,
You say goodnight and I'll come,
If I could change,
And keep away the rain...
Well the sun would shine every night and I'll come...
Meet you there someday,

Start to Finish

One of the gate guards was already speeding back from the Hokage tower, said Hokage in tow, by the time Ino had rounded the last bend on the main road into Konoha. The message had come that the blonde kunoichi was back, but that only she was back at which point Naruto had already been on his way out of his office and heading for the main gate. The mind walker had just made it to the gate when the frantic blond village leader reached her, his hands instantly went to her shoulders as he began to shake her demanding to know what had happened and why Sasuke was not with her.

"Naruto!" The scream echoed through Ino's throbbing skull and she was vaguely aware that someone was pulling Naruto off of her. "Remember you're Hokage, you can't act like this. And it's clear Yamanaka isn't in any fit state to be treated like this."

Ino didn't hear the surly response that the male in question gave Lady Tsunade, for it was she who had halted Naruto mid demanded question. Alerted to the fact that something was wrong by the that way her young successor had bolted through the Hokage tower, she had followed out of natural curiosity and also because it gave her a good reason to get out of doing more dull paperwork.

"I'm fine." Ino said quietly, but with enough force to stop the argument that was beginning between the two other blondes. "Really. I'm fine, just tired."

"If you're so fine then –" He started, the accusation blazing brightly in electric blue eyes.

"Shut up!" The amber-eyed woman easily silenced the sixth with the barked out order. "Have you no brains at all in that skull of yours? Yamanaka, come with us to the Hokage tower and make your report there since I hardly think this is a discussion to be having in the middle of the damn street."

"H… hai." The confirmation was more of a sigh than a word as Ino tried to prevent herself from swaying on the spot.

The two one time members of the Rookie Nine followed the legendary Sannin as she turned on her heal and stalked back in the direction she had come. Even though she had retired, Tsunade still wore the mantle of power so lightly, something that Naruto envied at times. Though at others it he was grateful that she could keep a clear head when he was on the point of loosing control, such as now. He was too close to Sasuke to be able to distance himself and had immediately jumped on the blonde, demanding answers from her.

His train of thought was broken when Ino stumbled and almost lost her footing, something that was highly unusual in any shinobi and definitely surprising for the Ino that he knew. Instinctively he put an arm around her to steady her and as she gratefully leaned her weight against him and for the first time since he had come tearing down Konoha's main road looked at her properly. The girl was a mess.

Normally sleek silver blonde hair was now a mass of matted rats tails, her arms and legs were covered with cuts and scraps. There were rips in the dark purple fabric of her clothing and dirt and blood was caked to her skin and under her fingernails, which were torn and broken. There were bruises around her wrists and one had formed on her face covering her left cheek and eye. Her eyes, they appeared sunken in her face, dull and empty and dark circles like sooty thumbprints surrounded them as if she hadn't slept for days.

Which in fact she hadn't.

XXXXXXXXXX

Ino looked from the bloodstained headband that lay on the desk to the distraught face of Uzumaki Naruto and back down again and steeled herself to do something she had never thought she would. Lie to her Hokage.

"The mission was a success," Was that first thing she said, getting the fact out the way as quickly as possible so that she could tell the blond what it was he really wanted to know. "The scroll has been destroyed."

"And Sasuke?" His voice was so quite as to be almost inaudible; his eyes fixed on the headband of his best friend while his fingers toyed with the edge of the dark blue fabric.

Naruto had felt the pain of Sasuke's betrayal more deeply than anyone else had and though he had tried not to show it, it had been clear that he had blamed himself for not being able to bring his friend home. Guilt had set a fire deep within him; it was what had motivated him to push himself so hard. Determined to become strong enough to make up for all the times he had failed. To finally become strong enough to bring his friend home no matter what.

And then all these years later, back the Uchiha had come. And though Naruto had tried to be cautious, tried to keep himself from trusting too easily in his old team-mate he had not been able to hide how happy he was that the wanderer had returned to Konoha. And more over that he had returned of his own freewill, not been sent to spy or as the start of an invasion, but had come home because it was what he wanted. Ino had seen with her own eyes the joy that had filled her friend and could not, would not, take that away from him.

"He… He protected me." Without realising it the blonde rapped her arms tightly around her torso, hugging her body protectively for the little comfort it would give her. "I was stupid and got into a situation I couldn't control and if it hadn't of been for Sasuke I'd be dead… or worse."

There was no need for Ino to explain what would have been worse than death, the look of mingled rage and disgust on Naruto's face and Tsunade's sharp intake of breath were more than enough to confirm they knew what she was talking about. Rape was an occupational hazard for a kunoichi, but knowing that didn't make being confronted with the reality that it had almost happened any easier to deal with. Not for Ino. Not for anyone.

It was on of the reasons the ratio of male to female ninja was so high. It was not easy to live every day with the prospect of pain and death, but it became a lot harder when the fear of sexual assault was also factored in. Kunoichi were strong and tough, but first and foremost they were just young woman, and many woman could not cope with the risks that came with the ninja lifestyle. Rape was the only crime Ino knew of where people could blame the victim. Someone sticks a knife in your face and demands money, they're the one in the wrong but if they demand sex all the rules change.

Step by painful step the blonde kunoichi took them through the mission starting with the small group they had encountered on the first night and ending with her forty-six straight hour return journey to Konoha. Leaving out only what had transpired between herself and Sasuke on the last night. She told them of how Sasuke and she had uncovered the information about the scrolls whereabouts about how too that they had also unwittingly discovered what said scroll pertained to. Ino gave an edited version of the ambush on the temple making sound as if they had separated to attack from different angles rather than that she was there on her own.

And most traumatic of all, the blonde had spoken of how she had been grabbed by a group of the thieves and how the confines of the building had hampered her ability to evade them. She said how they had held her down, the things they had said and the stench of their rancid breath in her face. And then finally of how Sasuke had come to her rescue, saving her and effectively giving his life so that they might complete their mission.

She altered the manner of his death, using the lie to comfort her friend about the death of his former team-mate. What had happened could not be changed and there was nothing to be gained by telling them what she had done, that it was her hand that had spilled the blood of the last Uchiha. It was something that she would have to live with till the end of her days but there was no reason why others should be made to suffer as well.

Let Naruto have the comfort, small though it might be, of thinking his friend died the hero the blond male had always wanted to believe that he could be.

XXXXXXXXXX

He had wanted to stay with her, to talk about what had happened or even to just sit in silence the way that they used to. But Ino had been insistent she still had to go through a full medical, and it was pointless for the Hokage to wait around just to walk her home. Naruto had know that arguing about it would be a waist of time, calling him 'Hokage' was, had always been, Ino's way of reminding him that he had far more important things to worry about that her.

And she was right… up to a point. He still had a stack of paperwork to get through before he could go home to his pregnant wife. His wife, mother of his unborn children and the love of his life. And how he loved Hinata, there weren't words to describe what he felt for her, that his world had shifted around her and that she was the very heart and soul of him. The opal-eyed woman was the rock in his ever changing, ever hectic life; her love was the thing that kept him sane.

Through aside the file he had been staring at unseeingly for the past quarter of an hour, not caring that it slid across the desk and off of the edge. He's was already going through the door as it landed on the floor, sheets of paper spilling out in all directions. He didn't want to talk to anyone and, seeing the look on his face, those he passed had the presence of mind to turn their heads away. Anything they needed their Hokage for could wait until the following day.

Hinata would offer him comfort and support in this time of loss, would hold him close and, as always, give him unconditional love. But it wasn't what he needed, not then at that moment. What he needed was Ino. The friend, who had become his lover, then gone back to being just his friend. The girl who he could talk with all night until the sun rose or just sit in silence with for hours on end. Who would slap him one minuet and hug him the next. The Yamanaka who had got into his head, seen what was inside of him, and hadn't run in fear but matched the demon's smirk with one of her own.

The cool evening air felt good on Naruto's face as he exited the tower and started walking. From, that was the most important factor in any mindless escape. You were always running from. To could look after its self. But memories were tricky things to get away from, just when you though you'd lost them you found yourself running smack bang right into them.

Hinata would try, but she didn't know, couldn't know, what he was going through. It Ino who understood what the losing Sasuke meant to him because it was tarring her apart just the same. It was as if things were at last coming full circle, they had lost the Uchiha all over again and this time he knew that it was for good. This time there was no chance that he would come back.

Naruto wasn't surprised to find that, when he came to a stop, he was standing in the shadow of the Hokage monument. Blue eyes automatically found the forth carved face, the one so like his own and yet somehow still different. But the unmoving stone had no comfort that it could offer him. The slight smile, and calm gave that watched over Konohagakure could give him nothing. No fatherly advice, no consoling words, no reassurances that things would get better with time.

Ino had once told him that she had never looked to her father for comfort after Sasuke left. She had explained that Inoichi as a father he would try to offer her whatever support he could, but as a Konoha shinobi he simply could not comprehend why someone would morn the loss of a traitor. Naruto had wondered if the might have been part of the reason why he and Ino had bonded so easily, that in the start they didn't really have anyone else who would understand.

But this time that was no Ino to offer him so much as a shred of comfort, this time he didn't think Ino even had it in her to console herself.

XXXXXXXXXX

It was full dark by the time Tsunade had reluctantly allowed Ino to retune home, though the Sannin had made it clear that she would be happier if the blonde stayed in hospital. Chakra depletion, extreme fatigue as well as the physical damage that had been done. Not to mention the extreme emotional stress she was under. The Sannin had seen the anguish that had filled the younger kunoichi's face as she had told of the burial that she had given the Uchiha. One that would honour any clan heir.

Yes she would have been happier to have the mind walker under observation, but knew that trying to force the issue would prove useless. Tsunade was wise enough to know that Ino would just sneak out if she wasn't released and if she tried to climb out of the window in her current state she would probable end up with a broken neck. It was true what the said about medics making the worst patients.

She wasn't thinking clearly and the Yamanaka was through the front door and half way up the staircase of the house she had shared with Sasuke before she realised where it was she had gone. In the morning people would go looking for her in her home, the apartment above the flower shop, the place where she had grown up. But it was no longer the place she thought of as her home.

It wasn't to her room she went to but to his. Dropping her pack down just inside the door, Ino crossed the floor and crawled onto the bed buying her head in the pillow and breathing in deeply the scent of Uchiha Sasuke. And only then, when her mission was truly completed did she release the hold she had on her emotions. When her reports had been made. When she had been medically cleared, or near enough. When she had seen the sorrow in Naruto's eyes and the compassion in Tsunade's. Only when she was safe behind the locked doors did Ino allow herself to give vent to the grief and loneliness that filled her.

Her sobs convalesce and wrack her slender body. Tears slid thick and fast over her sculpted cheek bones and round the curve of her jaw, causing pale gold strands to stick and cling to her damp skin. Her cries were harsh and they stretch and tore at the back of her throat, the pain in her chest was tight and burning as her heart broke over him for the second time. Her screams of gut wrenching agony were swallowed by the night-time air, they echoed off of the walls of the room but the outside world was left oblivious to her anguish. Ino pulled the pillow, filled with his scent as close as she could, hugging it tightly to her body as she rocked back and forth, fighting against the pain of her very soul.

Please R and R I'd love to know what you thought.

Big love and inspiration

Lamanth