This was originally supposed to be a one shot but...my mind just wouldn't shut up and like a playful puppy I just couldn't help but to respond to it's eagerness.

To Lola (if you read this) Shikako couldn't use that as an excuse as part of Ino's accusation was that Shikako had this whole shift before then, after graduation that she only really noticed in the forest of death but it's only now she's questioning it.

…

Asuma was not a man of many tells but even his genin would suspect something was troubling him if they were to somehow manage to sneak up on him right now.

The cigarette which he habitually puffed away of sat lost between his lips and if things weren't so serious right now he'd probably be upset over the wasted nicotine.

This had all started due to his own prying.

Dam the old man for giving him a team and forcing him to follow these ridiculous mentor obligations.

Okay so even he had to admit that was out of line and if he was honest with himself he probably would have investigated even if he wasn't her current teacher, as any loyal jonin would but seriously…he had no idea how he'd gotten into this mess.

When he'd first approached Ino after noticing her slightly more somber mood he'd never expected this of all things.

Sighing he shifted a little on the branch he was hunched up upon. To think he'd misjudged the situation so badly.

It had been easy to notice that something was up with Ino. Her smiles were a to little wide, her voice was pitched just a note higher than it should be and he'd caught her more than once ignore Sasuke when he was talking in favour of something else.

Now he knew her crush was no longer as obsessive as it had once been but she liked him enough that she always at least paid extra attention when he spoke.

Sure it was good enough to fool her peers but he was an experienced shinobi and it was part of his job as her teacher to look out for her welfare. He'd been paying her even more attention recently because although she didn't know it the higher ups still wanted her behavior patterns reported on even after all that time with her father…just encase.

So he'd perceived straight away when her countenance shifted to something more forced and almost guarded.

Originally he presumed it was something to do with her insecurities. She'd never said it but she didn't have to, especially not when Inoichi himself had approached him not long after the incident to confide in him about what Ino really thought of her eyes.

Being around her team mates and the rest of rookies had helped, she'd been more relaxed and assured of herself however he hadn't ignored the fact this would be her first time facing judgment from outside of the village.

Sure she had been on missions since then but with those she at least had the task to focus on. Here she was at a place with foreign shinobi who unlike their civilian counterpart would know that her eyes as a Yamanaka are not supposed to look like that.

He had half expected some of the competitors to make some disparaging comment on them, if only because mind games were a predictable tactic in the Chunin exams.

Ino though more than able to shake off such remarks was not yet fully accepting of her new appearance so having a comment come from someone she saw as a "peer" someone in her age group might just have a chance at fraying a nerve.

He'd approached her just before dawn watch when she had gotten up early to do her morning mediation her father had suggested to her.

The others didn't know she did them not even her teammates and he didn't see the need to inform them, not when it was a vital part of her recovery. It helped center herself and was a way of reminding herself of just who she was, no he wouldn't risk informing the others on the off chance it made her stop out of irrational feelings of shame.

What he had found out was in no way what he had been expecting when he'd first initiated the conversation.

She thought Shikako was a sleep agent.

Shikako. Shikako Nara. The Jonin Commander's daughter. One of her supposed best friends. Kakashi's student, that Shikako.

A headache didn't even begin to cover what he was feeling.

He had done the only thing he could, he had heard her out.

She was his student and she had approached him with a concern and even though it sounded ludicrous, even though it probably wasn't true he still owed it to Ino as his student to listen to her and at least consider what she was suggesting.

Plus what she was expressed was a genuine concern and he had a duty to his village to at least make sure it wasn't valid.

The problem was, in a roundabout way she had a point…or at least enough of a point that he was now obligated to do something.

Just what, he had yet to figure out.

Did he investigate on his own time or did he report it to the Hokage as the rule book dictated he do in these types of situations?

Problem with the rule book was that it generalized too much and never took into consideration the circumstances of individual cases.

It wasn't as simple as report to the official channels and launch an investigation.

She was a clan head's daughter for Kami sake!

Not to mention the disaster that was just waiting to happen if Shikaku found out it was Inoichi's own daughter who was putting his under fire.

The Ino, Shika, Cho alliance would be truly tested and he didn't want to know the outcome.

Shikaku's mind worked differently than the average shinobi's, would he really put his daughter above clan relations? Would he really sever years of team work between the families, hell his own friendship with the other two clan heads for his daughter?

Not to mention how his own team would be affected. Shikamaru was highly protective over Shikako and unlike Shikaku who he knew might have to look in his clan's best interest he knew Shikamaru would not.

He might try proving Ino wrong, rationalizing it, find some other answer but if he couldn't go around Ino he had no doubts Shika would lash out.

Hell he didn't even want to think about how Shikamaru would react if Ino was right.

That was all it came down to, was she right?

He still wasn't sure she was, the answer alluded him however something needed to be done.

None of this was even beginning to take into account the vultures who were just waiting for this kind of inner conflict in Konoha to take advantage of and if the clans started taking sides then they would really be in trouble.

A potential civil war was not an unreasonable out come from list of worst case scenarios he'd mentally been predicting.

Actually scratch that he knew the worst case scenario, he'd be dead.

He'd be dead when Kakashi butchered him.

Kakashi who preached loyalty and the importance of team work, Kakashi who so often boasted about his team in the Jonin lounge through sly off hand comments, Kakashi who would see it as personal betrayal if he reported her to the Hokage without first telling him of his intentions.

And even though he knew this he still didn't want to contemplate telling him.

He wouldn't believe it for starters and he lacked the professional distance like himself in order to think rationally and as smart as Kakashi was he might just give the game away which would be disastrous if she really was a spy.

If she really was a spy he didn't want to be the one to inform Kakashi who had already lost so much.

In his gut he just knew Kakashi would blame himself and do something stupid. He had almost gotten himself killed in ANBU before his old man had forcibly pulled him out, no one wanted a repeat performance.

The worst part of being unsure was that at least if he decided on a side maybe one of his students would forgive him.

He didn't think Ino would be happy with his current doubts into her own mental well-being, just as Shikamaru wouldn't be happy he was even considering this scenario.

He would have found it easy to reassure Ino, be more confident that he was right and there was no way Shikako could be as sleeper agent except…

That file.

That thrice cursed file that Gaara had handed over to Shikako in the dead of night which he had spied whilst on his patrol.

It didn't have to mean anything…but it could.

Especially when it was used to support Ino's no longer quite as extreme leaps of deductive reasoning.

Hadn't he and Kurenai jokingly made bets on Shikako's interactions with the foreign genin, especially on her closeness to the sand siblings. Hadn't they teasingly mentioned within ear shot of Kakashi that they thought both Gaara and Shikako were moving a bit too fast.

It was meant to ruffle Kakashi's feathers but now…

What if there was a reason she was so close to the foreign shinobi?

Urgh! He knew better than to speculate, that had been Ino's mistake and how she had ended up scaring herself.

Now was the time to investigate, gather any evidence with out jumping to conclusions and maybe inform his superiors. If he didn't and it turned out Ino was right it would be his neck on the line for not reporting it.

He also had to make it clear in his report of his concern that Ino could be the problem. His student's insistence of having her mind probed showed she had been convinced at some point that she could have been a plant after her scuffle.

It was a very real possibility that Ino's sessions with her dad hadn't been going as well as they had thought and that she was just projecting her own insecurities onto Shikako.

If that was the case he wondered if Shikako would ever forgive Ino for accusing her.

He also wondered how things had gotten so bad.

Either one was mentally unfit for duty or the other was a spy.

Both of them were clan head daughters.

One of them was supposed to be heir.

Either way one of them or maybe even both of them were going to suffer the consequences.

In fact they all were.

A part of him couldn't help but feel that he was responsible, that he'd either failed Ino or was about to fail her as well as the rest of his team.

He really wasn't looking forward to their return to Konoha.

…

So here's chapter two, I don't really know where I'm going with this, to be honest the idea just kind spiraled out of control. A rather apt reflection of how much shit is going to hit the fan eventually.

Basically this is me just having fun turning everything on its head because you know we all love a bit of mindless destruction and chaos. Also I like the idea of seeing how wrong things could have gone if Ino had been just a little bit less recovered than in Silver Queen's version.