The cold, bleak walls of the Torture and Interrogation Force office basement echoed with the steady drip, drip, drip from a leak in the cracks. The only light from the lightbulb on the ceiling was blinding, skewing what little color there actually was in the room, and it was impossible to tell whether or not it was night or day outside. There was a cold, metal desk in the center and one, lone wooden chair in front of it where two heads of blonde, one platinum and one sandy, faced each other. The tension was palpable in the room, and the screams of prisoners in far off chambers were heard in the not quite silence that surrounded them.

In all her years in Konoha, Temari had never felt more terribly out of place. Ino had graciously called for some tea to welcome her into what essentially was, and had never been more obviously so, Ino's territory. Ino's icy expression reminded her just how capable she was at her job and how suitable the Yamanaka clan head's intimidating aura and the environment was to, well, torture.

She was chilled to the bone.

Light blue and teal eyes regarded each other in a level stare. They had always gotten along, but in a stiff, polite manner, and mostly only because they shared two of the most important people in their lives.

"I never thought we'd get to the point where you'd have to actually ask me for a favor," Ino said dryly, her arms folded across her breasts, her black leather jacket stretching around her curves. "Let alone be willing to come down here."

"Normally, I wouldn't. But we don't have many options now, do we?" Temari replied with a strained smile.

Ino sighed wearily. "After all this…" she ran her fingers through her long bangs, tucking the hairs there behind her ear and brushing through the short strands that lined her neck at the back of her scalp. Her head was always much lighter after she had chopped all her hair off. It was heavy now instead with the thoughts of a thousand people and the weight of too many minds. She often wondered about just how strong her father was to take this heavy burden on himself, or every other clan head before her. Other people, she supposed, would have already gone insane.

Maybe she wasn't too far from it.

She tore her eyes away from the woman's in front of her, instead straying to the picture frames on her desk, one with her husband and her son, and the broken one of her former team, lingering on the face with a familiar bored expression and a short, pineapple ponytail. The cracked glass stretched across the frame like a spider's web, shattering in tiny, tiny places and destroying the picture. How ironic that the longest fragment came between her and Shikamaru. She remembered spending hours picking up every shard, getting pieces stuck in her skin. The palm of her hand tingled where one particularly long fragment had sliced her. Droplets of blood still stained their printed faces, with wrinkled spots on the paper where her tears had soaked it permanently.

Like the picture, their friendship was never really the same.

Ino continued after a long silence. "Are you sure? You were there weren't you? When he made me promise?"

"Did it ever occur to you since you heard the news that you might just be his last hope?" Temari's eyes were cold and her frown bitter.

Ino's own eyes narrowed. "Are you insinuating that I don't give a shit about him?"

"Maybe you don't. Maybe you give more than that. I don't know," Temari shrugged. "Maybe you always have."

"Get the fuck out of here with that." Ino said, almost sneered. "We've already had this conversation."

Temari let out a breath. "Forget about that. Just—". She wrapped her arms around herself. "Please." She whispered in a low voice, uncharacteristic with its tremble. "If there is one thing we share in common — it's how much we don't want to lose him." She rose from the chair, setting the teacup gently on Ino's desk and giving a small bow. "Thank you for your hospitality." Temari walked slowly to the door, and just before exiting, angled her body back towards Ino. "Just come to the family meeting. It might be our last one."

Ino winced and dropped her gaze guiltily to her lap. "Fine. Take me to him."

—

The walk to the hospital was quiet, the sun from the hot summer day searing her eyes, and inside, the familiar stench of antiseptic and bleach and sickness and blood stinging her nose. Ino felt a sense of dread as they neared his room, where ANBU forces were on guard, proper genjutsus in place. It was a lot of protection for the hokage's advisor, but to his credit, he deserved it.

She followed Temari through the door. Sakura, the head doctor on the case, and Naruto were waiting for them.

"Hokage-sama," Ino bowed to Naruto, who waved her off.

"Stop that," he said, his familiar grin not quite reaching his eyes. She wondered if she looked as tired as he did and if the blue in her own eyes was just as faded. He never did return to the same playful spirit he was once as a younger boy.

"Ino," Sakura smiled. "Glad you could make it."

"What do you take me for, billboard brow?" Ino snorted. "A flake?" She returned the smile quickly, but her face turned serious as she turned and walked towards the bed.

His face was gaunt, his hair down from its usual ponytail and framing his face, accentuating the shadows there even more. Monitors of different tones and volumes beeped and lines were inserted in almost every part of his body. She caught her breath. How long had it been since she had last studied his face so closely? She couldn't stand the sight of it for the longest time.

Inojin sat supportively with Shikadai beside the bed. Ino came over to her son, running her fingers through his hair that was almost as long as hers at his age and kissed him on the head. She reached out to her former teammate's son, stroking him under his chin affectionately. "Shikadai," she murmured. Normally, he would've pulled away with a scowl, but he managed a weak smile at her presence.

"You came," he said, almost sighing in relief.

"Of course." She winked at him before she turned around, tugging his ponytail as she left. "So what are we dealing with?" Ino placed her hands on her hips as she willed herself to be all business, walking towards the pictures of brain scans hanging on the wall next to Sakura, picking her memory for whatever remnants she had of medical knowledge.

Naruto took a deep breath. "There was a scroll. With a-a puzzle." He closed eyes, frowning as he recalled the events. "It was clean, no initial detection of any threat. On it, there was a riddle. It didn't do anything to me because my stupid head couldn't figure it out enough to even understand it was a riddle in the first place. Shikamaru took one glance at it, figured it out in a few minutes, but it released some kind of seal, and then all of a sudden, he was in a stupor, like he was in some kind of genjutsu, like it placed a lock on his mind. We took him straight here, but the longer he's been here under this… this spell, the faster he's been wasting away. We don't know if there are any further seals hindering our ability to reach him or anything, we can't detect...anything. " Naruto gritted his teeth in frustration.

Ino rifled through some of Shikamaru's records, noting his blood work values and vital signs, and reviewing the results of his diagnostic tests as Sakura worked beside Shikamaru. She hung another bag of some kind of fluid, placing a hand that glowed green to monitor its path through his veins.

Naruto came to stand next to her, rubbing his forehead. "We're thinking they targeted my advisor, thinking he has all the master plans to Konoha's development. Not the hokage, not enough to immediately start another world war, but just enough to spark something."

"Some people are adverse to the fact of Konoha expanding and modernizing, especially now since we have many of the shinobi who were the driving force behind the victory of the last shinobi war," Temari continued. "Gaara has been having trouble with some of the citizens in Wind Country, as well."

Naruto nodded. "They were somewhat right. Shikamaru is responsible for the conception of many of the strategies behind our accomplishments. He is the brain of most, if not all, of our successes. We can't exclude the fact that the enemy—or enemies—were able to obtain any vital or secret information and we have no way of figuring it out."

"Who did this?" Ino handed the stack of records back to Sakura, who placed it in her file.

"We traced the contents and origins of the ink and material of the scroll, as well as the origins of the calligraphy that make up the seal." Naruto's lips were set seriously in a straight line. "Sai is on it right now, as is Sasuke. So far, we have nothing."

Ino pursed her lips. "So what is it you want me to do?"

"As you saw in his brain scans, it is not detecting any kind of any electrical activity at all. My chakra is also not detecting any functioning matter. His body and organs may be continuing to function through the uses of these ventilators and other machines, but medically, he is dead. Brain dead." Sakura explained to the room. Shikadai couldn't help his sharp intake of air. "However," she went on gently, turning to face Ino. "There's no way of us knowing for sure unless you try."

"You want me to go into his mind? Why can't I just try to sense who did it?"

"Going through each shinobi and civilian's mind in the entire world?" Naruto shook his head. "That will take some time, and we can't be sure that it will be enough for Shikamaru. Besides, it would spark even more resentment. People would want to know why you are trying to get into people's heads without their consent."

Ino frowned, exchanging a hesitant glance first with Sakura and then with Naruto, unable to stop herself from pacing.

"If the culprit was so intelligent, how could they forget that the head of the clan of the greatest mind techniques lived in the same village? The Yamanaka and Nara clans have been closely interlinked since the beginning of time." She scowled. "Would they not have considered the fact already that I would try to reverse this?"

"Maybe they thought they would already have the information they wanted before you even tried," Naruto sighed. "Maybe they underestimated just how much of a fighter he is, or how good our medical care is."

"Well, what if it's a trap?"

Sakura piped, "If anything, you would have an easier time getting in and out than Shikamaru ever would."

"If not for me, or him… do it for Shikadai." Temari said softly.

"Shikadai is only 16 years old—" Sakura continued.

"How old do you think we were when our own fathers died in the war?" Ino snapped, stopping her movements abruptly with her hands clenched into fists.

Pairs of beautifully colored eyes stared at her around the room, most of them filled with their own amount of pain. Ino could feel the scowl creasing her face. Maybe that's why she was getting so many wrinkles.

When had she become such a bitter old woman? She closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. "I'm sorry."

"Ino-ba," Shikadai pleaded, and his eyes just like his mother's, shot through her heart.

She gave a shuddering sigh, grabbing her forehead and rubbing it gently. "Fine. Inojin, Shikadai, you two can stay. Watch my body. Everybody else out."

"Eh? But I need to monitor—" Sakura protested.

"Out!" Ino ordered with a glare. "Even you, Naruto."

He nodded, turning to place a hand on Sakura's back and guiding her and Temari out the door.

"If you need anything, press the call button for help, Inojin-kun, Shikadai-kun," Sakura called to the young teenagers in the room. They managed to nod before the door closed in her face.

"Kaa-san," Inojin gave her worried look as she came towards them once more. He got up quickly, giving her his chair.

"It's nothing, Inojin," she said calmly with a teasing smile as she sunk into it. "Nothing your mom can't handle."

"This is an intricate mind jutsu —"

"And just who do you think is the most suited to deal with intricate mind jutsus?" She asked with a raised brow, rolling up her sleeves as she turned to face Shikamaru on the bed.

Shikadai tilted his head. "How do we know you won't get stuck too?"

Ino smiled softly. "We don't." Her arms outstretched, and with another calming breath, she closed her eyes and focused all the strength of her chakra in her mind and channeled it through her arms.

"Shintensin no jutsu!"

Her body collapsed and Inojin and Shikadai rushed to hold her up between them.

At first, nothing had happened. There was nothing to see when she opened her eyes. She felt like she was floating in empty white space. There was no sound, no color.

It was little eerie and unfamiliar and more like the corpses she had autopsied. She swallowed. A little too much like the corpses.

But she tried to shake that possibility off and moved onward, searching deeper.

The mind was almost impossible to describe, Ino thought absently as her own subconscious delved further into her former teammate's for something recognizable.

Chouji's was always comforting, warm. Like a big hug or the feeling after binge eating on all her favorite foods. Sai's was a cold, a soothing blankness like the promising sheet of canvas or a blanket of fresh snow on the winter fields. A relief, sometimes from the constant mental noise her responsibilities entailed. Criminals and victims made her want to bathe her mind and body in bleach, with the darkness and sometimes even psychotic horror or agony that she found.

Shikamaru's had always been intricate. Like the inside of a slow, ticking clock or a matrix of computer space. Difficult to understand, and yet, just as as comforting as Chouji's. And this white space wasn't it.

She studied her surroundings and used her medical knowledge to assess the severity of his condition. It seemed that the jutsu had erased much of his general reflexes. There were no connections or synapses to the other organs, which matched Sakura's diagnosis. Ino probed further and further, concluding that even his instinct was gone and he had no conscious thought. As she maneuvered the depths of Shikamaru's brain, she avoided the mind traps and opened the locks the jutsu had placed.

It was like Inojin's video game. Levels, he called them. Each one getting harder and harder until he reached the final boss.

Father used to make her solve both mental and physical puzzles. She hated it and she would only complete them if he gave her some kind of reward, like extra pocket money or the promise of a present or her latest obsession. Back then, she never saw the point of it, only rolled her eyes when he had said it was for training. Now, through years of experience, she realized how valuable his training was. She wasn't sure what exactly would have happened if she had failed any part of this, but she didn't want to find out.

After quite some time, she reached the last, innermost part of his mind, one that remained empty for all the dead patients she had come across. The expanse of white melted into a gray gradient until it became a void of black, where she found a door. Behind it, she could sense what seemed like a fading pulse or the dying light of a candle in the distance, which lit a flicker of hope within her.

Ino reached out to take the handle, wary of any other traps. And like lock opening slowly, after a series of clicks and turns, the door opened and let her in.

She took a deep breath and stepped in.

She could make out his familiar form laying front of what looked like a large cinema screen. As Ino looked closer, it seemed to be replaying events of Shikamaru's life, things like forgotten memories. It was like watching a movie. Right now, Shikamaru looked to be about three years old, wobbling on unsteady legs towards his mother, who beckoned him with outstretched arms.

She swallowed. How did she feel her heart racing so much in this world?

After taking another deep breath to steel her nerves, she stomped towards him and Shikamaru's head shot up in surprise and confusion at the sight of her. "Ino?"

"You fucking bastard!" Her temple throbbed in annoyance as she scowled at him. "Typical. I should have known you'd just be lying around not doing anything. Are you even gonna try to get out of here?"

"It's impossible." He frowned, his eyebrows sloping downward. "I think the longer I'm in here the more my subconscious or soul or whatever gets disconnected from my physical body. These guys really wanted me gone in the most subtle way possible."

"They all know you for the genius you are. Of course they wanted to take that away from Naruto. Maybe he wouldn't be as successful as he would be without you."

Shikamaru shrugged that off. "The more I solved the puzzles, the further I got locked in, but when I turned back, there was nowhere else to go. I'm guessing now I'm in the deepest recesses of my subconscious."

"Your unconscious mind," She corrected. "Your conscious and subconscious mind are not functioning and they are reflected so in your brain scans."

He mulled over her words. "I think I'm trapped here forever. Literally in my own mind. Relaying my life over and over." He paused. "Am I dead?"

She opened her mouth to reply "Yes," because somewhere deep inside her Sakura's voice kept repeating 'Medically, he is dead' over and over. But her face softened and instead, she responded, "Not yet." And under her breath, "Not if I could help it."

Ino came over to sit next to him, wrapping her arms around her legs and pulling them toward her, placing her chin on top. How many times had they done this on Konoha pastures, watching the sky? How long ago had it been since she felt her hairs on her skin sense the closeness of his beside her? Heard the huskiness of his voice? The years had flown by and yet the time apart was too long.

They turned to stare at each other for a moment, eyes unreadable on both sides.

There were wrinkles on his skin, gruffier shadow on his cheeks, and a thicker goatee than she had remembered. He was much healthier though than what his physical body resembled, looking so much more like his own father. Still handsome, she thought, her face heating at the long period of eye contact.

She dropped her eyes first. He kept looking at her with a skeptical expression on his face. "This isn't genjutsu, right? Am I dreaming?"

"You're not," she sighed. "I'm here, Shikamaru."

Her answer seemed to satisfy him, and he turned towards the screen again, bringing one knee up and leaning forward on it on one elbow.

"Been a while since we last talked."

She flinched. "Yeah. Been a while."

"Why didn't you come earlier?"

Pain squeezed her heart when she realized he had been waiting for her. "I've been busy."

He grunted.

In the physical world, Ino's body started coughing. "Shikadai, she's bleeding." Inojin's fingertips turning red as they touched his mother's nose. The day had already passed into the late midnight as they waited. Aside from a slower respiratory rate and being mostly unresponsive to outside stimuli, Ino hadn't showed signs of deterioration.

Shikadai shifted his body better to support Ino's weight and check her pulse at the same time. "It's a little fast, but stable —"

Suddenly Ino choked, gurgling and spitting out blood.

Inojin jumped up in alarm, trying to tilt her head forward. "Kaa-san!"

Ino's body then started to convulse, shaking and seizing, her eyes rolling back in her head.

"I'm going! I'm going to help!" Inojin raised his hands forward in his clan's signature seal.

"Stop it, you idiot!" Shikadai grabbed a hold of his wrist and pulled him to sit back down, trying to keep a grip on Ino, whose body was beginning to still. "You haven't even perfected it yet! What makes you think you'll help if your mom can't!"

Inojin sagged down into the chair, wrapping his arm weakly around his mother. "At least tell Sakura-ba-san."

Shikadai pressed a button and Sakura came running in frantically. "What is it?" Her expert eyes scanned her friend quickly, noting the blood that had spilled and the slight tremble left in Ino's fingertips.

Sakura pressed her hands to Ino's forehead for a moment before sighing in relief. "She's okay. She's okay." Turning back toward the door, with curious faces peeking in, she called, "Bring a bed in for Ino! We'll place her in here where we can monitor them together."

She rushed to one of the drawers, pulling out a packet of electrodes, and then back to Ino. She started removing her jacket, placing the leads under Ino's clothes onto her skin. "We need to monitor her heart, too. Boys, help put her in the bed."

They jumped out of the way as the new bed rolled in.

"Ah, jeez," Ino sighed as she watched the scene from inside her subconscious. "We're making them cry."

Shikamaru chuckled. "They'd be pissed if you said that they cried."

She rolled her eyes. "Boys can cry if they want to."

He turned serious after a moment. "They're growing up quite nicely, aren't they?""

"Hmm," she hummed in agreement. "It seems like whoever has some kind of interaction with the seal or jutsu they used on you has the same accelerated growth, or more specifically, death rate."

"So the longer you're in here, you'll fade away, too." Shikamaru studied her profile as she continued to watch scene in the real world.

She didn't seem to hear him, or she ignored that comment, but there was a hint of pride in her smile as she watched Inojin's hands glow green as he assisted Sakura.

"Thanks for doing this, Ino," Shikamaru said after a moment in a quiet voice, after she had diverted her attention back to the showing of his life on the big screen. "I understand if you had a hard time deciding to."

They sat in silence, wondering if the tension between them was more from regret or trying to suppress the emotion that threatened to burst.

"You told me never to use my jutsu on you. Remember? You yelled it at me?" She finally answered softly, remembering how hurt she was that he had actually raised his voice at her.

He frowned. "Sorry about that." And after a painful sigh, "We even ruined it for Chouji. It just got too awkward for him to deal with us because we were both equally stubborn and we didn't want to be around each other. Poor Chouji."

Ino nodded, wincing at the memory. "Well, I'm sorry. I was being rude. I thought you were really sleeping."

"Yeah," he snorted. "You shouldn't've pried."

"It was so sudden!" She defended. "I wanted to know if you actually loved her!"

"I shouldn't have gotten so angry. I think...I was a little scared that you would find out that I still loved you." He turned to give her a sad smile.

Her eyes widened and then turned down, her lips trembling. "I…."

Shikamaru reached out to put an arm around her and pull her close. She started to sob into his chest, and he pressed his cheek into her short hair, which was familiar and strange at the same time. "You know, constantly watching my life over and over on replay makes me wonder if I lived my life right."

"What are you saying, baka." She sniffed, still leaning into the crook of his neck. "Your son is one of the most important people in my life. I love him like he was my own son." She reached out to entwine their hands. "And I love Sai as much as you love Temari."

They sat like that for a while, watching Shikamaru's life in nostalgic silence.

"See, I noticed there were a few constants in my life," Shikamaru said softly, pointing up to a younger Ino with unrestrained emotion, the twinkling in her eyes bright with laughter. "And one of them was you." He paused. "Until you weren't." He squeezed her closely, remembering the feel of her smaller body against his. "After that, my life just wasn't the same."

She brushed her thumb gently against his hand, trying to swallow the lump in her throat and unable to stop her vision from blurring and the tears from flowing down her cheeks. She choked out a laugh, "You're choosing now to be honest with me?"

He grinned sheepishly. "Hey, I don't know how much time I have left." Shikamaru leaned into her again. "I missed you."

"It just hurt to be around you," Ino responded, her voice breaking again. "I thought if I surrounded myself in my work and my family, I wouldn't need to think about you." She shrugged. "It worked a little."

"And look at you," he smirked proudly at her. "Here you are. You're damn good at it."

"And so are you," she said, laughing. "Maybe too good. You got yourself into this mess."

"Would I be a Nara if I didn't have a Yamanaka cleaning up after me?"

Her eyes softened. "Would you be you if you didn't have me cleaning up after you?"

They shared smile.

"No." He murmured. "I guess I haven't been quite myself for a long time, then."

She squeezed his hand again, cuddling closer to the crook of his neck under his chin, savoring whatever time she had left to be engulfed in his familiar warmth.

They watched Shikamaru's memories of their first genin picture and Ino's thoughts strayed to her broken copy on her desk.

"I threw that at my wall," she said softly, flatly.

He winced guiltily. "Do you still have it?"

She hummed. "It made me think. Do you remember what Asuma-sensei said about glass?

"Cherish each other like fragile glass?" He thought after a moment. "Something like that."

Ino nodded. "Yes. Love, friendships, bonds…can be broken forever in an instant, if you're not careful. You can try your best to repair it, but it'll never truly be the same, just like broken glass. It cuts the deepest and hurts the most."

"It can leave the worst scars," Shikamaru said, tracing the long jagged scar on the palm of her hand.

She closed her fingers over his, staring intently into his eyes. "But no matter how broken and fragile the picture, the glass—I'd still keep it, even with all the shattered pieces."

He returned her small smile, letting the feeling of what was lost and what could have been melt and dissolve into just the feeling of her with him now again.

"And even with all those shattered pieces, I'd rather still have you." She leaned forward to press her lips lightly to his cheek. "I couldn't imagine a life without you."

"So," She rested her head against his, closing her eyes. "Let's go home, ne, Shikamaru?"

He gave her hand another squeeze and nodded. "Let's."

A/N: *to the tune of "Long KISS Goodbye" by Halcali and Naruto Shippuden Ending 7* A broken drabble I've been trying to finish for a while, rushed and ugly, here ya go. Also, I don't really know how they got out. Maybe just another shintenshin, cuz Ino's just that badass.