The Girl Who Dreamed Of Flowers

Fact: In Japan, the cherry tree symbolises the fragility and beauty of life… and how tragically short it can be.

Another Fact: Ino never thought Cherry blossoms suited Shikako

Sai was painting a picture. Black on white. A girl standing on a hill. A cherry tree losing petals to the wind upon a solitary stony hill. A gravestone unmarked.

"What will you do with it?" I sat next to him. My braid felt heavy as the wind tugged at it, scattering deep pink petals across the grass.

"I'll give it to her parents. It might… comfort them to know someone grieved for her?"

I nodded. Ino's grave, she didn't actually lie there. It was considered too dangerous to keep the dead. Ino was on her way back to Konoha. I would know, I had been the one to seal her body into a scroll.

It was the last time I touched her. She had still been warm to the touch.

"I think they'll appreciate it, yes."

Mid-way through a brushstroke Sai looked up at me. "I read that people cry if someone they loved died. You cried for her. Does that mean you loved her?"

"Love doesn't end when someone dies, Sai."

Shortly after, Sasuke and I were sent from the border to a smaller stronghold, nine miles east. Our mission was to check up on the barrier seals in place there - a quick two day mission and then back to the front lines.

That night I got a messenger hawk. It screeched sharply as I retrieved the small scroll tied to it's leg. It was a standard missive from the Jounin Commander. Familiar handwriting - neat and slanted. Dad's name at the bottom.

"Another mission?" Sasuke asked, he was sharpening his kunai with a stone. His hair had grown longer and now locks of it fell forward to obscure his face.

I let myself fall onto the bedroll I had claimed. "It's just a letter from dad."

Sasuke said nothing, he just kept sharpening the edge. A clear invitation for me to elaborate.

"He says Shikamaru arrived home safely. And Chouji is already back up. He sends his condolences for... " I couldn't say it.

"Ino." Sasuke put down the stone and held up his kunai, looking at it with his Sharingan.

"Yeah… He asks if we're ok?" I paused, struggling. I wasn't sure how to respond to that.

We were fine. We had been built and trained for this. Battle made my heart rush like nothing else. Coming up with counters to the many strategies we faced kept me from boredom.

But Dad wasn't asking about that.

Because as much as I'd like to say I was fine... I wasn't.

I felt like I was drowning; like the sun was cold; like the earth should swallow me whole and drag me further down until fire consumed me. The black felt inviting - a lure with the promise of numbness.

I closed my eyes. "Are we ok?"

"We're fine." Sasuke answered. He sounded convincing. Confident. It almost felt like it was true. But Sasuke couldn't lie, not to me.

"I'll write him back tomorrow." I mumbled and pulled my blanket over myself, turning my back to Sasuke and letting myself slowly fall asleep.

The sound of a bell clanging woke me up. Sasuke's bed was already empty. I was still wearing yesterday's mission-clothes and it felt like I was choking on the air.

I walked out of our tent in a nightmare-haze as the bell sounded again. Except, it wasn't a bell. It was the barrier we had erected after we came here.

I flushed my system with chakra, instantly I felt more awake - not 100% but almost there. The choking weight of the air, filled with malicious chakra, subsided as I focused.

The barrier was supposed to be invisible to the naked eye, but it glowed pink now. That could only mean one thing - someone was trying to force their way through it.

Another clang, a low rumbling sound that reverberated through my bones. The sky glowed pink until it didn't.

The barrier was down.

Everyone was running now, gone to their stations. But Sasuke and I hadn't been assigned a station yet. There was a spike of chakra and with a thunderous crack the western watchtower exploded into flame.

It just went whumph - a sudden pillar of fire.

I reached out with my chakra sense, trying to see if… There was someone still in there. No wait, it was faint, but there was two someones still in there.

Chaos took over the camp along with the first wave of enemy soldiers, and I dodged a rain of kunai as I made my way to the watchtower.

It was a bold move of the Raikage to actually attack our camp. We were more than a kilometre deep into the land of Fire. Which meant that the border had been breached too. Wasn't Hinata's team based there? I know Sai was.

The wood of the watchtower was feeding the flames, and its heat cracked my lips and made my skin feel tight. I opened my hammerspace and retrieved a stone jar with a seal inscribed on the bottom - the Kanji for fire. I placed it on the ground.

"Sealing method - fire vault!"

The stone jar flashed gold and the fire twister, almost like a living thing, slithered down the poles, over the ground and into the jar. I tucked the jar back into hammerspace.

From the watchtower two people emerged through what used to be the roof. Shinji and Houga, both chuunin. "Thanks for that Nara-san."

I nodded back at them. "Any idea what's going on?"

Houga shook his head. "One moment everything's fine. The next - the barrier seal starts getting attacked by these purple orbs. Only took two of them to bring it down… and then next we know we're trapped in flames."

"Purple orbs?" I repeated, the blood draining from my face. "You mean, purple chakra orbs?"

"Yeah, they were huge." Shinji added. "Easily the size of a house."

"Bijuu bomb. We're being attacked by a jinchuuriki." I tried to calm myself down. But... we were just a small camp, thirty shinobi strong. A full fledged Jinchuuriki was an army killer. "We need to evacuate. I don't know if-"

I was cut off, as from beneath us fire erupted like a geyser. I jumped away just in time - I only got singed. Shinji's chakra… Shinji's chakra was gone.

I followed the chakra back to its user. Sixty feet away at my four o'clock, behind a tree. I dashed forward, my chakra going into the Gelel-stone and pulling me into shadow. I threw on a flimsy layer of chakra over my for, to make it still look like me and I was ready. I traveled fast, evading two spouts of fire from whoever it was that was attacking us.

She seemed surprised when she couldn't block my right handed strike. I used my shadows to place a touch blast on each of her limbs and her torso in the short taijutsu bout that followed, then I backflipped out of range as she made a lunge for my stomach.

She exploded as my feet touched the ground. As did the tree. And the ground she stood on. It was perhaps a bit much.

I reformed, becoming tangible once more. With the weight of mortality, came the keen sense that Sasuke was fighting.

I raced past Houga. "Spread the message, we need to retreat!"

Sasuke was further out - isolated with four others. His chakra was depleting quickly. By the time I got there, he was the only one left alive. And just a small cut on his left arm to show he had fought.

"You're late."

"You seemed to handle it well enough." I shrugged my shoulder nonchalantly. Still, this was not the time for banter. "We need to retreat. They've got a Jinchuuriki with them."

Sasuke nodded. "Like Naruto?" He said it as if that made it ok.

"Yes. Sort of. Only, Naruto can't control it. Whoever they've got with them, their chakra is massive. And they can control it - they can use the beasts chakra to make Bijuu bombs."

I had to make him understand. This wasn't like with the Sanbi. This wasn't like a friendly spar with Naruto. This was like Kurama hulking over Konoha - suffocating and evil. There would be no hiding from death if we faced it.

"We can't retreat. We need to stand our ground." Sasuke said slowly.

"You don't understand Sasuke. This is not something we can face head-on."

Sasuke's eyes turned red.

I shook my head. "Not even with your sharingan." Didn't he understand the utter hopelessness of our situation?

"I do. You're scared. But we have orders Shikako." He closed the distance between us. "We need to defend this outpost or Cloud will overtake this entire district of the land of fire."

His voice was steady. Almost against my will, I felt myself calming as my lungs struggled in the tainted air…

"We're all that's standing between them and thousands of civilians. We will not fall."

I nodded - tense more than firm. I couldn't- but he was right. I couldn't let the memory of fear, of helplessness, keep me from my duty. I took a breath and allowed everything in, my weakness had become my strength. I wasn't a newborn anymore. I wasn't helpless.

"They're hanging back. About 1500 feet. They used a ranged Bijuu Bomb. From what I can sense they only sent in a tenth of their force. They're a hundred strong- It won't be easy."

"Nothing worth fighting for ever is. Right?" Sasuke set the pace as we started running toward the camp to gather more people. "They used two bijuu bombs to take down the barrier. That means their jinchuuriki used up a lot of chakra. They're probably weaker now for that. This is our chance."

"We're outnumbered - a hundred to twenty-four."

But then everything stilled. Something heavy was born into the world, and I stopped dead in my tracks. A Massive amount of chakra, another- "Bijuu bomb!"

There was no barrier stopping it this time.

Sasuke raised a stone wall to protect us, almost at the same time I slammed the strongest seal against it I could. We still felt a tidal wave of heat and wind slam into us.

"Ninety to two," was all I could say after. The bomb had swallowed the camp whole and left nothing behind but ash and empty space.

It was a smaller space - but no less devastating than what I had seen that before. Last time I had begged for help. This time, I would make them beg for help too.

The emptiness of despair was rapidly filling with something hot and familiar. I felt it. I felt myself overflowing with rage. 'I'll kill them - I'll kill them - I'll kill them'. It looped through my head over and over and over-

Sasuke placed a hand on my shoulder.

"We need to inform Konoha. This… We can't take on an army with just the two of us. We should retreat now. You were right."

Maybe I had been… but he had been right too. If we didn't stand firm here…This win would embolden them.

Anger cooled to obsidian. Solid, impenetrable, calculating cold. A Nara's motivation.

"I agree. You go back to Konoha." He looked at me strangely, wanting to argue. I silenced him with a finger to his lips. "You're faster than I am. With my chakra sense I will be able to keep track of their group at a much safer distance than you could. When you come back, we'll know where they are. Where they all are."

Sasuke's face betrayed the battle going on in his head. "Don't do anything foolish." he said after too long a pause.

I hugged him tightly. For a brief moment the rage made room for other feelings- "I'll make sure no one catches me. Now go."

And gone he was. His chakra quickly going beyond my senses.

I turned. Poured more of my emergency reserves of chakra into the gelel stone and made my way back to the Jinchuuriki and their small army.

They were already making their way further west. Which meant they were heading for the border again.

Which meant they were retreating. But why?

Unless, they weren't. Unless… they were going to attack the border next. That meant they had another way of crossing the border. It must have been a way that got them around the barriers, around the Hyuuga and their Byakugan, around the bugs and noses of the Inuzuka and the Aburame...

If I had been corporeal I would've frowned in contemplation.

It was hours later before I got close enough. There were a lot of them.

Only one of me.

But if the Jinchuuriki could use Bijuu Bombs. I could use my own.

The sun was low, and the shadows long. And I made my way into their midst without arousing suspicion. I spread out, as thin as I dared. Slowly, so slowly, I focused and group by group marked all of them on the back of their neck with a touch blast - each strong enough to level the Hokage's Office.

Then I retreated. Only one person was left.

I remade myself, corporeal, flesh and blood.

Right in front of Yugito Nii. Jinchuuriki to the two tailed bijuu. I punched her in the nose, she almost ducked in time, but as my fist connected, flesh to flesh, the final touch blast settled.

I had lied when I told Sasuke he was faster.

Because I was gone from her sight almost instantly.

In my shadow form, I was far enough away in two seconds to fully see their entire regiment go out in a bang.

It almost looked like art.

It was almost a full week later and I was stood outside of the Hokage's office.

I had been standing there for almost an hour before the door opened. Dad walked out, his face grim. He spared me a small smile and laid his hand on my shoulder.

I flashed him a grateful smile, before my ears caught the tap of a cane going out the ANBU only entrance. I felt a chill. Tsunade was watching me with a thoughtful expression. Her desk was cleared, and there was a shadow behind her storm grey eyes.

I walked in.

"Shikako Nara." she leaned back into her chair.

"I'm sorry, Tsunade-sama."

She stood up, her eyes locking with my own. "Don't apologize. Never apologize for doing what must be done."

I swallowed.

"I have informed the Daimyo that I have officially declared war. Konoha will no longer just be reacting to the Raikage's show of force. Instead, I have a mission for you. You showed more than once your... talent for destruction. I want you, with a small team to back you up, to infiltrate Kumogakure. Kill the Raikage and take down most of his village with him."

My eyes widened. I know they did. I couldn't believe what the Hokage was saying. The things that had happened were bad enough, even when we weren't officially fighting in a war.

What terrors would be unleashed upon the world now that had changed?

And a slow creeping terror slipped to the front of my mind.

Would that terror… be me?

I remembered Ino, her blonde hair splayed out on the floor, a lightning burn through her chest. What… what would she think of me?

Her image shifted, becoming alive, smiling... loving.

Love beyond death. Love enduring.

Love from a happier time.

I could almost hear the words she'd mumbled against my shoulder that night after we took down a team of hunter-nin… "I was wrong… you didn't blossom into a Camelia, or a Snapdragon." Her fingers brushed feather light against a flower she'd tucked into my braid. "This suits you so much better."

The Hokage raised an eyebrow at my silence. I cleared my throat nervously. "Tsunade-sama, could I have another mask?"

"Oh?"

"For this mission, for this fight, please may I be Nerium?" With a small push of chakra I henge'd a mask in front of my face. Different to my usual Bat.

"A flower?"

"To honor a friend."

One more fact: Nerium Oleander, also known as the Sweet Scented Killer.