Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Written in: A hundred word long rabbles format. And then, a hundred of those.
Author is: Insane for doing this.
Author says: That these are drabbles, spurs of the moment, awkward little snippets I wrote while trying to deal with Naruto and Ino's relationship. They are not supposed to make sense, just comment on their characters and adventures. What follows, fellow readers, is a manifesto of their lives that is supposed to be read lightly. Or not. They are supposed to be enjoyable.
Readers should: Read, enjoy, and review, of course.
Introduction: The first time the two meet and actually talk, they act like the children that they never had the chance to be. Ino pulls a stray lock of hair behind her ear and smiles to him, offering him her hand. Naruto's eyes follow her hand gesture and stare at it like it is a rushing, very lethal kunai until he finally scrounges up one of his unique, wide grins and returns the gesture with a goofy chuckle erupting from his throat.
"Hi, I'm Uzumaki Naruto!"
"I know." She says lamely, yet he stares at her with a look on his face that makes her all warm and fuzzy inside.
Love: The first time Naruto confesses his love for Ino, he does in a battlefield with countless shinobi dying next to them and blood and guts and generic gore splattered around and on them. Yet he is almost knightly in his profession, falling on one knee even as he has just stabbed an enemy in the eye and telling her the three words that Ino had thought she'd hear in a luxurious bedroom at the top of a tower. Yes, Ino was a pragmatist like that.
"I love you."
She should feel surprised with his move, but she doesn't. "I love you too."
Light: Ino hates the daytime. It's too bright, all these annoying kids are out screaming for their parents or to each other, she has to work on her parents' shop and, let's be frank, the day is an assassination-botcher. How is someone supposed to sneak around in such good illumination? Plus, all the bars are closed. So, she hates the Light and everything about it. Strangely though, Naruto loves it. And since she loves Naruto, she's learned to not hate it.
…Much.
Dark: Naruto hates the nighttime. It's not too bright, no one is out there to break the silence, he doesn't have anything to do or someone to annoy and, let's be frank, the night doesn't give a shinobi as many chances as it does to his enemies. Especially when the shinobi is dressed in bright orange that screams 'kill me'. So, he hates the Dark and everything about it. Strangely though, Ino loves it. And since he loves Ino, he's learned to not hate it.
…Much.
Seeking Solace: It's the night of Naruto's birthday. Ino has decided to surprise her boyfriend by sitting on his bed wearing nothing on but a naughty smile. However, when she steers awake from her light doze, she decides to go find him and make sure he has a very good excuse for never showing up. Strangely, she finds him perched atop the Hokage monument, hugging his knees to his chest. His eyes glisten, and he notices her through his distress only because of his training.
"Ino," he sobs, "the Hokage never killed the Kyuubi…"
Break Away: Naruto talks. Ino listens. He goes on and on, about how he holds a demon lord in the pits of his stomach and how that's why the villagers hate him. He explains why he's up there with her when they both should be in the festival, celebrating. He explains that he won't hold it against her if she decides to push him off the mountain. When Ino says nothing and only glares at him with tear-shedding eyes that hold betrayal in them, he averts his gaze back to the festival lights beneath them.
When she gets up and leaves, he doesn't stop her.
Heaven: The wild twinkle in Ino's eyes as she kisses Naruto stuns him. After she has claimed him decisively by throwing him on the blanket covering the beach's sand and riding his lap, he realizes that he has no qualms about her taking the lead. He has never seen anything more majestic than the blue sky revealed to him through the curtain of her hair on his face.
"Beautiful," he whispers as their loving comes to a crescendo. He does not mean it for the skies spreading endlessly above them, but for the heavenly woman in his arms.
Innocence: Ino's agonized mania about persevering her innocence has troubled Naruto more than enough times, but deep down inside he finds it cute. She does countless things in order to feel young and untainted by the ninjas' way of life, like keeping her old bedroom filled with teddy bears and visiting her parents every Sunday for lunch with Naruto in tow. He doesn't do anything to stop it. He figures that it is a quirk of hers she'll either grow out of or keep.
That doesn't stop him from wishing he could do the same as her.
Drive: Ino smiles every time he hears Naruto yap away about his way of the ninja. "I won't back out!" "I keep my promises!" "I'm a ninja of my own way!" They are annoying little facts, but they are what drives Naruto to go further, to take down yet another obstacle, when everyone else fails. It's a drive as feral as few others', but with it, Naruto can always achieve greatness. And with him, so can Ino. "I won't back out, believe it!"
She ignores the strange looks she gets for those words.
Breathe Again: "No!" Naruto is practically violent as he slams his palm on Ino's chest and channels electrical chakra in order to jolt her system. It's all he can do to keep his treacherous imagination from making him vomit. What if she dies? What if I never talk to her again? What if? What if? WHAT IF? Tsunade literally has to slap him away from Ino before she can proceed to operate on the fallen kunoichi.
Ino's gasp as she is hungrily taking oxygen in is the sweetest thing Naruto has ever heard. With the sole exception of Ino's earlier admitting that she loves him back, of course.
Memory: Naruto does not know what to make of it when he finds out that Ino's room in her parents' house is filled with teddy bears. He toys with the idea of making fun of his girlfriend but discards it, finally taking up one of the smaller toys in his hands as he waits for her. He has a strange memory of a red haired woman smiling down on him as delivers a similar gift and utters goodbye.
When Ino finds him smiling sadly, she hugs him but asks nothing. He hugs her back, memories of his mother long forgotten once more.
Insanity: When Ino finds out that she is, in a sense, crazier than her sociopath boyfriend, she faints right away. When she comes to, it's in her lover's embrace. "Naruto," she asks, "what's wrong with me?" He explains to her that she has been seeing illusions and that they will go away only if she stops straining herself so much. She nods at his words and asks, "But what will you and the children do without me?" Naruto looks her dead in the eye.
"Ino… We don't have any children."
Even Naruto is unable to stop her maddened screams afterwards.
Misfortune: It's honest to God bad luck that Ino's first experience with Naruto's genitalia comes with him retrieving a kick to the crotch, courtesy of Ino's doing. Well, not really. Naruto has been affected by a disorienting genjutsu, thus registering Ino as the enemy. With her not exactly combatant abilities, all Ino can do is take over Naruto's body and attack the cheeky opponent for all that she is worth. The enemy is really surprised to see that her driving a knee in Naruto's groin did not affect the blonde before the emotionless boy slices her throat open.
Ino can not fight the blush when she gropes said groin to check if everything is okay down there.
Smile: Naruto did not fall in love with Ino because of her qualities, character, or womanly assets. It was her smile that did the trick for him, even though none of his male buddies believe him when he tells them so. Ino has the biggest, smoothest breasts of her generation and an ass to die for ("oh yeah, she also has a nice face", Kiba will amend), and Naruto only cares about her 'smile', of all things?
Naruto always rolls his eyes at Kiba's brash words and resumes his drinking with the image of Ino's smile on his mind.
Silence: It's the twins' delivery day, and Naruto couldn't be more excited."Come on, honey! The boys are coming! Push! Push!"Ino is squeezing his hand so hard that he can't feel his fingers, and his loud words are squelched under Ino's agonized birth screams, but he is still grinning like an idiot. His grin fades when Shizune informs them that she is going to perform a C-section before proceeding to do so. When she extracts their sons, the boys are neither crying nor taking delicious breaths of air. They are silent and still.
"Why aren't they making any noise?" Ino asks before horrible realization dawns upon her.
Questioning: "You've got to be kidding me." Ino accuses, but Naruto shakes his head in denial. "So you're telling me that you had nothing to do with this?" Naruto nods fervently in response. "So you didn't exploit my drunkenness and had me do… things?" Naruto nods about twenty times in rapid succession. "I won't be angry; I just want you to confess, Naruto. You must have done 'something'! Did you slip something in my drink? Use a Shintenshin of your own?"
Naruto shrugs and breaks his silence. "For the last time, you slept with Temari on your own doing!"
Blood: Naruto has been a Chuunin for a whole year, going away in B and the occasional A ranked missions almost once a week. With 'A' standing for 'Assassination', he has been used to slicing vertebrae, jugulars and deltoids, as well as getting showered in the rushing blood afterwards (because, even as a paid murderer, Naruto is good at his job but sloppy). It was disgusting at first, but one got used to it.
When Ino rushes through the hotel's door and into the bathroom trying to wash out the blood on her face and chest and hands, screaming "Why won't it come off," all Naruto can do is be there for her and hold her hair as she retches.
Rainbow: Ino has been suspecting that Naruto is going to propose to her anytime soon. He has been avoiding her, hanging out with lots of her friends instead of his buddies, and his bathroom magazine collection has gotten weird. Still, between military duties and part-time job, she pushes her suspicions to the back of her head. Hence, she is surprised when Naruto gets all excited about a spring rain that is about to stop, shedding a colorful rainbow on the skies above Konoha.
Naruto falls on his knee and shows her what has to be the most expensive ring she has ever seen. "Marry me?"
Gray: Naruto scowls at Ino's words. "No, I don't think it fits." Ino suggests something else, but Naruto frowns in contempt and discards her words again. "It's just not 'it', you know?" Ino scowls and tries once more. "Uh, no. That's definitely not it. I mean, look at her! How do you fit 'Tora' into that?" Ino yells a frustrated "Fine, you choose."
The two look over to the young kitten cleaning itself, oblivious to their conversation. Naruto smiles. "Gray. We'll call her Gray."
Fortitude: Ino is not certain what to expect when she opens up the door of the bathroom and steps in her and Naruto's bedroom clad in black lingerie that does wonders to her already shapely figure. She knows that Naruto had his share of women once, back when he was traveling with that pervert sensei of his, but the rumors about his sexual prowess (if any) have never been confirmed. She sees Naruto grin (not that boyish grin of his, but rather a rugged, confident one) and knows that she in the time of her life.
She walks with a limp for the next two days.
Vacation: "You know what?" Naruto suddenly asks, drawing Ino back to reality and away from her suntan induced reverie. "When we grow old and gray, I think I'll take you and the kids and move here. I'll build you a mansion or some shit and we'll live happily ever after. It will be just me, you, our two boys and girl and the sandy beach." She hums her consent and goes back to wondering. Finally, when she can't take it anymore, she climbs on his lap and discards the top of her bikini.
"Let's start with getting ourselves some children, hmm?"
Mother Nature: It's the third week of the B-ranked surveillance mission, and Ino and Naruto are cold and miserable. It has been raining cats and dogs for the last six days, justifying the Country of Water's name. The couple of shinobi is drenched in water, their hair plastered on their foreheads and their clothes clinging to them like leeches. And, to top everything off, the target they are tracing has not done anything suspicious so far.
"If this is the love of mother nature," Naruto grumbles to his lover, "then she can go screw herself."
Cat: It is Ino's birthday, and the two lovers have finally managed to stray away from all of Ino's friends for some time to themselves. Ino is blindfolded with Naruto's colorful tie and guided into their apartment, chuckling at her boyfriend's antics. "Look, I have no problem with kinky, but this is getting ridiculous, Naruto." Ino complains, but Naruto shushes her with a light kiss to the lips and a tug at his impromptu blindfold's knot.
Ino opens her eyes and sees Naruto holding the tiniest, gray colored kitten ever. "Happy birthday."
No Time: "For fuck's sake, bro. To be late like Kakashi is one thing, but to be late like this? Are you out of your fucking mind?" Naruto ignores Kiba's howling as the two glide over Konoha as their leaps take them from roof to roof. "She's gonna kill you, I just want you to know that." Naruto mumbles something about mutts and how they need to be put down but still realizes that he's in for the scolding of his life (to put it mildly).
After all, it's the bride that is supposed to be late to her wedding, not the groom.
Trouble Lurking: Ino stares into Naruto's blue eyes, and he stares right back into her teal ones. "You… You really love me?" Naruto asks for confirmation, and she smiles through the hand she has risen to hide her blushed cheeks. "Yes," she admits, "I really love you." Naruto moves in seconds and kisses her with more passion than she's ever seen him show in the seven months they've been dating, making her forget that they are in a battlefield.
As the crazed plant-like Akatsuki charges them with vines flailing, the two stop kissing, smile, and meet together in battle.
Author's Notes: 25 gone, 75 to go. Happy holidays.