Hi. So, a few precisions. I am French, therefore I don't speak English fluently. I write in that language to try and improve, and I'll be happy to correct mistakes in chapters if they bother you. Because I'm not fluent, I'm going to keep descriptions, actions and all that to a minimum. Vocabulary and grammar are a pain.

About the story:

Summary: In a world governed by strict rules, two girls struggle to find their true places, one unsure of humankind, the other unsure of herself. But unbeknown to them, their destinies are linked.

Universe: AU but with Konoha, their world and their society, only in a more modern day (they have cars, for example, but Konoha is still a city built in the middle of a deep forest). No more ninja, but some characters do have powers.

Characters: Sakura and Ino centric, but others will have a role to play (Shikamaru, Hinata, Naruto, Choji, Kiba, etc.). But given the number of characters in the manga, a few won't be there or will be only mentioned. It's not that I don't like Sasuke, Lee, Shino, Sai, Tenten, Gaara, the Sannin (quite the contrary) but I found it difficult to write with too many characters, at least in English, so the ones that will appear won't hold a big role, for the others, well, sorry.

Also, it's an AU so a few could be a little OOC, but not by much (I hope).

Genre: Primarily friendship, drama, family. Secondarily romance.

Pairings: Ino/Sakura, but nothing explicit. Others will be mentioned (Naruto/Hinata for ex).

Age: Sakura, Ino, Kiba, Naruto, Hinata, Lee, Tenten, Sasuke are 17 or 18, in their last year in the Academy.

Shikamaru, Choji and Neji are 18 or 19 and already graduated.

Others are adults.

Disclaimer: What isn't mine is the propriety of the author of 'Naruto'.

O

At dawn

I. Another day in Konoha

Sakura Haruno sighed, her green eyes turning toward the window to her right. School could be really boring, even if she was in her final year. Not because she didn't like it, quite the contrary, she loved to learn. She wasn't naturally a genius, but she was intelligent, greatly curious, really hard working and she learned fast and well.

Her classmates suddenly laughed, forcing her attention to the class once more, and Sakura rolled her eyes. Naruto Uzumaki, the worst student and notable clown, had once more opened his big mouth.

Well, Sakura couldn't say it was that hard to be the best student in here.

When Mitarashi dismissed them a few minutes later, Sakura took her time to leave the classroom. She had no desire to be swallowed in the mass of teens.

"Haruno?"

Surprised, the introverted girl raised her head to her left. Teachers rarely spoke to her, except when they needed her to give the good answers to the class. Sakura liked to be the quiet girl in the back that nobody noticed and people generally respected that.

"Sensei?"

Anko Mitarashi, a rather young teacher, nodded to her.

"I couldn't help but notice that you're awfully distracted these days. Something's the matter?"

"Hum, no. No."

"Really?"

Sakura frowned, shifting nervously under the woman's stare. She hated it when people looked at her like that, so she let her old instincts took over and tilted her head lightly to allow her pink hair to partly hide her face.

"Yes. Really."

"You seem tired."

Clenching her left fist, she shook her head. She knew she was pale and too thin, and that people couldn't have missed it in the twelve years she had frequented the Academy. Still, she would rather die than let them know of her pitiful family life.

"I study a lot lately."

"Ah. Nobody… tried to talk to you about the use of your gift or about your future?"

"My future, sensei? Uh, no. No."

Mitarashi narrowed her eyes at her, not moving for a few seconds, and then, suddenly, she nodded curtly and left the room. Sakura stood there dumbly, stunned, and shook her head before leaving the classroom too.

Well, another great day in Konoha. And by great she meant weird and annoying.

She went to the cafeteria and found a little table in a corner. Sitting down there, she began to eat her meal, looking around to verify that nobody was gazing in her direction. It took her a few minutes to eat, she never had a lot, and once she had forced herself to forget her hunger and the odd conversation with her teacher, she began to study the teens around her, scowling at a few of them.

The Academy wasn't the only school in Konoha, but it was the largest and most prestigious. It was the only one that was mixed, too. The Leaf School only accepted normal students, while the Stone College only accepted children with special abilities – like Sakura.

A letter sent after the child's fifth birthday informed the families of the definitive school the heirs would attend. Most of the time, it was the one one of the parents had attended (abilities were hereditary after all). Sakura was an exception, both her parents had attended the Leaf School, but obviously she hadn't been able to go there.

Where they studied wasn't that important. The subjects were the same, like the rules and the organization. It was just a traditional thing to separate the children in three groups per generation. The Academy had been created after the last war, at the same time as the Laws. All of that to promote the unity between the few families with abilities and people without any power. Sakura could say that it had worked. Decades later, the world was more or less at peace, and no discrimination or useless fear of magic existed anymore.

Well, that was the theory, but eh, Sakura loved the irony. After all, their ancestors (especially the ninjas) would have certainly hated to see what they had become. The most famous and powerful families descended directly from them. Money, political power, fame, they often had all of it. Legends about their past, their way of life and their powers were running around, even if now their abilities were more or less known.

Speaking of which…

The Academy had surprisingly welcomed almost every heir of the Old Clans these last years and almost every one of them were in Sakura's year or so. Naruto was once again joking around. Four of his now infamous clones were dancing on one table, and the original was just finishing a mysterious seal when Hatake-sensei entered the room and went directly to him, his right hand crackling with electricity.

Yeah, Kakashi Hatake was pissed off, that was for sure. Naruto had been trying to show off for a week now, Sakura didn't know why, but she thought that it was because he had finally learned to master the ability of creating seals that he had inherited. Both his parents had died years ago in an accident, the story making the head lines for weeks, and now Naruto was the last of his clan.

But as Naruto was explaining to Hatake, using abilities in public wasn't forbidden if nobody was hurt, nothing was destroyed, if they weren't used on unwilling people, for personal gain or with bad intentions. The Laws were strict and much more complicated, but it was close enough. Anybody could end up in prison for the rest of their life if they didn't respect that (and prison wasn't the worst of it). The government, the Agents and the policemen weren't joking about laws, that was for sure.

Finally, Naruto sat down next to his friends. What a weird and prestigious group they were. Next to him was Kiba Inuzuka, another heir of a famous family. The Inuzuka clan wasn't big, nor was it really rich or powerful, but they were with the Nara family the most loved in Konoha. Pleasant and colourful, the Inuzuka clan had an ability that allowed them to communicate with animals. Kiba was never seen without his dog, Akamaru, since his mother had given the puppy to him on his fifth birthday, just before entering the Academy.

Sakura thought that Kiba was the most normal boy in the group. Often joking, sure of himself, as loyal as his dog, he was always seen with Hinata, a long time friend of his and, before his moving out of the country, with Shino Aburame.

Hinata Hyuuga was the first heir of a large and powerful clan who possessed the Byakugan. Its members could therefore see everything around them, even through solid things. Their political role and their wealth, their dignity and the discipline they were raised with provided them with a regal aura that paparazzi absolutely loved. Hinata however was an exception in the clan. Shy, introverted, discreet, she was everything a Hyuuga was supposed to despise. It was even rumoured that her father, Hiashi Hyuuga, businessman, had almost disinherited her. Even if Minako, his sister in law, and Neji, his nephew, convinced him not to, it wasn't a secret that Hiashi gave Hanabi, his ten year old daughter, everything he never gave Hinata.

Money and power didn't mean happiness, and Sakura had learned that lesson while frequenting the Academy.

Despite a rocky beginning, Neji and Hinata were as close as a brother and a sister. Neji was a true Hyuuga, talented, noble, always composed. He was now working alongside his mother in the company, having graduated a few months before.

Sakura noticed the hour and quickly went toward the library. She needed to find two or three books before her next class, and she preferred to stay in the cafeteria the less time possible anyway. Avoiding the other students was easy. She had been frequenting this school with them all since she was five, they were used to her quietness and she was sure that nobody noticed her anymore. Even if a few talked to her sometimes, most of them despised her and avoided her.

She was a First, after all, one of the few this century had welcomed, and Firsts in the past had too often been instable, crazy, too powerful for their own good or traitors, or even all of the above. And now, it was almost common knowledge that she was one, even if it had been top secret for years. Leaks happened, she supposed, and even if they couldn't be sure because she had never used her ability in front of someone, people now looked at her with wariness and/or contempt.

Sakura didn't think she was dangerous, really, but she supposed it was natural. It wasn't as if Sakura wanted friends, anyway. Who cared about that? People were hypocritical monsters, in her opinion. All of them were liars, egoistical and vain. She could see it as she watched them interact, all the fake smiles, all the whispered words. They hurt each other, they wanted nothing more than be on top and they didn't care who they destroyed in their quest. Humans weren't loving creatures, they were born to hurt and to hate.

No. Sakura was fine on her own, as she always had been. She didn't need friends, love, parents, anything. She could take care of herself. In a few months she would graduate, and with results like hers she was going to get a job that would permit her to get her own place and live without worry for the rest of her life.

That was her plan since pre school, and Sakura loved plans, especially when she was the one making them.

A few more months, and she would forget all of these teens with no brain and no decency.

O

The fire surprised everybody.

Sasuke Uchiha wasn't one to lose control like that, and the Uchihas never used their abilities in front of everybody unless there was an emergency.

But Sasuke Uchiha wasn't in his normal state of mind since the death of his beloved mother and big brother a few months before. What had happened in the Uchiha household that night had been kept top secret (not difficult when the head of the most powerful clan of Konoha, Fugaku Uchiha, happened to be the head of the Regular Police), but it surely had thrown the last heir of the rich family into a spiral of hate.

For Sakura, the boy was clearly completely insane.

"Uchiha! Stop that at once!"

Kurenai Yuhi, their current teacher, narrowed her strange eyes at the young man when he didn't make the bright red flames he was cradling in his hands disappear. Instead, he turned his head toward her, activating his second genetic ability, and narrowed his now red eyes. The woman didn't let herself be impressed by the infamous Sharingan.

"Now, Uchiha."

"Don't you dare give me orders," he threatened, his cold voice laced with hate but deadly calm.

Sakura shuddered and, like everybody in the room, she held her breath. Few were the ones who had already seen someone use their gift against somebody – the rules against that and the high sentences linked to them were fully dissuading. Of course, one had to be eighteen and considered an adult to be subject to them without a trial, but even an underage teen could be arrested, interrogated and exiled. Heck, even a child could. That was how the peace had been kept all these decades.

"Really?" Yuhi said. "Or else?"

Even Uchiha's fan club couldn't help their little horrified cries when the boy raised his hand to form a ball of fire capable of engulfing the pregnant woman. Having been trained to think quickly and to act accordingly like all of them since her youth, Yuhi-sensei moved and did a strange sign with her hands.

Sasuke froze suddenly, paled and murmured something about Itachi, the fire disappearing from his hands, the Sharingan leaving his eyes black. A few seconds later, he fell unconscious in Naruto's arms.

"It's… It's not his fault!" the blond defended quickly. "He's tired, and sad, it's…!"

"Are you crazy?" another boy snapped at him. "He fucking tried to kill her!"

"He didn't do that!"

"Yeah? He could have burned this place down, and all of us with it!"

"You don't know a thing!"

"Why? Because I'm a Common?"

"No!"

That was when a fight erupted. Sakura watched it unfold with curious eyes. The Gifted Ones against the Commons, a few confused and wary ones in the middle. Laws could force people to bend to the rules, but they couldn't help the fear, the disdain or the uneasiness, Sakura guessed.

After all, how a Common could defend themselves against someone like an Uchiha with their two abilities or a Nara with their capacity to control shadows? How could a Common know if someone like Yuhi-sensei who could create illusions strong enough to confuse an Uchiha wasn't controlling their mind?

They simply couldn't, and that was why the Laws had been created and were so strict. To keep the Gifted Ones in check, and the Commons from wanting to eliminate them all out of fear.

"Shut up!"

Now that was unusual. Therefore that shut them all up and stopped Sakura in her musing.

Ino Yamanaka never used that tone, she was too perfect to even raise her voice.

"What's the meaning of this?" she asked, fixing them all with her strange eyes. "Fighting like that when we've all known each other for years. Suhei, Naruto was the one who helped you when you couldn't walk after the bus accident. He used his clones to push you around, to carry your things and your bag. And Naruto, I know Sasuke is your best friend, but he isn't the boy we knew, he isn't the one who played with you when we were kids or even the same one who joked around with us last year. I'm sorry, but you have to see the truth. Now I want you all to sit down and wait until we come back."

She followed Yuhi outside the room, with Kiba and another boy carrying Uchiha toward the headmaster's office.

Sakura sat back down, pondering. Ino Yamanaka was the most popular girl in the school (possibly in all three schools). She was beautiful, witty, always perfect, and she was in the top five in all her classes (Sakura being the first). To top it all, Ino was apparently kind with everybody. She always had a moment to talk with her classmates even when she was with her friends, she helped the younger kids in the corridor, she was polite, athletic and she came from the third most powerful clan in Konoha.

Even if the Yamanakas were now only seven in Konoha, they had kept their place in the society because of their heritage and their aura. They didn't inspire fear like the remaining Uchihas nor did they inspire respect like the Hyuugas, but nobody would dare cross the Yamanaka family, even other Gifted Ones. Inoichi Yamanaka was the head of the Secret Police or Agency, as it was often called. Its Agents were few but trained in spying on Konoha people and if necessary controlling Gifted rogues. Nobody knew what they really did, and nobody asked. Because when something happened that involved powers, like Commons being manipulated or assaulted by people with abilities, it was always the Agents who saved the day. The Secret Police was specialised in controlling the gifted population. Nothing happened in the city without them knowing, and they had surely stopped a lot of guerrillas.

But the main reason behind the aura of the Yamanaka family was that everybody knew they were telepaths. What they could do exactly, nobody knew for sure, but some murmured that they could enter the mind of a person and force them to do everything they wanted and that they could kill with a simple thought.

Of course, the Uchihas for example were far more powerful with their control over fire and their mysterious Sharingan that no heir had been able to really master for many generations, but these were destructive powers. Telepathy was subtle, discreet, invisible. Only another telepath could identify it. And that made everyone wary of the Yamanaka Clan.

Sakura couldn't know if the rumours on their abilities were true, she only knew that every legend had a part of reality somewhere, and it was enough to persuade her to stay far away from them all, and especially from the group of oh so great heirs of Konoha.

Uzumaki was annoying and loud, the Hyuugas were worrying (even if Neji was not in the school anymore and that Hinata seemed like someone Sakura could almost be at ease with), Nara had been a lazy fool and his friend Akimichi was of no interest (these two were gone too), Yamanaka was puzzling and an annoying competition in class, Inuzuka was an idiot, and finally Uchiha had gone insane over the last three months for a reason or another. He didn't even stay with his friends anymore when he bothered showing up at school, and seemed always busy scaring people off.

The weird group hadn't been easily formed. At first, nobody wanted to talk to Uzumaki, Neji hated Hinata and more or less everybody else, Hinata was incapable of forming a sentence before running away, Akimichi and Nara seemed happy to only talk to Yamanaka, everybody wanted to be friend with Uchiha who wouldn't leave his older brother's shadow, and Inuzuka seemed at ease only with his dear dog. Until one day, Uzumaki succeeded in dragging Uchiha along for a game, and then Inuzuka and Aburame. And then, sweet Hinata.

It stayed like that for a while, Akimichi, Nara and Yamanaka on one side, Neji Hyuuga on the other, and the third group in the middle. They also befriended two Commons, a strange boy named Rock Lee and a tomboy named Tenten.

But a few years later, they were all the best of friends, making a few of their parents proud and happy about this prospect of new links between the clans, and the other adults enraged.

Sakura had always been annoyed by them all, not because they were the famous heirs, not because they were powerful or because Yamanaka and Uchiha had so many love declarations per week that they could recover the Academy's roof with them, but because they were loud, annoyingly so, and because everybody in the school seemed to follow them like they were royalty or something. She found the dynamic disturbing, and couldn't help but clearly doubt the sincerity of all those friendships.

Really, all these heirs loving each other without thinking about future business alliances and such? Ah! Impossible.

They were all the same, after all.

As she left the classroom, thinking that they would not see Uchiha anymore for a while, Sakura shook her head, annoyed with herself for being so distracted lately.

It was true that school had been weird. She was a good observer, intelligent too, and she had seen the tension rise these last few months. It wasn't clear, but it was there. Why would the fight occur so easily earlier if it weren't because of this atmosphere that had engulfed them all? Of course, Uchiha had been cynical, cold and cruel lately, and maybe everybody was shocked that he had gone that far, but still. Something wasn't right.

It wasn't only at school, Sakura noted, nodding to herself as she crossed the street toward her bus stop. She seemed to meet more policemen patrolling these days. And she was fairly certain that if she had been able to see them or to notice them, she would have found Agents from the Secret Police around too.

Was it linked to the mysterious murders of the nine Uchihas? Sasuke's brother, mother, uncles and aunts, and cousins?

What did it mean?

"Ow!"

Sakura jumped and looked around. In her concentration, she had walked past her bus stop and near an alley she didn't know.

"Help! Help!"

It was a boy, crying and apparently alone. Sakura looked around but saw no one, and so she went to him. He had been playing around with a skateboard on a makeshift bridge with heavy wood shelves placed upon the new and metallic huge dumpsters. He had fallen and, of course, had found himself under one of the heavy thing. How he had succeeded in pushing it over was beyond her. She hoped his leg wasn't broken.

When he saw her, his eyes lightened despite the pain.

"Don't worry, I'll help you. Are you hurt?" she asked, her voice raw because of lack of using.

"Yes," the young boy sniffed. "My leg, and my arm. And I can't make it move!"

He tried to push the dumpster, but it didn't even shake. Sakura knew that those things had been installed to keep stray animals from going to eat in them and people from moving them around. They could be moved only with the mechanical system attached to the garbage trucks.

"It hurts!"

They were hidden from view, and Sakura knew that the help she had just called wouldn't be there before at least fifteen minutes.

"Mom! Mom!"

"Calm down, help's coming."

"It hurts!"

Damn. Leg's broken.

Sakura never had any luck. She hated this city, and she hated her life.

"Hey, what's happening?"

She raised her head to see a man who had just opened his window a few stories above them.

"The kid's hurt himself, I already called help!"

"Is he alright?"

"I think his leg is broken!"

"Wait here! I'm coming to help you!"

Well, she supposed that people weren't totally evil when they wanted.

"Calm down. What's your name?" she asked the kid.

But he was still crying, obviously in pain, trying to push himself from under the dumpster.

"Stop that! Stop, you're hurting yourself more!"

"I want my mom, it hurts!"

Sakura sighed, trying to decide what to do. She pushed a lock of her short pink hair behind her ear and nipped at her bottom lip nervously. If she wanted to do something, it was now or never.

"Damn," she whispered, crouching down and putting her hand under the dumpster. "I'm going to lift it, alright? At three –"

"But you can't, it's too hea –"

"One, two, three!"

She stood up, lifting it with little to no effort. The kid cried out in pain and she ordered him not to move. Deciding against leaving the dumpster up, for it would raise even more questions, she put it on its side just after the boy's feet.

She reddened when she saw him staring at her with wide eyes.

"How – how did you do that?"

Sakura shrugged. She rarely used her ability, because really, who needed that sort of strength every day? Besides, she hated it.

"Don't move," she repeated, looking behind her to see if the neighbour was coming.

What she saw instead made her heart clench.

"That was impressive," Ino Yamanaka said calmly, coming toward them.

Sakura cursed herself. She knew using her gift in front of people was dangerous. But of course she had to do it to keep a stupid kid from hurting!

When her mother had understood that Sakura was different, she had panicked. Not that her mother wasn't used to extraordinary people, the streets were full of them, but nothing had prepared her to have a gifted baby. Sakura had been recognized as a First and registered as such early, and authorities had explained to her that it could be wise to hide her power for a while, as was her right, because people tended to be wary of persons like her. The Old Clans didn't like new bloodlines appearing under their noses because of old pride and distrust, and some calculating persons could try to manipulate her or worse to gain her help, which wasn't rare when a Gifted One didn't have a family behind him or her.

So Sakura hid her gift, and even more so since the information had been leaked and that people had begun to whisper that she was a First. Nobody had known for sure though.

Until now.

And it was Yamanaka, no less.

"You could have helped," Sakura retorted, trying not to step back.

She had never been at ease with people, and even less so with that girl, even if they had been in the same class almost forever at the Academy.

"Sorry, you were faster than me."

Ino was the type of young woman that other girls hated. Fair skin, always dressed impeccably with expensive clothes, long blond hair, nice smile and voice, tall enough but not too tall, incredible body and blue eyes.

Dark blue eyes without pupil, the eyes of the Yamanaka clan. They seemed strangely lifeless and distant, and yet they seemed to pierce Sakura's soul and leave her bare to the world.

Sakura hated those eyes.

Her unease seemed not to go unnoticed, and the blue gaze hardened, Yamanaka's lips a thin line suddenly.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" she asked more coldly. "Go."

Not liking the tone at all, Sakura frowned.

"Excuse me?"

"A man is coming. I'll stay and answer the questions, unless you want people to ask you how you helped the boy?"

What the hell? Who did she think she was?

But Sakura couldn't retort, because she heard the steps coming toward them. She glared at the girl and quickly left the alley.

She had the weird impression that the distinctive eyes of Ino stared at her back until she turned the street corner, but didn't dare check.

It was only once she was in a street far from the center of the city and in front of a decrepit building that she stopped to breathe.

And why was Ino in that alley to begin with?

Stupid princess who thought that anyone should adore her! Well, she had another thing coming!

Sakura sighed, opened the door to the apartment and was immediately assaulted with a smell she knew too well.

Okay. Maybe now she could confess it to herself.

Maybe she was kind of jealous of all those kids at school. They had money, a true home, parents who loved them. They certainly didn't know a thing about true hunger, about a winter without heating because the only money your unemployed mother earned thanks to Konoha Social Services was spent in the liquor store.

But Sakura wasn't really complaining, she was quite proud to say that she didn't need to beg her mother to buy her something to eat or new shoes anymore. She had worked hard, and she was top student in the Academy since she had entered it, and that meant she had won each year the scholarship the Academy granted its best student. Theoretically, it was to permit the student to pay for his or her studies in one of the best universities. There were three of them in Konoha and they were expensive. School was free until teens graduated from their first establishment, usually around eighteen, after that, everyone was considered an adult and adults had to pay to study.

Sakura was trying to save the most money she could. She divided the money she earned after each successful school year in twelve parts, one for each month, but after she had paid the part of the rent that social services didn't and that her mother neglected almost every month now, buy her school furniture if needed and after she had saved a little for her future, she had barely enough to sometimes buy herself clothes that would fit her (growing up was a pain), her bus tickets and her public library subscription. The little she had left after all that, and it wasn't much, was spent in food.

Yep, Sakura Haruno was proud.

She was introverted, asocial, brilliant, supernaturally strong, poor, skinny, ridiculously nervous under others' stares, unloved, alone, but proud.

And quite adept at convincing herself that it was all she needed.

O

It wasn't like she had thought that suddenly Sakura would remember.

Ino Yamanaka wasn't a fool, and she knew that it was unlikely that suddenly, ten years later, Sakura Haruno would have a flash about what Ino had called in her head the Event.

She had been young, inexperienced and intrigued, and it had ended badly. If anybody learnt about it, she would be in deep trouble with the authorities, especially with her father (which was almost the same thing).

It wasn't because she had been seven that she hadn't known that it could happen and that they would let it pass. Nothing was forgotten or forgiven, that was the base of the Laws.

And these Laws were that strict because of people exactly like her.

A lot of people were waiting for a mistake in the Yamanaka Clan, watching them, staring, always. One wrong step, and everything could end. Ino understood it, more than anybody could ever know. She understood the fear they had of her and of her own, she knew quite well it was justified.

She knew what her responsibility in this world was.

Yamanakas had to be irreproachable, because a slip of the tongue, a step too far, and everything her ancestors had worked for would be lost. People would say that they were manipulators, dangerous, too unpredictable, and they would hate them, hunt them, possibly exile them. Or worse.

And so, she had been raised to be perfect. In every aspect.

It didn't mean that she was, inside. It didn't mean that her beautiful smiles, her calmness and her happiness were real. It didn't mean that she had never made mistakes.

It only meant that she was a good liar.

"You're quite silent," Choji noted from the car seat behind her.

Ino shrugged.

"Sorry, I'm tired."

"Headaches?"

Shikamaru, always a tad protector behind his laconism.

"It's fine," Ino reassured, rolling her eyes.

"Couldn't you drive a little faster?"

"I just had my license, Choji, so, no."

"If you had passed it just after your eighteenth birthday, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now."

"I'm looking forward to my birthday," Ino sighed.

"Want to learn to drive this badly? You know we're happy to drive you, princess," Choji teased.

"I miss you, guys. School is so weird without you."

"Nothing can replace the Ino-Shika-Cho team, huh?"

"Nothing, that's for sure."

"We're here."

They got out of the car and walked calmly in the cemetery. Silently they stopped in front of a simple tombstone and Ino put a few seeds on the grass. She kept her hand over it and soon it transformed into beautiful and pale flowers.

"Nice choice," Shikamaru approved.

Choji put an hand on Ino's shoulder and nodded.

"I think Asuma-sensei would have loved them."

Together, they remembered their favourite teacher for a few minutes. Asuma Sarutobi had been one of their teachers at the Academy, but also their tutor. Every child had a tutor for the first five years after entering the school, and he had been theirs.

They left the cemetery silently and spoke again only once in the car.

"Do you know what is going to happen to Uchiha?" Shikamaru asked.

"No. I went back to class, I wanted to be sure that Kurenai-sensei and the baby were alright."

"Are you sure they're fine?"

"Yes, I'm sure, stop worrying, you'll get wrinkles."

"Troublesome," he mumbled to her amusement.

"I doubt it's a coincidence, you know," Choji said between two crisps. "The Uchihas' murders, Asuma-sensei's pretended accident, the Aburame family who moved without a real explanation two years ago,…"

"We shouldn't talk about that."

"Why?" Choji frowned. "Ino, what do you think?"

"Shika's right. You know how it is."

"But did you learn things?"

"You know how it works."

"I know, you don't want to talk about all the thoughts you hear everyday, but that's different."

"I know as much as you. Something's up, and talking about it could get us all in trouble."

"You follow the rules too much, Ino."

Don't mind him, Shikamaru projected to her, knowing that she couldn't help but hear that type of loud thoughts.

The boys had quickly learned to protect their thoughts thanks to Ino and the fact that their fathers had known each other since childhood too. They hadn't learned only for their privacy, but also to shield the girl from them.

He's just being Choji.

Ino smiled, and that didn't go unnoticed.

"Hey! Stop that! Silent conversations are allowed only if we're all invited!"

"Sorry, Cho," Ino smiled.

"But he's right about something. I always knew Uchiha was crazy, but something really made him snap that night."

"He wasn't crazy," Choji contradicted. "He's always been a little obsessed with his abilities, that's for sure, but that's because their father was always on their back and he wanted so much to prove himself to Itachi, to make him proud."

"My father and the Agents are the ones who must understand what happened, not us."

"Still, we should keep our eyes open, things are unclear lately."

"Hmm. I hope Sasuke will go back to the one he was before."

"Remember when you had a crush on him?" Shikamaru said, trying to ease the sudden tension.

"I was twelve! Every girl had a crush on him! Come on, have you seen him?"

"Thank god, you came to your senses long before falling into his bed."

"Nice, Cho, really nice."

"Ah, Cho is hiding things from you, Ino."

"What?"

"Shika!"

"He has a girlfriend. She's in our history class."

"What? Why didn't you tell me that as soon as I entered the car? Why didn't you call me? Cho, come on, tell me everything!"

"Shika, thank you!"

"Come on, I'm your sister or not?"

God, give her a boyfriend, then she'll let us be.

"I heard that!"

O

"Are you sure it will work?"

"It's been years and everything went fine. My plan was perfect from the beginning. It is working."

The younger man smirked.

"You're sure of yourself, aren't you, Shimura?"

Danzo smiled, a cold expression on his features betraying his real feelings.

"Oh, I am sure. The old Sarutobi will never see that one coming."

"The loss of his son could push the mayor to try and find a link between all that's been happening."

"No, he is too worried about his people, as always. Where is the Uchiha boy?"

"In the custody of the Secret Police. Have you found potential hosts?"

"No, not yet. The heirs are too risky, their families would understand too quickly. Your ability isn't without side effects, Ekari. But wait and see. I'll find one soon."

"And now?"

"Now, we wait and we keep an eye open. Their pride will be their downfall, and then this city will be mine."

O