Sundance

SHE COULDN'T BREATHE. Not underneath the tightly wrapped bandages strung around her throat, pulled harshly by the stranger, and certainly not underneath the murderous glare of the second stranger who was bleeding all over her bed—their bed. The one she shared with Shikamaru, her husband, who was bound to come stepping through the door any moment now.

Damn it.

She clawed at the bandages, hoping her nails had grown long enough to slice through them. She kicked with all her spirit at the towering ninja, but he didn't bulge. His eyes were stone cold, his mouth set in a stern line of brutality. She couldn't even scream.

Where's Yoshino Nara when you need her? Flew viciously through Ino's mind. Stop. She just wanted all of this to stop.

And it did stop. When her oxygen ran out and she slumped to the floor, the scene spinning around her as she feebly tried to catch it. Her struggle ended. Her heart beat so hard she felt it would give out, she knew it would.

The monster stood over her before crouching down to touch her cheek with his grubby fingers. "Pity…isn't it?" his voice sounded like the grave, "She's beautiful. How is it that someone so painfully lovely could be one of them, have Konohagakure blood running through her veins?" the monster ran a hand through her hair.

"Enough Jugo," the other spat impatiently, then ordered: "Search the house for something to stop this bleeding."

Ino stared blankly across the room, barley alive. She waited a few heartbeats for him to stomp away to rip the bandages off her neck, gasping for breath. She raked the air for all it was worth, forcing herself onto her elbows, weak and miserable with pain.

The man on the bed stood up, ready to call back his partner who already left the room, when the words died in his throat. Ino felt her heart slow, ready to crawl away. Then, a terrible bolt recognition stormed her face. "No…"

The man moved fast, but with a limp, as he struggled across the room. His head tilted to the left as his mind worked around who she was. He chuckled, shaking his head.

He turned his back on her, as if she was nothing, as if the fact that she was still alive was of little consequence.

He sat back down on her bed, his eyes traveling slowly around the room before resting on a pack of cigarettes. He popped it open, pulled one out, and blew a tiny puff of flame over the end. "I never imagined you'd be our first casualty."

You mean murder.

"Sasuke…Sasuke, please, don't do this. Don't let him…" Ino's plead silenced itself when she realized he didn't care. She wanted to run, she wanted so desperately to run, but the only way out was through the door Jugo exited, or the high luxury windows that would plummet her two stories easy.

A brief whisper of Mind Control Jutsu drifted in, but she couldn't, she was too rusty with that now. Trapped, she slowly lowered herself to the floor, hoping her attempt to play dead, and the fact that Sasuke hadn't called Jugo to finish what he started, would work, so she closed her eyes.

What about Shikamaru? What happens when he comes home, expecting dinner and a smiling wife, and instead has his throat silenced open? Ino squeezed her eyes shut, balled her fist, and rose onto her forearms. She had to fight. For him if nothing else.

"Sasuke…"

He blew a wispy puff.

"Remember when we were young and—"

His lip twitched into a frown. "Your sentiments won't work on me."

"—and what you said about—do you remember what you told me on New Year's, about finding our destinies and—and—" her mind drew blanks. Why wasn't she looking for a weapon? Why couldn't panic spur her into action? Why didn't she, couldn't she, feel she was about to die as deeply as she should?

Sasuke stood up. His eyes searched her as if he was reading her. "What are you talking about? You didn't give a damn about me. If you had known who I really was—who I really am…"

"I was the only one who put flowers for every deceased in your family after the massacre!" Ino shouted her voice raw with pleading, "I stole those flowers from the shop for you. I helped you bury them, Sasuke. I did, when no one else would dare cross through the daunting gates of Uchiha Manor."

She wiped her forehead with a grimy wrist, resting her hands on the shovel handle. It was stuck beneath piles of dirt and grass, glinting with the leftover dying sunlight of a hot afternoon. Silent breezes crossed over them, terror still imprinted on Sasuke's face, confusion and fear painted hers.

The men who volunteered to help them left before it got dark, claiming they needed to return to their family, but superstition of ghosts hung beneath their every word. Ino, her hair long about her face and greasy from cleaning tools, had spots of blood from wiping the dark liquid off the walls of the manor on her dark dress. Her fingernails were burning with all the scrubbing and digging she had done, her eyes emptied of tears, finally. The moment she strung her arms about Sasuke's neck, they lost it. For hours, tears consumed the ground in human rain, the agony of nearly a hundred lives lost, constricted every sob and gasp.

She looked to him, and he broke his gaze on her and looked away.

"You can go home now, Yamanaka-chan," he said, his voice dry with dehydration. He refused food and water for the entire week, not like he could stomach it anyway. He didn't look at her, he couldn't even if he tried, he didn't want her here, to see the aftermath he had to see…what was left of the Uchiha clan.

"Go home now, please." Was all he could manage without crying, and he wanted to cry all over again, but not in front of her.

She stopped leaning on the shovel and finished adorning the last grave—his mother's—with a rose. She swallowed what felt like hot sand lodged in her throat. She stepped towards him, he stepped back. "Don't touch me." Snapped out of his mouth, but he softened it with: "My clothes, my skin…all of it soiled."

"Hey, I'm dirty too," she said airily, trying to punch in a tone of humor, but she couldn't even smile. She hugged him again and he stiffened, before wrapping his arms around her briefly. She squeezed him tighter and a tear fell out of his eyes, then more streamed down his face.

"I'm so sorry, Sasuke…" she had tears in her eyes and the sound of crying on her mouth. "So sorry…"

When she pulled away, his arms came around her again. She re-hugged him.

Jugo's footsteps impregnated the air. He didn't attack her first; he just looked from Sasuke to Ino. Then from Ino to Sasuke.

Sasuke's cold eyes didn't leave Ino's, but he held a hand up for Jugo to wait.

"Out of respect, and nothing more, do you escape death, Ino," he said, his voice solemn. "Don't forget that."

A slithery darkness coated her vision and before Ino knew it, she had fallen to the floor and slept.

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