CHAPTER 57(Sisters)

Read auxiliary chapter World Info before starting the story.

Please read the author's notes. (Examples and explanation of moves and changes etc)

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CHAPTER START---

---Team 10 Training Field...

Ino and Sakura stood a few meters apart, each holding a kunai and sporting some bruises under the midday sun. With determination on their faces, both ninjas ran forward.

In a flurry of blows they both landed small cuts, Sakura's proficiency in medical jutsu was second only to lady Tsunade, the girl was talented and it showed.

Every cut Ino landed would be healed any chance she could lay a hand on her injuries. Sakura was relentless, taking all the damage and continuing to press the blonde.

Ino landed a clean hit, stabbing the girl in the leg with her kunai before kicking her in the face.

Sakura stalled for a moment but retaliated with a punch.

*CRACK*

The sound of Ino's arm fracturing echoed out as she was ragdolled across the training field.

What would have been a lethal hit if Ino hadn't been actively trying to wear her down. Every small cut took chakra to heal, chakra that she then didn't have for her super-strength.

Rolling with the momentum, Ino grits her teeth and made hand signs as she tumbled. By the time Sakura patched herself up a large fireball was already on top of her.

Raising her arms she had to take the hit, the aftermath leaving her almost naked with severe burns all across her body.

She drops to her knees as silent cries carry her pain. Tears forming in her eyes.

"Why the hell are you crying, get up!" the blonde commands, looking down at her former rival with disdain in her eyes.

"I-I, AHHHH!" Sakura forces herself to stand, barely having enough energy or focus to make a fist.

"Pathetic, is this all you can do?" Ino places a hand on Sakura's neck, a simple move to show how vulnerable her friend was.

"I...sorry..." Sakura's broken voice barely reaches Ino. Even standing that close the blonde felt like she was miles away.

"Jeez, let's get you cleaned up..." Ino mutters as she looks at the girl with disappointment.

Almost two hours later, sitting under the treeline of the training field Sakura was covered in bandages.

Her change of clothes was baggy, intentionally chosen so she doesn't press her injuries.

Ino sat beside her leaning against the same tree casually eating some Dango.

"I couldn't win once," Sakura numbly mutters, Ino didn't even look at the girl.

"Yup," Ino shrugs, "A month of training and you always end up looking like crap after."

"How did you get so strong?" She turns toward her friend.

"Why didn't you?"

"..." the simple question made Sakura freeze. Why didn't she? She graduated top of all kunoichi in the academy, even better than Ino, but she was so quickly left behind.

"Your medical jutsu is better than mine, take some pride in that, but that's all you have," Ino looks her in the eyes as she gives her a slight compliment.

"But you, you've got everything else, when did you get so far ahead?"

"When I stopped waiting, but you never stopped Sakura," her face looked almost sad as she spoke to her friend, a look of confusion washed over Sakura as she wondered what Ino meant.

"I... I don't understand..."

"Sigh, as hopeless as always, why did you ask me to train you Sakura?"

"Because I need to get stronger..."

"Why?"

"To save Sasuke," her voice had a hint of determination.

"Why?"

"Because he's my friend."

"Just a friend?"

"Because...because I-I---"

"Love him, right?" Ino finished for her, cutting off the hesitant words.

"Y-yes," Sakura looked at the grass between them, embarrassment and failure clouding her mind.

"That's why you're so pathetic, how do you plan on saving him?"

"By forcing him to come back!"

"You...YOU plan to force him back yourself?"

"N-no, Naruto promised to bring him back for me."

"Finally got to the problem, you're WAITING to be saved, like some sort of entitled PRINCESS."

"Princess..." Sakura recognized that, slur, she realized the difference between her and Ino now.

"Yeah, that's what changed. I realized why he called us Fangirl and Princess, the way he said it was a hair short of spitting on us. I thought he was just jealous of Sasuke at first, but why would he be. He was smarter, stronger, more accomplished. So why do you think he looked down on only you and me?"

"Because, we were waiting?"

"Yes, waiting to be saved and protected, that kind of thing disgusts him. Like how you're waiting for Naruto to save him, like Kakashi expecting him to just sit around and help Naruto train after he'd been refused for years when they were younger. Like I only cared about being seen by Sasuke."

"So you... gave up? Is that why you stopped our rivalry over Sasuke, I-I thought I won?" Realization finally dawned on her, she'd been confident all these years that she'd outright won, but that was never the case.

"I didn't 'Give up', I grew up. Fighting for someone's attention was pointless, I finally realized why he was so disgusted with me, so I changed my goals. I changed from just becoming Mrs. Saskue Uchiha to becoming the best ninja I can be. Because waiting for recognition and to be saved, that will always limit you to being a damsel in distress, to being another useless princess..."

A comfortable silence fell between them as Sakura thought about what Ino just dropped on her.

"But, you did get the guy in the end..." Sakura pointed out.

"God damn it forehead, stop focusing on that and just focus on yourself, then the rest will fall into place. You're hopeless..." Ino groaned as she shot Sakura a disappointed look.

"Sorry...so..."

"So?"

"How did you get so strong, what'd you do?"

"That's easy, I asked Kurenai sensei what Jin did, then I just copied him. Failed miserably because he's a freak, but I made my own way." Ino shrugs.

"So what should I do, Lady Tsunade doesn't want me fighting in the front, she won't train me to fight like you were..."

"Then go to Kakashi sense."

"He's training Naruto, he only ever really cared about training Naruto and Sasuke really," a hint of resentment flowed through in her voice.

"Jeez, you willing to shut up about Sasuke for a while?" Ino bluntly asks.

"Huh, what?"

"For this to work, you need to keep your mouth shut about the TRAITOR," Ino bites out.

"HE'S NOT A TRAITOR!" Sakura's anger immediately flared up, earning a smile from her friend.

"Those reactions are gonna make you fail this forehead, keep that in check, if you can't take someone making fun of him this won't work," she says matter of factly.

"What won't work?"

"Just follow me, this is gonna cost you a few favors, big ones too that I'll cash in someday," Ino rises to her feet as Sakura slowly stands beside her.

Twenty minutes later, both kunoichi were running up the side of a high-end apartment building in the wealthier part of Konoha.

"Where are we going?" Sakura asks as they arrive on the roof, the small rail at the edge of the stone-tiled flat roof only having one locked door, likely to enter the penthouse.

"This is Jin's place," Ino casually says while approaching the door.

"What? How does he afford this?"

"Dunno and didn't ask, not really my business. I sense him inside so let's go talk to him," Ino approaches the door, the small coms device only having the word 'Penthouse' on it.

With practiced ease, Ino takes out a key and opens the door, the security locks open with a light click as she holds it open for Sakura.

"Why do you have a key to his place?" The girl was thoroughly surprised by this.

"You know why," Ino smiled at her as they both walk down the stairs.

Walking into the penthouse Sakura couldn't help but gape at the high end...everything. From furniture to tiles and appliances, it was all the latest commodities.

"Wow..."

"Yeah I know right, always catches me off guard too even now," Ino muses as they walk toward the living room.

"Guess being a Jounin pays really well, then why does Kakashi still live in that little apartment?" She thinks aloud, a finger on her chin as she tries to put it together.

"He's lived here since the chunin exams actually, wait here for a sec, he's in his room," Ino says before casually walking down the hallway.

Less than a minute later, Jin and Ino walk into the living room, taking seats on the couch while Sakura sits rather awkwardly on a single-seat couch.

Jin finally walks out wearing black shorts and no top, Sakura stares at his well-built body for a second too long before noticing the slight cocky smirk Ino sent her way, Jin takes a seat while reading through a few documents, his visor hanging around his neck for his brown eyes to be seen by both women.

"So whaddya need fangirl?" He casually asks while reading the papers in his hand.

"She wants some help training, some advice mostly," Ino decided that her telling him would likely be better received than Sakura asking herself, she was right.

"Uh-huh, her and everyone else honestly, I guess this is about the traitor right?"

Sakura has to bite her tongue to refrain from snapping at him. Ino was right, she needs to keep her mouth shut for this.

"Yes, I want to be stronger, to bring Sasuke-Kun back," she nods before staring down at her hands in her lap.

"So? What do you expect from me?" he glances at her for a moment, seeing her conflicted expression before returning to the files in his hand.

"You, if anyone of us could, you'd be the one to bring him back. You could if you wanted to right, force him to come back..."

"Yeah whenever I want, but Tsunade refuses to put a kill order on him so I haven't gone after him, time's ticking on that thought," he gives her a small smirk, her heart almost stops at the thought of him going after Sasuke.

"I want to be strong enough to at least help Naruto bring him back, I'm not asking for training, but you know how Sasuke fights and how I CAN fight, can you at least tell me what you'd do if you were me?" her tone was all but begging as she looked into his eyes.

"If I were you I'd ask me to kill Sasuke then move on---"

"Jin!" Ino tries to keep him civil.

"Fine," Not like it would matter anyway he thought. "Your chakra control is pretty much as good as the old lady, instead of being 100% healing try to incorporate some large-scale attacks, the kind that obscures vision to make Sharingan useless. Close the distance and punch him as hard as you can in the face, you'd probably take his head off honestly, so just work on getting a more diverse moveset like Ino did," he shrugs.

"That's it?" Sakura asked with a raised brow.

"That's it, I did tell Kakashi he was a garbage sensei, the one kid he taught properly turned out to be a traitor and now he wants to cram years of neglect for Naruto into a few weeks, and now you're coming to me, you need to get something like Asuma's burning ash technique that lord third made. Its wide range and if you can self-heal then running into it will be no problem for you, it'll still hurt of course," Jin gives her a cocky grin.

"....." Sakura had no words, everything he said made sense, she'd focused so much on being the next Tsunade that she hadn't tried to be the best Sakura, and now that he pointed it out she was alone until she even met Tsunade, she couldn't even open her mouth to defend Kakashi...what other things was Jin right about, could he of been right about...no...Sasuke-Kun is her friend still!...right?

"I think you broke her..." Ino muttered quietly, Sakura had frozen for a good minute while processing what he'd just said.

"She'll recover, she is a medic after all, is this seriously all you came to me for, could've taken her to Asuma or Kurenai, or any decent teacher..."

"Yeah well, haven't seen you in over a week, what's wrong with a sudden visit," she places a hand on his lap while leaning against his shoulder.

"Nothing, you're always welcomed here, I'm preparing for something tomorrow, apparently the princess got word of some enemy movements and wants me to get involved. We're supposed to get a full intel drop tomorrow," he puts the papers aside and wraps an arm around Ino as she gets a bit closer to him.

"Should I be worried?" her voice was a bit uneasy.

"You've seen me fight right, what do you think?" He can't help but jest, he could only think of one person that can challenge him, at least to his knowledge, Pain.

"Yeah doesn't mean I can't worry, you're important to me."

"Hmm, to think 10 years ago I couldn't stand you, but to be fair you pretty much hated me."

"Yeah well, I was a dumb fangirl, good thing it was a phase huh," her eyes glance over at Sakura who still seemed to be thinking deeply.

"Mhm, let's hope it's like that for everyone."

"Hey, can I ask you something kinda personal?" Her voice was a bit hesitant.

"Uh...sure?"

"You grew up in the Konoha orphanage right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Well," she gestures to the room around them, drawing his attention to the lavish penthouse.

"I made good business investments, grew up poor so read a lot, books in the academy didn't cost anything to read."

"Huh, why are you so good at everything..." she grumbles.

"Because I lost everything once, now I have to be perfect so that doesn't happen again," he gives her a soft kiss on her head to make his point.

"Are your eyes feeling better, you haven't been wearing your cool new visor since we got here," Ino points out.

"I don't ALWAYS need them, just if the light becomes too much."

"Where'd you get those anyway?"

"Hmm, I'll tell you when Sakura leaves..." he takes them off and hands them to Ino to inspect.

As Sakura comes to her decision a moment later, she looks up to see Ino wearing the visor staring at her.

"Uh..."

"How do I look?"

"Weird, why are you wearing that?"

"Just testing it out, it's almost transparent on the inside, pretty cool," her voice is a bit excited at the revelation.

"You made up your mind fangirl, been sitting there like a moron for 5 minutes," Jin joins the conversation.

"Uh, yeah, I've gotta go, thanks for the advice, now I know how I can help Naruto..." a look of determination takes hold of her before she rises to her feet.

"You can head out through the roof, I'm spending the night here, see you tomorrow Sakura," Ino smiles at her while leaning against Jin.

"Uh-huh, OH! Yeah um, see ya," the girl blushes up a storm while awkwardly power walking out of the building.

"Well that was something, can't believe you brought her to me of all people..."

"It worked, now, tell me about this," she points at the visor still on her face.

"Alright but don't freak out, and you can't tell anyone. This is something that happened when I started my training and travelling ok," he gives her an intense look, his voice firm and serious.

"Of course, I'll take it to my grave, you've never really told anyone about your training before..."

"Right well, the visor was a gift, from my sister," he gives her a mischievous smile.

"SISTER?!"

END CHAPTER---