Foxhound Chapter 2: Part 1

“Alright, now you don’t move.”

“Hai, hai…”

“I’ll be back as soon as I find Sakura and get some flowers. I’ll see if I can find another crutch for you while I’m out.”

Ino left the strange jounin in a chair next to Naruto’s bed as she went to find her rival. She was relieved to note that Naruto didn’t look too bad. Well, to be fair, that was mostly because she couldn’t actually see any part of him. The blonde was decked out head to toe in bandages. Only his eyes, mouth, and some of his scalp were exposed. Okay, so he didn’t look good but he still didn’t look bad. Ino carefully forced the memory of the blonde’s mangled body from her mind.

‘He’s alive. He’ll be fine. He’s alive,’ The pretty blonde mentally repeated that to herself as she walked. She glanced up to notice that she’d walked through half the hospital without realizing it.

“Where the hell is Sakura?” Ino complained out loud as she stopped at a crossway in the hall, looking left and right for the pink-haired chuunin.

“What do you want, Ino-pig?” A feminine voice came from behind her.

Ino’s eyes took in Sakura as she turned around. Not much had changed about the girl in the last couple years. She still wore her hair short and had the same style of dress she had since the academy. The biggest change was that her rival carried herself with much greater confidence now. It irked Ino to no end that Sakura had grown so much under Tsunade’s mentorship. Her own jounin instructor was as lazy as ever, spending more time hanging out and playing games with Shikamaru than he did training her and Chouji. Sakura, on the other hand, had passed the first chuunin exam after Naruto left.

Something she took great delight in reminding Ino.

Ino hated to lose, but in recent times she found it was worst to be left behind. Most of the Rookie 9 plus Team Gai had already made chuunin. Kiba, Lee, Naruto, and herself were the only ones who were still genin. Naruto at least had the excuse of being on a training trip the whole time and would likely dominate any exam he took in the future (assuming, of course, he recovered.) Kiba demonstrated good skill, but he still had a blustery ego to overcome and that cost him every time. Lee was an odd case. The Hokage had refused to allow him into the exam immediately after his operation to make certain he was fully recovered.

The boy was disappointed, but he merely used that as motivation for training. However, he got a nasty surprise in the next two exams when he was beaten by gen-jutsu techniques each time. Lee’s tai-jutsu rivaled if not surpassed most jounins’ abilities, but his weakness to nin-jutsu and gen-jutsu held him back. And worse still, word had gotten out about around amongst the younger Leaf-nins about an incredibly powerful genin who could be dropped like a fly with well placed gen-jutsu. Other genins taking the exams knew what to expect from Lee. He kept doggedly trying, but he had yet to devise a counter-strategy.

Ino, on the other hand… She was weak. That was it. She lacked the skill and power to keep up with the others. Of the twelve members of their group (if Sasuke was still included), she was at the bottom end of the totem pole. She had one special skill and it had a terrible rate of success in active combat. Like Lee, word had spread about her and everyone that fought her knew to avoid her Shintenshin no Jutsu. She’d been soundly beaten by mediocre opponents in every exam she’d been in. It was really starting to piss her off, but there was little she could do without an instructor who took training seriously.

Well, except try to make Sakura prematurely deaf in their arguments.

“Finally! Forehead, I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” Ino exclaimed as she walked up to her friend/rival. Sakura’s face reddened in anger at the nickname.

“Oh really… What do you want, Pig?” The chuunin asked, one hand on her hip in annoyance.

Ino snorted, “Just wanted to let you know your old teammate is here in the hospital.”

Sakura’s face lit up in unexpected hope.

“You… You mean… Sasuke-kun? Where?! What room is he in?!”

“What?!” Ino yelled, startled by the mention of the traitor Uchiha. She’s still hung up on him? “No, you pink-haired ditz! I mean Naruto! He’s upstairs right now. Didn’t Hokage-sama tell you?”

“Oh…” Sakura said, her face noticeably falling. “No, I didn’t meet with her today. Naruto’s here?”

“Yeah…” Ino replied. They stood there for several moments in uncomfortable silence.

“Well…?” Ino finally prodded. “Aren’t you going to go see him?”

“Yeah… I’ll see him in awhile. It’ll be nice to catch up,” The chuunin replied, glancing down at some of the documents she was holding.

She wasn’t sure, but that sounded like a casual dismissal to Ino. She had the sudden urge to shake her friend, but she wasn’t exactly sure why.

“That’s it? You’ll see him later?” The genin demanded, her voice sharp with disbelief. Sakura gave her a hard look, barely looking away from the forms.

“Yeah, that’s it. I’ll see him on my rounds anyways. What’s your problem, Pig?” The chuunin asked, annoyed with her friend’s tone.

Ino met her rival’s hard look with one that could melt steel or make her teammates whimper in utter terror.

“Nothing, really. I just thought you had, you know, loyalty. Guess I was wrong…” She said, crossing her arms over her chest.

Sakura stood up straighter, letting her papers hang by her side.

“What crawled up your butt? I said I’ll see him and I will! I have other duties I have to do… You know, chuunin duties,” She smirked, making a deliberate dig at the difference in their rank.

“Don’t give me that shit!” Ino snarled, forcing down her rage at her rival’s jab. “A minute ago you were praying Sasuke was back. If it was him, you’d go running to his side in a second like some pathetic groupie. Funny how you’re ignoring the friend who’s done everything for you, when you’d jump to kiss the traitor’s ass in a heartbeat. Nice place to put your loyalties, Sakura!”

Sakura’s temper boiled. She was three seconds from decking Ino into the wall. What the hell did the Pig know about it anyways?

“Why the hell would I go running to see the idiot for some stupid injury he probably did to himself?! Maybe the moron finally pissed off someone better than him and they put the Dead-Last in his place!” The chuunin yelled. She wasn’t really thinking about what she was saying and wouldn’t have used those words to describe Naruto if she’d been thinking clearly. She did owe him her life after all. Ino’s remarks had struck home though. Thinking clearly was the last thing she was doing.

Ino’s mind flashed to Naruto cheering on Sakura in the exams, hearing about his ‘promise-of-a-lifetime’, and finally her conversation with Kakashi and how Naruto might have to give up his dream entirely. That memory was replaced by the one of the blonde’s shredded body lying in the sealing room.

Dead-Last.

A loud crack made both medics and patients alike look over at the two kunoichi. Sakura held a hand to her reddening cheek, as she stared in shock at her friend. Ino was slowly letting her hand drop back to her side. Despite the aura of near-violence they’d been radiating, the blonde’s slap had taken her completely by surprise. Sakura’s mouth hung open as she watched Ino’s face shift through a kaleidoscope of emotion. The genin seemed to be struggling to find something foul enough to say to the medic.

“…Ungrateful bitch,” Ino finally managed to spit out. Her sharp gray eyes looked downright vicious as she glared at Sakura. Without another word, she turned and stormed away.

Two full minutes passed before Sakura finally got her brain working again. She spent a split second pondering Ino’s words before the rage hit. She dropped the documents that had been so important moments ago and ran through the halls and out the main lobby after her friend. She caught up to Ino about a block from the hospital, her friend’s bright hair sticking out in the bright noon sunshine. She grabbed her rival’s arm and swung her around, before slamming her into the wall of a nearby building.

“What the fuck was that? Do you want a fight, you blonde bimbo? You want a rematch? You want to see what I can do now? Huh! Answer me, you stupid bitch!” Sakura growled, her grip on Ino’s dress tightening. The genin gave her look of icy loathing so venomous that it made Sakura flinch even in her anger. Her hold weakened enough that Ino was able to bring her hands up into the beginnings of her family jutsu.

Sakura dropped her rival like she’d been electrocuted and flipped backwards a good ten feet, dropping into a stance as she landed. Ino allowed her hands to fall to her sides as soon as Sakura let her go. Somehow, despite their difference in power and rank, Sakura got the distinct feeling she was being looked down on.

“I have no respect for someone who doesn’t value their comrades,” Ino said. Memories of Chouji lying in a hospital bed, smiling at her despite his emaciated form, and of Shikamaru’s bandaged hand briefly passed through her mind. She turned and kept walking away from her rival.

“You’re not just a dumb little girl anymore, Sakura. You’ve lost sight of what’s really important in life, assuming you ever had it. If I’d known how you’d turn out, I would never have spoken to you back then.”

That cut through every bit of Sakura’s anger and left her with a cold, stinging sensation in her chest. For all their rivalry and arguments, Ino was the first person ever to befriend her. The blond had given her confidence and companionship during the loneliest part of her life. She knew who was responsible for her growth. If Ino hadn’t looked past the snot nosed crybaby back then, Sakura would’ve never even made it to genin. That knowledge was a blow to her pride and that was the source of her jabs about their differing strength. But she couldn’t deny that even though she was far stronger now, Ino was the one who built the foundation to that strength. The same part of her that treasured their friendship was forever grateful to the girl for acknowledging her back then. That Ino regretted her decision hurt her more than she’d ever allowed herself to believe possible.

How like Ino to strip all her anger and pride away with a single cutting sentence…

“W-What…? What’re you talking about?” Sakura grimaced at the tremor and shock in her voice.

“You heard me,” Ino replied, stopping her walk but not turning around.

“But… Why? Why’re you so mad about all this?” Sakura asked with a little desperation.

Ino stayed silent for a long moment, before finally turning to face her friend. Her eyes held a tired coldness to them.

“You called him Dead-Last,” She said.

“But… I mean, I was ju-“

“You called him Dead-Last,” Ino repeated. “Wasn’t Sasuke the one who got the idea to call him that? Why the hell would you call him a nickname thought up by a traitor when he’s your most loyal comrade?”

Sakura didn’t say anything. That comment cut deep, but she couldn’t make herself react to it. All she could do was stare wide-eyed at her friend.

“Dead-Last…” Ino continued in an almost thoughtful tone. “He’s saved both your life and Sasuke’s, when neither of you thought he could fight his way through a yard of preschoolers. He proved that he’s at least stronger than Neji, who was the number one for his class. He caught the eye of a Legendary Sannin and somehow managed to get the guy to train him. He even tried to bring Sasuke back for you.”

Ino crossed the distance between them and stopped a couple feet from the chuunin. Her eyes glittered like pieces of blue-gray crystal in the bright sunlight.

“He’s been in love with you for years and he’d bring back someone totally unworthy of you, just because you asked him,” She quietly said. “I know all these things about him and I’ve spoken to him roughly three times since I met him at the academy. Hell, our whole crowd of friends knows this about him. You, his teammate and friend, should know that he’s a better human being than Sasuke will ever be. He’d die for you. For his friends. To protect this village.”

Ino leaned her face in till her nose almost brushed Sakura’s.

“And you call him Dead-Last and say you’ll visit later, when you feel like it,” The blonde said in barely a whisper. Sakura flinched at that, guilt welling up despite her confusion at Ino’s odd behavior. Hadn’t Sasuke-kun himself admitted that Naruto saved them both from Gaara’s full power? Hadn’t Naruto sworn to bring Sasuke-kun back no matter what? Hadn’t he promised her again that he’d keep trying, no matter how long it took, even as he lay in a hospital bed covered in bandages? She only noticed the faint, flowery scent of Ino’s perfume when it faded.

She looked up. Ino was already walking away again, having decided to let the medic stew in her thoughts. Some part of Sakura couldn’t let the girl walk away.

“Wait! I don’t get it! You don’t even know him! Why are you so upset about this? This isn’t like you at all!” She yelled. Immediately after she said that, the thought occurred to her that maybe this was exactly like Ino. The girl had a history of finding things other people thought were worthless and staking a personal claim on them. Sakura herself was one of them. Was her rival doing the same thing to Naruto?

The memory of Naruto’s shredded flesh and the smell of his blood assaulted Ino’s mind. The same smell from her dream. She felt her anger replaced by sudden nausea. She wanted a shower.

“Sakura…” She said, not turning to face her rival. “Go to back to the hospital. Go to room 451. Look at the person…what’s left of the person lying on the bed. Look at him long and hard and think about what you called him. Then remember that you were willing to brush him aside.”

Ino disappeared into the crowd of people walking around them without another word.

Sakura was left with a sinking feeling of dread.

‘What’s left of him?’