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“I take it you don't want to be told congratulations,” Lady Tsunade says, desert-dry and with a wry twist of her lips. There’s no pity in her eyes, and Ino is able to breathe a little bit easier in the face of her Hokage’s calm countenance.
Ino wouldn’t be able to handle being pitied right now; it would feel too much like being mocked. It’s not exactly uncommon for kunoichi to become pregnant at a young age. Ninjas don’t live long lives, and when your life has an expiration date set roughly around your thirtieth year unless you’re a cut above the exceptional, you don’t hesitate when you want something.
Ino has never been just a kunoichi. She’s the heir to her clan, the future head of the Yamanaka. She’s been training to become the next head of the Torture and Interogation department for the better part of five years and—
She’s not married.
Ino is a clan heir, pregnant with the future heir of the Yamanaka, and she is not married.
“No.” Ino says, and her voice is shockingly steady. “This is not something to rejoice.”
A child born out of wedlock is a bastard. Such a thing would bring dishonor to her clan. Though Ino knows that the Yamanaka’s alliance with the Nara and Akimichi will forever be strong, this pregnancy will affect her clan’s ties with the other clans of Konoha.
The Hyuuga are not likely to ally themselves with a clan led by a promiscuous woman. If Hinata were the one to step into leadership over the Hyuuga, Ino might have been able to count on the bond between their clans remaining strong, but Hinata has not been the heir for almost a decade.
Hanabi is far more traditional than Ino’s old classmate ever was.
Along with the Hyuuga are the Shimura and the Aburame. The Sarutobi, too. And with all three being respectable clans, it’s likely the smaller clans aligned with them will follow. The merchants tied to their clans will similarly fall in line.
Perhaps she could count on the future head of the Inuzuka to back her in future gatherings of the clan heads — Konoha’s wildest clan have never conformed to tradition — but Ino doesn’t know Hana well enough to bank on it. What she does know about the older woman is how close she is with Kiba. And while Kiba isn’t likely to scorn her future child — her bastard child — he was on a genin team with a Hyuuga and an Aburame. Kiba will back them, and Ino doesn’t doubt that Hana will in turn follow her brother’s example.
Her clan will suffer for this. Not enough for them to demand she be disinherited, but the Yamanaka will lose face in the village.
And the baby's father—-
Ino bows her head. “Please, Lady Tsunade. Do not share this with anyone.”
In a shinobi village, there is no such thing as confidentiality between a medic and a patient. Especially not when the doctor is the Hokage, and the patient is a future clan head under her direct command.
Ino asks it of her anyway.
“Will you keep it?” Lady Tsunade’s tone is made of steel, harsh and unmoving. On the receiving end of it, Ino almost falters, unsure of how she is meant to respond, which answer is the right one to give, but—
There will only ever be one answer for her. It’s why she has already resigned herself to future disgrace.
“Yes.” And Ino closes her eyes.
Lady Tsunade is kind enough to assign her a solo mission that takes her to a small civilian village on the border of Fire Country. It’s a very important mission that only Ino, with her delicate skill set of poisons and psychology, can be entrusted with.
Or at least, that’s how Lady Tsunade told her it would look on paper.
In actuality, Ino is shopping around for a decent sake to bring back to her Hokage. It does not take long for her to successfully locate and store three different brands, all of which she has been assured are of high quality.
Ino can return to the village now that the assignment is complete, but instead of walking out of the town’s wooden gates, her feet carry her to a merchant’s stand. An old woman with kind eyes is manning it, and she greets Ino with a smile that Ino is unable to return.
“How far along are you, dear?”
Ino’s scarred hand stills, hovering a mere inch above a pair of woven shoes. Infant’s shoes.
Nausea bubbles in her stomach, and Ino swallows down acid.
Pulling her hand back like she had been burnt, Ino turns away and makes a hasty escape. Leaving behind the village and its’ well-meaning elder with her offering of children’s shoes.
At a kunoichi’s speed, it does not take long before she is miles away. The baby is still inside her, though.
She cannot run from that so easily.
Meeting with her genin teammates has become a rarity now that they are all respectable — not for long, a dreaded inner voice croons — jōnin. What had once been a weekly occurrence is now monthly, though the lengthy amount of time between reuniting has rarely affected them.
Her teammates have always been like extensions of her limbs, undeniably a part of her. With such a fierce bond, it has never before been this difficult to be in their company. They’ve eaten together in this same booth over a thousand times; this should not be hard.
Ino drops her chopsticks, and both Chōji and Shikamaru pause in conversation at her uncharacteristic display. It’s rude, she knows, to slam a utensil down in a restaurant. Especially as a clan heir, where people look to you for guidance on everything. How to train, where to shop, where to eat, how to act—
Ino is no longer a good role model, though. It’s time she stops denying it.
“Ino?” Chōji’s voice is whisper soft, like he’s afraid of startling her.
Ino’s eyes burn from the pressure of unshed tears, but she’s too well-trained for it to show on her face. Even now, in the face of this awful reality.
She can feel the weight of Shikamaru’s gaze leveled at her, and knows that she needs to make another escape. It is an odd, uncomfortable feeling, wanting to run from them. It seems like all she does lately is run.
Some kunoichi she is, Ino thinks, and stands abruptly.
She can’t find the necessary courage to stay, or the cowardice to utter a word of lie as to why she’s leaving.
Ino just leaves, quiet and avoidant.
She knows that they’ll only have more questions, and with Shikamaru’s brain it won’t take long for an answer to be found, but until then she can avoid her fate.
Neither of her teammates run after her, nor do they appear on her doorstep in the days to follow. Ino tells herself that she is relieved.
Sai blinks at her, and Ino knows that he doesn’t understand.
Oh, she’s certain that he knows what it means— Sai has never been an idiot, for all that some things remain beyond his understanding.
But he doesn’t get it.
Ino wants to shake him, wants to ask him to take responsibility. Wants to demand that he decorate her unadorned finger with the finest stone Konoha’s jewelers have to offer.
Ino has a list of reasons detailing exactly why she can’t do any of that: because they aren’t in love; because her clan would never accept an ex-member of ROOT as their patriarch; because Sai had never been a kid and wouldn’t know the first thing about raising one.
Each one is a very good reason.
Most of all, Ino knows that even if she were to disregard logic and ask it of him, Sai would not say yes. And if he did, neither of them would be doing it for the right reasons.
She has already screwed up enough. Adding more shit to the pile is just asking for flies.
“Are you terminating it?” Sai asks, in an even tone. Ino strains her ears, a small part of her hoping that she’ll hear something, an inflexion in his voice or a catch of his breath but—
There’s nothing. Just his ever present placidity.
She doesn’t resent him for it. Ino knew going into it that their relationship was barely even that. It was not meant to last.
Somehow she is left bearing a burden anyway.
“No,” she tells him, already awaiting a response even before the last syllable leaves her tongue. “This baby—” bastard “is my child.”
Sai nods, tilts his head. His gloved fingers twitch, and Ino can tell that he’s itching to return to his sketchpad. She doesn’t resent him. “I see.”
You don’t, an ugly part of her screams. You don’t see at all.
“We can discuss a stipend soon,” Sai offers. “It is to my understanding that money is usually given, in these situations.”
“Yes,” Ino says, for lack of anything better. She doesn’t need money from him; as an heiress, Ino has access to more funds than Sai will ever make in his life. But she supposes that, for the sake of propriety, — what a laugh — she should agree.
The conversation doesn’t feel done, but what else is there to say? What resolution can be reached? There’s nothing.
Ino has her head stuck in a watering can, puking up her guts for the nth time, when Sakura wanders into the Yamanaka’s flower shop. Normally, Ino would have been able to sense a nearing presence with enough time to prepare herself for a customer, but each time she moves to sit up, her stomach roils in protest, and she goes light-headed.
Because Sakura is second only to Lady Tsunade, it only takes her one glance to understand why Ino is violently throwing up. Because Sakura is her best friend, she predictably flails.
“Ino,” Sakura says, wide-eyed in her shock. Her normally volatile friend looks like she had been socked in the face. Ino can relate to the feeling. “Please tell me that you’re building up an immunity to a new poison.”
Ino meets her eyes, and pukes once more.
Sakura takes half a step back, and Ino tenses her shoulders, preparing for her to leave, but her closest female friend, her sister in every way that counts, inhales deeply and marches over to her.
Sakura’s touch is gentle as she brushes back Ino’s sweaty bangs, pulling her messy hair back. “Okay,” Sakura says. “Okay, this is… We’ll handle this. You and me, Ino.”
You and me, Ino thinks, basking in the thought for all of a millisecond before her stomach bubbles in protest again.
If there’s one thing she can be grateful for, it’s Sakura.
With Sakura now in the know, Ino doesn’t have to worry about booking any appointments at the hospital for the required check-ups. Which is good. Ino had been worrying about that ever since Lady Tsunade had pulled her aside to deliver a warning that Ino could no longer carry on with going directly to her Hokage with any pregnancy concerns.
“People will ask questions,” her Hokage had told her, apologetic but unmoving. “If a clan heir is caught secretly meeting with me.”
“Then I won’t get caught,” Ino had said, only for Lady Tsunade to rub a hand over tired eyes.
“In a shinobi village, you will always get caught. It’s only a matter of when, not if.”
But Sakura is a doctor. Sakura is unquestionably loyal to her, and wouldn’t breathe a single word about Ino's pregnancy to anyone, even under threat of death. Sakura can handle the check-ups.
Ino still finds herself to be hesitant when she broaches the topic, a little bit scared in a way that she normally isn’t. Everything about this is scary. Even with a friend at her side.
“Ino,” Sakura says, voice a little wet. Her green eyes are wet, too. “Oh, Ino. Of course. I’ll hold you through it.”
Sakura doesn’t say ‘I’d be happy to’ and Ino is thankful that she, at least, seems to understand. Ino isn’t ready for anyone to be happy about this, not a single aspect of it.
“Okay,” Ino wraps her arms around her knees, hugging her legs to her chest. “Okay.”
Things don’t suddenly change for the better now that her best friend knows. It’s a bit easier, a little less stressful, but the situation remains the same.
Ino is pregnant. She is two months away from her twentieth birthday, still a teenager, and she’s pregnant. Out of wedlock.
She has no intentions of marrying Sai despite knowing that it will not require the genius of a Nara for people to put two and two together. She had gone on — not dates, but something close to one — in public with Sai many times, after all. People had known they were seeing one another, and there hadn’t been so much as a single rumor of Ino approaching anyone else, because she hadn’t. She had been happy to enjoy things with Sai as they were: uncomplicated.
It’s only her rotten luck that it had become the exact opposite.
Sakura buys things for her. It. The baby. Her baby. Toys and clothes and shoes . Ino can’t help but think of that old woman when Sakura gives her a pair of baby shoes. She hates how rude she had been. She hates even more that she will never return to that small village to apologize.
Ino still hasn’t bought anything. Perhaps it’s a sign.
An immoral woman, and a bad mom, she thinks. She’s all that and more.
Sai writes to her only once. He sends an inked dog to her family home, and it howls once, softly, at her window until Ino invites it in.
It circles around her bedroom for a moment — her childhood bedroom, which she still lives in, in so many ways she still feels like a kid despite having killed, tortured and maimed — before exploding into splatters onto the wall farthest from her bed.
The ink rearranges itself, forming a sentence. A sum.
Ah, Ino realizes, so this is what my womb is worth.
At least it’s nothing to scoff at. He’s offering to give her the equivalent to an A-Rank pay monthly until their — her — child becomes a genin. There are women, she knows, that don’t receive so much as a single D-Rank’s pay.
Ino’s mother laughs at her father’s disgruntled expression, reaching out to pat at the angry red flush on his cheek consolingly.
“There, there.” Her mother tells him, “It was going to happen eventually, dearest.”
Her father scowls, but leans into the hand anyway. “It’s too soon for her to leave the nest,” he tells them both, beseeching.
Ino understands how he feels. She doesn't want to move out, but she had told them she was going to anyway. She has no choice; she can't raise a child in her childhood bedroom.
Here is where Ino would normally laugh and make a joke about how uncool he is, how a clan head shouldn’t beg anything from anyone. Especially not the head of the Yamanaka; if a Yamanaka wants something, they get it, and without imploring others for it.
But Ino no longer has any ground to stand on, stuck in a perpetual state of unsteadiness, and she has never been a hypocrite.
It is unfortunate for her that she comes from a family of people with an innate understanding of psychology, coupled with an unwillingness to let things go.
Her father meets her eyes, warm and concerned. “Ino?” He asks, and when that garners no response: “Princess?”
And suddenly, Ino is five years old again; still a child and without the hours of kunoichi lessons under her belt that had taught her the importance of a woman’s duty to the village, or Ibiki’s lessons on how to remain stone faced under even the most dire of circumstances.
Ino is five years old and her father is right there, offering to shield her from the world and give her comfort.
Her bottom lip wobbles, and the dam breaks.
Both of her parents jolt at the sudden torrent of tears staining their daughter’s cheeks, and Ino wants to reassure them, but now that she’s started crying, she just can’t stop.
“I’m sorry,” she manages. “I’m so sorry, I’m so so so sorry.”
Neither her mother nor her father ask her why she’s sorry, and Ino is relieved that they don’t; this is not how she wants to tell them. She doesn’t want to ever tell them at all, which is foolish. She’s bound to start showing in a few months.
It’s a few days later that Ino finally finds the courage to look in the mirror.
Her stomach isn’t big yet, and part of her wonders if it will ever grow particularly large. She had seen the photos of her mother, young and pregnant with her, and she hadn’t had much to show for it. Maybe it will run in the family, she wonders, not sure if she’s hoping for it to be the case.
Is that sort of thing genetic? She’ll have to remember to ask Sakura.
A bit uncertain, Ino raises a hand to her stomach. Touches it. Her body doesn’t feel that different yet, but she knows physical changes are just around the corner.
She feels stupid, touching her stomach like this. Feeling for a baby that isn’t developed enough to— to kick or punch or whatever.
Ino feels really, really stupid. Massive amounts of stupid.
Inuzuka Kiba sniffs the air twice when he nears her in the market, before shooting her a look of alarm.
Not much longer now, Ino thinks, and then carefully doesn’t think about it anymore.
The truth is, Ino doesn’t hate being pregnant. Oh, she hates how difficult everything will be — is — because of the pregnancy, but she doesn’t hate being pregnant.
It’s terrifying. Nauseating — both figuratively and literally.
But also a touch awe inspiring. Because Ino is a kunoichi, a killer by trade, and for once she has created life rather than ended it.
That part, at least, is something to appreciate.
The rest leaves much to be desired.
Shikamaru and Chōji find her over a week later, contemplating a bottle of something with an alcohol content high enough to kill a civilian.
“You probably shouldn’t drink that,” Shikamaru says, for once without his words being backed by an easy drawl. He sounds almost as unsteady as she feels. For a moment, she wants to laugh.
Figures that this is what it would take to shake the confidence of a Nara.
“Not planning on it,” she tells them. And it’s not even a lie. She wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t dare to touch a drink while pregnant. She doesn’t even know why she bought it; it was like she couldn’t help herself.
Her teammates exchange looks before they both get settled beside her. Shikamaru sprawls out on the grassy hill, shielding his eyes from the sun with an arm. Chōji offers a bag of chips to her, her own bag this time rather than just a single chip, and Ino stares at him.
“You’re eating for two now,” he says to her, gentle, like he’s waiting for her to break.
Ino turns her head, resolutely not meeting her friend’s knowing gaze, and accepts the bag.