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The worst thing about getting stabbed was how embarrassing it was. Yeah, the pain sucked and the mess ruined her Jounin flak jacket (those things were not cheap and the tailoring on them for a women’s cut always took forever). But the shame. The ignominy.
Ino coughed as she leaned against the wall seeping viscera under her flak vest. Neji was downstairs gentle fisting his way through the guards who’d made them, and deeper in the fortress, Sasuke was hopefully putting his bitch ass to some use and ramming Amaterasu down the lordling’s throat they’d been sent to assassinate. And here was Ino, head full of some idiot prince’s secrets and job done, sliced by some nin who’d managed to slip past Sasuke’s magic eyeballs.
When Ino got home (and she would, because Neji would carry her if she demanded it), she was going to start a rumor about Sasuke. Something petty and uncomfirmable, like he only had one nut or he had a visible bald spot on the side of his head he as hiding with that stupid comb-over. That would teach him to run in dick hard and sword swinging before she confirmed mission accomplished.
So this was how she passed out, then—thinking about Sasuke. Man, she’d really sunk low.
“You cunt, did you get stabbed?!”
Karin, the light from her chakra chains making the bloody grime on her face shine, landed next to Ino and grabbed her arm. The jostling hurt like a motherfucker, and Ino screamed. The screaming drew a couple guards from the lordling’s bed chamber—
“Is he taking a shit in there or something?” Ino snarled, reaching for them and channeling her chakra. What else could have explained these guys getting past Sasuke?
She snared them with Shinranshin, yanked them off balance like fish pulled on a hook, and Karin’s chakra chains pierced them through the gut and nailed them to the far wall.
“That twink hired Akatsuki. Sasuke’s in there fighting, so hurry up and bite me!” Karin ordered.
Ino choked on her own blood. “You are not serious.”
“I’ll seriously stab you myself if you don’t hurry the fuck up, Princess!” Karin screwed up her face. It was a pretty face, but bunched up like a wrung-out cloth, anyone could be ugly. “You can bite me,” she said, forty percent calm and sixty percent certifiable.
“Karin—”
“Just—I like it, okay? C’mon!”
Ino bit her, or rather, Karin stuck her arm in Ino’s mouth and wriggled around until Ino’s teeth pierced her flesh. Instantly, relief. She was sticky and smelled like a slaughterhouse, but she was alive. Vibrating. Karin tasted like honey and death and it suddenly wasn’t enough. Ino bit her harder.
“Ahh!” Karin gasped.
It was over too soon, and Ino was back on her feet, fighting fit. Karin steadied her. The chakra chains cast them in a buttery haze, made more under the effects of Karin’s impossible chakra. Ino had never seen the world on fire like this. And when she extended her own senses, they were sharper, reached farther, oversensitive with swelling.
“Fuck,” Ino said, almost drooling.
Only now did Karin flush. “Yeah, well! Don’t get stabbed again!”
As they parted to help Sasuke and Neji, Ino could only think that was one promise she might not be keeping. Shame had never felt so hot.