Canon Side-Story: Inoichi's Perspective, His Daughter's Crush - A Reality Warper

Like most side stories, this veers a little off course of the original prompt but still encompasses it in a way I appreciate and like. This was unanimously voted on so I put a little extra effort into making sure I did my best to meet expectations. it's not often the $10 patrons agree.

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"That's true," he agrees, "Ino's still an innocent girl, and you're a killer without remorse. That will change things." Looking at the pinkette - currently blonde - chained against the wall and gazing back at him with such blank eyes, he can’t help but wonder when she turned into this.

As a ninja, he approves. As a Jonin, Inoichi’s seen the worst this world has to offer. He’s seen war, and people like Sakura were more common in his time than anyone would ever care to admit. Kakashi’s not screwed up because he had bad parents - though his father’s suicide probably didn’t help - or because he was asked to be screwed up, he’s a mess because that’s what was required to survive. Every step in a warzone bleeds humanity away from a child, and soon enough cold eyes are all they’ve ever known.

But as the father of this girl’s best friend, as someone who’s daughter is madly in love with those cold red eyes, he can only wonder when it went wrong. Was it when she first got her ability? He’s read the reports on that, he was given them shortly after the Hokage was, one day she simply had the ability to twist reality around her. Systematic annihilation and rewriting of the rules in a way that has very little to do with her will. It was dangerous, they contemplated bringing her in immediately to try and get to the bottom of it. Only his pleading on her behalf stopped them from doing just that, and he has to wonder if that was his first mistake.

Was it when Kakashi handed her a demonic artifact? Though rare, it’s not like Konoha has never dealt with demons before. There’s a whole country with them, and it was foolish for Kakashi to assume she’d be able to properly handle power like that as a fresh Genin. Should they have stepped in then, or was it already too late?

He watches a flicker of emotions on her lips, doubt, guilt, something far between. It’s good to see she’s still alive in there, and not just in the way she expresses herself. Sakura wasn’t grown in a warzone, she shouldn’t have eyes like that, and he needs to get to the bottom of them no matter what. He watched this girl grow up, and he’ll take that sword and plunge it through Kakashi’s heart himself if he finds out it’s his fault.

"You should prepare yourself, your friendship will likely come out different, but I doubt it'll be bad." He assures her, even if he himself is unsure of the next turn of events. What will Ino think when she looks inside the love of her life and finds a wasteland filled with blood and dissolving corpses? Will they even have faces, or did Sakura fail to bother taking them in before she struck?

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“You’re sure? That’s what you saw?” He asks her, looking at his darling daughter with doubtful eyes. “Her very first memory was of the two of you being silly children?”

“Uh-huh, why is that surprising?” His naive daughter asks him, “is something the matter, daddy?” Her eyes are so innocent, nothing like Sakura’s, and he can tell she’d never lie to him. The report in his hands says much the same as she does.

“You said the entrance was unlike any you’ve ever seen, a desert and a worm tunnel? I’ve never heard of something like that before, it’s not a defense technique I’m aware of.” He looks it over again, and again, scratching his well groomed head.

“Me neither, but it was undoubtedly not her defense.” Ino asserts, her foot patting the floor between them, “it moved out of the way of me but did nothing to protect her. It felt like it was meant to stop her from getting in, or to discourage her and make her leave after getting hurt.”

“But not to kill her,” Inoichi summarizes,” why would it protect you if it wasn’t hers?”

“How would I know?” She crosses her arms and shrugs. “Maybe because if I couldn’t get in you’d be there to crack it open? If there’s a defense on her brain, why would it want that?”

“Thank you, Ino, that’ll be enough for today.” Shooing his daughter off, he can’t help but scratch his chin and look over the documents again. So the system has created a fortress at the front of her mind, that means it’s deep and ingrained somewhere in her soul. He hadn’t even considered that possibility, and he finds himself allowing a shaky breath after realizing just how badly that could have gone.

Should he even allow Ino a second session? There’s nothing in here that’s particularly bad, in fact it almost sounds like the Sakura he watched grow up is still very much alive and intact. Is the coldness fake? A surface level facade taught by Kakashi, or maybe a face she’s learned to put on so that no one suspects she’s in pain? She has very loving parents, they’d catch on quickly if her eyes were always filled with agony. “It didn’t touch her.” He ponders, fingers threading through the pages. Either way, Ino thinks she can get in through a backdoor next time, no need to go through the system’s defenses again.

Sakura’s brain wants her to stay out, but has no issues with Ino there. What’s he even supposed to take from that? Does her system want to push the two of them together? It rewrites reality on a whim, at what point will it try to spread its influence over his little girl and eternally bewitch her for Sakura’s gain?

What is a father to do about that?

His hand opens his desk, and a flask full of bitter relief touches his lips before the next breath.

He’s too close to this issue. He can’t tell if Ino’s in utter danger, or if she’s the safest she’s ever been in her entire life, including in his arms.

He’s read the report, Sakura’s system rewrote her own death. There’s no doubt that Haku person saved her because it forced them to, what kind of enemy would go out of their way to patch her up like that?

If it likes Ino, would it do the same for her? Is there a force in this world that matters when that kind of power is in the mix? Could he even separate them, or would that just make the forces that be want her more?

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“The demon sword is a child.” Inoichi’s eyes twitch, staring at Ino with a disapproving glare the moment he’s done with her report. She’s standing there skittishly, and he watches her gulp when his gaze intensifies. “Sure, why not, let’s get the jokes out of the way. Were there clowns too?”

“Just a lot of dead people.” Her cheeks turn green at the thought, her voice too soft to be fully heard by the normal ear.

“You’re serious?” He looks down at the pages again and watches his daughter nod out of the corner of his vision. “So a blood pool, corpses trying to drag the both of you under - of which she didn’t blink at - and at the end of it a child played patty cake with you?”

“It was similar but not quite that, um, we’re not really sure who started the game. Sakura thinks it was me but I think it was him. It just kind of happened, I was pretty out of it.” She admits her failing with clear shame. Her hands rest behind her back, one of them gripping her arm right under her elbow. “It is my official opinion that either Sakura’s far more damaged than we thought, or the entity I met was the sword’s real avatar, in which case it’s invaded her mind quite prominently and Sakura’s far more damaged than we thought.”

“No, this might be a good thing.” He feels a spark of glee enter his body for the first time in days. She even infantilized the weapon of death? Killer without remorse, sure. He’s got this all wrong, she’s a child. Like a real child. She’s turned her trip with Ino to see her sword into a game of house, she’s just a child playing with a sharp doll.

The only conclusion he can make from that data is that she’s not dead inside, she has a screwed up understanding of what death is, and that’s much easier to work with. They might not even have to work with it, that’s something that they can mark down in a notebook before sending her on her way. It was right in front of his eyes this entire time, the curriculum. If there was a wartime book left in the academy somehow, maybe Sakura got ahold of it?

No, maybe that bastard Mizuki gave it to her directly. He’ll need to do some research, they might need to increase his sentence. “It says here you left before seeing the red room?” Inoichi asks, pointing to the words on the report. “Bring her back tomorrow and do that, whatever’s in that room might be important.”

“I got the impression it probably had to do with all the dead bodies.” Ino points out, discomfort clear in her voice. Unfortunately, as much as he’d like to shield his daughter from this, it’s her best friend and the love of her life, at least so far, and ninjas do not often change their mind on that. Unlike civilians, most ninjas marry their early Genin or Chunin sweetheart. Like it or not, the reality-bending murderbunny will likely be his daughter in law one day. Ino should know what’s deep inside of her. At some point they’ll need to figure out a way to make that relationship a little more equal because no way in hell is he raising the kind of girl that’ll happily enter an unequal relationship, but that’s not today’s problem.

“All the more reason you should look into it.” He sternly asserts, giving her a forceful look. It’s not an order, but it might as well be, she’s not going to refuse it.

“Right, I’ll do it.” He watches his little girl mope out the door, but he knows he made the right call.