Temari was relieved; they made it just in time.
After discussing Shikamaru with Gaara, she had gone to Konoha and questioned Naruto. He knew nothing. But like Temari, he felt like something was up with Shikamaru. He talked to Ino and Choji, which only solidified that impression, so he went to press Kakashi for answers. Pushed by a fearsome Naruto, who had dragged Temari—an outsider—along for the chat, Kakashi listened carefully to Temari’s proposal that the sand shinobi mount a rescue before finally making a decision: he agreed to the dispatch of the Sunagakure ninja on the condition that they do nothing to make the situation worse.
Before coming to Konoha, she had made arrangements so that the shinobi of the village could be mobilized quickly. Once she got Kakashi’s approval, she sent up a signal to the village and started running toward the Land of Silence. Along the way, she joined up with the sand ninja, led by Gaara.
Soon after they arrived in the Land of Silence, they kidnapped whoever was handy and questioned them. More than ten days had passed since Shikamaru left, and Temari was starting to panic. The questioning turned into interrogation. A man calling himself a revolutionary soon spit up the information that ninja from Konohagakure were being held in the castle.
Once they knew that, the rest was easy.
They rode an airship of sand created by Gaara and infiltrated the castle, just as Shikamaru was in the middle of his little chat with Gengo, the ruler of this land. Together with her comrades, Temari drove off the people guarding the passage that led to the great hall and peeked inside. She could hardly stand it as she watched Shikamaru seemingly moved by Gengo’s talk about the world being ruled by shinobi.
Shikamaru’s not the sort of guy to be led around by a man like that! An almost violent rage took her over; she blew the doors open and flew into the hall.
The relief she had felt when she heard it was a genjutsu…
Eyes open now, Shikamaru was back, the man Temari had always known. Just seeing him take on Gengo with apathetic eyes and blood running from his nose, she felt like it had been worth it to come all that way.
“I don’t have time for your woolgathering,” the Konoha man snarled at her, clumsy smile on his lips. The brush he clutched had already produced more than a few tigers and wolves. And again, it set free a white tiger baring malicious fangs. She’d seen the animals he drew before all this, but the ones he drew today all had an unprecedented evil look to them.
Pretty sure his name’s Sai…
A ninja on the same team as Naruto and Sakura.
“I’m not the sort that gets taken down by some one-hit wonder,” she muttered, as she used her entire body to wave her fan. The wind changed and transformed into a weasel with teeth like sickles. The weasel whirled around and around, slashing at the throat of the tiger before it. Instantly, the tiger became ink and fell to the ground.
“It’s almost charming how you don’t hold back.” Sai’s voice.
Tight smile on her face, Temari looked in the direction of that voice.
He’s not there!
Where had he gone and when? She didn’t have time to chase him down with her eyes.
“A momentary body from a black mist… There is no ninja who can hold it completely.” From behind.
She wouldn’t make it.
“Woh-kay! Here we go!” She knew she was going to be cut from behind.
From the right? From the left?
She gambled.
Praying the slash wouldn’t come from the right, she leaned hard to that side.
The tiger’s claws ran past her left shoulder, very nearly scraping it.
“You’re soft,” Sai said, in a voice so cold it gave her chills.
At some point, he had come to stand in front of her.
“Goddammit!” She threw up her fan as a shield, still leaning to the right. It was made from a fabric so tough an iron blade couldn’t pass through it—plenty of protection against the thrust of a kunai.
But…
“Ngah!” A sharp pain pierced her abdomen.
“Sensitive chakra manipulation… It’s my specialty,” Sai said, innocently. The kunai in his hand had torn through the fan and was sticking out of Temari’s stomach, a hazy mist of sorts covering the blade.
Chakra. By covering the blade in chakra concentrated enough to be visible, he could impart a strength and sharpness dozens of times greater than normal. “No matter how hard you all fight, you’re no match for Lord Gengo. At some point, we revolutionaries will rule over this world.”
“D-do you really believe that?”
“Mmm,” Sai said, smile firm on his face. This wasn’t simply a matter of being under a genjutsu. Sai’s entire face was colored with an unshakable faith in Gengo.
But…
“Then why are you crying?”
“What?”
Temari hadn’t missed the tear sliding out of the corner of his right eye and down his cheek. Somewhere deep in his heart, Sai was conflicted.
“I’m not crying.” Sai shoved the kunai deeper.
Her breath stopped.
“Would you wake up alreadyyyyyyyyy!” An angry howl.
Sai disappeared abruptly from Temari’s view, leaving only his kunai plunged in her belly.
“You okay?” Someone was supporting her as her body pitched forward.
“S-Sakura?”
“Don’t talk. I’ll plug up this hole in your stomach.” Sakura pulled the kunai out and quickly touched the opening of the other woman’s wound.
A wave of warm chakra gently wrapped Temari’s abdomen. “W-what about Sai?”
“It’s okay. I came with friends.”
“Huh?” Temari turned her eyes in the direction Sai had disappeared.
Sakura’s punch had sent him flying and now someone was holding down her former enemy. A giant…
She was pretty sure he was Shikamaru’s friend.
“Choji! Keep him down!” a female shinobi with long hair shouted from behind the giant man holding Sai down, both hands spread out.
“It’s just, it’d be very annoying if anyone were to say that the ninja of Konoha didn’t move when Shikamaru was in danger,” Sakura said, placing her hands on Temari’s stomach again. Two battered ninja stood behind her, an angular middle-aged man and a girl much younger than Temari.
Withstanding the pain in her stomach, Temari turned toward Sakura. “H-he uses genjutsu…”
“I heard from these two.”
The ninja standing behind her nodded.
“Right! Prep okay!” the female ninja said to Choji, and then extended a hand toward Sai. He kicked and struggled beneath the giant, face full of bloodlust. Temari could see fangs glittering slickly through the lips of his clenched jaw.
“Ninpo! Mind Transmission jutsu!” the female ninja shouted.
“Once Ino activates that jutsu, it’ll all be fine,” Sakura murmured.
Choji pulled himself away from Sai.
Sai stood up.
Instantly, Ino shuddered sharply as if hit by lightning and stopped moving. Her body froze, palms still turned toward Sai.
“There, all better.” Sakura took her hands away.
The pain in Temari’s stomach had vanished.
∞
She dove deeper and deeper.
She still couldn’t find Sai. Diving and diving and still nothing but darkness.
This was Sai. Even at the best of times, he wasn’t fully aware of his true self. She knew she wouldn’t find him with just a little gentle prodding. Even still, she had to help him.
If I don’t, there was no point in me coming here.
Ino struggled urgently in the back of Sai’s consciousness. Her Mind Transmission jutsu, which allowed her to dive into the mind of her enemy and move them with her own volition, could also have an effect from the inside on her opponent’s mind. She had realized this at their chunin exam, when she dove into Sakura’s mind only to have to fight that mind with her own.
When she saw the letter he had sent, filled with an oblivious pathos, Ino had understood Sai’s conflict so well it hurt. At that time, she still didn’t know anything about this man Gengo or his genjutsu, but she felt like she had to go. Naturally, she had wanted to rescue Shikamaru, but what moved Ino to action was that letter so full of Sai’s struggle.
He had always been troubled by his own emptiness, and now Sai was more deeply immersed in Gengo’s genjutsu than anyone else. She was the only one who could save him.
Which was why she kept diving so deep, and then deeper still.
If she dove too deep, she would lose the sharp focus of her own self; she would fade and be caught in her opponent’s mind, never to return. She had a reason for taking this risk to help Sai.
I want to talk with him more…
She wanted to know more about Sai and the slightly sad smile he always wore. She couldn’t just leave him behind in a place like this.
In the true darkness, a depth untouched by even a single ray of light, she felt a faint warmth.
Naruto’s chakra.
Sakura’s was mixed in there too.
Yamato…
Kakashi…
The chakra of the ninja of Konoha blended together, a flame burning in the middle of a blizzard. As if seeking that faint warmth, Ino turned toward the chakra mixture.
He was there. With all five senses, she felt Sai curled up in the cocoon of warm chakra.
“This way, Sai!” She thrust out a desperate hand.
Sai lifted his face at the sound of her voice. He was crying, eyes puffy and red.
“C’mon, come with me!”
“You’re…” Legs still crossed, he didn’t reach out to her.
Ino grabbed his shoulders tightly. “Let’s go.”
Sai smiled. A natural smile, the sort she’d never seen on him before.
∞
As if desperate for oxygen, as if coming up from the bottom of the sea, Ino sought air with her whole body. And then the darkness broke and her view was flooded with light.
Enemies and allies fought without mercy. Protected by Choji and Sakura, Ino sat next to the head of a sleeping Sai.
“How’d it go, Ino?”
She heard Choji’s voice, but didn’t have the strength to answer.
Sai slowly opened his eyes.
She grabbed his hand. “Sai!”
“You…” Sai murmured absently, hand still in hers.
“You’re safe now,” Ino said, tears spilling out of her eyes.
“Thanks, beautiful.”
“Idiot…”
They smiled quietly at each other.