The rain had come without warning.
By the time Sakura stepped out of the Council Chamber, her clothes were already drenched, water soaking through the back of her uniform as scrolls clutched to her chest wilted at the corners. She didn't bother covering her head. Let the rain fall. Let it blur the tired edges of her face, let it hide the weight behind her eyes.
She hadn't slept properly in days. Hadn't had a warm meal. She wasn't sure if she had even spoken to someone outside official capacity—words had become functional, clipped, filled with terms like "delegation" and "threat" and "treaty."
And through it all, the only message she had received from Ino had been a single flicker through the sensory net:
"Can't talk. Emergency reroute in Eastern Net. Later."
Later. Always later.
And yet it stung—how it used to be love you soon, be home before dinner, stay awake for me, baby. But now it was silence, and reports, and the echo of footsteps retreating before she could say wait.
The village felt foreign in the rain. Cold, quiet, suffocating. Sakura walked home without really thinking, but she didn't step inside. She stood at the edge of their doorstep for almost fifteen minutes, staring at the faint trail of muddy prints left from yesterday, already fading.
She didn't go in.
She turned around and went back to the tower.
Somewhere, not too far away, Ino was still working. Her body hurt more than her chakra levels could explain. Every joint, every breath—it all felt like she was burning from the inside out, her Mokuton reacting to strain and suppressing itself before it could burst. She hadn't slept. She hadn't eaten. And she'd snapped at three subordinates already. That wasn't like her.
But no one called her out.
They all knew she was the only one who could rebuild the eastern node.
And she had to do it. Because no one else could. Because they'd fail. Because lives depended on it.
Because if she left—even for a night, even to hold Sakura for ten seconds—the network would collapse again and someone would die. And Ino couldn't have that on her.
She reached for a ration bar from the tray someone had left beside her hours ago. Her fingers didn't quite close around it. She stared at her hand, trembling from chakra depletion, and swallowed back the rising sense of failure.
Her mind tried to reach out—just to check if Sakura was sleeping, eating, breathing—but she was too tired. Even that connection felt too far tonight.
She pressed her palm against the comms array again, skin pale, lips dry. Outside, lightning lit the sky. The storm was getting worse.
Sakura hadn't messaged her either.
Maybe she was busy. Maybe she was sleeping. Maybe she was waiting. Ino didn't know which thought hurt more.
She wanted to go home.
But the system still needed stabilizing.
Sakura paced the balcony of the Senju Manor well past midnight, fingers wrapped around a half-cold cup of tea she'd forgotten to drink because of the diagnoses she had been studying. She would sometimes go home here as it was closer to the Hospital and the Hokage Tower—just sometimes, when she didn't have the energy to traverse an entire district before reaching the Yamanaka Compound, especially if she was only home for an hour or two.
Her hair clung to her cheek from the dampness, her mouth set in a line that threatened to tremble. Every few seconds, she looked toward the horizon, hoping to see even the faintest sign of Ino
But she knew where her lover was.
Still working.
Sakura blinked, holding back the sting in her eyes.
Still not home.
Neither of them had been home in two days. Not really.
Their house was dark, untouched, silent. The mattress hadn't been warmed since the night Ino wrote that letter. The letter Sakura still hadn't touched, except to wipe away the dried tear left on its edge.
A part of her wanted to cry.
Another part didn't think she deserved to.
Because wasn't she the one who insisted on taking the lead with the negotiations?
Wasn't she the one who had said, "I'll be fine," and kissed Ino's forehead with false calm?
They were both doing what they were meant to do. Protecting. Leading. Holding the village together.
But it felt like something between them was slowly, quietly unraveling.
And neither of them had the strength to reach across the gap.
Ino sat outside the tower in the rain, head tilted back, letting the water run into her eyes so she didn't have to feel them burn. Her hands shook in her lap, fingers twitching with leftover chakra. The vines under her skin curled tightly like something wounded.
She missed her.
God, she missed her.
Not just her scent or her voice or her body—but the presence. The silence between them that used to feel warm. The way their fingers would tangle without thought. The way Sakura would whisper her name half-asleep in the morning, like a prayer.
And now?
Now she didn't even know if Sakura was eating. If she was smiling. If she was—
She squeezed her eyes shut.
She didn't want to think it. She didn't want to think maybe Sakura was growing used to the silence.
Sakura leaned against the railing, rainwater soaking into her gloves. She wanted to scream. She wanted to run. She wanted to be reckless for once, to abandon the reports and missions and expectations just to find Ino, grab her face, and say—
"This can't keep happening. I need you. I need us."
But she didn't.
She turned away from the balcony, stepped back into the office, and picked up the next scroll.
Ino stood, forcing herself back inside, returning to the console.
Neither of them slept.
Neither of them sent a message.
Neither of them broke.
Not yet.
But something between them was straining, thin and trembling and quiet.
A thread still holding.
Barely.
Their days had blurred into a series of sunrises and sunsets seen only through windows. Two weeks passed like smoke—intangible, and gone before either of them could grasp it. The warmth of their shared bed had faded, the linens now crisp and cool from lack of use. Sometimes one would come home just as the other left—hurried footsteps in the hall, a brush of lips to a sleeping forehead, the faint rustle of clothing in the early hours. Time, once theirs, now belonged to duty.
Ino rose before dawn every day, tangled in scrolls and reports, leading her clan and overseeing the entire Sensory and Communications Division. She barely had time to take tea with her friends anymore. Every pulse in the network, every flicker of chakra, demanded her attention. She carried it with grace—but her smile, once soft and effortless, was tight with exhaustion now.
Sakura was no less burdened. She had become the face of Konoha's diplomacy, a healer who could now speak for nations, her heritage revealed to the world and her power impossible to ignore. Meetings with foreign emissaries bled into hospital rotations, then into midnight research sessions. Every part of her screamed for reprieve, for a return to simplicity—but she couldn't stop. She wouldn't. There was still too much to do.
And in between those hours, between all the obligations and the moments stolen in silence, they had begun to drift—not out of love, but out of necessity.
The silence between them grew with each passing day.
So when the two of them were summoned to the Hokage's office for a routine interdepartmental report, it felt almost foreign to sit together again. Kakashi sat behind the desk, eye unreadable as always. Scrolls and documents lay open before him, filled with updates on reconstruction efforts, patrol adjustments, and medical allocations. Ino gave her briefing with practiced efficiency, Sakura following suit, equally composed.
Until the discussion turned.
Kakashi mentioned the upcoming inspection of the western border's refugee wards—an area both women had been pulled from due to their overloaded schedules.
"It would make sense," Kakashi mused aloud, "for one of you to personally assess the situation."
"I can go," Sakura said, without hesitation.
Ino's voice cut sharper than she intended. "You can't even finish your hospital shift without collapsing. Let someone else handle it."
Sakura blinked, her expression hardening. "Excuse me?"
"You're overextending. Again. You'll just make more work for the medics stationed there if you pass out on them like last time."
"That's not your decision to make, Ino."
"Someone has to make it when you're too stubborn to say no."
The room thickened with tension. Kakashi didn't intervene. He merely folded his arms and leaned back, gaze distant, patient.
"Maybe if you actually talked to me instead of throwing barbs in meetings, you'd know what I'm capable of handling," Sakura hissed.
Ino stood now, voice no longer sharp, but brittle. "Maybe if I had more than five minutes with you in two weeks, I wouldn't have to say it here."
Sakura's mouth parted as if to argue again—but the words stuttered, caught somewhere between pride and heartbreak.
The air crackled between them.
Kakashi exhaled loudly through his nose, rubbing his temple. "Enough."
They both turned toward him, startled out of their spiral.
"I'm relieving both of you from active duty for the week," he said, tone bored but firm. "Effective immediately. Finalize your plans, hand them off to your seconds, and go home."
"Kakashi-sensei—" Sakura started.
"You'll burn out. Both of you," he said, standing now. His voice softened just a touch. "You're not machines. You're human. Go. Rest. Talk. Or don't. But get out of this office and don't come back until you remember why you started doing this in the first place."
There was nothing more to say.
Outside, the sun was warm but too bright. Sakura didn't look at Ino, and Ino didn't reach for her. The silence walked between them all the way back to the Yamanaka estate.
The home that once pulsed with laughter and whispers now stood quiet as a shrine.
*
The door closed behind them with a hollow click, echoing in the stillness of the Yamanaka household. The sound lingered in the air, sharp and final. Neither of them spoke as they kicked off their shoes, movements stiff and mechanical. The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating, broken only by the distant hum of wind through the trees outside.
Ino walked ahead, tossing her flak jacket onto the couch with more force than necessary. Sakura followed a few paces behind, jaw tight, arms folded across her chest. They hadn't said a word on the way home—but everything unsaid clung to them like a second skin.
The air inside their home was familiar, but it didn't feel like theirs—not right now. Not with so much resentment pushing at their ribs.
"You didn't have to do that in front of Kakashi," Sakura said finally, voice low and controlled. Too controlled.
Ino turned around slowly. "And you didn't have to volunteer like some martyr again."
"I'm doing my job."
"No," Ino snapped, stepping closer. "You're breaking yourself to prove something no one's asking you to."
Sakura's hands clenched at her sides. "So I'm just supposed to sit back while people suffer?"
"No. You're supposed to let someone help you carry the damn weight!" Ino's voice cracked like lightning. "But you never do. You always act like you have to do everything alone—like I'm not even here!"
Sakura flinched. "That's not fair."
"Isn't it?" Ino's chest heaved. "I barely see you anymore. I come home and it's like you were never here. I reach out, and you're already gone again."
"Don't twist this," Sakura said, a tremor in her voice now. "You think I don't notice how tired you are too? How you barely rest because you're afraid something will fall apart without you?"
Ino looked away, jaw working as she swallowed her words.
"We're both tired, Ino," Sakura continued, softer now but no less bitter. "But don't stand there and act like I'm the one running away. I've been trying—"
"Trying?" Ino turned back to her, eyes wide and glassy. "You don't even let me hold you anymore. You flinch in your sleep. You talk in your dreams but it's never to me. I miss you and you're right here."
That landed like a blade to the chest.
Sakura's lips parted, but no answer came. The silence this time was different—shattered, raw, the kind that screamed between heartbeats.
Ino's voice broke as she added, "You keep falling and I'm always there to catch you. Always. But lately... it feels like you don't want me to."
Sakura stepped forward, eyes wet. "I do," she said, voice barely a whisper. "I always do."
"But you don't show it anymore," Ino said, wiping at her face angrily. "You just keep going, and I—I don't know how much longer I can keep watching you tear yourself apart."
Sakura reached for her then, but Ino stepped back. "Don't," she said, not cruelly, but desperately. "Not if we're just going to pretend everything's okay."
It hung in the air between them—an ultimatum, unspoken but deafening.
They stood there in their home, surrounded by the echo of what they used to be, aching with the weight of everything they hadn't said, both of them longing for the other but too bruised to close the distance.
And for a moment longer, they simply stood. Silent. Shaking. Uncertain if this time, love was enough to pull them back in.