Chapter 4: Dream Scrolls

Ino looked over the collection of Sakura-dream-scrolls. There were so many, and they’d only been doing name it claim it for a few months. Sakura had just had one where she was healing some really crazy sounding injuries. Ino was jealous, even though it was just a dream. Ino had started asking her mom to do calligraphy with them, a hobby of hers. That, and the made-up excuse about needing extra writing supplies for pre-school was enough to supply them with endless materials; their parents pinching themselves when they complained they weren’t able to study enough. 

They’d also started writing down dreams that didn’t end in screaming and crying because Sakura had a really weird one where she and Ino seemed to be fighting for scary-guy’s (as they had come to call him) affection. Ino had had a hard time believing that one. Why would they fight over such an obviously evil person? Then came the realization that apparently Sakura’s mind was jumping around in time. At first, they had organized the scrolls by when the dream had happened, but after a few weeks they had come to understand that people were jumping back and forth between different ages. The fighting over scary-guy had been a younger one. At least Sakura’s subconscious had some respect for the two of them. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it, not that they expected there to be any, but it made organizing the dreams more difficult. They eventually just decided to guess at people’s ages in the dreams and put the scrolls in a best-guess order. 

Another problem was that it seemed like sound randomly cut in and out in of Sakura’s dreams, and more often than not was useless noise. Still, despite the difficulties Ino felt more than a little proud at all the work they had done together. She liked playing just as much as the next kid but there was a sense of accomplishment that came with looking over a large body of work that she’d created with her own hands, even if the scrolls were a bit sparse on information and names. She had even started a timeline on an especially big scroll to make sense of it at all. Well it was mostly a timeline with cute pictures of stuff they had done together, but still. 

They’d met at the cherry blossom festival when they were four and Sakura had instantly latched on to Ino as a best friend. Sakura’s mom had gotten a picture of Ino putting a sprig of cherry blossoms in Sakura’s hair. Sakura looked petrified. Ino had a few other friends but she didn’t like them as much as she liked Sakura, so she quickly agreed that Sakura would be her best friend too. They had sleepovers constantly, sometimes as many as five in one week! Her mom and dad had even convinced the Harunos to let Sakura come to the same pre-school as Ino instead of the normal civilian one. There was a picture of the two of them going to pre-school together, each holding a lunch box. Sakura said it was basically the same except that the new school was stricter and that the recess time at her old place had been a lot less serious. Then there were pictures of The Great Yamanaka Pillow Fort, which her cousins had helped her create by attaching blankets to the walls with kunai (she’d learned what they were called during the resulting scolding). Somehow, her cousins had escaped the moment before her parents got home and she and Sakura had gotten in LOTS of trouble. 

It had been a few weeks after Sakura’s fifth birthday that she’d gotten her first nightmare. They’d been sleeping in Ino’s bed and all Ino remembered was waking to Sakura shivering and shaking her head, murmuring “no, no, no”. After that she got them pretty frequently. Not every night, but at least two or three a week. As they closed in on the winter festival and Ino’s sixth birthday Ino was wondering if they would be able to keep their pledge of both going to the shinobi academy together. Sakura already seemed pretty terrified of violence, after nearly a year of horrible nightmares. Ino had been begging Sakura to let her talk to her dad about it but of course Sakura chose that one issue to be confident about, and always said no. 

There was a soft knocking at the door. “Girls, are you awake? I’m coming innnn…” Yamanaka Fuyumi, Ino’s mom, slowly pushed the sliding door to the left, as Ino hurriedly stashed the latest dream-scroll in her closet and jumped back in bed. “Good morning mom! We’re awake!” 

After a brief glance at the still-bouncing Ino, Fuyumi said, “Good morning ladies, Sakura-chan did you sleep ok? You look a bit tired!” Fuyumi sounded pleasant, but Ino was able to detect the barest hint of concern hidden in her voice. 

“Yeah, Sakura, did you sleep ok?” Ino repeated, glaring at Sakura. Sakura glared right back at her. “Yes Yamanaka-san, I slept super good. Sometimes it takes me a while to get going in the mornings.” Ino narrowed her eyes. Sakura did the same. 

“Just Fuyumi is fine dear. Come down whenever you’re ready you two.” Fuyumi chuckled as she walked away. 

 “Sakura, if you would just let me tell—“ Ino began.

 “No Ino. They’re just dreams, and what we’ve been doing has really helped. I don’t want people talking about me because of my silly-little-girl nightmares.” Sakura said firmly. 

 “Ugh. I wish I knew my clan jutsu so I could at least see. Also, I don’t think anyone would call a big field of fighting and dying a ‘silly-little-girl’ nightmare.” 

 “There’s only been like two of those.” Sakura sulked. “Most of them are just scary-jerk-guy being mean to me and annoying-guy.” 

 “I wish I was in your dreams more.” Ino sighed. Before going downstairs Ino went over to the drawer they were storing the scrolls in and swapped the four decoy scrolls into place. They were filled with complete drivel about boys and unicorns, a small amount of which might not have been completely made up. Creepy scar guy that dad worked with would be proud. He had taught her about misinformation and then gotten a stern talking to from her mom, which meant that misinformation was super cool. Plus, the Yamanaka clan was the single most important clan involved in the Department of “not-until-she’s-older” and Investigation, and Ino felt like this project was definitely worthy of her clan’s specialties.

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