"Recognize your place... the Emperor's woman..."
"Disobedient... eliminate..."
"Serve him well... please him..."
"Make him happy... only then can I plead for Konoha... save some lives..."
These words coiled around her mind like poisonous vines.
In despair, people always instinctively grasp at any seemingly life-saving straw.
Even if that straw itself leads to the abyss.
A morbid, self-comforting logic began to sprout and spread in her heart... Yes... what Quan said... seems to make sense... I am already his... resisting will only bring pain, or even death, to myself and everyone... But if I obey him... please him... perhaps... perhaps I really will have a chance to plead for Asuma?
To secure better treatment for Shikamaru, Choji, and the others?
Even... at some point in the future.
Could I beg him to show mercy to Konoha?
Once this thought arose, it was like a seed finding a crack,
Madly taking root and sprouting in Yuhi's despairing heart.
It found a seemingly "noble" reason for her current powerlessness and humiliation.
It found a twisted fulcrum for her to continue living.
Yes... I am doing this to protect everyone... to protect Konoha... I have no choice but to do this... I am not surrendering... I am... I am enduring humiliation for a greater cause... She desperately used this thought to convince and numb herself.
Trying to cover up the unspeakable shame and crumbling beliefs deep within her heart.
For a moment.
Even she herself couldn't tell.
Was this a pathological attachment after being brainwashed?
Was it the beginning of Stockholm Syndrome?
Or was it a desperate, self-deceiving survival strategy in a hopeless situation?
Yuhi struggled to get up from the ground.
Wiping away the tear stains from her face.
She tidied her disheveled clothes.
Her eyes were still hollow, but with a strange, resigned "calmness."
She looked in the direction Di Yan had left.
That man had swallowed everything of her like an abyss.
Yet at this moment, he seemed to become her only graspable, twisted "hope."
She took a step.
As if pulled by an invisible string.
She also chased after him, step by step, towards the imperial bedchamber... 49 This Is Not A Dream; Ino's Worldview Shatters
At the same time.
Inside the side palace bedchamber.
Consciousness, like a sunken ship, struggled to surface from the bottomless darkness and illusion.
Ino Yamanaka let out a pained and muffled groan.
Slowly, she opened her eyes.
The first thing she felt was an aching soreness throughout her body, as if it had been dismantled and reassembled.
Especially the tearing pain coming from her body.
It made her frown instantly and gasp for a breath of cold air.
"Ugh..."
Ino blinked blankly.
What met her eyes was an unfamiliar, extremely luxurious dome and gauze curtains.
This was nowhere she was familiar with.
Next.
Some chaotic and embarrassing memory fragments.
Rushed into her brain like a tide!
Misty vapor... scorching body temperature... a man's face, handsome to the point of being demonic, yet with a charmingly evil smile... powerful arms... and her own body, completely out of control, actively coiling around him like a vine... those heart-pounding gasps and whimpers... "Ah!"
Ino's reason instantly returned completely.
She suddenly sat up on the soft bed.
The violent movement pulled at her painful body, making her wince again.
But the physical pain was far less than one-tenth of the terror in her heart.
This was not a dream!
All those memories were real!
She... she really... She suddenly looked down.
Seeing the bruises all over her body and the specks of red on the messy sheets... Her last shred of hope was completely shattered!
Her mind was blank.
The immense shock made her almost unable to think.
How did she get here?
Who was that man?
Oh, right... it was Teacher Kurenai!
It was Teacher Kurenai who gave her that cup of water!
And then she... But... but in her memory... she was clearly... she was active?
What on earth was going on?
That feeling of being completely unable to control her body and desires... losing... her most precious thing... in such an inexplicable situation... to a terrifying man whose name she didn't even know... Endless grievance, shame, fear, and bewilderment drowned her like ice water.
Ino could no longer hold it in.
She suddenly hugged her knees, burying her face deeply.
Her slender shoulders began to tremble violently.
Letting out uncontrollable, desperate sobs.
Just as she was crying heartbrokenly and at a loss.
"Ino... Ino? You... you're awake?"
A timid girl's voice, filled with surprise and worry, came from beside her.
Ino suddenly looked up.
Through her tear-blurred eyes, she saw an unexpected figure... Hyuga Hinata!
Hinata was standing by the bed.
In her hands, she held a neatly folded, brand new pale purple kimono.
Her signature Byakugan eyes were filled with complex emotions.
There was concern, sympathy, shame... and a deep-seated fear that Ino couldn't understand.
"Hinata? Why are you here?"
Ino asked eagerly, as if grasping at a life-saving straw.
But then she realized her current dishevelment.
She gasped and suddenly pulled the messy sheet around her naked body.
Her original clothes were long gone.