“Woohoo! Teacher! Hinata had defeated Sasuke-kun during sparring matches today!” Ino instantly glomped Ren when she came to the training grounds with Hinata, smugly bragging as if the achievement was hers and Ren raised his eyebrow at the Hyuga girl, causing her to shrug in embarrassment.

Looking down at the blonde who was still holding onto him, a teasing smirk appeared on his face, “Oh, really now? Shouldn’t you be sad that your Sasuke-kyun got bested?”

He enjoyed the brief scowl his words elicited from the girl. But it didn’t last long before Ino released her hold on Ren and took a step back, a mischievous grin replacing her earlier scowl.

“Well… of course, I am mad! But I am also happy for the bitch!” She animatedly spoke, wildly gesturing with her arms with an ‘earnest’ expression as if she hadn’t just casually insulted Hinata.

“Right.” Ren dryly said, completely seeing through her fake expression because she did not put much effort into trying to appear genuine in the first place.

Hinata who stood a bit to the side just rolled her eyes. Ino being her dramatic self was nothing new. She had to go to school with her. This was just another day for her.

“But yeah,” Ino seriously nodded, her tone attaining a small reproachful undertone, “Hinata screwed up and showed more than she should have.” She briefly glanced at her fellow student as a peculiar glint passed through her blue eyes and a smug smirk appeared on her face, “Of course, that would never happen to me.”

Hinata snorted, “That would never happen to you because you genuinely suck at close combat unless you have a blade in hand, you maniac.” She dryly said as she plucked a leaf from the nearby tree and started training the first elemental exercise for the lightning chakra.

Ren chuckled. Much like him, Ino was not building herself to be a punch wizard. Instead, she was going to be a hack ‘n slash wizard, and as such, she suffered from the common affliction of neglecting her punching skills.

But it wasn’t as bleak as Hinata was making it out to be. Ino was good for her age. Better than most genin. But compared to the girl from the taijutsu specialist clan?

Yeah, she was nothing to write home about.

“So, how did you beat Sasuke?” Ren asked Hinata curiously. Sure, he knew she could do it. The physical training he was putting the girls through was no joke. But he was under the impression the girls acknowledged the need to not show off.

So, as much as he was proud, he couldn’t say he was going to congratulate her. And the girl knew it.

“He just tripped.” Hinata flushed and awkwardly replied while averting her eyes away from Ren as he raised his eyebrow at her.

Hinata tried to play her accomplishment off but Ino was not having it. She exaggeratedly rolled her eyes and snarkily interceded, “Mizuki might not have noticed but I am pretty sure Iruka saw that Sasuke’s tripping was not a coincidence. And Sasuke definitely noticed too. He is smart like that.” She dreamily sighed, but both Ino and Ren caught that there was no ‘passion’ in her actions. She was just going through the motions and playing the part of an infatuated schoolgirl.

Ren blinked at her and tilted his head in curiosity, wondering if he had missed some development concerning his yellow student. But almost as fast as the thought appeared in his mind, he shook it off, focusing on the more important things.

Her love life was no concern for him.

“Should I expect the broody avenger to come and bother me about training, then?” He asked Ino who, funnily enough, seemed to know more about the whole situation despite being a bystander than Hinata who was an active participant.

“Nah.” Ino shook her head with a huff, “Sasuke-kun still thinks Hinata is training with somebody from her clan. He lost in taijutsu against a Hyuga girl. He isn’t going to make an issue out of it. The only one he is going to bother will be Hinata. He is definitely going to want a rematch or invite her to train with him, though.” She narrated, showing that she could be extremely observant when she wanted to be.

‘It is just a pity she does not make use of this talent of hers for things that matter.’ Ren wryly thought, his mind instantly trying to figure out how to correct the issue through a possibly traumatizing but very memorable training exercise.

Honestly, he didn’t believe that Sasuke was some arrogant, self-centered, and spoiled caricature like he was presented in most fanfictions during Ren’s past life. But having him come and ask for training would still be pretty inconvenient for Ren.

Too many eyes were on the last Uchiha. Too many feathers would be ruffled if Ren trained him. It would just be far too troublesome.

So, he was glad that he didn’t need to deal with that political ticking time bomb just yet. But the Uchiha boy was clearly starting to catch on. Sooner or later, he was going to figure it out and Ren was going to need to decide what to do with him.

“Joy.” Hinata said in an extremely dry tone when she heard that the Uchiha boy was most likely going to pester her. But Ino completely ignored her tone and angrily stomped on the ground.

“I know!” The blonde exclaimed, “It sucks! Why you? You look so plain!”

Ren inwardly snorted. Ino was being a dick for fun. But since they came here to train, he decided to cut her fun short. This was enough pre-training banter to keep the girls’ competition going.

“I think she is very pretty actually.” He said, countering Ino’s point and throwing her off her game while making Hinata happily grin, only for him to get poked in the stomach by the blonde.

“You don’t get a vote.” She flatly said, all the early amusement drained from her expression as her left eye twitched in a barely restrained annoyance.

Ren inwardly rolled his eyes. Right. What else did he expect? Democracy was not even a concept in this world.

Lazily catching Ino’s wrist before she could pull her hand back, Ren casually shrugged, “Enough talking, Ino. Wind Claws. Now.” He dragged her hand up and in front of his face, just as the disgruntled blonde channeled wind chakra into her freaking nails of all things without actually shredding her fingers into ribbons.

Ren furrowed his eyebrows as he observed her hand infused with wind chakra and slowly nodded. “It’s stable and you are not hurting yourself. Okay. I’d say this is well done, Ino.” He gave the blonde a proud smile, causing her to genuinely but shyly smile in return before she caught herself and her lips set themselves in a self-assured cocky smirk.

“This much is only natural.” She boasted, lifting her nose up, only for Ren to flick it with his free hand, making the blonde girl yelp.

It has been an entire week since he was released from the hospital and started teaching the girls again. Their first challenge was to learn three techniques.

Earth Nature: Hiding Like a Mole.

Lightning Nature: Zap.

And Water Nature: Water Stream.

Only the first one was actually useful in combat. The other two… well, Zap could be used to stun people at best but it only worked at close range, and experienced ninjas could mitigate its effects with their chakra.

However, the principles in that D-rank technique were used in many other higher-ranked lightning techniques so it was a great entry technique for the lightning affinity jutsu.

As for the Water Nature: Water Stream, taking shit during missions is a pain in the ass.

It was also a D-rank technique but it had exactly zero combat potential. It could be used to manipulate water enough to give yourself a bath or to use the water to clean your ass after taking a dump. The technique generated a moderately slow stream of water and that was it.

Honestly, the worst part about missions was actually the ‘camping in the wilderness’ experience. There were no convenient ‘camping ten’ jutsu that took care of every little problem like many Narutoverse fics portrayed.

The anime did not show how rough ninjas had it on missions. It showed the cool parts. The amazing fighting. The motivational talk no jutsu. The sad tragic backstories of characters.

But ninjas having to hunt for food, use leaves to wipe their asses, and sleep only a few hours because watch duty was a thing? No, sir. That wasn’t shown very well.

Ren did have a seal that literally took his waste and piss from within his body and sealed it into a storage seal he had tattooed on his waist. He created it post haste after his first taste of a ‘camping’ experience during a mission. He was not a fan.

And it took several bandits dying a very excruciating death as they screamed bloody murder while he was trying to figure out how to ensure the storage seal would not turn his innards inside out while sealing his shit.

But sugar daddy sage, was their suffering worth it.

Of course, he was not going to give this particular seal to the girls. Not yet. Not until they have their own miserable experience with long ninja missions in the wilderness. They first needed to suffer to have a proper appreciation for something as simple as a seal that removed their need to take a shit.

But back to the Water Nature: Water Stream technique, despite being able to create only a slow stream of water, it was still a very convenient thing for wilderness survival. Unfortunately, the generated water could not be used for drinking.

It was a thing with all Water Techniques. There is a reason why Suna was suffering from the lack of drinking water and had to spend an ungodly amount of money to constantly import it despite being a ninja village. Sure, they were in the desert but they still had people with water affinity.

Alas, the Water Techniques did not create drinking water. The created water lacked the necessary minerals, vitamins and who knows what else drinking water usually contains. Drinking it was pretty much like drinking distilled water.

Sure, you can do it and your thirst will be quenched but your body does not get the necessary stuff from it so you’d eventually die of thirst despite constantly drinking said water.

Alas, not all problems can be solved by ninjutsu.

That said, the reason why Ren had the girls learn these three techniques was not just that they were useful or good for entry-level ninjutsu of their respective elements.

It was a test.

Ino passed. Hinata… flunked.

Ino learned all three techniques within three days. And then she moved on to learning how to coat wind-natured chakra onto her blade and learned that. And then! She also figured out how to coat her freaking fingernails in wind-natured chakra, creating her self-made jutsu, the Wind Claws.

All within said week. Honestly? The girl was just cheating when it came to learning ninjutsu.

She might act like a smug cocky little shit that liked to boast and irritate others with her words, but the girl was putting more effort into training than freaking Naruto, shadow clones included.

It was easy to just say, ‘Oh, she has her mindscape training bullshit.’

And yes, she does. But the girl actually had to train in all these techniques. She had to spend hundreds of hours in her mindscape grinding and grinding and grinding until she learned them and then she went plus ultra with her grinding and created her own version of wind-natured chakra coating.

And she couldn’t use shadow clones in her mindscape to game the system. Ren had her try it. But it just did not work that way so she had to do everything by herself.

Ren respected her for it. The amount of work she was putting into it was quite frankly humbling.

That didn’t change anything on the fact that her accomplishments were plain bullshit. There was a reason why people coated their swords or kunai with wind chakra and not parts of their bodies. Wind chakra was known to damage swords or kunai if used too frequently or if the weapon was of inferior quality.

A ninja needed perfect control of his wind chakra to prevent this. Coating a body part in wind chakra was a good way to get some nasty cuts. But Ino managed it without getting hurt and Ren decided it would be better for her development to not inform her how much bullshit she was currently doing.

The amount of control she had to attain for that to be possible was quite mind-boggling. One mistake and there would go her fingers. The first time Ino showed her Wind Claws to Ren, he totally freaked out from sheer fear that she was going to accidentally cut off her fingers during training.

The fact that the time in her mindscape passed faster than in the real world was a massive help during her training. She also wasn’t limited by her chakra reserves… for some reason. But hacks were pretty common in this universe so Ren decided it was pointless to complain. At least, the cheater was somebody on his team right now.

Any injury she sustained could be instantly reversed too with just a thought and Ino did admit to Ren that she lost thousands of fingers when she trained her wind-natured coating for her fingernails. She only tried it in the real world when she was damn certain she had it down the pat.

But she still had to train that singular skill for hundreds of hours to get to this level with it.

And the most ridiculous part? The blonde girl was not yet satisfied. Her aim was to infuse the wind chakra into individual strands of her hair. She was completely batshit insane.

Even the slightest fluctuation of wind chakra would just cut the strand of hair into pieces. The control of wind-natured chakra necessary to accomplish her goal was nothing short of complete perfection. And then she would need to multitask on a massive scale to imbue multiple strands of hair with wind-natured chakra at the same time while keeping them intact.

Nobody ever accomplished that, but Ino was a blonde. And this was Narutoverse. She was dumb enough to try and had cheat-like training hacks alongside having no idea it was supposed to be impossible so she had a fair shot at actually accomplishing it.

Ren was not going to question it. It’s just how things work in this world. Just look at Naruto, the dumb blonde number two. He let her go for it. It was something that was going to occupy her time for the next several months and even if she failed to accomplish it, she would still learn a lot about wind-natured chakra in the process. So, why not?.

But if she accomplished and perfected it? It was the kind of technique that could form her very own S-class gimmick if paired with the hair techniques she was already insanely proficient in.

As for Hinata, she did learn the three techniques. And she only took six days too. Her learning speed was astounding compared to other ninjas. But she still flunked Ren’s little test.

She… wasn’t a ninjutsu specialist material.

As Ren looked at the Hyuga girl practicing the first-level exercises of lightning chakra nature, he inwardly winced. He needed to have a talk about it with her today and he was really not looking forward to it.

He knew he should not have ranted to her about how Byakugan was the best tool to learn ninjutsu. Now, it was going to bite him in the ass.

But if she wanted to keep pace with Ino who turned out to be an insanely hard-working prodigy at ninjutsu, then Hinata had to find her own niche.

And ninjutsu… just wasn’t it.

—

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Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep