Ino stood with her arms crossed over her modest chest as she glared daggers at the climbing wall before her. She was sore in a whole different way; her back, forearms, obliques and shoulders hurt. But she had to admit that it was one of those hurt so good feelings that she occasionally got after a good day's work out.

"Looks like I am doing some target practice and more reading." she muttered to herself.

She arrived at the training grounds, weary that a certain Hyuuga would disturb her practice once again. Instead she was met with an empty training ground. With a sigh of relief she pulled out her weapons and proceeded to throw them time and time again into the target where they all landed with a satisfying thump. Despite all of her weapons hitting the target she noticed that only a few of them were dead center. "Damn." she muttered. She wasn't going to admit that the motion of throwing hurt her already sore arms, instead she decided to suck it up and continued for a couple more hours.

Instead of destroying her muscles any further, Ino returned to the flower shop and began to study more of her clan's mind techniques. Once again she traced and retraced the anatomical drawings of the human brain until she had it memorized and labeled on paper. She sighed and sat back It's one thing to be able to draw the brain, I need to practice on someone she thought to herself. But who could she use? Chouji is out because he would blab to Shikamaru. If by some miracle Shika and I were paired together, I don't want him knowing my new move. She continued to muse the thought in her head, who do I know who doesn't have anyone associated with the chunin exams.

Her thoughts were answered when a certain chunin teacher walked through the door. Iruka came to the shop every Wednesday to buy flowers for his parents who had died during the Kyuubi attack twelve years ago.

"Iruka-sensai!" she cried out.

He paused, surprised by her outburst. "Hello Ino."

The blonde quickly composed herself. "Do you still want your usual flowers?"

He nodded and Ino quickly moved from behind the counter to collect the arrangement of flowers that Iruka always bought. She rang up the flowers and handed them to Iruka with a small smile. "Here you go." she replied.

"Thanks, Ino." he stated as he turned to walk out the door.

"Iruka-sensai." she called after him.

He turned.

"Do you think that you could help me train? Everyone else I know is either in the exams or helping their teammates train for the exams. I need to master this technique on a ninja instead of the butterflies and mice the eventually wander into the flower shop." she explained in a rushed breath.

Iruka paused and rubbed his chin in thought. "I'm free this evening" he finally said. "Meet me at training ground 3 at 4:00."

Ino smiled brightly before bowing deeply. "Thank you so much!" she cried out happily clapping her hands together.

Iruka smiled at his former student. Ino had graduated top in his class afterall, the least that he could do was help her with her training.

Ino stood before her former teacher and after running her fingers self consciously through her stubby hair once again looked up at him "Are you ready?" she asked.

Iruka smiled at the girl and nodded. He watched as Ino preformed her hand signs and then felt a small prodding in his mind. It wasn't invasive, in fact he was sure that if he were focusing on a battle he wouldn't have even noticed the girl's presence as she wandered through his mind. Suddenly the urge to draw a kunai and throw it at a target became more important than whatever the Yamanaka was doing. He whipped out the weapon and threw it at the target before he felt Ino leave his mind.

"What was that?" he asked.

She smiled, "It's the Mind Hypnotic Technique."

"It's pretty impressive, how did you learn it? I always thought you had to be asleep for hypnosis to work"

"It's a clan technique. But no Hypnosis really just makes your mind more open to suggestion. So with this technique I find the part of your brain that is open to suggestions and demands and simply place the idea into your mind."

Iruka nodded, this was a powerful technique indeed. The ability to control someone's mind was a terrifying thought.

"Can I do it again?" Ino asked.

Iruka found himself hesitantly nodding.

Ino smiled noticing her teacher's worries.

"I'm not going to prod your brain, don't worry. I am going to try to memorize the human brain as much as I can and then I will practice the technique on you a few more times; well as much as I can." she replied.

"And do you just want me to stand here? Because in the real world I would be trying to attack you."

Ino paused obviously she hadn't thought of that. Iruka knew that the beginner Yamanaka techniques had always relied on the Nara shadow to trap an enemy. It was an advanced Yamanka that would have the ability to hit a moving target. Despite Ino's obvious growth, she was still a beginner in the difficult of mind games that the Yamanaka played.

"Give me three more tries and then attack me" she replied.

Iruka nodded.

He noticed that each time Ino entered his mind while he stood still she moved a bit more quickly. If she can get fast enough she really might be able to pull this trick off he thought to himself after she had exited his mind for the third time.

"Okay Ino, how are you doing on chakara?" he asked.

"I'm fine." Ino replied drawing a kunai.

Iruka drew his own weapon and charged, the spar with weapons ended quickly when Ino paused to preform the technique only to have Iruka knock her down and hold a weapon to her throat. "Again." he said.

She stood up and they moved twenty feet apart from one another. This time she charged first and the spar began once again. She spent most of her time dodgeing and trying to find openings. Before she could even try the technique, Iruka had her on the ground once again. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah. Again." Ino answered as she brushed dirt off her shirt.

"Think of a time when I am far enough away from you that you can make a successful move." Iruka suggested as they spread apart once again.

The pretty blonde narrowed her eyes in concentration, trying to figure out a way to get through Iruka's defenses or at least trick him. Then the idea came to her.

"Go!" Iruka cried out.

Ino quickly preformed hand signs and five other shadow clones appeared. She and the clones scattered in different directions, causing Iruka to drop into a fighting stance as two of the clones attacked him. Ino herself stood in a circle around Iruka with the other three clones. While he was distracted she preformed her technique and Iruka kept fighting but his movements slowed down as if he were trying to figure out if he really wanted to battle or not. Despite the technique, Ino still found herself defeated by Iruka.

"Better." Iruka stated as he pulled Ino to her feet.

She smiled. "So would you say that in order to make this move work I will need a distraction?" she found herself asking.

"I would say that is certainly a good place to start. You will get faster the more you practice." Iruka stated.

Ino nodded and smiled. "Again?" she asked.

Iruka chuckled and shook his head. "We've already been at this for two hours Ino, give yourself some time to recover."

"But Iruka sensai-" she whined.

"Ino you know that rest will help you heal those sore arms of yours and replenish your chakara. We can train together again."

Ino nodded dejectedly, but she knew Iruka was right. Developing new techniques was something that took a lot of chakara.

"You'll get this Ino." Iruka said placing a hand on her shoulder.

Ino forced herself to smile back. "Hai, Iruka sensai." she replied.

Iruka couldn't help but notice that Ino had indeed developed as a kunochi since she'd graduated from the academy. For some reason, the thought of Ino holding her own in the chunnin exam suddenly became something like less of wishful thinking and more of a possibility.

Ino was always full of surprises.