Ino once again finds herself covered in dirt that through her sweat has turned into mud. Once again she is working on the 'earth wall' technique and once again she is failing miserably.
"Again, Ino." her father barks.
Ino quickly preforms the necessary hand signs. A rock burst from the ground and Ino has a split second of surprise before it instantly turns to pain. The small wall, not even suitable for a squirrel had burst from the ground and ripped off at least two of the toenails on her left foot. She lets out a cry of pain and begins hopping around on her right foot, trying to contain the tears that threaten to fall.
Her father places his forehead in the palm of his hand. "I don't understand how you managed to do that." he says.
Ino has finished hopping around and the searing pain has turned into a dull ache. Curious, she sits on the tallest of the earth walls she'd created, just shy of shin high, and looks at her toes.
The nail of her left big toe is gone completely, leaving a bloody mess of tender flesh. The second and third toes are also bleeding but still have a toenail attached.
A pathetic excuse of a toenail, but a toenail all the same.
Her father's shadow falls across her as he kneels in front of her.
"Looks like that tickled a little bit." he teases, taking a bandage out of his pocket and wrapping it around the bloody toes.
That's a sexy look she inwardly moans, looking at her now three toes instead of five. She hopes that she doesn't run into Sasuke.
Ino groans. "Daddy, I'm never going to get this. The exams are in a couple of days."
Her father nods sagely. "Remember Ino, you don't need to be able to build an entire wall, just something to hide behind."
Ino nods, but releases a huff of frustration, quickly brushing aside her father's statement.
Her dad gives her a sympathetic smile and pats her on the head. "Let's take a break, kiddo."
"But Daddy."
"Remember, Anko wants you to meet her at the Dango shop?"
"Shit, what time is it?"
"Language, young lady."
Ino jumps to her feet and gives her father a kiss on the cheek. "Bye!" she calls over her shoulder as she jumps over the fence dividing the Nara and Yamanaka properties.
Damn it, I'm late and the fastest way to town is through the Nara deer forest. I hope Shikamaru doesn't see me.
Despite their tense momentarily truce the night before, Ino didn't want to run into her teammate. As she runs, she startles a heard of deer, the creatures disperse, running between the pine trees and the beams of light that checker boarded between them. She can't deny that the deer are beautiful and graceful, the way that they leap over the fallen trees.
She thinks that she sees her teammate out the corner of her eye, she doesn't care. Instead, she keeps running and leaps over the other property fence, she sprints across the Nara compound before leaping over the walls of the entrance. Then the five remaining blocks through the residential district before skidding to a stop in front of the dango shop.
Anko is sitting at one of the outside tables, a plate full of dango in front of her.
"I am so sorry, Anko sensai." she gasps as she fumbles with her chair and sits at the table.
"Catch your breath, Yamanaka. Have a dango." Anko motions to the plate that is between them.
Ino hesitates, a single skewer of Mitarashi dango has 128 kilo-calories. She does some mental math Let's see 128x2 is 254…but I didn't eat breakfast so, one more would be 384. I guess I can do that.
She takes three dango from the serving plate and places them on the small plate before her.
"So." Anko begins, swallowing the last marshmallow on what looks like her seventh stick. "Let's talk about what else we need to work on."
Ino takes a small bite of her own, and nods in acknowledgement.
"You're clever, Yamanaka. There's a reason why you graduated top kunochi in your class. You're thin, too thin by the way, so your light and fast. But because you're light, you need to learn how to use your opponent's body weight against him."
"Anko, I don't think that Kinuta is going to let me get close enough to do hand to hand combat."
"Ino, to disarm him long enough to use your mind transfer, you're going to have to be able to land a hit or two. Infusing a punch or a kick with chakra can only get you so far."
Ino finishes her first stick, not realizing how hungry she is. Damn it. she thinks as she picks up her second skewer. "But Anko-" she begins to protest.
"You're going to need all the chakara you've got, Yamanaka. No buts." Anko suddenly snorts. "Butts."
Ino sighs. Anko really is immature. "Anko, how am I going to learn all of this in three days?"
"Looks like we have some work to do." Anko smirks.
Ino sighs and grabs her third dango.
"We will make a plan to meet at the training grounds tomorrow." Anko says as she reaches for her 10th stick of dango.
"Tomorrow? That's even less time!" Ino slams both her hands on the table. Anko's red wine shaking.
"Are you seriously drinking right now? It's 10 in the morning" Ino screeches finally noticing the gaudily full glass of wine.
"I had a rough mission yesterday, Yamanaka." Anko snaps.
Ino pauses. "You had a mission yesterday?"
"Well the day before. After we finished training. I got back last night. You're on your own today, Yamanaka. Mama's gotta deal with her shit right now."
"Anko-" Ino begins.
"Go home, Yamanaka. Study those brains and work on that earth jutsu." Anko dismisses her with a wave of her hand.
Ino wants to protest. More than anything she wants to learn about this mission that Anko was sent on; one that had obviously caused some type of emotional damage. Instead, Ino climbs to her feet.
"I'll see you tomorrow. Thank you for the dango." she says with a quick bow.
Anko gives her a lazy wave before taking a generous sip of her wine. As she walks away, Ino sees a certain silver haired ninja saunter in the direction of the table. Ino sneaks a glance over her shoulder to see said ninja pour himself a matching glass of wine.
Ino is laying flat on her back, glaring at the climbing wall. As she lays on the ground she raises her arms, lining her hands up with each hold. She imagines herself on the wall using the handholds. She traces the route that her hands will need to take, when she reaches the top of the wall, Shikamaru's face appears at the top.
"Where were you going in such a hurry that you dashed across the property?"
Ino drops her arms and closes her eyes. "I was running late for a meeting." she says after taking a deep breath.
"A meeting?" Shikamaru inquires.
"Yep." Ino answers.
"What kind of meeting?"
"None of your business."
Shikamaru scoffs. "Asuma wants to see us for a team meeting."
"Asuma's not my sensai anymore." Ino growls. She swallows the lump in her throat, it had only been three days since she had told Asuma that she didn't want his help anymore.
"Even if it's about the chunnin exams?" Shikamaru taunts.
"Especially if it's about the chunnin exams." she snaps climbing to her feet.
"What are you doing?" Shikamaru asks changing the topic as Ino grabs onto one of the holds on the wall, preparing to begin following a lime green route with a reach that she couldn't make. She'd been working on that particular move for the past 20 minutes. The definition of insanity is climbing. I am doing the same fucking thing over and over again expecting the different result of making it to the next hold.
"What does it look like I am doing, idiot?" she makes the first move easily.
Shikamaru slams his hand against the wall.
Ino ignores him and makes the next move. She'd done these first four moves at least ten times at this point. It was the fifth move that was getting her.
"You're not going to make that."
"Shut up!"
The move is from a super solid easy to hold hold to another super solid easy to hold hold. But the upwards, diagonal and for some reason right hand move is complicated. She positions her body and swings, reaching her arm out to grab the hold but falls to the ground.
"Told you."
She glares at him. "I thought you had a team meeting?" she taunts.
It's Shikamaru's turn to glare.
Ino does the exact same thing again, and falls off the wall.
"Give up, Ino. You can't make that move." Shikamaru says after she falls two more times.
"What do you know, Shika!' she screeches.
"I know that you are a stubborn idiot who doesn't know when to quit. You can't make that move without chakara, Ino."
Ino rubs more chalk on her hands, fighting back the tears that sting her eyes. She had hoped that after their tense truce the night before that the'd at least be civil. He'd at least pretend to be indifferent towards her competing i the Chunnin Exams.
Obviously she was wrong.
"Go away, Shika."
Shikamaru scoffs.
Ino looks at the wall again, then at her hands. Then she sees it, she'd be doing the move in a way that would allow people like Shikamaru with longer reaches to make.
She starts the climb again, swinging and climbing her way smoothly through the first four moves. She pauses, adjust her grip with her left hand, sliding it over as far as she can without loosing her grip on the hold. She moves her right hand to that same hold, effectively having both hands (albeit squished together in a not ideal way) on the exact same hold.
From there the climb is simple, she makes the next three moves and once she gets to the top she sticks her tongue out at Shikamaru and then drops gracefully to the ground.
"What was that Shika? I can't make that move without chakara."
Always 10 steps ahead, huh asshole? Looks like you underestimated me.
Shikamaru is quick to recover from his shock, in fact if the two of them hadn't grown up together, she wouldn't have noticed it at all.
To her pleasure, Shikamaru doesn't have a witty comeback.
Ino grabs her chalk bag, and flipping her hair out of her eyes, sashays away from the climbing wall.
Shikamaru groans. "Troublesome."