Ren sat on a blanket, with the vast grassland in his Little Garden around him, while holding Hinata in his arms. The girl lazily clung to him like a spoiled cat, refusing to let go. It started with Ren trying to comfort her because he noticed the recent battle with Iwa was weighing on her conscience, but... she had learned some bad habits from Ino.
That girl. Give her a hand, and she would take an entire arm. A bit of comforting quickly turned into a three-hour-long cuddling session. Well, not that Ren had a reason to complain about it too much. The time flew like water for him, as he spent it inwardly appreciating Hinata's two remarkable womanly charms. Especially the two tightly squeezed against his abdomen.
Yes, very nice.
No wonder Ino looked like an angry chihuahua as she threw glances at Hinata's chest when Ren met them this morning. They haven't seen her for two weeks, and the Hyuga girl grew a bit more in that area yet again, while Ino...
Ren suppressed the urge to snicker as he remembered her sour look. Ah, well, he surmised he could let her vent a bit, and if her mood grew too gloomy, he could always give her some praise and compare her chest to Sakura's. That was bound to make her happy again.
Washboard as flat as her huge forehead... were the words Ino last used to describe her friend, if Ren remembered correctly.
"What is the bimbo doing?" Hinata asked, pulling Ren out of his idle thoughts.
"Hm?" He rested his cheek on the top of her head and turned his gaze toward Ino, who was a few meters away from them, huffing and puffing while standing above the most standard type of puppet from Suna, one they usually gave to newbies to practice with.
"... -ou useless piece of rusting junk! Move, dammit!" Ino screamed and kicked the puppet, cracking the wood on its chest, which made her instantly regret her actions as she hurriedly knelt to inspect the damage with worry and frustration etched in her still upset expression.
She had been at it for the last two hours straight. It was fun to watch her freak out and cuss at the piece of wood at first. But after half an hour, Ren had his fill of fun and started to ignore her.
Hinata, however, seemed to be in her own world as they cuddled, so she didn't pay much attention to Ino's 'Inoness'.
"She is trying to simplify her yin clone technique enough that even an average moron could do the dumbass version. And she is also attempting to make it capable of piloting a puppet." Ren's lips twitched in amusement as he watched Ino have a one-sided glaring contest with the innocent puppet.
"She had bragged she could totally do this, so I simply dared her to actually do it." Ren chuckled. The girl did not expect that. She only wanted to boast a bit. "That made her go all quiet for a few minutes, but you know her."
"She still can't refuse a challenge from you, can she?" Hinata exasperatedly muttered before her fingers poked Ren in the side, "You are taking advantage of her." She accused Ren in a reproachful tone that would have been way more effective if there had not been that hint of amusement mixed in it.
"Who me? Pfft. Baseless slander and nonsense." Ren shamelessly refused the accusation, but the smirk on his face told a different story.
Hey, he wasn't forcing her to do anything. But since she had offered, then in his opinion, she could put in the work. She could quit at any moment, and Ren wouldn't be angry. But Ino was sometimes too competitive for her own good, so he knew that wasn't going to happen.
"How long is she at it?" Hinata curiously asked, as her eyes wandered again toward Ino, who was now standing above the puppet, her hands clasped in a hand seal and her face sporting an intense look of concentration.
To give the girl credit, the puppet was actually twitching. She was clearly making progress. But that was only natural. Ren had no doubt she could figure out a way to imbue her yin clone into the puppet to control it.
The issue was making the technique work while also making it simple enough that even a non-Yamanaka, without years of training in mental arts, could cast it.
"Around four days," Ren replied to Hinata's question, causing her to sigh.
A wistful smile appeared on Hinata's face, "Don't tell her, but I think Ino is amazing. Sometimes I really envy how good she is at making techniques that aren't meant to destroy."
"Ei!" Ren exclaimed and poked her ticklish spot enough to make her squirm in his arms. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Your healing abilities are awesome, too. Didn't you say that not one injured ninja died on your watch after the battle?"
"... I guess." Hinata quietly muttered and turned her gaze away with a pink dusting on her cheeks while her lips involuntarily stretched into a small smile.
Seeing that, Ren tightened the embrace and mentally sighed in exasperation. Hinata's recent battle with Iwa was bothering her. The entire force of four to five thousand Iwa ninjas was annihilated. Only a few dozen stragglers managed to run away, but other than them, all were killed. The majority of them died due to Hinata's ninjutsu.
She was having a bit of a mental crisis because of the doubt and regret that followed after the battle. Killing was a part of a ninja's life, but there was still a massive difference between killing a few people in a line of duty and killing a few thousand people in one sitting. Especially for a gentle soul like Hinata.
Ren would have been far more concerned if she hadn't bothered by it.
No. This was normal, and he trusted her to get through it just like she managed to get through any other hardship in her life. The only thing he could do was to be there for her right now when she needed him the most.
It didn't help that Konoha started hyping her 'achievement' up and dubbed her the Lightning Princess, throwing praises at her left and right for the slaughter.
He knew his student enough to realize she was not accepting those praises in the spirit they were given. Very, very far from it.
Iwa, on the other hand, dubbed Hinata the White Butcher. And the world quickly followed, accepting that moniker with a palpable trepidation. They absolutely refused to acknowledge a cool name like 'Lightning Princess', and nobody was surprised by that.
The despairing anger and deep fear coming from Iwa's side were plainly obvious to anybody who bothered to look. Minato Namikaze slaughtered over a thousand Iwa ninjas, winning the Third War. And he became the enemy number one in that village for it.
Hinata alone had killed over three thousand in that one battle. Maybe even four thousand. Who was really counting?
Kumo, Kiri, and even Suna were deeply unsettled by that. If her previous 'Flee-on-Sight' designation was only half-acknowledged, now it was encouraged with a fearful passion. Strong ninjas were common, but monsters that could curb-stomp the entire battlefield were simply not supposed to exist anymore. The last ones were Hashirama and Madara. And no village wanted another one of those to rise.
Not even certain parties in Konoha.
Hinata's battle against the Sound ninjas was one thing. She had shown one amazing technique that allowed her to contend with an army of a thousand.
That was one thing. It had been done before. Multiple times, in fact. People raised an eyebrow and took note of her, but they told themselves that it was all right. The girl was strong, but she couldn't be everywhere. Namikaze was far more frightening with his teleporting, and he was still killed.
But now? Hinata had pulled out yet another large-scale devastating attack that had killed the majority of Iwa's army. Those five-ish thousand ninjas? That was supposed to be the entire Iwa's offensive against Konoha for the next several months.
In any other war, those five thousand ninjas would be sufficient to wage a war and press Konoha's defenses of the Land of Fire. And they were gone? Just like that? In one go?
Cast that on a village, and the village would be simply gone. How could the other villages not be frightened? Ren wouldn't be surprised if Hinata was going to get some fearful looks, even from some of the Konoha people.
"Yes! Finally! I did it!"
The solemn silence between Hinata and Ren was suddenly interrupted by a cheerful yell from Ino, causing their attention to snap toward the blonde girl, only to find her proudly standing with her hands on her hips and her nose raised high above her smug grin, while the puppet next to her was doing some bizarre celebration dance.
Ino turned toward them and opened her mouth to brag... only to get her ponytail yanked back by the puppet, making her yelp, and her arms started to flail around as she momentarily lost her balance while the puppet rattled as if snickering at her.
Ino crouched with her hands outstretched to the sides, stabilizing herself before she turned around and snapped at the puppet, "Hey! What was that for!?"
But the puppet only flipped her off.
Ino blinked. The puppet smugly tilted its head. Ino opened her mouth, but the puppet turned around, jutting out its posterior at Ino as its wooden hand slapped it with a loud 'clang' before it started running away.
Ino's eyebrow twitched as she flushed in anger, understanding the taunt for what it was. After all, it was one she loved to use against her foes. It showed off her amazing ass while taunting her opponent. What was there not to love?
But having it used on her... how could she stand that!?
She screamed and instantly took off after her cheeky yin clone, controlling the puppet, intending to disassemble the offending piece of wood.
Ren and Hinata looked at each other in bewilderment after witnessing it, and could only shake their heads. The weirdest part was that they didn't feel all that surprised.
Ino was simply going to be Ino.