I stumbled outside in my groggy state, to kill the stupid bird. Only to be greeted by the red hair of Fuu Yamanaka.

“Master! Urgent news! The other one has a hand in your next assignment. For what purpose, I do not know. I must get back.” He said calmly in a clear voice and then he left.

“Ughh…” Is all I managed to breathe out. Sleeping for 24 hours really fucked up ones body. It was time to get hydrated and wake everyone else too. Fuu had just told me what we suspected. There were some shady shenanigans happening on this mission. I just hope it’s not a negative influence.

Considering we trained stealth the whole week and had just the rest of the day to prepare for tomorrow's mission, I went shopping. No way I am forgetting that ninja wire chainmail. Also needed to restock my more usual supplies. After visiting Tenten and explaining that we had another mission, we went to get some real food as a team.

“I think we should do some light exercise to stay warm before the mission.” I said after swallowing a mouthful of chicken ramen.

“But we haven’t had any breaks for a month.” Ino complained.

“Medically speaking the exercise will make our performance better, but so much physical strain is not good for our muscles.” Akari added casually.

“We have no choice. Mission must be done.” Yui said, looking at her food and idly poking at it.

After eating Akari and Yui split from us to speak to their families. Ino and I went back home. It was a chance to test out my chakra control on sand manipulation. I sat down in front of my sand puddle. Ino sat down next to me, but I would not have her idling.

“No, no Ino you got another task.” I said, narrowing my eyes at her.

“Wha- Why? Everything still hurts, have mercy, Ryoshi-sama.” She said, looking at me with puppy dog eyes. She inched her face closer to mine, as we were both crouching.

“Arghh, cuteness. My only weakness.” I said, clutching my heart and making a mock pained expression.

“Unfortunately for you I am also a wicked man.” I smirked and pushed her cute face away, toppling her onto the grass.

“Ugh. You big meanie. I thought I had you.” She complained from the ground.

“I think having lightning chakra gives you a relatively simple way to get some power. So pull out a kunai.” I ordered.

“Sure.” She grumbled as she got up.

“I am not sure if it’s going to work, but the idea is simple. Just coat the kunai in lightning chakra, like the time you did the chakra paper.” I explained.

“Why don’t you practice the same technique, won’t earth chakra make the kunai harder or something?” She asked, with a raised brow.

“Well, yes and no. Earth does nothing, but wind does make it sharper. The problem is manipulating wind chakra to achieve that result is a fair bit more difficult, while lightning chakra behaves that way naturally on its own. So all you need to do is coat it, while for wind I need to shape and grind two separate parts against each other to have an effect. Although wind chakra is a lot more effective to get a cutting edge, it also requires control I do not have yet.” I explained what I remembered from my Earth life.

Stolen novel; please report.

“That sounds good, but how do you even know all of this?” Ino asked with now furrowed brows.

“I just do. Silly girl, get going. Stop trying to delay!” I ordered again, it wasn’t really difficult to tell her that I had the knowledge from a different life, given she had seen the creature in my head and would probably believe whatever I told her without question. At the end of the day however, it wasn’t relevant.

“Fine, fine.” She drawled and moved to a nearby tree only a few feet away from me. So we each focused on our own training.

Clearly experience was the best teacher. A week of extreme hide and seek, where chakra control decided if you would have an extra bruise or not, had boosted me quite a bit. I could now push the sand much more, having so much more range opened up actual combat applications of the ability. I tried hardening the sand, with not so good results. I could use it to soften a blow from a cutting or a piercing attack but it wasn’t reliable enough to use as a shield like Gaara, yet. I was confident in being able to trip up someone if I had enough sand. Made me wonder if I should start carrying sand on my back, which sounded extremely annoying. Sand generally would be really good against blunt attacks though, even with the little amount of hardening I could do. Gaara had a sand shell on his skin, that is something I need to prioritise learning. Thinking about storage I made a simple cup filled with sand and tried floating it around to get the hang of controlling sand. My perspective was using this ability as much as possible to acclimate myself to it. So I came up with an exercise, once again utilising my crazy chakra pool. I surrounded my whole forearm in sand, like medieval armour. I would attempt to keep it permanently on me, but not just stick to my arm, but also I would attempt to manipulate it to reduce resistance of my arm’s movement. As well as maybe in the future to act against my movement, so it behaves like a weight in physical training, at the same time training my sand skills.

Feeling mischief creep up into me, I eyed Ino. She was facing away from me, so it was a perfect opportunity. I used some sand to push towards her feet and gently envelope them so she wouldn’t notice.

“Hey, Ino! Don’t hit the ground too hard!” I said snickering like a child. As she attempted to get up and turn, only for her feet to not move at all, causing her to lose her balance and head towards the ground. At this point I was moving a lot of sand trying to catch her fall, another exercise for speed. With a sharp yelp she hit the sand face first. I did my best to make it soft for cushioning.

“You big dummy!” She yelled as soon as she got free from the sand, flailing her arms at me.

“Come on, toss the kunai at me. Let’s see how you are coming along.” I taunted her.

She did toss a kunai crackling with a little bit of electricity at me, which I blocked with the sand arm I had on, would be a good test I reasoned. I hardened it as much as I could as the kunai hit and pierced it, but it had been slowed enough to be caught by the ninja mesh beneath. I felt tingling on my whole arm though.

“Nice, nice. That is surprising progress.” I genuinely complimented. It had only been an hour or so of practice.

“We just need to train your little girl arms a bit more.” I said, smirking at her.

“Ugh, you are impossible. I am so tired. “ She complained.

“Take a break, until the other two come around.” I said. I sat down on the sand and beckoned her over. She walked a few steps and gracelessly fell down nearly on top of me. I looked at the purple wearing blonde vixen laying so close to me. Made me think our future would be very awkward, especially when my body goes through puberty which should be any day now.

“I can feel you looking. What?” She mumbled.

“I was just thinking, you are so small. When are you gonna grow?” I said.

“You… you are asking because of perverted reasons, aren’t you?” She asked with forced calmness.

“Well Ino, I was just thinking about the future. We are kind of stuck together, perhaps forever. Have any thoughts?”

“Just last month I was thinking I would marry Sasuke-kun. Haven’t had the chance to think about that though.” She said solemnly. “But now, I am stuck with you. I can’t even think about any other possibilities and I have tried.

“What do you mean?” I asked, surprised.

“You are always in my thoughts. I even pursued a thought process discerning my own thoughts separately and… I didn’t want that” She mumbled shyly, but I could not understand what she meant.

“Well, Ino-chan. Hopefully we will start growing soon and we are going to be hormonal, cause puberty. Since we are stuck together, I am afraid awkward situations are going to be unavoidable.

“Mhmm.” She affirmed.

“I don’t know if you know, but you are a pretty girl Ino-chan and I am certain you will grow up to be even prettier.” I put my hand on her and patted her.

“Mmm.” She purred in response, causing me to smile.

“I am afraid you are stuck with a wicked man and the future is bleak.” I continued explaining.

“It seems so, but I am satisfied and that's all I can ask for.” Ino said with a smile. Her head on my shoulder, she fit snugly on my side.

“Ah, shit we forgot to visit Yuki-nee. She needs a spanking!” I said remembering the fox mask and shooting up straight. Ino groaned at the disturbance.

“I was sooo, comfortable. Hey, can’t you carry me? Please.” She started pulling the puppy eyes again.

“Sure.” I sighed. “How do you want to be carried?” I asked and watched as her eyes widened and glistened like stars. After leaving a note for our other teammates that may or may not show up in our absence, we headed out to Yuki-nee’s brothel with Ino in my arms in a princess carry. I saw no harm in it. The poor girl would be shocked soon enough, after what I’m going to do to that Fox vixen.