Ch14. Meeting Choza

A month slowly passed as Hinata's training intensified. They slowly added weaponry to their spars and Ren even rarely used ninjutsu when he was certain the girl could dodge it.

Just to prepare her to face it eventually.

He also increased her physical workout and expanded it from just running around the pond to a proper physical conditioning routine. Although it was still focused mostly on speed, strength and endurance were no longer neglected.

And Hinata was improving. Both in her strength and in the academy taijutsu rankings.

Unfortunately, she still held back against her classmates so the improvement was not as dramatic as it should have been. But... Hiashi was happy that his daughter started to show some meager potential again. Those were his words. So, Ren decided to let the issue go for now.

The funny thing was that her improvement in the rankings came from the fact that she was too used to fighting Ren's clone. So, despite holding back in the academy spars she now simply did not hold back enough.

She was still not the best in her class according to these rankings, but she was usually in the top seven.

That didn't mean that Ren neglected his own training. Hinata was in the academy for most of the day, from morning to around three in the afternoon. Ren had enough time to do his training and experiments.

Plus he had shadow clones and while he might not be Naruto-level of broken with them, he was slowly developing some seals to make his clones more useful.

He had to get to a level where he could at least survive Madara and Ren was very aware that it wasn't going to happen without cheating.

Admittedly, he didn't really have a fleshed-out idea about how exactly he was going to accomplish it. But he was certainly going to try his best. Or, you know, die trying.

He'd rather not do the latter, though.

Entering Yakiniku Q, Ren was intent on having some spaghetti today. But before he could find a place to sit, somebody suddenly shouted at him.

"Ren! Come and join us!"

Ren turned toward the voice and smiled when he saw Choza Akimichi sitting at the table with Shikaku Nara and Inoichi Yamanaka. He didn't know the other two men but because of his dealings with the Akimichi clan, he knew Choza quite well.

With a small exasperated sigh, Ren waved at them in greetings and approached their table. "Hello, Choza," He turned his head to the other two and nodded at them, "Mr. Nara and Mr. Yamanaka, nice to meet you. I am Ren. Sorry for intruding." Ren said as he sat down and was about to gesture at the waitress that he wanted to order.

"Eh, don't bother. Just take what you want from the table." Choza interrupted him.

The table was overflowing with various dishes Choza ordered for himself. But since he was willing to share, Ren wasn't going to refuse it. Free food was free food, after all. Reaching for the spaghetti dish, he put it in front of himself before pausing for a second.

Then, he put his hand above an empty spot on the table, and with a small poof, a plate with three slices of cake appeared there.

"Since you are taking care of the lunch, I can provide the desserts." Ren said, enjoying the expectant look on Choza's face.

Cakes were another thing that had a very limited variety in this world. And while Ren did not know any cake recipes from his past life, he was perfectly capable of hiring a confectioner and giving him a few ideas.

Most of them ended in horribly sweet failures but some were a success. Needless to say, Ren always had a cake on hand. What would be the point in practicing fuinjutsu if he couldn't at least enjoy his favorite food no matter where he was?

"Oh, I can see why Choza likes you." Shikaku chuckled as he took one slice of the cake.

"Come to think of it, it's been a year since you became a ninja, Ren." Choza spoke as he took the second slice, "Look at you. You even managed to earn a chunin rank. I am happy you are doing well for yourself."

"Mhm. It's been a busy year." Ren nodded, leisurely digging into the spaghetti dish in front of him.

"I heard about your last mission. My condolences." Inoichi took the last slice.

"Yeah. Poor kids. We were just a few seconds too late." Ren wryly smiled. He was pretty sure that Choza's friend was low-key trying to make a psychological profile of him but Ren didn't mind. It was probably a habit for Inoichi at this point.

"He was talking about the reprimand." Shikaku interjected, his eyes curiously glancing at Ren.

"Hm? Oh. I don't care about that." Ren shrugged, "I am perfectly fine staying chunin until retirement so it doesn't bother me."

Killing Gato apparently pissed off a few people among Konoha's leadership so they decided to get butt-hurt and cause trouble for Ren in the only way they could.

Sadly, getting rid of the man did not help the Land of Waves much as the Fourth Mizukage decided that the country would be a perfect place for a forward base against Konoha. Gato was his trade partner too so his death gave him a proper justification for his actions.

It was a clusterfuck of a situation. In canon, the man was long dead so it wasn't as if Ren could predict his actions.

Konoha and Kiri were now on the verge of war... but Ren didn't worry. Kiri was in shambles and still deep in their civil war. He believed that nothing was going to come out of this. It would be supremely stupid of Yagura to start something right now.

And besides, Ren didn't have any way to stop the situation from becoming worse even if the war started.

But because of this outcome, both Kurenai and Ren were officially reprimanded for their actions and for doing something outside of their mission parameters.

Ren's prospects for promotion to Jonin in the future did not look all that bright with that reprimand on his record. But... meh. The joke's on them, even if they offered the promotion to him, he would likely refuse it. This suited him just fine.

"Kurenai was devastated. The poor woman lost her genins and then had the book dropped on her." Inoichi sighed.

"I heard that there were even talks about demoting her back to chunin but the Hokage got involved." Choza added, "But enough about the depressing stuff!" He turned toward Ren with an expectant grin, "How is training the Hyuga kid?"

"Anything you say will be used against Hiashi." Shikaku suddenly spoke, light-heartedly warning Ren, "Choza doesn't like him. Just keep that in mind, kid."

Rolling his eyes, Ren huffed, "Hinata is good. I have problems making her stop holding back but she has a lot of potential. All it takes is a bit of positive attention."

"Positive attention, really now?" Choza's eyes sparkled, "Will I be invited to the wedding?"

"Please, don't joke." Ren almost choked on the spaghetti in his mouth and just barely managed to swallow it before speaking.

"What? You are seventeen and the girl is fourteen. It could happen. You are spending a significant part of your day with her and giving her 'positive attention'." Choza teased, making both Inoichi and Shikaku chuckle at the dismayed look on Ren's face.

"I'd rather not have angry Hiashi Hyuga chasing me all over the village, thank you very much." He grumbled.

"I doubt he would care." Inoichi scoffed, clearly not having a good opinion about Hiashi's parental skills either.

"Well, if you fail to woo the girl, you could always marry Chisaki." Choza joked and laughed out loud at the grimace Ren now sported.

Chisaki was Choji's six-year-old cousin who declared she was going to marry Ren after trying his food. It would have been adorable if her parents hadn't taken it seriously enough to give Ren a marriage offer.

Something must have shown on Ren's face back then because Choza had always such a great time teasing him about it.

Sometimes it was easy to forget that this world was not completely out of the medieval ages yet.

The conversation continued and Ren had to admit that both Inoichi and Shikaku were pretty cool guys. They didn't joke only about him. Soon enough, the jokes about Inoichi being an overprotective father, Shikaku finding everything troublesome, and Choza's gluttonous nature started flying left and right, making the mood merry.

All in all, Ren had a pretty good time with them. Unfortunately, after twenty minutes he had to go as his clone dispelled, alerting him that one of his fuinjutsu experiments was a success and he should go check it out.

After Ren left, Inoichi looked at Choza, "Did he really help Hiashi's kid get better? I heard she didn't take her training seriously."

"Nah. That's not it." Shikaku boredly said, "From what little Shikamaru shared, the girl is a mess. She is always holding back, not wanting to hurt others. It's probably very troublesome for her teachers."

"Yeah, Choji said that she was cool." Choza sighed in exasperation, "Choji is the same, that boy." He helplessly shook his head, "Now, Hinata is still holding back but her results are improving and she wins more spars. Whatever Ren is doing, it seems to work."

"Oh, that must bother Hiashi. He tried to make her improve for years and this upstart chunin just comes and manages to do it in a month." Shikaku let out a bark of laughter before taking a sip from his cup.

"That Hyuga pride must sting right now." Choza exclaimed with a laugh, taking a hearty bite out of the chicken leg in his hand.

Unnoticed by them, Inoichi stayed quiet, deep in thought as his eyes stared at the chair where Ren sat a few minutes ago. He loved his daughter but he was also starting to worry about her future. She didn't train, only focusing on the Uchiha boy. She needed a wake-up call but Inoichi knew he was too soft when it came to his princess.

'Maybe...' His thoughts strayed in a direction Ren would definitely call troublesome.