Ch124. A sparring match

"Hehe. Having performance issues?" Ren laughed as he let Ino's wind-coated blade pass harmlessly through his intangible body while giving her a shit-eating, teasing grin that made her scowl.

Her pride prickled, Ino sped up her swinging with an adorably angry expression, trying to cut Ren, who lazily evaded some of her blows, while letting most of them pass through his body, obviously not even trying to pretend that he was taking her seriously.

The girl probably assumed that there must be some sort of damage threshold that his technique could tank before it gives out. That was a reasonable assumption, but unfortunately for her, that was not how this thing worked.

"What the hell is this bullshit!" Ino furiously exclaimed with a yelp as Ren managed to step around her as a part of his dodging movement and added a nice little swat to her posterior for style points.

Of course, he had around five senbon fly through him into the horizon and explode in the distance, courtesy of Hinata, whose calm facade held, only her twitching right eye betraying how annoyed she was.

It had been a long time since Ren put the girls through one of these humiliating sparring sessions, and he thought they were getting a tad bit too self-assured. Naturally, he had to show them the error of their ways like the good and concerned sensei he was.

Glancing at Hinata, Ren tauntingly stuck out his tongue.

Ino's sword swished through his abdomen, causing her to get very close to him. The second the sword left his body, Ren turned tangible and gripped Ino by her hips and swung his body, causing the momentum to lift her feet from the ground as he threw her to the right, ensuring that her body blocked Hinata's next five senbon that stuck Ino in various parts of her back, making her eyes go wide as she gasped from the sudden pain and let go of her sword.

Her painful distraction, however, was only momentary as her body hit the ground and rolled on it, which either brutally drove the long needles deeper inside of her or forcefully ripped them out.

Inwardly, Ren winced while outwardly, he just gave the whimpering Yamaka an eye smile.

"Ya dead, blondie." He told her, weathering her glare as painful tears flowed down her cheeks while she was slowly standing up. Her hand reached behind her back and gripped one needle buried in her up to three-quarters of its length, and the girl forcefully yanked it out, visibly wincing in the process.

Yet another wound pierced straight through her body, its tip slightly sticking out from under her left breast. Ino dug her fingers into the wound, gripped the needle, and pulled it out in one swift motion.

Ren let her. Maybe it wasn't very educational of him. On a battlefield, her enemy would not give her the time to get rid of the shrapnel stuck in her.

But he was content playing with two clones of Hinata that attacked him when Ino's body hit the ground and tried to Jyuken him into oblivion as he now wielded Ino's sword with the skill of a particularly clumsy toddler, swishing it around for fun.

Noticing that the most likely real Hinata landed near Ino and instantly put her hands, glowing with medical chakra, on the blonde girl's wounds, rapidly healing them.

Humming, Ren chuckled at the Hinata's clone in front of him... before he suddenly switched places with the clone behind him and the clone in front of him rammed her chakra-powered fingers straight into the second clone's neck, instantly killing and popping it out of existence.

It made the clone pause. Not for long. He trained Hinata better. But there was still a half-second of shock, and Ren used it to decapitate that clone with a seal-less wind slash, causing its head to roll off its shoulders and fall toward the ground for a brief moment before the clone disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Despite Ren's easy-going smile, he inwardly thanked the Sage for the fact that he could recognize the real Ino and Hinata by the chakra residue of the gravity seals on their bodies.

He would have never been able to use something as brutal as a decapitating wind slash if he were not one hundred percent sure the Hinata in front of him was a clone.

The clones dealt with, Ren turned around to face the real girls and gave them an exaggeratedly arrogant look in order to motivate them. "Is that i-?"

He was interrupted as a massive wind pressure descended out of nowhere on his position with enough force to crack the ground in a ten-meter radius around him.

Ren stood there, his feet sinking into the pulverized ground with his mouth soundlessly open, only to release a sigh after two seconds of staring ahead.

Right. Ino and her seal-less wind jutsu.

That wouldn't have killed him if it had hit, but he would have had an entire collection of broken bones to brag about.

Realizing that fighting the girls at anything but close range was foolish, Ren quickly started to run at them at his maximum speed. This intangibility seal of his was broken as heck, but he was no Obito. He barely had it for two weeks, and keeping up his focus was still somewhat of a problem for him. As nonchalant as he appeared, the girls actually did almost get him a few times.

Noticing Ren's approach, Ino and Hinata instantly split up and jumped in different directions. Seeing it, Ren smirked even as he ducked under Hinata's finger strike.

This was the very first time they sparred with him using his new intangibility seal, and the girls naturally knew that if they had an advantage over him somewhere, it would be taijutsu and ninjutsu. Hinata was better than him at taijutsu, and Ino at ninjutsu by now.

But the seal completely flipped the board and Ren managed to kick their ass in taijutsu so hard during their first exchange, that they realized that rushing him with taijutsu was not a viable strategy anymore.

Ren was about to deliver a punch to Hinata's abdomen as he sidestepped yet another of her finger strikes, when he had to hastily stop his offensive and go intangible when Ino's wind-coated kunai almost managed to hit him in the shoulder.

Eyebrows furrowing, Ren glanced at Ino, and the girl suddenly experienced a massive blunt force slamming into her, courtesy of a wind technique.

The distraction allowed Hinata to regain her stance, and Ren was suddenly hit by her Heavenly Wall and was pushed a few inches back before he managed to phase through it.

His eyes met Hinata's, and her lips curled up in a small smirk as Ren inwardly groaned. The girl noticed. 

'Well, that's going to make this more annoying.' Ren inwardly sighed. 'I almost regret promising not to use any other seal.' Because, of course, he needed to goad the girls into this fight somehow.

Ren ran at Hinata as two clones appeared next to him, both heading toward Ino. He threw a kunai at the Hyuga girl, and she only spun in place, letting it sail around her before she snatched it up from the air and threw it back at Ren after finishing her spin, adding lightning chakra to the mix.

But another kunai was already heading her way, and she outstretched her hand to repeat the same thing with it, just as the lightning-enhanced one was about to hit Ren.

Only for Ren to suddenly appear in front of her instead of the kunai, courtesy of a quick kawarimi, and he stabbed a wind-coated kunai straight through the palm of her outstretched hand, making her grit her teeth as she yanked it back, letting the kunai slash through half of her palm as if it went through a butter.

With her hand momentarily disabled, Ren stepped forward as he sent a punch toward Hinata's face with his free hand... and had to go intangible as her Heavenly Wall technique swept through his position with a strong concussive force of her chakra.

But a shadow clone of Ren silently popped into existence behind Hinata the second her Heavenly Wall technique passed through its location, and her eyes went wide for a split second as she realized she would not be able to cast another Heavenly Wall before the clone's attack landed.

Both Ren and his clones were about to attack when Ren once again had to use his seal and go intangible as a senbon almost nailed him in the throat, thrown by Hinata's hand that she kept near her waistline, away from Ren's usual line of sight.

His clone fared much worse and puffed out of existence when he experienced how it feels to be stabbed in the brain through the eye when Hinata used her other hand to flick it backward in a very tricky shot.

Cold sweat appeared on Ren's back as Hinata jumped back out of melee range, and he wryly noted that she became truly dangerous with her senbon. The trick shots she was capable of doing with them were hard to notice. She could flick them in any direction at a moment's notice. He almost didn't react in time. 

"So you did figure it out." Ren said with a lazy, unbothered outward guise, giving the girl an expectant smile.

A smile, she happily returned. "Yup. It wasn't that hard to notice. You can't attack while intangible. I just need to attack back, and you will have to either take the hit to hit me back or go intangible, giving up your offense." She humbly explained, and Ren nodded.

"True." He narrowed his eyes at Hinata. "But are you not forgetting something?"

Tensing, Hinata prepared for an attack, and her mind went a mile a minute while her eyes scanned for the threat all around her, but she still spoke in a relaxed tone. "Er, no?"

"Okay." Ren casually shrugged, causing Hinata's caution to falter at the completely careless gesture.

She opened her mouth to quip something back when suddenly, she felt something grasp her ankles, and her world spun before her back hit the ground.

'Clon-' She inwardly realized, but it was too late as the original Ren swapped with his clone through kawarimi, and Hinata felt her hands forced above her head and held in the grasp of his right hand as the kunai in his left hand ended up on her neck, resting on her skin.

Hinata gulped, looking Ren in the eyes as he chuckled. "I win."

Byakugan had a hard time penetrating the ground. Hence, the Hyuga needed to do so consciously. Something not many did. It was honestly a fifty-fifty chance that Ren would be able to distract her enough to prevent her from checking the underground, and surprisingly, it paid off. 

This time.

"Do you really think this was a smart thing to do?" Hinata defiantly asked, her cheeks gaining a pink dusting due to feeling Ren's rear sitting on her stomach as he was straddling her.

 "Hm. And what can you do about it?" Ren teasingly asked, humoring the girl as he leaned forward and delivered a quick peck on her lips before pressing his forehead against hers while still holding the kunai to her throat.

She did not surrender yet, after all.

"I don't know." Hinata giggled, leaning her head forward and pecking Ren on the lips despite it causing the kunai to slice her throat. Ren almost freaked out, but he noticed it instantly started healing, causing him to calm down.

He still gave Hinata a long look, one that made her cheekily smirk.

"What about using the Heavenly Wall on your balls? Hm?" She asked with a lot of amusement in her tone, and Ren shivered as he suddenly became painfully aware that maybe, just maybe, sitting on the stomach of a Hyuga, one that could do a Kaiten-esque attack without spinning, was not the smartest thing to do.

"... Please don't." He weakly asked, causing Hinata to burst into laughter.

"A- Alright. Ha. I- I surrender. Hehe." She wheezingly admitted her defeat in between her laughter, and Ren awkwardly pulled the kunai away from her throat with an eyeroll. He'd just go intangible if she tried it, and she knew that.

Ren pushed himself off of her and sat on the grass next to her as she sprang into a sitting position before promptly leaning on his shoulder as their gazes turned in the direction where Ino was still fighting Ren's clones.

Because, of course, his clones could also use the intangibility seal.

"That's cheating." Hinata flatly said as she noticed Ino flailing around, trying to hit either of the clones and failing miserably, no matter what ridiculous jutsu she threw at them.

"And it feels so good, too." Ren grinned, putting his arm around her shoulders before pulling her closer toward him.

"Ohohohoho~! You are still a thousand years too early to hit me! Ohohoho!" Ren's clone loudly exclaimed, taunting Ino while imitating the tone of an Ojou-sama from Japanese anime.

The only saving grace was that neither Ino nor Hinata would get the reference. 

Still, Ren felt shame burning in his chest and had to fight the urge to dispel the said clone on reflex.

"Stop dodging, you bastards!" Ino shrieked, and her nails shimmered with wind-natured chakra before she started trying to claw the clones into shreds.

But...

"What do you mean, honey? I am standing still. Maybe put more fighting spirit into it. That's it! Up and down. Up and down, girl!" The second clone 'cheered' on her, not even moving from its spot as Ino's razor-sharp nails did nothing.

"Yes. Use your hips more, my dear. It's all in the thrusting motion." The Ojou-sama clone helpfully advised, as it thrust its hips back and forth a few times, making Ino even madder.

"Grah!" Ino's temper flared, and both Hinata and the real Ren were treated to the display of a hurricane going off in front of them as the winds picked up, becoming fast enough to rip trees out of the ground. The wind pressure continuously smashed the ground, decimating and cratering it again and again as the winds sharpened under the influence of Ino's chakra, creating large gashes all around her.

 The air above the training area solidified, forming a massive wind dragon that roared with even more turbulent winds swirling and swishing around each other, before it flew straight at the two clones, and with a deafening boom, it impacted the ground, causing a small earthquake and sending dust flying all around.

"Ah, she lost it." Hinata dryly stated as she and Ren watched the spectacle, protected by a shielding seal Ren put down when he knew Ino was going to throw a tantrum.

"She is not used to being so helpless." Ren unapologetically shrugged. He had a pretty good guess about how Ino and Hinata were going to react to this sparring session, but it was necessary. If they ever wanted to fight and survive S-rank threats, then they needed to learn that brute force did exactly nothing against certain techniques.

He would be damned if he didn't teach them this and they somehow, because of some blasted butterfly effect or something, encountered Obito outside the village.

Nu-uh. These sparring sessions will continue until the girls learn how to properly counter it.

It wasn't as if their kinda humiliating loss was properly indicative of their strength. Neither Ren, Ino, nor Hinata was truly going all out. They were not using his more lethal techniques, nor were they going for the kill.

"Can't say I like it very much either." Hinata wryly added and grasped Ren's hand with a small sigh, just as the hurricane in front of them and the earthquake underneath them started to calm down.

When the world fell quiet, one last blast of wind dispersed the dust cloud covering the clearing, only to reveal Ino standing in the middle of cratered ground, panting and breathing hard with a self-satisfied grin.

The grin didn't last long as Ren's two clones appeared out of the ground like ghosts, both sporting a shit-eating grin, and one patted Ino on the shoulder while the other started to encouragingly slap her upper back.

"Way to go, girl! You know how to party!"

"Un. Un. You rocked the world!"

A tick mark appeared on Ino's forehead and her hands balled into fists...

'Ino, calm down.' Hinata suddenly sent through the telepathy seal, causing Ino to go rigid as her head whipped toward them, finding them cuddling while sitting on the ground.

Ino speechlessly blinked, looking between the two clones waiting next to her, and Ren with Hinata sitting on the grass a bit further away.

She took a deep breath. "Fine, dammit! I surrender!" She threw her hands up into the air in exasperation before huffing with a scowl. Then she started marching toward Ren and Hinata, crossing her arms on her chest while childishly complaining. "Just when I thought I was getting close to his level, he pulls this kind of bullshit. It's not fair."

Both Ren and Hinata just rolled their eyes at her, each stretching one of their arms out in an invitation for a hug that Ino quickly accepted.

"Ouf."

But not before nailing Ren in the stomach with her fist in a petty revenge for her earlier suffering.

Naturally.