Hinata and Ino entered the arena, glancing at the gathered contestants standing in the middle, with only Naruto and Sasuke still missing, and then exchanged a meaningful glance.
'Ready?' Ino mentally asked through the telepathy seal as they walked to take their place.
'Sure.' Hinata nonchalantly replied with a shrug.
Giving a small nod back, Ino raised her voice in outrage, "What did you just say!? I am not fat!"
Hinata experienced a mental eye roll upon hearing that. Really. Couldn't she have chosen a better topic for their argument? Nevertheless, with a small inward sigh, Hinata scrunched her nose at Ino in a small gesture of disdain.
"I didn't say you are fat. I said that if you are going to eat like a pig, you will get fat like one. Eating the whole bucket of ice cream by yourself was not nice!"
Ino couldn't help but sputter at that because that actually did happen. This was supposed to be a feigned argument, but Hinata clearly went straight for the jugular.
The tips of Ino's ears reddened, "Don't be like that, bitch." She whined while wildly flailing with her arms. "It was just ice cream."
Hinata snorted, "It wasn't just ice cream, bimbo! It was MY ice cream." She gave Ino a narrow-eyed glare, and Ino's expression froze because she couldn't really say if Hinata was just pretending anymore or if she was truly mad that she ate her deluxe bucket of premium vanilla ice cream.
Well, she shouldn't have left it in the freezer for two weeks without touching it!
The bickering girls were passing around Gaara and Temari as Hinata's attention subtly turned their way, her lips twitching with a suppressed smirk as she followed her last statement with harshly bumping into Ino's shoulder.
"Wha-" Ino lost her balance, and as she tried to regain it, she tripped over her own foot, crashing onto the ground and partly on Gaara's feet.
Gaara's eyes twitched.
Temari's breath hitched.
And Ino, whose head lay practically between Gaara's feet on the ground, looking at him from below, shyly smiled, "Er... Hello?" She let out a nervous laugh.
Gaara looked at her as if she were some kind of new lifeform, and for a few tense moments, nobody moved.
Everybody, even the proctor, waited to see what would happen next, expecting more drama. Only Shikamaru, who knew what kind of psycho Gaara was, looked grave and was preparing for a life-and-death battle. Temari, on the other hand, gave her brother a deeply worried look, hoping this would not set him off.
"Get lost." Gaara eventually uttered in his disinterested, even voice.
"Um, right!" Ino squeaked, and she hastily started standing up. In her haste, her hand slipped, and instead of putting it on the ground to push herself back on her feet, she put it on Gaara's sandals, making the Suna boy truly not amused.
Ino gave him a quick, silly smile after standing back up, utterly ignoring the piercing stare full of killing intent he leveled at her. The atmosphere became even tenser, and Temari clutched Gaara's sleeve, with her eyes gesturing at Ino to quickly leave.
But how could Ino leave without having the last say? Without mentally screwing with them? That wasn't in her personality.
She did a small 'awww' at Gaara's cold look, before cheerily exclaiming straight to his face, "Well, aren't you one impressionable chucklefuck?"
The entire stadium quieted down for a second. Temari was gaping at Ino as if she were crazy. Even Gaara had his mouth slightly opened in befuddlement.
Then, the booming laughter from the audience began as the sound-emitting seals were already installed, ensuring that the audience could clearly hear what the contestants in the arena were saying.
Back in the spectator area, Ren covered his face with his hand as he groaned. He had given Ino a mission, and she was supposed to do it discreetly with no one noticing. Of course, he sighed, it wouldn't be Ino if she didn't do it in the flashiest way possible.
Still, not even his hand could hide the massive smile he was sporting.
Being laughed at was an entirely new experience for Gaara, and he had no idea how to handle it. His expression shifted through surprise, confusion, and bewilderment several times until he decided it was not important to think about it. His usual approach would suffice.
He was about to attack the blond girl with his sand and make her into a bloody paste.
Naturally, Ino noticed his shift of emotions almost immediately and knew exactly when to strike next. When the confusion turned into a small anger mixed with intent to kill, she promptly reached forward with her hand.
"So adorable!" She cooed as she pinched Gaara's cheek, making him mentally freeze in wide-eyed shock.
Ino didn't wait for him to regain his mental balance and, flashing him another small, cheeky smile, she decided to skedaddle before he started throwing a sandy tantrum around.
Inwardly, she was grinning like a loon, dubbing Gaara a panda boy in her mind. She decided she should totally tease him more in the future.
The expression when he realized she touched him without his automatic defense triggering was pure gold!
She wanted to try this from the moment Ren told her about Gaara's automatic defense. Obviously, he was not guarded against all touch. His siblings and Jonin Instructor could touch him just fine.
So, Ino decided to try touching him without any hostile intent. It probably wasn't that easy. She reckoned the technique was both subconscious and conscious. Gaara was just mentally shocked at the moment, which prevented his conscious defense, and Ino's lack of harmful intent allowed her to go through the subconscious defense.
At least, that was her guess. Who knows? Maybe there was more to it. She didn't exactly have the time to study how it worked.
Feeling the heavy stares on her back, Ino didn't look back. She only straightened her back and preened under all that attention as she walked toward Hinata as if nothing had happened.
'The Kazekage is glaring at you.' Hinata's amused thoughts seeped through the telepathy seal, and Ino inwardly giggled.
'Oh poo, the big bad man is angry that his untouchable secret weapon was touched. Whatever am I gonna do?'
When Ren told them Gaara's backstory, both she and Hinata couldn't help but pity him. Their regard for Rasa also suffered, and Ino couldn't be bothered to care that she made the man mad.
He better not encounter her during the invasion because Ino was already resolved to un-Kazekage Suna if that happened.
Hell! It would be for their own good, too. Before Rasa took the hat, the village functioned just fine. The second he ascended? Economic crisis after economic crisis.
Seriously, Ino agreed with Ren that the man was absolutely incompetent at management and administration. He might be a dangerous S-rank ninja, but a good leader he was not. If every enemy Kage were like him, Konoha would dominate within ten years.
'The mission?' Hinata asked, sending the impression of an eye roll to Ino.
'All good.' Ino gave her a mental thumbs up. 'The seal is on his sandal.' She finally arrived next to Hinata and quietly stood there while gently humming, waiting for the third phase to start.
Ren had given her a seal that could discreetly put another seal on things she touched. She had no idea what the seal was supposed to do. She didn't ask, and he didn't volunteer the information either. All she knew was that it was his precaution to an unleashed jinchuuriki or bijuu rampaging through Konoha.
And wasn't that a frightening image? A bijuu rampaging through Konoha? An invasion?
A month ago, her biggest worry was finding a way to drag her boyfriend somewhere secluded for sex.
Now? She was still coming to terms with the fact that her world was no longer just sunshine and rainbows. At least, she was not alone in this mess. Hinata was similarly affected, even if she too had never shown it.
Ino hated feeling powerless. What was all her training for? She was a freaking S-rank ninja! And, so what? She still couldn't do a single thing in the face of the upcoming invasion. She couldn't prevent it.
She could warn her father. He would ask where she got that information. She could make something up. Maybe she could say she had found it in a passerby's head?
It was the greatest kind of excuse. Possible to happen and impossible to verify.
Her father would scold her, but he would believe her, too. But the other Konoha higher-ups would not be that understanding.
And then? What could Konoha even do with that information? They would tighten the defenses, double the patrols, make the preparations... all of that, they were already doing even without her meddling.
Ren was right. Konoha knew something was up. They were prepared for an attack.
Looking at the people in the audience, Ino's shoulders slightly dropped as a sense of sadness filled her. She wondered how many of them would be dead at the end of the day.
Her smile turned wry. Now she understood why Ren always said that being a ninja sucked. She glanced at Gaara, finding that he was still glaring at her. Her eyes strayed toward his sandal, just for a brief moment, before she quickly looked away.
She really hoped her efforts would be worth something.