After properly documenting Ino's embarrassing moment, Ren noticed Hinata coming out of the academy, following her cousin Neji.
Deciding to say hello, he approached them.
"Hello, Hina." He smiled at the girl, who returned a shy smile full of pride toward him before ducking her head and hiding it underneath the headband tied around her neck. Ren then turned toward Neji and gave him a small nod, "Hello, broody." Before he looked again at Hinata, "How was the exam?"
"Good." Hinata said with great relief in her tone. For the past several days, she was stressing over them. Logically, she knew there was no snowball chance in hell that she would not pass. But logic had little to do with her stress.
"Peasant." Neji, however, decided to return Ren's greeting in his usual fashion, causing Ren to deadpan at him.
"Dickhead."
Neji's expression darkened, but Hinata intervened and put her arm in front of him.
"Boys. Please, don't fight."
Neji scoffed, and he clearly did not like it, but he obeyed. "Come, Lady Hinata. The clan elders are eagerly awaiting you." He tried to sound impassive, but there was an undeniable smug undertone in his voice that Ren did not appreciate.
"I gotta go." Hinata told Ren and gave him a quick hug, trying to divert his attention by pressing her soft, big chest a little bit too much into his body. The girl could be very perceptive if she wished.
"Okay. Good luck." He supportively patted her back, and as they separated, he couldn't help himself.
"Oh, and happy stick-pulling, Neji." He quipped toward the boy, who watched their interaction, looking as if he were constipated.
"What?" Neji asked with furrowed brows just as Hinata groaned and gave Ren a silent, pleading, and unamused look.
Ignoring her, Ren gave Neji a sunny smile, "You know... that stick you got up your ass? Must be hell of an inconvenience to pull it out every evening and put it back in the morning. Or do you sleep with it too? To each their own fetish, I guess."
Admittedly, it took Neji's brain a few seconds to register what Ren had said. And when it did, the boy almost flew at Ren in rage. Only Hinata's hand gripping his forearm managed to restrain his anger.
Unable to dish out some good old bodily harm on Ren, Neji decided to go for a verbal assault as he snarled, "You disgust me."
But Ren only rolled his eyes at him. "That knowledge will warm my heart during cold, freezing nights."
He almost hoped the arrogant boy would attack him, to be honest. Neji had an overinflated sense of personal prowess. He was a genin, but he could handle a chunin after Gai's training. Some quite easily at that.
And Ren was a chunin, so Neji did not think he needed to show proper basic respect to him. He thought he was stronger.
This was the one issue Ren and Hinata did not see in the same way. She still desperately hoped he would get better and considered him family.
Ren, however, told her straight up that the boy's ass needed an intimate meeting with a boot if she ever wanted him to stop having a hate boner for her. And Ren was happy to volunteer his boot quite happily.
Unfortunately, Hinata disagreed.
Ren wouldn't normally care. It was her family. Her problem. Her trouble to handle. But every single time he visited her in the Hyuga clan compound in his capacity as her tutor, Neji would be there, throwing snide remarks left and right at them.
It worked enough to make Ren almost never visit the Hyuga clan compound these days.
At first, the boy was trying to low-key get Ren to give up on Hinata. But that passed when she started to improve. Ever since then, Neji absolutely hated Ren's guts because his actions did not fall under his 'loser's lose' mindset.
Hinata, the loser, actually started to gather Ls way less. Boy, did Neji loathe that.
It was quite sad and pathetic. Because of Hiruzen's reforms, everybody graduated later. So, the boy was what? Sixteen? Seventeen?
That was just one, maybe two years younger than Ren. He should be way more mature than his canon fourteen-year-old self. But he wasn't. Instead, he seemed even more hateful and fixated on Hinata.
'Do you have to antagonise him?' Hinata asked, sending her exasperated thoughts to Ren, who only mentally nodded.
'Yes.'
'...'
With a sigh, the girl simply started dragging the glaring Hyuga boy away as Ren gave him a cheerful wave with his hand.
...
"Finished, Ino?" Ren asked with a small, smug smirk as the huffy blonde stomped her way toward him with her eyes narrowed.
When she got close enough she instantly started poking his chest with her pointing finger, stabbing it there quite strongly.
"You suck." She uttered.
Ren chuckled and leaned forward until his mouth was next to her ear, "You suck better." He whispered, making her flush.
"Oof." Ren gasped, feeling Ino's fist impact his stomach, strongly enough to show her displeasure but not enough to actually harm him.
"Shut up, perv." Ino embarrassedly whispered back with an annoyed look, but there was a small, amused smile on her lips.
They looked at each other, their faces close. Ino's forehead gently landed against Ren's and their lips...
When a loud shout interrupted them.
"Yamanaka Ino!"
'Not again.' Ren exasperatedly thought as he turned around, only to see Uchiha Sasuke standing behind them.
"I challenge you to a manly duel of youth." The boy said with such a serious demeanor that Ren had to do a double-take.
Ino also turned toward him and gave him a glare as she crossed her arms across her chest, not happy at all with having their moment interrupted.
"I am a female." She deadpanned at Sasuke, who thankfully was not in his mini-Gai attire. Instead, he wore his usual blue shirt and white shorts with his hair resembling a duck's ass.
"Oh. I haven't noticed." He said, a provocative smirk plastered on his face.
Ren inwardly winced a bit when he felt Ino's small flinch. Like it or not, she spent several years chasing after the boy. Even if Ren was pretty sure her feelings for the Uchiha were deader than his clan, it probably still hurt her to hear that sentence.
And the duck's ass knew it. Once again, Ren had to say that Gai had outdone himself. The aloof Uchiha who communicated in grunts actually learned the art of shit-talking under his tutelage.
With her right eye violently twitching, Ino clapped her hands, "You wanna go, punk?" She gritted out, "Sure, let's go. I am going to beat you so hard, your ancestors will feel it in their afterlife!"
Ouch. Ren cringed when he saw the Uchiha boy freeze for a moment before his eyes darkened and his aloof demeanor became noticeably colder.
Somehow, he started to sympathize with Hinata. Was this how she felt when he and Neji tried to verbally taunt each other?
Ino was a Yamanaka. She knew enough about psychology to know exactly what to say to return the verbal hurt he gave her several times over and make it stick.
"Hn. Somehow, I doubt that." Sasuke arrogantly stated, "You are just a stepping stone on my path to surpass Hinata. She is and always will be better than you." His eyes glanced at Ren, and a small twinge of hesitation entered his gaze, but it disappeared as soon as it appeared. "At everything." He added as he looked back at Ino, who was now involuntarily balling her hands into fists.
Ren resisted the urge to facepalm. Now that just made things personal. Just in case, he gently slid his hand over Ino's fist and made her subconsciously relax her body and calm down her mind enough to intertwine his fingers with hers.
As expected from Uchiha. The boy had some serious observation abilities if he noticed the inferiority complex Ino had going against Hinata.
With a sigh, Ren decided to intervene. It would be hard to explain to the Hokage why Ino flattened the last Uchiha into a meat paste.
"Girls. Please, don't fight. There will be enough time for hair-pulling later."
Ino and Sasuke looked at him before completely ignoring him and continued to exchange quite sharp barbs, leaving him bewildered.
Why did that work for Hinata and not for him!?
"We can fight in the training ground forty-one! Let's go." Ino exclaimed, and Sasuke nodded.
"Lead the way."
With that, the two started walking forward, Ino dragging Ren by his hand, just as he noticed, from the side of his eye, Mizuki approaching Naruto, who was cheerfully waving his headband in front of the exasperated Karin.
But seeing the indignant feminine fury on Ino's face, Ren decided not to poke the dragon, and instead of asking her to let go of his hand, he created a shadow clone that quickly disappeared.
That should be enough to handle the Mizuki incident.
Honestly, Ren was quite interested in how that would go, now that Naruto had properly graduated, was older, and also a tad bit smarter. Surely, Mizuki would not be stupid enough to try the same thing that worked on the twelve-year-old stupid brat from canon, right?
...
'Don't kill him, Ino.' Ren mentally sighed as he let go of her hand before she started walking into the grassy plains where she would be fighting with Sasuke.
'Don't worry. I am just going to fix him.' Ino exclaimed, and Ren's shoulders sagged.
'I doubt his issues can be solved with more mental trauma, Ino.' He complained.
But she didn't pay much attention to his words. 'Pish posh. They just didn't use enough mental trauma yet.'
Ren slightly hesitated. He should stop this. But at the same time, he believed in Ino. And this fight could be beneficial to Sasuke, too.
Agh. Whatever. Ren sat down on a nearby tree stump and decided to intervene if they went too far.
Wordlessly, Ino and Sasuke stood a dozen meters apart from each other on the grassy plain, and Sasuke took out a coin. Understanding his intentions, Ino nodded, and Sasuke threw the coin into the air.
It did several flips as it ascended, then it reached its highest point before falling toward the ground as the atmosphere around Ino and Sasuke intensified.
The coin hit the grass, and Sasuke instantly sprang into action, running at Ino with an astonishing speed... before he tripped and rolled several times on the ground until his body stopped in a heap with a pained groan.
Ren sighed. Yeah. That was pretty much the expected outcome. The boy could not counter her Yin Clone at all.
Then, Sasuke spasmed and his back bent backward while his eyes opened wide, staring toward heaven in horror, as the high-pitched screaming began, and Ren started to feel uncomfortable.
Sasuke's eyes abruptly turned red, and one tomoe appeared in each eye, just as Ren was about to stand up and interrupt the fight. Sitting back down, he decided to let Ino cook for a bit longer.
Sasuke was clearly not enjoying the experience, but it was the correct call in Ren's opinion. Soon enough, the one tomoe became two, and the screaming turned into squealing.
'Are you torturing him?' He mentally asked Ino, who sent him an impression of a smug grin back.
'Showing him some Gai on Lee boy love scenarios I came up with, actually. Wanna see?'
Just in case, Ren activated his Yin Seal. Just to prevent Ino from getting any ideas.
That poor Uchiha bastard. Every time he activated his Sharingan, 'that' would be what he remembers. Ren shuddered. No. He decided he really did not need pink magic eyes.
Not with Ino's interpretation of help.