Ino Takes the Initiative

The classroom was noisy.

Shino Aburame was playing with bugs.

Shikamaru propped his chin on his hand and studied the shogi board, feeling that the final exams were incredibly boring. He'd have more fun going home and playing shogi with his dad.

Choji Akimichi was wolfing down a bag of chips.

Takasaki and Naruto stopped joking around. They both pulled out their textbooks and tried to cram a few more pages, hoping to remember some key points.

Sasuke sat at his desk with his fingers interlaced beneath his chin. Lost in thought, he muttered under his breath, "I'll finally become a real ninja. I'll kill that man with my own hands!"

"He graduated at the top of the class. I can do it too!"

As for Sakura Haruno, who was sitting beside him and constantly pestering him, Sasuke found her annoying.

Sakura Haruno was in a good mood.

It wasn't just because she'd already come up with a plan to deal with Hinata and get Takasaki to write her name in his Diary more often. It was also because Ino usually competed with her to strike up conversations with Sasuke at this time.

But today, as soon as Ino arrived in the classroom, she sat blankly at her desk, lost in thought.

Maybe she hadn't studied enough and was nervous about the upcoming final exams.

Sakura Haruno couldn't be bothered with Ino. Her attention was all on Sasuke.

As for that dead-last, Takasaki...

When Sasuke was around, she really didn't want to waste her energy on Takasaki.

At that moment.

Ino sat at her desk, keenly aware of the Diary's presence in her mind.

She'd read both of Takasaki's diary entries.

The first entry had made her furious. She'd thought Takasaki was such a shameless womanizer that he deserved a beating. But after the Diary rewarded her with a 10% increase in chakra, she'd finally calmed down.

It was only when she realized that her chakra had truly increased that Ino understood how important the Diary was.

So when she saw all the flirtatious things Takasaki had written in his second entry, she wasn't as angry as before. She just hoped Takasaki would write her name again so she could get another reward.

But her name hadn't appeared in the second entry. Almost the entire thing had been about Hinata.

More importantly, Hinata had received an extra reward because her name had been mentioned often enough.

In that moment, Ino had been genuinely crushed.

Not only had she missed out on a reward,

but she'd also realized she wasn't the only one with a Diary. Other people had one too—Hinata, at the very least.

In other words, someone else might compete to get close to Takasaki, hoping he'd write their name in his Diary more often.

That was why, in Ino's eyes, the part of the second entry where Hinata taught Takasaki the Three Body Technique seemed very likely to mean Hinata had taken the initiative and tried to seduce him.

Impressive.

Ino wasn't jealous of Hinata at all. If anything, she admired her for being willing to set aside her pride as the young lady of the Hyuga Clan.

After figuring all that out, Ino had tossed and turned all night without sleeping.

Even then, she'd wondered whether she should approach Takasaki herself and get him to write her name a few more times in his next entry.

But Ino just couldn't bring herself to do it.

She was the young lady of the Yamanaka Clan.

The Yamanaka Clan might not be as famous in Konoha as the Hyuga Clan, but it was still a prominent family—certainly far above a civilian family like Sakura Haruno's.

Compared with an ordinary person like Takasaki, who had no parents or relatives and lived on Konoha's relief payments, even speaking to him was a favor.

More importantly, Takasaki was the dead-last in their class, shunned by his classmates.

That made Ino even less willing to approach him.

The problem was, Takasaki's Diary offered her a chance to grow stronger.

If she grew stronger, the Yamanaka Clan could grow stronger too. All she had to do was set aside her pride and interact with Takasaki.

If she could get close enough to him that he kept mentioning her in his future diary entries, she'd earn even more rewards. Perhaps she could even lead the Yamanaka Clan past the Hyuga Clan.

Ino had been thinking about it all the way to school and ever since she'd arrived.

She glanced back toward Takasaki.

Takasaki and Naruto, the two dead-lasts, were diligently studying their textbooks. They were obviously cramming.

Naruto in particular had his hands clasped together and was bowing to his textbook. He was practically ready to set out offerings and burn three sticks of incense.

"Hinata and I are both young ladies from prominent clans. If she can set aside her pride and approach Takasaki, why can't I?"

Ino took a deep breath and silently cheered herself on.

If she set aside Takasaki's reputation as the dead-last in their class, which made him unpopular with the other students, and his status as a penniless civilian with no family, there was nothing about him that made him impossible to approach.

It took courage for an ordinary guy to pursue his dream girl.

Ino would need just as much courage to set aside her pride and approach Takasaki, who seemed to her to be worthless in every way.

She closed her eyes and kept taking deep breaths, looking extremely nervous. She was making enough of a fuss that Hinata, sitting in the seat diagonally in front of her, noticed.

Hinata turned around and looked at Ino in confusion. "Ino, are you nervous about the exams? You're sweating."

Hinata kindly offered, "Do you need to go to the infirmary? I can go with you."

If anyone else had said that to Ino, she would have thought they were just being nice.

But coming from Hinata, it felt like a taunt and a boast.

Ino opened her eyes, leaned forward slightly, and stared straight at Hinata with a bright smile. "Why would I be nervous about the exams? I'm perfectly capable of handling them. But there are some boys in our class who aren't, so I'm going to help one of them."

With that, Ino stood up, picked up a black pen from her desk, and walked toward Takasaki.

Now that she'd made up her mind, Ino stopped holding back.

She sat down beside Takasaki and asked politely, "Takasaki, can I help you with the upcoming exams?"

Naruto, who had been bowing to his textbook, heard her and snapped out of it.

When he saw Ino, one of the top students, he stared in disbelief and muttered, "So Takasaki didn't just trick Hinata into helping him cheat on the exams—he even got Ino to do it!"

"We're both dead-last students with awful grades. Why hasn't a single good student offered to help me? What does Takasaki have that I don't?"

"Looks like there's still a lot I can learn from Takasaki."

Naruto wasn't the only one in class who noticed Ino's actions.

Hinata noticed too.

When she'd heard Ino say she wanted to help a boy, she'd felt a little envious.

At least it showed that Ino had the courage to approach a boy in front of all their classmates.

That was something Hinata lacked.

Raised from childhood in the Hyuga Clan under the constant pressure of her elders, she was shy and timid in private. In crowds, she became even more hesitant.

For example, when she'd noticed Takasaki arrive in the classroom, she'd wanted to approach him and find a way to get him to write her name in his Diary more often.

Wanting to was one thing.

As soon as she entered a classroom full of familiar faces, her body seemed to stop obeying her. One glance at Takasaki was enough to make her blush, let alone approach him.

So when Ino said she was going to help a boy and then actually did it, Hinata felt genuinely envious.

It was something she couldn't do.

It was only when Hinata saw Ino walk to the back row and talk to Takasaki right in front of her that she realized—

The person Ino wanted to help was Takasaki!

Hinata stared in surprise. When she came to, she felt even more envious.

At the same time, she felt a little sorry for Ino and murmured, "It's a shame Ino doesn't have a Diary. Otherwise, Takasaki might write about what she did in his next entry, and she could get a reward."

It was a good thing Ino didn't have a Diary.

Otherwise, just seeing Ino approach Takasaki like that might have made Hinata feel a little threatened.

Meanwhile,

Sakura Haruno had also noticed what Ino was doing.

She'd noticed Ino the moment she stood up and started walking in her direction.

At first, Sakura thought Ino was going to compete with her for the chance to talk to Sasuke again. She even turned sideways on purpose to block Ino from getting near him.

But Ino simply walked past her and headed for the back row, where she sat down beside Takasaki and seemed to start chatting with him.

The sight left Sakura completely baffled. "Ino didn't rush to talk to Sasuke today. She went to flirt with Takasaki instead? What's gotten into her? Isn't she worried people will laugh at her?"

There was no denying that Takasaki was handsome.

But good looks weren't enough for a boy. Family background, grades, and strength mattered too.

Takasaki had none of those three things, so he was just as disliked as the plain-looking Naruto.

"When did Ino's taste get so bad? Even if she can't compete with me for Sasuke, she doesn't have to go after Takasaki."

Sakura Haruno gave Takasaki a disdainful glance and muttered, "He doesn't even have a Diary. Approaching him won't get her anything, and it'll only ruin her reputation. What a foolish Ino."

Sasuke had long since had enough of Sakura Haruno pestering him.

When she stopped talking and looked toward the back row, he felt his ears finally get a little peace. He shot her a glance and gave a quiet scoff. "Idiot."

When was this idiot Sakura, who confessed to him every day, going to stop bothering him?

He only cared about revenge, not romance.

Hearing a sound beside him, Takasaki turned his head and saw Ino sitting there. He looked puzzled. "Ino?"

From what he remembered, his relationship with Ino was only slightly better than his relationship with Sakura Haruno.

With Sakura Haruno, if he ran into her on the street and greeted her, she'd give him a gloomy glance.

Ino was different.

Even though she disliked him for being the dead-last just as much as Sakura Haruno did, she didn't show it openly. If they crossed paths, she'd at least smile politely at him.

All in all, they were barely on better terms than strangers. They weren't even friends.

What did Ino mean by sitting down beside him?

He was puzzled, but that didn't stop him from taking the opportunity to get a closer look at her.

Her pale blond hair was tied up in a striking high ponytail. She had big eyes, a high nose, and a smiling mouth, with features and an air that reminded him of his former-life teacher, Eimi Fukada.

She wore a white sleeveless top with a light-green vest over it.

The vest was unzipped, and he could see the outline of her chest beneath the white top.

She was at an age when girls were only just beginning to mature.

Sakura Haruno often competed with Ino for Sasuke's attention, and that seemed to have made Ino aware of how she could use her figure to attract him. She dressed less conservatively than Sakura Haruno, as her shorts made clear.

In the hot summer weather, Ino wore a snug pair of denim shorts.

They were extremely short, though fortunately the scene didn't dwell on what lay beneath them.

Ino was still young and hadn't developed as much as she would in two years. Otherwise, shorts like those could have exposed her.

Of course, if Ino were Takasaki's wife by then, that wouldn't be an issue.

Because he'd have her shave.

If there was one part of Ino's figure Takasaki couldn't help glancing at, it was her midriff.

Perhaps because girls grew and developed so quickly during adolescence, her top seemed a size too small, leaving her stomach exposed.

Her navel was small and attractive.

The smooth, fair skin of her flat stomach looked soft to the touch.

Takasaki didn't deliberately stare at her figure. He still had to keep up appearances. He asked, "Ino, what did you mean when you said you wanted to help?"

"Ms. Kurenai Yuhi will be coming in with the test papers soon. Given your usual written test scores, you might not pass."

Ino twirled the pen in her hand and continued, "The teacher covered the topics for the written test in class. Since you didn't pay attention, you probably don't know them. How about I write all the relevant points on your hand? Just be careful when you sneak a look during the exam, and don't let the proctor catch you."

Ino added, "Even if the teacher catches you, don't rat me out. This is all I can do for you."

Takasaki understood. Ino was offering to help him cheat!

He'd suspected as much when she first sat down beside him and asked whether he needed help. He hadn't expected to be right.

What he couldn't figure out was why Ino was helping him.

What did she want?

He and Ino barely knew each other. They weren't even friends.

Before he could get a response from Takasaki, Ino reached across the desk and grabbed his hand.

When their palms touched, Ino's cheeks flushed slightly, and her skin warmed.

Her palm trembled, too.

Ino had once thought the first boy she held hands with would have to be Sasuke, and only Sasuke. He was the only one worthy of her.

But the Diary had changed many of her thoughts all at once.

Even last night, she hadn't imagined she'd be holding hands with Takasaki—especially not by her own choice.

For the moment, she couldn't worry about that. It was all for the sake of becoming stronger and strengthening the Yamanaka Clan.

She couldn't let Hinata keep getting extra rewards.

She wanted to know what it felt like to receive one.

Ino gripped Takasaki's hand and pulled it in front of her, then carefully wrote the key points on his palm.

As Ino bent her head to write, her side bangs brushed against Takasaki's wrist.

With every movement of the pen, the strands hanging over his wrist trembled.

It made Takasaki feel a little ticklish inside.

The feeling of Ino's small hand resting against his palm was especially pleasant.

Earlier, when he'd hooked fingers with Hinata at Ichiraku Ramen, he'd sensed her shy, delicate touch.

Now, in the classroom, as Ino wrote the key points on his palm with a pen, he could feel the distinctive confidence in her touch.

Even so, he was still puzzled. "But, Ino, why are you helping me? We're not close enough for that."