"It won't work," Ino said, looking at the hastily drawn plan on the ground.
"Why?" Tenten asked.
She looked over the drawing again. It made sense to her. Choji and Tenten would distract Hinata. Choji, with his family jutsu, Tenten, with her weapons. That would give Ino time to focus on her family technique and take control of Hinata's body.
"It doesn't work on her," Ino said.
"What, how?"
Ino just shrugged. "None of my family techniques work on Hinata-chan."
Tenten scribbled furiously on the ground again with the stick, redrawing battle plans. "Since that's the case, Choji, you overwhelm her, you're stronger. The bigger, the better. Ino and I will give you support with ranged attacks."
"It won't work," Ino said again, not for the second or third time.
Tenten scowled. "Why?"
Ino raised her arm, showed a pretty bracelet decorated with black and white stones. Tenten caught the beginnings of inscribed fuinjutsu. They were small, compact, and mind-bogglingly complex.
"Hinata made those for me," Ino said. Tenten noticed the fond smile on the blonde's face. "It's weight seals."
"And?" Tenten asked, patience a little frayed.
"Hinata's been using those since she was seven, I think? What Rock Lee showed in the preliminaries doesn't compare to what she uses. There's no way Choji can match her in brute strength."
"That's utter bullshit," Tenten grumbled but scribbled more, arrows pointing in different directions. She explained what she wanted to do. Two distract, while one ambushes.
"It won't work," Ino said again.
Tenten growled. She was getting fed up with those words. Ino giggled.
The blonde didn't wait for the question.
"I can't tell you why. It's something Hinata told me, and I think it's a secret, but believe me, it won't work."
"How the hell do we get those bells, then?" Tenten's grip tightened on the stick until it snapped.
"Offer her some chips?" Choji suggested. Ino giggled again.
Tenten wanted to strangle both. She sighed, took one of her storage seals, and unsealed a gamut of weapons.
"If no strategy works, we have to brute force it, then."
She took a black wood staff, tested the weight and length. She glared at Ino. "Now you're going to tell me she's a taijutsu prodigy as well?"
Ino shook her head. "Her taijutsu is poor, but she makes up for it by being stronger and faster."
"We attack at the same time. We can overwhelm her," Tenten said. Her voice was more confident than she felt.
"But who gets the sweets?" Choji asked as if that was the critical part of the whole thing.
Tenten shrugged. "If we manage to get the bells, you can take mine."
"Thanks, Tenten!" Chubby Choji said, got up, popped a few more chips in his mouth.
"It's fine, Choji," Tenten said and smiled. She stored most of the weapons again, strapped the scrolls to her body. "It shouldn't matter if we can take the bells or not," she said after thinking for a while, "but I'd prefer if we took it."
Tenten looked at the two younger genin.
"Hinata is the same age as you, younger than me. We can't let her walk all over us."
It was still a mystery how Tenten had never even heard of Hinata other than her sweets, being mute, or that Neji hated her for some reason.
"One last thing," Ino said, pulling the hair out of her face.
"What is it?" Choji asked.
"If Hinata ever takes an exploding kunai, drop everything and run. Trust me, please."
Tenten shared glances with Choji. He nodded, like what Ino had said made sense.
"Why?" Tenten asked.
Ino shook her head. "It's classified. Asuma sensei told us because it was information regarding a mission, I can't say it." She tilted her head. "But if you ask her to show you the exploding tags, she'll probably be happy to let you see them."
Tenten turned, walked toward where Hinata was. This made no sense at all.
Ino and Choji followed. When they got there, Hinata was getting up.
"You ready?" She asked, yawning.
Tenten ground her teeth. Hinata was doing that to rile them up. There was no other reason. Maybe because she was frustrated, she blurted the first thing on her mind.
"Let me see your explosives."
Hinata blinked, tilted her head. Smiled. Wide, happy, and maybe just a bit unhinged. "Sure, here," she unfastened a scroll roll from her thigh. Tenten saw more of that strange storage fuin. Out popped a lot of kunais. All of them with the tag already rolled around it.
"Shit!" Ino cursed, then bolted away.
"Ino, wait!" Choji ran after Ino.
That left Tenten facing a grinning Hinata. Somehow, Tenten had the impression she just made a horrible mistake.
"Catch," Hinata said, then threw the kunai Tenten's way.
It had been worse than a horrible mistake. Hinata was mad, deranged, and dangerous. Why the hell no one told her about the damned explosives? They were, like, three times stronger than the normal ones, and Hinata was throwing them out like they were candy.
Worse was that, even pebbles, the madwoman turned into explosives. How, though? They were just rocks. Rocks weren't supposed to explode. That shouldn't be possible!
Whatever had been the plan had turned into a mad run for her life, with Hinata hot on her heels throwing the damn explosives. When the madwoman wasn't chasing her, she barely had time to catch her breath before even more explosions came flying her way from afar. It was like Hinata knew where Tenten was all the time, even when she was nowhere near.
Tenten couldn't get close, nor did she have the opportunity to join with Choji and Ino again. Every time they tried, Hinata rained down more explosives.
By noon, the nightmare was over. They met back near the training dummy. Hinata was waiting for them like the madness from the previous hours hadn't been anything. She had a pebble in her hand, which she threw up and caught.
Tenten had lots of small scraps from the shrapnel, and dirt in her hair. Her breaths came in ragged gasps. Ino was glaring her way like this had been her fault.
Tenten was too tired to be angry with Hinata. She gasped the question out. "How are you doing this?"
"What?" Hinata asked. She sounded confused.
"Pebbles don't explode."
"Oh, that's easy, watch." She showed the pebble in the palm of her hand and then placed a finger on it. Tenten saw the black lines from a fuinjutsu, then Hinata threw the pebble away. It exploded on impact.
"Bullshit," Tenten said, resting her head against the cold grass. Utter bullshit.
"It's a jutsu called Shikoku Fuin, I can teach you later."
Tenten bolted up. Looked at Hinata with narrowed eyes. "What?"
Hinata shrugged, scratched her cheek. "You're my team. That makes me responsible for teaching you guys stuff, right?" She didn't sound confident.
She walked closer. From somewhere, she took a fabric and placed it in front of them. Out of her seals appeared a lot of sweets, water, tea, and juice.
"Dig in," Hinata said, picking up a cup and serving water to Ino.
"Thank you, Hinata-chan!" Ino said, smiling, like the hours of hell weren't even a thing anymore. She took a cupcake and snarfed it down.
Choji didn't wait, either. He sat by the fabric, took one of the jars, and just chugged it down.
"But we didn't get the bell," Tenten said.
Hinata just rolled her eyes. "You believed that?"
Too angry to argue, Tenten took one of the sweets. She had no idea what it was, but if she couldn't defeat Hinata, she could at least put a dent in the food. Payback.
She bit off the thing. It tasted like liquid happiness.
A squeal of food pleasure escaped her. So unfair. She ate more.
"We'll meet in the mornings for training," Hinata said, "and complete missions in the afternoon. Meet me here tomorrow at seven."