Chapter 23: Training With Dad

Swish, swish, swish, swish, swish, thunk, swish, thunk, swish, swish. Ino grimaced, holding her throbbing arm. Two hits. Out of ten. 

“Good work Ino!” Inoichi called encouragingly. Ino looked up at the target. One hit was in the arm of the dummy. The other one was on the wooden post that the dummy was tied to. 

“Are you even watching?!” Ino screamed in frustration, whirling to see her dad guiltily looking up from his scroll. She’d been at it for two hours, and she felt like her arm was about to fall off. The pain would have been ok if she had been having any luck at hitting the target, but it had been an exercise in extreme frustration. 

“Yeah dad, is that good work?” Ino said venomously, as her father took in her two hits. She felt the tears coming and bit her lip hard. She was not going to cry. She was embarrassed enough. 

“Ino, you can’t expect to be able to get 10 bullseyes in a row already. Two hits is good!” Her dad’s voice was gratingly cheerful to her foul mood. 

“No it’s not!” Ino yelled. “Sasuke got 9/10 hits during class yesterday, and 3 bullseyes! You know it’s not good! You’re just lying because you have to because you’re my dad!” The tears would not be denied it seemed. 

“Ino…” Inoichi said comfortingly, “You are not doing poorly. Sasuke is just good at throwing. His brother teaches him, I think. You’re doing just fine! These things take time ok?”

“But Inoyama and Inosuki are so strong and fast and I can’t even throw all of these without my arm hurting let alone actually get any to hit the target and I keep losing in class even to Kiba and Hinata and even Sakura and I keep trying to practice and I—” The tears turned to sobs and Inoichi pulled Ino into a hug. “I-I’m n-never going to get stronger! I practice so so much and my arms still hurt just as much as they did a month ago!” She cried into her dad’s vest while heroically holding off full-on sobbing. 

“Can I tell you a story Ino?” Inoichi asked softly, receiving nods into his shoulder. 

“When I was your age I wanted to change too. My dad and uncles and cousins all seemed so strong. Impossibly strong. I remember my dad doing pull-ups and I was waiting for him to be done, but he just kept doing them, like it was as easy as walking. I eventually gave up and went to ask my mom for help instead.” Inoichi paused, smiling faintly. “When I tried to do pull-ups, I could only do one.” 

“But I can do three!” Ino gasped, leaning backwards. 

Her dad nodded and smiled at her. “Up until around when you graduate from the academy, girls will on average be taller and stronger than boys. Girls mature faster physically.” He paused. “Well actually they seem to just generally mature faster,” he chuckled. 

Her? Strong and Fast? She was faster than Kiba and Naruto… But what about Sasuke? 

“But that’s not my point Ino, although I am proud of you for being able to do three.” He tousled her hair, earning a scowl. “The point is that one day, I went out to try to do pull-ups and suddenly I could do twelve. And a month later I could do 50. And a year after that I could do pull-ups for an hour straight if I wanted.” 

“Teach me your secret please please please!” Ino yelled excitedly.

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“That’s the thing my dear. The secret is time. Ninja tend to mature fast, certainly much faster than the average civilian. But there is still a period where you simply get taller, and that’s it. At some point, our bodies decide they are ready to become strong as well as tall. It’ll happen around the time when boys suddenly start getting strong too, maybe starting in your last couple years at the academy if you’re lucky.” He paused, eyes widening. “You getting strong that is!” He added hastily. “Not the boys…” He shook his head as if trying to clear something from it. 

“Anyways. When you’re young, and don’t give me that look you are definitely still young, your body is focused on learning. The amount that we learn from ages 0-3 is staggering.” 

“What?” Ino interrupted. “I didn’t know ANYTHING when I was three.” Inoichi smiled at her again in the way that always embarrassed her. She imagined maybe someday she would look at other people like that, but she couldn’t imagine it right now. 

“Compared to the rate that I learn at nowadays, having to learn to walk, talk, think and understand is an incredible feat, bordering on impossible, except that we see every single baby do it.” Her dad said in his just-please-trust-me-on-this voice. 

“You’re still able to learn at a much faster rate than adults can and will be able to for a few years yet. But as we discussed, your body will not be ready to become strong and fast for what must seem like forever to you.” Ino nodded sullenly at the last part. 

“So knowing all of that, you tell me: What is important to spend your time on right now?” Her dad had asked it in a formal way, so Ino bit back whatever random thought had popped into her head and tried to think about it. 

Well obviously he said I learn fast right now but that’s just repeating what he said. Maybe he means different kinds of learning? And he said I won’t get strong for a while. So just keep reading books? 

After a long period of comfortable silence Ino finally spoke up. “According to you, I learn faster right now,” Inoichi smiled and nodded, “but can’t get stronger. So that means that I should take as much advantage of this fast learning period and become as smart as I can.” Speaking slowly and calmly, a rarity for Ino, she continued, “It also means that when I do physical things, I should focus on quality not quantity. I won’t have the strength to do it for long periods, so I should focus on doing it really good, like trying to get one bullseye instead of trying to do 100 throws when practicing with my kunai.” She looked up at him as she finished and felt a warm sensation as his eyes already told her he was proud of her. 

“Very good Ino.” He said, voice strangely thick sounding. It almost reminded Ino of when Sakura was about to cry, but her dad never cried, and it wasn’t even a sad time right now, so it must’ve been something else. 

Clearing his throat, Inoichi continued, “In particular for physical activities, your brain will remember your form, your posture, the way to move. Later, your body will add strength and power to those movements. And it also means that your old man wasted many hours trying to get strong, because my body just wasn’t ready yet.”  

Ino beamed up at him. “Thanks dad!” She threw herself forward into another hug. “Wanna tell me how to throw better?” She jumped up, grabbing her throwing pouch, and threw another kunai at the practice dummy. The motion brought with it a cry of pain and tears to her eyes, as her joints and muscles broke out into open rebellion halfway through the motion. The kunai started sailing up into the air and her dad, lightning fast, appeared next to it and plucked it out of the air.  

“How about tomorrow before dinner?” Inoichi laughed. Ino tried to scowl at him while also nodding and smiling and the result made her father to laugh even harder. Smiling to herself Ino skipped over to collect her things. She always felt good when she could get her parents to laugh for-reals. 

“Daaaaad wait for me!”

 

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