Ten Reasons Ino is Scared of Tenten

I.

The first time that Ino meets Tenten is when Lee literally jumps through the window of the restaurant where she, Shikamaru, and Choji are eating. Tenten follows through the front door, not through the window, but several people find this more disturbing.

None of the patrons run when Lee enters the establishment, apparently he's done this on several occasions, but as soon as Tenten steps in, everyone gets up to leave, including her teammates. She waves and says hello, greeting each of the trio by name. Ino has no idea how she remembers them.

Shikamaru grumbles out a "troublesome," while Choji just grabs the food on the table to take with them.

When Ino asks what's going on, it's Shikamaru that replies, "We're getting away from that crazy bitch." Ino has never heard Shikamru call anyone a bitch, not even her or Temari. Shikamaru also never voluntarily wants to go anywhere. She is quite willing to follow Shikamaru's example. Choji just shrugs.

Later that same day she walks by the restaurant to see that it is completely gone.

II.

The second time that Ino meets Tenten, it's during her first day of medical training. Tenten is there along with Hinata and Sakura and several other girls, but unlike the rest, Tenten looks pissed. Scary girl still greets everyone that enters by name, though.

Shizune shows everyone how to create a tourniquet around major arteries, but cautions that such things should only come as last resorts, as tourniquets can and will cause blood flow to cease and can lead to amputation.

Tenten only then gets interested and for the first time in the class she asks, "So I can cut someone and tie this," she holds up the strip, "really tights around them, and then later they'll need their arm cut off?"

Shizune doesn't seem disturbed, and answers rather calmly, "Perhaps, but you'll need to tie it like I'm showing you."

Tenten pays attention during that course, and Shizue actually says that she's as good as Sakura.

Almost a week later, Ino hears a report while visiting Sakura at the Hokage's office. Apparently someone's been cutting foreign shinobi and 'helping' them with their wounds on missions. Mist is pissed because they've lost four of their better ninjas during cooperation missions with Leaf.

Ino says nothing in fear of retaliation from 'she who must not be named.'

III.

Tenten continues to show up at medical classes, for almost a month.

The day that Tenten stops coming, no one says anything about it. It takes a week before Ino has the courage to ask Shizune why Tenten isn't there.

Shizune calmly explains that Tenten won't be coming anymore.

When Ino asks why, the only reason given is that the Hokage agreed with Tenten.

That scares Ino more than her two previous encounters combined because she's met the Hokage. When the Hokage says it's mandatory, it's freaking mandatory. Tenten obviously has some freaky scarey . . . something to make the Hokage do as she says. No one gets the Hokage to change her mind.

IV.

Ino's first mission with Tenten is when she's forced to join team Gai for a day. They're just supposed to do a C-rank mission and protect some guy from bandits on his way home to Wave country.

Tenten greets Ino by name and smiles at her before chatting with Neji and Lee.

During the whole mission she is polite and sweet and the man they're escorting adores her. He even gives her a pet name, Panda, and says that she should come visit him in Wave.

Before the man even finishes saying this, Tenten chucks an armful of shuriken into the forest. Lee disappears for another two minutes before declaring, "Yosh! Our youthful Tenten has killed all twelve of the bandits! Congratulations my beautiful teammate! I will endeavor to match your claim on our next mission!"

Gai gives Tenten a thumbs-up as he and Lee then rant about youth. Neji doesn't say anything to Ino, but he later helps Tenten find all of her shuriken.

The whole team freaks her out, but Ino isn't really scared until after they've dropped off the client and they reach the spot where Tenten killed . . . everyone. Neji, Lee, Gai, and Tenten all stop in the middle of the path. Ino doesn't notice, so she keeps walking.

She gets about five steps before all twelve headless corpses come flying out of the forest and land around her. She sits there quietly shaking until Gai-sensei comes to fetch her.

"Yosh! I apologize young student of Sarutobi Asuma!" He of course forgot her name. "We should have warned you about Tenten's chakra strings! Yosh! She brilliantly attaches them to all of her weapons to ensure their quick return!"

Ino tries very hard not to gag while Neji explains how the strings attach to bodies for easy retrieval.

Ino has nightmares for weeks about flying bodies and a sick smiling puppeteer with two buns on her head.

V.

The next mission that Ino works with Team Gai is actually for the same guy from Wave. Ino is told that he requested the same team since he enjoyed them so much the first time.

Ino has no idea what the guy's name is, but Tenten greets him by name and gives that same smile.

While they're on the path to Wave and the guy keeps calling Tenten 'panda' and patting her head in a friendly way. Tenten is smiling at the guy when, before Ino can even figure out what the hell happened, Tenten has stuck him in the back of the neck with a kunai. He's dead before he even hits the ground.

Ino doesn't say anything, afraid that the crazy bitch is going to kill her too.

Lee has a confused look in his eyes, but says nothing.

Neji looks at Gai-sensei for clarification.

Tenten rips the kunai out of the guy's neck before wiping it on the ground.

Gai-sensei smiles and declares, "Yosh! Our youthful flower has just completed her first assassination mission! Yosh!"

Lee starts screaming about youth and beauty and hugs Tenten who is still cleaning her kunai.

Neji looks mildly impressed.

Ino is just mildly disturbed until Lee asks Tenten when she was assigned the mission.

"Hokage-sama actually was going to have Gai-sensei do it, but I said that I could. I figured that it'd be really easy since he seemed to like me so much and all," she said all this with a smile as she yanked the guy with those damn chakra strings into the bushes.

VI.

Ino sees Tenten walking down the street many times, but only once decides to trail her. She stays out of sight for fear that the girl will smile and greet her by name.

But she manages to learn this: everyone loves Tenten.

When Tenten buys groceries, the male clerks flirt with her, and the female ones talk to her with smiles.

When Tenten goes to the library, the librarians know her and greet her.

Tenten greets everyone by name and gives them all the same smile; they all smile back.

When Ino buys groceries, the boys give her malicious smiles and several try to grab her ass. The females stare at her and squint their eyes.

When Ino goes to the library, the librarians follow her want to know why she's there.

Ino tries one day to greet everyone with a smile, even if she can't remember their names; all of them grimace.

Ino could never kill any of them without a second thought, though. She lies awake at night thinking about how Tenten could and would.

VII.

Ino's team only ever worked with Tenten's team on one mission. They were temporarily diverted by a fight between Mist and Rock ninja.

She fucking saw Tenten tie a tourniquet around the arm of some guy from Mist that the team had just saved. She did it with a smile and the ninja thanked her for it!

Ino later learned that he was a pretty good, but not great, ninja from the Bingo book. The next edition the guy wasn't in there. He apparently was unfit for missions.

Ino was sure that she knew why.

VIII.

Ino only once has the courage to talk to Sakura about how scary Tenten is.

Sakura shakes off her fears, telling her that Tenten is just 'a great kunoichi.'

She even tells Ino that she's probably imagining the tourniquet thing.

Ino argues that Tenten is a crazy sociopath.

Sakura says that Tenten is just loyal to the Leaf.

The next week Ino sees Sakura talk to Tenten at the Hokage Tower. Both of them smile and laugh.

IX.

Ino once ever has the courage to try to get into Tenten's head.

She jumps in just as Tenten is leaving the Hokage tower following a mission from Mist.

Tenten's thoughts consist of this:

"That's (insert name here). Now smile and say hello."

"That's the brother of the guy from Mist that you killed last week. Be polite. He doesn't know that his brother was a traitor. His name is (insert name here). Smile and say hello."

Ino only manages to stay inside about five minutes. As soon as Tenten reaches her apartment she starts cleaning her weapons and reviewing her kills.

"This one is probably duller. That guy's skull was pretty hard, and it probably scraped it. Be sure to sharpen it before the next mission. You want clean kills, Tenten!"

"This one isn't mine. The team must have picked it up when cleaning up after the last assault. Oh well, we'll keep it in reserve."

Ino has to get out of there after seeing the carnage that Tenten managed to inflict on the last mission. She doesn't want to know how Tenten can walk around and appear so . . . nice after practically bathing in blood earlier that day.

X.

The real reason that Ino is scared of Tenten is from the first day she saw the girl.

Ino asked Shikamaru about the restaurant once and Shikamaru's exact words were, "Forget that it ever existed or that crazy bitch will probably gut you."

Ino takes his words seriously; he has an IQ over 200 after all. Whenever she meets Tenten, she never brings up their first meeting and just smiles and greets her by name. Tenten always does the same.