Everyone had a different level of education. To gauge the learning aptitude of her Eight Generals, Ino devised an on-the-spot test: pull out old Ninja School textbooks, have them study on the fly, then sit them down for an exam.
"Two hours to study. After that, I'm handing out the test."
Not the most elegant solution — but when you're picking the best from a sorry lot, you make do.
The results were about what she expected.
Son Gohan and No. 16 passed without difficulty.
As for the other six — she'd be honest with herself: they simply weren't up to it.
Future Trunks and No. 17 were both sharp, but sharp wasn't the same as knowledgeable. Future Trunks had lost his father when he was very small, and after that the Androids ran rampant, the world collapsed into chaos, and he'd spent every waking moment on the run — when would he have ever had time to sit down and read?
No. 17 was much the same. He'd had precious little schooling to speak of, and because he'd been rebuilt from a human body rather than constructed from scratch, he couldn't simply have data uploaded directly into him the way No. 16 could. His mind held a scattering of general knowledge and not much else. Trying to turn him into a scholar overnight was an exercise in futility.
And so the roster for the theory exam was finalized.
Son Gohan and No. 16.
Among Saiyans, Son Gohan's intellect was in a class of its own. And there was a telling detail worth noting: Aeos, Kuronoa, and Ino — all three of their teams included a Son Gohan. If one person's judgment was off, fine. If two people's judgment was off, possible. But the odds of all three of them independently making the wrong call? Vanishingly small. The fact that past, present, and future had each independently selected Son Gohan was itself proof of the man's caliber.
No. 16 barely even needed discussing. The man was a walking humanoid computer. One sweep of his electronic eyes and everything in a text was logged and recorded. He might be a touch rigid when it came to nuanced judgments involving human nature, causality, or the deeper logic of time — but following the rules on paper and scraping together a passing score on an exam? That was trivially easy for him.
Both of them were exceptional learners.
Ino copied the study materials twice over, handed them off to the two, and sent them away to find somewhere quiet and hit the books.
She'd have to study herself, of course. She heaved a quiet internal sigh, picked up a scroll that unrolled to well over a meter in length, and settled in to read.
Half an hour later, she was asleep.
On the second day of studying, she read for half an hour, then announced she needed to "clear her head" and slipped outside to train.
On the third day, she read for half an hour — then Hinata called her, and the four of them spent the evening playing cards.
On the fourth day, she read for fifteen minutes. Then resumed the card game.
At some point, it occurred to her that she really couldn't keep sliding into degeneracy like this. If she wanted any real shot at clearing the first round's theory exam, she was going to need a better plan.
"Sakura! Sakura!"
Ino wasn't wearing her Hokage robes. She was lurking behind a tree, waving at Sakura from a distance.
Sakura nearly jumped out of her skin. She hurriedly shoved a straw effigy labeled "Ino-pig" behind her back, twisted around with a neck stiff enough to creak, and fixed Ino with an expression of barely concealed panic. To cover for whatever was going on behind her, she plastered on her most ingratiating smile.
Ino looked at her strangely. "What are you grinning at me like that for?"
"N-nothing... nothing at all..."
"You're acting so weird. Anyway, the reason I came to find you is — "
Ino had come to a conclusion: she should be spending more of her time on her own training. One look at that big loli and that small loli was enough to tell her they were both terrifyingly powerful. Cramming her head full of theory wasn't going to help her beat them in a fight. The smart move was to manage her time properly, focus on what actually mattered — and at the same time, give someone else the chance to shine.
Of everyone Ino had ever met, Sakura was the single strongest human learner she knew — especially when it came to absorbing knowledge from books. No one on the Konoha side came close to her in that regard.
The rules stated that exam participants had to be her subordinates. Did Sakura count as her subordinate? Absolutely, without question.
Konoha had long since adopted the universal capsules from Earth. With a light press of a button, a muffled bang rang out — and ten shipping containers' worth of scrolls and volumes materialized before Sakura's eyes.
Sakura stared at it all, jaw dropping, completely at a loss.
Ino cut straight to the point, making full and unabashed use of her authority: "Three years. I want you to read through all of this. Anything you don't understand, come ask me. After three years, you'll come with me to a certain place and sit an exam — a purely theoretical exam, not the slightest bit dangerous. You won't leave the village during those three years. In exchange, I'll log it as three S-rank missions' worth of credit. So — do you accept?"
Sakura's head was swimming with question marks. The whole assignment had come out of nowhere. She pointed at the towering pile of texts — silently asking whether she could take a look first.
"Go ahead."
Sakura was just about to step forward when she remembered the straw effigy behind her back. She froze, then let out an awkward laugh. "Um... could I think it over and give you an answer tomorrow?"
"Of course. No pressure at all."
The moment Ino left, Sakura exhaled so hard her shoulders dropped. Crisis averted.
She promptly disposed of the incriminating evidence, then turned her attention to the scrolls and case files Ino had left behind.
The deeper she read, the more her head spun. What on earth was all this? Was any of this actually from the shinobi world?
Suppose a person travels back in time and makes contact with their own grandfather. Question: Do you eliminate the traveler, eliminate the grandfather, or find a third solution?
Suppose a person preemptively kills a great villain who is destined to devastate the world in the future. Does this act generate a new ripple in the world's causal fabric?
"Ino-pig... what in the world are you up to these days..."
The contents of the scrolls were wildly scattered — many of the texts had no apparent connection to each other whatsoever.
Sakura sat in the branches of a tree, flipping through the pages for over an hour. In a hazy sort of way, it felt a little like being back in the Ninja School — a swarm of disjointed, unrelated concepts crowding her vision all at once. And yet, it was as if a crack had appeared in the door to an entirely new world, letting just a sliver of light through.
She had a husband now. A daughter. Some of the ambitions she'd once harbored had long since faded away. But she still felt that flicker of curiosity for something completely uncharted. If that pig can do it, so can I! Worst case, she'd pin the blame on a certain someone and let her take the heat. What was she so afraid of?
One night passed. The very next morning, Sakura was at Ino's front door before the sun was properly up — there to negotiate her terms. You want me to sit some bizarre exam? Fine. Pay me more.
...
Supreme Kai Shin's attitude toward Ino hadn't changed in any visible way. She hadn't made a point of telling him she'd been "officially promoted" — she simply carried on doing the same work she always had as an Apprentice Supreme Kai.
With the theory exam handed off to Sakura, Son Gohan, and No. 16, she finally let out a long breath. Clearing the first round suddenly felt a little less like a pipe dream.
The team battle roster could only include warriors who served directly under her banner — that ruled out everyone from Konoha. Exactly who would compete still depended on the results of three years of training.
Once Ino deployed her tried-and-true weapon — more money — No. 17 and No. 18 threw themselves into special training without further complaint.
Ino genuinely thought highly of No. 17.
His battle power fell short of Son Goku's. His tactical mind wasn't as sharp as Piccolo's. His luck was nothing compared to Mr. Satan's or Yajirobe's. In any single category, he wasn't the standout.
But that was exactly the point — No. 17's overall composite ability was the highest of anyone she had. And crucially, he had an exceptionally low profile. He was the type who knew how to lay low and bide his time. Ino was genuinely looking forward to seeing what he could do.
Nail and Pikkon could train themselves on their own just fine.
The Saiyans under her command, on the other hand — those three were going to need a bit of external motivation to get moving.
____
________________________________________
🌸 Help Love Bloom!
Our girls need a little push... and you can help!
💖 Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 50 Powerstones, I'll release +1 bonus chapter to warm your hearts.
🚀 Community Reward: If we reach 20 supporting members, we'll have a +5 chapter marathon across all stories! The romance won't stop.
👻 Come to our secret corner: Search for GirlsLove on (P). You know that's where the magic happens... 😉