Ino Yamanaka

**Ino Yamanaka** is a member of Konohagakure's Yamanaka Clan and the love interest of Sai. She and her fellow members of Team Asuma are the newest generation of the Ino-Shika-Chō trio.

## Physical Appearance

Ino is an attractive young girl of below average height. She has fair skin, blue-green eyes and a slender, curvaceous figure. Her most noticeable trait in her appearance is her long, blonde hair, which is always seen in a high-ponytail with bangs covering the right side of her face and has grown to hip-length, and she also sports a red clip on the left side of her hair.

In terms of attire, Ino is more often seen wearing a pair of small silver hoop-earrings and purple, fairly revealing clothing. She wears a short, purple sleeveless blouse that reveals her bare stomach, an open-front purple apron-skirt over a shorter, black skirt, with short fishnet shorts underneath. She also wears purple elbow fishnets and wears a pair of the same over her knees. She also wears the stud earrings which was given by her sensei, which represents her as a member of Team Ten.

## Personality

Ino is described as relatively cheerful and can be bossy to people, especially to her teammates if they get in her way or their behavior annoys her. She can also be very confident, kind, honest, outspoken, and not afraid to speak her mind. Ino also takes a great deal of pride in her appearance, which is evident even during her younger days in the Academy. She also takes great effort to keep up as well as improve her appearance, as seen from her constant dieting to lose weight in the belief it will make her more attractive.

Ino often thinks about boys. She was attracted to Sasuke and cried when he was declared an international criminal, showing that she still cared for him despite his descent into darkness. It is hinted that she still loved him during the Fourth Shinobi World War, when she pictured him as the "love" that the bush clover symbolises. When he returns, Ino runs towards him, only to be stopped by her team-mates Shikamaru and Chōji. She is also (but now more) attracted to Sai, partly because he looks very similar to Sasuke. She flirts with him when first introduced, though their relationship has gotten much more deeper the first time they met.

Ino tends to take charge of her team-mates due to their lazy and nonchalant natures like when she suggests that Chōji should lose weight or Shikamaru needs to stop slacking off. She, however, clearly cares for them, as shown by her relief when Chōji survived near fatal injuries. Shikamaru, despite thinking of most girls as "*troublesome*", typically offers no resistance, being unwilling to deal with how she reacts if she is unable to have her way. Asuma recognized the control she has over the others, and, while dying, told her to look after Chōji and Shikamaru, to ensure that they didn't get into trouble as well as to keep the two on the right track, and also not to lose to Sakura in neither ninjutsu, nor love.

Despite these faults, when it really counts, she has great compassion and care for her friends, especially shown with Sakura. Even when Sakura ended things between them so they could compete for Sasuke's affections as bitter rivals, Ino later rekindled their friendship again during the Chūnin Exams, but they are still considered rivals by many.

By the time of the Fourth Shinobi World War, Ino has demonstrated more bravery and confidence, so much so that she was unfazed when told by Shikamaru how powerful the Gold and Silver Brothers were. She even told her teammates to man-up when their resolves began to waver. Keeping to the promise she made to Asuma, Ino has resolved to put her life on the line, to protect her team-mates and her village no matter what. By the time her father died, he believed that she had truly blossomed into the bush clover of the Yamanaka family, and is proud of her bonds with her friends.

## Abilities

**Sensory Perception**: Ino, like most members of the Yamanaka Clan, is a sesnory type-nin. She was able to notice the change in Sasuke's chakra under the influences of Orochimaru's jinjutsu and the foul chakra of Kakuzu's four masks. During the Fourth Shinobi World War, after Minato came on the battlefield, she could sense that something was coming, which were the other Kage. Ino's aptitude as sensory type is shown to a greater extent as she is able to sense the chakra of all enemies in the area and lock onto them, before guiding her allies accordingly, as all of the enemies she sensed are hit.

**Taijutsu Expert**: Ino shows exceptional taijutsu skills, as she was able to be in par with Sakura's during the Chūnin Exams. During the Fourth Shinobi World War, her taijutsu skills had improved greatly, enough to hold her own against her Asuma, a close-range expert, after taking over Chōji's body. She could even take control of two separate targets and coordinate them skilfully enough to pressure her teacher.

* **Great Acrobatic Skills and Reflexes**: Ino shows amazing acrobatic skills and reflexes, since she moves like a dancer and perform tricks in mid-air.
* **Enhanced Strength**:
* **Enhanced Speed**:
* **Enhanced Durability**:

**High Intelligence**: Ino has shown to possess a great level of intelligence and perception, graduating the top of her class while in the Academy alongside Sasuke Uchiha and Shino Aburame. This was displayed in the Chūnin Exams and cleverly used her hair to make a chakra rope to bind Sakura. In fact, she was able to tell a person's occupation by glancing at the condition of their hands, a skill proven useful when Ino went to identify Genno's body and noticed immediately that the corpse wasn't a carpenter or a ninja. She has great deal of knowledge with flowers along with their meaning. Also, during Pain's invasion, she was able to conclude that Pain's real body must be around the village for his technique to work, since it was similar to her clan's.

**High Chakra Power**: As a member of the Yamanaka Clan, Ino boasts a high level of chakra power.

### Ninja Arts Prowess

**Yamanaka Clan Techniques**: Ino excels in the techniques of her clan, which are primarily focused around mind-affecting techniques such as the Mind Body Switch Technique, a technique predominantly used for reconnaissance and espionage, that allows the user to briefly possess someone and control that person's actions. Her body however, is left vulnerable until she cancels the technique. Despite many people thinking that this technique is unbeatable, she can still be forced out of the body if her opponent has a strong enough will. She has also been shown to be able to use the technique on animals, such as a hawk to act as a spy. The crossover takes her skills a bit further by giving her the Mind Body Destruction Technique, which causes the body of the person affected to attack those nearest to them, or immobilizing their body. By the time of the Fourth Shinobi World War, Ino's timing with the Mind Body Switch Technique has improved to a point that she only needs a target to be briefly immobilised in order to invade their mind. According to Inoichi, her use and releasing of the technique has improved drastically. She was able to quickly transfer her mind into a paralysed Chōji to block a point-blank range attack from Asuma Sarutobi, and then fight skilfully inside Chōji's body, as well as momentarily take control of Obito Uchiha in order to send the Ten-Tails' Tailed Beast Ball attack off course, and save her comrades' lives. Ino has also displayed skill with one of her clan's advanced techniques known as the Mind Clone Switch Technique, which allows her to clone her consciousness and transfer it into multiple targets at once.

Ino is also adept at communicating telepathically. Her skills in this were such that she was able to broadcast a message to the entire Allied Shinobi Forces in a short period of time. She can use this technique to act as a medium for a person to communicate with other people telepathically by coming into physical contact with them. Through this method, Ino can convey images such as others memories and their strong feelings. She can also combine her telepathy with her sensory ability to pass on what she senses to an ally so that they can react accordingly. This technique makes up part of Formation E for her generation of Ino-Shika-Chō.

**Medical Ninjutsu**: Ino learned medical ninjutsu during the gap in time between Parts I and II. During the gap, it shows that Ino trained in medical ninjutsu alongside Sakura under Tsunade's supervision. While her abilities in this field have not been explored in depth, Ino has proven to be skilled enough to be able to diagnose the severity of an attack with just a glance or during healing. With her chakra control, she was able to assist Sakura, Hinata, and Shizune in sealing the Three-Tails with the Four-Corner Sealing Barrier, aibet with some difficulty. This also shows her control improved enough to transfer her chakra into multiple people at once.

**Nature Transformation**: Ino has shown some skill with Earth Release nature transformation. During the Fourth Shinobi World War, after being taught the hand-seals by Kitsuchi, Ino and the rest of the Allied Shinobi created several earth walls, in an attempt to slow down the Ten-Tails' Tailed Beast Ball.