Shin, caught between a rock and a hard place, really wanted to deny the three-in-a-row, but he couldn't!
Look what happened when Nawaki said it last time? He got hammered into becoming a bad kid who liked boys. The time before that, Shin said it and hammered Nawaki into having an unrequited crush on him.
Huh? Thinking about it, could the negative effect be specifically targeting Nawaki?
But Shin didn't dare test it on himself. He felt that this little ice princess wasn't the reasonable type.
"Women are all unreasonable!"
He had always kept this ancestral pearl of wisdom firmly in his heart. As for whether a man was manly enough, he could just try it... Ahem. Shin didn't even dare think about anything that started at five years.
"What? Don't tell me you're afraid of losing to a girl?" Nao challenged him again when she saw him fall silent.
For once, the troublemaker who had repeatedly taken the lead in causing chaos was finally being messed with by someone else.
If Nawaki and the Uchiha Clan Head's family found out about this, they would definitely be moved to tears by the little ice princess and shout for her to keep it up.
"Why does refusing to hit a girl mean I'm afraid? If everyone came looking for me to duel like you do, what would that make me? I'm not your testing tool." Shin immediately exposed Nao's true intentions.
The little ice princess clenched her fists anxiously. She knew taking a hard approach wouldn't work. A soft approach? That was impossible for her in this lifetime.
She couldn't understand why this guy was so good with words. A girl had gone to every effort to invite him to a duel, yet he stubbornly refused. Did he have no manners at all?
(Uchiha Shin: Sorry, manners aren't in my dictionary.)
"..."
"What's wrong? Nothing to say now?" Seeing that she had no response, Shin pressed on again. He decided to properly educate this little ice princess before him.
"I can promise not to challenge you to another duel for the next year!" Nao's answer caught Shin off guard.
Even if you agree, I don't! Shin thought.
But if he actually said that, he would be directly butting heads with her. Then perhaps one day in the future, he might get bagged and dragged away by some strapping Hyuga men.
At that thought, Shin found himself in a difficult position. If he agreed, the Hyuga clan would cause him trouble later. If he refused, he wouldn't be a man—and he would still get bagged.
Besides, with the Hyuga being such a competitive clan, there would be trouble whether he won or lost.
"Fine, I accept!" Shin decided that although he was no longer acting like a person, he still had to act like a man.
As for trouble from the Hyuga clan? Would his old man really just stand by and watch when the time came?
The Uchiha were famously protective of their own. Look at how Uchiha Sasuke got targeted by Orochimaru—didn't Itachi arrange everything for him before he died? When Sarada got into trouble, didn't Uchiha Sasuke come running to help?
He refused to believe that this inherited protectiveness had come from Fugaku.
After Nao nodded, she left her seat and took up a stance facing Shin.
In an instant, the classroom spectators trembled as they hid in the corners.
What nonsense? As extras, they might not be good at anything else, but having this much situational awareness was an essential skill. One careless mistake and the director might arrange for them to get killed off.
Still, there were some who weren't afraid of death. For example, the ironclad Ino-Shika-Cho trio, along with a certain Aburame child whose presence had always been weak, all gathered in the front row to watch boldly.
Facing the aggressive little ice princess, Shin calmly circulated Lightning-nature Chakra through his legs. Then he raised one finger and lightly curled it at her.
Nao's Byakugan were full of solemnity. She could see dense Chakra filling his legs.
"A genius? Being able to inject Chakra into his cells so evenly does make him worthy of being called a genius. But I'm no worse than you!" Nao had long resolved to defeat Shin, and she launched her attack.
Whoosh...
Unfortunately, her fist only struck the afterimage created by his rapid movement.
Having kept her attention fixed on him, she could see through her Byakugan that a small black figure was now standing behind her.
"Don't underestimate the Byakugan. I know your position like the back of my hand!" After speaking, Nao used the momentum of turning around to kick at him.
Whoosh...
Her attack missed again.
"Even if you can see me, can you keep up with my speed?" Shin talked tough.
But inwardly, he was anything but calm.
Just now, Nao had nearly touched the hem of his Uchiha coat.
Nao discovered that his speed had become even faster.
Her Byakugan could still barely keep up with him now, but her body's reactions were already struggling to follow.
To the audience below, Shin seemed to vanish and reappear continuously alongside a streak of white lightning, while Nao was always just a little short of hitting him.
Only a handful of people could barely follow this dazzling exchange. They all believed these two probably already possessed Chunin-level strength.
"Uchiha Shin, do you dare stop dodging?"
Nao felt like a puppy being led around by the nose.
She stopped attacking, her chest heaving up and down. Fine beads of sweat trickled from her pretty face onto the classroom floor.
Shin said nothing. He swiftly infused his right hand with Fire-nature Chakra, then threw a punch at Nao.
Boom!
Caught off guard, Nao narrowly dodged the thunderous strike.
Through her Byakugan, she saw that the Chakra in his right hand had erupted in an instant just before it touched her.
Then the force of that punch detonated the air everywhere it passed.
She also discovered that everything in the straight path of his fist had been pierced through.
The front-row spectators, including Ino-Shika-Cho, immediately got up and hid in the back rows. They had thought they would get to watch a good show, but their feelings were now rather complicated.
Could the gap between people really be this enormous?
If they spent five years around these two, wouldn't their confidence be crushed beyond repair?
"Pant, pant..." Nao's delicate body continued rising and falling after dodging the blow.
Dense beads of sweat seeped through the back of her pure white kimono.
It was impossible to tell whether it was from exhaustion or from being frightened by that attack.
Shin slowly drew back his fist. "I'm still a man now, right?"
"I see. You're really petty, aren't you?" Nao seemed to have forgotten everything that had just happened, her rosy lips curving slightly upward.
"Same to you, little ice princess."
When it came to verbal sparring, this transmigrator, nurtured by the legacy of an ancient civilization with five thousand years of history, feared no one.
But his emotional intelligence wasn't as low as that young master of the Senju clan.
If it were Nawaki, he might have said, "Just admit defeat. You're no match for me!"
Then tomorrow's Konoha Daily would have another major headline.
"What do you mean, little ice princess?"
Seeing that Shin wasn't attacking again, Nao relaxed and chatted with him, her real goal being to seize the opportunity to recover her stamina.
"It means you don't smile much..." Shin saw through her plan, yet still gave her an answer. "You look cold all over."
Shin, who had been constantly making intense movements in every direction, said he was very tired.
He wanted to rest properly before having another thoroughly satisfying battle.
Time passed amid their back-and-forth chatter until it was eight o'clock.
Nishinodera entered the room and saw the two on the platform chatting idly.
"Can someone tell me what exactly happened here?" Nishinodera looked at the three rows of desks pierced straight through and became completely bewildered.
"Teacher, we were exchanging study experiences. I just broke the desks because I'm strong."
After saying that, Shin turned his back to Nishinodera and flashed the classmates below a broad smile. "Right? My dear classmates?"
Right, my ass. If they said otherwise, would they ever have peaceful days again?
The students all nodded and said Shin was right. Little fatty Heiji, in particular, spoke with an especially unyielding spirit.
Before you continue