"Rin, I like you."
"Be my hundredth girlfriend."
A gentle breeze carrying the scent of fresh grass swept across the Konoha Ninja Academy playground, leaving scores of teachers and students utterly stunned.
A ninja tool clattered to the ground in someone's hand. Someone else choked on a potato chip. But no one had time to care. Every eye was fixed on the center of the playground, where Nebula Kotetsu stood glowing in the warm sunlight, devastatingly handsome.
He seemed completely unaware of the astonished stares. Looking at Rin Nohara, who had frozen like a statue not far away, he curved his lips in a faint smile. The light in his eyes made every girl's heart skip a beat as he spoke in a gentle voice.
"I'll devote myself to you, Rin."
"I... I..." Rin Nohara had temporarily lost the ability to speak. Her reaction was intense; she twisted her hands together as her face, painted with purple markings, turned visibly red.
Someone reacted even more strongly than she did.
Across from Nebula Kotetsu, a boy wearing goggles came out of his stunned daze. His body began to tremble, and his breathing suddenly grew ragged. Even his pale-yellow goggles couldn't hide his bloodshot eyes.
"Nebula Kotetsu! You son of a—!" As he shouted, he lunged forward, driving off the ground with furious force, only for the female teacher beside him to grab him by the collar.
"Wait!"
"Obito, you haven't even exchanged the Seal of Confrontation yet!"
"I'll exchange the Sage of Six Paths!" Obito Uchiha practically roared.
Twenty seconds earlier.
He'd been assigned to spar with Nebula Kotetsu. He'd long disliked the other boy and wanted to show off in front of Rin, so he'd said,
"Nebula Kotetsu."
"You have no chance against me."
"Attack me with your strongest move!"
As far as he was concerned, Nebula Kotetsu was nothing but a pretty-faced dead-last who'd been held back for two years. There was no way he could hurt him.
He was wrong.
"Obito, you really like Rin, don't you?"
"But Rin doesn't like you at all."
Those two sentences struck Obito Uchiha like a bolt of lightning, wiping his mind clean. Then Nebula Kotetsu turned to look at the bright-eyed girl nearby, her face painted with purple markings, and the scene that had just unfolded began.
"Rin, I like you."
"Be my hundredth girlfriend."
"..."
The breeze drifted past.
But Obito Uchiha felt it whipping against his cheeks, stinging terribly.
He started to lose it.
"Arghhhhh!!!"
"You bastard!"
"Rin isn't someone you can defile!" Eyes red, Obito Uchiha swung his kunai sharply backward amid everyone's astonished stares, slicing through the collar he'd been grabbed by. Then he charged out like a wild boar breaking through a fence, his hand clenched around the kunai as he fixed his gaze on Nebula Kotetsu's sprite-like face.
I'll smash that wicked face of yours!
Shouts of alarm rose and fell.
Nebula Kotetsu stood surrounded by onlookers, apparently unaware of the beating about to come.
He simply gazed ahead.
[Contrast System (Activation Pending: 99/100)]
["The one who can't hide his tears, whose eyes see only Rin—the Shinobi World's number-one lovesick fool, Obito Uchiha—has challenged you to a fight. Choose your response:]
[1. Face him with your amateur Taijutsu. Reward: a thorough beating.]
[2. Use your clumsy ninjutsu to entertain him. Reward: ridicule from your classmates.]
[3. Accept Obito Uchiha's challenge, confess to Rin and ask her to be your hundredth girlfriend, then deal the strongest blow to Obito. Reward: System activation, 100x Taijutsu Move Enhancement Card.]
Nebula Kotetsu was thrilled.
The system he'd been waiting for was finally about to activate.
His life had been nothing but frustration all these years.
When he practiced ninjutsu, even the Three Basic Techniques made his chakra run wild.
When he practiced genjutsu, he spent the whole night in bed counting little figures.
He'd even tried practicing Taijutsu like Might Guy. He trained twice and wound up in the hospital three times.
If nothing changed, he'd fail to graduate because he couldn't use the Three Basic Techniques properly. Or, with the examiners' pity, he'd become a barely-Genin, and spend his days on low-level missions like catching cats and finding dogs—or end up as cannon fodder someday.
But the system had appeared during his graduation exam.
Heaven knew how excited he'd been.
In his previous life, he'd been an ordinary, honest man.
He believed in hard work, so he studied and worked diligently.
"Young people need to exercise more."
"Take on the hardest work, handle the smallest details, and earn the least money."
"Congratulations, you've graduated from our company."
He believed in love, so he was loyal and dependable.
"The bride price of 388,000 is the absolute minimum. Work hard, and I'll struggle alongside you."
"My mom forced me to meet him. I was just humoring her. How could you take it the wrong way?"
"I've been growing as a person. What about you? You can't stop me from pursuing someone better, can you?"
"The bride price? Take it up with my lawyer, the one who represents her."
Burdened by debt and a body battered by years of overtime, he drove a truck he'd salvaged from the company he'd quit. At the bottom of the courthouse's long flight of steps, he sent her and her "empowerment" lawyer on their way.
"Take it up with my cancer and the truck."
As the thousand-liter fuel tank erupted in intoxicating flames, Nebula Kotetsu finally understood the meaning of life.
So when the system panel appeared before his eyes, he didn't feel the slightest resistance.
Let me accept the confessions of 99 girls?
How was that a task? Wasn't it helping me build up my romantic experience?
Let me confess to Rin?
How was that a task? Wasn't it helping me pursue a happy life?
He'd become one of the few students at the Ninja Academy to repeat a year—and he'd repeated two.
It hadn't been easy to find 99 girlfriends.
Konoha was a ninja village. Though civilians lived there, the total population was still limited. Excluding men, the elderly and children, those who weren't unattractive, and those who didn't care about his looks, the number of suitable people he could meet with his current abilities and status was limited.
To reach his goal as quickly as possible, he'd started learning how to get along with girls, fit into their social circles, and make them like him enough to confess first.
Then he realized there was no need to learn.
Because his face was practically a cheat.
The people of Konoha weren't wrong to say he was like a sprite. With his looks, he drew women's attention wherever he went, and every gesture radiated irresistible charm.
Usually, all he had to do was say the first word to a woman, and she'd keep the conversation going.
All it took was a faint smile to leave her flustered.
If he spent more than a week with a girl, there was a 69 percent chance she'd confess to him.
The good news was that, despite the difficulty, he'd completed his goal without much trouble.
The bad news was that, because his range of activity was limited, he'd dated plenty of girls from the neighborhood and the school.
By now, most of the decent-looking girls at the Ninja Academy were his current or former girlfriends.
That was why, as Obito charged at him with a raised fist, all the boys watching from the sidelines clenched their fists excitedly and shouted, "That's it!" "Give him everything you've got!" "Beat him up!" They were practically itching to take his place and give Nebula a beating themselves.
Watching Obito's increasingly twisted face draw closer, and seeing that the system panel still hadn't changed, Nebula Kotetsu thought to himself,
"System, sorry to trouble you, but could you refresh already?"
"I'm about to get beaten up."
"It's kind of urgent."
Before you continue