A Fight!

"Akatsuki, sit here."

I turned my head and saw a girl staring intently at me. She looked familiar, with neat, ear-length hair and delicate, gentle features. Black hair and black eyes—she looked like an Uchiha.

My savior!

I instantly relaxed, sat down beside her, and quietly thanked her.

"It's fine, it's fine! Hmph, I've been sick of him for ages. He got what he deserved!" The girl seemed delighted when I accepted her offer. She waved her little fist and stuck her tongue out at Kusama Shigeo behind us. It was adorable.

She made me smile, too. I took out my books and arranged my stationery, then suddenly realized she was looking at me.

At first, she peeked at me with her head tilted. Then she rested her chin in her hands and stared openly. Finally, she lay right on the desk and shamelessly gawked at me, her eyes shining with undisguised excitement.

I started to feel uncomfortable. "Why are you looking at me?"

Her eyes sparkled as she grinned and spoke in a very, very quiet voice. "Number One, I found you."

My heart skipped a beat. I turned to look at her. "What?"

"It's me... Back when we were training underground... the two of us..." Her cheeks flushed red, and she suddenly fell silent.

Her words stirred my memories. The little face in front of me merged with that tear-streaked face, and I remembered. So it was her!

"You were the one that night?" I stared at her in shock.

Back when I was training underground, a little bundle had climbed into my bed one night, clung to my arm, and sobbed. I hadn't slept a wink! Then she'd vanished the next morning, leaving my arm bruised, swollen, and numb, which seriously affected my training. So I remembered that incident vividly!

Well, well. I'd finally caught you!

The girl in front of me nodded a little shyly.

"So it really was you." I felt both annoyed and amused. I wanted to rap her little head a couple of times and settle the score.

By then, the classroom had quieted down again. Nagai returned to the lectern and resumed the lesson. She was still looking at me eagerly, so I could only make conversation. "Did the rest of your training go well?"

"Very well! After you left, I went from Number Four to Number One. Now I'm the big sister!" Her eyes glittered as she waited for praise.

"That's impressive." I smiled and patted her head.

"Oh, right, I haven't introduced myself yet..." She clearly enjoyed that. She pulled over her notebook and carefully wrote something down, then slid it over for me to see.

"My name is Uchiha Aoi."

Aoi, like the first part of "sunflower," and star, like the stars.

Sunflowers had been my favorite flowers in my previous life, and stars represented hope and the dawn of a new day.

I instinctively took a liking to her.

"Akatsuki, where did you go afterward? I waited for so long, but you never came back..." she mumbled, pouting as she rested her chin on the desk. Her eyes blinked at me like a cute little puppy's, full of hurt. "The fire that night was so huge. You weren't hurt, were you?"

"No, no... I'm really sorry. I scared you all."

Thinking about the mess I'd caused made me feel a little awkward, too. The fire in the underground training ground that day played through my mind again, making my heart flutter.

"Without you, I almost couldn't keep going..."

"What?" I hadn't caught her mumbling.

Realizing she'd let something slip, Uchiha Aoi's face turned red in an instant, all the way to her ears. She frantically shook her head and kept insisting it was nothing.

Her complicated reaction left me confused, and I didn't know what to say. Fortunately, Nagai raised his voice, breaking the awkward silence.

It wasn't polite for students to whisper during class, so I leaned toward her ear and whispered, "We can talk after class."

My warm breath brushed her ear, making her heart melt. Uchiha Aoi nodded stiffly, picked up her pen stiffly, and began writing stiffly—in short, she stayed stiff for the entire lesson.

I opened my new book and started reading, too. Everything I saw was familiar, things I'd learned by heart long ago. I lost interest and rummaged through the pile of books for something new. In the end, all I found was a cultural studies textbook about formulas and geometry, a bit like middle school math problems from my previous life.

I hadn't seen a book like that in ages, so it piqued my interest. I opened a sheet of scratch paper and started working through the problems. By the time I finished, class was over, and I'd already gotten a third of the way through the book.

"Akatsuki, let's go eat lunch!"

As soon as class ended, Aoi took my hand and pulled me out of my seat, beaming.

"They have taiyaki today!"

"Sure." I smiled and squeezed her hand in return.

How could I ever turn down something as wonderful as a meal?

The moment I took her hand, Uchiha Aoi was swept up in a dizzying wave of sweetness. She glanced secretly at our clasped hands and blushed furiously. She went from a puppy to a shy puppy in an instant, lowering her head in silence as she let me lead her along.

"Hey, you freak!" A familiar, cocky voice suddenly called out from behind us. I kept walking and ignored it. Aoi, however, reacted at once and started to turn back, furious and ready to argue, but I held her back.

"Just ignore him." I tightened my grip on her hand and quickened my pace.

"Look, the freak's holding hands with an ugly girl! Hahahaha!" A chorus of jeers rang out behind us. I frowned and stopped, looking at Aoi.

She was trembling with anger, her thin shoulders hunched and her hair flying about like an angry hedgehog.

Aoi wasn't ugly at all. She was actually very cute, just a little round in the cheeks. But children's cruelty never needed a reason, and their words were even more vicious, cutting straight to the heart.

With a crowd gathered around him, Kusama Shigeo strode over and stopped in front of us, haughty and loud. "Uchiha Aoi, Uchiha Akatsuki. An ugly girl and a freak—no wonder you're from the same clan!" He reached for Aoi's hair, but I grabbed his wrist and squeezed tight.

As he let out a scream, I told Aoi, "Go wait downstairs. I'll take care of this."

Aoi's pupils contracted, and her face filled with worry. She didn't know what to do, but she clung to my hand and wouldn't let go.

"Go on ahead. I'll find you soon." The crowd was already stirring. I shoved Aoi away and dodged the first kid's elbow strike. Kusama Shigeo grabbed my arm in a fury, shouted, and put all his strength into it, swinging me up into the air!

Using the momentum, I traced a graceful arc through the air, tightened my lower abdomen, and kicked him away with all my strength. He slid all the way to the wall before coming to a stop.

I landed lightly, rolled my back to loosen my muscles, and raised one hand in a Hand Seal. "Who's next?"

Now that they'd started provoking me, I had to fight. As a great man once said, one well-placed punch could keep a hundred more from coming. The same principle applied in any world.

The kids looked at one another. Then, one by one, their faces twisted into scowls, and they charged at me with grim determination! A battle broke out in the third-floor hallway!

I ducked beneath a sweeping kick, flipped backward, and darted left and right through the crowd. My eyes narrowed as my pupils shifted, taking everything in, while my hands and feet never stopped moving. One moment I was leaping onto a windowsill, the next I was kicking off a wall. I took them down one by one with nothing but Taijutsu.

My moves weren't flashy at all. I was simply trying to knock them down so I could go eat freshly made taiyaki with Aoi—that was all.

The thought of taiyaki made me move even faster. I practically danced through the crowd, drawing cries of amazement from the onlookers.

Look at that! The new generation's Battlefield Rose had arrived! Hahahahaha!!

Under that relentless assault, the children, who had no real combat experience, fell one after another.

I wasn't uninjured, either, but a brawl like this was child's play compared with my previous special training. Even taking a hit or two was no big deal.

With screams, constant shaking, and deafening crashes, students from several other classrooms poked their heads out and wandered over to watch. I'd taken down a whole group of kids, striking only their pressure points. Beneath the ribs, in the stomach, along the side of the neck... I didn't injure them, but I made them hurt too much to get back up. An open space gradually formed around me. The sight of the carnage soon scared everyone nearby. They didn't dare move, only stared at me in fear, trembling.

I moved forward, blood sliding down my face. The few stragglers left had completely lost their nerve and fled in an instant, leaving Kusama Shigeo standing alone at the back, his face filled with panic and despair.

I didn't waste words. I used the Body Flicker Technique and punched him in the face. Two streams of blood shot from Kusama Shigeo's nose, and he rolled his eyes back before crashing to the ground.

Once he was dealt with, I braced my hands on my knees and caught my breath. Then I spat out a mouthful of blood, grabbed Kusama Shigeo by the collar, and dragged him into the bathroom, where I dumped him on the floor. Finally, I turned back and shut the door, blocking everyone's view.

Hmph! You think you can bully me? Maybe in your next life!