I Really Didn't Mean to Show Off, I Just Gently Pushed Him

"Did that count as my win, or was it a draw?"

Sen's words were like a drop of water falling into a pot of boiling oil.

The deathly silence that had gripped the entire venue instantly exploded.

"Quick! Medical team! Get up here!"

The referee was the first to react, shouting at the top of his lungs.

Several medical ninja wearing white armbands scrambled onto the arena.

They pinned down Gangzi, who was still rolling around on the ground, bawling his eyes out with snot and tears streaming down his face.

They checked his temperature, measured his heartbeat, and pried open his eyelids.

A few minutes later, the lead teacher of the medical team stood up, his expression bizarre beyond words.

Wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, he stammered as he reported to the referee.

"No external injuries, no internal injuries, and his chakra pathways are functioning normally..."

"He... he seems to have simply been scared out of his wits and suffered a mental breakdown."

"What?!"

The surrounding teachers all sucked in a sharp breath.

A sixth-year taijutsu specialist, over five and a half feet tall and covered in muscle.

He had been scared into wetting himself and suffered a mental breakdown just because a six-year-old first-year student stood there without moving?

Who would believe that?

It was a hundred times more absurd than slapping someone into a wall!

In an instant, every gaze focused on Sen like countless searchlights.

Those looks went beyond seeing him as a monster.

It was as if they were looking at an evil ghost that had crawled out of hell.

Iruka pushed through the crowd and rushed onto the arena, his face full of panic.

He grabbed Sen by the shoulders, his voice trembling.

"Senju, what exactly did you do to him?"

"Did you secretly learn some high-level genjutsu?! Where did you learn a forbidden technique that can directly destroy someone's mind?!"

Sen was shaken so hard by Iruka that his head spun.

He rolled his eyes dramatically, spread his hands, and looked utterly wronged.

"Iruka-sensei, I swear to heaven and earth!"

"I didn't even move a finger just now. I didn't even blink!"

"Hundreds of people here were watching. Did anyone see me form hand seals?"

Pointing at the "giant baby" still twitching in the corner, Sen spoke with extreme innocence.

"Looking at him, I'd say he probably didn't sleep well last night and still hasn't woken up from a nightmare."

"Or maybe he ate something bad this morning and started having severe hallucinations?"

"I really didn't mean to show off. I just saw him charging at me, instinctively took one small step forward, and gently pushed the air around him."

As he spoke, Sen even demonstrated an incredibly tiny and incredibly ridiculous motion of "pushing the air."

Pushing the air, my ass!

The students below the stage cursed wildly in their hearts.

But the teachers could not laugh.

Their faces turned livid as they exchanged looks of shock and vigilance.

No hand seals, no chakra fluctuations.

With only a look, or perhaps some invisible killing intent.

He had directly shattered the psychological defenses of an upperclassman taijutsu specialist.

Such methods were beyond even most genin.

Even battle-hardened ANBU elites might not be able to pull it off so flawlessly.

In their minds, Sen Senju's danger level instantly soared to the highest rank!

"Enough. Stop talking."

A bespectacled middle-aged teacher who looked like the dean of discipline stepped onto the arena.

His face was dark enough to drip water, and his gaze toward Sen was full of wariness.

"Senju, your practical assessment is over early."

"Now, come with me to the Academic Affairs Office."

Sen sighed, knowing there was no way this would end peacefully.

The principles of lying low had failed again.

Dejected, he followed behind the dean of discipline and walked off the arena.

As he passed Naruto and Ishikawa.

Naruto excitedly waved his fist and shouted, "Big bro is awesome! Big bro is so cool!"

Ishikawa swallowed hard, looking at Sen as though he were a powder keg that could explode at any moment.

Inside the Academic Affairs Office.

Several teachers took turns subjecting Sen to an hour-long barrage of exhausting interrogation.

They kept asking the same few questions over and over.

What kind of sorcery had he used? Where had he learned it? Had someone ordered him to do it?

Sen stubbornly stuck to one answer: "I don't know, I didn't touch him, he fell by himself."

The teachers could do nothing to him, yet they did not dare actually torture him.

After all, he was the "Senju orphan" personally watched over by Lord Hokage.

In the end, they could only helplessly let Sen go home.

They then spent the entire night drafting a ten-page report on the bizarre practical assessment, using exceptionally grave language.

Before nightfall, that report was once again respectfully placed on the Third Hokage's desk.

At dusk.

The fiery clouds dyed the streets of Konoha Village blood-red.

Sen carried his faded little backpack, walking slowly home like an eggplant wilted by frost.

"Why?"

Sen raised his head and stared at a cloud on the horizon shaped like a pile of dog shit, letting out a long sigh.

"I just wanted to quietly be a useless couch potato, plant some trees, and soak up the sun."

"Why was that so hard?"

Slapping someone into a wall had been a matter of failing to control his strength. He accepted that.

Getting full marks in theory class had been because his Wood Clone was too smart. He accepted that too.

But today, he truly had not done anything!

He had only leaked the tiniest bit of pressure from a top predator, hoping to make the other guy back down.

Who would have thought that dumb giant had such poor mental fortitude that he collapsed on the spot?

Well, that was it. The label of "monster" had been completely welded onto his head.

"No, I can't keep going like this."

Sen kicked a pebble by the roadside away.

"At this rate of causing trouble, I'll probably be assigned to the ANBU tomorrow to carry out S-rank dangerous missions."

"I need to find an opportunity, an absolutely safe excuse, to completely leave these people's sight."

Lost in thought, he arrived at the entrance to a quiet alley.

A breeze swept past, carrying a few withered yellow leaves into the air.

Suddenly.

Sen stopped walking.

His eyes, which had been filled with helplessness moments ago, narrowed instantly, as deep and unfathomable as ancient wells.

The Divine Tree Origin's immensely powerful sensory radar was screaming warnings.

The air was filled with an extremely familiar, nauseatingly cold killing intent.

It was purer and a hundred times more dangerous than the three Root ANBU agents he had encountered a few nights ago!

"This feeling..."

Sen slowly slipped both hands into his pockets, a dangerous cold smile curling across his lips.

"Orochimaru?"

"You stinking bug hiding in the gutter, you finally decided to come out for some air?"

From the shadows deep within the alley came a hoarse, grating laugh, like fingernails scraping across glass.

"Hehehehe..."

"You brat of the Senju clan, your senses really are sharp."

A pale figure slowly emerged from the darkness.