-Gentle Fist Secret Technique [Modified]: Catch, Redirect, Release!
This was a Gentle Fist move Yu had created himself!
Catch meant catching the opponent's fist! Redirect meant neutralizing the force of their punch! Release meant combining their force with his own and sending it back out, producing an explosive impact that used a little leverage to move a massive weight!
It might have sounded like a joke, but its power was no laughing matter!
Rrrip! Rrrip! The flesh on the bird's-nest-haired boy's arm twisted apart like braided dough, spraying blood!
"Aaaaaaah...!!!"
His screams stunned the other children!
Seconds later, the boy's eyes rolled back and he passed out on the spot, little birds circling his head ^_^.
His injuries weren't actually that serious. At least, they weren't enough to make him pass out.
As it turned out, he'd been afraid of blood since he was little.
The butt-chinned boy and the obnoxious, painfully average yet overconfident boy were already scared witless!
Yu had no intention of letting them off!
He stepped forward and drove an uppercut straight into the butt-chinned boy's butt chin!!
-Secret Technique: Personality Correction Fist!
Thud! The force traveled upward from his little fist. The butt chin compressed like a spring, and the boy's long face twisted into a mask of agony!
Boom...!
As the fist rose, the butt-chinned boy's feet left the floor. His beanpole body shot straight upward, tipped backward at its highest point, and traced a graceful arc before landing with a crash on the desk in the very middle!
That was Sakura's desk!!
You had to hand it to that desk... it was seriously well made. It hadn't budged an inch! In some period movie, it would've shattered into pieces by now!
The desk was fine, but the boy wasn't. His chin already had a cleft like a butt, and Yu's punch had split it farther apart. Blood flowed from the groove in the middle, staining Sakura's books!
"..." Whether from fear or disgust, Sakura looked utterly sick!
But no one cared about Sakura's feelings right then!
Plop! Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump-crash!
The obnoxious, overconfident boy collapsed onto the steps on his backside, performing a single-track, multistage soft-landing stunt before his back hit the stone platform and stopped him!
Staring ahead in utter terror, he stammered, "D-don't come any closer..."
Tap, tap!
Yu walked slowly toward him, his little feet pattering over the steps and his small face cold. "When you bully someone, you'd better be ready to get knocked down yourself! Say, you called the Hyuga blind fools, right? Then I'll make you blind too~!"
Crackle!
As he finished speaking, the bulging veins distinctive to the Byakugan appeared on his little face!
Hum!
The boy immediately froze as though rooted to the spot!
"I-I can't move...?"
-Secret Technique: Aura Pressure!
By concentrating the aura released by the Byakugan on a single target, he could immobilize them under its pressure. Like Catch, Redirect, Release and the Personality Correction Fist, it was one of the eighteen secret techniques Yu had created so far!
Aura Pressure was formidable!
Weaker opponents would be completely immobilized, and even those of equal strength would be affected to some degree!
Oh crap! Oh crap!! Oh crap!!!
Not only could he not move his body, he couldn't even close his eyes. Tears mixed with eye gunk streamed out as he cried, "W-what are you going to do? Don't come any closer!!!"
Yu glanced at the wall beside the doorway out of the corner of his eye, and the corners of his mouth lifted.
"What am I going to do? Why, poke out those nasty eyes of yours, of course!!"
Whoosh!
Yu strode forward, his two fingers spread at a carefully judged angle, and thrust them toward the boy's eye sockets!!
The obnoxious, overconfident boy cried, "Yamete [Nooooo]~~~~~!!!"
"Eek...!!" Many of the girls squeezed their eyes shut in fright!
"Stop!!!!" Just then, a stern shout rang out from the doorway.
Whoosh! Yu's two fingers stopped less than half an inch from the eyes that had rolled back in terror!
Then he turned his gaze toward Iruka, who had appeared in the doorway.
It wasn't that Yu lacked the nerve to blind the boy. He simply hadn't really intended to do it.
Yu knew Iruka hadn't left and was watching from outside the door, so he'd been waiting for him to come out and stop him!
Often, you didn't actually have to do something. Making people believe you really would was enough to achieve your goal!
You might have wondered what Yu would've done if Iruka hadn't stepped in to stop him.
The answer was certain.
Then I'd poke his eyes out first and discuss the rest afterward!
It's not like the Book of the Gods doesn't have ways to restore his sight!
Whether I'd help him see again would depend on how he behaved!
Iruka walked over with a stern expression. "Yu, what do you think you're doing!"
Yu lowered his little hand and put on an innocent look. "Hehe, they ganged up to bully me, the new kid. This was self-defense."
Behind him lay the bird's-nest-haired boy, his flesh torn open, unconscious from his fear of blood.
On the desk in the middle lay the butt-chinned boy, knocked unconscious with his chin split open.
Then there was the obnoxious, overconfident boy, frightened into a senseless stupor with his eyes rolled back.
And... all the other children, staring in stunned silence!
Self-defense wasn't remotely convincing!
At the very least, this had to count as excessive force.
Still, Iruka had witnessed the whole thing. Since he hadn't stopped it at the beginning, that meant he had his own little motives too.
Iruka said, "I know what happened, but there's no need to take things this far with your classmates. Yu, you've vented your anger. Leave it at that!"
"Hehe, got it. But there's still one little thing..."
Yu grabbed a good-sized tuft of the obnoxious, overconfident boy's hair with his little hand and yanked upward!
"Aaaaaaaaah~~! It hurts~~! It hurts so much~~!"
The pain snapped the boy awake, and he rolled around on the floor~!
Yu went over to the trash can and tossed in the weedlike tuft of hair along with a small piece of bloody scalp. Then he dusted off his little hands and walked back, ignoring everyone's stares!
He'd promised blood, so there had to be blood. Otherwise, it wouldn't be fair to the other two!
"Ah..." Iruka sighed and took the two boys with the slightly more serious injuries to the infirmary.
On the way to the training ground, Naruto looked troubled.
Yu asked, "Naruto, do you think I was too rough on those guys?"
Naruto said, "I..."
He couldn't say it, because he knew Yu had stood up for him. He was touched, but his feelings were also complicated.
Yu said, "I held back. I didn't really hurt them that badly. Besides, they treated you terribly. I just couldn't stand watching it!"
Was this... what it meant for friends to have each other's backs?
Warmth welled up in Naruto's heart.
No one had ever spoken up for him, stood up for him, or fought against the unfair way he was treated!
Naruto tightened his grip on the crumpled ramen coupon in his pocket!
"Yu, thanks for doing this for me. I'll treat you to ramen tonight! Hey, hey~, you know what, Yu? I know a ramen shop. The old guy there is a little scary, but his noodles taste amazing, believe it~~~!!!"
"Hehe, sure! I've been wanting to try Ichiraku's ramen for ages~!" Yu clasped his little hands behind his head and said meaningfully, "But... let's get to class first."
He thought with amusement, That man is actually teaching the shuriken class... Mizuki, the creep who had ill intentions toward Naruto. Hasn't he been fired yet for strangling a teammate during a mission and then falsely reporting it as a leg injury?
Hehe, I'll find a way to lure him into showing his true colors!
Pests... should be eliminated as early as possible!
Before you continue