Minato: That Girl Was Getting Too Close!

Kushina Uzumaki looked at the Konoha villagers sprawled before her and shook out her wrists.

Four or five people lay scattered across the floor.

Some clutched their stomachs, curled up like shrimp; others held their faces as they huddled among overturned desks.

Two more were piled on top of each other, their limbs twisted like toys a child had tossed aside.

Everyone else cowered at the back of the classroom, wishing they could squeeze into a crack in the wall.

Their expressions were remarkably alike. It wasn't fear, but utter bewilderment.

None of them could understand it.

An outsider on her first day after transferring, a girl the entire class had spent half a lesson calling Tomato Monster.

Yet in just a few minutes, she had beaten half the boys in the class to the floor.

Until then, they had thought their numbers gave them every advantage.

After more than a year at the Ninja Academy, they had learned a whole repertoire of bullying tactics from the older students.

Mocking appearances, personal attacks, forming cliques to ostracize others-each was practically an ancestral Konoha social custom.

Who could have imagined this red-haired girl would overturn all of it today?

So much for the weapon of criticism being no substitute for criticism by weapons.

"You're not much after all."

She raised a hand to tuck her loose hair behind her ear, then slowly surveyed the room.

The classroom was frighteningly quiet. Not a single person dared answer.

Today's events had strayed completely from the script they knew.

Normally, when they ganged up on someone, they treated it as a good-natured joke.

None of them had ever imagined someone would dare hit back.

Did this girl not understand Konoha's traditions at all?

Just another lousy outsider.

We win!

Their minds worked that way, but their bodies were far more honest.

The cries of "Tomato Monster" and "red-haired freak" that had rung out moments ago were now lodged in their throats.

Keeping up the mockery was easy.

But the people lying on the floor never wanted to feel those solid punches again.

Kushina's attacks were nothing like the restrained sparring they did at the Ninja Academy.

She pulled no punches and held nothing back. Every blow carried a vicious determination to make them remember their lesson.

From that moment on, Kushina Uzumaki's nickname changed for good.

Tomato Monster became a thing of the past, and a new nickname, Red-Hot Habanero, was officially born.

In time, that name would spread throughout the Ninja Academy.

Anyone looking to cause her trouble would have to weigh their own strength upon hearing it.

For now, however, the name had only just taken root.

The overturned desks and the four or five boys groaning on the floor bore witness to its birth.

She paused, then added another remark.

"What's all this bragging about Konoha being a superior nation? You can't even beat an outsider like me."

Those words hit harder than all her punches combined.

Her fists had hurt their bodies. That remark shattered their collective sense of superiority.

They had read about Konoha's status as a superior nation countless times in their textbooks.

They had heard it countless times in the Third's speeches on the school grounds.

Whenever they faced a transfer student from another village, they used it as something to boast about.

Yet today, a red-haired girl from elsewhere had trampled it underfoot.

And delivered a vicious slap to everyone's face.

The students cowering in the back went pale, then flushed.

Some had twitching mouths and darting eyes, some lowered their heads and pretended to pack their bags, and others turned to stare out the windows.

They all tacitly chose the same response: pretend they hadn't heard that painful remark.

"Enough!"

Junji Ito shoved the classroom door open and rushed inside.

If he let Kushina keep stirring things up and her words reached the Hokage, his outstanding teacher rating would inevitably suffer.

It would also affect relations between Konoha and the Land of Whirlpools.

He had to put a stop to it in time!

His gaze swept over the wrecked classroom, with desks and chairs strewn everywhere and several desks snapped clean in half.

The damaged teaching equipment pained Junji Ito terribly, but he said nothing about it.

In truth, he had arrived long ago.

As soon as the fight broke out, a student had run to the office to report it.

He had hurried over with his lesson plan, only to stop outside the window by the back door instead of entering immediately.

The screams inside, the screech of desks and chairs scraping across the floor, the dull thuds of fists striking flesh.

And the overlapping pleas for mercy-he had heard every bit of it.

Through the window.

He had clearly seen a boy sneak up behind Kushina to attack her.

Only to be knocked flat by a vicious leg sweep, his head bouncing off the corner of a desk.

That impact had convinced him to wait a little longer rather than rush in to break up the fight.

If he went in to stop it now, any way he handled it would spell trouble.

Kushina Uzumaki was an exchange student from the Land of Whirlpools whom the Hokage had specifically instructed him to look after.

Before she arrived, the Third had personally reminded him that Kushina's status was special and that he needed to take extra care of her.

The Third had patted his shoulder then, his expression essentially saying:

"If anything happens to her, all the responsibility falls on you."

Right now, that specially protected student was getting thoroughly embroiled with her classmates.

Recklessly stepping in to stop her would mean offending someone the Hokage valued.

If the subsequent report included a line saying Junji Ito favored an exchange student who bullied Konoha children.

His outstanding teacher rating would go straight down the drain.

But if he did nothing, he would offend the injured students' parents.

Most of those parents ran general stores or tofu shops. Individually, they weren't anyone important.

Together, they could fill the Hokage Building's mailbox with complaint letters.

He couldn't afford to offend either side.

As for the troublemaking students lying on the floor.

Things had already gone this far. Going in now wouldn't salvage the situation.

Rather than please neither side, he might as well wait until there was a winner before making his entrance.

Besides, the entire fight was one-sided. All the victims were local Konoha students, while the attacker was a transfer student from another village.

Whichever side he helped, it would be inappropriate.

Protecting the students being beaten.

Would mean accusing Kushina of being in the wrong.

Which was tantamount to questioning the Hokage's arrangements.

That would make him look politically clueless.

Stopping Kushina to protect the injured would also leave him facing collective demands for accountability from the parents.

Both paths were pitfalls. His only safe option was to stall.

Once the fight ended, he could step in, reprimand both sides, and hand out equal punishment.

Alas, these unruly brats would just have to suffer.

Kushina would take the blame anyway.

Only after everyone had fallen did Kushina stand alone in the middle of the chaotic classroom.

Her red hair was slightly disheveled, and her chest rose and fell, but her breathing remained fairly steady.

Her fists were stained with some boy's nosebleed.

Only then did Junji Ito pick his moment and push the door open.

He scolded both sides, but his gaze mostly rested on the troublemakers on the floor.

"You're old enough to know better than to gang up and make trouble. Have you no sense of solidarity with your classmates?"

"You've spent over a year at the Ninja Academy, and you've forgotten even the most basic school rules?

"The rule about solidarity is on page three of the Will of Fire. All of you will copy it ten times when you get home."

He carefully stepped around a pencil case scattered on the floor, afraid of damaging anything.

When Kushina's turn came, his tone noticeably softened.

"You were wrong too. You hit too hard and injured your classmates this badly."

"A ninja's duty is to resolve disputes, not create conflict."

But he knew perfectly well that this incident absolutely could not be investigated too deeply.

If anyone examined the details, it would no longer be an ordinary fight between classmates.

It would be a case of Konoha students collectively bullying an outside transfer student. If that report went up the chain, nobody would be able to explain it away.

He chose the simplest solution: classify it as a minor squabble between children.

He would take away the seriously injured first and leave time to gradually smooth over the remaining conflict.

Junji Ito turned toward Amamiya Maki.

"Keep an eye on her. I'll take these injured students to the infirmary first."

With that, he hauled up several of the most seriously injured and headed outside.

He carried one in each hand and tucked another under his arm, looking no different from someone transporting damaged teaching equipment.

At that moment, he had only one thought: get out of this trouble spot as quickly as possible.

Amamiya Maki noticed the slight twitch at the corner of Junji Ito's mouth as he turned and instantly saw through him.

He was simply dumping the mess on Maki, taking the injured away, and making his escape without accepting any responsibility.

A perfect transfer of risk: sacrifice the students so he wouldn't get scolded.

To bring that kind of strategic maneuvering to an ordinary teacher's job.

This man certainly hadn't coasted his way to his Ninja Academy diploma.

He must have scored pretty high.

Junji Ito and the injured students soon disappeared around the end of the corridor.

Kushina turned sideways, clasped her hands behind her back, and lowered her head slightly, sounding a little pleased with herself.

"Maki, you were right. You have to hit hard to deal with people like them."

Amamiya Maki watched her stand there with her head obediently bowed and her hands behind her back, looking exactly like a student receiving praise in a tea ceremony lesson.

"Don't promote violent ideas in the classroom and undermine group solidarity" was already on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it back down.

The people sprawled on the floor were the true representatives of Konoha's supposed culture of solidarity.

They achieved unity by banding together to bully outsiders.

That sort of solidarity would probably make even Danzo curse them as a pack of unruly bastards.

Beside them, Minato Namikaze stared in shock.

He had witnessed the entire thing firsthand.

He had watched Kushina hold back when someone grabbed her hair.

And now she was stepping on someone's chest and making threats.

As far as he understood it, small disputes like this would naturally die down if you simply endured them for a while.

There was absolutely no need to escalate things to violence and injury.

He couldn't understand the idea of solving problems with fists.

Just as a fish couldn't understand humans walking on two legs.

The next second, Kushina Uzumaki walked straight up to him without the slightest hesitation.

Before Minato could work out what she intended to do, a hand had already landed on his shoulder.

The pressure wasn't particularly heavy, but the angle was extraordinarily tricky.

In a single instant, he was levered right out of his seat.

"Excuse me!"

Having said that, she didn't spare Minato so much as a sideways glance.

She simply settled firmly into the seat that had belonged to him.

She sat upright, her hands neatly folded on the desk.

As though that seat had belonged to her since the first day of school, and Minato Namikaze was merely an outsider temporarily occupying it.

Minato Namikaze stood rooted to the spot.

She had said "excuse me," but what she wanted wasn't the seat. It was Amamiya Maki, who sat beside it.

Since the first day of school, Minato had always sat beside Amamiya Maki.

They sparred in Taijutsu, shared their lunches, practiced the Clone Technique, and worked through Maki's failed attempts to form a Rasengan, over and over.

That spot had always been his alone.

Yet this red-haired transfer student intended to shove him aside with a simple "excuse me."

Kushina Uzumaki turned her head and glanced at him.

There was no hostility in her eyes, nor was it quite a challenge. It was more like a blunt declaration: I'm here. You, blond hedgehog-head, can step aside now.

That stiff blond hair jabbed Amamiya Maki every day. Wouldn't her silky red hair be better?

Minato instantly understood the intent hidden in that look.

She was intensely possessive of Amamiya Maki.

Thinking back over everything, she had taken his words to heart ever since Amamiya Maki praised her hair as being like the sun in Grandma Mito's courtyard.

Then she had checked whether the compliment was sincere.

After hearing Amamiya Maki say she had to hit hard, she had turned around and promptly beaten half the boys in the class to the floor.

She had taught everyone a lesson with her fists.

That counted as fulfilling half their agreement.

Now she had come straight over to claim the spot beside Amamiya Maki.

Absolutely not!

Amamiya Maki was the rival he had chosen for life, as well as his dearest friend.

Competing with him in training every day was what drove him to keep growing stronger.

Amamiya Maki was his most important bond. How could he let someone else just snatch him away?

Minato Namikaze strode forward, grabbed Amamiya Maki by the shoulder, and yanked him back hard.

Amamiya Maki was pulled a full step backward.

The strength Minato unleashed at that moment far exceeded expectations.

Behind it lay an entire semester of grueling training, along with all his emotions over having Amamiya Maki snatched away again.

Utterly bewildered, Amamiya Maki turned to look at him.

"What are you doing? Why'd you suddenly yank me back?"

He had just been pondering Junji Ito's little attempt to shift the blame.

He turned his head.

Minato had already leaned in, his face less than a fist's width away.

Those blue eyes were full of wariness, exactly like a cat that had discovered another kitten invading its nest.

Minato did not answer his question. He simply stared fixedly at Kushina, who was sitting in Amamiya Maki's seat.

She looked perfectly calm right after a fight. If someone like that got too close, she would definitely bring trouble to Amamiya Maki.

As his closest friend, he had to help Amamiya Maki eliminate potential threats.

So he simply dragged Amamiya Maki out of the chaotic classroom.

After being hauled several steps outside, Amamiya Maki finally could not help asking.

"What is going on with you? Why'd you suddenly drag me out? What's the deal with that girl?"

Minato stopped and deliberately lowered his voice so that only the two of them could hear.

His expression was utterly serious, without any of his usual excitement when talking about his dream of becoming Hokage. Instead, he was bristling with the vigilance of someone who had discovered a major threat.

"Maki... don't you think...

"That girl is getting way too close to you?"