Who Are You Trying to Impress?!

Amamiya Maki returned to the Ninja Academy. The classroom was deserted, with no sign of Minato Namikaze.

Amamiya Maki returned to the Ninja Academy but didn't see Minato Namikaze.

Kushina Uzumaki sat quietly at her desk, alone.

When she saw Amamiya Maki return, Kushina told him what had happened.

A white-haired man wearing an Oil Forehead Protector had taken Minato away.

The man had been laughing his head off when he arrived.

She had found it rather irritating.

Jiraiya had moved much faster than Maki had expected.

Tsunade had taken Nonō, Orochimaru had taken him, and now it was finally Minato Namikaze's turn to inherit the Sannin's legacy.

With Minato's absurd talent, it had only been a matter of time before Jiraiya noticed him.

He could even picture the entire scene.

Jiraiya would happen upon Minato at the training ground and ask him to demonstrate his Body Flicker Technique.

Then he would casually ask whether Minato had any other signature moves.

Next, Minato would form a prototype Rasengan, and the ice pop in Jiraiya's mouth would drop straight to the ground.

Amamiya Maki had already played that scene out in his head at least three times.

His only regret was missing the legendary ice-pop drop in person.

Give Minato a little more time, and Konoha's new Yellow Flash would soon rise to prominence.

By contrast, the change in Kushina Uzumaki had genuinely surprised him.

Both he and Minato had been absent today, yet the girl had actually stayed put in the classroom all day.

Her usual fiery temper had vanished. She had behaved herself the entire time without getting into a single fight.

He had made a point of checking: Kushina's knuckles were pale and clean, without a single fresh scrape.

Clearly, she had been fighting far less often lately.

The Red-Hot Habanero no longer needed daily brawls to maintain her fearsome reputation.

That nickname alone was enough to send Konoha's troublemakers scurrying out of her way.

It wasn't until school ended that Amamiya Maki saw another side of Kushina.

Her arm linked affectionately with another girl her age, she walked out of the Ninja Academy gates.

The girl had long, jet-black hair and a gentle, serene air. The setting sun fell across her face, tracing its soft profile.

The Uchiha clan crest was clearly visible on her back.

An Uchiha girl of this age, at this point in time, who was close enough to walk arm in arm with Kushina-other than Uchiha Mikoto...

He couldn't think of anyone.

Just yesterday, Kushina had solemnly promised to wait for him after school so they could go home together.

Yet today, she'd found a new best friend and promptly forgotten all about that promise.

Amamiya Maki sighed inwardly.

Ah, a woman's heart.

When he returned home, the house was as quiet as ever.

Minato Namikaze still hadn't returned. The lights were off, and his shoes weren't by the entrance.

A note lay on the table, its handwriting almost rigidly neat.

I'll be home late tonight. Don't wait up.

Beside the note sat two rice balls, neatly wrapped in plastic.

One was a full third larger than the other.

Amamiya Maki picked up the larger rice ball and took a bite. The refreshing taste of plum spread through his mouth.

Jiraiya's efficiency in taking on a student was honestly ridiculous.

By now, Minato had probably been taken to Mount Myōboku to sign a toad Summoning Contract.

At noon the following day, Amamiya Maki followed Nawaki to Orochimaru's private training ground.

Hidden deep in the woods, the training ground had hard, firmly packed soil.

Old kunai scars covered the trunks of the surrounding trees.

Several green snakes coiled around the branches, their scales gleaming darkly in the scattered midday light.

Every snake's head pointed toward the center of the clearing, like precision surveillance cameras-or a silent audience watching the fight.

"Warm up first."

Orochimaru leaned languidly against a tree trunk, holding a notebook of experimental records.

"Nawaki, run ten laps. Maki, retrieve every kunai from the trees and bring them to me."

Amamiya Maki quickly collected all the kunai and handed them to Orochimaru.

Orochimaru extended two slender fingers, lightly picked up a kunai, and examined its edge in the sunlight.

"Still sharp, even after sitting unused for a while."

After all, Orochimaru had spent a fortune having them custom-made. If they rusted or chipped after a little disuse...

The shopkeeper could look forward to being wrapped in Manda's coils.

Then he walked between the two boys.

"I won't interfere in the next part of your training."

"Nawaki is your senior fellow student, and your only opponent today. No restrictions. No rules."

Nawaki immediately frowned and spoke with utter seriousness.

"That's not okay! What if I accidentally hurt Amamiya Maki?"

"If the injuries are too severe, I'll notify Tsunade immediately and have her come treat him."

Orochimaru's gaze lingered briefly on Nawaki's face. His tone was as flat as though he were listing cold experimental parameters.

The implication couldn't have been clearer.

Anything short of death was acceptable.

Amamiya Maki instantly caught the subtext and silently translated it in his head.

It was exactly the same logic as Tsunade's outrageous claim when treating patients: "Even if I mess up, I can still save them."

Tsunade made threats when her emotions ran high. Orochimaru calmly stated brutal facts.

The latter was far more chilling than the former.

Orochimaru closed his notebook, his golden, serpentine eyes slowly passing over the two of them.

Those vertical pupils looked exactly like those of the snakes coiled in the branches: cold, narrow, and unblinking.

Being watched by him felt less like a person's scrutiny and more like being locked onto, calibrated, and scanned by a precision instrument.

"War may not be far off in the shinobi world."

"According to the intelligence Jiraiya brought back, Hanzō of Amegakure has grown dissatisfied with the current order dominated by the Five Great Shinobi Villages."

After so many years of peace in the shinobi world, someone was bound to stir up war.

"Enough pleasantries. Form the Seal of Confrontation."

Both boys raised their hands, holding their joined index and middle fingers upright before their chests.

Nawaki drew a deep breath, immediately took a fighting stance, and threw the first punch without hesitation.

The instant his fist tore through the air, the waist-high rock before him split straight down the middle.

The largest fragment weighed half as much as Amamiya Maki.

Shards of stone flew faster than speeding kunai, slamming into nearby tree trunks with dull thuds.

Amamiya Maki instantly twisted aside.

A sharp fragment grazed his sleeve, slicing a neat opening through it.

The cut was clean and smooth, as though made with a surgical scalpel.

Had he turned even an inch less, it would have sliced his wrist instead.

Nawaki had no intention of holding back for a warm-up.

Pulling his punches in front of Orochimaru would have been about as difficult as winning a shinobi world war barehanded.

From his very first punch, he had gone all out, intent on showing his junior fellow student the absolute peak of his strength.

That all-too-sincere earnestness came crushing down on Amamiya Maki with the destructive power of a small meteor.

Amamiya Maki immediately changed tactics.

He flickered repeatedly with the Body Flicker Technique, pushing his motion tracking to its limit and avoiding every head-on clash.

He kept launching Shadow Shuriken and throwing kunai, trying to disrupt Nawaki's vision and rhythm from the flanks.

But against Nawaki, those attacks were child's play.

He casually swatted aside the Shadow Shuriken. Kunai struck his forearms and left only faint white marks, failing to break his skin at all.

For a shinobi's physical attacks to penetrate an opponent's defenses, they needed enough chakra behind them.

But his chakra reserves weren't remotely on the same level as those of Nawaki of the Senju Clan.

A genin coating his weapons in chakra to break through a top-tier taijutsu specialist's defenses?

That was pure fantasy.

He was the one actively kiting his opponent and trying to wear him down, yet at this rate, he would definitely be the first to run out of strength.

Moreover, Nawaki's Monster Strength was completely different from Tsunade's precise bursts.

Tsunade gathered chakra in her fist with pinpoint control, releasing it all at the instant of contact with absolute precision.

Nawaki's Monster Strength seemed more like an inherited version of Hashirama's Chakra Overflow Trait.

Every movement was like a fire hydrant opened all the way, enormous volumes of chakra surging freely through his chakra pathways.

He didn't need precise aim. A casual swing of his arm dealt crushing, wide-area AOE damage.

Amamiya Maki silently grumbled.

With enough chakra, you really could do whatever you wanted.

He had barely steadied himself when Nawaki's second punch swept in from the side.

At the critical instant, his body instinctively leaned backward.

The fist swept past the tip of his nose, carrying a violent gust. Its sheer wind pressure bent the bushes beside him.

Several leaves were swept into the air, drifting in slow spirals before settling on his shoulders.

Amamiya Maki carried the movement into a backward flip, putting as much distance between them as possible. His soles carved two shallow furrows more than two meters long into the hard ground.

Nawaki didn't pursue him. He simply stood where he was and lightly shook his hand.

It was as though he were savoring the sensation of that missed punch.

Then he clenched his fist, his knuckles cracking crisply, and turned toward Amamiya Maki with an utterly sincere smile.

"Sorry! I nearly hurt you just then."

"But Orochimaru-sensei said not to hold back, so I'll have to keep fighting seriously."

Breathing hard, Amamiya Maki stared at that innocent smile.

Once again, his understanding had been turned on its head.

For one brief instant, Nawaki had actually made him feel the threat of death.

But if he feared death, he wouldn't be Konoha's resident troublemaker!

"Who are you trying to impress?! You think you're Hashirama Senju?!"