Chapter 35: Unleashing the Lioness on a Doting Father
It has been a week since the incident at school and Yuna was currently sitting inside the Hokage's office with an amused smile on her face. Next to her sat Naruto, who looked really nervous. On the other side of the table sat Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Hokage himself, who was flanked by two blonde people. Ino Yamanaka, whose face was beet red in shame and clearly wanted to be somewhere else, and her father, Inoichi Yamanaka, head of the Yamanaka clan and chief of the memory extraction section of Konoha's T&I department.
"Hokage-sama, this is unacceptable! Because of those two, my little princess got scared and I demand them to be punished."
That's right, he is here for what happened at school last week. Ino had casually told the story to her father, and before Ino knew what was going on, her father had dragged her into the Hokage office to complain about it. She thought her father would give her some advice, but instead, the argument of a few children was brought in front of the Hokage himself. Ino glance at the Hokage and could clearly see him getting more and more irritated, the more her father spoke. She really wanted to stop her father from talking, but she didn't dare to casually start speaking in front of the Hokage. There was, however, someone in the room who did dare to do so.
"Wow, that is such an interesting story, Inoichi. Can I go home now, I still have things to do."
Everyone in the room froze up when they heard Yuna's comment. Even Inoichi, who was currently occupied with telling everyone in the room, why his daughter was the cutest and that everyone should protect her, froze. It took Inoichi a while to regather his wits, but when he did, his head became red in fury.
"You dare to speak to an adult-like this?! Show some respect! Do you even know who I…"
"*YAWN*"
While Inoichi was gathering momentum for another rant, Yuna yawned loudly, which, yet again, stopped Inoichi's rant. A vein could be seen pulsating on his forehead as he sent a small wave of killing intent towards Yuna. Unfortunately for Inoichi, it washed harmlessly over Yuna without even making her twitch, surprising both Inoichi and Hiruzen. While the two were stunned, Yuna casually dusted off her clothes and started to speak to Naruto.
"Well, Naruto, let's go. The show is over."
Naruto was, naturally, completely dumbfounded by that sudden declaration, but he still stood up obediently. Inoichi wanted to start another rant when the door to the Hokage office was opened with a loud *bang*. Inoichi casually glanced at the door to see who dared to enter the Hokage's office like this, but when he saw the intruder, his face became deathly pale. Inside the doorframe stood his wife. She had a kind smile on her face, but to Inoichi it looked like a demon was smiling at him.
"Inoichi dear, I think I told you, just a few days ago, that you shouldn't bother Hokage-sama with trivial things, didn't I?"
Inoichi was terrified out of his mind.
"N-n-n-no, I-I-Ino s-s-she I-I j-just I-I-I…"
Inoichi was looking at his daughter for some support, but unfortunately for him, Ino was currently occupied with looking at an extremely interesting part of the wall. Next, his pleading look landed on Hiruzen, who seemed to have found an equally interesting-looking part of the wall, as well. In a last act of desperation, he looked at Yuna for support. To his surprise, she gave him a warm smile that seemed to say that everything will be alright. Inoichi immediately felt better about the situation. He somehow managed to convince himself that Yuna will actually help him.
Seeing Inoichi's hopeful face, how could Yuna not backstab him immediately? Without any warning, tears started to freely stream down her face, causing everyone who could currently see her face to be completely dumbfounded yet again. Yuna turned around with her face full of tears and looked towards Inoichi's wife and as soon as she saw Yuna, her motherly instincts kicked in. Naruto, in another instance of quick-wittedness during pranks. quickly hugged Yuna.
"Don't worry, nee-san. I won't let that bad man bully you."
That was more than enough to unleash the lioness onto Inoichi. With a speed that even surprised Hiruzen, Inoichi was dragged out of the room by his wife, accompanied by a tongue lashing that might make it into more than one history book.
As soon as the two of them left the office, Naruto stopped hugging Yuna. She had a rather satisfied smile on her face.
"Good job, Naruto. That was really quick thinking."
"Hehe, no problem, nee-san. If it is about pranks, you can count on me."
Seeing how Yuna and Naruto could happily chat with each other about how they just sent a man to hell, a little girl and an old man had, despite their difference in generations, the same thoughts.
'Those two are demons.'
The difference between the two was, that Ino got "enlightened" after that thought.
'I see, that is why everyone calls them the demon twins. They would plunge someone into the deepest pits of despair and not even bat an eyelash at it. I should probably leave these two alone from now on. WAIT! Haven't I already provoked them? Am I done for?'
Cold sweat started flowing down Ino's back like a river when she imagined being in the same situation as her father was currently in.
'I need to apologize. That is the only route to survival. They just finished off my father, I will be easy picking for them.' (Author note: Inoichi is not dead. He just wishes he was.)
Ino quickly said her goodbyes to the Hokage and then left his office. Hiruzen, meanwhile, was getting flashbacks of the scoldings he had received from his wife and was zoning out more and more.
Ino quickly caught up to the twins and stopped them.
"Please wait a moment, I want to say something."
Yuna and Naruto turned around with an indifferent expression on their faces. They, naturally, didn't have a good image of Ino, so her next words were rather surprising for them.
"I would like to apologize for what happened in the classroom last week. No matter how angry your comments made me, I shouldn't have tried to attack you. As for today, I err… I'm sorry about it, as well."
Naruto had no idea how to deal with the situation. This was pretty much the first time someone outside of those he considered family apologized to him. Yuna on the other hand thought about it for a moment and then nodded her head.
"You have no need to apologize for what happened today. You clearly didn't want it to happen, either. As for what happened in the classroom, how about we make a little deal. I would like you to do something. I will completely forgive you if you do it."
At first, Ino was rather happy that Yuna didn't hold a grudge against her for what happened today, but when she heard that Yuna wanted her to do something, she was terrified out of her mind. She couldn't even imagine what kind of terrifying task Yuna had for her. Despite that, she decided to push on. She would rather do something terrifying, than to be forced into a dead-end without knowing about it, like her father.
"Alright, what do you want me to do?"
Seeing Ino's "I will put my life on the line" expression, Yuna couldn't help herself but chuckle a little.
"It is nothing hard, you know? The next time you are alone with Sasuke, I want you to ask him the following question: If you had to kill everyone you know, including me, to get your revenge, would you do it?"
Although Ino was confused by this question, she was also elated by this. There was no way her Sasuke-kun would do something this cruel, after all.
Considering Ino entered the classroom with tears streaming down her face and sat as far away as possible from Sasuke the next day, that assumption was probably not correct.