NOVEL NEXT Chapter 39: Confrontation
Author note:
Didn't want to leave you hanging on that cliff, so here is another chapter.
After getting everyone's attention, Yuna approached Sakura with an annoyed expression on her face. Sakura naturally noticed Yuna approaching Sasuke and her, so she had an annoyed look on her face, as well. After all, she was just talking with her Sasuke-kun. She doesn't want anyone to interrupt her.
"What do you want, idiot Yuna? I have no time for you because…"
"Yeah, Yeah, that sure is an interesting story, but I don't give a shit."
The entire classroom was completely dumbfounded by Yuna's sentence. After all, so far, she has almost never talked to anyone inside the class except for the three people close to her and even then, she never cursed, never argued and never showed anything but a casual smile. The current Yuna, acted completely different from that. She confidently walked towards Sakura and stopped just a short distance in front of her. The fact that she was about half a head taller than Sakura certainly gave the situation quite the domineering feeling.
"I have been enduring your bullshit for quite a while now, but your newest great idea to seduce Sasuke is so stupid, that I can no longer stand it. I just wanted to endure your presence and ignore you, after all, as soon as you have your first real mission you will die anyway, but thinking it is a good idea to go on a diet is the final straw."
At first, Sakura was dumbfounded at Yuna's sudden rant, but a few moments later her mood turned from confusion to anger.
"What do you mean with that is not a good idea!? I'm dieting to look beautiful for my Sasuke-kun. How can it be a bad idea?"
Yuna felt that her brain activity was being reduced just by talking with Sakura, but she decided to power through the conversation anyway.
Yuna lifted up her hand and lightly knocked on Sakura's head a few times.
"Hello? Is anybody in there? We are shinobi. If we are too fat, we train and turn the fat into muscles. We certainly don't sacrifice important nutrition, something which would weaken us in combat."
Sakura would naturally not back down so easily.
"Aren't you just an orphan? What do you even know about becoming a shinobi? Don't we have someone from a shinobi clan inside this class that is constantly overeating, as well? Me losing a few kilos shouldn't be a problem at all."
Sakura seemed to think that she just made an incredible argument, but Yuna almost started laughing after hearing it. Yuna, of course, knew who Sakura was talking about: Choji Akimichi. Choji was certainly overweight, but if he wasn't, his own jutsu would probably starve him out rather fast.
"Hehe, I see so you don't even understand that, huh? Choji, could you stand up for a moment, please?"
Although Choji was confused by the situation, he usually didn't mind doing someone a favor if they asked him politely, so he simply stood up and looked at Yuna. Yuna, however, turned around and smashed her fist into Choji's stomach. A loud smack echoed through the room and surprised everyone currently watching. Choji, however, only twitched a little and then looked at Yuna with confusion.
"Why did you do that? That hurt a little."
"Sorry about that, how about I invite you to an all-you-can-eat barbecue as compensation?"
Choji's eyes immediately started to shine in anticipation.
"Oh, alright I forgive you."
Yuna couldn't help but chuckle a little at how easygoing Choji was. Truth be told, Yuna was rather fond of the Akimichi clan. They were very similar to the Uzumaki clan, but instead of seals, they focused on pills.
Yuna turned around to the still shocked Sakura and started talking again.
"The Akimichi clan's family jutsu burns a massive number of calories. If a normal shinobi were to eat as much as Choji usually does, they wouldn't be just chubby like Choji. They would be round like a ball."
For some reason, Yuna could see Choji nod in acknowledgement when she called him chubby, but decided not to bother with it for now. She could also see that Sakura was genuinely surprised by that information.
'Isn't she supposed to be a bookworm? Did she only read the books necessary for the academy and didn't bother with anything else? She was probably to busy dreaming about Sasuke and had no time to read more books, huh?'
"You might want to occasionally pick up a book or two and not spend your whole day thinking about Sasuke, then you would have known about that."
That seems to be the last push Sakura needed to finally snap.
"YOU IDIOT DARE TO SPEAK TO ME LIKE THIS!?"
Sakura reeled back her fist and punched towards Yuna's stomach. Yuna saw the fist approach her, but didn't move, while Sakura was elated thinking that Yuna couldn't dodge her punch.
With a loud smack, Sakura punched straight into Yuna's stomach. Yuna, however, didn't move in the slightest. Not even a twitch. She only looked down on Sakura with a disdain filled sneer.
"Weak."
A single word, yet it seems to put pressure on everyone in the room. Sakura naturally was the most shocked. She just attacked with her full strength, yet Yuna showed no reaction at all. She was, however, even more shocked by what happened next. Yuna slowly and deliberately lifted her hand. She balled it into a fist and punched forward, straight towards Sakura's stomach.
The closer the fist came towards her, the more pressure she felt. She felt like she was about to be squished by a giant. Just when the fist was about to impact her stomach a voice echoed through the room.
"STOP!"
Yuna's fist stopped just a few centimeters away from Sakura's stomach, yet she still felt like someone had just punched her. She staggered backwards a few steps and started coughing for a few moments. Yuna meanwhile looked towards the door to see what their teacher for this year would look like. Simply brown hair tied into a ponytail, dark eyes, and a scar running horizontally over his face. She naturally has noticed him approaching, but continued anyway. It would not matter after all. Whether her new teacher hates her because of the rumors or he hates her because she threatens another student, at this point she really didn't care anymore.
"What are you doing to your fellow classmate?"
Yuna tilted her head in confusion with an innocent face.
"She attacked me, so I retaliated. Isn't that only natural?"
"Bullshit, I didn't see her attacking you at all."
Yuna considered just ignoring the teacher in front of her, but a rather interesting idea suddenly popped into her mind. She quickly scanned the surroundings to make sure the puppet was still watching her and then she started her act. Disdain filled her eyes as she sneered at the new teacher in front of her.
"Then why ask what happened, when you already came up with your own conclusion? You are already convinced that I am guilty without knowing the whole story, so why bother asking? I am one of the demon twins after all. Why bother even pretending that you want to find out the truth? It is one of us, so naturally we are guilty, right?"
To Yuna's surprise, their new teacher seems to be genuinely shocked by her outburst.
'Is he just timid or is he someone with enough brain to not eat up all the rumors without thinking them through? If it is the second case then let me give him something to think about. Yuna's aggressive face vanished and instead it morphed into a face that seemed to be indifferent to everything, her facade was just bad enough to be seen through by their new teacher.'
"Oh well, it has always been like this, so who cares."
She simply went to her seat and sat down without saying anything more. Naruto and Hinata, meanwhile, pretended to be worried about her, but couldn't wait to get home, so Yuna could tell them what exactly she was planning. They didn't even think for a second that Yuna was truly angry about the situation, because if she was, that teacher in front of them would have already experienced hell by now.
The new teacher, Iruka Umino, however, was truly stunned by what just happened. He, naturally, had heard the rumors about the demon twins. Considering the Kyuubi killed his parents he, without a doubt, held some animosity towards the twins, but he also understood that they were just the container for the bijuu and not the bijuu itself.
So, when he saw that one of the twins was about to attack a fellow student his mind immediately decided to trust the rumors without giving it any thought. Yuna's words after his accusation hit Iruka quite hard. Wasn't he a teacher? Shouldn't he treat everyone in his class fairly? It is true that he only saw the end of the conflict and had no idea how it started, after all. If Sakura was truly the one in the wrong, he would have just accused an innocent student.
That alone already gave him quite the hard hit, but what happened next almost knocked him out. When Yuna's face turned emotionless in an attempt to hide her feelings and she just shrugged off everything by saying "Oh well, it has always been like this, so who cares." His heart almost broke. He imagined how an excited Yuna joined the academy and then turned more and more apathetic as teachers constantly mistreated her, while the people in the village kept harassing her. A fire ignited in his heart.
'This is unacceptable. I will treat them fairly from now on. If they see that I am not like the other teachers they should open up to me a little and maybe I can reignite their passion for learning. I have already made a misstep in Yuna's case, but that should still be salvageable. For now, I will ask the other students what happened and then deal with the situation properly.'
By acting like she did, Yuna wanted Iruka to treat them like normal students, but what she didn't expect was that she would ignite her teacher's passion for guiding students and that from now on Iruka would try to "help" the twins enjoy the academy.
Meanwhile, inside the Root headquarters Danzo received the report from the root member that was constantly monitoring Yuna. After hearing the full report, he smiled. Well, he didn't smile, but one corner of his mouth slightly twitched, which was the closest thing to a smile he produced in a while.
'That girl finally broke under all the pressure. She sheltered those around her for eleven years and now it was finally too much for her. It is finally time to collect her. Truth be told, she is already too old to go through my root program, but I will manage somehow.'
Meanwhile in the Hokage office, Hiruzen was getting a similar report, but interpreted it completely differently than Danzo.
"Do you know what she is plotting?"
"I can only guess that she wants Iruka to pity her."
"Mhh, but why? She never cared about what others think about her. She always strode forward with confidence no matter what those around her thought."
The ANBU that followed her around might have been incapable of seeing through Yuna's facade, just like Iruka could only see what Yuna was willing to show, but he has monitored her long enough to know she wouldn't break down that easily. When she was three, she was kicked out of her home, yet instead of crying, she moved forward without any doubts in her step and managed to organize a sleeping place for herself and her brother within the day. Someone like that breaks down, just because she was judged wrongly by a teacher? What a joke.
This was the difference between ANBU and Root. The ANBU suppresses their emotions during their job, while Root members simply have no emotions. It is impossible for them to judge whether it was realistic for Yuna to suddenly have a breakdown, because they didn't know how emotions work from the start.
Hiruzen and the ANBU kept pondering for a while longer what Yuna might be scheming, but came up with nothing, so they simply decided to wait and see. Since she did it openly, without getting rid of her ANBU guard, it couldn't be that bad after all. Right?