I watched as Pain descended from the sky on a hot air balloon, landed right behind Danzo, and—with the words, “You’ve pissed everyone off”—slit his throat.
“Why?
I just wanted… love,” Shimura rasped.
Suddenly, Konoha Anbu leaped out from all sides, twirling as if in a waltz, and began to sing… “Go away, toilet—we don’t love you!
Go away, toilet—we don’t love you!” And that was the exact moment I woke up.
Yeah, I’m having some pretty wild dreams.
I think my subconscious is overheating from all these recent events.
I carefully slipped out from under Saya and Aya, who had completely buried me beneath their bodies, managing not to wake either of them.
I stripped off my pajamas and changed into a pair of training pants.
I’d put a shirt on later; right now, it would only get in the way.
Besides, if I sweat through it, what was the point?
I’d just have to throw it straight in the laundry.
It was better to train shirtless and just rinse off afterward.
With those thoughts, I began my usual morning workout.
This time, it dragged on much longer and felt significantly easier—that was the perk of my newly reduced stamina consumption.
I even squeezed three points of AGI out of the session.
Yes, stats were getting incredibly hard to level up now, but the Li Shuwen style had been too high-level for me even at its previous stage.
Now, it was clearly pushing way above my current developmental ceiling, dragging my base stats up with it.
After a quick wash, I nudged the girls awake.
While they were groggily coming to their senses, I headed to the kitchen to cook breakfast…
for five people.
Yeah, I definitely hadn’t planned for this.
The atmosphere at the table that morning was strange.
I couldn’t even really put a name to it.
It wasn’t tense, and it wasn’t depressing, but it definitely didn’t pass for happy, either.
So, I just buried my face in my food and kept a low profile.
At the Academy, I stuck to Kiba as usual.
He was actually enjoying a few peaceful days—the adults were busy dividing up assets and holding council meetings almost every single day following the massacre, so the kids were thrilled that their training loads had dropped to a manageable minimum.
Except for Shikamaru, who remained in a state of half-death.
But hey, that was just Shikamaru.
“No, I can’t…
my mom will kill me!
I’m sorry, Naruto, but I really can’t,” Kiba said, his voice laced with panic.
Right.
Refusing his best friend was painfully hard for the fiercely loyal Inuzuka, but he simply couldn’t agree to share clan training secrets.
“Alright, can I just come hang out at your place, then?” I sighed, restructuring the plans for my free day.
“Whoa, your tor—teachers finally got off your back?” the Inuzuka asked, ‘subtly’ stumbling over the word.
“Uh-huh.” “And the Uchiha twins gave you a break?” he asked, looking even more surprised.
“Uh-huh.” They had some clan business to attend to.
Or rather, their mother had finally cleared out her clan duties for the morning and had come to collect her daughters.
“And Ino isn’t climbing all over you?” Kiba just kept listing things.
Man, there was definitely something wrong with my life.
“Uh-huh.” “And…” “Alright, that’s enough!
Just answer the question, yes or no,” I snapped, unable to endure Shikamaru’s quiet chuckling any longer.
That little bastard.
He looked asleep, but he saw and heard absolutely everything.
Typical Nara.
“Of course, yes.
How else could I answer?” the little parasite grinned, flashing his canines.
“Then why interrogate me so thoroughly?” I sighed.
“Because it was funny,” the Inuzuka said, looking away.
Sigh.
When we first met, he had been such a sweet, simple kid.
Where had that boy gone?
“You can answer Iruka-sensei’s questions yourself today,” I threatened.
Oh yes.
Vengeance was mine.
“I surrender, I apologize!” Kiba immediately repented.
“Honestly, I would have lost my mind with you two a long time ago if it wasn’t so much effort,” came a drawling voice from Shikamaru’s direction.
My hand met my face on autopilot.
Kiba did the same.
Even Sasuke, who had been completely silent until now, facepalmed.
Nothing else of note happened.
Well, unless you count the fact that, having forgotten my bento in the morning chaos, I was forced to accept one from Ino?
(Oh, the twins were burning holes into her back with their glares, but they didn’t offer me any of my own cooking, because that apparently didn’t count).
Initially, eating it only gave me a two percent bump to her heart meter.
But when she hesitantly tried a few crumbs after I had scarfed the whole thing down, her face went pale, and I suddenly gained a massive 8% boost.
Ino then quietly declared that if I ever needed to go to the nurse’s office, she would cover for me, and that I shouldn’t just choke down her food like a martyr—I should tell her if a recipe didn’t turn out right.
At that moment, Kiba and Sasuke were staring at me like I was either a legendary hero or a suicidal maniac.
So what?
If they only knew the absolute “culinary masterpieces” I had produced while learning to cook local cuisine.
And even that was nothing.
If those two ever tried Yugao’s slop…
yeah, after surviving that, they could eat and digest solid iron nails.
Whatever the case, after classes, we headed over to Kiba’s.
God, I loved my rest days!
But even there, things couldn’t just be peaceful.
For whatever reason, only today did I manage to notice a dark-element wound on Kuromaru, Tsume’s massive ninken.
I also noticed he had Human Speech listed in his skills.
I had been over here just three weeks ago and hadn’t seen any of that.
Ah, right.
After everything that happened recently, my Observe skill had leveled up, allowing me to notice finer details and pull more information from other people’s Statuses.
Heh.
It would be fun to help him out.
If I was understanding this correctly, that wound over his right eye—the one severely impacting his field of vision and combat effectiveness—was the exact same nasty injury the medical-nin hadn’t been able to heal.
I shouldn’t have had a snowball’s chance in hell of removing that garbage, but I did have an aura of light now, thanks to my Paladin class.
But first, let’s take a look at the status of the wound itself.
Just in case it was contagious.
I wasn’t scared, but I was definitely cautious about things like this.
[Wound (Dark Element)] A chakra-based poison that prevents the injury from closing or healing completely, completely bypassing medical chakra.
The greatest difficulty lies in the bizarre nature of the chakra itself.
You are not experienced enough to identify the element, nor are you skilled enough in chakra manipulation to understand what was done to it.
You cannot even sense it normally.
However, you can smell it, and it reeks of primordial darkness.
Permanent Debuff: “Unclosing Wound”.
Intermittent Debuff: “Sharp Pains”.
[Quest Alert!
Amaze Tsume!] No one has been able to heal the ninken belonging to the head of the Inuzuka Clan.
But you have a chance (15%), because you are not just anyone—you are a Paladin!
Show off your stunning uniqueness and amaze, intrigue, and surprise your future victi—uh, the mother of your best friend.
Reward: +500 Reputation with the Inuzuka Clan.
Interest from Tsume Inuzuka.
+200 Reputation with Kiba Inuzuka (and his pride in his friend).
+5% Affection with Hana Inuzuka.
+2000 Reputation with Kuromaru.
+???% Affection with Tsume Inuzuka (Variable).
+200 EXP.
Class Evolution to “Paladin v.2”.
Failure/Refusal Penalty: None, but you aren’t some dark, worthless scum who walks past someone in need of help, are you?
[Accept?
Yes / No] The System, perfectly in character.
Of course I accepted!
But now…
what exactly was I supposed to do?