Sakura was glaring at Yuuga too, with a look that could have swallowed him whole.
But heaven as his witness, how could everything the Shadow Clones did be blamed on him?
After a moment’s hesitation, Yuuga threw both hands up and launched into an explanation.
“Ino, the clones are the clones and I’m me, how can they be the same thing?
Come on, right…?”
Ino snorted and pulled her fist back, but she still rolled her eyes at him.
“Clones you made with your own chakra have nothing to do with you?
Please, you’re the original!”
Heaven could judge him.
He hadn’t had a single thought like that.
The three girls across from him were about ten years old, their chests weren’t…
ahem, generous, and their backsides weren’t round either.
Without exaggeration, with figures like bean sprouts, even if they were handed to him on a plate Yuuga wouldn’t have spared them a glance.
But none of that was anything he could say out loud to Ino and Sakura.
Having a mouth and no way to speak was suffocating.
Just then, Yumiko, Reiko and Senhime, still pinned down by Yuuga’s Shadow Clones, blanked for a moment and then fully came back to themselves.
They were girls barely into their teens after all, and no matter how arrogant they usually were, something like this threw them straight into panic.
Yumiko broke first.
She struggled and screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Aaahhh, pervert!”
Reiko, the liveliest of the three, was thrown into a panic too after being “felt up,” and joined in.
“Somebody, help!
Yuuga…
is a…
pervert!
Waaah!”
Even Senhime, who seemed the steadiest, went red around the eyes the instant she was groped, her small lips trembling a few times, though in the end nothing came out of her mouth.
Her mouth pulled to one side and she started sobbing.
The six Shadow Clones didn’t seem to have caught on yet.
They looked at each other blankly, then all turned to look at their original, Yuuga.
The scene was more than a little strange.
Yuuga opened his mouth to explain again.
“No…
no!
Listen to me, I really…”
Girls might fight among themselves, but no girl could stand by and watch another get bullied.
Sakura planted one hand on her hip and pointed the other straight at Yuuga’s nose, growling under her breath.
“Let the three of them go already, or when someone shows up it’ll be even harder to explain.”
Yuuga heard Sakura out and decided to release Senhime and the other two right away.
Then his body went still.
The pale blue chakra was still surging through him.
Yuuga’s close-range combat might not be great, but his perception was very sharp.
He could feel clearly that someone was heading this way.
There was no time to think.
Yuuga grabbed Ino with his left hand and Sakura with his right.
“Focus your chakra in the soles of your feet, quick!”
Ino and Sakura trusted Yuuga enough to gather chakra in their feet immediately, but they still asked together, “What do you want us to do?”
Yuuga gathered his own chakra into his feet and took off running, dragging the two of them along.
“Do?
Run, obviously.
Someone’s coming!”
Ino: “…”
Sakura: “…”
Yuuga looked at the two pairs of unfriendly eyes on him and felt a twinge of guilt.
If they didn’t run, that was when things would get truly awkward.
He couldn’t explain himself to those three, and if the person coming turned out to be another girl, he’d definitely get beaten.
So of all thirty-six strategies, running was the best.
What Yuuga didn’t notice was that he’d forgotten to zip his backpack, and during that mad dash the notebook fell out and hit the ground with a slap.
A gust of wind blew past and covered it with a few red maple leaves.
After Yuuga dragged Ino and Sakura away from the scene, his six Shadow Clones were recalled as well, dissolving into white mist.
Free of their restraints, Reiko, Senhime and Yumiko slumped to the ground as if all the strength had gone out of them, faces blank and hollow.
Where was the momentum they’d had when they were bullying Sakura, fighting Ino, and taunting Yuuga?
The three of them, badly shaken, had stopped crying loudly, but they were still sniffling, their eyes slowly swelling red.
Senhime scrubbed hard at her tears and then said gently to Reiko and Yumiko, “Nobody says a word about what happened today.
Understood?”
Reiko shook her head and said through clenched teeth, “No.
I’m telling the teachers.
And my father.
They can set this right for me.
Yuuga humiliated us like that, I can’t swallow it.”
Yumiko frowned.
“Reiko, are you stupid?
If word gets out, who comes off worst?
Three against one, and we lost.”
Senhime nodded and quickly pulled at Reiko’s arm.
“If people find out about this, how are the three of us supposed to show our faces?
It was one boy, and he beat us, and on top of that he…
ugh, forget it, damn it.
Just don’t let this blow up.”
Reiko thought it over and decided Yumiko and Senhime had a point.
The three of them weren’t in the Academy’s top S Class, but they were A Class students, and top students in A Class at that.
If this really got out, where would they put their faces?
At that thought, Reiko nodded, grudgingly, which counted as agreement.
“What are you three doing out here instead of enjoying the school festival?”
A woman in a fishnet undershirt and a cream coat had crouched down in front of them, grinning.
Her purple hair was tied high in a ponytail, her bangs just short of covering her eyes.
“Ah…” Yumiko jumped, then stammered, “Who…
who are you?”
Anko Mitarashi tilted her head, and something flashed in her gray eyes.
She reached out a slender finger and tipped up Yumiko’s chin, teasing.
“What a pretty little girl.
Except…”
She leaned in close against Yumiko’s cheek and lightly licked the tear track at the corner of her eye.
Feeling all three girls go rigid, she let go and laughed.
“Shame.
A little red-eyed rabbit.”
“You…
aaahhh!
Pervert!”
Yumiko snapped out of it, shoved Anko hard, and shrank back, watching her and shaking, every guard up.
How boring.
The brats at the Academy really weren’t cute at all.