The school festival had been a tradition at the Academy for a long time, but every year the students came up with new twists on it.
Each class took its own theme and built a stall around it.
An event like the school festival had no rankings or judging, but they were a bunch of ten-year-olds, and there was still competition between them.
The festival came once a year, and the students poured everything into it and prepared for it well in advance.
The Academy was built on no small scale, taking up a large stretch of northern Konoha.
When Yuuga looked up toward the north he could just see the stone faces of the four Hokage, carved so vividly that even from a distance he seemed to feel a certain pressure coming off them.
That pressure did not come from all four of the Hokage faces.
It came only from Hashirama Senju’s.
Yuuga stared at the stone face for a moment, then raised an eyebrow and muttered, “Hashirama Senju, huh?
Interesting…”
He looked away and went on wandering the campus.
In the bustling crowds he occasionally spotted a few other staff keeping order, like him.
“Sasuke-kun from the S Class looks so cool today.” That was fangirl number one.
“A man that perfect is the one for me.” Fangirl number two stood up.
“I want to have Sasuke’s babies.” Fangirl number three’s closing statement.
Yuuga had gotten a dry stalk of grass from somewhere and had it between his teeth, strolling along at his leisure, listening to this school’s fangirls discussing Sasuke.
He wandered left and right across the campus.
The brats of Konoha were pretty well behaved, and no so-called violent incident came up that needed him to step in.
His eyes moved, and he spat out the stalk of grass.
It would be a waste of good time.
Why not find somewhere to write Konoha Love Story?
The thought had no sooner appeared than he acted on it.
He had taken jobs constantly over the last stretch, a lot of them at the Academy, so he knew this place well.
The quietest spot in the Academy was the grove of cherry trees near the training field, and it had wooden benches for people to rest on, the perfect territory for resting between shifts of work.
A bunch of little kids might squabble, but it would only be scuffles.
Besides him, Iruka had hired others, and while he was walking around earlier he could faintly sense that almost all of them were at genin strength, with one chunin overseeing them.
On top of that, two teachers from the Academy were watching, so nothing serious was going to happen.
So Yuuga found a spot with nobody in it, with a clear conscience, to “rest” a while.
Autumn was the season when everything withered.
The whole cherry grove had lost its spring pink long ago, leaving only the yellow of falling leaves, and when the wind passed he could hear the rustle of them coming down, a few landing beside him now and then.
He stretched, then took off the backpack he had been carrying, pulled out the notebook and pen he had used yesterday, turned to where he had stopped last night, and went on writing Konoha Love Story.
“In pursuit of a better life, Kanji Nagao said goodbye to…”
Yuuga’s memory was good, and last night he had already hammered out the adaptation outline for the whole book, fleshing out characters and places considerably, so now his line of thought was clear and he never got stuck.
Writing with pen and paper had its drawbacks in speed, though.
Roughly an hour went by and he had filled four pages, still not reaching the point where Rika and Kanji Nagao meet, and his wrist was getting sore from the steady use.
He lifted his head, loosened his neck, rotated his wrist, and let out a long breath.
“Writing novels isn’t just brain work.
Turns out it’s physical labor too.”
When he had rested enough and was about to go on with the novel, an argument broke out within earshot and made him raise an eyebrow.
Was somebody actually fighting?
He put the notebook and pen away, shouldered his backpack, and went unhurriedly toward the source of the noise.
Anywhere else he would not have planned to get involved, but since it was happening right under his nose he had to go take a look.
He came out of the cherry grove and the voices got closer.
At a corner he stopped, then calmly leaned his head out.
When he saw who it was, his eyes filled with interest.
Ino, Sakura and three girls he did not know, all of them about the same age.
What was going on here?
The two sides standing there looked like they were about to fight.
Ino had Sakura behind her, and she frowned at the three girls opposite.
“Reiko, Senhime, Yumiko, what do you think you’re doing?
Bullying someone in secret over here.
Careful, or I’ll go tell Iruka-sensei.”
“What’s that?” Yumiko, standing between the other two, put her hands on her hips and said darkly, “Ino, aren’t you and Billboard Brow rivals in love?
Don’t stick your nose in, or I’ll make you regret it.”
Sakura, the one called Billboard Brow, had a flash of hurt in her eyes that passed in an instant.
Ino coming to help her did warm her, though.
Her red ninja outfit was covered in dust, as if she had already been in a fight.
She stepped forward, shoved Ino out from in front of her, and said with pretended anger, “I don’t need your help, and I’m not going to thank you.
Sasuke is mine.”
Ino stumbled a step to the side, steadied herself, and clenched her fist at Sakura with a flash of hurt in her heart.
“Billboard Brow, why’d you shove me?
You think I want to help you?
If we weren’t in the same class I wouldn’t be sticking my nose in at all.”
Having said that, Ino stamped her foot in anger, her mouth curling up in the very picture of a sulk.
Then she turned her head and said furiously to Yumiko, Senhime and Reiko, “Whatever, I’m not letting anyone bully someone from our class.”
Senhime raised her sleeve to cover her mouth, gave a soft, sly smile, and said in a gentle voice, “Is S Class so impressive?
If Ino weren’t the Yamanaka clan’s daughter, could she have gotten into S Class on her own strength?
And the girls in our A Class aren’t easy to push around either.
The worst part is that phonies like you get to be in the same class as Sasuke-kun.”
Reiko was more direct.
She gathered the chakra through her whole body, took a fighting stance against Sakura and Ino, and said with a cold laugh, “Let’s settle it with you S Class girls, shall we?
See who’s actually qualified to stand beside Sasuke-kun.”