Academy Arc 7

As I turned the corner towards my accommodations, I spotted a few of the older academy students ahead. Some of them were sitting on some crates along the sides of a wall while the others were standing around impatiently, tapping their foot on the ground.

"Ah, here he comes!" One of them had turned towards me at the sound of my footsteps and cried out. Immediately, they all grew a nasty grin and approached me.

I stopped, sensing the hostility in the air. "Can I help you senpais?" There were five of them, two I had recognized as a second and third year academy student respectively.

One of them, a tall and lanky boy, gave a sly snicker, "Sure you can, Shinji Ikari."

"You have me at a disadvantage then. You know my name, but I don't know yours." I lied. Since the start of this confrontation I had already examined them with [Observe] discretely.

They were, to put it lightly, riff raff. The only one with a double digit level was the biggest guy behind them with a stocky build at level 10 and judging from the description [Observe] gave me, he was a third, going on to fourth, year academy student. There were two level 9s and two level 8s in addition to the big guy.

The right most boy who I now identified as Saeki Naoki, level 8, was the one who responded, "Yeah, we know all about you. They say you're some kinda genius right? Beat up clan members on the daily innit?"

The malice in his voice was palpable. I narrowed my eyes, "I don't know about all that, but may I ask if you need something from me?"

The tall, lanky one snickered to himself, "We need something from you alright. You see, that's not all we heard about you. We heard that you're an orphan. And not only that, we also heard that orphans get monthly allowance from the village. 20,000 ryo," He whistled, "that's a lot of cash for someone like you."

I sighed, so that's what they were after… money. How typical. Clichéd almost. "What about it?"

The big guy at the back, Tetsuo, brushed aside the lanky boy and stepped forward, "It's simple. All you need to do is share that money with us from now on. We won't ask for much – just 2,000 ryo… for you of course. The remaining 18,000 for us every month. Fair, right?"

I rolled my eyes, while mentally observing their posture. Any sign of aggression and I would make a move first. There were five of them and only one of me, I was more than certain I could take on any one of them in a fair fight, but this was a street fight, and I was even more sure that they wouldn't make it fair.

"Oh? And why would I do that?"

Tetsuo smirked and cracked his knuckles, "Aren't you some sorta genius? Can't you figure it out?". If he was trying to be intimidating, well he was decent at it, and it might have worked if it was some other first year going on to second year academy student that wasn't me.

"Hehehe, a promising student like yourself should be generous and share what you have with the rest of us poor, civilian students. Haven't you heard? Sharing is caring."

[Quest Alert!]

Beat the Bullies:

Defeat the bullies who have come to extort money from you!

Bullies defeated (0/5)

(Bonus) Win without taking any damage

?

Rewards:

+100 EXP

(Bonus) +100 EXP

?

Failure:

-5540 ryo

New title

Accept? (Y/N)

I looked at them passively, already mentally planning my assault. First incapacitate the big guy, Tetsuo, then the two level 9s behind him and after that if the other two doesn't run away take them down by capitalizing on the momentum.

"I accept…" I spoke, receiving the quest and dismissing the pop-up while walking towards them, feigning dejection.

"Oh, that's good then – "

'Power Strike!'

Without waiting for him to finish, I immediately kicked Tetsuo right in his family jewels once I was within range. The impact was heavy, the vital spot coupled with the usage of [Power Strike] multiplied the damage by an order of magnitudes.

"FUUUUUUU - "

As Tetsuo was starting to scream in pain, I took advantage of the surprise attack and immediately went for my next target who was still taken aback in shock by the sudden and ruthless sneak attack. Still standing in place, I swung around and pivoted on my supporting leg while my right leg that had landed the vicious kick on Tetsuo swung back and caught the one right behind him on his chest, with another [Power Strike] to amplify the damage for good measure.

Although I wasn't sure whether that kick would have put him down for good I had to capitalize on the element of surprise while I still had the advantage.

My next target, the last remaining level 9, was already recovering from his surprise, and had managed to block my fist that was headed towards his face. But he couldn't have known about the strength behind the attack that [Power Strike] gave.

"Urgh! H-Help!" He cried out in desperation, but he was too slow to react to my low kick that smashed against his knee which sent him down to the ground clutching it in pain.

I was spamming [Power Strike] for every attack I sent at them. This wasn't the time to conserve chakra. It was the time to make a quick, bold and decisive statement: Shinji Ikari is not someone to fuck with.

Turning to my right, I leaned back to avoid a clumsily thrown swing from the panicking attacker before grabbing the outstretched wrist and twisted it. I wasn't strong enough to break his wrist right there and then even if the boy was yelping in pain like I just did, but I was fast enough to land two quick kicks to his exposed midsection while still holding on to the extended arm. The two kicks saw him crumpling down in pain, dry heaving from the unexpected impact.

For a moment I mulled over whether or not to slam my fist down on to the twisted arm that I still tightly held in place but decided not to for two reasons: first, I didn't want to be so heavy handed against a couple of childish bullies. Teach them a lesson? Sure. Ruin their shinobi career? That's just being cruel. And secondly, neither did I want the negative attention such an act would bring me.

I let the arm go but the hesitation proved to be my undoing as the last remaining kid, Naoki, hurled himself at me in an attempt at a tackle.

"I-I got him!"

Poof! With a puff of smoke, in my place was a log that I had replaced myself with the moment I heard the kid yelling while rushing at me.

"Kawarimi no jutsu success." I stated while jumping down from my hiding place above him and landed a powerful axe kick on the last kid's shoulder that saw him collapsing while clutching his shoulder in pain. Contrary to my previous attacks, the last kick I had not infused with the power of [Power Strike] as I imagined I might have broken his shoulder had I done so.

Landing smoothly after my axe kick, I scanned the downed combatants, (well, students turned bullies) around me. The only one still struggling to get back up was the one I had sent flying after kicking him in the chest but once he saw that everyone but him was down for the count, he immediately screeched in horror and fell back down on his butt while backing away in fright.

The rest were all groaning in pain on the floor, clutching their respective wounded locations.

Seeing that the only remaining kid who could still put up a fight had already lost his fighting spirit, I relaxed my fighting stance and unconsciously breathed a sigh of relief. The fight ended swiftly and mercilessly, or as merciless as I could be against a bunch of academy students, which was what I had planned for from the beginning.

I had no delusions that in a 5 on 1 fight with them not being caught by surprise, I might have been in real trouble. It would have just taken one of them to grab a hold of me while the rest would have pummelled me into submission. So the surprise factor was a huge advantage that allowed me to incapacitate three of the five students before they had a chance to react.

I strolled towards their leader, the stocky boy who was still slumped against the floor, nursing his groin with tears in his eyes, with the confidence of beating down five older kids bolstering my gait. I knelt down to one knee, all the while keeping an eye on the one kid who could still stand but was instead looking at me in abject terror.

I had to go for maximum intimidation factor to ensure they would not try this again or worse, come back to get even when I am the one caught off guard. I knelt down on one knee and pulled up Tetsuo's head by his hair.

"You try this again; I won't stop at just teaching you a lesson. Do you understand?"

I could see his eyes widen in fear, tears rolling down his rotund cheeks, while nodding furiously or as much as he could with me clutching on to a tuft of his hair.

"I said, do you understand?" To emphasize my point, I cocked back a fist and snarled out my words.

"Ye-Yes! I-I un-understand! Pl-please, I'm sorry!"

I held up my fist for a moment still, staring as impassively and as menacingly as my 8 year old face could manage. He gulped down in trepidation at my still-raised fist.

I relaxed my fist and let go of his hair. Tetsuo's head dropped down on to the ground, this time crying with nothing held back.

With Tetsuo's tears breaking the dam, the rest of the boys started crying too – in pain, fear, shame, shock and more that I couldn't identify.

I was starting to walk away before turning back at them scowling. Damnit why did you guys try something like this if you were going to cry about it. Now I feel bad. But I can't show any empathy or they might get some nasty ideas in those little heads of theirs.

"I-I'm going to tell *hick*, tell my nii-san a-about this! He's a genin! You're going to regret this!" Saeki Naoki cried out on the floor while clutching his injured shoulder.

I glared back at him with murder in my eyes. This was why I had to stamp out any notion of retaliation. I prowled towards him clenching my fists. I was doing my best imitation of 'I'm about to kill you' face. "What did you say?"

Naoki realized he screwed up now as he began backing away by crawling back on the floor, "I-I, no, I meant, wait!"

I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him up towards me, his torso dangling in mid air while his legs still remained on the ground. "Say that again. I dare you. I double dare you mother fucker, say that one more damn time!"

He stayed silent, only looking back up at me in fear. After a moment or two, I released him, "Yeah, I didn't think so. And go ahead, tell your genin nii-san all you want. You can tell him that the five of you tried to extort me, a poor orphan, for money, and the very same first year orphan kicked all of your asses at the same time. And then you went crawling back to your older brother for help because you were too much of a coward to do anything about it yourself."

Naoki's face scrunched up at the thought, tears and snot marring his face.

"And you know what else, even if he did take your side, there ain't nothing he could do about it. Rule of non-interference, you heard of it? Disputes between academy students stay between academy students – friends or family outside the academy aren't allowed to interfere or retaliate in any manner. It's an unwritten rule that is designed to prevent conflict between active shinobi because if you call your brother and I call someone else, it will never end and intensify into something ugly all for a petty schoolyard tussle. Only the academy instructors are allowed to step in, and who do you think the instructors are going to side, the first year genius student who was being robbed or the five, deadlast, wastes of space who were doing the robbing?"

I spat on the ground next to his face, internally wondering if that spit was a tad overboard and crossed the line from threatening to cheesy. But judging from his face, and the slight sulfuric smell of pee in the air, I made my point.

Quest [Beat the Bullies] Completed!

Bullies defeated (5/5)

(Bonus) Win without taking any damage (√)

(Hidden) Win without fighting (X)

Rewards:

+100 EXP

(Bonus) +100 EXP

(Hidden) +1000 EXP (X)

What the hell, winning without fighting was an option, when the quest name was called [Beat the Bullies]? And it even gave 10 times the EXP for beating them up in the first place? Urgh, I'm kind of seeing a pattern here. Ah! I'm going to be late!