"Are you going to make fun of me too?!" Kushina shouted in front of him.
At Kushina's scream, Natsuo smiled as he showed his open hands and explained that he wasn't making fun of her.
After Kushina's introduction and confrontation with the other students, the teacher directed her to sit in an empty seat in front of Natsuo.
And when she saw Natsuo's smile, the little redhead puffed out her cheeks, annoyed and a little embarrassed.
"No, nothing like that, it's just that you're adorable when you puff out your cheeks," Natsuo said, trying to calm the little girl down.
'Adorable!' Natsuo's words were like a thunderclap in Kushina's mind and she quickly turned her face away, hiding her flushed cheeks.
Seeing that Kushina was no longer looking at him, Natsuo sighed in relief because he didn't want to deal with an annoying redhead all the time.
Of course, Natsuo didn't sense Kushina's conflicting emotions because he normally weakened his emotion detection and only detected negative emotions.
It would be a nuisance to constantly feel the emotions of the people around him, so he came up with this solution.
What if he had detected Kushina's emotions?
Natsuo wouldn't know what to do because Kushina was just a child, and all he could do was intentionally ignore her. What kind of sicko is attracted to a child?
Next to Natsuo, Minato smiled at the interaction between the two but said nothing more, and the teacher started the class.
Today's classes ended quickly.
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Natsuo's days passed normally amidst his training.
He would wake up early to do his physical training and heal his body with medical ninjutsu before going to the academy. And before going to the academy, he would leave two shadow clones practicing the elemental transformation of his chakra into the fire element. In this way, his chakra reserves wouldn't attract unnecessary attention.
In the afternoons, Natsuo stopped going to the hospital as much, spending some evenings experimenting with mice to gather data on accelerated growth.
At night, Natsuo practiced his chakra control and organized his knowledge from the day.
Whenever she felt the current exercise becoming less difficult, she increased the difficulty. This involved either increasing the number of sheets of paper attached to her body or increasing the weight her chakra cords lifted while drawing different images with sand of varying colors.
And before going to sleep, he would enter his mind palace to organize his memories.
Of course, he would also open the first door of the opening for a few minutes before closing it and healing his body.
As for the reason why he stopped going to the hospital so often?
What happened was that Mito didn't want Kushina to spend her time in the village alone, and asked her to come in the afternoons to train with her.
Since he saw no difficulty in this and could take time off from the hospital for his experiments, Natsuo agreed. Besides, he could begin his fuinjutsu training while Kushina did hers.
Mito agreed when Natsuo asked her to learn fuinjutsu.
Now, in addition to practicing elemental transformation while his real body attends the academy, his shadow clones also practice calligraphy, and at night he checks on the progress of his clones.
Although Natsuo had not practiced calligraphy and his handwriting was not very good, it only took a week for his clones to bring their calligraphy to the level necessary to start making basic seals.
When Mito saw that his handwriting was adequate, she began to teach him the basics of fuinjutsu, and Kushina was happy to act as his teacher.
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"I thought we were in trouble," Kushina said as she watched the two people reluctantly leave.
"A ninja can't just cause trouble for a civilian for no reason."
"Otherwise, being eliminated from the ninja ranks will be the least of their worries."
"Even though we're in the academy, until we graduate we won't be considered ninjas," Natsuo said as he watched the two young men, an older brother and a younger brother, leave.
These two came to cause trouble because the younger brother received a beating from Kushina at the academy and went to complain to his older brother.
Ever since Kushina arrived at the academy, she has always become violent when other students bother her about her hair or for being a foreigner.
While Natsuo initially defended her and no one wanted to mess with the student of the First Hokage's granddaughter, he quickly realized that it was no longer necessary when the redhead physically defended herself when they started calling her 'Tomato' and quickly earned the nickname Bloody Habanero.
Of course, one of the children who received a beating from Kushina did not stand idly by and brought his older brother, who was a genius, to avenge him.
Natsuo didn't know if the young ninja had been tricked by his younger brother or simply didn't care, but he had come here with the goal of hitting her, and Natsuo wasn't going to stand idly by in this situation.
Of course, it wasn't necessary for him to act physically.
A few words mentioning his teacher and the crime of harming a student at the academy while being a ninja himself were enough to make him reluctantly leave with his younger brother.
"You have to mention it to your grandmother," Natsuo said as he headed towards the Senju clan compound with Kushina.
As on several occasions, he would spend the afternoons there practicing Fuinjutsu with Kushina.
"I don't think it's necessary."
"In the end nothing happened, right?" said Kushina, who didn't want to create a big problem with the matter.
As a stranger in a place that is not her home, Kushina did not want to cause trouble and have her grandmother Mito intervene.
"Nothing happened because I told him the consequences of his actions."
"Otherwise, that guy would have beaten you up and humiliated you," Natsuo said seriously.
If this time he had decided not to go to the Senju clan compound and instead spent his afternoon experimenting with mice in his room, Kushina would have been in trouble.
Since he considered Kushina his friend, Natsuo was annoyed at the thought of that possibility.
"Well," Kushina said, lowering her head.
Since arriving in the Leaf Village, he always receives stares from others who realize he is not a local because of the color of his hair.
Although it is not unusual to have a hair color other than black or brown, the color red had never been seen in the village by most of the villagers.
Mito Uzumaki is now an old woman and her hair has long since turned white, and very few people remember her among the civilians or other ninja population.
Whenever she walked alone through the village, she could hear many people talking about her and pointing at her.
Even at school, he doesn't have as many friends as he initially hoped.
Only Natsuo and some of his friends spoke to her, and the rest stayed away from her.
Before long, the duo arrived at the Senju clan compound and were greeted by a few maids.
Looking at Mito, who was alone in the dining room, Natsuo knew that Tsunade must be busy at the hospital since she wasn't here as she normally was.
"Mrs. Mito"
"Grandmother"
When they entered the dining room, the two children greeted the older woman and she welcomed them with a smile.
The two children sat down and the maids quickly served them their lunches.
"Kushina," Natsuo said as he looked at Kushina and nodded at Mito.
"Ah, yes," Kushina said, remembering what had happened recently, and mentioned it to her grandmother.
"Oh, I see," said Mito as she ate.
"Thank you Natsuo for helping Kushina," Mito said when Kushina told her the rest of the story.
Natsuo nodded and Mito looked back at Kushina.
"If something like this happens, you have to tell me immediately."
"Don't hide it," Mito said with a stern expression because Kushina didn't want to mention this.
Besides being part of her clan, Kushina was also important to the village, and it would be wrong if she held a grudge against the village for any reason.
"Yes, Grandma," said Kushina.
To lighten the mood, Mito mentioned a new seal that Kushina will learn, and the little redhead smiled happily.
In this village, far from her home in the land of whirlpools, practicing fuinjutsu was the only thing that kept her happy.
Natsuo sighed mentally because he still hadn't reached the same level of fuinjutsu as Kushina.
He was still a rookie and it would be some time before he could catch up to the redhead.
In the afternoon, the two children spent the next few hours listening to Mito, who guided them in their fuinjutsu training, and Natsuo returned to the orphanage before nightfall.