Naruto wanted to argue with his teacher, but Arata grabbed him, and the two walked out of the classroom door dejectedly.
"I'm sorry," Arata apologized with guilt; he knew that Naruto was punished because of his words, and that made him feel a little guilty.
"Ah, it doesn't matter." Naruto, on the other hand, did not care much about it, his face still full of curiosity: "But I want to know, what do you mean by what you just asked sensei?"
"Don't ask, it's still too early for you." Arata patted his shoulder and looked up at the sky with a helpless expression.
"Tsk, isn't it too early for you too?" Kushina's voice sounded.
"That's different," Arata said calmly.
"Oh? How?"
"I am a man who dares to confess his love to my good brother's mother. This is not a big deal for me."
"You feel very proud about doing it, right?" Kushina twitched her mouth and said.
"You can't call that being proud. I am just a helpless person who has been cursed," Arata said with emotion as he opened his dead fish eyes.
Kushina was silent for a moment and complained, "This curse of yours is really a bit crazy."
Not only are the choices weird, the punishments are even worse.
"Alas," Arata sighed, not wanting to mention this sadness again.
After a while, Shikamaru also ran out with his head hanging down.
"Eh? Little Maru, why did you..." Naruto looked confused.
"Who are you calling Little Maru? Don't listen to everything that bastard Arata says!" Shikamaru twitched the corner of his mouth and said calmly, "It was too stuffy in the classroom, so I came out to get some fresh air."
"As expected of our brother Little Maru!" Arata gave him a thumbs-up.
Shikamaru suddenly lost his temper; veins popped up on his forehead, and he said, "As I said, don't call me that, it's disgusting!"
"Sure, Little Maru! No problem, Little Maru!"
"Fuck off!"
"We are brothers for life! Your actions make me feel that it was really worth sacrificing my moral integrity to save your mother!"
"I regret coming out now!"
While they were laughing and making noise outside the classroom, inside the classroom, Teacher Mizuki's face looked very ugly at that time.
Previously, he was caught off guard and admitted in a roundabout way that he had done something embarrassing. He could already imagine what his reputation will be like in the future.
His identity, future, and reputation in Konoha have all been ruined.
Damn it!
That little boy Arata really deserves to die! And that little demon fox deserves to die in the most cruel way possible as well!
Mizuki wanted to rush out of the classroom with a kunai and immediately cut off the heads of the two little bastards before kicking them around like balls.
But the remaining sanity in him did not allow him to act on impulse directly. He knew it would only worsen things.
He craved revenge on those boys, but now is not the time.
'Since things are already like this, there is only one way...' Mizuki secretly made up his mind to contact the man he had been selling secrets of the village to as soon as possible after leaving the school.
The sky gradually darkened, and the night sky was dotted with stars.
The lights in the Hokage's office were still bright. Hiruzen Sarutobi had a pipe in his mouth as he faced the chunin standing before him with a gentle expression on his face, "Iruka, has Naruto been good in school recently?"
Conversations like these were repeated once every month to keep track of the seedlings in the academy.
Iruka thought this was Hokage-sama's care and love for Naruto, but in fact, his true intentions were to ensure that Jinchuuriki would not get out of control or have the ideas that he was not supposed to have.
Usually, Iruka would always smile and talk about Naruto's various performances in school. But at that moment, his expression was a little complicated.
"Did something happen?" Sarutobi Hiruzen was an experienced man, and he felt something was wrong from the look on the man's face. For a moment, Iruka's expression sent alarms in his mind.
"Sandaime-sama, while Naruto was taking the Fire Will class..." Iruka turned his face and said softly, "Mr. Mizuki kicked him out of the class."
"Is that so?" Sarutobi Hiruzen secretly breathed a sigh of relief. He thought Naruto had lost control or something. Just getting kicked out of class was already a common occurrence for Naruto.
However, as the benevolent Hokage, he couldn't show any indifference on his face. Instead, he asked patiently, "What's going on?"
"I asked the students in the class, and the origin of the matter was Arata." Iruka lowered his head, and a complex expression appeared on his face.
"Arata? Kobayashi Arata?" Sarutobi Hiruzen also knew about every single person who had daily contact with Naruto.
In his eyes, Arata's background was very simple.
He was the child of ninjas of Konoha who had died early on, causing the boy to grow up in a Konoha orphanage.
He was not a talented and gifted person, nor was he a failure.
To sum it up in Hiruzen Sarutobi's own words, he was just plain ordinary!
He didn't object to the presence of ordinary civilians near Naruto or even as his friends; on the contrary, he even supported it as it would deepen Naruto's affection for the village.
"Yes." Iruka paused for a second before nodding, "Arata exposed Teacher Mizuki's embarrassing story in the class in front of all the kids. Naruto was confused, so he asked questions about it. As a result, he angered Teacher Mizuki."
Iruka explained the whole incident without taking sides.
"Embarrassing thing?" This actually made Sarutobi Hiruzen interested. He raised his eyebrows and asked, "What embarrassing thing was it?"
"It was the incident that happened in the afternoon the day before yesterday. Arata accidentally saw Teacher Mizuki bend down and perform some aerobic b-breathing on... a fish."