The two bald thugs leered at the girl, their faces twisted with filthy grins. They rubbed their palms together and even drooled openly — the kind of disgusting sight that could make anyone's skin crawl.
"Heh heh, little lady, don't get the wrong idea," one of them drawled. "We just wanna take you out for a drink, have a nice little chat about life, and then we'll send you right back home. How's that sound?"
"Yeah, yeah, don't misunderstand," the other chimed in with mock sincerity. "We're good guys, real gentlemen. We'd never do anything… inappropriate."
The girl didn't believe a word of it. Her eyes were wide with terror as she kept backing away, calling for help over and over, her voice trembling.
From behind the trunk of a nearby tree, Mizuhara Aran muttered under his breath, "Scum."
One of the bald men could no longer restrain himself. With a guttural shout, he lunged toward her.
Startled, the girl stumbled backward — only to slam into the rough bark of a tree. Her back hit hard. There was nowhere else to run.
The bald man loomed closer, step by step. Her cries became louder, tinged now with the unmistakable sound of sobbing, as tears welled in her eyes.
Aran couldn't hold back any longer.
"Ahem."
The sudden, sharp cough cut through the tense air by the riverbank.
Both bald men froze, startled, and spun toward the sound.
When they saw it was just some kid — a skinny boy, barely a teenager — their initial alarm melted away, replaced by mocking smirks.
"Where'd this brat come from?" one scoffed. "Shouldn't you be home helping your mommy cook dinner instead of trying to play the hero?"
"Hah! Look at him! Still wet behind the ears — not even fully grown yet," the other jeered.
Their laughter was loud and brazen, as if Mizuhara Aran wasn't even worth taking seriously.
The girl glanced at the newcomer and realized he was about her age. The flicker of hope she'd felt when she first saw him was instantly extinguished. Her face paled, despair setting in — there was no way someone like him could stop these two.
But Aran, with his system at his back, looked at them with open disdain.
"You have two minutes to leave," he said coldly. "If you don't… you won't be leaving at all."
The bald men only laughed harder.
One of them sneered. "Hah! Did you hear that, big bro? He says he's giving us two minutes to get out of here!" He doubled over, cackling.
The one addressed as "big bro" bared his teeth. "Enough talking, little bro. Take him out. Anyone dumb enough to stand against us is asking to die."
"Got it."
The other thug nodded, then whipped out a gleaming kunai from his pouch. He dragged the blade slowly across his neck in a mock execution gesture, his eyes locked on Aran.
Aran blinked in surprise. Oh, crap… I might've overplayed this.
He had assumed they were just your run-of-the-mill street punks. He hadn't expected them to be carrying kunai.
Anyone with a kunai was, at the very least, a genin-level ninja. And from the look in their eyes, if things got ugly, they might actually have the skills to do him some real harm.
The bald man with the kunai grinned nastily and charged.
And yes — this wasn't some pretender. This was a real shinobi.
Despite the sudden chill of fear in his chest, Aran wasn't the kind to panic.
His breathing steadied. His eyes locked onto the man's movements.
And slowly… it was as if the bald man's speed began to drop. Every motion, every swing of the arm, every step forward — Aran could see it all in crystal clarity.