In the end, Marion stormed off cursing under his breath. Pinas was clearly useless tonight—expecting him to throw down in a gang war was a fantasy.
Marion's silhouette disappeared around the corner of the stairwell. The moment it did, Pinas—who had been lying there pale as a sheet, face wet with tears, looking like a dying fat pig—instantly flipped upright off the bed with a burst of energy, crossed the room in quick strides, and shut the door tight.
"Ha! Marion, you disgusting creep! Once this blows over and you're still breathing, I swear I'll make you pay in ways you won't enjoy. God, that hurt—hitting that hard, just like Maya Hansen said it would. 'Fight for a bright future' — you just want me as cannon fodder! I'm not that stupid!"
Muttering curses, Pinas fished a carton of milk out of the cabinet, didn't bother checking the expiration date, and drank it straight down in long, desperate gulps.
He was exhausted beyond words. High school seniors had to run 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) — what the hell! He had no idea how he was going to face tomorrow. And that Maya Hansen—she wasn't human. She looked so small and fragile, but after running 30 full kilometers she wasn't even breathing hard. She looked almost exactly the same as when she'd started.
The 30-plus guys—all of them fit, athletic—and not one of them walked home on their own legs. Maya Hansen had apparently arranged for a squad of PE specialists ahead of time, specifically to carry people.
And after all that, she had the nerve to say the school bus smelled too much like sweat, and jogged home with her backpack on.
Jogged. Home. With her backpack on.
That girl was absolutely inhuman. From this point forward: never, under any circumstances, try to block her path again. That wasn't blocking—that was walking straight into a beating.
After draining the milk carton, Pinas finally felt vaguely human again. He rinsed off with cold water, skipped dinner entirely, and burrowed straight into his blankets.
After Marion left Pinas's building, he continued making the rounds—visited student after student. At a few places, parents happened to be home and physically chased him out at gunpoint. At the ones where students weren't home or had no parents around, the scene was identical to Pinas: bodies splayed across mattresses, barely alive, unable to stand up to answer the door, let alone throw a punch.
In the end, Marion didn't recruit a single student soldier that night.
President Maya had indeed jogged home.
The troublemakers had taken three full hours just to grind through 20 kilometers (12.4 miles). By the time the last of them crawled across the 30-kilometer mark, it was well past nine in the evening.
After tidying herself up and walking out the school gates, it was nine o'clock on the dot. Under normal circumstances, Maya would have been watching TV or already asleep by now.
The school bus? Out of the question. Those guys had finished the run dripping with sweat—you could've poured half a pound of it out of their shoes. The smell alone was a biohazard. President Maya would have to be out of her mind to share a vehicle with them, even in the front seat.
As for why she didn't just use a shadow clone to handle the run—well, setting aside the obvious issue of exposing her abilities, there was a more practical reason. Dismissing a shadow clone after hours of use sent a wave of accumulated fatigue and memories crashing back into her. Last night she'd only used one to save a few people and sightsee, and it had nearly knocked her flat. A multi-hour run would be far worse. She had no desire to collapse in front of Jennifer.
There was also a second reason: shadow clones couldn't continue cultivating chakra.
This wasn't a plot hole, a retcon, or even Maya's past life's fault. It was simply Maya's own situation, which was fundamentally different from Naruto Uzumaki's.
What did Naruto's clones train? Jutsu. And Naruto was... well, "wise in a foolish way" — or maybe just kind of dumb. Either way, he'd always learned techniques the slow way—poor chakra control meant he needed enormous repetition. Even the Rasengan, hundreds of episodes in, still required clone assistance just to form properly.
What did Maya's clones train? Chakra itself—specifically, physical conditioning.
The Hansen Sage Cultivation Method was fundamentally about using a half-formed sage chakra to refine the body. As the body strengthened, her chakra capacity grew alongside it. Her jutsu learning speed, on the other hand, was already terrifying—strong sensory ability, precise control, and a body carrying the Third Hokage's "Shinobi Scholar" constitution meant she absorbed techniques effortlessly.
Maya's current ninjutsu stat stood at 155. An elite chunin managed around 40. Even an elite jonin topped out around 160—meaning in peacetime, with enough mission experience, she could plausibly reach Special Jonin.
The Hansen Sage Cultivation Method worked by running chakra along cultivation meridian pathways from the Hunyuan Scripture. When the two systems interacted, a spontaneous mutation occurred—chakra began absorbing ambient natural energy on its own, producing a pale golden, diluted sage chakra. As this sage chakra slowly dispersed through her body, her muscles and bones absorbed it, continuously upgrading her physical capabilities.
The problem was that maintaining shadow clones consumed enormous quantities of chakra over hours. What remained in her core body wasn't enough to power the cultivation circuit. And clones couldn't cultivate the physical refinement method anyway—because the method improved the real body, and clones only transmitted memory and experience back upon dispersal.
That was why President Maya ran the route herself.
By the time she got home, Jennifer had already eaten and gone to bed—parenting was exhausting in its own way.
Jack was still up, in the living room, writing furiously by hand.
The apartment was barely 50 square meters (about 538 square feet). Jennifer's bedroom took up about 15 square meters (160 square feet). Maya's room was around 9 square meters (about 97 square feet). The bathroom and kitchenette ate up another 10-odd square meters (about 108 square feet). That left the living room—a tight, cramped space of under 17 square meters (about 183 square feet).
Which explained why President Maya spent nearly every afternoon at school practicing jutsu. Her council office alone was 25 square meters (about 269 square feet), and the abandoned biology lab was larger still—at least 40 square meters (about 430 square feet).
Jack didn't even have a proper study. He used to set up a folding table in what passed for a sitting area, but little James had claimed that corner. So now he worked in the living room.
And "work" was the right word. Jack was writing a screenplay—not his submission for Lucas's Star Wars pitch, but his own project, something he intended to direct himself.
At this point, President Maya honestly didn't know what to say about it. He didn't have a single investor lined up yet, and here he was burning the midnight oil on a script. That was dedication, she supposed. That was love.
She didn't disturb him. He was fighting for his dream, and as family, she should support that—even if her support amounted to being an approving spectator. Assuming, of course, that Jack ever gave her a reason to cheer.
Jennifer had cooked tonight: pork bone soup with carrots. There was plenty of broth left over. Maya was satisfied.
Not wanting to interrupt Jack's concentration, Maya lifted the whole stainless steel pot onto the gas burner and left it to heat up while she sliced some bread.
That was dinner for the president tonight.
A small figure stood beside the steaming pot, periodically dipping a bread slice into the broth, then taking small, careful bites.
Under the dim yellow lamplight, in the stillness of the late evening—that lone little silhouette looked almost pitiable.
But that was only how an outside observer might have seen it. President Maya herself felt nothing of the sort. She was happy. Content.
Because today, she had saved at least ten of her classmates' lives.
Even if it had cost her time and effort, even if dinner was nothing but leftover food—she felt it was worth it.
Because life is priceless.