In Naruto: Reborn With Talent

by Little Merger

A soul was transmigrated into Narutoverse but was refused to be given any sort of insta-OP power, instead, he could choose from three talents. Follow him and his loved ones on their journey to become strong as they pave their own path through the battle-filled world of Naruto. Will they be villains? For some, surely. Will they be heroes? For others, maybe. But anything they do is d

13. 385

In Naruto: Reborn With Talent #Chapter 385 - Ch385. Training Mission - Read In Naruto: Reborn With Talent Chapter 385 - Ch385. Training Mission Online - All Page - NOVEL NEXT

Playvolume00:00/01:33

Truvid

fullScreen

Ads by Pubfuture

The island appeared north of the Elemental Nations, far enough that nobody on the northern shores could see it but close enough that sea trade would be possible.

This placement was deliberate since the Village Hidden on the Other Side was the northernmost settlement of the Elemental Nations.

Kaguya gently put the island back into the ocean, taking her time so she wouldn't create tsunamis since that could be quite a pain in the ass for the Other-sided village and the Elemental Nations as a whole.

When the island was finally settled in the water, Kaguya started embedding it into the seabed to anchor it better. It was an annoying job, but if she didn't do it, the island could eventually face quite a few problems.

She also made sure to align the biggest port on the island's side that faced the Elemental Nations with the Village on the Other Side, making the distance between them short.

Since nobody would know about the island for quite a while, Rei definitely wanted his companies to get some nice trading deals with the countries there before other traders of the Elemental Nations found out about this new juicy opportunity.

Honestly, Rei was not interested in ruling the island. There was nothing special in there. No resources, no technology, and not even the people. The populace was backward and superstitious, exactly what one would expect from medieval people.

They were useless to Rei for the most part.

A long process of grooming and training would be required to make use of them and frankly, Rei was not inclined to invest the time and resources for that. People of Elemental Nations were sufficient for his village's needs.

It wasn't like he couldn't just send his ninjas to secretly create gold and silver mines in the uninhabited mountain ranges of the island either. One advantage of dealing with a medieval world was that they had no idea about the resources hiding deep in those mountains nor did they have the means to discover them.

Rei's ninjas could create these mines quite easily while making hidden outposts and infrastructure for spreading their mission activity all over the island. After all, having teleportation seals would give them a massive advantage.

...

Rei knew that Kaguya's work on embedding the island into the seabed would take time since it was a delicate process. He was definitely not about to wait for her.

Ads by Pubfuture

Instead, he took Riful, Isley, and the Claymores back to the Village on the Other Side. The group gawked quite a lot at the buildings and different architecture... and especially at the people jumping from roof to roof with physical prowess, they would expect only from Claymore.

During their walk through the village, they saw many sights that wowed them and Rei deliberately led them through more shinobi-oriented districts. Showing them that there were other people capable of taking them down if they became rebellious would just increase the future morale.

In the end, they arrived towards Tsunade's research center where Rei gave the Claymores and two Abyssal Ones into the gentle care of Tsunade who, Rei noticed, already had her hands full with another group of silver-eyed blondes, which surprised not only him but also the Claymores he brought with him.

Realizing Konan was already done with her task, he decided to pay her a visit and ask about her mission.

Finding her wasn't hard. In her usual fashion, she was in her office with Izumi, enjoying sake and leisurely talking about the mission.

This tradition started when Konan had to comfort Izumi after she returned from a particularly nasty mission where she was forced to kill an entire orphanage of kids who were made into unthinking and bloodthirsty monsters through experimentation.

Konan knew talking helped and getting some comforting words alongside advice was priceless after such an experience and she would be damned if she didn't make sure her apprentice was mentally fine.

"May I join you, girls? I am quite interested in how it went too." Rei quipped as he entered the room before walking towards the table and taking one of the free chairs.

He didn't get a verbal answer but Izumi slightly blushed and fidgeted while Konan was already pouring him a glass of sake, showing her consent.

"The training mission was a massive success, of course." She said and put the glass in front of Rei, "From the three hundred jonins participating, we only got five injured and zero casualties." Konan huffed.

"And I reckon these five will be heavily punished." Rei wryly smiled.

"Naturally." Konan threw a half-hearted glare at him, "You know well the only way they could get injured with all the preparations we put in is if they decided to confront their enemies by themselves instead of as a team. There is no place for foolish personal heroics in our profession."

Rei decided to take the intelligent way out and stayed quiet about this topic. It made him a bit sheepish. Konan loved to remind him of the time he decided to fight Toneri by himself.

It worked out itself quite well but Konan was still a bit sullen because of that decision of his.

Ads by Pubfuture

He had to agree with her on this, though.

There were three hundred jonins put into a hundred three-man cells and each cell had either one target or was in reserve for another cell, looking after their backs.

That made three to six jonins for each Claymore.

Plus the Claymores were not all jonin level. Rei would be generous and say that Claymores under rank 15 started to gain a measure of jonin level capabilities. But all of those had two teams assigned to deal with them.

Only the Claymores number five to one started to enter or were at S-rank physical capability alongside having some special ability like long-range sensing or regeneration or something else. But those were given to two teams of S-rank ninjas to deal with.

Getting injured with these kinds of odds?

Their ninjas were either incompetent or arrogant since Claymores in general were just an inferior budget version of ninjas.

They were very disadvantaged in a fight against ninjas considering they lacked Genjutsu and Ninjutsu while their Taijutsu capabilities were largely underdeveloped and unexplored, nor did they receive any sort of extensive combat training.

Yes, they could fight but their swordsmanship was not impressive. It was a bit sad. Some of them developed a nice move and gained a moniker for it but that was honestly it. Claymores depended more on their instincts and brute force to swing their massive swords around. There was not much technique to speak of.

The only way their highly trained and hardened ninjas who were extremely well-versed in fighting as a team could get injured while fighting a Claymore was if they demanded one on one combat and then were arrogant enough to limit themselves to taijutsu, maybe bukijutsu.

"Just don't be too harsh on them." Rei weakly tried to make these idiots' punishment lighter but from the way Konan snorted, he probably just made it worse for them. 'Oh, well...' He mentally shrugged.

There was no place for disobeying orders in a militaristic village full of trained killers. Their ninjas had a clear order to confront a Claymore as a team and capture their target without forcing her to awaken.

If it was up to Rei, he would punish not only those five individuals but their entire teams for not preventing them from disobeying the orders.

Rei then turned towards Izumi who quietly observed them with interest written on her face. He and Konan used only three lines but their conversation was mostly non-verbal. Every twitch was a signal for a sufficiently trained ninja. There was no need to say much when they could understand each other with just a look.

"And you? How was facing Luciela?"

After asking that, Rei's eyebrows twitched when he saw how Izumi's smile widened and her eyes suddenly sparkled while she started to open her mouth to answer.

From her bright expression, he instantly knew Luciela's fate was not enviable...

Ads by Pubfuture

Report chapter Comments

"It was great!" Izumi exclaimed before her expression slightly dropped and became a bit sullen, "Although, she refused to join us willingly."

Rei... had no idea what to think about that. He discreetly glanced at Konan only to see her subtly shaking her head, signaling that he didn't want to know.

There was just a slight problem with that.

He did want to know.

"Hm. From your initial reaction, I assume you persuaded her, then?" He asked and smiled when he saw Izumi beamingly nod.

The way Konan instantly facepalmed at his question was a bit concerning but Rei was a ninja. How bad could it really be?

"Yes! It took a severe beating and a long session of Tsukuyomi but at long last, I persuaded her to come with me!" Izumi proudly announced, her eyes shining in a clear 'praise me' light.

Alas, Konan decided to give her opinion on the matter, instantly shooting down any chance of Izumi being praised by Rei.

"The woman is a drooling mess in the corner of one of our better prison cells, rocking herself back and forth while hugging her knees and constantly muttering something about not wanting to be eaten." Konan dryly deadpanned, causing Izumi's smile to freeze.

"Well... I might have been a teensy bit heavy-handed." She huffed and crossed her hands on her chest as she looked away in a petulant embarrassment.

"A teensy bit, you say?" Konan exclaimed in exasperated disbelief, "Luciela will need months of psychological help after what you have done to her."

"Don't exaggerate, Master." Izumi grumbled as if she was slighted, "I can give her a therapy worth months of time in under three seconds through the Tsukuyomi."

Rei winced when he heard that. He knew what Tsukuyomi did and if Izumi really had Luciela under its effect for a long time, especially since Luciela was no ninja and her spiritual energies were in no way all that much cultivated...

He doubted the woman would react well to even seeing Izumi, much less being told the Uchiha girl was going to cast the technique on her again.

Unfortunately, for a good effect of therapy, Luciela would have to be relaxed and the only way for that to happen inside of Tsukuyomi was to prepare her for it. Meaning, she would have to be told what would be happening and with Tsukuyomi being the reason for her mental breakdown in the first place... Yeah, there was no way in hell that was gonna happen.

Rei glanced at Konan, seeing she was also looking at him with the corner of her eyes and they silently agreed this was a very bad idea.

"Out of the question." Konan instantly shot that idea down.

"Rejected." Rei also said with finality in his tone.

Needless to say, Izumi wasn't happy that her idea was refused so readily and showed her displeasure by cutely pouting.

...

With the island relocated, the Organization purged, and the Claymores rounded up, only the hunting of the remaining Yomas needed to be done.

Obviously, Yomas were not natural beings. They did not breed. There was really only one conclusion from that for someone capable of using his brain.

The Yomas were either created by someone or brought to the island from somewhere else.

Meaning, once the Yomas on the island get wiped out, there will be no additional problems with intestines-eating monsters.

Rei and Konan set up some missions for their ninjas to do the work of Claymores and hunt down Yomas as an advertisement of a sort for their future ninja business.

Taking over the Organization's infrastructure wasn't that hard and it would provide quite a bit of influence on the island while it also proved to be a good information-gathering network.

The hunt would be a slow-going process this way and Rei was aware he could have just asked Kaguya to pinpoint the locations of the Yoma and then send people to hunt them down but... why bother?

With no one creating or importing new Yomas, they will eventually get all hunted down. Rei wasn't inconvenienced by their existence at all so there was no need to go out of his way to get rid of them. They could not multiply anymore so his ninjas could take their sweet time.

Should he care that some unfortunate strangers would get devoured by these Yomas in the meantime?

Pfft. Death was a common occurrence in this world. If he tried to prevent every death he could, he wouldn't even have the time to mofu-mofu with his wives. It was simply not worth it.

Now that Rei's intervention in the west was finished, it was once again time to return to the problems at home. Namely...

Anko being her usual bothersome self as she complained she couldn't join the intervention in the west since she had to prepare for the invasion with Konoha ninjas and Kin's inability to cook proper food even if her life depended on it.

What? The upcoming Konoha invasion was not a problem. It was an opportunity!

How often could a guy get a bonafide legitimate reason to invade other villages without the Daimyos and other politicians utterly unable to refute these reasons?

Rei and Tsunade secretly signed many legal documents, even an alliance between Konoha and the Village on the Other Side. If somebody wanted to question the legality of their actions afterward, there would be no basis for it.

Rei knew well what he was planning would definitely be condemned as a planned attack because... that was basically what it was and anybody with half a brain would realize it.

He only needed a good reason to enact his plans. A reason he could hide behind from all the political bullies. A reason he could put in front of their faces while broadly grinning with the knowledge he was 'technically' in the right since he 'technically' did not break any rules.

After that, it would be just the question of greasing the correct hands and no matter how uncomfortable the Daimyos would be, with the pressure and assurances of the Biri-Biri company and the Uzushio Trading Company, they would gladly look aside for some benefits.

Rei could understand why Kages got so used to this kind of power. The feeling that he put in motion events that would affect the whole of the Elemental Nations in a very profound way was quite nice. It was a weird mix of pride and calm smugness.

Frankly put, this feeling was the main reason why the hidden village system would never work as it was first intended. Too many leaders wanted to stay in power, desiring their village to be the strongest.

When Hashirama made Konoha, he aimed to protect the children from needless fighting. The problem was, he forced other ninja clans to form their own villages in order to survive instead of conquering them and bringing them under one banner. This effectively changed the nature of conflict from small-scale skirmishes between clans into bonafide continent-wide wars between large coordinated forces of ninjas.

As time passed by, to keep themselves going, the villages started to propagate their respective Wills like Will of Fire or Will of Rock...

It was just plain old brainwashing to safeguard the loyalty of their ninjas since the higher-ups could no longer depend on clan pride and the feeling of belonging since they had ninjas from more than just one clan under themselves.

And because of these 'Wills', the villages often fought for... nothing. Their reasons for fighting could be summed up in revenge, power, nationality, and just because.

They often said it was to get more land, more resources but that was just plain bullshit.

There was nothing productive in any ninja war so far. Each started because of some small-scale conflict or event that would in no way cause a war if the people did not actually want one, and by the end of the war, all villages were in a heavy deficit of resources and ninjas.

There were no official winners of the war and while Konoha would like to believe they have won every one of them, if one looked at how much they lost during the war, it would become obvious they were far from winners.

There was no winner in any of these wars.

It seemed the villages fought more to keep each other weakened rather than to get something out of it. It was dumb and ruined so much research and potential for development it was not even funny.

Rei managed to create a village that surpassed every other in under a decade and he did so by gathering stray clans and rogue ninjas, training them, and providing them an environment where they were forced to grow stronger.

There was nothing 'special' about Rei's village. Yes, his seals contributed a lot but in the end, any hidden village had the potential to accomplish the same thing. They were just too caught up in the cold war against each other and too unwilling to upset the fragile status quo to even try.

This simply had to stop but Rei was quite aware it wouldn't happen just because he wished it. No. If he wanted to accomplish that, he had to force it.

And that was exactly what he was planning to do.

Report chapter Comments

Rei returned back to Konoha a week before the Chunin Exam finals while Tsunade stayed back to study both Claymores and Yomas.

Last he heard from her, she was checking up on Clare because the girl confessed to having the flesh of another Claymore implanted in her instead of the flesh of Yoma like other Claymores.

Tsunade was gushing about some mad Orochimaru-level experiment that would bring that Claymore back from the dead since her soul was somehow preserved in the flesh implanted in Clare or something.

Rei didn't spend enough time thinking about it to understand how it came to be but it was a quite peculiar thing, but considering there are Jutsu capable of reviving others in various forms... He wasn't really surprised.

Nevertheless, Tsunade was too busy trying to create a body for her dead-rising project.

The fact she was not needed in her own village when it was about to face invasion spoke a lot about how her reforms improved Konoha. The village was capable of fully functioning even without her input and Tsunade had full trust in Shikaku to prepare the best defense plan he could pull out of his ass on such short notice.

It didn't matter that they only got to know about the invasion a month prior. Konoha was ready, be it for invasion or war. Tsunade survived two wars in her lifetime and in both Konoha was scrambling to get everything ready even after the war had already broken out.

She didn't want her village to suffer from something similar and as such, she hoarded a lot of supplies... just in case.

It really helped that with her position as the CEO of the Biri-Biri company, she could have these purchases off the books so nobody got alarmed because Konoha was arming up.

Because of the upcoming invasion, everybody was more or less busy.

Temari was 'training' for the Chunin Exam finals... which meant she was making sure that Suna ANBU was ready for their own role in the conflict, using the time and the excuse of training to not be missed by anyone.

Pakura and Ringo were similarly caught up in preparations and while Pakura was having the time of her life, enjoying the task immensely, Ringo sullenly informed Rei she was not on speaking terms with him until the invasion.

She hated every second of these tedious preparations and according to her, it was Rei's fault since he convinced her to become the Mizukage.

Well... Rei decided to ignore her. She was clearly in her petulant mood. It would pass. As always.

Kaguya had her hands full with her first subordinate Riful. Funnily enough, she took Rei's joke seriously and was 'supervising' Riful's cooking lessons.

Meaning, she was just taste-testing everything Riful made as she learned to cook for her new mistress.

Rei found it quite hilarious so he graciously sent Kin to accompany Riful in her task.

They were similar in a way... both utterly incompetent at cooking. Riful was Yoma and her usual eating habits had to do with raw human intestines, the more bloody the better. Not the tastiest thing for someone with human taste buds.

Honestly, Yoma could eat human food. Most just didn't see the appeal and Riful was firmly in this category. She hasn't eaten anything that wasn't human for centuries. Expecting her to be able to cook human food when she had no idea how it should even taste was... Well, Kaguya had her moments.

As for Kin, she was just hopelessly bad at cooking. No excuse there.

Needless to say, Kaguya was getting more and more frustrated by the day but she was stubborn and refused to give up.

Unfortunately for both Riful and Kin, that meant they could not give up until they made something Kaguya would find tasty. An arduous task, Rei was sure.

And who knows? Maybe repeating the process a few hundreds of times will make Kin at least passable at cooking something easy like... omelet. Maybe she would even finally learn to not include the eggshells in it.

Everybody being busy except him was a very weird feeling for Rei since it was usually him who was occupied with some projects while others had a huge amount of free time.

When Rei reached the Senju Compound, he only found Mei who was sitting in the living room, supremely bored.

She was stationed in Konoha for this month, just in case somebody got trigger happy and attacked before the Chunin Exam finals, and from her cutely scowling expression, Rei quickly gathered she didn't like her time in Konoha much.

Mei and boredom were never a good mix so Rei decided to start a conversation.

"Hi, Mei. Where is Anko? It is somewhat empty here." He said, sitting behind the table, opposite to Mei who instantly straightened up from surprise.

Rei chuckled at her reaction. She was so bored she started zooming out and didn't notice him. That was a bit ridiculous considering Mei was a powerful sensor capable of knowing everything that was going on in the entire village to a disgusting degree but when she was bored, it was hilariously easy to sneak up on her.

"Ah? Anko?" "She exclaimed, a blush coloring her cheeks.

Rei smiled. She probably felt embarrassed at being sneaked upon again. Tsunade and Konan in particular were giving Mei a hard time because of this habit of hers for the longest time.

"Something about needing to heal her broken bones after I dragged her for a spar since I was bored. I haven't seen her for three days already." Mei nonchalantly shrugged, trying to suppress her blush and play off the entire thing as if it never happened.

It did not work, to be honest. But Rei didn't mind her slip in attention. She was just a human. Not a machine. He, however, had a different thing that worried him.

"Mei?" Rei uneasily asked, not knowing if he really wanted to know the answer to his next question but... he was too curious. "Just how much did you injure her?"

"Er... Let's see." Mei put her pointing finger on her chin and scrunched her nose in concentration, "There were four breaks in her spine." She nodded to herself in silent praise at remembering that while Rei promptly facepalmed. That already sounded quite fatal and she was starting with it? Did he even want to know what was to follow?

Mei did not notice Rei's inner turmoil and continued, "Then her left shin was shattered and her pelvis cracked... that one was an accident though." She innocently smiled. For some reason, Rei was really not buying it. "And then her right arm had seven clean breaks and her left shoulder..."

"Okay. I get it. You totally wrecked her. No wonder she is not here, telling one dirty joke after another. The poor woman is probably making a nuisance out of herself in the hospital." Rei sighed, stopping her explanation.

Now that he thought about it, he didn't want to know...

"Muu~," Mei pouted, "she was supposed to be Tsunade's apprentice so I was a bit rougher with her." She then beamed and hit her chest with her fist in a reassuring and confident manner, "No worries, though. She will heal and I went a bit easier on her teammate."

Rei's lips twitched, "A... teammate?"

Anko was not the only casualty?

"Yup. Some spiky white-haired dude wearing a face mask." Mei causally shrugged, oozing disappointment, "I got interested in what he had under that mask but he refused to tell or show me so I was forced to beat him until he could no longer move but... he was just hiding a Sharingan. Boring!" She childishly exclaimed and stretched her limbs like a child throwing a tantrum.

"You poor baby. I can't even imagine how much that made you suffer." Rei said in a mock-understanding manner. He was quite sure Anko and Kakashi suffered much, much worse than whatever disappointment Mei felt and the fact she acted as if Kakashi wronged her because he was hiding 'only' a Sharingan...

'Sigh. I have spoiled her..' Rei inwardly ruefully shook his head.

Report chapter Comments

The Chunin Exam finals were almost upon Konoha and it could be seen from how much the traffic inside the village increased.

One could meet all sorts of people in the streets of Konoha. Rich, foreigners, nobles, businessmen, craftsmen... they were all here to witness the Chunin Exams. Admittedly, it was not just because of these Exams that Konoha was brimming with people.

If Rei had to pick one thing Tsunade was best at, it would surprisingly not be drinking or even healing. It would be making money.

She quickly used the fact that the Chunin Exam is usually the only time a hidden village opens its gates to foreigners and with her influence as Nadetsu Juusen, she made a co-operation between the Biri-Biri company and Konoha to hold several events during these Exams.

She had set up several auctions, theater plays, invited many renowned craftsmen from both the Land of Fire and countries affiliated with the Biri-Biri company, hired the best chefs to cook food in the best restaurants in Konoha during these events, heck... even brothels were better decorated than usual and prepared for a large influx of customers.

Of course, this was Tsunade and that meant Konoha gained several gambling dens just for this occasion.

There was a lot of preparation and all of it was geared to ensure Konoha would immensely financially profit from the fact many foreigners, of which most were important nobles or merchants, were in the village.

The Chunin Exams were simply the best opportunity for such a thing. It was a wonder why no Kage tried this approach. After all, this one event could bring more money to the village than a year-long effort on missions.

The funny thing was... the deal was signed between Nadetsu Juusen and Tsunade Senju. From an outside perspective, it all seemed good and legit. Two leaders made a deal. right?

But Rei could only facepalm when he was informed about it. The deal was legal and nobody could gain-say it but... sigh. It wouldn't be Tsunade if she didn't find a legal loophole to earn herself some gambling money.

Naturally, the deal was beneficial for both Konoha and the Biri-Biri company but it was even more beneficial for both Nadetsu Juusen and Tsunade Senju.

The person who will get her overinflated share of the profits. Twice.

Once for each of her identities.

On another note, with the Chunin Exams so close, Tsunade was forced to stop her experiments for a moment and come back to Konoha.

After all, she was still Konoha's Daimyo and it would not do for her to not be present. Rei didn't envy her the responsibilities of a Daimyo. She had to greet and welcome every visiting Daimyo, show courtesy to the important foreign nobles, take care of their well-being, set up a good hotel for them...

And so the list went.

Needless to say, Tsunade wasn't very happy about it either but it is what it is.

With her return, the quiet Senju Compound became lively and hectic again. Anko returned from the hospital, fully healed, and being her usual annoying self. Karin and Naruto were having a bonding experience... which meant Karin was nagging Naruto until he decided to run for it and hide.

Unfortunately for the sucker, Karin had the Kagura's Mind Eye and it never took her long to find him.

Rei wondered why Naruto did not think of chakra suppressing seals that would allow him to evade Karin since he was quite gifted in the sealing arts. Now, Rei was in dilemma because of that. On one hand, he could tell Naruto and end his suffering or he could just keep quiet and enjoy his suffering.

Heh, of course, he wouldn't tell him.

After all, it was a great learning experience for the boy!

Temari and Pakura also arrived in Konoha and were housed in the Senju Compound, both staying very close to Rei since their arrival. Not that he would complain about that. He liked their definition of 'close'.

The problem was that Mei wanted to get some Rei-time for herself too and the three women started half-heartedly bickering among themselves to pass the time. It would have been fine if they didn't do something that drove any man caught in the womanly crossfire sparse.

When Mei in the middle of their verbal spat turned to Rei and asked, "What do you think?", he froze.

When he noticed that all three women suddenly directed their full attention towards him and expectantly waited for an answer. Obviously, each wanted to hear a different answer so this was a total dick move from Mei as far as Rei was concerned.

There was really only one correct answer to that.

And so, Rei confusedly asked back, "What are you arguing about again?"

It took a few more times before the three women realized Rei would not participate in their argument but Rei eventually reclaimed his peace back.

Sadly, Konan was not yet in Konoha because she had to deal with the administrative problems regarding the three domesticated Yoma and the Claymores.

If she was present, Rei had no doubt she would have protected him from the emotional bullies! She knew how to smack them just right to get her point across.

Rei sorely missed this ability of hers. Especially when it came to his women. As such, he had to resort to ignoring them until they got bored.

The one difference in the Senju Compound was the presence of Tsunade's newest experiment.

Her name was Teresa and she was the Claymore whose flesh was used to 'mutate' Clare into Claymore.

Honestly, the fact Tsunade managed to revive her in under a week and a half was mind-boggling but here she was. Alive and breathing again.

That said, the woman didn't look good. She was akin to a starved rat.

Her limbs were twig-like and thin, her stomach was as sunken as her cheeks and eyes, and she was always gritting her teeth because of the perpetual pain she was feeling.

Being dead for well over a decade had its consequences and since Tsunade did not 'sacrifice' anything to bring Teresa back, the Claymore was more like a walking corpse at the moment.

It was fine though. Tsunade reassured everyone that Teresa would eventually regain her physical fitness. Her body simply needed time and healing.

Her mind, however, was worse. Her mind was fractured and she didn't remember much from her 'past' life. When Clare first met her, she tried to hug her and that made Teresa freak out because she had no idea who Clare was.

Clare wasn't very happy about that...

The problem with Teresa's mind was that she was dead for too long. Her 'soul' might have been bound to the flesh implanted in Clare... somehow. But according to Tsunade, her mind was preserved as a spiritual essence and after such a long time without a proper anchor... well, Teresa's mind did not take it well.

The fact that Claymores leaned towards physical energy and had extremely underdeveloped spiritual energy did not help her case.

Nobody knew if she would regain all or only some of her memories. The only certainty was that Teresa would eventually remember at least a bit of her past life.

This method of self-revival was firmly labeled as unreliable because of the consequences it had on Teresa. It was also because of these consequences that Teresa was staying with Tsunade and was 'under observation' for the time being.

For all they knew, her body could crumble at any given moment from how weak it was currently. She really needed a doctor to be always near her.

That made Rei wonder when he became a medic-nin since it was him who was playing nanny for Teresa while Tsunade was dealing with her responsibilities as a Daimyo.

Report chapter Comments

Rei sat on a roof of a house, blending in with the hundreds of other Konoha ninjas while looking at the street leading from the Hokage Tower towards the arena where the finals would take place.

The street was full of civilians standing on the left and right sides, eagerly watching the procession that was currently going on.

This was Tsunade's idea on how to properly greet the foreign Kages and show them and their villages respect. Doing it separately for each of them when they arrived in Konoha would have been a bother so this way, everybody would be announced and introduced to the crowd while walking from the Hokage Tower towards the arena.

It did wonders for the Kages' feelings of self-importance.

The Raikage... Rei had to sigh and shake his head in exasperation as the massive musclehead soaked the attention of the crowd, visibly feeling smug all the while Killer B was beside him, rapping and 'dancing' his way through the procession.

Rei had no idea which one of them was the bigger clown.

Sure, the civilians were finding them cool but... he wondered why the two were not feeling even a shred of embarrassment.

From what Rei heard, Tsunade had to let him go first in the procession because he wouldn't have it any other way. Fortunately, the Tsuchikage had a bit more political understanding and that made him reserved about this procession so he didn't demand to go first too.

The midget Tsuchikage walked silently, not bothering to greet the crowd but Rei noticed he was a bit straighter and his nose was just a tad bit held higher than usual as he strutted through the street alongside his guards.

The next leader was a shock for everyone gathered who didn't have previous intel. The man who came out of the Hokage Tower next, walking like a snake stalking his prey with a smirk on his face as the crowd booed and jeered, was Orochimaru in his role as the Otokage.

Because of the laws that safeguarded the visiting Kages, he couldn't really be touched despite his status as a rogue ninja. It would have brought a lot of problems for Konoha if he died inside of the village during this event.

Tsunade found it funny that he had the balls to show up in his capacity as Otokage but since he did, she would welcome him with open arms and a promise of removing his manhood if he tried something.

Both just cordially smiled at each other, both knowing Orochimaru showed up only because he wanted to 'try something'. But at least his arrival was peaceful because neither wanted to break the appearances.

As such, here he was, walking through the crowd of angry people and seeming to enjoy every second of it.

To be fair, Orochimaru mostly ignored the crowd and with the corner of his eyes looked towards the balcony where Konoha clan heads were gathered. There, Hiruzen Sarutobi was trying to combust him with his gaze with the sheer rage it conveyed.

No wonder the Snake Sannin had the time of his life.

There was a reason why Tsunade let these three go first and the reason became apparent when the next group appeared from the Hokage tower.

Pakura with grumpy Sasori beside her, acting as her guard, Ringo with Raiga, and Shikaku, guarded by no one since there were hundreds of Konoha shinobi all around, walked out side by side.

The crowd raged in excitement, applauding the loudest simply because this was Konoha so most of them were Konoha's civilians and the Hokage was walking in front of them.

Shikaku was surprisingly a very well-liked Hokage by both ninjas and civilians. A part of it was Tsunade's reforms and the bit of credit he got for enacting them as his Daimyo wanted but other than that, Shikaku really tried to be a good leader and it was felt by Konoha's inhabitants.

Neither of these three Kages showed any visible reaction to the crowd's loud cheering though.

Ringo looked fed-up, barely holding herself from scowling as Raiga boredly followed her, Pakura was too serious for her own good, showing a strong front for the crowd while Sasori was visibly annoyed, and Shikaku... he just sluggishly walked forward, his head dropping low every so often as if he was about to fall asleep.

It was the ninjas, especially the experienced veterans who understood how politics worked and how they affected their work and the dynamics between the villages, that looked shocked when the three leaders appeared side by side.

It was a clear message of their upcoming alliance and that spelled future conflict. And if the majority of Konoha ninjas were shocked, the other foreign ninjas were pale as snow and shitting their pants.

Rei inwardly snickered, knowing exactly which 'civilians' were just infiltrators from Kumo and Iwa. Their expressions were priceless as they realized they might be fucked.

Unfortunately for them, it was too late to call off their plan and their respective leaders were already almost near the arena. Even if Tsuchikage and Raikage were informed of this and got spooked, they had to attend the Chunin Exam finals. They had no time scrambling in order to change the plan, much less fully call it off at this stage.

Naturally, the entire procession was just one big farce.

Tsunade simply wanted to show that Konoha is the 'bigger man' and can show respect to the other Kages. No other village had such a grand welcome for the visiting Kages during their own Chunin Exams either.

In short, it was also a flex.

Tsunade was subtly showing to foreigners that Konoha was better than them. That it was a 'good' village.

Considering she was currently seated on a balcony belonging to a luxurious restaurant with many visiting Daimyos as they watched the procession... There certainly was merit in keeping up these appearances.

Unsurprisingly, neither the Daimyo of Lightning nor the Daimyo of Earth showed up. But... who cared, right?

Frankly, Rei knew Pakura and Ringo should be offended by this move but he knew they wouldn't care. Kiri and Suna were always more secretive in nature. They did not care much for prestige. They had their reputation and one procession would not affect that.

They just found the entire thing bothersome to the extreme.

...

The procession finally ended and what followed was an hour full of people moving to the arena and finding seats while Daimyos used a special entrance to get to the VIP area that also served as a restaurant in case they got hungry during the matches.

Kages were already seated in their own area, Tsuchikage stoic and Raigake disgruntled. They did not appreciate it when the Mizukage, Kazekage, and Hokage showed up together.

Rei sat with Konan in the VIP area for Daimyos. She was not officially a Kage so she didn't go and sit with them despite being the representative of Uzushio. It was also a bit of security assurance for Tsunade.

After all, if the Daimyos got hurt in the upcoming upheaval, it would be bad for Konoha even if it came out of it unscathed. Konan was mostly there to protect them.

When everybody was seated, Tsunade finally stood up, slowly trailed her gaze over the crowd until it quieted down, and then she smiled before exclaiming,

"Let the Konoha's Chunin Exam finals begin!"

Report chapter Comments

Rei watched as the proctor stepped inside of the arena, followed by the chunin wannabes.

The proctor was surprisingly Hayate Gekko. Since Suna was not going to invade, there was nobody to kill the guy so he got the position.

Of course, with how tight the security was in Konoha and with the number of seals strewn around the village, if any Konoha ninja was attacked in Konoha, the place would be teeming with Konoha ninjas a few seconds later.

Rei really had no idea how Baki could kill Hayate in the middle of Konoha with no one the wiser as to what happened. Konoha was supposed to be a freaking ninja village and they had no one and nothing watching over foreign ninjas in their territory? They allowed a murder of their ninja to happen inside of their village right after Orochimaru killed a team from Taki... inside of their village?

When he saw that scene in his past life, Rei didn't really care or think about it but now he had a bit more knowledge about how hidden villages worked, or rather, how they should work. He couldn't comprehend how incompetent Konoha's higher-ups must have been to allow for that to happen twice in a row.

Once would have been understandable. Especially if the killer was Orochimaru. The problem still was that no one knew about him... which meant there was no sufficient revamp of security after his defection... but it was understandable.

But after that, Konoha's ANBU should have been everywhere.

How could a guy die in the middle of the village with no one witnessing it?

Rei awkwardly smiled and decided to forego that trail of thoughts as it led to nowhere. He still threw a glance at Hiruzen who seemed frustrated, trying not to glare at Orochimaru sitting in the Kage area.

Looking back towards the arena, Rei noticed the finalists were finally gathered.

There was the entire Team Seven composed of Hinata Hyuuga, Naruto Uzumaki, and Sasuke Uchiha.

This made Tsunade smug and gleeful. The kids had no chance against half of the contestants but the fact they all made it to the finals with this kind of competition was enough for their promotion.

They did not know it yet but they would be becoming chunins after this no matter what. Not because they deserved it but because they pleased their superior.

Pakura, Ringo, and Konan surprisingly found a common front as they quickly told Tsunade it was a disgusting show of favoritism but her answer was simple.

She simply scoffed and said, "I am the Daimyo, I can favor whoever I want."

And that was the end of that discussion.

Not that Pakura could really complain. It was obvious she favored Sabaku siblings heavily.

Ringo might not have favorites nor did Rei think she really cared what Tsunade did with Team Seven. She probably complained just for the sake of complaining.

And Konan... she had that, 'I approve but publicly showing it would be beneath me' kind of smile as she verbally dressed Tsunade down.

It didn't really matter. Tsunade was in the right. Everyone had favorites.

If favoritism didn't exist, Hiruzen Sarutobi would have never become Hokage. Danzo Shimura would have never gotten a chance to reach so high in the village ranks. Koharu and Homura would have never become the Hokage advisors. Jiraiya would probably still be strong but there was no way he would have been a seal master, and Orochimaru would probably never be a psychopath.

Having talent was nice but it was the resources Hiruzen gave these last two that enabled them to become the powerhouses they were now.

In one way or another, a significant part of the ability to reach so high was due to the favoritism of a kind. But nobody wanted to be called out on it and in some cases, some people loved to use 'I can't favor anyone because of my high position' as a good excuse for the naive folk who actually believed such bullshit.

Next to Team Seven stood Yakumo Kurama as the only finalist from Team Eight. From what Rei heard from Tsunade, Kurenai was a bit disgruntled her boys did not pass but she was equally delighted her favorite student got into finals.

This past month, Yakumo was having an intense training schedule, probably making her berate her past self for passing. After all, Kurenai did learn some extreme yet effective training methods from her apprenticeship under Tsunade.

The last Konoha finalist was Shikamaru Nara who boredly stared at the clouds.

Shikaku couldn't have been prouder when he saw the expression of utter boredom and disinterest on his son's face. He was a true Nara indeed.

Then there were the two finalists from Kirigakure. Haku Yuki and Chojuro.

Chojuro had a bountiful month under Raiga's not-so-tender care because Ringo could not be bothered to train her genins even if she really wanted to win the bets against Rei's other girls.

As for a Kage training a genin? Ringo was the last person to bother with the opinion of others.

Haku, however, got a teacher in the form of Yuriko Yukimi so there was a chance he would learn Snow Sage Mode from her if he impressed her enough.

Naturally, Yuriko came to teach him only because she owed Ringo a favor. For some reason, Rei doubted Haku got such a treatment for free but he didn't pry.

Suna was represented by Gaara and Temari.

Pakura had a lot of trust in Temari and Rei had to admit, it wasn't unfounded. Temari was very strong but he wondered how she would fare against the Uzushio team since they were as young as her but also as talented.

As for Gaara... he was fine. Since there was no Rasa and Shukaku to mentally torture the kid, he was just that. A kid. Pakura did train him to one day effectively wield Shukaku's power but she wasn't overdoing it nor was she trying to make him into some kind of weapon.

Hence, his 'youth' was preserved.

The last participants were the Uzushio team. Kimimaro was stoic, Tayuya was arrogantly smirking, thinking this would be a breeze, and Karin was nervous because she knew well neither of Rei's girls were nice people.

She totally expected some kind of 'screw you' from this tournament since she doubted Tsunade would allow S-ranks facing genins from her village. Especially since from what she has seen, the Konoha kids were exactly that. Talented but still genins who at best were chunin level.

And while Karin had no idea how Tsunade would deal with this problem, her gut feelings were telling her she would not like it.

Neither Kumo nor Iwa were represented in the tournament but both Tsuchikage and Raikage got invitations to the event because tradition dictated so. Nobody expected them to show up for obvious reasons but... since they did come, Tsunade welcomed them.

If she didn't know their scheme, she would have been nervous but since Konan was such a good spy, there was nothing to worry about.

Rei wondered what face they would show after seeing these 'young talents'...

He looked back at the teens in the arena and smirked. Some were indifferent, some nervous, others looked resigned, a few were all fired up, and one or two simply did not care.

Neither of them knew who they would fight. During the past month, they had to scramble to gather intel on every participant and prepare accordingly for every eventuality. It was an impossible task, which was supposed to put them under a lot of pressure and stress while simulating a situation before a true battle to the death in the field.

The Chunin Exam finals started the second the preliminaries ended. The participants were just not told.

--

Author Note:

I am sorry if some of you might know this chapter was just one useless filler but I have to think about those who do not keep what happened previously in the story in their brain.. I thought re-introducing the participants would be best for the start of the Chunin Exams arc.

Report chapter Comments

Hayate approached the finalists and coughed.

"The first match will be between Hyuuga Hinata and Kurama Yakumo. The two participants please prepare yourself for the fight. The others please proceed to the waiting area."

The arena cleared out except for Hayato, Hinata, and Yakumo and Rei raised his eyebrows at this match-up.

"I see what is going on here." He deadpanned and his eyes trailed over to Tsunade who sat on the other end of the arena and was looking straight at him with a smirk. "Random matchmaking, my ass." He silently mouthed and her eyes gleamed while her smirk widened and became smugger.

Of course, since she did not 'cheat' in the same way as Konan, Pakura, and Ringo, she had to resort to other means.

The match started silently, both Hinata and Yakumo got to their designated spots and Hyate raised his hand in a sign he was about to start it.

There was no jeering, no initial pre-fight banter aiming to get an emotional response... just two determined kunoichi prepared to face each other as they measured the other with their eyes. In a way, it was exactly how the start of a fight between two 'noble' clan heiresses should look.

Rei had no doubt the Hyuuga Elders would have been frothing from their mouths if Hinata started vulgarly insulting her opponent.

Hayate's arm fell down and the fight started as he jumped back.

The two kunoichi instantly sprang into action, Hinata rushing at Yakumo while Yakumo tried to widen the distance between them by jumping back as she reached into her pocket, taking out a storage scroll, and summoning... nothing.

Hinata did not stop even for a second because of what happened. She threw senbons at Yakumo and tried to close the gap between them but Kurenai's training showed and Yakumo nimbly evaded each of them with a great efficiency usually not seen in genins, keeping her distance from Hinata as they ran all over the arena in this cat and mouse game.

'A genjutsu, eh?' Rei inwardly hummed, looking to the side at Konan who seemed to be very impressed with the Yakumo girl's ability. The flicker was brief before it was covered by the smoke from the storage scroll opening but Yakumo did take out something small and instantly used it for her Jutsu at such a speed, it seemed as if her summoning failed.

Unfortunately for Hinata, she was not using her Byakugan yet. Whether it was because of some misjudged Hyuuga pride, the Elders expected her to beat her opponent without it, or because she was trying to bait the genjutsu user... Rei had no idea why.

It was, however, exceedingly arrogant, in his opinion.

The two girls darted all over the arena with such speeds, the civilian audience had a hard time following them with their eyes, creating many surprised exclamations of astonishment from the crowd.

Even the ninja audience was impressed. This was not the speed a genin was supposed to possess. The two girls were obviously cut far above their peers and their combat ability was too good for their ranks.

And yet... only the most experienced ninjas noticed Yakumo, the real Yakumo, not the genjutsu 'clone' that Hinata was chasing, sitting on the edge of the arena, hidden behind a tree and furiously doing some finishing touches on the pre-drawn picture of the arena.

"She has quite developed control over her bloodline. I doubt that Hyuuga girl could see through this particular genjutsu even if she was using her Byakugan." Konan suddenly spoke as she observed the match.

Obviously, the 'perfect' genjutsu of the Kurama clan had some flaws since the clan was never well-known. If it was as unbeatable as it was hyped up to be in rumors, it wouldn't have been Uchihas who dominated the genjutsu field in Konoha...

But since Hyuugas depended on their eyes entirely too much, Kurama clansmen were their hard counter, considering their use of sight as the main medium for their genjutsu that was simply too subtle for a Hyuuga to detect just with eyesight, no matter how good it was.

The trick was using more senses in tandem to beat this level of genjutsu but... that was a technique far above genin or chunin levels of ability.

Then again, the girl was just a genin and Rei could see even some jonin affected by her wide-area genjutsu covering the entire arena. Her skill with her bloodline was more than just praiseworthy.

Rei doubted Hinata would be able to see through Yakumo's genjutsu even with her Byakugan. Yakumo was not trying to influence Hinata with her chakra. Instead, she was directly creating illusions over the surrounding area through her bloodline. At best, a skilled Byakugan user could see the area being a bit richer in ambient chakra.

"Kurenai definitely showed the girl how to fight a Byakugan user with genjutsu. Considering Yakumo's bloodline is genjutsu-based and counters their bloodline..." Rei shrugged.

It was obvious Yakumo was far too well prepared for facing the best genjutsu detection bloodline in the village. He wondered if Kurenai prepared Yakumo for all participants to such a degree in hopes the girl would win.

"Heh," Konan chuckled, "what a blatant show of favoritism."

From her tone it was obvious she meant it as praise. A jonin instructor was supposed to train their charges and Yakumo clearly hit jackpot with how willing Kurenai was to train her.

"Well, considering Anko is Kurenai's best friend and she thinks of Hinata as her 'apprentice'... Kurenai most likely knew Anko would blab about Yakumo's abilities and strengths, maybe even help Hinata develop a way to fight it." Rei added with a wry smile.

"Ah. So this is basically a fight between Anko and Kurenai to see who can prepare their protege better." Konan nodded in understanding, finding it amusing. Anko was stronger than Kurenai but Kurenai was definitely the better teacher of the two. That would even the odds.

She started contemplating if Hinata was not using her bloodline because of some other purpose than plain old arrogance.

In the arena, Yakumo was finished with her painting and grinned to herself in relief. She was on edge during these last five minutes, always wondering if her pre-drawn genjutsu picture would hold against Hinata but fortunately, it did despite not being perfect.

When Yakumo heard her opponent was to be the Hyuuga heiress, she was a bit shaken. Sure, she had a plan against her since she was one of the very few individuals on whom intel could be gained quite 'easily' in Konoha, but Hyuugas were always hard opponents for genjutsu users.

Fighting Hinata meant that over eighty percent of her Jutsu repertoire became flat-out useless. Taijutsu was also a no-go because while she became a lot more capable in a physical fight since she started training under Kurenai, she was still a bit on the frailer side for a kunoichi.

Funnily enough, the more she exercised her body, the more her 'Yang' rose but much to her frustration, this also increased her 'Yin' exponentially as it tried to attain the previous balance. Hence, the more she tried to get physically better, the more potent her genjutsu became and her body improved only very slightly.

It was driving Yakumo mad.

There was no way she would have won against a trained Hyuuga in a physical fight unless the Hyuuga in question missed both eyes, at least one arm, and one leg.

It was sad but that was the truth and she had to deal with it. That didn't mean she could not send a heated glare at her genjutsu projection Hinata was chasing. Being fit enough to have that kind of speed... a girl could dream.

On the other hand, Hinata had that kind of speed.

The second she saw that, Yakumo huffed and decided to be extra vindictive with her next move, resulting in her picture being a bit more... dangerous.

The only effective thing Yakumo had left was her bloodline. She was never so glad she listened to Kurenai and experimented to what degree she could pre-draw a picture for it to be still usable in a fight.

Knowing she would be fighting in Konoha's arena was a very big help.

'I'd like to see some burning fit person.' She thought and started channeling her chakra into the picture with the arena up in flames, using her bloodline to weave an intricate and realistic illusion all over the surroundings.

The second Yakumo's chakra flared, Hinata's entire body jerked to a halt, her eyes widening as she realized the 'Yakumo' in front of her was not real. Before she could do anything, however...

Heat engulfed her.

Rei watched as roaring flames suddenly engulfed the whole arena, flames that someone with Yakumo's chakra reserves would be never able to use.

It frankly reminded him a bit about Madara's Great Fire Annihilation. Sure, the flames were a lot weaker, had a lot less chakra in them, but the volume... their volume was astonishing.

His mind started going a mile a minute, thinking about how this ability could be used to its best potential.

"Holy shit." He dryly stated after a while, the flames still going wild in the arena, stunning the audience into horrified silence. "The Kurama girl is basically using the first principle of the Creation of All Things. She is instinctively turning spiritual energy and giving it a form."

Yin created a form and Yang gave life to said form. That was the Creation of All Things in a nutshell. It was obviously much more complicated than that but this was simply ridiculous. Nobody knew what exactly made the Kurama clan's bloodline so special.

Now, Rei discovered the truth and even he was flabbergasted.

"No wonder their genjutsu is rumored to be unbreakable." Konan wryly smiled.

Most ninjas never even started Yin and Yang manipulation. Even those 'skilled' by the standards of the Elemental Nations in these two things, barely scratched the surface. Beating something one did not even start to understand was... improbable.

"It would most likely take a Mangekyo Sharingan to break out of it if one has no idea about Yin manipulation." Konan continued. Yakumo definitely gained her attention.

The things she could accomplish if she gained an understanding of how her ability worked...

Hearing Konan, Rei chuckled, calmly looking into the arena with an amused glint in his eyes as he spotted something interesting. "That or..." He trailed off and Konan's eyes slightly widened as the arena exploded in a blue vortex of spinning tornado-like chakra.

The chakra whirled around in a massive imitation of the Hyuuga Kaiten technique, except, it was not concentrated in a small area around the user who instead, a massive whirlwind was sent outwards without much control.

The reason why Rei was amused was that he noticed a certain thing in the technique.

Gravity Manipulation.

The thirteen years old Hinata Hyuuga did not have enough chakra to create a vortex spanning the entire arena so the reason why this was happening should naturally be something else than her ability.

And when Rei looked closer, he could see a hint of blue in Hinata's Byakugan while some subconscious Gravity Manipulation was imbued in the technique.

"Really interesting. I wonder if this is the result of Tsunade's special training regime she was giving the girl through Anko." Rei mumbled to himself with amusement lacing his voice.

The one person with the most knowledge in 'evolving' bloodlines was Tsunade and considering who was the teacher of Hinata's teacher, the culprit for this situation was obvious.

"I really envy her." Konan suddenly spoke as she watched the heavy chakra-powered winds whirl in the arena, causing the audience to hold tightly to their seats because of how windy it was all around.

Rei looked at Konan who gave him a small awkward smile. "I just thought about what we were doing at her age. Thirteen and already creating a spectacle like this? The girl is gonna be famous."

"You of all people are going to complain about the power of a bloodline?" Rei dryly deadpanned.

"Hush you." Konan giggled, "Just because my bloodline is strong doesn't mean I can't envy others."

Rei rolled his eyes at her and redirected his attention back to the match since the whirlwind of winds and chakra was finally calming down.

The arena was devastated. The tree inside was uprooted and the ground sported shallow gashes.

In the middle of this devastation was Hinata, standing and supporting her body with her hands on her knees as she panted from exertion. Her body sported slight burns all over as did her clothes and the girl was obviously wincing from the pain.

Yakumo certainly intended to cook her and that made Hinata feel no remorse for what she had done.

It was clear that this was her last move in this fight though. If Yakumo managed to get out of it, the fight was a certain loss for Hinata. She was not fit to continue. Neither mentally nor physically. Just standing took a lot of effort.

Fortunately for Hinata, Yakumo was knocked out at the edge of the arena, sporting several cuts and nasty bruises all over her body. From her state, it wouldn't be surprising if she had numerous broken bones.

She was on the other edge of the arena than where she stood when Hinata's Jutsu began. During Hinata's technique, the whirlwind was throwing Yakumo's body around like a rag doll, slamming her into the ground before picking her up into the air again and she had no way of getting out of it as the spinning force took hold of her.

Yakumo was clearly out for the count, not only for this match but also for her ninja duties. She was due for at least a month in hospital.

Seeing the fight was over, Hayate appeared in the arena again, alongside medic ninjas who promptly took both Yakumo and Hinata with them on the stretchers.

"Er... the winner of the first round is Hinata Hyuuga." Hayate announced, his tone still a bit dazed from the spectacle he just saw from a genin.

Only then did the crowd realize the match was already over. Hinata's technique literally took their breath away and dazed them into their seats. Both ninjas and civilians were astonished by what they just witnessed.

Civilians were easy to impress. Contrary to popular belief, ninjas did not go around showing off their moves. Civilians were really ignorant of what power ninjas really wielded. They had a rough idea but... honestly, that didn't mean much.

Seeing firsthand the entire arena being devastated by one technique from 'genin'... naturally, they were speechless.

Even Daimyos, who had the best idea about ninjas' prowess, couldn't help but feel shaken by the spectacle.

Ninjas, on the other hand, couldn't believe a thirteen years old girl managed to produce such a technique when most jonins would struggle with chakra requirements of that. In their minds, Konoha gained a new prodigy.

And while pride bloomed in the minds of the Konoha ninjas as they inwardly celebrated the birth of new genius, the Tsuchikage, and Raikage in the Kage box had sour expressions.

Especially the Raikage who realized who the Hyuuga girl was.

The situation would have quietly passed with no conflict whatsoever, at most, the two leaders would have silently started to plot and scheme how to get rid of or kidnap Hinata but...

"So... what do you think about my Hyuuga girl, Raikage?" Tsunade smugly asked as she appeared next to Shikaku's seat, leaning on it with her shoulder while looking straight at Raikage with a shit-eating grin, aiming the obvious insult at him because he ordered Hinata's kidnapping all those years ago.

She was basically saying, 'This could have been yours, too bad you are incompetent.', with her expression.

Needless to say, Raikage didn't take that well and his short fuse was lit.

Report chapter Comments

But no matter the anger Raikage felt, he couldn't just attack. This was not his village and he was practically surrounded by enemy ninjas. Not to mention, there were numerous important guests in the audience.

He retaliated in the only way he could. Verbally.

"She is passable." Raikage gruffly grunted. "Maybe one day she will succeed you and get her ass handed down to her while receiving a cool nickname out of it too."

"Heh, you wish. You are nowhere near Hanzo's level, kid." Tsunade derisively snorted, reminding him of his younger age compared to her. "Neither are you on the level of your father, for that matter."

As she said that, she gleefully watched Raikage stiffening. Thanks to Konan, she knew the biggest weakness of Raikage was his deeply ingrained need to surpass his father, the Third Raikage. Considering the guy could fight Hachibi to draw and the only wound he received from it was self-inflicted... that was quite a tall order.

"May I offer you some refreshments?" Shikaku quickly butted in, forcing a smile on his face as he gave Tsunade a brief and subtle pleading look while also discreetly signaling the ANBU hidden nearby to bring some drinks.

The ANBU didn't really want to. Presenting something to these legendary ninjas would mean getting near them when they are somewhat pissed off. Unfortunately, his Kage ordered him...

Tsunade and A stared at each other for a few long seconds, and Shikaku started to think his distraction failed when Tsunade turned towards him, completely disregarding Raikage who continued to attempt setting her on fire with his glare.

"Sake would be nice, thank you." She pleasantly spoke, causing Shikaku's lips to twitch at the one-eighty she did on the moment's notice.

Even Ringo, who mostly broodily sat in her chair and boredly waited for this useless event to end, couldn't help but smile at the display.

"I will have water." Pakura spoke with a smile, despite knowing Shikaku was simply wanting to break the conflict between the two.

"Mmm, can I have some dango?" Orochimaru asked with an amused smile, his eyes hovering over Tsunade with curious glint as if he was trying to solve a complicated puzzle.

At any other time, he would like nothing else more than the conflict to escalate to blows but now was not the time. His plans depended on timing and if Raikage decided to just go 'yolo' at Tsunade, everything would have instantly gone to hell.

Orochimaru had no desire to make all these months of planning and preparation go to waste because of one lightning-clad muscle-head with anger issues. Nor did he appreciate his former teammate being her usual dickish spoiled self.

Tsunade was an acquired taste that tasted sour or bitter even after acquiring, depending on if she wanted to tease or straight up piss you off.

He was not a fan…

There was a reason why he never approached her after his defection even though he knew she would not really fight him for Konoha. Her expertise would have been invaluable for his experiments but Tsunade was one of the rare few people who could piss him off on a daily basis because of how well she knew his tells. There was no way Orochimaru was recruiting her unless he had no other choice.

"As expected, Konoha's hospitality is as always questionable. And here I had my hopes up from the earlier showing during the procession." Tsuchikage spoke, looking at Tsunade with contempt. "At least when the monkey ruled, there was order. Kids these days..." He feigned a sigh with fake disappointment lacing his tone.

"Zip it. This is a talk between grown-ups, midget. Be a good boy and return to your fence-sitting until you at least reach our shoulders." Tsunade clicked her tongue at him.

Tsuchikage alongside with other Kages were momentarily stunned by how direct and blunt Tsunade was. Her insult to Raikage was at least veiled but this...

It took a few moments for Tsuchikage's mind to reboot before he went beep red. He did not represent only himself but also his entire village. Insulting him meant insulting the entirety of Iwa! Veiled insults were one thing but this could not be tolerated.

"How dare y-" He started but Tsunade promptly interrupted him.

"No, how dare you speak to a Daimyo like that?" She dryly asked in a firm tone that left no room for defiance.

That shut Onoki up as he gritted his teeth upon realizing that Tsunade was not just some two-bit high-ranking ninja anymore. She was bonafide Daimyo and that meant she was officially higher on the proverbial social ladder than him. It was so easy to forget this fact when Shikaku was the Hokage.

Of course, no Daimyo was stupid enough to act high and mighty in front of a Kage but Tsunade apparently couldn't care less for the unspoken usual social dynamics.

"Don't speak out of your station like the bull-headed overrated light-bulb next to you." She nonchalantly added but her eyes stared straight into Raikage's and her lips stretched into a smirk when the man stayed silent.

With her superiority established, she took it as her win.

Shikaku, on the other hand, did not like how quiet the usually boisterous man was. It felt too much like a quietness before a volcano erupted. He decided to act, if only to prevent a disaster.

But his attempt was futile and not needed. Despite the usual image the man portrayed, A was Raikage and that meant he had enough patience for the job.

In fact, Shikaku's pathetic attempt insulted him more than Tsunade's jabs.

"Do you think such a pathetic attempt would have stopped me if I wanted to attack her?" Raikage asked, looking condescendingly at Shikaku, signaling that he noticed the subtle Kagemane no Jutsu discreetly spreading through the interconnected shadows of their chairs, connecting with his feet.

"Probably not for more than a second or two but it wouldn't hurt to try." Shikaku lazily said with a sardonic smile and an expression screaming how bothersome he found this entire situation. "Would you mind calming down, please? We wouldn't want to cause a scene in front of all these important people, now, would we?"

Before Raikage could react, Shikaku turned towards Tsunade. He knew how to defuse the situation. No matter how one looked at it, Tsunade started it so he had to end it with her in a manner that would satisfy all parties and offend no one. Diplomacy was such a drag...

"Could you please stop teasing our guests, Lady Tsunade?" Shikaku politely asked, a great deal of annoyance present in his tone. 'This is why spoiled brats should not be in leadership positions...' Shikaku thought, his half-lidded eyes sluggishly trailing from Tsunade to Raikage and back.

Tsunade pouted in response, knowing her fun was over since making things any more difficult for Shikaku than this would have been a dick move, while Raikage scoffed at the lighthearted reprimand.

Teasing, his ass! She was blatantly insulting him and they all knew it.

But... causing a scene in front of so many Daimyos and important merchants from all over the Elemental Nations wouldn't do. Not yet.

He could only let it go. For now.

Shikaku resignedly sighed as Tsunade shunshined away and he was left with two indifferent and two disgruntled Kages. Oh, and there was also the clearly irritated but curious Orochimaru too.

Sometimes, his life sucked. But recently, it was always because of Tsunade...

Deciding to forego that trail of thoughts since there was nothing he could do about it anyway, he looked into the arena... and groaned as a realization hit him.

'So she was not here to be a pain in my ass. She just came and insulted Raikage and Tsuchikage because she was bored and had time to kill during the ten minutes break between the matches..' He dryly realized as he saw Hayate about to announce the second match.

Report chapter Comments

"Could Kimimaro Kaguya and Tayuya come down to the arena?"

When Rei heard Hayate say that, he groaned and mumbled, "So it was not a coincidence."

It wasn't impossible to have teammates fight each other in this kind of event since the matches were 'usually' chosen at random but it was very rare.

The problem with that was that Konoha was the sole party who chose who would fight who and this matchmaking was starting to appear very fishy not only to Rei but also to his girls.

Tsunade expertly ignored three unamused pairs of eyes gazing in her direction, opting to enjoy the delicacy in front of her. It was just an excuse for her to not raise her head and meet these looks but it worked.

When Orochimaru heard who would be fighting, he couldn't help but perk up in curious interest. He definitely had a bone to pick with Tayuya for deserting but when he found out that she was included as a genin from Uzushio, he couldn't help but find it funny.

That feeling left him the second he attacked the Uzushio team in the Forest of Death.

He briefly scowled remembering that encounter. It should have gone entirely his way but...

The Uzushio brats were strong and he wondered how Tayuya became so strong in such a short while.

But Tayuya didn't seem like her usual self-assured mocking self right now. Considering that the Kaguya kid was in a team with her, that could mean only one thing. She was not sure of her victory.

'Interesting...' Orochimaru subtly licked his lips.

After all, he was very interested in a survivor from the Kaguya clan, and in the fight against him, Kimimaro did not do much. His prowess was mystery and Orochimaru did not like mysteries.

If nothing else, Tayuya could prove as a tool to test the boy's skill before Orochimaru deals with her in the invasion. The last time the girl was lucky to have teammates around her but no matter her improved prowess, Orochimaru was certain he could take her on in one versus one.

After all, strength was not everything in the ninja world.

Hayate started the match off and jumped back but unlike the previous one, the two combatants didn't instantly jump at each other.

Kimimaro and Tayuya stared at each other in the arena, Kimimaro stoic while Tayuya was visibly in a bad mood from this match-up. As part of the same team, they sparred with each other on a regular basis so they knew how the other fought, and needless to say, Kimimaro was not Tayuya's favorite opponent.

"Oi, bonerhead. I am gonna wipe that indifferent mug of yours outta your face." Tayuya scowled as she saw Kimimaro's perpetually unbothered expression.

Most of it was because Kimimaro's uninterested facade was pissing her off though. Surprisingly, they were honestly quite evenly matched most of the time.

That's also why Rei suspected foul play with this match-making. So many match-ups would have been a total curb stomp for one of the participants, yet, two matches already were quite evenly matched. Coincidence? He thought not.

"You are welcome to try." Kimimaro indifferently spoke, not rising up to her insult.

He was focusing too much on shifting his bones to create a layer of chakra-reinforced bone armor under his skin. Honestly, they fought so many times already... he wondered when Tayuya realized the trick in beating him in the most efficient way was to strike fast and not give him time to create this armor layer.

Tayuya, on the other hand, thought that he had his armor up since they entered the arena so she didn't bother stopping the initial banter. The slitted yellow eyes of a certain pale shithead boring a hole into the back of her head were creeping the funk out of her. She needed to center herself and insulting Kimimaro seemed like a good way to calm herself down.

She would naturally prefer sending a shockwave at the pale pervert but he was currently in the Kage box and pissing off Lady Pakura and Lady Ringo was suicide.

She could only grumble under her nose about lucky pale shitheads before focusing on Kimimaro again. She knew this fight would be an extreme pain in her ass. Not only will she have to hold back to a degree but Kimimaro was not the easiest opponent to counter with her abilities.

'Fine... let's do this!'

As that thought passed through her head, Tayuya swiftly raised her flute towards her mouth.

She knew Kimimaro could and would wait for hours on end for her to do the first move if only to get the initial advantage since he was a close-quarters combatant.

Worse yet, the bastard's bone armor took almost no chakra to maintain because it was concentrated in his body, hence, the chakra was not really leaving it so he could preserve it.

As much as she hated to give the advantage of reaction to him, she had no other choice. She once tried to wait him out and it ended in them staring at each other for four hours before she cracked and furiously attacked, screaming bloody murder and various colorful insults at him.

Four hours of her life were totally wasted by that bastard!

The second Tayuya started to move her hands, Kimimaro also shot forward in a burst of speed, disappearing from his spot in the eyes of most of the audience and appearing in front of Tayuya, his arm ready to strike as a sharp, sword-like bone was pushed out of his palm.

Tayuya was very experienced fighting Kimimaro so she expected this and prepared her first attack accordingly. She did not panic from him being so close. She just blew into her flute, sending a melody into the surroundings while watching with the corner of her eyes as Kimimaro's bone sword neared her neck...

Kimimaro pushed himself to his physical limits, fighting them for just a bit more speed... but he instantly realized he was not fast enough when a shockwave appeared out of nowhere and impacted his stomach, bending him over and sending him flying towards the wall behind him at speed most chunin had trouble following with their eyes.

Tayuya noticed that Kimimaro's body created a small dent in the wall surrounded by a multitude of spiderweb cracks before the impact of his body to the wall sent the surrounding dusk into the air and denied her visibility.

Resisting the urge to click her tongue, Tayuya blew into her flute a few more times, sending shockwave after shockwave into the dust cloud, straight at the place where Kimimaro should be embedded into the wall.

It was such a brutal display that many ninjas in the audience winced despite not being able to see through the dust cloud. The redhead was clearly ruthless and they wondered if there would be something more than just a bloody smear left from the Kaguya boy.

After twenty shockwaves, Tayuya finally stopped her onslaught and jumped back a few times to widen the distance between her and the place where Kimimaro landed. She also didn't go far enough to reach the wall behind her to leave herself some place for maneuverability if it was needed.

The dust started to clear out and the audience waited with bated breaths, wanting to see Kimimaro's state when...

Report chapter Comments

The dust started to clear out and the audience waited with bated breaths, wanting to see Kimimaro's state when...

Kimimaro burst from the dust cloud in a powerful leap, instantly dispersing it due to his speed as he flew straight at Tayuya like a bullet.

Tayuya was forced to throw herself to the side in order to avoid him. She barrel rolled on the ground before using the momentum of her body to spring back to her feet, inwardly prepared to fend Kimimaro off once again.

As she predicted, Kimimaro landed in a crouch on the side of the wall and used his chakra like a spring, propelling himself into another powerful leap as he aimed the trajectory of his jump to lead him towards Tayuya.

She was a long-range fighter while he was a close-quarters combatant. It was only natural he had to be aggressive in this exchange if he wanted to win.

This time, however, he did not have the advantage of surprise, and Tayuya was prepared for him. The second he heard the flute melody, he knew he was too slow even before the shockwave hit him.

Tayuya watched as Kimimaro twisted mid-air, 'kicking' straight at her shockwave... in a way absorbing it with his kick.

'Friggin bone armor!' Tayuya inwardly groaned.

Any normal person would have their muscles shredded by such a shockwave but not Kimimaro. He just had to have an ability that could completely counter her Jutsu.

Kimimaro finished 'kicking' the shockwave, which completely stopped his momentum and made him fall back onto the ground. He wasn't given enough time to start rushing at Tayuya again. Instead, he had to spin and punch forward, intercepting another shockwave sent at him by Tayuya.

Tayuya started to create an onslaught of shockwaves with her flute, sending them at Kimimaro from all around him, forcing him to spin and twist, sometimes intercepting them, other times weaving in between them but he was avoiding almost all of the damage which was definitely pissing Tayuya off.

The shockwaves were pretty much invisible and Kimimaro had to depend on his chakra sensing to locate the direction from which Tayuya would attack... to the audience it seemed as if he was fighting some invisible foe and some civilians looked at him funny as they thought he simply went mad.

The ninjas suspected genjutsu for the most part, mostly because of Tayuya's weapon of choice. Only very few noticed a hint of what she was doing.

Orochimaru, on the other hand, couldn't help but frown as he witnessed the technique to make shockwaves with chakra in the sound waves. This was the reason why he so quickly retreated when he tried to attack Tayuya's team. The Jutsu was very interesting but he had a hard time coming up with a way to replicate it. Hence, the frown.

Poor guy... there was no way he would realize he first had to learn sound-based genjutsu and then alter it into ninjutsu. After all, most ninjas believed that genjutsu and ninjutsu were not 'mixable'.

It didn't help that he was successfully misdirected into thinking Tayuya needed her flute for her Jutsu.

Down in the arena, Kimimaro had had enough of this irritating work-out but he had a hard time finding a way out without showing more of his abilities than he was allowed.

He knew causing this level of shockwaves was effortless for Tayuya and she could continue for hours on end. During their spars in the Village on the Other Side, she usually leveled a small forest from the collateral damage of all her shockwaves.

These shockwaves had the power to barely crack the ground... there was no way they could affect his body through his bone armor. Tayuya clearly knew that too and was only trying to annoy him.

She knew full well that he hated moving around more than necessary during fights, yet, here she was forcing him to 'dance' with her attacks in order to not give away an indication of just how durable his body is.

This continued for a few minutes, Tayuya trying to lock Kimimaro into defense while Kimimaro tried to find a way out of his predicament.

The audience absolutely loved this fight. They were not loud, instead, their attention was fully grabbed as they watched the redheaded girl playing her flute and the white-haired boy trying to defend from some kind of invisible foe.

The only clue that Kimimaro did not, in fact, go mad, was how the ground underneath him cracked whenever he clashed with... whatever was attacking him.

One would think the spectators would get quickly tired of this display but, on the contrary, they watched with bated breaths to see who would fall first.

Will the girl make a mistake and let the boy out of this deadlock or will the boy run out of his stamina first? They couldn't wait to see!

They had no idea the two combatants in the arena could go at it in this manner for hours...

Kimimaro finally decided to 'bend' the rules a bit in his favor. He let one shockwave 'slip' his attention, causing it to harmlessly glance his shoulder, using it to break Tayuya's pace.

She had it all calculated to a genial degree, every attack covering for another and they all weaving together in one massive 'symphony', as she liked to call it.

But Kimimaro fought her enough to discover a small flaw in her ingenious technique. Now that one of these coordinated attacks was disregarded, it was ever so easy to just weave through the remaining ones since their tempo was out of sync with Kimimaro's movements.

Kimimaro knew quite a few of those powerful ninjas watching this fight would notice his body withstanding the shockwave with no trouble at all but he didn't care anymore. Tayuya's shockwaves did not feel like a massage to him. Every hit felt like being violently shoved and while it was harmless to him, it felt extremely irritating.

It was as if he was being bullied without the ability to 'hit' back and the thought made Kimimaro grit his teeth in frustration.

Tayuya was clearly using his emotions against him because she knew exactly how he felt about being in this kind of situation.

Kimimaro finally escaped Tayuya's onslaught. From experience, he knew this would mean Tayuya would have to change her melody, which brought him a few vital moments.

This time, he would not be too slow!

Tayuya's eyes widened as Kimimaro increased his speed to the allowed limit in one big burst.

Her mind blanked and her body reacted instinctively... she didn't have the time to think about a counterattack anyway. She swiped the flute away from her mouth and since it was the only durable thing she had on hand, she used it to block Kimimaro's sword that aimed at her neck.

Flute locked with a sword made of bone as Kimimaro and Tayuya's arms shook with exertion. Tayuya pushed more and more chakra into her arm, visibly losing this match of strength as Kimimaro's sword was pushing her flute back, nearing her neck.

She snarled in frustration and shock at how bad her situation suddenly became.

Escaping backward would hinder her movements give Kimimaro the much-needed advantage and would most likely end the match.

Evading right was no option because of the strength she had to exert on her right arm. If she tried, Kimimaro's sword would simply cleave through her.

Trying to flee underground would be a gamble. In any way, she would need to stop pushing against Kimimaro's sword for a second, and there was the chance a part of her head would get chopped off.

Fleeing upward... that required more skill than she was allowed to show in this match.

Frankly, if she could show her full power, this deadlock would be an easily solvable inconvenience at best. But she was not.

Her only feasible escape route was to the left but she couldn't really jump to that side because her opponent was clearly expecting it, if not outright welcoming that outcome. Only a bone bullet would await her if she tried and she liked her body without unnecessary holes.

"Fine." She discontentedly grumbled through her gritted teeth with annoyance written all over her expression. "I give up."

It was ever so obvious she hated to say these words but there was nothing she could do. She couldn't use her flute and she had orders to not show too much of her abilities.

Showing a strong Jutsu dependent on her flute was acceptable. Showing that she didn't really need her flute and could cause shockwaves... much stronger shockwaves than she showed in the match... with any kind of sound was definitely not acceptable.

That said, Kimimaro was holding back a lot too so there was nothing Tayuya could complain about.

Or so Kimimaro thought, too satisfied with his victory to notice that...

Report chapter Comments

In his satisfaction, Kimimaro forgot one vital thing. Tayuya was a kunoichi and her specialty was genjutsu and sound manipulation.

While he heard "I give up.", the audience and the proctor heard, "Fuck you, shithead.".

Because of that, he relaxed his body, thinking she already surrendered and that was when Tayuya sprang into action, tackling Kimimaro's body to the ground.

His back impacted the ground as Tayuya straddled his chest and stopped the pointy and sharpened end of her flute an inch from his left eye, prepared to ram it straight through his skull at moment's notice.

Unfortunately for Kimimaro, his eyes were one of the very few weak spots on his body he couldn't coat in his bone armor.

Kimimaro blankly stared in astonished shock at the smug and winning expression of the redhead as the realization suddenly clicked in his mind.

"You tricked me!" He exclaimed in disbelieving exasperation, still finding it hard to believe he fell for such a basic trick.

"Well, duh, genius! I am kunoichi." Tayuya dryly deadpanned.

She was genjutsu mistress. Most of her Jutsu were based on tricking people. It was laughable how ninjas were always wary of high-level genjutsu, yet, they would fall for a few simple words simply because they expected her to say them.

After all, who would have thought the brash and crass girl with raging temper would be cunning, right?

"Do you give up?" Tayuya gleefully asked, enjoying the situation immensely, even letting the sharp point of her flute to near Kimimaro's eye enough to make it extremely uncomfortable for him. He tried to back away but under his head was hard ground which prevented this course of action. He couldn't even turn his head in fear of damaging his eye anymore.

Gulping down, Kimimaro realized he could easily skewer her boy. She was straddling his chest and he could eject his sharpened ribs. But this would definitely make her ram the flute through his skull.

Tayuya was an experienced kunoichi and knew he could do that. She angled her flute in a way that the shock from being skewered would jerk her hand down and... Kimimaro shuddered at the picture of what would be left of his brain after that.

Basically, he could either give up or suicide while hoping to kill her in the process.

'What a scary bitch.' He bitterly thought.

Inwardly sighing, he accepted that this was his loss. "I give up." He emotionlessly said and a smirk appeared on Tayuya's face for some reason, Kimimaro instantly knew she would not let him live it down for months on end.

His immediate future seemed very bleak indeed.

...

"Hmm, quite impressive, wouldn't you say, Lord Otokage?" Pakura shrewdly looked at Orochimaru with the corner of her eyes while a teasing smirk was plastered on her lips.

"Yes. Very curious indeed." Orochimaru spoke with unveiled interest, his eyes not leaving Tayuya.

Not giving Pakura his full attention was quite impolite in this situation but Orochimaru couldn't bring himself to care about diplomacy. Not when he saw something interesting.

Pakura, however, took this as the green light to subtly retaliate.

"I heard the girl was once your kunoichi." She uttered with a barely-veiled glee noticeable in her tone. This naturally made Hokage, Raikage, and Tsuchikage interested in the topic, causing them to try to subtly eavesdrop. Pakura did not care and just continued, "Who would have thought the girl would get so much stronger in such a little time after leaving your service, huh? Quite the coincidence, don't you think?"

Hearing her, Orochimaru frowned.

He wanted to scowl, glare, and most definitely wittily threaten the impudent woman but he could not allow his emotions to slip. Not in front of the other Kages.

That's why he had to be satisfied with a small frown.

He wasn't about to answer Pakura's question though. He only wordlessly stared at her, barely concealing his hostility in his unamused deadpan look while trying to play the part of the victim in this verbal ping-pong.

Of course, this role suited him well for the moment. He didn't believe he would be able to keep himself from verbally lashing out if he opened his mouth now.

No matter how calm he tried to stay, the proof that he didn't handle Tayuya's training well was right in front of him. What really made him mad, though, was the fact he did not see her potential. He wrote her off far too quickly and thought he knew everything there was to know about her abilities.

Being proven wrong stung his ego as hell.

When Pakura realized Orochimaru was not going to answer, she clicked her tongue, "Cheh. You are no fun."

It made her disappointed that the big bad snake kept his calm. She could understand why Tsunade came to cause trouble during the last break between the matches. These breaks were boring as heck.

The problem was... neither of the five Kages was in the mood for small talk. The tension between them was palpable even if they pretended it didn't exist and acted as if nothing was wrong. Only a total moron would not notice the discontent, though.

Unfortunately, Ringo was seated on the other side of the Kage box so that was also not the solution to Pakura's boredom.

Fortunately, Shikaku unknowingly came to her rescue.

"I thought the girl is genin from Uzushio. Do you say she worked for Orochimaru in the past? Isn't Uzushio concerned about betrayal?" He curiously asked.

His voice betrayed nothing of his intentions. Neither was there accusation nor disapproval. Just pure curiosity.

"Oh! No. from what I know, Uzushio is fine with her past. They are fully certain her past loyalties are the thing of the past." Pakura exclaimed, too happy to explain while ignoring Orochimaru's stormy and disgruntled look.

He even had to incline his head downward to hide it under his hat.

Pakura revealed a slight smile at that and continued, "Honestly, Suna has some trade agreements with Uzushio so that's how I know about the girl. She was apparently a diamond in the rough. Only an utterly brainless idiot would waste her potential." She dismissively waved her hand left and right in front of her.

Ringo snorted at Pakura's sunny disposition as she uttered those words. The look of anger flashing through Orochimaru's eyes was simply far too amusing to ignore.

Raikage and Tsuchikage also seemed entertained even though they tried to hide it and pretended they heard nothing. They definitely would not be joining the conversation. The redheaded girl was strong but considering that her combat style depended on her flute, in their minds she was not as big of a threat as Kazekage was making her out to be.

Nor was she as impressive. They comforted themselves with the thought that they had someone more talented at home and that was the end of that matter for them.

Unfortunately for Pakura and Shikaku, their chat about Tayuya came to an abrupt end when Hayate announced the end of the break and started to announce the next match.

"The third match will be between..."

Report chapter Comments

"Why do I have to do this?" Anko petulantly mumbled to herself while pulling out a knife from the neck of her recent victim, some no-name Otogakure ninja who was unluckily patrolling the area around their 'hidden' camp. "I just demanded to see my cute underlings fighting. Why did Lady Tsunade have to pull her 'old scary hag' persona and shout at me until I agreed to do this." She childishly pouted.

"Never took you for the self-pitying type." Kakashi quietly said with a fake cheer in his tone as he landed on the tree branch next to hers. "Wouldn't you get the full experience once your shadow clone in the arena poofs? I have no idea why are you so melodramatic. Is it already that time of the month?"

"Fuck you, Hatake." Anko hissed, mindful of keeping her tone low as her cheeks slightly reddened. Her unamused look, however, told Kakashi enough. He knew he was in deep shit once they returned from this mission.

But...

"I wouldn't be against." Kakashi victoriously eye-smiled at her.

Since they were sneaking towards the enemy camp, Anko couldn't beat him up or scream at him. He had to milk the situation for all it was worth, consequences be damned, no.

He at least had enough presence of mind to jump away from her, not waiting for her reply. Taunting Anko was already ridiculously dangerous for his continued good health. There was no need to overdo it.

Anko watched with her narrowed eyes Kakashi's retreating back... before she smirked. The bastard was indeed deserving of his rank. He had balls of steel. Even after so many beatings from her, he was still not cowed and from time to time showed it.

'Well, I guess working with him wouldn't be interesting otherwise.' She thought and suppressed her urge to shake her head. 'I'll ignore it for now.'

Her group still had to destroy two hidden camps to finish off all of her assigned seven. She wondered how would Orochimaru's expression look when he realized there would be no reinforcements coming from outside of Konoha.

The only thing he can depend on once Lady Tsunade's and Shikaku's plan succeeds will be the Oto ninjas who sneaked inside of Konoha in the guise of civilians but... there was a plan for that too.

Sometimes Anko wondered if the real snake of the Sannin team was not Lady Tsunade. She definitely did not use her cunningness a lot but when she started...

Anko sheepishly smiled, remembering the simple yet efficient battle strategy that was explained to the ANBU units and a few loyal jonins who participated in this secret Otonin extermination mission.

'I gotta finish this soon if I want to be back in Konoha for the final clash with Orochimaru. No way in hell I am letting anyone else than me kill him!'

And with that, she jumped after Kakashi, her eyes gleaming with ruthless determination.

That day the forests around Konoha were stained in blood but their peacefulness remained intact.

...

"These trackers and assassins from the Uzushio village are quite the scary bunch. I wonder how Lady Pakura managed to get them to help us with this." Sasori quietly grumbled as he walked next to Shun Riku on the helm of a unit of two hundred Suna puppeteers who were currently trekking through the mountains.

Two hundred was a small number for an army but a massive amount of effort, planning, and resources were used in order for them to stay unnoticed. That was only possible because every single of these two hundred puppeteers was a jonin level ninja.

There was also a division of tessenjutsu users comprised of the best wind users of Suna numbering hundred and fifty in total coming from a different direction and a hundred best ANBU taking yet another route towards their target.

'If this goes awry we will be so fucked.' Sasori mentally groaned.

They were deep in the enemy territory with numbers not reaching even five hundred. Direct confrontation was definitely not on the table but if everything went as planned, their victory was assured.

He thought getting to their target unnoticed would be the hard part but...

"Does it even matter?" Shun Riku smirked, "We can barely notice their presence and even then it is because we know they are here, killing every nearby patrol. They are doing a scarily good job considering the terrain. And here I thought it is Kirigakure that focuses on this kind of thing. It is good they are only escorting our force and helping us stay unnoticed. Letting them fight our battles too much would be a blow to our pride as Suna ninjas."

"Hmph, you just want to try your new remotely controlled puppets." Sasori clicked his tongue at her before inaudibly mumbling, "Just my luck to be working under this battle maniac and Suna fanatic."

It was really pissing him off a person like this, a person with no sense for art was the best puppeteer of Suna. But he had to grudgingly admit her abilities and reluctantly give her the due respect.

He might not like being number two but... the bitch was too good with her puppets. He could only bear it for now.

He decided to clear his head of unnecessary matters. Just one more mountain and they will completely reach their destination and their target, the Iwagakure, will become visible.

But really... what was Tsuchikage thinking, taking a sizeable force from his village to aid Orochimaru's invasion of Konoha?

He was practically begging to be invaded in return!

...

All twenty-one Kirigakure's Swordsmen were gathered in a house in the residential area of Kumogakure.

Each of them infiltrated the village in their own way, making a game out of it to see who could get inside faster and with the least fuss.

When people saw someone like Zabuza, they would never think he would be great at this and honestly, most of Kiri Swordsmen were the same, each having his or her own weird quirk that would make them noticeable in the crowd but...

It was entirely too easy to forget Kirigakure prided itself on its assassins. Every member of the Kirgakure's Swordsmen mastered the art of assassination. Infiltrating Kumogakure did prove a bit challenging but in the end, every one of them pulled it off.

Unlike Pakura, Ringo did things her way in her village. While Pakura tried to create an army of ninjas that could work together as one cohesive unit, Ringo still kept the old idea of 'special' units going strong and supported the Kirigakur's Swordsman, using a position among them as a reward and recognition for the best of the best from Kirigakure.

For each of them, she crafted a special sword. Well, except those who wielded one of the original seven swords like Raiga Kurosuki who fought with the other swordsmen and proved himself the strongest of them despite being a newcomer.

Hence, he earned the position of leader.

"So? Will you finally tell us our mission? I doubt we had to get inside of Kumo just to have a dick-measuring contest among ourselves." Zabuza asked and looked at Raiga, voicing out the thoughts of every single member of the group.

They were not told about their mission beforehand. The ideology of their village might have changed drastically but Kirigakure still viewed its ninjas as tools. They just stopped recklessly sacrificing them for every small gain since Ringo became the Mizukage.

That meant, the Kirigakure Swordsmen knew the mission in front of them was completely manageable for their skill level. Ringo never gave them a mission they could not fulfill. But that didn't mean they were informed of details they did not need to know.

In this case, they were kept in dark in order to prevent information leakage, and honestly, they were fine with that. It was just a part of their job.

Raiga chuckled, "Impatient as ever, Zabuza. This mission will be to your liking though. We are to simply cause chaos and sabotage the important facilities of Kumo."

The room abruptly descended into deafening silence.

"Are you for real?" Zabuza spoke first. "Just the twenty-one of us?" He was quite a in disbelief. This sounded too much like a suicide mission.

Still... from what he was seeing on the expression of his companions, they felt exactly like him. Utterly excited about this kind of challenge.

He didn't doubt his face sported the exact same grin as theirs.

"Yes." Raiga confirmed while approaching the table in the middle of the room and taking out a map from a storage scroll. "Raikage is in Konoha alongside quite a few of his strongest ninjas." He smirked and started pointing to places on the map, "Our hunter ninja division, ninjutsu heavy hitters, and mist genjutsu specialists are already encamped around Kumo. Don't ask me how. Uzushio seal masters are apparently very crafty. That's all I know about it. Anyway, we are just a distraction before the main attack. So? Are you happy with this mission?"

He was obviously speaking to everyone gathered in the room, not just Zabuza, but from their expressions it was self-evident.

'Heh. Bunch of muscleheads. Of course, they are happy.' Raiga inwardly snorted. 'This mission is dangerous but... We wouldn't have it any other way.'

After all, the Kiri Swordsmen loved the thrill of their profession.. No one remained sane after reaching their level of power.

Report chapter Comments

"The third match will be between Naruto Uzumaki and Haku Yuki!" Hayate announced.

Naruto was almost bouncing from excitement. Finally, it was his turn to show everyone how badass he is!

Watching him, Haku had a small exasperated smile on his lips but could only shake his head. He understood that this was Naruto's usual behavior. Because of their prior acquaintance, he was used to it. It was Naruto and Hinata who showed him Konoha during the past month.

Sasuke Uchiha was heavily avoiding him... which put a satisfied smile on Haku's face. He didn't need to deal with a gender-confused Uchiha thanks to that.

"Let's give the audience a proper showing, Naruto-kun." Haku said, partly in order to stop Naruto from jumping around like an idiot. He wondered how much of his acting out was just to keep pretenses and how much was his real excitement.

Naruto calmed down and turned towards Haku, giving him a thumbs-up. "Sure, thing, Haku-chan!" He exclaimed, making Haku's lips twitch.

For some reason, the Uzumaki loved to make fun of him by reminding him of how feminine he was. Whether it was Naruto or Karin, they could be insufferable at times. Haku was glad they lived in different villages.

'Did he really have to call me that?' Haku inwardly sweatdropped as he noticed several males in the audience showing infatuated looks as they stared at him. He deeply sighed in depression, 'Why did I have to be born with this kind of face?'

If he didn't know Naruto, he would have suspected this to be a proper emotional attack but Haku was sure the orange-clad Uzumaki had no idea what he had just done...

"Ahem," Hayate cleared his throat, attracting the attention of the two combatants, causing them to realize they should get ready for the fight. When he was sure they were prepared, he raised his arm. "Fight!" He dropped his arm and jumped back.

The first charge naturally belonged to Naruto who didn't wait for even a second and rushed at Haku while creating several shadow clones around him. The creation of those clones came with a copious amount of smoke that perfectly covered the surroundings for a few seconds and gave Naruto the chance to do some secret planning of his own.

Haku pulled out a few senbons from his long sleeves and took a combat-ready stance. The second the first Naruto clone appeared from the smokescreen, a senbon was sent hurling his way. Before the clone could react, he was stopped in his tracks because the senbon embedded itself into his shoulder, causing him to briefly fly backward from the force of the impact before he popped out of existence.

Haku could aim at the forehead, eye, or throat but he could not be sure which Naruto was a clone and which was the real one. If he hit the real one in those places... Just his luck that he was better at lethal moves than restraining ones.

He dealt like this with five more clones and the situation started to feel somewhat fishy to him.

'This is far too easy.' He mentally mumbled. He might not have seen Naruto fight during the Wave mission but he knew about his prowess from what Zabuza told him.

He realized that a bit too late though.

The ground in front of him cracked, making Haku's eyes go wide.

'Under me!?' He inwardly freaked out but his body reacted on instinct.

Naruto who burst from the ground and tried to uppercut Haku's jaw failed as Haku leaned back, letting Naruto's fist sail harmlessly an inch from Haku's chin.

Naruto could only stare in wide-eyed disbelief that his plan did not work before Haku's body snapped back into action like a spring and Naruto, who was currently still mid-air due to his jump, was blasted back with a powerful kick to his abdomen.

Or so would have happened if this Naruto was the real one. Unfortunately for Haku, he only poofed out of existence while releasing a massive amount of smoke to the surroundings, creating yet another smokescreen that engulfed Haku and impaired his sight.

Because of that Haku could not relax and his senses became alert.

A split of a second later, he noticed a kunai flying towards him from behind. He spun around, senbon appearing in his hand as he swung it in an attempt to block the kunai but...

Before the senbon could clash with the kunai, the kunai was substituted with another Naruto who spun mid-air, redirecting his trajectory and avoiding Haku's swing with the senbon while attempting to deliver a kick to Haku's face.

Haku ducked his head and spun on his right foot while driving his left leg up, delivering a kick to the Naruto who attacked him... only for him to pop out of existence followed by another wave of smoke.

Haku angrily huffed but his body tensed a moment later before he snappily leaned back, letting a kunai sail through the place where his shoulder was just a moment ago.

And then again. And again...

Kunais rained on him from all directions and he dodged, leaned out of their trajectory, spun on his feet to avoid them... it was like a dance and after Haku's initial surprise faded, he also started to counter-attack while dodging, throwing senbons towards the places from where the kunais were thrown.

Sometimes he was rewarded from a muffled yelp, sometimes not, but he would have been damned if he let Naruto lead this fight so easily.

Haku knew the Shadow Clones took a lot of chakra. He was fine with Naruto wasting his chakra reserves like this.

But when three kunais came flying at him from three different directions and before they could hit, they puffed into three Narutos, Haku realized he was that kunai barrage was just to lull into a fake sense of comfort by Naruto.

The three Narutos attempted to hit Haku but he was more experienced and faster than Naruto. He nimbly weaved around their attacks, delivering his own counter-blows and popping the three of them out of existence... which, much to his growing annoyance and frustration, only reinforced the fading smokescreen around him.

Haku wanted to groan in frustration and only his own hunter ninja training prevented him from that. Naruto's fighting style was the epitome of irritating.

He didn't get time to relax. Another kunai flew at him, another Naruto popped in its place when it was near Haku, and tried to strike.

And then again, and again, and again...

Sometimes it was only one Naruto, sometimes as many as five surrounded him at once and tried to score a blow.

Haku had a hard time spinning and countering every one of these attacks. He could not see where they were coming from and he was given no break whatsoever once the intervals between these attacks started to shorten.

In only two minutes... and a whole sixty-five attacks like this... Haku realized Naruto was not getting tired anytime soon but his stamina was depleting extremely fast and the constant requirement for utmost attention was mentally wearing him down.

Haku's eyes slightly widened as he realized that Naruto was making use of his superior chakra and stamina reserves to slowly wear him down.

While Haku had the time of his life dodging a kunai-parade, Naruto, the real one, was observing from the edge of the arena with his sensing capabilities and creating more clones to substitute the destroyed ones.

He knew Haku had the ability to fight jonins. That's why he chose tactics that would enable him to defeat a jonin. Ninjas were still human. They could react only to so many simultaneous attacks even if these attacks came from weaker foes. They could only go without a break for so long before their mind started slowing down. They had only so much stamina and chakra reserves.

With his tactics, Naruto already wasted at the very least ten percent of Haku's chakra reserves and thirty percent of his stamina reserves, bringing a massive advantage to himself even if Haku somehow disrupted his strategy right now.

'Don't blame me for fighting dirty, Haku-chan.' Naruto thought with a foxy grin, 'You should be glad I am not using my extra spicy Uzumaki pepper bomb combo on you!'

The fight against Guren made Naruto think a lot and he ultimately decided to widen his repertoire, making some of his prank items more dangerous and integrating them into his fighting style.

But Haku was his friend and he would never use them on his frie...

Chakra suddenly erupted from the center of the arena and Naruto's clones were instantly frozen, disintegrating into icy dust instead of poofing into smoke. The smoke all around the arena also 'froze' and disintegrated into icy mist, causing the entire arena to glitter like a reflection of the sun's rays on a water surface.

The real Naruto evaded the full blast of this icy chakra thanks to his position on the edge of the arena but even then, his body was involuntarily shivering. He was used to cold but this was positively arctic!

In the middle of the arena, Haku suddenly turned straight towards the place where Naruto was located. His complexion was unhealthily pale and his usually dark eyes glowed bright blue while his black hair turned snow-white.

"I am sorry, Naruto-kun but I think you deserve some spanking." Haku sweetly said while his eyebrow was twitching in irritation. He also completely ignored how a part of the male audience swooned at these words.

Naruto gulped, watching as the air around Haku's body was misting from the freezing coldness his opponent was emitting...

There was only one way to keep fighting and Naruto sank into his mind to attain it.

'Ah... Kurama? Would you mind giving me a hand?' He nervously asked.

'Weren't you boasting you could pass this without me with your eyes closed and hands tied behind your back yesterday?' Kurama stated in an exasperated tone but his eyes showed extreme smugness.

He just knew there was no way the small brat could win without him. Since the seal was loosened, he could feel the surroundings and some of the participants were positively monsters compared to Naruto.

'Hehe...' Naruto sheepishly laughed, 'No. I have no recollection of...'

Kurama gave him a deadpan look and forced the memory to replay in Naruto's mind.

'Er...' Naruto awkwardly shuffled, no way to rebuke it. In his defense, he might have been a bit drunk because of Anko.

'Haah~. Fine.' Kurama sighed, 'Your opponent is using Senjutsu so I guess lending you my chakra is only fair anyway.'

And Naruto was forcefully ejected from his mind as orange chakra started to wrap around him, scaring the shit out of many Konoha citizens.

Report chapter Comments

"Who would have thought the kid would grasp Snow Sennin Mode under Yuriko's tutelage." Konan said in a tone full of praise and slight jealousy that Ringo had someone with such potential in her village.

She didn't envy her sister-wife too much. She had the original Snow Sennin under her leadership since Yuriko Yukimi was officially a ninja from the Village on the Other Side. But Konan understood that talented individuals were a commodity that one could never have enough of.

"Yeah, Ringo called all the favors Yuriko owed her from losing various bets over the years." Rei chuckled, "You should have seen the face Yuriko showed when Ringo told her that she wanted her to share her best technique. I bet Yuriko instantly regretted ever getting into Ringo's debt."

"Heh. As if. Yuriko would have never shared her way of attaining Sennin Mode if she didn't approve of the kid. You know that and you also know how tough Yuriko's personal requirements are. Not one person in the Village on the Other Side managed to score an apprenticeship under her so far." Konan said with a slightly annoyed tone. She didn't like that one of her SS-rank ninjas didn't find an apprentice even after years of trying. "That's why I find Ringo's situation a bit enviable."

Frankly, she was even less thrilled that when Yuriko finally found herself an apprentice, it was somebody outside of the Village on the Other Side. It simply rubbed her the wrong way but fortunately for Haku, Konan would not prevent Yuriko from teaching him just because he didn't belong to her village.

Rei stayed silent. He could have rebuked Konan quite easily because it wasn't that there were no people fulfilling or even surpassing Yuriko's initial expectations. The final requirement was simply too restricting. She didn't care about bloodline but one had to be able to form snow with their chakra.

Not many bothered to try, much less spent time practicing such a skill.

He could argue that Konan never promoted or tried to encourage people from attempting to clear all Yuriko's expectations nor did she ever add such skill into the repertoire their ninjas had to learn. She could have done a lot of things to help Yuriko find an appropriate apprentice.

But... why would he pour oil into the fire? Rei would rather have an idyllic afternoon of watching kids beating each other up with her than a pointless argument.

"I understand. You are right, dear." He nodded, sneaking his hand into Konan's, which made her smile and lean on him.

...

While Rei and Konan discussed the revelation of Haku's new ability, the fight in the arena was starting anew.

Naruto was clad in a bijuu cloak with three tails swishing behind him... Kurama did not give him more chakra because Naruto's body was still too young to handle more and he did not have much control yet either. Three tails were the current Naruto's limit as far as safety went.

Haku, on the other hand, was as if clad in a freezing cold chill that spread all around him. The air was glittering from microscopic particles of icy mist floating all around Haku that came to existence from freezing the air itself.

Every experienced ninja in the audience had an ugly expression upon seeing it. If the boy could freeze the air around him in this manner while not really focusing... they did not want to see what he could do with proper focus to an enemy that got too close.

Naruto, however, didn't care and charged forward.

The boiling hot chakra of a bijuu clashed with the chillingly freezing energy of the Snow Sennin Mode as Naruto's fist collided with Haku's forearm and the entire arena was once again engulfed in smoke, this time, however, it was one created by a clash of very hot and cold air, sending a sizzling hiss throughout the surroundings.

The smoke was instantly blown away as Naruto and Haku exchanged another blow, this time it was Haku who attacked and Naruto blocked. They were revealed only for a moment as their clash once again produced a lot of smoke, covering them.

With every strike, they produced smoke and continuously blew it away because of the force of their next blow, involuntarily creating a spectacular show as they danced in a flurry of taijutsu moves all over the arena and devastating the surroundings.

Ice shards formed and evaporated in seconds. With every step, Haku froze a patch of ground but with every move, Naruto instantly turned that ice into the water... it didn't take long for the arena to be full of mud but neither of the boys was affected by it.

Haku simply froze it all over again while the heat Naruto's cloak was giving off solidified the mud under his feet almost instantly.

The audience watched in stunned silence. Nobody could have expected the Chunin Exam finals to be so spectacular. The matches before this one were special in their own ways but here civilians and ninjas alike saw raw power clashing against raw power. They saw how monstrous a fight between two ninjas could be.

The ground cracked with every step of the two combatants. The surroundings froze and heated up constantly, so much so it was obvious any unfortunate civilian bystanders that got too close would be either frozen or evaporated... or both at the same time.

Even some chunins would have a hard time surviving in such a clash.

The sounds of fists continuously meeting flesh resounded throughout the arena with the intensity of thunder and force enough to create a wave of air strong enough to generate powerful winds capable of blowing out the ever-generated steam from the drastic temperature changes in the arena.

The fight was brutal and Naruto was as always more of a brawler while Haku was nimble and relied more on technique than the power of his fists.

Unfortunately for Naruto, Haku's shortcoming of raw power was covered by the senjutsu chakra augmentation and unfortunately for Haku, Naruto's overreliance on tanking enemy blows was compensated by the sturdiness of his bijuu chakra cloak.

The two boys were at a stalemate, neither capable of delivering the decisive blow.

Rei watched the clash and understood why the two boys were unable to prevail over the other. Naruto's chakra was powerful but it was all over the place, completely uncontrolled. Making a Jutsu with chakra like that would be a miracle. Hence, he had to depend on his fists and enhanced physical prowess.

Not that his blows were weak. As he was now, with just three tails, he could probably match or surpass most jonins in taijutsu as far as speed and strength went.

Haku, on the other hand, seemed too new with senjutsu. Rei could clearly sense the boy struggling with maintaining the Sennin Mode. His internal energies were barely balanced. If he tried to use a Jutsu, he would be done for as his energies would get out of control too.

The spontaneous freezing of the area around him was a clear testament to Haku's lack of control.

It was a funny coincidence. Both boys couldn't control their 'power-up' state for different reasons and that prevented them from going 'all-out'.

It was probably for the best.

'Just a pity the winner is obvious.' Rei thought after watching the taijutsu bout between boiling bijuu chakra and chilling senjutsu chakra for a few minutes while using his chakra senses.

The audience was still mostly silent, enamored by the showcased fight. The people were on edge, having no clue who from the two boys would win since they were pretty evenly matched.

Naruto could not score a proper hit on Haku and Haku could not damage Naruto through his bijuu cloak.

Around an hour passed like that and this fight was officially the longest one in these Chunin Exams finals so far, yet, it seemed to also be the most interesting one for the audience. For the entirety of its duration, the fight was fast-paced, neither of the combatants slowing down even slightly. In fact, its intensity only increased with time.

Alas, it had to come to an end.

As Naruto was about to strike Haku, his bijuu chakra cloak suddenly completely vanished, leaving him totally open and frozen in shock when Kurama retracted his chakra back into the seal.

A second later, Naruto's body was engulfed in excruciating pain, causing his eyes to widen.

Haku did not hesitate and delivered a swift blow to Naruto's chin, causing his head to tilt to the side.

"Eh?" His face showed a disbelieving incomprehension as he fell unconscious and his knees crumbled under his weight, causing him to sprawl onto the ground.

Haku gave the unconscious Naruto a small respectful smile, "I am sorry, Naruto-kun. This is my win." He promptly fell onto his knees as he deactivated the Sennin Mode, gasping for breath.

The winner of this fight was Haku.

Report chapter Comments

The audience was going wild, loudly cheering and clapping in congratulation for Haku's victory. The fight they witnessed seldom happened even among the top ninjas and that's why not only civilians, who had mostly no clue how rare the spectacle they just witnessed was, but also ninjas praised the two boys.

Even if it was a bit unfair, Naruto was expected to be powerful since he was a jinchuuriki. But Haku's victory after Naruto used the power of his inner demon... Now that has impressed many veteran ninjas.

"Looks like your village was hiding some extraordinary talents, Mizukage." Tsuchikage grumpily said.

Inwardly he was comparing his own jinchuuriki and the kid in the horrendous orange jumpsuit. More precisely, he was comparing the odds of his jinchuuriki winning or at least performing as well as Minato's brat... because it was ever so obvious whose the kid was... against the Kirigakure's prodigy.

Reaching Sennin Mode when he is just fifteen years old at best? The ice kid was a monster in his own league.

Obviously, that meant both Tsuchikage and Raikage were already thinking about what kind of bounty they should write on the kid's head and if it was worth it to send their own hunter ninjas after him.

Ringo was completely aware of their thoughts. Haku showed to have the potential to be dangerous and as leaders, it was their duty to assess his threat level and act accordingly. That much was fine as it was natural.

She didn't care about the new target on Haku's back. Such was the life of a ninja.

...

The break was relatively peaceful this time and the next match was announced, Hayate calling Shikamaru Nara and Chojuro to the arena.

Shikamaru was his usual slouched self while Chojuro had a look of sheer determination... The contrast between them couldn't have been more obvious.

The match started and both combatants were just standing in their spots, looking at each other. Shikamaru decided to gauge his enemy's prowess by fighting defensively while Chojuro did not attack because he remembered Shikamaru's shadow jutsu from his preliminary match.

For a swordsman who needed to get into melee range, Shikamaru was a nightmare to fight.

Still, for the ninja audience, the situation was obvious and they inwardly praised the swordsman boy. The Naras were famous for being lazy bums so Shikamaru being unmotivated and passive was normal. But they were also known to be the natural counter to melee fighters because getting close to them almost certainly meant being caught by their shadow.

Chojuro not being reckless and just charging forward as a genin usually would, was already commendable. Nobody would fault him even if he gave up at this point because his opponent was his exact counter. The normal approach to this situation in a field would be a retreat, after all.

The civilian audience didn't understand this, however. They got bored of the two boys standing and staring at each other really fast and then the booing and jeering started as they tried to urge them to finally fight. Not that it moved either boy.

But Chojuro was not a candidate for a spot among the Kiri Swordsmen for nothing. He might not have been able to use Kirigakure no Jutsu yet but Lady Ringo trusted in him enough to order Raiga to train him for the month! Chojuro could not just give up!

Taking a deep breath, Chojuro's fidgety behavior shifted into a complete focus as he unsheathed his katana and took a stance.

Despite looking utterly bored, Shikamaru's half-lidded eyes did not leave Chojuro even for a second. He knew this fight would be fast as their respective skill sets would drive his opponent to go for a single decisive blow so... either Shikamaru would prevent it and win or he wouldn't.

Fortunately, the previous fights messed up the arena quite a lot and now it was uneven, filled with small obstacles, and muddy in some places... There was even the hole Naruto dug to try ambushing Haku but Chojuro clearly took note of it and stayed away from it.

Shikamaru didn't idle. He tried to subtly redistribute his shadow and hide it behind these small obstacles around him like cracks in the ground or uneven surface where Chojuro could not Shikamaru's shadow from his position.

Chojuro finally finished his preparations. The atmosphere in the arena briefly tensed for a moment before he dashed straight at Shikamaru.

He was almost at the place where Shikamaru hid a part of his shadow, just a step away from a good place to ambush him when he abruptly stopped and put his sword into a slashing position.

Shikamaru wondered what he was doing while inwardly cursing that he didn't take one more step forward and step directly into the range of his shadow. He quickly focused and got his shadow moving towards Chojuro's feet but then he noticed as Chojuro's sword gleamed with chakra...

Chojuro slashed forward, gathering chakra in his blade and as his slash was about to end, he released it towards Shikamaru in an arc of energy... before he found himself paralyzed as Shikamaru's Shadow Possession Technique caught him not a split second after he managed to release his slash.

Shikamaru's eyes widened and he quickly threw himself to the side, only barely evading the chakra slash that was gouging a small ravine in the ground as it flew.

It was enough to break his focus and Chojuro found himself free. He used the fact Shikamaru was still distracted to try getting into melee range since the energy slash took a lot of his chakra and unfortunately, it was his only mid-range move for now.

Shikamaru stood up, only to notice with the corner of his eye that Chojuro was almost upon him. He inwardly cursed, knowing he was not fast enough to evade the approaching sword...

Chojuro chanted, 'faster, faster, faster' in his mind, mentally beckoning his sword to go forward faster as every millisecond counted in this fight. He had to strike his opponent before he could properly focus on his shadow!

His sword was nearing Shikamaru's chest... fifteen inches, ten inches, five inches!

And as hope was rising in Chojuro's mind, it was instantly dashed when a shadow tendril 'tripped' his opponent by sweeping his legs under him and causing Chojuro's sword to miss by a slight margin.

Shikamaru knew just this was not enough to give himself the necessary time to catch Chojuro so he manipulated his shadow again and this time the tendril wrapped around is wrist and yanked his body to the side, forcefully dragging it away from Chojuro who was already in the middle of switching stances in preparation for a downward slash aiming straight at the place where Shikamaru laid just a moment ago.

As his opponent's body was suddenly yanked out of his sword's reach, Chojuro was hit by a desperate realization that he couldn't let Shikamaru get enough time to center himself. He quickly rushed after him.

Shikamaru flipped his body up, ending in a standing position while his feet slid on the ground for three more meters due to the kinetic force of the shadow tendril. He stopped in his tracks and without even looking at what his opponent was doing or where he was, he quickly spread his shadow in a thick circle with a radius of two meters around him...

Chojuro's sword suddenly halted an inch from Shikamaru's neck as his body stopped moving. Chojuro desperately tried to force it... it was just an inch!... but he was completely unable to push his blade forward no matter how much strength he tried to exert.

Shikamaru finally focused on his enemy, and his thoughts froze as he noticed how close the sword was to his neck. He involuntarily shivered, thanking whatever deity above that he did the smart thing and acted before thinking for once.

His unnerved eyes met Chojuro's frustrated gaze and for a moment, the two boys just stood there like that. Shikamaru focused on his shadow to restrain the swordsman who tried to push his blade the remaining inch towards Shikamaru's neck. It was a battle of wills in which Shikamaru had a massive advantage.

Still, this victory came far too close to a fatal defeat in Shikamaru's opinion. He had to acknowledge it.

"You are strong." He, for the first time, spoke to Chojuro but got only a determined look in response. Obviously, his opponent didn't want to be distracted by chatter as he didn't give up and still tried to win the match.

A sheepish smile appeared on Shikamaru's face. Since his opponent was like that, he decided to respond in kind and strained his focus.

Instantly, sharp shadow tendrils started to form before skewering muscles in Chojuro's body, causing him to groan from the pain.

Shikamaru might not be able to physically move when restraining someone with his Shadow Possession but that's exactly why his clan came up with Shadow Stitching.

This match was won by him.. Now he just had to force his stubborn opponent to acknowledge it.

Report chapter Comments

Chojuro didn't try fighting the Shadow Possession for too long. There was a thing called knowing when you are beaten and Ringo made sure it was beaten into the Kiri recruits fairly early on.

After all, nobody could know if there will be an opportunity to escape once you get captured. Hence, surrendering was preferable.

The whole order of importance of actions in Kirigakure was winning... and if that can't be done then escaping. If escaping was not an option, then surrendering and surviving should be prioritized before dying.

Naturally, Kirigakure had quite brutal anti-torture methods which were simply put their recruits under the skilled hands of a master torturer so they were aware of what kind of experience it was and could resist it better later on.

Honestly, not many could measure up to Kirigakure's torture master so Kiri ninjas seldom cracked under torture.

Since Ringo took over, Kiri gained a reputation for spitting out some tough but also smart cookies out of their training program.

Of course, they were still assassins so if surrendering and escaping was not an option... Well, death was also a kind of escape.

But that was really the final and most drastic measure.

In this kind of situation, giving up actually earned some points for Chojuro as chunin was not a rank for people who didn't know when to stop. A leader has to be able to assess the situation and decide to call a retreat when a retreat is needed.

And while his showing was definitely not enough to earn him a rank up by the Chunin Exam standards, that didn't matter for him anyway.

After all, it was not Konoha officials that decided if he gets promoted or not. It was Ringo. Chojuro had to impress her. Not the current 'judges'.

Unfortunately for him, he could be almost certain his previous showing was definitely not impressive for the current Mizukage. She did not send him here to have a quick match and lose on top of that.

He was supposed to show off the might of Kirigakure but...

Eh, he didn't do much of that.

Chojuro was in for a very painful reprimand followed by even more painful long training months once he arrived back at Kirigakure. That was for sure.

Ringo's eyebrow was twitching at how fast the match passed. It didn't last even two full minutes and half of that time was just the boys staring at each other.

Sure, the battles between ninjas are often finished instantly but this was the Chunin Exams. This was the platform where ninjas had to show off. She even ordered Raiga to train the kid and this was the result? After all that annoying complaining Raiga put up in hope she would get fed up and stop that order?

It was simply beyond disappointing.

"Well, this match passed certainly quickly." Shikaku tried to start a conversation with Ringo whose eyebrow was visibly twitching. He felt it was his duty not just as the current Hokage but also as the father of the boy who... ahem... unknowingly humiliated the Kiri contestant and by that probably pissed off the extremely dangerous woman sitting next to him.

Shikaku doubted the redheaded Mizukage would be so petty and put a high bounty on a genin. Especially not on a son of the Hokage. But she was a former member of the Seven Swordsmen of Kirigakure and these were almost in every case extreme nutjobs. One could never be sure with them.

So, just in case, Shikaku wanted to make sure while attempting to calm down any ruffled feathers.

"But I guess it is natural. The boy from your village was certainly at a disadvantage. I apologize for that. The match-ups are random." Shikaku continued and smiled apologetically at Ringo only for her to snort when she heard that.

"My mood swings are more random than these match-ups." She grumbled under her nose, loud enough for every present Kage to hear her, which made Shikaku's smile freeze as the other Kages chuckled.

"But don't worry. I am not mad at your boy. He fought well and I am certainly not gonna kill him just because Tsunade is a bitch who rigged the matches in her village's favor. Hah, every Kage does it so there is no problem with that." She rolled her eyes and instantly killed any follow-up conversation that might have occurred.

The other Kages did not even try to give some childish and subtly insulting remark on how easily Chojuro lost after hearing that. Mostly because what she said was the truth. Every Kage tried to give the participants from his village an edge. And if the Chunin Exam happened to be in their villages... well, naturally they would reflect that desire.

It was just natural.

Not having Konoha ninja win Chunin Exams occurring in Konoha was humiliating enough. If no Konoha ninja got past the first match of the finals... what message would that send to the future potential clients?

Still, that didn't mean she had to state the reality so bluntly. Some secrets should stay discreet even if everybody knows them...

'Heh, she is definitely pissed.' Pakura inwardly noted with a small smile gracing her lips.

She stayed quiet as the other Kages, not seeing the point in stirring up this particular conversation even if she could.

With how the odds were stacked against Tsunade's village in these Exams, nobody could fault her for giving the Konoha participants a bit of a push by matching them against someone they either had a chance to beat or could counter with their skill set.

But even then she could not have been sure her participants would win. The competition was just that hard.

Winning the whole thing? Tsunade could forget about that with people like Karin Uzumaki and Temari participating and she definitely knew it too.

Hence, the uneven match-ups. She at least made sure to pit people of similar prowess against each other so the matches are not utter curb-stomping. So far, in every match, both combatants had a chance to win.

That would not have happened if someone like Hinata fought Tayuya, for example.

The match-making was not that terrible. Honestly, the show of power to civilians was one of the best Chunin Exams ever had. Granted, that was more because of the quality of the current contestants than anything else.

Speaking of quality...

"The next match will be between Sabaku no Temari and Karin Uzumaki." Hayate announced and Pakura wryly smiled as she glanced at the smug-looking Tsunade.

'Of course, she just had to put the two strongest against each other.. Shrewd shrew.'

Report chapter Comments

The two women walked into the arena and from the first moment, it was obvious the hostility in the air skyrocketed.

Hayate shuddered as he suddenly found himself right in the middle of the two glaring and approaching women. He had no idea why it reminded him of Danzo's bloodlust when he once coughed right into his face by coincidence but...

'Aren't they supposed to be genins? Why does their bloodlust match something a jonin would be capable of releasing?' He inwardly sweatdropped and took a few subtle steps back to not be in their direct line of sight in fear they would start to fling Jutsu at each other without him even starting the match.

Fortunately for Hayate, neither Karin nor Temari had any intention of fighting outside of the official match as they knew such behavior would not be appreciated by the... ahem, special few people among the audience they would not dare to piss off.

Well, they certainly had the guts to annoy them if only a little bit and neither liked the woman standing opposite them so they didn't intend to pretend to be all buddy-buddy even though they knew it would have been preferred.

The one to start the trouble was, as Rei expected, Temari. While Karin had a temper worthy of an Uzumaki, Temari's personality could be very provocative against those she both loved and didn't like. Just for both of those categories, she was provocative in a different way. Rei enjoyed and appreciated her provocative side but he doubted Karin would feel the same way about it simply because of how Temari felt about Karin.

"If you have something to say, say it, pipsqueak." Temari uttered with a grin, smugly staring at Karin who silently glared at her in a very reserved manner for an Uzumaki. If a look could kill, Karin would have won the Exams already.

Seeing how much the redhead held herself back, Temari's grin widened. She knew exactly what would provoke the redhead enough to get her temper rolling.

She raised her nose upward just enough that only a trained ninja could notice the gesture. But even to those observant enough, it would have meant nothing. For Karin, who knew Temari well, though...

Karin grit her teeth as she saw the subtle condescending and gloating look in her opponent's eyes. She hated those teal eyes full of mockery. She hated it even more than the words Temari uttered.

Considering that her temper would usually not be able to handle even those words without giving a very strong retort back... Karin had no way of holding her emotions at bay once she noticed Temari's expression.

"Hah!? Just because you are a vulgar harlot that likes to spread her legs where they don't belong, doesn't mean I gotta be vocal about it!" Karin shouted back in anger, baring her teeth at Temari with her hands balled into fists.

She really thought she looked menacing but...

Half of the audience, mostly the male part, found her act very cute. The redheaded girl looked like an angry harmless ginger squirrel to them.

Temari raised an eyebrow at Karin when she heard her words. It prompted her to cross her arms on her chest and smirk in victory. "What do you care for whom I spread my legs. Just because I am able to get the man I want to pound me into the sheets, while you can't, is not a reason to be so pathetically unreasonable." She said, her tone laced with sweet derision.

Temari had the time of her life taunting Karin. Especially since she saw it was very effective because of how Karin's expression twisted.

Karin angrily huffed but she didn't refute Temari's words. The redhead was inwardly baffled that the Suna bitch was so blunt about it. It took quite a lot from Karin to prevent herself from flushing red from both immense rage and dumb-struck embarrassment as she heard Temari so brashly admitting about her love life in the middle of Konoha's arena.

'And she says it with such smugness! The... bitch!' Karin inwardly seethed as the flashes of the loathsome harlot in front of her having sex with the man she loved passed through her mind.

'Why couldn't it have been me!? Grrr!'

Of course, her reason for being angry was not really that Temari had sex with Rei. It was mostly that Karin didn't and Temari loved to smugly remind her of that at every opportunity.

After Karin did not react for a few seconds, Temari decided to throw another jab at her. "At least you know how to listen to a reason and know when to be silent like a good girl. Who knew it could learn... Eh, pipsqueak?"

"Who are you calling pipsqueak, you shitty bitch." Karin spoke, trembling in a cold rage. "I will never know why he would choose you over me. Who knows how many other men you spread your legs for. What good could be some cheap bitch like you for?" She sneered, her eyes gleaming with a desire to inflict severe harm on Temari. She couldn't wait for the match to start.

Temari's grin instantly fell when she heard Karin's accusation. She didn't appreciate that one and it was obvious from how severe her expression became. "Oi, oi. Are you questioning my fidelity?" She spoke with an ice-cold tone as her lips twisted into a frown, "Wanna die before reaching a breedable age, kid?"

The atmosphere in the arena became extremely suffocating and the small breeze totally halted as the wind became stagnant. Exactly like a calm before the storm.

While the civilian audience enjoyed the exchange of insults between the women, every experienced ninja felt as if sitting on needles. They knew what was to come as they could feel the 'disturbance' in the chakra and the threat it carried. It was far from a pleasant feeling.

"Just because you are a few years older..." Karin let out through her gritted teeth. She was squeezing her fists so hard, her sharp nails dug into her palms, driving blood and causing her to feel a painful sting.

Just because she was still a 'kid', Rei always deflected her advances. How was it fair that he fucked Temari and not her!?

Karin wanted nothing more than to see the shithead who decided fifteen being the age of majority in the Elemental Nation and tear him to shreds. She was a kunoichi! An adult! She was old enough to kill so it should automatically mean she was old enough to give herself to the man she loved, no!?

Frankly, the pain helped her to prevent herself from leaping at Temari and smashing that bloated sand swine's face into a bloody mess. Who permitted her to spread her legs for Rei before her!?

Karin's chakra also exploded outwardly like a raging inferno as her thoughts became more and more turbulent. It was not visible for civilians but the ninjas jolted at the abrupt flood of energy and malice. The bloodlust they could feel from the small redhead amplified to heights even experienced chunins were starting to feel unsure about their continued safety in the arena.

Alas, one, Gekko Hayate, could only discreetly weep bitter tears as Hokage himself gave him the job of proctoring the matches. If he knew he would be caught in the middle of these two hostile torrents of chakra desiring nothing but to tear each other apart, he would have declined the 'honor' and kept the heck away from the arena today!

It was starting to be physically painful just to stay in the vicinity of their powerful chakra. Genins, his ass!

Report chapter Comments

Hayate decided it would be unprofessional of him to delay the beginning of the match any longer when the combatants were in such high spirits.

"The match between Uzumaki Karin and Sabaku no Temari start!" He exclaimed and jumped... not to the edge of the arena as during the previous matches but he outright jumped out of the arena in fear of getting caught up in between the two outraged 'genins' who could put most elite jonins to shame with the potency and volume of their chakra.

What could a poor Special Jonin like him do against 'children' like these!? How was he supposed to proctor this match? Stopping it when they go overboard? Him? Really? With what army?

'Now I know why Lord Hokage looked at me with such a pity when he handed me this 'honor'.' Hayate bitterly thought with an inward sigh and outward cough.

Oh well, it was no longer in his power to intervene. What should happen will happen no matter if he pointlessly puts his life on the line or not. That's why he decided he would rather keep his life and body intact. The two 'not-genins' could tear each other apart for all he cared.

Down in the arena, the second Hayate started the match, both women moved.

Temari fully opened her war fan in one swing, sending a gust of powerful wind at Karin while two chakra chains burst out of Karin's sleeves, snapping in Temari's direction.

The gust of wind and chains, both supercharged on chakra, met in the middle, creating a powerful shockwave that dispelled the wind and deflected the chakra chains while forcing Temari to shield herself with her war fan and Karin to create an Earth Wall to avoid said shockwave reaching them.

Because of the shockwave, the inside of the arena felt as if a ferocious storm was passing through it. The hair of both girls flailed wildly in the uncontrollable winds that sprang forth from the impacts of the shockwave with the walls of the arena. Cracks were left on every place the shockwave impacted a surface and soon enough, the whole arena was covered in them.

It was incredible... to think only their chakra clashing could do this much damage to the environment.

On the same note, the Kages instantly realized a small problem. The women were far too strong for the restricted space of the arena. At this rate, the fight would surely spill out of it and the audience would be caught up in it!

Fortunately for them and the unknowing civilians, Tsunade would not pit Karin against Temari in a place where they could massacre half the village just as collateral damage without sufficient preparation.

Seals started to spread at breakneck speeds all over the cracked walls of the arena, visibly repairing them and covering them in a layer of chakra barrier. The barrier continued to spread until all walls were covered in it and a translucent dome was created above the arena to enclose the barrier.

The amount of chakra funneled to this barrier surprised many ninjas, especially the foreign Kages and Orochimaru. Konoha definitely did not possess anything like this during the last war as they could see numerous ways of how to use such a barrier in a war but Konoha never did.

This barrier had enough chakra to withstand a bijuudama!

For some reason, that only hammered down their confidence in the upcoming invasion. Tsuchikage even started to regret his decision to join a pathetic snake like Orochimaru now...

Once the shockwaves were over, Temari hoisted up her war fan and started to wildly swing it from left to right, sending chakra-enhanced wind slash after wind slash at Karin, hoping to catch her off-guard because her visibility was impaired by the huge Earth Wall in front of her.

Karin, however, didn't need her eyes to see. Especially not when chakra was involved. Her Mind's Eye of Kagura warned her about the incoming attacks the second they left Temari's war fan. She put her palm on the back of her Earth Wall and focused, drawing a sequence of seals from her memory, inscribing it onto the wall with just her chakra.

If the current Sealmasters saw a girl of her age doing this, they would puke blood, thinking their lifelong efforts were just a waste of time since even a small girl could replicate it.

Temari's wind slashes splashed onto Karin's Earth Wall but unlike Temari expected, they did not go through it like a knife through butter. Instead, their force was mostly deflected sending the inside of the arena into yet another windy storm that increased in ferocity with each slash that hit Karin's wall.

Deep gashes formed all around the ground in a show of just how much power each slash contained and while some of these deflected slashes reached the walls, the chakra barrier held firmly, only slightly shaking from the impact.

This utterly shocked Karin. Her Enhancing Seals were strong enough to nullify B-rank Ninjutsu head-on! The fact they had to deflect Temari's attacks instead of nullifying them meant each slash contained power surpassing B-rank Ninjutsu.

Karin's smile uncomfortably twitched at that thought. 'Crazy bitch. She is really trying to kill me.' Her smile widened, her red eyes gaining a gleeful malicious gleam, 'Hehe, that just means I don't have to feel bad about going for the kill from the get-go.'

On the other side of the arena, Temari was having the time of her life. She didn't care if her attacks were deflected. Just spamming them on that redheaded banshee was enough to relieve her pent-up stress. Hit-Karin could really become one of the best stress relief activities for her!

The fact the arena was drowned in sharp screeching winds was really relaxing for her too. It didn't matter that the visibility was becoming worse and worse. Or that her extremely trained hearing sense was becoming really irrelevant because of the winds. She felt at home in this environment and it only made her inner elation skyrocket.

Suddenly, her relaxing daze was interrupted as multiple chakra chains burst from the ground around her, snapping in her direction with brutal precision, every single one of them aiming to pierce an instantly lethal place.

Temari remembered the redheaded brat was a powerful sensor and frowned. It certainly complicated the matter.

'And here I thought I would be able to just relax and drown her in ranged attacks. Sigh, kids these days are troublesome.' She distractedly lamented while twisting and spinning her body on her heels, just right to avoid the chains by inches. Her instincts and senses were trained to the extreme under Lady Pakura's tutelage. There was no way some Uzumaki upstart could kill her with such a pathetic attempt!

Unknown to Temari, Karin didn't aim to harm Temari with her attack.

The chains were all around Temari. Because of their length, even if she avoided the attack of the sharp pointy end, their long body was still quite restricting to her movements.

Temari's eyes widened as she realized her area for evasion was shrinking. She clicked her tongue and reached for her fan with the intention to blast these pesky chains away...

And that was what Karin waited for.

Her chakra chains suddenly shifted, new chakra chains emerging from the body of her old chains in a similar fashion as Orochimaru's snakes burst out of his sleeves when he uses the Formation of Ten Thousand Snakes.

A sense of danger invaded Temari's mind as she found herself surrounded by sharp pointy ends of chains about to rush at her from all sides and she didn't have enough time to reach for her war fan.

'The tomato brat hid her intentions well.' Temari grumpily thought, watching the threatening sharp chains approaching her body in slow motion.

Even in her most absurd dreams she never thought Karin would be able to corner her like this.

--

Author Note (or rather rant because I didn't do one for a very long time and I feel like nitpicking and I am also a bit bored so I wonder what kind of response I will have for this):

Lately, I noticed a few guys doing comments like: 'Boring', or with similar meaning.

I think I should address that :D. Feel free to express yourself if you find it boring. That's fine and I won't get offended. Actually, I am just amused by that kind of childishness.

Look guys... we are at chapter 400th right now. If you feel the story bores you, just stop reading for a month and then read all chapters at once if you are still interested in it.

If you are here, then I think at least something in my story kept you reading for the past four hundred chapters. Going through that experience, you should have noticed that I am not talented enough to make every single one of my chapters exciting and interesting.

I try but... I am sorry for being blunt but, in the end, I don't write for you. I write because I like it and have fun doing it. I write what I want to write and if you don't find that exciting enough for you... then I am sorry but this is the best I can provide.

Nothing will change by typing 'Boring' into comments.

If you feel the need to express yourself, at least give me a reason why you find it boring. Describe which part was rubbing you the wrong way, which interaction was not well done, what did you not like. Give me that feedback :). If you need to roast me alive, feel free to do so but state a reason for it. That would actually make me happy.

'Boring' ... is discouraging. I don't let it get to me too much. I had tons of people trash-talking me in comments and reviews so something like that is not enough to get to me but it still brings the mood down when reading it.

Getting proper feedback on 'why' you think it is boring and maybe how it could have been done better would be a different case.

Nevertheless, some of my chapters will still be boring. No way to go around that.

And that's because I don't have a precise plan in my mind while writing each chapter. I vaguely know where it is heading but when I write a chapter, I write what comes to mind and what I find interesting. I write in a way I think would be interesting for me.

In the end, I write for myself, and in order to get better at it.

To be honest, sometimes I am flat out testing some stuff and people's reactions to them. Like purposefully doing certain things in the plot and then reading all the comments regarding them to know how they would be received.

But my point is...

- This guy, is no JK Rowling.. Don't expect too much from me, please :D.

Report chapter Comments

Gritting her teeth, Temari made a tough decision. It was either get hit by some chains and get her war fan or leave her fan and dodge.

Naturally, her war fan would usually be the priority as it was an extremely important weapon for her but she couldn't afford to be injured. Not by Karin. Not like this. Not so easily.

Her pride was reeling in disgust at the thought. Plus, this fight would most likely be quite a long one and whoever would get injured first would be at a huge disadvantage.

Her course of action was set and Temari...

The formation of chains tightened as they fully encased the place where Temari was standing in a ball of chakra chains sharp enough to bisect a tree all over their length.

To the audience, it seemed as if Karin managed to get Temari with a finishing blow as the ball of writhing chains, grinding against each other in all of their shredding might, was a very menacing sight.

But Karing knew differently and stayed alert. Her sensing prowess caught something just before her chains struck. She was not certain what it meant but she was not about to underestimate her foe.

Her vigilance was rewarded five seconds later. The earth on the opposite side of the arena from the writhing ball of chains suddenly became sand and Temari emerged from it with a very put-off face.

Part of it was definitely the fact she had to leave her fan behind but Karin realized the biggest reason why she seemed so discontent was that she realized a sneak attack would not work because of how focused Karin was. To appear on the other side of the arena, her route definitely led underneath Karin and that meant, the opportunity for a sneak attack was definitely there.

Now... if only Karin could find out how Temari evaded her senses when she was underground. That was quite a worrying ability.

Nevertheless, Karin couldn't help but give Temari a quick smirk. She one-upped the uppity bitch so well, her ego's ass would hurt for ages!

Seeing Karin's smirk, Temari frowned. Yes, she lost her war fan but what's with that winning expression? Why was the Uzumaki brat grinning like a loon? As if she had already won?

Did nobody teach her the fight is not over until your opponent doesn't breathe anymore?

'This is why kids are so...' Temari inwardly shook her head in exasperation.

"I can admit that was a well-planned assault." Temari started speaking towards Karin. "But it looks like I will have to teach you an important lesson in the ninja world." She sighed, "How you can be so self-assured at this point is beyond me. Did nobody ever tell you that..."

Temari paused and put her hand into her kunai pouch and took out a very harmless-looking storage scroll.

Karin, who initially got on guard, looked at Temari in bewilderment. Storage scroll? That was it? Was she hiding a second war fan or something? That is the reason for her confidence?

What could a storage scroll contain? Kunais? Shurikens? Pfft, as if such tools were useful in a fight of this level...

Giving a glance at her deadly chains... Karin could not believe the Suna harlot could still maintain that condescending look.

'I will really have to cut her up real good to wipe that smug facade off of her face, won't I?' Karin narrowed her eyes and prepared herself. She refused to believe a second war fan is what made Temari so on top of her game despite her bad situation.

Temari's smirk widened as she noticed Karin getting focused, expecting some grand attack she would have to dodge or block.

"Expect the unexpected!" Temari leisurely said in a lecturing tone before she snorted and threw the scroll high into the air, right in the middle of where they both stood.

Karin blinked, resisting the urge to follow the scroll with her eyes.

She was not impressed. Misdirection was the oldest thing in the books. Trying to use an ordinary storage scroll to get her attention away from her opponent?

Hah~...

Karin was not impressed. Her eyes stayed firmly on Temari, giving her a deadpan look that conveyed, 'Really? That's your big lesson? Bluffing?'

It seemed that Temari's ploy failed as she stood awkwardly rooted in her place, her lips twitching when Karin's eyes refused to let her out of their sight while the small scroll spun in the air, reaching higher and higher.

"Pathe..." Karin dryly started.

She was however interrupted midway when the scroll burst open and an entire ocean of sand emerged above the arena, starting to fall down like an inescapable crushing waterfall.

And while Karin was too stunned to do anything, taken off guard pretty heavily, Temari just let out a pearl of laughter full of enjoyment and glee as her body seemingly turned to sand which then fell to the ground, forming a pile there.

There was no time for Karin to react as the ocean of sand reached the ground, burying the arena alongside her in itself, creating a small desert of quicksand.

The audience was utterly stunned at this usage of storage scroll. Many ninjas wondered what Temari intended to do with a storage scroll in this kind of fight but...

Nobody could even begin to guess that she stored a desert in it. In hindsight, having so much sand dropped on one's head would be indeed... unpleasant. The people wondered if the redhead was even alive at this point. Being buried alive by sand weighing several tons at the very least... that gotta be lethal, no?

After a few seconds, small tendrils of sand rose up from the new sandy ground, forming into a humanoid shape before they solidified, revealing Temari who kneeled down, putting her palms on the sand and chuckling.

"Surprise bitch. Sand Waterfall Imperial Funeral!" She exclaimed and the sand underneath her compressed with such force, a crater was created on the surface of the sand dune, sending a cloud of sandy dust to fly upward, covering the arena.

The sand dropped around two meters in height. That's how much it was compressed. The individual grains of sand were so close to each other, the sand surface was now as hard as a chakra-enhanced rock.

When the ninjas in the audience saw that, they couldn't help but grimace while thinking, 'Yep, there is no surviving that one...'

And while many were utterly bewildered, the Suna ninjas in particular couldn't help but get chills when they saw someone other than Gaara manipulating sand in this manner. Gaara's Sand Coffin was extremely well known in Sunagakure. Seeing its upgraded version? Of course, the people old enough to remember Gaara's bloody childhood would not find it amusing that the technique got an upgrade.

Temari slowly stood up, rolling her tense shoulders.

This was it. She revealed her bloodline to the world. And damn if it wasn't such a drag!

"My body is so stiff! I shouldn't have channeled so much chakra through it into the sand." She loudly groaned, giving the compressed sandy ground a sheepish glance before uneasily muttering under her nose, "Er... was this a bit of an overkill? Rei would have saved the Uzumaki kid from being flattened if my attack was life-threatening." She tried to awkwardly comfort herself but the uncertainty was blatantly obvious in her tone. "Right?"

As she awkwardly stood in her place, hunched over from how weary her body was, Hayate stepped into the arena, deciding to end the match. In his opinion, there was no way the Uzumaki was still alive. This move could possibly flatten a few streets in a village.

'What a monster.' He thought as he glanced at Temari about to call her victory while inwardly feeling a distaste for her because of killing her opponent. "The w-..."

But as he was about to say it, the sandy ground of the arena suddenly started to violently tremble as many cracks abruptly emerged all around it.

It seemed Karin was not as dead as everybody thought.

Report chapter Comments

The sandy ground was violently shaking, the tremors spreading even to the walls of the arena beyond the chakra barrier since it was a dome and the ground was not covered.

Suddenly, the ground underneath Temari became bloated, forming a massive sand dune, and it was ever so obvious an eruption was imminent. Temari furiously tried to pour more of her chakra into it, hardening and compressing it even further but something was pressing against the dune from within, causing it to expand outward no matter how much Temari tried to suppress it.

When she realized this tug of war would be eventually lost by her, Temari decided to stop trying to crush Karin's attempt at getting out of the sand. She could delay it but whatever Karin was doing, it was working a bit too well.

Temari leaped back, landing on the side of the wall and crouching there in wait, mentally preparing herself for whatever was gonna pop up from the sand. She had no idea what Karin was doing but whatever it was, it must be huge considering the counter-pressure it was able to exert against her chakra.

Now that Temari stopped suppressing Karin's attempt, the sand dune abruptly erupted as if a bomb had just gone off within it. Sand flew all around and dust clouds rose into the air before it was quickly dispersed by a huge gust of wind as a massive torso of a gigantic crimson samurai armor made of chakra violently tore itself out of the ground with a roaring blast.

Anyone who knew what Susanoo was would instantly notice the incredible likeness to that technique. The only difference was... instead of forming it via the Mangekyo Sharingan, Karin used her own bloodline, her Adamantine Sealing Chains, to create this construct according to the example Izumi showed her.

Of course, Izumi would have never thought Karin could actually pull it off but apparently, one should never underestimate a motivated Uzumaki. Despite that, it was very much a work in progress as it obviously lacked the lower part of its body.

The gigantic chakra samurai armor suddenly stopped and zoomed in on Temari. The atmosphere in the arena became still for a moment as if calm before a storm. The moment dragged on and the time as if slowed down... but a few seconds later, a chakra chain sprouted from the armor's right hand like flames before it skillfully spun it like a whip, sending powerful gusts of wind all around the arena while aiming to completely devastate the place where Temari was standing.

Temari's pupils shrank as she realized the chakra chain with the width of a room was just swung towards her at breakneck speeds. She reacted as if on autopilot and just barely managed to turn into the sand before the chain impacted her position.

The chakra barrier clashed with the chakra chain, sending a loud booming sound followed by a massive shockwave into the surroundings. The barrier remained intact despite the brutal raw strength behind the blow and because the arena was covered by it in its entirety, the shockwave had no way to 'escape'. This caused the pressure from it to build up until the winds picked up and the grains of sand started to erratically fly in the air, creating a powerful sandstorm.

Temari's chakra only nudged that process a bit.

Karin pulsed her chakra, controlling her chakra armor to spin the massive chakra chain it held around itself, creating another gust of wind, dispersing the sandstorm in an instant and revealing Temari's position.

Karin smirked at the wide-eyed Suna kunoichi and prepared to control her armor to strike again...

Unfortunately for her, Temari was not wide-eyed because she was caught completely off guard. She just couldn't believe how stupid the Uzumaki bint was to do... this.

Before Karin's crimson armor could brandish its massive chakra chain at Temari again, the powerful winds created by Karin's previous swing rebounded on the barrier, engulfing the whole arena and picking up the sand upward to the air in yet another massive sandstorm, this time, one much more ferocious as the previous one.

There was no need for Temari to nudge this sandstorm with her chakra. Karin did all the work for her by being a mindless violent brute of an Uzumaki and thinking that punching a problem is the correct way to go. She clearly forgot they were in an enclosed space where the recoil of her swing will be rebounded right back at her in the form of strong winds.

Temari slipped from Karin's radar, letting her chakra seemingly disperse into the sand. This was a technique she previously used to pass unnoticed underneath Karin. With this sandstorm, there was no way Karin could locate her.

Karin, realizing that Temari again used whatever she was using to escape her senses, had a problem. She could not sense Temari and she could not see shit through all the sand flying around! But she also couldn't just disperse the sandstorm as it would only create a stronger one!

Not seeing any solution, Karin's temper started to get the better of her.

'Agh! To hell with it!' She inwardly screamed and started to angrily fling her chakra chain around the arena in a tantrum, intending... well, more like hoping... to hit Temari with her blind blows.

Karin was furiously smashing and shattering every piece of the landscape around her immovable armor, powerful blows rained all over the arena, creating untold devastation and mayhem.

The sandstorm was continuously being blown away and reformed again and again, with each blow becoming stronger and stronger until there was nothing but sand everywhere.

Karin was blind and she hated it!

The sand was doing something to block her senses! It drove her sparse. The more she rampaged, the blinder she became, the more bothered by it she was. It was one vicious cycle.

Many in the audience, civilians and ninjas alike, went deathly pale at the sight of such mindless violence perpetrated by a hulking mass of chakra of the size of Hokage Tower. So much so Rei even regretted installing seals that allowed the audience to see what was happening despite all the visual obstacles such as the sandstorm.

Karin was simply not giving any shit about appearances. She utterly wrecked everything around her with extreme prejudice and the ninjas in the audience had their lives flashing in front of their eyes as they started picturing encountering... that... during a war.

The reluctance was almost palpable in the air.

Both Raikage and Tsuchikage stared at the spectacle in mute horror, quickly abandoning their plans to deal with Uzushiogakure after they dealt with Konoha.

The massive chakra construct was causing craters with every blow. Hills were created and then demolished in an instant as the powerful force of the chakra chain terraformed the landscape in a mindlessly casual flick.

Yes, Raikage could punch strong enough to pulverize a small mountain but not with such ease!

Yes, Tsuchikage's potential for destruction far outstripped what he was seeing but he could not use his Dust Release so casually.

This large-scale destruction was visibly not taking any toll on the girl! She was not thinking where to strike next. She was just waving that chain of hers left and right, no technique or skill, just pure brute strength, and this was the result. She could go on and on. Powering that chakra giant as if it was some kind of D-rank Jutsu.

Needless to say, both Raikage and Tsuchikage were scared out of their minds. Just imagining that crimson armor being in the middle of their village...

It sent shivers down their spines.

If nothing else, Karin unknowingly earned respect from two leaders.

Without the chakra barrier surrounding the arena, the Kages surmised there would be no arena left standing after that tantrum of hers. Frankly, there probably would not be half of Konoha left standing.

The barrier soaked up all the shockwaves which were much more devastating than the blows themselves.

And while Karin was blindly rampaging, hoping to get out of her utterly mortifying situation, Temari was preparing her counterattack.

The Uzumaki wanted to pull a giant made of chakra out of her ass? Well, there was only one response to that! Since she wanted a giant, she will get a giant!

Temari's eyes gleamed with vicious light.

And not just one but several!

'I am going to teach you some common sense, brat.' Temari heatedly thought. She was trying to restrain herself for the sake of appearances but since Karin wanted to go hardcore... 'Who told you to pull a village-ending move in a competition meant for genins, haah, brat!?'

Report chapter Comments

As Temari started to focus on using her next Jutsu, the sandstorm in the arena suddenly halted because the sand in the air started to gather into three massive wriggling tendrils surrounding Karin. Even the ground level started somewhat decreasing as the sand from there also quickly crawled towards the base of the tendrils, causing the ground to literally move.

Karin was delighted Temari stopped the sandstorm as at least her vision was recovered and her chakra sensing was starting to be useful again but she also realized these tendrils were a preparation for a huge attack. These tendrils were as high and thick as her chakra armor and she couldn't move the armor yet. She knew there was a big chance that demolishing them would start a new sandstorm but Karin didn't really have any other option right now.

That's why with massive disgruntlement, Karin controlled her crimson chakra chain to smash the tendril to her right.

The tendril of sand burst like water from an abruptly shattered glass bottle, sand flying everywhere, filling the arena again.

Karin didn't wait for her chain and directly punched the second tendril with her armor's free hand, bursting it into massive streams of falling sand too. By the time her punch was finished, her armor's other arm already controlled the momentum of the chakra chain, ready to swing it once more.

But before she could destroy the last tendril, Karin became bewildered as the first one she destroyed started to quickly reform, sand being sucked into it from the surroundings as if it was a vacuum cleaner.

Her momentary hesitation cost her a few seconds and when she finally got past her shock, the second tendril was already halfway finished reforming.

Karin understood that destroying the tendrils would not work and her eyes started to look for Temari. If attacking the Jutsu did not work, then attacking the user was the only option.

That was easier said than done however as even though Karin was one of the best sensors on the continent and she tried her utmost best to locate Temari, she still had a hard time.

Unfortunately for her, Temari was already done with her preparation and gathered enough sand for the next part of her Jutsu.

The outer layer of three massive spinning sand tendrils burst outwardly, revealing three massive giants made of sand, every single one of them matching her armor's torso in size.

Unlike Karin's chakra armor, these giants were not made of raw chakra, hence, Temari could make multiples with much less chakra cost than Karin had to spend only for the torso.

The arena was becoming cramped since the gigantic constructs' eye level reached almost the audience area. Considering how high this area was placed, it was a sight to behold.

The three sand giants roared and burst into action, rushing at Karin with the intent to smack the hell out of her chakra construct.

Karin's eyes widened as she scrambled to whip her chain at the one on the right, hitting him in the chest, and much to her shock, she did destroy the giant but in just a moment it was once again in one piece, raring to rush at her again.

The problem was, it took much more force than she planned for.

Karin couldn't focus only on the giant on the right, however. Two more were trying to rush at her.

She stopped the one on the left of her by grabbing him around his torso with her construct's free hand, holding the giant back as it uselessly flailed its arms around and occasionally smashing them against the surface of her chakra armor's arm.

Alas, the giants in their full-size being as big as the torso of her armor meant she had much longer reach with the arms of her armor so the trapped sand giant couldn't reach her with its arms

The problem was the third sand giant, the one in front of her. Karin's armor ran out of hands. She first planned to smash the one on her right with her chain and then swing her chain at the one in front of her but the surprising density of the giants prevented that. When her chain impacted the first giant, it didn't go clean through him as it should but instead, the chain lost its velocity and fell to the ground.

Gritting her teeth, Karin let go of the chain and it instantly started to dissipate as most of the chakra forming it started returning to Karin.

With this new influx of chakra, a new arm sprouted from the armor's chest just as the giant in front of it was about to reach it. The arm grabbed the giant by its head and forced it down, plunging it to the ground, splattering it with sand as the head burst like a watermelon. Not done yet, the arm then balled its hand into a fist before starting to smash the giant's body into a pulp, not stopping even when it started to reform again and again and... again.

Karin hoped the reforming cost Temari a lot of chakra because of how fast it was.

By the time she stopped the two giants, the one on her right was almost upon her and she tried to grab it with her right hand that no longer held a chain but the giant ducked under it, leaping at Karin's torso and embracing it, most likely trying to tackle her to the ground.

Karin's chakra armor was however much denser and heavier than the sand giant. It didn't budge even an inch.

Karin reached with her armor's right hand again, grabbing the sand giant, and tried to pry him off of her torso but his sand arms fused together behind her back and it refused to let go, squeezing her chakra armor with the ring of sand its arms and chest created.

From an outside perspective, it looked as if the giants were children manhandled by an adult but... the more experienced shinobi knew that all Jutsu cost chakra. It wasn't as simple as it seemed.

And indeed, sweat was running down Karin's forehead as chakra was being sucked out of her system in large amounts. Holding three struggling sand giants down was no small feat. Especially the one trying to squeeze her armor's torso was problematic as creating counter-pressure with chakra took a lot out of her.

'So this is her plan, huh? Tire me to death?' Karin thought while focusing on regulating her breathing. 'Ha! She must have never faced an Uzumaki before. I am not losing an endurance fight, 'tteba!'

The fight continued and the giants struggled to escape Karin's armor's hold while trying to sneak an attack or two in while Karin had problems containing all three of them. Splitting her focus three-way was quite a problem. So much so, she even dropped her attempts to locate Temari with her chakra sensing.

Karin realized her mistake when the sand underneath the chakra armor suddenly sprang up, wrapping itself around her armor, trying to pull it down into the massive amount of quicksand that 'somehow' appeared under it.

Karin tried to pull her armor up by completely ignoring the sand giants and using her armor's three hands to support her armor's massive frame but even the hands started to sink, only quickening the process of her being dragged down.

While Karin was preoccupied with the three sand giants, Temari had time to leisurely set up her next move so she made it a massive one.

She ground the ground underneath the arena into more sand before turning it into quicksand. The chakra armor was massive and provided extreme protection, that much was true. Even S-rank Jutsu would probably not be enough to penetrate it. But it was also heavy and big, but worse of all, immovable at this stage.

It would have been ever so easy to pull it underground and then put pressure on it until Karin's chakra would not be able to support it.

Especially with quicksand that pulled it down the more it struggled.

When Karin's massive chakra armor completely disappeared into the quicksand, leaving only a calm surface behind, Temari, who was crouching upside down on the 'ceiling' of the chakra barrier, directly above the place where Karin's armor was sucked underground, took a deep calming breath. Her chakra reserves suffered quite a bit to pull this off but it was worth it.

This was definitely the end.

Report chapter Comments

Temari wasn't aiming to kill Karin. Far from it. Karin was an S-rank ninja and something like this should not be able to kill her off. If it did, then she would have been just a waste of air.

Temari's whole plan was based on the fact that the chakra armor took a lot of chakra out of Karin to stay active. The three sand giants were not only a distraction but also a means to gather intel and probe Karin's defenses.

Finding out that putting pressure on a part of the armor meant Karin had to focus more and spend more chakra to reinforce that part was the reason for Temari's plan. The chakra armor seemed really menacing but having this kind of obvious and massive weakness... it really was not a finished technique yet. What gave Karin the confidence to use it against her, Temari would never know.

In short, underground, Karin's armor would be pressured from all sides, which would drain Karin's chakra at an extreme pace. Yet, she would be unable to drop the armor since she would be surrounded by Temari's sand.

'It should not take long for the girl to faint from chakra exhaustion.' Temari vindictively thought as she sensed what was happening underground through her sand.

It would have been so easy to squash the Uzumaki brat to a bloody mangled ball of broken bones and torn flesh but no matter how much animosity was between them, Karin was still one of the ninjas from the Village on the Other Side, and killing her would not make Rei happy so Temari refrained from wringing that pathetic head of hers.

Suddenly something underground shifted. Temari was not exactly seeing what was going on, rather, she was feeling it not unlike a blind person trying to orient himself with touch. The difference was, Temari felt everything every grain of her sand was 'touching'

It was a very cumbersome sensing technique that was useless most of the time but Temari was proud of having it. It took her months to perfect, after all, and it was an incredibly efficient way to train her control over sand with her chakra.

This time, however, it gave her the necessary warning of Karin's last vain attempt at resistance.

Except... 'Oi, oi, oi! You ain't gonna blow the entire place up, are you!?' Temari frantically screamed in her mind when she realized the massive chakra underground started compressing and gaining intensity and density in a very similar way to the techniques of the Explosive Corps of Iwa.

Temari, who was still crouching upside down on the 'ceiling' of the dome made of chakra covering the arena, looked down with alarm and quickly started to prepare her defenses.

Tendrils of sand abruptly sprang up from the ground, flowing through the air towards Temari before the sand started to form shield mid-air while hardening, compressing, and becoming enhanced with more and more chakra.

This was just the first shield and as the intensity of the underground chakra build-up increased, sweat started forming on Temari's forehead. Realizing just her sand shield would not be enough, she started to compress and quicken winds in front of the shield to provide a bit more resistance and partially scatter the force of the explosion before it could even reach her shield.

This happened too fast, in fact, only three seconds passed since Karin started compressing her chakra so Temari did not have much time to create countermeasures.

The chakra build-up underground suddenly stopped but Temari was not happy at all. The amount of chakra in it...

The only warning the spectators got was a brief expansion of the sand surface before it burst and filled the entire arena with a deafening explosion as blinding white light flooded the chakra barrier. Many people in the audience were blinded by it and had to rub their eyes to recover their sight while others tried to cover their ears because of the loud booming sound.

Fortunately for them, Rei's chakra barrier held otherwise at least a half of Konoha would have been just a crater.

Still, both Tsunade and Rei started to be quite annoyed with how much they had to focus to prevent a massive earthquake from occurring... again.

Honestly, did the two women not understand this was supposed to be a fight between genins? What's with this village destroying shit-show!?

The explosion quickly reached Temari's wind shield, blowing through it as if it didn't even exist and only slightly diminishing in intensity. It reached her sand shield, and the sand started to instantly turn the surface of it into a glass before it shattered due to the extreme heat the explosion carried.

The sand shield held somewhat even though the explosion was getting through it layer by layer. By the time the sand shield was completely destroyed, the force of the explosion was greatly reduced and Temari had a barrier made out of her chakra in front of her.

She might not be extremely proficient in this kind of Jutsu, but she wasn't just a one-trick pony who could only do wind Jutsu and manipulate sand. Lady Pakura has beaten an entire repertoire of Jutsu into her just in case she someday needed them.

The force of the explosion met Temari's hastily put chakra barrier, making it violently tremble. Alas, Temari's chakra barrier was directly supplied by Temari's chakra... and damn if it wasn't draining as heck... so the barrier was preserved even if only barely.

Temari successfully withstood the explosion that could level half of a village and didn't even get scratched. After all, getting a scratch from fighting Karin would have been embarrassing in her opinion.

Of course, she completely ignored the fact she did not inflict even a scratch on Karin either.

The blinding light started to clear out and the aftermath left many spectators in a daze. Where previously were dunes of sand, now only a massive crater spanning the whole surface of the arena remained. It wasn't a 'clean' crater either. Its surface was filled with many jagged protrusions that seemed to be made of something similar to obsidian, the whole ground was black and shiny, so much so, a person could even see their reflection on it.

The environment of the arena was rearranged for the third time during this fight alone.

And in the middle of this crater, Karin was huffing and puffing, her hands on her knees as he tried to catch her breath. The reason for her survival was obvious as her whole body was covered by the human-sized version of her previously massive chakra armor.

Now, it only covered her body, not unlike Ringo's Lightning Armor technique.

Seeing it, Temari's expression twisted into a grimace. The biggest weakness of Karin's chakra armor was its chakra consumption. Because of its huge size, the redhead had to supply an ungodly amount of chakra to keep it active. But now with size reduction, she could focus more of her chakra to strengthen its defenses, make the chakra more condensed, while also using much less chakra overall.

'Did I just help her to get a breakthrough in her Jutsu?' Temari disgruntledly thought in deep displeasure as she flopped down from the 'ceiling' of the chakra barrier onto the shiny black ground just a few feet away from the huffing Uzumaki.

Karin grinned at Temari through her heavy breathing, "Heh... How did, haaa, you like it? B-, haa, -itch?" She asked, causing Temari's eye to twitch.

"Such a cheeky mouth when you are half-dead on your feet. You really should learn some humility. Someone else might have killed you by now because of how annoying you are. Well, I guess that is a genetic defect of the Uzumaki bloodline so you can't really help it." Temari retorted back in a condescending manner, knowing it would annoy Karin a lot.

Contrary to Temari's expectations, there was no explosion of temper. The Uzumaki was probably too exhausted for that.

Karin just derisively snorted, "You, haaa, are underestimating, huuu, me too much." She raised her gaze, her determined red eyes looking straight into Temari's teal ones, causing them to widen when...

Report chapter Comments

Temari felt the subtle surge of Karin's chakra as her eyes connected with Karin's, while the crimson armor around Karin started to dissipate. A surge that should have been impossible for the exhausted redhead to produce.

As Karin's hard breathing started to quickly even out and she straightened her back, Temari realized what happened and her expression became glum, "So you actually have a brain, huh? You didn't just blow your whole chakra reserve up as I first thought."

Karin's eye twitched as she heard that. What did the sand harlot think she was? Stupid?

"Of course not!" She exasperatedly exclaimed, her tone sounding very wronged, "I reabsorbed most of my chakra construct and only used for the explosion the remaining few percent that I wouldn't be able to take back into my chakra system."

"Remaining few percent, my ass. You had to use at least sixty percent of the chakra construct to create an explosion of that magnitude." Temari rolled her eyes with a snort and Karin's eyes nervously shook, causing Temari to knowingly smirk.

She didn't need more confirmation that she was right. The Uzumaki redhead had at best forty percent of her chakra reserves left. That was extremely good news for Temari as she also spent a lot of her chakra to counter that explosion.

"Hmph. It makes no difference." Karin sniffed, "I still have many ways to beat you."

"Oh~? Do tell, kid. What fantastical move have you prepared for the little ol' me?" Temari provocatively asked as her battle fan appeared in her right hand with a small puff of smoke.

She naturally retrieved it after summoning the sandstorm. After all, leaving her special weapon just lying around would not be very smart.

Karin did not rise to the weak provocation of her opponent. Her lips spread into a small smile, "I am an Uzumaki and there is one thing Uzumaki are very well known for but it always goes unnoticed compared to our fame for the sealing arts, huge vitality, and chakra reserves. Let me show you... the Uzumaki sword style!"

An exquisite katana abruptly appeared in her hand and a second later a crimson layer of chakra covered its surface, reinforcing it while Karin took a stance with her sword in front of her and her knees slightly bent in preparation to move in whichever direction necessary.

Manifesting a full body armor with her current chakra reserves would have been wasteful. Karin learned her lesson from the previous exchange and she grudgingly admitted that Temari was an extremely experienced kunoichi. Clearly, she had no qualms of making this a waiting game of who can last longer. Using an exhausting Justus like that was not in Karin's best interest. That's why she opted to coat only her blade.

"Unfortunately for you," She slowly spoke, looking at Temari with self-confidence, "I-"

She didn't finish her sentence and instead instantly rushed at Temari at breakneck speed, swinging her sword in a downward arc.

Alas, Temari expected it and blocked the slash with her closed fan, momentarily surprised at the force behind the attack but... it was nothing she could not withstand. Even if it drove her feet into the ground enough to crack it.

As for suddenly attacking being dishonorable... heh. There was no honor among thieves and they were ninjas. Close enough.

Karin quickly realized there was no way to overpower Temari and decided to adjust her tactics. Slightly leaning the tip of her sword to the left alongside her body, she tried to use an Uzumaki sword technique where the user slid her blade alongside her opponent's weapon before fluidly executing a stab.

Temari noticed the slight adjustment of Karin's body, however, and thanks to her vast experience, she realized what the redhead tried to do. Inwardly clicking her tongue, she... let go of her war fan just as Karin started her sword technique.

Sliding one's blade against the opponent's weapon required the opponent to have a firm hold of his weapon. The second Temari let go of her war fan, Karin's technique gained more momentum than it should have and Karin found herself involuntarily pulled forward without being able to stop.

Her eyes barely managed to widen when Temari's elbow brutally smashed into her face.

Karin couldn't let that go unanswered. As her head was snapping backward with blood flowing from her nose, she let go of her katana, and with her now free hand, she punched Temari in the kidney, causing her to grunt in pain as she leaned forward and gritted her teeth.

Karin also used the momentum of Temari's blow and didn't just try to stop the momentum of her head. Instead, she used it to rebound her head forward...

Temari who was a bit distracted from the blow to the kidney suddenly experienced Karin's forehead smashing into hers with a loud thud followed by a surge of pain as her head bounced back, making her drop onto her ass.

Karin was no different and also fell onto her posterior, wincing from the self-inflicted pain while her lips were curled in a gleeful vindictive smile. With the blood flowing from her nose, it was one disturbing sight.

After the initial shock wore off, Temari realized what just happened and reached up, touching her forehead before bringing her fingers in front of her eyes only to see her blood, making her expression shift into utter bewilderment.

'Did that bitch just headbutt me?' She looked in disbelief at the groaning Krain who held her forehead in her arms while lying three feet away from her.

Realizing it really happened, Temari was suddenly filled with seething anger and her expression twisted.

Karin was slowly getting past her pounding headache while berating her past self for having such an amazing idea for a counter-attack. Her head was throbbing as heck!

But just as her mind was starting to become clear again, she was suddenly grabbed by her hair and her head was forcefully smashed into the ground.

Her poor nose... suffered yet again.

Karin quickly reacted and hit her assailant who was behind her with her elbow into the area she assumed to be hips. Fortunately, it helped and her hair were let go.

Karin groggily pushed herself away from her attacker while turning around. The world was swimming in front of her eyes and when she saw Temari clutching her sides and glaring at her, Karin remembered she was still in the match against the Suna bitch.

Fire flared in her eyes as she slowly stood up, Temari mirroring her actions, both swaying from side to side as if drunk and disoriented, glaring at each other.

Karin was a bit quicker, however, and was standing sooner than Temari. She used it to her advantage and lunged at Temari, her hands landing on Temari's shoulders as she pushed her back onto the ground.

The breath was completely taken from Temari as her back impacted the ground when Karin used her whole weight to push her down. Her mind was still kinda sluggish but when her lungs suddenly felt the impact and lost the air in them, her clarity momentarily returned and...

Karin was about to start delivering blows to Temari when her head jerked to the side as Temari's hand slapped her straight across her face, making her stop with her attempt at attacking Temari from sheer astonishment.

She let go of Temari's shoulder with her right hand and put it on her reddening cheek, feeling the sharp sting as if to make sure she was really slapped. When her mind finally registered that she was not dreaming, her face twisted in rage but...

Letting go of Temari's shoulder was stupid and Temari used it to her advantage. As Karin's face twisted, Temari's fist met Karin's nose... again.

This made her topple over to the side as she clutched her face in pain as blood was pouring out of her nose. But as she was rolling over, Karin managed to get one last blow in and delivered a brutal axe kick with her heel, straight into Temari's abdomen.

Temari spat saliva and blood as her stomach area received another blow.

While Temari was catching her breath, Karin raised herself on one knee, gasping for air, and noticed Temari's hair bands were snapped and her hair were all over the place.

Not one to miss such a sun-kissed opportunity, Karin took a handful of the blond locks and pulled... very hard.

Temari gasped in pain as she felt her head being forcefully pulled back by her hair.

Amidst her struggle, she noticed Karin's posture was not very stable and in an attempt to make her let go of her hair, she threw herself at Karin, making both of them tumble on the ground yet again, both groaning.

This time the two girls recovered almost at the same time and started to exchange slaps, pulling each other's hair, and occasionally even delivering a punch or two while they rolled on the ground.

Needless to say, the audience had a hard time believing what they were seeing.

Rei was openly chuckling at Konan who had her eyes closed, unwilling to look at what was happening in the arena. Pakura in the Kage Box seemed like she wanted nothing more than to disappear into the thin air from embarrassment.

This was not a fight between kunoichi. There was no finesse. No techniques.

No... this was a bonafide catfight and for some reason, Rei found the situation exceedingly amusing. To think these two girls would start pulling each other's hair in front of all these foreign dignitaries and Kages...

'Well, so much for Uzushio's and Suna's dignity.' He chuckled while witnessing Karin trying to scratch Temari's face with her nails as Temari was trying to deliver yet another punch into Karin's face.

Report chapter Comments

The catfight between Karin and Temari lasted for ten whole minutes when Temari suddenly kicked Karin off of her, sending her flying back straight towards her 'discarded' sword.

When Karin noticed that, she didn't hesitate and retrieved her sword mid-flight before she dug her heels into the ground, sliding on it into a halt. She quickly regained her balance and sprang back towards Temari who was still unarmed because her war fan was laying on the ground a few tens of feet away.

'Chance!' Karin inwardly thought with glee, preparing to slash at the Sand bitch with her sword.

Temari's eyes widened when she realized what was happening. But she was not one of the best Suna had to offer for nothing. As Karin's blade neared her, Temari crouched down onto the ground, her palms slamming into the black surface. With this one motion, she created a small opening in the black glass-like material, and instantly sand flowed through this opening, creating a wall in front of her.

Karin scowled at such annoyance and just continued with her slash. As if a bit of sand could stop her! She pumped chakra into her blade before discharging it with a swing, sending a razor-sharp arc of chakra through the air.

The air trembled from the force passing through it and the sand wall was barely an obstacle as Karin's sword cut through it in a similar manner a knife cuts through half-melted butter.

But it fulfilled its purpose. Even if it slowed Karin down just for a split of a second, it was enough for Temari to escape. Especially since the sand wall obscured Karin's sight.

Noticing her target was not split in half, Karin frowned. She expected this kind of result but it still slightly disappointed her. She didn't need to look for Temari. Karin may not be able to sense her but she knew exactly where her opponent was. There was really only one direction in which Temari could have fled.

Karin looked at the ground and smirked.

'All according to the plan!' She inwardly exclaimed in elation before raising her right foot and starting to fill it with chakra.

The spectators suddenly felt a tremor as Karin slammed her foot onto the ground, causing spiderweb cracks to splinter the black obsidian-like surface of the arena all over the crater. The force of her stomp was aimed mostly downward, traveling through the ground with the intention to squash everything... and everyone... hiding in there.

Karin might not have been Tsunade's apprentice but after years of interacting with the Senju Princess, the Uzumaki heiress learned a few things on her own. Even if Tsunade never really tried to teach the girl, Karin's chakra sensing was a tremendous advantage that could be utilized not unlike the Uchiha clan's Sharingan.

Naturally, Karin asked for Tsuande's permission first as she didn't want to be flattened into a pancake in case Tsunade took offense to her technique being copied...

Unfortunately for Temari, Tsunade indeed gave Karin this permission, and as such, when Temari emerged from underground, she sported many new bruises and lacerations from the pressure exerted onto her body when she was hiding underground.

She was honestly still in quite good shape, considering the force of Karin's stomp would have squashed an ordinary chunin into a paste.

Temari didn't mind her injuries even though she felt annoyed that Karin got her good. What irked her far more was the fact her sand clones were destroyed and with them, her ambush plan had to be scrapped.

Clicking her tongue, Temari outstretched her hand in the direction of her war fan... and it quickly flew into it, as if she just used telekinesis.

It certainly impressed the audience and got many surprised exclamations but it was far from the truth. In fact, this was all possible only thanks to Karin.

Karin's stomp might have destroyed Temari's sand clones but it also created cracks in the black obsidian-like material covering the arena. Surprisingly enough, this material was quite hard to break and the only source of sand Temari had at hand was underneath it. Even for the almost useless sand wall, she actually had to make an opening in the black material.

This was a massive problem for her and that was the reason why she even went underground in the first place.

After these cracks were made though... It was exceedingly easy to get some of her sand through them and make it 'grab' her fan and 'throw' it towards her.

"What's with that stupid face." Temari mirthfully chuckled while she subtly prepared to both attack and defend with her fan at a moment's notice. "You didn't really think some half-assed imitation could finish me off, did you?"

Karin, who was sourly looking at Temari, scoffed. "I hoped you would have enough human decency to drop dead from it but I see you are too dumb to die."

"Uu~, you flatter me. But... I wonder. Are you so flat because of your big brain?" Temari grinned when Karin growled at her.

"For someone who just had a date with a meat-grinder you are quite chipper." Karin retorted. "Are you sure you don't want to surrender? You still didn't manage to deliver any worthy hit on me and yet, you look like a cheap prostitute from a war-torn country who just received a beating of her lifetime."

To be honest, Karin had a point. Temari was extremely disheveled, her messy hair free from their bindings and her clothes torn in multiple places while her skin sported various bruises. She was simply a mess.

Temari's amused expression did not cease despite the insult. Instead, she snorted, "Bitch, please. Stop bluffing. We both know it is you who should be nervous. You might have put some scratches on me but it is me who has enough chakra to continue for a whole day while you are running very low right now. It is me who can just relax and wait for you to fall from exhaustion."

Karin did not have a retort to that. Her expression twisted in distaste at the fact Temari was aware of her circumstances. Karin tried her best to act as if nothing was burdening her but Temari noticed that she was pushing herself. That wasn't good.

"I wonder if you are fine, Karin-chan. Don't you wanna take a break? Maybe an afternoon nap would do you some good." Temari mocked in a tone full of laughter. She might have looked bad but she was completely fine in every way that mattered.

Karin rolled her eyes and her sword started glowing with chakra again, "Don't you worry your sand-filled noggin because of me. I will end it with the next attack." She lowered her gravity center and entered another sword stance, preparing for a big move.

Temari's smile fell at that and she also prepared herself.

'Yeah. No matter what, the next attack will end the match.' Both of them coincidentally thought the same thing.

For a moment, the time in the arena as if halted...

Before the moment passed and Karin leaped forward, a massive and oppressive force of chakra emitted from her blade that hungrily rushed at Temari whose war fan was vibrating with the chakra of the magnet release, unleashed in its full potential.

The two weapons clashed and...

Report chapter Comments

The two weapons clashed, butting their chakra reinforcements against each other, and the arena became a maelstrom of strong winds and chakra once again. The surroundings reverberated with a loud clang as the katana met the war fan as a cloud of dust rose into the air and was instantly sent spinning on top of the two women due to the generated winds, restricting the visibility.

It barely lasted three seconds and the dust made at most one spin, when another burst of chakra passed through the arena, scattering the dust and revealing the result of the clash.

Temari stood above Karin's unmoving body, breathing hard as her expression showed a slightly bewildered discontent.

"To think you would run out of chakra so fast." Temari amusedly jeered towards the unconscious girl, "That's kinda hard to believe. I guess your ability was greatly over-exaggerated if you can't even regulate your chakra exertion to not be knocked out by your own technique." Her tone appeared to be mocking and condescending but in reality, she was hinting at something.

"But you know..." She continued in a more serious manner but extremely slowly, drawing out every word, "You should have never-"

She didn't manage to finish her sentence as the 'body' in front of her poofed out of existence in a puff of smoke, causing Temari's eyes to widen in surprise. At that same moment, Karin burst from the ground directly in front of Temari, revealing that she used the previous clash to dig a tunnel in the ground for this surprise attack.

But despite the situation, for some reason, Temari's face did not lose its knowing smirk.

Karin saw her opponent was surprised, which only made her determination grow as her fist neared Temari's chin in an attempt for a one-hit knock-out.

When she planned this ambush, she knew Temari would not have enough time to dodge this as long as she caught her off guard. The hard part was catching the Suna harlot off guard but she did it!

Elation filled Karin and made her pump a bit more chakra into her fist than strictly necessary for a simple knock-out... or house demolition.

That elation didn't last long though. Karin's fist indeed found purchase on Temari's chin, and for a split of a second, Karin thought she had won.

Except...

Temari's head, instead of snapping back as it should be after receiving an uppercut to the chin, burst into the sand, making Karin's eyes widen in disbelieving shock.

The redhead didn't have much time to contemplate where her plan went wrong. Temari's headless body showed it was not just an ordinary sand clone when it morphed into the sand after losing its head... and instantly reformed into Temari once again, in the best position for an attack. Before Karin even registered what was happening, Temari was already mid-swing at Karin whose body was mid-air.

To give Karin credit, she did try to send a chain from her back towards the ground in order to give herself an ability to maneuver out of this trap but...

It was just a panicked rash instinctual attempt.

Despite the chains' speed, before it could even reach the ground, Temari's fist smashed into Karin's chin, causing her head to slightly snap to the side and her eyes to become like saucers from mute astonishment... before she fainted just as gravity started to work on her body again, making her unconscious body flop into a heap on the ground.

Temari stayed vigilant even after Karin's body hit the ground. After all, she did just bait the redhead so there was no reason why the redhead could not try to bait her into a false sense of safety while pretending to be defeated too.

But after there was no follow-up attack incoming and her senses did not register anything out of ordinary, Temari partially relaxed.

She looked at the unconscious Karin and chuckled, "Heh. You should have let me finish my advice, kid." She condescendingly grinned, "I wanted to say you should have never tried to ambush me from the underground. I can feel everything there due to my sand, ya dolt."

And when Hayate showed up in the arena and Karin's follow-up attack was still not coming, Temari seemingly relaxed completely, now really assured of her victory.

But only after she did that and no attack still arrived, did she finally accept that her opponent was out cold for real.

Hayate quickly checked Karin, noting she was alive and just knocked out... which in his humble opinion was a miracle after this kind of fight. The girl did not even have a proper bruise on her body if he discounted the nasty one forming on her chin!

His eyes couldn't help but to briefly roam the ruined interior of the arena. The previously flat grassy ground was now a deep crater full of a black jagged glass-like material, grains of sand were everywhere, in the air, on the ground… just everywhere, and no semblance of nature survived the ferocious fight. There was not even a hint of the completely obliterated trees that were previously on the side of the arena.

His eyes came back towards Karin and he inwardly exclaimed in astonishment, 'And yet, she has only one bruise after all of that!? What kind of monster... no.' He suddenly realized an important fact and his gaze snapped towards Temari who was patiently waiting for him to finally proclaim her the winner.

Noticing that Hayate looked at her, she raised her eyebrow at him.

Honestly, she was quite fed up with the proctor. He seemed as if he just saw Kyuubi glaring at him. She so wanted to yell at him 'Less gaping, more proctoring!' but she was a guest in a foreign village. It wouldn't do, to be impolite in front of such a massive crowd...

'I wonder if the monster is the girl who has only one bruise after this kind of fight or the girl who managed to knock her out while really landing only one hit.' Hayate gave Temari a sheepish look.

Inside of this look, however, was hidden much deeper and searching once-over. The kind every experienced ninja could use. He quickly assessed Temari's injuries... and came to a shocking discovery. The Suna kunoichi's wounds were barely surface scratches. She outwardly looked like a mess but she was totally fine!

'Did she purposefully make herself look this way to lower the Uzumaki's guard?' Hayate wondered as he proclaimed Temari the winner of this match.

Either way... he decided the second he would see one of these girls on the opposite side during a mission, he would hightail it back to Konoha, saying screw the mission. He was sure many of his comrades felt the same after witnessing the spectacle of their fight.

In the audience, Rei was shaking his head at Karin's hotheaded stupidity.

'Well, this was expected.' Rei thought in deadpan. 'Digging underground tunnels towards the victory seems like an Uzumaki thing. Did she really think such a thing would work against someone like Temari? When she knew that for the Sand Release, Temari would have needed to be extremely proficient in Earth Release since she did not have Shukaku?' He wryly smiled and peeked to the side at Konan whose eyes held stoic cold fury.

'I almost pity the girl. To make such a rookie mistake.' Rei's lips twitched into an amused smirk. 'Not that I can admonish her. I did advise Temari to never use her Earth Jutsus in order to not be known for them since they were such a great hidden ace.'

Temari's gravity control was especially incredible. Alas, there was no way she would have used it in front of so many ninjas even if it meant losing against Karin. Showing it here would ruin the entire purpose of keeping it hidden for when she was in a pinch.

But back to the silently seething bluenette next to him…

Frankly, Karin losing the match didn't matter. The problem was the dumb manner in which she lost. That made Konan's vindictive side really activate, considering she was here as a representative of Uzushio.

Karin was in for some seriously painful session of remedial training if Konan's look was any indication.

Report chapter Comments

And as the break between the matches started, Rei focused on keeping Konan's sullen ire at bay by cuddling and improving her mood with tender kisses.

Unlike the fluffy mood between them, the Kage Box was silent as a grave after the Kages witnessed the previous fight.

Orochimaru had a hard time keeping himself from outwardly showing his orgasmic mood during the last fight so right now, he was just silently enjoying the residual joy.

The more power Temari showed, the more she unveiled the real prowess of the Magnetic Release, the more he regretted not proceeding with his original plan of assassinating the Kazekage and impersonating her.

Temari was a perfect vessel!

Powerful chakra, body in superb physical shape and extremely used to elemental ninjutsu, an incredible bloodline that, he had to admit, he underestimated quite a lot before witnessing to what heights it could reach in competent hands.

She was the wet dream of any body-snatching madma-... ahem, any civilized gentleman with a penchant to dabble in science.

Oh, oh, oh! And the Uzumaki's girl show of recreating Uchiha's Susanoo with her clan bloodline! That was pure gold! He almost moaned from elation when he saw that!

Yes, it was unfinished and half-assed at this stage but the girl basically proved it could be done!

Orochimaru found it really hard to not drool at that sight. Wasn't this what he wished for since Danzo showed him the scroll holding the information on the secret evolution of Sharingan? The reason why the Uchiha clan was really feared by those strong enough to be in the know?

If Susanoo could be replicated to this extent... what's to say other techniques like Tsukuyomi and Amaterasu could not be replicated either!?

This! This was the reason why he was so obsessed with ninjutsu! Breaking the notion of possibility with nothing but chakra alone! He wanted... no! He needed this!

Plans on how to kidnap these two girls started sprouting in his head like a weed. He didn't care about the power they showed in the arena. He was confident enough that with his superior intellect, he could come up with a plan to defeat them. He was not a Sannin for nothing!

Needless to say, if Rei heard his thoughts, he would snort and say that his delusions knew no bounds.

And while Orochimaru was reliving his boyish wet dream, the other Kages were feeling quite troubled because of what they just witnessed.

Shikaku gained a new understanding of why Tsunade put her foot down and decided to tweak the matchmaking to her own liking, not taking anyone's opinion into consideration.

At first, he thought she just wanted to give herself better stakes at winning some bet... which, unknown to him, was the real reason... but now he could see that Tsunade's foresight was incredible.

From the power levels he saw throughout the finals, the matchmaking was done incredibly well and people around the same level fought with each other. And considering there were monsters like the two last girls mixed up with lambs like... ugh, like the Konoha genins, it was a miracle that no match had a massive curb-stomping so far.

Shikaku gained a newfound respect for Tsunade for managing to accomplish this feat.

He didn't even want to imagine how he would have felt if Shikamaru was to face that Suna girl, Temari. That would have been a disaster! There was no way in Shikaku's mind that his lazy boy would be able to handle her.

In that regard, he was extremely grateful to Tsunade.

Frankly, Shikaku did not care that the two girls were definitely not genin-level kunoichi. As long as Konoha did not come to harm, he could care less if they trashed the arena. He also didn't want to reprimand either Uzushio or Suna as both were allies of Konoha but...

He was the host here and that position came with certain duties and the need to uphold an impartial image.

That's why he turned to Pakura before lazily asking in a disinterested tone, "Lady Kazekage... would you mind explaining why you sent someone far above genin level to compete in these exams?"

Shikaku knew his question was utter bullshit because Kages usually sent their strongest genins to foreign villages' Chunin Exam and these were seldom genin level ninjas. But for the sake of appearances, he asked it. Just to make sure the Tsuchikage and Raikage would feel much less threatened.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Uzushio's representative was not in the Kage Box so he did not need to ask for her intentions right now.

Pakura amusedly raised her eyebrow at Shikaku as she quipped, "What are you talking about, Hokage? The girl is bonafide genin rank! I can't see what's the problem with her participating in this fine event!" She exclaimed with feigned lack of understanding that fooled no one.

But... 'Heh. So this is the angle you want to play it?' Shikaku inwardly mused, thinking it smart. After all, as long as officially the girl was still a genin, there was nothing any of the other Kages could openly do. Temari's participation would be fair.

"Demoting your high-ranking ninja just to show off in Chunin Exams... have you no shame, woman? Even we would not fall so low." Onoki gruffly grumbled under his nose, purposefully loud enough for others to hear.

There was a reason why no Kage ever did something similar to what Onoki just described. It would drag the village's reputation through the mud in the eyes of the potential clients.

Funnily enough, normal people actually expected a degree of honor from ninjas because it gave them a sense of safety that the ninjas would not abandon them mid-way through the mission. That's why the villages strived to show a positive facade and avoid seeming deceptive during these kinds of events.

The darkness should be left buried deep enough for the normal people to not discover it, after all.

"Demoting?" Pakura smirked, "I think your brain no longer works so well in your old age, Tsuchikage. I have never demoted Temari. She just didn't get a promotion yet." She finished innocently and Onoki wanted to spit blood at the shamelessly smug woman.

She basically in a roundabout way just admitted this was all planned!

And while the Tsuchikage had a hard time keeping his blood pressure down due to the audacity of the Kazekage, the Raikage grunted, "Hmph. What else to expect from the woman who pretended to be dead for years before she walked into her former village, murdered her former Kage, and took his place."

His tone was full of contempt and Pakura's eyebrow twitched at his sentence. It was provocative enough to make even Ringo snap out of her thoughts and turn towards the conversation.

The tension in the air increased and Shikaku knew this was not going well. He was there to moderate these big-shots and prevent them from starting a fight but... 'Ain't they simply ignoring me?' He inwardly groaned.

This was why Kages had to be extremely powerful ninjas. Without that, getting even basic respect from other Kages was hard. Unfortunately, he was not in this category.

As he pondered what to do, a voice resounded through the Kage Box, making him feel as if salvation came early.

"Heh~, I see you are still the same petty bastard, shit flinger." Tsunade jeered at Onoki before turning to Raikage, "And you should keep your mouth shut about being a deceitful piece of shit because that description fits you quite well too. Hyuuga incident, remember?" She snorted and turned away, not even waiting for a reaction from him.

"The matter is closed. Temari's documents are all fine and that's that. Now then, tell me, how did you like the show?" Tsunade grinned at the disgruntled and probably offended Kages. She thought asking this would be interesting and she was not left disappointed.

Just... The first answer came from the least expected person.

"Kukuku~, Tsunade-chan..."

"Kukuku~, Tsunade-chan, it was magnificent. I wonder what kind of 'coincidence' allowed both Uzushio and Suna to gain geniuses like that at the same time, eh?" Orochimaru slyly chuckled in a calculated manner.

His words instantly prompted a shift in the atmosphere as both Raikage and Tsuchikage realized a few important things now that they were pointed out so bluntly.

There were no free lunches in their world and geniuses did not fall from the sky nor were they cabbages.

For both Suna and Uzushio to gain these 'earth-shattering' prodigies at the same time... now that was fishy as hell.

Needless to say, the attention of everyone shifted towards Pakura. Even Tsunade and Ringo did not try to break the situation off, both taking sadistic pleasure from throwing Ringo under the bus like this.

Pakura, however, did not even blink an eyelash at the sudden attention. She just leisurely leaned into her chair, "I can't speak for Uzushio but... Suna is just that good!" She exclaimed in a prideful manner while smirking smugly.

The people watching her gave her deadpan looks for that answer.

"Oh~? Are we to expect more miracles like that from Sunagakure?" Orochimaru slyly asked, completely ignoring the fact that Pakura's answer was basically a subtle way to blow off the topic.

He didn't care if Suna was really 'just that good' or if they had any new secret. He surmised he would know soon enough as this discovery practically cemented his resolve to infiltrate Sunagakure.

While he definitely would not dare to go for Uzushio because of their strong sealing defenses... after all, he spent the last few years sending spies into their village only for none to return... Suna was a different matter altogether. Orochimaru really didn't think he would have many problems getting in.

Pakura chuckled at his question as she found amusement in his telling expression. Anybody who knew his modus operandi would guess what was going through his head and Pakura was a bit wistful that the guy would not survive past today. She could certainly make use of his schemes as a group training exercise for Sunagakure's chunins.

"Miracles, heeh~?" Pakura mysteriously quipped while briefly glancing at Tsuchikage with a small mischievous smile. 'I wonder if making an old man homeless could be called a miracle.' She inwardly mused before she answered, "Naah. Temari is special." And nonchalantly shrugged, too experienced in the kunoichi arts for her lie to be caught.

Temari... despite her bloodline... was not really all that special. What made her reach her current level was attention and tutelage from both Pakura and Rei as her teachers. Pakura taught the girl the basics and more intricate things kunoichi needed to know while Rei polished Temari's chakra natures, bloodline, and chakra control to an unprecedented degree.

That was honestly all there was to it. Temari simply had the guts and determination to stick to their training and her current level was the result.

In short... it was definitely something they could replicate with someone else if they really wanted and that person could take their training methods. In fact, Konan was making her own experiments with training others and they were largely successful. After all, the number of S-ranks in Uzushio attested to that.

This fight between Karin and Temari? It could be taken as a measure of success between their two methods. Karin was mostly trained according to Konan's training method while Temari was under Pakura's influence.

'Needless to say, it is obvious whose method is superior. Hehe.' Pakura gleefully thought, happy with the result of this match. Temari was definitely in for a nice little bonus for her victory!

If Rei knew what she was thinking, he would have shaken his head in exasperation. Obviously, it was HIS training that made Temari prevail. After all, she mostly used elemental Jutsu and her bloodline, did she not?

And while Pakura was on the moon for one-upping Konan in this way, the other Kages took her word for Suna not having another genius. As suspicious as they were, geniuses were indeed not something common. They just could not believe Suna to have more than one of them. It simply didn't fit their common sense, and hence, such thought was subconsciously discarded.

In this manner, the topic was concluded, much to Tsunade's and Ringo's dissatisfaction. They wanted to see Pakura sweat a little under the scrutiny of the Kages but it seemed the other Kages were just pussies with limited mental capacity if they couldn't press her more...

'How utterly disappointing.' They both thought in disgruntlement.

Of course, Tsunade would not let her fun end like this. She did not put the effort into coming to the Kage Box during the break between the matches just to be stopped from witnessing a bit of chaos. And since the chaos would not happen on its own, she had to help it a little bit, no?

"So, old man shit-flinger," Tsunade addressed Onoki who turned to her, not at all happy at her calling him that. He did not show it outwardly, however. Just as when Hiruzen called him that in the past, he once again put an unbothered facade and snorted at Tsunade as she continued, "A little senbon-using birdy told me that you and the old pedo-snake had a small reunion. Wonder what that was about..." She grinned, giving a side-glance at Orochimaru.

Orochimaru, Onoki, and A almost had a heart attack when they heard her mentioning this.

Orochimaru almost involuntarily gave a signal to start the invasion because he thought they were exposed but fortunately, his cold head prevailed and when Tsunade's words fully registered, he realized she was just fishing for a reaction.

There was no way Kin, because there was nobody else this 'senbon-using birdy' could be, would know about his plans. Realizing this, Orochimaru forcefully calmed down and donned a genial smile, ignoring how Onoki and A were subtly eyeing him.

Couldn't they at least pretend to not be on edge!? Damn muscle-headed idiot and paranoid old fool!

"Since the Land of Rice is close to the Land of Lightning and the Land of Earth, our villages recently entered talks about doing business together. It is only natural. But I guess something like diplomacy does not belong to your barbaric worldview, Tsuna-chan. I remember you prefer a 'punch it till it goes away' method of solving things." He calmly replied, his expression the perfect picture of amusement.

Tsunade snickered at that, "Oh, you have no idea. In fact, Konoha recently also decided to enter an alliance with Suna, Uzushio, and Kiri! What a coincidence, riiiight!?" She childishly uttered, causing Shikaku to facepalm.

The second Orochimaru heard that, his calm smile fell, and his eyes involuntarily glanced at Pakura and Ringo who observed him with calm amusement.

The only thought that filled his head as he realized what that meant for his plans was...

'Oh... fuck.'

Even the Tsuchikage and Raikage completely stilled, utterly stupefied at the bomb Tsunade just dropped. There was not one person in the Kage Box who did not realize what this new alliance meant and they couldn't believe Tsunade just bluntly admitted it with an innocent grin on her face.

It was stuff like this that was deemed the highest grade secrets in the villages. People died to keep it secret and here Tsunade was just leisurely revealing it without a care in the world.

Orochimaru, Onoki, and A subconsciously thought her to be an idiot but they were too shocked at the implications to really put much attention to Tsunade's foolishness.

In their minds, by revealing this information, Tsunade completely decimated any chance for Uzushio, Kiri, Suna, and Konoha to gain the most out of their alliance. She ruined any chance at surprise attacks from multiple sides as now, both A and Onoki will expect such a thing to happen in the future.

Little did they know that Tsunade was very careful what she revealed as the benefits of this alliance were already about to be reaped and there was no longer any need to keep it secret. They would no longer be able to react anyway...

And while Onoki's and A's priority was their village, Orochimaru was furiously contemplating the impact this news would have on his invasion and he didn't like the picture he was seeing.

Alas, it was far too late to call it off.

'I guess I will just have to cut my losses and let the Tsuchikage and Raikage take the fall for me.' Orochimaru thought in displeasure. The two Kages were almost certainly bound to betray their little alliance anyway with how things were going. It would be better to cause some trouble for them now.

As much as Orochimaru believed in himself, having only Otogakure against Uzushio, Konoha, Kiri, and Suna... He could admit they would have been outmatched. Roping in both Iwa and Kumo to his side in this conflict was indeed the best thing he could have done. They would be an excellent buffer for him.

With these two Kages participating in the invasion on his side, Orochimaru had the confidence to at the very least kill Sarutobi and cause some nice damage to Konoha before he orders a retreat in a code he 'forgot' to mention to his Iwa and Kumo allies. How... unfortunate for them.

Now that he had it all figured out, Orochimaru's smile eased into a pleasant one as he looked at Tsunade, "In that case, I congratulate you for your new alliance. It looks like Konoha's future is going to be bright."

Seeing that Orochimaru was not gonna visibly freak out, Tsunade pouted in disappointment. She knew well enough that by 'bright' he meant 'on flame' but she was not gonna call him out on that. Anko and that lazy bum tag-along of hers already returned and discreetly took the place of their shadow clones which meant the surprise forces Orochimaru was counting on were no more. Tsunade decided to leave Orochimaru his delusions. He was pitiful enough as it was.

"Why thank you!" She amicably exclaimed, her expression completely innocent as she delivered the next part. "Konoha's future is indeed looking up now that you, Danzo, and Sarutobi are no longer in any leadership position!"

That actually made Orochimaru's eyebrows twitch. He hated being compared to Sarutobi and Tsunade knew it. That's why she did just that.

The other Kages, and even Shikaku, were extremely surprised Tsunade had no qualms calling out Sarutobi like this in front of them. To throw dirt on one of the most iconic 'heroes' of Konoha in front of the leaders of the 'enemy' villages...

Both Tsuchikage's and Raikage's opinions on Tsunade's intelligence only lowered and their tenseness relaxed. In their minds, Tsunade was no leadership material. She might have been the best medic in the world but from what they were seeing, the woman was dumb as a rock. There was no need to worry. Their invasion was in no way compromised. The last Senju was just being her retarded self.

And while the worries of the two started to dissipate, Shikaku was throwing Tsuande a look that basically screamed, 'What are you doing!?'.

Unfortunately for him, Tsunade totally ignored him, grinning at Pakura and Ringo who were having the time of their life, enjoying the private joke between the three of them. They could plainly see how the two Kages disregarded Tsunade because of her words. She was throwing blatant hints that something is wrong and yet... they already made their opinion about her because of how set in their ways they were. Not for a second did they consider this to be a ploy.

After all, Tsunade Senju was known to be an extremely straightforward woman who was blunt as a hammer.

"Heeh~. Looks like the day you defected was a real blessing for Konoha, eh, Snake?" Ringo decided to join the fray, light-heartedly making a jab at Orochimaru.

The poor dude paled even more from the repressed anger but they all knew he could not afford to make a scene. While he had diplomatic immunity to a degree, Oto was still just a minor and new village. As long as this... banter didn't turn physical, Orochimaru could only sit tight and take their words while trying to give back his own retorts.

And that's exactly what he tried to do, "Hehe. You would know... After all, you are my role model, Ameyuri. Becoming a rogue ninja scum and then returning to your village only to become its Kage. Kirigakure's standards have really fallen if they allow their rogues to become their leaders nowadays. I wish Konoha was the same." Orochimaru wistfully sighed.

"But... I wonder how you got so strong. From what I know the Raikage," He glanced at A, "defeated you with one punch when you met him for the first time. Your unit slaughtered the Kumo ninjas and killed his fiance, I heard." He purposefully mentioned that incident and then watched how A's expression tightened alongside his fists.

"Such a poisonous tongue." Pakura interjected, gaining the attention of the others before Orochimaru successfully goaded the Raikage into doing something stupid too soon.

This teasing was all in good fun but Rei would probably spank them silly if their little fun made the invasion start sooner than it was supposed to.

"Only an idiot would fall for a provocation like that." Pakura deadpanned, totally ignoring the fact that A seemed to have a hard time stopping himself from pouncing at Ringo now that he had the reason for his dislike of her blatantly thrown into his face.

Of course, Pakura had to insult him in the process which earned her a glare from the man too.

Orochimaru amusedly chuckled at that, "That's rich coming from the person who didn't see her Kage sacrificing her in a suidice mission to get himself rid of the competition. Then again... you also killed him so your case is not all that much different from Ameyuri." He casually pointed out, making Onoki loudly snort.

"Rogues becoming Kages. The village founders would roll in their graves if they knew." Onoki grumbled, supporting Orochimaru's claim.

The lines were clearly drawn at this point. Orochimaru, Onoki, and A on one side while Pakura, Ringo, and Tsunade on the other. It might have just been a small conversation during a break but... it clearly showcased what the future held for their villages.

Or so the Raikage, Tsuchikage, and Otokage thought.

"Hmph. Former rogue or not, what does it even matter? I made my village much better in five years than what you managed in a lifetime." Pakura retorted, making Onoki bristle much to her delight.

At this point, Shikaku felt as if life drained out of him. The atmosphere among the four other Kages was so hostile, he wondered how there was still no fight among them. He knew there was no way for him to stop them. Either verbally or physically. He was not strong enough to do so and that also meant his word was not respected enough.

So, he did the only thing he could. He pulled his secret move and... started doing puppy eyes on Tsunade.

Seeing how pitiful her Hokage was acting, Tsunade inwardly sighed. 'Well, I guess this has gone far enough for now.'

"I'd be you, I would stop this dick-measuring contest. We all know Orochimaru has none and Raikage's massive body size is practically him over-compensating. As for Onoki... Well, he is a dwarf in both the body and below the belt. Good for you Shikaku, you win!" She mirthfully laughed while the three men whose manhood she just insulted glared at her. Not giving a shit, she continued, "As fun as this was, I will be going. The last Uchiha's match will be starting soon. Bye!"

With that, Tsunade disappeared from the Kage Box, leaving three butthurt men behind and causing their focus to shift towards her, instead of trying to start a fight with Ringo and Pakura.

Report chapter Comments

The break between the matches was almost over and yet the audience was still quiet and stunned from the previous match, barely paying attention to what was going on since the people were still trying to process the battle they had just seen.

As the amazement started to slowly tick off, the people began to realize what match was going to follow and they couldn't help but grow even more excited. Most civilians in the audience were wondering what kind of impressive spectacle the next match would be!

After all, it was now certain that one of the participants in the next match was none other than Sasuke Uchiha!

Temari and Karin? Kimimaro and Tayuya? Sure... they were amazing but they were not Uchiha! They were unknown! Without reputation!

But the Uchiha clan's reputation was known far and wide, even among the civilians and that's why the civilians expected the last Uchiha to be special, to surpass what they have seen so far. To wow them with his skill and prowess. To showcase his superior talent!

The audience was indeed crazily excited about it.

Many gambled money, betting on Uchiha winning the entire Chunin Exams. Some going even so far as to stake their livelihood on it just because of the fame of the Uchiha clan.

Especially some wealthy businessmen tried to gain money like this because they had hired Uchihas in the past and had an inkling of the power of their bloodline.

Many came to Konoha with the sole purpose of seeing the last scion of the Uchiha clan fight. Sasuke's story was well known even outside of Konoha and people were naturally curious about him.

Many thought he would be just as talented as the infamous Itachi Uchiha and they wanted to see it!

Unlike the ninjas who knew the two girls who previously fought were monsters, the civilians' expectations of Sasuke grew according to what they had already seen and they expected him to perform better. Much better.

They expected him to showcase the superiority of the Uchihas!

Even the Daimyos who were currently watching expected a lot from this match. Since they were just kids, they were hearing from their nannies about the strength of old clans like Senju and Uchiha. That went especially for foreign Kages who could not afford to underestimate these people. A fair bit of their early education was spent on how to treat ninjas. How to maintain their superior status in the face of someone who could kill them with a look.

Naturally, their education brushed heavily on the past and the relationship between the ninja clans and their ancestors. And the name 'Uchiha' came up a lot there.

There was a saying Uchihas of old liked to spread as their motto of a sort during the warring states era and every Daimyo knew it.

'Only an Uchiha can beat an Uchiha.'

In a way, that came true when Itachi Uchiha slaughtered his own clan.

After learning these kinds of things while growing up, these Daimyos would naturally be curious about this 'last' Uchiha and if he could fulfill the saying and had the potential to one day best the infamous Itachi.

Poor Gaara... nobody paid him attention.

Hayate appeared in the arena and announced the next match will be between Gaara and Sasuke. Nobody was surprised, considering these two were the last two remaining participants.

Both Sasuke and Gaara took their time coming down to the arena, Sasuke because he was taught by Kakashi how to be cool...

And Gaara because he had to deal with some pesky civilian thug idiots who thought he would not squash them because he was just a kid.

He had no idea how these stupid idiots thought. They were literally watching a tournament full of superpowered kids trained to kill others and they still thought they could go and try to kill one when they had no chakra? Because they were grown-ups?

Ridiculous...

As such, a few halls of Konoha's stadium were repainted red and meaty.

Mothe-, ahem, Lady Pakura would be so proud!

When the two finally arrived at the arena, the audience went wild, loudly cheering for Sasuke. Alas, little Sasuke didn't dare to show an arrogant expression. He knew well that if Anko saw that, she would have beaten the arrogance out of him. Again.

So... in his new humble self, Sasuke just smugly stared at Gaara in a provocative manner.

Maste-, ahem, Anko would be so proud!

Gaara stood with a dull expression as the cheer for his opponent washed all over him. His sleepy gaze trailed all over the stands, only seeing people going wild and wishing the best to the Uchiha...

Sasuke suddenly shivered as he felt a chill passing through his spine.

But then Gaara's eyes landed on Temari and Kankuro in the stands and his lips twitched into a small, almost unnoticeable smile when he saw his sister giving him a thumbs-up with an encouraging smile and his brother Kankuro...

Well, who cares about Kankuro.

The subtle murderous intent permeating the arena eased considerably, making Hayate stop sweating bullets. The experienced ninja could not help but throw the Uchiha heir a pitying glance.

There was a reason why ninjas used Killing Intent as a measuring stick for how dangerous one was. It was a projection of chakra so a civilian could have killed thousands with his own hands but he would not have strong Killing Intent. A ninja that killed thousands though...

And the killing intent of the red-haired small kid was giving even Hayato creeps.

Especially with how well the kid was hiding the intent. He doubted he would have picked up on it if he didn't stand so close.

"Let's get this over with!" Sasuke interrupted Hayato's thoughts with his strong exclamation, condescending determination burning in his eyes.

With a tired sigh, Hayato decided to just let the kids duke it out among themselves and promptly started the match.

Sasuke intently looked at the bored Gaara and smirked as his eyes turned red and three tomoes started spinning in them. "I'd advise you to give up, kid." He bluntly stated, peering straight into Gaara's eyes.

And if an illusion somehow ended up influencing Gaara... well, that would have been a total coincidence!

Unlike Sasuke thought, the red-haired midget didn't succumb to the subtle nudging feeling of wanting to give up.

Instead, the cork on his gourd came off and...

Sasuke's eyes widened as he saw sand starting to pour onto the ground and the scenes from the previous fight replayed in his mind.

Then, Gaara's heavy killing intent hit him like a truck, Gaara no longer trying to conceal it and instead, mixing some of Shukaku's into it for the added effect. It was so sudden, Sasuke's mind didn't get enough time to deal with it and...

"Okay! I give up!" Sasuke exclaimed like a scared duckling.

Before he even registered what was going on, Hayate called Gaara the winner, and Sasuke was left gaping at the red-haired midget who gave him a bored smirk, "You are a hundred years too early for mental warfare, boy." Gaara drawled before he sluggishly turned around and victoriously walked away.

Report chapter Comments

The entire arena fell into a deafening silence, both the ninjas and civilians bewildered beyond their wildest dreams.

The match ended sooner than they could register and they were still excited... but there was no outlet for the excitement. As the seconds passed and the people started to realize what happened, the excitement slowly started turning into an outrage.

People suddenly realized their 'chosen champion' got his ass handed to him even without an exchange of blows. They realized their expectations were misplaced.

And they couldn't accept that.

Hence, the arena was instantly filled with the angry screams of the audience.

Another part of the audience, the ones who bet on Sasuke winning, were currently sinking into despair as they realized they lost their bets. They thought this was a sure-fire way to earn themselves money!

And yet...

They could only pray that some intervention would happen that would render all bets null and void because quite a few of them just lost their years-long savings.

The self-pity and despair slowly receded, leaving room for other emotional outlets and many chose anger, getting dragged into the flow of the angry audience, causing the volume of the enraged protests to only rise.

And while the discontented people were showing their displeasure, Sasuke could just numbly walk out of the arena, his dismayed mind not even registering the shouts as he tried to come to terms with the fact he lost.

One thing was for sure.

Sasuke just gained a reputation that would haunt him his whole life.

...

The situation in the Kage Box did not differ much from the outside. The only stark difference was the noise. The Kage Box was utterly silent.

Despite the silence, the heaviness of the atmosphere was palpable. While Shikaku was feeling quite embarrassed about how easily the last Uchiha lost, Pakura was smugly smirking. Orochimaru, however, was visibly seething, spreading a dark aura all around.

The only reason why he even bothered to show up as Otokage was to have the best spot for witnessing his next vessel's prowess. He put an incredible amount of scheming and effort to be able to sit among the other Kages without having to worry about being killed on the spot.

He wanted to see Sasuke giving his all in the fight! He wanted to measure him! To compare him to Itachi! To see the boy's potential!

Orochimaru gritted his teeth. 'And this is the result? A five-second long match where his opponent uses mental coercion to make him surrender!?' He hissed.

He didn't even know if he was angrier at Gaara for doing that or at Sasuke for falling for it!

Because of how bewildered he was by the swift result of the match, he even forgot to signal the start of the invasion! He missed the best opportunity!

In fact, that opportunity had been so great, it totally made even him stupefied...

As he started calming down, Orochimaru noticed with the corner of his eyes that both Raikage and Tsuchikage were eyeing him in worry. The plan was for Orochimaru to give the first signal but they both knew the signal should come after the last of the first matches.

Realizing that his delay could cause severe problems among his ninjas who had no idea how to proceed. If some of his units decided to attack despite having no signal, the entire situation could get out of his control! Orochimaru decided to cut his losses and signal for the attack even though the surprise effect would not be exactly as high as he would have liked.

Fortunately, the crowd was being quite rowdy so that was playing in his favor.

The second he flared his chakra in the before assigned way, several things happened at once.

Firstly, genjutsu covered the entire arena, and the hidden troops of Oto, Iwa, and Kumo that infiltrated the Chunin Exams as foreign civilians quickly lost their disguises in order to recognize each other.

Secondly, the area where Daimyos sat, the same area where also Rei and Konan were seated, was engulfed in smoke as some of the guards turned up to be ninjas from Kumo and Iwa... these were mostly hiding as the guard units assigned to the Earth and Lightning Daimyo and these two Daimyos knew a diplomatic headache was awaiting them if they survived this ordeal... while other guards promptly dropped to the ground with a dull thud, knocked out.

Not even Orochimaru was crazy enough to start killing inside of the room full of Daimyos. And even if he was, Onoki and A would have never agreed to such a thing as it would shoot all of their villages' credibility into a proverbial toilet.

At most, they dared to take the Daimyos as temporary hostages in the guise of protecting them from the invasion.

The third thing that happened upon Orochimaru giving the attack order was for both Onoki and A to spring into action. Onoki dashed at Pakura, his hands already forming a cube of his dust release with the intent of deleting her out of existence, while A rushed at Ringo, his lightning armor flaring around him in a split of a second.

Neither of them cared about honor and tried to go for the kill from the 'back', betting on surprising their targets.

Unfortunately for them...

Onoki's Dust Release hit the place where Pakura was sitting, vaporizing the entire area around it in an instant. But Onoki did not relax as he didn't think it would be so easy and this saved his life. Just a small moment later that would have been enough for him to relax after his attack if he had been careless, his senses alerted him of danger.

Not even trying to locate where the attack was coming from, he ceased his gravity manipulation and let his body fall onto the ground just as a blade passed where his neck was a second ago.

Worse yet, Onoki didn't have the leisure to land properly and landed on his back with what Pakura would deem a very satisfying crunch, causing him to yelp in pain and grit his teeth as cold sweat engulfed him when he realized how close he came to death.

Unlike Onoki, A was not going for an overwhelming attack with the aim of erasing Ringo out of existence. Over the years, his resentment for her was only increasing but he had no outlet for it since the woman herself was unreachable for him. That's why he went for a simple lightning-chakra enhanced punch that should be able to knock the head of any jonin straight off of his or her body.

He just wanted to punch her far too much to do anything else.

As his fist neared Ringo at speeds which not even jonins would be able to see, much less react to, a spark of hope rose in A's chest. He had the bitch!

But at the last moment, Ringo raised her hand, stopping his fist with just her finger coated with lightning chakra, making it obvious her lightning chakra manipulation far surpassed his, and looked at him with a bored expression.

A's senses flared... but it was too late as he felt something he didn't feel in years. Not since he fought Ringo for the first time.

Ringo disrupted his Lightning Armor by changing the frequency of the lightning chakra in it, but this time, she was skilled enough.

A's lightning armor vanished, leaving him bewildered at the impossible feat but he didn't get enough time to contemplate how Ringo managed it as he had to throw himself to the side in order to avoid a sharp lightning beam Ringo produced with her finger pointing at him.

Their ambush was an utter failure.

Report chapter Comments

While A's and Onoki's attempt at taking out Pakura and Ringo right off the bat was failing hard, Orochimaru was about to use the distraction to deal Konoha a heavy blow.

Namely, he was about to use Shikaku's surprise from the sudden attack at two Kages inside of his home, to assassinate the man quickly.

It was really just a trivial task to him. Orochimaru doubted it would have been hard to do so even if Shikaku paid full attention to him.

Killing the reigning Hokage would have been a huge blow to Konoha. Maybe it was not on the same level as if he killed Third Hokage while he was still in the office, considering Tsunade would be there to mitigate the worst of the consequences, but it would be felt and that was honestly all Orochimaru cared about.

He simply wanted to make Konoha in general suffer.

And besides... nobody said he was leaving without killing the Third Hokage anyway!

But just as he was about to move in Shikaku's direction, a voice stopped him in his tracks.

"Heh, you don't really learn no matter what, do you, Orochi?" Tsunade's voice resounded from behind him, causing him to freeze.

He didn't know she was there until she spoke!

It had to be said, he knew the woman for decades and Tsunade was never very good at the sneaky approach. Even Jiraiya was better than her in that and the toad face was one of the loudest morons Orochimaru had the displeasure of knowing!

To be sneaked upon by Tsunade like this... especially when he was always on alert against sudden sneak attacks... it blew Orochimaru's mind.

Though, a major part of his utter bewilderment might have been the fact his lower legs were suddenly entangled by vines sprouting through the floor.

"Maa~, maa~, how naughty Tsunade-chan. I heard you were capable of the Wood Release but I dismissed it as baseless rumors." Orochimaru gleefully smiled, full of giddiness at discovering Tsunade really had Wood Release.

His spies from Konoha indeed informed him that the Last Senju learned the Wood Release but when he first heard it he just scoffed at the notion. The information in the ninja world was always full of diversion, subterfuge, and flat-out lies to manipulate, cheat, or disorient the enemy. Hence, nobody could really trust every piece of rumor they came by.

Something like the Last Senju having the Wood Release was a pathetically old way of garnering interest. Orochimaru would know... He was one of the guys who were covertly spreading such rumors for Konoha during the second world war, trying to make other nations send their strong ninjas after Tsunade's life with the aim of turning the tables on them during their ambush.

It worked pretty well at that time, to be honest.

Tsunade did use Wood Release in the past in front of an audience but despite everything, Konoha was still a ninja village and people were at least semi-capable of keeping secrets. Unless she used Wood Release on a regular basis in front of other people, there was no way to confirm with any level of certainty if she really could or could not use it.

Seeing that he was wrong and Tsunade really had the power of her bloodline did not make Orochimaru mad. In fact, it made him extremely happy.

"After all, despite being a medic, you never liked experimenting with people, did you? You never joined me on any of my projects for the village..." Orochimaru said in a mock hurt tone. "A medic of your caliber would have been extremely convenient to have back then." A wistful sigh escaped his lips, "Just thinking about all the dismembered lab rats you could have put together for further testing for me... I have wasted so many of Konoha's prisoners to get some results because of not having your expertise at hand."

He totally knew that talking about using humans as lab rats was one of the things that could rile Tsunade up. It also didn't hurt to remind her he was doing pretty much a very similar kind of research for Konoha with Konoha's blessing as the research because of which he had to defect. The only difference was in the test subjects. One used Konoha's prisoners... basically ninjas from other nations, and the other used Konoha citizens.

Orochimaru didn't see a difference. They were both human and bled the same but apparently, Konoha's higher-ups disagreed and he had to pack his things and flee.

The best thing that ever happened to him, really...

While Orochimaru was trying to provoke her, Tsunade noticed she piqued his interest and smirked. The man, for all his good qualities when it came to ninja-style combat, had one massive weakness. He was easily sidetracked and prone to losing sight of his objective if something interesting in his opinion happened.

That's why she showed him this minor Wood Release. With just that, Orochimaru forgot that Shikaku even existed.

All the while, the man in question, used the distraction to slink into the shadows and leave. Shikaku knew full well there was not much he could do in the upcoming conflict between six Kage level ninjas so he did the smart thing and hightailed it out of there.

"Experiments?" Tsunade mirthfully scoffed at him, "Your lack of faith in me hurts, Orochi. I did not acquire my Wood Release by experimenting on others or with my genes. I'll have you know, it is wholly natural."

Hearing such blatant bullshit, made Orochimaru's smirt twitch, "I heard about late bloomers but the sixties is a bit too late for the awakening of a bloodline, Tsuna-chan. If you want to speak nonsense to me, at least make it a bit more believable."

In Orochimaru's opinion, there was no way Tsunade did not experiment with her genes. Her Wood Release was supposed to be too dormant to naturally awaken. He would know. He did many tests on her blood and flesh under the orders of both Sarutobi and Danzo and later with his own initiative.

Tsunade ignored the second part of Orochimaru's sentence because her focus was fully held by the first part. "Nobody ever told you mentioning a lady's age is a sure way to piss her off?" She frowned at him.

"You mean 'old' lady's age?" Orochimaru smugly raised an eyebrow at her.

Contrary to his expectations, however, Tsunade did not instantly swing her fist at his face. Much to his shock, she actually chuckled. "I'll let you know that while you were cutting people apart, trying to find immortality in the bodies of below-average criminals or unlucky farmers, I have managed to reverse my aging, making my body physically in its prime while also slowing my aging to a near halt." Her tone was not full of bragging. Instead, she was speaking in a measured and light tone that showed she didn't put much importance on the matter. For her, it was not something to be proud of. It was just a normal everyday thing.

Before Orochimaru could do more than to slightly widen his eyes at the admission, Tsunade continued, her tone flipping into a condescending one, "Funny that I only needed medical ninjutsu for that, huh? I guess I reached your goal of agelessness before you could even get a workable Jutsu prototype that would not have a literal mountain of repercussions. It's your fixation on little boys, Orochi. That's clouding your judgment, you know?"

Before Orochimaru could react... and he was visibly really starting to get annoyed at her... Tsunade decided to cut the talking short and reveal why she was here, "But enough banter. I am not here to flatten you into the ground under my heel like I would a worm. I came to give you a chance."

"A chance, she says." Orochimaru scoffed at her in distaste. He didn't like to be likened to a pedophile. Not at all. "As if I would belie-"

"A chance to fight Sarutobi." Tsunade increased the volume of her voice to interrupt the attempted interruption.

When Orochimaru's mind registered what he just heard, he stopped in his tracks and searched Tsunade's face for deception but...

'She is serious?'

He couldn't help but be stupefied. She really meant it.

Report chapter Comments