Reborn into Naruto World with Tenseigan

On the high platform.

While the candidates below were talking to each other, the representatives of the major ninja villages were also engaged in discussions. The intensity of today’s second exam far exceeded their expectations, which both surprised and pleased them.

The emergence of rising stars signifies that the five great ninja villages have promising successors and strong pillars. It also means that the strength of these villages will increase, which is undoubtedly beneficial at a time when the threat from the Akatsuki Organization is growing.

Of course, the estrangement between the villages still exists. Despite the agreement to cooperate against the Akatsuki, infighting or at least competition between the various villages has not ceased.

For example, the representatives of Iwagakure have been seeking information about Kumogakure’s Darui, as well as Amegakure’s Raijin, Samsara, and Tengu. Most notably, Kumogakure’s Yondaime Raikage is eager to learn about Raijin’s White Lightning, Lightning Chakra Armor, and his possession of the Storm Release Kekkei Genkai. Unfortunately, no representative from Amegakure was present; otherwise, Raijin would have pressured them for all the details.

The Storm Release Kekkei Genkai and Lightning Chakra Armor have always been exclusive to Kumogakure, but now, with the appearance of Amegakure’s Raijin, these secret Jutsu and Kekkei Genkai, integral to Kumogakure’s core inheritance, have reached Amegakure, and the Raikage is clearly unwilling to accept this.

It’s not just Kumogakure and Iwagakure; even Konoha, upon learning that Shira of Sunagakure has created a Taijutsu technique called ‘Seven Heavenly Breaths’ that is quite similar to Konoha’s Eight Inner Gates Technique, has become quite interested in this technique and has been trying to inquire about it from the representatives of Godaime Kazekage.

The power of the Eight Inner Gates Technique is well known to the top management of Konoha. In the Third Great Shinobi War, Might Duy, the eternal Genin of Konoha, used the Eight Inner Gates Technique to single-handedly defeat the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist. Might Guy, following in his father’s footsteps, seems to be surpassing Duy. Guy is already considered one of the top combat powers and supporting pillars of Konoha.

Sunagakure’s ‘Seven Heavenly Breaths’ have shown momentum that could rival Konoha’s Eight Inner Gates Technique. Even if its potential hasn’t been confirmed yet, Konoha cannot turn a blind eye to this Taijutsu.

And let’s not forget that Jiraiya personally went to Amegakure to confirm Konoha’s doubts about Raijin.

In addition to testing each other, the five great shinobi villages have also begun to pay attention to Otogakure.

Until a few months ago, nobody cared about a small shinobi village like Otogakure, but the performance of its ninjas in this Joint Chūnin Exam was very impressive. Otogakure Genins were, on average, much stronger than most of the Genins from other villages, including the five great shinobi villages.

Moreover, the trio of Haku, Kimimaro, and Guren displayed the potential and combat power of Kage-class shinobi, making the five great shinobi villages extremely vigilant, after all, such talent and genius are extremely rare even in the five great shinobi villages, where upon discovery they would often be cultivated for leadership or management positions.

Besides the incredible potential of Haku, Kimimaro, and Guren, Otogakure also seems to have mastered a special technique that allows them to harness the power of Natural Energy. Even if it is in a crude form, being able to control Natural Energy is no small feat.

Up until now, Konoha had been the only shinobi village where ninjas could harness the power of Natural Energy with the help of the ‘Three Big Unexplored ‘Sage’ Regions,’ and even then, it was very rare, with only a few capable of such a feat in the past six decades because of its difficulty.

But Otogakure seems to have figured out a method to reduce the level of difficulty as they have developed a technique that can be popularized among the masses. Several Otogakure Genins who fought against Konoha’s Team-7 used this technique to harness the power of Natural Energy, significantly increasing their combat power.

This development is very concerning for most shinobi villages. It’s as if the newly founded Otogakure has found a way to close the gap between the five great shinobi villages and the smaller ones. At this rate, it might take less than a decade for Otogakure to become the sixth great shinobi village, a feat that no other ninja village has managed to accomplish ever since the concept of one-nation-one-village was put into practice over six decades ago!

Naturally, other villages want to acquire this technique so that their ninjas can master it and learn to harness the power of Nature which would significantly increase the overall military strength of their villages.

Konoha, as the host of the Joint Chūnin Promotion Exam, went as far as providing proper medical attention to the terminally ill Kimimaro in the hope of acquiring this technique, and for this, Tsunade-hime is personally providing treatment to Kimimaro while trying to explore the secrets in his body, not only for Konoha’s sake but also for herself.

Considering the threat of Akatsuki, Tsunade-hime also wants to improve her combat power and harness the power of Natural Energy. Because she has been very busy studying the First Hokage’s Cells and Wood Style over the past year, she hadn’t had time to focus on Senjutsu. However, now that an opportunity has appeared, she doesn’t want to let it slip away. Even if she doesn’t fully uncover the technique used by Otogakure, she believes she might make progress in understanding Senjutsu. Therefore, she took it upon herself to treat Kimimaro.

Of course, Tsunade-hime doesn’t know that she has already studied a similar jutsu when she tried to treat the Cursed Seal implanted on Mitarashi Anko by Orochimaru seven years ago. However, even if she did study Orochimaru’s cursed mark back then, it was only a surface-level examination, as she did not have much time to go in-depth with Anko’s life at stake considering the terrible pain she was in, and the Cursed Mark was eventually sealed.

While Orochimaru has made many changes to the Cursed Seal after his resurrection, the technique itself is not too different. The main difference is that Orochimaru’s Chakra is no longer present in the Cursed Mark, as he no longer intends to steal other people’s bodies, which might lead to Tsunade-hime never realizing that the technique was created by one of her fellow Sannin.

But all of this had nothing to do with Raijin, who was waiting for the next phase of the Exam to commence.

At this time, Itachi walked to the center of the high platform and announced, “The third phase of the Exam will be held one month from now. Not only the Kages of various villages, but the Daimyo of multiple nations will also be present for the third phase.”

Upon learning that the Daimyo of various nations, in addition to the leaders of their villages, would be present, there was quite a commotion among the candidates.

Itachi raised his hands to signal the candidates to be quiet, then said, “Because the Daimyo will be present, the duration of the third phase will have to be reduced. Ten teams have qualified for the second phase of the exam, which means we have thirty candidates. We hope to reduce this number to sixteen. Only sixteen candidates will be competing in the third phase.”

Once again, there was a lot of murmuring among the candidates.

Itachi continued, “To reduce this number to sixteen, it has been unanimously decided to hold a preliminary round. Only sixteen candidates will move to the next phase.”

Upon learning that there was still a preliminary round, many candidates became nervous, especially those like Sasuke who had spent a lot of energy and were still injured. Their expressions became gloomy and anxious.

Itachi noticed their nervous expressions and smiled, adding, “The preliminary round will be a simple one-on-one fight among the candidates. The winner moves to the third phase, while the loser will be disqualified. There is one strict rule for this round: candidates are prohibited from killing each other. Those who kill their opponent will be disqualified and will never be allowed to attend any Chūnin Exam ever again, meaning they will remain Genin for their entire life.”

“Huh? Genin for the rest of life?” someone exclaimed anxiously, after all, nobody wants to remain Genin for their entire life! They would be mocked as the Eternal Genin!

Since the candidates who have qualified for the third phase are all highly valued ninjas, no one wants the talent of their village to die in a Chūnin Promotion Exam. At the same time, they also don’t want the talent from other villages to grow, so such a precaution was necessary.

And so, the preliminaries started. The matchup bracket was decided randomly, and the first match was unexpectedly Raijin of Amegakure vs Shion-hime of Konohagakure.

Seeing the two names, Deidara smiled, “Hum, it’s going to be a good show.”

Darui also looked at the two candidates.

Raijin’s strength is obvious to both Deidara and Darui, meanwhile, Shion-hime graduated from Konoha Ninja Academy as the top candidate in her batch when monsters like Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, Hyuga Neji, and so on graduated along with her, moreover, Shion-hime’s Genin squad was also the first to arrive at the Central Tower, so everyone had high expectations from her.

Seeing that it was her vs the douchebag of Amegakure, Shion pouted. Naturally, she was also somewhat nervous but ultimately did not care and decided to come down, but before she made her way to the arena, Shisui whispered something to her which made the young Kunoichi frown for a moment, but she nodded as if saying, ‘I got it, Shisui-Sensei,’ then arrived at the arena.

Raijin did the same as he appeared at the arena, standing opposite to Shion-hime.

After confirming that both candidates were ready, Uchiha Shinichi signaled the start of the match, “Begin!”

Just when everyone was looking forward to the big battle, Shion turned to Shinichi, and said, “Referee-san, I abstain.”

“Huh?” Everyone except Raijin, Shisui, and Shion-hime was takenaback.

Shion-hime did not explain much, she just turned around and left the arena.

Recovering from shock, Shinichi announced the result, “In the first match, Raijin of Amegakure wins.”

Following the conclusion of the first match, other matches in the preliminaries started.

The second battle was between Uchiha Sasuke of Konohagakure vs Chōjūrō of Kirigakure. The battle was tough for both Genins but with some difficulty, Sasuke managed to defeat Chōjūrō and proceeded to the next round.

The third match was between Karatachi Tamako of Kirigakure vs Shee of Kumogakure. The fight lasted a while and resulted in the win of Kirigakure’s Kunoichi.

The candidates for the fourth match were Uzumaki Naruto of Konohagakure and Hebihime of Otogakure. As soon as the fight started, Hebihime was overwhelmed by countless Naruto carrying Rasengan and ended up losing.

The fifth match was between Hyuga Neji of Konohagakure and Suzumebachi of Iwagakure and without any surprise ended with Neji’s win.

The sixth match was between two Konohagakure Kunoichi, namely Uchiha Kiyomi of Team-5 and Haruno Sakura of Team-8, resulting in an easy win for Uchiha Kiyomi.

The seventh match was between Samsara of Amegakure and Jūgo of Otogakure. For the fight between Samsara and Jūgo, quite a few people looked forward to it, they wanted to see the capabilities of both Genins, but the match was over before it even started resulting in Samsara’s win with Jūgo losing consciousness. Everyone had a simple explanation in their mind, ‘Genjutsu.’

The participants in the eighth match were Hōzuki Suigetsu of Kirigakure and Rock Lee of Konohagakure. This matchup was simply unfair for Rock Lee as physical attacks had no effect on Suigetsu because of his Hydration Jutsu. Rock Lee is not capable of using Ninjutsu so he couldn’t deal with Suigetsu’s Hydration Technique using an appropriate ninjutsu, and he couldn’t use Eight Inner Gates either since he had already used that technique two times already against Tengu and Shira during the second phase. Might Guy did not allow him to use it a third time as it would seriously damage his body and might even cripple him so he could only try using basic Taijutsu and ended up losing the fight.

The ninth match-up was between Itsuki of Sunagakure and Iburi Yukimi of Otogakure and resulted in Itsuki’s win as he trapped the Otogakure Kunoichi within a sphere of Iron Sand before she could react and started reducing its size until Yukimi surrendered.

The tenth match was between Darui of Kumogakure and Kurama Yakumo of Konohagakure. Unsurprisingly, the match ended with Darui’s win.

The eleventh match was between Atsui of Kumogakure and Aburame Shino of Konohagakure. Initially, the match was interesting as Shino tried to win the fight with his wit and insects, but after Atsui started using his Fire Chakra Mode, the fight was already decided. Insects are afraid of fire. With Atsui’s entire body cloaked in it, Shino’s insects couldn’t approach him, so the young Aburame shrugged and surrendered. There was no point in fighting a battle that you cannot win.

The twelfth match was between Tengu of Amegakure and Sai of Konohagakure. This match could have been interesting and tense as well, but it soon lost its charm because none of Sai’s attacks grazed Tengu who managed to dodge all of them without any trouble. Sai attacked again and again, each time implementing a different strategy but all of them were useless because Tengu seem to be able to see through all his attacks and dodge them. Soon, Sai got tired and ran out of Chakra, so he ended up surrendering too.

In the thirteenth match, Deidara of Iwagakure fought against Shimizu Mika of Konohagakure. Unsurprisingly, Deidara won. The fight did last a while as Mika tried to defeat Deidara, it even went aerial as Mika transformed the appendages on her body for a flight, but Deidara was just too strong and overwhelmed her with his explosives.

The fourteenth match-up was between Temari of Sunagakure and Hyuga Hinata of Konohagakure. All Hinata needed to win the fight was a single contact with Temari, but for the young Hyuga, even approaching the Sunagakure Kunoichi became absolutely difficult because of the Scorching flares circling around Temari. Coming closer to Temari resulted in the rapid evaporation of water within her body. Hinata tried time and time again, hoping to figure out a solution, but each attempt resulted in a similar conclusion, so she had no choice but to surrender.

Up until now, fourteen participants had qualified for the third phase. Since only two participants were remaining, they were allowed to directly move to the third phase, resulting in a total of sixteen participants namely, Raijin, Uchiha Sasuke, Karatachi Tamako, Uzumaki Naruto, Hyuga Neji, Uchiha Kiyomi, Samsara, Hōzuki Suigetsu, Itsuki, Darui, Atsui, Tengu, Deidara, Temari, Kurotsuchi, and Shira.

Thus, the preliminaries came to an end and the participants will have a month to prepare themselves for the final phase of the Joint Chūnin Promotion Exam.