Chapter 4

"Congratulations, everyone!" Tadashi passed by the tables returning the written tests. "This time, you have all managed to surprise me."

The test that lay quietly on each student's table reflected their knowledge of 1st year's topics on mathematics, geography, history, etc. Maybe because of their desire to grow, their envy of the best students, or something else, the results from classes 1-C improved quite a lot.

"Now, let us proceed with the last two tests! Whoever is called is to perform both the Clone and Transformation technique in front of the class." Standing behind the teacher's table, Tadashi looked at the list and spoke loudly. "Uzumaki Miki!"

A girl with trimmed red hair stood up in a rush at the first row. As if scared by the teacher's words, she almost jumped out of her chair, and her pencils and case ended up falling because of that.

Laughs rang inside the classroom making the girl's face flush red. As embarrassed as she was, it still couldn't compare with the raging feelings Ryuu was currently feeling.

'U-Uzumaki?!' Too shocked to think properly, he was unable to focus on his thoughts as the girl in question stepped forward and looked at the whole class with her slightly shy and angry pouting face.

Not bothering with what the teacher was about to say, she lifted her hands and performed the hand-seals quickly enough to make Neji narrow his eyes.

"Clone technique!" As the words left her mouth, a puff of smoke surged and covered her, and from within it, the figure of a man appeared.

"Hmm... it really looks like him."

"Yeah, if it wasn't for the weird details on the jacket I would have been fooled."

Despite Miki's efforts, she still missed some details of teacher Tadashi's attire. The pockets were in the wrong place, also the drawings sewed on the jacket's back, and the left and right arms were slightly wrong.

Tadashi looked at her and nodded slightly with a smile. "That's very good Miki, based on your progress, I'm sure you will be a formidable Kunoichi."

Miki murmured something but only she knew what it was. Shaking her head with a sigh escaping her lips. She crossed her fingers in a series of new hand-seals and a second later, two clones appeared beside her.

Staring at them, Tadashi nodded again. Her clones now were perfect copies of her transformed state and could easily fool an opponent. Ticking the two boxes next to her name on the list, he thanked Miki and told her to go back.

"Next, Senju Shiori!"

'Fuck! What the hell is going on in this class?!' Ignoring the deeply disturbed Ryuu, the whole class focused on the boy that stood up. Unlike the other kids in the classroom, he had a very different vibe. His eyes looked like cold and emotionless pitch black vortices, his earlobes flaunted a piercing each, and there was a brutal feeling in the way he moved and acted, completely unlike what you would associate a Senju with.

The girls, however, seemed to have stars as they looked at him. With his modern pulled-back single-braided hairstyle and blond hair, he was like the apex meaning of the word cool and awesome. Almost every boy in the class looked at him enviously, they all wished to attract the girl's attention as he did. But even then, nobody gave him a twisted gaze. Although Ryuu didn't understand, he felt like they were afraid of something.

Not even bothering to look at the teacher, Senju Shiori quickly performed a series of three hand-seals and suddenly transformed into another person.

This individual was an old man with white spiked hair and the gaze of a pervert.

Gulping, Tadashi smiled wryly as he nodded hastily. "V-very good transformation, Shiori, it really resembles Lord Jiraiya."

Grunting, Shiori didn't even acknowledge the man's word as he performed the following jutsu again with a reduced number of hand-seals and summoned not three, nor four, but five clones.

This time, it was Ryuu who gulped. Staring at cold-looking Shiori, he could only lower his head as a feeling of oppression seemingly weighed on his shoulders. "This guy... why is he so dark...? And not only that, the look on his eyes doesn't seem natural, it's too fucking cold!"

Shaking, he couldn't help but take deep breaths as cold sweat poured down his and the others' faces. This Senju guy was really scary.

Ryuu wasn't the only one pressured though. Neji who watched Shiori's performance was also frowning in deep thoughts. No matter how great his mastery of Ninjutsu was, he wasn't at the level of shortening the hand seals of any jutsu. Staring at the nonchalant figure who didn't even bother to look at the other students as he passed by them and sat back in his seat, he could only sigh. 'This guy hid really well.'

***

Lying on a couch, Ryuu groaned in pain as he slowly reached out to the bottle of juice at the table next to him. His body was extremely sore from the beating he got yesterday during the combat assessment.

As you'd probably expect, their taijutsu test was done with actual combat. Ryuu could still vividly remember how his winning streak came to an end once he was told to fight against Neji.

Their battle started off like any other. Ryuu and Neji first stared at each other, looking for opportunities to act. Being a descendent from a Taijutsu-focused family, it was clear that Ryuu would never be able to find an opening in his stance.

Believing that Neji had yet to awaken his Byakugan, Ryuu decided to use distractions rather than closing head on. A sneaky tactic may seem shameless, but it's stupid to face an enemy you know you can't win. With that in mind, Ryuu surprised his teachers and classmates as he summoned his clones and became the first to use Ninjutsu during the combat assessment.

Cries of anger from his classmates soon followed, but they were quickly suppressed by the teacher who commended Ryuu for using it as they had never stipulated a rule that prohibited its use.

But that in itself was also his demise. As Neji realized that he could use jutsus as well, things quickly went downhill as his clan signature Doujutsu, the Byakugan made its first appearance. The cloning technique is a mere visual trick, therefore the Byakugan could easily distinguish between fake and real.

Using this to his advantage, Neji quickly closed in on Ryuu and finished him off after a brief confrontation, followed by the use of his technique, the 'Eight Trigrams Sixteen Palms.' The effect was such that Ryuu blanked out right at that moment. Coughing a mouthful of blood, he lost consciousness and made history in his class by being the first to suffer a quite bloody defeat.

It wasn't purely a loss though.

"Congratulation, Ryuu, even if you lost, it's clear that you have made a lot of progress recently. Keep up like that and you might be able to surpass Neji and Shiori in the future." Although those were Tadashi's words, he could feel the lack of honesty when he mentioned Neji and Shiori in his discourse.

Thankfully, it's December now and classes will only restart in February. With a two-month buffer time, he was sure that his ability to fight would most surely skyrocket. Grinning like an idiot, Ryuu was prepared to waste this day as he rested and recovered from his injured state, but unfortunately, it seemed that his well-deserved rest would have to wait.

*Boom!*