112. Chunin Final

Time flies quickly and it's finally time for the Chunin Exam final round. Zoro obviously comes to watch with Hiyori and Torao although the cat actually doesn't want to.

But Zoro forces him to come and stay with Hiyori just in case something bad happens. If there really is an attack during the final, then Zoro will need to help and Torao will protect Hiyori.

'Let's see how Orochimaru will attack if he really does it like he should've been.' Zoro is actually excited to see how everything will unfold.

He surely doesn't want people to die, but he also wants to fight in a kind of war. So he prepares himself for the worst situation and that's why he assigns Torao to stay with Hiyori all the time because he won't be able to protect Hiyori while fighting.

Anyway, the final exam finally starts and the organizer announces the matches. Sasuke vs Kankuro, Shino vs Shikamaru, Hinata vs Tenten and Naruto vs Gaara.

"Ho? The matches are different."

Originally, Naruto should fight Neji, but Hinata defeated Neji. So Zoro thought Naruto would fight Hinata. But now he actually fights Gaara who should fight Sasuke originally.

Kankuro should fight Shino and Shikamaru should fight Temari or in this case Tenten who defeated Temari. But they actually make different arrangements now, so it should be exciting.

There should be another finalist though, Dosu from Otogakure who defeated Choji. But he is missing, so he can't join. That guy actually gets killed by Gaara when trying to attack him before the exam, just like in the original.

The first match is between Sasuke and Kankuro. In the original story, Kankuro forfeits his match when he was matched with Shino. But now, he actually chooses to fight Sasuke, so the spectators aren't disappointed.

Before the match starts, the 4th Hokage and the 4th Kazekage finally come to watch. They come with some of their advisors, so Fugaku is also there to watch his son's match.

Zoro uses his Observation Haki to check on the 4th Kazekage and surprisingly it really is Rasa even though Rasa wears a veil to cover his face just like the disguised Orochimaru in the series.

He knows that guy's presence since their last battle, so he knows it's not Orochimaru in disguise like in the original even if his whole face is covered.

'Will there really be no attack? Hmm, but I should still be prepared. Maybe Orochimaru lets Rasa live to handle Minato while he goes for Hiruzen or something similar like that.'

Unlike in the original story, the 4th Hokage is still alive now. So Konoha has 2 Hokage protecting their village even though Hiruzen has retired. There's also Tsunade and Fugaku now along with the Uchiha Clan that hasn't been massacred.

Even Itachi is still here in the village although maybe he isn't as strong as he is in the story around this time because he hasn't had his Mangekyo Sharingan as he doesn't witness Shisui's death and doesn't kill his clan members.

There are many things that are different from how it originally was. So if Orochimaru really plans to attack Konoha, his plan should have changed a lot too or he will surely fail.

Zoro can think about that later though because the match finally starts. He is quite excited to see how Sasuke will fight now because he knows he has received a lot of training since his team was toyed with by Zoro in the Land of Waves.

Kankuro quickly takes out his puppet and controls it with chakra strings to attack Sasuke. It shoots many needles from its mouth as it flies toward Sasuke who already activates his single tomoe sharingan.

Even with just a single tomoe, his sharingan is already good enough to help him see the incoming needles quite clearly, so he can dodge them by running to the side.

Sasuke makes some hand seals before inhaling a lot of air. But he doesn't shoot anything out of his mouth and instead takes some shurikens. He throws the shurikens while spitting some small fireballs at them, encasing the shurikens with fire as they fly toward Kankuro's puppet.

But to everyone's surprise, the fire shurikens are actually aimed at Kankuro's chakra strings. Sasuke has watched Kankuro's battle in the preliminary, so he knows that Kankuro controls everything that the puppet does with the chakra strings and cutting them means stopping the puppet.

Of course, Kankuro also has expected this kind of strategy from his opponents. In fact, all puppeteer shinobi know that their chakra strings are the targets of their enemies who know how they control their puppets.

So Kankuro has prepared a way to defend such a strategy. He simply just needs to pull his puppet back a little and move it away from the fire shurikens. The fire shurikens are few in number too, so it's easy to avoid them.

But their small number is actually because Sasuke just wants to test how Kankuro will respond to his attack. He has been taught by Itachi and Kakashi that finding out his opponent's skills in the beginning of a battle is important.

So now he knows how quickly Kankuro can respond and move the puppet. Though he also finds a problem that still bugs him after a month of preparation to fight anyone in the final, he still can't find a way to get closer to Kankuro.

Whenever Sasuke gets closer to him, Kankuro will move away and use his puppet to fend off Sasuke. To win, Sasuke needs to attack Kankuro, not his puppet, so it's a difficult situation because Kankuro's puppet is very versatile.

It can attack long or short range with the different weapons it has inside its body. Kankuro can also control it from quite a far distance, making it very difficult for Sasuke to approach him with his puppet fighting for him.

Another problem is, some of Kankuro's weapons like the needles are coated with poison. Getting hit by those will weaken Sasuke and Kankuro will win just by stalling time after that.

But strangely, Kankuro doesn't attack Sasuke actively. He mostly just defends or avoids Sasuke's attacks and only attacks occasionally with not-so-serious attacks. His attacks are just him shooting needles even though he can use other types of attacks.

Even when Sasuke shoots a big fireball at his puppet, Kankuro just moves it away and he also runs out of the fireball's range. He really keeps his distance from Sasuke to anticipate all attacks. Until eventually, he suddenly surrenders.

This obviously confuses the spectators and even Sasuke who still feel that they haven't fought at all. Just like how he hasn't used all his skills, Sasuke knows Kankuro also hasn't shown everything.

Yet suddenly Kankuro surrenders the fight which makes Sasuke very irritated. But there's nothing he can do because it's allowed to forfeit in the matches. Besides, who would not accept such an easy win like this?

Though it surely makes Sasuke and many people confused about why Kankuro suddenly forfeit the match. He hasn't even gotten hit by Sasuke and his attacks also haven't landed on Sasuke during their match, after all, so they should still be able to continue.

On the VVIP stand where the Hokage and Kazekage watch, Rasa seems to sound annoyed by how his son forfeit the match. But both Minato and Fugaku can tell that his annoyance is fake. So they know that there's something going on with these people from Suna.

Still, Minato hides his suspicion and acts as if he doesn't sense anything amiss. He just laughs it off and says nice things like it's because Kankuro is still young so it's normal to act impulsively. He says it with a warm smile, making Rasa scoffs and thinks that he is a naive Kage.

But the ones who know that something is off aren't just Minato and Fugaku. Some other people like Tsunade, Hiruzen, and obviously Zoro also feel the strangeness. Though only Zoro can correctly guess the reason for Kankuro's action.

'Hmm, he's probably trying to check Sasuke's skills, maybe for Orochimaru or just to check the levels of Uchiha clan's head's son. But he doesn't reveal his skills, maybe to keep his energy for the attack too. If the latter is true, then there really will be an attack. Heh, I really need to prepare for this.'

Zoro can feel that the battle will really come and it really makes him excited.

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Chapter: 162. The 4th Great War Starts

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