Chapter 129: Youth!!! In the First Round!

After Karin left with her five "rookies," she headed straight to where Naruto and Sasuke were training to find them.

Having met once in the Forest of Death, both sides already knew that they were on the same team.

So when Naruto and Sasuke—who were in the middle of sparring—saw Karin and the others approaching, they weren't the least bit surprised.

However, upon watching the two spar for a while, Karin was utterly confused.

When the two finally finished their sparring session, Karin asked curiously, "Why are you specifically practicing taijutsu?"

Sasuke didn't hide anything and replied truthfully, "During the Forest of Death trial, I fought a ninja who specialized in taijutsu. I realized that improving my taijutsu can give a big boost to my overall strength, so I've been training it seriously for a while."

Hearing Sasuke's explanation, Karin nodded. She didn't really understand such things because she basically never uses taijutsu when she fights.

But upon hearing Sasuke's words, Raimon Hayate put forth a different opinion:

"In my view, nin-taijutsu (ninjutsu-enhanced taijutsu) is the strongest. A ninja who can use Lightning Release nin-taijutsu doesn't need to study pure taijutsu at all."

"Unless you encounter a special situation where chakra can't be used, or where chakra is restricted, you'll never have the chance to really shine with just taijutsu."

After saying this, Raimon Hayate flashed a grin, showing his pearly white teeth. He then continued, turning to Sasuke, "We're both ninjas proficient in Lightning Release, so I'd like to challenge you!"

As he said these words, a powerful fighting spirit surged around Raimon Hayate.

Although Uzumaki Lanyu was also a Lightning Release user, he possessed the Storm Release Kekkei Genkai, making his lightning techniques very unusual and difficult to handle.

Sasuke, on the other hand, was similar—simply a pure Lightning Release user, just like Hayate himself.

When Naruto heard Hayate challenging Sasuke, he couldn't help but tease, "Not bad at all! You're confident enough to challenge Sasuke. If you manage to beat Sasuke, I'll fight you myself!"

Sasuke gave Naruto an exasperated look. "Naruto, are you suggesting that you're stronger than I am?"

Naruto thought for a moment and answered, "Overall, I might still be just a bit behind you in certain aspects. But if we're talking strictly about combat ability, I'm definitely stronger. Don't forget—I obtained a special power not too long ago!"

Sasuke scoffed, "Don't tell me I haven't improved either?"

However, he chose not to keep bickering with Naruto. Instead, he turned to Hayate and said, "You alone aren't my match, but I would be interested in challenging you and your sister at the same time!"

Raimon Hayate got angry at that. "Don't look down on me! I can beat you by myself!"

Before he could say more, his sister, Raimon Yukika, spoke up calmly and objectively: "Judging by his performance in the preliminaries, neither of us alone is really his match."

Once Yukika said that, Hayate had no grounds to argue.

After all, when his sister was nice to him, she was extremely kind and gentle, but when she decided to hit him, she never held back.

He knew better than to go against his sister on this sort of thing.

With the Raimon siblings getting ready to spar Sasuke, Naruto, Musen, and the rest were all excited.

Musen slung an arm around Naruto's shoulder and said conspiratorially, "Naruto, let's spar ourselves when we get the chance. You're one of the few ninjas I truly admire!"

In Naruto's eyes, Musen was also incredibly strong. So to be acknowledged by someone he recognized as a first-rate ninja made him very happy.

Lanyu, however, didn't join in the excitement. He moved off to the side, sat down, and started reading.

Lanwu glanced at Naruto and Musen. She could tell those two would likely become great friends.

But she didn't keep watching the two of them laugh and joke with their arms around each other.

Instead, her gaze quickly returned to Sasuke and the Raimon siblings.

Their three-way contest had officially begun, and both sides launched their attacks almost simultaneously.

Raimon Hayate held a kunai and thrust it fiercely toward Sasuke's abdomen, but Sasuke tilted to one side and easily dodged.

Sasuke then aimed a kick at Hayate's head, forcing Hayate to evade and preventing him from mounting further attacks.

But Yukika, who was waiting for a chance, saw an opening and went for Sasuke's flank with her kunai.

Sasuke simultaneously drew a kunai from his pouch. With a crisp clang, his kunai collided with Yukika's, spraying brilliant sparks.

At that moment, all three of them began showing off their skills.

Sasuke, Yukika, and Hayate each infused their kunai with Lightning chakra, which greatly increased the kunais' power.

Seeing that the others could do the same trick, they paused slightly in surprise.

Sasuke, no longer attacking, simply went straight to using Lightning Release Armor.

But then he realized something startling: the Raimon siblings activated Lightning Release Armor at exactly the same time he did!

Swoosh!

In the next instant, they clashed again.

After using Lightning Chop, Lightning Lariat, Lightning Ball, and several other moves in succession, Sasuke realized that indeed, sharing the same teacher must be the reason he couldn't break through their techniques.

If he didn't use his ultimate move, "Thunder Punch," he might not be able to defeat the Raimon siblings at all.

Meanwhile, the siblings felt the pressure too. They saw that ordinary Lightning Release techniques weren't enough to beat Sasuke.

However, they still had a trump card: a combined jutsu—"Double Lariat."

But this match was only a friendly spar, so there was no reason to go that far.

Sasuke felt the same way; otherwise, he would have used "Thunder Punch" right from the start.

In the heat of their deadlock, Karin suddenly piped up: "Hold on a sec!"

The moment she spoke, they all halted. Then she grinned and said, "There's no point beating each other up like this. We can head to the black market in the Land of Fire to take on missions and beat up other people instead."

Sasuke and Naruto had no objections to running some missions.

For Musen, Lanyu, and Lanwu, it sounded like a meaningful idea as well.

As for Yukika and Hayate, they had long wanted to do missions.

Why was Karin considered the strongest ninja of this group?

Because she had been following Senshi on missions from a very early stage!

The Raimon siblings just wanted to seize every opportunity to undertake missions and level up in this eight-person crew.

…

In Konoha:

Kakashi had originally thought that during the Chunin Exams, he could finally get a bit of rest.

Turns out he was dead wrong. Naruto and Sasuke, those two "rookies," simply wouldn't sit still. They were off to the Land of Fire's black market yet again, this time in a group of eight!

Along the way from Konoha to the Land of Fire's black market, Kakashi followed behind the eight youngsters in utter exhaustion. He couldn't figure out how in the world Naruto and Sasuke had gotten so chummy with these Mist ninja kids.

Naruto and Uzumaki Musen walked arm-in-arm, chatting and laughing, obviously the best of pals.

Sasuke and Uzumaki Lanyu seemed to have endless topics to discuss, too, conversing non-stop about how to get stronger.

Luckily, Kakashi could summon his ninja dogs to keep an eye on everyone, or he'd never have been able to manage them all at once.

Truth be told, he didn't need to worry—this entire region was covered by Senshi's Mantra, and most ninjas wouldn't dare run into these kids.

After Naruto and company left, the black market's administrator gazed at their departing figures and thought, The black market's gotten too competitive nowadays. Even these super-young ninjas are coming here in teams to pick up missions.

"And those two, Naruto and Sasuke, have been doing quite a lot of missions lately. Their completion rate is outstanding."

"I wonder what the other kids are like?"

The black market administrator would never have guessed that all these newcomers were equally remarkable—and that there were even powerhouses among them.

While everyone else was busily doing missions, Karin was already thinking about that night's dinner menu.

They were all used to mission grinding by now.

Only Yukika and Hayate found it new and exciting, since they'd been in ninja school the whole time and hadn't had any chance to grind missions on the black market.

Night fell soon enough.

Because they only accepted D-rank tasks that day, they clearly weren't going to earn very much.

Meeting back at the black market entrance, Kakashi surveyed the eight youngsters, saw they were unhurt, and relaxed a bit. Then he took a breather.

Sasuke started tallying up how much each person had earned and ranking the amounts. Once he finished, he showed the notebook to everyone.

They discovered that today's top earner was none other than Uzumaki Karin!

Even with only D-rank missions, she managed to earn a whopping two hundred thousand ryō in a single day!

Aside from her, the strongest pair—Naruto and Sasuke—only made just over one hundred thousand ryō each.

The rest earned progressively less.

The one in last place was Raimon Hayate, at just over fifty thousand ryō.

After Sasuke tallied everyone's totals, Karin beamed with delight.

Without wasting time, she waved her hand and said, "Let's find a nice forest to camp in and have a cookout! I have a bunch of tasty dishes I want everyone to try!"

Naruto asked expectantly, "Karin, can you make ramen that's as good as Teuchi's Ramen?"

Karin waved him off. "Naruto, the food I make is a hundred times better than Ichiraku Ramen!"

When Naruto heard that, it was as if a beam of light shot up around him.

Food that's a hundred times more delicious than Ichiraku Ramen—just how incredible would that be?!

He became extremely excited.

No one hesitated; they returned to Konoha and found a forest where they could set up camp and cook outdoors.

Seeing Karin pull out one piece of specialized cookware after another from her Kamui dimension—pots, pans, everything—everyone started to look forward to her cooking.

She looked so professional; surely she had to be a first-rate chef.

But Naruto and Sasuke were still too young to understand one fundamental truth: "The fancier the sword, the duller the blade." In other words, flashy weapons don't make a warrior skilled—true strength comes from mastery, not accessories.

In the lush, densely wooded forest, Naruto and Sasuke (and the others) soon stood dumbfounded.

They watched Karin summon her Susanoo and stir-fry on a massive scale. After one wild flurry of moves, she finished cooking a huge pot of…something.

Uzumaki Lanyu, staring at the inky black substance she produced, asked in confusion, "Karin, did you just extract black oil?"

Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief—so that pot of pitch-black stuff was just some byproduct. At least, they hoped that meant it wasn't their dinner.

But Karin cheerfully replied, "Awww, don't judge it by how it looks! Lots of dishes end up black, but taste incredible!"

Despite her reassurance, the others were still uneasy. Yet Karin ladled out a portion for each of them.

Everyone stared at the blackish meal in front of them, feeling a surge of doubt. Can this really be eaten?

Uzumaki Musen thought for a moment and then looked at Naruto. "Naruto, do you dare try this new dish from Karin?"

Naruto was nervous but refused to show weakness. "Of course I dare. What about you, Musen—do you dare?"

Musen burst out laughing and picked up his chopsticks.

Seeing the two dawdles, Raimon Hayate pointed his thumbs downward and taunted, "Pathetic!"

With that, he grabbed his bowl and utensils and declared, "All right then, I'm digging in!"

He inhaled the food in a whirlwind of slurping—and a moment later let out a burp, exclaiming, "S'goooood!"

But as soon as they all tried it themselves, everyone glared daggers at Hayate.

Yet it was pointless. He'd basically delivered a pyrrhic victory—he was now foaming at the mouth on the ground, far worse off than the rest.

Although the others felt like their taste buds had gone numb, at least they were still standing; Hayate had completely collapsed.

That prompted Sasuke to propose, "I suggest that since Karin's strength far surpasses ours, we remove her from the rankings for the remaining fourteen days. Otherwise, we're going to have to eat her cooking every time she wins!"

Naruto—who rarely agreed with Sasuke—instantly said, "I second that!"

And soon enough, all the others, including the semi-unconscious Hayate, raised their hands. The motion passed unanimously.

They weren't puppets like Sasori's body, who could handle "dark cuisine" without any ill effects—there was no way they could keep eating stuff like that.

Karin thought it was unfair. From her perspective as a growing "culinary artist," it was totally normal to fail a few times while perfecting her craft. After all, failure is the mother of success! One misfire now meant success next time!

But Sasuke and the other seven weren't giving her any more chances. That sole experience with "dark cuisine" had totally traumatized them.

So over the next few days, the eight continued doing missions in the Land of Fire's black market. With Karin off kitchen duty, she felt a bit out of sorts.

And once she stopped being tallied in the competition, Sasuke basically became unbeatable; hence, they all ended up sweeping through Konoha's most famous eateries.

They were relieved to be free from more black sludge dinners, but never taking first place from Sasuke was exasperating, too. Even just beating him once would've felt great.

After many days of failing to surpass Sasuke, Lanyu came up with a plan based on careful analysis:

"Sasuke has the Sharingan and is also a Lightning Release user; plus, he's very experienced with missions. If we want to beat him even once, we'll need to outsmart him within the rules. Tomorrow, let's pool any tasks that are quick to finish yet have high pay and give them all to me. I'll handle them on everyone's behalf so we might finally take one win."

Raimon Hayate objected, "Why you? Why not give them all to me?"

Lanyu replied without hesitation, "First, I'm the strongest Lightning Release user out of the six of us. Second, I have the best problem-solving skills in our group. If we focus all the easy, high-paying tasks on me, we'll have at least some chance."

Hearing that, Naruto and the others nodded. In the face of a gap in raw power, it was the only way.

Sure enough, the next day, while the eight of them did missions, Naruto and the rest coordinated with Lanyu. They handed off all the low-effort but high-reward tasks to him.

It really worked. At day's end, they tallied their earnings:

Sasuke had made 105,000 ryō.

Lanyu came in with 106,000 ryō—just barely ahead!

Sasuke, of course, realized what they were doing, but didn't mind. By now, they were all friends, and if Lanyu and the others tried that hard, letting them have a small victory was fine.

After his win, Lanyu turned to Naruto. "Naruto, what should we eat tonight?"

Naruto immediately said, "Obviously Ichiraku Ramen!"

Raimon Yukika protested, "No way, I'm so sick of it already!"

Karin cheerily suggested, "Then let me make dinner for everyone—"

Yukika cut her off, "Ichiraku Ramen, Ichiraku Ramen—let's go there!"

Musen and Hayate chimed in as well, "All in favor of Ichiraku Ramen!"

Karin was left disappointed. In half a month, she'd only gotten to show off her culinary 'skills' once!

Meanwhile, because this group of eight had become so active in the black market—despite only handling ordinary tasks—their 100% completion rate and lightning-fast efficiency soon drew the attention of high-level figures across the ninja world.

All the big players began paying attention to Amegakure and its ninja academy. Not only had Ame been expanding rapidly, it was now clear they were outpacing all other villages in training their ninjas.

Even the strongest new-gen ninjas from the Five Great Villages seemed to lag behind those six elite from Ame. Many influential leaders grew more and more eager to see Ame genin's dazzling performances in the final round of the Chunin Exams.

As time went on, more major powers arrived in Konoha, hoping to witness this unprecedented spectacle of an exam jointly organized by Konoha and Suna.

Not only that—five Daimyō, one each from the Five Great Nations, also arrived with their entourages of officials and business elites!

With such prominent figures attending, Hiruzen Sarutobi was delighted. Since Senshi had arranged for Karin to withdraw from the preliminaries, he believed the final round would be problem-free.

In this last round, Konoha's Naruto, Sasuke, Neji, and Rock Lee were all strong enough to shine brilliantly.

What better chance to show off Konoha's strength in front of all these VIPs? As far as Hiruzen was concerned, Konoha had essentially 'won big' this time.

Rasa (the Fourth Kazekage) was equally pleased: with Karin out, his son was now practically invincible. Nobody left in the field could match Gaara. This final stage would be Gaara's solo show in front of all the Daimyō and VIPs—clearly a huge win for Suna!

Orochimaru was just as excited. He'd been waiting for this moment to sell his new products—and he had deliberately leaked information about his "Eternal Chakra Elixir."

Some people had even noticed changes in the appearance of elders like Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu.

By the time the Chunin Exams concluded, word of mouth would be in full swing. Then he'd have a grand opportunity to rake in profits from the Daimyō and top-tier clients representing all major powers.

So many wealthy premium customers gathered together—this might be the only time in his career that business could boom like this. He couldn't imagine how much he'd earn once the dust settled. From Orochimaru's point of view, the Chunin Exams were already a massive victory.

Senshi, meanwhile, had no idea that there were apparently no losers at all in this year's Chunin Exams. Everyone felt they'd "won big." He himself was just waiting for the final results so he could collect six hundred million ryō plus six hundred thousand employment points.

Time flew, and the final round of the Chunin Exams arrived on schedule!

The thirty-six finalists gathered in the arena, and the spectators—far more numerous than in the preliminaries—filled every seat.

The most coveted five sections of the stands had been reserved for the Daimyō of the Five Great Nations and their high-ranking entourages.

Once everyone was settled, the proctor for the finals stepped onto the field.

A ninja with a senbon in his mouth introduced himself to the thirty-six contestants, "I'm Shiranui Genma, the proctor for the final round of the Chunin Exams."

"The finals will be conducted in a one-on-one format. Our judging panel will determine whether you deserve to be promoted based on your overall performance."

"Now, I declare the final stage of the Chunin Exams officially open!"

Many of the remaining genin looked at him, feeling some tension.

While every one of them had skill, some, like Gaara, stood out as serious threats who might wipe them out—or even kill them.

Under everyone's watchful eyes, Shiranui Genma announced the two contestants for the first match:

"For the first match, Sasuke Uchiha of the Hidden Leaf vs. Rock Lee of Konoha!"

The moment those words left his mouth, many of the other genin breathed a sigh of relief.

Sasuke and Rock Lee were both people no one really wanted to face.

Up in the stands, Hiruzen Sarutobi felt a pang of regret. Both of them were top-tier Konoha genin, so facing each other right from the start was a waste.

But the bracket was randomly arranged, and this was no longer his personal show. The other Four Great Nations had some say, too.

Even so, it wasn't a problem; Sasuke and Rock Lee would definitely put on a thrilling display for everyone.

Down in the arena, Sasuke and Rock Lee stepped forward.

Rock Lee was clearly excited to face Sasuke again. "Sasuke, as I said before, I'll make you see how hard work can defeat a genius!"

Sasuke's response was scathing: "If hard work alone worked, who would need geniuses? Besides, are you even sure you train harder than I do?"

That jab made Rock Lee furious. He immediately attacked. "Here I come!"

He moved in a blur, launching himself at Sasuke with extraordinary speed. Yet the sight before his eyes astonished him.

Whoosh!

This time, Sasuke didn't use his Lightning Release nin-taijutsu. He just matched Rock Lee's speed while remaining in normal form.

Rock Lee was absolutely certain that half a month ago, Sasuke did not possess this level of raw speed.

All his years of blood, sweat, and tears devoted to taijutsu—Sasuke seemed to have caught up in just half a month!

That was the terrifying rate at which a genius could grow. If not for Rock Lee's iron will, he might have lost his fighting spirit on the spot.

Swoosh!

He threw a punch, but Sasuke easily turned aside, dodging with a slight twist of his body. Sasuke then remarked casually, "After half a month, you're still exactly where you were?"

Rock Lee: (ΩДΩ)!!!

Those words enraged Rock Lee, and he roared, redoubling his efforts.

"Leaf Whirlwind!"

"Leaf Gale!"

"Leaf Rising Wind!"

But despite his flurry of attacks, he couldn't even touch Sasuke's sleeve.

Realizing he needed to give it his all, Rock Lee glanced at his teacher, Might Guy, clearly seeking permission.

Seeing Lee's look, Guy gave a firm nod. "Lee, let your youth burn to its fullest!"

Overjoyed, Rock Lee leapt back to open up space—and began removing his weights.

~~~

Patreon(.)com/Bleam

— You can Read the Fanfic until Completion! This Fanfic is Completed in Patreon!