"I know you're the strongest! Show everyone your power! Please defeat Sasuke and make him utterly miserable!"
Hinata's lone voice actually drowned out all the cheering girls supporting Sasuke.
For a moment,
the training ground fell silent, so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Including Hiruzen Sarutobi, all the teachers and students simultaneously looked towards Hyuga Hinata.
There was astonishment, confusion, and disbelief.
No way.
Naruto and Hinata… what's going on?
It looks like something's happening?
Hinata realized that her actions had led to wild speculation, and being shy and timid, her pretty face instantly flushed red.
A blush spread from her cheeks all the way to her earlobes and neck, and finally, her head "poofed" with heat, her pale purple eyes showed a Uzumaki pattern, and she felt dizzy and a bit unsteady on her feet.
"Oh, don't worry, Hinata, I'm guaranteed to win!"
Naruto, in the center of the field, raised his hand and waved a few times towards Hinata.
While Hinata was happy to get a response from Naruto, she was even more embarrassed, wishing she could find a crack in the ground to crawl into.
"Ho ho, this is youth."
"Hyuga Hiashi tried every way to block the Hyuga Branch Family Curse Mark, but unfortunately, he couldn't stop the blonde kid, hahaha."
Hiruzen Sarutobi couldn't help but laugh at the scene, taking a few puffs from his pipe, exhaling smoke.
Naruto clasped his hands in front of him, his knuckles cracking, and he replied with a smile, "Sasuke, sorry, it's going to hurt a bit later, and you might have to lie in the hospital for a few days and won't be able to go to the bathroom."
Sasuke seemed to recall some unpleasant memories, his brows furrowed slightly, and a layer of frost appeared on his cool face.
"You take care of yourself first, dead last."
"In that case…"
Iruka Umino stood between the two, extended one hand, and as he raised and brought it down, he uttered two words: "Begin!"
As soon as the words fell.
Sasuke, twenty paces away from Naruto, paused the spinning kunai blade between his fingers, perfectly reflecting sunlight into Naruto's eyes—this was a psychological tactic commonly used by the Uchiha Clan.
Logically, Sasuke disdained using such petty tricks against a dead last.
But for some reason, the seemingly carefree Naruto had been giving him a subtle pressure these past few days.
This inexplicable sense of oppression made Sasuke stand ready, not daring to relax even a little.
On the other hand, the students outside the field, ignorant and fearless, thought Sasuke would easily and casually deal with Naruto.
"A lion uses full strength even against a rabbit, and I am a Ninja; gathering information and devising tactics is only natural."
Sasuke was quick-witted; the moment Naruto squinted, he pulled shuriken from his Ninja tool pouch with both hands and threw them at Naruto in quick succession.
The flying shuriken actually collided in mid-air, suddenly changing their trajectory, making the attack unpredictable and difficult to defend against.
It was the Uchiha throwing technique!
"Oh? He didn't take the opportunity for close combat, but used a throwing technique to test me?"
Naruto, who was pretending to squint, secretly praised him in his heart.
In reality, if he truly wanted to deal with Sasuke, Sasuke would have been instantly defeated the moment Iruka Umino shouted "Begin."
But under everyone's watchful eyes, Naruto had to appropriately hide his strength.
Currently, he needed to bide his time, develop and grow stronger in the Underground City, rather than show his full potential.
Therefore, Naruto's victory over Sasuke could not display overly exaggerated strength.
With a thought, in a flash of lightning, Naruto drew his kunai, swung his arm, and parried the shuriken.
"Clang, clang, clang" went the crisp sounds.
Sparks flew.
The shuriken were all deflected.
"Naruto, that guy, he actually pretended to squint just now to lure me into close combat. Is he that confident in his Taijutsu?"
Sasuke, continuously performing the Uchiha throwing technique, after emptying the shuriken from his Ninja tool pouch, immediately formed hand signs with both hands, his chest puffed out, Chakra gathered in his throat, and with his right hand in front of his mouth, he blew out forcefully:
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"
Sasuke spewed a giant fireball forward from his mouth, three meters in diameter, carrying immense heat, plowing through the training ground, cracking the dried-up soil into a spiderweb pattern, and Naruto, standing opposite, was naturally directly in its path.
"Water Release: Water Wall!"
Tiger - Snake - Rat - Snake - Tiger, as the hand signs formed instantly, Naruto slammed his hands onto the ground, feeling water-attributed Chakra release from his palms, like a spring gushing out a large stream of water, rising from below, transforming into a clear, transparent torrent of water.
The giant fireball and the Water Wall collided violently, like hot oil meeting water, reacting fiercely, evaporating a large amount of steam with "hissing" sounds, slowly enveloping the training ground.
"Water Wall?"
Sasuke was greatly astonished.
He had thought his Great Fireball Technique would end this battle, but he didn't expect his opponent to have mastered Water Release.
"Oh ho~"
"Naruto really made something out of the Ninjutsu scrolls he took from my house; he actually cultivated Chakra nature transformation and learned a B-rank Ninjutsu, not bad, not bad."
"I just don't know how many Ninjutsu he's learned now."
"Two, or three?"
Hiruzen Sarutobi stroked his beard, nodding with a chuckle.
Hiruzen Sarutobi wasn't too surprised that Naruto learned Water Wall; after all, Naruto possessed the Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu.
With Shadow Clone as a cheat, the results of a week of hard training were comparable to two years of regular training for an ordinary Ninja!
Iruka Umino, standing nearby, almost popped his eyes out.
When he saw Sasuke performing the Great Fireball Technique, he was worried for Naruto and ready to rush in to rescue him at any moment, but to his surprise, Naruto actually blocked the Great Fireball Technique.
In the arena.
The steam turned into white mist, lingering and not immediately dissipating. Sasuke immediately cut off his Chakra output, letting the Great Fireball be extinguished by the Water Wall.
Suddenly, the calm, deathly still white mist abruptly swirled, and a kunai attacked from the left.
Sasuke's pupils suddenly contracted; his reaction was quick enough to grab the kunai handle with a backhand, slashing upwards, colliding with the kunai that came from the mist, producing a crisp "clink."
"It's from behind!"
The sparks from the two colliding kunai had not yet dissipated when Naruto's sweeping kick already struck Sasuke's ankle. In the nick of time, Sasuke used the force to somersault forward, supporting himself with his left hand on the ground. Before he could regain his balance, another Naruto supported himself with both hands on the ground, kicking Sasuke's back from below, sending him flying into the sky.
"There's more above!"
The dazzling sunlight in the training ground was suddenly obscured by a figure. The real Naruto leaped into mid-air, delivering a powerful axe kick that heavily struck Sasuke's abdomen.
With a muffled "thud."
Sasuke landed heavily, eyes wide and mouth agape, coughing up a mouthful of blood, his body almost arching into the shape of a shrimp.
He didn't have time to check his injuries and quickly rolled to the side. The ground, where a shallow pit had been formed, was now cracked in a spiderweb pattern by Naruto's foot from above.
Sasuke was half-crouching, half-kneeling, one hand gripping a kunai, his fist supporting him on the ground, the other hand raised, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth.
He looked up, scanning the training ground, observing the multiple Narutos, his demeanor still calm despite his disheveled state.
"One, two, three, four… Is it Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu?"
Sasuke's expression was grave. He briefly closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, his irises turned blood-red, and a single black tomoe slowly rotated around his pupils.