Chapter 89: Preliminary Matches

Preliminary Matches

Everyone who passed the second test was called into a big assembly hall that could also be used as an arena. After everyone was here, Hiruzen appeared and held a speech about the true purpose of the chunin exam. He explained how it was to simulate fighting between nations and how the exams are used to show off a nation's prestige.

Yuna, however, barely listened to any of it. She was scanning through the people who made it and thought about who she would like to fight.

'Well, Gaara is an obvious choice. I won't deny that I would have fun fighting Naruto and Hinata either, but there really isn't anything special about that. We fight each other rather frequently, after all.

Apart from these three, the only one that catches my attention is Rock Lee.

His center of gravity is slightly off while walking so he is probably wearing weights. He seems to put himself through incomprehensible amounts of training and despite that, his chakra level seems to be pretty low.

Seemingly no talent and yet he is willing to push his body past the breaking point again and again with unshakeable determination. He probably has some ridiculously impossible dream and despite not having the talent to reach it, he keeps pushing himself. Unwavering and without doubts.

Someone like that is worthy of my time no matter how weak or strong he currently is. For a person like that, there are only two choices: Reaching his dream, or death. Determination like that is something I can respect.'

While Yuna was thinking about who she would like to fight, Hiruzen finished his speech. A few moments later, a new shinobi appeared on the stage.

"*cough* I will be taking over from here on. My name is Hayate Gekko *cough*."

'Is he alright? He looks like he is about to die.'

"Due to there being too many contestants that managed to pass the second exam *cough* we will have to hold preliminary matches to thin out the crowd."

'Oh? Preliminaries? Well, I don't really care. What's with all the coughing though? This is rather annoying. Since none of the other jonin present seem to mind, it's probably a permanent issue. I don't think he can take stealth missions like that.'

After Hayate finished explaining the rules, which pretty much boiled down to one-on-one fights and no killing, a huge screen was lowered from the ceiling to reveal the first two fighters. After a few moments, the first match was decided: Naruto vs Chouji.

Yuna could only shake her head at that. Chouji won't even know what hit him.

"Haha, alright! I'm going first!"

Chouji, meanwhile, smiled a little.

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'At least it isn't one of those weirdos from the other villages. If it is against Naruto, I might actually win.'

After everyone except for Naruto, Chouji, and Hayate left the arena and reached the spectator stands, Hayate started the match.

Chouji, immediately, made the first move.

"[Leaf-Style Taijutsu: Human Bullet Tank]"

His body became round and he started to roll at Naruto with quite a bit of momentum.

"Haha, a bold charge. I like it. COME!"

Naruto readied himself and as soon as Chouji was in his range he punched towards him.

At first, the clash seemed to be a draw, but after a few moments, Chouji was pushed back and, in the end, was smacked into a wall and lost his consciousness.

"Hehe, just because I like it doesn't mean I will go easy on you."

Asuma Sarutobi, Chouji's teacher who was spectating the duel, looked at Naruto completely dumbfounded. Overpowering an Akimichi's full charge with raw power alone is a ridiculous feat. He couldn't help but look at Kakashi in wonder. Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

"What in the world did you feed Naruto for him to reach such a ridiculous strength?"

Kakashi, however, only shrugged his shoulders.

"I would like to claim that this is my achievement, but it isn't. They have been hiding their abilities for a long time now. Guess they are finally ready to show themself publicly."

"They?"

Anko, who was here because she is Yuna's sensei, intervened before Kakashi could answer.

"Hehe, Asuma, just wait and see. I hope you are ready for a good show."

He raised his eyebrow at Anko but could see that neither Anko nor Kakashi were willing to say more, so he decided to drop the matter for now.

Meanwhile, the next match was announced: Sakura vs Ino.

After the two left the spectator stands and met in the middle of the arena, Ino couldn't help but smile wryly.

"Sakura, you..."

"Yeah, I know. Victory is impossible."

Ino widened her eyes when she heard that. She wanted to advise Sakura to simply give up the match and expected to be yelled at with some nonsense involving Sasuke in return.

Seeing the surprised expression on Ino's face, Sakura really didn't know what to say.

'Was I really that bad? That is impossible...right?'

She shook her head to get rid of the unimportant thoughts and answered Ino's questions before she could ask them.

"During the second exam, I realized how weak I am, but I won't give up so easily. I will become stronger and reach what I am aiming for."

When she said that last sentence, she glanced at Sasuke for a moment before her eyes focused back on Ino.

"I will lose this, but I won't go down easy, at least. So come, Ino!"

"It is good that you finally got your resolve. Fine, here I come! I won't hold back!"

*Five seconds later*

'Guess I should have held back.'

"The winner is: Ino Yamanaka!"

Ino couldn't help but feel slightly awkward while walking back to the spectator stands. She got pumped up for the fight and then knocked Sakura out with one punch. That felt really anticlimactic to her.

Yuna chuckled a little when she saw Ino's dissatisfied expression.

'I really wonder what she expected to happen. As far as I know, Sakura has never trained properly. Fighting against Ino, who, despite starting a little late, has quite a few years of training under her belt had an obvious outcome. Instant victory.'

The next fight was a girl called Tenten against someone from Suna called Temari and Yuna could only shake her head at the bad compatibility between those two.

'I can't help but feel a little bad for that Tenten girl. She pretty much met her hard-counter. I am not sure why she is so insistent on throwing every single one of those weapons at her enemy, though. She might want to learn to actually wield them as well, should give her quite the powerup if she can casually switch weapons mid-fight.'

[How in the world is she supposed to learn fighting with all these weapons? Even I know that it takes a lot of time to properly learn how to use a weapon.]

'Not really. Although I only focused on one weapon in my previous life, I still decided to get a basic level of mastery in most other weapons as well. That only took me a few hundred year... Oh, guess I understand the problem now.'

[...]

The next match was rather interesting to Yuna, not because of the strength of the fighters, but because Shikamaru somehow won it, while following his self-made rule not to hit a woman.

'Damn, if only he was more interested in getting stronger. I feel like he could have become someone seriously powerful. Too bad he is just a lazy bum.'

The next match was quickly announced at it was: Sasuke Uchiha vs Dosu Kinuta.

When Naruto heard the announcement, his eyes lit up.

'So, Mummy's name was actually Dosu Kinuta, huh? Well, my nickname was kinda close, so it's fine. I wonder if Sasuke can defeat him without relying on Orochimaru's hickey? Probably not. Well, even if he loses now, it's not like I care. At the current stage of the chunin exam I am no longer shackled by my teammates after all.

-

Moments later, Sasuke and Dosu stood in front of each other in the middle of the arena. Sasuke had a confident smirk on his face, while Dosu had an annoyed frown.

Dosu regretted running away from Sasuke inside the Forest of Death. He was so shocked about Orochimaru granting Sasuke power, that he stopped thinking about the situation properly.

'That damn Orochimaru-sa… no need for the "sama", huh. He sent us in as guinea pigs to test Sasuke. There is no way I can accept that. Whatever plans he might have, I will get rid of Sasuke today, to destroy them. That is what he gets for treating me as a guinea pig.'

Sasuke, meanwhile, noticed that Dosu seemed to be absentminded, which caused his smirk to become cocky.

"You might as well give up. I have beat you once while you had the support of your team. Now that you are alone, you have no chance at winning."

Dosu shook his head at Sasuke shamelessly claiming that he won against all three of them, but didn't say anything about it. He only readied the device strapped to his arm and prepared for combat.

Moments later, Sasuke did the same and activated his Sharingan. Kakashi told him not to use the seal, but Sasuke didn't care too much about that. For now, he would suppress it, and when things become dangerous, he would just use the seal freely. He saw no reason to not use the power that was given to him.

Both contestants charged at each other. Dosu swung his hand to use his sound attack, but due to his Sharingan, Sasuke saw through it instantly and managed to evade the sound wave.

Sasuke tried to close in on Dosu but was yet again met with a sound wave. An annoyed frown appeared on Sasuke's face as he went through a few hand seals.

"[Fire Style: Grand Fireball Jutsu]"

The fireball approached Dosu, but he yet again swung his arm and shot out a sound wave to split the fireball in the middle.

"Hehe, what's wrong. Didn't you defeat all three of us on your own? What happened to that?"

Sasuke gritted his teeth in anger when he heard his enemy's taunt.

'Seems like ninjutsu won't work that easily. Guess I need to engage him in Taijutsu before I can get a good hit in with Ninjutsu, but I am not fast enough to approach him.'

Sasuke pondered some more and then noticed a young teenager with a green spandex suit spectating the battle.

'That's right, if it is his movements, it should be fast enough to reach my enemy.'

Sasuke's stance changed and moments later he vanished from Dosu's sight.

'Impossible, how did he suddenly get this fa...'

His thoughts were interrupted, when Sasuke appeared in front of him and kicked his head, sending him flying into the air.

'W-What just happened?'

Moments later, Sasuke appeared behind him in mid-air.

"From here on it will be my original."

Sasuke kicked towards Dosu's side, but he managed to block the kick, just for another one to smash into his other side. Dosu flinched from the sudden pain and wasn't ready to defend himself. As soon as he hit the ground, Sasuke spun around and drove his heel into Dosu, knocking him out.

Sasuke could feel the seal encroach on him but managed to suppress it with his will.

'Like I would lose control this easily. I am the one in charge and decide when I want to activate the seal. There is no way I would let it activate on its own.'

Sasuke dusted off his clothes and walked towards the spectator stands. He could feel that the short time he used Lee's movements cost him massive amounts of stamina and he couldn't help but wonder how someone could deal with the ridiculous stamina cost. Despite being close to the limit, Sasuke pretended to be completely fine and walked with his back straight.

The next match was Kankurou vs Shino, which Yuna found rather interesting.

'Two weird fighting styles clash against each other. One controls puppets and the other one insects. From the feeling they give off, they should be rather similar in strength.'

The fight started, and, just like Yuna had thought, the strength of these two was rather similar. The result was that Kankurou's chakra was eaten by Shino's insects, while Shino was poisoned by Kankurou's puppets. A draw.

The next match was supposed to be Gaara vs Kiba, but when Kiba realized that Akaramu, his ninken, was extremely afraid of Gaara he simply gave up. The Inuzuka clan usually trust in the instincts of their ninken, so Kiba would naturally do the same.

The next fight was Neji Hyuga vs Zaku Abumi. As soon as Yuna noticed the holes in his hands, she couldn't help but gawk.

"Naruto, did you see the hands of that guy? What the hell?"

Naruto, however, had a serious look on his face as he looked at Yuna.

"Nee-san, that is really rude. He isn't "that guy", he has a proper name. He is called Handjob Man."

Yuna, immediately, seemed to be apologetic as she lowered her head.

"I see, that was really rude of me. So his name is Handjob Man. What a majestic name."

Zaku, meanwhile, tried to ignore the roaring laughter he heard from the spectator stands and focused on his enemy.

Unfortunately, that didn't get him very far, because as soon as the fight started, Neji approached him far faster than he expected and slammed his palm into Zaku's stomach, knocking him out instantly.

After the end of another anti-climatic battle, the screen atop the arena started shuffling through the remaining fighters and displayed the next match: Yuna vs Lee.

As soon as Yuna saw who she will be fighting, she vanished where she stood and reappeared in the middle of the arena with an excited smile on her face.

Seeing Yuna's excited smile, Naruto couldn't help but chuckle.

"Seems like thing will become interesting."

The few jonin that also stood in the spectator stand heard Naruto's words and looked at him with confusion. Kakashi was the first of them to speak.

"What do you mean, Naruto?"

"Hehe, nee-san seems to be looking forward to this fight. Although I don't understand the reason why she is expecting a good match, it seems like Lee has caught her interest, despite not having much chakra."

Before Kakashi could answer, the person standing next to him who wore a green spandex suit that looked rather similar to Lee's gave Naruto a "Nice Guy" pose.

"Haha, that is only natural. After all, Lee is my youthful disciple. He will take the chunin exam as a chance to reveal his youth to the world!"

Naruto could feel his eyebrow twitch a little at that...youthful...display a grown man did in front of him but decided not to comment on it.

Moments later, Lee had also reached the middle of the arena and stood in front of Yuna.

"Although I said I like you, I still won't hold back in this fight. I will show you my youth!"

"Then take off those weights already. Are you mocking me?"

Lee was slightly taken aback by Yuna knowing about his weights but answered her anyway.

"I will only take those off when I have to protect many precious people, so n..."

Before he could finish the sentence, Yuna appeared in front of him and punched towards his face. Lee barely managed to tilt his head to the side to avoid the punch. Lee couldn't help but be surprised by Yuna displaying speed that could match his own without the weights.

"So you are not mocking me, you are just stupid. Take them off! Show it to me. Is this what you have been pushing yourself for? All that hard work only to be defeated because you shackled yourself to your own rules?"

Lee was surprised by Yuna's words and jumped away from her to get some distance. Yuna could have easily followed him but decided not to. She wanted a good fight and not a one-sided beatdown.

While Lee was still contemplating what to do, a loud voice echoed over the battlefield.

"Take them off, Lee. It is time to show off your youth."

A fire began to burn in Lee's eyes as he was looking at his sensei.

"YES, GUY-SENSEI!!!"

Moments later, he sat down on the floor and removed the weights he had around his ankles, and held them up with his hands.

"Alright, now I can move much easier!"

As soon as the weights hit the ground, a huge explosion echoed through the arena, showing just how heavy those weights were.

While almost everyone was dumbfounded by that, Yuna's smile grew even more intense.

'I knew it. That guy is a monster. This will be a lot of fun.'

Yuna lifted her hand and caught Lee's punch that was about to hit her in the stomach. Lee's eyes widened when Yuna managed to catch his punch and flinched a little when Yuna's battle-thirsty aura exploded out, flooding the whole arena.

"Show me what you got, LEE!"