章 2656: 46
"You brought promotion paperwork with you?" Naruto asked, staring at the packet he'd just been handed. Hinata had a smaller one.
"Yes," Shisui said. "That you're surprised just means that your in-Konoha spy network is properly ignoring things it should be ignoring, in my opinion, but it was decided that you and Hinata would be promoted regardless of what happens with your genin."
"Doubly so after I weighed in on the value of your maps," Jiraiya added. He'd made a special trip back to Konoha to play second guard for Shisui. "Why didn't you tell anyone that you'd been mapping every single settlement you visited, or just happened to pass near in some cases?"
Naruto gave him a look. "Why wouldn't I be? The academy handbooks say that all shinobi should be keeping maps of areas they pass through for reference purposes, if only to be able to spot significant changes from year to year."
"That is something added after the last war," Shisui agreed. "The real surprise is the quality of your maps. You do realize that the ones you provided with the mobile house are at least three times better than those previously on file in the village?"
"He honestly doesn't see his maps as exceptional," Hinata noted as she opened and flipped through her packet. "We skipped special jounin and went straight to jounin?"
"You skipped special jounin," Jiraiya corrected. "Naruto skipped straight to elite jounin."
"And he's the third person in Konoha history to be declared an honorary member of Anbu," Shisui added. "In addition to being at the top of the lists for becoming the sixth Hokage, next jounin commander, or next Anbu commander for his paperwork skills alone."
"I'd be more useful focusing on infiltration," Naruto pointed out.
"That's almost certain to remain your focus for a number of years yet, and you're well aware that being on the lists doesn't mean you have to take the jobs."
Naruto found it interesting that he was being better-treated by the other guards in the Kage Box than Jiraiya was. Actually, all three Kages and the other guards were treating him well, though likely for widely different reasons.
"I hear that the betting indicates that the only reason Konoha won't be the only one left with genin after the first set of matches is because there's a Kiri vs Kumo match included," Mei commented.
"That is indeed the case," the Raikage agreed. "It was expected on our end though, as our most promising candidates didn't end up participating for unavoidable reasons."
"We understand that the survivors got field promotions," Shisui added.
"...yes, though I'm not sure how you learned that."
"Kakuzu was hunting one of our jounin for a bounty placed by Iwa at the time of the encounter, who identified the two surviving genin from a previous message-delivery run. They were then noted to be chunin on wall duty here in Kumo during the last couple of weeks before the exams began."
The Raikage seemed to be appeased by that, though Naruto suspected this was partially a cover for Konoha's intelligence department having copies of all the new paperwork since the visit for sparring.
Some more back and forth followed before Yugito did standard introductions of the Kage and the genin. She even drew attention to Kumo's 'new allies' having a particularly strong showing during this exam in the process. Then Mio from Kumo and Yuko from Kiri stayed as the rest of the genin headed up to their observation area. Yuko created a sword out of ice as Mio drew a katana and the battle was on, the wind in the ice counteracting the lightning Mio was flowing into her sword.
Over the course of twenty minutes the two cycled through kenjutsu, some genjutsu, and occasional direct elemental attacks. Unfortunately for Yuko, coating the ground in ice hadn't slowed Mio down at all, nor had it stopped the Kumo kunoichi from preparing a trap using subtle earth manipulation. Yuko lost her footing at a key point and found a katana at her throat, Yugito declaring Mio the winner a moment later.
Sakura was up next, against L from Kumo. He had a supervibrato sword, but kept it sheathed to start with, instead going for lightning release techniques. She countered with wind, then added in a small fireball to detonate the wind wall she'd created. That was a distraction to hide that she'd made a paperwork clone to take her place before dropping into the earth herself. L grabbed his sword and channeled lightning into it after that, darting in as the flames died off in an attempt to catch her by surprise. The clone produced a tanto and coated it in wind to block the lightning, but was obviously not ready for a kenjutsu match.
L wasn't ready for another wind wall to be followed by the ground suddenly erupting into a large stone wolf's head, mouth snapping shut around him and the clone. The real Sakura appeared from the ground a moment later, tanto out as though the clone had been her actual self. A moment later the rock receded, showing an unconscious L who had failed to cut through the wind and rock before being struck hard in the back of the head.
Kiba against Hashige from Kiri followed, the kunoichi giving him and Akamaru an odd look. Then again, nobody had actually seen Kiba fighting alongside Akamaru in the exams yet due to his chef dance that had now been discarded. The four legs technique and the beast human clone followed, but Hashige was confident in her defense as the fang passing fang started up. She even commented on how she'd ensured that she knew how to handle all the Inuzuka clan's normal genin and chunin level collaboration techniques.
At first it seemed like Hashige had a chance, using water techniques that slowed Kiba and Akamaru down. But she wasn't prepared for Kiba to start lobbing fireballs at her in the middle of the fang passing fang technique and took one to the face, severely burning her eyes. Hinata ended up offering to heal her up after Yugito called the match in Kiba's favor.
"This is either going to be brutally short or a long one," Naruto commented as Shikamaru and Kei from Kumo took the field.
"Wouldn't expect any less of a match involving a Nara," Mei agreed. "My understanding is that Kei is skilled with lightning?"
"He is," the Raikage agreed. "But he's been favorably compared to the Nara as well, often thinking several moves ahead of opponents."
The battle started with Kei on the edge of the shadows of the arena walls and some obvious probing attacks by Shikamaru. Kei seemed to know to not get too close to a Nara and their ability to manipulate shadows and instead focused on longer-range options. None of them were hitting home, nor were Shikamaru's kunai hitting their marks. Except that Naruto could easily spot that the kunai, all of which had 'loose' bits of wrapping on their handles increasing their shadows, were forming a pattern. But Kei's kunai, all with wire wrappings on their handles, were forming their own pattern.
Shikamaru seemed to be well aware of the latter, at least by Naruto's estimation.
Unlike Kei's pattern, Shikamaru's was being added to underground, small tunnels being formed with earth manipulation around his feet. Being able to see the above-ground and below-ground portions at the same time made the entire thing far more obvious, and Naruto was able to start predicting where kunai were going to strike based on the overall pattern. He wasn't disappointed, and it was obvious that Shikamaru had trained his accuracy to a far greater degree than his 'misses' would otherwise indicate.
Kei was most on-guard as Shikamaru circled into the shadow of the arena walls, but no obvious move was made to use that to advantage. Instead, he continued to circle out of it without giving any indication that he'd cared about the potential advantage for a Nara operating with existing shadows. Likely unnoticed by most, the manipulation of the ground there had left several open holes into the small network of tunnels, hidden by the shadows.
Eventually Kei swung back around to being the one in the shadows of the arena wall, at the same time both genin seemed to have completed their kunai patterns. Kei quickly performed a series of hand seals, launching a lightning wave that started connecting his various kunai...and caused the earth to crumble around them, breaking the pattern they'd formed as they fell into some of Shikamaru's tunnels. This caused the attack to fizzle out before it reached Shikamaru, who lashed out with a line of shadows bouncing between his various kunai on the surface. Kei quickly targeted the kunai in the middle of the chains, stopping them from providing shadows for the attack to continue through...
And then he was suddenly stationary, and Shikamaru was grinning, the line of shadows through the tunnels and connecting to Kei's shadow from behind having struck true. "Gotcha." Having his opponent grab a kunai from a pouch, Shikamaru's only containing a wooden prop, and both of them holding theirs up to their necks was enough to have Yugito call the match in Shikamaru's favor.
"I think I missed three quarters of that match due to it being played in their heads," Mei commented with a frown.
"Half of the important bits being underground couldn't have helped," Jiraiya commented.
"...he made tunnels for his shadow to reach the larger shadow of the arena wall?"
"That's my guess. I'm pretty good with earth techniques and think that there's now a network of small tunnels around the perimeter of the arena."
"Clever," the Raikage noted with an approving nod. "Ones barely held together in spots by earth chakra, which the lightning release across the prepared kunai overwhelmed. But Kei's loss does prove the strength of Konoha's genin so far."
"Only if they don't let success go to their heads," Shisui noted. "Though they're definitely looking good currently."
A small break for another round of betting was held, with Kiba's jerky being brought out by the Raikage. All three Kage and the guards obviously liked it...except for Naruto, who was allowing the others to have their fill instead. But eventually the next match came up, Mio against Tenten. As the match started they both drew swords, Mio's katana against what had been Orochimaru's katana. Lightning channeled down one, wind down the other.
...Tenten's wind had been significantly stronger, through a blade better designed for channeling chakra, and sliced clean through Mio's katana. To her credit, Mio didn't panic, but simply immediately backed off and produced another katana from a scroll, discarding the damaged one to the side. Tenten's reaction had been to catch the cut-off section of the sword and give it a quick examination.
"You need a better source of swords," she finally said, throwing the piece to the side. "Channeling lightning down that one might've de-tempered it entirely."
"That's an unfortunate problem with fire and lightning channeling," Mio admitted. "But I've not proven myself worthy of being gifted a supervibrato sword and can't yet afford one, so must make due with a supply of fresh, cheaper blades produced by my family."
Tenten nodded, and when the two blades met the fresh katana blocked instead of being cut through immediately. With the more solid blade Mio's skill was more on display, but the subtle earth manipulations that had been used against Yuko were being countered by Tenten's own manipulations. Unlike Yuko, Tenten had non-ice options available as well, and switched to flowing magnet release down her katana to lock up the two blades as she created a stone fist to punch Mio from below. Mio successfully dodged the fist, but was now dangerously out of form and Tenten took advantage, overpowering her opponent and pinning the girl.
"I think I should dig out a couple more swords," B noted as Yugito called the match.
"So that Mio doesn't embarrass us further with losing swords to lightning channeling?" C asked.
"Both of them could be said to deserve one, as Tenten very obviously avoided using what could be called a handicap against Mio after learning of it, pulling the power of her own chakra back. That's honorable, and I've confirmed that I need longer swords."
"And A approved of Konoha having access to the swords if you made the decision, so it won't be a problem."
"Yeah."
There had been some quick checking of the arena for any stray bits of sword before Ino and Sakura came out. The first pair of genin from the same village, and Naruto wasn't sure what they'd planned for showing off. Some of it was almost immediately obvious, long-range varying-element techniques with short-range defensive counters of the appropriate opposing element. Each of the two used at least two techniques of each element in attacking and defending contexts, each also deploying a clone under the cover of a defended-against technique, before Ino then started on faking combined-element techniques by using one element and then immediately applying another.
Sakura's counter was strength-based techniques, blocking an earth-formed fire-heated 'lava' ball by punching the ground to bring up a slab of dirt to intercept it and then kicking the lifted slab to launch it at Ino. This also intercepted and shattered an incoming spray of water-formed wind-cooled ice senbon, but Ino jumped over the slab while throwing a ball of dirt wrapped around some explosive tags back Sakura's way. That exploded when an earth wall was thrown up to intercept it, but Sakura had already dropped underground before the spalling would've hit her.
Ino landed and immediately started moving, proving to be a good thing when hands tried to grab her from underground. In retaliation, she flowed lightning around her fist, looking like she was tracking Sakura's movements. A solid punch to the ground with the chakra-covered fist had Sakura coming up, shaking a little from the lightning, and Ino was suddenly holding two chef's knives that she quickly crossed at Sakura's neck. But Sakura just smirked, the ground shifting into the wolf head as she vanished in a puff of smoke...and before the strike landed Ino vanished in her own puff of smoke.
There was obvious confusion from the audience as to what had just happened, but a moment later Sakura burst from the ground as though struck. Ino followed with two tantos out, pinning Sakura against the wall with the blades crossed at her neck.
"I thought I had you," Sakura grumbled after Ino was declared the victor.
"You had some good tricks," Ino conceded. "But you've spent too much time in the hospital and not enough time in the field."
"I know."
Kiba and Sasuke were next, and Naruto was fairly certain that they'd both planned something and that Kiba expected to lose. Kiba's opening moves were similar to the previous match, but what set this one apart was Sasuke forming a clone, then performing the four legs technique and copying the fang passing fang with his clone. Kiba and Akamaru had overpowered the copy though, showing that they were better skilled with the technique, and then switched to combining with one another into a large double-headed wolf.
Sasuke did not appear to be expecting that, but rolled with it anyway. Earth and water walls, an attempt at a lightning technique, a large fireball, and finally wind to form a bit of a dirt vortex were used and all failed to significantly slow his opponent. Body-flickering behind the combined pair and throwing a kunai with an explosive note attached at their back was another matter. They dodged it by separating, allowing the kunai to pass between them before it exploded. Kiba managed an earth wall to protect Akamaru from a follow-up water whip launched by Sasuke, but had missed Sasuke making a second clone that came up from behind with a lightning-enhanced strike to the back of Kiba's neck for the win.
Sasuke healed up the damage personally and the two were ribbing each other as they left the field, Karin and Shikamaru coming down for their match. To the surprise of everyone, the first thing they did was collaborate to build a giant shogi board and pieces out of stone in the middle of the arena. They then started playing by using different techniques to move the pieces, seemingly having given themselves only a few seconds to decide on a move each time. It made for a very interesting match, especially when it became obvious that genjutsu was involved in an attempt to make it seem like the board was in different states than it actually was.
Notably, Shikamaru seemed to be ignoring the deceptions against him, and in fact had his eyes closed more often than open, implying that he was keeping track of the board in his head and not by the actual appearance of the board. But the deceptions he used did seem to affect Karin's decision making, at least slowing her down. Most notable in the tactics at play though was probably Shikamaru placing a genjutsu of a piece's current appearance down, and then changing the surface with earth manipulation to change it to a different piece. When Karin finally noticed the genjutsu she dispelled it, to reveal a piece that wasn't what had been there. The corresponding genjutsu and manipulation of the other piece had her scowling, obviously not quite having noticed what was going on.
Unfortunately, Shikamaru ran into a different problem. His reserves just weren't large enough for this, which meant that despite seeming to do far better at the shogi side of things than Karin he was noticeably slowing down in moving pieces. This was giving her far more time to think about her moves while he was focused on dredging up more chakra, and they started to stalemate a bit more...up until Shikamaru admitted defeat due to being out of chakra to continue moving pieces.
It had still been an incredible match to watch, and there was a disappointed groan from the audience at the shogi match itself going unfinished.
"You are far better a shogi than you led me to believe," Shikamaru grumbled as he forced himself up the stairs to the observation area.
"I read the rules two days ago and played against my own clone for a day with another couple of clones watching for mistakes," Karin retorted. "Ninety percent of my moves were random flailing with barely any understanding of larger tactics."
"...so either you're a savant or just incredibly lucky?"
"Being of Uzumaki descent, I'd guess the latter."
"That, sadly, doesn't actually surprise me."
"Your little 'fake me out with the wrong appearance on the pieces' trick was annoying though."
"The genjutsu was the right appearance, I'd swapped out the surfaces after placing it."
"...that's...so you essentially tricked me into swapping the pieces?"
"Yep."
She was obviously quite annoyed at that, but he didn't care. He'd take a nap in the stairwell if not for knowing that the chairs in the observation room were more comfortable and that they had good snacks available.
Watching Ino and Tenten take the field was interesting. They had very different strengths and weaknesses and Naruto wasn't even sure which one of them he wanted to win. He was fairly certain that both had their promotions in the bag already anyway.
Tenten opened up with a spray of spell-kunai that exploded when hitting the ground around Ino, throwing up quite a dust cloud. Ino used that as cover for making a single clone that moved to the wall as it went invisible, but Naruto could still track it as it moved around the outer perimeter of the arena. The real Ino then used a water technique to knock the dust cloud down and create a field of mud that she then used to launch mud balls at Tenten. Those were trivially dodged, and non-faked lava and ice balls sent back. Ino then produced a tanto and moved in for closer-range, Tenten going for a pair of them instead. They clashed in the middle of the arena, Ino proving to be quite good at dodging and blocking Tenten's strikes, but not so good at getting strikes of her own in.
...but it seemed that was intentional, as she used being 'driven back' to lure Tenten towards the hidden clone. Hinata was probably the only other one that realized that though, and Tenten seemed to have no clue that she was falling into a trap. When they were close enough, Ino suddenly pushed harder and went for a high-power strike at Tenten's head, which was blocked with crossed blades. Crucially, this also pinned Tenten down...for the couple of moments the clone needed for a mind-body switch to hit her.
It was an incredibly straightforward and somewhat obvious way to overcome one of the limitations of the mind-body switch.
"I give up," Tenten's body said, taking most by surprise.
"Only because I'm in control of her," Ino admitted with a grin.
The string of swears Tenten let out when the control was released was, admittedly, quite amusing, but she didn't argue the loss. Ino did get dropped into a headlock in the stairwell though, Karin and Sasuke dodging but otherwise ignoring the scuffle as they came down.
A couple minutes later the two were faced off against each other, the match began, and Sasuke very obviously activated his sharingan. Naruto wasn't all that used to seeing him do so, as he'd taken Itachi's attitude of learning things without it and it really didn't come up often in infiltration missions.
Using a very recognizable and rare ability was generally frowned upon when you didn't want to be recognized.
It was incredibly likely that Sasuke had just cast a genjutsu, because Karin suddenly didn't seem to be able to see him. He grinned and moved in, only for her to close her eyes. As soon as he was in range she lashed out with a kick, catching him in the chest and launching him back. Naruto suspected that the genjutsu wasn't affecting her mind's eye sensing ability at all, and it wouldn't matter what Sasuke did with his chakra signature when there were only two people physically in the arena at all.
Longer-range attacks were attempted, with chakra as well as kunai and shuriken, and she dodged or blocked them all. In the case of tricks like wire between kunai, even when in a larger spread, she either produced her own kunai to cut the wire or blocked with a chakra chain that the wire then caught on before things could reach her. What she didn't do was try to attack him at range, which Naruto believed was because she could only do so much without breaking the sensory technique.
After ten minutes of this it looked to Naruto like the genjutsu had been broken or worn off, it was honestly hard to tell which. Karin seemed to notice as well, and suddenly created a couple dozen paperwork clones, all of them with their eyes still closed. But with that many, and them spreading out, it was now going to be close to impossible for Sasuke to catch all of them with a genjutsu at the same time and communication between them would allow them to coordinate some attacking while others maintained the sensory technique.
This was demonstrated when suddenly six of the clones started launching various elemental techniques at Sasuke. He did a good job of dodging, his sharingan likely helping him keep track of everything above the ground. What he definitely wasn't keeping track of were the chains from six other clones spreading under the ground. The dodging and blocking of elemental techniques was set up specifically to get him into position for the chains, and after a minute he landed just as chains burst from the ground and grabbed him. A couple even wrapped around his head to cover his eyes.
"I do believe that I win," Karin said, the real her, as she moved over to him. "Nice try though."
"I have to admit that I'm impressed," Shisui said as the betting opened for the final match, running scenarios through his head. He wasn't coming up with much that made sense though. "I'm fairly certain that I know exactly what he did, but have no clue how she overcame it so well."
"Uzumaki sensor ability," Naruto answered. "Can't tell you exactly how it works, but I'd bet the genjutsu couldn't hide him from it. As soon as she used it she probably confirmed that she was under a genjutsu, but I don't know if that would've helped her break it."
"Interesting. Do you know this from personal experience?"
"She inherited that one, not me."
Shisui both felt that was the truth and that something important wasn't being said. He just didn't know what that something was, and this wasn't the place to bring it up either way, so he nodded. "Good to know. Both of them put on a good show."
"Definitely," A said. "I wasn't sure about her after the shogi match, but this combined with her performance in the first two stages shows that she doesn't just have a gimmick."
Short of one of the two kunoichi doing something incredibly wrong in the final bout, it was looking like all seven Konoha genin were set to become chunin. Which largely validated the decision to send them out. The question was going to be exactly how to handle a few details. Team Yugao was a temporary team to begin with, so would be breaking up again, but Team Tekuno could switch to being led by Shikamaru for a bit or swap Shikamaru out for another genin and Team Yurei...
There were honestly a lot of suggestions for them, some that completely missed their actual strengths because those making the suggestions weren't infiltration-cleared, but Shisui was honestly inclined to keep the current group together in a general sense unless they chose to take different paths.
Naruto had snorted at the end of the match between Ino and Karin. It lasted a mere thirty seconds, ending with Ino slumping and admitting that she had no hope of defeating Karin with her current skill set, the limitations of fighting in an open arena, and their relative chakra levels.
The Raikage had silenced most of the complaints from the audience by pointing out that sometimes a battle can't be won in the current circumstances, and that recognizing when that has happened is a skill that many shinobi of any rank never develop. But then he asked first Ino, and then Karin, to launch the most powerful attack they felt they had into the air. Ino managed a very decent fireball that she'd been taught by Sasuke, pumping far more chakra into it than normal and creating a sizable explosion in the air high over the village.
Karin's response to that was to supercharge a water ball, turning it into a sphere that was a significant percentage of the arena's available volume, and fire it into the air. She'd filled it with enough chakra to cause it to explode into a torrential downpour when it reached high enough.
"...I'm hoping that display is enough to show that the young Yamanaka was right to back down," the Raikage said a couple of minutes later, after the water stopped falling.
"We've collected the various reports on the contestants," the Raikage said after a break for both cleaning up some of the water and ensuring that all the opinions were in order. "And find ourselves in agreement with their recommendations. We shall handle the announcements by village."
Mei stepped forward as the Raikage stepped back. "Yuko, despite losing your match you've still proven yourself to be worthy of promotion. Hashige, you have not earned your promotion as you've shown yourself to be detrimentally overconfident in your skills."
The two Kiri kunoichi bowed, Hashige looking annoyed, as Mei stepped back. The Raikage then stepped forward again. "L, you have not earned your promotion as you've shown your skills to not be wide enough throughout the exam. While being able to rely on teammates is admirable, chunin should be able to handle some basics that you seem to lack. Kei, your loss against a Nara is no slight on your own skills, and against any other opponent your strategy would likely have allowed you to at least get a strike in. You have earned your promotion. And Mio, you have done well with the resources available to you, proven yourself worthy of promotion."
One again, the Raikage stepped back, and Shisui stepped forward. "And that leaves the Konoha group. All seven of you showed a variety of skills and suitable judgment throughout the exams. I could go through each of you and be highly repetitive, but I think it's easier to just state that all of you have earned your promotions."
The seven Konoha shinobi bowed, but as Shisui stepped back the Raikage simply looked up. B landed on the Kage box a moment later, obviously expected, though for many in the audience his further-transformed appearance wasn't. He didn't seem to care at this point, looking down at the group. "Mio, you have shown great skill with a sword, and in honor of your promotion I've decided that you deserve a quality blade." A sword in a scabbard was pulled from his back and tossed down to the kunoichi, and she seemed to be in a state of awe as she caught it. But before she could say anything B turned slightly. "Tenten of Konoha, you've also shown skill with a sword, as well as knowledge and honor after examining Mio's first blade in your match. I've heard that you collect weapons, and feel that you could use another one for your collection." A second sword in a scabbard was pulled from his back and tossed to Tenten, who seemed more excited about it than Mio.
B then bowed to the group before jumping away, and the Raikage stepped forward again. "With that, I officially declare this round of exams completed. Participants can expect summaries of their results in the next day or two, as we haven't gotten things up to Konoha's speed in the paperwork side of things."
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