บท 72: You talk too much
[Thursday's Chapter]
"This year, they really did make the exams challenging, right?"
"Yes, Taki was serious when he said he was going to change how things were done."
Senju Riku and Yamanaka Shimora were in the stands having a conversation as the first batch of fights in the first round were about to begin.
Fortunately, both of their teams, Team 15 for Riku and Team 14 for Shimora, qualified to participate in the second phase of the exam.
"But don't you think he is being more strict to the kids? I don't see any need for the preliminaries," Shimora remarked.
"If being strict will save their lives later, then so be it," Renjiro replied.
"We all got promoted to the chunin rank using the same system. We turned out right, didn't we?" Shimora countered.
"You, of all people, should know that that's a lie. Giving these kids the best chances they can get, especially during these hard times, is the best thing we could do."
The remark brought on a sombre mood. They all internally paid respects to their fallen comrades. Trying to lighten up the mood, Riku continued,
"Besides, The system Taki is implementing is more complete than what we have ever seen. The first phase in the forest tested their teamwork and how they would navigate obstacles. These preliminaries, which serve as the second phase, test their individual combat prowess."
Riku took a deep breath before continuing,
"From what I hear about the next phase, it will test their strategic capabilities, which is paramount for any chunin."
"Anyway, you genin is about to start his fight. I have been hearing a lot about him, we should probably pay attention,"
In one of the fighting places prepared, Renjiro was walking to his designated place for the first round.
'Hmm?... her again?' Renjiro wondered as he finally saw who was his opponent for the first round. It was Hyuro Hyuga.
They had fought during their genin promotion exams where she came in first while Renjiro came in third. Clearly, a rematch was warranted by Renjiro.
"Small world, right?" Renjiro remarked.
"What are you talking about?"
"Never mind."
A chunin refereeing the match asked them if they were ready and after receiving a nod from both of them, he commanded
"Begin!"
The minute the two genins heard the command, they all activated their dojutsus. Renjiro with his Sharigan and Hyuro with her Byakugan.
"Eight Trigrams Mountain Crusher!" Hyuro shouted.
Since Renjiro was just staring at her, Hyuro decided to take the initiative and threw a palm strike aiming towards Renjiro's top left shoulder. It was not a normal palm strike since Hyuro was emitting chakra from her palms.
'So predictable. She is trying to attack my chakra network.'
Renjiro anticipated the attack, swiftly dodging to the side with a graceful sidestep. Relying on his Sharingan, he kept dodging and redirecting the jabs from Hyuro's taijutsu technique. After some time, a realization hit Renjiro.
'It was stupid trying to engage her in close combat. I might have improved, but so did she.'
Renjiro tried creating some distance between Hyuro and him, but Hyuro could not let him do so.
'This is frustrating!' Thought Hyuro.
She had previously fought Renjiro, but that was more than a year ago, he couldn't have improved that much, right? But to her surprise, Renjiro was fighting her on even terms.
What was more frustrating was that he was either dodging her strikes or deflecting them. It was hard using her chakra and not seeing any results.
'I need to finish this quickly. Let's see how he handles this.'
Hyuro changed her stance as she prepared to use another technique.
"Eight Trigrams sixty-four pal-"
Just as she was about to initiate her technique, Hyuro stopped in her tracks as she stared at Renjiro's Eyes. Bad mistake.
Or was it?
"A genjutsu? Seriously? Did you think that trick would work on me?" Hyuro asked as she promptly broke the Genjutsu that Renjiro tried to ensnare her with.
With the help of her Byakugan, she was able to see through the genjutsu. She only took around two or three seconds to escape the genjutsu, but that time was all Renjiro needed to flip back a few meters to achieve his goal.
"No. But this might. Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!" Renjiro said as he took a deep breath before putting his hand on his mouth and releasing fire from it.
The fire coming out of Renjiro's mouth congregated into a huge fireball and headed directly towards Hyuro.
Renjiro was not mad to try and use genjutsu on a Hyuga. Okay, he was mad since he wanted to test his taijutsu prowess against Hyuro, but that was besides the case.
He did not bank on the genjutsu working, but he knew Hyuro would take time to break away from the genjutsu even if was seconds. The time she took would give him enough time to create space for him to double down on his Strength.
His Chakra.
Hyuro saw the fireball heading towards her, but she wasn't alarmed.
"Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven!" She shouted.
Hyuro emitted chakra from a majority of her Tenketsus. She then spun around, trying to block the attack. Fortunately for her, she was able to block fireball from causing any harm to her.
"Jutsus like these are no-" Hyuro began before she was rudely interrupted by Renjiro.
"Yeah, yeah. You talk too much. Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!" Renjiro released another fireball jutsu towards Hyuro.
"What-" Hyuro was surprised, but she didn't have time to do so as she had to defend herself.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
"Wait-"
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
Renjiro kept spamming the jutsu, forcing Hyuro to grasp on straws while defending. The continuous spamming of the flashy fire jutsu drew attention from the stands and also from some of the genins fighting alongside them.
It was hard for them not to pay attention to the fight as it was equally destructive as it had become one-sided.
Yes, Hyuro had good defensive techniques as a hyuga, but she had to have the stamina to keep on defending. She even decided to erect earth walls, but Renjiro's jutsu was too much for the walls.
The fight quickly changed to Hyuro's Stamina vs Renjiro's Chakra reserves. It did not take long for Hyuro to give in to Renjiro's relentless assault.
"I concede," Hyuro said before collapsing.
"Uzumaki Renjiro Wins!" The referee declared as medics went ahead to attend to Hyuro.
Renjiro exited the fighting space, much to the awe of a lot of 'viewers' as his fight had drawn the attention of genins, chunins and even Jounins who were present in Training Ground Seven.
Riku, who was with Shimora in the stands, couldn't help but smirk at Renjiro's performance. He had been disappointed at first when he began the fight in close combat with Hyuro but was happy Renjiro decided to switch things up.
'Thank God that she had terrible stamina.' Renjiro thought as he waited for his next battle.
If Renjiro was honest, he would probably put the Uchihas and Hyuga in the same spot when it came to powerful clans. As long as one was competent enough with either the dojutsus, then they would eventually become strong.
Renjiro waited for a while before his next battle since he had finished his battle quickly. He did not really need the break since he carefully managed his chakra usage, but it was welcomed nonetheless.
He faced a civilian genin in the second round which ended far quicker than the first one. For his third round, he met a familiar face as his opponent was Uchiha Amari, the girl his team had a brief encounter back at the forest of death.
Amari thought that this was a stroke of luck since she had a bone to pick with Renjiro. However, by the end of the fight, she was rueing her so-called luck that had now turned bad.
With that, the preliminaries phase of the exams was done. Only a selected few were able to win all of their battles, with Renjiro being the only one from Team 15 to do it.
Hiro and Aiko called him a showoff for that but what could he say? He wasn't really trying but he still won... crazy, right? Fortunately, it did not take long before the ranking of the genins was released.
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