https://novelcool.info/chapter/Chapter-518-Nagato-s-Terrifying-Strength/12558777/
https://novelcool.info/chapter/Chapter-520-A-Tale-of-Contrasting-Fortunes/12558779/
Chapter 519: Jonin Teacher and Nagato's Dark Transformation?
Chapter 519: Jonin Teacher and Nagato's Dark Transformation?
"Sand Crab versus Stone Bear!"
Kakashi's shadow clone kept a close eye on the battle arena, marking the final round of the preliminaries. After the preliminaries concluded, there would be a day's rest before the start of the elimination rounds.
Sand Crab, as indifferent as ever, strolled into the arena, appearing utterly unperturbed. In stark contrast, Stone Bear wore a grim expression, readying himself for a formidable opponent.
While Sand Crab didn't possess the same flashy, large-scale jutsu as Nagato, his effortless dismissals of enemies had not gone unnoticed by Stone Bear, filling him with wariness.
"Earth Style: Raging Rock Bullet Jutsu!"
Stone Bear swiftly formed hand seals, spitting out pebbles that rapidly enlarged mid-flight, hurtling towards Sand Crab like cannonballs.
This was a legion jutsu of Iwagakure, devastating when used by a unit of Iwagakure ninja and still a formidable attack jutsu in single combat.
Sand Crab's indifferent expression didn't waver as he dodged the attack, simultaneously unfurling a scroll.
In the next moment, a hunched figure with a scorpion-like tail appeared on the battlefield, scurrying towards Stone Bear at breakneck speed.
"A puppeteer," Kakashi mused, narrowing his eyes.
There was no doubt that this technique was one of the Second Tsuchikage's puppet jutsu inventions.
"Could this guy be a missing-nin from Sunagakure?" Kakashi wondered.
While puppeteer techniques were no longer exclusive to Sunagakure, very few puppeteers from other villages had risen to prominence—at least, none that Kakashi had heard of.
Yet, the skill Sand Crab displayed in puppeteering was exceptional. With just a single puppet, he swiftly dominated his opponent, Stone Bear.
Even a novice like Kakashi could discern the fluency with which Sand Crab controlled the puppet.
To possess such prowess in puppetry at an age seemingly no older than eighteen, Kakashi found it hard to believe that Sand Crab was self-taught or an outsider to the villages.
In the relatively new field of puppeteer techniques, the quality of one's teacher was paramount.
Of course, without any concrete evidence, Kakashi couldn't report Sand Crab, but he would certainly keep a closer eye on him.
Under the masterful puppetry of Scorpion, Stone Bear was quickly overwhelmed and conceded defeat.
"Sand Crab wins. He advances to the elimination rounds!" the referee announced.
Scorpion swiftly retracted his puppet, ignoring everyone as he strode out of the arena. He had no interest in the tournament beyond the fourth-place prize—a chakra blade worth tens of millions of ryo.
He intended to melt it down and use the material for his puppets. Scorpion had no interest in gathering intelligence or interacting with the other competitors; his sole focus was the prize.
In truth, Scorpion believed that if he went all out, claiming the top spot would be effortless. After all, he was one of the few ninjas in the world who had killed a Kage.
However, he had no intention of doing so. Firstly, he only needed the fourth-place prize, and secondly, if he revealed his full power, he might not even be able to claim his reward.
Scorpion was only able to participate in the tournament by assuming another person's identity.
While he wasn't yet a wanted criminal in Sunagakure, there were Sunagakure ninjas present at the tournament. If he were to unleash the Third Tsuchikage's puppet here, Sunagakure would undoubtedly dispatch a squad of ninjas to hunt him down.
Scorpion preferred to remain hidden until he achieved his goals.
...
Having witnessed Scorpion's battle through his shadow clone, Kakashi's main body made his way to the arena where Nagato was fighting.
Nagato's fighting style remained straightforward and unadorned—a relentless barrage of powerful jutsu that forced his opponents to surrender.
"Let's go, Nagato. Yahiko should be finishing up soon as well," Konan said to Nagato.
She was in the same bracket as Nagato but had an earlier match number.
Nagato nodded, and the two of them made their way to Yahiko's arena.
Kakashi's expression turned pensive as he watched them leave. That formidable female ninja was likely also a member of the Akatsuki.
Since the Akatsuki hadn't posed any threat so far, Kakashi didn't dwell on it and instead sought out his other companions who had advanced to the next round.
"The preliminaries are finally over," Nohara Lin remarked softly, a gentle smile on her face.
Before the tournament, she had been anxious about her chances of advancing to the elimination rounds.
After spending time with Kakashi and the others, Lin often felt inadequate and saw herself as nothing more than a helpless nursemaid.
However, after four rounds in the preliminaries, her confidence had returned.
She felt that her opponents had been disappointingly weak, and even the fourth-round competitor couldn't withstand a single burst of her explosive fist.
"Hehe, Lin, you did great! A lot of the spectators were stunned by your performance," Obito said, unable to hold back his laughter as he recalled the astonished expressions of the onlookers when Lin had punched a crack into the ground.
Obito didn't blame them for their shock. Who would have expected such monstrous strength from Lin, who appeared to be a gentle and soft-spoken young girl?
"It's alright, I still have a long way to go compared to you guys. I need to keep working hard," Lin waved dismissively, her smile unwavering. She hadn't let the preliminary matches, where killing wasn't necessary, inflate her ego.
Lin believed that the true testament to her strength would come when her fellow disciples stopped subconsciously holding back during their sparring sessions with her. Only then would she have reason to be proud.
With the preliminaries concluded, ninjas from the same villages gathered to exchange information and strategize. The ninjas from Konohagakure were no exception.
"There are quite a few talented ninjas in this tournament. It's not surprising that some of us didn't make it through," Asuma consoled Yuhi Kurenai, who had been eliminated in the fourth round.
Only Asuma had advanced from their squad; the other two had been knocked out.
"Yeah," Aburame Shino sighed in agreement.
He had simply had the misfortune of running into a monster like Nagato.
"Only someone like Kakashi or Might Guy might stand a chance against that Nagato guy," Shino thought to himself.
In his mind, only a freak could defeat another freak. While Asuma was undoubtedly a genius, he was clearly outclassed by Nagato.
"Asuma, Shino... With the ten of us advancing, Konohagakure makes up about a third of the elimination round participants," Kakashi quietly calculated the number of Konohagakure ninjas who had made it through.
Kakashi predicted that some of them would inevitably face off against their fellow villagers in the first round of the elimination rounds—there were simply too many Konohagakure ninjas still in the running.
Upon returning to their lodgings, Kakashi and the other Konohagakure ninjas shared the intelligence they had gathered, ensuring that everyone was up to speed on the potential threats they might face.
After all, this was a tournament on a shinobi scale, and both the Fire Daimyo and the Water Daimyo would be in attendance. The more Konohagakure ninjas advanced, the more it reflected well on the village, and the more it justified their extravagant spending on the tournament.
Meanwhile, Nagato, Konan, and Yahiko were also debriefing, gathering information about their potential opponents.
"There are quite a few talented ninjas from Konohagakure. There's Hatake Kakashi, a genius in Lightning Style and sword techniques. In the preliminaries, he defeated all his opponents with a single strike.
While gathering intelligence was indeed a part of ninja combat, doing so through the Ninja Court felt a bit like cheating.
"What's wrong with that? It's all about gathering information, and there's no difference between sources. Kakashi Hatake is a great example of this, as he immediately went around observing others' battles after finishing his own, and he watched all of Nagato's fights from start to finish," Kakuzu replied nonchalantly.
Nagato's expression remained unchanged. The preliminary rounds had been too low-stakes, and he hadn't used any of his Rinnegan abilities, so it didn't matter if Kakashi had seen his fights.
"Nagato, do as you please. Yahiko and Konan, in addition to the Konoha ninjas I mentioned earlier, you should also be cautious of Kirigakure's Terumii Mei and Kagerou, as well as Hoshigaki Kisame, the Explosion Style user Ryuu, and Sunagakure's Sand Crab, who uses puppet techniques..." Kakuzu continued.
Although Yahiko and Konan were strong, there were quite a few formidable opponents in the elimination rounds, and Kakuzu guessed that it would be challenging for Yahiko and Konan to even make it to the top eight.
"There's always someone better out there," Yahiko sighed.
Before the tournament, he had been confident about securing a high ranking. But now, after hearing Kakuzu's intelligence, he felt that making it to the top eight would be a success, and even reaching the top sixteen wouldn't be too bad—being eliminated in the first round would just mean bad luck.
"I'll take first place," Nagato said in a low voice.
Even if his opponents were other disciples of the Moon, Nagato would never give up the top spot.
The more talented ninjas that participated, the more prestigious the Youth Ninja Competition would become. He intended to take first place with overwhelming strength, letting the other ninja villages know that the Ninjitsu Sect wasn't just about Ninjitsu Master Sou Yuukai—his disciples were exceptional as well.
In the future, if anyone wanted to cause trouble in the Rain Country, they would first have to consider whether they could withstand the combined might of the Ninjitsu Sect and the Rain Ninjas.
...
The morning after the preliminary rounds concluded, the elimination rounds of the Youth Ninja Competition officially began.
This phase of the tournament was quite different from the preliminaries.
The elimination rounds were held in a special arena constructed by the Ninjitsu Sect specifically for the Youth Ninja Competition.
The arena was a massive circular stadium capable of accommodating tens of thousands of spectators.
However, due to the short construction period, the style of the arena was rather crude, with exposed rock walls and mud walls everywhere.
Fortunately, interior decoration wasn't very common in the ninja world yet, so it could be passed off as the architectural style of the Earth Country.
In a sense, this wasn't wrong, as the Rock Ninjas had indeed helped with the construction.
Large numbers of spectators entered the arena with tickets they had purchased in advance, including both ninjas and noble merchants.
Once the regular audience was seated, the Rain Country's Feudal Lord and the Fire Country's Feudal Lord took their places in the front row, accompanied by a group of noble officials and ninjas. A shadow clone of Mu Yue was also among them.
At the same time, Mu Yue and Danzo entered the arena as well.
However, their seats weren't in the audience section but rather at a high point from which they could observe the entire arena.
It wasn't that the Feudal Lords didn't deserve to sit there, but if they did, they would barely be able to see the fights and would mostly be twiddling their thumbs.
"Teacher Sou Yuukai!" Some ninjas who had attended Mu Yue's classes before called out to her.
Many ninjas who had passed her class had come to the Ninja Competition venue to show their support for Mu Yue.
"These front-row seats are really expensive, though," one ninja commented.
"Think of it as paying for a top-level ninja instructor's lesson, and you also get a ticket to a ninja world-class event as a bonus," another ninja replied.
Upon hearing this, the ninja who had complained about the price carefully considered it and realized that, indeed, the money had been well spent.
Mu Yue smiled and responded to the ninjas who greeted her.
"Leader Danzo," some Rain Ninjas spoke up, not wanting their leader to lose face.
Danzo kept a straight face and remained silent, only wanting to get to his seat and watch the competition until it ended.
He didn't want to hear anyone discussing how he had been defeated by the first-place winner.
At that moment, the competition hadn't started yet, and the participants were still in the arena. When they noticed Ninjitsu Master Sou Yuukai and the demi-god Danzo entering, they turned their gazes toward Mu Yue.
"That's the Ninjitsu Master. He looks older than Teacher Mu Yue, but Teacher Mu Yue is indeed stronger," Obito thought as he activated his Sharingan and carefully observed Mu Yue.
Kakashi's initial focus had also been on Sou Yuukai, but then he noticed the expressions of Nagato, Yahiko, and the others not far away.
Kakashi realized that Nagato and Yahiko looked at Sou Yuukai with exceptional respect, similar to how Obito regarded Mu Yue.
"Could there be some connection between the Ninjitsu Sect and the Akatsuki?" Kakashi wondered.
He had always been puzzled as to why the seemingly peaceful and positive Akatsuki would eventually become an evil terrorist organization in the future.
He felt that the Ninjitsu Sect might have played some unknown role in this transformation.
"We still don't have enough information. I should make Yamato write down everything about the future," Kakashi thought, but then realized he didn't have enough details to work with.
He didn't know what would become of the Ninjitsu Sect or Ninjitsu Master Sou Yuukai in the future, so he couldn't deduce the relationship between the Ninjitsu Sect and the Akatsuki.
Kakashi decided that after returning to Konoha, he would thoroughly train Yamato and teach him a lesson for writing down everything about the future without thinking.
After glancing at Yahiko and then at Obito, Kakashi came up with an idea.
Kakashi discreetly poked Obito, who was chatting incessantly with Nohara Lin.
Obito, interrupted, shot Kakashi an annoyed look.
Kakashi glanced at Yahiko, then at Sou Yuukai on the high platform, and finally back at Obito.
"You really know how to use people, don't you? Why don't you go and ask yourself?" Obito grumbled.
Kakashi's intention was clear—he wanted Obito to ask Yahiko about the relationship between the Ninjitsu Sect and its leader, Sou Yuukai.
However, Kakashi didn't currently hold any position of authority over Obito, so why should Obito listen to him? Obito loved nothing more than saying no to the self-important Kakashi.
Without saying a word, Kakashi quietly took out a photo from his ninja tools pouch.
Obito's expression changed drastically, and he quickly grabbed Kakashi's hand and pushed it back down. With so many people around, if that photo were to be seen, it would be humiliating beyond belief.
"Alright, I love asking people questions," Obito reluctantly agreed while inwardly cursing Kakashi.
Only then did Kakashi put the photo back into his ninja tools pouch.
Simple-minded people like Obito had their uses; his naivety could sometimes yield unexpected results. Back in the Rain Country, Yahiko and Obito had once had a rather pleasant conversation.
PS: Double update, asking for monthly votes. Little Ju will work hard to update (Goh the Fifth's face).
(End of Chapter)
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