- Hatosu-san, help me defeat him," the summoner's ringing voice was perfectly audible.
- Hey, Mina-chan, whatever you say," the toad agreed in a deep voice and swung his sword at the Uchiha who had not expected such a development.
To Tagari's credit, he was able to block the blow, but the clan genin was thrown back about two meters and the call was not going to stop there, having shortened the distance unexpectedly quickly with a big leap forward and swung his shield down from above and when he failed to hit the Uchiha who had slid aside, he swung his weapon, almost disemboweling him.
Minato jumped to the ground as well and charged at the flustered guy from the other side, working pretty well in tandem. The sharingan wielder held on for nearly half a minute, but still raised his arm.
- I surrender!
At the same moment, the referee appeared between the two fighters and in one motion swung the giant sword aside with no apparent effort, while with his other hand he stopped Minato's blow that was aimed at his side.
- The winner is Minato Namikaze!
- Good fight, the Uchiha did well and held on until the end," his uncle relaxed, having been tense throughout the fight.
- Yeah, the kid definitely earned his chunin vest," he agreed, "and he also forced Jiraiya's apprentice to work harder than he could have expected.
***
As the stadium applauded the end of such a spectacular battle between the participants standing, Jiraiya suddenly appeared in the arena in a shunshin, clawed his student's shoulder, and just as quickly disappeared without waiting for the iryonins to show up.
Obviously, he'd taken him to the hospital so that he could recover in time for the next fight and be at the top of his game again, because the toadstool knew exactly who would be in the quarterfinals against his blond, no matter who imagined it.
Asani and his opponent came down from the balcony of the contestants and the referee first introduced them and then gave the signal.
- Hajime!
Genin Takigakure immediately darted backward, obviously not wanting to force a melee, even though he was a head and a half taller and about twice as broad in the shoulders. Shaking his wide sleeves, he aimed them at his opponent, and from there, senbon flew like a machine gun, much faster than almost any chunin could throw them. Judging by the glow that was barely visible even to me, the shells were coated with something.
Asani, who had been trying to close the distance, ducked away from the first senbon, swung her sleeve at the next one, and dropped something on the ground. She was quickly obscured by a cloud of smoke, and no matter how hard her opponent tried to shoot at random without getting close to the cloud, he was unsuccessful.
After a couple of minutes, a breeze restored visibility in the center of the arena, clearing the smoke, only Genin Takigakure found himself all alone. He looked around in confusion and appeared nervous, spreading his arms apart and twisting his head warily.
Meanwhile, beneath the surface, I could feel the student moving in a spiral, clearly up to something - the circles diverged from the center to the edges, not around the panicked opponent. It took the kunoichi a total of six minutes to reach the walls of the arena, after which she headed straight for her opponent and jumped out behind him.
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