"Kamiyama Ryo! Namikaze Minato!"
Kimura Shū's voice cut through the stuffy air, a hoarseness in his throat like a string about to snap.
Minato's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed the bitterness rising in his chest, his eyes suddenly sharp.
Each step he took on the ground sounded like a heavy war drum, pounding on everyone's hearts and making their scalps tingle.
And Ryo?
Lazily, he straightened his back from the wooden stake and slowly walked into the center of the field.
His hands?
Still buried deep in the pockets of his black pants.
That casual air was like taking a stroll after dinner to help digestion.
"Both sides, form the Confrontation Seal!" Kimura Shū's voice trembled, almost cracking at the end.
Minato's expression was solemn, his movements precise. His right thumb pressed against his index finger, left palm turned upward, forming a standard Confrontation Seal. Like a believer receiving an oracle, sacred and dignified.
Ryo paused.
His right hand finally, reluctantly, painfully slowly slid out of his pocket.
No hand seals, no killing aura.
He simply raised his arm half-heartedly, flicked his index finger with his thumb nail, the motion casual and even insulting.
Countless gazes locked onto that lazy motion.
Uchiha Mikoto stood just behind Kushina, silent like a shadow.
She tilted her head slightly, making space for Kushina's excitedly swaying red hair. Her gaze fell on Ryo's fingertip movement, so casual it seemed unreal.
Her delicate face was calm and unruffled.
But beneath her dark sleeves, her hands gripped her clothes so hard that the fabric was deeply indented, her knuckles turning bloodless white.
And Kushina?
Her excitement was like insects crawling through her veins. She rubbed her palms together, her small mouth opening and closing silently. "Ryo! Victory!" The lip movement was clear.
Seeing her closest companion pour out such pure, almost worshipful fervor toward that figure's back…
An indescribable bitterness swelled in Mikoto's chest, sour and aching.
That towering figure, sharp like a blade, hadn't he also left an unforgettable mark in her naive heart, keeping her awake at night?
In youth, who didn't have a first love?
But he could only be Kushina's sun.
Mikoto forced that inappropriate flutter down with all her strength, turning her head toward the swaying tree shadows in the distance.
Only by suppressing the storm in her chest with icy self-control could she keep her face expressionless.
"Begin!"
Kimura Shū's sharp shout was like a fuse lit, sparks instantly igniting.
The spot where Minato had stood blurred, erased like chalk under an eraser.
His figure dissolved.
Only golden shockwave ripples remained, his terrifying speed tearing the air apart.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Ear-splitting sonic booms!
Almost at the same time, three figures appeared, each with golden light and killing intent, lunging at Ryo from the front, left, and right like poisoned golden arrows fired from a giant crossbow.
Kage Bunshin! The clones carried the same chakra fluctuations as the original. No delay, perfect coordination.
A flawless execution, using shadow clones to their maximum potential in real combat.
"Three! There are three Minatos!"
"Damn! That's more than twice as fast as last month!"
"Kage Bunshin can be used like this? I'll be damned!"
The stands exploded in shouts of shock, students craning their necks, eyes bulging.
The assault only grew fiercer.
The three lunging Minatos left golden afterimages in mid-air. Their four arms had already split into six blurs of light.
A violent crimson aura of Fire Style.
A sharp azure edge of Wind Style.
Both almost simultaneously enveloped their arms, fire snakes wildly dancing on their left, wind blades forming on their right. No hand seals. Pure chakra nature manipulation.
"Fire!" The central Minato roared.
The crimson chakra on his left arm compressed into a blazing fireball, the size of a head, its destructive heat roaring through the air like a meteor straight at Ryo's face. The air twisted violently, the smell of burning filling the field.
"Wind!" The clone on the left overlapped his shout.
The azure chakra condensed into a terrifying wind cone, small as a bowl's mouth, shrieking like a soul-chasing poisoned needle, shooting at Ryo's waist. Its trajectory intersected perfectly with the fireball's outer edge.
Whoosh—Boom!
The compressed wind cone slammed into the crimson fireball, instantly detonating it several times over. The crimson burst into a blinding white blaze that seemed capable of incinerating everything.
A destructive shockwave of white fire mixed with countless wind blades, like a giant net of death. The hellish wind and fire swallowed everything in front and to the left of Ryo.
Scorching heat waves distorted vision.
And just as that blinding light devoured sight—
The clone on the right vanished, his body dissolving into the scorching air like a ghost, leaving no trace.
The real killing blow was hidden behind the incandescent curtain. A stealth strike, a perfect feint.
Minato had displayed the extreme of his current strength from the start: overwhelming taijutsu speed, clone feints, and the fused use of Fire and Wind chakra.
This was no longer the level of a mere academy graduate.
The stands fell silent.
Every spectator was frozen, unable to breathe.
Even Hiruzen's hand holding his pipe paused. His cloudy old eyes fixed on the center of that raging wind-and-fire hell, on the red-haired boy who still seemed motionless.
(To be continued.)
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◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 100 Power Stones.
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)