***
The winner's bracket had a hidden perk: if you realized you were outmatched, you could simply surrender and challenge another Genin you had a better chance of beating.
Good targets included Nara Shikamaru, who was seriously injured and nearly out of chakra, and Chi, who was considerably weaker. Uchiha Sasuke, unable to use his chakra, was another fine choice.
A smile played on Daigan's lips as his gaze swept across the faces of the Konoha rookies, his malice on full display.
Of course, he could always try his luck with Uzumaki Naruto, too.
Daigan had long known his chakra possessed an unusual, faint "seal-breaking" property, but he'd never had a chance to test its effects. For a long time now, he'd wanted to see what would happen if he used it on a Jinchuriki.
"Hey, you mummy-looking guy! You wanna fight me too? If you can't compete, just give up already..."
"Shut up, Naruto! Be careful or you really will get targeted!"
With Haruno Sakura absent, Uchiha Sasuke glared at the ill-intentioned Daigan, then noted the many pairs of eyes nearby that were also sizing up Team 7.
"Provoking people now will only bring you trouble!"
With a few exceptions, most of the weaker Genin candidates had already been eliminated. The ones left were all tough opponents.
"Hmph! Cowards!" Uzumaki Naruto pouted, but his stomach suddenly let out a loud growl. "I'm hungry!"
"You big idiot, don't draw attention to yourself right now."
"It's not my fault! I haven't eaten anything since last night, and it's already dark..."
The second stage in the Forest of Death had officially ended at 2:30 PM. The first match of the preliminaries began at 3:00 PM. More than three hours had passed since then. It was no wonder they limited the number of contestants for the third stage; if the matches dragged on for too long on a hot day like this, the VIPs watching from the stands would lose interest.
***
After a short ten-minute break, the next match began. This time, things would be different. The element of chance that had decided earlier victories would be greatly reduced. They were only Genin, after all, with few tricks up their sleeves. To win, most had already been forced to reveal their hands.
After Gekko Hayate announced the start, Daigan, leaning on his crutches, watched a hesitant Hyuga Hinata with great interest.
"Um... your injuries seem pretty severe. Wouldn't it be better to forfeit?"
"You feel bad about fighting me like this?" Daigan said noncommittally. "What a kind-hearted, naive young lady you are."
Even as a Sand Ninja opponent, she was unwilling to take advantage of his weakened state. Hyuga Neji wasn't wrong when he'd said she wasn't cut out to be a ninja.
"If you're pitying me, don't bother."
He casually snapped his wooden crutches, then unwrapped his bandages and removed the splints. After flexing his stiff limbs, Daigan once again summoned his two puppets, one large and one small. Then, along with his real body, he vanished into thin air.
Seeing that Daigan had no intention of surrendering, Hyuga Hinata gave up trying to persuade him.
"Byakugan!"
Under the gaze of a Kekkai Genkai that could see through chakra, any optical illusion was useless.
As the sky outside darkened, the lights inside the hall grew brighter. Activating her Byakugan, Hinata instantly saw the fluctuations of chakra flowing nearby, pinpointing the locations of Daigan's real body and his two puppets.
But...
Aside from the chakra and the faint silhouettes of human forms, her entire field of vision was pitch black. Even with her Byakugan, she couldn't see anything that didn't have chakra flowing through it. If not for the solid feeling of the ground beneath her feet, she might have thought she was floating in a void.
Beyond the small arena, Hinata could even see the chakra flowing within the spectating ninja. She could vaguely sense them looking her way in astonishment...
*What's wrong with my eyes?*
"It's simple," Daigan's cheerful voice drifted over. "I've made you invisible."
"Invisible? You mean..."
A sense of dread washed over Hinata.
"In everyone else's eyes, you're in a state of optical camouflage, just like me."
"Is that why I can't see any light?"
Having been able to solve the first exam's questions on her own, Hinata was definitely smarter than most of her classmates.
Daigan's meticulously prepared Polarizing Light Killing Formation could create a visual displacement of himself and nearby objects, even making them completely invisible. When he'd fought Rock Lee, he had only used it on himself to hide his position, causing everyone to forget a crucial fact: light itself is impartial.
Naturally, the Polarizing Light Killing Formation could also be directed at an opponent, rendering them invisible by bending light completely around them.
Human vision works because the retinas in our eyes receive and reflect external light, sending signals through nerves to the brain for processing. This is how most creatures, including humans, see the world. But Daigan, by manipulating the density of the air around Hinata, had bent the light, causing it to bypass her entirely. Just like his own body and his two puppets, she was now optically invisible.
With no light entering her eyes, she naturally couldn't see a thing. She could only rely on her Byakugan's unique properties to observe the flow of chakra.
"Then why can you see?" she asked.
"There's a secret technique in the Sand Manipulation arsenal called the 'Third Eye,' which lets you control an eye made of sand to observe from a distance! Of course, I don't actually know that jutsu... Just kidding, don't mind me. My chakra is all around us. I can basically sense your every move."
In truth, unless the situation was extremely dangerous, Daigan wouldn't render his own body completely invisible, because doing so would rob him of his sight as well.
As he spoke, he reappeared in plain sight, a short distance from where he had been standing.
"Much better. I'm not used to relying solely on chakra sense either," Daigan remarked, his fingers twitching. The low hum of puppet mechanisms vibrated through the air. Several senbon suddenly materialized, shooting toward an empty spot before abruptly vanishing again.
The sound of flesh being pierced was followed by a pained grunt.
"Looks like I hit my mark. An attack with chakra fluctuations wouldn't escape the Byakugan's notice, but a simple, purely physical attack is extremely effective now that you can't see."
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