(5th of July, year 55 AK)
The series of fights followed one after another, and Yuta lost almost all interest in the Chunin Exams by now.
It wasn't that the participants were all weaklings, no, they could be described as ninjas who are firmly on the Chunin level of strength with chakra strength being mostly in the range from 0.8C to 1.5C. But that was precisely the point, by now Yuta doesn't see such ninjas as a serious threat to himself at all.
The Chunins from the Stone village he fought six months ago had much more chakra and fought much fiercely, they were much stronger and much more dangerous than any participant Yuta seen so far in this Chunin Exams.
By now Yuta realized that those Stone Chunins led by a Jonin, they must've being top talents of the Stone village, and that when the Stone village finds out which exact team from the Leaf had killed all of them – Yuta would become a personal enemy of the Stone, they would forever hold the grudge against him and his teammates for what they did.
Not that Yuta cared.
Back at the time with the Mist ninjas, he already earned a glare full of hatred from Ao, so he was already a personal enemy of the Mist, or so he assumed. One more major hidden village added to the mix changes nothing in Yuta's opinion.
He was more worried about internal threats inside the village, as well as external threats like Orochimaru and Akatsuki.
As for minor and major hidden villages developing a grudge against him personally? Yuta didn't care one bit about that. What could they do to him? Prepare an ambush on him when he was outside the village on a mission? While Shisui, the Kage-level ninja, is leading the team? Even if they somehow manage to lure Shisui away to deal with Yuta and his teammates, there is still time-travel, and Yuta could always warn Shisui ahead of time.
In Yuta's firm belief, nothing really beats his time-travel...
Soon Itachi was summoned for the next fight against someone from the Sand.
As both fighters were walking into the arena, Yuta quickly noticed, that Itachi's opponent was the one that looked the strongest among the Sand's six ninjas that made it this far. It was a young man around eighteen, and from the chakra Yuta sensed from him, it was being somewhat obstructed and hard to read. There was some kind of a jutsu being involved that obstructs the chakra sensory abilities on the guy, although Yuta still was able to sense vaguelly the amount of chakra the guy possesses even through the jutsu, and it was roughly 2C in total, or so Yuta assumed.
The proctor signaled for the fight to start and what happened in the next couple seconds Yuta could only describe as a complete and utter humiliation for the Sand ninjas...
'Sigh, that guy was the one among very few here that was somewhat interesting, such a waste...' Yuta thought as he was looking at the already ended fight, if "fight" was even the right word for what happened in the arena...
Just a couple seconds ago, when the fight started, Itachi without missing a bit, started running at his opponent at an incredible speed. The Sand ninja immediately threw a bunch of shurikens and Itachi and jumped backwards, quickly forming a series of hand seals for some kind of jutsu. That was a proper and smart move on the Sand ninja's part, Yuta thought at that moment, but it wasn't enough.
The next moment Itachi flickered and appeared behind the Sand ninja, who was still in the middle of forming hand seals for the jutsu, and struck him with the back of his hand to the neck, knocking the Sand ninja out. From the beginning to end it looked so easy on Itachi's part as if he were an elite Jonin who was fighting just an Academy student.
The hall became deadly silent for a few seconds as the Sand ninja was falling to the ground unconscious. And as if just to rub some salt into an open wound, Itachi had timely caught the falling Sand ninja before he hit the ground and laid him down on the floor carefully as if to not let him to get hurt.
'Sigh... Such a nice guy you are, Itachi... But that move also hit Suna ninjas pride. That guy would've preferred to hit the ground instead and get slightly hurt. Damn, he would've been willing to even get most of his bones to break instead of being saved like that by Leaf ninja while everyone was watching... Suna ninjas will totally assume Itachi did that to just further humiliate them...'
'Suna probably expected this guy to get into the finals and to represent their village, and now... Itachi just probably ended the poor guy's reputation for good, I already could see the disappointment and disgust building up inside Suna ninjas eyes as they were looking at him lying there unconscious...'
Then right after that, Itachi had to fight another opponent from Valleys village, another relatively strong participant Yuta realized, with about 1.7C of chakra. And, of course, Itachi had defeated the poor guy in the same easy looking way, without letting him display his skills at all.
'Another potentially somewhat interesting opponent wasted like that...' Yuta sighed with a bit of regret, then he looked over the rest of the participants.
There were only two participants left in Yuta's opinion, who were still slightly interesting. One kunoichi from Grass, and one guy from Rain, both of them had about 1.8C of chakra, significantly more than the rest.
After swiftly completing the second fight, Itachi unhurriedly walked back from the arena, while the proctor announced the next fight, it was Hikari against the Rain guy that Yuta spotted a before.
'Damn it... These pairings are reeking of being rigged. At this point it's not even funny. Does the village even slightly care about keeping the appearance of fairness at all? If even I can see through this scheme of getting rid of all of the strong foreign opponents early, that could only mean that almost everyone in the room had noticed that as well. Is it normal? Is our village allowed to do something this shameless and blatant?' Yuta thought in disbelief and bewilderment while keeping his expression neutral.
'Well... I mean... If that will land me against an interesting opponent as well then I'm all for it. Why would I care about the fairness of this competition? Other ninjas should only blame themselves for being too weak. It's not like they are being completely blocked here by the pairs rigging, if they were stronger, they would've made it to the finals anyway, right?' Yuta thought.
The fight of Hikari against the Rain guy turned out more interesting than Itachi's both fights.
The Rain ninja used a sickle and a chain as a weapon of choice and were skillfully blocking Hikari's advances and her sword swings, trying to disarm her and to keep her at a distance by skillfully utilizing wide ranged swings of the chain, but it wasn't going too well for him.
Hikari was clearly stronger and faster, anyone could see that as the fight continues, and after a first couple exchanges everyone understood that Hikari was at a huge advantage and was slowly cornering the Rain ninja.
'She is savoring it...' Yuta realized, as he watched how Hikari was moving a bit slower and less decisive than she usually does, 'Well, good for her, humph...' Yuta wasn't being envious of Hikari getting to fight one of the few of the somewhat interesting opponents here, not even in the slightest, not at all...
Soon the Rain ninja recognized that he was slowly being cornered, so he used a quick series of a wide ranged swings of his chain to create some distance by briefly forcing Hikari to back down. Then he proceed to form a series of hand seals right away while still holding his weapon in hands.
'Huh? Interesting... Using hand seals while holding a weapon? That's an advanced technique, the chakra points weren't being properly aligned as they should...' Yuta thought as he observed the hand seals with interest, 'That guy probably trained extensively just to be able to use hand seals like that... Is it worth it though? Usually, the universal go-to move in such a scenario is just to briefly discard the weapon instead...'
But seeing her opponent switching to forming jutsu, Hikari wasn't having that as she threw a bunch of shurikens quickly, forcing the Rain ninja to dodge, interrupting his hand seals sequence in the process. And after he dodged the shurikens by sidestepping, it was already too late for whatever the jutsu he was trying to use, since Hikari was already closing the distance.
What followed was a few more exchanges in close combat and a swift and decisive victory when Hikari managed to slip past the Rain ninja's defenses and pressed her sword against his neck.
Yuta saw a brief expression of disappointment on Hikari's face as that happened.
'She looks like she didn't expect the fight to end this fast herself, huh...' Yuta thought, 'I think she was probably intend to toy with that guy a bit more, but in close combat her reflexes took over and she went for an opening decisively before she realized what she is doing, huh... Too bad we would never know what jutsu that guy was trying to use...'
After the fight was over and Hikari was declared the winner, the next fight was announced, and it was Hikari again against some guy from Sand. This time Hikari pressed her opponent with barely restrained irritation and had won the fight in just a few moves, without letting her opponent to use any ninjutsu, that he was constantly trying to.
The match was over in about ten seconds, it was an overwhelming victory, although it didn't look as cool and easy as Itachi displayed before.
And right after Hikari walked back from the arena with a visible irritation in her steps, Yuta was announced as the next fighter, and his opponent was that same kunoichi from Grass that Yuta noticed before.
'Yea, this whole competition is indeed being rigged thoroughly to hell and back. Someone really wants to get rid of all foreign strong participants before finals, huh...' Yuta thought as he walked down the stairs to the arena and met face to face with the Grass kunoichi.
She was much taller, she looked about eighteen, while Yuta was still just nine.
Yuta looked like a kid in front of an adult young woman. Not that Yuta cared about such things. He knew that for everyone who is slightly competent in this world, strength was always on the first place and the age is secondary.
Also, after four crushing defeats in a row, when four adult looking guys were just crushed by the two kids thoroughly, no one is underestimating Yuta right now just because he was young.
'Well, let's see how it goes...' Yuta thought as he looked at the Grass kunoichi in the eyes, mentally preparing for the fight. Yuta wasn't going to underestimate his opponent either, he still remembers the fight against the Stone kunoichi when he had underestimated her and got himself impaled on a stone spike.
'I'm not going all-out from the start, but I'm also won't underestimate her either...' Yuta decided as the proctor signaled for the fight to begin.
...
--- AN ---
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