"What?!"
"He used Wind Release... to deflect the Uchiha's Great Fireball?"
"Such precise Chakra control!"
A wave of gasps rippled through the audience.
As the saying goes: Amateurs watch the show; experts watch the technique.
To the civilians, it looked like a magic trick. To the Jonin and examiners, it was a display of mastery.
Wind usually fuels Fire. To deflect it without causing a backdraft requires hitting the flame at a precise angle with calculated pressure.
The Chief Examiner, the scarred Jonin, raised an eyebrow.
'Minato's recommendation wasn't an exaggeration. This kid has the control of a Chunin already.'
In the stands, Kurenai and Genma breathed a sigh of relief.
"He's holding his own," Genma muttered, shifting his senbon.
On the field, Uchiha Tekka's shock lasted only a millisecond. His combat training kicked in instantly.
"You've got some skill," Tekka admitted, his voice cold. "To neutralize my Fire Release..."
Swish. Swish. Swish.
His hands blurred. Several shuriken appeared between his fingers.
He threw them in an arc. They didn't fly straight; they curved in the air.
'Uchiha Style: Manipulated Shuriken Technique.'
Kiyohara narrowed his eyes. He spotted the glint of sunlight on the ultra-thin steel wires attached to the blades.
"Wire manipulation, huh?"
Kiyohara didn't dodge. He slammed his foot onto the ground.
Snake. Rabbit. Dog.
"Lightning Release: Earth Flash!" (Ground Running)
CRACKLE!
A jagged bolt of blue lightning tore across the arena floor.
Lightning travels faster than thrown steel.
The electric snake raced toward Tekka's feet before the shuriken could reach their target.
Tekka's pupils contracted. He was forced to abort his control over the wires and leap backward to avoid being electrocuted. Without his guidance, the shuriken clattered harmlessly onto the stone tiles.
"The Sharingan is coming," the Missing-nin warned from the back of Kiyohara's mind. "He can't win the Ninjutsu exchange, so he'll rely on the eyes."
"I know."
Sure enough, Tekka closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. When they opened, the iris was crimson.
A single black tomoe spun slowly around the pupil.
Sharingan: One-Tomoe.
The world slowed down for Tekka.
He could see the twitch of Kiyohara's muscles, the flow of his chakra, the trajectory of his breath.
He drew a Kunai and charged.
CLANG!
Sparks erupted as steel met steel.
Kiyohara blocked the strike, but the follow-up came instantly.
Clang! Clang!
Kiyohara was forced back.
Before the eye activation, they were evenly matched. Now, Tekka was reacting to Kiyohara's moves before Kiyohara even finished making them. Every feint was seen through. Every strike was parried.
"It's over!"
Tekka caught a subtle shift in Kiyohara's weight.
'He's off balance.'
Tekka swept a leg low to trip him, while simultaneously throwing a shuriken to block the only escape route to the right.
It was a checkmate. Or it should have been.
"Possess me," Kiyohara projected urgently. "Jump higher."
"What?" the Missing-nin asked, confused. "Now?"
"Just do it! The Sharingan predicts based on my physical limits. We need to break the limit."
The Sharingan is a prediction engine. It calculates: Based on muscle tension X and Chakra Y, the target can only move to Z.
But the Missing-nin was an external force. A ghost in the machine.
Kiyohara didn't dodge away from the shuriken. He jumped backward, seemingly right into the path of the blade.
'Suicide?' Tekka thought, confused.
"NOW!"
The Spirit took the wheel.
Mid-air, without any leverage, Kiyohara's core muscles contracted with inhuman force, overriding the body's natural safety limiters.
He twisted violently, pulling his knees to his chest and propelling himself upward, seemingly stepping on empty air.
The Double Jump.
The shuriken passed harmlessly beneath his feet.
"What?!" Tekka's Sharingan widened.
'That's physically impossible! He has no leverage!'
Kiyohara regained control, wincing at the tear in his abdominal muscles.
He was airborne. Above Tekka.
He flicked his wrist. Three shuriken, attached to his own copper wires, flew downward.
"Lightning Release: Wire Trap!"
ZBZRT!
He pumped chakra down the wires. The shuriken didn't aim for Tekka's body; they aimed for the ground around him—left, right, and center.
They stabbed into the stone, forming a triangle.
The copper wires pulled taut, creating an electrified cage.
Tekka froze, surrounded by humming blue light.
He looked up at Kiyohara, who was falling toward him.
'Did he just... step on his left foot to ascend to heaven?'
The Uchiha's brain short-circuited. He couldn't understand the physics of what he just saw.
....
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