Chapter 250: The Elephant and the Ants
The timeline of this Chūnin Exam sat more than a decade removed from the one depicted in the original story, which meant the specific rules had naturally drifted from the canonical version. The broad structure would be the same; the fine details were their own thing.
The venue for the third round was Konoha's largest combat arena — a broad platform built to accommodate the kind of fighting that genin and chūnin produced. The emphasis on "largest" applied specifically to that tier of combatant. For jōnin or Kage-level shinobi, a stage this size was barely adequate for a warm-up. A single wide-area technique from either of those categories could easily catch the surrounding spectators in the blast radius.
There were, at present, well over a thousand spectators filling those surrounding seats, with more still streaming in as though the venue had collectively decided it wouldn't stop until every last space was occupied.
Entry was not free. Competitors and their instructors were admitted on credential; everyone else paid, and paid substantially. Running the Chūnin Exams cost money, and Konoha had no particular reason to absorb that cost entirely on its own.
Somewhere in the stands, an enterprising individual had set up a betting pool — odds on each competitor. Gambling was technically legal in Konoha, regulated to an inch of its life, taxed at a rate that made tobacco look reasonable, and available only to establishments that had signed Konoha's extensive licensing agreements. The alternative was dying badly.
"It's already 8:25… where is Lord Ryū? We're five minutes out."
Tsunade, seated at the far end of the spectator section, wore an expression that mixed concern with faint exasperation.
She was at the far end specifically because of her blood phobia. Distance, combined with a deliberate avoidance of sensory techniques, made the worst of it manageable. She could watch a match from here without incident.
No way something's happened to him. There's essentially no one in Konoha — arguably no one in the shinobi world right now — who could give him trouble. So why isn't he here?
The thought completed itself with a flicker of dawning amusement.
Unless he hasn't woken up yet.
The image this produced was deeply alarming in its own way.
Shizune, seated beside her, caught the muttering and turned with a curious look. "Tsunade-sama, do you know this 'mysterious powerful individual' Lord Hokage mentioned?"
"We've crossed paths a few times."
Shizune considered this, then took a small breath of courage. "Tsunade-sama, you've been single for quite a while now. Is this perhaps an opportunity—"
She didn't get to finish. A sharp knuckle connected with her forehead and she yelped.
"Where do you pick up ideas like that?" Tsunade said, with the resignation of someone having a conversation she didn't invite. "Watch the stage. Stop fishing for strange topics."
"…I was just showing concern for a certain very-much-still-single older woman!"
"Get out of here. I don't need that kind of concern from a young girl."
"…"
The same bafflement was running through Hiruzen, the other village representatives, and anyone else with enough seniority to feel mildly offended on protocol grounds. The competitors had assembled. Their instructors were present. The one person who demonstrably should have arrived first had not yet appeared.
The genin on the platform exchanged looks but held their tongues. It wasn't their stage to complain on — not in Konoha, not as guests.
The seconds ticked.
Hiruzen was on the verge of sending someone to Ryū's house personally when an ANBU operative materialized at his shoulder and murmured a quick report.
He exhaled.
"Youth these days," he said, with a helpless smile. "Arrive exactly when it starts, not a moment before."
At 8:27, Ryū's figure appeared at the judge's entrance.
Every head turned — he was the missing variable the entire crowd had been quietly fixated on, and his arrival resolved the tension immediately. Then the collective gaze landed on him and went still.
He was dressed like a civilian.
Not shinobi attire — no forehead protector, no standard-issue uniform, no tactical gear. Clothing in a style no one in the crowd could quite place, but emphatically ordinary.
A spectator near the front who had paid a significant sum for his seat leaned toward the person beside him and murmured, "Is that the mysterious powerful individual Lord Hokage was describing? The third-round judge? He doesn't look like a shinobi at all. He looks like one of us."
His neighbor, a large man, nodded in agreement. "And he's young. No stubble on that face — he can't be past twenty."
A third added, "I heard the minimum standard for a Chūnin Exam judge is upper jōnin level. That young and that capable?"
"Are you questioning the Fourth Hokage? If he says the man is strong, the man is strong."
"It's just the age that gets you—"
"Hmph." A voice, contemptuous, from the direction of a smaller-village contingent. "This looks like Konoha playing games to me. They've run out of real strong people and fabricated a 'mysterious powerful figure' to put on a show. Typical tricks of the powerful — and only the idiots from big villages swallow it."
A sharp beat of silence.
Then several people around that speaker, none of them from Konoha, turned to look at him with expressions ranging from incredulous to actively hostile.
"What did you just say?"
"Calling everyone here idiots while you're sitting in a big village's arena. Brave choice."
"You walk out of Konoha after this and you'd better hope the sun still shows up for you — and I'm not even Konoha. But that kind of carpet-bombing stupidity—"
"Come on, this is peacetime, if you start a fight you'll be violating—"
"One small village getting erased wouldn't affect the peace of the shinobi world at all."
"Especially if it's the village that bred you."
"…"
From the moment Ryū had stepped onto the stage, his Observation Haki had spread across the entire arena. He'd heard every word of every conversation in it.
He had no particular reaction to offer.
An ant had raised doubts about whether an elephant was really as large as claimed. Did the elephant need to respond?
The more accurate image was that by the time the elephant noticed the ant was speaking, it had already been accidentally crushed underfoot, and not enough remained to examine.
Ryū strolled to the center of the stage, checked his internal count, and leaned back against the edge of the platform with his arms folded.
"Right. It's 8:30. Rules are straightforward: twenty competitors divided into ten pairs for the first round; the ten winners advance to the second round; five pairs, one bye drawn by lot. The three remaining after that wait while the two losers fight a revival match — the winner joins those three to make a top four. The four compete in two semifinal pairs; the two semifinal winners fight for first place."
"The top ten all receive prizes — not from me, for the record. Higher placement means better prizes, up to and including restricted techniques. That's it. I've explained it; whether you remember it is your problem."
"First pairing: Konoha's Uchiha Daiki versus Konoha's Uchiha Kanmoku. You have ten seconds to get on this stage. After that you're counted as withdrawn."
A pause of a few seconds.
Then two genin in Uchiha clan attire came pelting from opposite sides of the stands, visibly alarmed at the ten-second window.
Ryū walked to stand between them and gave each a brief, impartial look.
Neither name rang any bell. These were exactly the kind of characters who existed in the original story purely to populate a background — faces in a crowd, never a speaking line, gone from the narrative the moment the scene moved on.
"All right. Begin. Keep it controlled — when I say stop, you stop. If you're still throwing punches with a red eye after I say stop…" He let the smile stay exactly where it was. "Don't blame your judge for what follows."
The smile was pleasant.
It did not read as pleasant to either of the two genin standing in front of him.
This examiner was maybe two or three years older than either of them by appearance.
The pressure radiating off him was unlike anything they had ever felt in their lives.
Neither had yet exchanged a single blow.
Both already had cold sweat running down their backs.
☆☆☆
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