Chapter 519: Is the Ninja Master Related to Nagato's Darkening?
Hashori versus Stone Bear.
Kakashi's shadow clone stared intently at the battle arena.
This was the final round of the preliminaries. After a one day break, the elimination rounds would begin.
Hashori stepped onto the field with the same indifferent expression as always, showing no hint of nerves.
Stone Bear, on the other hand, looked like he was facing a deadly threat.
Hashori did not open with overwhelming, large scale ninjutsu like Nagato, but his calm, casual way of dismantling opponents made Stone Bear even more wary.
"Earth Release: Rock Iron Cannon Technique!"
Stone Bear quickly formed hand seals and spat out stones toward Hashori. The rocks expanded as they flew, swelling into cannonball like projectiles.
It was a military grade technique from Iwagakure. When used together by the Iwa forces, its power was terrifying, and even in a one on one fight, it was still a reliable offensive jutsu.
Hashori kept that indifferent look, weaving through the bombardment while pulling out a scroll.
In the next instant, a hunched old man appeared on the field. An iron barb shaped like a scorpion's tail jutted from his back, and he charged Stone Bear with startling speed.
Puppet user, Kakashi thought, his eyes narrowing.
That was unmistakably Puppet Jutsu, the style developed under the Second Kazekage.
Could he be a rogue Sand shinobi? Kakashi's thoughts sharpened, suspicion rising.
Puppet techniques were not exclusive to the Hidden Sand anymore, not after they spread beyond the village, but non Sand puppet users rarely became truly famous. At least, Kakashi had never heard of one reaching real prominence.
And Hashori's control was far too refined.
With only a single puppet, he suppressed Stone Bear almost immediately.
Even an outsider like Kakashi could feel how smooth Hashori's manipulation was, like the puppet's movements were his own limbs.
At that level, and at an age no older than eighteen, it was hard to believe Hashori had taught himself.
For a fighting style like puppetry, especially one that had not existed for very long, the teacher's foundation mattered immensely.
Of course, without evidence, Kakashi could not report him. At most, he could keep Hashori marked in his mind and watch him more closely.
Under Sasori's precise puppet control, Stone Bear was driven into a desperate corner and lost quickly.
"Hashori wins, advancing to the elimination rounds!"
As soon as the referee declared the result, Sasori put the puppet away and walked straight out, ignoring the noise around him.
He had no interest in the tournament itself.
He came for one reason.
The fourth place prize was a chakra blade worth tens of millions of ryo.
Sasori wanted to melt it down and use it as material for building puppets.
He did not care about other contestants, and he had no intention of gathering information. His goal was fourth place, nothing more.
In truth, Sasori felt that if he used his full strength, taking first would be easy. After all, he was one of the few people in the shinobi world who had killed a Kage.
But he had no intention of doing that.
First, the reward he wanted was the fourth place prize.
Second, if he revealed everything, he might not even be able to claim the prize at all.
Sasori was participating under someone else's identity.
Even if Sunagakure had not officially listed him as a wanted criminal yet, there were Sand shinobi at the tournament. If he brought out the Third Kazekage's human puppet, Sunagakure would mobilize immediately and hunt him down on the spot.
Sasori had no desire to expose himself before he achieved his goal.
…
Once Kakashi's shadow clone finished watching Sasori's match, Kakashi's main body went straight to Nagato's bracket.
Nagato's fighting style remained simple and unadorned.
Overwhelming power.
A barrage of high output ninjutsu that forced opponents to surrender.
"Nagato, let's go," Konan said. "Yahiko should be finishing soon."
She and Nagato were in the same bracket, but her number was early, so her match ended faster.
Nagato nodded and followed her toward Yahiko's bracket.
Kakashi watched them, expression thoughtful.
That strong female shinobi was probably also a member of Akatsuki.
Since Akatsuki was currently harmless, Kakashi did not dwell on it and moved to regroup with the rest of his team who had advanced.
"The preliminaries ended perfectly, didn't they?" Rin said with a gentle smile, clasping her hands together.
Before the matches, Rin had been genuinely worried she would not reach the elimination rounds.
After spending so much time around Kakashi and the others, she had started to feel like she was weak, like she was nothing more than a powerless healer.
But after four rounds, her confidence returned in full.
Her opponents had felt unbelievably weak. Even the shinobi she fought in the fourth round could not endure a single Exploding Fist from her.
"Hehe. Rin, you were amazing. A lot of contestants were totally stunned," Obito laughed, remembering the moment she punched and the shocked faces that followed.
Obito did not blame them for being ignorant.
Who would expect a girl who looked soft and cute to carry that kind of monstrous strength?
"It's fine," Rin said, smiling and waving it off. "I'm still far behind you guys. I need to keep working hard."
She was not getting carried away.
Rin believed her strength would only be worth real pride when the others stopped instinctively protecting her and stopped excluding her from their internal sparring.
With the preliminaries done, shinobi from the same village began exchanging information, and Konoha was no different.
"This tournament really has a lot of strong people," Asuma said, trying to comfort Kurenai, who had been eliminated in the fourth round. "If your luck is bad, getting knocked out is normal."
Only Asuma from their squad advanced. The other two were eliminated.
"Yeah," Raido sighed.
He was the perfect example of bad luck.
He ran into a monster like Nagato.
Maybe only Kakashi and the others can beat that Nagato, Raido thought. In his eyes, only a monster could defeat a monster. Asuma was talented, but he clearly was not Nagato's match.
"Asuma, Aburame Shibi… so Konoha has ten shinobi who advanced," Kakashi listened quietly, calculating. "That's almost one third of the elimination slots."
With so many Konoha shinobi in, Kakashi suspected that in the first round of elimination, some of them would end up facing their own village.
When the Konoha group returned to the inn together, Kakashi exchanged information with the others, sharing everything they had gathered.
This was a shinobi world wide tournament. The Daimyo of the Land of Fire and the Daimyo of the Land of Rain would be watching.
The more Konoha shinobi advanced, the more prestige Konoha gained, and the easier it would be to extract funding from the Daimyo.
At the same time, Nagato's group was also listening to intelligence.
"Many talented shinobi from Konoha have arrived," Kakuzu reported, relaying what the Shinobi Sect referees had gathered. "Including Kakashi Hatake, who uses Lightning Release sword techniques. Throughout the entire preliminaries, every one of his opponents was dropped with a single strike."
"There's also Shisui, skilled in genjutsu and Fire Release, and Guy, who specializes in taijutsu…"
Kakuzu continued listing names.
"Leader Kakuzu, isn't this kind of unfair for us?" Yahiko asked, scratching his head.
Gathering intelligence was part of shinobi combat, but using information directly from referees still felt like cheating.
"What's unfair?" Kakuzu replied lazily. "It's all information gathering. What's the difference? Kakashi Hatake is a perfect example. The moment his match ends, he runs around everywhere. He watched all of Nagato's battles from start to finish."
Nagato's expression did not change.
The preliminaries were far too low intensity. He had not even used a single Rinnegan ability. It did not matter if Kakashi watched.
"Nagato, you can stay casual," Kakuzu said, "but Yahiko and Konan, besides the Konoha shinobi I mentioned, you also need to watch out for Mei and Mangetsu from the Hidden Mist, Kisame, Iwagaki with Explosion Release, and Hashori with Puppet Jutsu…"
Yahiko and Konan were strong, but the people who made it into the elimination rounds included plenty of dangerous characters. Kakuzu estimated it would be difficult for Konan and Yahiko to even reach the top eight.
"There really are always people stronger than you," Yahiko sighed.
Before the tournament started, he believed he would definitely place well.
Now, after hearing Kakuzu's intelligence, Yahiko felt that making the top eight would be a success, top sixteen would still be acceptable, and losing in the first round would simply mean bad luck.
"I will take first place," Nagato said, voice low.
Even if his opponents were other disciples of Mugetsu, he would not concede.
The more talented shinobi arrived, the more it proved the value of the Youth Martial Arts Tournament. Nagato did not just want first place. He wanted to take it decisively, so every village and organization would understand the Shinobi Sect was not only Ninja Master Sosuke.
His disciples were strong too.
In the future, if anyone wanted to cause trouble in the Land of Rain, they would first need to weigh their own strength and ask themselves if they could withstand the combined forces of the Shinobi Sect and the Rain shinobi.
…
On the morning of the second day after the preliminaries ended, the elimination rounds officially began.
This was completely different from the preliminaries.
The elimination matches were held in the arena the Shinobi Sect had specially built for the Youth Martial Arts Tournament.
It was a massive circular structure, capable of holding tens of thousands of spectators.
Because the build time was short, the style was rugged. Exposed rock and packed mud walls were visible everywhere.
Fortunately, interior decoration was not well developed in the shinobi world anyway, so it could be explained as a characteristic architectural style of the Land of Earth.
In a sense, that was not even wrong.
The arena really had been built with Iwagakure's help.
Spectators holding pre purchased tickets entered in a steady stream after inspection. There were shinobi, nobles, and wealthy merchants.
Once the ordinary spectators were seated, the Daimyo of the Land of Rain and the Daimyo of the Land of Fire, surrounded by noble officials and shinobi escorts, entered the best seats in the front row. Among them was Mugetsu's shadow clone.
At the same time, Mugetsu and Hanzo also arrived.
Their seats were not in the stands.
They were positioned at a high point overlooking the entire arena.
It was not that the Daimyo were unworthy of sitting there, but if they sat that high, they would spend the entire time doing nothing, unable to clearly see the matches.
"Ninja Master Sosuke!" Some shinobi who had previously attended his classes called out loudly.
Many who had taken those lessons came today for one simple reason.
To show support.
"But these front row seats are insanely expensive," one shinobi sighed.
"Just treat it like paying for a course from a top tier shinobi expert," someone nearby replied, "and you get a bonus ticket to a shinobi world level event."
The complainer thought about it, and it actually made sense. That mindset instantly made the money feel better spent.
Mugetsu smiled and responded to the shinobi who greeted him.
"Lord Hanzo!" Some Rain shinobi also shouted, unwilling to let their leader lose face.
Hanzo kept his expression stiff and said nothing, only wanting to reach his seat and watch in silence until it was over.
He did not want to hear anyone discussing how he had been defeated by the first place prize.
The matches had not started yet, and the contestants were already present in the arena.
When they heard Ninja Master Sosuke and Hanzo had arrived, they all turned toward the high platform.
"So that's the Ninja Master," Obito muttered, studying him carefully with his Sharingan. "He looks older than Teacher Mugetsu. As expected, Teacher Mugetsu is stronger."
Kakashi's first focus was also on Sosuke, until he noticed the expressions on Nagato, Yahiko, and the others nearby.
They looked at Sosuke with extreme respect.
It was the same kind of look Obito gave Mugetsu.
Could there be a connection between the Shinobi Sect and Akatsuki? Kakashi wondered.
Kakashi had always been puzzled by one thing.
Why would an organization devoted to peace, one that currently felt so positive, become an evil terrorist group in the future?
He had a growing sense that the Shinobi Sect might have played some role he did not understand.
But he lacked information.
I still know too little, Kakashi thought. I should have made Yamato write down everything he knew about the future.
Kakashi did not know the Shinobi Sect's fate.
He did not know what happened to Sosuke in the future.
So he could not infer the true relationship between the Shinobi Sect and Akatsuki.
He made a decision in silence.
When we return to Konoha, Yamato is getting a serious training session. He really is too careless. He should have written down everything he knew without being asked.
Kakashi glanced at Yahiko, then at Obito, and a plan formed.
He subtly poked Obito, who was enthusiastically chatting with Rin.
Interrupted, Obito turned with an annoyed glare.
Kakashi flicked his eyes toward Yahiko, then toward Sosuke on the high platform, then back at Obito.
Obito understood immediately and complained.
"You're really good at ordering people around. Why don't you go ask yourself?"
Kakashi's meaning was obvious.
He wanted Obito to ask Yahiko about his relationship with Sosuke, the leader of the Shinobi Sect.
But Kakashi did not have any vice captain status right now, so why would Obito follow his orders?
Obito's favorite hobby was telling Kakashi no.
Kakashi did not argue.
He quietly pulled a photo out of his tool pouch.
Obito's expression changed instantly.
He grabbed Kakashi's wrist and shoved it back down. There were too many people here. If that got seen, it would not just be embarrassing, it would be a disgrace across the entire shinobi world.
"Fine," Obito hissed. "I'll go. I love asking people questions. I do it all the time."
He cursed Kakashi inwardly, then agreed.
Only then did Kakashi put the photo back into his pouch.
Fools have their uses, Kakashi thought.
Sometimes Obito's straightforward naivety produced miracles.
After all, back in the Land of Rain, Yahiko and Obito had once managed to have a surprisingly pleasant conversation.
.....
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