"Captain, the situation might be a little different from what you expected," Kenzaki said slowly, a hint of hesitation lingering on his face.
"Different?" Joren frowned. "Is it not Zane?"
"Let me explain the exact situation—actually, never mind. You should see for yourself."
Joren snatched the intelligence report from Kenzaki's hand. After skimming it for a few seconds, his jaw dropped wide enough to fit two eggs.
"Good heavens. That Uchiha brat actually possesses this much strength?" he gasped. "One person is blocking the tower entrance, taking on every single trainee Anbu participating in the exam? Are you certain this intelligence is accurate?"
Kenzaki offered a bitter smile but nodded firmly. When he first saw the report, he found it equally unbelievable. Even though he had high hopes for Jie Uchiha, he never imagined the boy was capable of something like this. However, the intel was hand-delivered by a member of his own squad; there was absolutely no chance of it being fabricated.
"To think it's actually true!" Joren muttered, momentarily losing his composure. 'Did Jie Uchiha really defeat Captain Kakashi?'
"No, I have to go see this for myself." Muttering under his breath, Joren sprang up from his seat and strode purposefully toward the central tower.
Kenzaki's bitter smile deepened. He shook his head helplessly and hurried after Joren toward the outskirts of the Anbu base.
"Twenty-seven, twenty-eight... twenty-nine."
Jie Uchiha counted the pile of scrolls scattered on the ground at the entrance of the central tower, calculating silently. 'I have twenty-nine pairs of scrolls now, and there are exactly sixty trainee Anbu participating in the exam. That means the final pair is still in the hands of the remaining candidates.'
He sighed softly. 'Forget it. I'll wait a little longer. If that person doesn't show up before sunset, I'll count them lucky.'
Glancing up at the two towering trees flanking the entrance, Jie considered his options. The forest used for the assessment wasn't particularly large; two days was more than enough time for anyone to traverse the woods and reach the central tower. If the person holding the last scroll decided to cower in hiding until the end, Jie wasn't about to waste his time waiting around. It wasn't entirely out of the question for him to just unleash a massive Fire Release jutsu to burn down the entire forest and smoke them out.
'Hmm? A presence?'
'Has the rat hiding in its hole finally decided to scurry out?'
The thought of using Fire Release vanished from his mind. In the very next second, Jie detected an unfamiliar chakra signature abruptly spiking from the top of the tower right above him.
'So you've been hiding on top of the tower this whole time. Were you waiting for me to collect all the scrolls so you could swoop in and reap the fisherman's reward?' Jie sneered internally. 'You didn't even stop to consider if your teeth were sharp enough to swallow a big fish like me!'
"Hatake Kenjutsu: Modified Draw Slash!"
A gentle breeze swept past, but Jie's figure had already vanished. In the blink of an eye, a faint, white arc of blade light erupted from the very pinnacle of the tower.
Boom!!
A deafening crash echoed through the clearing. A moment later, the entire roof of the tower slid off along a perfectly smooth, diagonal cut and plummeted heavily to the ground.
'Is this kid really only six years old?'
Joren's figure slowly materialized on the branches of the massive tree near the tower entrance. Beneath his Anbu mask, his face was deathly pale. His eyes were wide with sheer shock and the lingering dread of having narrowly escaped death. 'Now I'm starting to believe that Captain Kakashi might have actually lost to him.'
Joren had originally been a member of Kakashi's Anbu squad. When Kakashi eventually left the Anbu, Joren had stepped up to take his place as a squad captain. Not long ago, he had heard a ridiculous rumor: Kakashi had served as the proctor for the ninja academy's graduation exam and had somehow been bested by a six-year-old child.
Joren had dismissed it as idle gossip at first. But after conducting his own Anbu investigation, he discovered the impossible truth—his genius Captain Kakashi had genuinely been defeated by a six-year-old brat named Jie Uchiha. Driven by a mix of utter shock and burning curiosity, Joren had decided to pay special attention to Jie's Anbu trainee exam.
What he hadn't anticipated was that a momentary lapse in his own concentration would cause his chakra signature to leak, perfectly exposing his position to the boy. Now, Jie clearly mistook him for one of the trainees participating in the exam.
Thinking of this, Joren craned his neck to look up. Jie Uchiha was standing calmly right on the edge of the tower's freshly sheared, smooth surface. The sight made Joren's expression even uglier. If he hadn't relied on his honed instincts to dodge the moment his presence was exposed, he would have been sliced cleanly in half, suffering the exact same fate as the top of the tower.
"Still hiding in the tall tree?" Jie scoffed loudly. "Did you really think I wouldn't dare make a move just because you have those meat shields blocking for you?"
He didn't usually kill, but that didn't mean he wouldn't. The rules of the Anbu assessment never explicitly forbade casualties.
Joren's eyelids twitched violently. He didn't dare hesitate. He hastily leaped down from the high branches, landing squarely in the open clearing in front of the tower doors.
The branches of that enormous tree were currently draped with a staggering number of people, the vast majority of whom were out cold. If Jie decided to blindly launch another slashing attack at the tree just to get to him, countless unconscious trainees would be butchered in their sleep.
Joren really couldn't fathom what kind of sick, twisted hobby Jie had. Why did he insist on knocking his opponents unconscious and hanging them up in the trees like ornaments?
In fact, if Joren hadn't been so utterly flabbergasted by the sight of two massive trees densely packed with dangling bodies, his concentration wouldn't have slipped, his chakra wouldn't have leaked, and he wouldn't be currently targeted by this terrifying Uchiha prodigy.
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