"All right."
Kurenai Yuhi nodded in easy agreement. In the end, she and Genma had accepted Kiyohara's shameless request. After all, he was a civilian kid who counted every coin he spent, while she was the daughter of a jonin famed for genjutsu. Compared to Kiyohara, she really did count as a little rich girl.
Seeing that, Kiyohara simply continued forward. As he stepped deeper into the building, he saw several familiar faces mixed among many strangers. The room had already been divided into invisible camps.
One side was made up of civilian genin in mismatched outfits, most of them quiet, cautious, and a little tense. The other side belonged to clan shinobi, dressed in neater, more uniform clothes, carrying themselves with the easy confidence that came from being born into old lineages. Even before the exam began, the difference in atmosphere was obvious.
Among them, Uchiha Tekka stood out at a glance. He wore a dark high-collared short-sleeved shirt, with the Uchiha fan emblazoned on his back. Beside the other eye-catching figure, Hyuga Tetsu, in his loose white training clothes and eerie pale eyes, he seemed especially conspicuous.
Naturally, the two of them had people gathered around them. Fellow clan members or friendly faces lingered nearby, forming their own little circles. It was the kind of scene that made Kiyohara feel, once again, that the ninja world really was built on bloodlines from top to bottom.
At the front, the examiner was a stern-faced jonin with a scar near one eye. He wasted no time and announced the rules in a clipped voice. One-on-one combat. Stop when told to stop. Lethal techniques permitted. Afterward, the proctors would make a comprehensive judgment based on combat ability, tactics, and overall performance before deciding whether someone qualified to advance to chunin.
"Uchiha Tekka..."
Kiyohara's gaze drifted toward the black-haired boy and stayed there for a moment. He remembered that, in a few years, Tekka would become one of Uchiha Fugaku's trusted subordinates. At the moment, though, he probably still hadn't joined the Konoha Military Police Force. Only chunin were eligible for that.
"The biggest obstacles in this assessment are probably Uchiha Tekka and Hyuga Tetsu," Kiyohara thought. He glanced at the two of them a few more times, measuring them in silence. Both belonged to the strongest bloodline clans in Konoha. Both possessed dōjutsu. Compared to ordinary people, their starting line alone was absurd.
Before long, an examiner carried out a black box and set it in front of the candidates. "Draw lots," he ordered. "Match numbers determine your fights."
One by one, the genin stepped forward. Soon it was Kiyohara's turn. He reached into the box, drew out a wooden lot, and lowered his eyes to the number.
"My luck really is awful."
The number in his hand was four. The number paired against it belonged, by sheer bad luck, to Uchiha Tekka.
Kiyohara rubbed his chin. "I wonder whether he's awakened the Sharingan yet."
The Sharingan was the kind of bloodline limit that made ordinary shinobi want to grind their teeth. One tomoe. Two tomoe. Three tomoe. With every stage came more abilities: sharper perception, chakra sight, copying, hypnosis, overwhelming battle insight. And once it evolved beyond that, there was still the Mangekyō Sharingan, with two unique eye techniques and even Susanoo layered on top of it.
The more Kiyohara thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed. The whole ninja world really was a bloodline world wearing the skin of merit and hard work. Strip away the slogans and the romance, and most of the story of the shinobi era was just the descendants of the Ōtsutsuki tearing at one another while everyone else struggled in the margins.
Naruto had once spoken of effort and perseverance with such moving sincerity. Yet in the end, he had become the ultimate believer in bloodline theory. He was a reincarnated son of prophecy. His father in a previous life was the Sage of Six Paths, the progenitor of all ninjas. His father in this life was the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze. There was no comparison at all.
"Envious?" the rogue ninja Kiyohara asked, drifting beside him like a half-seen shadow.
"I'm just reminding myself how important reincarnation is in this world," Kiyohara answered inwardly, forcing down the useless irritation. Then, after a beat, he added, "But that doesn't mean I have no chance."
If he could not beat them, then perhaps he could join them in another way. With the Last Will and Testament, who was to say he couldn't gather countless possibilities into himself one day? A bloodline limit. A special constitution. A different version of Kiyohara with a different inheritance. The thought alone was enough to make his heart beat faster.
Meanwhile, the first match was already underway below.
Two genin entered the arena under the examiner's supervision. The instant the signal was given, they clashed head-on. Kiyohara stood at the edge and watched closely. He had drawn fourth place, which meant three fights would happen before his own. That gave him time to gather information.
And in the ninja world, information was everything.
The first few battles were mostly between civilians, or between clan children and civilians who were clearly outmatched. The fights were tense, but they lacked true brilliance. Civilian genin were stingy with chakra to an almost painful degree. They opened with kunai exchanges, tested one another with shuriken, and only released ninjutsu when they had no other choice, treating every technique like a trump card.
The clan shinobi were completely different. They had deeper reserves, better teaching, and stronger foundations. Their chakra expenditure was more relaxed, their movements cleaner, and their techniques came one after another in a display that looked almost extravagant. The contrast was so sharp it practically hurt the eyes.
***
Up in the spectator stands, Kurenai and Genma had already found seats. From there, the giant board below was easy to read. It displayed every participant's name, lot number, and upcoming opponent in bold lettering.
"Kiyohara's first match is against an Uchiha... that's really bad luck," Kurenai muttered. She had just come back with a bag full of snacks—snacks that Kiyohara had shamelessly ordered from her before entering.
"Yeah. Doesn't look promising," Genma mumbled around the senbon in his mouth. Then he shifted it to one side and added, "Still, trust him, Kurenai. We saw what he did at Kannabi Bridge with our own eyes. That kid is definitely hiding more than he shows. He's not simple."
His tone carried genuine conviction. Back then, they had all expected to suffer together. In the end, Kiyohara was the only one who had quietly risen higher. It was hard not to feel that the kid still had cards no one had seen yet.
Kurenai said nothing, but her red eyes remained fixed on the field below.
Before long, the first three fights came to an end. Then the chief referee's voice rang out across the hall.
"Fourth match. Kiyohara versus Uchiha Tekka. Both candidates, enter the arena!"
Kiyohara let out a slow breath and walked steadily into the center of the field. Across from him, Uchiha Tekka entered at the same time and stopped several paces away, folding his arms as he looked Kiyohara up and down. There was the usual Uchiha arrogance in his expression, the kind that practically declared bloodline superiority without the need for words.
"I've heard of you," Tekka said coolly. "You earned a little fame on the Grass Country battlefield. For a civilian, that's already your limit. Running into me today is your bad luck."
Kiyohara did not bother responding. He simply adjusted his breathing, grounding his stance and bringing his body into its best possible condition. Empty words meant nothing. A shinobi's answer belonged on the field.
The referee's arm chopped downward. "Begin!"
The instant the word fell, Tekka moved. His hands flashed through seals with practiced ease, his chest swelling as chakra gathered in his throat.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
A massive, blazing fireball erupted from his mouth. It was over two meters wide, roaring across the arena in a wave of suffocating heat that warped the air itself. The spectators gasped. It was the Uchiha clan's trademark technique, one nearly every Uchiha learned from childhood, and in Tekka's hands it came out fierce and complete.
"The so-called art of kindness that never seems to burn anyone to death..." Kiyohara thought, and yet he did not dare underestimate it. This wasn't a joke in a story now. The fireball was aimed straight at his head.
His own hands moved at once.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
A violent gust burst from Kiyohara's mouth. But instead of smashing directly into the fireball, he struck its flank. Wind and flame collided in a shrieking burst of friction. Rather than extinguishing the fire, the gale shoved it off course, dragging the enormous sphere sideways.
With a rolling wave of heat, the fireball screamed past Kiyohara by a narrow margin and slammed into the barrier at the edge of the arena, exploding into a shower of sparks and scattered flames. The crowd erupted into startled murmurs.
Tekka's fire-style jutsu was strong. But what Kiyohara had inherited from the rogue ninja Kiyohara was a wind-style mastery that had once reached jonin level. What he lacked in chakra, he made up for in precision.
Tekka's expression shifted for the first time. He clearly had not expected a civilian genin to neutralize the Uchiha clan's signature fire release so cleanly.
Kiyohara, however, did not give him time to linger in that surprise. The moment the fire veered away, he moved.
His hand dipped to his ninja pouch. Steel flashed. Three shuriken leapt into the air in a precise spread, angled not at Tekka's body, but at the lanes where he was most likely to dodge.
Tekka clicked his tongue and sprang backward, drawing a kunai in one fluid motion. He knocked away the first shuriken, tilted his head aside to avoid the second, and then barely twisted past the third.
Fast, Kiyohara thought. Maybe not Sharingan-fast yet—but definitely trained like an Uchiha.
Tekka came in immediately after the dodge, taking advantage of the opening. His kunai slashed toward Kiyohara's throat in a merciless arc. Kiyohara met it head-on. Steel rang against steel. Sparks burst between them.
For several breaths they fought at close range, blades colliding again and again. Tekka's strikes were quick, sharp, and aggressive. Kiyohara's defense was tighter, leaner, more practical, carrying the traces of the rogue ninja's battlefield experience. One had clan polish. The other had dirt-and-blood efficiency.
In the stands, Genma's senbon nearly fell out of his mouth. "He's actually keeping up."
Kurenai's red eyes widened slightly. She had expected Kiyohara to put up a good fight. She had not expected this calm, this control, this refusal to be overwhelmed by Uchiha pressure.
Below, Tekka suddenly broke distance and formed another sequence of hand seals.
"Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique!"
This time, instead of one massive attack, a scatter of smaller fireballs streaked across the field, weaving in erratic trajectories. Hidden within them were shuriken, concealed by flame and glare.
Kiyohara's eyes sharpened. There it was—the classic Uchiha mix of fire and thrown weapons. He exhaled, centered himself, and let his hand move before his thoughts fully caught up.
A single shuriken spun from his fingers, tracing a curving path through the air.
Clang!
It struck one hidden shuriken, changed angle, and knocked into another. The burst of interference threw the concealed pattern off just enough. Then Kiyohara ducked low and rolled through the remaining gap as the flames scorched past his shoulder.
He came up on one knee, already forming seals.
"Lightning Release: Earth Walk!"
Crackling arcs exploded across the ground at Tekka's feet.
Tekka reacted fast enough to leap back, but the sudden discharge still forced him to interrupt his advance. The arena floor blackened where the current raced over it. A few spectators sucked in cold breaths.
"He knows lightning release too?" someone blurted from the crowd.
Kiyohara did not answer. His breathing had already grown a little heavier. Tekka, too, was no longer wearing that effortless arrogance from the start. The two boys stared at each other across the field, reassessing.
The examiner near the edge narrowed his eyes. Whatever happened next, this had already stopped being an ordinary chunin screening match.
And in Kiyohara's chest, something like anticipation stirred. Against a bloodline genius, against a world built on inherited privilege, he was still standing. Still fighting. Still proving that he had not come this far just to kneel.