After Nagato's battle ended, Kakashi returned to Arena One to wait for the second round to begin while observing the ninjas there.
Since Kakashi had returned rather late, the first round was already more than halfway through. After watching only a few matches, the second round was about to begin.
Kakashi remained calm. Based on his observations while moving between several arenas, the average strength of the Youth Martial Arts Tournament's ninja contestants was roughly that of chunin.
Not to mention them—even Nohara Rin could easily enter the elimination rounds as long as her luck was not too bad and she did not encounter a ninja like Nagato.
This is a little easier than I imagined, Kakashi thought.
In Kakashi's original expectations, the highly anticipated Martial Arts Tournament should have been fiercely competitive, with quite a few young geniuses from the Five Great Ninja Villages participating.
But that was not the case. Among the more than two hundred participating ninjas, those from the Five Great Ninja Villages were actually in the minority.
Kakashi knew Konoha's situation best. There were eighteen participants in total.
On the Hidden Mist Village side, Kakashi had only seen Mei Terumi's team, a total of six Kirigakure ninjas.
He had also seen only one team from Sunagakure, with just four Sunagakure ninjas in total.
Iwagakure had considerably more. Kakashi made a rough count and estimated there were around twenty-one of them, making it the major Ninja Village with the most participants.
Kumogakure had the fewest. Kakashi had only seen three Kumogakure ninjas among the contestants, and he had not seen many other Kumogakure ninjas in Six Paths City either.
Kakashi believed there were two primary reasons for this situation.
The first was that this was wartime, and the situation was tense. The major Ninja Villages could