Yes, he was lucky.
At this moment, Hada Ichiba sincerely felt that he was lucky.
Although he now understood why Kusada Kakeru was absent and had forfeited the match, and even knew that Kusada Kakeru had not withdrawn from the preliminaries due to physical reasons, that all of this was a move Orichimaru had made for his plan against Konoha—a choice that both preserved his strength and served two purposes at once—Hada Ichiba felt no concern over Orichimaru gaining such a double benefit. Instead, he felt rather fortunate.
After all, according to his previous thoughts, if Orichimaru had not withdrawn this stand-in, he would inevitably have had to fight him. And judging from his build and many other aspects, this stand-in was actually quite capable.
Especially in taijutsu, his strength was obvious at a glance.
And considering that this stand-in was very likely the same type as Kotetsu, whose taijutsu had forced him to use ninjutsu, this stand-in would probably have been able to force him to use ninjutsu as well.
And if he used ninjutsu, first of all, there was his Chakra. Intimidating Orichimaru just now had already consumed nearly half of it. With Jiraiya having returned to Konoha, he could not restore all his Chakra at once as he had before, lest he draw too much attention from Konoha.
Compared to taijutsu, his ninjutsu consumed far more Chakra. After this battle, even if he won, he would likely have no Chakra left to sustain himself. His subsequent plans could not continue with his Chakra exhausted.
This was also the most important reason he had been prepared to forfeit the preliminaries earlier.
Secondly, nearly all of his ninjutsu were high-powered techniques. If he truly unleashed them, the First Training Ground probably would not survive. Even if he restrained himself