Ignoring the chatter around him, Zi Xu focused on the wooden post in front of him. Although he hadn't merged with Observation Haki and didn't have the special eyes of the Uchiha or Hyuga Clans, his physical reflexes and dynamic vision were already no worse than Chino's or Gen's at this age.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh." Several sharp whistles cut through the air around Zi Xu. His first five shuriken flew steadily and hit the target without trouble. They were passable, at best—an utterly average performance.
"Whish." The sixth shuriken veered slightly off course, but just barely hit the target.
"That kid's about to run out of steam. You can tell he's struggling." Nohara pointed at Zi Xu and discussed him with her companions. But was that really the case? At least the part about struggling was true. Hitting the target by a hair took more effort than hitting it normally. He had to carefully control his strength, and it had taken everything he had just to miss the bull's-eye by a little.
The sixth and seventh shuriken had both only barely hit. By the time he threw the eighth, his expression had grown increasingly serious. Whether from nerves or a mistake, he suddenly threw all three of the remaining shuriken in his hand. Zi Xu put on a "panicked" expression, as if he'd really flung them by accident.
"Uh-oh. He's done for." Takeshi Goda had already guessed how this would end. He looked at Zi Xu with some regret and was about to write his team's score on the board.
"Huh? You've got to be kidding..."
"That kid!"
"Talk about lucky!"
Hearing the gasps around him, Takeshi Goda looked up from the score sheet in his hand and at Zi Xu's target. Of the three shuriken he'd just thrown wildly, two had stuck in the target, while the third had missed. Two out of three!
"Huh? Guess I got lucky. Hahahaha." Zi Xu smiled delightedly, as if he'd really hit the target by accident.
In truth, it had all gone according to plan. He had calculated the trajectories of all three shuriken down to the last detail. Kaido's Physique had given him not only a powerful body and exceptional reflexes, but also tremendous computational ability.
As the most tenacious creature in the world of pirates, Kaido had an unparalleled brain to match his physical strength. But he could solve most problems with his body and sheer force, so he rarely needed to use his wits.
Regardless, Zi Xu's unexpected performance delighted Chino and Hatsumi. Thanks to him, their team had surged ahead of Uchiha Gen's team.
"Yay! Zi Xu won!" Hatsumi, who had been blaming herself for her earlier mistake, happily threw her arms around Zi Xu as he returned from the field. Even Chino, who was usually so cold, smiled for once and patted him on the shoulder.
"Nice luck..."
"Just a fluke, a fluke." Zi Xu scratched his head with a sheepish grin, unsure what to do with the little ones' enthusiasm. Pure feelings like these were rare in the adult world, but they couldn't change his mind about escaping Konoha and changing it.
"Tch, you just got lucky." Nohara looked unconvinced and sneered at Zi Xu. Uchiha Gen, on the other hand, came over to congratulate him. As expected of a scion of a great clan—she carried herself with impeccable manners.
After recovering from his initial surprise, Takeshi Goda wrote down Zi Xu's team's score in his notebook. None of the teams that followed scored higher, so Zi Xu's team took first place in this event.
Since this was only a team competition within their class, Zi Xu's performance didn't attract much attention. The only thing people really noticed was how lucky the kid seemed to be.
"Please get ready. Next up is the group taijutsu tournament. Everyone, get ready..." Takeshi Goda announced the next event. The children turned their attention to it and began chattering excitedly about how good they were at taijutsu.
"Listen up. You won't get so lucky this time. I'll show you the difference between us. The weak don't deserve to be ninjas..." As usual, Zi Xu ignored Nohara's trash talk. He was already wondering how much force he could use without killing his opponent. After thinking it over, he still wasn't sure the other students could take a hit from him.
He decided to avoid striking whenever possible. With his body, he could stand still and let them hit him without their attacks breaking through his defenses. Even their ninjutsu would only tickle.
"The taijutsu tournament will use a single-elimination draw. One person from each of the sixteen teams, come up and draw a number. The winning team will receive a Mystery Gift!" As mentioned earlier, the Ninja Academy encouraged competition and rivalry, so Takeshi Goda had added some prizes to spur the students on.
Zi Xu didn't feel much about it. In his previous life, plenty of big companies had used similar tricks, dangling bonuses and other prizes to motivate their employees and get them to create more value for the company.
"Okay, I'll give it everything I've got!"
"Our team is definitely going to win this match!"
"We won't lose!"
It was easy to get the children fired up, so Zi Xu naturally had to act as if he were looking forward to the prize, too.
"We drew number four. Number one will fight number sixteen, and number two will fight number fifteen. We should be fighting number thirteen..." Hatsumi returned with the slip of paper and looked toward Uchiha Gen's team. They had drawn number eight.
"Stop staring. Get ready to fight. If we keep winning, we'll definitely run into them." Zi Xu patted Hatsumi on the head and reminded her to prepare.
In truth, Zi Xu's team was quite good at taijutsu. Setting aside Zi Xu, who was hiding his abilities, Chino was from the Hyuga Clan, which was famous for two things: the Byakugan and Gentle Fist.
Gentle Fist involved sending one's Chakra into an opponent's body to damage the Chakra pathways—the body's "meridian system"—and internal organs. It was generally used in conjunction with the Byakugan. Although Chino hadn't awakened hers yet, she'd been studying the body's meridians since childhood and could already pinpoint an opponent's approximate pressure points in actual combat.
Since Zi Xu had repeatedly claimed that he was in poor health, he had hardly ever sparred with Chino and the others. He played a supporting role on the team, waiting for an opening to sneak in a punch—in other words, he was the sneaky one who struck when the chance arose.
Zi Xu's team had won their first few matches with ease. Zi Xu supported them, Hatsumi kept their opponents occupied, and Chino led the attack. In the end, their team made it to the finals, where they faced Uchiha Gen's team.
Both teams had used up a lot of energy in their earlier matches and were now panting heavily.
"Chino, I hope we can have an enjoyable match." Uchiha Gen wiped the sweat from her forehead and retied her slightly disheveled ponytail.
"Enough talk. If we're fighting, then let's fight." Chino was panting, too, but she didn't let up with her sharp tongue.
"Both sides, get ready!" Takeshi Goda raised the whistle in his hand, eager to wrap up the match quickly.
"Begin!"
At the whistle, both teams shot toward each other like arrows loosed from bows. Chino and Gen clashed, trading blows in a back-and-forth exchange. Nearby, Zi Xu and Hatsumi kept Nohara and the chubby Maruyama occupied.
Gen brought her left fingers together, palm flat, and bent her knees. Then she sprang forward, driving her palm toward Chino's stomach. Her movements were crisp and clean. Takeshi Goda nodded silently. As expected of the Uchiha Clan.
Facing Gen's lightning-fast attack, Chino held out both hands. Just as Gen's palm was about to touch her, Chino's left hand swiftly latched onto both of Gen's hands. Using the momentum of Gen's charge, Chino slammed her right hand into Gen's lower abdomen and knocked her away. Seeing this, Nohara grew anxious and tried to rush over to help Gen, but her steps grew unsteady.
Hatsumi seized the opportunity. She bent at the waist and knees, landing a precise elbow strike on Nohara's ribs. But Nohara grabbed Hatsumi's forearm in return, then bent her other leg and tensed to strike. If that attack hit, there was a good chance Hatsumi's arm would be irreparably damaged.
"The weak are sinful. Die, bug." Nohara's frigid words came with a merciless kick. Hatsumi tried to break free, but she couldn't budge. The Aburame Clan wasn't skilled at taijutsu, and she could only watch helplessly as Nohara's attack drew closer.
Takeshi Goda made no move to intervene. Just as Nohara had said, the weak were sinful. Konoha's Ninja Academy was already considered gentle. It was a little brutal, but at least no one would lose their life. When students graduated from the Ninja Academy in Kirigakure, the Bloody Mist Village, they had to fight to the death, and only one person could survive. Compared to them, these children were fortunate.
"Boom!" A cloud of dust rose as Zi Xu shoved Hatsumi out of the way. She tumbled backward, and Zi Xu appeared at Nohara's side. He met her kick head-on with a plain, unadorned front kick.
Muscles pressed and strained against each other with a dull thud. Zi Xu hadn't put any force into his kick at all; it was entirely Nohara's kick that had powered the collision.
Force acted in both directions. That meant the full force of Nohara's kick rebounded onto her own ankle.
Zi Xu pretended that his leg hurt and dodged away. He had no idea that the bones in Nohara's lower leg had already begun to crack, or that tiny fractures had appeared in her shin.
"Ahhhhh!" Nohara cried out in pain. The cold, merciless look she'd worn just a moment earlier hadn't even faded from her face. Maruyama tried to help her up, but she shoved him away and struggled to get back into the fight.
Gen, who had been knocked away, flipped in midair to absorb the force of the blow. She glanced toward Nohara, saw that she was all right, then continued attacking Chino. In the ninja world, missions came first, and everything else was secondary. So the two of them still intended to fight.
Zi Xu was fine. Kaido's Physique was even more monstrous than he'd imagined. He acted as though he were suffering, but in truth he couldn't feel a thing. It didn't even tickle.
"What, am I actually pretty strong? No, no, I can't get carried away. Real ninjas have all kinds of strange techniques—poison, insects, even jutsu that attack the soul. I can't get complacent just because my opponents are so weak. At least until I unlock Haki and a Devil Fruit Ability, I shouldn't be thinking about how to kill Hiruzen Sarutobi..."
Countless thoughts flashed through Zi Xu's mind in an instant, but he quickly reached a conclusion: he was strong among his peers, but still had a long way to go before he could measure up to real ninjas. His twenty-plus years of experience in his previous life told him that caution never hurt anyone.
He felt no sympathy for Nohara. He hadn't used any strength, so all the force of her kick had rebounded onto her. She had brought it on herself. If that kick had hit Hatsumi, she might have ended up even worse. He didn't want any of the people he planned to recruit in the future to lose their fighting ability.
He helped the dazed Hatsumi to her feet, ignored Maruyama and Nohara lying on the ground, then sat down and pretended to be exhausted, shamelessly slacking off as he watched Chino and Gen fight.
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