On the Eve of the Finals

After a break came the draw for the final round.

Kisame Hoshigaki drew the bye. Uchiha Mai would have to beat Mei Terumi before he could face Kisame in the final.

After that, nothing else was worth watching.

The Kazekage and Rasa accompanied the daimyo around Sunagakure's sights, occasionally calling over a few ninja to put on a show for him.

Uchiha Mai and the others were taken back to their lodgings by their respective village leaders to rest and recover.

Once the door was shut, Jiraiya looked Uchiha Mai up and down and praised him. "Not bad. You've improved again lately.

"You're almost as impressive as I was back in the day.

"Ah, I remember when I was a spirited young talent in Konoha, just like you. The Hokage spotted my gifts and took me on as his personal student."

He lit a cigarette and began reminiscing about the old days.

Uchiha Mai smiled without a word. He saw no need to expose Jiraiya's boasting.

According to official records, Jiraiya had been impulsive, reckless, and unremarkable in his youth—a "dead last" like Obito.

Of course, neither Jiraiya nor Obito was truly hopeless. In Uchiha Mai's opinion, Obito was quite talented.

His written exam scores were just a little poor, and he was a little slow to pick up ninjutsu and ninja-tool throwing at first. What mattered was that he improved steadily.

He was rather like Guo Jing in The Legend of the Condor Heroes.

A late bloomer like that could hardly be called talentless or dead last, but he could not be called a brilliant young prodigy, either.

"In a few days, you'll be fighting that girl from Kirigakure and the shark-faced one. Feeling confident?"

Jiraiya patted Uchiha Mai on the shoulder. "Winning was never our goal from the