With twenty-nine days left until the finals of the chunin ninja exams, the Training Ground was many times busier than usual, packed with people.
The ten standard Training Grounds open to the public had been completely occupied by ninja from various countries since six in the morning—
"Whoa, holy shit, that's amazing."
"That guy from the Cloud Village has some damn impressive muscles."
"Just a little dark, though."
"Whoa, is that Ice Release?! If we had that, we could make a fortune selling ice in the summer, hahaha!"
"What ninja would sell ice in the summer?"
"Exactly, exactly..."
Outside the fences, Konoha villagers and examinees who had failed the preliminaries crowded together, standing on tiptoe to peer inside.
They were just watching for fun.
Dust swirled across the grounds, and the roar of clashing ninjutsu rose one after another. Even the air carried the faint, metallic tang peculiar to circulating chakra. That invisible smoke of battle had already gathered over Konoha into a palpable tension.
There were far more patrols, too.
They were worried these people would cause trouble.
They had to take precautions.
The countdown board in front of the Hokage Building displayed a bright red "29," with an hourglass beside it that reset every twenty-four hours.
But compared with that reminder, the commotion in each ninja village's Training Ground sounded much more like the drums before battle.
At the outdoor Training Ground on Konoha's easternmost edge.
Iwagakure had reserved it, and the explosions had not stopped from dawn until noon.
The thunderous booms
made the ground tremble slightly. The rising dust resembled a gray-black cloud, visible from far away.
"Ha! Art is an explosion!"
Deidara hovered in midair atop a Clay Bird, his fingers rapidly shaping three palm-sized Clay Spiders before flinging them toward the ground.
The instant