"Since we met, this seemed to be our first match, didn't it?"
Ryusuke looked at Nara Shikamaru across from him and smiled as he raised his index and middle fingers.
"Yeah... Sorry my grades were too poor to get matched against you." Nara Shikamaru scratched his head with one hand while raising his index and middle fingers with the other.
A closer look revealed that his eyes were no longer their usual dead-fish eyes, but filled with seriousness.
Ryusuke was the invincible Demon King!
That was the consensus among all students of the 60th class of the Ninja Academy.
If it had been anyone else, Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto would definitely have been unwilling to accept defeat.
But after losing to Ryusuke, even Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto had grown used to it over the past six years.
As one of the first people to see that Ryusuke was hiding his true abilities, Nara Shikamaru knew very well that he was no match for him.
However, his brain told him that if those were all the abilities Ryusuke possessed, then he might not be without a chance of winning.
After all, the Nara Clan's Shadow Imitation Technique was no joke.
In such a large arena, no matter how much chakra Ryusuke had or how skilled he was with Water Release, he could not possibly flood the place.
As long as his shadow could restrain Ryusuke, victory was assured.
So over the past few days, Nara Shikamaru had been thinking about how to restrain Ryusuke and had prepared more than a dozen plans.
And now was the time to put them into action!
After seeing both of them form the Opposition Seal, Shiranui Genma raised his arm again and shouted, "Second-round match, Ryusuke versus Nara Shikamaru... Begin!"
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—
Nara Shikamaru