Konoha.
Ninja Academy, training ground.
"Ah!"
Before a student could react, he was swept off his feet.
Then.
A large foot hovered over his nose.
A Genin wearing a forehead protector delivered a cold, merciless verdict.
"You're out, brat."
For a moment.
Cries of pain rang out nonstop from within the sparring circle.
Students fell one after another like wheat before a scythe.
"Don't just stand there! Move!"
"Use the taijutsu you learned at the academy to defend yourselves! Don't try to take them head-on!"
The supervising teachers outside the ring shouted anxiously.
To these students, five minutes felt like hell.
In the end.
Of the fifty students in the first round.
Fewer than thirty endured until time ran out, bruised and battered.
The remaining twenty-odd were all carried to the infirmary.
In an instant.
The atmosphere on the training ground became incomparably grave.
The students who had yet to take the field all looked awful.
Yet Chiba, seated on the raised platform, watched with great interest.
This was what being a ninja meant.
If flowers raised in a greenhouse could not even fight back when faced with real combat!
Then they might as well suffer a little more now.
"Second round!"
Mizuki continued calling names without mercy.
"Shikamaru Nara!"
"Sakura Haruno!"
"What a drag."
Shikamaru Nara sighed listlessly.
He scratched his pineapple-shaped hair and slowly walked to the center of the field.
In the stands.
Shikaku Nara held a toothpick between his lips, his gaze fixed on his son.
"This kid..."
"He must've been slacking off again these past few days."
Yamanaka Inoichi burst out laughing beside him.
"Don't be so strict with Shikamaru. As long as his brain works, that's enough."
Inside the sparring circle.
The Genin assigned to Shikamaru grinned.
"The young master of the Nara