I Have a Bunch of Relatives Who Want to Be Hokage Chapter 6

She actually despised those two lumps. They added too much weight and affected her speed, making fights inconvenient. She wanted to cut them off, but her retired mother said she would kill herself if she did, claiming that this had been her dream when she was young.

Wasn't a Cloud ninja's dream supposed to be becoming the Raikage? How had it become two lumps of flesh?

"So Cloud ninja know how to gain an advantage with their mouths too?" Uchiha Shingen looked at her in surprise. "I thought you were all the ruthless, quiet type."

But the blonde woman no longer wanted to speak to him.

"Retreat!" She waved her hand, deciding to abandon this mission.

Her mission was to hunt Leaf Village ninja carrying out missions alone in this area, not stubbornly lock horns with this one Uchiha.

Three-tomoe Sharingan were indeed not easy to take. Two special jonin had already become sunk costs; there was no need to increase their losses.

But how could Uchiha Shingen possibly let her leave?

Cloud ninja! Eight of them! Three jonin!!!

This was a massive haul.

Jonin were the true backbone of every ninja village. They could not be called scarce, but they were definitely not a dime a dozen. Based on the registered numbers in the Five Great Villages, including both active and inactive ninja, the average was only a few hundred.

Yet the gap between jonin could be infinitely vast. Nominally, people like Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara were jonin too.

The chakra colors of the three Cloud jonin before him were not particularly deep.

Though chakra volume was not an absolute measure of a ninja's strength, after that earlier probe, Uchiha Shingen was certain that these three were gatekeepers.

Jonin at this tier were not called jonin. They were called both weak and valuable.

During the Third Shinobi World War, he had cut down quite a few Mist ninja like them. They really did not feel much different from cutting down chunin.

The Cloud ninja acted swiftly. They did not even spare a glance for their dead comrades' corpses, and to escape faster, they even used Lightning Release to stimulate their muscles.

That was very ninja-like.

Unfortunately, Uchiha Shingen was not very ninja-like.

He had not lied to the blonde girl. He really was absurdly strong.

One of the Cloud ninja charged toward the bridge, perhaps thinking it would be faster to flee across it.

The moment the sole of his foot touched it, he and the bridge were sent flying into the sky.

An ice mound surged up from the ground, followed by more, rising from the riverbed in layer after layer. In the blink of an eye, the ice mounds became ice cliffs, their pointed peaks hanging inverted beneath the starry sky like majestic silver giants overlooking the earth, sealing off the Cloud ninja's path of retreat.

Seeing their companion frozen within the ice, the Cloud ninja's expressions turned ugly.

What level of chakra was this!?

They had kicked an iron plate!

Ninja Etiquette

One moment it had been a river; the next, it had become a narrow ravine. The Cloud ninja felt utterly miserable.

Their morale was starting to crumble.

The Cloud ninja style hated this type of ninja most of all.

A ninja with little chakra was not necessarily weak, but a ninja with a great deal of chakra was definitely not weak. If someone was absurdly strong, then their chakra reserves had to be absurdly large.

And aside from special cheats like the Byakugan and Sharingan, or exceptionally powerful chakra-sensing abilities, the most direct way to judge the strength of an opponent's chakra was naturally by the power of their ninjutsu.

Ninjutsu ranks were determined entirely by difficulty of use—in other words, they assessed only a ninja's control over chakra. For example, the Uchiha Clan's "Majestic Destroyer Flame" was only B-rank, while Hatake Kakashi's "Lightning Release Shadow Clone" was A-rank, the same rank as the Formation of Eight Gates, whose punch could make one cry for a long time.

The destructive power of ninjutsu depended solely on chakra volume. This principle was especially true for the five elemental transformations.

The same Water Release: Great Waterfall Technique became a tsunami when Senju Tobirama used it.

You had Water Wall; he had a dragon drawing in water.

With enough chakra, one really could do whatever one pleased.

Uchiha Shingen, who could do whatever he pleased, had directly altered the terrain with a single Ice Release. If that Snow Clan ninja he had ripped off and cut down back then had possessed this much chakra, he would not have been ripped off and cut down by him.

But the Cloud ninja before him did not seem ready to give up.

One of the three jonin, a muscle-bound man whose face practically screamed "I am a man," swung a fist crackling with electricity and bright enough to serve as a lightbulb into the ice wall like a true man. The result was that he only knocked off a tiny bit of debris.

Another Cloud ninja simply blasted it with a Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique.

The result was even worse. He did not even knock off any debris. The difference in scale between the two was too great; the ice was refreezing faster than it could melt.

The blonde woman seemed thoughtful. She turned to look at Uchiha Shingen, who was walking toward them.

"It seems you are no ordinary Uchiha." She gestured for the others to spread out again. "Did you copy the Snow Clan? It appears the claim that the Snow Clan possesses a bloodline limit was a lie as well. I did not expect you to have such talent."

"How many Uchiha have you even met?" Uchiha Shingen held a short sword in his hand, its tip pointed downward. The blood staining it had not yet had time to congeal. "If you have met the Snow Clan, then you should know that they truly possess a bloodline limit."

"Don't joke around. Even the Sharingan cannot steal the power of a bloodline limit."

"Keep your curiosity in check. If you surrender now, I can still let you live."

"My name is Pantaia. Remember it well!" After announcing her name, the Cloud ninja named Pantaia drew a short blade. "Victory and defeat have yet to be decided."

Those words encouraged the others, and the fighting spirit of the Cloud ninja present visibly rose.

The essence of the Cloud ninja style was self-sacrificing assault. What it demanded was unstoppable momentum, and the beautiful girl captain's words suited everyone's tastes perfectly.

"Sorry, you were too weak for me to remember." Uchiha Shingen flicked the blood from his wakizashi and sheathed it. "But since you're all so serious about fighting, then to show that I'm a polite person, I'll use my favorite and strongest technique to deal with you."

At the end, he added a reminder. "Try to die peacefully. Otherwise, decapitated heads don't look very good."

With that, he pressed his palms together.

Water Release: Water Shock Wave.

The moisture in the air was drawn out, while pillars of water erupted from the ground. In an instant, a colossal waterspout like a dragon drawing in water formed around Uchiha Shingen.

Across two lifetimes as a ninja, Water Release had always been the elemental technique he excelled at most. Back when he was a Senju, he had relentlessly mooched off that filthy rich bastard Senju Tobirama.

After becoming an Uchiha, he had mooched off a whole bunch more while fighting Mist ninja.

If there were still people in this generation of Leaf Village who could match him in the Body Flicker Technique, then in Water Release, he stood alone at the very top.

"Water Release?"

"Watch out for the impact!"

"You're looking down on us too much!"

The Cloud ninja felt thoroughly insulted. Lightning flashed and crackled around them, yet their opponent had chosen to use Water Release.

They were angry. They had to teach him just how formidable the Hidden Cloud was.

The next moment, the waterspout surged to its highest point. Its immense mass could no longer sustain itself, bursting open in midair and pouring down upon them like a waterfall.

Before it even struck their heads, they could already feel the outrageous pressure. The dense spray drenched them instantly.

To be fair, this Uchiha's Water Release was incredibly powerful. If they were not facing the Sharingan, they would have thought they had run into a Water Release expert from Mist Hidden Village.

As that thought crossed their minds, the first wave had already smashed into the ground, rolling forward with the force of a tsunami and sweeping over where they stood.

The Cloud ninja heard nothing but the roar of massive waves, as though the entire world had been submerged.

The moment Pantaia heard that sound, she knew the remaining special jonin were finished.

No one below jonin could withstand a Water Release impact of this level.

Cloud special jonin were not particularly skilled in defense to begin with. The defensive abilities of those special jonin were only on the level of ordinary Hidden Cloud chunin.

Even so, at the instant the impact hit her, she could not keep her footing at all. One wave swept her away, only for another to strike her from behind.

The massive wave had crashed against the ice wall behind her, then rebounded and hit her again.

There was no such thing as diminished force. Every aspect of the technique's offense and defense, including the volume of water and its duration, was controlled by Uchiha Shingen. At most, it merely cost him a little more chakra.

After taking several more heavy hits, Pantaia finally found an opening and burst through the surface.

Enduring the pain, she looked around. The water left behind after the impact had not dispersed, because new ice walls had risen around them. Together with the wall behind them, they formed a perfect square, trapping all the water within and forcibly creating a lake aboveground.

Standing atop the lake, she looked beyond its boundaries toward the distant mountain ranges.

How had she run into a monster like this?

She abruptly turned around. A companion broke through the water's surface—it was the other jonin.

"Tai'an, are you all right?" Although he clearly was not, Pantaia still asked.

If he had not looked so obviously injured, she would have assumed it was a trick.

I'm hurt, yet you're fine?

"It's nothing serious," Tai'an said, his face bluish. "Where's Kafu? Has he not come out?"

After a moment of silence, neither of them continued discussing him.

"Where's that Uchiha?"

"I don't know."

"Maybe he's gone," Tai'an said quietly. "Even if he's strong, after using a technique on this scale, he should take the chance to retreat..."

He trailed off, terror appearing on his face.

A hand had reached out from the water and grabbed his leg.

Before he could even cry out, "Save me," he vanished from Pantaia's sight with a splash. Only the ripples still spreading across the surface proved that he had ever existed.

"Tai'an!" Pantaia shouted her companion's name as she looked at the spot where he had vanished, but she also leaped backward without hesitation. Turning, she charged toward the boundary, intending to flee this body of water.

If this batch of teammates was gone, she could always find another batch.

But if she was gone, then she would have nothing left.

"You're quite heartless, girl." Water rippled as Uchiha Shingen emerged from beneath the surface and blocked her path. "At least confirm whether he's dead before leaving."

Without a word, Pantaia flung several shuriken at him, but Uchiha Shingen easily deflected them with his wakizashi.

She paid no attention to that and did not slow down as she rushed at him, swinging her blade.

Electricity flickered along its edge.

Uchiha Shingen twitched a finger, and a white stream shot out of the water, piercing through her abdomen. Yet no blood spurted out. Instead, she exploded into a cloud of white mist.

Pantaia emerged at his side and drove her blade straight beneath his ribs. But before she could make another move, Uchiha Shingen's body exploded. Bone-chilling cold froze her into an ice sculpture, but in the next instant, a flash of fire erupted, and an even greater force blew the ice sculpture apart from within.

"You were still much better than the others." Uchiha Shingen rose from another patch of water. Reflected in his scarlet eyes was Pantaia's lovely figure fleeing at full speed.

The next moment, water blades erupted beneath her feet and sliced her into several pieces, but it was still a clone.

"Is this interesting? You can't fool me again." Uchiha Shingen turned around and looked at Pantaia, who was watching him like a tiger eyeing its prey. "You know it, don't you? The gap between us isn't small."

"Yeah, Leaf Village always has monsters." Pantaia sneered. "With so many monsters, it's amazing you haven't started fighting each other."

"I was kind enough not to kill you, yet you insult me."

"Kind?" Pantaia sneered. "Forget about getting any intelligence from me. I'm a jōnin, after all. If you capture me alive and take me back, is Leaf Village prepared to go to war with the Hidden Cloud because of it?"

"As expected of a Hidden Cloud ninja—you're already used to threatening people with war." A trace of contempt flashed through Uchiha Shingen's eyes, and he made sure she saw it. "The selection systems of the Five Great Villages are all the same. You're probably only 'reserve' jōnin or special jōnin. In other words, your official rank is still chūnin. What you do outside the village still can't represent your village."

Pantaia's expression turned ugly.

"Looks like I was right." Uchiha Shingen nodded. "Obviously, whoever arranged this 'exam' for you wasn't very capable. All of your intelligence has been intercepted."

"What do you want?"

"As a Hidden Cloud ninja, you no longer have any value. A captured chūnin can only be dead or branded a missing-nin. If you don't want to die or be dealt with by your own village, then you can only come with me to Leaf Village. So, how about it? Want to trade the intelligence you know for a new identity?"

Uchiha Shingen watched the girl, who was clearly struggling with the decision, with great interest.

Just as he had said, although these so-called three Hidden Cloud jōnin did possess the chakra reserves expected of jōnin under the Sharingan's insight, their overall quality was nothing of the sort. They were typical civilian jōnin still on probation.

In the current ninja world, every ninja village had copied Leaf Village's system for recognizing ninja ranks.

If an ordinary person had the aptitude to use chakra and could skillfully perform the Clone Technique, they met the admission standard for the ninja academy.

Graduating from the ninja academy made one a genin, and it was also the only way to become one.

A genin could become a chūnin either by passing the chūnin exams or by receiving a direct promotion from the village leader.

As for ranks above chūnin, whether special jōnin or jōnin, they could only be directly promoted by the village leader.