Trial

Training Ground No. 98.

Morning sunlight spilled across the ground.

Iruka and the other two kids were bored out of their minds as they waited for Tobitake Tonbo to arrive.

"Is the captain running late?" Mibu Shinobu muttered.

Gurgle!

His stomach growled. He had skipped breakfast because he was coveting the feast their captain had mentioned.

"He should be here soon...

Wait, what's that?"

Teksen Shiso had just begun to speak when a tremendous commotion came from the woods.

Buzzz!

The three of them looked toward the sound and saw the trees in the forest being bent down.

It was as though some kind of monster had barged through.

"Holy crap, that thing's huge..."

A dragonfly as tall as a two-story building appeared, its four wings beating as it swiftly approached them.

It seemed to spot them, and the compound eyes on its forehead shifted.

Whoosh!

The dragonfly arrived above them and smashed its forelimbs down at them.

Buzzz!

Swish! Swish!

Fortunately, they reacted quickly enough and used the Body Flicker Technique to leave their original positions.

Bang!

The dragonfly smashed a massive crater into the ground.

"How could Konoha have a monster like this?" Mibu Shinobu shouted.

Cold sweat broke out on him.

"Be careful. This should be the captain's summoned beast, meant to test our strength. We need to work together and defeat it. Don't let the captain look down on us." Iruka studied the dragonfly's appearance and recalled his captain's name, immediately coming to a conclusion.

The instant Teksen Shiso saw the dragonfly, he had reached the same conclusion. While Iruka spoke, he unfurled a long scroll.

Bang! Bang!

With a flick of the scroll, shuriken and kunai shot forth like meteors, flying toward the giant beast.

Clang! Clang!

Facing those ninja tools, the giant dragonfly swung its six limbs and blocked the attacks.

"It's not over yet!" Teksen Shiso summoned a meteor hammer once more.

Mibu Shinobu had also come to his senses. He threw out shuriken as well, and while the giant beast blocked his teammate's attacks, the wires wrapped around them tangled up the beast's six limbs.

Meteor Chasing the Moon.

Taking advantage of the opening, the massive meteor hammer slammed into the giant beast, sending it flying backward and rolling across the ground several times.

Boom!

Iruka did not hold back either, and a Great Fireball Technique came roaring in right after it.

"We did it."

The three of them smiled as they looked at the giant beast struck by the ninjutsu.

"No..."

Suddenly, Iruka realized something was wrong. When he stepped closer for a look, there was no giant beast at all—only a damaged figurine.

Half of the charred dragonfly, no bigger than a palm, was emitting black smoke.

"Watch out."

Bang!

Just as he was analyzing the situation, a pangolin burst from underground and rammed Iruka into the air.

He rolled across the ground several times.

Awoo~

Though none of them knew why a pangolin was howling like a wolf, the three of them became extremely serious.

"What kind of ninjutsu is this?"

Iruka got to his feet and tried his best to analyze every possibility.

First of all, this definitely was not a summoned beast. Judging from the traces left by the first giant beast, it was not the Transformation Technique either.

As for an illusion technique, it should not have been able to damage the ground.

He looked at the crater made by the dragonfly's limbs and the tunnel the pangolin had dug with Earth Release.

"What exactly is this thing?"

Up in the sky.

"My, my, your teamwork is pretty good. You actually managed to defeat one of my dragonflies!"

Tobitake Tonbo sat atop a giant eagle, watching the battle below with a smile at the corner of his lips.

In terms of performance and teamwork, they were even better than protagonists like Naruto and Sasuke.

It seemed the three of them had also been exemplary students who studied seriously at the academy.

These giant beasts were one-use ninja beasts he had created with the Secret Technique: Eye-Painting Hand.

They would disappear once their chakra supply ran out.

At present, he had only developed four types of ninja beasts in this series.

Dragonflies, pangolins, giant eagles, and a giant whale for underwater use.

Rumble!

He took in every detail of the battle below.

Tobitake Tonbo was very satisfied.

Only after the three kids below had been thoroughly battered by the pangolin did he dispel the ninjutsu on it, then leap down from the sky.

Huff, huff!

The three kids panted heavily.

"Huh? Why did it disappear?" Teksen Shiso looked around, shaking his head as he searched.

"Something seems to be falling from the sky." Mibu Shinobu pointed at a black dot beneath the sunlight, which gradually grew larger in their eyes.

"This is bad."

The three of them immediately scattered.

When they turned back, they found that there was no impact like they had expected.

There was only Tobitake Tonbo, smiling at them.

"Nicely done. You're all quite capable!" he praised his three subordinates.

He gave them a thumbs-up.

"Captain, you nearly scared us to death! I thought another giant monster was falling from the sky!" Mibu Shinobu patted his chest.

The two giant beasts from before had frightened him badly. He was terrified that another one would show up.

Iruka asked, "Captain, was that the Summoning Technique just now?"

"That was an illusion technique."

"Huh? An illusion technique?"

The three kids were astonished, their faces full of disbelief. Illusion techniques were not supposed to work like that, and how had they even fallen under one?

Tobitake Tonbo took out a dragonfly figurine, which was exactly the same as the giant beast from before, and smiled. "The first lesson I'll teach you is this: never be deceived by the surface of things.

This illusion technique is a type of reality-altering illusion. Once an intelligent life-form falls under it, the illusion becomes real. That is why it was able to damage the terrain just now.

In other words, the instant you saw that dragonfly, it became a real giant beast."

"But we didn't see it before the giant beast appeared," Iruka said.

"But I saw it." Tobitake Tonbo pointed at himself.

The three kids understood. Good grief, why did they have to pay the price for him falling under an illusion technique?

At the same time, their eyes lit up. That move from before had looked incredibly cool, and they wondered whether they could learn it.

They stared at Tobitake Tonbo with blazing eyes.

"Why are you looking at me like that? You want to learn it?"

"Mhm, mhm." The three of them nodded like chicks pecking at grain.

"This ninjutsu is very difficult. If you want to learn it, work hard. I'll teach you seriously," Tobitake Tonbo promised.

But he could not promise whether they would actually learn it. Even he had spent more than a year completing four mature types.

The difficulty of creating it and the difficulty of learning it were actually not that far apart.

Given the three kids' talent, he had not expected them to master it.

"Awesome!"

All three of them jumped up, seemingly unconcerned by the difficulty involved.

"Alright, now let's follow Konoha tradition. We'll introduce ourselves first, then take a photo, and after that I'll take you to have a feast."

Tobitake Tonbo smiled as he watched them celebrate.

"I'll go first. I'm Teksen Shiso. My dream is to become Konoha's greatest ninja-tool master. I like ramen."

"I'm Umino Iruka. My dream is to teach and nurture others, cultivating talent for Konoha. I also like ramen."

"I'm Mibu Shinobu. My dream is to join the Torture Division. The person I admire is Senior Morino Ibiki, and I like grilled meat."

"I'm Tobitake Tonbo. My dream is to live an ordinary life, have two children with my wife, one boy and one girl, watch them grow up and have children of their own, then help take care of my grandchildren."

Click!

Finally, the four of them took a photo. Tobitake Tonbo stood behind them with both hands resting on Teksen Shiso and Iruka's heads, while Mibu Shinobu stood in the middle with his arms crossed.