Team matches

The second round of the chunin ninja exams: team matches.

Asami Ri stood in the preparation area, bored out of his mind, and glanced at his two teammates out of the corner of his eye.

As expected, these two arrogant fellows had sailed through the written exam.

The huge display began cycling through names before finally settling on the match lineup.

Team 17: Asami Ri, Hyuga Hiko, Uchiha Tekka vs. Team 32: Kazami Ao, Akino Gaki, Natsuno Umikaze.

Never heard of them, Asami Ri thought.

He could find nothing related to them in his memories. Clearly, they were just extras there to fill out the roster.

Beside him, however, Hyuga Hiko could no longer suppress the hostility in his eyes.

The veins around his eyes bulged slightly, and the contempt in his Byakugan seemed almost tangible.

"Hey, you civilian, and you with the 'pink eye'..." Hyuga Hiko looked provocatively at Asami Ri and Uchiha Tekka, his tone arrogant. "Once the match starts, stay out of my way. Don't interfere, and don't even think about dragging me down. I can clean up trash like this myself. I'll let you see with your own eyes which clan really has Konoha's greatest ocular jutsu!"

Asami Ri did not even lift his eyelids, simply tuning out Hyuga Hiko's embarrassingly juvenile boasting about his illustrious clan.

He turned his head, looking past Hyuga Hiko at the Uchiha who had remained quiet all this time.

"Let's finish this quickly." Asami Ri's voice was calm and entirely impersonal. "One each. Any objections?"

In his opinion, Uchiha Tekka might be gloomy, but at least he was a ninja he could communicate with.

Uchiha Tekka snorted coldly, apparently scornful of Hyuga Hiko's "pink eye" taunt. But instead of arguing as rudely as the other boy, he gave Asami Ri a curt nod.

"Fine."

Having reached an agreement, the two stepped forward in perfect unison, leaving Hyuga Hiko behind.

"You two! Are you even listening to me?"

The six competitors took their positions on the field, each team in a triangular formation. A deadly tension immediately filled the air.

Asami Ri calmly fixed his gaze on the opponent directly ahead of him.

His name was Kazami Ao. Though he was a nobody, the way he instinctively lowered his center of gravity and the thick calluses between his thumbs and forefingers clearly marked him as someone with battlefield experience.

"Begin!"

Before the referee's whistle had faded, Asami Ri vanished from his spot.

His right foot slammed into the ground, the immense force cracking the hard soil into fine spiderweb patterns. Like a black streak tearing through the air, he closed in on Kazami Ao in the blink of an eye.

Without any flashy probing attacks, Asami Ri twisted his waist and hips, driving his right fist toward his opponent's chest with a shrill rush of air.

Kazami Ao's pupils contracted. Asami Ri was so fast that he had no time to think.

He instinctively crossed his arms in front of his chest, attempting to block the heavy punch head-on.

Thud!

The dull sound of flesh colliding rang across the arena, like two slabs of iron crashing together in midair.

Kazami Ao felt a brutal force erupt through his arms. Violent tremors shot along their entire length, numbing his nerves so completely that even his fingertips lost all feeling.

What a heavy punch!

Horrified, Kazami Ao used the impact to propel himself backward, trying to gain some distance and ease the piercing numbness.

But Asami Ri had no intention of giving him a chance to breathe.

Pressing his advantage and riding the momentum of his charge, he pushed off with his right foot again. His core muscles contracted sharply like a fully drawn bow, whipping his left leg into a vicious lash.

Whoosh!

The kick cracked through the air with overwhelming force, tracing a graceful arc as it swept viciously toward Kazami Ao's side.

Having only just steadied himself, Kazami Ao had no way to dodge. He could only watch the dark blur grow rapidly in his vision.

"Aaargh!"

With a scream, Kazami Ao was sent flying several meters by the heavy kick. He tumbled like a torn sack to the edge of the arena, sending dust billowing.

He struggled to rise, but his chest churned painfully, and even his breathing came in broken gasps.

Through his blurred vision, a pair of black eyes appeared silently before him.

At some point, Asami Ri had pursued him like a ghost, his expression as cold and undisturbed as ever.

Before Kazami Ao could take any defensive stance, Asami Ri reached out and gave his shoulder a casual push.

Thrown off balance, Kazami Ao slid helplessly beyond the boundary under the eyes of the entire audience.

Asami Ri steadied himself, folded his arms, and glanced toward the other two fights.

To his left, Hyuga Hiko was engrossed in a sick game of torment.

As a member of the Hyuga Clan, his movements were indeed elegant and precise, his Gentle Fist footwork tracing circle after circle on the ground.

But rather than defeating his opponent in one blow, he leisurely executed the Eight Trigrams Thirty-Two Palms. Every strike of his fingertips precisely sealed another chakra point.

His opponent was drenched in sweat, his movements growing slower and slower, his eyes filled with despair.

Yet Hyuga Hiko wore a contemptuous, amused smile, as though savoring his control over another person's suffering—or venting his anger at having been ignored by Asami Ri and Uchiha Tekka earlier.

Narrow-minded and small-hearted.

That was the label Asami Ri gave Hyuga Hiko.

On the battlefield, wasting time humiliating an opponent was incredibly foolish.

Someone so conceited and sensitive might well stab a teammate in the back once his pride suffered a blow.

Asami Ri looked to the other side, where Uchiha Tekka had already finished his fight cleanly and decisively.

His opponent lay unconscious on the ground, bearing only a few marks from heavy blows to vital points.

Uchiha Tekka was straightening his slightly disheveled clothes while regarding Asami Ri coldly.

When he realized that Asami Ri had finished even sooner than he had, the Uchiha prodigy's eyebrows rose slightly, a flicker of surprise and scrutiny passing through his eyes.

Clearly, he had reassessed his civilian teammate's strength.

Feeling Asami Ri and Uchiha Tekka watching him, Hyuga Hiko finally realized that he was the last one still fighting.

The pleasure of showing off instantly turned into humiliation and anger at being looked down on by his teammates.

"Tch. Boring trash."

Hyuga Hiko snorted coldly, finally losing interest in toying with his opponent.

He abruptly accelerated, casually driving a fierce palm strike into his opponent's chest and knocking the already exhausted boy unconscious.

He deactivated his Byakugan and walked straight off the field with a gloomy expression, not bothering to spare his fallen opponent a glance.

Ignoring Hyuga Hiko's wounded pride, Asami Ri headed straight for the spectator stands.

Uchiha Tekka followed without a word. They sat some distance apart and turned their attention to the arena below, where the next match had already drawn considerable interest.

Next match: Minato Namikaze's team against Might Guy's team.

Here comes an interesting scene. Asami Ri propped up his chin. Compared with the completely one-sided match he had just fought, he was much more eager to witness this "iconic scene" himself.

The starting whistle had barely sounded when Obito Uchiha charged to the front like a cannonball fired from its barrel.

He rapidly formed hand seals, took a deep breath, and puffed out his chest, clearly preparing to announce his presence with a spectacular Great Fireball Technique.

But the expected flames never burst forth.

Instead, Obito's flushed face instantly turned ashen, his eyes bulging wide. He froze as though someone had pressed pause.

In full view of everyone, he clutched his throat in agony. His excessive exertion had lodged the hard candy in his mouth firmly in his windpipe.

"Urk! Cough, cough!"

Before Obito could cough up the candy, Might Guy swept toward him like a green whirlwind.

"This is the clash of youth!"

Guy let out a fervent roar and planted a powerful flying kick squarely against the side of Obito's face.

Obito flew backward like a kite with its string cut, tracing an ungainly arc through the air. Under the violent impact, the offending candy shot from his mouth like a bullet.

"Tch."

Asami Ri distinctly heard Uchiha Tekka make a sound of disgust beside him.

Tekka's fists tightened slightly, his brows drawing together. Clearly, this elite of the Uchiha Clan felt deeply ashamed to see a fellow clansman make such a blunder in front of everyone.

But the chaos in the arena did not last long, because someone else moved.

Obito's collapse did not seem to disrupt Kakashi's rhythm at all.

The instant Obito hit the ground, Kakashi slipped into the enemy formation like a ghost.

It was a textbook display of efficient combat.

No wasted movements, no elaborate tactics—just the Body Flicker Technique and kunai combat skills.

Kakashi darted and pivoted among Might Guy, Genma Shiranui, and Ebisu, eliminating one of them with every attack.

In less than three minutes, the fight was over.

Kakashi put away his kunai with a cool expression. Even the rhythm of his breathing had not changed.

He stood at the center of the battered arena, forming a stark and brutal contrast to Obito, who was still on the ground rubbing his stomach.

Kakashi is already approaching the threshold of jonin.

Asami Ri gauged Kakashi's speed, silently assessing him.

He truly deserved the title of "Konoha's greatest prodigy," the boy who would become a jonin at twelve. Even in this golden generation teeming with geniuses, the dominance Kakashi displayed now was enough to make most of his peers despair.