Chunin Exams: Shimada Muzan

Another month passed, and it was noon.

At the Ninja Academy, several future Konoha rookies sat gathered together, eating lunch.

"Hey, what's Big Brother Tahm been doing every day this past month? He hasn't even been coming to class with us," Naruto suddenly said, sounding a little dejected. "It's already been a month since I last had Boss Tahm's cooking."

"Oh? So you feel wronged having to eat the lunches I make these days?" Sakura said from the side in a dangerous tone.

"Of course not! Getting to eat the lunch Sakura makes for me is great," Naruto hurriedly tried to recover. "It's way tastier than the instant noodles I used to eat."

His words instead had the opposite effect, making Sakura's expression turn even darker. Putting on an indignant air, she said, "Idiot Naruto! I'm not bringing you lunch anymore. Go eat your instant noodles!"

Naruto immediately began scrambling to apologize again, making everyone smile knowingly. Ino laughed so hard she covered her mouth and said, "Naruto-kun is so romantic at crucial moments, but he's not gentlemanly at all otherwise." Her words made Naruto blush a little.

"Still, Tahm's cooking really is art on another level. I haven't had it in a whole month!" The food-loving Choji gave his sincere assessment, listlessly poking at the lunch he had brought from home with his chopsticks, his face utterly lifeless.

Hinata also seemed a little dejected at that and said, "Tahm said he has to undergo special training during the day. He said it was something very important."

"Training? What a drag," the listless Shikamaru said.

"Woof, woof, woof!" Akamaru barked softly. Kiba immediately translated for him: "Akamaru says he misses Tahm too." Well, actually, he missed Tahm's secret-recipe braised pork bones.

Although she had these good friends keeping her company, and understood that Tahm had important matters to attend to, Hinata was still a little unreasonably angry deep down: He clearly promised to accompany me, but now he leaves me alone every day and disappears without a trace.

Looking up at the sky outside the window, Hinata couldn't help thinking, What are you doing right now, Tahm?

At that moment, in the Forest of Death, Chunin Shimada was scouting the surroundings on his own.

It had only been a simple mission: inspect the examination grounds in advance for this year's Chunin Exams. It was essentially a routine inspection conducted every year, observing the condition of the beasts raised in the Forest of Death and whether they could meet the needs of the candidates undergoing the trial.

When he received the mission, Shimada had treated it like a weekend vacation, intending to relax a little. But after Shimada had explored deep into the forest for quite some time, the experience of a veteran Chunin told him that something was wrong with this forest!

For one thing, after walking for so long, he hadn't encountered a single large beast. That alone was highly abnormal. After all, the Forest of Death was a place where Konoha specially raised ferocious beasts. The sheer number of vicious creatures inside was enough to leave any ordinary person who wandered in by mistake with not even a complete corpse.

Furthermore, he had casually found several places bearing traces of fierce battles. Mortal combat between beasts was nothing unusual, but at each site left behind, Shimada could always see the complete corpse of a beast.

Something was wrong! If it had died at the hands of another beast, it was impossible for the corpse to remain intact. Even stranger, some of the beast corpses had already been there for several days, yet no other beasts had come to eat the meat.

This meant that an even more terrifying creature had entered the forest—one with intelligence, deliberately hunting and killing.

Had a rogue ninja wandered here, or were spies from another village carrying out some hidden operation? Shimada's nerves tightened. He couldn't help drawing his Heirloom Blade and cautiously observing every movement in the surrounding grass and trees.

As he examined the traces in the forest, he suddenly discovered some strange, oversized footprints on several trees. They didn't look much like human footprints, and they were still quite fresh.

These were traces left by using chakra to climb. There really was an unknown intelligent creature here. However, it probably wasn't a professional ninja; it had made no attempt to conceal its tracks. Drawing on his combat experience, Shimada accurately sketched out a psychological profile of his unseen opponent. He raised his blade and followed the footprints.

After chasing in the direction of the footprints for a while, Shimada heard a tremendous crash as rocks burst apart. When the dust cleared, he saw a large, toad-like creature standing on the corpse of a giant tiger ahead. A terrifyingly long tongue extended from its gaping maw and swayed lazily in midair.

So strong! Shimada instantly judged the strength of the unknown creature before him. I have to strike first.

Shimada's right hand flicked out, and three finely crafted shuriken flew toward it. Immediately afterward, he heard an enraged roar: "Damn it! Which bastard stabbed me?"

Shimada didn't know that his opponent had just finished killing a monster and exited combat mode, dispelling its data form while still immersed in the little world of its game shop. Otherwise, there was no way he could have hurt it. By an incredible coincidence, Shimada had become the only ninja in the world to ever make this toad feel pain.

Hmph! It's not over yet! Shimada let out a cold laugh. Against such a large ninja beast, how could ordinary shuriken possibly be useful?

With a booming explosion, the shuriken embedded in the toad's body suddenly detonated. Thick smoke and flames instantly enveloped a small section of the forest.

Even a Chunin with exceptional physical strength would have been knocked flat by that attack. Shimada confidently moved closer, only to see a tongue suddenly shoot out of the smoke. Shimada swiftly used the Body Flicker Technique to dodge, but the tongue moved with uncanny speed, heading straight for the point where he would land and striking him without mercy.

What tremendous force! Shimada felt a burst of intense pain. He tried to raise his blade to defend himself, but another tongue attacked without giving him the slightest chance to catch his breath.

In the span of only a few seconds, no matter how he twisted and dodged, he had already been struck three times. Although he could still move, his speed had inevitably become sluggish. Meanwhile, the monster stood before him completely unharmed. It had faced the explosion head-on without showing the slightest sign of injury, and was still cursing angrily. "Damn it, I was just spacing out for a moment! And you actually blew me up?"

Shimada mustered the last of his strength and tried to throw a smoke bomb onto the ground before looking for a chance to escape. But his movement instead caught the monster's attention. With a loud roar, it shouted, "Giant Tongue Lash!" A tongue shot straight toward him. This attack didn't have the same uncanny, unavoidable feeling as the previous ones, but Shimada was already injured and had no time at all to evade the fierce blow.

The instant the tongue touched him, he immediately felt as though he had fallen victim to a powerful genjutsu. His mind spun violently, and in a daze, he vaguely felt as if something had wrapped around him and thrown him away.

Shimada finally recovered from the dizziness. The powerful stunning effect had left him with no idea how much time had passed. He only discovered that he was hanging upside down from a large tree, his entire body aching. Even more terrifyingly, his pants had somehow been shredded completely, leaving only his bare thighs dangling and kicking in midair, while the monster below examined him with a frightening gaze.

Could it be!? Shimada suddenly recalled a horrifying possibility. Could this monster have that kind of fetish too? Is it going to do something to me? Or did it already... while I was unconscious?

Shimada couldn't help gripping the Heirloom Blade still in his hand tightly and shouting in terror, "Help! A pervert is undoing my pants!"