"Well, that wasn't bad." Sasuke's voice came from the contestants' stands ahead. A smile curved Naruto's lips, and he held out his hand.
"Give me a hand."
Sasuke's eyebrow twitched. Speechless at Naruto's childish request, he sighed softly, then reached out and took Naruto's hand.
"Naruto, I believe you can do it."
"Yeah, yeah, we can't let you hog all the spotlight. Akamaru and I need to show what we can do too."
"Woof, woof!"
Looking at everyone's grinning faces, Naruto froze for a moment before nodding.
"Yeah! Let's all give it our best."
"Lord Hokage, is this Naruto Uzumaki the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki?"
Rasa stared at Naruto Uzumaki in the stands, a hint of wariness showing in his eyes.
"No, he is Minato's child first, and a jinchūriki second," Hiruzen said to Rasa with a smile.
"I never expected Konoha's sealing of tailed beasts to be so effective. Though I wonder whether there's any chance of him losing control?"
Hiruzen narrowed his eyes and turned to meet Rasa's gaze beneath the Kazekage's hat. "Rest assured. This is Konoha. Even if the Nine-Tails goes berserk, Konoha has the power to seal him again."
Rasa fell silent for a moment.
"Then I was worrying needlessly. My apologies, my apologies. After all, the entire Shinobi World knows the power of tailed beasts." In that brief exchange of looks with Hiruzen Sarutobi, Rasa felt as though he had seen an aging lion. Though his strength was gone, he still commanded awe.
"All right, the next contestants are..." Hayate paused, and everyone followed his gaze to the large screen, where two names with the same surname appeared.
"Hinata Hyuga versus Neji Hyuga." Hayate had not expected the random selection system to pair these two together.
In the stands, Neji rubbed his eyes. He