Shattered with a single punch

"You should worry about your own situation!"

The blond Iwa Ninja sneered, and his skin immediately took on a blue-gray hue.

As it turned out, the Iwa Ninja could make his skin as hard as rock, and the scorpion venom had already slipped back out of the giant's body to the Iwa Ninja's side when Kakashi revealed his real body.

"You're not still a clone this time, are you?"

"Now we're completely done for." Suiguang sighed deeply and looked at Liumu in the swamp beneath the tree.

"Why are you looking at me like that? You're embarrassing me." Liumu asked lazily, his brows drawn askew, even yawning as he spoke.

Not only did Liumu show no sign of urgency, he even seemed to be enjoying himself, as though he weren't the one trapped there.

"You know, it's actually pretty cool down here underground."

"How can you still say that at a time like this?" Suiguang cried sharply. "Didn't you see that Kakashi got trapped because of you, too? What are we supposed to do now?"

"Does our run in the Chunin Exams really end here?"

Suiguang muttered, a glimmer of tears gradually appearing at the corners of her eyes.

"What are you doing? Why are you crying?"

Liumu asked with a frown. As a hopelessly unromantic man, neither soft nor hard tactics worked on him, but tears were the one thing he feared. As Suiguang's tears flowed ever more fiercely before him, Liumu shouted, "All right, stop crying! I'll get myself out, okay?"

With that, Taotie's devouring began absorbing the surrounding chakra sustaining the Earth Release. Then, before Suiguang's eyes, the swamp suddenly began to harden. Once it had returned to looking like solid ground, Liumu simply walked out from underground.

"You got my clothes all dirty." Liumu looked at the mud stains on his clothes, then suddenly flickered and vanished from the spot.

Meanwhile, seeing that Kakashi had been successfully trapped, the Iwa Ninja on the giant was just about to demand the scroll when a gust of wind shot through the group like a flash of lightning. An instant later, Kakashi vanished from where he stood.

"What happened?"

The big Iwa Ninja barked coldly and turned to look down.

Liumu, who had just been trapped in the swamp, had somehow already escaped. Seeing Kakashi beside him, the three Iwa Ninja immediately realized something.

Liumu looked Kakashi up and down. After confirming that he was unhurt, he smiled and said, "See? I rescued you. How about using Water Release to wash my clothes in a bit?"

Water Release? To wash clothes?

After saying that, Liumu saw Kakashi's speechless expression and added, "If you won't wash my clothes, how about giving me a shower?"

Liumu did indeed look rather bedraggled at the moment, and as Kakashi looked at him, he suddenly felt that he couldn't quite keep up with his train of thought.

"At least wait until we're safe before talking about that!"

Faced with Liumu's gaze, Kakashi couldn't bring himself to refuse outright.

"That's easy!"

With that, Liumu rubbed his wrist, slowly clenched his fist, and turned to walk straight toward the stone statue.

The Iwa Ninja, whose advantage Liumu had ruined, were all curious about just how he had escaped the swamp. And when they thought back to that speed just now...

"Shiyan, snap out of it!"

Watching Liumu brazenly approach the giant's feet, the blond Iwa Ninja immediately snapped the big man out of his thoughts.

The big man then controlled the giant, repeatedly bringing its enormous stone palms down on Liumu.

But what everyone present found eerie was that Liumu neither dodged nor evaded the giant's attacks. He didn't even blink.

Bang!

The stone palm slammed into the ground, throwing up a great cloud of dust. Yet Liumu, who had taken the blow head-on, was not only unhurt-his body alone had pierced straight through the giant's palm.

"Time to end this!"

With that murmur, Liumu bent forward into a crouch and slowly drew his right fist back to his waist, shouting, "Normal Series: Normal Punch!"

"That's right!"

At that moment, Kakashi suddenly remembered the long-standing rumor about Liumu in the village.

When Madara Uchiha's stone statue in the Valley of the End had suddenly shattered, everyone had said Liumu was behind it.

If Liumu could smash a stone statue of that caliber into such a state, then this so-called Stone Giant before them...

Boom!

One punch burst forth, sending shattered rocks flying. The fierce wind from the punch swept up countless fragments and smashed the rocks behind the giant one after another.

Dust billowed everywhere, making it impossible to see anything.

When visibility finally returned, Kakashi and Suiguang were immediately stunned by the scene before them.

In Thunder Warrior Valley, the peaks originally formed by countless connected mountains now had a round passage blasted straight through the very center of their junction by Liumu's single punch.

As for the three Iwa Ninja who had been on the stone giant...

Kakashi focused his gaze on them, his pupils trembling. His cheeks instantly flushed, and he hurriedly turned his back.

Even Suiguang, up in the tree, blushed and immediately covered her eyes after getting a clear look at the three's miserable state.

"Uh..."

Liumu walked into the rubble and looked at the three unconscious Iwa Ninja at his feet, awkwardly scratching his temple.

"Your clothes really are poor quality. Still... your figures... aren't bad. You've got potential."

Liumu's punch had blown the Iwa Ninja team's scroll who knew where. Even after searching for ages, Kakashi couldn't find it.

After a long, fruitless search, the three of them could only give up.

But as they were leaving, Suiguang looked at the three Iwa Ninja, who had yet to wake up, and asked, "Isn't it a bit wrong to just leave them here like this?"

"It is!" Kakashi agreed.

"But I've only got one set of clothes. I can't leave it for him, can I? Besides, with my skinny little build, my clothes wouldn't fit him."

The man among the Iwa Ninja was far too large. Neither Liumu's nor Kakashi's clothes would fit him.

As for the two girls... after Suiguang took off an outer garment and draped it over one of them, she looked at the last garment remaining on her body...

"Take it off! There's still one more!"

Liumu stared at Suiguang expectantly and immediately urged her on.

"Get lost!"

Looking at Liumu's lecherous expression, Suiguang actually discovered that even Kakashi was stealing glances at her from time to time.

Suiguang: ...

Countless adorably dopey little sheep spat as they passed through her mind in an instant, but Suiguang, who prided herself on being reasonable, did not say it aloud.

Boom!

The violent explosion, like a thunderclap, utterly stunned the ninja from the various villages around Thunder Warrior Valley. When they saw the passage through the center of the mountain...

"Who was it? Who on earth was it?"

Inside the Raikage's Office.

At that moment, the Jonin who had come leading teams from the various villages gathered around the desk. Looking at the devastation in the distant Thunder Warrior Valley, they all showed a trace of astonishment.

By rights, Thunder Warrior Valley was currently surrounded by Kumogakure's Chunin.

And inside the valley, there were only those children taking part in the Chunin Exams...

"Wait, could it really be..."