Yugito Nii

Four days later.

"Why was it her?"

As the time limit drew near, Liumu stood up and happened to see the last squad arriving at the entrance on the first floor.

"Who? Who is it?"

Suiguang asked in bewilderment, turning to follow Liumu's gaze.

The last squad to arrive was Kumogakure's own squad.

There were two boys and one girl, each with a shuriken mark tattooed on their arm.

The one Liumu was watching was the only young female ninja among the three.

"She's pretty. Do you know her?"

Liumu shook his head, but his tightly knitted brows never relaxed.

From what he remembered, the Land of Lightning actually had another tailed beast besides the Eight-Tails: Matatabi, who bore the name Two-Tails.

The Two-Tails was commonly known as a cat demon. Her body was covered in blue chakra flames, and she had one blue eye and one yellow eye. She was a very polite tailed beast.

If the Eight-Tails and Killer B had the best rapport of all the jinchūriki and tailed beast pairs, then the Two-Tails and her jinchūriki matched them, if not surpassed them.

The reason Liumu had suddenly thought of the Two-Tails was that the girl in this Kumogakure squad was none other than her jinchūriki, Yugito Nii.

Yugito Nii's waist-length braided hair hung freely down her back. Her spirited face already showed some of the striking bearing of a mature beauty, with slender brows, red lips, and a swaying figure.

After respectfully handing the Heaven and Earth Scrolls to the examiner, she returned with her teammates to an unoccupied corner by the wall to rest.

By all rights, Yugito Nii should have been secretly protected as one of the Land of Lightning's hidden fighting forces, just like Killer B. Why, then, had she appeared openly before everyone, even taking part in these Chunin Exams?

Liumu did not understand, but at the thought of the fate that would one day befall this lovely girl, he grimaced and shook his head.

"What a shame."

The second exam ended. After the Kumogakure jonin announced that time was up and the results of the first written exam were taken into account, only eighteen of the ninja present remained eligible to participate in the third exam, individual combat.

Among them were two squads from Konoha, one from Kumogakure, one from Iwagakure, and one from Kirigakure. The final squad, surprisingly, came from the little-known Land of Crafts.

The Land of Crafts was a small nation that forged ninja tools for other countries. Although its ninja were not particularly strong, the weapons they developed often possessed astonishing abilities.

Liumu looked at the three ninja from the Land of Crafts, his mind racing.

From what he remembered, the Land of Crafts seemed to have descended from the master craftsman Seimei. In Naruto: Shippuden, its ninja had even planned to use ninja tools to capture the One-Tail, Shukaku, alive in order to resurrect Seimei.

Although their plan had been thwarted by the Konoha ninja who arrived afterward, the ninja tools produced by the Land of Crafts had truly astonished Liumu during that battle.

"If we face them in individual combat, we need to be careful."

Liumu glanced at Kakashi and Suiguang as he spoke.

The third exam began, and the names of all the qualifying ninja appeared on the large screen in the center of the stone chamber.

Then the Kumogakure jonin stepped forward to face everyone and began announcing the rules of the third exam.

"The third exam will consist of one-on-one individual combat. You may surrender during a fight, but you must not take your opponent's life. Once someone concedes, their opponent must stop attacking immediately. If someone falls unconscious or becomes unable to continue fighting, the referee will assess the situation and declare the winner."

For the final results of the Chunin Exams, the jonin from each ninja village would award chunin status based on the combined performance across all three exams.

"Then... let the matches begin!"

"The first pair..."

The Kumogakure jonin called out sharply, and everyone's eyes turned to the electronic screen behind him.

The names on the screen cycled rapidly. At the Kumogakure jonin's command of "Stop," Kakashi's name immediately appeared.

His opponent was the blonde-haired woman from Iwagakure who had already crossed paths with the Liumu Squad twice.

"Phew... that scared me to death. I thought I was unlucky enough to get matched against that guy."

The blonde-haired kunoichi let out a long breath when she saw Kakashi. The large Iwagakure ninja beside her said, "Don't get careless. Better to be cautious."

"It's him!"

Kakashi looked at his opponent, slowly stepped out of the crowd, and walked onto the arena in the center of the stone chamber.

"Then, begin!"

At the jonin's command, the blonde-haired woman pushed off with both feet and shot backward. Once she was several dozen meters from Kakashi, her hands rapidly formed hand seals, and she shouted, "Earth Release: Earth Dragon Bullet!"

An enormous earthen-yellow dragon's head appeared at her feet and immediately spat countless stones at Kakashi.

Kakashi leaped away at the sight. After narrowly dodging the attack, he drew a shuriken with an explosive tag attached from his waist and hurled it straight at her.

But...

Clang.

As everyone watched the shuriken strike the blonde-haired woman squarely, a strange sound reached their ears.

Boom!

An explosion rang out, and a huge cloud of smoke immediately engulfed the arena.

"What was that sound just now?"

Someone below the arena asked in surprise.

The large Iwagakure ninja smiled at the sight, his expression brimming with confidence.

They could not beat Liumu, but with the means Kakashi currently possessed, he could do nothing to their teammate.

"That's skin hardening!"

Standing on the second floor, Suiguang frowned at the scene below. "She should be like me, able to coat her entire body in earth-release chakra to harden her skin."

Sure enough, once the smoke cleared, numerous cracks appeared across the blonde-haired woman's exposed skin. As everyone watched, the cracked layer broke apart, revealing her original skin beneath.

"Even an explosive tag couldn't hurt her!"

An explosive tag had almost as much explosive power as a hand grenade, yet even that had only shattered her earth-release "armor."

In the arena, Kakashi looked at her, his mind working quickly, but the blonde-haired woman gave him no time to devise a countermeasure.

He crossed his hands, and with a poof, the blonde-haired woman created a clone. Her clone rushed up to Kakashi, and the blonde-haired woman smiled slightly and shouted, "Ha!"

Boom!

The clone exploded like an artillery shell. Just as everyone thought Kakashi would lose to the blast, they saw him fly sideways out of the dust.

"Hmph, you're just a child after all. You fell for it!"

As she spoke, the blonde-haired woman aimed at Kakashi's airborne figure and unleashed Earth Release: Earth Dragon Bullet again.

With nothing to push off against, Kakashi had no way to escape.

Just as the Earth Dragon Bullet struck Kakashi head-on, he turned into a section of dead wood with a poof.

"Oh no!"