Cleverness Backfires

Cleverness Backfires

Boruto agonized over whether he should try to prevent an argument between the boys and girls, so there would be no match that afternoon.

But! The boys and girls had already started arguing because they had different opinions about summoned beasts.

The whole point of summoned beasts was to assist in battle. Weren't these girls' ideas a little too childish? Had they never experienced the cruelty of war, so they had forgotten the color of blood?

Boruto complained inwardly, on the verge of tears.

Since things had come to this, he might as well make a huge mess that afternoon. He would go straight for the root cause of the early trouble!

Boruto thought to himself as he silently stared at the purple-haired girl on the field. She stood off to the side with a panicked expression, wanting to step forward and stop the argument but seemingly powerless to do so.

Uh... could such a cute little girl really want to destroy the Hidden Leaf Village?

"Hey, Boruto! Come help us make our case! Make these girls understand that cuteness is worthless in the face of strength!"

Seeing Boruto still spacing out, Iwabee urged him.

"I think so too. As long as a summoned beast is powerful, its appearance doesn't matter," Inojin offered his opinion.

Boruto said, "He's right!"

The girls' view: "Boys are so childish." (That's how it was in the original work. I'm too lazy to write it out; go read it if you're interested.)

After all the commotion, Shino finally couldn't stand it anymore and suggested a boys-versus-girls ninjutsu battle.

The rules were simple: whoever pulled out the flag on top of the school building first would win!

The boys and girls stood facing each other on opposite sides of the school gate. After familiarizing themselves with the rules, both sides readied themselves.

Seeing that both sides were fired up, Shino added, "Those are the rules. The losers must obey the winners."

"OK."

"Yes!"

"Then, let the match begin!" Shino announced.

As the match got underway, Iwabee turned and unleashed a ninjutsu at the girls. "Earth Style: Earth Wall!"

A wall rapidly rose up, blocking the girls' path and extending all the way to the school gate, directly cutting the girls off outside it.

"Now's our chance, go!"

"Nice one, Iwabee!"

The boys rushed toward the school gate, while someone on the girls' side immediately stepped forward.

Chōchō Akimichi: "Partial Multi-Size Technique!"

Chōchō's arm rapidly enlarged into a giant's arm, and she slammed a fist into Iwabee's Earth Wall.

Just as the girls excitedly ran into the school grounds, Shikadai immediately acted. A Shadow Binding Technique pinned several girls in place.

Boom—!!

An explosion sounded from the school building, making all the students stop in their tracks and look toward it in confusion.

Shino stepped in at that moment and explained, "I forgot to tell everyone that several traps have been set up inside the school building. This is to simulate the urgency of real combat as much as possible."

Just as Shino wanted to explain the reason, he realized that all the students had already run off!

Shino: ...

Inside the school building, both sides kept racing toward the top floor. Only Boruto silently jumped out the window, gathered Chakra beneath his feet, and walked up the wall toward the roof.

Go ahead and fight slowly. I won't disturb you. I'm just going to pull out the flag!

Inside the building, shuriken techniques, taijutsu, and defensive techniques were unleashed in a dazzling array. Combined with all kinds of traps, there were even tiny Exploding Tags stuck to the walls.

Explosions and battle sounds rose one after another. The boys and girls remained locked in a stalemate, yet no one noticed Boruto outside the building slowly getting used to walking along the wall.

After all, he had never tried it before. To get the hang of it quickly, Boruto moved rather slowly to be safe.

The boys currently held the advantage. By the third floor, however, a special unit arranged by the girls blocked their way.

But it only stopped them temporarily. The boys were good at taijutsu, yet the girls' main force had also caught up, immediately hurling a barrage of shuriken techniques at the boys.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

The sharp whistling of shuriken cutting through the air rang out as kunai and shuriken flew steadily toward the boys. Just as they scrambled to dodge—

Boruto, who had just reached the outside of the third-floor window, made his move. He hurled a Rasengan down the corridor, knocking aside several airborne kunai and shuriken and randomly hitting one unlucky person.

"I was wondering where Boruto went. So he was outside!" Sarada instantly spotted Boruto.

"You guys keep going. I'll be on my way first." Having found his rhythm, Boruto casually said this before running straight toward the roof.

"Damn it! Don't let him get away!" The girls quickly ran toward the stairwell.

Due to the disparity in numbers, only Boruto, Shikadai, and Inojin remained on the boys' side, while every girl was still in the match.

Shikadai and Inojin nodded to each other. One used the Shadow Binding Technique to hold back a large group of girls, while Inojin used Super Beast Imitating Drawing to create several birds and interfere with them.

Seeing this, the remaining girls directly pulled out several stacks of Exploding Tags, placing one on the ceiling of every floor and blasting open a route straight to the rooftop.

Shikadai and Inojin: That's insane!

On the rooftop, just as Boruto was about to step forward and pull out the flag, a thunderous explosion erupted beneath his feet. The violent blast forced Boruto to retreat to a safe distance.

Immediately afterward, several girls climbed up through the hole in the ground and stood facing Boruto, their expressions full of smug satisfaction.

"The winner has been decided, Boruto!"

"Rasengan!" Without another word, Boruto threw a Compressed Rasengan.

Bang—!!

The fierce explosion was no less powerful than the previous Exploding Tags. The sudden ninjutsu scattered the girls' formation, and some girls even fell from the top floor.

Boruto quickly ran toward the flag.

"Trying to run? Partial Multi-Size Technique!"

Chōchō immediately used her giant hand and hammered it down toward Boruto.

Boruto couldn't help swearing. "Holy crap, I'm done for!"

After all, Boruto was still a Shadow Clone. If he took a punch like that, he would probably disperse on the spot.

Forced into a corner, Boruto could only gamble on luck. He took out the Summoning Scroll he had found in the ninja tool room earlier. If he got lucky, he could have Nue ruin everything!

Boruto bit through the skin of his finger, drawing a tiny amount of blood. Then, without wasting a moment, he formed hand seals. "Summoning Technique!"

At the same time, the Jōgan quietly opened. Behind Sumire Kakei, something suddenly began to glow faintly. As the summoning ritual was completed—

Amid a dazzling purple radiance, the phantom of a gigantic monster emerged from the summoner. Its eyes glowed with eerie red light, and the snake head on its tail rapidly smashed toward Chōchō, who was about to reach the flag.

A thunderous blast rang out as the rooftop structure was directly destroyed. The fierce impact knocked both Chōchō and the flag down, sending them plummeting toward the ground.

Seeing this, Boruto did as he had in the original work. He used several Body Flicker Techniques to rush forward, grabbed the falling flag, then seized Chōchō and threw her toward the girls.

"Boruto...?!!" Sarada cried out.

Boruto fell without panicking. He had originally intended to gather Chakra under his feet and stick to the wall, but then the enormous snake tail smashed toward his position.

Where the hell is Shino?!?

Seeing that he was about to get hit, Boruto thought, Even if I'm a Shadow Clone, this will still affect the original body's movements, won't it?

"Boruto...!!!" Everyone broke into a cold sweat for Boruto.

Just as the snake tail was about to hit Boruto, the Jōgan suddenly burst forth with intense light again. Boruto instantly felt his Chakra become abundant, even greater than the original body's!

With Chakra at his disposal, Boruto pushed off the wall and accelerated downward. At the same time, he created a Shadow Clone, then threw himself into the air.

Not caring where the teacher had disappeared to, Boruto had his Shadow Clone guard the flag while he returned to the rooftop and quickly ran toward Nue.

"Big Ball Rasengan!"

A Rasengan far larger than any he had formed before rapidly gathered in Boruto's hand. He leaped into the air to evade the snake tail's attack. This summoned Nue was not its true body, so it could not move.

Boruto easily dodged Nue's tail whip, then slammed the glowing giant ball in his hand into the tail's vital spot—probably.

Boom—!!

The Rasengan's power exploded, whipping up a twisting storm that destroyed Nue's phantom. At the same time, the entire building began to collapse.

After doing all this, Boruto landed steadily and looked toward Sumire Kakei.

At that moment, Sumire Kakei was mixed in among the girls, her face also filled with panic and helplessness over the sudden accident.

"Boruto... are you okay?" Sarada and the other boys stepped forward to ask.

"I'm... fine! I'm seriously injured, though. I'll have to lie at home for at least a month!" Boruto had initially wanted to brush it off casually, but then realized he could use this opportunity to take a vacation!

Shikadai smiled at the sight. "Looks like he's probably fine."

Setting aside what that sudden surge of Chakra was about, where the hell did Shino go? Boruto wondered.

Meanwhile, in some corner, an unlucky teacher had been so focused on filling out student data reports that he failed to notice a group of girls downstairs sticking Exploding Tags to the ceilings, and was directly blasted away...