Throughout the assessment grounds, some of the students had been keeping a constant eye on Isamu.
Yet the entire time, he had remained on top of the tower.
As the distance between them continued to shrink, they could eventually see Isamu’s figure without even needing their telescopes.
A clone?
A trap?
That was the first thought that occurred to Shikaku Nara.
“Hizashi, can you confirm his situation?” Shikaku shouted toward the Hyūga clan’s group.
Hizashi Hyūga had not originally been one of the candidates for this assessment.
In fact, he had never even received his education at the Ninja Academy.
As one of Konoha’s prestigious clans, the Hyūga clan had its own systematic method of training its members.
As the younger brother of Hiashi, the future head of the clan, Hizashi had a special status and naturally had no need to attend the Ninja Academy.
However
In response to the Hokage’s call, the Hyūga clan had still sent some of its members to study at the Academy.
Naturally, they hadn’t escaped Isamu’s “education” either.
To repay the Third Hokage for the “favor” of having Isamu educate the younger generation of their clan, the Hyūga clan had deliberately requested that Hizashi participate in this assessment.
They weren’t the only ones.
The other clans had done the same.
Otherwise, if Isamu really eliminated all the graduates from this year’s class, the major clans would have a hard time saving face.
“We need to get a little closer,” Hizashi replied.
He could already activate the Byakugan, but with his current strength, he could only see things roughly one kilometer away.
They were still too far out for him to make out the details clearly.
Following Shikaku’s reminder, the students in all four formations slowed their pace.
Actually, they didn’t need Shikaku to remind them.
Everyone understood that with Isamu’s despicable personality, there was no way he wouldn’t have prepared traps.
“There is a physical body.”
“But we can’t rule out the possibility that it’s a Shadow Clone.”
As they drew closer, Hizashi activated the Byakugan and confirmed Isamu’s identity.
The flow of chakra and the feedback from the physical body indicated that this wasn’t an ordinary Clone Technique.
Throughout the past month, Isamu had never used the Shadow Clone Technique in front of them.
The lack of intelligence made it impossible for them to determine whether the person on the tower was Isamu’s true body.
Shikaku Nara had originally intended to tell the students that they could split up, with some of them taking a detour to cut off Isamu’s escape route.
But Isamu’s figure suddenly disappeared from the top of the tower.
Seeing this, the students immediately began speeding up, and their formations quickly fell into disarray.
No one wanted to let this opportunity slip away.
An opportunity to get their revenge!
“He hasn’t left!
He’s waiting for us at the base of the tower!” Hizashi reported.
At present, his Byakugan was the only thing capable of seeing what was happening ahead.
Waiting for us?
Everyone once again calmed down.
No, no, no
That despicable, shameless Isamu, who was always using all kinds of underhanded tactics and verbal traps to provoke them, was actually going to wait for them out in the open?
They wouldn’t believe him even if someone told them there were no traps.
The students slowed their steps and proceeded forward with extreme caution.
At last, the group passed through the forest.
At this point, there was nothing between them and the tower.
With only a little over a hundred meters remaining, they could clearly see Isamu leaning against the tower and yawning.
“I’ve been waiting for you guys forever.
You’re way too slow.”
“I was starting to think you didn’t dare come.”
“Luckily, you’re still all bunched together.
Otherwise, even if you were a hundred-plus pigs scattered throughout this forest, I wouldn’t be able to catch you all in seven days.”
A month had passed, but Isamu’s talent for drawing aggro hadn’t diminished in the slightest.
Just a few casual remarks were enough to make everyone present restless, practically itching to rush forward and tear Isamu’s mouth apart.
“I, Uchiha ”
“Sorry, I’m not interested in remembering the names of defeated opponents.
Someone like you probably wouldn’t even survive a single chapter on the battlefield.”
Isamu’s pre-battle trash-talking skill was already maxed out.
The Uchiha boy’s face flushed with anger, and he was about to leave the main group and charge forward alone.
The other Uchiha immediately stopped him.
The students exchanged glances with one another.
The crowd gradually spread out, clearly intending to surround Isamu.
Yet strangely enough, Isamu never moved.
He simply watched them silently.
“I’m not planning to run.”
Isamu spread his hands, indicating that he had no intention of fleeing.
But the students, who had already suffered plenty of losses to Isamu’s verbal traps, didn’t believe him at all.
Isamu looked up at the position of the sun and quietly muttered:
“About time.”
Then his figure suddenly moved.
He sprinted toward the direction where Shikaku Nara was standing.
For the past hour or so, Isamu had been watching them advance upstream along the river.
The sight of more than a hundred people running along with their arms tucked behind their backs had been quite amusing, but he had nevertheless noticed several unusual individuals within the crowd.
Shikaku Nara.
This guy, who normally complained about everything being such a hassle and had never taken their spars seriously, appeared to be the “brains” of the group.
Then there was the member of the Hyūga clan whom Isamu had never seen before.
He had just used the Hyūga clan’s Kekkei Genkai, the Byakugan.
He was the eyes of this group.
For their first real contact, Isamu wanted to see if he could take out the brains.
Isamu’s movements were fast.
But the Konoha students now had overwhelming numbers on their side.
Seeing that Isamu actually had the nerve to charge directly at more than a hundred of them, they were all delighted.
This is a guaranteed win, isn’t it?
“Chōza!
Stop him!”
“Hai, find the right opportunity!”
Shikaku Nara gave instructions to the two companions beside him.
A few days earlier, the three of them had all received a thorough “education” from Isamu.
But the Ino-Shika-Chō formation had never been famous throughout the shinobi world for the individual strength of its members.
The three of them were a single unit.
“Expansion Jutsu!”
Akimichi Chōza’s body suddenly expanded.
His abdomen transformed into a massive sphere of flesh before he rapidly began rolling forward, turning into the Human Boulder and charging toward Isamu in an attempt to stop him.
Behind Chōza, the others including Shikaku charged toward Isamu as well.
Isamu had already seen this technique during their previous battle.
It was the Akimichi clan’s Secret Technique, which expanded the user’s body while granting the enlarged flesh corresponding physical strength.
At its peak, it could even allow the user to withstand ninjutsu with their physical body.
But just as Isamu was preparing to evade
His mind suddenly became hazy.
Genjutsu?
No
A Secret Technique?
It was as if someone were trying to pry open his mind and seize control of his body, forcing him to abandon his resistance and crash head-on into the approaching Human Boulder.
But
This mental pressure doesn’t seem very strong.
Isamu focused his mind.
With a slight exertion of will, he expelled the foreign consciousness from his body.
Then he saw Shōichi Nara’s companion Yamanaka Inoichi kneeling in the distance with his hands forming hand seals.
He suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood before collapsing to the ground.
So it was this guy.
Come to think of it, why didn’t he use this during our previous spar?
Oh.
It was because Isamu had moved too quickly.
Before Inoichi could even complete his Secret Technique, Isamu had already placed a blade against his throat and ended the battle.
Now that the technique had failed, he had evidently suffered backlash.
Like Yamanaka Inoichi, Shikaku Nara had been crouching on the ground while using his own Secret Technique.
When he saw Inoichi beside him spit up blood and collapse unconscious, his mind shook.
Isamu formed a hand seal with one hand and released the Great Fireball Technique toward the approaching Akimichi Chōza.
The blazing fireball collided head-on with Chōza, who had transformed into the Human Boulder.
The flames spread rapidly as though they had slammed into a wall.
Chōza took the attack head-on, yet his body appeared completely unharmed.
Taking advantage of the brief moment when the flames obscured everyone’s vision, Isamu had already moved out of the Human Boulder’s path.
He slipped past Chōza’s rolling body, avoiding the attack that could have ended the battle outright.
However, Isamu never could have imagined that the shadow beneath Akimichi Chōza would suddenly violate the laws of physics.
A thin strand of darkness split away from it and connected to Isamu’s own shadow.