The morning mist hung thick as cream, swallowing Konohagakure’s towering gates until they were little more than a shape in the pale light.
The queue at the entrance coiled like a long serpent, forehead protectors of every description glinting in the early dawn.
Sunagakure’s hourglass.
Amegakure’s four vertical lines.
Kusagakure’s grass leaf.
Takigakure’s waterfall.
Otogakure’s musical note.
Every village’s clothing as strange and distinct as the next.
Izumo Kamizuki was picking the dirt from under his fingernails with a kunai, bored out of his mind.
Kotetsu Hagane had his back against the mottled stone wall, carefully unwrapping a rice ball.
“This many ninja from other villages.
The Chunin Exams are going to be quite a show this time~”
“Definitely a lot of people.” Izumo sighed, sweeping his gaze over the queue that had no visible end, and looked visibly relieved.
“Good thing it’s not the two of us doing registration.
We’d drop dead right here at the gate.”
“Tsk.
Izumo, look at those Sunagakure bastards.
They’ve got their headbands wrapped up like rice dumplings.
Aren’t they scared of tripping over their own feet?” Kotetsu shoved the rice ball into his mouth and muttered his curses around it.
Never mind that Sunagakure and Konohagakure were on friendly terms right now.
That arrangement existed strictly at the top, between high-ups.
The ninja at the bottom had no interest in playing along.
Hatred isn’t something that disappears that easily.
Izumo twirled his kunai a couple of times and tucked it back into his pouch.
“Those Amegakure cloaks are practically dragging on the ground.
Aren’t they worried about getting dirty?
Hm?
Actually, what village are those guys with musical notes on their forehead protectors?
Did the Hokage actually invite them…?”
He looked in that direction.
A few Otogakure ninja in the distance were scanning their surroundings with shifty, darting eyes, looking every bit like a gang of low-level villain lackeys.
“Finally here.
So many people.”
A stir ran through the crowd, and then a figure over two meters tall shouldered his way into the queue.
Dark grey cloak, powerful muscles completely bare, not a single forehead protector or village insignia anywhere on him.
A swept his gaze around and frowned hard.
The constant buzz of voices from every direction grated on his nerves.
He rubbed his stiff neck and shut his eyes where he stood.
Maybe it was because she hadn’t known when he’d be back.
He was genuinely fighting off sleep.
“Motherfucking piece of shit, who the hell do you think you’re shoving!?”
The shout from ahead snapped him awake.
While dozing off, he’d lurched half a step forward, and his broad shoulders had knocked into the person in front of him.
The Amegakure ninja ahead wore a wide-brimmed bamboo hat and was wrapped head to toe in a black robe.
Before A could even open his mouth, three flashes of cold steel shot straight for his throat, the tips of the senbon glowing with an eerie blue-green light.
“Looking to die…” A’s face went cold.
He didn’t even bother gathering chakra — just raised his arm, metal bracer forward, as a simple block.
TING TING TING.
Three senbon went flying.
He reached out and grabbed the man by the collar like picking up a scrawny chicken, lifting him clean off the ground.
“An Amegakure genin here for the Chunin Exams actually dares attack me?
You’ve got more nerve than the guy who stabbed Susanoo with a kunai.”
The ninja hadn’t caught a word of it.
He was thrashing wildly, and a short blade hidden in the tip of his boot drove straight at A’s gut.
A laughed coldly, shifted to the side, and snapped his arm with sudden force.
The crack of shattering bone detonated in the open air alongside a muffled grunt, and then, with a casual toss, he slammed the body hard against the stone wall by the roadside.
Blood splattered wide.
Dead silence.
The only sound left was the collective sharp intake of breath.
Several Kusagakure ninja went completely limp and crumpled to the ground, having nearly pissed themselves.
A shook the blood off his hand.
The queue ahead had barely moved.
He was done.
He abandoned all pretense of manners and cut straight to the front.
“Out of the way!” The low, rumbling roar carried a thick physical pressure that sent several smaller ninja stumbling off their feet, scrolls and weapons scattering across the ground.
Ahead of him, a heavyset Takigakure brute with a face full of hard edges flinched visibly.
Then his face went red.
He summoned his weapon on the spot, the spikes of his mace gleaming with cold light.
“Who the hell do you think you—”
His voice died.
Blinding blue light exploded across A’s entire body.
Lightning Release Chakra surged like boiling magma, electricity crackling and snapping in every direction, and a layer of brilliant blue armor took form across his skin.
The rubble on the ground was swept up by the shockwave and blasted to powder before it could land.
“Lightning Release Chakra Mode!?” The words tore out of Izumo before he could stop them, face drained of color.
Kotetsu scrubbed his eyes with both fists.
Both of them stared at the figure wrapped in crackling lightning, their faces completely unable to process what they were seeing.
This technique belonged exclusively to Kumogakure.
Given its brutal training demands, the number of people across the entire village who could command it with full mastery numbered no more than ten.
“The level of this chakra…
could it be…” Cold sweat ran down Izumo’s forehead. Get faster updates on novelping.com.
This was already way above anything he could handle.
A walked forward.
Each step burned a scorched black footprint into the ground.
The lightning surrounding him lit up everything within thirty meters in every direction, and ninja from every village parted like a tide to either side, no one willing to risk being caught in the aftermath.
“Kumogakure is here too?
Aren’t they supposed to be enemies with Konoha!?”
“Holy crap, armor that strong, he has to be at least elite jonin.
How is a competitor like that showing up for a joint Chunin Exams?
How is anyone supposed to fight that!”
“You idiot, he’s obviously here to cause trouble.
No way someone like that is actually taking the exam!”
“Elite jonin?
I’m not so sure.
With presence that terrifying, I’d believe it if he said he was the Raikage himself…”
The whispers swirled all around him.
The corner of A’s mouth pulled into a dragon-king’s grin.
Now this was the entrance befitting the Fourth Raikage.
[I actually stood in line for half a day.
God, I’m an idiot.
I really am.]
With no queue in his way anymore, A reached the gates of Konohagakure quickly.
He glanced over at the Gate Guardian Duo — Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju?
Interesting.
“Gulp…”
Even that one passing glance was enough to make Izumo and Kotetsu swallow hard in unison and step back two involuntary paces.
The pressure of a Kage-tier aura bearing down on two special jonin was crushing.
Like a thunderclap landing directly on top of them.
The registration kunoichi’s face was white with barely-contained terror.
A turned to her and showed her what he personally considered a warm and approachable smile.
“Heh.
Would this lady be so kind as to register me?
A, the Fourth Raikage, here to observe the Joint Chunin Exams.”
“Uh…
yes.
Yes, of course…” The kunoichi began filling in his registration with shaking hands, while her left hand worked frantically behind her back, sending signals to the Gate Guardian Duo.
“Get to the Hokage.
Now!” Izumo gritted his teeth, grabbed Kotetsu by the shoulders, and shoved him hard through the village gate.
At the same time, he quietly began gathering his chakra, getting ready to release a jutsu the moment things went sideways.
Not that it would do much good.
➤ Next: First Meeting with Uzuki Yugao