In the aftermath of their clash, the exhilarating battle between Boruto and Mai has come to its shocking conclusion; silent, Naruto is overcome with a mixture of great embarrassment and immense disappointment while an elated Jin guffaws, brimming with pride.
“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” The Onikage cackles like a hyena, tears of delight streaming down his face.
Gaara calmly speaks up. “This isn’t something for a Kage to be laughing over.”
“ Hehehehe… That’s your opinion, not mine,” A chuckling Jin replies, slamming his fist on the desk; his Onikage hat is flattened by mistake. “He used an illegal ninja tool, and he STILL lost. …Ahhahahahahahahaha!”
“You’re in no position to talk. After all, one of your sons, Takato, stole a jutsu.” Darui chastises, leaning back in his chair.
“Who hasn’t?! To reprimand my son would only make us all out to be MASSIVE hypocrites, especially YOUR village.”
From the arena floor, Lee announces the next fight. “The 2nd match! Shikadai Nara of the Hidden Leaf versus Yodo of the Hidden Sand!”
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“3 seconds are all I need.” A confident Sarada boasts, holding up three fingers.
“Now Sarada from the Hidden Leaf versus Satoshi Uzumaki of the Hidden Storm! Ready…? Begin!”
The leaf kunoichi makes a dash for the storm genin just as he takes a defensive stance; both adversaries activate their respective dojutsu. When she gets close enough, Sarada aims a hefty haymaker for Satoshi’s head. However, the sly storm sibling moves his hand to divert her mighty blow, throwing the kunoichi off balance.
Infusing chakra into his left arm, Satoshi thrusts his hand forward, directly into his foe’s torso. “Eight Trigrams Hazan Strike.”
A powerful wave of chakra is unleashed from the storm genin’s palm, which sends the leaf kunoichi flying back, and crashing into the stadium wall; a small crater is formed where she smashed.
Rock Lee announces, “The winner is… Satoshi Uzumaki!”
“You underestimated me…” The storm ninja looks down on his beaten cousin. “Don’t mess with a storm ninja…!”
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The leaf ninja, Mitsuki, eerily raises a hand. “Proctor? I withdraw.”
“Say what?” A surprised Takato’s jaw drops, his eyes have grown as wide as a pair of saucers.
*Gasp!* *Gasp!* *Gasp!*
*Gasp!*
“Due to Mitsuki’s withdrawal, Takato Uzumaki wins by default.” Rock Lee announces.
*Boo!* *Boo!* *Boo!*
*Boo!*
*Boo!* *Boo!*
It’s the fifth match of the Chunin Exam Finals; Takato of the Hidden Storm versus Mitsuki of the Hidden Leaf. However, to everyone’s shock, the leaf genin has opted to pull out of the tournament; the audience make their dissatisfaction heard, but none is left more perplexed than the storm sibling.
“B-But… WHY?!?!?! Neither one of us has thrown a punch yet!”
“I can’t fight you without going all out.” The polite Mitsuki gives a rather vague response.
Balling his shaking fists, Takato retorts, “That tells me nothing!”
“A fight like this would only inconvenience my father,” The odd leaf shinobi explains as he turns and walks away. “And I’d have to leave his side.”
Bewildered, all the storm ninja can do is watch his would-be opponent leave the ring; he is unsure if he should be happy that he’s moving on to the next round in the exam finals or upset that he was just cheated out of a proper victory.
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“SHOCK, she sucks!” Takato comments, yawning; he stands, leaning against a locker with his arms folded.
Unimpressed, Mai twiddles her thumbs while she sits on a bench and sighs, “I thought she’d put up more of a fight considering that she’s a shinobi of the Hidden Leaf.”
In the waiting room, the Storm Siblings along with two of the sand shinobi watch Shinki’s match with Chocho Akimichi, finding the leaf kunoichi lacking; how she made it this far into the Chunin exams escapes them, even Shikadai’s match with Yodo was more rousing than this tedious flop.
“This ‘fight’--if you can even call it that--will be over soon…” Satoshi glances up from his book to watch the fight, assessing it. “Shinki hasn’t even broken a sweat yet while Chocho can barely get on her feet.”
On the screen Chocho expands in size, rolls up into ball, and spin dashes into Shinki, who produces to giant hands of iron sand to keep her at bay; the prodigy sand ninja holds her off long enough for the leaf shinobi’s jutsu to fail; she falls on her back, exhausted and out of chakra.
“The winner is Shinki of the Hidden Sand!” Lee proclaims.
“You were right, ‘Toshi. At least the battle didn’t go on too long, I would’ve totally fallen asleep.” The middle child shrugs, he performs a few stretches and light exercises to wake himself up.
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Half an hour later, after a short break, the first match of the semi-finals has already begun; Mai Uzumaki versus Shikadai Nara.
“Purple Lightning!” The storm sibling fires off a bolt of violet electricity.
The next head of the Nara Clan backflips away; her jutsu passes over him, just barely missing its mark. Shikadai quickly weaves the hand seal for his clan’s specialty, the Shadow Possession Jutsu; Mai makes a hand sign, producing five shadow clones, and scattering in multiple directions. Mai and her clones all perform cartwheels, front flips, backflips, and shove each other out of the way--all to avoid being caught in their adversary’s living tendril of a shadow.
The storm sibling keeps her gaze focused on the leaf ninja; his eyes dart every which way in an attempt to keep track of all the Mais’ movements and positions. The kunoichi strikes when a moment of opportunity arises, Shikadai’s focus shifts to one of her clones; she lunges at him, prepared to deliver a lariat to his neck. However, it was a feint; the next clan head immediately has his shadow expand outward, in a perfect circle; Mai and her five clones are all caught.
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“My dad and I developed this strategy with Boruto in mind.” Shikadai smirks.
“Ooh, that’s pretty schway,” The kunoichi congratulates her opponent with a grin of her own. “HOWEVER… I’m. Not. Boruto.”
*chirp* *chirp* *chirp*
Alerted to the sound of birds chirping, Shikadai whips his head around to find a sixth shadow clone, just outside the range of his shadow; she has a Purple Lightning ready with his name on it.
Dispelling his jutsu, Shikadai sighs, “Fine, I give up.”
“Mai Uzumaki moves on to the finals!” Rock Lee announces, gesturing to the kunoichi.
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Lee makes his proclamation. “Semi-final match 2! From the Storm, Satoshi versus the Sand’s Araya! Begin!”
Instead of drawing his primary weapon, Araya reaches into his pouch and pulls out several shuriken, throwing them at Satoshi; the storm shinobi channels chakra into his hands, he backhands the first projectile, sending it flying into the others. However, to his surprise, the shuriken suddenly boomerangs back towards him; the Byakugan user evades to the left, but his cheek is still grazed.
Wha–?! Is he using Wind Style to control them…? Satoshi ponders as he draws a kunai, deflecting another shuriken; a beat of sweat runs down his face. …No, the chakra doesn’t feel like a wind jutsu…
*Clang!* *Clang!* *Clang!* *Clang!* *Clang!*
*Clang!* *Clang!* *Clang!* *Clang!* *Clang!*
The silent sand ninja tosses out more and more shuriken, forcing the storm sibling to keep even more projectiles at bay; sparks fly each time his blade makes contact with the possessed weaponry. Feeling the pressure due to the enemy’s shuriken coming at him from all sides, Satoshi swiftly emits chakra from all his chakra points and spins rapidly, repelling the barrage with his Eight Trigrams Palm Rotation.
Taking a deep breath, Satoshi recomposes himself; the veins around his eyes bulge due to the activation of his Byakugan. Try to overwhelm ME, huh? Well two can play at--now that’s odd…
With his near--360-degree vision, the storm ninja sees the chakra strings attached to all the projectiles, controlling them. What’s even stranger is the fact that his foe, Araya, does not appear to have any chakra points; instead, all he spots are more chakra strings connected to the sand shinobi, same as the shuriken.
Oh, right… the Sand Village uses puppets… Satoshi quickly accelerates his rotation speed and expands the radius of his field of vision. “Giant Palm Rotation!”
The diameter of the spinning shield of chakra instantly enlarges, blowing away the puppet as well as the enemy weapons; their proctor is forced to leap back to a safe distance. Satoshi immediately stops rotating, launching an Eight Trigrams Air Palm to his right, at the ceiling, above the audience. Just as a large piece of debris is about to flatten a few spectators, Sarada jumps into the air and reduces the chunk of ceiling to pebbles with a mere punch.
“B-B-But… H-How did you figure it out?!” The real Araya stutters, revealing himself; he trembles with intense anxiety.
Grinning with satisfaction, Satoshi curtly scoffs, “Figure it out yourself.”
“It is over,” Lee shouts, jumping back onto the arena floor. “The winner is Satoshi Uzumaki!”
The eldest storm sibling heads back to the waiting room, clutching his wound; he thinks to himself, I know the Hidden Storm is the new kid on the block, but the other villages really shouldn’t be looking down on us!
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“And now… we move on to the 3rd match of the semi-finals! From the Storm, Takato Uzumaki versus the Sand, Shinki!”
“Wind Style: Vacuum Blade,” Takato blows onto a shuriken he’s spinning, imbuing it with wind chakra in order to increase its sharpness, range and lethality; he eagerly fires the jutsu at his opponent before speedily weaving the Ox, Dog, Dragon, Rat, Dog, Boar, Snake, and Tiger hand signs. “Ninja Art: Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu!”
The Vacuum Shuriken multiplies in number, turning into a volley of wind jutsu projectiles, and converge on their target. However, the stoic sand ninja erects a tall pillar of iron sand, six feet thick, in front of him; it deflects most of them, but was weakened to the point that the final shuriken was able to break through.
Shinki reaches out with an iron tendril and catches the storm ninja’s attack before hurling it into the air; with cool stoicism, he states, “Not bad at all, but it’s still not enough to defeat me.”
“Hmph. Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!”
Just as Takato creates several dozen clones, the sand shinobi sends out a tsunami of iron sand that engulfs the entire arena floor; he goes on to produce a whole menagerie of hovering iron boulders, which all the storm ninja clones jump onto and spread out in every direction.
*BOOM!* *poof*
Leaping onto another iron platform, the startled Takato looks back only to see that one of his clones was suddenly destroyed in an explosion.
He must’ve hidden paper bombs in some of these floating rocks… The storm sibling gulps, his neck hairs stand on end. …I-I’d best be careful…
*BOOM!* *poof* *BOOM!* *poof* *BOOM!* *poof* *BOOM!* *poof*
*BOOM!* *poof* *BOOM!* *poof* *poof* *poof* *poof* *poof* *poof* *BOOM!* *poof* *BOOM!* *poof* *poof* *poof*
Standing dead center in the stadium, Shinki shoots out an Iron Sand Shower, dispelling even more clones; between the exploding boulders and barrage of projectiles, the multiple Takatos try their best to survive, jumping from platform-to-platform in an attempt to get closer to him.
*poof* *poof* *poof*
Just as they are closing the distance, Shinki proceeds to surf on the floor with his iron sand, moving along the arena’s edge; the few Takatos that managed to get close enough to actually engage in melee combat are quickly dispatched by sand tentacles. However, more and more of the storm sibling’s shadow clones are converging on the Magnet Style-user, forcing him to propel himself in the air with his iron sand; the way the sand stream moves is reminiscent of a snake slithering. The Takatos all hurry after him, platforming their way up the sand ninja’s sand boulders.
*BOOM!* *poof* *BOOM!* *poof*
“On my father’s honor, I will defeat you here and now.” Shinki says, ascending higher and higher.
“Would you shut the shock up?! You sound JUST like my brother.”
*poof* *poof* *BOOM!* *poof* *poof* *poof*
Hopping onto the stream of iron sand, the red-headed ninja dashes up it and continues his chase, blood roaring in his ears; he perform the Scorch Style: Super Steam Kill, creating several flaming orbs in order to bombard the sand ninja, who shoot back a fairly large block of iron sand; to everyone’s surprise, not only is Takato’s jutsu smothered out, Shinki’s construct becomes unstable, becoming a pile sand that harmlessly falls to the ground.
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“What just happened?” Gaara asks, stunned; even with a stoic expression, his jaw still finds a way to drop, if slightly.
“Magnets lose their charge when heated.” A proud Jin explains, leaning back in his chair; he grins from ear-to-ear. …THANK YOU, Justice League…
Stroking his chin, Rito goes on to add, “They don’t JUST lose their charge, they become irreversibly demagnetized.”
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“More. Show me more of your power!” Shinki says ominously; the iron sand coating his body bristles like a cat’s fur.
The sand ninja makes a U-turn, plummeting back down to the stadium where a squad of four shadow clones patiently wait for him; they lunge at him from all sides, each with a kunai in hand. They each hack away at the iron sand; some have infused their weapons with scorch chakra, demagnetizing more of Shinki’s sand.
One of the storm shinobi scoffs, “Be patient. The grand finale will come soon enough!”
While the Takatos prepare to run their opponent through in a four-way pincer attack, the crafty sand ninja has his iron sand immediately envelop him in a protective dome; at lightning speeds, the sand barrier sprouts a horde of spikes in all directions, skewering the clones.
In spite of Shinki’s impressive display, the audience’s attention is drawn upwards as a brilliant orange glow mysteriously begins to emanate from the sky, it’s Takato holding aloft a red-orange sphere of spiraling chakra; it gives off an intense heat, creating a slight haze that shrouds the caster.
“Try this on for size,” A determined Takato roars; he comes rocketing down, thrusting his jutsu forward. “Scorch Style: Rasengan!”
The red-haired shinobi divebombs the iron sand dome, plowing his jutsu into it; his Rasengan blasts right through the shield and causes a massive explosion, resulting in a thick cloud of smoke; everyone is on pins and needles, waiting in anticipation.
The dust gradually clears, revealing Takato standing alone in the center of the arena, surrounded by molten iron; he’s hunched over on his knees, breathing heavily.
MAN, this guy’s stubborn… The Storm Sibling thinks while sweat pours out of his face. “Heh… H-Had… *huff* *huff* …enough y-yet…? *huff*”
“Most impressive… I’m starting to see why the Hidden Storm Village was made into the 6th Great Ning village. HOWEVER…” Shinki’s voice reverberates throughout the stadium.
The storm ninja slowly turns around to see a mound of sand rise up, molding itself into the sand ninja; a pair of giant hands made of iron sand are formed, floating just above their caster with a cord of electricity connecting them.
With a single beat of sweat running down his face, the sand shinobi gives an intense glare and says, “I’ll prove to everyone, right here and now, why the Hidden Sand is the greatest among them…!”
