Naruto: Tales of Ashihara
Kakumei – Arc 3: Naruto Next Generation
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Chapter 76 – The Labyrinth II
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It's been over a day and half since the participants got between the walls of the Labyrinth. So far, Team 1 of Konoha (Boruto, Izuna and Inoue), Team Omoi from Kumo (Aoki, Ru and Yukai), Team Shinki from Suna (Shinki, Mira and Shakiro), Team Brown from Iwa (Kaza, Abachi and Genki), and Team Mizuno from Kiri (Teru, Mariko and Mio) are among the only 6 teams with more than enough scroll to pass, along with Kawaki's squad from Hikari.
The members of Team Mizuno from Kiri, at this moment, have 4 scrolls each that they collected by eliminating 3 foreign teams. They only need to find the exit of the labyrinth to finally get out of it and be done with this survival test. Carefully walking through the maze, they stay aware of Mariko's signals to detect enemies.
The young, blonde, thin girl has sent water birds fly at high speed all around the maze. These birds, by blowing up, will give her location of a potential nearby enemy. Since no bird had been detonated for a while, the team went at ease.
"Teru…" Mio says to break the silence, curious about something. "I know that your mom is a medic-nin and is originally from the land of Wind, but I didn't know until 3 days ago that she had a secret healing jutsu."
"Uh? Who told you that?" asks Teru, who's sure he never mentioned this himself.
"My mom did." rapidly answers Mio. "But this got me wondering… Your mom can probably pass this jutsu down to you, can't she?"
"She can, yes." the young Uchiha explains. "She even begged me to learn it many times, but I don't want to for now. The Sharingan and its abilities already require a lot of time and training to be mastered, especially if I don't have any experienced person to teach me."
"I see… I was worried that my role in the team was actually pointless if you were a medic too." Mio says.
"What?" Teru exclaims. "Don't say things like that! Even if I was a medic, I'd be far from being as good as you."
"Teru is right and wrong." comments Mariko, who's still focusing on her birds. "Your Sharingan would make learning all the theoretical side of medical Ninjutsu way easier, and it would help you master jutsus faster. So I think you actually wouldn't need much time to become better than Mio at her thing."
Teru and Mio stare at each other with wide open eyes, both kind of disappointed by the unpleasant but honest speech of their teammate. To not be fully negative, Mariko adds:
"But Mio, even if Teru was a medic, we'd still need you. His combat skills are way too important to be left behind. We wouldn't afford to not let him take part in battles, and this would imply the risk of getting him injured. So we wouldn't rely on him as our only medic."
"I see!" happily says Mio. "So Teru, the day you learn this secret jutsu and become a medic-nin, I'll be your personal healer."
Teru looks at her shyly for a moment, unsure of what to say, before bringing everyone back to reality.
"I don't want to learn this jutsu. I don't want to be a medic." he says. "I'm an Uchiha. I'm made for combat. My skills are Genjutsu and Ninjutsu. No Medical Ninjutsu. Plus it's better if not every Uchiha ends up becoming a medic, since Izuna seemingly took this path."
"Someone's close!" interrupts Mariko who just felt one of her birds being destroyed by a lightning bolt. "Just around that corner."
The 3 Kiri-nin stand still, waiting for their adversaries to reveal themselves from around that wall.
Ranton – Koga
They see a light strand pass by at high speed, but Teru, with his Sharingan activated, still could see the direction it came from, since this jutsu was way slower and less powerful than its Rikudo Senjutsu version.
"On the right!" he tells his teammates, being also heard by the enemy team who was waiting for a life sign.
Having already prepared their jutsus, the two teams only wait for one of them to get out of hiding, which the other team does first. Teru, Mio and Mariko see a team of Kumo-nin, Aoki, Ru and Yukai emerge from behind the wall. Aoki and Ru shoot a combined jutsu to the Kiri-nin team.
Suiton – Suijinheki
Raiton – Denki Shuriken
Aoki releases a large wall of water that runs through the way toward them, and Ru throws electric projectiles that lighten the barrier up. The members of Team Mizuno are first surprised by this high-level jutsu. This team is certainly not at its first chunin exam. But they can't let them win this easily. Teru and Mio step forward and throw their counter to this offensive.
Katon – Gokakyu
Futon – Toppa
They combine their elements to fight off the water wall. Combined with wind, the flames are too strong to be extinguished by water, and the wind also fights off the lightning that fills the wave, making the Kiri-nin's jutsu win over. However, the simple sheer power of the water style user is enough to prevent the fire from going any further as well.
The two combined jutsus just stop each other and result in a thick cloud of mist quickly settling between the two teams. On Team Mizuno's side, Mariko reacts first. She makes a water blade in her hand and leaps forward through the fog to boldly engage the enemy team.
Unfortunately, she's stopped by a kick in the belly that neither she or her teammates could see coming. Yukai used his Kekkei Genkai, Koton, to blitz through the mist and confront the opponents first. He sends Mariko fluttering and crashing into a wall, stunned, and then rushes to Teru.
With his Dojutsu active, the Uchiha receives his opponent and carefully reads through his movements to dodge him. He quickly feels surpassed by his speed but tries to keep up the best he can. Yukai, surprised by the enemy's attention, naively looks up to follow his gaze and makes eye contact with the pair of Sharingan.
"What?" he says, as he recognizes the eyes he may have learned about in a forgotten past.
"Couldn't anticipate that, huh?" says Teru as he casts an illusion through his gaze and forces the Kumo-nin to fall almost unconscious.
Just as he falls forward, Yukai is promptly kicked away by Teru who sends him behind. The mist finishes settling and leaves Aoki and Ru to see their teammate already down on the other side. Aoki sighs, unhappy despite being used to this kind of situation, and leaps forward.
Instead of aiming for Teru, she goes for Mio who blocks her by crossing her arms. She contained the first punch, but is still hurt in her forearms. This hit was remarkably strong. She already has trouble moving her arms. Teru, who'd like to help his friend, is intercepted by Ru who tries to strike him with an electric blade.
Katon – Honoha
Using the very first jutsu his father ever taught him, Teru makes a fire blade in his hand that he uses to counter the lighting of Ru. The two of them confront their elementary blades in a sword fight for a moment while Teru is also paying attention to Mio's situation. Seeing her struggle, he decides to balance the battles.
He slides his flaming blade along Ru's electric one and reaches for his fingers that he severs and burns. He then rushes to Aoki and pushes her off-guard with his shoulder, away from Mio. Ru who's coming to follow Teru is now face to face with Mio instead while Aoki stands up in front of the Uchiha.
"Mio, how about switching opponents?" Teru says, looking at her with a smile.
Mio doesn't answer and just smiles back. She then looks at Ru who's coming to her running, hoping to leap past and get back at Teru.
Futon – Toppa
She uses the same jutsu again to repel the Kumo-nin away with a push of wind. Meanwhile, Aoki hurries to stand up and tries to perform a jutsu, but Teru jumps closer and stops her hands. He engages her in hand-to-hand combat, preventing her from using Ninjutsu. At Taijutsu, he easily copies and counters all her moves.
Aoki, going with all her strength, gets frustrated by the ease with which her opponent blocks her attacks. At some points, it feels like he is mirroring her moves and sometimes even outpacing her. This behavior, she recognizes it. It must be the power of the Uchiha clan's Sharingan that the 4th Raikage taught her about. Despite knowing about it, she doesn't have any clue about how to counter it in this situation and can only desperately keep going.
Then suddenly, in between the Raikage's daughter and the Sharingan user, Yukai leaps in, having broken out of the Genjutsu he was trapped in. Teru stares at him agape, wondering how he could recover so quickly, before a black lightning bolt emerges from the Kumo-nin's right shoulder and strikes him, rendering Teru paralyzed. Aoki, seeing an opening, goes forth.
Lariat
She hits Teru with her biceps in the neck and violently slams him to the ground while he's still stunned by the black lightning. He crashes down, defeated. Mio, who was still holding Ru away with Futon, is distracted by the sudden noise and turns around to see her second teammate down.
"Teru!" she exclaims worriedly, letting her focus off her opponent who takes advantage of it.
Raiton – Denki Yari
Ru throws an electric spear that hits Mio and sends her crashing against the wall, just next to where Yukai landed. She also falls unconscious, defeated. Aoki, Ru and Yukai, coming out as winners of this encounter, stretch for a moment, before proceeding with collecting their prizes.
"You used Dad's Black Lightning." comments Aoki as she finds the 4 scrolls kept by Teru and takes them for herself, a bit upset at being reminded about her dad's odd heir choice.
"Yeah… I was told Sage Chakra could help in undoing a Genjutsu, so I let this out." answers Yukai who stays against the wall, looking as Ru gets Mio's scrolls. "It was quick, but they were strong. That guy's red eyes… I think I heard of this power before…"
"It's the Uchiha clan' Sharingan." Aoki explains. "Lord 4th told me about it. It has the power to read and copy all movements, making the user able to easily master a jutsu, and it also has a kaleidoscopic gaze that traps whoever crosses it in an illusion."
"Yeah well… I saw that. And I didn't see it coming." Yukai mocks his own self.
"Worst about this Dojutsu is that it can evolve to grant the user atrocious power." Aoki adds. "It can make him on par with a Kage. Lord 4th actually lost his arm against someone with that eye."
"This makes it 8 more." says Ru, the third member of the team interrupting their chat.
"Well, the blonde girl may have 4 more with her." says Aoki, leaving the chit chat as well. "Where is she?" she adds as she doesn't see Mariko lying where she landed earlier.
Suiton – Mizudori
From the end of this hallway, a huge water bird hovers to the Kumo team and hunts them away from Mariko's teammates by strongly flapping its wings. It then grabs Teru and Mio with its legs and hurries to fly away as fast as possible.
Having been caught off guard, Aoki and her teammates just let it happen. However, they still got 8 new scrolls, added to the 3 each of them already had. They will decide how to share these prizes with a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors.
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Somewhere else in the Labyrinth, Shinki and his team are walking around, each carrying 2 scrolls only, distinctively attached to their belts. Each of them actually has 8 scrolls, but most of them are hidden in Shinki's iron sand cloak. They already found the exit and are now just calmly walking to it, estimating that they've defeated enough teams to secure the top ranking of this trial, though still disappointed that they didn't find the golden scroll.
Behind them, Team 14 of Konoha (Rebekka Tabiki, Metal Lee and Namonaki) quietly pass by and see them at the other end of a very long corridor. Lee makes a frightened face and holds his breath. He recognizes the son of the Kazekage with his iron cloak and remembers the advice that Rebekka gave him earlier about one of this guy's teammates. Mira Fuhatsu, the girl on Shinki's left, apparently has an increased hearing ability that could make her detect them with just the sound of their breaths.
Namonaki, who also noticed them, quietly continues to walk past the corridor to simply go away. He makes a sign to his teammates to tell them to come too. Lee, staying silent to avoid being heard by Mira, agrees and follows. However, Rebekka, not as careful as her teammates, stays in the way. She lets out a little blow from her nose, out of confidence.
This tiny breathing noise is heard by the Suna girl and alerts her. Mira turns around and sees the 3 ninjas of Konoha.
"Behind us." she says to her teammates who all turn around and see Rebekka and Lee. Namonaki already walked away, out of their scope, hidden behind a wall.
Lee trembles in panic. Namonaki makes a quiet facepalm, once again frustrated by Rebekka's behavior. He decides to run away and find his teammates later at the already has all the scrolls he needs, so it's just their problem if they get robbed. Rebekka is more positive.
"I know we got enough scrolls and already found the exit." she says to Lee. "But these guys piss me off just by their looks. I'm sure they spent the whole exam looking down on people. I just wanna teach them a little lesson."
Shinki raises an eyebrow. He is not impressed, but intrigued by what this girl, who's 4 years older than him, says. Her assumption isn't all wrong, but she certainly doesn't have any proof to defend it. It's likely just an excuse she makes to justify her stubbornness. He sees her step forward.
"Come on, Lee. It's in and out. 20 seconds." she says. "You just run through, I get the scrolls. As simple as that."
Metal Lee is still trembling while looking at Shinki, Mira and Shakiro's unbothered looks. Rebekka starts to run forward and performs a quick series of hand seals.
Katon – Goendan
She fires a huge fire bullet through the corridor that heads straight to the 3 way team. This attack is way too chaotic for the narrow hallway, but Shinki reacts calmly and quickly. He elevates himself off the ground and unleashes an iron arm from his mantle. The giant hand firmly grabs the fire ball and stops its progression. Next to him, Mira covers her ears, deafened by the blaze and collision's noise.
"I knew it!" says Rebekka as she runs unseen and unheard following her fireball. "Loud is too loud, isn't it?"
She passes under her fire bullet and leaps up to attack Mira, out of Shinki's sight. Mira, only a few seconds before being hit, sees the girl's silhouette coming from above, and reacts despite the noise.
Kami Shibari
She makes a hand sign and manipulates her hair to go grab on Rebekka's wrists that she is holding forward. However, this is exactly what the Konoha-nin expected. She now uses the blonde girl's hair to balance her lower body forward and, close enough, kicks Mira in the chin. The Suna kunoichi is lifted off the ground and falls back a few meters away. Brought with her in the fall, Rebekka frees herself from the hair's hold and gently grabs the 2 scrolls attached on Mira's sleeve.
Shinki sees the two girls in his peripheral view a bit too late and hurries to dissipate the fire to free himself. Shakiro next to him notices Rebekka running away in their back and turns around. But Shinki's attention, as soon as done with the fire, is brought to Metal Lee who stands still with his fists clenched.
"Ok, ok… I got this… All out. All out." Lee keeps saying to reassure himself and find the courage to do so. "All out. All out! ALL OUT!"
Hachimon Tonkou – Seimon
The young Taijutsu expert opens the 3rd gate of Life, as taught by his father, and leaps forward full of determination, under Shinki's shocked eyes. The son of the Kazekage recognizes a power that his father told him about. Shakiro pulls out a sword and steps forward ready to confront the Taijutsu user. Gaara's son is less optimistic.
"Step Back!" he orders to his friend before enclosing his own self in his mantle that he shapes into an egg shaped barrier around himself.
He stays hidden, hoping that his opponent won't break through. After a few seconds, confused by the long wait, he looks out of his cover and sees Lee, having deactivated his transformation, simply running away with Rebekka in his back and taking a turn. Shakiro, who stood back as Shinki advised, sees them leaving and prepares to follow.
"Don't." Shinki orders again.
"But they got Mira's scrolls!" complains Shakiro.
"This kind of occurrence was the point of leaving only 2 scrolls exposed like this." Shinki answers to explain his order. "And going after them is too risky. This power we've just seen. Hachimon, the 8 gates of wonder. I was told by my father about this. No man can match this strength. I heard it could even take down a tailed beast."
"Really?" asks Shakiro, doubting this excessive description.
"We have far enough scrolls and the exit is just here. We're not taking any more risks." Shinki decides.
Mira stands up just now and shakes her head, confused by what happened. She looks around and doesn't see Rebekka or her squad anymore.
"Crap! That bitch really figured me out just by the little conversation we had yesterday!" she complains, remembering her short interaction with Rebekka before entering the maze.
"She got you good." says Shinki. "But she only took 2 scrolls. We still have 22, which makes 7 each at least. We should leave now."
"Yeah… I guess we couldn't spend the whole game beating up teams without getting some karma back at us…" Mira complains while standing up.
The team calmly goes forward and leaves the field.
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Only a few minutes remain now until the end of the second step. Not far from the exit, Team Mizuno is recovering from their latest loss. Teru opens his eyes as he is being healed by Mio. He sees Mariko standing quietly next to them. Mio, noticing him awake, gently smiles and helps him to sit up. Teru notices her still looking hurt.
"You're the medic so you can't heal your own self…" he says, sadly.
"Don't worry. You're fine at least." she answers.
"… We lost our scrolls didn't we?" he adds, still with the same tone.
"It's not your fault. Not ours either." Mio exclaims. "The daughter of the Raikage… We had no chance anyway."
"I was beating her!" exclaims Teru. "It's that guy with the Black Lightning. I should have double checked to make sure he was down."
"Be glad they didn't double check on me." says Mariko who holds two of her scrolls up in her hand.
"You still have yours?" Teru asks. "Where are the two others?"
Mio pulls out the two others that Mariko gave her. As only 2 scrolls are needed to pass on, they decided to share the few they still have. Teru looks at them, and gets full of hope for a moment.
"What are we waiting for then?" he exclaims as he stands up. "We just gotta find one team to rob and we'll have enough for all of us!"
"It's too late, Teru." says Mariko, in a straight blank tone. "I found the exit. It's just 100 meters ahead. But there's just a few minutes left before we're disqualified. We have to leave now."
Teru stops and thinks it through, but doesn't find an answer. Leaving now necessarily means leaving one or two members of the squad to fail. He sighs and lets his shoulders down. Mio stands up and comes to stand in front of him. She takes a deep breath in, grabs her friend's hands and leaves the two scrolls to him. The Uchiha looks down to see the prizes and shakes his head.
"No. You can't do that." he says. "You'll be disqualified. Keep them. I'll take the loss."
"Teru… The exam isn't over yet." she says as she raises her hands to hold on Teru's shoulders. "Mariko earned hers, so she obviously gets to pass. And I… am just a medic. In the 3rd act, I'd just lose without much resistance. You're different. You can win. You handled that girl back then."
Teru doesn't answer and just stares at her agape, then looks down shamefully. He still makes a sorry face, feeling unworthy of this qualification opportunity. Mio raises a hand to his cheek and raises it to make him look at her eyes again.
"Stop thinking about being the one to sacrifice." she tells him, with a glad smile. "I can wait a few more years if I have to. I don't need to be a Chunin now. But you, I'm sure your friends from other lands expect to see you in the 3rd part tournament. You deserve to pass."
Teru slowly raises his arm, to hold on to Mio's hand that she has on his cheek, but stops before reaching it. He shies away, simply takes a deep breath in, and accepts her trust.
"I won't waste this. I promise." he says as he firmly holds the two scrolls in his other hand.
Their discussion is interrupted by Mariko who's bored face gets in between them. The 3rd member of the team, feeling like she'll end up third wheeling here, brings the focus back on the current situation.
"Can we leave now?" she asks.
Teru and Mio embarrassingly look at each other and then at Mariko. They nod and follow her to the exit.
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At the exit, only a few of the hundred teams who got in come and leave their scrolls to the examiners. Standing near the gate to the outside, Maroi and Narui from Kumo's Team Atsui are standing, waiting for nothing. Since they lost track of Saeko, their third teammate, they encountered other teams and monsters across the maze, but held dear to their prizes. They still only have one scroll each, but from the same team.
"If we at least had two scrolls from different teams, one of us could pass by taking both." says Maroi. "But with this… We're just fucked."
"Hold on, I'm waiting for someone to return." says Narui.
"Who? Saeko?" Maroi thinks at first, but takes Narui's unsure face as a negative answer. "One of your clones? You seriously think one of them could get a scroll alone, make it through the whole place and bring it to us?"
"No. It's not a scroll I was looking for. But look." she adds as she sees a clone of hers approach.
Narui uses a unique variation of the well known Kage Bunshin that allows her to make up to 10 clones by splitting her chakra. Each of these clones is as strong and durable as the original. She can keep track continuously of all her clones as they all share some kind of hive connection. However, it costs her all the chakra given to the clone, which means one clone costs at least a tenth of her resources.
This single clone that she sent alone in the maze to find Saeko comes back to them. Just as she reaches Maroi and the original Narui, she shakes her head to calm her teammate's enthusiasm, and hands over what she found. The scroll that Saeko was carrying when she disappeared. She found it lying somewhere in the field, but not the wielder. The clone found a trail of Doton prints left by Saeko, but this trail abruptly stopped in the middle of nowhere.
"Shit. Narui! I'll have a panic attack!" exclaims Maroi, hardly breathing. "Where is she? Where's Saeko?"
"Hey, calm down." says Narui, trying to reassure her. "Okay, she lost her scroll, so she certainly won't pass this step of the exam. But that's the worst that can happen to her. This event is professionally organized by the 5 great nations and the Kage council. We're in an era of peace. The goal is only to judge our level, not to really put us in danger. As soon as the time is out, they'll send dozens of ninjas inside to find the participants who didn't make it to the exit…"
Seeing that Maroi is still not reassured, she goes on.
"No participant was gonna want to kill others. Most people at our level don't even have what it takes in terms of jutsu and abilities to end a life. And all those monsters and animals we've seen were clearly tamed not to kill us. Everything is safe. Nothing actually dangerous could have happened. The Raikage wouldn't allow it. The 7th Hokage wouldn't allow it."
Maroi calms down, closes her eyes, and tries to think positively. She reassures herself. Narui is right. There's no way something bad actually happened to Saeko. Worst case is she is injured, but it can't be anything that won't pass after at most a week. Sure she failed the exam for the second time, but after this, she'll be glad just to see Saeko again.
"I guess now, since Saeko's scroll isn't from the same team as ours. One of us could take it and pass on to the last step." suggests Narui.
"Take it." says Maroi. "You're stronger than me. You have more chances to make it."
Narui, happy with that answer, smiles and nods before running off to finally exit the Labyrinth.
The third girl of the team, Saeko, has unfortunately been buried under the maze by Kawaki and his colleagues, who needed to hide away the evidence of their crimes. They did the same for the remains of the mountain bison. The only evidence left is what Boruto, Izuna and Inoue witnessed.
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At the front, a few minutes later, the bell rings for the end of the second part of this Chunin exam.
Tenten is here, seeing the teams exit one by one and collecting their scrolls. Boruto, Izuna and Inoue come by, giving only 1 scroll each, plus the one golden scroll, which is exactly the minimum needed to guarantee a place to the next step. The Weapon Specialist of Konoha raises her eyebrows in surprise and congratulates the team.
"We were pretty sure a team of your caliber would get this one!" she says. "So what did you think of the giant bull?"
Izuna and Inoue look at each other, remembering the horrific context in which they found the mentioned creature. Izuna, feeling uneasy about this, breathes in, ready to explain what worrying events they witnessed. Before he can pronounce a word, Boruto speaks up faster.
"Bull? What bull? We ain't seen no bull!" he exclaims. "We got the scroll from another team."
Izuna turns around, confused and quietly angered, by Boruto's unreasonable choice. He did say that they didn't defeat the bull, but he lies that they didn't even see it. The Hokage's son avoids eye contact with them and shortly looks back to see Kawaki, Mikitaka and Iwabe behind them in the line. He quickly exchanges a gaze with Kawaki and tries to guess what he's thinking.
"Really what team was it?" Tenten asks, a bit surprised by this scenario.
Boruto pauses for a moment and thinks. If he tells about it now, Kawaki will be at the very least disqualified, and he may never meet him again if such a thing happens. The tournament of this exam seems to be the best possible setting for a rematch.
"That's a good question." he says to Tenten. "Quite funnily, we couldn't even figure that out. They were using a camouflage jutsu so we barely saw them. I did catch a glimpse of one dude, but he didn't have a headband of anything, so I don't know…"
"… I guess it was part of the game after all." answers Tenten, staying positive. "And honestly, I don't doubt kids like you would have bodied this bull anyway!"
She turns around and notes their name on a board, on a special spot above a ranking of teams.
"What's this?" asks Inoue.
"The ranking of this step of the exam." explains Tenten. "Come back in about a few minutes and you'll have it completed."
They leave and join the other teams who also reached the end, celebrating about their success or complaining about their defeat. Boruto hurries to run away to avoid Izuna's scolding. The Uchiha looks at his teammate leaving after shamelessly telling nonsense to the proctor in order to cover a potential criminal. Inoue worriedly looks at Izuna. She knows that, even if it pisses him off, he'll have to cover that lie too now, without which Boruto will get into serious troubles as well.
Boruto joins Rebekka who's visibly bragging about something in front of her teammates and other people, including Kaza's team of Iwa and Teru's team.
"That girl was deafened by just the sound of stupid fire!" she yells around. "Super hearing or not, I sneaked on her, kicked her in the face and ran off with the scrolls."
"What you talking about, Sis?" asks Boruto, already getting over his worries.
"She's telling how she tricked the team of the Kazekage's son." says Kaza from Iwa.
"So you pass, all three?" adds Boruto, asking Rebekka, Lee and Namonaki, who all just nod in response.
"And not thanks to Namo! What about you?" asks Rebekka, ironically, laughing even before getting her obvious answer.
"And y'all?" Boruto asks the others.
"We pass of course." says Kaza Kamizuru. "We're in the top ranked squads. Of course we pass."
"My friends pass, but sadly I don't." answers Mio.
Boruto shrugs his shoulders, to show kind of compassion, even though he has no clue who this girl is. Next to her however he sees a face he may have seen before.
"Do I know you?" he asks the boy sitting next to her.
"Come on, Boruto. You really don't recognize him?" asks Lee. "I know it's been 5 years but still…"
"Teru?" exclaims the Hokage's son who guessed right. "It's you! How you doing?" he adds, going to sit next to him.
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Meanwhile, Izuna, who's roaming around looking for familiar faces with Inoue to change his mind, sees Misora, Megane and Shiba sadly sitting in a corner. Shiba is just emptily staring in the distance while the two girls are crying. Worried about them, Izuna goes to see them.
"You didn't make it?" he asks after quietly greeting them, trying not to look rude.
None of them answers. Inoue looks up to Shiba who she supposed is more likely to speak in this situation, despite his usual timidity. The Inuzuka notices her gaze and provides a short answer.
"We had 2 scrolls each. We found the exit, but we ran into much stronger than us." he explains.
Inoue stares at Izuna, who makes a saddened face out of empathy.
"They didn't even need our scrolls. They had 6 sets already!" complains Misora, feeling dumb for being so positive about it before it started.
"6? And with yours it makes 8?" asks Inoue, surprised by this excessive score.
"That's totally unnecessary!" exclaims Izuna. "This shouldn't be about bringing others down. What appeal is there to this? Whose team was it?"
"Sabaku no Shinki and his squad." answers Shiba, seeing that his teammates don't reply.
Izuna turns around and sees the team in question standing in front of the now complete ranking board, modestly cheering for their achievements while Shinki himself stays as calm and unreadable as usual. Izuna stares at them with contempt.
"I hope I'll face him in the tournament." he says. "I'll gladly bring him to the ground for you."
Misora and Megane look up, after washing their tears away, to their former classmate, son of their model, swearing to avenge them. Misora smiles, happy about Izuna's concern. Inoue doesn't. She doesn't like battles becoming personal, and likes it even less with Izuna involved.
Many teams get closer to the fully filled board to see the names displayed as such with the numbers of scrolls they got:
0. Konoha Team 1: Boruto Hyuga, Inoue Yamanaka, Izuna Uchiha
1. Suna Team Shinki: Mira Fuhatsu (7), Shakiro Araya (7), Sabaku no Shinki (8)
2. Hikari Team 0: Kawaki (7), Mikitaka (7), Iwabe Yogu (7)
3. Kumo Team Omoi: Aoki Yotsuki (6), Ru (6), Yukai (5)
4. Iwa Team Brown: Abachi Shintaro (5), Genki Shintaro (5), Kaza Kamizuru (5)
5. Ame Team C: Chinoka Zuka (4), Hibitsuna Katagiri (5), Haruna Wazuka (4)
Added to these teams, Team 14 of Konoha (Rebekka, Namonaki and Lee), Team Minaa of Kumo (Tarui, Toroi and Yurui) and Team Kokoro of Kiri (Kaori, Yukiko and replacement member Jinbei) also get to the tournament. Other participants without their full team get to the next step, including Teru Uchiha, Mariko Uchida, Narui, and 2 women from Suna called Yome Horikawa and Mariona Shirogane.
These are the 32 participants selected to pass to the next step, just enough for an actual tournament to take place. In just a few days, the match-ups will be revealed and the genins will have a long month of rest to prepare for this last part of the International Chunin Exam.
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End of Chapter 76 – Next Chapter: To the last step