It was becoming increasingly difficult to expand the chakra projection beyond it's current size the further I refined the technique. The biggest issue I was coming to face was the absolutely monstrous amount of chakra control needed to use it. For most jutsu or techniques involving chakra there was a certain rule of thumb that applied. Basically a jutsu must either be vague in what it did or only require a small area of chakra exertion. This was why even jutsu like [water dragon bullet] only created vague constructs that followed specific rules that were simple to understand.-
Techniques that broke this rule of thumb like my own or Narutos porcupine like technique came at heavy costs and difficulty as a result. Generally however the trade off was well worth it as these same jutsu and techniques tend to be very powerful. My own work in progress [chakra armor] technique was considered high A ranked and it wasn't even a quarter complete! Narutos technique was probably also A ranked though on the lower end of the spectrum because it wasn't all that powerful but had a bunch of utility.-
Anyways the village was getting rather crowded as merchants and foreign shinobi came to watch and bet on the tournament. Amongst them were the Fourth Kazekage and the wind Daimyo who were in an awkward position. It was sort of an open secret but the fourth Kazekage and current Wind Daimyo did NOT get along. Supposedly the reason for this was because the Kazekage named Rasa had sent one of the Suna's most powerful shinobi on a suicide mission because she was a threat to his reign as Kazekage. I was of course referring to Pakura of the scorch release who was an elite jonin of Suna that was very close to being an S ranked ninja.-
Her power and respected war history meant that she could vie for control over the village with Rasa and so he had her sent on an "ambassador" mission in the land of water but betrayed her causing her death but blaming the matter on Iwagakure(hidden stone). The wind Daimyo was VERY unhappy with this since not only was Pakura an amazingly powerful and talented kunoichi but she was also someone the man knew as a friend. As a result of Rasa's decision the Daimyo started cutting Suna off from funding via missions and political support effectively starving the village.-
Rasa was lucky however as he was a user of the magnet release kekkai genkai and specifically could control and manipulate gold sand. Thanks to this he was able to drag out gold from the desert sands that he sold to fund the village and keep it afloat if only just. Unlike the fire Daimyo I whole heartedly approved of the wind Daimyo on my first meeting. His clothes were bulking and covered him in a way that made it difficult to notice but he was not some untrained scrub and had some power to him.-
Nothing extreme but from his chakra reserve and musculature I'd estimate that he was easily as strong a upper rank chunin. He also wasn't some wishy washy minded person like the fire Daimyo and but clearly a man who knew what the hell his job was and did it with a firm will, I approved. The Kazekage gave me chills however when I first met him. His gaze was cold and almost predatory and his chakra reserves were very large though less than the Hokages. I also got this weird sense of deja vu when I saw him.-
I couldn't quite put my finger on it though so I just filed him under "avoid unless absolutely necessary" and moved on. I checked with the bookies that were hosting the gambling this time and saw the odds for the participants. I hedged my bets a little and put fifty thousand ryo on Shikamaru, Gaara, Naruto, Sasuke and Neji. Shikamaru had five to one odds, Naruto had twenty to one odds, Gaara had fifty to one odds just like Sasuke. Neji had slightly better odds than Naruto at thirty to one odds.-
It was pretty obvious that most people believed that Sasuke and Gaara were going to be the ones competing for the top spot in the tournament before it even started. Personally I thought Shikamaru was getting rather unfortunately disregarded when his clans technique was a threat to everyone except maybe Gaara who only needed his mind to control his sand. The [shadow puppetry] jutsu was nasty in that it forced the one it was used on to do as the user does. This meant that if you had a pouch of kunai in a spot Shikamaru didn't he could force you to draw one and slit your own throat with it without any risk to himself.-
The catch to that just however was that if the person who it was used on was much stronger than Shikamaru himself then the just could be fought against and even broken free from since it forced Shikamaru to experience the strain of the other person. The jutsu also required the user to have a shadow to stretch to be used. It probably didn't need to be said but the Nara clan were nightmares to deal with at night.-
The tournament was in single elimination format so a bad match up meant you lost, period. The first round of match up was interesting as well when they were finally announced to open the betting pool on them. It was Naruto VS Neji, Temari VS Shikamaru, Kankuro VS Shino and Sasuke VS Gaara. I wasted no time at all dropping fifty million on Naruto to win even though they gave him one hundred to one odds of it. That was an extremely large amount of money but I was confident that my friend was going to introduce Neji to the ground after what the Hyuga did to Hinata.-
Everyone looked at me like I was an idiot for putting so much money on a losing bet but I wasn't going to explain myself to these people.
"You sure is was a good idea to put so much money on Naruto to win like that? Neji is quite the prodigy you know?" Guy asked curiously.
"I know he's talented but he did the one thing you don't want to do if you hope to beat Naruto, piss him off. That guys stubborn as a mountain as far as staying down is concerned if you get him angry." I said honestly.
"Sounds like a Neji might really have his work cut out for him then. For what it's worth try not to be too harsh on him, his situation is not a pleasant one." Guy said seriously.
"I don't blame him for lashing out like he did given his situation but he went too far with Hinata." I said calmly and Guy nodded in agreement.