[Reupload: Fixed the weird chapter sequences!]
'Dark Release: Inhaling Maw!'
Suguru made a preemptive strike. While they were still arrogant and sure of their easy win, he would catch them by surprise.
"Haaaap!"
Inhaling a huge breath of air, Suguru also consumed a huge portion of everyone's chakra. It was to the point that a stream of blue could be seen leaving the bodies of his enemies.
"What—?"
Hit by a sudden and immense wave of nausea, the whole platoon of rag-tag allies faltered. Their bodies felt weak all of a sudden. They were struggling to move.
Suguru took this opportunity to move.
'Shadow Clone Jutsu!'
He poured the excess chakra he inhaled into his clones as a last-minute resort, using it all for his technique instead of feeding it to his body.
Two dozen clones appeared beside him.
Then, they all hurriedly built up their chakra and flickered away before anyone could keep them in place.
It was a swift dispersion, coupled with identical clones who all fled into the Land of Fire.
'This should be enough,' Suguru thought as he flickered repeatedly.
A discovery had arrived as a gift: Inhaling Maw had an upper limit. Suguru was incapable of consuming all the chakra in the bodies of his enemies.
He could only devour that which his reserves could absorb. Therefore, killing them by simply consuming their chakra was impossible unless he focused only on a single target.
Perhaps if he had the chakra reserves of a fully developed Naruto, then it would've been possible. Unfortunately for Suguru, his limits were clear.
Such a fact applied even when he used his shadow clones. If he were to absorb chakra to fill each of his clones' reserves, Suguru had a feeling that he would explode due to the massive influx of energy. That, or he could create a chakra cloak.
Suguru didn't know. Therefore, he didn't take any risks.
Now that he was likely going to be promoted to a chuunin, he would have the leeway to test it out. He just had to be patient.
He had to stay out of trouble to avoid randomly losing his life.
***
Time passed as Suguru continued to evade pursuit. His clones were being eliminated with every passing hour. However, Suguru knew that they would be unable to find him.
He already had Chakra Field Hacking activated. Their sensor-nins had already combed through his general location multiple times yet found nothing. Instead, they were all distracted by his clones.
With no one meeting him in the flesh, Suguru swiftly flickered through the Land of Fire's endless forests.
"They tried their best," Suguru chuckled.
Although he revealed an important card, he had done so to maximize his escape and minimize revealing even more cards. No one had any information on Dark Release. Thus, it would be hard for them to start figuring him out.
The information gap was too great. It was a chasm that they could not cross.
***
The weeks passed by, and Suguru eventually arrived at Konoha without any further complications. Seeing the village gates, his tense nerves finally loosened up. The burden of being pursued had finally been lifted off of his chest.
He was almost discovered a few times. Luckily, Suguru was operating alone with Chakra Field Hacking constantly active. When the sensor-ninja activated her chakra field just a few dozen meters away from Suguru, the latter instantly reacted.
Suguru had to hide for several hours since then. He even avoided using his Body Flicker Jutsu to avoid running straight into an active chakra field.
Thus, although his journey had taken a while longer, he still arrived safe and sound.
'I have to report to Hiruzen...' Suguru sighed. He did not know if his fellow genins made it back. There was a chance that their group had been ambushed since they could not find him.
'Those bastards,' A chuckle escaped Suguru's lips, 'I've memorized their chakra signatures. I'll devour them eventually.'
He would have a little taste of petty revenge. After all, they had gone after his life. They even made a show of extending their bloodthirst so brazenly at the border between the Lands of Wind and Fire.
This meant that Suguru could massacre their villages and families without any remorse. He would turn them into guinea pigs and test subjects. Should they have any value as a source of Kekkei Genkais, then Suguru would use them as a DNA gold mine.
***
—Knock! Knock! Knock!
Suguru stood in front of the Hokage's office. After knocking thrice, he felt a gaze wash over him. Then, he heard the voice of an old man.
"Come in,"
Suguru did as he was told.
Walking through the wooden double doors, Suguru was quickly met with a familiar sight. Hiruzen was once again sitting at his desk, surrounded by stacks upon stacks of unfinished paperwork.
"I'd like to report on certain occurrences, Hokage-sama."
Suguru took a knee and lowered his head. Seeing this, Hiruzen sighed.
"I've heard what happened. Hyuga Kyou and the rest of the genins were unable to flee as quickly as they had hoped. Upon reaching one of our outposts, they had lost a few genin to a few chuunin-lead ambushes."
"Ah," Suguru gasped. "Have they successfully returned?"
"Unfortunately, they have opted to stay in Outpost W-23 until their wounds heal. It'll be a while before they get back." Hiruzen shook his head, "Hitomi's way of teaching indeed has its benefits."
Looking at Suguru, who was uninjured and still energetic, Hiruzen wondered what kind of hell Hitomi had put her team through.
Hiruzen had met with Isao privately, and the boy's instincts were as sharp as a wild beast. Coupled with a Senju's chakra reserves and vitality, he could probably evade pursuit for months on end.
Yumiko, on the other hand, was as elusive as words of legend. Through his crystal ball, Hiruzen knew just how crafty the girl was with her Genjutsu. Her pursuers would likely ignore her entirely if she ever chose to flee. Even jounins would find it hard to track her down.
After all, Hitomi's Kuromaru was a jounin-level Ninken and was the elder brother of Tsume's Kuromaru. Furthermore, Hitomi's Kuromaru was a beast who was more like a summon than a partner.
To be able to run away from such an existence meant that the three genin would somehow be able to flee from bonafide jounins!
Hiruzen found it absurd.
Especially now that he faced Suguru once more.
'Hitomi's star student is weird even for my standards. Although we've confirmed that he is no spy, I still can't help but harbor suspicions.'
Hiruzen didn't know if it was the way Suguru looked at people or the fact that he never seemed afraid of anything — the boy's skill in evading pursuit guaranteed that he would be unkillable unless he dropped his guard.
Furthermore...
His tranquil personality was unbelievable for such a young child. This disposition reminded Hiruzen of Itachi, however, there were vast yet subtle differences in such a sentiment. Usually, a genius of Suguru's caliber would have been arrogant with a tendency to overestimate oneself.
With that said, Itachi was always grounded, with thoughts that were years ahead of his mental age. In comparison, Suguru was like a puppet on a string — void of any motives other than the purpose he was seemingly created for.
And Hiruzen was unsure of what this purpose was.
"So,"
Thus, Hiruzen decided to no longer dwell on such abnormalities. Thinking too much would be detrimental. Instead, he wanted to hear the news from the exam's number one genin himself.
"How were the exams?"
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