Chapter 38 - Chapter 37

"You have a really interesting bloodline. Unheard of techniques, a strong physical build, a strange movement technique... Are there any techniques you acquired when your blood awakened that you haven't shown us yet?"

As the Anbu ninjas quietly opened their ears to listen to the conversation, Tsunade had heard so many amazing things in a short time that her brain reset and she listened like one of the Anbu ninjas in the background.

After careful consideration, Yuta realized that the only way to get rid of the roots was to increase his value in the eyes of the Hokage and decided to take the risk. After all, maybe the Hokage would give up a genius for his secret lover, but what if that genius was a groundbreaking one...

"Actually, I still have a few techniques I haven't shown off yet, some of them I'm saving for the finals, others I still haven't finished developing. Uh, by the way, can I get dressed, Hokage-sama?"

Hiruzen nodded, then took a deep breath and put his pipe in his mouth and began to think. When Yuta realized that he was still seriously thinking about putting him in the roots, he cursed his stupidity and decided that it was time to play one of his biggest trump cards as an immigrant.

Just as the Hokage was about to open his mouth and announce his decision, Yuta cut him off, secretly trying not to blush, after all, what he was about to say was too embarrassing for someone like him. "Hokage-sama! I have heard so much about your war memories and I admire you. Please let me recite a poem to you once, sir. I wrote this poem for you."

Hiruzen misinterpreted Yuta's slightly blushing face and with a slight smile told him to read the poem. At the same time, he was convinced in his heart that Yuta's statements were true. No matter how talented a little boy was, he couldn't act well enough to fake his expressions in front of an experienced ninja like himself.

This poem was a short poem that had been developed since Yuta first started ninja school. Yuta remembered the fan fiction he had read in his previous life and prepared himself early to face the Hokage.

"Forged in flames, the Hokage's heart,

A shield to the village, tearing fear apart.

Sarutobi Hiruzen - the Will of Fire,

Rising from ashes, ever higher."

Sarutobi Hiruzen had thought that Yuta had written a simple poem in praise of him, but in just one stanza the boy had shown both his understanding of the will of fire and his love for him.

Tsunade thought that Yuta might have been possessed as she silently recalled Yuta's jokes about the old monkey's face at dinners.

Sarutobi grinned as he took a deep puff from his pipe. "I have seen enough, I will make my decision after all the battles are over, you can go now, Yuta."

Hearing those words, Yuta guessed that Hiruzen was still undecided about giving him to Danzo.

The next battle would determine his future in this village. He must fight so well that he would leave the whole village and the Hokage speechless. To do this he would have no fear of breaking any of the rules: the slash technique, the shadow technique, his summons and his newly acquired techniques.

Yuta had just won some prizes for the photos, but he hadn't been able to control the prizes. Moreover, now he was going to take photos of the photos Natsume had taken and it was likely that he would get some extra prizes.

The first thing he did after returning to his seat, guessing that the next competition would start in ten minutes, was to take pictures of the photos and check the accumulated prizes in the system.

[ Congratulations you've caught three bronze moments; Danzo can fly, Strange dust cloud, Hot hours with the Hokage. ]

Yuta smiled slightly at the system's sense of humor and checked the rewards for these bronze photos: two of them had earned him a total of an extra two thousand points of cursed energy. The last bronze level prize was another bronze level cursed draw.

[ Congratulations you've caught a silver moment; a photo within a photo?]

When Yuta saw that the system had awarded him a silver prize for re-photographing Natsume's photo using the system, he felt a strong urge to gouge out one of his eyes and create a complete paradox.

Maybe taking a photo of a photo of a photo of a photo would earn him a reward even above the gold level.

[ Photo reward: Bala, Spiritual power statistic ]

Yuta was thinking about taking photograph after photograph when suddenly his mind was flooded with information about spiritual power and the Bala technique.

He tried his best not to change his expression as the sudden overload of information caused his head to ache. This was the moment when he needed to gain favor with the Hokage, not the moment when he needed to earn the title of no longer able to fight because he was in pain.

Even though Yuta had done his best and the Hokage had not noticed his condition, Morino sensei noticed the veins in Yuta's forehead and immediately came to his side.

When Morino Ibiki saw that his student, who had surprised him today, was probably suffering from the kekkei genkai techniques he had used, his instincts as a sensei kicked in and he asked Yuta to withdraw from the competition.

This was the day Morino Ibiki saw in the eyes of one of his students a true sense of determination and not giving up. Yuta insisted that he could fight, so much so that when the next competition began and Yuta was called to the stage, Ibiki almost wept like a woman looking after her husband who had gone off to war.