The next day Kazuki and his team arrived at the exam location and he noticed that there were many teams, even from minor villages. Among them Kazuki spotted a yellow haired boy, a black-haired girl and a chubby boy standing together with Kitsuchi.
'They must be Deidara, Kurotsuchi and Akatsuchi.' Kazuki thought. 'Kurotsuchi looks too young, like she should be in the academy. I guess she graduated very early.'
They were all standing on a rocky field that kind of looked like a racetrack. Kazuki could see that there was a line at the start of the field and several obstacles that looked natural but were actually placed by people, so Kazuki guessed that the first round was going to be some kind of race and thanked himself that he learned Gale Palm Jutsu and his body flicker was good as well.
"Attention everyone," the announcer said. "The first round of the Chunin exams is a 10 KM race. There are several obstacles as well as some creatures in the way that will try to stop you. You are allowed to use any Jutsu in the race, you can also stop other participants if you want. So, try not to die before reaching the finish line. There will be an audience at the end of the track, including the Tsuchikage and three Daimyos."
"But remember this, even if it's not a team race, the whole team will be eliminated if even one of the players fails to reach the finish line, the time allotted is 5 hours." The announcer continued.
'Five hours, huh? It's a lot of time for a race. I guess the main motive of this race is to attack other teams and slow them down to reduce competition.' Kazuki thought
'Should I try to assassinate Deidara in this round? I've already registered his chakra signature. I'll attack him as soon as he's away from his team but I can't leave my team either.'
"Yuki, Ryuma, we should stay together for this round, our main priority should be to avoid fights as much as possible." Kazuki said.
"Right!" Both of them replied.
Everyone took their position. The track was horizontally massive as well, so everyone had a bit of space between them and there was another line a few minutes after the starting line and anyone wasn't supposed to use any jutsu or fight anyone until reaching that line.
"3, 2, 1, Go!" The announcer announced.
Everyone started running and once reaching the second line, some used Body Flicker to rush forward while some continued running, but suddenly the sound of an explosion was heard.
Kazuki looked that way and saw that Deidara was using explosions from his hands as a nitro boost while using body flicker at the same time, gaining a massive speed boost.
'Just as I thought, Explosion Release works way differently without the Forbidden Jutsu Deidara stole before abandoning the village.' Kazuki thought.
"That's the guy Lord Hokage was warning us about? He is dangerous but doesn't look smart, creating a ruckus and catching everyone's attention like that." Ryuma said.
Kazuki's team was taking it slow for now but was still considerably ahead, Deidara was at the number one spot, followed by a Sunagakure team, followed by a Kumogakure team, followed by Kazuki's team.
"I am sending a shadow clone ahead to scout the area for possible traps or monsters." Kazuki said as he made a shadow clone.
Kazuki's shadow clone used Body Flicker to run past his team and then used Transformation Jutsu to disguise himself as a Suna Genin.
In the way he sensed that there was chakra on several objects on the ground, so Kazuki threw kunai or shuriken at them, making them explode.
Kazuki's clone sensed that the Kumo and Suna team had started fighting, so he stealthily passed past them while hiding his chakra using the Mind's Eye of the Kagura.
He sensed that Deidara was quite ahead, so he used Gale Palm Jutsu as a nitro with Body Flicker to catch up with him.
Once Deidara was in sight, he unsheathed his blade and flickered towards Deidara.
Deidara sensed it before Kazuki's blade could reach him and flickered in the distance and stopped.
'How did this guy catch up to me?' Deidara thought.
Deidara took out a clay ball from his bag and casually threw it at Kazuki and said, "Can you hold on to this for me?"
Kazuki flickered and dodged the ball, which blasted after touching the ground.
Deidara took advantage of the explosion and threw a kunai at Kazuki.
Kazuki was about to block the kunai with his sword when he sensed some chakra in the kunai and dodged it at the last second.
The kunai exploded at impact.
'He's still scary.' Kazuki thought.
Deidara continued throwing stuff with explosion chakra at Kazuki, but he managed to dodge everything.
Kazuki's team had to fight some weird creatures on their way but they easily overpowered them. It was at this point that they decided to go at full speed. They left behind the Suna and Kumo teams in a few minutes and finally came across Deidara, who was supposedly fighting a Suna genin.
"We should avoid fighting him. Let's take advantage that he's busy fighting someone and go ahead." Yuki said,
Deidara saw Kazuki's team and was about to throw some shuriken at them when Kazuki's shadow clone used the Fireball jutsu on him, forcing him to back off.
"What are you doing! They'll win if you let them go!" Deidara snapped.
Kazuki's shadow clone thought, 'Yuki sensed my chakra just now. she knows that it's my shadow clone. whatever, I'll just make some excuse.'
Kazuki's team continued going forward, ignoring the two fighting.
Deidara stopped throwing stuff at him, so Kazuki assumed he had used all the items he prepared before coming here.
Kazuki charged at him with his sword. When Kazuki was just 3 meters away from him, Deidara took out his pouch and threw a handful of tiny marbles at Kazuki.
Each marble had less than 1 centimeter of diameter, so even in a handful were hundreds of marbles. Kazuki thought it was impossible to dodge this many at such a close range and decided to throw his sword at him as a last resort.
The marbles were very small in size, so they didn't have much power behind them and created a series of small explosions, but it was enough to dispel Kazuki's shadow clone.
Kazuki's sword reached Deidara's shoulder and stabbed him, but before it could reach deep enough to do any fatal injury, the sword vanished in a puff of smoke.
"Huh!" Deidara said in confusion.
"I was fighting a freaking shadow clone this whole time? Since when does Suna have ninja's so strong?' Deidara was shocked by this incident.
"Tsk." Kazuki clicked his tongue and thought. 'Wrong decision, should have used long-range attacks on him, but I didn't provide my clone that much chakra.