Ren and Asuma stood several meters apart, their bodies low and their wooden kunai held ready.
Both were breathing heavily.
The mist created by Ren's Water Release had almost completely dispersed, revealing the damage left by their battle. The earth was scorched and soaked, several stone barriers had cracked, and discarded practice weapons lay scattered across the slope.
Homon remained near the edge of the battlefield, one hand pressed against his injured chest. Shinen lay unconscious behind Ren, temporarily removed from the fight.
Only Asuma remained.
Neither boy spoke.
They had already tested each other's defenses, exhausted most of their chakra, and learned the rhythm of the other's movements. At this point, victory would not be decided by another complicated plan.
One mistake would be enough.
Asuma moved first.
His sandals dug into the damp earth as he lunged forward. Ren met him halfway, and their wooden kunai collided with a sharp crack.
Asuma rotated his wrist, forcing Ren's weapon aside, then drove his shoulder forward. Ren shifted his weight and allowed the impact to glance past him. His elbow rose toward Asuma's jaw, but Asuma leaned away and countered with a kick.
Ren blocked with his shin.
Pain shot through both legs.
They separated for less than a heartbeat before attacking again.
Wood struck wood in a rapid sequence. Asuma slashed toward Ren's shoulder, changed direction, and aimed for his ribs. Ren parried both strikes and drove his kunai toward Asuma's chest.
Asuma twisted aside.
The tip scraped across his flak jacket.
His free hand shot toward Ren's wrist, but Ren withdrew before he could establish a grip. They circled one another, each searching for the smallest weakness.
Sweat ran down Asuma's face.
His breathing had grown rough, yet his eyes remained fierce. He could not forget that the Hokage was watching from the academy rooftop.
He was Hiruzen Sarutobi's son.
For most of his childhood, that title had brought him admiration, pressure, and expectations he had never asked for. People assumed he would be exceptional before they ever saw him fight. If he succeeded, it was because he was the Hokage's son. If he failed, then he had disgraced the Hokage's name.
Today, however, none of that mattered.
Right now, Asuma simply wanted to win.
Ren's condition was no better.
His arms felt increasingly heavy, and every breath scraped against his lungs. He had defeated Homon, outmaneuvered Shinen, and forced Asuma into a final taijutsu duel, but that achievement would mean little if he allowed exhaustion to make him careless.
Asuma stepped forward again.
Ren watched his shoulders.
A slight turn of the right side preceded every thrust. His rear heel lifted before a forward lunge, and when his grip tightened around the kunai, he tended to follow with a strike from his free hand.
Ren had spent the entire duel studying those habits.
Now he was ready to exploit them.
Asuma rushed in with a diagonal slash.
Ren raised his kunai.
Clang!
The two wooden weapons struck one another with enough force to echo across the battlefield.
This time, neither held on.
Both kunai were knocked from their hands, spinning upward through the air.
Asuma reacted instantly.
He stepped through the collision and drove his fist toward Ren's face. With Ren disarmed and his guard displaced, the punch seemed certain to land.
Ren did not block.
His body vanished.
Swish!
Asuma's fist tore through empty air.
His eyes widened as one of the falling kunai disappeared at the edge of his vision. Ren had exchanged positions with it, using the weapon's movement to appear directly behind him.
Before Asuma could turn, Ren reached upward and caught the second wooden kunai as it fell.
The tip pressed against the back of Asuma's neck.
Ren's breathing was unsteady, but his hand did not tremble.
"It's over."
Asuma's muscles tensed instinctively. For one brief moment, he considered spinning around and continuing the fight.
Then he felt the wooden point resting precisely against the base of his skull.
If it had been a real kunai, he would already be dead.
The examination was designed to test whether they were prepared to become shinobi. Refusing to acknowledge a decisive strike would not prove determination; it would only prove that he could not accept reality.
Asuma released a long breath.
A bitter smile crossed his face as he raised both hands.
"Fine," he said. "You win."
Ren had defeated Asuma, Nara Shinen, and Hyūga Homon in a single battle.
The tension holding Ren upright finally loosened.
He withdrew the kunai and stepped back. Asuma walked toward the edge of the slope while Ren lowered his center of gravity and planted his feet, afraid his legs might give way if he relaxed too much.
A wave of exhaustion swept through him.
His arms ached. His chakra network felt almost empty, and the muscles altered by his earlier partial transformation burned from accumulated strain.
Yet beneath the exhaustion, excitement surged through him.
He had done it.
One against three.
Homon's Byakugan and Gentle Fist, Shinen's Shadow Possession and tactical control, Asuma's balanced ninjutsu and taijutsu—Ren had overcome all of them.
He had revealed more strength than he originally intended, but not everything.
The examination had exposed the sealless activation and combat applications of his Substitution Jutsu. It had also shown that his Transformation Technique could alter part of his physique, though none of the observers should yet understand the full potential of Perfect Form.
Most importantly, he had kept the Eight Gates hidden.
Opening only the First Gate would not have transformed the battle enough to justify revealing such a dangerous trump card. Until he could safely open more gates, there was little reason to expose the technique before the Hokage and Konoha's instructors.
Ren drew several slow breaths before looking around.
Most of the battles across the field had already ended.
That was expected. Academy students primarily fought with basic taijutsu, ninja tools, and the Three Basic Jutsu. A handful knew elementary genjutsu or clan techniques, but few possessed the endurance necessary for a prolonged battle.
Once someone was knocked down or disarmed, the fight generally ended.
Only a few isolated clashes were still continuing.
One of them was impossible to ignore.
Obito and Might Guy were still fighting near the base of the platform.
Both looked terrible.
Obito's face was swollen, one eye was beginning to darken, and dirt covered his clothes. Guy's uniform was torn at one shoulder, and several bruises marked his arms.
Neither showed the slightest intention of stopping.
Their rivalry had been developing for years. During past midterm and final examinations, Obito had lost to Guy at least four times. Every defeat had become another wound to his pride, and he had clearly decided that today would be different.
Guy, meanwhile, treated every clash with Obito as a passionate contest of youth.
Obito swung a wild punch.
Guy slipped beneath it and struck his abdomen with a palm. Air burst from Obito's lungs as he staggered backward, but he remained on his feet.
"Is that all you've got?" Obito demanded between ragged breaths. "I'm not finished yet!"
Guy wiped blood from the corner of his mouth and grinned.
"Magnificent, Obito! Your determination burns brighter with every blow!"
"Stop smiling like that!"
Obito charged again.
The two collided, exchanged several rapid strikes, and separated. Guy's superior conditioning allowed him to recover faster, but Obito's refusal to stay down was becoming a weapon of its own.
Rin and Kurenai stood nearby, too exhausted to intervene. Kurenai had spent most of the examination helping Obito delay Guy, while Rin had fought her way through several defenders before returning to the platform.
Both watched the duel with growing concern.
Obito stumbled after avoiding a kick.
Guy advanced to finish the exchange.
Desperation flashed across Obito's face. He leaped backward, crossed his hands, and began forming seals.
Rin recognized the sequence.
"Obito, wait!"
He ignored her warning.
His chest expanded as he gathered the last of his chakra.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
Flames erupted from Obito's mouth.
A fireball nearly a meter in diameter roared toward Guy. It was smaller and less stable than the one Ren had used earlier, but it remained dangerous enough to cause severe burns.
Obito practiced the technique every day, determined to master the signature Fire Release of the Uchiha clan. However, his chakra control was still rough, and exhaustion made the flames flicker unevenly.
Guy should have evaded.
Instead, the intensity of the battle had carried him beyond common sense.
He crossed both arms in front of his face. Chakra surged through his body, forming a faint green haze around him as he threw himself directly at the fireball.
"What is he doing?" Kurenai shouted.
Guy crashed into the flames.
Fire rolled around his body. The sleeves of his uniform blackened, and smoke rose from his hair, but his momentum did not stop.
With a roar, he burst through the other side.
Obito had already begun celebrating.
"I finally beat—"
Guy's burning fist struck him squarely in the face.
Obito flew backward.
Rin stared at them in disbelief.
"Guy…"
Kurenai's mouth opened, but no words came out for several seconds.
"It's a graduation exam," she finally said. "Why are they trying to kill each other?"
Guy staggered forward, his arms smoking. Obito dragged himself upright again, face bandaged with soot and stubbornness rather than cloth.
Both raised their fists.
Before either could attack, Kakashi's voice cut across the battlefield.
"That's enough!"
A surge of water descended from above.
"Water Release: Wild Water Wave!"
The torrent struck Guy and extinguished the flames clinging to his clothes. Water splashed across the earth, sending steam and smoke rolling in every direction.
A white-haired figure flashed between the two boys.
Kakashi caught Guy's wrist with one hand and seized Obito's with the other. The speed of his intervention left both staring at him in shock.
Kakashi's visible eye narrowed dangerously.
"Are you two trying to die?" he demanded. "The examination is over. Stop before I personally bury both of you in the training ground."
Guy blinked water from his eyes.
"But Kakashi, our youthful battle hasn't reached its conclusion!"
"It has now."
Obito attempted to pull his arm free.
"I had him! Did you see my Great Fireball? He was completely—"
"You were celebrating while he punched you in the face," Kakashi replied. "Go find a medical-nin."
Obito fell silent.
A second whistle echoed across the field.
Oki-sensei and Himura-sensei stepped into the arena. The fifteen-minute limit had expired, and the graduation battle was officially over.
Medical-nin who had been waiting along the perimeter immediately entered the field. They moved between the injured students, checking for broken bones, burns, concussions, and chakra exhaustion.
The damage was extensive but not life-threatening.
Shinen soon regained consciousness. He sat up slowly, rubbing the side of his neck while reconstructing the final moments of his defeat.
When he spotted Ren resting beneath a tree, he said nothing.
Asuma stood nearby with his arms crossed. His gaze toward Ren was complicated—part frustration, part unwilling admiration.
Homon had deactivated his Byakugan. His wrist had been stabilized, and bandages covered the point where Ren's final punch had struck his chest. He remained silent, but the resentment he had displayed before the match had faded.
This time, there could be no excuse.
Ren had defeated all three of them fairly.
On the defending side, Obito sat with fresh bandages wrapped around his face. Despite his injuries, he continued pestering Kakashi.
"So which team won?" Obito demanded. "We still controlled part of the platform when time ran out, right? That means the defenders won!"
Kakashi refused to answer.
He stood several steps away with his hands in his pockets, gazing toward the sky as though Obito did not exist.
"Obito, sit down and rest," Rin said. "The instructors will announce the result once they finish calculating everyone's scores."
She patted the stone step beside her.
Obito grumbled but obeyed.
Rin then walked over to Ren, who was leaning against the trunk of a tree. His eyes were closed, and he looked as though moving even one finger would require serious consideration.
"Ren, are you all right?" she asked.
Ren opened one eye.
"I'm fine," he said. "Just tired."
Rin examined him carefully, checking the bruises along his arms and the damage to his clothes.
"Your fight was incredible," she said. "You defeated three people by yourself, and Asuma was one of them. I knew you were strong, but I didn't realize the difference had grown this large."
"It was partly luck," Ren replied. "If their timing had been slightly better, Shinen's shadow might have caught me."
It was not entirely false modesty.
A single successful Shadow Possession would have ended the battle. Ren had won because he recognized the danger quickly and never allowed his opponents to control the pace completely.
Obito immediately joined the conversation.
"I was impressive too," he declared. "If I hadn't held Guy back, he would have taken the platform by himself. I even defeated him at the end!"
Kurenai approached just in time to hear that statement.
Her face was flushed from exertion, and her breathing had not completely settled, but her eyes remained bright.
"You didn't defeat him," she said. "You fired a Great Fireball, started celebrating, and then got punched in the face."
"That was a tactical exchange!"
"You flew farther than he did."
Obito ignored her reasoning.
"If Ren gets first place, I should at least be second."
Kurenai stared at him.
"At best, you'll be twentieth."
"What?!"
While Obito began loudly defending his performance, Ren allowed his eyes to drift closed again.
Their voices faded into the background.
Lines of text appeared within his mind.
[Transformation Technique: Congratulations, Ren! You won again, and those opponents were much stronger than the last ones. Defeating all three of them was truly impressive.]
[Clone Technique: Hmph. Your performance was acceptable. It's unfortunate that you didn't use my beautiful new form, but I suppose the ordinary version was enough to defeat that Nara.]
[Clone Technique: Still, I can't help wondering… Which technique didn't Ren use today? The answer is so difficult to guess.]
[Great Fireball Jutsu: You weren't talking about me, but listening to you is still irritating. I suggest you stop before that technique notices. If she appears, Ren's peaceful life is over.]
A new line appeared.
[Eight Gates: ?]
Ren's eyes snapped open.
His exhaustion vanished beneath a sudden wave of alarm.
"No. Don't start."
Rin looked at him in confusion.
"What?"
"Nothing," Ren said quickly. "I was talking to myself."
Another message emerged.
[Eight Gates: I admit, I'm a little disappointed that you didn't include me in such a passionate battle. Still, your tactics were excellent. That is also a magnificent expression of youth!]
Ren felt an ominous chill.
[Eight Gates: Rest well tonight. Wash up when you get home, eat a nutritious meal, and sleep early. I'll come find you tomorrow morning for training.]
[Eight Gates: See you then!]
Ren stared at the message in silence.
The words looked friendly.
He knew they were not.
His mind filled with visions of hundred-lap runs around Konoha, thousands of squats, and one-handed push-ups performed while Might Duy shouted encouragement beside him.
Ren sank farther against the tree.
He had survived a three-on-one battle, secured first place, and impressed the Hokage.
Unfortunately, the true ordeal would begin tomorrow morning.