Chapter 248: The Konoha Crush Plot Officially Begins
Shino's first clear defeat was against the Ten-Tails Jinchūriki, Madara Uchiha.
Before that, Shino had won almost every battle he participated in, occasionally drawing a tie. Although his strength ceiling was at most Jōnin level, this record was truly frightening.
It made Akiyama Makoto wonder how Tenten could win easily.
After all, Shino's fighting style was pervasive, and he was also skilled in techniques like the Insect Clone. Conventional ninja tools couldn't kill insects.
Was Tenten going to drown Shino in a sea of tools?
That would indeed force Shino to surrender, but winning like that would lower everyone's evaluation of her strength.
But as soon as the battle started, she once again displayed her combat intelligence.
She took out a gigantic fan. Seeing this fan, he subconsciously looked at Temari.
Temari also stood up in shock, touching her back to confirm her fan was still there before breathing a sigh of relief.
Then, Tenten waved the fan.
Waves of scorching air flew towards Shino. Wherever they passed, his parasitic insects were dried out and fell to the ground, dead.
Only then did he realize that she had used a bit of the technology from the future Cloud Village chakra cannon, combined with her own Advanced Fire Release talent, to create this ninja tool in imitation of Temari's fan.
Both in power and visual effect, it looked far inferior to Temari's fan.
However, for Shino, this fan was a death sentence. No matter how he tried to break through her attack range, she just kept fanning him.
When Shino finally managed to withstand the fiery wind with his body and close the distance to where his insects could attack, he was greeted by her Explosive Kunai.
At this point, Shino no longer wanted to fight.
He knew very well that his parasitic insects were limited and needed his chakra to constantly activate them.
And on Tenten's side, regardless of her chakra reserves, the giant scroll on her back that she hadn't even used yet indicated that this was just a probing attack.
If Shino continued to fight, what awaited him might be a sea of ninja tools.
With this in mind, Shino decisively chose to surrender.
Warm applause erupted from the audience again. Although this battle didn't look as spectacular as Hinata and Kiba's, Tenten's agile figure freely manipulating ninja tools was enough to demonstrate the fighting style of a ninja to the ordinary people.
As for the next match, he had thought it wouldn't be very pleasant to watch.
Ino vs. Sakura. Two best friends, one skilled in her clan's spiritual secret techniques, the other skilled in genjutsu. Would their fight turn into a repeat of the battle against Sasuke, with the two of them just staring at each other?
At first, it was indeed like that. Everyone just saw the two of them facing each other and forming hand seals.
One moment Sakura fainted but woke up the next second, then Ino was knocked down by Sakura's genjutsu but also woke up immediately.
With the Mind-Mirror Image talent and their familiarity with each other, it was too difficult for them to beat each other.
But then their choice exceeded his expectations.
As if they had known it would be difficult to defeat their opponent, they tacitly began to compete in Earth Style, Water Style, taijutsu, etc., as if they wanted to display all the skills they had learned.
When both of their chakra reserves were almost exhausted, after contributing a wonderful fight for everyone, they both brought out their ultimate moves.
Ino used both the Formless Wave and the Mind Body Switch Technique at the same time. This was a desperate attack, trying to forcibly break Sakura's Mind-Mirror Image.
Sakura used a Water Clone to protect herself, then used her full Chakra Enhanced Strength for the first time, smashing the ground with a punch and sending Ino flying.
It looked like Sakura had won, but her trembling wrist showed that using Chakra Enhanced Strength was still too much for her at this time.
On the other side, Ino was covered in dirt and didn't want to fight anymore. The two looked at each other and tacitly chose to surrender, contributing a draw for everyone.
Seeing this, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Although he could guarantee that neither of them would be injured no matter what, he didn't want them to get angry.
As it turned out, he had worried too much. Ino and Sakura's relationship was even better than in the original storyline. After all, they no longer needed to fight over a man; they just needed to focus all their attention on him.
After Kabuto announced the result, the two of them left the stage and came to his side together.
Sakura pulled him to treat her arm, while Ino pulled him to wipe her face and fix her hair.
Not many people saw this scene, but anyone who was paying attention to him would notice that there were more and more girls around him.
Anyone would sigh, How does this guy have such good luck with women?
The matches on the field continued, and finally, it was time for the last one.
Gaara vs. Naruto.
More than the result of this match, he was curious if Naruto could still "Talk-no-Jutsu" Gaara.
In his past simulations, he had a good impression of Gaara. After all, he had been the Kazekage's advisor. But that Gaara had been corrected by Naruto's personality. The current Gaara, with his monstrous killing intent and desire to tear everything apart, was not a partner he could accept.
In the simulation, he didn't care much about this, but in reality, he still had to pay attention to it.
"Yo! It's your misfortune to meet the Great Me!"
Naruto wiped his nose with his thumb. Having just trained with Jiraiya, he appeared full of confidence.
However, Gaara's eyes were on Sasuke, his gaze full of undisguised provocation, completely ignoring Naruto.
"You bastard! Look over here! Here!"
"If you don't look, when I punch you flying later, you won't even know who beat you!"
Realizing that Gaara was looking at Sasuke, Naruto waved his fist in anger.
Only then did Gaara look over lazily. "Wind Style user... If I stand here and let you attack, can you break my Shield of Sand?"
The sand from Gaara's gourd formed a protective shield, keeping him safe inside.
It wasn't really Gaara's fault for looking down on Naruto. The Sand Village was the village most adept at Wind Style. Gaara knew very well how strong his Shield of Sand was against Wind Style.
His opponent was inferior to Sasuke, and used Wind Style ninjutsu. Gaara really didn't know how he could lose.
"Since that's the case, you'd better watch closely."
Naruto calmly created ten shadow clones, surrounding Gaara.
Gaara thought Naruto was going to play the same trick he used to defeat Kankurō, and a contemptuous smile appeared on his lips.
But at this moment, Naruto formed the hand seal for his signature jutsu.
With a series of poofs, the original Naruto vanished. In his place were beautiful women in the style of the Sand Village, surrounding Gaara and posing provocatively.
The entire arena fell silent, followed by a burst of enthusiastic cheers.
Ordinary people might not understand the power level of ninjutsu, but they understood that this jutsu was simply perfect.
Kankurō and Temari were dumbfounded. A second ago, they were discussing how many seconds Naruto could last.
As for the girls on Makoto's side, they were jumping with rage, wishing they could jump down and beat Naruto up right now, feeling that he had embarrassed everyone.
But he clearly sensed Naruto's thoughts and couldn't help but give him a thumbs-up.
Gaara naturally wouldn't be attracted by the Sexy Jutsu, but he would be enraged by it.
In his eyes, what Naruto was doing was no different from an insect posing provocatively at a human. Anger filled his entire body, causing him to directly use a large-scale Sand Binding Coffin, grabbing at all the shadow clones.
He didn't just want to defeat Naruto; he wanted to kill him in front of everyone.
Anyway, it was already the time for the final match. The Konoha Crush plot could start at any moment. Why not let him start it?
As a result, all the shadow clones were shattered, but the real Naruto was not among them.
Just as Gaara was confused, those who hadn't been distracted by the Sexy Jutsu looked up. The real Naruto had been thrown into the sky by his clones.
In the air, Naruto bit his finger, swiped it across his palm, and directly used the Summoning Jutsu.
"Gamahiro! I'm counting on you!"
With a huge burst of smoke, a giant green toad with two swords on its back appeared under Naruto's feet. It was Gamahiro from Mount Myōboku.
Gamahiro, along with Gamabunta and Gamaken, was a member of the Toad Trio of Mount Myōboku, also a giant summon. He was originally supposed to be summoned by Jiraiya to suppress the snakes summoned by Orochimaru later.
But now, he had been summoned by Naruto just like that.
Then, Gamahiro and Naruto descended from above, their massive bodies like a falling mountain. It was the Summoning: Food Cart Destroyer Technique!
This scene shocked everyone. Even Hiruzen Sarutobi and Rasa stood up, because they knew this move could crush people to death.
This was a top-tier summon from Mount Myōboku, with strength far surpassing that of an average Jōnin. Using such a summon in the Chūnin Exams... was it a bit too much bullying?
How had Jiraiya allowed Naruto to use this jutsu on such an occasion? Didn't he know its power?
Clearly, Jiraiya wouldn't make such a mistake. Seeing this, Rasa stopped pretending.
He couldn't allow Naruto to just kill his son like this, depriving the Sand Village of an important combat force.
With a thought from Rasa, the Crow on Kankurō's back not far away, and the puppets on many puppet masters, flew up. Then they opened from the middle, and countless grains of gold dust flew out.
Half flew towards Rasa, and half turned into a sharp sword that stabbed at Gamahiro's chest.
Seeing this, Gamahiro immediately drew his twin swords to block. Although he blocked it, he was pushed back by the immense force and could no longer smash down on Gaara's head.
Seeing his father act, Gaara used a Body Flicker of sand to reach the stands. The fear of death just now caused his mind to collapse instantly, and his body rapidly disintegrated from human form into his possessed state.
On the other side, Rasa's Gold Dust also attacked Hiruzen Sarutobi. Hiruzen wasn't nervous, because the Anbu members around him had already moved, attacking Rasa with various weapons and moves.
Although Rasa's Gold Dust was powerful, his amount was clearly limited right now, and his strength was greatly reduced. Naturally, he wasn't enough to make Hiruzen nervous.
Rasa could only recall his Gold Dust to save himself. At this time, Hiruzen wanted to say something more, but Kabuto, who had hidden in the corner of the arena during the commotion, released the genjutsu, Temple of Nirvana Technique.
The Temple of Nirvana was a super-large-area genjutsu, enough to cover the entire venue. Anyone who saw the feathers would fall into a deep sleep.
Of course, the ninja could also immediately release the seal to counter this genjutsu. And this was exactly the result Kabuto wanted: to buy a split second of opportunity for Orochimaru to act.
Taking advantage of the moment everyone was countering the genjutsu, a member of the Anbu suddenly grabbed Hiruzen's shoulders, pulled him back, and jumped onto the roof.
The Sound Four, who had rehearsed countless times, immediately followed, quickly forming hand seals to trap Hiruzen within the Four Violet Flames Formation. They also cast another Four Violet Flames Formation on the inside to ensure Hiruzen wouldn't break out from within.
At this time, someone finally noticed Kabuto casting the genjutsu. Uzuki Yūgao's kunai flew towards him, while she shouted, "Gekkō Hayate! What are you doing?!"
Kabuto flipped onto the stands. There was no trace of Gekkō Hayate's sickly appearance left.
He tore off his human skin mask, revealing Kabuto's face, a smile of "everything is under control" on his lips.
The Konoha Crush plot had officially begun.
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