Jiro stood along with Orochimaru and Jiraiya upon a podium where the other ninja who had pa.s.sed the exams stood. Jiro noticed the Hyuga boy, but his team was nowhere to be seen. He also saw that all the members of the team with the Nara boy were also present. Further near the side was the final team that Jiraiya had beaten. He noticed that in total, including his own team and himself, there were ten Genin going onto the tournament.When he looked into the crowd of people present for the announcement of Genin moving onto the final part of the tournament, Jiro noticed the old Taijutsu master alongside Dai who had become his apprentice along with Fugaku and Teuchi. Jiro"s eyebrows slightly twitched when he noticed the Taijutsu master. He couldn"t help, but recall the retreat his team had suffered under the Taijutsu master.
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Jiro stared at the old man who had his eyes closed as well as his fingers in his ears. He was dressed in rags that looked incredibly close to turning into dust at any moment. The citizens were quickly walking away from the street while the team and the old man waited for the place to empty out. He tried multiple times to put the old man under a Genjutsu, but he had managed to avoid the majority of it by closing his eyes as well as covering his ears.
Jiro"s chakra did reach out to the old man, but the old man"s chakra was able to repel Jiro"s with ease. The citizens soon emptied the street leaving a barren streak of dirt and the team stared at the old man with caution. As Jiro and his team mates exchanged looks, they all came to the conclusion that it would be better to attack the old man with brute force rather than try to trick him. It would be stupid to try and trick an old man who had clearly experienced lots of battle in his lifetime.
Jiro knew that their best bet would be for him to put the Jonin under a Genjutsu, but he now knew after multiple failed attempts that he would have to make physical contact with the old man. He didn"t say it out loud, but he exchanged glances with Jiraiya and Orochimaru to make sure they were all on the same page.
As soon as the last citizen moved onto the next street, Jiraiya and Orochimaru burst into action. A toad warrior was immediately upon the old man while several snakes started to burrow towards the old man from under ground. He quickly dispatched the toad warrior and got rid of the snakes after stomping heavily on the ground. The team of three immediately leapt back to make some distance before a fireball enhanced by wind was sent hurtling towards the old man.
He burst into a raucous laugh that seemed to be full of vitality despite him looking like a sack of old bones. A fist burst the fireball into small puffs of flames and all that remained was a small burn mark upon the old man"s fist. He suddenly ducked as a small stream of fire courtesy of Jiro zoomed over his head burning through some of his limited white hair.
Jiraiya immediately pumped his chakra into his summoning scroll to summon two more toad warriors leaving his chakra at low levels while charging forward intending on pining the old man for Jiro and Orochimaru. Jiro pumped chakra into his lungs before whistling a very distinct chirp that Kana would be able to hear.
Orochimaru stood closer to the battle and observed with keen eyes for the best moment to strike as the old man danced between Jiraiya and the toad warriors. Orochimaru"s most venomous snake was within the sleeve of his attire so he was ready to pump the old man full of a paralyzing venom. A toad warrior burst into a wave of smoke after the toad was beaten into the ground by the old man after he had pushed Jiraiya as well as the other toad warrior away.
The experiences white haired ninja mentally sighed in his mind after noticing Orochimaru"s lack of action so he decided to increase the pressure. The once delicate balance between Jiraiya, the toad warrior, and the old man quickly fell to pieces after the old man started to speed up. A flick of the wrist sent the toad warrior sprawling several feet away from Jiraiya.
Orochimaru recognized the pattern and immediately burst into the scene thrusting his fist towards the old man. He purposely overextended himself as he had another snake inside his clothes ready to burst out of the chest area to bite the old man. The old man as expected, swept his palm past Orochimaru"s wrist and threw him forward.
The Jonin went to dodge backwards as the snake hiding within the chest area of Orochimaru leapt towards him with venomous fangs extended, but he noticed several Kunai soaring towards his back courtesy of Jiro. At this critical moment, Jiraiya also made his move, stabbing towards the Jonin with a kunai steeped in the paralyzing fluids of Orochimaru"s snakes.
The old man stomped one of feet onto the ground and leapt high into the air causing everyone"s critical moves to miss. Jiraiya and Orochimaru whizzed by each other and they had to twist around to avoid Jiro"s kunais. Both future Chunin looked up into the air, but they did not see the old man.
Kana shrieked in shock as an old man appeared a couple of feet away from her. She quickly sent some of her feathers flying towards the weird man only to witness him move in midair and dodge most of the feathers. A couple of shallow cuts appeared on the old man, but he disappeared as soon as gravity started to pull him back towards the ground.
She flew higher to avoid being interrupted by some weirdo and continued to circle the skies while watching over Jiro as well as members of his flock.
Jiro watched with glowing eyes as the old man briefly engaged with Kana before starting to fall. Jiro quickly got the attention of Orochimaru as well as Jiraiya so that they could set up a formation to deal with the old man. Orochimaru took command and quickly ordered the team.
"Jiraiya, walk backwards about ten feet to avoid being landed on. Same with you Jiro. I"ll also move back so we can form a circle around him when he lands. Don"t attack full force when he lands, but get ready to trap him so that Jiro can finish him off."
Jiro interrupted Orochimaru to interject one quick bit of information. Stating for his team to push the old man towards a pebble that Jiro had made a connection to using his chakra.
The old man quickly landed on the ground with a large thump. Luckily, the ground avoided the fate of being broken into pieces, but it immediately got scorched by a fireball launched by Orochimaru. Orochimaru didn"t put much strength into the fireball as it was meant to cover Jiro and Jiraiya"s movement towards the old man.
Jiro grinned when he noticed the scratches on the old man as he knew that was from Kana. Jiraiya got ready to distract the Taijutsu master with the poisoned kunai while Jiro would try to make physical contact so he lunged forward when Orochimaru launched the fireball.
Jiraiya lunged forward and quickly tried to hold the attention of the Jonin, but he could notice that the old man had lowered his output to a lower level once more. Orochimaru quickly joined in with his own poisoned kunai. The two boys began to slowly push the old man towards the pebble that Jiro had pointed out.
As the boys continued to push, they also felt their stamina beginning to tire out, especially Orochimaru. Apparently, the old man could also notice his lack of vigor in action as the old man suddenly changed his Taijutsu style from the occasional counter attack with a mostly defensive stance into an offensive one that put Orochimaru on the edge of failure.
Jiro saw that his teammates were in need of help so he moved preemptively. A quick body replacement jutsu placed Jiro behind the old man and ready for action. He forcefully attacked forward, intending to pressure the old man as well as exchange some sort of physical contact. The Jonin was not aware that Jiro was planning on making physical contact, but his instincts were all telling him that making physical contact with Jiro would have been a bad idea.
Even though Jiro was moving forward with an attack, the Jonin whizzed away while dodging away from Jiro"s movements. When Jiro saw the old man move so fast that he had trouble seeing the movement despite his sharingan, he internally gave up on being able to beat the Jonin. He obviously continued to chase the old man, but he whistled to signal for Kana to rescue them.
Jiro spotted Kana with his sharingan descending at break neck speeds so he confronted the old man while letting Jiraiya and Orochimaru escape to Kana"s back. Jiro knew that the old man would try to avoid physical contact so he purposefully acted like a human wall. He also took a deep breathe in and began to form his stream of fire for the purpose of warding off the old man once he jumped on Kana as well.
Unfortunately, for Jiraiya and Orochimaru, Kana did not care for them as much as Jiro. She was holding them in her claws instead of letting them ride on her back. Jiro jumped on her back after pushing the old man back. The old man rushed forward, but he was forced to jump back to avoid not only a stream of fire, but random blades of wind sent by both Jiraiya and Orochimaru who now looked listless.
As Kana flew through the sky towards the Uchiha compound, Jiro frowned in contemplation as he pondered on how he could improve to avoid such a situation from happening again.
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Everyone had now sat down and the Hokage began to speak. As the Hokage, continued his speech on the will of fire and how the new generation would be stepping forward for the village, Jiro"s mind wandered once more. It was not because Jiro lacked mental discipline, but it came from Jiro"s sheer disinterest of doing things for the village. Jiro"s thoughts came back to the topic of improving his own self, especially his own physical body.
While the speech continued to drone on, Jiro was contemplating the idea of trying to specifically improve the toughness of his skin and bones. His body refining jutsu had specifically improved his muscle strength and it had a positive effect on his organ functions. Jiro wanted to make his skin tough enough to ignore blows that would be dealt using kunai kind of like the feathers that Kana had.
Jiro"s ambitions were not just limited to improving his skin strength. He strove to improve the toughness of his bones to make them much harder to break as well as generate more strength in his body. However, Jiro"s inner thoughts of improvement were interrupted as the audience began to cheer indicating that the speech was finished.
The crowd of citizens began to leave towards their respective destinations when the speech concluded leaving Jiro to begin the walk towards home. There would be a two week break before the final part of the Chunin exams, the tournament began. The team had decided to be separate during this time to keep their new a.r.s.enal a secret from each other when the tournament began.
Jiro spotted Fugaku, Duy, and Teuchi laughing as they were walking on the way home. He looked carefully around them to see if the annoying old man was around, but luckily he wasn"t. Jiro loved a good fight, but after his experience retreating from the old man, Jiro began to sympathize with those who had to deal with fight crazed maniacs. He naturally still enjoyed a good fight as well as spilling blood, but Jiro began to put more of an effort into controlling his urges.
Putting his inner thoughts aside, Jiro began to sneak over to his twin and friends with some caution in case the old man randomly appeared. He could hear them laughing about something and it sounded really funny so he got into hearing distance, but when he heard what they were laughing about, his bland face contorted into a grimace.
"Did you see Jiro"s face when he looked at sensei? He looked like he was beaten into the ground by sensei."
Fugaku and Teuchi burst into laughter after hearing Duy"s comment. The three had been victims to the terrible pranks of Jiro so they found it especially funny when Jiro suffered a loss. Teuchi nudged Fugaku and Duy before asking:
"So, was it worth ratting Jiro out to sensei?"
Fugaku and Duy nodded with big grins on their faces. In their joy and happiness, they did not notice that the other people who had been walking nearby, slowly began to walk away. By the time they noticed the suspiciously empty crowd, they turned around to witness Jiro"s face only inches away from theirs with the scariest grin they had ever seen.
As three screams of pain echoed into the sky, an old man sitting on the roof of a building looked down with a grin on his face. His grin only widened when Fugaku began to scream out:
"Not again! I hate fish tails!"
"Oh. My dear students seem to be suffering badly at that Uchiha boy"s hands. Meh, it"ll teach them a lesson in messing with people they shouldn"t mess with. I obviously knew that they were using me to get revenge on their friend."