Naruto: Kage of Kages

The last few people finished the first test of the practical exam as the pair talked and it was now time for the second test, shurikenjutsu.

There were only two real competitors for Shiki and they were the two Uchiha in the class. It wasn’t about vision, Uchiha seemed to have developed an innate affinity with shurikenjutsu over their existence as a clan.

Content wise, the exam was not as simple as standing in place and tossing some kunai and shuriken at a target.

There were a series of targets spread across a straight forest trail. Students had to run across the trail while hitting all the targets with at least a single kunai and shuriken.

Score was determined by the time it took to run the trail, the number of targets hit, the accuracy on each target and the number of kunai and shuriken used with less being better.

Students challenged the trail in random order with mixed results but all of them got passing marks, none doing bad enough to actually fail.

Shiki only began paying attention once Uchiha Ryuuto’s turn came.

‘Let’s see if I’ll have an actual competitor for this exam.’ The boy thought. Shurikenjutsu had not been a major focus of his after all though he had still diligently practiced it to an extent.

The difference was significant.

With practiced ease, Uchiha Ryuuto dashed into the forest, deftly twirling and flipping around trees and rocks while hitting every single target with perfect accuracy and not a single kunai wasted.

As the targets became better hidden behind rocks or on trees facing away from him, the black haired boy jumped from tree to tree with great dexterity

Curving his shuriken to hit all of the targets first before using the height he gained from the trees to hit the targets behind rocks using kunai, he quickly got most of the targets with only a few tree targets facing away from the main trail remaining.

Quickly dashing to the left, he acrobatically flipped in the air, hitting every single target on that side with a single barrage of kunai and shuriken.

Ryuuto repeated the process for the right side and the test was cleared with perfection in a total of 2 minutes and 12 seconds.

Observing the Uchiha boy walking back to his group with a self satisfied smile, Shiki slightly shook his head.

‘Quite good but not good enough.’ He thought.

‘Even if Mei-san can do marginally better than her clan compatriot, I still got this in the bag so long as I don’t fumble.’ The white haired boy concluded.

Meanwhile, Mei glared at Ryuuto like he took her lunch money every day at school which, as far as Shiki knew, did not occur.

Perhaps sensing the glare, Ryuuto turned towards the girl with a condescending smirk on his face before sending a challenging up nod Shiki’s way, making the white haired boy raise an eyebrow.

‘If you want to be slapped by reality so badly . . .’ Shiki thought and as if the world itself wanted him to prove a point, it was his turn . . . Not.

It was actually Mei’s turn.

The Uchiha girl was completely fired up from Shiki’s incitement and Ryuuto’s provocation but already showing the mentality of a pro, that just made her lock in with a burning heart and cool head.

Dashing into the trees, Mei chose to begin gaining altitude immediately while accurately hitting the ground level targets. It made it a little harder but would also get her into position for the harder targets later a bit faster.

‘My shurikenjutsu is at most on par with that annoying bastard Ryuuto. If I want to beat his score, I must use superior tactics.’ The girl thought.

And with her initial position being superior, she followed Ryuuto’s routine, both had been trained in the Uchiha Style of shurikenjutsu after all, their way of doing things is understandably similar.

The end result was a slight improvement over Ryuuto’s time, a satisfying victory for Mei who showed a patented smug Uchiha smirk as she walked back. 2 minutes and 7 seconds.

After deliberately sending the most condescending look she could manage Ryuuto’s way, annoying the black haired boy to no end, the girl walked towards Shiki.

“Can you beat that?” She confidently questioned.

“Only one way to find out.” Shiki casually replied as the chunin teacher conveniently called out his name.

‘Since I decided to show off to the max with the only holding back being with jutsu, it is time to put on another show.’ The boy thought to himself and with a smirk, the start signal sounded out.

With an instant body flicker, Shiki was in the air upside down, converting his momentum into several spins, he summoned kunai and shuriken from his storage seal and hit the easy initial targets nearly simultaneously.

Bouncing off a tree with one foot, the boy body flickered ahead and started to demonstrate not his body flicker skills but his shurikenjutsu for real.

He first sent out a barrage of shuriken, seemingly at random before throwing out kunai at nothing in particular but, before the side characters could even start to comment or mock, he threw out more kunai with greater force.

These bounced off the first barrage of kunai, altering every single trajectory to strike all targets except those facing complete opposite.

Even more impressively, the first barrage of shuriken rapidly spun and crossed paths with one another, violently bouncing off each other with such drastic deviations that even targets facing completely away from Shiki were hit.

With two quick body flickers, Shiki repositioned to hit the remaining targets with kunai, thus ending his test in a flash.

47 seconds. Well over twice as fast as second place.

Comparisons truly were odious and so, while bombarded by looks of envy, admiration, jealousy and anger, the white haired boy quietly awaited the next test of the practical exam.

He did not approach Mei himself, it would feel like he was rubbing it in after all, thus he waited alone.

‘Only Ninjutsu Evaluation and Combat Exercise left, probably in that order.’ Shiki thought.

There was nothing much to say about the first, it was just walking up to the teacher and demonstrating the three basic jutsu. It was an exam with a lot of top scorers since it was incredibly easy.

The tie breaker was usually the Substitution Jutsu. There quicker and more seamless the jutsu was the better with the top student getting a perfect score.

For his go, Shiki had long planned a little show as soon as he found out the content of the test.

Since he had been showing off since the beginning, even the boy boys that were delusionally declaring themselves his rivals were secretly looking forward to what the white haired boy was planning to do next.

Imagine their surprise when Shiki just walked up to the teacher and seemingly transformed into him with a cloud of smoke.

“Uh . . . Shiki-kun, are you done?” The chunin teacher questioned with uncertainty.

The students crowd was confused as well, with murmurings sounding out and the three top students, Uchiha Mei and Ryuuto along with Hyuga Yuno along with Aburame Shinka whose presence remained unremarkable frowning, certain that they were missing something.

Just when the teacher seemed like he was about to dismiss the white haired boy with a failing grade since he only demonstrated one of the three jutsu, he suddenly felt a finger poking at his back.

With a startle, he turned back at high speed while backstepping, passing through the transformed Shiki that was in front of him before, revealing its nature as an altered Clone Jutsu.

What he came face to face with after that sudden turn, was a doppelganger of himself, smiling at him before turning back into a familiar white haired boy in a puff of smoke.

At that moment, while most students remained confused, Shinka and the top three, along with their chunin teacher immediately realized what had happened.

Shiki had performed the Transformation Jutsu and then used the resulting cloud of smoke to conceal his subsequent Substitution Jutsu while leaving behind an altered clone Jutsu with the teacher’s appearance.

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Hey, Author here!

Just a reminder that you can read up to a FULL MONTH ahead of this site on pa-treon.

I’m trying to become a full time Author now and I’m not going to be starting any new novels just so I can make sure this one is properly completed.