Hey guys, here is the new chapter hope you will liked and read thru everything.
If we hit 150 PW I post a extra chapter.
Don't forget to leave your power stones along with your comment if you have any ideas or opinions that could help me, as well as a review to continue showing your support.
Enjoy the chapter!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The roar of the crowd in the Great Colosseum was just beginning to settle following Gaara's surrender when the referee's chakra-amplified voice echoed once more through the four corners of the stone structure.
The battlefield, battered by the clash between Shikotsumyaku and crystal sand, had to be quickly reconditioned by the Earth Release specialists. With synchronized hand seals, the shattered paving stones leveled out, crushing the debris and leaving a clean expanse—a canvas of solid rock and earth ready for the second match of the semifinal round.
From the side tunnels, the audience's anticipation grew into a deafening hum. All the Kage watched from the upper balcony, evaluating the young talents who would define the balance of power in the years to come.
Naruto Uzumaki walked toward the center of the ring with his hands casually resting behind his head, though his posture hid a slight tension, ready to react at a moment's notice. His orange and blue uniform bore scuffs and light scorch marks—intact remnants of his grueling previous match against Sunae. Upon reaching his position, he adjusted his Konoha headband on his forehead and locked his blue eyes onto the opposite tunnel.
From the shadows of the north entrance emerged Daiku. The young swordsman from the Sand advanced with a steady, measured pace. His light robe fluttered gently in the warm desert breeze, and at his left hip rested his katana—a blade of flawless craftsmanship whose hilt he held with natural relaxation. His face did not reflect the impatience of a rookie; it bore the analytical severity of someone who seemed to have nerves of steel.
Both fighters stopped ten meters apart. The Jōnin referee walked slowly until he positioned himself between them, observing the posture of both youths before giving the final instructions.
Daiku placed his left hand on the sheath of his weapon, fixing a cold, piercing glare on the Konoha blond.
"That was quite a curious fight of yours against my sister, Naruto Uzumaki," Daiku began, breaking the silence with a firm voice that carried over the murmur of the stands. "You made it far and proved to have absurd endurance. But make no mistake. I won't make the same miscalculations Sunae did, nor will I give you a single second to breathe."
Naruto smirked, scratching his cheek with a finger before shaking his head slightly.
"Curious? I don't think so," Naruto replied, shifting his stance and crossing his arms over his chest. "Your sister is an incredibly strong opponent. She had some wicked fire techniques, and if your father hadn't stepped in to stop the fight before we clashed, I'm sure it would've been a lot more entertaining."
Daiku shook his head, keeping a cold, stern expression as he adjusted his footing on the ground.
"You talk far too lightly," Daiku retorted coldly. "Sunae let herself be carried away by emotion and rush. I don't let emotions drive me on the battlefield. There won't be any interruptions here."
Without waiting for the referee's official signal, Daiku's right hand rested on the hilt of his katana. In a fraction of a second, the air temperature around him began to rise drastically. A distorted reddish glow emerged from the mouth of the sheath; Daiku's Shakuton began to infuse the metal, superheating it to incandescent levels before the blade was even drawn.
The supervising Jōnin observed the rapid accumulation of chakra, took a step back to stay clear of the line of attack, and raised his right hand.
"Second match of the semifinal round!" the referee announced powerfully. "Daiku of Sunagakure versus Naruto Uzumaki of Konohagakure... Begin!"
"I won't give you time!" Daiku roared.
At the exact instant the judge's arm dropped, Daiku drew a deep, rhythmic breath, altering his heart rate in a fraction of a second.
"Seven Heavens Breathing: Second Breath!"
A burst of atmospheric pressure detonated beneath his boots. The reinforced stone floor cracked in a spiderweb pattern as Daiku launched himself forward, turning into a streak of pure speed. The ten-meter distance vanished in an instant. The katana shot out of its sheath, leaving a trail of fire and scorching air aimed at slicing across Naruto's torso in a perfect horizontal sweep.
Naruto, however, didn't attempt to dodge the strike directly backward.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Naruto yelled.
POOF! POOF! POOF!
Three clouds of white smoke exploded simultaneously where he had been standing. Daiku's glowing blade sliced cleanly through the smoke, cutting down two of the shadow clones, which vanished instantly into gusts of hot air. The third clone and the original Naruto leapt in opposite directions, rolling across the ground to gain distance.
"Cheap tricks won't work on me!" Daiku shouted without losing momentum.
Pivoting on his heel, Daiku redirected his body's inertia. The flaming katana traced a downward vertical arc toward the Naruto who had just gotten back to his feet to his right. The speed of his swordsmanship was astonishing, powered by the constant flow of oxygen the Seven Heavens Breathing delivered to his muscle fibers.
POOF!
Another clone was destroyed before it could finish a hand seal. However, behind Daiku, the real Naruto had already taken a breath.
"Here I come!" Naruto barked.
POOF! POOF! POOF! POOF! POOF!
Five additional clones appeared, encircling Daiku in a semicircle. Two of them dove headfirst to tackle the swordsman's legs, while the other three threw kunai along curved trajectories to block his escape routes.
Daiku didn't even blink. As Sunagakure's katana prodigy, his peripheral vision and reaction time were honed to the absolute limit. With a fluid flick of his wrist, he deflected the kunai in midair using the spine of his blade. Immediately after, he executed a spinning aerial kick that struck the first lower clone dead in the face, dispelling it, and slammed his boot heel into the second clone's shoulder to launch himself upward.
"I'll pick you off one by one!" Daiku declared from the air.
He descended like a hawk, executing a devastating sequence of rapid thrusts. Every movement of his arm was a blur of white and orange.
POOF! POOF! POOF!
The clones fell one after another. Every time the sword grazed a shadow replica, the combination of the Shakuton's extreme heat and the force of the impact dispelled the technique instantly, leaving behind the faint smell of ozone and burnt fabric.
From the spectator area reserved for participants, Sunae watched the fight with her arms crossed and her fists clenched tight.
"Daiku is keeping control of the tempo," Sunae whispered to herself, analyzing her brother's every movement. "He isn't giving Naruto room to form a complex plan. But that idiot blond has way too many chakra reserves to keep using shadow clones..."
In the center of the ring, Naruto created distance once again after his second wave of clones was destroyed. He retreated rapidly to the eastern edge of the arena, wiping a scratch on his cheek with his forearm.
"You're really fast with that sword," Naruto said, flashing a defiant grin despite his slight breathlessness. "But if you think I'm going to fight you one-on-one, you're dead wrong. This is my specialty!"
Naruto crossed his fingers into his signature Shadow Clone seal. The bright blue chakra around his body erupted violently, making the small stones on the ground rattle.
POOF! POOF! POOF! POOF! POOF! POOF! POOF! POOF!
In a matter of three seconds, a sea of orange completely covered half the ring. Over thirty shadow clones appeared shoulder to shoulder, completely obscuring Daiku's view. Every single clone shouted in unison, creating a deafening echo that reverberated throughout the stadium.
"Let's see if you can cut through all of these!" the Narutos yelled at once.
The orange tide surged toward Daiku in a massive frontal assault. Some leapt into the air with kunai in hand, others sprinted low to tackle him, and the rest advanced in a staggered formation to choke out any room for the swordsman to maneuver.
Daiku gritted his teeth, maintaining his composure in the middle of the swarm closing in on him. He knew perfectly well that continuing to take down the clones one by one with single strikes was a losing game; Naruto's chakra capacity would exhaust him physically long before he could pinpoint the original body.
'If you want to cover the whole field... I'll just have to use a bigger fire,' Daiku thought.
Daiku took a step back, adjusted his grip on his katana with both hands, and channeled a massive amount of Scorch Release chakra directly along the length of the metal. The blade didn't just turn incandescent; a concentrated white flame engulfed the sword, extending nearly a meter beyond the steel edge.
"Scorch Release: Searing Slash!"
Daiku executed a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree sweeping arc at superhuman speed.
FWOOOOOOSH!
A crescent wave of pure heat and compressed air burst from his sword in all directions. The residual heatwave was so intense that the air in the colosseum visibly distorted, spiking the temperature in the front rows of the audience.
The searing slash carved through the tide of clones like a hot knife through butter.
POOF! POOF! POOF! POOF! POOF! POOF! POOF!
Decades of white smoke explosions filled the battlefield simultaneously. Over twenty clones were vaporized in a single instant by the gust of fire and wind. The few that survived on the flanks were swept away by the secondary shockwave, dispelling before they even hit the ground.
However, the relentless, consecutive use of Scorch Release combined with the physical strain of the Second Breath began to take its toll on Daiku's body. A thick drop of sweat ran down his forehead, dripping onto the blade of his sword and vaporizing with an instant hiss. His breathing grew noticeably heavier, and the veins along his neck bulged from the blood pressure.
As the dense curtain of smoke began to clear, Daiku maintained a defensive stance, scanning the terrain for the real Naruto.
'He's hiding in the smoke,' Daiku analyzed in his mind, trying to regulate his pulse. 'That attack consumed more chakra than I planned. I need the next strike to be the decisive one.'
Suddenly, right from the center of the smoke cloud still lingering over the ring, a figure burst forth at full speed.
It wasn't a mass attack. It was just three individuals: the real Naruto running in front, flanked by two shadow clones holding their hands together, concentrating a sphere of spinning, brilliant blue chakra in the palm of the blond's hand.
The sound of compressed chakra echoed through the entire stadium like the shrieks of a thousand birds.
"No other choice!" Naruto yelled as he charged forward at top speed. "I have to finish this now!"
Daiku's eyes widened. He recognized the condensed mass of chakra immediately. The pressure and rotation of that sphere were not something he could block with a simple parry from his blade; a direct hit would shatter his bones.
"Don't think I'm going to stand still!" Daiku shouted back with determination.
Forcing his muscles to their absolute limit, Daiku dug his feet into the earth and channeled the last major reserve of his chakra into his katana. The blade ignited once more into a violent red flame. Determined to intercept the technique before Naruto could finish his charge, Daiku launched into a direct frontal thrust, aiming a central stab at the blond's shoulder before the sphere could touch his body.
"Scorch Release: Solar Cut!" Daiku roared.
Daiku flashed forward like a streak of light. However, just as he closed to within two meters and his sword came down in a lethal arc toward Naruto's shoulder, the two clones accompanying the blond didn't try to attack Daiku.
Instead, both clones threw themselves to the ground, thrusting their shoulders beneath the real Naruto's feet and using every ounce of their remaining strength to catapult him upward.
SWOOSH!
Naruto shot vertically into the air, clearing the trajectory of Daiku's blade by mere inches. The swordsman's fiery cut only slashed empty air and destroyed the two clones on the ground, but the inertia of the attack left Daiku momentarily exposed from above.
Daiku snapped his head up, his eyes widening in horror as he saw Naruto descending straight toward him from above, the spinning blue sphere ready in his right hand.
"It's over, Daiku!" Naruto yelled from the air.
"Dammit!" Daiku exclaimed, desperately trying to raise his sword to block the falling blow.
But the fatigue accumulated from the continuous use of Scorch Release and the Seven Heavens Breathing made his arms respond a fraction of a millisecond too late.
"RASENGAN!"
Naruto slammed the sphere of rotating chakra directly into Daiku's shoulder and the side of his chest.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
A shockwave of centrifugal force and compressed air exploded at the point of impact. The wild rotation of the Rasengan shredded the fabric of Daiku's robe and instantly extinguished the fire chakra on his katana. The force of the strike was so overwhelming that the young swordsman was hurled backward, flying through the air like a cannonball.
Naruto, fully aware of the danger of taking residual recoil or getting caught in the chakra blast of his own attack, used the impact's repelling force to perform an aerial somersault and vault away in the opposite direction, landing on his feet several meters back. His maneuver was calculated with precision to gain enough distance so he wouldn't end up severely injured or hospitalized alongside his opponent.
CRASH!
Daiku slammed hard onto the reinforced stone ground, skidding over ten meters before coming to a halt near the perimeter wall of the arena. His katana flew out of his hand, embedding itself into the ground a couple of meters away, its heat chakra completely gone.
Silence claimed the colosseum once more for a fleeting moment.
Naruto remained standing, breathing heavily with his arms hanging at his sides as he watched his rival through the settling dust.
Daiku attempted to sit up. He planted his left hand on the hard stone, but a sharp, agonizing pain in his shoulder and ribs made him gasp. His breathing was erratic, and his chakra reserves were at their absolute limit. He looked at his distant katana, then at Naruto, who barely showed signs of extreme exhaustion and hadn't even drawn upon the Nine-Tailed Fox's chakra to break his defense.
Daiku's entire strategy, his refined swordsmanship, and his mastery of Scorch Release had been neutralized by an unrelenting combination of feints, attrition tactics, and a single devastating finisher.
Daiku let his head fall back against the stone, letting out a long, heavy sigh of resignation. He knew that forcing himself to stand would only lead to permanent injuries that could ruin his career as a shinobi.
"I surrender..." Daiku said, his voice quiet but clear enough for the referee to hear. "I can't continue."
Daiku closed his eyes for a second, reflecting bitterly to himself as the pain in his muscles settled in.
'He didn't even use the tailed beast's chakra...' Daiku thought, staring up at the clear sky. 'With just his dozens of clones and that Rasengan, he contained all my attacks and broke my momentum. If I want to reach the level of these monsters... I need to find a way to handle crowds head-on or develop wide-area attacks that don't drain me in minutes.'
The supervising Jōnin walked quickly over to Daiku, briefly checked his condition, and then turned toward the center of the arena, raising his right arm in Naruto's direction.
"Contestant Daiku has yielded!" the referee proclaimed loudly. "Therefore, the winner of the second match of the semifinal round is... Naruto Uzumaki of Konohagakure!"
The Great Colosseum erupted into a roaring wave of cheers and applause. Spectators from every village acclaimed the young blond's victory, his name now echoing as the most unpredictable and dangerous competitor in the tournament.
Naruto let out a long breath of relief, smiling broadly as he waved to the crowd. He then walked over to Daiku, extending a hand to help him up.
Daiku looked at Naruto's hand for a moment before accepting it. With a coordinated effort, the Sand swordsman got to his feet, leaning slightly on the blond's shoulder as the Sunagakure medical team entered the field with a stretcher.
"Great fight, Daiku," Naruto said sincerely. "Those fire slashes had me in a real pinch for a second. If I hadn't pushed away with that Rasengan in time, you definitely would've taken me out."
Daiku let out a small, faint smile, retrieving his katana from the ground before climbing onto the stretcher with the medics' assistance.
"You won fair and square, Uzumaki," Daiku replied. "But don't think this is over. Next time we cross paths on the field, you won't corner me so easily."
"I'll be looking forward to that fight!" Naruto answered with a laugh.
As Daiku was carried off to the infirmary and Naruto headed back toward the waiting tunnel to catch his breath and receive basic care for his scrapes, the referee stepped to the center of the stage to make the announcement everyone had been anticipating.
The giant screen positioned above the colosseum's main structure updated the tournament bracket, wiping away the names of the eliminated fighters until only two slots remained at the top.
The referee raised his voice, his declaration resonating solemnly throughout the stadium:
"Ladies and gentlemen! After two high-level semifinal matches, the grand final of the Chūnin Exams is officially set!"
The crowd held its breath in silence as the names flashed across the giant screen before locking in with golden letters.
"The final match for the championship title will be fought between... Kimimaro of Sunagakure and Naruto Uzumaki of Konohagakure!"
The entire colosseum erupted once more into a unanimous roar.
In the waiting area, Kimimaro observed the screen from the shadows of the tunnel, his gaze calm yet sharp.
He knew that his final obstacle to proving his village's pride would be the jinchūriki of the Nine-Tails, in a duel where absolute strength and unyielding willpower would collide without restraint.