Unsurprisingly, both genin teams of Kiri made it to the tower in the middle of the Forest of Death on their first day to pass the second stage of the chūnin exams.
With "too many" people passing, there were more genin that needed to be weeded out. A political move by the Hokage to cull the competition some more.
Curiously only Iwa and Oto genin had to face my Kiri nin, no Konoha genin was knocked out because of my six troublemakers. And obviously my six genin bordering a special jōnin's strength or having reached it long ago had crushed those few Iwa and Oto genin. Too bad, two of my kids had to fight each other at the very end.
But there was a reason Mei and I only allowed our most talented kids to come here. We wanted to impress those daimyos and nobles and make them send us better missions. Well, Mei did. I just wanted my prodigies to wipe the floor with those other genin who never ate one of my pills and have a good laugh.
To my surprise, there was even a team from Hoshigakure hailing from the Land of Bears bordering Iwa's Land of Earth, but only one genin made it out alive without passing the test, the other two had died. The two jōnin that accompanied this team looked like they ate shit but stayed in Konoha regardless.
It seemed Hoshigakure, incredibly weakened after the loss of the special meteorite and most of its jōnin, had been made to swear vassalage to Iwagakure.
— — — — —
A full month later, it was finally time for the showcase matches to determine the strongest genin. Kiri had managed to snag five of thirty-two spots with only one genin not attending because he had to fight a fellow Kiri nin in the last qualifier match.
We watched the first fight and that lone genin that didn't get to participate sitting next to my sister commented with a deep pout, "Pfft, is this all they can do? I would have crushed both with my eyes closed."
"I trained you to be a sensor nin, so of course you could have won with your eyes closed. Why not boast that you could have won with just ninjutsu after I made you specialize in ninjutsu?" I mockingly asked as I turned to the boy who just crossed his arms and scowled even more. Giving my sister a look, she sighed and clutched the boy's neck to press him into her generous chest as she cooed, "Zazuki-chan~! You know that us Kiri nin look inside ourselves for betterment and not outside to diminish others~!"
"Himari-s-sama," the boy coughed out, barely managing to breathe while getting smothered. He was too young to enjoy the treatment as he fought to free himself. Once he succeeded, he turned his head away, embarrassed at getting treated like a child and angrily pouted once more, "This Haruno Sakura is weak, though. She'd be dead last in any second year taijutsu class in the academy taught by sensei."
"Weren't you dead last, too?" A little Yuki clan girl quipped with a mischievous smile.
Zazuki grew flustered, but before he could get into a shouting match I leveled him with an unimpressed glare that shut him up.
With a nod, I looked at the girl and reminded her, "Zazuki-kun might be terrible in taijutsu for a Kiri nin, but he is highly intelligent. He's here as an ambassador for Kiri's strength, that alone means that I have high hopes for him. He certainly hasn't lost a match in chess to you, has he?"
Zazuki proudly struck out his chest, but didn't bother to add anything to my praise. Without Konoha's meddling, the boy could have easily been a top 8 contestant for this competition. Without cheats like Naruto, he was in the top ten strongest genin present for sure. But I probably should be glad that they just disqualified one and not the maximum three by having them all face only other Kiri genin. Even Sarutobi Hiruzen seemed to realise that he couldn't overdo his obvious match fixing.
—
[POV 3rd person with Tsunade]
On the opposite side of the arena, Tsunade sat among the audience with both of her kids flanking her. As the de facto princess of Konoha and his student, she should have sat with the Hokage. She could have gotten her own tent to watch in the shade, too – but instead, she chose to sit with the other 'common' people of Konoha who all reverently averted their gaze whenever she looked over.
Her intention was to show her twins some humility, lest they grow as arrogant as the Uchiha or Hyūga who had their own clan sections where nobody else was allowed to sit. But the looks she was getting were testing her limited patience.
Looking up to see Terumi Yoshihiro flirting with the high priestess of the recently renamed Land of Seals that used to be the Land of Demons, her mood worsened even more.
"Mom, I think it might be Naruto-nii's match after this," Senju Dan reminded her when he saw his mother barely paying attention to some random Iwa genin getting severely outsmarted by the Nara clan heir.
Senju Mito, his twin sister leaned past her mother's body when she didn't react to look at her brother and whispered, "Something bad is about to happen. Quick, act cute!"
"Okaa-chan~" Dan whined as he tugged at his mother's sleeve immediately after he got his sister's hint and Tsunade finally tore her gaze from her 'nemesis'.
"Yes, Dan?" Tsunade asked with a small smile. She loved her son and could hardly say no to anything when he used that voice.
"Why are you looking at that red-haired Kiri nin like you want to murder him?" Dan innocently asked and ignored his sister slapping her forehead.
Dan had his own considerations. After all, Naruto was tortured by 'vigorous training' for three weeks after he said something to his mom. And Dan knew what earned him this punishment because he was eavesdropping.
That red-haired Kiri nin who looked a little frivolous. He made Naruto ask about something, sadly Dan didn't catch what it was exactly.
But more than that, Dan could feel that this man was very strong. As a natural sensor blessed by immense talent, the boy was sure that he was looking at someone as strong as his own mother, stronger than even the Hokage. That Kiri ninja certainly carried himself like someone who could fight everybody present and come out on top.
But instead of an answer, Dan earned himself a fist on the top of his head and a swiftly swelling bruise that made his eyes tear up.
"OW!"
"Don't ask when you already know you're getting a punch. Acting cute can only get you so far," Tsunade threatened in a low voice, having immediately seen through her son's intentions.
"That is the Red Demon, right? I overheard our teachers talking about him during lunch break," Mito added in a quiet voice, clearly intrigued. Her brother already got the fist, it was unlikely her mother would punch out a second time.
"Do your teachers have nothing better to do than gossip?" The Sannin asked in annoyance, her gaze once more firmly on the good-for-nothing deadbeat father of her children.
The man hadn't even once tried to reach out to them since coming for the exam four weeks ago. He only got Naruto to stir up trouble at her home. She was weirdly upset about it despite forbidding Yoshihiro from talking to their children the last two times he was in Konoha.
Seeing him casually flirting with the women around him, even if they couldn't reach her own allure in her opinion, made her mad. Even though she knew one of them was his sister, she still classified it as flirting in her mind when he joked around next to her – Tsunade wouldn't put it past the bastard to sink his fangs into the sister, too.
"Hanaka-sensei said she saw him at the onsen and he was 'hung like a horse'. What does that mean mommy?" Mito asked to change the subject to something that would keep the conversation going after a short derailment.
Tsunade faintly blushed, but her anger was more apparent than ever. In a menacing tone of voice, she uttered, "I guess I should pay a visit to your teachers soon if they talk about such filth in front of underaged students."
"Eh, they couldn't sense me so don't blame them," Mito countered with a sweet smile. She had already asked Shizune-neechan about it and got an answer, even if it took a while for the shy first student of her mom to find the words. "You know I'm very good at stealth."
Tsunade gave her daughter a small look but just sighed instead of reprimanding her.
"So is he really as strong as the rumors? They said he had the highest bounty in the bingo book," Mito continued to goad her mother into revealing more.
Cooling her expression, Tsunade nodded as she looked back at Yoshihiro with a small frown.
"No matter how low my opinion of him is as a person, Terumi Yoshihiro is the strongest living ninja there is," Tsunade confirmed in a small voice intended only for her children. She didn't need the others in the audience to hear her words and take them to that bastard Danzō or her sensei. "He might already be as strong as your great-grandfather."
"Woah," Mito muttered as she looked at her father – not that she knew – with awe in her eyes. Her mother would never lie about something like that when invoking the name of Grandpa Hashirama.
"Have you fought against him? Who won?" Dan asked from the other side, his gaze equally as reverent as his sister's.
Tsunade, thinking back on their only 'spar', blushed once more as she lost herself in the memory for a brief moment.
"We did indeed fight once, I won," Tsunade declared with an upturned nose.
"But didn't you say he was the strongest? Did you trick him by showing him your boobies?" Mito asked as she tilted her head in curiosity.
Tsunade immediately faltered and scratched her nose in embarrassment. With Jiraiya around to teach Naruto nonsense, the effectiveness of the 'Sexy Harem Jutsu' was indeed known in her family.
Jiraiya had been banned from the Senju compound for months when Naruto had shown off his self-created jutsu with which he 'beat' the Hokage.
Eventually, she coughed into her hand and righteously declared, "There's more ways to win than one."
'And I got the two of you out of it, that clearly makes me the winner,' Tsunade inwardly added as she briefly looked at her two children with loving eyes.
Dan, emboldened by reckless forgetfulness, leaned past his mother and whispered for his sister to hear, "Definitely showed him her boobies."
He immediately earned himself a second 'horn' that grew out from his mother's punch.
But he didn't cry out this time, he had anticipated the hit and took it. It wasn't often that they could tease their mother. This was clearly what family was all about.
"Ah, look. Naruto-nii is next," Mito suddenly shouted and stood up to cheer for her 'cousin'.
Dan copied his twin sister and hollered Naruto's name, who just bashfully waved at them and the others cheering for him before turning around to face his opponent.
A little girl who was much shorter than the properly fed and raised nine-tails vessel was.
"Uzumaki Naruto from Konoha versus Yuki Chisake from Kiri," Gekko Hayate, the proctor of this exam with the deep eyebags and permanent cough declared in the middle of the arena and jumped back after the two genin showed their readiness.
Naruto had to immediately dodge a hail of ice senbon the moment the match started and decided to use the body flicker to close the distance the moment the first bombardment of thrown ninja tools ended.
As Naruto's punch shattered an ice-clone that Yuki Chisake had placed in her original position, the blonde Uzumaki had to fight off the barrage of ice shards exploding at him from a point blank range, but eventually Naruto just dissipated in a cloud of smoke.
A shadow clone.
While the two genin were fighting it out while clearly exceeding the limits of what even experienced chūnin could muster, Mito turned to her mother without looking away from the fight and asked, "Hey mom. Why haven't you treated Gekko-san's cough yet?"
Tsunade's eyes were still fixed on Naruto's form, too. Small amounts of worry flicked deeply in her gaze whenever the Yuki clan girl performed another tricky technique, and answered, "Hayate-kun went to Shizune-chan for help. Shizune hasn't asked for my assistance. I trust that she would if it was needed. I let her grow by trying to find a treatment plan on her own."
"So you could help Gekko-san but you don't? That's cold, mommy," Mito rebuffed with a small frown as her hands clenched when another one of Naruto's shadow clones was ripped apart by icy projectiles down in the arena.
"Gekko Hayate is one of the most accomplished jōnin of our village together with Kakashi-kun. I doubt his condition negatively impacts his performance with his track record. And like I said, he asked Shizune. He didn't come to me like the Hyūga clan did," Tsunade defended in a low voice and winced when five Naruto shadow clones were cut into pieces by a thin, nearly invisible ice blade.
With a lost expression, Tsunade looked up at Yoshihiro to study his demeanor. Tsunade had fought a few Yuki clan jōnin back during the Second Ninja War, none of them knew a technique so deadly. Those ice blades were so thin and polished, it was hard even for her to see them. It must have been Yoshihiro who developed that technique.
After all, begrudgingly admitting that he was the strongest was hard and she still thought that her grandfather could teach Yoshihiro a lesson in every other hypothetical duel between the two… but Tsunade firmly believed that Yoshihiro was very likely the absolute best at teaching students and finding the perfect fighting style for them.
The last few years at the joint Chūnin Exams robbed anyone of the illusion that the new generation of Kiri wasn't going to be the strongest. Every year they brought another team or two full of prodigies. And it was all thanks to Kirigakure's academy headmaster Terumi Yoshihiro.
Their spies all reported the same thing. Yoshihiro personally taught every single combat class with dozens of clones for individual guidance. Still believing to be stronger than the village in the Land of Water ravaged by decades of civil war between the Mizukage and other Kiri shinobi factions, the other villages merely tried copying Yoshihiro's teaching style instead of banding together to cull the growing threat.
Well, Kumo tried and learnt a very bloody lesson.
Just as the true form of Naruto was caught in the Yuki clan's most devastating technique for one on one battles, Ice Release: Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals, Tsunade leaned forward in worry… until Naruto finally used Rasengan and blasted the mirrors apart one at a time at blinding speeds.
"Took the brat long enough," Tsunade muttered with a pleased grin hidden behind a chiding scowl.
Yuki Chisake finally ran out of chakra and decided to concede defeat after Naruto used a single technique to obliterate the mirrors with speed he hadn't shown before.
Chisake's small skill as a sensor told her that Naruto's chakra didn't even budge while hers was running low. The young Kiri kunoichi judged that the blonde boy was a cheater and a scoundrel and decided to stop wasting her effort. Her sensei clearly told all of them that he wouldn't hold it against them if they lost against Naruto. Getting 'outsmarted' by wasting all of her chakra on hundreds of shadow clones wasn't any fun at all.
"Look, the Red Demon stood up," Dan whispered and all three Senju looked at the man as he moved down the stands to greet the downcast Yuki girl and help heal her small wounds.
"How envious," Mito muttered when they saw him gently pat her head to cheer her up.
Tsunade gave her daughter a complicated look.
"Naruto-nii is the strongest after all. It wasn't a bad loss either. She's clearly strong," Dan defended while looking oddly proud at Naruto getting looked over by Shizune who stood by the Konoha genins to give them first aid as a medi nin.
"Well, you two are slacking quite a bit," Tsunade interjected in a dry voice. "I had Shizune look up their information. That Yuki girl is only a year older than the two of you."
Dan turned to stone, his face paled. Mito started sweating heavily, fidgeting at the hem of her shirt.
The two were the stars of the academy, perpetually #1 and #2 in class in everything and only losing to their twin. They were stronger than most genin who weren't their Naruto-nii, Tsunade saw to it.
But the way their mother just talked, it was clear that grueling training sessions were waiting for them back at home.
"Can't we ask Terumi-sama to be our teacher?" Mito asked in a small voice. "Clearly he must be quite good at that. With our talent we would absolutely be his most promising students."
"As the two last Senju, you want me to hand over your training to a ninja from an enemy village?" Tsunade asked in mock anger, pushing down her discomfort at the meeting of her children and their father. "Your grand-uncle Tobirama would turn in his grave if he heard about it."
"Yeah, but Grandpa Hashirama would immediately agree," Dan pointed out with a smug grin.
Tsunade was about to refute, but thinking back to the carefree man who saw the good in everyone after ending an era of violence and bloodshed, she couldn't get herself to do so. Dan had a point.
"I suppose," Tsunade finally relented in a small voice while her gaze followed Yoshihiro's figure as he guided the Yuki clan girl back to the seats of the Kiri delegation.