[Please read the announcement at the end of the chapter, its important.]
The race continued and Kazuki's team was in the lead while other teams followed them.
Deidara stopped to wait for his team because he wanted them to treat his shoulder wound, his teammates were quite surprised that someone managed to hurt Deidara and get past him.
Kurotsuchi used Mystical Palm Jutsu to heal him and they continued to run.
Kazuki's team was still in the lead.
After a few minutes of running, a stadium came into their view, getting closer, they saw there were several people sitting there, cheering excitedly to see which team made it first.
The Tsuchikage, Fire Daimyo, Earth Daimyo and Lightning Daimyo were also sitting in the VIP seats.
The cheers slowed down as people saw it's the Konoha team who got here first.
When Kazuki and his team crossed the finish line, there were some cheers, and the announcer said.
"Ladies and gentlemen, it looks that that the winners of this round are Yuki Senju, Ryuma Hatake and Kazuki Uchiha."
Akari also come to congratulate them, "Congratulations on winning the first round." Akari said. "I knew you guys would be first, but I didn't expect you to finish this so quickly, it's only been 34 minutes."
In the VIP section the Fire Daimyo covered his face with his fan and laughed, "Gufufufu, it seems that I've won the bet this time."
"Yes, but there are more rounds ahead, I'm sure Iwagakure will win those." Earth Daimyo said, holding back his frustration.
"Damn it! Where are those fools? I specifically told them to win no matter what, that brat Deidara must have done something reckless again." Onoki thought.
After 5 minutes, Deidara and his team also arrived and a total of 18 teams were able to qualify for the next round.
However, someone in the VIP room was having difficulty controlling his anger, that was none other than Onoki the Third Tsuchikage.
Once the event was over and everyone went to their living quarters, the Daimyo barged into the Tsuchikage office, where Onoki was already scolding the three Genins.
The Earth Daimyo snapped, "What is the meaning of this, Onoki? You assured me that Iwa will dominate these chunin exams. How did they come second?"
Onoki replied, "It seems like we miscalculated the strength of other Konoha, we thought that after the nine tails assault their strength must have reduced by a lot. It seems they still have some prodigies, but don't worry, Lord Daimyo, our team will definitely win the other rounds."
The Daimyo calmed down and said, "You better win the other rounds or I'm going to reduce your budget."
The Daimyo left after saying that.
Onoki moved his attention to the three Genin and asked, "Now, tell me what happened there and how you managed to lose, and is that an injury on your shoulder, Deidara?"
Deidara was about to say something but Kurotsuchi cut him off and said, "Grandpa, It was Deidara's fault, we had decided to go slow at the start and when everyone is tired, we'll increase our speed and win but Deidara ran off on his own and got injured by some Suna ninja and then we had to stop and treat his injury first."
Onoki looked at Deidara intensely. Deidara scoffed and said, "It wasn't any ordinary ninja, he was very fast and already knew about my abilities and when I defeated him, he turned out to be a shadow clone."
Onoki was quite surprised, he said, "It was probably someone from the Konoha team using transformation ninjutsu with shadow clone to fool you. I had heard they were formidable but I didn't consider they would be this powerful after their last embarrassing defeat.
If it continues to go like this, we will lose and the Daimyo will reduce our funds, we have to do something about this."
In the Genin's living quarters, Team Akari was having a feast to celebrate their victory.
After the celebration was over, Akari said, "You defeated the Iwa team in the first round. Do you know what that means?"
The three of them looked at her.
Akari said, "It means that they are going to try very hard for the next round, they might even use some dirty tricks to win this."
"But why would they go that far? They are still second and it's just a chunin exam." Ryuma asked
Akari smiled a little and said, "Let me explain this from the start. The Chunin Exams are not hosted to only promote Genins to Chunins, they are hosted so that all the villages can showcase their strength in front of each other. And it is very important for the hosting village to win because if they lose, the people of that village will start doubting their own ninjas."
She continued, "While it holds so much importance, for the Daimyos it is nothing other than a betting show, they bet some money on their villages but the most important thing that they bet is their respect, so the chunin exams also affect the village's relations with the Daimyos."
Ryuma's mouth remained open in surprise, and Kazuki's was also fairly surprised but Yuki wasn't that surprised because she was already aware of the village politics.
The next day in the morning before the start of the second round, all participating teams of Iwa were gathered in a small ground, there were a total of 8 Iwa teams.
Onoki announced, "For the second round of Chunin exams, you all are ordered to target the Konoha team that won the first round, and you are prohibited from fighting each other to ensure that Iwagakure wins these Chunin exams."
Inside of Konoha, in the underground root base, a root shinobi asked Danzo, "Was it really okay to send those three? They are one of the best prodigies of root in this decade, isn't this overkill?"
Danzo replied, "No, Yuki Senju is not a weak Genin, she might be a child, but she's very skilled not to mention that Uchiha brat is also with him."
[A/N- Welcome back, everyone. for the past few days I was working on making a few chapters in bulk to launch a patreon, so yeah, if any of you guys are interested in reaching 5 chapters in advance, you can go there and purchase my subscription.
Go here- Patreon. com/animewithrohan (Remove the space after the dot)