Chapter 50: Fake Omnipotence, True Omnipotence
At the examinee entrance to the Forest of Death, the genin who had passed the first round were signing the consent forms at proctor Anko's request.
Sakura was an ordinary person who was very content with the status quo. What she wanted was simply a Naruto who dreamed of becoming Hokage, and a cool Sasuke.
At the end of the written exam, the chief proctor Morino Ibiki presented the final question: choose to answer it, and if you got it wrong, you would remain a genin forever; choose not to answer, and you would be disqualified but could still participate in the next Chūnin Exam.
In order to keep Naruto's dream of becoming Hokage from turning into nothing, Sakura was prepared to take responsibility herself, even at the risk of being hated, and raise her hand to give up.
What happened after that was something everyone already knew.
After Naruto's speech expressing his unwavering determination, something inside Sakura changed slightly as well.
She thought that even if she couldn't become stronger than Naruto or Sasuke in the future, at the very least, she shouldn't drag them down.
At this moment, Sakura was organizing her ninja tools pouch.
"Try not to eat too many soldier pills. They'll affect your development."
Kakashi, who had specifically followed them here, glanced at the contents of Sakura's pouch and casually tossed out that remark.
"…That counts as harassment, right?"
Temari, who was standing nearby and heard Kakashi's comment, muttered a complaint.
"Kakashi-sensei, stop joking around."
Sakura didn't take Kakashi's words seriously. After packing her tools, she went over to Anko, took a consent form, and signed her name.
Seriously, how could something ninjas commonly eat like soldier pills possibly have that kind of side effect? If that were true, wouldn't all the female ninjas in the ninja world be flat-chested?
That was what Sakura thought.
The second stage of the Chūnin Exam, the Forest of Death Heaven-and-Earth Scroll Capture Battle, began.
On the other side, Shiromo nodded to the people around him, then moved and flew into the sky above the Forest of Death, preparing to observe from above.
Orochimaru was extremely efficient. Not long after Team 7 entered the forest, he found them.
Shiromo watched from the sky.
Trees blocked much of the view, making it hard to see clearly, but Shiromo could still sense everything that happened.
Under Naruto's powerful Talk-no-Jutsu, Sasuke overcame his fear of death and began counterattacking Orochimaru, who was disguised as a genin.
Orochimaru took a beating and didn't lose a single drop of blood.
After this fight, Orochimaru was extremely satisfied with Sasuke as his designated vessel. He bit him and planted a curse mark.
Sasuke lost consciousness.
Next came the encounter with the Sound ninja team. Sakura cut her hair and began protecting her teammates.
"So these are the reincarnations of Asura and Indra you mentioned? Then who is that girl?"
Konan's voice came from behind Shiromo.
Shiromo turned his head and saw that besides Konan, Kurotsuchi was also there, bringing Terumi Mei along with her. The two of them were still some distance away, slowly drifting over.
Below them, Sarutobi Hiruzen looked up at the group all gathering in the sky. For some reason, instead of feeling uneasy, he felt more at ease.
When Shiromo alone had been hovering overhead earlier, it had made him feel inexplicably creeped out.
~
"Don't underestimate her. In the future, her strength will actually surpass that of her two teammates."
"She's that impressive?"
Konan froze for a moment, then frowned slightly. "Then why didn't you think about recruiting her into the organization, or guiding her at all? You're joking, right?"
"Not at all."
Shiromo smiled and shook his head. "In the future, one of her teammates loses his tailed beast, and the other loses the Rinnegan. Their strength drops dramatically…"
"If, at that point, the gap still isn't obvious enough, then later on, one gets sealed in another dimension, and the other ends up half-dead as a vegetable."
"…"
Konan fell silent.
So that was one way to 'surpass' others?
Not by becoming stronger herself, but by others becoming weaker?
Fake divine technique [Omnipotence]: swapping the identities of the person you secretly love and your best friend's crush. (divine technique = Shinjutsu)
True divine technique [Omnipotence]: a single sentence, "I think I've caught up to them", causing the entire fate of the world to start bending toward those words.
"I'm not mocking her. For a civilian ninja from Konoha to reach that level of strength was already incredibly difficult."
"It's just a pity that in the future, everyone indulges in a false peace. The threat of the Ōtsutsuki is concealed by her two teammates, and by the time it can no longer be hidden, it's already too late for the entire ninja world to develop or struggle further."
Shiromo let out a sigh.
By then, Kurotsuchi and Mei had floated over and also heard this conversation.
They had already been told about the Ōtsutsuki threat earlier.
After hearing this, neither of them spoke, but they began thinking more seriously about improving their own strength.
The new systems Shiromo was introducing for them, to reduce the burden on the Kage and develop their villages, were not meant for them to simply enjoy comfort.
"Hmm? That is…"
Kurotsuchi noticed the black-and-silver, uh… patterns emerging on Sasuke's body after he woke up.
"The curse mark researched by Orochimaru is a way of utilizing natural energy."
"Natural energy? Isn't that senjutsu?"
"More or less."
"…"
"His mental state seems a bit unstable."
"Doesn't matter. If, even after knowing the method to advance the Sharingan, he's still obsessed with this power, then he's basically a lost cause."
As they chatted, Sasuke below indeed relied on his own willpower to suppress the curse mark again.
Meanwhile, Orochimaru, after leaving the curse mark on Sasuke and preparing to exit the Forest of Death, noticed Shiromo and the others watching from the sky.
Seeing that they were the Mizukage and Tsuchikage who had just accused Konoha of harboring perverts, along with an unknown ninja, he didn't pay them any attention.
Even if they had seen him using snakes earlier, they wouldn't immediately connect it to him.
Thus, the Konoha Crush Plan could proceed as scheduled.
Orochimaru believed that even if he hadn't discussed anything with the Mizukage or Tsuchikage beforehand, once he made his move and activated the plan, those two wouldn't help Konoha anyway.
…
"I can't keep watching this."
"Same. Let's head down."
After watching for a while longer, Mei and Kurotsuchi both said this with dark expressions and left.
Although their purpose was to watch "high-level battles," they inevitably ended up seeing the rookies from their own villages.
After the written exam had filtered out a large number of candidates, the remaining ones were still pitifully weak.
In truth, the difficulty of this Chūnin Exam was already excessive.
Leaving Orochimaru aside for the moment, the Sound ninja team he brought, along with the key factor, Gaara, had pushed the exam's difficulty to the extreme.
Anyone who could pass the Forest of Death already possessed at least chūnin-level strength.
But what about the batches from Iwagakure and Kirigakure?
They were weak to begin with, Iruka alone could beat them.
Worse still, these people weren't even young.
Adults beating children, and getting beaten badly by those children instead.
Some of them didn't just hand over their scrolls; they even disgracefully knelt down to beg for mercy.
No wonder the two of them couldn't bear to watch anymore.
Shiromo stopped watching as well.
He already knew the outcome. He'd only watched the process to see whether Sasuke had changed at all after being influenced by him.
Shiromo didn't fly back to say anything more to Sarutobi Hiruzen. Instead, he went straight back to the streets of Konoha.
After walking for a while, he saw piles of Hyūga clan crests placed at the entrance of a residence.
There was also a little girl with Byakugan eyes running around outside.
"How is there no one?"
Shiromo looked around, still finding it hard to imagine that in Konoha, there could be children chasing after the Hyūga clan's young lady and calling her a "white-eyed monster."
Considering it was currently the Chūnin Exam period and there were foreign ninja in the village, something like that happening might barely be understandable.
"What do you mean 'no one'? What are you trying to do?!"
A voice came from inside the estate directly opposite Shiromo.
(End of this chapter)