Chapter 36 (Patreon)

Mihawk slid his sword back into its sheath and turned to look at the fallen Yoroi Akadō.

Blood had already begun pooling across the floor beneath him.

“I’m sorry,” Mihawk said calmly. “I tried my best to control the strength of the strike. Hopefully, he’s still alive.”

His completely even voice echoed through the hall.

For a moment, no one said anything.

The genin were horrified, but even the Third Hokage and the jōnin watching from the second floor looked visibly shaken.

“Such simple yet deadly swordsmanship…”

Orochimaru, still disguised as an Otogakure jōnin, studied Mihawk with renewed interest.

“It’s almost exactly like his.”

A figure from many years ago surfaced in Orochimaru’s mind—a man whose image he had never truly forgotten.

He had not expected Konoha’s current generation to hold another hidden talent. Aside from Uchiha Itachi’s younger brother and the new Nine-Tails jinchūriki, there was also an unremarkable civilian-born genius like Mihawk.

Konoha truly deserved its reputation as a village that continuously produced exceptional shinobi.

Kurenai glanced at Kakashi. His visible eye had narrowed sharply during Mihawk’s attack.

“Well, Kakashi?” she asked with a smile. “What do you think?”

“His talent is remarkable. He certainly deserves to be called this year’s top Academy graduate.”

Kakashi recovered from his surprise. A trace of old memories seemed to pass through his eye beneath his tilted forehead protector.

He did not hold back his praise.

“It was an ordinary sword draw combined with an ordinary Body Flicker Technique. But by perfectly merging the two movements, he turned them into a quick-draw technique capable of ending a fight with a single strike.”

A hint of pride appeared in Kurenai’s smile.

Her former classmates had all become jōnin or elite jōnin. Kakashi and Asuma had also taken on genin teams during the same year as her.

Now that they were all responsible for guiding the next generation, a certain degree of competition between them was inevitable.

Kurenai had only recently been promoted to jōnin. Kakashi and the others did not look down on her, but they probably had not seen her as much of a rival either.

Now, however, the strongest genin among the current graduates was one of her students.

Kurenai naturally felt as though she had already won the first round of their unspoken competition.

The other candidates were not thinking about anything so lighthearted.

Most of them stared at Mihawk with horror—and in some cases, outright fear.

Sasuke held one hand against the Cursed Seal of Heaven on his neck and stared at Mihawk in disbelief.

I can’t dodge that.

His expression darkened.

Damn it!

Although Sasuke had not personally faced the attack, he was forced to admit the truth.

He could not avoid Mihawk’s swift and direct strike in his current condition.

Even activating the Sharingan would not be enough.

There had been no chakra involved in the sword strike. It was neither ninjutsu nor genjutsu, but pure swordsmanship based on physical movement.

Even if Sasuke’s Sharingan allowed him to see the attack clearly, his body would not be able to react in time.

It’s only been four months. Has the gap between us really grown this much?

Frustration and unwillingness surged inside him.

What Sasuke did not know was that Mihawk’s true strength would leave him in complete despair.

If he ever discovered that the opponents he had fought over the past several years had merely been Mihawk’s shadow clones, the humiliation might have been unbearable.

Naruto did not have thoughts as complicated as Sasuke’s.

He simply stared down at the arena in amazement.

“Whoa… Mihawk is incredible!”

Hayate watched Mihawk walking toward the stairs, shock and confusion lingering in his eyes.

As another shinobi who specialized in swordsmanship, Hayate understood the power behind Mihawk’s attack better than most of the people present.

It had been flawless.

Simple, direct, and deadly.

But there had not been even the slightest trace of chakra in the strike.

What kind of wrist strength was required to cut through a person’s ribs so easily?

Just how much physical power was hidden beneath Mihawk’s slender frame?

Hayate knew nothing about the Breath of All Things, so he could not understand how Mihawk had accomplished it.

Even so, he did not forget his duty.

“Medical team,” Hayate called out. “Come down and treat him.”

Several medical-nin moved forward with a stretcher and carried Yoroi away.

Whether they arrived late or did not come at all probably would not make much difference.

Several of Yoroi’s ribs had been severed. When he collapsed, the broken bones had pierced his internal organs.

Unless an extraordinarily skilled medical-nin treated him immediately, there was little chance of pulling him back from the edge of death.

Even if Yoroi somehow survived, he would probably never be able to serve as a shinobi again.

Under everyone’s gaze, Mihawk climbed to the second floor and stopped beside Hinata.

Meanwhile, the screen below began selecting the participants for the second match.

The names soon appeared.

Uchiha Sasuke vs. Koizumi Ryōta

The moment Ryōta saw the screen, his face turned pale.

He was one of the two candidates who had managed to graduate alongside Inuzuka and become a member of Team Nine.

Now, he had been matched against the student who had ranked second in their Academy class.

Despair immediately filled him.

Ryōta would not have felt this hopeless even if his opponent had been Kankurō or Temari.

After spending six years in the same class, the students had long since accepted that ordinary graduates could not defeat the Academy’s first- and second-ranked students.

Even so, Ryōta had no choice but to enter the arena and face Sasuke.

The outcome was never in doubt.

Although Sasuke was being tormented by the Cursed Seal of Heaven and could not activate his Sharingan, Ryōta still had no chance of defeating him.

After taking Ryōta down with a few simple moves, Sasuke left the hall with Kakashi.

Orochimaru, still disguised as an Otogakure jōnin, quietly departed soon afterward.

The following match appeared to return to the original course of events.

The third match was:

Shino Aburame vs. Zaku Abumi

Zaku was one of the three Otogakure genin. His arms had been modified with special devices that allowed him to release powerful air-pressure attacks capable of shattering stone.

However, those very devices became his weakness.

Shino sent his insects into the openings in Zaku’s arms, blocking the airflow inside them. When Zaku attempted to attack, the pressure built up within his own arms and exploded.

Shino won the match.

The fourth pairing, however, deviated from the original events once again.

When the names appeared on the screen, Mihawk’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Hyūga Hinata vs. Misumi Tsurugi

Tsurugi was Yoroi’s teammate and one of Kabuto Yakushi’s two supposed companions.

Mihawk did not care much about Tsurugi himself.

What concerned him was the fact that Hinata had been matched against him.

What’s going on?

Several suspiciously convenient matchups in the original events had made it obvious that someone was secretly controlling the selection screen.

Wasn’t Hinata supposed to face Neji Hyūga?

That battle would have given the Third Hokage an opportunity to observe the strength of the Hyūga clan’s main and branch families in the current generation.

Yet the matchup had changed.

Mihawk thought about it for a moment before relaxing.

This is better.

Hinata had trained beside him for years, and her current strength was far beyond what it had been in the original story.

Even so, Mihawk knew her abilities well.

She still was not strong enough to defeat Neji, who had secretly mastered the Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven.

Mihawk did not want Hinata to be hurt.

If Neji injured her as severely as he had in the original events, Mihawk was not certain he would be able to restrain himself.

He knew that the enemies appearing later in the shinobi world would possess strength on an entirely different level.

Because of that, he would rather let Hinata remain safely behind him and protect her for the rest of his life than watch her risk herself in battle.