Body Flicker Technique! Kakashi lunged straight at Maki.
For a ninja, sheer speed truly meant the power to do whatever one pleased. In the future, the fastest man in the Ninja World, Namikaze Minato, would build his legend on speed alone—his Flying Thunder God Technique made even the two Raikage brothers completely helpless.
Right now, Kakashi was following that same path.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
Shien suddenly stopped and began forming hand seals. With a puff of smoke, he summoned Taiyi.
Bang!
White mist spread out. A three-legged raven, its entire body covered in dark-golden feathers, appeared on the battlefield.
"What a huge crow!"
"It's a summoning beast!" …
Under countless gazes, the newly summoned Taiyi began to move.
Caw!
He spread his wings and soared into the sky.
Up until now, every time Taiyi had been summoned, the battles had all been on the ground—but one mustn't forget: Taiyi could fly.
Whoosh, whoosh!
The wind howled violently as Taiyi ascended, his massive shadow falling over the battlefield below.
Compared to the graduation exam just a few months ago, his size was completely different. Back then, he had been about as tall as a man, with a wingspan of only a few meters. In the modern world, he'd have counted as a large bird, but in the Ninja World, he was merely small.
Now, though, things had changed.
His wingspan had surpassed ten meters, giving off an overwhelming aura.
He looked enormous—but bird size can be deceiving. Even with that wingspan, his height when perched was only about six meters. Not small by any means, but compared to the truly giant summoning beasts that stood over ten meters tall, he wasn't even half their height—at most, a third.
In other words, Taiyi still had plenty of room to grow.
Caw!
Taiyi began his assault.
He spat out one fireball after another, each the size of a soccer ball.
His target? A massive black bear roughly two stories tall.
The choice was obvious—attacking other, faster opponents would be pointless. A ninja could easily dodge such attacks.
But a black bear? With that lumbering body, there was no chance of missing.
Boom! Boom!
Each fireball exploded, turning vast swaths of the battlefield into a sea of flames. The destruction looked utterly apocalyptic.
Some nearby participants were even caught in the crossfire and burned to death.
This was the terror of large summoning beasts—their attacks grew stronger with their bodies.
If Taiyi were still his old size, the damage would've been minimal. But now, with his body several times larger, his destructive power had increased more than tenfold.
And for Taiyi, the chakra consumption wasn't even that great—about the same as a single C-rank ninjutsu.
ROAR!
A furious bellow echoed from within the firestorm.
The enormous black bear burst out of the flames, charging straight toward Shien's position.
Clearly, its animal instincts had sensed their connection. Couldn't reach the flying Taiyi? Fine—then kill the summoner instead!
"You're one tough bastard," Shien muttered, standing atop a tree branch as he watched the bear smash through the forest like a tank.
He made no move to retreat.
These large ninja beasts were incredibly difficult to deal with—after all, they could use chakra to enhance their attacks, defenses, and more. That was why it had survived Taiyi's earlier onslaught.
Any ordinary wild beast, no matter how big, would've died already.
As the bear closed in—
BOOM!
A thunderous explosion erupted beneath it.
Explosive tags!
Their destructive power was on par with high-level Fire Style techniques—something even a Kage-level ninja wouldn't ignore.
But the price was steep.
Thirty thousand ryō each.
This time, Shien had ordered Yamanaka Koji to use five of them in a single trap.
Against a monster like this, one tag wouldn't do much. So they had burned through the entire supply of Class Three's stockpile in one go.
Oh, and explosive tags had a shelf life—you couldn't just buy them once and keep them forever.
When the smoke cleared, the ground before Shien revealed the black bear, barely clinging to life.
Hit point-blank by five explosive tags, even a large ninja beast was doomed.
If it had been a sentient summoning beast, it might have dodged or defended itself. But this one, though capable of using chakra, lacked real intelligence—and blundered straight into a simple trap.
Otherwise, taking it down head-on would've cost them far more.
Of course, it also helped that Class Three didn't play fair—they went straight for the big guns.
Other examinees wanted to do the same, but they simply couldn't afford it.
Poverty limited imagination.
Thirty thousand ryō per tag—completely beyond the means of any genin. Even jonin didn't usually carry many.
But Shien was different.
To him, survival came first. The more trump cards, the better.
And with the right connections, he had managed to secure five of them as his hidden ace.
Clearly, it was worth it—the result was devastating.
In an instant, they had crippled a black bear that even Maki couldn't handle.
"Watch out, Shien!"
Suddenly, Yamanaka Koji shouted in alarm.
A figure wearing a Hot Water Village forehead protector appeared silently behind Shien and stabbed at him with a kunai.
Poof!
Shien's body burst into smoke.
Clone Technique!
A standard D-rank ninjutsu.
If the attacker had a Byakugan or some similar bloodline limit, he might have seen through it—but clearly, he didn't.
From his movement and killing intent, it was obvious—this was a professional assassin, not an ordinary ninja.
But even so, he'd fallen for the trick.
The D-rank Clone Technique couldn't compare to the B-rank Shadow Clone Technique, but if the user stayed still, its illusion was convincing enough.
The key was that no one expected Shien to use a clone as bait from the very beginning.
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"
A fireball the size of a wagon wheel blasted out from the side, engulfing the assassin.
It was Shien himself.
As a master of the Flow of the Heart style, he would never stand in such an obvious, exposed spot.
He had simply been fishing—and the bait had worked perfectly.
One clean C-rank technique, and the assassin was gone.
He wasn't a candidate—definitely a hired killer sent by another village.
The fight was over almost instantly—no drawn-out exchange, no hundreds of flashy moves.
That's what real ninja battles were like—fast and lethal.
This wasn't peacetime; the Chunin Exams were legalized slaughter. The ones shown in the anime were child's play compared to this.
"Binding Cloth Technique!"
Suddenly, a white cloth lashed toward Shien.
"Wind Release: Gale Palm!"
Yamanaka Koji stepped in to help.
Swish!
A kunai flew at Shien's position.
Maki's teammates—Juan and Yuliang—had joined the fight.
Meanwhile, Kakashi and Maki were clashing nearby, the ringing of steel echoing across the field—their duel fierce and unrelenting.
Even Taiyi couldn't intervene—his size made him too dangerous to use in such close quarters.
A single attack from him could just as easily hit friend as foe.
Class Three vs. Maki's Squad!
One of the biggest showdowns of this exam had finally begun.
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