"What criteria are you using to select your team members?" Uchiha Mai asked.
Minato paused for a brief moment, then answered honestly, "There are no rules."
What rules would you need to test the Will of Fire? It all came down to who was willing to sacrifice themselves to fulfill others.
Uchiha Mai nodded slightly. He understood.
Then he turned around in a flash, chakra surging into his legs as he unleashed a high whipping kick straight toward Asuma's face.
I really like games without rules.
Inside the office, Fugaku watched the group freeze for a moment. After Mai exchanged a few words with Minato and then immediately took action, Fugaku's heart leapt with joy. Well done. Very well done.
At a moment like this, stepping forward voluntarily and declaring oneself willing to withdraw would carry no real loss aside from missing out on Minato's team, while greatly reducing the perceived threat of the Uchiha clan in the Third Hokage's eyes.
Afterward, anyone who withdrew voluntarily would surely be reassigned to another elite team. Fugaku had seen this routine countless times.
However, Mai turning around and viciously whipping Asuma with a kick taught Fugaku a very important lesson about celebrating too early.
His heart nearly stopped. What the hell? Wasn't this supposed to be about understanding the Will of Fire? What is this sudden attack supposed to mean?
Fine, if you're going to fight, then fight - but why Asuma? Eat, sleep, beat Asuma. Has he really been beaten so often that it's become a reflex?
Mai had his reasons. Quite simply, Asuma was standing closest to him.
Obito was from the same clan - bad form to target him first. As for Yūhi Kurenai and Nohara Rin, those two were weak. One kick and they'd probably cry for half the day. No threat at all; they could be dealt with later.
Might Guy, on the other hand… say the wrong word and he might open the Eight Gates. That would be troublesome. But eliminating the other four would be enough. Advancing together with Guy - now that would be perfect.
Asuma had been thinking about whether he should voluntarily withdraw to fulfill Kurenai and Uchiha Mai when a leg shadow suddenly lashed toward him.
Acting on pure reflex, he leaned back and took a step away, narrowly avoiding the familiar whip kick. Experience earned through countless beatings, if nothing else.
When the first strike failed, Mai stepped forward, his left foot planted firmly to stabilize his center of gravity. His entire body tensed like a fully drawn bowstring.
His right leg lifted high over his head, flexibility pushed to its limit. Wrapped in far more chakra than before, it descended with greater speed and far more ferocious momentum, crashing down toward Asuma's head.
Mai Style · Ancient Martial Arts · Outer Form · Thunder Axe!
This was a new technique Mai had developed after a full month of intense training, refined to maximize both visual impact and destructive power.
It was a move no one had ever seen before.
Asuma had perfectly avoided Mai's first kick and never imagined that a second heavy strike would follow so quickly. He wasn't this fast when he beat me up before!
Of course not. Who uses their full strength for everyday Asuma-beating?
Asuma twisted desperately, managing only to avoid a direct hit to the head.
Crack!
A crisp sound rang out as the bones in Asuma's shoulder shattered on impact. The overwhelming force slammed him straight into the ground.
"Aaaahhh - !"
Dust exploded into the air as the pain finally reached his senses. Asuma screamed in agony, feeling utterly wronged.
Uchiha Mai, you have no ninja ethics!
Before, at least the beatings were fair fights - ten moves or so before he got beaten black and blue.
But today? A sneak attack, no warning, no concern for whether he could take it - going that hard right out of the gate… with a kick.
Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.
Asuma felt wronged, but the expressions of Fugaku and Sarutobi Hiruzen in the office were even more bizarre, twisted as if they were severely constipated.
This isn't how this was supposed to go!
"This Uchiha Mai… not bad. Very impressive," Hiruzen said stiffly, forcing a smile as he offered a dry evaluation to cover his embarrassment.
"He's the strongest among the younger generation of the Uchiha," Fugaku added, doing his best to smooth things over for the Third Hokage.
At a moment like this, continuing to downplay Mai as just an ordinary clan child would only make things more awkward.
What would that imply? That Hiruzen's son had been taken down in two kicks by an ordinary Uchiha kid?
Besides, Mai's strength was undeniably real.
Fugaku knew Mai fought Asuma often and always won - but he had never imagined it would be this effortless.
Asuma, returning home battered and bruised each time, always claimed it was a hard-fought loss by a narrow margin. No one brags about getting utterly crushed.
The fearless "boss" of the Ninja Academy collapsing so suddenly caught everyone completely off guard.
Only after Asuma went down did Minato finally react. Didn't the Hokage say this was supposed to test their spirit of sacrifice? Why did it suddenly turn into a fight?
Now what was he supposed to do? If he intervened, wouldn't that contradict his own words from moments ago - there are no rules?
Minato was deeply conflicted.
Mai, however, couldn't care less about the awkward silence in the office or Minato's internal struggle.
After dropping Asuma, he immediately redirected his assault toward Obito.
Sorry, Obito. If I want to join Minato-sensei's team, I have to take you down. Sure, that means you won't be on the same team as your best buddy Kakashi…
But I'll take Rin down too afterward. Look at it this way - Rin won't be on Kakashi's team either. That's actually good for you.
"Mai, y-you… what are you doing?" Obito stammered.
Even with his normally thick nerves, Obito couldn't keep up with Mai's tempo. This sudden violence completely threw him off.
"This is for your own good," Mai replied, driving a flying knee straight toward Obito's chest.
Realizing he had no choice but to fight back, Obito gathered chakra and raised both elbows to shield his chest.
Like an ant trying to shake a tree.
His arms screamed in pain as the impact hit. Though he protected his torso, he couldn't fully dissipate the force and stumbled backward several steps.
Mai closed the distance instantly. His single tomoe Sharingan activated, analyzing Obito's posture and movements as his hands shot forward like phantoms, clamping onto Obito's head.
After long practice with techniques like the Lightning Five Whips, Mai's arms, hands, and fingers had reached an entirely new level of speed and dexterity.
If the person holding Obito's head were Nohara Rin, Obito might have enjoyed it.
Unfortunately, it wasn't.
Mai yanked Obito's head downward with both hands and drove his knee up mercilessly.
Obito was knocked unconscious on the spot.
Mai had always fought brutally, striking straight for vital points. At minimum, his opponents walked away with broken bones or mild concussions - and that was just the baseline.
It was undeniably ruthless, especially for a school spar or evaluation. Yet up to this point, no academy instructor, not Fugaku, nor anyone else had ever corrected him for it.
This was the ninja world. This was a world less than ten years removed from the Second Shinobi World War.
If you didn't hit hard enough, you couldn't threaten your enemy. And if you couldn't threaten them, you'd be killed instead. If you held back too much in peacetime, what would your body do on the battlefield when instincts took over?
In this era, ruthlessness was necessary.
What - did you think decades of peace meant this was a children's game?
(End of Chapter)
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