Chapter 46: Graduation Exam
Hearing that Sasuke might get hurt, Sakura looked at him anxiously and said, "Sasuke... how about...!"
"Shut up! My business is none of your concern."
After Sasuke finished speaking, he attacked Naruto.
Naruto felt it wouldn't be right to fight Sasuke with his hands in his pockets; it would be too disrespectful and might actually infuriate him to death.
As the two exchanged blows, Naruto clearly felt that Sasuke's strength had increased and his movements had become more agile.
It seemed Sasuke had indeed been severely depleted before; now that he had recovered, his original genius attributes had returned.
The two sparred for over half an hour. Though it was called a fight, Naruto was actually feeding Sasuke moves to help him practice.
Sasuke saw through Naruto's intentions but didn't mind. He kept fighting until he was exhausted, eventually unleashing the Great Fireball Technique.
This time, Naruto didn't dodge or evade; he used his hand to directly swat the Great Fireball aside, dispersing it.
This shocked everyone, especially Sasuke, who looked at Naruto in disbelief and asked, "How is this possible? Was that a Ninjutsu you just used?"
Naruto shook his head and said, "What I used just now wasn't Ninjutsu, but a Sealing Jutsu. Rather than saying I swatted the Great Fireball away, it's more accurate to say I sealed it."
Sasuke nodded upon hearing this and said, "I see!"
Ino stepped forward with a smile and said, "I thought it was the effect of your body tempering, but it turns out it was a Sealing Jutsu!"
Shikamaru curled his lip and said, "If someone could swat away a Great Fireball with their bare flesh, just how strong would that body have to be? That's simply impossible for a physical body to achieve."
Naruto shook his head at Shikamaru with a smile and said, "Shikamaru! You're wrong this time. There really are people who can tank a Great Fireball with their physical bodies—in fact, they can tank most Ninjutsu."
Shikamaru and the others looked at Naruto in disbelief, thinking he was joking.
Naruto smiled and asked Shikamaru, "You should have heard about the Third Raikage, right?"
After thinking carefully for a moment, Shikamarusaid, "Are you talking about the Raikage who died in the Third War?"
Naruto nodded and said, "Exactly, that's him—the man known as the Strongest Spear and the Strongest Shield. He fought against ten thousand Iwa shinobi for three days and three nights before dying of exhaustion. His physical body could indeed tank most Ninjutsu."
Ino and the others said in surprise, "There really is such a person!"
Naruto nodded with a smile and said, "There certainly is. That's also why I've been using the Lightning Release Body Forging Technique to train my physical body."
Ino rolled her eyes and said, "You're just a masochist. Now Sasuke has learned from you and turned into a masochist too, screaming in pain every day while still persisting in body tempering. I really don't know what you guys are thinking. It's not wartime right now, so why train so hard? You've forced me to train with you every day too, just because I'm afraid of falling too far behind."
Naruto looked at Ino with a solemn expression and said, "Sweat more in training, bleed less in war. You have to understand that if you don't endure hardships now, what will you do if you encounter a powerful enemy in the future? Do you want to watch helplessly as the enemy kills Shikamaru and Choji? You know the Ino–Shika–Chō trio is a single unit. If you're in danger, Choji and Shikamaru will definitely risk their lives to save you. If you don't want to be a burden, you must keep up with their pace."
It was the first time Ino had seen Naruto speak to them so solemnly. Knowing what he said was the truth, she nodded and said, "I know! That's why I haven't dared to slack off, for fear of not being able to keep up with them."
"Since you understand the reasoning, I won't say more. It's getting late today, let's go eat barbecue together! Sasuke's treat."
Sasuke rolled his eyes at Naruto and said, "This is already the fourth time I'm treating this month."
"Who told you to be rich! Let's go!"
Sasuke curled his lip in a tsundere manner but still went to eat barbecue with Naruto and the others.
Actually, Sasuke quite liked training and eating barbecue with Naruto and the group; it was a rare time when he didn't feel lonely.
Meanwhile, Sakura watched the group of seven leave like that, as if they had no intention of inviting her at all. She could only go home alone, feeling dejected.
In the blink of an eye, another three years passed, and the graduation exam for Naruto and the others finally arrived.
Since Naruto had always been very low-profile at school, consistently ranking in the lower-middle of the class during exams, his classmates gradually stopped paying attention to him, and he became 'that guy' in the school.
(Writing this, I want to say a few words of nonsense. Looking back at middle school and high school classmates, there are always one or two whose names you can't remember. When you meet them, you clearly know they were your classmate, but you just can't call out their name. I wonder if you have classmates like that.)
The day before the graduation exam, Narutosuddenly remembered there was still a Mizuki to deal with.
Naruto felt a bit conflicted about whether to follow the original plot.
Although the scroll of seals contained many Ninjutsu and Kinjutsu, he didn't seem to need that many Ninjutsu. As for Kinjutsu, there were only a few like Edo Tensei, Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags, Eight Gates, and the Reaper Death Seal. Aside from Edo Tensei and Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags, he seemed to already have the other two.
As for Ninjutsu, there were the Water Releasetechniques and the Bringer-of-Darkness Techniqueleft by the Second Hokage, as well as the Flying Thunder God Technique and Sealing Jutsu. The Rasengan should also be in there. The only one useful to Naruto was the Bringer-of-Darkness Technique; he seemed to have everything else already.
Naruto thought about it carefully. Deliberately failing the exam didn't seem worth it. Besides, his current relationship with Iruka wasn't as good as in the original story, so there was no need to take such a gamble.
Having figured this out, Naruto decided to take the exam normally.
However, during the exam the next day, Irukaannounced the exam content.
"This year's graduation exam is the Three Basic Jutsu! Everyone, please prepare."
Hearing that the exam was on the Three Basic Jutsu, Naruto frowned slightly. In the original story, it seemed they only tested the Clone Jutsu, but this time they were testing all three.
But Naruto didn't care. If they were going to test it, they were going to test it. It wasn't a big deal!
Next, Mizuki called out the names, and the students in the class went up one by one to perform the Three Basic Jutsu.
When it was Naruto's turn, Iruka looked at him with an extremely displeased expression, his face twisted with annoyance.
This also made Naruto feel a bit unhappy with Iruka.
So, Naruto's eyes darted around, and he directly performed the Reverse Harem Jutsu. The Reverse Harem Jutsu inherently included the Clone Jutsuand Transformation Jutsu, so Naruto wasn't technically wrong to use it this way.
Naruto had been bombarded by TikTok beauties in his past life; what kind of beauty couldn't he transform into? Combined with the information overload from his previous life, every beauty Naruto transformed into was posing provocatively. He wanted to see if these two teachers could maintain their composure, making them lose face in front of the whole class as revenge for Iruka's blatant hostility.