Chapter 348: Sasuke's Graduation Exam
A few days later.
Konoha's Third Training Ground.
The midday sun hung high, beating down mercilessly and baking the earth until the air itself warped and rippled with heat.
Uchiha Sasuke stood dead center in the training field. He wore his signature dark blue high-collared shirt, the iconic red and white fan crest of the Uchiha clan emblazoned proudly across his back. His features were locked into a mask of absolute, icy indifference.
The very second his mandatory confinement had ended, he had marched straight to the administration building and submitted his application for the early graduation exam.
Standing fifteen paces across from him was his assigned examiner: Tokubetsu Jonin Kimura Shiji.
A second Jonin, holding a clipboard and a stopwatch, stood at the edge of the cratered field. He recited the rules with a dull, bureaucratic drone.
"Uchiha Sasuke. Your objective is to survive for ten minutes against Special Jonin Kimura. If you are still conscious and standing within the ring when the time expires, you pass. Understood?"
Sasuke gave a single, curt nod.
Kimura Shiji scrutinized the young Uchiha, his brow creasing into a heavy scowl.
"I know your name, Uchiha brat," the scarred veteran grunted, cracking his knuckles. "But do not mistake this exam for academy playtime. I am going to beat into you exactly what it means to hold the rank of Special Jonin. It is a title forged in blood and life-or-death combat."
Sasuke stared blankly at the older man. His dark eyes betrayed absolutely nothing.
"You talk too much," Sasuke said, his voice flat and devoid of warmth. "Can we start?"
Kimura's face darkened, a vein bulging at his temple.
The proctor at the edge of the field raised his hand, his thumb resting over the stopwatch button.
"Exam... begin!"
The instant the word left the proctor's mouth, the ground beneath Kimura's sandals cracked. The Special Jonin vanished.
He crossed the fifteen paces in a blur, materializing directly at Sasuke's left flank with a heavy, bone-crushing right hook aimed straight for the boy's jaw.
Sasuke merely tilted his upper body backward. The fist tore through empty air, the sheer kinetic force of the strike whipping Sasuke's raven hair across his face.
In that split second, a deep, blood-red hue flooded Sasuke's irises. Two black tomoe materialized in each eye, spinning into a slow, hypnotic lock.
Two-Tomoe Sharingan.
Active.
The world around Sasuke instantly shifted. Kimura's blinding speed broke down into a series of predictable, telegraphed frames. The subtle twitch of the older man's shoulder muscles, the shift of his center of gravity, the faint blue flow of chakra surging into his limbs—everything was laid bare before the visual prowess of the Uchiha.
'Too slow,' Sasuke thought, a sneer tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Kimura did not falter at the miss. Relying on years of battlefield instincts, he smoothly transitioned the failed punch into a brutal, descending elbow strike, driving the point of his joint straight toward Sasuke's sternum with a sudden burst of acceleration.
Sasuke snapped his forearms up in a cross-block. A heavy, sickening thud echoed across the field.
The sheer physical weight behind the blow sent a shockwave up Sasuke's arms. His boots skidded backward across the dirt, carving twin trenches into the dry earth for nearly two feet before he managed to anchor himself.
A flicker of genuine surprise crossed the young Uchiha's face.
'Heavy. His raw physical strength is no joke.'
Before Sasuke could fully correct his stance, Kimura was on him again. The Special Jonin unleashed a torrential storm of high-speed taijutsu. Punches, sweeping kicks, and knee strikes rained down in a relentless, suffocating barrage.
The rapid-fire impacts of flesh meeting flesh rang out like drumbeats across the training ground.
Sasuke retreated step by step, his Sharingan tracking the chaotic flurry. He deflected a jab, ducked under a roundhouse kick, and parried a heavy palm strike, his movements sharp and calculated. He was constantly a fraction of an inch away from taking a devastating blow, surviving purely on the precognitive dynamic vision granted by his bloodline limit.
Yet, as the seconds ticked by, it was Kimura who began to sweat.
The veteran shinobi gritted his teeth, his frustration mounting with every blocked strike. No matter how fast he pushed his offensive rhythm, no matter how tricky his feints were, the boy's crimson eyes tracked him perfectly.
'Those eyes...'Kimura thought, his breath growing ragged.'Is this the true power of the Uchiha's Sharingan? To read a Special Jonin's movements so effortlessly... what an absolute monster!'
"Damn you!" Kimura roared, realizing close combat was leading nowhere.
He channeled chakra into his leg and delivered a sweeping front kick, forcing Sasuke to cross his arms and block again. The impact launched the boy backward, giving Kimura the precious distance he needed.
His hands blurred into a rapid sequence of seals.
"Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique!"
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Dozens of searing, head-sized fireballs erupted from Kimura's mouth. They arced through the air in erratic, unpredictable trajectories, swarming Sasuke from every conceivable angle to cut off his escape routes.
Sasuke landed lightly on his feet. He looked at the incoming barrage of flames, and a dark, mocking sneer curled his lips.
"You dare use Fire Release against an Uchiha?"
His hands moved in a blur, his hand seals executed with a terrifying, flawless speed that completely eclipsed the older Jonin's.
"Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Technique!"
He drew in a massive breath and exhaled. A colossal, roaring dragon forged of pure, white-hot flame blasted from his lips. The sheer ambient heat instantly incinerated the dry grass beneath his feet, warping the air into a hazy mirage.
The majestic fire dragon crashed into the swarm of Phoenix Sage fireballs, swallowing the lesser flames whole without slowing down. The massive construct of fire roared as it continued its devastating path, hurtling straight toward Kimura with unstoppable momentum.
Kimura's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
'A Genin's Fire Release is this powerful?!'
Despite his shock, the veteran did not panic. Instead of retreating from the raging inferno, he planted his feet firmly and rapidly cycled through another set of hand seals.
"Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique!"
A massive volume of water materialized from his chakra, spiraling upward to form a towering, serpentine dragon of churning liquid. It roared, matching the fiery beast in sheer size, and launched forward to intercept.
The next second.
The two opposing elemental titans collided violently in the dead center of the training ground.
Boom!
A deafening explosion shook the earth.
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—
The extreme clash of superheated fire and pressurized water instantly flash-boiled into a massive, expanding cloud of scalding steam. A thick, impenetrable white fog swallowed the entire battlefield in a matter of seconds.
Visibility plummeted to absolute zero.
Sasuke narrowed his eyes. The Sharingan, for all its visual prowess, could not pierce through a purely physical obstruction like dense steam. He was completely blind.
'A smokescreen,' Sasuke realized, his muscles tensing as he immediately shifted his weight to retreat from his last known position.
But the trap had already been sprung.
"The gap in combat experience isn't something a fancy pair of eyes can bridge, brat!"
Kimura's cold, echoing voice seemed to project from every direction at once, bouncing off the dense moisture in the air.
"Water Release: Water Shark Bullet Technique!"
Directly behind Sasuke, the thick fog violently parted. A massive, ferocious shark composed entirely of high-density, swirling water burst from the mist. Its jaws unhinged, revealing rows of liquid teeth as it lunged for the Uchiha's blind spot with terrifying velocity.
Screech—
Without warning, an ear-piercing, high-frequency shriek shattered the silence of the training ground. It sounded exactly like a flock of a thousand birds crying out in unison.
Blinding, jagged arcs of blue lightning erupted from Sasuke's right hand. The untamed electrical currents rapidly gathered, compressing and condensing into a violently spinning orb of pure Lightning Release chakra in his palm. The sheer intensity of the concentrated energy caused the very air around him to hum and crackle with static pressure.
Hidden within the fog, Kimura's face drained of color as the blinding blue light illuminated the mist.
"What is that jutsu?!"
"It's over," Sasuke's voice whispered, cold and absolute.
The next microsecond, Sasuke vanished.
He did not run; he became a literal streak of blue lightning. The Water Shark Bullet crashed into the empty earth where he had stood a fraction of a second prior, exploding into a harmless puddle.
Sasuke tore through the dense fog, leaving a trail of scorched earth and a lingering afterimage in his wake. His speed was absolute—vastly surpassing even Kimura's maximum velocity.
The older Jonin could only watch in paralyzed horror as the blinding blue comet rapidly expanded in his vision, cutting perfectly through the steam.
'I'm going to die!'
Every survival instinct in Kimura's brain screamed at once. Pushing his chakra network to its absolute breaking point, the Special Jonin slammed his palms into the dirt.
"Earth Release: Earth Flow Wall!"
A massive, reinforced slab of solid rock violently erupted from the ground, forming a thick defensive barricade between him and the incoming Uchiha.
It was useless.
Sasuke's right hand, wreathed in the screaming Chidori, tore through the thick stone wall as if it were wet paper. The rock shattered into a spray of shrapnel.
Immediately after, under Kimura's horrified gaze, the lightning-clad hand plunged straight into his left shoulder.
Blood sprayed into the mist.
"Gah—!"
Kimura choked out a ragged scream. The sheer kinetic force behind the thrust lifted the heavy-set man entirely off his feet, launching him backward like a broken ragdoll.
He crashed heavily into the dirt, tumbling violently for over ten meters before finally skidding to a halt.
A clean, gaping hole had been punched straight through his left shoulder. The edges of the wound were completely cauterized, sizzling with faint wisps of white smoke, while the residual Lightning Release chakra continued to viciously arc across his skin, paralyzing his internal meridians.
Had the veteran shinobi not relied on his decades of combat experience to forcefully twist his torso a mere half-inch at the very last millisecond, that strike would have gone directly through his heart.
At the edge of the cratered field, the recording proctor stood frozen, his jaw slack, the clipboard slipping slightly in his grip.
Sasuke stood amidst the settling dust. He slowly lowered his right arm, the violent blue lightning gradually fading into nothingness.
He looked at his own hand, his crimson eyes narrowing in deep dissatisfaction.
'It is still not enough...'he thought, clenching his fingers into a tight fist.'I am still nowhere near strong enough.'
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The digital timer in the proctor's hand chimed sharply, cutting through the heavy silence of the training ground.
Exactly ten minutes had passed.
The recording Jonin jolted as if waking from a trance. He looked from the smoking crater to the incapacitated Special Jonin bleeding out on the dirt, and finally to the cold, uninjured Uchiha standing in the center of the ring. He swallowed hard.
"Exam... passed!" the proctor announced, his voice cracking slightly.
"Uchiha Sasuke... qualified!"
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