Dexter's POV;

The next day we were escorted to the large arena of Sunagakure. There they will hold the finals. A full team of Suna Genin, a full team of Konoha Genin, two of my Genin and another two from Iwa managed to pass the second exam.

Inside the Kage box were I, Kura-chan, Gaara, and Danzo as well as two guards for each of us.

“Ah, the new Hokage, as old as the last one I see. Hopefully not as weak”, I laughed when Danzo came in. His guards had ANBU masks on like mine and one of them felt like Orochimaru. The other was an emotionless drone with a curse seal. His whole body was hidden by a suit and no skin was visible at all.

Danzo did not react to my insult and only glanced down at me and Kura-chan who was sitting next to me. Gaara was on my other side with another chair for Danzo next to him.

“Greetings Kazekage and Uzukage”, he only said before sitting down.

“So who are your favorites?”, I asked and if it only was to break the silence.

“My Genin obviously, they prepared long and hard for this exam and are sure to win”, declared Gaara evenly.

Danzo scoffed and gave Gaara a pitying look; “ They will most likely fare like they did in the last exam, failing miserably. I have my bets on my team and from them, especially on Sasuke Uchiha. His old teacher, who was responsible for his lateness last time, was changed to a better one. Now he is the strongest Genin in Konoha and sure to win”.

“So the 'last' Uchiha tries again? I've seen him fighting against Gaara last time during the invasion. He was a joke, maybe stronger than most Genin, but by far not the strongest”, I retorted. The Chakra of Danzo flared slightly but nothing else showed his anger by my casual mention of the invasion.

It was well known that I was present and even helped in killing Sarutobi during the invasion. Danzo knew this as well as Orochimaru who was standing behind him.

“And yours are so much better?”, asked Danzo with a raised eyebrow.

“Every good Kage would think so. I won't speak about them and let them themselves show you”, I answered. The rest of the time we waited in silence and I had enough time to spot each curse seal user in the crowd. There were fifty in total with another thirty outside threw all around the village.

There were four Jonin sensei on the balustrade, Kakashi, Guy, and another one I didn't know. They all had a curse seal.

“It is time”, spoked Gaara. A Suna Jonin jumped down in the ring and announced the start of the finally. Each Genin had to go down and present him or herself.

There were 10 Genin, they will fight against each other until only three are left. Those three will fight in a free for all at the end. One of them will have a lucky ticket after his first fight.

“Isn't a free for all uncommon?”, asked Kura-chan from my side.

“We thought it might be an interesting change, only having the usual tends to get boring”, answered Gaara without a stop. He must've anticipated the question.

“Hmm, some of them look a lot older than the rest”, I mused. The Suna team was at least a third older than the other Genin. My Genin were mostly around 14. Konoha's Genin were Lee, Sasuke and Sai. All of them have a curse seal. It's surprising that Lee survived the application. It was possible, he had Chakra, just not the ability to use it outside of his body. And the more Chakra you have the higher your chances with the curse seal are.

“It's like it always was Uzukage, some need more time than others”, answered Danzo. He wore a smug grin. His Genin were the youngest and probably the strongest. I am sure that Lee can wipe the floor with them. So long as there isn't anyone using a Genjutsu.

“Yes, I know, most likely as much as you do. I mean it took you almost sixty years to become Hokage”, I mocked. Danzo's Chakra was fuming with rage, his face, however, wasn't showing anything. Again he did not comment.

“The first fight will be between Joribo from Iwagakure and Foly from Sunagakure”, cut Gaara in. All of us refocused on the arena and watched how a six teen-year-old boy from Iwa and a twenty-year-old woman from Suna stayed.

The woman had a battle fan, just like Temari, on her back, while the boy had no visible weapons with him. The fight began and the girl jumped back into the air. She unfolded her fan and used wind manipulation to stay airborne.

The boy, on the other hand, made hand signs and began to shoot sharp stones at the woman. The distance was large enough for her to easily evade. Her counter-attack came in the form of a Kunai Barrage. Yet they were also all evaded or deflected.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

But that was not the whole attack, she now made a lot of hand signs and a tornado formed around the Iwa Genin. The wind picked the Kunai up and a storm of blades cut into the younger foe.

Foly held the tornado for maybe two dozen seconds before she stopped. The dust settled and a dome of rock came into view.

She clicked her tongue in annoyance and started to circle above the arena. Nearly five minutes nothing happened, but then more stones were shot upwards. This time from three sides at the same time.

The Iwa Genin tunneled through the rock and was now using stone clones to attack. Yet the previous attack from the Suna Genin wasn't without damage, his clothes were torn and blood was visible in more than one place.

Now confronted with such a barrage of projectiles the Suna Genin couldn't evade as easily and closed her fan before it could get shredded. She dived downwards and made hand signs during her fall. Only a few meter before crashing into the ground she finished and a circle of wind blades stopped her fall and cut the stone clones into pieces.

She landed without any injury and rushed at the only remaining Iwa Genin. They engaged in a brief Taijutsu fight with the male as the clear winner, so she coated her Kunai with wind and pierced his defense in one swift attack. The boy received a deep gash in his chest and had to surrender.

“A fine fight, the Iwa Genin lacked the means to attack airborne enemies while the Suna Genin needs to hide herself or train her evasion skills some more. I would recommend her to become Chunin”, I said while the next Genin came down.

“She used too much Chakra in her wind Jutsu and acted rashly. There was no proof that the last one remaining after her downfall was really the enemy. Neither would get a recommendation from me”, came from Danzo. Gaara said nothing, as hosting Kage it wasn't his place to say anything positive when it was about one of his Genin.

The next fight, a fight between one of my Genin and the last Iwa Genin was swiftly over. The Iwa Genin tried to attack with a rock barrage, but Uzushiogakure had many water user and my Genin was one of them. The attack was overpowered by a small tsunami and the Iwa Genin nearly drowned from the still oncoming attack.

“The fight was too quick to see anything”, commented Danzo and I agreed. The execution of the Jutsu was good, but the fight showed little of his other skills.

“The next fight will be between Rock Lee of Konoha and Xaver of Sunagakure”, announced the referee. I looked back into the arena and saw how Lee jumped into the middle. He did not make any comments and was way different from his usual behavior.

His opponent was a twenty-three-year-old man with an already drawn sword. They bowed once and the fight began. Lee vanished in an instant and the Suna Genin had only enough time to raise his sword in a block before he was kicked into the arena wall.

Lee was now standing at his position with a raised leg. He had no gates activated and was also not under the influence of the curse seal, so this was all basic.

The Suna Genin climbed out of the wall and rushed at Lee, he got his legs swept out under him and kicked into the air a moment later. The guy was not even able to see Lee move. Up in the air he tried to turn around and managed to do so, only to get a kick in the neck from Lee who had positioned himself behind him. He crashed down and made a crater with his impact. Lee used his fall to add another bone crushing hit with both of his knees in the chest of the Suna Genin.

That was an attack that Lee would not have done before. The curse seal must have influenced him greatly, as well as any other mind manipulation that came from Danzo.

The Suna Genin did not stand up from this, he had to be carried out of the arena.

“Good Taijutsu from this Lee, he was fast and in full control of the whole fight. But he did not show any signs of using Jutsu or Genjutsu. Maybe in a later fight?”, I commented, acting as if I did not know about Lee's condition.

“He is only using these when he needs to. His sensei is Might Guy, our best Taijutsu specialist. He wishes to step into Guy's footprints and wants to beat his enemies only with Taijutsu”, explained Danzo, probably something that was prepared beforehand to hide the shame of having a Ninja that could not use Jutsu.

But Danzo was pragmatic, he knew when someone was useful and Lee was by now really good in Taijutsu. Too good to simply be cast away.

The next fight would have been between Sasuke and my remaining Genin, but I signaled Kushina to inform the Genin that she had to withdraw. A fight against Sasuke was not in their abilities and the broody emo looked sadistic enough to prolong the fight unnecessarily.

“What is that? Afraid of loosing Uzukage?” asked Danzo with a smug smile.

“There are some cases where a Genin or Chunin will not always know how to correctly proceed. This was one of these cases. A fight between my Genin and your unstable Uchiha would only end in unnecessary wounds”, I explained. Gaara nodded in agreement and Danzo scoffed.

Next came a fight between two Suna Genin, they had a good spar while showing a lot of their skills. The true meaning of these show fights. I gave both of them a recommendation, while Danzo said that neither put enough will into it.

The last fight of the first round was between the last Suna Genin and Sai. It started not really spectacular, a normal fight with swords. But then Sai started to draw his beasts and quickly overwhelmed the other Genin.

The moment Sai decapitated the Suna Genin the true purpose of Konoha started. Each hidden Ninja put a gas mask on and threw a canister into the masses. Seconds later the people began to die. The gas that came out of the canister was the same that Orochimaru used against Jiraiya.

Still, this was Sunagakure, the village with the most wind user. It took only half a minute until the gas was cleared, yet it did its damage. Hundreds of civilians were dead and quite a few Genin and Chunin as well.

Danzo and his bodyguards acted as well. His cloaked bodyguard pulled a glove off and touched Gaara's neck. A second later his hand was cut off from Gaara's sand, but Gaara's skin had now a purple colour. This would have been deadly for Gaara, if he hasn't had his sand armour on. Now his skin only flew away and a new layer replaced the old one. The bodyguard of Danzo found himself meanwhile trapped in sand. He would have been crushed to death, if Orochimaru hadn't spit water on the sand.

“Isn't it ironic that this happens again? Only this time with your village on the receiving end?”, asked Danzo with a laugh while explosions rang from all around the city.

“So it came to this”, stated Gaara. He looked at me, asking silently what I would do.

“I suspected an attack, but have no part in it”, I said with a shrug. Kura-chan was now standing next to me, Mikoto and Kushina with drawn weapons behind us.

“Yes, the Uzukage, without you Sarutobi would have done so much more damage to me”, laughed Orochimaru. He had pulled down his mask and grinned at us with an outstretched long tongue.

“Dear, do you think we might apply such a tongue into our bed play?”, asked Kura-chan interested. This caused Orochimaru to stop and with a snap, his tongue was back in his mouth.

“How rude, your wife seems to be nothing more than a pretty face”, said Danzo. He looked disgusted at the picture he surely now has.

“One more word about my wife and I'll gut you”, I warned, Rinne-Sharingan activating. Orochimaru's eyes widened and he got a greed glim in them.

“The legendary Rinne-Sharingan? Kukukuku, I really want your body now, but we are not here for such a thing”, he said and positioned himself so that he could block me from Danzo and Gaara.

“Kazekage, hereby Konoha declares war on Sunagakure, may you die by our hands”, declared Danzo with a wind blade as a start. The blade crashed into a wall of sand that instantly began to shoot high-speed projectiles at Danzo.

Danzo evaded and began to shoot wind blades from more than one side, those were also absorbed by Gaara's sand. However, Danzo now added fire into the mix and Gaara had to evade after a moment, because his sand turned into glass.

“Dex-kun I'm bored, I'll go out and kill some curse seal users”, stated Kura-chan. She then jumped down into the arena and began to rip the Konoha Ninja to shreds with her bare hands.

“Go down and send our team back with an emergency Hiraishin seal. Then support Kura-chan and keep an eye open for anyone that might become dangerous. Use your own emergency Hiraishin in case something happens”, I ordered and both my own guards followed Kura-chan.

“Now what snake?”, I then asked.