__________ POV Narration __________
"What exactly do you think you are doing, Takehiko?" Yorihikko, the Leader of the Uzumaki started speaking as soon as he pulled his disciples out of the room.
He clapped once, signalling all nearby Anbu and Shinobi to screw off for a few moments.
The young Uzumaki prodigy noticed that and immediately became uneasy as if his mentor clasping his mouth shut and pulling him away from the field wasn't enough of a sign that he had screwed up massively.
Still, he didn't personally feel that he had done something wrong.
"W-well... I figured trying to challenge the best is the only way for me to grow. " Takehiko's words didn't come out quite as confident as his thoughts were.
He had certainly lost the spring in his step that he had during the preliminary exams.
"Grow?" Needless to say, Yorihikko found his reason for challenging Ken to be quite lacklustre.
"I-I mean if the Red Dot was able to grow this strong and he's about my age, then that must mean he's still within my reach, right?
You did say that I am a genius, the greatest in the Uzumaki even... How far behind can I be?"
Immediately as he heard that question, Yorihikko's face twisted into a frown.
In that entire short exchange he didn't quite like his pupil's direction. Competing with a friendly nation was all well and good, but he had been downright disrespectful to Ken.
Sure that disrespect was born out of confidence. There were few Shinobi in the Land of Whirlpools that could defeat Takehiko already, he was immensely talented, more so than any other genius that the Uzumaki Clan had produced...
'But what is a genius, even the greatest genius... compared to a monster?' Yorihikko thought that he had hammered that point in nicely to his pupil. He had spoken many times about the accomplishments and strength of the young Dark Brotherhood Leader.
Hell, Ken was at the point where he was freely able to change the shape of the world politically. So it wasn't just physical talent that made him excel, he was a monster through and through.
He had spoken in length about that to Takehiko, about just the type of monster they now luckily had on their side.
But it seemed that the young Uzumaki took his teacher's words as praise for another genius, rather than the recounting of the accomplishments of a genuine anomaly.
In the mind of the young and impressionable pupil, it seemed as if his teacher was comparing him to another talented child.
The admiration that Yorihikko had for Ken's accomplishments was twisted into the form of pride in the mind of the disciple, a pride that Takehiko was looking to compete for.
Yorihikko couldn't help but sigh as those realizations rolled into his mind. He was well aware of how the mind of a young shinobi worked, all Kage needed to know at least that much.
But he had been so focused on other things to noticed the flaws in his pupil before.
"It seems you've misunderstood quite a few things... Thankfully things didn't escalate any further, from now on do not interact with the Red Dot."
Yorihikko knew that it was still a matter that he had to address, so he just sighed and turned around, ignoring the frustrated and surprised look in his pupil's eyes.
He simply walked back into the arena for the preliminaries, where the matches for the finals were currently still being revealed.
He walked up to Ken, who was still sitting down, resting his head on his palm while 'looking' over everything.
"Yorihikko... Are you done talking to your student?" The Hokage was the first to greet him upon his arrival.
"Yes. And I now have a request, for all of you." The leader of the Uzumaki looked at all of the leaders present with a narrowed gaze.
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"And what might that be?" Mifune slowly straightened in his chair, his eyes slowly narrowing at the Uzukage.
"There seem to be quite a few overly confident children taking the exam this year... I propose for us to show them a glimpse of how the top of the world fights. An exhibition match, if you will." Yorihikko grunted as his eyes landed on Ken for a few seconds, trying to judge his reaction.
'Overly confident children? There's only one that I can think of...' Mifune couldn't help but scowl. However, he didn't voice out his thoughts so as to not disrespect his fellow alliance leader.
"I doubt there is a need for us to step in ourselves. Showing them the fights between Jonin should suffice." Mifune voiced his disagreement politely.
"I doubt it, most of them have already seen how Jonin fight, they must feel that it's still very much within their reach." Yorihikkio's point seemed to resonate with Mifune, as the old general stopped to ponder for a few seconds.
"Well, I guess that can be helpful to the children. Especially since we have quite a few talented ones this year, they would never be easy to impress..." The Hokage seemed to be rather welcoming to the idea. He wasn't one to skip over a good chance to teach the fledgling shinobi a life lesson.
"Most of the Dark Brotherhood already know what the top of the world looks like, but I guess it could be a good experience for them to learn more about the other powers of the Three Corners Alliance." The Blind Assassin was also in agreement with the Uzumaki's proposal.
Seeing that, Mifune couldn't deny the request either, even though he was still a tad reluctant.
Among the leaders of the alliance, he was arguably the weakest. Although he could hold his own against just about everybody and survive, winning was a different story.
He was arguably the second-strongest swordsman in that group, falling short of only Ken himself, although his skills could be argued to be better due to age and experience, they were a tad too straightforward.
Mifune was a samurai at heart, in pure swordsmanship he was better than Ken, but pure swordsmanship was never going to be enough to match up against the Red Dot.
That issue arose against all of the other leaders of the Three Corners Alliance as well.
But, what a swordsman like Yorihikko had in exchange for more lacklustre swordsmanship was a bloodline that was powerful enough to hold down any tailed beast, as well as an absurdly high level of mastery over Fuinjutsu.
The Raikage was no swordsman, but his body was just as strong as a blade, and he was a master of it. His speed far exceeded that of anyone other than Ken and could be argued even to exceed Ken's in short, unsustainable. bursts.
The Hokage was a master of the staff(ayooo), his contracted summoned beast was also one of the strongest, said to be comparable to even the Great Toad Sage.
Hiruzen also had the advantage of monstrous versatility, having mastered all ninjutsu that the leaf village had to offer. Thousands upon thousands of jutsu, an arsenal that was feared throughout the shinobi world, truly worthy of the nickname 'God of Shinobi'.
Mifune was no slouch, but as the 'Beheading General' there was little he brought to the table compared to the others when it came to personal strength.
And now that all of the younglings he had brought from his homeland failed, he didn't want their spirits to be dampened even further by him losing to his peers.
But despite his apprehension, it was already set in stone.
An exhibition match was to be held among all of the leaders, random match-ups were going to be drawn after the chunin exams ended.
One thing was for sure... No one really wanted to be the one to fight Ken. With the exception of maybe the Raikage, but he was not present to give his opinion on the matter.
Against each other, they still had some chances, but Ken was an absolute monster.
They had seen his strength in the past, but he was still young, younger than even some of the contestants in the chunin exams, he was surely still growing somehow.
'At this point, would he be comparable to the First Hokage?... No, that isn't very likely, Hashirama was the man that captured every tailed beast in the wild, his power was unprecedented.'
Hiruzen had quite a strong opinion of Ken, all of them acknowledged how powerful the Blind Swordsman was. But he also knew Hashirama's power and knew that Ken hadn't quite reached that level.
'Still, it's fair to say Ken is as powerful as the 9 tails, but his techniques and methods put him even further above that...'
In short, there was no one who could individually stand up to Ken in their current time.
At the very least, a force similar to all of the leaders of the Three Corners Alliance would be needed to defeat him.
But such a force revealing itself was not only unlikely but improbable as well.
Thankfully, this was still just a duel, not a fight to the death. So none of them would be going all out, just enough to make a point. So Mifune still had the chance to put on a good show and restore the confidence of his fledgling samurai.
Mifune didn't dwell on the exhibition match between the leaders for much longer.
The semi-final participants in the Chunin exams were selected, and the match-ups were confirmed.
Tatsukio was up against Kushina. Morita was stuck facing Yugito Nii.
Both Jinchuriki were going to get the chance to go all out. Their opponents were both among the strongest participants this time around.
The most concerning matchup was certainly Ume, the youngest participant of the Dark Brotherhood, who was to fight the genius of the Uzumaki, Takehiko.
The match-up made quite a few of the Dark Brotherhood participants stare at the screen in concern.
After all, Ume was not stronger than Akio in any way. Her only advantage was a better mastery of Senjutsu, but the Adamantite Sealing Chains were a lot stronger of a trump card.
Unbeknownst to the other people present in that small arena, Ken was also already contemplating that match.
'... I guess I should prepare Ume for her match. I have two weeks to get her prepared to fight and counter the Adamantite Sealing Chains...
It would be a good lesson for that Uzumaki brat if he lost to her.'