__________ POV Narration __________

A few more days passed before the finals of the Chunin Exams started for good.

The arena was just the same, but tensions were quite high.

The first fight was not quite as difficult to predict in the eyes of the people, however.

The Number 1 and 2 in the Dark Brotherhood had to stand off against each other. It was clear that the one ranked higher would win, right?

But where the question truly stood was whether or not Uzumaki Takehiko really had it in him to defeat either one of them.

"He struggled so much just with Number 7 right? How exactly is he going to beat 2 or 1?"

"Eh, I hear he defeated 4 or 5 or something during the preliminaries, maybe it was just a bad match-up?"

"Who knows? Not like we've seen that match. Maybe he struggled even more back then?"

The atmosphere was bustling once more, and speculations rose from all of the guests and viewers.

Every word, every jeer, every mocking insult or belittling phrase. All of them were like a small weight, all added one on top of another, all falling onto Takehiko's head, who stood off to the side and listened to everything.

The public had somewhat lost their trust in his abilities due to his previous performance, but he knew he had a chance to redeem himself.

Still, the fact that he had gotten pushed to that point by someone much younger than him was just plain demoralizing.

His only real ray of hope was the fact that his teacher, the Uzukage, still trusted wholeheartedly that he'd win.

Still, his morale had gone down drastically, and the haughty attitude he carried around the arena had all but vanished, so Ume's efforts hadn't been for nought.

Well, they would've meant something regardless, as she had done a great job of representing the Brotherhood on the stage, she had made both her father and siblings proud.

But now that Takehiko was actually affected by the difficult of his fight with Ume, Ken felt more content with the situation, as knocking the genius down a few pegs had been the plan all along.

'Moving on from that... I wonder how this match is going to go...'

Ken's senses scanned over the arena, where the two opponents were already standing, facing each other with quite a bit of distance in between them.

They were both dressed similarly, the only difference being that Morita carried two blades on his back, whilst Tatsukio carried only one on his belt.

They were both hidden underneath their clothes regardless, but Ken was well aware of their fighting styles.

In a battle between the two of them, Ken already knew who was most likely to win, but not in that exact sterile environment.

At the end of the day, the assassins of the brotherhood were trained to fight in all kinds of terrains, but they all excelled in places where they could hide, misguide and ambush their opponents, essentially turning fights into assassinations.

Tatsukio was certainly the faster of the two, his skillset better suited for confrontations like these, but Morita was also well accustomed to his speed, and he had a larger repertoire of techniques, gained through a lot of hard work.

Whilst one spent time creating and polishing a technique to perfection, ai. the Flash Step of Tatsukio, the other spent that time enlarging their repertoire of Jutsu and techniques.

As Tatsukio was gaining experience and mastery over a customized fighting style based on his created technique, Morita was gaining mastery over the Jutsu he had learned, and adapting his own fighting style.

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

The two were technically still a bit far off skill-wise, with Tatsukio firmly outclassing all his siblings. It went to the point where Ken pondered on making him a Blade officially...

But Morita still had the chance to surprise everyone if he cooked up a good enough strategy to counter his opponent's fighting style.

In essence, Ken really hoped to see something impressive... Well. not see. 'Witness' would be a more accurate word to use.

"First fight of the finals! Number 1 of the Dark Brotherhood fighting against Number 2! Begin!"

The referee's voice sounded out, and the entire arena became silent in an instant, transfixed on the two competitors.

No words were spoken, but one thing was clear... Neither was going to be going easy on the other.

In an instant, Tatsukio shot forward like a bullet, surprising the audience once more with his impressive speed and forward momentum as he tried to deliver a spinning kick to his opponent's masked face.

Morita was already expecting that however, without any hesitation he landed backwards, the kick slipping above him.

In the same move, he rolled to the side, as Tatsukio used Flash step to crush the ground where Morita had been previously, his one leg stuck into the ground with enough force to put fear in the hearts of some of the audience.

"Damn... So that's why they call him the One-Legged Devil..." Some of the audience members had already heard of Tatsukio and his reputation.

"Yep, no matter how many times I see him, his fighting style is just as incomprehensibly fast-paced!" It seemed that the reputation coupled with his previous performance had garnered him quite a few fans among the audience.

"But that Number 2 guy isn't bad either... Seems like he can follow the movements clearly enough."

Morita's performances also didn't leave much to be desired, as he moved at impressive speeds as well, managing to react in time at the very least.

Back on the already cracked ground of the arena, Tatsukio had already dashed towards Morita once more, this time circling around all over the arena at breakneck speeds, both in the air and on the ground, breaking the sound barrier at many points all around Morita.

The Number 2 assassin seemed unfazed, his mask cleanly hiding whatever expression he had as intended. He simply stood still and slowly unsheathed his blades, pointing them towards the ground before doing something surprising.

The second another boom was heard, Morita threw one of his blades at an odd angle, straight at Tatsukio, who was dashing towards him.

Two more booms were heard, as the Number 1 assassin dashed to the side and further away from his opponent, looking a bit confused.

"That's odd... Why didn't you try to attack me?" Morita muttered as his hand still gripped the one blade he had on hand.

"I'm not in a habit of getting injured..." Tatsukio smiled underneath his mask as he slowly stretched the muscles in his body.

There was only one exploitable weakness in Tatsukio's technique... And that was the fact that it was too fast which led to it moving in straight lines.

It was also damn near impossible for the user to control it unless they had absolute concentration.

That one weakness was what made the technique a bit predictable, at least to someone who knew it and had fought against it before.

Anyone else would've just been overwhelmed by the speed and odd angles of attack.

In this case, however, since Morita already knew the trajectory of the attack and had his blade ready, it would've been dangerous to continue on that same trajectory or any nearby angle.

Of course, this weakness could only be exploited because Morita himself was no slouch, being as fast as a top-level Jonin in reaction time.

Morita's next move was also something to be expected...

"Water Release: Bubbles Technique..."

The Number 2's free hand moved quickly and formed a few quick handsings before he brought a finger to his mouth and blew out... Bubbles?

Yep, around a hundred small bubbles rushed out of the assassin's mouth, they immediately filled the air around him, forming something like a cloud around him.

Some were close to the ground, but they never did touch it, instead, they seemed to be controlled by the user, who made them hover in the air around him.

"I've spent a long time thinking about ways to counter your technique... This is the best I could come up with." Morita sighed as he looked at the bubbles surrounding him with a smile.

Soap Bubble Ninjutsu was a branch of ninjutsu from the Water Release nature transformation. And normally one would need a special tool to release the bubbles.

But Morita had already prepared for that, requesting modifications to his mask, allowing it to act as that tool.

Tatsukio's smile couldn't help but become wider as he also eyed those bubbles. He immediately tested one of the bubbles, sending a kunai towards it in an instant.

The moment the metallic tip of that small kunai made contact with the bubble, it burst, and a small explosion was released, breaking the Kunai apart and sending pieces of it flying back at Tatsukio, who simply hopped to the side to avoid them.

"Interesting..." The one-legged devil muttered before immediately starting to circle Morita using his flash step, likely looking for any blind spots or openings.

Eventually, he spotted one, but he stopped himself before rushing in.

'There's no way he would fail to defend himself from that angle... He's just baiting me into a death trap.'

Both Number 1 and 2 were experienced, and they knew each other's fighting styles and way of thinking well enough.

So the situation turned into a momentary stalemate...

Ken, from the top of the arena, couldn't help but smile underneath his mask.

'Let's see how this plays out...'