Chapter 16

(3rd Pov)

With the spectacular battle of Sasuke and Aina over, the both of them went back to the spectator seat as the barrier went down.

Altria hugged aina as she fed her some candy on her lap. With the two of them doing lovey-dovey to the outsiders, the rest just regard it as sister bonding time.

Now the next round begins with a randomly selected battle.

[Shino Aburame Vs. Konan]

Shino and konan quietly went to the arena to fight. The surrounding genin teams and some jonins gasp at the similarities between the two.

They are both quiet but are serious most of the time. They had some kind of coat covering their body, shino wore a green one while konan wore the Akatsuki coat as altria insisted that it looks quite cute on her.

As the battle began, konan directly sent a paper shuriken at shino while he used the insects to intercept it as a passive defense while offensively attacking with insects reaching towards her.

She counteracted these insects by covering herself with a thin Qi barrier. Don't underestimate the thin-looking barrier as Qi is quite superior to chakra.

When seeing his insects are ineffective due to the barrier, he decided to engage in close combat.

So, he charged towards her with a kunai in hand while the insects protected him against any other paper shurikens.

Kakashi sighed as he watched this battle with a thought in his mind.

'Looks like konan was infected with the same 'playful' fighting style. I'll need to teach them to not underestimate the enemy after the exam.'

The surrounding jonin instructor didn't notice kakashi's thoughts as they intensely watch this battle.

It is quite refreshing to watch a battle that is not exaggerated as much as the ones before.

At least the jonins will not die of depression when they are quite outmatched in terms of destructive capacity or strength overall by the genins.

Konan switched to a kunai in her hand as she blocks the strike of shino.

*Cling* *Tang* *Ting*

Sounds of metal clanging reverberates the entire arena as shino attacked offensively while konan defends passively.

Seeing this similar playful fighting style, he remembered the previous match as he became more and more cautious.

Konan, on the other hand, just lightly swings her kunai while thinking of some unrelated things.

'If I win, will altria reward me…?'

A slight smile appeared on her face as she begins changing her strategy, from passively defending to offensively attacking.

She also began adding more and more power to her strikes as she wanted to end this battle fast.

With great unpredictability, left strike, right strike, from above, from below, more and more injuries appeared on shino as the attacks get more and more aggressive.

Just as she was about to end him with one strike, a loud sound from the referee stopped her.

"Match Over! Winner, Konan!"

Cheers from her teammates and friends erupted, congratulating her victory but the only thing that concerns her is the imaginary reward she thought of.

Looking at altria with expectant eyes, a hug and a kiss was received for the victory, and also a bit of spoiling from her.

The next round then began.

[Kankuro vs. Arthur]

The match between both of them isn't really too exciting. Just a few moves from Arthur lead to his victory, the gap between the two of them is just that big.

The only eye-catching thing was his golden sword but most just thought it was for showing off.

The reason why the jonin instructor and even the hokage himself didn't feel the power of Excalibur was because of their strength.

They're too weak.

A simple yet sad truth.

The next round is…

[Sakura Haruno vs. Ino Yamanaka]

Nothing too exciting or shocking happens as the result is quite obvious.

With the years of training with sasuke, sakura's strength increased immensely compared to her canon counterpart.

Even with ino's talent and training, her strength didn't increase as quickly as sakura did.

I've got to say it, even if I dislike sakura, the result is…

Total defeat for Ino.

She had no chance. If Altria blessed her with a temporary power-up then she would win but that didn't happen.

Moving on, the next round begins with…

[Tenten vs. Temari]

There isn't going to be much of a debate with this battle. Temari wins, hands down.

Tenten is quite strong for a genin but her match-up with temari is quite horrible.

She couldn't effectively show her combat effectiveness against temari.

Although she is an extremely nerfed down gilgamesh, the wind jutsu coming from her enemy disrupts the direction of the weapons thrown.

Quite short and nothing shocking.

Next up is…

[Shikamaru Nara vs. Haku]

A quite interesting match-up. The result may be quite obvious but let's go into detail.

Shikamaru is quite strong with his intelligence, he can defeat most genins his age and can fight evenly with a high genin level ninja but that's it.

Compared with haku, who received various amounts of strength increases, there is absolutely no chance he could defeat her.

Intelligence may be very important in battle but with enough brute force, any plans can be destroyed.

With Haku winning, She received a few kisses and head pats from altria, and maybe also a hug.

In the next round, the fighters are…

[Naruto Uzumaki vs. Kiba Inuzuka]

Maybe it's destiny or the plot at work but naruto got matched up with kiba.

In the canon, naruto defeated kiba with a fart. Even though it sounds like a joke, but I don't joke about serious business, I swear.

However, different from the canon, naruto has been trained by sasuke.

With early training comes excellent results, his combat effectiveness is already beyond the realm of genin or high genin.

It has already reached chunin level.

His chakra level is quite huge, able to summon multiple shadow clones multiple times and has 3 times as much chakra as kakashi has.

And with the kyuubi helping him here and there, he would be able to go through everything but most importantly of all, the jutsu called [Talk no Jutsu] is his most powerful weapon in his arsenal.

With all this factors, how can a genin to high genin ninja compare with him? unless it's a jonin that naruto is facing then he wouldn't sweat about this.

His opponent is just a dog and a boy, nothing too hard. if he couldn't even defeat this guy then he might as well abandon the name "Naruto Uzumaki" and just go be a farmer.

The result is already obvious, no matter what space and time it is, the winner would be naruto but if his opponent were to be someone out of this world then… he wouldn't win.

With the easy victory of naruto, the next round continues.

[Hinata Hyuga vs. Neiji Hyuga]

Hinata, the Hyuga princess, vs. Neiji, the Hyuga prodigy.

Neiji hasn't seen the progress of hinata, all he knew was that she spent all her time following altria doing who knows what.

So, he looks down on her a bit. But when they arrived at the arena, hinata's eyes was filled with excitement as battle intent oozes out of her body.

The aura around her changed like the goddess of war, this is mostly the work of the skill [Athena: Goddess of War].

She has trained very hard, leveling up the skill to lv. 31, stepping in to advance level resulting to the increase of talent, battle instinct, battle IQ, and etc.

Everyone was shocked at her change.

From a relatively harmless girl to a battle goddess, the contrast between the two is quite wide.

But the one most shocked of it all was Neiji, the one who looks down on her. His only impression of her was a weak girl and it's hard to change his stubborn mind.

He even denies this while thinking.

'This is just an illusion! Yes, there is no way she can change this fast!! Y-Yes, this is all an act!'

If he had carefully observed her a bit then he would've known that all of this is not an illusion.

Maybe the only thing that could understandably be confused with an illusion was the blood thirsty grin that appeared in her eyes for a split second.

As he was in denial, hinata instantly charged towards Neiji.

Even though she had inherited the playful fighting style with the rest of her sisters, her approach was more of an offensive fighting style then a defensive fighting style.

But in essence, it's still in the playful side of things.

Her speed shocked the jonin instructors seeing this as it's at the level of an average jonin, a lingering thought was in their mind as they continued to watch this battle.

'Are all the members of Team 7, monsters?'

Neiji snapped out of his self-denial when seeing the movement of hinata as he began preparing himself.

A kunai in his hand blocked a blow from her as he barely was able to keep up with her.

As her battle intent and excitement was steadily increasing, so is her attack speed.

With it getting faster and faster, his original arrogance is gradually fading.

'What the heck is this? Hinata wasn't this strong!?'

When her performance has already surpassed him and her skills are being shown one by one, his original image of her began to change.

From a weak-looking girl to a battle goddess.

Although it won't show immediately but in his heart, he had already regards her as the young heiress of the Hyuga clan.

A few moments later, Neiji surrendered as he couldn't counterattack with the gradual increase in speed.

If he doesn't surrender then wouldn't he embarrass himself even further?

One slap in the face is fine but two is too much.

With his surrender, the victor of this battle is Hinata Hyuga, the Hyuga Princess.

Like all other girls, hinata got a reward from altria, a hug and a few head pats.

The next battle is…

[Gaara vs. Rock Lee]

Rock lee is proficient with taijutsu and will be the future successor of the green beast of Konoha, might guy.

His taijutsu skills is already in high mastery and can beat most genins, he achieved this level of strength with his almost protagonist-like perseverance from the intense and grueling exercise he has experienced.

Gaara, on the other hand, is the ultimate weapon of the sand.

With strength easily reaching jonin level and at the threshold of kage-level.

The one tailed beast is sealed inside him granting immense strength and gaining a unique trait, Absolute Defense.

It may not be an Absolute defense but it's able to protect him from almost anything, from sneak attack to even self-harm.

Quick note, the one protecting him isn't his mom, it's shukaku. Poor kid, he didn't even know that souls aren't something mortals can tamper so there is no way that his mother's soul can be in the sand.

Well there is pain… but the Rinnegan is an exception.

Now for the results… rock lee lost quite badly.

One of his leg was crushed and because he isn't altria's friend, he wasn't saved.

A goddess like altria is quite indifferent to the suffering of others. Maybe she would help him on a whim and maybe not, it depends on her mood.

Anyway, with rock lee losing badly, Gaara of the sand wins.

He's quite insane in the end but… naruto with his [Talk no Jutsu] can fix him up in no time.

Now for the last and final round for the preliminaries is…

[Choji Akimichi vs. Altria]

The battle between gods– correction, the battle between a god and a mortal.

Choji is quite f*cked.

A single sneeze from her can wipe out a solar system, much less a pitiful fatty.

But let's get this over with.

With the both of them stepping in the arena, choji's teammates were cheering him while Altria's teammates were also cheering her.

As they got inside the arena, the first thing she did was sat on a comfy couch that materialized out of nowhere.

The most eye-catching thing about this was the grapes she threw in her mouth.

With over stimulation of emotions, the shock from the jonin instructors and the surrounding genin teams weren't as much as the earlier ones.

Maybe materializing furniture and fruits is completely impossible with chakra alone, but they weren't thinking straight as the answer they came up with in their mind is a unique bloodline limit.

Bloodline limit is a panacea for incomprehensible power/techniques/skills.

They're quite ignorant fools.

An invisible multi-layered barrier was created around altria as she began eating the grapes that appeared.

When choji saw this, he didn't get angry but rationally analyzed the situation.

He may look quite stupid and hot-blooded, but he is a ninja.

He's quite smart in a number of things.

He isn't even fat, those 'fats' we see are just chakra under his skin.

It's one of the clan techniques of the Akimichi clan, turning fats to chakra.

His excuse of big boned isn't accurate, it's more of a higher chakra volume…

He shot multiple kunai from all direction to test her out. The barrage of kunai was about to land when it was blocked by something.

'Hm. This may be quite troublesome. Barriers of unknown strengths, if I try my signature jutsu, will it break? Probably not… judging by the situation, I most probably won't win. No chance.'

With just this simple exchange, choji surrendered without any hesitation.

The surrender of choji means the end of the preliminary exam. The winner being, Altria Void.

As the battle ended, altria was hugged by all his girls with her teammates congratulating her.

With the end of the Preliminaries, It will take another month for the final exam.

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(A/N Minor Revisions…)