28 Preliminary Battles Start

The day of the preliminary rounds of the Chunin Exams had arrived. The arena was packed with spectators – mostly the Jonin instructors of the Genin teams, proctors, and some ninjas of the villages… including the disguised Orochimaru.

Naturally, the Hokage was here as well… to show his face and give a speech filled with lots of sophistry regarding why children should be pit against each other in cruel death battles.

Then, Hayate Gekko, the iconic ninja with the chronic cough, showed up to be the referee for the battles… coughing all the way and causing Shino to be very interested in the disease in his body.

With no surprise, Kabuto the spy blatantly quit and drew a round of attention. Honestly, Shino had also considered his method, but he knew that it only worked if his record was nameless and clean from the very start.

Kabuto had been hiding without showing his tail for years to get to this point. His innate talent as a spy also helped greatly. This was something that Shino couldn't do, especially when he first transmigrated.

He had already partially shown his strength during his time on the genin team, it won't make sense if he quit while the rest of his team didn't.

Needless to say, the preliminary matches finally began… after some lovely drama between Sasuke and Sakura. It was unbelievable how the two simply treated everyone else like air and performed their little soap opera.

With the revealing of a television screen, the matching began.

The first match was between Sasuke Uchiha and Yoroi Akado, a member of Kabuto's Konoha team. As expected, Sasuke showed his incredible skills and defeated Yoroi with ease- after a long beatdown that was totally unnecessary. Well – it was for character building, right?

With his Sharingan locked behind a paywall called the cursed seal, Sasuke could only shamelessly plagiarize the green jumpsuit boy's taijutsu, add his own spin to it, and roared loudly that it was his original Lion's barrage. It was natural that he would win.

The next match was already Shino's turn. Shino breathed as sigh of relief inwardly when he realized he was matched just like in the anime - against Zaku Abumi from Team Dosu, the team from the Hidden Sound Village.

Zaku was known for his arrogance and his ability to create powerful sound waves with his arm-mounted devices… a difficult opponent, if his arms hadn't been broken. Thank you, Sasuke.

The two young ninjas stepped into the arena, and the crowd held its breath, waiting to see what would happen.

Shino seemed to be completely calm, even as Zaku sneered at him. Instead, his eyes obscured by his glasses peeked over at a disappearing puff of smoke.

Lucky for him, the menacing Uncle Snake has gone to deal with Sasuke and Kakashi. Shino knew it was a good thing he is only interested in Sasuke, and didn't pay heed to him.

Meanwhile, the Sound ninja was sure that he would have an easy victory.

"I can feel it. Your eyes behind those glasses - Don't look down on me! One arm is enough to take care of you!"

He raised his only functioning arm, rushing over aggressively, ready to unleash his powerful sound waves, but before he could even utter a word, Shino made his move.

Without warning, he threw a kunai at Zaku, who arrogantly tilted his head to the side, thinking he had easily dodged the attack.

Zaku, confident in his abilities, smirks at Shino after dodging the kunai. "Ha! Is that all you've got, bug boy? What kind of bluff are you trying to pull?"

Shino remains silent, his expression unreadable, as he backed off.

Zaku continues to charge towards him while taunting. "Come on, show me what you're made of. Or are you too scared to face me head-on?"

Still, Shino says nothing, keeping his distance.

Zaku grows impatient as his thoughts churned and came up with his own explanation for Shino's silence. "I see how it is! You're underestimating me because of this broken arm! I'll make the first move then. Get ready to be blown away!"

He raises his arm to unleash his sound waves, but then feels something strange happening inside his arm.

Confused, he looks at his arm, which is swelling up quickly. Suddenly, he realized that Shino's bugs had infiltrated the air tubes in his arm and were quickly clogging them.

Zaku panicked as he felt his arm swelling up, and then a terrible backfire occurred. The sound waves he had been about to unleash turned back on him, destroying his arm and causing him immense pain.

Before he could react further, he felt stinging pain all over his body!

Unlike the original Shino in the anime, Shino not only blocked the air holes in Zaku's arm, but also infiltrated his body with his camouflaged insects! Now, many important nodes in the poor bloke's body had been targeted!

How did this happen?

As the battle began, Shino discreetly coated his kunai with the camouflaged variant of his insects – their transparent-like appearance did not arouse any attention on the kunai.

The kunai was then delivered over to the confident Zaku. Although the bloke dodged the kunai, he had no chance of escaping from the tiny creatures the kunai transported.

Shino first took precautions to ensure his safety by commanding the insects to block Zaku's airways on his arm. The idiot continued to charge forward. Little did he know that he was effectively rendered helpless from the very start.

While this happened, Shino kept his distance, baiting Zaku to step into his traps that were planted on his route! They were invisible traps full of camouflaged bugs – ready for infiltration!

The unsuspecting Zaku sent himself into the swarm of bugs, unaware of the deadly traps that lay in wait.

Faced with Alina's well-coordinated and merciless assault, there were no room for error in a low-level battle like this one. The outcome was inevitable.

Collapsing to the ground, the poor bloke screamed in agony as Shino remained stoic, his eyes fixated on the writhing body.

Shino knew that the poor bloke would probably show up next time as a sacrifice. So, Shino was hoping that maybe, just maybe, the damage done to the integrity of the physical body would reduce the strength of what comes after.

It's not much, but he did his part as an unsung hero. Don't say he's ungrateful to Konoha.

Shino's gaze locked onto Hayate, wordlessly inquiring whether he wished to prolong the boy's suffering.

Shino wasn't sure if it was intentional, but Hayate had a fit of coughs which extended the time that poor Zaku suffered. It wasn't until he seemingly heard a cough from the audience that Hayate held back his coughs to announce his victory.

Under the gaze of the powerful presences within the audience, transparent bugs began to crawl out from the body of Zaku, who was still gasping in pain with eyes filled with fear.

Meanwhile, the crowd of genins gasped in shock and horror over his cruelty, not knowing what happened.

"Did you see that, Sakura?!" Naruto exclaimed with cold sweat. "Shino just took out that boy who fought Sasuke with one move! What- Damn it! Shino, I didn't know you were that strong!"

Nearby, Rock Lee uttered with confusion, "One move? How is that possible?! What was that Neji?"

Turning on his Byakugan, Neji's eyes widened with a bit of shock as he saw the transparent bugs scattered around the battlefield!

"This-"

His eyes then stared at the body of Zaku, deciphering the intricacies of Shino's move. Moments later, he frowned as he uttered in disbelief, "It was more than a move, you just couldn't see it."

Neji's white eyes swiveled over to the body of Shino before exclaiming with sweat, "He's something else. His body is a host for insects!"

Might Guy solemnly gave them a lesson about the Aburame clan and mentioned with interest, "It seems the Aburame clan developed a new type of insects that are transparent – you'll have to be careful or you won't even know when they crawl inside of you."

Hearing this, the genins nearby shivered.

"Impressive," Asuma commented out loud, enough for the nearby Kurenai to hear. "It seems Shino has been working hard on his bug techniques. Not only that, his strategic mind that could determine and use the target's weakness after they blab a couple of times is commendable. And so clean, it seems that he still kept his hands- He's definitely a force to be reckoned with."

Kurenai nodded in agreement as a slight smile appeared on her face. It always feels good to hear her students being praised.

Hmm? Did something change? Shino didn't remember Asuma being this eager to please in the anime. Shino's mind raced with possibilities, but he knew one thing for certain: Asuma was not the same as he remembered from the anime.

Well, the same with Kurenai. Unlike the original anime, Kurenai didn't seem too anxious regarding his battle. It seems he did cause small butterfly effects here and there, but he didn't notice them yet because he had no reference material for comparison – until now.

"See that Shikamaru? You're not the only one that can use your brain. So, don't be lazy and disappoint me!" Asuma uttered as he gave Shikamaru a pat on his shoulder.

"Ah… what a drag," Shikamaru mumbled as he stared at the ceiling, not knowing what he is thinking.

As Zaku writhed in pain on the ground, Shino calmly walked away from him, his hands still covered in insects. He had won the match, but he showed no signs of triumph or joy. Instead, he simply looked like he was doing his duty, fulfilling his role as a ninja.

The audience was stunned, but they soon erupted in discussion as they realized what they had just witnessed. Shino had not only defeated his opponent but had done so in a way that demonstrated his intelligence, his resourcefulness, and his incredible strength.

As the medical team rushed to attend to Zaku, Shino walked back to his team's waiting area, where his teammates Kiba and Hinata greeted him with excitement.

"Yaho! That was amazing, Shino!" Kiba exclaimed. "You did it!"

Hinata smiled at him shyly. "Shino-kun, good job."

Shino nodded in acknowledgment, but he didn't say much.

He was already thinking ahead, preparing himself for the next round of the exams – that was where the true challenge lay. After that, there will be an even bigger event, one he was determined to have his Zergs participate in.

He knew that there were still many challenges ahead, and he was determined to face them all with the same calm and steady demeanor he had shown in this match.

Imperceptibly, Shino's eyes glanced over at the Hokage. Seeing the old man discussing with the others, he knew his camouflage insects had drew his attention. This was a part of his plan – one that he was willing to risk ending up in the line of sights of the higher ups for.

"I hope these old crackpots don't disappoint me."

Shino adjusted his glasses as he slyly smiled, but no one noticed the young man who had sinister intentions brewing.

After all, he was just a genin. At their level of strength, genins were just clowns dancing on the stage. Just like the upcoming fights.