Ch415. Ambush

The entire arena fell into a deafening silence, both the ninjas and civilians bewildered beyond their wildest dreams.

The match ended sooner than they could register and they were still excited... but there was no outlet for the excitement. As the seconds passed and the people started to realize what happened, the excitement slowly started turning into an outrage.

People suddenly realized their 'chosen champion' got his ass handed to him even without an exchange of blows. They realized their expectations were misplaced.

And they couldn't accept that.

Hence, the arena was instantly filled with the angry screams of the audience.

Another part of the audience, the ones who bet on Sasuke winning, were currently sinking into despair as they realized they lost their bets. They thought this was a sure-fire way to earn themselves money!

And yet...

They could only pray that some intervention would happen that would render all bets null and void because quite a few of them just lost their years-long savings.

The self-pity and despair slowly receded, leaving room for other emotional outlets and many chose anger, getting dragged into the flow of the angry audience, causing the volume of the enraged protests to only rise.

And while the discontented people were showing their displeasure, Sasuke could just numbly walk out of the arena, his dismayed mind not even registering the shouts as he tried to come to terms with the fact he lost.

One thing was for sure.

Sasuke just gained a reputation that would haunt him his whole life.

...

The situation in the Kage Box did not differ much from the outside. The only stark difference was the noise. The Kage Box was utterly silent.

Despite the silence, the heaviness of the atmosphere was palpable. While Shikaku was feeling quite embarrassed about how easily the last Uchiha lost, Pakura was smugly smirking. Orochimaru, however, was visibly seething, spreading a dark aura all around.

The only reason why he even bothered to show up as Otokage was to have the best spot for witnessing his next vessel's prowess. He put an incredible amount of scheming and effort to be able to sit among the other Kages without having to worry about being killed on the spot.

He wanted to see Sasuke giving his all in the fight! He wanted to measure him! To compare him to Itachi! To see the boy's potential!

Orochimaru gritted his teeth. 'And this is the result? A five-second long match where his opponent uses mental coercion to make him surrender!?' He hissed.

He didn't even know if he was angrier at Gaara for doing that or at Sasuke for falling for it!

Because of how bewildered he was by the swift result of the match, he even forgot to signal the start of the invasion! He missed the best opportunity!

In fact, that opportunity had been so great, it totally made even him stupefied...

As he started calming down, Orochimaru noticed with the corner of his eyes that both Raikage and Tsuchikage were eyeing him in worry. The plan was for Orochimaru to give the first signal but they both knew the signal should come after the last of the first matches.

Realizing that his delay could cause severe problems among his ninjas who had no idea how to proceed. If some of his units decided to attack despite having no signal, the entire situation could get out of his control! Orochimaru decided to cut his losses and signal for the attack even though the surprise effect would not be exactly as high as he would have liked.

Fortunately, the crowd was being quite rowdy so that was playing in his favor.

The second he flared his chakra in the before assigned way, several things happened at once.

Firstly, genjutsu covered the entire arena, and the hidden troops of Oto, Iwa, and Kumo that infiltrated the Chunin Exams as foreign civilians quickly lost their disguises in order to recognize each other.

Secondly, the area where Daimyos sat, the same area where also Rei and Konan were seated, was engulfed in smoke as some of the guards turned up to be ninjas from Kumo and Iwa... these were mostly hiding as the guard units assigned to the Earth and Lightning Daimyo and these two Daimyos knew a diplomatic headache was awaiting them if they survived this ordeal... while other guards promptly dropped to the ground with a dull thud, knocked out.

Not even Orochimaru was crazy enough to start killing inside of the room full of Daimyos. And even if he was, Onoki and A would have never agreed to such a thing as it would shoot all of their villages' credibility into a proverbial toilet.

At most, they dared to take the Daimyos as temporary hostages in the guise of protecting them from the invasion.

The third thing that happened upon Orochimaru giving the attack order was for both Onoki and A to spring into action. Onoki dashed at Pakura, his hands already forming a cube of his dust release with the intent of deleting her out of existence, while A rushed at Ringo, his lightning armor flaring around him in a split of a second.

Neither of them cared about honor and tried to go for the kill from the 'back', betting on surprising their targets.

Unfortunately for them...

Onoki's Dust Release hit the place where Pakura was sitting, vaporizing the entire area around it in an instant. But Onoki did not relax as he didn't think it would be so easy and this saved his life. Just a small moment later that would have been enough for him to relax after his attack if he had been careless, his senses alerted him of danger.

Not even trying to locate where the attack was coming from, he ceased his gravity manipulation and let his body fall onto the ground just as a blade passed where his neck was a second ago.

Worse yet, Onoki didn't have the leisure to land properly and landed on his back with what Pakura would deem a very satisfying crunch, causing him to yelp in pain and grit his teeth as cold sweat engulfed him when he realized how close he came to death.

Unlike Onoki, A was not going for an overwhelming attack with the aim of erasing Ringo out of existence. Over the years, his resentment for her was only increasing but he had no outlet for it since the woman herself was unreachable for him. That's why he went for a simple lightning-chakra enhanced punch that should be able to knock the head of any jonin straight off of his or her body.

He just wanted to punch her far too much to do anything else.

As his fist neared Ringo at speeds which not even jonins would be able to see, much less react to, a spark of hope rose in A's chest. He had the bitch!

But at the last moment, Ringo raised her hand, stopping his fist with just her finger coated with lightning chakra, making it obvious her lightning chakra manipulation far surpassed his, and looked at him with a bored expression.

A's senses flared... but it was too late as he felt something he didn't feel in years. Not since he fought Ringo for the first time.

Ringo disrupted his Lightning Armor by changing the frequency of the lightning chakra in it, but this time, she was skilled enough.

A's lightning armor vanished, leaving him bewildered at the impossible feat but he didn't get enough time to contemplate how Ringo managed it as he had to throw himself to the side in order to avoid a sharp lightning beam Ringo produced with her finger pointing at him.

Their ambush was an utter failure.