Chapter 17: Winner–Uzumaki Naruto!

"Fateful duel? But unfortunately, I am no longer the old Uzumaki Naruto."

Naruto maintained the same posture as Shikamaru, with his hands in his pockets, walking towards the middle of the white circle.

"That kid is..."

"My parents told me not to talk to him."

"Fortunately, I'm not his opponent..."

The children around saw Naruto's appearance and whispered.

Iruka frowned slightly, looking at Naruto who was calm and at ease, feeling bad in his heart, no wonder he said he was used to it before.

After all, this kind of pain should be heavier than losing his parents when he was a child.

On the other side, Sasuke walked out with a blank face. Compared with Naruto's quiet arrival, his appearance was the opposite.

"Wow, it's Sasuke! Sasuke!!"

"I want to make a seal of reconciliation with Sasuke-kun!"

"Sasuke-kun, come on!" Ino yelled.

"Beat him to pieces! Sasuke-kun!!" Sakura pumped her fists to cheer.

"Naruto-kun..."

Hinata murmured, cheering for Naruto quietly.

"Beat him! Sasuke-kun!"

Then she was instantly suppressed by the shouts of the female classmates around him.

...

"I will not lose to you again, Uzumaki Naruto."

Sasuke said coldly.

"Good luck..."

"Okay, the two of you will form [Seal of Confrontation]."

Naruto and Sasuke held up their right and left hands fingers respectively.

"start!"

Boom!

Before Iruka finished speaking, Sasuke rushed up, and a pile of dust was stirred up under his feet.

When everyone reacted, they looked at the field and found Sasuke's fist hitting Naruto, which was blocked by Naruto's hand.

"!!!"

"How? That guy..."

"How can he block Sasuke?!"

"But last time his rank in shuriken throwing  was number one."

Everyone was stunned.

Because Naruto often slept in class and handed in blank papers during the quiz, the students all thought that Naruto was there to waste time.

But the last time they learned how to throw shuriken, he performed very well, and even beat Sasuke to win first place.

But none of them took it to heart.

One reason was that their respective parents warned them to stay away from Naruto, and the other reason was that they thought that Sasuke just played out of order and Naruto was lucky to get first place.

"What is the comparison between the theoretical class and the actual combat class? This is a duel of ninjas."

Shikamaru said lightly, turning a deaf ear to the student's comments, and at the same time a little angry.

"It seems that what Naruto said was right. The prejudice in people's hearts is like a mountain. No matter how hard you try, you can't move it."

"I didn't expect Naruto to be so powerful!" Chōji also opened his eyes wide in surprise.

"Ah, Sasuke..." Ino was extremely disappointed.

"This kid...is he a genius in actual combat and dumb in theory?"

Iruka looked at Naruto with bright eyes.

"It's not over yet!"

Although Sasuke was blocked, he was not surprised, after all, Naruto was his top opponent!

Since he was the one who promised to defeat Naruto, Sasuke would never think that his surprise attack would defeat him. 

Sasuke kicked Naruto's head with a sidekick, and Naruto backed away slightly.

"Huh? This feeling... is it the Third Hokage?"

Naruto, who was just about to fight back, suddenly felt the feeling of being watched, and his Kaguras' Mind Eye swept over the ninja school in an instant.

"Other than the Anbu and the surrounding kids, there is only the Third Hokage's crystal Technique."

While subconsciously dodging Sasuke's attack, Naruto was thinking about how he should behave to reassure the Third Hokage.

Should he overwhelm Sasuke with his strength? Or will it be too prominent?

Should he play low-key and pretend to be defeated? But with his action earlier, he exposed his strength a little which made it impossible to pretend. 

Or draw…

"You bastard, are you kidding me?! Why didn't you fight back!!"

Sasuke's roar interrupted Naruto's thinking.

"Ah, this..."

Naruto seemed to have forgotten that he was dodging the attack all the time, so a draw was impossible.

"In this case…"

Swish!

Naruto shot decisively, grabbed Sasuke's fist, and then turned his back, threw Sasuke to the ground, and sat on Sasuke's stomach.

'As an orphan of the Uzumaki family, I have more strength and better physical skills, plus being the Nine Tails Jinchūriki, it makes sense to defeat Sasuke!'

…

Seeing how Naruto defeated Sasuke so easily, the audience was silent.

"you…"

Sasuke looked at the fist that was close to his face, his eyes were full of confusion.

He was defeated?  

And he was knocked down by Naruto so easily?  

"Victor, Uzumaki Naruto!"

Naruto got up and stepped aside.

Sasuke got up silently, lowered his head, and was about to turn around and leave.

"Sasuke, there is also the seal of reconciliation." Iruka reminded with a smile.

Sasuke paused, walked back, and stretched out his left hand.

"I will beat you! Next time for sure!!"

Sasuke gritted his teeth, looked at Naruto, and said harshly.

"Oh."

Naruto nodded.

However, Naruto's tone made Sasuke suddenly angry, this guy looked down on him too much! 

...

"It seems that Naruto has a talent in physical skills, as expected of the physique of the Uzumaki clan."

The Third Hokage looked at Naruto in the crystal ball, smoking his pipe without emotion.

Even if the Senju clan disappeared into the dust of history, even if the country of the Uzumaki clan had long since perished, they still could not cut off everything from them.

Tsunade was one such.

The same was true for Naruto.

…