Chapter 48

After the battle, Rock Lee suffered tremendous damage to his body. Because of overusing the inner gates, he's right arm and right leg were crushed under the heavy force of the inner gates. He is now practically a cripple. The medics said that he could no longer continue his life as a shinobi and could only live the rest of his life as civilian.

Gai, of course, refused to accept this. He begged the medics to do something but the only thing he got was a shake of a head. They were not skilled enough to heal this kind of injuries, they said.

The Sandaime ordered his doton user shinobis to fix the stage since it was so broken because of the fight earlier.

Hikaru, meanwhile, thought about building a force like the Abyss Watchers. He realized that he will leave this world eventually and by then, there would be no one left to protect Azumi. Almost the entire population of Konoha hates her, and she only has a few people on her side. He may be overacting but this is only one of his ways to protect her, he still has other plans.

He plan to buy the primordial crystal from the system to make Azumi immortal like him, the same crystal that Seath used to become immortal like his brethren. But the thing is, the cost of that thing is massive. It was 5 Billion Souls. He could barely get a hundred million souls for three years and 5 Billion? Don't even get him started.

But, there are still a disadvantage from using the primordial crystal. It's easy to break, you can clearly see that when you fought Seath in a boss fight. One hack of a sword and it's broken. That's why he also plans to use the titanite ore to create a protective shell around it, and also, he wants to make it so that it looks like a ring.

The Titanite ore is the ore of gods, it maybe be one of the most powerful ore in existence. And he has a lot of it in his inventory, around 10 stacks of slabs. That would be around a thousand titanite slabs. With it, he will craft a perfect shell around the primordial crystal once he manages to get his hands on the thing. But he's still so far away from reaching that goal, he doesn't have jackshit in his souls.

That's why, until that time, he'll have to build an army that can oppose any force in this world while maintaining their loyalties towards him and Azumi.

That's why he needs talented individuals. Someone like Hinata, Neji, or Sasuke.

Of course, that army of his will have another goal aside from protecting Azumi.

And that is to stop the Otsutsuki Clan.

He had found traces of them around this world and the Yokais also helped by telling him all about them.

(Note: He died around 2015 - 2016. so he did not see the end of Naruto. All he knows is from the Manga, where he figured out what happened in some events. Like the plans of Madara and who the man behind the mask is. But I may have changed some of the timelines in Earth. That's right, I'm not only making a fanfic about animes and games, I'm also making a fanfic about earth. You'll see that in the later chapters).

And I tell you, they were everywhere. From horns to carcasses of the members of that clan. He even found some on the moon after taking a flight near it, just to experience what's like to be in space. His name was Toneri Otsutsuki.

He seems to have this unhealthy obsession towards Hinata and that worries him quite a bit. Hinata is one of his closest friends in Konoha, save from Shino. That shaggy haired guy would usually stalk her while she's in the Hyuga Compound, he meant that he would leave the moon and land on this world from time to time.

He seems to be around the same age as everybody else, around 14 or so.

At first, when they met, they fought each other. Hikaru defeated him very easily, I think it was last year when he went to the moon. He seems to have the battle prowess of a kage and knew almost all the chakra elements in this world.

He wanted to kill him but decided to spare him when the old man by his side begged him not to. It seems like that old man was not longed in this world any longer. He'll die soon, Hikaru thought.

He never went there again but from time to time, he would sense Toneri watching Hinata from a distance.

As he fell into deep thought, he didn't realize that the preliminaries was already over until his teammates snapped him out of it.

Here's the quick match.

Aburame Shino vs Zaku Abumi - Shino won.

Tsuchi Kin vs Uzumaki Airi(Haru's sister) - Airi won.

Kinuta Dosu vs Darui - Dosu won, albeit barely.

Now, there are eleven. contestants going to the semi-finals.

Hikaru, Azumi, Sasuke, Shikamaru, Temari, Airi, Dosu, Shino, Hinata, Gaara, Kankuro.

They were then ordered to draw numbers from a slot box. The corresponding number from the previous one will have to fight in the finals. For example, 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4, 5 vs 6, 7 vs 8, 9 vs 10. The odd number will then proceed to the finals without fighting anyone.

And so, they all formed a line to draw respectively.

First to draw was Temari and she got number 5.

Second to draw was Shikamaru and he got number 6, he shivered slightly.

Third to draw was Azumi and she got number 1.

Hinata was next to draw and she got number 2, she got a slight glare coming from Azumi.

Sasuke drew next and got number 3.

Gaara was next and he got number 4.

Airi drew next and she got 7.

Shino drew next and got number 8, he looked at Airi and they nodded at each other.

Kankuro drew 10.

Dosu drew 9.

And that left Hikaru with the number eleven, thus he advanced to the finals without battling, which pissed him off slightly.

Hayate stood in front of them as he announces, "So, here are the battle match ups for the semi-finals of the chuunin exams."

He then proceeded to reveal a paper, in which said:

Temari vs Shikamaru.

Azumi vs Hinata.

Sasuke vs Gaara.

Airi vs Shino.

Kankuro vs Dosu.

Hikaru will fight whoever wins in fight 5.

The Hokage then announced that the finals will start next month to give them enough time to train and recuperate their injuries.

They were then taken by their teachers to train them but Hikaru and Azumi decided to stay behind. Hikaru decided to train Azumi himself, it's probably going to be more effective than a perverted cyclops who've never trained genins before. He literally doesn't even train himself anymore, that's why his skills had deteriorated over this pass years.

He let him take Sakura and Sasuke while both of him and Azumi went to their house to rest. Well, Hikaru's just gonna grind again for Souls and other items. Truthfully, he has a huge amount of items in his item box right now. He could say that it could fill 1/3 of the entire landscape of Konoha if he lets it all out, maybe more.

When they got back, Azumi immediately crash herself onto her bed while Hikaru decided to leave for a moment.

He left Azumi because it's so obvious that she's tired while he, an immortal undead, can regain his whole stamina in less than ten seconds.

When he got out of his house, he instantly shot up towards the top of the Hokage mountain in a burst of speed. In less than a few seconds, he was already there.

He sat on top of the Hokage mountain as he gazed at the dusk as it swallowed the sun. This is a place where he can feel a peace of mind.

And of course, someone would always break it.

"Hiroaki, my offer still stands." An old voice said behind him.

"You know Danzo, you have always been an annoyance. Do you want me to get rid of you as well?" Hikaru said without turning his back because he knew the one who's balls were so large that he decided to once threaten him to join his Root Foundation.

"Hmph, schemes and such won't work against me, boy." Danzo emphasize on "boy".

Behind Hikaru was an old man who's right eye and right arm are covered by bandages. He has black short hair, an old wrinkled face, and he wears a white and black haori.

Also, Danzo still doesn't know how strong Hikaru is, and if he did, he would only thought of his strength to be around Jounin level at best. Hikaru thinks that it's because of his age the reason why Danzo underestimate him so much. He could kill this old man and no one would know. Hiruzen might get slightly angry at him, which he doubts.

The only reason he is still breathing was because Hiruzen begging him not to. That Sandaime may be somewhat of a dictator but for some reason, for some fucking reason, he has this soft part for his former teammates.

"Danzo, don't push me into joining your stupid Root. I hold no love for this village and the only reason I'm still here is because of Azumi and some other people. Always remember that the moment something happens to Azumi, this entire village will be burnt to the ground by myself. And you will be in the center of it." Hikaru said threatiningly before disappearing in a burst of speed.

Staring at where Hikaru was before, Danzo said, "Hmph, that's why you have been always a flight risk. Such a shame I would have to kill a very talented child." He then turned around and left the mountain, not noticing that a small part of his face was blackened.