The Hidden Leaf Village was bright and breezy beneath a blazing sun.
The closer the Chunin Exams drew, the more Konoha tightened beneath its peaceful surface. The joint Chunin Exams between villages would begin soon.
Ordinary Chunin Exams were held once every half a year, but those were internal selections within each village. At most, they counted as small-scale internal assessments and promotions each year.
There were even plenty of cases where people skipped the Chunin Exams entirely and were directly promoted to Chunin.
But the joint Chunin Exams between villages were different. They might only be held once every few years. Selecting Chunin was only a trivial excuse. More importantly, it was a military exercise, a chance for the participating countries to understand one another's strength.
Although it looked like it only showed the performance of some Genin and could not decide anything, the strength of a village was often reflected in its Genin.
A powerful village usually had powerful Genin as well.
As the number one power in the world today, Konoha truly needed an exam like this to deter potential enemies, including villages that were nominally Konoha's allies.
The most typical example was Sunagakure, one of the Five Great Shinobi Villages.
Konoha and Sunagakure had not formed an alliance because they were close brothers. It was purely the result of compromise after repeated clashes in the Shinobi World's wars, when neither side could truly do anything to the other.
Although more than ten years had passed since the last war, and Sunagakure had behaved honestly during that time.
But that long stretch of time had also allowed Sunagakure's strength to gradually recover. In contrast, Konoha's top combat forces had continued to wither away or leave.
The balance of power between the two sides had already reached an extremely dangerous point.
Konoha was still powerful, but it no longer possessed an overwhelming advantage over Sunagakure. When facing Kumogakure's aggressive pressure last time, Konoha had not chosen to continue fighting. Instead, they handed over Hyuga Hizashi to shut Kumogakure up.
The Chunin Exams were an important window for Konoha to display its strength and deter other nations. For the other nations, it was likewise a chance to show strength and warn the countries around them not to act rashly.
And so, with everyone silently understanding what was really going on, each country sent its elite Genin.
Every village participating in the final Chunin Exams sent the sharpest Genin they had into Konoha.
After passing the verification at Konoha's gate, Kaede Kitahara's three-man group entered Konoha.
"That's weird. There are at least twice as many guards stationed here lately."
Amakusa Ryuji clasped both hands behind his head and glanced around. He immediately made his judgment.
It was not his first time entering and leaving Konoha. He had a good idea of what the usual security setup at Konoha's main gate looked like.
"Because the Chunin Exams are almost here," Kaede Kitahara said.
He knew perfectly well that many key plots from the original story were about to unfold. He could fully imagine whether Konoha's Anbu and Root would be so busy during this period that their feet barely touched the ground.
Surely no one thought Konoha had really just casually let these powerful ninja from other villages enter without any surveillance at all. They had to be under watch.
Otherwise, in his previous life, that Unlucky Bastard Gekko Hayate would never have followed Baki and Yakushi Kabuto and overheard them discussing the Konoha Crush Plan, only to die at the hands of that Scheming Bastard Baki.
Because Gekko Hayate was not only a Proctor for the Chunin Exams. He was also a member of Konoha's Anbu.
He had simply had bad luck and been assigned to follow Baki and Yakushi Kabuto. Those two definitely had Elite Jonin-level strength. Even early-stage Hatake Kakashi would probably have had a hard time escaping if he ran into both of them working together.
Much less Hayate, who was merely an ordinary Tokubetsu Jonin. Not every Tokubetsu Jonin was Kaede Kitahara.
"Yeah, true. Nice. I'm about to become a Chunin."
Amakusa Ryuji came back to himself and could not help grinning.
For Civilian Ninja, the gap between Genin and Chunin was huge. One was only a Lower-rank Ninja, while the other had already advanced to Squad Commander.
And if there was a chance to become a Jonin, that meant directly entering the village's elite class.
In this ninja world, status and strength were directly connected.
Suddenly, Kaede Kitahara frowned. He sensed a powerful fluctuation of Chakra up ahead. He leaped up onto a nearby rooftop, and a moment later, he found the source of the Chakra disturbance.
It turned out to be Kakashi's Team 7 facing off against several Sunagakure ninja in an alley.
"Gaara, Kankuro, Temari!"
Kaede Kitahara recognized them. Weren't these three the children of Sunagakure's Fourth Kazekage, Rasa?
This scene, wasn't this just nepo babies crashing into nepo babies?
Present here were three children of the Fourth Kazekage, one son of the Fourth Hokage, the youngest son of the former head of the Uchiha Clan, and one grandson of the Third Hokage.
When Kaede Kitahara had first watched this scene back then, he had not felt it so deeply. Now that he was seeing it again, there was no going back.
Shonen? What Shonen Anime? This was just a bunch of nepo babies fighting each other, and every one of them had issues.
Kaede Kitahara remembered the plot of this scene. Sarutobi Konohamaru had bumped into Kankuro, nearly getting beaten by him as a result. At the critical moment, Uchiha Sasuke had rescued him before Uzumaki Naruto could, showing off in a big way.
This was also Gaara's first appearance.
As an early-stage minor boss, Gaara's oppressive presence was undoubtedly extremely strong. The characters in Naruto's early arcs had generally been shaped quite successfully. Whether it was Orochimaru, the major boss, or Gaara, the minor boss, both were very successful, very classic.
As for the Otsutsuki in the later stages, each one was stronger than the last, but compared to the intimidation the early villains brought, they were clearly far weaker in that regard.
Kaede Kitahara thought about it and figured it might be because the early villains all had something wrong with their heads to some degree. In any case, they did not look very normal. Every single one of them was unhinged.
And those unhinged people just so happened to possess extremely powerful strength. That was the scariest part. It was like some lunatic on Earth in his previous life holding a Weapon of Mass Destruction.
The later Otsutsuki were powerful, but their logic could be understood. That was very important.
But unlike the early canon scene in the anime, where the conflict was obviously only a verbal clash and stopped there, both sides now looked like they were about to fight for real.
The giant fan on Temari's back had already unfolded. Beside her, Kankuro had also taken out Puppet Karasu / Crow. They clearly looked ready to throw down.
In front of them, Gaara's expression carried a hint of ferocity. Sand floated around his body, and the aura on him was extremely dangerous.
Facing them were Konoha's group. Sakura Haruno held a Kunai and stood protectively in front of Sarutobi Konohamaru and the other two kids.
Uzumaki Naruto's expression was solemn too. He had one hand open, ready to gather a Rasengan at any moment.
At the same time, the one standing at the very front was Uchiha Sasuke. One hand gripped the sheath of the Kusanagi Sword, while the other held the hilt. As his Kusanagi Sword was drawn little by little, Lightning Release Chakra surged out, seeming to turn into actual electric snakes.
"Hehehe. I'm going to kill you. Mother will definitely like your blood."
Gaara's gaze grew more and more dangerous. In his eyes, Uchiha Sasuke had already become prey.
Behind him, neither Kankuro nor Temari dared to advise their younger brother.
Although they were siblings, and the two of them were older, under normal circumstances, in the cultural atmosphere of the Shinobi World, they should have held an overwhelmingly superior position in the family.
But reality was that both of them had to listen to Gaara. They had only been sent to monitor him and make sure he did not lose control.
Yet that was nothing more than empty talk. If Gaara truly went berserk, could they really stop him?
Right now, all they could do was try to coordinate as best they could and keep him from suddenly killing someone.
If Gaara's identity as a Jinchuriki was exposed too early, the Konoha Crush Plan that came afterward probably could not be carried out at all.
"Damn it. We really shouldn't have gone out for a walk today."
Kankuro could not help cursing his rotten luck.
They had been stuck in the inn in Konoha for so long that it had gotten stifling, so they had gone out for a walk. As a result, halfway through, they had run into Konoha ninja and gotten into a conflict.
Fine, so there was a conflict. But for some reason, Gaara seemed to have been heavily provoked all at once and was starting to slip out of control.
Usually, they still dared to speak with Gaara, because in that state, although Gaara was cold and inhuman, he still had some humanity and reason in the end.
But they also knew that once he entered a certain bloodthirsty state, Gaara would gradually go insane.
Years of being unable to sleep had left his mind hovering on the edge of collapse at all times.
If they had known, they would have just stayed obediently in the inn and waited for the final mission to begin.
Now, he had no idea how this was supposed to end.
"Gaara?"
Uchiha Sasuke took a Thunder Breathing stance.
He recognized the person in front of him. This was someone who occasionally appeared in Kaede Kitahara's diary.
The future Kazekage.
At first, of course, Sasuke had learned about Gaara from that Chunin Exams match. Back then, his opponent was supposed to be Gaara.
In that battle, Sasuke had held the advantage at first and made Gaara suffer greatly, but he himself had also been injured by this guy.
What Uchiha Sasuke had never expected was that this guy would actually become Kazekage in the future. But Sasuke was confident he had not mistaken him. Although that had been his middle-aged appearance, and his hairstyle was hard to describe, his features would not change that much.
He had only gone from a teenager to a Middle-aged Guy.
In other words, his opponent was actually the future Kazekage in his youth. That made things very interesting. He was worth cutting down, not some unknown little nobody from Sunagakure.
At the same time, Sasuke also knew that Sunagakure would have the so-called Konoha Crush Plan in the future. In that case, heavily injuring Gaara here first should also be a good thing for Konoha's future, right?