“What is wrong with that? He has perhaps not improved the land of fire but he has not worsened it either. Is that not also worthy of praise? Yes he is not a powerful warrior and yes he is not the best ruler but he is not the worst either. The position of Daimyo holds it’s own struggles and burdens so while he is weak he is mighty in his own way as well.” the old man said in a tone that brokered no arguments.
“I’ll agree to disagree on this matter.” I said flatly before turning to leave.
I am willing to admit when someone had a point but this was not a topic where you could just compromise. He had points that could be considered merits for his side of the argument but in my opinion were weak and frail excuses. The Daimyo hasn’t made the land of fire worse, sure I can agree with that. But I also firmly believe that doesn’t mean the man should be sitting on the throne either. A rulers job is to improve the lives of those they rule over, not just keep it stagnant and the same as always.-
As I said though I’d agree to disagree on this matter and not act on these thoughts. Some might consider me bellyaching about this yet doing nothing to be a stupid course of action but the fact of the matter is that I gain nothing for trying to implement change in this regard. Sure the land of fire would improve but why should I waste my time to accomplish this when I was already a single step away from being a hermit. Yes I am self aware enough to know that I am in fact very reclusive in nature.-
I don’t go out of my way to socialize and even when I do it’s with a very small amount of people while otherwise I stay far from anyone. Moving back to the topic of the Chunin exams I wasn’t surprised to find that some people had in fact shacked up in my home. What did surprise me however was WHO had done so. It wasn’t Naruto or Shino or Kiba’s teams but rather the Kazekages children. Eavesdropping I found out an interesting piece of information from listening to them talk.-
“Not that I don’t appreciate not having to rough it in the forest but why does this place even exist?” the girl, Temari, asked in confusion.
“It says that HE lives here.” Gaara said quietly and the other boy, Kankuro, gasped.
“Why am I not surprised? Also how does that thing even know that anyways?” Temari asked curiously.
“I don’t know, nothing it has said about that person makes any sense. It said that he reminded it of it’s father and that I should not even try to fight him but it won’t tell me why.” Gaara said quietly.
‘It’s father? That thing has a father, who is it?’ I thought confused.
After that the trio moved on to talking about my home and I was offended by some of the stuff they said. Like how dare they squat in my place and then insult it as primitive and unrefined!? Aesthetics withstanding they didn’t really have anything bad to say about the place so I let them off by having a squirrel throw acorns at the windows all night. It was at most highly irritating but otherwise harmless. The next day the exams went on like usual with the first real clashes starting as well as the first people passing in the form of the trio from Suna.-
That was when shit it the fan as it turned out the dude from Kusa that my instincts warned me about was actually Orochimaru in disguise. I didn’t get to witness it go down but the man showed up and left some sort of seals on Naruto and Sasuke after manhandling them. The man seemed to vanish after that despite everyone including myself hunting for him. The village was on high alert after that but the exam finished as per normal otherwise.-
There was a sort of brief intermission where all the eleven teams that passed the second exam could recover before an impromptu mini tournament was held to lower the amount of participants in the actual tournament section. I attended this mini tournament as a spectator much to the surprise of quite a few people.
“What are you doing here Kenzo? I thought only our sensei’s were allowed to be here?” Naruto asked confused to see me.
“Not quite, only your sensei’s were told about this little elimination tournament but anyone was free to come watch if they wanted to.” I explained with a smile.
“Kenzo’s correct, though only us sensei’s were told in order to keep the distractions to a minimum.” Kakashi said calmly.
“Why are you here though, someone like you should have no reason to waste their time watching fights at this level?” Neji asked sternly.
“Ah but that’s where you’d be wrong, you see everyone currently here has set foot on their path to power so naturally I would come to size up my peers for the future. After all we may end up working together in the future.” I said with a grin.
“A rather relaxed attitude for a shinobi don’t you think?” Temari asked confrontationally.
“Not really, bluntly speaking there is only three people in this entire sparring hanger that could even come close to matching me and it’s these two plus that woman right there.” I said pointing at Might Guy, Kakashi and Kurenai.
“Rather arrogant of you to put yourself on the level of elites like them as a mere chunin.” the blonde said mockingly.
“Is that right?” I said with a smirk before reaching over to the wall behind us and casually scooping out a handful of stone.
I rotated my hips and threw the stone as hard as I could at the ceiling overhead.
“BOOM!”
The air shook and howled like a wind release jutsu had been released in the building and the handful of stone impacted the ceiling and blew a massive hole through it as the force of the throw refused to be stopped.
“You know you’ll have to pay for that right?” Kakashi asked with a chuckle while I froze.