Chapter 964

"Whoever manages it, I'll personally teach them the Azure Dragon Immortal Art."

The result, naturally, was impossible — all six naive children were completely fooled by Young Yuanzi. When they crowded around, Young Yuanzi very swiftly pulled North Wind out of the ground, simultaneously used space to create a passage leading to the Divine Dragon Realm, and then, while the six were still wearing dumbfounded expressions, tossed them all inside.

"Don't worry, during the Chunin Exams I'll bring all six of them along to participate." Young Yuanzi sheathed North Wind, waved at the Queen of Loulan who had appeared standing not far off at some unknown moment, and said, "Just let me give them a bit of emergency tutoring!"

"Thank you, Yuanzi."

The queen smiled and waved goodbye to Young Yuanzi, and only after the spatial passage that had swallowed all seven people had completely closed, and the uneasy wind around them had once again calmed, did she speak in a very low voice.

Time flew by. The Chunin Exams, which originally still had a few months to go, were now drawing ever closer. Some shinobi village teams from countries quite far from Konoha had already set out, while Konoha, as the host, remained as calm as ever.

"Oh oh! I can smell the tension in the air… right, Akamaru?"

"Woof!"

Inuzuka Kiba stood in the spectator stands with his beloved dog Akamaru on his head. As for what the outcome of the upcoming showdown below would be, he had actually long since known the answer — but that didn't prevent him from watching properly, after all, as a participant in the 'betting on the win or loss' who had placed a wager on one side, both Kiba and Akamaru were immensely looking forward to the Akimichi family's free unlimited supply of roast meat for a week in the future.

"Hmph! Don't get too cocky, Kiba — Naruko absolutely will not lose!" Choji said with a confident face.

Choji stood in the spectator stands just like Inuzuka Kiba, and perhaps because he felt victory was in his grasp, when placing his bet he had also dragged along his teammates Shikamaru and Ino.

"Idiot-idiot! The Chunin Exams will be here before you know it." This boring betting match — Choji had called them over thinking it was to hone the three-person Ino-Shika-Cho teamwork, but unexpectedly, the betting match with Shikamaru was even more outrageous when Yamanaka Ino discovered this was merely a wager Choji had recklessly agreed to.

Shikamaru still wore that expression of being interested in nothing and utterly bored with life, but since it was a matter requested by his close friend Choji, he had no reason not to participate — however…

"Choji, are you sure this is okay? You have to realize this is completely different from our usual bets. Right now we're not betting on ourselves — that's the uncertainty of this wager… haven't you noticed?" Shikamaru whispered a reminder into Choji's ear, while shifting his gaze to the two who had already taken the field.

On Uzumaki Naruko, who had undergone several months of special training with the goal of retrieving the missing Fourth Hokage, and on Hyuga Lin Cheng, who since graduation had lived in seclusion, acting all mysterious.

Sure enough, betting on a completely unknown hand was absolutely not the kind of foolish thing he, Nara Shikamaru, would normally do.

". "I'm betting on Lin Cheng to win — if you ask why…"

"Hahaha, I admit Naruko is indeed very strong — even when she's serious, she can beat this great one's and Shikamaru's newly trained 'Super Ultimate Fang Passing Fang Jutsu.' But no matter how much she grows—" completely ignoring teammate Aburame Shino, who had a faint presence and wanted to speak, Inuzuka Kiba, while carrying the suspicion of bragging about himself, said something rather outrageous.

"Lin Cheng's terror — you ordinary people could never understand it."

Words alone are no proof. Since the sparring was about to begin, they would no longer keep bickering, but would observe the field below with a very serious attitude.

"Several months unseen, her strength has indeed grown considerably (has it not)…" In Kaguya's eyes, Naruko — who could be called a being akin to her own great-grandson's reincarnation — had undergone changes that were undeniably obvious. It seemed the unexpected disappearance of the Fourth Hokage had caused this once somewhat immature girl to mature considerably.

This time, regarding the extermination operation against the Uchiha clan, Koze had indeed done quite well. Perhaps she could be appropriately given some reward — for example, a meal personally prepared by her mother herself? No no no, of course this sort of thing should be done by the future Yuanzi!

"In your eyes, am I still too weak after all?" Kaguya did not know that the way she had dispelled the scene of herself cooking had been seen by the Naruko opposite as an action in response to her efforts.