Three days later, the Chunin Exams officially began.
On this day, Arima deliberately cleared his schedule and came to the exam arena to watch the matches.
After taking his seat, he immediately extended his Observation Haki to sense his surroundings.
From an almost godlike vantage point, the Fourth Kazekage on the stands struck him as oddly familiar, as if he had seen him somewhere before, yet no matter how he tried, he couldn't recall where.
He also spotted many familiar faces in the spectator area, the heads of various clans, as well as Hinata's team whom he had encountered a month earlier.
Arima's gaze quickly settled on that child, Hinata. Her face was pale and her body weak, giving off an air of fragility, as though a light breeze could knock her over.
He hadn't expected her to be suffering from such severe internal injuries.
Now wasn't the time to intervene, so he could only wait until after the matches to use the Paw-Paw Fruit's abilities to heal her.
Just as the competition was about to begin, Arima witnessed a rather amusing scene.
Naruto, who arrived late, actually charged into the arena while being chased by a herd of rampaging cattle.
Arima chuckled. "That impulsive, hotheaded temperament really does resemble Kushina. Even his way of doing things is the same, always catching people off guard."
The first match soon began. Naruto Uzumaki versus Hyuga Neji.
Arima noticed the cursed seal on Neji's forehead. It seemed that in this world, the Hyuga branch family still hadn't been liberated.
He understood this well, although Hiruzen was exceptionally powerful, there were limits to what he could ultimately change.
And it was precisely those limits that led to so many tragedies later on.
The battle between Naruto and Neji was indeed spectacular. Among genin, very few could reach their level.
What surprised Arima the most was that Naruto could actually draw upon the Nine-Tails' chakra, though his control over it was far from refined.
What Arima had been most looking forward to was the clash between the last survivor of the Uchiha clan and the One-Tail jinchuriki, Gaara.
Unfortunately, due to the former's absence, that match was postponed until the very end.
Even so, the battle between Shikamaru and Temari of the Sand Village was exceptional.
Shikamaru demonstrated extraordinary intelligence and strategic prowess.
If this had been a three-on-three battle, the chances were high that Shikamaru's side would have emerged victorious.
Sasuke was nowhere to be seen for a long time. Arima initially thought the boy would miss the match entirely.
Just as he stood up to leave, Sasuke finally arrived, exuding an overwhelming aura. Even Kakashi put on an impressively flashy entrance to match.
This was Arima's first time seeing Kakashi as an adult, and it inevitably made him think of his own student, Sakumo, and his tragic suicide.
Arima knew all too well that the true instigators behind that incident were the elder council, and possibly even Danzo himself.
But with so much time having passed, bringing it up now felt far too late.
To be honest, Arima never truly wanted to interfere in the affairs of this shinobi world. In his eyes, this world was nothing more than a reflection, a mirage, illusory and unreal.
He shook his head, casting aside those wandering thoughts, and turned his attention back to the arena.
The A-rank Lightning Release technique Sasuke used, Chidori, was quite interesting.
With just a single glance, Arima grasped the principle behind it, even extending and refining the technique further in his own mind.
Unfortunately, he couldn't mobilize the chakra within his body. For now, all he could do was think about it, satisfying his curiosity in theory alone.
Arima noticed that the One-Tail jinchuriki had been injured, and the One-Tail seized the opportunity to take control of the host's body, looking as though it was about to burst free.
At that moment, a sudden change occurred. Flowers fluttered through the air within the arena, dreamlike and illusory.
Arima instantly realized that someone was casting a large-scale genjutsu.
Using his Observation Haki, he sensed that the caster was a young man with white hair tied into a ponytail, wearing round glasses, it was none other than Kabuto, the one who had killed Nono.
For a brief instant, Arima wanted to intervene. But in the end, he suppressed the fury in his heart and consoled himself. 'It's all just ripples in a reflection.'
Elsewhere, the Fourth Kazekage took Hiruzen hostage.
Along with four accompanying shinobi, he formed the Four Violet Flames Formation, sealing the two of them off from the Anbu on the rooftop and creating a closed battlefield.
Orochimaru tore away the disguise of the Fourth Kazekage, and he and Hiruzen quickly engaged in battle.
However, what followed was something Arima could no longer tolerate.
Orochimaru actually used the Impure World Reincarnation technique to summon the souls of his grandfather and granduncle from the Pure Land.
Inwardly, Arima thought, 'Orochimaru, you really are a student who never lets people rest easy.'
Then he brought his palms together. Instantly, a compressed sphere of air formed between his hands.
With a gentle push of his palm, the air sphere descended from above and landed atop the Four Violet Flames Formation.
"Impact!"
With Arima's low shout, the compressed air sphere exploded, unleashing a terrifying shockwave.
Cracks rapidly formed across the top layer of the barrier, spreading swiftly over its entire surface.
Seeing the barrier inexplicably shattered, Orochimaru realized the situation had turned unfavorable. Under the cover of his two reanimated puppets, he immediately fled the battlefield.
Hiruzen led a group of Anbu in pursuit.
Arima paid no further attention to what followed.
He had only intervened because Orochimaru had violated the souls of his grandfather and granduncle, something he could not tolerate, even in another world.
Without a sound, Arima left the exam arena. Before departing, he also used Paw-Paw Fruit to heal Hinata's internal injuries.
Once the matter was settled, he brushed off his sleeves and departed, hiding both merit and fame.
On the way back, Arima reflected on the reasons Orochimaru had strayed down such a dark path.
Based on what he knew, it was likely the deaths of Orochimaru's parents and disciples like Nawaki that had pushed him toward the pursuit of immortality.
Still, Arima soon cast those thoughts aside. At present, he only cared about news of Natsuka and Tsunade.
There was little in Konoha that truly tied him down anymore, perhaps after some time, he would leave to search for them.
Arima closed his shop and, in his room, gradually used the Paw-Paw Fruit's abilities to erode the time energy within his body.
The good news was that he had already opened up one-tenth of a meridian. Perhaps in another ten months or so, he would be able to use even the most basic ninjutsu.
The next morning, as dawn broke, Arima was sleeping soundly when a hurried knock on the door startled him awake.
He extended his Observation Haki and realized the visitor was Jiraiya. With no choice, Arima got out of bed and opened the door.
Jiraiya looked grief-stricken, his spirit visibly drained. The moment he stepped inside, he clamored for alcohol, insisting on getting thoroughly drunk.
Arima asked, "Jiraiya, what kind of shock did you suffer?"
Jiraiya helped himself to more than a dozen bottles of strong liquor from behind the counter and drank them down in one go.
Arima didn't stop him, he simply sat on a nearby chair, watching Jiraiya vent his emotions.
After a long while, Jiraiya, about eight-tenths drunk, finally poured out everything.
Orochimaru had fled toward the border of the Land of Fire, but was soon caught up to by Hiruzen.
All the Anbu were tied down by Orochimaru's reanimated puppets, while Orochimaru repeated his old trick, using the Four Violet Flames Formation to create an isolated battlefield, within which he fought Hiruzen Sarutobi in a decisive battle.
By the end of that battle, Hiruzen used the Reaper Death Seal to completely seal Orochimaru's arms. He himself sacrificed his soul and died a glorious death.
Listening to Jiraiya recount everything in a halting, broken manner, Arima felt a tangled mix of emotions.
To him, every person in these two worlds was an independent existence.
In other words, this shinobi world was not his world, and those so-called "familiar faces" were, in truth, complete strangers.
Yet even so, the death of Hiruzen was something he found difficult to come to terms with.
Worse still, he didn't know how he should face Tsunade in this parallel world.
With that thought, Arima simply took out a few even stronger bottles of alcohol and drank with Jiraiya, raising their cups to drown their sorrow.
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