Chapter 327: The Power of the Flame Iron Mountain
When the names of the next examinees were announced, the spectators immediately perked up and focused on the arena at the center of the stadium.
After watching the first round, the audience already had a rough sense of who was strong. They did not understand nature transformation in theory, but they could judge power by the scale of a technique and how quickly a match ended.
Obito had turned the entire field into a blazing sea of fire in his battle with Asuma, carving his image into the minds of everyone present. Mei Terumi had also crushed her opponent with ease. In the eyes of ordinary people, both were clearly formidable.
On top of that, this was a direct clash between Mist and Konoha, so everyone expected sparks to fly.
"Last time you only won because I ran out of stamina. This time I will show you my true strength."
Obito spoke confidently, openly challenging her.
Losing to Mei in the Forest of Death had been stuck in his heart ever since. After he grew stronger, aside from Mugetsu and a few senior disciples, he had been overwhelming almost all his peers.
"That sounds nice, but did you really think I was fighting seriously in that last match?" Mei replied, refusing to back down in the verbal exchange. Talking tough was not his specialty alone.
"Begin."
As soon as the two took their positions, Hiruko announced the start of the match.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique."
Obito immediately focused his Breathing Technique, formed hand signs, and spewed out a massive fireball that roared across the arena toward Mei.
He knew perfectly well that this Great Fireball would not beat her, but he did not have another Fire Release that was better suited as an opening move.
"Water Release: Water Formation Pillar."
Mei also formed hand signs on the spot, puffing out her cheeks as she spat out a sphere of water that was three times the size of Obito's fireball.
When fire met water, Obito's flames were instantly snuffed out, and the giant water sphere continued rolling straight at him.
Although that water sphere would not cause much harm on its own, Obito knew Mei had a technique that could instantly reshape it into a Water Dragon Bullet. He immediately moved, dodging away from its path without hesitation.
"I should not have made a move back then. He picked up too much information on me," Mei sighed inwardly.
Seeing that she could not trick him, she cut off the chakra feeding her Water Formation Pillar. This technique required continuous chakra to maintain its shape, letting her transform it into Water Dragon Bullet at any moment without hand signs. At its core, it was an application of water nature transformation.
Without chakra to support it, the oversized water sphere lost flexibility and pursuit. It simply crashed to the ground, exploding into a wave that splashed across the arena.
Obito watched her calmly. He was waiting for his chance.
Directly clashing Fire Release against Mei's Water Release was foolish. He had already suffered that lesson once. There was no way he was going to repeat it.
Mei also refrained from acting rashly. While her ninjutsu countered his, she knew his taijutsu was far stronger than hers.
The two did not stand still, but neither launched an all out assault.
Mei quickly scanned the battlefield. At the beginning of the exams, this arena had been filled with trees, but after so many fights, most had been knocked down or burned away. Now there was only open stone, with a single small pond remaining.
"Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique."
She slipped past a shuriken from Obito, then rapidly formed hand signs and summoned another water dragon.
The dragon surged forward, its trajectory subtly herding Obito toward the small pond.
Realizing this, Obito exploded chakra under his feet and used Soru to bolt in the opposite direction, racing toward the wall at the edge of the field.
He knew that any area with water would bolster Mei's Water Release. Even a small pond was enough to tilt things in her favor.
"Flame Breathing Chakra Mode."
Obito intensified his breathing and entered Flame Breathing Chakra Mode. His physical abilities rose sharply. At the same time, he activated his Sharingan, further sharpening his perception.
With that combination, he slipped between the surging currents of the Water Dragon Bullet, dodging with fluid, precise movements and letting the dragon smash into the wall behind him instead.
As he moved, Obito reached into his pouch, drew a shuriken, infused it with Fire Release chakra, and sent it spinning toward Mei.
"Boil Release: Skillful Mist."
Mei gathered chakra at her lips, simultaneously transforming it into water and earth natures and combining them into Boil Release chakra. She then spat out a surge of yellow corrosive liquid.
The liquid was both highly corrosive and extremely adhesive.
Through his Sharingan, Obito clearly saw that the instant his burning shuriken touched the yellow mist, it merged into it, and the metal surface began to distort.
The change was subtle, but his eyes did not miss it.
"What is that? It is not Water Release, and it looks terrifying," Obito thought, recalling what Mei had said before the fight.
So she had not been bluffing. She really had held back before.
Just as Obito was wondering whether he should test it with fire, Mei spat out two more clouds of the yellow corrosive liquid.
Out of caution, Obito did not attempt to counter them with ninjutsu. He chose to evade instead.
This time, the Boil Release seemed oddly easy to avoid, almost as if there were some flaw in the technique itself. Obito slipped past it without much effort.
But then he noticed something that made his heart sink.
The corrosive liquid that had hit the ground earlier had already hardened, turning into a gray wall.
Thinking back to the previous attacks that had seemed strangely harmless, Obito felt a surge of unease.
He could not fully guess what Mei was building, but he was sure of one thing:
Mei Terumi would never waste chakra on meaningless attacks. She had beaten him once. Underestimating her was not an option.
"Flame Fist."
Obito compressed a huge amount of chakra into his fist, then instantly converted it into Fire Release chakra and drove his burning fist into the gray wall beside him.
Boom.
The powerful punch and blazing flame smashed open a gaping hole in the wall. Obito stepped through and sprinted back toward the center of the field.
"Still no good. Once your information is exposed, everything is harder," Mei thought, feeling the fight slipping out of her control.
From the very first Water Dragon Bullet, her real target had not been Obito himself or the pond.
What she wanted was Obito at the arena wall.
From there, she could use Boil Release to create walls and slowly construct a semi open space that would amplify the power of her Boil Release.
Boil Release was far more destructive than ordinary Water Release, but it had a major weakness. In a completely open field, its potency dropped significantly.
Mei could not instantly build a closed arena in such a wide open space. And Obito was not foolish enough to willingly fight inside a sealed cage even if she could.
So she had chosen to create a semi open space piece by piece.
But Obito's reaction had been too fast.
From the moment she used her Boil Release in the Forest of Death, he had already been deducing her methods. This time he instantly picked up on the danger and smashed through her setup.
Spending so much chakra yet failing to gain an advantage left Mei with a sense of crisis.
She quickly dashed toward the pond instead. She needed the water there to reduce the cost of her Water Release.
There was no way Obito would let her go. After being pressured and chased for so long, the flames in his chest were burning far too hot.
"Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique."
Obito spewed a volley of small fireballs toward her. Each one was not enormous, but there were many, and their spread covered a wider area than Great Fireball.
"Water Release: Water Prison Technique."
Mei immediately wrapped herself in a barrier of water. She knew she could not dodge all of those fireballs.
Obito's Flame Breathing Chakra Mode was still incomplete; he could not yet release techniques without hand signs.
However, it allowed him to simplify his seals significantly, and his ninjutsu came out much faster than before.
After spitting out more than ten fireballs in a row, Obito abruptly stopped and channeled chakra into his feet.
In the next instant, he flashed forward and appeared right in front of Mei's water barrier.
"Fire: Leaf Whirlwind."
His flaming spinning kick slammed into the barrier.
The barrier that had blocked multiple fireballs at once shattered in an instant, and the force of the kick sent Mei flying.
"Water Release: Water Formation Pillar."
Mei did not even have time to fully stand. Half propped up on the ground, she rapidly formed hand signs and released an enormous amount of chakra without restraint, spewing out a gigantic water sphere three times larger than the first one.
The towering water mass immediately swallowed Obito whole.
But Obito had already been prepared for this.
He held his breath and pushed his Breathing Technique to the absolute limit. Flame Breathing roared through his body, and all of his chakra burned like fuel, converting directly into strength.
There was no time to think. Mei watched as his figure charged through the water, and her eyes narrowed.
She instantly began changing the form of her Water Formation Pillar, trying to transform it into a Water Dragon Bullet like last time and finish the fight.
Unfortunately for her, Obito was not quite the same person he had been back in the Forest of Death.
Under Mugetsu's high pressure training, Obito's Flame Breathing had undergone a qualitative shift. Under extreme conditions, his power had risen to a whole new level.
Mei's hands moved quickly and the water sphere shifted rapidly, but Obito was even faster. In a blink, only three meters separated them.
Making a snap judgment, Mei abandoned control over most of the water and instead completed a rapid Water Dragon Bullet transformation.
The resulting water dragon was not particularly thick, but it still slammed forward at high speed toward Obito.
She could not gamble on finishing a full scale dragon before he reached her.
If she lost that bet, her Chunin Exam would end right here, and her path toward becoming Mizukage would be affected.
Even if this smaller dragon could not defeat him outright, it should at least be able to push him back.
"Fire Release: Blazing Impact."
Obito unleashed the full power of his Flame Breathing Chakra Mode.
Flames erupted across his entire body, glowing orange and gold. A dense mass of chakra gathered at his shoulder as he lowered his stance, body coiled like a spring. Then he slammed forward in an Iron Mountain Impact, colliding with Mei's hastily formed Water Dragon Bullet.
Mei's dragon did not require hand signs, born from the Water Formation Pillar she had already prepared. Obito's technique also needed no seals.
The two forces met in mid charge.
Boom.
At the moment of impact, the flames around Obito flared even hotter.
Raw force and scorching heat merged into one. Under that overwhelming strike, the not so thick Water Dragon Bullet shattered completely.
The sudden reversal left the audience stunned.
At the beginning of the match, Mei had clearly been in control. In just a few minutes, the balance had flipped.
"This Uchiha Obito is quite something."
The officials from the Land of Fire could not help muttering to each other. In their eyes, Obito might well be the strongest candidate in this exam.
A shinobi wrapped entirely in flames gave them an instinctive sense of fear that far exceeded any simple fireball.
"So this guy was holding back when he fought me."
Asuma stared at the fiery Obito in disbelief.
He had thought that, even though he had lost, at least he had forced Obito to reveal all his cards. Now he saw that had not been the case at all.
"How is that possible? Why are the flames not burning him?"
Raido felt his understanding of ninjutsu being shaken.
What kind of Fire Release was this? This did not feel like any technique from the academy textbooks.
"After taking so many hits, he finally learned."
Kakashi nodded inwardly. In his eyes, the outcome was already set.
When he had seen Obito being lured toward the arena wall earlier, he had almost wanted to rush down and drag him back by force. Thankfully, Obito had figured out Mei's intentions in time.
With her technique shattered, Mei stopped pouring out chakra. She stood there in a daze. Obito, still wrapped in flame, had already walked up to her.
"I told you. This time, I am the one who wins."
His burning hand hovered in front of Mei, who was half lying on the stone.
If this had been a battlefield instead of an exam arena, he could have released the flames in that moment and ended her life.
"You win," Mei said quietly, lowering her head.
She was not someone who could not accept defeat, but losing still left a bitter taste.
She had shown everything she had, yet she still did not know if a second round loss would earn the attention of the village elders.
She had prepared a whole series of plans to deal with Might Guy and Kakashi. Now they were useless.
"Uchiha Obito wins."
Hiruko's voice rang through the arena.
The Konoha supporters erupted in cheers. Guy had just won, and now Obito had followed with another victory. Two wins in a row at the start of the second round were enough to shift the atmosphere.
"Did Konoha also send young Chunin disguised as examinees?"
Genji could not help thinking about it.
Hidden Mist had deliberately chosen several young Chunin and a group of elite Genin to suppress Konoha in this exam. Yet the results so far were far from what he had expected.
Guy's taijutsu, Obito's Fire Release, Kakashi's speed. These were supposed to be Genin?
After his victory, Obito did not return to the waiting room immediately.
He dispersed his Breathing Technique but left his Sharingan active. With its keen sight, he immediately found Rin Nohara in the stands, smiling at him. She was genuinely happy for his win.
"Hehe."
Obito broke into a wide grin. He knew she could not hear him from here, but he still raised his hand and waved, mouthing a silent thank you.
Only after that did he head back to the waiting room.
The moment he walked in, he pounced on Kakashi and started excitedly narrating every brilliant decision he had made during the fight.
In his version, he had relied purely on intellect to dismantle Mei step by step, never once depending on brute force.
"If you reverse that description, it would be accurate," Kakashi commented.
"Zabuza Momochi versus Kakashi Hatake."
Hiruko's voice once again echoed through the waiting room.
"Tch. I would really like to see what kind of profound wisdom this next fight of yours will display," Obito muttered with a sneer.
Kakashi did not bother arguing. He simply stepped out at a steady pace and walked toward the arena.
This battle really would not show any deep tactics.
The opponent's strength was only average.
Even before his special training, the old Kakashi would not have struggled much against Zabuza.
Now, after awakening Transparent World and undergoing harsh training, he was even more certain.
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