Naruto: The Blind Swordsman

________ POV Narration ________

'She can unleash all of her Tailed Beast's chakra without transforming into it?'

Ken observed the young Jinchuriki with a surprised smile underneath his mask.

He hadn't quite met a Jinchuriki able to take on such a form, he also clearly felt that the Tailed Beast had given all of its charka to Yugito.

'Is this what a full partnership looks like? But, if I remember correctly, Killer B was also a perfect Jinchuriki...'

The Blind Assassin couldn't quite put his finger on what made the little girl special, for her vessel to be able to use such a great amount of chakra without adapting any foreign features.

It might have just been because the difference in chakra between the 8th and the 2nd Tailed Beasts was monumental, so their forms differed, but Ken hadn't done much research on them to know anything for sure.

Regardless, her current form was certainly something to behold. She retained all of the nimbleness of a small figure, whilst also wielding the power of a beast.

"The Cloud really does have great contestants this year..." The Hokage muttered, he still remembered Yugito taking out the most talented of the Land of Iron previously, but she hadn't gotten the chance to go all out back then.

And her opponent was of the same mind.

In an instant, black circles formed under his eyes, lines going from the corners of his eyes all the way down to his cheeks.

"T-that's... Sage Mode?" The Raikage muttered as he somewhat recognized the strange energy that was now shrowding Morita, it was the very same that Ken's entire being was made of.

"Indeed... Most of the top 10 within the Brotherhood have learned Sage arts to some degree of mastery. Number 2 in particular is quite talented at it..." 'Although far from the most talented in the top 10, he's certainly the most hardworking.'

Ken couldn't help but feel a bit of pride and appreciation rise up within him when he felt how perfectly Morita was managing to maintain his sage mode.

And the next clashes also put a lot of things into perspective for everyone else in the arena...

'These semi-finalists... They shouldn't be competing for the 'Chunin' rank at all...'

Both Yugito and Morita dashed towards one another, meeting in the middle where Morita's twin blades clashed against Yugito's fiery chakra claws.

Morita's blades also flared up in flames of his own as he infused them with his own Fire Nature Chakra, and the temperatures around the two of them rose exponentially.

In a split second, both of them jumped backwards, regaining some distance, as they both fired off some ranged techniques.

"Fire Style: Blue Flame Bombs!" Yugito's chest expanded just as her chakra-coated feet touched the ground, in an instant she breathed out dozens upon dozens of dark blue fireballs, all homing in Morita's general direction.

The Number 2 of the Dark Brotherhood was also not about to let himself get outshined so easily.

"Fire Style: Bleak Sword Dance!" Mortita's figure disappeared and reappeared all around his surroundings, as he moved in a strange pattern, with each appearance he sent out flaming flying slashes towards his opponent.

The two attacks collided in the middle, and the explosion that rang out was quite deafening for the civilians present.

The cloud of smoke that arose from the attack was exactly what Morita was expecting, as he took that opportunity to rush forward, taking advantage of it as well as his stealth skills to get closer.

What he didn't expect was for Yugito to randomly swipe her claws behind her at full strength just as he prepared to land a decisive blow.

He barely managed to block the claws, but the sheer blunt force of them sent him flying like a bullet straight into one of the walls of the arena.

'Such force... It would have more certainly broken a few bones if not for Sage Mode...' Morita's gaze was quite serious, his eyes now revealed from his cracked mask.

The young assassin brought his hands together, moving them at hard-to-follow speeds in order to form a rather intricate jutsu.

"Lighting Style: Lightening Clone Jutsu!"

In an instant, a cloud of smoke burst out of his body, covering that small part of the arena. And when it lifted, where there was previously only one, there were now 4 Morita's for Yugito to handle. Even worse was that she couldn't quite tell which one was the real one.

Morita had split up his chakra pool and Nature Energy evenly across his clones and himself, a move that required quite a bit of fine control.

Of course, the young Jinchuriki had the perfect solution for that!

'If finding the real one is hard, then I'll just kill all of them!'

"Tailed Beast Bomb: Fire Bullets!"

Her chest expanded to even greater proportions, as this time she spat out sharper, more solid blobs of dark blue, fire-like chakra.

The shots rang out, whistling in the wind as they broke the sound barrier and headed like a hail of bullets towards Morita and his 3 clones.

They immediately split up going in 4 different directions as they tried to avoid the hail of bullets.

The fire bullets hit the walls of the arena and bloomed into full explosions. The Jinchuriki spun around and shot the fire bullets everywhere, to the point where the walls of the arena were on the verge of collapsing.

And they would have, were it not for the Jonin on standby to reinforce them with earth walls.

Within that chaos, ashes and dust, all of Morita's clones appeared to have died, and his body was filled with slight burns.

"Hah... Earth Style: Swamp of the Underworld!" In an instant, his palm dove into the ground, and the earth underneath Yugito became a sinking pit of sticky quicksand.

Yugito simply inhaled a bit, and breathed out a mouthful of fire on the ground, burning and solidifying it.

For a moment, her instincts screamed at her to duck, and she did just that, following their lead to narrowly dodge Morita's blade as it passed by her head.

But just as she was about to turn and swipe her claws at the still airborne assassin, his body exploded into a gigantic net of lighting.

In that instant, her body was paralysed, and before she could recover her senses, 3 unscathed clones burst out of the still soft ground and all pointed their blades at her neck, forming a triangle around it.

"It was a good match." The young assassin that had just burst out of the ground patted the dust off his shoulder as he retracted his blade, and his other two clones vanished, this time without exploding and electrocuting the young Jinchuriki.

"T-that's not fair..." Yugito said as she slowly started to move her paralyzed muscles once more.

"You are very skilled for your age, you should be proud!" Morita's voice sounded cheerful, not at all condescending. After all, he had gained quite a bit of respect for the small girl after seeing her put him on the ropes to such an extent.

"W-winner! Number 2 of the Dark Brotherhood!" The announcer had also finally caught up to the situation.

Off to the side, Ken smirked a bit. He had observed Morita's strategy from the moment he had deployed that smoke screen.

He had used the 'Hiding Like a Mole' technique to dig himself and two other clones into the ground, whilst the other 4 played the distractions.

At the end, he instructed his clone to use the Swamp of the Underworld to soften up the ground around Yugito in order to make it harder for her to notice the movement under her feet as Morita's actual body and his other clones closed in on her position.

It was all skillfully executed and nicely planned out.

Of course, it was not perfect, if at any point the clones above failed to keep her attention, and she decided to unleash a Tailed Beast Bomb at the ground, then Morita would have most definitely died.

It was a high-risk, high-reward strategy, but it had paid out.

The Raikage and the rest of the leaders had also noticed the entire situation from a vantage point.

"It seems that our second Jinchuriki also lost due to a lack of experience... But she was very skilful as well." Ken spoke out as he scanned the ruined arena.

"Yeah... Good thing the walls of this place aren't flammable, otherwise this entire place would've collapsed already..." Yorihikko muttered as he also studied the extensive damage done to the arena.

"Well, I'm a bit mad that Yugito lost, but at least the battle was hard fought." The Raikage shrugged, also appreciating the display of power from both sides.

After all, regardless of the result, his Cloud Village looked very positive in the eyes of the investors thanks to the young Jinchuriki's performance.

Still, the young kuniochi appeared disheartened. With a disappointed and ashamed gaze, she looked up at the leaders, meeting the Raikage's gaze.

Now, the Raikage had been strict his entire life to everyone around him. But after losing so much, he had mellowed out greatly.

'I'll make sure to get that child some cake when we get back to the Land of Lightning.' The Raikage nodded appreciatively at Yugito, giving her a wide/proud smile and a huge thumbs up.

Immediately, a small smile rose on the young girl's face, making her shake her fist slightly and leave the arena in a decent mood.

Ken and the others all observed the interaction with smiles on their faces. It seemed that, despite losing a son, the Raikage's fatherly instincts were still standing strong.

'Now then, I guess it's time for the last fight... Good luck, little Ume~'

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Hey there! Hope you liked the chapter!

Next chapter we'll see the strat that Ken came up with for good ol Takehiko ;)

Btw, yea I decided to make all moves bold at some point, I'll keep doing that form now on just feels better tbh

Story Shoutout: Transcendence: The Versatile Demoness

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