Chapter 55: Coldblooded

The screen displayed two names: Nakamura Eiji vs Kinuta Dosu!

"Oh, it's your turn Eiji, good luck!". Kotaru

"Good, luck!" - Arina

"Koff, good luck." - Hayate

Eiji didn't listen to them, because since he saw the name of his opponent he had a dark expression and was lost in thought.

When he got on the stage, everyone was wondering why he is wearing a bathrobe now, but he didn't pay attention to any of it.

He just glared at his opponent.

"Uhm can both contestants please step forward!"

After they got into position, the scatterbrained Jonin told them to start.

Eiji was just standing still, while Dosu started speaking: "You really try to stand out, doing all those ridiculous things, do you? Now you are even wearing a bathrobe? But this is not a clown-show, here only skills matter. But don't worry, when I'm finished with you, you will be able to join a circus as a freak."

Eiji didn't respond to Dosu's insult, instead, he started to recite a poem:

"Flutteringly,

Floating in the breeze,

A single butterfly -"

"? Why are you suddenly recit -"

"- Konoha Wind-spirit Style: Spring Breeze" - while saying that, Eiji appeared suddenly silently behind Dosu, with his sword slightly drawn.

He then let his sword nonchalantly slide back into the sheath.

And then Dosu's head fell off.

The surroundings were completely silent.

After a few moments of pure silence, everyone started to express their thoughts.

"Wow, what a beautiful and refined sword technique, it was almost like a soft breeze traveling through the hall." - Kakashi

"Eiji Nakamura..." - Neji

"Guy-sensei, did you see that speed?" - Lee

"Yeah, I didn't think anyone here could match you in terms of speed, but looks like I was wrong..." - Guy

Many still wanted to express their thoughts, when suddenly someone started shouting towards Eiji: "HEY!!! YOU, WHY DID YOU JUST KILL YOUR OPPONENT LIKE THAT?! UNTIL NOW, NO ONE HAS KILLED THEIR OPPONENT!!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"

"Naruto, stop!" - Kakashi

"BUT!!"

When he heard that, Eiji looked at Naruto with a cold expression.

Some were terrified for a second since this change was way too drastic!

Some knew that he had some skills and shouldn't be completely underestimated, but until now, everyone thought of him as a twerp.

But now it was almost like it was a completely different person.

Why did he kill him though?

It was because he knew, that Dosu would challenge Gaara and die, at the same place and night where Hayate would die.

Of course, since Dosu would die, you could argue that it was unnecessary to kill him now, but in case something changes and Eiji needs to save Hayate, one opponent more would be an enormous disadvantage.

In short, it was just to be sure, because Eiji was a bit paranoid when it came to saving Hayate or himself.

And he didn't feel anything killing him, since Eiji knew he would probably die anyway.

But Eiji couldn't tell that to Naruto, and keeping silent and not answering wasn't really an option as well, since the change is way too drastic and doesn't make any sense, so he has to explain himself.

"Why did I kill him? The answer is pretty simple. Do you remember what Lord Hokage said before the start of the preliminaries? He said that the purpose of the chunin exam is to be a miniature war between the villages. You probably don't know, but Otogakure is said to be founded by an s-tier criminal called Orochimaru, who defected from our village." - When Eiji mentioned Orochimaru, the face's of Kakashi, Naruto and Sakura went sour.

"So the relationship between Otogakure and Konohagakure is probably hostile or neutral at best. So doesn't it make sense to kill members of this village, to decrease their fighting force in case they decide to turn hostile towards us?" - while he said that, he glanced at the girl Kin, which was the last of the Oto-trio.

She felt fear, not only because her teammate was killed coldblooded in only a second, but also because he implied, that Otogakure is a threat, which may result in the failure of their future plans!

"BUT STILL!!" - Naruto

"Enough Naruto, you should have already learned the nature of the world of shinobis." - Kakashi

Eiji was still standing, looking like he waited for something.

The scatterbrained Jonin finally realized: "Oh! Uhm, the winner is Nakamura Eiji..."

He started to walk slowly up towards the spectator area.

'A shinobi is supposed to be able to read the hidden meanings, but that wasn't the reason why I invited Otogakure to participate in this chunin exam...but more importantly, his skills really surprised me. He is certainly not the type who likes poems. He started to recite a poem to confuse the enemy to get enough time to accelerate his chakra on his feet. This technique of accelerating chakra really reminds me of Minato..." - Hiruzen

What Eiji didn't know was, that his idea of accelerating chakra wasn't as novel as he thought.

In truth, many shinobis tried to increase the power of their ninjutsu through accelerating chakra.

The problem with that is, that it's really dangerous and accidents would often occur when training to accelerate it in their bodies, that's why not many even tried it.

But this shows Minato's genius even more.

Instead of accelerating chakra in his body, he would do it outside his body.

Of course, controlling it outside the body is even harder and with the air around it, the chakra can easily dissipate.

However Minato came up with a solution for this problem as well, he would form a sphere around the accelerated chakra.

This jutsu is known as Rasengan.

Normally, ninjutsu which use elements are stronger than ninjutsu without.

But the Rasengan was more powerful than Chidori which uses lightning, despite being formed of only pure chakra.

How so?

Because the power of acceleration is nothing to scoff at!

CrusadeAgainstFurries

A bit later than usual, but the chapter is longer. Many also wrote how they wanted a Gaara vs Eiji match and this will certainly happen, but not now :)

Oh right, the poem was by Masaoka Shiki:

<Japanese>

ひらひらと　風に流れて　蝶一つ

Hira hira to/ Kaze ni nagarete/ Chou hitotsu

<English>

Flutteringly,

Floating in the breeze,

A single butterfly.