Chapter 6.2- One thousand Hands

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Perhaps this had been a better idea than he’d given the Higher-ups credit for. A massive stadium at the outskirts of the village. He would probably throw up if he got to see the bill that this thing had taken. But each seat had sold for tens of thousands of yen. Each seat was filled now. Tickets had sold so quickly that civilians who wanted to attend had been forced to buy them for even higher prices from resellers. Scalpers, Shorirama referred to them as. Of course he had a name for them. He was one of them. His own student had made about five hundred thousand yen from ‘scalping’. Of course, the Hokage had made him return the money once he found out about it. Word on the street was that his Killing Intent could have been felt for miles beyond the Senju Compound when he found out. But that only went to show how much demand had existed for something like this.

Genin from all five of the major villages and several minor ones stood in the middle of the field, being stared at and pointed out by the spectators. As a Jounin-sensei, he’d received a free ticket to sit amongst the spectators, and here he could get a real pulse for what was being felt. First of all, the more physically distinctive a shinobi was, the more attention they received. That meant that most of the attention was going to Konoha genin. Even from the merchants that hailed from other villages. But for every rule there was an exception. Shorirama with his dark hair and eyes drew more attention than any other. Perhaps it was the choice of outfit.

He’d almost facepalmed once he first saw it. The boy had a death wish, and he seemed intent on committing suicide by enemy shinobi. There was no chance that his chosen armour had been coincidental. Old fashioned Senju armour from the warring states period in the same blood red his Grandfather had favoured. It looked comical on his Twelve year old frame, but it was cleat that he would grow into it in time. The giant scroll on his back did even more to highlight just where he had taken his inspiration from. His face was sharper, more noble in appearance, and his body was more lithe, but for all anyone could see at first glance, he was Hasirama writ small. And almost as if not to be outdone, his teammate had chosen to don a similar outfit. The Gunbai strapped to her back did her no favours in denying the resemblance.

Stood next to each other as they were, he’d heard more than one foreign shinobi whisper, ‘Hashirama and Madara’ on catching sight of the both of them. The fact that the duo had never fought in the First Great Shinobi War had done little to lessen their foreign renown. And now, for better or for worse, his students were going to be regarded as the second coming of Konoha’s legendary founding duo.

“Ladies and Gentlemen in Attendance.” A voice rang across the arena. A familiar voice. Jiraiya, he placed it, once he took a look at the Commentator’s box. Jiraiya stood there with his customary wide smile, next to a wizened old man. The armour he wore marked him as a Samurai of Tetsu no Kuni. He could see the strategy. Jiraiya was there to provide commentary biased towards Konoha while the Samurai offered a neutral counterpoint. It was clearly an overture to keep the guests from taking offence. The Hokage had truly thought of everything. And Sakumo knew that even with the Samurai being a counterparty, the civilians would still be more swayed by Jiraiya’s words. His boisterous voice and charming tone had that ability.

“Welcome to the First Ever Great Genin Exhibition. We have Shinobi from all the best villages, and even Iwa here with us” The last part of the sentence received jeers from one section of the crowd but they all took it with good humour as intended. Sakumo’s eyes searched through the genin, counting the numbers that came from each village with a discerning eye.

“Three tasks. With each task taking place in this very arena…..

A/N: Still working on plotting this out so here you go for now.