The third season of the Black Clover anime TV series was directed by Tatsuya Yoshihara and produced by Pierrot. The season premiered on October 1, 2019 on TV Tokyo in Japan. The season adapts Tabata's manga from the rest of the 17th to the end of the 23rd volume, except for Episodes 123 and 124 (recap), and Episodes 130 to 154 (which are anime canon episodes supervised by Black Clover's autho. Shishi-Oh (獅子王, Shishiō) is the human form of Sky OtomoNin Lion Ha-Ojo. 1 Character History 2 Arsenal 3 Notes 3.1 Portrayal 3.2 Behind the Scenes 4 See Also 5 References to be added to be added Shishi-Oh is portrayed by Yukio Yamagata (山形 ユキオ, Yamagata Yukio) When Shishi-Oh leaps down from a tree to pounce on Takaharu, he shouts 'GAO!' Aside from being a clue to his character.
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History in the making
In order to appreciate just how extraordinary an achievement AlphaGo is, a comparison with chess programs, which have been punishing the elite for decades now, is in order. What is so special or different about Go that somehow resisted programming efforts and genius for so long?
What is Go
Woman Playing Go (Tang Dynasty c. 744)
Go, which translates to “encircling game” is a game whose roots and history easily rival those of chess, with written records going back to the 4th century BC. It is played on a 19 x 19 grid, with each player placing stones on the board. Black moves first, and then white, with the pieces never moving from their squares, though they can be removed if captured. The goal, as the translation of its name implies, is to have surrounded a larger total area of the board with one's stones than the opponent by the end of the game.
Korean couple, in traditional dress, play in a photograph dated between 1910 and 1920
This ultra-simplified introduction to Go is necessary to understand the complexities and challenges involved in programming it, compared to a game such as chess. Chess programming is dominated by the search and the evaluation function. The evaluation starts with the most fundamental aspect: the differing values of the pieces, while the search is about pruning down the number of moves to calculate and then looking ahead as many moves as possible to reach a quality decision. In Go, both of these are instantly problematic.
Comparing Go and chess programming
The search function in chess engines boils down to selecting a number of moves and steadily looking deeper and deeper. At the beginning of a chess game, White has twenty possible moves. After that, Black also has twenty possible moves. Once both sides have played, there are 400 possible board positions. Go, by contrast, begins with an empty board, where Black has 361 possible opening moves, one at every intersection of the 19 by 19 grid. White can follow with 360 moves. That makes for 129,960 possible board positions after just the first round of moves. It is easy to see that even with the most severe pruning techniques, a program would only be able to see ahead a few moves at best. However, the situation is even worse than that, since while the average chess game is roughly 60-80 moves (white moves and black moves), the average game of Go lasts 200-240 moves.
An overview of the third game from AlphaGo vs Lee Sedol. White won it via resignation,
hence the W+Res in the result space after 176 moves
Next comes the evaluation function, or determining what constitutes a bad position or a good position, to choose between moves. In chess this starts with the value of the pieces, where the king is priceless (capture it and win), the queen is worth nine pawns, a rook is five, and so on. This is then tempered by various well-defined aspects such as isolated pawns, centralized knights, and so forth. Go begins with no difference in value of any of its pieces, and the board situations are so large and complex that simple rules such as a doubled-pawn make no sense. Now that you understand why chess programming strategies have failed so abysmally in Go, what is the solution?
For a long time, there was none really, and as a result, until 2005-2006, the best programs in the world were weak amateurs at best, equivalent to a 1400-1600 player in chess. The comparison in levels in chess and Go is difficult due to the range of levels in Go, but that will be the topic of the final article on the match. Don’t think for an instant this was due to a lack of resources invested, since the promised payback was huge: tens of millions of Go players in East Asia who would line up to buy a strong program.
The Monte Carlo Tree Search revolution
The change came with the French programmer Rémi Coulom. Coulom was a programming prodigy who at the age of ten, less than a year after receiving his first computer, had programmed Mastermind. In four years, he had created an AI that could play Connect Four. Othello followed shortly thereafter, and by 18, Coulom had written his first chess program. The Frenchman eventually earned a PhD for work on how neural networks and reinforcement learning can be used to train simulated robots to swim.
Coulom had exchanged ideas with a fellow academic named Bruno Bouzy, who believed that the secret to computer Go might lie in a search algorithm known as Monte Carlo. Rather than having to search every branch of the game tree, Monte Carlo would play out a series of random games from each possible move, and then deduce the value of the move from an analysis of the results.
While Bouzy was unable to make the idea work, Coulom hit upon a novel way of combining the virtues of tree search with the efficiency of Monte Carlo. He christened the new algorithm Monte Carlo Tree Search, or MCTS, and in January of 2006, his program Crazy Stone won its first tournament. He published his landmark concept in a paper that changed Go programs, setting a dividing point for programs before MCTS and those after.
Remi Coulom (left) and his computer program, Crazy Stone, take on grandmaster Norimoto Yoda
This led to a revolution in Go programs that experienced a massive burst in strength, and now the very best version of Crazy Stone, running on a 64-core PC was able to hold its own against a pro, albeit 65 years old, with only a four-stone handicap in an exhibition game. Again, this is hard to quantify in chess terms, but it would probably be equivalent to a 2200 Elo performance or so. A long way from becoming world champion, but a massive leap forward from the recent heyday of weak amateur software. Until today, Crazy Stone has remained the absolute best Go program, together with rival Zenith Go, based on Coulom’s concept.
A screenshot of Crazy Stone, distributed by Unbalance
Where does AlphaGo come in the story? The problem with the Monte Carlo technique is that there was no obvious way forward. Doubling the CPU power does not lead to a significant increase in playing ability. In chess it equates to one ply, or 50 Elo, but not in Go. After all, gaining a move would require far more than just doubling the computing power, and even then it would be one move ahead in a game that will last over 200 moves. In other words, a drop in the proverbial bucket. Unless some other way to progress was found, a new wall had been reached in Go software progression.
Given this understanding, then even if Google and DeepMind were to somehow get the world’s most powerful supercomputer behind a refined version of Crazy Stone, it might be a bit smarter, and a couple of moves deeper, but nothing a world-class player need concern himself with. It is therefore not strange that Lee Sedol’s prediction of a 4-1 win at worst was even seen as generous…. for the program! Four days later, three wins by the program, and the sheer shock by the programming and Go community is understandable. Somehow DeepMind had conjured up some magic that brought Go software from weak master at best, to world beater! The question is simply: how?
AlphaGo and DeepMind
DeepMind Technologies, the developer of AlphaGo, was founded by British Artificial Intelligence researcher Demis Hassabis in 2010, and specialized in building general-purpose learning algorithms. Hassabis, a former chess prodigy in his own right, rated no.2 in the world in the under-14 category just 35 Elo behind Judit Polgar who was no.1, has always had a particular fascination for games, and not just chess. He won the world games championship a record five times, being also an expert in Shogi, poker and Diplomacy to name a few.
Demis Hassabis, Lee Sedol, and Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google (photo: Google DeepMind)
DeepMind Technologies's stated goal is to 'solve intelligence', which they are trying to achieve by combining 'the best techniques from machine learning and systems neuroscience to build powerful general-purpose learning algorithms'. As opposed to other AIs, such as IBM's Deep Blue or Watson, which were developed for a pre-defined purpose and only function within their scope, DeepMind claims that their system is not pre-programmed: it learns from experience, using only raw pixels as data input. Technically it uses deep learning on a convolutional neural network, with a novel form of Q-learning, a form of model-free reinforcement learning. Their system has been tested on video games, notably early arcade games, such as Space Invaders or Breakout. Without altering the code, the AI begins to understand how to play the game, and after some time plays, for a few games (most notably Breakout), a more efficient game than any human ever could.
Excellent overview of Go and AlphaGo with explanations by project leader David Silver, and DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis
David Silver, lead project manager explains how AlphaGo came into existence: 'AlphaGo is actually around two years old, if we have to give it an age. It was a research project with myself and Aja Huang, and Chris Maddison, an intern from Google Brain. We wanted to ask this question, whether a neural network using deep learning can actually learn to understand the game of Go well enough to play reasonably. And so this was a pilot research project. We tried some experimental things, we tried a whole bunch of ideas, and around a year ago we published a first paper on this result and we discovered that actually the neural network by itself could perform remarkably well. It could actually reach the level of an amateur dan-level player without any lookahead at all. Without even adding any search tree in. When I saw this result, I was really taken aback. I'm an amateur player myself. I'm not a very strong player, but I'm aware as a player of the importance of reading out situations, and I kind of found it mind-blowing that a neural network without any explicit reading of the positions would be able to understand a position well enough to reach amateur dan level. And at that time I felt that this was something with a lot of potential and I sat down and talked with Demis, the CEO of DeepMind, and I said 'I really think someone is going to take these deep learning techniques and actually achieve the highest levels of play. I think it's really going to happen. This is something that's in the cards now', and he said, 'let's make sure it's us.' And he really powered up the project.'
The end-result was published on January 27, 2016, in a paper in the journal Nature, revealing not only the existence of AlphaGo, but its incredible results by then. As can be seen above, AlphaGo was evaluated as being roughly 1000 Elo stronger than Crazy Stone. Is it any wonder no one could believe how strong it is?
The ground-breaking paper started with the statement:
'We introduce a new approach to computer Go that uses value networks to evaluate board positions and policy networks to select moves. These deep neural networks are trained by a novel combination of supervised learning from human expert games, and reinforcement learning from games of self-play. Without any lookahead search, the neural networks play Go at the level of state-of-the-art Monte-Carlo tree search programs that simulate thousands of random games of self-play. We also introduce a new search algorithm that combines Monte-Carlo simulation with value and policy networks. Using this search algorithm, our program AlphaGo achieved a 99.8% winning rate against other Go programs.”
As of March, a match with the legendary player Lee Sedol was organized with a prizefund of $1 million. By now, DeepMind has effectively won the match with an incredible start of 3-0, though the fourth and fifth games will be played out regardless. It is not a complete whitewash for the machine though as Lee Sedol did strike back in game four to prove the machine was not invincible – yet.
The games are all streamed live on the internet with superb commentary by Chris Garlock and professional 9-dan player Michael Redmond, the only Westerner to ever achieve this rank. DeepMind has said it would donate the winnings to charity such as UNICEF.
After a shock loss, Lee Sedol exits the press conference (photo: Google DeepMind)
Broadcasting to the world
The reception and audience of the match has been incredible, with over 60 million Chinese watching it alone,
100 million people around the world, and no fewer than 3,300 articles in South Korea alone after game one.
Aside from the excellent live commentary provided on DeepMind's official YouTube channel in English, making it possible for even non-players to feel as if they understand what is going on, there are guest appearances by the AlphaGo team before the games start, and 15-minute video summaries of the games being posted after.
15-minute summary of the key Game 3, analyzed by Michael Redmond 9-dan professional and Chris Garlock
At DeepMind's official YouTube channel, there are summaries of the other games, as well as the complete archived
videos of the games.
However, the event's broadcast is hardly limited to this. It is also being streamed and broadcast freely in several languages everywhere in video and on Go servers. There are numerous live video streams, several in English, Chinese, Korean, Russian, you name it. Not only do the organizers not forbid them or restrict coverage, they encourage and applaud them, setting a wonderful example.
Also broadcasting live with Cho Hyeyeon (left), a 9-dan professional, is the official American Go Association,
providing superb commentary. On some days there is Kim Myungwan also a 9-dan pro. Great stuff.
The Japanese also have multiple channels with live commentary by pros
Even the Russian Go Federation brings commentary by strong amateur Natalia Kovaleva,
a 5-dan amateur, and Ilya Shikshin a 1-dan pro.
Needless to say, the major servers such as IGS (Internet Go Server), KGS, and others were
broadcasting to the many fans
In our final report on this historic match, we will bring info on the players, the game, how to play, and more. Stay tuned!
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Discuss
'But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.' C.S. Lewis
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Tenten was the first to attack when she threw several shuriken at Sasuke.
Sasuke cursed his luck and jumped to the left dodging all but one which scratched his arm.
'I take it you're a weapons specialist?' asked Sasuke.
'How'd you guess?' asked Tenten with a smirk even as she threw a pair of kunai at him.
Sasuke caught one of the kunai as he dodged by leaning backwards, 'You're keeping your distance and your attacks have mostly involved throwing weapons at me.' He scowled at this point, 'Also… your aim is perfect. It's too perfect for you not to be good at throwing kunai and shuriken alike.'
Tenten almost grinned before she unleashed several kunai and shuriken at him, 'Looks like you caught me… but you said it yourself. My aim is perfect. You won't be able to simply dodge forever…'
Sasuke's eyes narrowed even as he jumped backwards and kicked off the wall to jump over the weapons, rolling to Tenten's side and throwing a trio of shuriken at point blank, 'I know…'
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'Neh-neh, why isn't he activating his Sharingan, Kakashi-sensei?' asked Narumi.
She felt her eyebrow tick when she saw that her sensei was reading a certain orange book… needless to say, Kakashi didn't reply to her question.
'It might have something to do with that seal.' stated the cheerful voice of the Ronin.
Kakashi's visible eye widened comically as he almost dropped his book, 'What the- How do you know about that?'
'I had a Kagebunshin follow almost every team in the forest… at least; I had them follow teams of interest.' said the Ronin with a shrug, 'One of them was lucky enough to come upon your team in the forest. I know everything that happened from start to finish…'
Kakashi scowled in his direction.
'Wait… you said something about a seal?' asked Narumi softly.
'Yup… see, it's a curse-seal and while it may hold benefits on certain occasions, generally… it's a very bad thing to have. It ultimately weakens whoever has it and can even impair their judgment, lock away kekkei-genkai, or simply erode the body from the inside out. If Uchiha-kun hasn't activated his Sharingan yet, the effects may be relative to the latter.'
Narumi scowled, 'So what you're saying is that Sasuke-teme can't activate his Sharingan because of this curse-thingy?'
'Very good! It appears that your purpose is far greater than being a dropout cheerleader. Hai, that is how it works.' replied the Ronin.
Narumi glared at him before she turned her attention back to the battle. She'd pay this jerk back later… and then some.
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Sasuke winced as he tried to use chakra to enhance his speed slightly and give him an edge in dodging the incoming weapons.
'Alright… so I'm injured, can't use my Sharingan or any other jutsu, and I'm fighting a weapons specialist… I wanted a challenge by entering these exams? Well, I got one…' he thought bitterly before scowling. 'This is just getting worse and worse…'
His head went to the side just a little as a shuriken whizzed by, cutting his cheek.
'I need to get in close and avoid those weapons… if I can do that, I might be able to beat her in a straight Taijutsu fight. Otherwise…'
Tenten leaped over Sasuke and threw down several kunai attached to strings.
To Sasuke's ire, his arm was trapped in said wire and he could no longer move it.
His eyes widened when he realized he couldn't move his legs either…
'Kuso…' he swore under his breath.
'Looks like this match is mine.' said Tenten with a smirk before she ran forwards to strike Sasuke and knock him out.
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'…Hmm? What's this?' thought the Ronin as he stared at the other side of the room at the jonin in the Oto uniform, said Jonin scowled even as he made a subtle hand gesture…
The Ronin smirked…
'Well, well… Looks like Uchiha-kun can't lose quite yet… that wouldn't be good for you, would it, Hebi-kun?'
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Sasuke looked at Tenten in something akin to fear. He couldn't lose yet! He had too much left to do. He had to win this… but he couldn't let the Curse Seal take over. If that happened, he'd lose instantly.
Then he felt it… the pain in his neck was suddenly gone. It just wasn't there… He could finally feel his chakra running through his system again. And damn it felt good!
He smirked even as his Sharingan activated. This match… was over.
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Tenten ran at her target with the full intent of defeating Sasuke by knockout. One good hit was all she would need… Then it happened. Her hand as it went to punch Sasuke out… and rather than hitting skin it hit something else… She drew back and held her hand in slight pain.
It was like she had just punched a rock…
It was when the world around her seemed to melt and collapse that she realized what was going on.
'Kai!' she called, putting her hands into a ram seal.
The genjutsu dispelled and revealed that the 'Sasuke' she hit wasn't even there, she had hit a piece of debris suspended in the air by the wires tied in the rings of the kunai.
She scowled when she felt cold metal on her neck.
'I win.' said Sasuke with a smirk.
'How did you do that?' she asked.
'It was simple, I activated my Sharingan and used the Kawarime no Jutsu. At the same time, I made eye-contact with you and put you in a genjutsu. This genjutsu made it seem like I had never moved while, in fact, I had actually gotten behind you.' he explained.
'I see… but, I have one more question.'
'And that is…?'
'Is that my kunai you're holding?' she questioned with a small smirk.
Warning bells suddenly went off in Sasuke's head when the kunai in his hand was pulled from his grasp by a shinobi wire and suddenly put in Tenten's hand. She leapt forwards with said kunai and Sasuke was quick to block it with one of his own.
They leapt back from each other.
'Around all of my kunai, I have thin strings. To you, they're just about as noticeable as a spider's web. In fact, they look just like a spider's web. In reality, it's a string that I can call upon at any given time. With a tug in the right direction, I can whip about a dozen bladed weapons in your direction.'
Sasuke scowled.
'This is bad… if my fight with Lee was any indication, I'm still not that good at predicting movement. Hopefully, I can try and fight her like I did with that Oi-nin (Hunter) in Nami no Kuni… maybe this time, with better results.' Sasuke thought to himself as he jumped away from the incoming weapons at every twist and turn.
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'His Sharingan activated!' Sakura almost shouted, 'Now he's definitely going to win!'
'Don't be too sure… it doesn't look like his Sharingan is fully developed at this time.' said the Ronin.
'What do you mean?' asked Sakura.
'The Sharingan has three tomoe in each eye. The first tomoe allows comprehension of Ninjutsu and minor comprehension of Genjutsu. The second Tomoe allows comprehension of Genjutsu and slight comprehension of movement. The third Tomoe allows total comprehension for Genjutsu, Taijutsu, and Ninjutsu. He only has two tomoe in each of his eyes. This means, by extension, that he lacks total comprehension of Taijutsu and movement necessary to avoid massive amounts of projectiles. Basically, as long as Tenten throws enough weapons, then it doesn't necessarily matter how good her aim is, one of them will hit.' explained Kakashi, 'And when that happens, this match is just as likely going to end in her favor. Sasuke's been getting cut up since the beginning of this match and he's still tired from the forest. If he gets hit in the right place at this time… he won't be able to continue. If he doesn't end this quickly, Sasuke will not win.'
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'Thanks for the bode of confidence, Kakashi-sensei…' Sasuke thought sarcastically as he dodged yet another kunai.
It was easier for him now that his Sharingan was activated, but Kakashi was right on all accounts. He was still tired as hell and while the weakening of the seal had helped significantly, he knew it wouldn't be enough to save him from defeat.
At this point, he was more likely to pass out from exhaustion than pain or injuries… fighting Tenten wasn't helping in his recovery either.
'Win this match quickly? Ok… I can do that.'
Tenten smirked before she grabbed the scrolls on her sides.
'I was going to save this for later in these exams… but if I'm going to win, I guess I'll have to hit you as hard as I can.' she said, 'Besides, you think you're the only one who heard what our sensei's 'Eternal Rival' said? I only need one good hit. This should do the trick.'
She began to run around him in circles, his Sharingan eyes tracking her every movement.
'What is she up to?' Sasuke growled softly.
Tenten leapt into the air with said scroll… and spun.
One by one, weapons unsealed themselves as they were thrown in Sasuke's direction. He swore and tried to escape.
Tenten smirked.
'Now It's over…' she thought even as she was returning to the earth…
Imagine her surprise when she saw what her weapons hit.
'…That's the same hunk of rock from before! So where's-'
She was cut off from her thoughts when Sasuke appeared behind her.
'Kage Buyo (Leaf Shadow Dance)! That's Lee's Jutsu! So that means…' Tenten thought frantically.
'It's no good; you can't turn your body while it's in the air like this.' Sasuke said to her, 'Now… take this!'
It started off with a devastating punch to her back, sending her down. Sasuke was quick to follow.
'Get back here! I'm not done yet!' he shouted as he struck Tenten in the chest with an his elbow.
He spun around just as she impacted the ground and hit her in the abdomen with a devastating kick.
'Shishi-Rendan (Lion's Barrage)!' he cried before jumping off of her and sliding back.
He fell to his knees, panting as he deactivated his Sharingan. At last, he smirked…
'I'm declaring this match over,' began Hayate, 'Victory goes to Uchiha Sasuke.'
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'Well… I'm surprised and amazed at how he pulled that one out of his ass.' said the Ronin as he chuckled, 'Also, that attack really devastated her both physically and mentally. Using her own teammate's attack against her… was brilliant!'
Narumi turned and glared at him.
'Nani? Your teammate won, why do you look so pissed off at me?' asked the Ronin.
'With how everything was going, I really thought he was going to lose!' Narumi shouted at him.
'I never said he'd lose, I just said he'd lose if he didn't activate his Sharingan. The Sharingan was activated, despite the seal, and thus, he won. No harm done… Though your sensei seems to disagree…' trailed the Ronin.
Narumi turned to the fighting area just in time to see Kakashi Shunshin out of the room with Sasuke. She scowled. Now he wouldn't be around for the last two fights!
'We will now give the last two names before the Battle Royale.' said Hayate as the screen went through names and Tenten was carried away by a stretcher.
'It seems that I was destined to be alone to have to listen to my sensei rant about youth… Tenten, Lee… I hate you both for abandoning me.' Neji thought to himself as he seemed to glare at Tenten.
The names flashed by on the screen and finally landed on two.
Inuzuka Kiba
Vs.
Uzumaki Narumi
Narumi's eyes glowed happily. It wasn't because she was next… rather; it was because of who her opponent was. Her eyes shifted slightly to the side to gaze at the Ronin before they narrowed into a glare. She jumped down into the fighting area.
'Alright, dog-breath! You're going down!' she shouted at Kiba when he finally came down in front of her.
'So, it's me against the dead-last? This'll be fast!' Kiba returned.
'Don't count on it!'
'Are both fighters ready?' asked Hayate.
'Hell yeah!' came the response from both genin.
'Then… Hajime!' Hayate declared.
Thus began round Nine of the Chunin Exams Preliminary fights…
Kiba took his puppy, Akamaru, out of his sweatshirt and placed him on the ground.
'Huh? What's with the puppy?! Put that thing back up there! He'll just get in the way, Kiba!' called Narumi from the opposite end of the fighting area.
'Screw you! I never go into battle without Akamaru by my side!'
'Hey, proctor-guy! Isn't that against the rules?! I mean, it's a dog, right?!' Narumi said to Hayate.
Hayate gave her a dull stare before saying, 'No. It isn't against the rules for, like Shino's bugs, that dog is a part of him and is, thus, a shinobi tool.'
Narumi seemed to scoff, 'Alright, dog-breath. I do some of my best work with a handicap!'
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'So… arrogant!' the Ronin said under his breath, muttering the word arrogant as though it were a curse, 'What makes matters worse is the full knowledge that this blonde bimbo down there is going to win…'
Kurenai turned her head at him immediately, 'Look, I don't care who you are. But there's no way I'm going to let you insult my student by even suggesting that Narumi has a chance. Kiba is more than enough of a match for her…'
'No, he isn't. He's going to lose… it will appear close, but he'll still lose. I can guarantee that much.' said the Ronin as he shook his head, 'Now, don't get me wrong. I hate that girl with an unholy passion. But, I can't deny the unbiased facts. She is going to win.'
Kurenai seemed to glare at him before she looked back at the fight. Kiba wasn't going to lose… she was certain of that much.
The Ronin meanwhile looked towards Hinata who was pressing her fingers together nervously.
'I'd like to cheer for Narumi-chan… But I'm on Kiba's team. So he might get mad… oh, what should I do?'
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'This should be a snap! This dumb blonde doesn't have anything on me, she was the dobe for a reason, anyway!' thought Kiba to himself.
(Flashback)
'Alright class, today we'll be practicing the Henge no Jutsu. Narumi, why don't you come up first since you're so far ahead of everyone else, you have the right to sleep.' said Iruka sarcastically.
Narumi got up and ran from her seat all the way to the front.
'Now, Henge into the Sandaime for us, won't you?' prodded Iruka.
Narumi nodded and put her hands together…
'Henge!' there was a massive burst of smoke and suddenly there stood a particularly bad copy of the Sandaime.
Kiba woke up to the sound of the class bursting into laughter.
'Geeze… could you be any louder?' he asked, 'I was sleeping too…'
'Hey- Hey, this Narumi girl is funny!' said one of the kids sitting next to Kiba.
'Yeah, you gotta watch this, man!' whispered another.
'Huh? The new girl?' asked Kiba, 'I thought boys were only allowed in this class.'
'The Hokage himself made an exception for this girl, here… see, she wasn't doing well in the other class and hated it. So, during her second year here, she was transferred.' said Shikamaru, 'It's troublesome having a girl in the class… but, I heard it from one of my parents, so there's no getting out of it.'
Kiba shrugged and turned his gaze to Narumi.
The Henge, if you could call it that, dispelled. Narumi stood there scratching the back of her head with a grin on her face.
'Honestly…' trailed Iruka, 'Narumi, this is your third year at the academy! Do it again, Baka!'
'Hai, hai… I was just kidding…' she trailed, 'Now…' she put her hands into the seal, 'Henge!'
There was another burst of smoke…
And another terrible copy of the Sandaime stood there in her place. No… terrible didn't quite cut it. The previous one was terrible, but this one… this one was even worse.
'You…' trailed Iruka disbelievingly with a look of astonishment on his face, 'Can it be…?'
'Seriously?! She's been here for three years and still can't do a good Henge?! What a loser!' Kiba thought to himself.
(End Flashback)
'Then… Please begin.' said Hayate before jumping away from the area.
'Shikyaku no Jutsu (Ninja Art of Beast Mimicry: All-Fours Jutsu)!' shouted Kiba before he went down on all fours, 'Here I come…' he trailed before rushing forwards.
'Fast!' thought Narumi to herself before she leaned back to avoid the punch.
It took a second for a few people to notice while the rest didn't even see it… but in particular, a single Ronin saw it…
Suddenly, Kiba swept her feet out from under her and delivered a devastating punch that flew her backwards and across the tiles.
'She won't be getting up for a while, Referee.' said Kiba with a smirk.
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'Hmph, I told you Kiba wouldn't lose.' said Kurenai to the Ronin.
'You mean you didn't see it? You didn't see how she dodged that first attack?' asked the Ronin.
'What do you mean?' returned Kurenai with confusion on her face.
'Some jonin you are to not have noticed that Narumi-san down there was able to bend backwards to dodge that attack.'
'Everyone saw that.' said Shikamaru.
'Oh, hai, everyone saw her bend backwards to dodge that… but did anyone see how perfectly it was done? She bent backwards in a perfect ninety degree angle on a dime to dodge that attack. Her reaction time was a little slow afterwards, but I'm certain that this match it all hers.' said the Ronin with crossed arms.
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Narumi slowly got up from the ground.
'Nani?' asked Kiba, mostly to himself before he looked at Narumi.
Narumi stood there and suddenly glared at Kiba, 'Don't… underestimate me!'
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'Go! Take him down Narumi!' shouted Sakura.
The Ronin was quiet, however.
'There… isn't a scratch on her? Her skin is totally unharmed. What is this?' he thought silently, 'Hatake-san, would you kindly riddle me this to the subject of how your student is unharmed?' he asked Kakashi.
'No.' was Kakashi's simple reply.
The Ronin scowled behind his mask before muttering 'Jerk' and turning away to gaze down at the fight.
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'You were just beaten down to the ground and now you're telling me not to underestimate you?!' he shouted, 'Damn it all! Quit acting tough already!'
Akamaru barked twice as though to confirm it.
'I let you hit me… so I could see how strong you were…' trailed Narumi, 'You might want to use Akamaru if you want to win.'
Although she grinned as she said it, Kiba knew she meant what she said. She really thought that he couldn't hit that hard? She really thought he was weak?! The dead last thought he was weak?!
'Hell no!' thought Kiba to himself, 'You'll regret that!' he shouted before he ran forwards again, 'Let's go, Akamaru!'
The dog rushed in with his master before Kiba dropped a smoke bomb.
'Kuso!' hissed Narumi.
The entire arena was suddenly covered in a cloud of dark colored smoke. She stood still in the dark smoke, blind as a bat.
'This is… this is just like that time with Zabuza! His Kirigakure no Jutsu (Hidden Mist Technique).' she thought, 'But there's no way Kiba knows how to go around silently. That means… if I can hear him… I can fight him!'
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The Ronin's eyes narrowed, 'That girl… she's different than she appears. There's no way that she's as stupid as she normally acts, if she was she'd have gotten out of the smoke. By doing so, he'd be able to attack her and make the situation possibly worse. But… she has yet to emerge from the smoke. Unless she's cowering in fear, I'm pretty sure that she's got the situation covered. Kiba… you're in for a world of hurt.'
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'Alright, Akamaru, if she won't come out for us, we'll have to go in for her!' said Kiba.
Akamaru barked once and jumped into the smoke, Kiba followed. Then he started to sniff… he smelled at the air around him as he tried to get Narumi's scent, the one thing he knew he could track.
'Heh… gotcha!' said Kiba before he punched something…
It wasn't Narumi, but it sounded like her and felt like her… it even smelled like her. But he knew it wasn't her because immediately after hitting it, the clone burst into smoke.
'What the- Her scent… it's everywhere?!' Kiba hissed and started spinning around in all directions, searching…
The smoke cleared and suddenly… suddenly Kiba realized he was about as screwed as a pooch. All around him was a sea of orange clones. Narumi was literally everywhere.
One of them smirked, 'This is for underestimating me!' she shouted before the clones ran forwards.
Kiba however did something she didn't expect at that moment…
He took out a small pill and threw it to Akamaru.
The clones were four steps away from destroying him…
Akamaru's fur darkened in color as chakra swirled around him.
Three steps from death…
Akamaru barked twice and Kiba shouted, 'Jujin Bunshin no Jutsu (Man-Beast Clone)!'
Two steps…
Smoke surrounded the two figures of Kiba and Akamaru before there was yet another cry of, 'Gatsuga (Fang over Fang)!'
One step…
A pair of destructive tornadoes suddenly tore through all the clones. Both of them spun around in the air, before heading for Narumi herself.
She was quick to jump out of the way of the first one, but the second struck her… hard. She flew off spinning before colliding with the ground.
Both of the tornadoes stopped and stood on there on the other side of the fighting area, just looking at Narumi. Both of them were giving fanged grins…
'Now you can call it. She's not getting up.' said Kiba.
His grin faded when he heard something coming from the direction he had just sent Narumi. He heard her getting up, he heard her moving pieces of the tiles away so she could stand… but what he heard that chilled him to the bone were two words…
'That's it?' she asked him as she stood there.
She stood there… without a single scratch on her…
'How the hell aren't you hurt?! Nothing?! Not even a bruise?! That's just not human!' shouted Kiba at her.
'After a bad accident when I was five, I got this ability. My skin absorbs force that is sent into it then it gives me the ability to release an equal amount of force. By doing nothing at all, by standing still, I gain the ability to get stronger because now I use what you hit me with to actually power my attacks!' she exclaimed.
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The Ronin stared down at her before he said something, 'Newton's Laws…' he simply trailed.
The shinobi around him gave him questioning glances.
'Sir Isaac Newton… countless years ago there was a man who discovered gravity when an apple fell on his head. He made three laws pertaining to gravity… later, these three laws applied to all types of motion. The first law was Inertia. An object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. Likewise, an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Her abilities are just like that. When at rest, her strength is put into motion by an outside force, Kiba in this case. When she's moving, then by going faster she gains more strength. If she comes to a sudden stop, she gains more strength. Basically, if her speed changes because of the enemy, or if they hit her, she just gets stronger. Her durability to those blunt attacks of punching, however, is also simple. The force exerted on her is dispersed throughout her entire body resulting in no damage. That force then powers her other attacks.' said the Ronin, 'There's more. Her flexibility and durability work hand in hand. Her abilities enable her to draw out a fight for a long period of time and remove all the effectiveness of Taijutsu in a single go. She can literally outlast anyone in a fight. At least, unless they can use a bladed weapon… her skin wouldn't be able to take that kind of hit and not bleed.'
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'He's right.' said Narumi to Kiba, 'Unless you come at me with some kind of bladed weapon, I'll be fine.'
Kiba and Akamaru both smirked as they took out a pair of kunai each, both of them holding pairs…
'Gatsuga!' shouted Kiba as he and Akamaru once again turned into spinning tornadoes of destruction.
Narumi bit her thumb and wiped it across her left arm, her eyes hardened, 'I win…' she said before smoke burst from her left arm…
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The Ronin's eyes widened in shock.
'No… just… no way… she's holding… the Tenshi no Shi (Angel of Death).' he said in total awe.
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A long, beautiful katana was now held in Narumi's right hand.
It had a black hilt and a totally white blade. A white ribbon was tied around the handle of the blade and a single strip of ribbon came off the end of the handle. Along the blade were the shining blue Kanji for 'Tenshi no Shi'.
She brought up the sword and slashed down just as the four kunai could be seen. For a second, nobody moved, they could all see Kiba and Akamaru's kunai that were stuck on the blade and not moving an inch. Then suddenly… they were flung apart.
Kiba to the left, Akamaru to the left… their respective jutsu dispelled and they were on the ground with Akamaru out like a light. Narumi stood there with a smirk on her face before her sword disappeared in a burst of smoke.
'See… I'd been hit so many times, that I had enough force so that I could have literally finished this if I punched you. But, you brought out the kunai… so I brought out the sword.' she said with a shrug.
'D-Damn it…' trailed Kiba before he passed out.
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'Where?' asked the Ronin, 'Now I need to know. Where did she get that sword? That sword is part of a set… a pair of blades. Both of them belonged to a Samurai Clan I knew very well before its extinction at the hands of the Kaguya Clan. One disappeared, but… the other was sold. Who gave her that sword?' he questioned.
'I did.' said Kakashi, 'It was her seventh birthday present and at the time I was one of the ANBU who watched her and made sure she didn't get into trouble. I'd seen her using a stick and practicing some forms she had made up. I just bought the cheapest sword I could find… or at least, I tried.' he said this part with a shrug, 'There were no cheap swords in Konoha, and that night I was sort of depressed. I went out and decided to gamble some money on a poker game and the other guy ran out of money so he wagered that sword. I got lucky and was able to give her that sword the next morning. It was late... but, I got it to her, and it's the thought that counts, in the end.'
The Ronin turned and glared at Narumi.
'Yeah… when I fight her, I'm going to break that sword in half and kill her. No hard feelings?' he asked Kakashi nonchalantly.
Kakashi's visible eye narrowed.
'Hmm… wait a second. Just wait a second here… There are only three people left. That means it's time for the battle Royale! The inescapable death match! Hell yeah!' he almost yelled, 'Time to kill somebody!'
He jumped down to the arena just as Narumi made it to the stairs and Kiba and Akamaru were carried away in stretchers. Hayate stood there with a paper in hand.
'I will now be announcing the rules!' he said, 'Unlike the other matches, this fight determines the winner to be the last one standing. Also, outside interference is not permitted, meaning, casualties are possibly unavoidable. This fight will be fought between the following:
'Sabaku no Kankuro (Kankuro of the Desert)!' at this Kankuro walked down the stairs and into the fighting area…
'Hyuga Hinata!' the shy girl walked down and stood in the arena.
'And… Uzumaki Naruto…?!' he trailed shocked.
The Ronin reached up with his bandaged hand and pulled off his mask to reveal a face…
Three whisker marks on both cheeks. One blue eye… one green eye… his hair was blond with red highlights. His skin was the same shade as Narumi's… there was no mistaking it; they were related, somehow…
'Let there be blood, Dattebayo!' he finally shouted out for all in the area to hear, and then he began to laugh.
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End of Chapter 9:
First off, a big thank you to ChaosLord SilverLink310 for being my 100th Reviewer! Woohoo!
My longest chapter yet and it's just short of being 6000 words! The rest so far haven't even been a third that length. So be thankful! On a side note…
Holy crap, Naruto's out to play. This'll be fun, neh?
Next time, it's the final match of the Chunin Exam Preliminaries and Naruto's out for blood, his mask gone and all now know who he is. Or, they think they do…
Who will win?
…The Puppeteer?
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…The Princess?
…Or the Pillager?
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Only one way to find out!
Review!
Until next time…
Forever Signed in Blood,
Slayer End