Naruto: The Bone-Eyed Maiden Chapter 257: The Perfect Organism

"They're here, they're here!"

The long bench at Ichiraku Ran was already full. Curious villagers were packed shoulder to shoulder, stretching their necks toward the street outside. Teuchi and Aya, white towels draped over their shoulders, kept setting bowl after bowl of ran on the tables. When they saw clusters of dark figures appearing at the far end of the road, they too stepped to the entrance to watch the excitent.

"Those dark-skinned ones are the damn Kumogakure lot!"

As the silhouettes drew closer, a woman in a purple dress pointed at the Kumo shinobi walking in front, the disgust on her face impossible to hide.

At the ntion of Kumo, everyone present looked irritated. Even Teuchi, who was usually the kindest man around, wore a grim expression.

It was not just because of the many wars between Kumo and Konoha. Five years ago, they had sent people to attack Academy students, and that had enraged the whole village. They later claid it had been the work of rogue ninja, but nobody here was stupid. Everyone knew exactly what that had really been.

"They look dumb as rocks. I bet they won't even pass the first test."

An old man with white hair and beard spat viciously as he spoke, his face full of bitterness. His little grandson, Taiji, had died at Training Ground Zero five years ago.

"Look at that giant from Iwagakure. He has to be over two ters tall, right?"

Aya suddenly pointed toward the Iwa team in red shinobi uniforms. One burly man stood out from the crowd, towering over everyone around him.

"That's supposed to be a genin?"

The white-bearded old man glared. There was no age limit for the Chunin Exams, but that one looked like he was in his thirties or forties. If soone had said he was the supervising jonin, they would have believed it.

Looking at Akatsuchi's imposing build, the villagers could not help feeling uneasy.

To ordinary people, huge and muscular simply ant powerful. Just from appearances alone, that man did not look like soone easy to deal with.

"What are you worried about? Konoha's number one genius is way stronger than them."

Seeing the mood fall, the woman raised her voice, pride and longing both visible in her expression.

She was the sa woman who had once brought her little boy and given up her seat for Kono and Kakashi.

After the Kumo incident, countless parents like her had developed a strong fondness for Kono.

Later, after the owner of Ninja Tools Manten-do shalessly promoted her and paired that with her outrageous looks, so of the more fanatical supporters had even started calling themselves "mom fans." There were even people who wore Kono rchandise and filled their hos with it.

The mont the woman spoke, the crowd relaxed. Even the old man's face seed to soften a little.

She had not said Kono's na out loud, but ever since that incident five years ago, the title of Konoha's number one genius had long since beco unquestioned.

No one believed Kono could lose to these foreign shinobi. That confidence ca from real accomplishnts, along with five straight years of relentless hype and reinforcent.

"Yeah, let Kono teach these country bumpkins a proper lesson!"

"Show them what a real genius looks like!"

"Don't worry, she'll win!"

The atmosphere inside the shop instantly turned cheerful. A few hot-blooded types even raised their drinks and started celebrating first thing in the morning. The match had not even started, and the champagne was already popping.

On the other side, the foreign shinobi being escorted by Konoha toward the exam site were also chatting among themselves.

"It feels like we're not exactly welco."

Walking down the broad street, Omoi sucked on a lollipop and glanced at the shops on both sides.

Most of the Konoha villagers were glaring openly. So shopkeepers even dropped their curtains the mont the groups ca near, making it very clear they were not wanted.

Karui and Atsui wore cold expressions, both feeling unfairly treated. A fire was already building in their chests.

The Yeyue Xiong incident belonged to the village's "dark side," and civilians would never be told about it casually. Just like Root's massacre of Kumogakure miners would never be told to Naruto and the others, they had no idea why they were being hated. To them, Konoha just seed overly xenophobic.

"So annoying. Once I beat that Kono or whatever her na is, they'll learn to shut up."

Shinobi had keen hearing to begin with, and the Konoha villagers had not bothered lowering their voices. By now, Karui had already silently added the na Kono to her grudges.

Atsui and Omoi nodded. As far as they were concerned, they were in the right, and the villagers' dislike only made them more determined.

The three of them vowed inwardly that they would defeat Konoha's genius head-on and make these people admit it.

The Kumo group, nursing their resentnt, unconsciously quickened their pace and gradually pulled ahead of the Iwa team.

"Who's Kono?"

Hearing the na repeated over and over, Kurotsuchi could not help turning to look at the person beside her. Akatsuchi shook his head to show he did not know either, but a fellow genin from Iwa quickly ca over with the information they had gathered in the last two days.

"She beat a teacher right after entering the Academy, and killed an elite Kumogakure jonin…"

"Stop reading. That's complete nonsense."

Temari, who had been listening in, waved her hand at once. Kankuro had barely gotten halfway through before she cut him off.

A six-year-old killing an elite jonin? She might as well claim she herself had beaten Shukaku when she was one.

Then again, if she carried Gaara and smacked his butt, would that count?

As the thought crossed her mind, she looked toward Gaara beside her.

He was still wearing the sa cold expression as ever. But ever since entering Konoha, his mood seed strangely calr. The night before, when she had passed by his room, it had actually been quiet inside. For soone like Gaara, who had suffered from insomnia for years and could never sleep through the night, that was practically a miracle.

"If we kill her, Konoha's ninja would probably suffer a lot, wouldn't they?"

Ringo Ayuri bared a mouthful of sharp teeth, openly radiating murderous intent. Chojuro and Hozuki Suigetsu said nothing, their expressions dark and severe.

Ao had been butchered by Konoha without rcy. As shinobi raised in the Bloody Mist, there was no way they could swallow that.

They already knew the format of the Chunin Exams. The written test would finish in the morning, and the combat stage would begin that sa afternoon.

They were already preparing for revenge.

A top-tier monster like Yatō was beyond them, but surely they could still clean up Konoha's peers.

They were geniuses who had fought their way out of the blood-soaked hell of Kirigakure. They believed absolutely in their own victory. In terms of combat experience, how could Konoha's pampered greenhouse flowers possibly compare?

Kono.

The Mist shinobi silently repeated the na to themselves, the killing intent in their chests growing like spring grass after rain.

Even the shinobi from the smaller villages, each possessing their own secret techniques, had already begun treating the rumored Konoha genius as the perfect stepping stone.

If they defeated Konoha's number one genius, they would prove their own talent, earn true fa in the shinobi world, and even raise their village's mission fees, changing the poverty of their holand.

In their minds, defeating Konoha's top genius had already beco the sa thing as bringing glory to their village and making a na for themselves.

Without even realizing it, Kono had beco Konoha's biggest attraction thanks to her fans' relentless support.

At a street corner on the other side, Naruto and Sasuke were waiting in bored silence.

Naruto still wore his usual orange jacket, Konoha forehead protector slung over one shoulder, and a sweatband tied around his forehead with the words "Certain Victory" written across it. The effect was ordinary, but the stupidity value was almost maxed out.

Sasuke, standing nearby, had changed a great deal. His white robe had beco a black outer garnt, paired with dark blue pants, and a strange forked blade hung at his waist. His recent boost in strength had swelled his confidence, and even his aura had turned much sharper than before.

One look at his cocky "sunny pillar" look was enough to tell just how much the Lightning Swords of the Fang were benefiting him.

"Why isn't Kono here yet? At this rate we're going to be late for the exam."

Naruto, who had always been late to school, could not help grumbling. He had waited five years for this Chunin Exam, for this chance to prove himself. No matter what, he could not miss it.

To make sure of that, he had gotten up ridiculously early and even hidden cheat notes he had stayed up late making inside the "Certain Victory" headband. He was absolutely brimming with confidence about today's written test.

"There's still ti. We just ca too early."

Arms folded, Sasuke looked up at the sky, calculated the ti at a glance, and leaned against the wall as steady as a mountain.

He had already signed a sell-yourself contract with Kono and had received a pair of ninja blades worth tens of millions without even having done anything yet. What was wrong with waiting a little for his boss?

Ever since that Root eting, he understood perfectly well who the real leg to cling to was.

Since even Sasuke said so, Naruto could only sigh and keep waiting.

It was true that they had co too early. But the thought of standing on the sa stage as the most talented genin in the entire shinobi world was enough to make both of them burn with excitent.

Ti passed little by little. Naruto and Sasuke kept glancing toward the sky, until at last the sunlight pierced through the clouds in pale thin rays, and a silver-white figure ca walking from the far end of the street.

The slouched postures of Naruto and Sasuke snapped upright.

They turned their heads toward the approaching figure as her outline gradually beca clear, and both pairs of eyes went blank.

It was a girl so beautiful she seed to shine.

She wore an extrely plain white kimono, with only a bright red sash tied around her waist. There were no other decorations on her at all, yet the loose fabric could not conceal the full curves of her chest and hips, and the sash only made her narrow waist look even lighter and more delicate.

Her body had the kind of perfect hourglass proportions that turned an ordinary loose kimono into sothing strangely abstinent and alluring at the sa ti.

As she drew closer, her once-blurry features beca clear.

Her face was a flawless oval, pale and luminous. A gray-white pearl rested at the center of her brow. Her nose was straight and elegant, her lips naturally red without the need for color. Her tallic silver-gray hair was loosely pinned up behind her head, catching the morning light, with two strands hanging near her temples and swaying gently in the breeze.

Most striking of all were her eyes.

Her pure ash-gray pupils shimred faintly. The corners of her eyes tilted up just slightly, and there was sothing sharp, still, and utterly above the world in her gaze. It made people instinctively afraid to look back.

Naruto and Sasuke were completely stunned.

The two of them stared blankly as she approached, heads tilting back ever so slightly, as if they had been struck by so beauty that did not belong to the mortal world. For quite so ti, neither of them could recover.

It was no wonder.

The all-devouring Sage Body and her left eye, Takamagahara, had already begun to resonate with one another. Kono had effectively beco a perfect organism.

This perfection was not true flawlessness. Rather, her flesh would automatically evolve in whatever direction she herself believed "perfect" should be. Her body had beco a direct vessel for her will.

If she believed a perfect body should be filled with strength, then within the bounds of reality, the corresponding organs, tissues, muscles, and structure would appear. If she thought perfection ant having three heads and six arms, her body would naturally evolve in that direction too.

The sa was true for appearance. Whatever her subconscious deed perfect, her features would shift toward that ideal until they reached a beauty beyond ordinary human limits.

Takamagahara was both the birthplace of gods and the realm ruled and inhabited by gods.

Yang gives birth to yin. The soul is born from the flesh, yet can rule over the whole body, and so it may be called divine. That body ruled by the divine soul was the true form of Takamagahara.

Seeing the two of them frozen like idiots, Kono found herself both helpless and amused. She quietly waited a mont, but when they still kept staring without speaking, she had no choice but to greet them first.

"Morning?"

"Ah... uh... morning!"

The two of them jolted awake like sleepwalkers, faces burning red as they responded in a rush. Their hands half-lifted and then dropped again. Their eyes wanted to look, but did not dare to. They looked exactly like flustered teenage boys who had no idea what to do.

They had spent five years with Kono day and night, but this was the first ti they had ever seen her without the cloth over her eyes. The fixed image of her in their minds had just shattered, and the visual shock hit twice as hard. It was like they had been struck by her fear aura, only with the exact opposite effect.

Two seconds later, Sasuke recovered first. Looking at the lively, crystalline gray in her eyes, he asked, "Y-your eyes... are they healed?"

"More or less."

Her gaze shimred like water as Kono looked up at the spotless blue sky, a faint smile on her lips.

Ever since waking on the Kirigakure battlefield, this was the first ti she had truly appreciated the sky with her naked eyes. The pure blue was bright and soothing, entirely different from the gray-blue tone she saw when using her dojutsu. She had looked at the world through her techniques for so long that she had almost forgotten what it really looked like.

There was only one illness in the shinobi world.

Weakness.

And she truly had cured her own.

Naruto said nothing. He only clenched his fist and pumped it excitedly. Hearing that Kono's eye problem was healed seed to make him even happier than he had been when he himself graduated.

"Enough standing around. We can talk later. The exam cos first."

Seeing that the two of them seed on the verge of forgetting the exam altogether, Kono could only remind them.

Yes, the examiners, graders, and proctors were all her people, but she could not exactly skip the test entirely and advance herself on the spot.

At least appearances had to be maintained.

At her words, Naruto and Sasuke snapped out of it again. The three of them checked their admission slips and hurried toward the ninja school.

Because Team Seven had arrived a bit late, only one teacher remained standing guard at the school gate. Kono quickly handed over their exam slips, ignored the teacher's stunned stare, and led Naruto and Sasuke straight upstairs.

"Why won't you let us in?"

A crisp girl's voice echoed through the corridor. A girl with two buns in her hair and a smaller green-clad "mini river kappa" were arguing with the two shinobi standing outside Room 301. Both looked furious, but before they could finish, the gatekeepers kicked them straight to the floor, making the assembled genin break out in murmurs.

"A chunin is the decision-maker of a shinobi squad. The lives of your subordinates can hinge on a single thought. Brats as green as you have no chance of passing this test. You'd be better off withdrawing now and coming back after a few more years of training."

The two "genin" at the door, one wearing sunglasses and the other with a scar across his face, blocked the entrance and recited the duties of a chunin in utterly deadpan voices.

Because this year's Chunin Exams were so unusual, Genma's whole team had already been requisitioned by Yatō.