It was being increasingly difficult to expand the chakra proje beyond it's current size the further I refihe teique. The biggest issue I was ing to face was the absolutely monstrous amount of chakra trol o use it. For most jutsu or teiques involving chakra there was a certain rule of thumb that applied. Basically a jutsu must either be vague in what it did or only require a small area of chakra exertion. This was why even jutsu like [water dragon bullet] only created vague structs that followed specific rules that were simple to uand.-

  Teiques that broke this rule of thumb like my own or Narutos pore like teique came at heavy costs and difficulty as a result. Generally however the trade off was well worth it as these same jutsu and teiques tend to be very powerful. My own work in progress [chakra armor] teique was sidered high A ranked and it wasn't even a quarter plete! Narutos teique robably also A rahough on the lower end of the spectrum because it wasn't all that powerful but had a bunch of utility.-

  Anyways the vilge was getting rather crowded as merts and fn shinobi came to watd bet oour. Amongst them were the Fourth Kazekage and the wind Daimyo who were in an aosition. It was sort of an ope but the fourth Kazekage and current Wind Daimyo did NOT get along. Supposedly the reason for this was because the Kazekage named Rasa had sent one of the Suna's most powerful shinobi on a suicide mission because she was a threat to his reign as Kazekage. I was of course referring to Pakura of the scorch release who was ae jonin of Suna that was very close to being an S ranked ninja.-

  Her power and respected war history meant that she could vie for trol over the vilge with Rasa and so he had her sent on an "ambassador" mission in the nd of water but betrayed her causing her death but bming the matter on Iwagakure(hidden stohe wind Daimyo was VERY unhappy with this si only akura an amazingly powerful and talented kunoichi but she was also someohe man knew as a friend. As a result of Rasa's decision the Daimyo started cutting Suna off from funding via missions and political support effectively starving the vilge.-

  Rasa was lucky however as he was a user of the mag release kekkai genkai and specifically could trol and manipute gold sand. Thanks to this he was able t out gold from the desert sands that he sold to fund the vilge and keep it afloat if only just. Uhe fire Daimyo I whole heartedly approved of the wind Daimyo on my first meeting. His clothes were bulking and covered him in a way that made it difficult to notice but he was not some untrained scrub and had some power to him.-

  Nothireme but from his chakra reserve and muscuture I'd estimate that he was easily as strong a upper rank in. He also wasn't some wishy washy minded person like the fire Daimyo and but clearly a man who knew what the hell his job was and did it with a firm will, I approved. The Kazekage gave me chills however when I first met him. His gaze was cold and almost predatory and his chakra reserves were very rge though less than the Hokages. I also got this weird sense of deja vu when I saw him.-

  I couldn't quite put my finger on it though so I just filed him under "avoid unless absolutely necessary" and moved on. I checked with the bookies that were hosting the gambling this time and saw the odds for the partits. I hedged my bets a little and put fifty thousand ryo on Shikamaru, Gaara, Naruto, Sasuke and Neji. Shikamaru had five to one odds, Naruto had twenty to one odds, Gaara had fifty to one odds just like Sasuke. Neji had slightly better odds than Naruto at thirty to one odds.-

  It retty obvious that most people believed that Sasuke and Gaara were going to be the ones peting for the top spot iour before it even started. Personally I thought Shikamaru was getting rather unfortunately disregarded when his s teique was a threat to everyone except maybe Gaara who only needed his mind to trol his sand. The [shadow puppetry] jutsu was nasty in that it forced the o was used on to do as the user does. This meant that if you had a pouch of kunai in a spot Shikamaru didn't he could force you to draw one and slit your own throat with it without any risk to himself.-

  The catch to that just however was that if the person who it was used on was much strohan Shikamaru himself then the just could be fought against and even broken free from si forced Shikamaru to experiehe strain of the other person. The jutsu also required the user to have a shadow to stretch to be used. It probably didn't o be said but the Nara were nightmares to deal with at night.-

  The tour was in single elimination format so a bad match up meant you lost, period. The first round of match up was iing as well when they were finally annouo opeting pool on them. It was Naruto VS Neji, Temari VS Shikamaru, Kankuro VS Shino and Sasuke VS Gaara. I wasted no time at all dropping fifty million on Naruto to wihough they gave him one huo one odds of it. That was aremely rge amount of money but I was fident that my friend was going to introdueji to the ground after what the Hyuga did to Hinata.-

  Everyone looked at me like I was an idiot for putting so much money on a losi but I wasn't going to expin myself to these people.

  "You sure is was a good idea to put so much money on Naruto to win like that? Neji is quite the prodigy you know?" Guy asked curiously.

  "I know he's talented but he did the ohing you don't want to do if you hope to beat Naruto, piss him off. That guys stubborn as a mountain as far as staying down is ed if you get him angry." I said holy.

  "Sounds like a Neji might really have his work cut out for him then. For what it's worth try not to be too harsh on him, his situation is not a pleasant one." Guy said seriously.

  "I don't bme him for shing out like he did given his situation but he went too far with Hinata." I said calmly and Guy nodded in agreement.