This exchange gathering covered only the Genin, Chunin, and Jonin divisions between the two villages. There was no children's division.
Today's matches were the Genin and Chunin competitions. The Jonin division, the main event, was scheduled for the following day.
The Sand Village's competitors for this gathering were also different from the group that had fought against Konoha. A different set of fighters had been selected specifically to give a broader range of the village's younger generation the benefit of competitive experience.
The Genin matches held limited interest for the senior figures from either village. The fighters were essentially still at the level of children finding their footing. But from watching the two sides' habitual attack patterns and fighting approaches, one could still observe the differences between Sand Village and Hidden Mist ninja.
For example, the Sand Village's Genin showed considerably more proficiency with ninja tools, particularly the improved version of the Windmill Shuriken, which could strike targets at considerable range and created meaningful problems for the Hidden Mist fighters.
Nearly every Sand Village newcomer now knew at least the basics of the Windmill Shuriken technique. But this technique had been personally modified by Yuji himself, structured with difficulty levels ranging from low to high, with the lowest at D-rank and the highest at A-rank, corresponding to the blade intention training form he had originally developed. It had since been renamed the Kazekage Windmill Shuriken.
To further diversify the Sand Village's military combat capabilities, Yuji had long ago commissioned craftsmen from the Land of Waterfalls to produce a range of specialized ninja tools according to his own designs.
These tools and weapons drew their inspiration naturally from Yuji's memories of his previous life.
Some of them had been adopted by the puppet corps and incorporated into puppet bodies as built-in mechanisms.
In short, the Sand Village's combat style had never been as constrained or narrowly defined as it once was. Diverse tool application techniques combined with the ninjutsu resources acquired through the Third Great Ninja War gave Sand Village Genin numerous paths toward becoming stronger.
The Hidden Mist fighters, by contrast, excelled in close-range killing technique. Every movement they made visibly incorporated elements of refined killing technique, combining taijutsu with ninjutsu into integrated composite attacks rather than treating them as separate tools.
The first Genin match concluded quickly.
The winner was a Sand Village girl wielding a paper umbrella.
The paper umbrella was equipped with mechanical components. Its ribs could fire senbon needles in rapid succession, and her fingers controlled steel wire wrapped around it that she could swing and whip around herself. This combination made the Hidden Mist Genin's approach extremely difficult to deal with.
At range, the specialized umbrella weapon kept the opponent occupied. Up close, the dense and flexible steel wire created a defensive barrier that was hard to breach.
"Very much your style," Yagura said, completely composed about the Hidden Mist Genin's defeat, directing the remark at Yuji.
From the period following the Second Great Ninja War, when Yuji had still been a young prodigy, he had already begun showing his talent through an extreme mastery of assassination techniques. Yagura knew this history well.
Furthermore, in their very first direct encounter, Yuji had used precisely this kind of technique to kill one of Yagura's subordinates, an elite Hidden Mist Jonin.
That scene remained fresh in his memory to this day.
Clearly, this aspect of Yuji's capabilities had been passed down within the Sand Village, with numerous younger fighters adopting and developing it.
Of course, this Sand Village girl's victory was not based solely on those two elements. At the Genin level of combat, when it came down to competing for advantage, taijutsu and practical combat experience were still the foundational factors. Her taijutsu was clearly not weak either.
What stood out was that the Sand Village had genuine skill in developing its newer generation fighters.
"I simply took the foundational techniques and simplified them for easier training. Of course, the most important factor is still that our Sand Village people have genuine talent in this area," Yuji said with a quiet smile.
The second pair of competitors then took the floor.
The Sand Village's next competitor was another young girl, looking quite slender. She carried no particular presence, and her expression was somewhat timid.
What caught Yagura's attention was that one of her hands gripped a kunai while the other held a strange cloth bundle.
The fight began. As expected, the Hidden Mist Genin pushed the girl back repeatedly with continuous attacks, and she took damage quickly. She appeared to have almost no offensive capability at all.
But the girl did not surrender.
Instead she gritted her teeth and kept struggling through the pain, her physical stamina draining rapidly.
Then, when the Hidden Mist Genin relaxed their guard slightly as the two of them clashed at close range, the girl took a hit to her arm that cut her, and in that same instant threw the cloth bundle she had been clutching tightly the entire time. It wrapped around her opponent and wound them into a bundle.
In the next moment, both her hands formed seals, and she pressed her palms against the wrapped opponent through the cloth.
"Sealing Jutsu?" Yagura murmured internally.
"No, not quite. Not purely Sealing Jutsu. This technique appears to be applying some kind of enhancement to the cloth material itself, causing it to undergo a kind of change."
Yagura narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Winner, Sand Village Genin."
The referee's call rang out across the arena.
"A binding technique?" Yagura looked toward Yuji and asked.
"Not exactly. It is more of a modified version of Sealing Jutsu," Yuji said with a light smile.
Yagura was silent for a moment.
"Also something you modified?"
"More or less," Yuji replied.
Yagura heard this and turned his gaze back to the arena.
It appeared the Fourth Kazekage had been quietly doing a great deal of work behind the scenes. And while none of these techniques were particularly high in difficulty, the variety of different types was considerable. Even improving a low-rank technique was not as simple as it might appear. It required an exceptional depth of understanding and experience in ninjutsu craftsmanship.
Yagura had not anticipated that Yuji was also proficient in Sealing Jutsu.
Having lost two matches straight from the opening, Yagura remained entirely composed, with no visible emotional fluctuation. He had considerable confidence in his own village's newer generation fighters.
The Genin division ran for five total rounds.
The Hidden Mist Village's Genin quickly found their footing and won two matches in return.
By the fifth and final match, both villages' Genin understood clearly that they were carrying something significant on their shoulders. The fight was intense from the very first moment, both fighters throwing everything into it despite the wounds accumulating.
In the end it was Baki, serving as referee, who recognized the situation had reached a dangerous point and stepped in to separate the two competitors, declaring the match a draw.
Because if he had not intervened, the Hidden Mist Genin's short blade was a breath away from piercing the Sand Village Genin's abdomen, while the Sand Village Genin's poison needle was equally positioned to strike the Hidden Mist Genin across the face.
Both of these young fighters were absolutely willing to die rather than lose.
They did not care about their own lives in the slightest.
"Truly the Hidden Mist style," Yuji said with a wry smile at the sight.
The Hidden Mist's killing instinct was simply on another level. When they fought, it did not feel like competition. It felt like actual combat to the death.
Fortunately the Sand Village Genin had been equally tough.
The five young Sand Village competitors had been selected by Shimizu, and Yuji had not inquired about the details. They were also not the five strongest Genin currently in the Sand Village. As with the previous diplomatic exchanges against Konoha and the Hidden Stone Village, a deliberately different group had been chosen.
The purpose was to give these particular younger fighters the training experience.
So neither Yuji nor the Sand Village's senior leadership particularly cared whether they won or lost. Getting the training was what mattered.
That said, fighting to a draw under these circumstances was already a very respectable result.
Looking at the five Hidden Mist Genin Yagura had brought on this visit, they were without question among the most outstanding fighters of their generation within the Hidden Mist Village as well.