[Strong power, but the attack speed isn’t particurly fast—at least not for a jonin to dodge with ease...]

  Nara Ensui deftly dodged ining strikes while analyzing the situation.

  At first, the sheer scale and mobility of the teique startled him—it appeared overwhelming and intimidating. However, it didn’t take long for him to uand its meics.

  The attacks, while swift enough to overwhelm ordinary shinobi, were retively slow for a seasoned jonin. The mobility came from the massive hair tendrils shing against the enviro, propelling themselves with sheer force. The attacks were straightforward with little variation.

  The destructive power was remarkable, and the teique provided excellent defehe densely packed web of hair could shred ining kunai or shuriken with ease—literally tear them apart.

  In direct physical bat, such a teique might be effective only against tailed-beast-level entities. But...

  [Ninja battles are never about raw strength alone.]

  Ninjutsu, genjutsu, secret teiques, forbidden arts—there were tless ways to ter such a method. It could prove useful in rge-scale warfare, but against a skilled oppo...

  Nara Ensui quickly formed seals.

  [Shadow Sewing Jutsu!]

  A sharp tendril of shadow shot forward, slig through the strands of hair that luoward him.

  "Sssshhh!"

  The shadow needle grazed Link’s cheek, leaving a shallow cut.

  Link exhaled heavily, struggling to catch his breath. The exhaustion from repeatedly pushing his body to its limits was undeniable, even with the soldier pills supplementing his energy. The physical toll from such relentless strain, however, was unavoidable.

  More troublingly, the timer on his Stand’s duration was almost up.

  Uher shinobi, who o carefully trol chakra output for prolonged jutsu, Link’s teiques bypassed this limitation. They required a fixed amount of chakra, automatically exeg without the risk of failure due to miscalcution.

  However, this advantage came with a signifit drawback: extending the duration of an ongoing teique was exceedingly difficult. While most ninja could feed additional chakra into their jutsu to sustain them, Link had to essentially recast the same jutsu—a task requiring exceptional chakra trol.

  This was a feat akin to bining two jutsu simultaneously, a skill slightly less challenging thaing a kekkei genkai.

  Most would question why anyone capable of such precise chakra trol wouldn’t simply master dual-release teiques or create a kekkei genkai instead.

  [Three...]

  [Two...]

  Link silently ted down, halting his pursuit of Ensui. All the hair retracted and propelled him back toward his teammates.

  [One.]

  As the hair coiled bato his scalp, its glossy bck color dulled to a brittle, uhy gray. Once his hair returo its normal length, it looked uneven and frayed—a clear sign of the toll it had taken.

  This was one of Love Deluxe’s quirks. Wheand’s enhanced hair endured signifit damage, it would lose its strength and vitality, turning gray and brittle.

  Though the hair had tinuously grown to mask this effect during the fight, now that the Stand had dissipated, the damage was fully apparent.

  Rest his inal bck hair would require time for new growth.

  “Is... is it over?” Iris stammered, his voice tinged with unease.

  Part of him worried their “boss” had gooo far and actally iheir jonin instructor. The scale of the destru was overwhelming.

  Ami bit her lip. Any lingering thoughts of revenge or satisfa from seeing Link struggle had evaporated after witnessing his earlier dispy. When someone was leagues ahead of you, rese gave way to intimidation.

  [I could probably summon one more Stand with enough rest...]

  Link ignored Iris’s question, fog instead uting his breathing. He signaled his teammates to prepare for bat, ready to step in as human shields if necessary.

  Love Deluxe had been immensely useful. With its immerength and steel-like durability, it could stand toe-to-toe with some high-level foes. But it drained his stamina at an arming rate.

  Unlike physical Stands, Love Deluxe was an attat-based Stand, augmenting his hair. Every a it took directly ed Link’s energy. The rger the scale or the more dramatic the ges, the greater the toll on his body.

  Even with a soldier pill, his stamina had nearly bottomed out after just one minute of usage.

  [A single minute... It’s not even as long as a certain someone’s “three-minute light show.”]

  “Tap, tap, tap.”

  Ensui emerged from the dust cloud, his expression plicated. He g Iris and Ami, both gripping kunai in a defeance, before his gaze settled on Link.

  The boy’s disheveled gray hair and battered appearance trasted sharply with his cold, determined eyes.

  Ensui exhaled slowly and spoke.

  “Test over. gratutions.”

  [Finally... a genin.]

  Li a surge of joy at the annou, though it was quickly tempered by the realization of how low the bar was. His feelings were further mixed by Konoha’s subjective evaluation system.

  Last year, he had passed the graduation exam and even obtaihe bell in Kakashi’s test, yet he was sent back to the Academy. This time, he barely scraped through the graduation exam and failed to secure the bell—but he became a genin anyway.

  There were no hard standards. The oute depended entirely on the instructor’s judgment.

  “Woohoo!” Iris cheered loudly.

  Ami lowered her kunai and stole a g Link, whose expression remained calm and posed. She sighed softly.

  Though she had her fws—being proud, temperamental, and a bit of a princess—she wasn’t foolish. She uood that their success was entirely due to Link’s efforts. Without him, her she nor Iris would have made it.

  The realization was humbling.

  Ensui retrieved the bells and smiled.

  “Let’s celebrate. I’m treating you all to barbecue.”

  Bleam