The preparations for the Joint Chuunin Exam are very serious and there are quite a lot. It isn't shown in the show, but Konoha is really busy during the preparation time.
After all, they will receive guests from other hidden villages, so they need to make sure everything will go well and the most important thing is safety.
There surely will be clashes between the shinobi from the different villages and they also need to anticipate if other villages will do something against them.
After all, even if the war has ended, they are still rivals. Each village will surely want to reveal the secrets of their rival villages. So something like trying to steal a village's secrets like jutsus or documents is something that needs to be expected.
There are more scenarios that can happen when letting other villages enter theirs, so the security needs to be prepared very well. If anything happens, then Konoha will receive the most damage, after all.
Tsunade and Shizune are also busy with the exam preparation. But they still have time to treat Hiyori every day before going to work and after they return. So Hiyori's treatment is going well and she keeps getting better.
Now she often walks around the village without Zoro because he starts training again. His training can last for hours. At first, Hiyori likes watching his training. But she gets bored after a while because she isn't allowed to do anything and can only watch.
So now she doesn't watch his training again and chooses to play around by herself. Well, she's not really alone. Torao and Tonton are with her. Of course, Torao is in his cat-sized form to avoid scaring people.
So from people's point of view, Hiyori just looks like a little girl walking around the village with her pets. But if anyone tries to harm her, then it might be the last day of their lives because Torao will rip their necks.
Torao is strong enough to defeat some jonins and he can escape from Kage-level shinobi without much problem by entering the shadow. So if an enemy he can't defeat appears, he will just take Hiyori into the shadow and escape.
Zoro trains in the forest outside the village because his training can be destructive sometimes. But because of that, he can't return alone. He can get back to the village just fine because he can see it, but he can't find Tsunade's house with his poor sense of direction.
So Torao needs to pick him up when Hiyori's stroll is over. It's usually the older brother that picks up his little sister from the playground. But it's the opposite with them because the older brother can't go home alone.
Tonton seems to enjoy playing with Hiyori and Torao. Tsunade gives her the task to watch over Hiyori while she plays around, but maybe it's also because she can just play around too. So she is just happy to go around with them anywhere, even when they pick Zoro up.
When Zoro trains in the forest, he also encounters some young shinobi that train near his location too. They are preparing for the Chuunin Exam, so Zoro doesn't disturb them even though he knows most of them won't even pass the 1st round.
But then one day, something unexpected happens. Guy actually comes to meet him and asks for a sparring match. Top bad that it's not Guy himself who will fight him, but his genin team members.
"So basically, you want me to train kids?"
"I just want to give them more experience before the exam. Lady Tsunade said you have been training alone for days, so you must be bored. Won't it be nice to do something different for once?" Guy seems enthusiastic as always.
"Hmm, sure. You are the only one who never refused my requests for sparring matches in Konoha and sometimes even look for me yourself, so I shouldn't refuse your request either."
"Great, then I will call them here."
Guy leaves to call his team members and he returns with them soon. Zoro has seen them a few times when he walks around the villages, so he is not surprised. The genins on the other hand are surprised because they also recognize him.
"Oh, the green-haired samurai." Tenten is quite surprised.
"You know me?"
"Most people in Konoha know you. Green hair is very rare, after all, and you also carry 3 swords everywhere, so it's easy to recognize you. But we don't know your name."
Most people don't really know who Zoro is, but they often see him on the street. It's because he always walks around the village every time he comes here and his unique appearance is eye-catching, especially his green hair and his 3 swords.
"Guy-sensei, is he the sparring partner that you mean?" Lee asks with a high spirit, very eager to fight the man recommended by his teacher.
"He sure looks strong with all the muscles, but he doesn't feel as strong as you make him to be." Neji already checks Zoro's chakra using his byakugan and he can see Zoro's chakra is average for jonin.
He thought Zoro would have a scary amount of chakra or an intimidating aura when Guy told them they would fight an incredibly strong person. So Neji is quite disappointed.
Zoro wants to chuckle because Neji is just as arrogant as he is during this period in the story. But he doesn't seem as annoying. Probably because his father is still alive, so he has someone to guide him correctly.
In the story, his father died because of Kumo's scheme. They kidnapped Hinata and when their men were killed, they blamed Konoha and threatened to start a war.
The only way to ease the rage is by sending someone from the Hyuga clan who's responsible to kill the Kumo ninjas to be executed by Kumo. Konoha can't afford to have another war yet, so they chose to send that person, which was Neji's father, Hisashi Hyuga, Hiashi's twin brother.
It was all Kumo's plot to get byakugan, but they failed because the seal on Hisashi destroyed his byakugan upon death. That was also the reason they kidnapped Hinata, so their plan to acquire byakugan failed.
Years ago, in this timeline, Kumo also tried to do the same thing. However, Minato didn't give in like the 3rd Hokage who was pressured by the elders like Danzo. Minato's advisors support him to face Kumo's threats even if it meant war.
Hiashi was one of his advisors, so he couldn't ignore Hinata's kidnapping incident. Fugaku and Tsunade who were also his advisors told him that if he gave in to their threat, then he would lose the trust of all clans because he couldn't even protect a big clan like Hyuga.
So Minato fought off Kumo's threat and he even threatened them back, telling them that he would teleport to Kumo and kill everyone there when Raikage was in Konoha.
Some people in Konoha could hold Raikage, but there won't be anyone in Kumo who could stop Minato. With his speed, even if B and Yugito use their Tailed Beasts, they still won't be able to stop him from killing everyone else in Kumo.
Meanwhile, Raikage won't be able to do the same thing to Konoha. Tsunade alone could hold him off, yet they also still had the 3rd Hokage, Fugaku, and Hiashi who were Kage-level too.
Besides, they have proof of Hinata's kidnapping that Kumo didn't acknowledge. So in the end, Kumo needed to retreat and the relationship between both villages turned for worse.
After that incident, Zoro's relationship with Raikage was also cracked. He didn't want to meet Raikage for a few years even if that old man wanted to meet him and he rarely hunted Kumo ninja too.
Whenever he went to Kumo, he only met with B, Yugito, and Samui. Yet he never asked them to fight him for a few years. All because they were targeting a little child who hasn't even gotten trained properly.
Zoro really hates adults who harm children. It's different when parents discipline their children with a little bit of force. But Kumo tried to take a child's eyes just for a little bit of power.
Only 3 years ago Zoro talked with Raikage again and he truthfully told the old man his reason for ignoring Raikage all this time. Zoro even told Raikage that he has lost all the respect he earned and would never gain them back from Zoro.
The hard-headed old man surely didn't regret his actions and he didn't care if Zoro would hate him all his life because as he and the other Kages always said, they do those kinds of things for their villages.
That reason was something that Zoro hates too because for villages, they abandoned their conscience and morals. So after that talk, Zoro challenged Raikage and almost killed that old man.
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Chapter: 149. Transplantation
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