- the forest of death yay because I found the first test so boring even to write.
CHAPTER 7
They were led to practice area 44 for the 2nd exam. AKA. The Forest of Death
Sasuke glanced at Naruto, he seemed to be staring intently at the forest.
Anko was trying to freak them out by telling them stories about how many ninja had died in the forest during tests and training. But most people were just waiting around for the test to be explained...
"Now before we start the second test I'll pass out these agreement forms, there'll be deaths in this test so you have to sign these, so it isn't my responsibility" Anko said smiling brightly… 'she's way too bloodthirsty' Sasuke thought.
"First, I'll explain the second test, then you can hand your forms in at the booth behind me." she handed out the forms quickly.
"So, the second test is survival. Each of you will start at a gate and attempt to get to the tower in the middle. During the survival you have one task, this is a no rules scroll battle." she grinned again when she said no rules, obviously that meant people dying.
"Each team will get one scroll, heaven or earth. Attempt to get the other and make it to the tower with both. There are 26 teams meaning there will be 13 of each scroll. At least half of you will fail, if not more. You have five days to get both scrolls and make it to the centre."
'That meant 5 days of camping in a forest full of dangerous animals and even more dangerous ninja out to kill us' Sasuke thought. Naruto caught his eye and winked at him, perhaps he had a plan already…
"Now, I'll tell you what will disqualify you" said Anko, still smiling brightly. "First, those that don't make it to the tower with both scrolls within the time limit. Second, those who lose a teammate or those who have a teammate killed, this is a team test and there is no quitting in the middle if you don't want to go, decide now. Finally, you must not look in the scroll until you make it to the tower. There will be a surprise for whoever does~"
"Team meeting in a minute~" Naruto whispered, then grinned at them.
"My final advice is this, don't die." said Anko. Then she left them to sign their agreement forms. They put curtains around the booth so you couldn't see which scroll each team got or who was going to hold it.
Naruto pulled them into a huddle away from the other groups so they wouldn't be spied on.
"This'll be easy! Kakashi-sensei has shown me maps of this place before in old mission reports! We can just follow the river to the tower" chirped Naruto quietly.
"But Naruto, every team will know to follow the river we'll walk into a trap" hissed Sakura.
"Not true! We don't know where we'll start so we can just find the river and set up our own traps! If everyone is headed to the tower then we should just find it and set up traps there! Besides if we do run into enemy ninja we'll just defeat them" said Naruto.
He seemed excited despite the chance of death.
"Oh, and I think Sasuke should keep hold on the scroll" he said.
"Why?" asked Sasuke, he figured Naruto would want to keep it.
"Because we're meant to protect you anyway, if you get caught then me and Sakura have failed to do our jobs" he grinned. Sasuke rolled his eyes, fair enough a medic stays out of the fight, but that's only until all the enemies try to take him out for being the damn medic… he was so dead.
They signed their forms and exchanged them for an earth scroll.
Every team went to a different gate. Then there was 30 minutes to wait until the test began.
"YOSH" shouted Naruto. "Let's charge in, see if we can find some enemies and head to the river!"
"We have thirty minutes Naruto, we should strategize more than that" Sakura huffed. "I have a lot of explosive tags with me and I know a lot of simple traps that Kakashi-sensei has been showing me but if we are by the river it will be a lot harder to trap enemy teams, we need a place that has good surroundings where the enemy can't just sneak around us"
Naruto hummed loudly. "Then wouldn't the best place be at the tower?" he said,
"Yes, but I'm sure a lot of teams will have the same idea" Sasuke sighed.
"Then we can beat them up!" chirped Naruto.
Sasuke sighed, the idiot was dead-set on charging the tower without caring about the dangers…
A voice came out of a loudspeaker, "now everyone is prepared the exam will start in 5 minutes, get ready!"
The gates opened and they ran in together.
Only a few minutes later they heard screaming.
"I guess a team got caught already" said Sasuke.
"YOSH, let's hurry together and find the river or tower" chirped Naruto again. They ran quickly hopping from branch to branch. "Wait" halted Naruto.
"An enemy team" whispered Sakura looking down from the trees, they quickly hid themselves… the team below were huddled together talking. It seemed they hadn't noticed them yet. It was a team of ninja from Konoha below them judging from the headbands, but it wasn't one of the rookie nine.
"We ambush with shadow clones, Sakura distract them" Naruto whispered. Sakura nodded then smirked… it was an evil look for her, Sasuke decided she was getting way to into being a ninja- it was making her more violent than before.
She rushed above them, making noise enough to make them look up before throwing down four shuriken with ninja tag explosives on them, the ninja below gasped in surprise before the tags blew up in their faces. One of which was a smoke screen. As the smoke cleared Naruto shouted "Kage Bunshin no jutsu" and ambushed them with at least thirty Narutos.
Sasuke sighed, the idiot could at least try to save his chakra… although he did seem to have more chakra than most… he jumped to Sakura's side as the Naruto's beat down on the enemy ninja who seemed overwhelmed by the shadow clones.
They attempted to attack with kunai but only succeeded in dispersing some of the Naruto clones without hitting the real one.
One of them tried to escape to the side by using the replacement technique and Sasuke threw a quick senbon, catching the guys sleeve. The Naruto's quickly ganged up on him.
"Now which one of them has the scroll" grinned Sakura running forward to go through their stuff.
"D-damnit" whined one of the enemies, "how were we beaten by the rookies," the Naruto's continued to beat on them as they whined.
"This isn't the end" shouted one of them who stood up and launched himself at Sakura to attack and making a hand seal. "Flower petal disperse" Sakura shouted, turning into flower petals then roundhouse kicked the guy as her petal genjutsu distracted him successfully.
"Shigure, damnit" another shouted. Sasuke sighed, the enemy team were obviously disorientated from the ambush. But if they carried on for longer they might pull themselves together again.
"Let's go guys" said Sasuke as Sakura pulled out a scroll in victory.
They ran back through the trees for a while, before the noise of their fighting brought more ninja to them.
"They had an earth scroll" sighed Sakura, "now we have two."
"What?! We should have left it with them then! We don't need two! I may have beat them up but I bet they could've kept going" Naruto whined, "let's do that again to more ninja and find a heaven one!"
"Well if they are good ninja they can find two more… Anyway, that was shockingly easy… if we hadn't ambushed them that never would have worked" Sasuke said glaring at Naruto.
"Well you should be thankful you didn't need to do anything!" shouted Naruto far too loudly, "they probably didn't expect shadow clone from Genin" he grinned.
"Well it is the one thing you are good at" Sakura said. Naruto whined but pocketed the scroll, at least now they had a scroll on two different people, so if they lost one of them it would still be okay.
Naruto stopped, he seemed lost in thought again.
"I need to whizz" he stated loudly. Sakura punched him and he fell off the branch he was on.
"Owww, Sakura I wasn't gonna whizz here! Why do you always punch me!" Naruto whined.
"If you're going off alone be careful Naruto" Sasuke said.
"Yeah, yeah" whined Naruto. There was quite a large bruise already forming on his cheek from where Sakura punched him. The girl was getting good at taijutsu he had to admit.
Naruto came back to them after a few minutes...
"I feel much better now" Naruto said… the bruise was gone, and his holster was totally on the wrong leg.
Sasuke punched the guy in the face before he could get closer to them.
"Ehhh! Sasuke what are you doing" gasped Sakura, she must not have noticed.
"You aren't Naruto" said Sasuke, "I told the idiot to be careful what did you do to him?"
Sakura seemed to notice at last and put up a defensive stance.
The enemy ninja changed back, he was wearing a yellow suit, "How unlucky you figured me out, now which one of you has the scroll!" he shouted and charged at them, throwing kunai as he went. Sasuke took out his senbon and deflected one aimed at him. Sakura dodged then brought out a kunai with an explosive tag attached, throwing it at the enemy.
The guy dodged sideways and kept coming towards them, Sasuke moved out of the way and threw a senbon aiming at his teres major muscle in his back, it was a damaging spot for most people… the guy noticed the senbon and threw some kunai at him in retaliation. His senbon hit the guys arm instead and he quickly jumped away from the kunai.
Sakura landed next to him with another tag. It looked like one of her experimental tags that she wrote herself meaning this could only end badly...
Naruto suddenly flew out of the bushes with a battle cry, he hit the enemy in the side with a kunai before getting hit away.
"Curse you" hissed the enemy, "my allies were supposed to turn up to help me, screw this" he hopped off looking pissed and his side bleeding. Sasuke grabbed the back of Naruto's shirt as he tried to follow.
"Leave it, that guy wouldn't have gone off alone if he had a scroll it's probably back with his team" he said.
"Naruto! What happened to you?" Sakura huffed.
Sasuke sighed and rubbed his eyes, this was just tiring him out more… he supposed he was going to be tired for the next 5 days straight too...
"The guy hit me when I was pissing! What was I supposed to do!" demanded Naruto.
Sakura sighed loudly, "such an idiot…
"It's a good thing we learned how to untie ropes at the academy!" chirped Naruto.
"We showed you that last week because you still didn't know how to" sniped Sakura, "let's just head off and not get separated again! We entered from the west so if we head east we should reach the tower eventually, and with luck we can get another scroll on the way."
Naruto and Sasuke nodded in agreement and they set off quickly.
A sudden explosion burst out from the trees, tearing a few of them down and blasting them in different directions as they tried to avoid the flying rocks.
A creepy looking ninja came out with an even creepier smile, 'and this time Sakura has gone missing,' Sasuke thought with an annoyed sigh.
"You here to fight" shouted Naruto challengingly.
"You want my heaven scroll, right?" said the creepy ninja "Since you have the earth scroll"
...how did he know that? Had the guy been watching them the entire time?
Then the guy swallowed the entire heaven scroll with some weird creepy tongue, "let's begin, a battle for our scrolls" the guy said staring at them seriously.
'SHIT!' Sasuke thought, the man's killing intent was so strong it caused him to see an image of death. His body was frozen, Naruto seemed frozen too. He collapsed to the ground unable to stand.
The man was walking towards them and threw a pair of kunai towards them. He activated his sharingan and willed himself to move stabbing a kunai into his leg to overpower his fear with pain and pulling Naruto away with him.
"Ah Sasuke" shouted Naruto when they got in the trees. "That guy was so creepy! I couldn't even move! That looks painful!" Naruto rambled as Sasuke pulled the kunai out his leg and began healing it.
"Why'd you stab yourself?" Naruto asked looking confused.
"Read the situation idiot" Sasuke huffed, "I had to use pain to get over the stupid fear that was stopping me from moving."
"We'll be ready next time" said Naruto sounding more serious.
"Next time will be any second now" Sasuke replied, there was no way they'd gotten away from that guy this easily. And where the hell was Sakura?
"We need to run away" said Sasuke.
"WHAT?" shouted Naruto.
A snake came at them from behind, dammit he wasn't done fixing his leg yet, he would have to deal with the pain. They jumped away quickly, throwing senbon at the snake's face but a snake that big wasn't normal.
Naruto threw a bunch of kunai and the snake went down.
Then the creepy man from before came out of the snake's head and gave them that intense look again that sent a chill down his spine, how much fucking creepier could the guy get!
The enemy started wrapping around the trees as if he was also a snake… Naruto jumped in to attack, "don't he'll kill you" Sasuke shouted.
"As if!" Naruto shouted loudly, the guy summoned another giant snake and Naruto flew towards it looking as though he was going to get eaten
"Stop" shouted Sasuke, "we'll give you the earth scroll just don't touch him."
"What?!" shouted Naruto, even from his injured state flying through the air.
"Smart to try and persuade the predator to let you go by offering another meal" hissed the creepy guy. "But I am not longer interested in the scrolls."
The snake changed targets and charged towards him instead. Sasuke stood frozen as Naruto blocked the snake, with his body standing between them… Only he didn't look like Naruto anymore.
"You could at least dodge, asshole" Naruto hissed at Sasuke. His eyes had turned red and his whisker scars were far more obvious.
Sasuke just stared, Naruto was looking like a damn demon and this creep of a snake guy was trying to eat them… his head was spinning with tiredness too, damn this test!
"R-right" he replied and activated his sharingan. "We'll fight this together Naruto" he said.
Naruto smirked at him and they turned to attack. He turned his body away from the enemy, and pulled out his senbon with chakra wire attached. The chakra wire was thin so unnoticeable. Naruto saw his plan instantly and copied him, using chakra wire with his own kunai.
Sasuke jumped and threw several senbon aiming for the most critical points with his sharingan to help. The creepy ninja looked bored and dodged his attacks, but Naruto jumped from the other side and threw his kunai more accurately than Sasuke had ever seen, his eyes were still glowing red to.
The snake asshole dodged again with a smug look, he looked as though he was playing with them. Tch.
Sasuke jumped up and pulled the chakra wire sharply, Naruto pulled too then passed his own to Sasuke as the smug looking creep gasped in surprise as he got caught up in wires.
"Tch, katon: goukakyuu no jutsu" Sasuke said sending the flame down the wires to burn the guy alive. Naruto gave a demonic smirk and ran in in order to apparently use a knock out attack.
'It seems the only offense I can really do is simple wire tricks and breathing fire' Sasuke sighed.
From the clearing fire Naruto's attack was caught. The man looked burnt, but his face was peeling away to reveal another face underneath. CREEP!
"Just as I thought…" spoke the creep. "Uchiha Sasuke, I want you..."
He picked up Naruto, "So, the Nine tailed demon fox host," the guy muttered, "and when you're like this the seal is clear" Naruto struggled but the guy thrust his hand into Naruto's stomach with enough force to shoot him back over to Sasuke who caught him quickly.
"Naruto?" he said, but the blonde was out cold.
The snake man turned to look at him with his half-burnt face.
Then an explosive tag hit the guy directly in the forehead and blew up, and Sakura was there helping him pull Naruto onto his back "Get away!" Sakura shouted. "This asshole isn't normal!" She pulled them along quickly as the bastard was distracted from the force of the explosion and what looked like a lot of dust and ash that came out of the tag.
"Nice hit," Sasuke said quite breathlessly, he was exhausted. "Where were you?" he asked.
"I got swallowed by a fucking snake" Sakura spat out. She was covered in snake blood and bruises still too. In fact, her ponytail seemed to have been singed slightly "On the bright side, my experimental explosive super tag works like a charm" she said.
"Well thanks for the back up, I thought Naruto and I were going to be a snake's meal…" Sasuke muttered.
"Yeah, I saw the end of the fight, what did that asshole do to Naruto!" she exclaimed.
"I don't know and I don't want to know" said Sasuke, they ran and ran and ran until they found an old hollowed out tree, it seemed safe and was out of sight.
Sakura sat down and sighed, "I don't know if that guy followed us but we should be prepared in case he did."
Sasuke nodded and checked on their injuries. Sakura needed a lot of burn healing from her own explosive tag. She'd used it when getting out of the snake's stomach apparently, and he and Naruto had numerous injuries but thankfully nothing serious.
Naruto was the biggest worry… they didn't know when he was going to wake up. Sasuke looked at where the guy had hit his stomach, there didn't seem to be a mark but he could feel with his mystical palm that there was a lot going on in his chakra system where he had been hit and he didn't really have the knowledge to fix that kind of thing…
"You should rest" he said to Sakura, she looked as exhausted as he felt.
"No, you rest, I'll take first watch" she replied, "That explosive tag wouldn't have distracted him for long, I'm going to make some traps just in case."
"I…" damn he was tired, "are you sure?" he asked, she nodded and stood up to start setting traps in order to protect them. He leant back against the tree and closed his eyes, a light sleep wouldn't be bad as long as he woke up if there was trouble.
Unfortunately, he was more tired than he thought and only woke up when he heard a loud proclamation of "LEAF SPINNING WIND"
It was Lee…
He stood up quickly, noting that it was daytime again, Sakura must have left him to sleep through the night…
"What's up" he asked her.
Lee answered "Sasuke-kun, please allow me to defeat these ninja as they called Sakura-Chan a bad name and I must fight for her honour" he said dramatically, there was a squirrel on his shoulder and he was doing his green beast pose.
Sasuke looked at Sakura, she looked exhausted still "you're okay with this?" he asked.
"I can fight for my own honour… but Lee seems determined and I can't get him to leave" she replied. Sasuke looked at their opponents. It was the three ninja from the Hidden Sound village.
"We don't want to fight you kid, we're here to fight the Uchiha" said one of the sound nin.
"Too bad for you I'm not much of a fighter," Sasuke said with as much snark as he could muster. He was the medical nin and Naruto and Sakura were still hurt, there was no way he was going into a fight now.
"What's wrong with Naruto" asked Lee, he seemed to suddenly realise Naruto wasn't there.
"He got hit…" said Sasuke, "I tried healing him but it didn't seem to help much."
"You keep healing Naruto and I'll take care of these guys 3" said Lee winking at them.
The Sound nin looked really riled up now. Sasuke sighed, well he was more rested and his chakra had come back a bit, it was a good idea to see if he could heal Naruto more.
However, Sakura looked determined to fight along with Lee and she already looked really tired… she'd obviously been up all night watching them.
"Sakura, c'mere" he said, walking over to her, he used kekki no jutsu, channelling his chakra into her to relieve her fatigue and exhaustion. "I can't replenish your chakra but I can at least make you feel less tired" he said. Although he couldn't hold it for long, it made him more tired as it made her less tired, but he'd rested and she hadn't, plus she was about to fight so he decided it was better this way.
"Thanks, I feel better already" she said beaming.
"Oi!" shouted one of the sound ninja, "if you aren't going to start then we will" He jumped in towards them, Lee huffed and shoved his arm into the ground, pulling up the roots of a tree to block the sound ninja's attack… Show off.
"Are you sure Sakura-chan! You aren't in good condition to fight" Lee exclaimed looking back at Sakura.
"Don't worry about me Lee-kun, I- I'm going to be a strong kunoichi, and… I'm going to prove to myself that I can protect my teammates too" said Sakura.
"Stop ignoring me" shouted the sound ninja in front of them.
Sasuke sat down next to Naruto and ran his chakra along Naruto's stomach, there was something wrong with the chakra system there, he just couldn't work out what it was.
Meanwhile, Sakura and Lee tag teamed to fight the enemy.
Sakura went in to attack, using three explosive kunai just in front of the enemy, swallowing them in the explosion. Lee undid his arm bandages and ran forward. He grabbed one of them, and kicked him into the air before slamming him into the ground with a cry of 'Initial Lotus!'
The sound ninja cried out in pain as he smacked into the ground, Sasuke was sure his neck snapped but he stood up again, although grasping his head in pain, 'that other sound guy did something to the ground' he noted. They'd defended despite those explosive notes... these guys were good.
"Curse you," the sound nin snapped. "That hurt… Now it's my turn to attack." he said moving towards Lee quickly, raising his arm for a punch, but rather than hitting Lee a sharp ringing sound came out.
Lee cried out and grabbed his head in pain. Sasuke tried to focus on his mystical palm technique. The chakra was all wound up in Naruto's stomach, as if it had all been pushed together or something.
The sound nin guy ran forward to attack again and Sakura did her best to hold him off, but after another strong sound attack, Lee collapsed, the damage to his ear seemed to be too much.
"Lee, you need to be healed" Sakura shouted.
Sasuke turned and Sakura's shout, Lee's ear was bleeding. The sound ninja's attack hit him really hard just now and released that high-pitched sound right next to him, it had probably broken his ear drum and heavily damaged the inner membrane.
Which meant Lee was in no position to fight either, damnit none of them were. He stood up, there was really nothing he could do for the passed-out Naruto. And Sakura's tags weren't working with that sound guy Zaku's air pipes in his hands. He kept blowing them away. Her genjutsu probably wouldn't work well either. Unless she could give them a good distraction, they would see through it too fast.
He moved forward quickly, Lee had fallen unconscious on the ground so he pulled Lee further back, activating mystical palm and checking the damage of Lee's body, he'd strained several tendons with his taijutsu, and his ear was in terrible state. He couldn't heal out in the open like this either, damn it why was it so hard just to keep his damn team alive!
"Finally, we can get to the Uchiha" laughed Zaku, he walked over only for Sakura to shove a kunai right into the guy's back
"I'm still here! Shannaro!" she shouted, and pulled out a seal for chakra suppression, attaching it to a shuriken.
"What are you going to do with those" Zaku laughed, "you try to use it on me I'll just tear it off."
"It's not you I'm aiming for" Sakura smiled, pulling out more suppressors and throwing the shuriken towards the other sound guy Dosu.
"Easy" he said stepping to the side to dodge. Sakura smiled, she'd thrown the shuriken in an arc shape and it was attached to a chakra wire which she pulled on sharply. The shuriken arced around Dosu and started tying him up in wires. Sakura quickly pulled out another as the sound ninja looked on in shock, she added suppressors along the wire and threw a few more chakra wired shuriken that twirled around his body until the guy was wound up tight in chakra suppressors.
"We're here to kill Sasuke! Not you, you brat" shouted the woman walking forward to pull the chakra suppressors off her bound teammate.
Zaku also growled and jumped forward at Sakura, knocking her to the ground and punching her in the face. She was obviously outnumbered and in trouble, Sasuke stood up to help her.
But three people jumped in his way.
"Oi, you're a medical nin right Sasuke" said Shikamaru with a bored tone. "Heal up Lee and we'll help Sakura"
"You're going to help?" asked Sasuke
"I can't let poor Sakura deal with this all by herself" smiled Ino.
"As if I need you Ino-pig!" shouted Sakura from the ground.
"Don't talk like that while looking like that" Ino snapped back. "Besides, I won't let you be the only one to look strong in front of Sasuke!"
Sakura did look beaten up quite badly, that Zaku guy had got her in the nose and it was bleeding everywhere. Her hair had come undone from its ponytail from Zaku's air attacks and there was blood in it.
"Alright, I'll rely on you and see if I can get Lee back in the fight" he said kneeling back down, if he could fix the inner membrane of Lee's ear and work on some of his strained tendons and muscles Lee would be able to join in the fight… he should also hopefully regain consciousness soon, but Sasuke didn't know how to speed that up.
He tried to focus but it was hard when all he could hear was Chouji screaming at the sound ninja for calling him fat. He listened to the conversation while he healed Lee's muscles... apparently ninja around here like to talk and describe each other's jutsu instead of just killing each other.
But that was good, it meant more time for him… although his chakra was starting to run low, fuck.
Lee opened his eyes and blinked.
"AH Sasuke-kun!" he shouted, sitting up suddenly.
"Shut up," said Sasuke, "go help them" he pointed to team Ino-Shika-Chou who didn't seem to be doing particularly well against the sound ninja.
He heard a voice from above "I can't take much more of this" said Neji, he was stood on a tree branch watching the fight, "you minor low rate ninjas picking on weaklings made a mistake" everyone turned to look up at him. The sound ninja were getting more pissed that they were getting teamed up on.
Neji pointed at Lee, "that idiot down there is our team and you're going to pay" Neji activated his byakugan and looked ready to fuck someone up.
Lee quickly jumped up to his feet, "I'm alright Neji-san! Sasuke-kun healed me" he shouted.
Tenten jumped down next to Lee and hit him sharply.
"Why didn't you turn up at the meeting place" she scolded.
"Ahhh Sakura-chan was in danger" Lee whined.
"We're just here to kill Sasuke, but these little flies keep getting between us and him" said the sound guy (Dosu) that took out Lee.
Neji jumped down and cracked his knuckles.
Ino released her jutsu that had put her in the mind of the female ninja and the girl dropped to the ground unconscious.
"We aren't afraid of you" hissed Zaku activating the air from his hands to blow them away. Neji was in front of him and hitting him hard before he could finish, stopping the chakra from coming out of his hands and possibly breaking one of his arms from the hit.
A battle cry came from behind them and Naruto suddenly sprang out in front of them, smacking the guy upside the head with sudden vigour.
"You bastard" Sasuke muttered. He woke up when the fight was almost fucking over.
"Stop," shouted the sound guy who was still ripping chakra suppression seals off himself. "We'll back off, this is too much effort. We'll kill Sasuke later" he huffed, putting a heaven scroll on the ground as a peace offering and then picking up his unconscious team mate and pulling Zaku back with him.
"Wait! Why have you been sent to kill Sasuke? Who sent you" Sakura snapped at him angrily.
He disappeared without replying.
"Well, apparently, we defeated them by annoying them enough to make them run away" commented Tenten. Lee nodded, looking energised.
"It was truly a youthful battle! But why did they insist on killing Sasuke so much" he said.
"Yeah asshole!" shouted Naruto, pointing at Sasuke, "why do you get all the fights! And why did no one wake me?! What happened to that creepy snake guy that was perving on you."
"Uhh I think my nose is broken, shannaro" whined Sakura. Sasuke glared at Naruto and ignored him, instead going over to check on Sakura.
"Aww Sakura your hair's all covered in blood" said Ino pulling it away from her face while Sasuke fixed the bone in her nose, it was fractured but not too bad, Iyashi had taught him how to heal bones and fractures, you simply used your chakra to boost calcium levels in the patient's body then used mystical palm to heal the bone using the calcium… it was slightly simpler than it sounded as long as you knew mystical palm.
"Do me a favour Ino, and cut my hair shorter" said Sakura seriously.
"W-What!?" shouted Ino, "b-but your hair..."
"It got in my face when it came undone and I have to keep pulling it back to get it out the way. It would be better for me if I didn't have to deal with it anymore, I need short hair to match my ninja image" said Sakura.
Ino looked utterly shocked but took out a kunai and started cutting Sakura's hair into a shorter but still stylish look.
"Lee-san, thank you for helping, next time I will do my best to protect you in battle as well" Sakura said sincerely. Lee just nodded with tears in his eyes.
Naruto looked between them confused, "what did fuzzy brows do that I didn't?" he demanded.
"Shut up, Naruto" Sasuke sighed, finishing with Sakura's nose which was now fixed and back to normal. He handed her a tissue to clean up the blood then went over and picked up the heaven scroll the enemy had left… now they had one heaven and two earth. They were ready to go to the tower once they were healed up.
"Neji," he said, looking over at the boy, "what scroll do you have" he asked.
Neji stared at him for a second before replying, "Heaven." Sasuke took out the earth scroll in his pack and threw it at him, Neji looked surprised but caught it.
"Ehhh! Sasuke what are you doing" shouted Naruto.
"We wouldn't have won if they hadn't intervened and we have both scrolls now anyway." Sasuke said logically.
Naruto hmmm'd loudly. Then nodded in agreement. "Fine, but if we lose our earth scroll now I blame you for giving away our back up" he huffed, but didn't actually look upset.
Ino on the other hand looked pissed, "excuse me but our team helped your team too! Where's our thank you scroll!" she huffed.
"Just leave it Ino" said Shikamaru, "they still have to get to the tower with both scrolls, we'll look elsewhere"
Lee and Tenten disappeared after Tenten hugged him and thanked him for apparently doing a good job healing Lee. Neji just gave him a nod. That he assumed was a thank you.
He looked over to Naruto freaking out over Sakura's now shorter hair. Eventually Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji also left and they found a new place to take cover.
They spent the rest of that day sleeping, eating onigiri that Sakura brought out of her sealed scrolls and then spent the night sleeping in shifts in case of enemy ninja.
Thankfully, due to Sasuke's medical ninjutsu, both Naruto and Sakura were healed and they were ready to continue the exam by the next morning. Although Sasuke was very aware of his low chakra levels. He would have to be careful from now on how much chakra he used because using mystical palm so much really drained him.
They woke up early feeling more refreshed and hopped up into the trees.
"We should still find the river" said Sakura, "I bet other teams will be heading towards the tower today as well, and the river leads straight to the tower, if we play it smart we can follow the river without getting caught."
"Yosh Sakura-chan~, as team leader I approve of your idea" Naruto chirped.
"Okay then, oh wise team leader, lead the way" muttered Sasuke.
"YOSH LET'S GO" shouted Naruto. They ran through the forest quickly, Sasuke expected to encounter more enemies, but they reached the river with incident and followed along in the trees.
Until Naruto stopped.
"What's wrong?" asked Sakura.
Naruto turned to them looking sheepish, "Ne, I'm hungry, can we stop for a snack? Or maybe some breakfast?"
"Baka" Sakura shouted, hitting him off the tree branch, "we don't have time for snacking right now!"
Naruto whined and caught himself before falling. "But Sakura-chan~ we'll fight better after food, right, right? Ne, Sasuke back me up, ninja need to eat, right?" Naruto reasoned.
"You're only saying that because you want to eat…" sighed Sasuke.
Due only to Naruto's constant complaining they ended up eating fish by the river.
That was when Kabuto showed up, his arms raised in a non-threatening greeting.
"Funny running into you guys" Kabuto said, he was smiling but as he looked over the three of them his face twitched as though he was upset about something.
"Kabuto-san" Naruto grinned widely, "so you're still in the forest too?"
"Yes, my teammates have taken refuge by the tower in order to the scroll we need" he said.
"Then why are you all the way out here" asked Sasuke.
"There's no need to be suspicious of me Sasuke-kun" Kabuto smiled, "I was just following the river, as it seems you three are as well"
"Then we can travel together!" exclaimed Sakura, "we're heading towards the tower as well"
"Yeah! We'll help you get another scroll too" said Naruto loudly.
Kabuto laughed. "Well then I assume you have your scrolls, and I suppose I would be at a disadvantage going against all three of you, so I will take you up on that offer" he said.
Sasuke glared at him carefully, he agreed so quickly it was slightly odd.
But he didn't seem to have ill intent so they travelled through the forest together carefully, they could see the top of the tower now so they moved into the forest on foot in order to avoid traps.
"We'll have to be careful from here, I'm sure many teams have set up around the tower in order to get scrolls" said Kabuto.
"They can't have traps set everywhere, we just have to find the blind spot" reasoned Sakura.
They began walking, and walking, and walking, but the tower didn't seem to be getting any closer.
"This isn't right" said Sakura, "judging from our distance we should be there by now"
"You're right" commented Kabuto, he looked around and pulled out a kunai, "I did say to look out for traps, perhaps we are already in one" he said.
"Eh? What do you mean in one?" asked Naruto.
"He means Genjutsu" Sasuke answered, "Sakura, you're best at dispelling"
"I wouldn't worry about that" said Kabuto, he pointed upwards.
Above them, a bunch of shadowy enemy clones were rising out of the trees.
"If it's a clone fight they want, I'll win easy" exclaimed Naruto, using shadow clone jutsu to make 50 clones of himself and going in to attack. "Hah these clones are easy" Naruto shouted as his fist went through them easily.
"Sasuke-kun, if this were a simple clone fight why would they attack anyway?" Sakura whispered.
"That's true" said Kabuto, "the real enemy might be hiding among them waiting to attack," they looked at the clones Naruto was defeating, they were made of some kind of liquid and kept forming back together after hit, "Naruto stop, you're just wasting your energy" Kabuto shouted.
"This is an enemy genjutsu, so if I dispel it the real ones will be revealed" said Sakura, she made a hand sign, "release" The clones faded away into nothing, but none were left behind.
"Damnit, they weren't here" said Sasuke.
"Ne I have an idea" Naruto shouted, he ran back to them and shouted, "MORE SHADOW CLONES." He then made a bunch of Naruto clones and turned four of them into copies of the others.
They took the hint immediately and used the replacement technique with Naruto's clones hiding in the trees. They then trailed the Naruto clones and fakes of them through the forest. All they had to do was wait for the enemy to reveal themselves.
"That idiot has got too much energy" Sasuke muttered watching Naruto shout loudly at anything that moved and throw kunai at bugs and animals he came across.
"Look" whispered Kabuto, pointing ahead.
Three ninja stood in front of Naruto.
"It seems our genjutsu is useless on you, but no matter, we'll defeat you now" spoke one of the enemy ninja.
They snuck around through the trees and jumped out to ambush the enemy. But the moment they jumped out the enemy turned in surprise and used a jutsu to make even more damn clones.
"This is getting boring" Sasuke growled, activating his sharingan and staring at the enemy. "They're all clones" he stated.
"Then we have to wait for the real ones again" Naruto growled, "I'll just beat them all up until they come back" he shouted and the Naruto clones jumped in again to attack.
"If it's genjutsu I can just dispel it again…" said Sakura
"No, don't," said Sasuke, "they'll just disappear and we'll never catch them" they went in to attack instead, he couldn't keep his sharingan activated for long due to his low chakra but he looked out for where the real enemy was attacking from.
They finally realised that the enemy was hiding underground when they came up and hit Kabuto across the face. For a split-second, Kabuto's glare looked as though he was going to murder the fuck out of everyone in sight.
But Naruto's flying roundhouse kick hit the enemies across the face with enough force to knock them all into a tree.
"Finally! Time to loot!" Naruto shouted, still as energetic as ever, he hopped over to the unconscious ninja.
"Naruto! Kabuto-san is the one who needs the scroll" scolded Sakura, allowing Kabuto to take the enemies scroll, it was apparently the scroll he needed because he turned to them smiling.
"Thank you for your help" he said.
They finally walked to the tower and Kabuto joined his team on the way.
"See you in the next test" said Kabuto calmly and disappeared to a different part of the tower.
It was the start of the fourth day and they were finally done with this shitty test. They walked through the doors into an empty room. There was only writing on the wall in front of them.
"Now it's time to open the scrolls" shouted Naruto, fishing them out of his pack and ripping them open enthusiastically.
"That's a summoning" Sakura gasped. The scrolls began to smoke and Iruka appeared from the centre.
"Hey" he said, "long time no see, congratulations on passing the 2nd test" he started - only to get jump hugged by Naruto.
"I was surprised you guys managed to finish before the final day, I thought you would have more trouble" he said sincerely,
"We did but we had help from the other rookie teams" said Sakura. If Ino and Lee's team hadn't helped, who knew what would have happened.
"Most teams take longer because they have to take time healing and recovering, but I guess you guys had Sasuke to speed that up" commented Iruka.
Naruto was walking around in the background chanting "We did it, we did it, we did it."
"Now, don't push yourselves in the final test. You have to wait around until the time limit is up so take your time to rest now…" Iruka said. "The only other thing I have to relay to you is the meaning of that writing on the wall behind me," said Iruka pointing at the writing on the wall. "It is the Hokage's principal for Chunin"
"Heaven means head and Earth means the body, only with both the head, knowledge, and the body, strength, can even dangerous missions become safe. But you guys seem on your way to achieving both already" Iruka smiled. "A Chunin is a commander class, the duty to lead a team, never forget the Chunin principal as you go on"
"Roger" shouted Naruto.
"Just don't push yourselves for the next exam, with luck you will get a long time before the third test starts." Iruka was obviously worried about them. But seemed to relent because they had done well.
"I honestly think we'll be fine as long as that creepy snake fucker hasn't passed" said Sasuke, because if they saw him again it was not going to be fun…
"C-creepy snake… what?" said Iruka he looked beyond startled.
"There was some creepy guy summoning snakes, I think he was perving over Sasuke too." said Naruto, receiving a glare from both Sasuke and Sakura.
"R-right" said Iruka before poofing away without another word.
"I guess we should get some rest?" said Sakura tentatively.
I might edit this chapter several times until I'm happy with it.