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Chapter 8: Forest of Death!

As soon as the second part of the exam started, Sakura noticed a big difference in Naruto. He was no longer goofy and carefree, but took on the persona of a battle hardened tactician. He barked out orders that she unconsciously responded to immediately. Before, when she looked upon Naruto, she saw a goofy kid, decked out in the most ridiculous shinobi attire who liked to play 'ninja' with kids years younger than himself. Now, he was something altogether different. She noticed how Sasuke seemed to struggle accepting Naruto's barking commands. Surprisingly, he still followed through with his assignments.

After a full out run for over an hour left Sakura thoroughly winded. Sasuke was gasping in lungfuls of air as well as Naruto only wiped a drop of sweat from his brow. Naruto had decided to let them have a five minute rest before they continued. Their rest was interrupted when Sasuke spoke. "Hey Dobe, what's th-" he was cut off abruptly.

"Mind your manners, boy," Naruto growled out as he had pinned Sasuke to a tree with a hand strangling Sasuke's throat. "Respect your betters. I earned the leader spot on this team and you will respect it, and me!" Naruto finished by throwing Sasuke over his shoulder, who the landed in a heap.

"Naruto-senpai, just what is the plan?" Sakura decided to ask, making sure to use the correct honorific. However, she too was curious as to their plan of attack in this exam.

"You don't have to worry about calling me senpai, Sakura," Naruto said with a benign smirk, "only that idiot," here he gestured at Sasuke rubbing a tender neck, "he needs to learn to respect his betters. That king of insubordination could get him killed from a Jonin or ANBU team leader, no questions asked." The last part was said while Naruto looked directly at Sasuke.

"Anyways, our plan of attack is simple," Naruto started, "we get to the tower as fast as possible, then ambush or attack any team that comes our way." Sakura paled at that. There were well over one hundred people in this portion of the exam. Sasuke smirked, he knew that he would have a chance to test his power, or more likely his endurance. After all, he would need both to fight and kill Itachi.

"Don't worry," Naruto reassured Sakura, "we'll only fight the teams that had to fight other teams, so they'll already be tired. Plus, this isn't the Forest of Death for nothing, it'll weed out the cannon fodder. Besides, I got a trump card," Naruto said as he form a cross seal and shouted, 'Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!' and a mass of Naruto's went leaping through the Forest.

"What was that for... senpai?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto smirked as he replied, "They'll find as many teams as they can, defeat them and burn their scrolls."

"What about other Konoha genin's? And why burn the scrolls, what if we need them?" Sakura asked.

"What about them," Naruto callously replied. "The less teams there are, the better the chance of you two being promoted to Chunin, besides, I'm not going to kill them, just rough 'em up a bit. There is another Chunin exam in another six months."

"What about the scrolls though… senpai?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto's smirked widened, "The first one my clone's come across that doesn't look like ours will bring back to us. The rest of the scrolls just means that even if teams are able to get past us, not as many that could have will be able to." Sasuke nodded in understanding. Kinda cruel, but like Naruto said, another one will come up in the next six months.

After they cut the chit chat, they continued on. Naruto would get occasional bursts of information in his head of particularly strong opponents who had defeated clones of Naruto. Only four really stood out, the rest of Sasuke's and Sakura's rookie class and a team from Sunagakure. Team Eight was definitely impressive. Hinata's Byakugan picked out his clone effortlessly, but even if that had failed, Kiba's nose or Shino's bugs would have given him away. They were surprised that the clone was there. They assumed that his team had been devastated and that he was seeking refuge until he attacked. Once they started to take him seriously, they made quick work of the Naruto clone. Naruto gave a happy smirk when he noticed their confused gazes as he 'poofed' into nothing.

Team Ten was a different story altogether. Naruto severely doubted they would make it to the finals, let alone out there alive. Ino had no need to train and was belly-aching loudly about nature. Chouji just munched on a bag a chips as Shikamaru stared up at the clouds. The Naruto clone went full out against them, hoping to put them out of their misery quickly, but when the clone was about to deliver the 'killing' blow (knock-out punch), he tripped on a root and land on an out stretched, quivering fearfully fist belonging to Chouji. Naruto didn't know what was more pitiful, their team or the way his clone got dispelled.

The team from Suna… Naruto had no idea what happened. All he 'remembered' was landing in a clearing in front of them… then darkness. It worried him and he realized that they were definitely dangerous.

It didn't matter at the moment. It was approaching sunset and the makeshift Team Seven was about fifteen minutes away. Naruto was about to tell them this until a strong gust of wind, an abnormal gust, swept passed his team. Sasuke and Sakura were able to just jump to the side avoiding the blast, but Naruto wasn't so lucky. He was dead center in the gail, and just stayed in the clearing by applying chakra to his feet and sticking to the ground. He had various cuts all over his body, suggesting that the wind was indeed a ninjutsu. After the wind cleared, a female Kusa-nin emerged from the shadows, chuckling.

"Kukuku," she giggled as she emerged with a serpentine grace. "Quite the powerful bunch you are."

Sasuke and Sakura came from their respective bushes and flanked Naruto on each side. They watched in abject horror as their opponent poked themselves in the eye and focused such a raw amount of killer intent at them that it froze them in fear like a genjutsu. However, just as quickly as the jutsu was applied, Team Seven shook off the paralysis. Sasuke activated his Sharingan and Sakura gave a burst of chakra while shouting "Kai!" Naruto also dispelled the affects of the killing intent and upon raising his eyes, the Kusa-nin raised an eyebrow. 'Interesting, it seems the Kyuubi vessel survived the village's hate,' he/she thought.

"Interesting… doujutsu you have boy," she purred out, "what does it do?" Sasuke thought she was talking to him before realizing her eyes were on Naruto.

"That's my little secret," Naruto smirked at her, then seemingly addressing his team, "I'll tell you thing, it allows me to focus Killing Intent on to a victim, but in this case, it's useless."

"W-why?" Sakura choked out. She was surprised at the ferociousness of the Kusa-nin's Killing Intent, but also that Naruto seemingly had a doujutsu.

"Because," Naruto began, "there is no way I can match hers." The other two members of Team Seven raised their eyebrows. If he couldn't even match that with concentrated KI, they this person was way out of their league.

Before Team Seven could make plan for an escape, the Kusa-nin was already in their perimeter. She quickly kicked Sakura, who flew into a nearby tree, getting knocked dizzy. Naruto and Sasuke quickly regrouped and devised a make shift plan. "Me close, You far," Naruto said with poor grammar as Sasuke nodded as he got the gist of Naruto's plan. Naruto quickly engaged the Kusa-nin with his Hayaiken taijutsu style as Sasuke began to expertly pepper the Kusa-nin with fireballs, kunai, and shurikan.

Despite the theoretical greatness of the Hayaiken, Naruto couldn't land a punch, kick, or head butt; and could only dodge a third of the attacks the Kusa-nin threw at him. Sasuke was having a difficult time as well. His long range combat was, if anything, high Chunin caliber, having trained a significant portion of his life mastering various techniques he watched Itachi perform when he was little. However, the Kusa-nin expertly bent around his attacks or maneuvered Naruto in front of his onslaught at the last second.

Five minutes into the fight, Sasuke had to abandon his long range assault. It was at the point now that if he didn't start to conserve his weapons and chakra, he would have none if they survived this fight. Instead, Sasuke began to engage the Kusa-nin in taijutsu as well. It was a risky move, as only well established teammates would be able to coordinate their moves to maximize the attack. Instead of coordinating, Naruto fell back a little to look for an opening as Sasuke engaged in his own taijutsu. When it looked like Sasuke was start to fatigue, Naruto jumped back into the fray and Sasuke fell back. They did this a couple times, enough so that with his sharingan, Sasuke could interpret Naruto's taijutsu well enough to stay out of his way and actually press their double team.

Many people accused the Uchiha as being jutsu thieves. That term was popularized by the famous 'Copy-Nin' Kakashi, but in all actuality, most Uchiha's when they were alive never stole more than fifty. But the ability to 'steal' techniques vilified the Uchiha's in all but Konoha, and they weren't much better off there. Sasuke remembered his father told him that 'stealing' jutsus wasn't the important part of the Sharingan. The Sharingan's true purpose was understanding. The best ability, to Sasuke's father, was perception. Instead of 'copying' a jutsu, one could understand the way it work. Instead of slowing one perception to dodge attacks, one was given extra time to formulate a plan. Sasuke started to believe this was true in because of this fight as they eventually started to inflict damage on the Kusa-nin until it 'slurped' and dissolved into mud.

"Kukuku," a familiar voice rang out, "Impressive, you actually destroyed my mud clone." Naruto and Sasuke both looked bewildered when the nin emerged from a tree… and a little dejected that their battle was for nothing.

Sasuke never noticed as another tomoe appeared in his left eye, equaling each eye to two apiece. The Kusa-nin did, and seemed to salivate. He was however distracted by an impressive killer intent. Naruto was covered in a 'red' chakra and grew animalistic features.

"This is another part of my Kekkai Genkai," Naruto smirked at the Kusa-nin, who merely raised an eyebrow.

'He's the demon vessel… and doesn't even know it! How cute that he thinks he has a Kekkai Genkai,' the Kusa-nin thought. He hid his right hand behind his back, preparing his Gogoyo seal. As expected, with Naruto's increased animalistic urges, he jumped back into the fight before coming up with a plan with Sasuke. That was Naruto's mistake as the Kusa-nin's tongue snaked out and held Naruto in place as the Gogoyo seal was applied. "Sweet dreams, Naruto-kun," he purred out as he flung Naruto into a tree and slid down to the base.

Sasuke knew he didn't have a chance. He couldn't run, couldn't fight, couldn't protect his teammates. Resigned, he gritted his teeth and launched himself at the Kusa-nin. To his credit, he lasted five seconds longer than Naruto as the freaky nin wrapped itself around Sasuke, tripping up his foot work. The freaky shinobi gave Sasuke a little 'love' bite on the neck, which caused him to promptly to pass out. The Kusa-nin had to quickly dodge a swarm of kunai expertly thrown by an enraged Sakura who had come to moments before.

"What did you do to Sasuke, you sick freak!?" Sakura shrieked at the nin.

The nin finally chuckled once again as he had been doing since running into the group, except this time it was deeper. Sakura was repulsed to watch as the nin pulled his 'face' off, revealing a pale man with long black hair an yellow slitted eyes. "I marked Sasuke-kun. He is property of Orochimaru now. He is mine!" He purred to Sakura.

"W-what are you talking about?" Sakura asked as she started to stumble backwards.

"When he awakens, and wants more power, he will come to me. Tell him that I will be waiting," and with that, Orochimaru dissolved, once again, into mud.

Sakura had fortified her camp, with each of her teammates resting as comfortably as they could be. She had layered traps all around her camp, which would hopefully buy her time for the two boys to wake up.

'Snap' she heard a twig break and was instantly on alert. Next, one of her wires she rigged from outside to only alert her someone was coming. Sakura rushed outside to be greeted by three genin standing on the other side of the clearing. Before Sakura had a chance to react, the three genin opposite took point, and closed in on her battering her into a heap.

"Such pretty hair you have," the kunoichi of the team said as she wrenched Sakura up by her pink locks.

"W-wow," Sakura gasped out through pain as the other two sauntered up to her with identical smirks (or so she assumed, one had bandages wrapped around his face). "You guys are really good." This only boosted the ego of all three. "Compared to you guys I'm, I'm," Sakura stuttered out before letting her fearful face turn into an evil smirk, "fucking awesome." Then all hell broke loose.

AN: This was in the worst way, a big bitch to get out. If it seemed rushed at the end, it was, didn't want it to crap out on me, again. Beginning is going to be fairly familiar, but I'm looking forward to the future of this story, I already have a sequel planned, but all in good time.