He was almost there. He'd managed to escape the Forest without any problems, but he was still within the village, which meant he was still in danger. He wasn't sure why he knew that; the three monsters were still back in the forest, and they had no idea who he even was. Hell, even the people who did know him didn't know who he really was. Honestly, he could probably draw less attention to himself if he simply walked casually out the village gates as opposed to all of the sneaking and shifting through shadows like he was. There really shouldn't be any reason for him to be so paranoid.

That didn't stop Kabuto from being really, really paranoid, though.

But who could blame him? He'd just witnessed his master and, in his opinion, one of the most dangerous ninja on the planet, get slaughtered by a trio of children. A trio of horrible, vicious, inhuman children.

In hindsight, he realized he probably should have tried to collect some of Orochimaru's remains. Maybe he could have figured out some way of resurrecting him, a thought which made him frown.

"Perhaps you should teach me how to perform Edo Tensei as well, Orochimaru-sama."

"Don't be silly, Kabuto. What need could you have for Edo Tensei? The only person you would ever need to use it on is me, and I think we both know that I won't be getting killed any time soon."

Once again: Hindsight.

Not that it mattered. Trying to gather any of his master's remains would have meant exposing himself to those three; and as much as he might want Orochimaru back, he wasn't going to be any help to anyone if he were brutally eviscerated right alongside him.

That didn't mean that he couldn't get revenge, however. Or rather, someone else could get revenge for him, since he had absolutely no intention of ever returning to this place in the future. He still had plenty of contacts that might be willing to help him out in a situation like this. All he had to do was get himself out of this accursed village without being noticed and-

"Going somewhere?"

Oh Goddamnit!

Turning around, he found himself staring not at the three nightmares from the forest, but rather their sensei, Hatake Kakashi.

"Shouldn't you be taking your exams right now, Yakushi-san?" the masked man calmly asked.

Kabuto didn't respond. He knew that he probably looked a bit suspicious; a 'genin' like him wandering out of the village by himself when he was supposed to be elsewhere. But at the same time, he'd always done a perfect job of covering his own tracks, and no one would have any reason to believe that he was secretly working for Orochimaru and Otogakure.

"Ah, but... I suppose if it were me, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near that forest either," Kakashi continued. "What with all the explosions and the giant snakes and the... butchering of one of the Sannin by those three adorable little killing machines of mine."

Again, Kabuto said nothing. He was starting to get a bad feeling...

"Adorable as they might be," he went on again, almost oblivious to the fact that he was even talking to someone other than himself. "They do make for so much extra work for me. They go and kill one of the most notorious missing nin in Konoha's history, and yet they don't even seem to care that it leaves me with the duty of... tying up any loose ends that they might have missed."

Kabuto bolted. He had no idea how he could have been found out like this, but he wasn't about to stick around and ask questions. All that mattered now was escaping, and he felt confident that if he could just make it to the trees-

A kunai burst through his chest.

And if the shock alone hadn't been enough to stop him in his tracks, the long black rope it was attached to and the tiny, retractable barbs on the kunai's handle that were now dug securely into his flesh certainly were.

"Get over here!"

The undercover agent barely had time to acknowledge his own lifeblood gushing from his body before he felt himself being roughly yanked back in the direction of his attacker. He came to a stop half-seated, half-lying on the ground at the feet of the Copy Ninja, who was staring at him through eyes that he now realized contained no pupils or irises.

As Kabuto's horrified and pain-ridden mind worked furiously to figure out a way to escape this predicament, Kakashi slowly raised the hand that wasn't still gripping the rope up to his face. In one swift motion, he lifted the mask and headband away.

Kabuto shrieked.

A bleach-white skull stared down at him, fire raging within its empty sockets, its jaw slightly open in a twisted mockery of a grin.

As much as Kabuto wanted to rip the barbed kunai from his chest with no regard to his own organs and run as fast as he could back to Oto so he could hide under his bed and never come back out again, his body was frozen on the spot, mesmerized by the hellish being towering over him; which was a shame because the skull chose that same moment to open its mouth wide and spit a gout of flame that immediately engulfed his entire body and just as quickly began burning him down to the bone and Kabuto screamed and screamed and screamed and he screamed so loud that it woke Kakashi up and there was still screaming still so much screaming dear sweet mother of all who was screaming!?

...Oh wait, it was him.

Scrambling out of bed, Kakashi ran (still screaming) to the bathroom, where he ripped his face-coverings away and ran his hands across his head while staring into the mirror. Skin: Check. Hair: Check. Nose: Check. Eyes (he poked them with his fingers; it hurt, but at least they didn't fall out to reveal fire-filled sockets): Check.

Once he concluded that everything was where it was supposed to be, his screaming died down and he collapsed into a miserable, quivering heap on the floor.

"I will not become what I hate. I will not become what I hate."

He continued his new mantra over and over as he tried to collect himself. This wasn't the first nightmare he'd had about his little monsters by a long shot; it was just that in the past all of those nightmares had been about him getting murdered by them. But ever since two days ago, when word had spread that the kids had gone so far as to take out Orochimaru himself, the dreams had changed. Now instead of just being killed, he found himself becoming one of them...

Being killed was much, much easier to deal with.

Finally gaining a semblance of control over himself, Kakashi picked himself up and began splashing cold water onto his face. Fortunately, the dream was already starting to fade into his subconscious, he couldn't even remember who the other person in it had been.

What he did know, was that he was going to have to head out for the forest base soon. The five days were up, and since he held no further delusions that his students might have perished in the forest, he knew they would be waiting for him.

Kakashi took one last look at his reflection, and for just a split second, he thought he saw a fiery skull grinning back at him.

"I need to get those creatures out of my life before they make me as insane as they are. But that's okay, because they're going to pass these exams, even if I have to murder everyone in charge and pass them myself."

xxx

Meanwhile, about three days running distance away from Konoha (quite impressive, in that he'd only left two days ago), Kabuto had the distinct feeling that someone was dancing on his grave.

xxx

The rest of the trip through the forest was relatively uneventful for Team Seven. After Anko and the other jounin left to make their reports, Naruto managed to poke Sasuke back to consciousness, who in turn dug Sakura out of the earth. The two members who actually required it spent the next twelve hours sleeping off their injuries while Naruto just sat unmoving beside them. Hell, he might have been asleep, too; it was kind of hard to tell. After that, they proceeded completely unhindered to the Forest Base with time to spare.

Of course, the reason why they faced no hinderances probably had to do with the army of Naruto clones combing the forest and systematically dismantling anyone that they came across before dispersing themselves.

So it wasn't with too much surprise that the only other teams to reach the base by the fifth day were the Suna siblings, Kabuto's two teammates, Team Gai, and-

"Ino-chaaa~n!"

The young blonde felt her sanity slip just a little bit further as she was suddenly tackle hugged from behind by the pink-haired abomination that called itself her friend. Shikamaru and Choji moved to hide behind Asuma, but were unable to since Asuma was already hiding behind them.

"I'm soooo glad you made it here," she squealed, vigorously rubbing her cheek against Ino's.

"H-heh, me too, S-s-sakura-ch-chan," she stammered pitifully, trying subtly and unsuccessfully to escape from the hug. "I uh, I was s-starting to hope- I mean worry! Not hope! Never hope! I was starting to worry that you weren't going to make it!"

Sakura smiled reassuringly. "Oh, we just hit a little snag about halfway here. Some ugly jerk crushed me with boulders and then buried me alive. But I'm better now!"

Ino gave an unnerving giggle. "Of... of course you are. Why wouldn't you be?"

"Well, at least we're all here and ready for the next rounds now." She paused, placing a finger to the side of her mouth in thought. "It's too bad Team 8 decided not to enter, then we'd have the whole gang."

xxx

"Have I ever mentioned that we have the best sensei in the world?" Inuzuka Kiba asked.

"Yes Kiba, and I've wholeheartedly agreed with you each time," Aburame Shino responded, sunlight reflecting off his dark glasses.

The two boys, along with their female teammate Hyuga Hinata, were laid out in a grassy field, just enjoying the bright sunny day. No worries about Chunin Exams, fighting for survival or dying painful, premature deaths. Akamaru rested peacefully on his master's chest, receiving the occasional scratch behind the ear as Kiba found shapes in the clouds. Shino's index finger was extended above him, where a bright purple butterfly perched. And Hinata hummed softly to herself, letting the grass tickle her bare feet.

Yes, it was a great day for Team 8.

"How many people do you suppose Naruto-kun has stabbed so far?"

An awkward breeze blew through, chasing the butterfly away and ruffling Akamaru's fur. The two boys slowly turned their heads to stare at their other teammate.

A small smile appeared on the young heiress's face. "I'll bet he's already stabbed at least twenty."

Well, all in all... still a pretty good day for Team 8.

xxx

"Yyyyyeah, about that," Ino started, summoning up all the willpower she had for this next bit. "We... won't actually be going on to the next round." All the willpower immediately fled when she felt Sakura's arm tighten around her.

"You what?"

The males of Team 10 took several steps back.

"W-w-w-we-"

"You have to go on to the next round!" Sakura insisted, pulling the blonde back to look her in the eyes. "We promised that we would become chunin together! We said we would do everything together!" She was shaking the poor girl by this point. "That's what best friends do! How can we be best friends if we don't do things together?!"

I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna-

"Wait, wait, wait! It's- it's not that we don't want to keep going!" Choji cried, having suddenly, and some might say 'stupidly', grown a backbone. "It's just that we lost our scrolls and the rules say you need both scrolls or you don't advance and since we don't have both scrolls that means we can't advance!"

Of course, by 'lost' he actually meant that he had personally chucked their scroll as hard as he possibly could in a random direction the moment they were out of sight from everyone else and then collectively hauled ass for the safe-house, not stopping for anyone or anything until they arrived.

Obviously, they had tried their best; Sakura certainly couldn't blame them for that.

"Oh, is that all?" Sakura asked.

It wasn't like they'd just given up or anything. Accidents happen. And besides... wait-

The pinkette reached into her basket, pulled out two scrolls, and dropped them into the blonde's lap. "Here you go."

Ino stared at the Heaven and Earth scrolls the same way she would stare at two cobras if they were currently on her lap. She looked up at Sakura, then back down at the scrolls, and back up again. "Wha?"

"Yeah, we found like, a dozen of them just lying on the ground on our way here," Sakura explained with a shrug. "Don't know how so many people could have just lost them like that; but hey, now you can stay in the Exams with me!"

"No! I-I-I mean, you can't just hand me the scrolls, can you? That's got to be against the rules, right?" She turned to Asuma. "RIGHT?"

Sakura shook her head. "The rules say that you have to be at the safe house with both scrolls by the fifth day. It's the fifth day, you're in the safe house, and now you have the scrolls."

"I can't argue with that," Asuma chimed in, pointedly ignoring the looks of betrayal on his student's faces. Technically, he could have argued plenty with it; he just wasn't going to. Let someone else spend a week of sleeping with the lights on if they had a problem with it.

Shockingly, nobody else did, apparently.

"See Ino-chan? Now you can stay in the exams with me!" Sakura happily informed her.

Ino twitched hard enough that it could have been a full-on convulsion, but forced a very, very fake smile onto her face just the same. "That's... that's great, Sakura-chan..." She turned back to her teammates. "Isn't that great, guys? Now we can stay in the exams. With Sakura-chan."

Choji fell to his knees, sobbing. Shikamaru pulled out a kunai, aimed it for his heart, and unfortunately was made to keep on living as Asuma wrestled it away from him.

xxx

While Sakura was busy bringing more (probably) unintentional trauma to Team Ten, a member of another team was cautiously approaching Naruto.

"Um, excuse me?"

Naruto slowly turned to see who was addressing him.

Tenten smiled awkwardly. "Hey, so uh... I know we're kind of in the middle of something here and this probably isn't the best time, but I was just curious..."

Naruto stared. He didn't really know the girl, though the headband said that she was Konohan like him. Didn't really matter anyway; The Flame wasn't angry, which meant she'd never killed, which also meant she didn't need punished and, therefore, was no concern of his.

She was still talking to him, though.

"It's just... I was wondering if I could maybe... see your knife?"

Naruto continued to stare. Tenten's nerves increased.

"The... the thing is, I'm kind of a weapons connoisseur myself, and after seeing you effortlessly slice through that Sound ninja's skull like it was water, I just thought maybe... you know?"

Naruto stared harder. Tenten felt sweat on her brow.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're kind of creepy?" she asked.

Naruto stared a moment longer before reaching into his sleeve and pulling out his knife. With painful slowness, he presented it to the girl, handle-first. With equal slowness, Tenten reached out to take it.

She nearly jerked her hand back the instant it came into contact with the weapon. Despite the handle being made of wood, it was still freezing cold to the touch and sent a chill through her body. She briefly wondered if it was the work of some seal on the weapon, or maybe if it was cursed, but curiosity won out over personal safety and she lifted the blade from its master's hand.

Tenten started trembling for a whole new reason: the opportunity to examine the craftsmanship of what had to be one of the most finely forged blades she'd ever...

She frowned, and turned her attention back to Naruto. "Is this some kind of joke?"

Naruto, of course, had no noticeable response.

"This can't possibly be the same knife as before," she accused, holding said knife up to avoid potential confusion.

"He only carries one," Sasuke offered, which startled Tenten again, as the boy's crouched posture and hair-hidden face had suggested he'd been asleep since the conversation started.

She looked back to Naruto for confirmation, which she didn't get. "But, that doesn't..." She shifted her gaze back to the knife in her hand, raising it to her face for closer inspection.

On top of being very rusty and poorly maintained, it looked almost as sharp as a butter knife. She was pretty sure that if she tried to throw it at a block of wood, it would bounce off. In fact, a block of wood would probably make a more intimidating weapon than this. Further inspection also proved herself wrong about any seals placed on it. It was just an old knife. But she had clearly seen him pierce that boy's brain with the weakest of thrusts, and if it wasn't the weapon itself that did it, that meant...

Her gaze returned once again to the boy in the druid robes, and an even more intense chill ran through her.

That meant that it was him. He was somehow able to turn this dull piece of metal into a lethal weapon. But how? Even she, with all her weapons knowledge, couldn't fight as effectively with a sub-par blade, and here he was walking around with a knife that might as well have been made of plastic and still...

She handed the knife back to him, shivering again at the sudden coldness when his hand brushed hers, and weakly returned to her teammates.

"Who was that?" Sakura asked as she rejoined the two boys.

Sasuke shrugged. "Some weird girl."

"What's her pain-to-pleasure threshold?"

"Forgot to ask. Body's still a little tingly from snake-guy's lightning, mind's a bit fuzzy, could probably use another nap..."

Talking ended as Kakashi chose that moment to make his own appearance in a puff of smoke.

"Sorry I'm late," he announced. "Have I missed anything?"

Everyone continued to stare at him in silence.

"What?"

"K-Kakashi-kun," Gai stammered. "Your... your face-"

Kakashi's hands flew to his face. "My face! What about my face? WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY FACE?"

Gai held his own hands up placatingly. "I- nothing, it's just... you're not wearing your mask."

The no-longer masked man's body sagged in relief. "Well of course I'm not wearing my mask, Gai. If I wore a mask, I wouldn't be able to tell what was underneath it."

Gai, and everyone else, wasn't really sure how to respond to that.

"So are we starting this thing now?" Kakashi casually asked.

"Indeed we are."

Everyone turned again to find the Hokage standing among them.

"Hm, more of you here than I expected," The old man commented, examining the small crowd. "Well, I can't just make all of you chunin, so I guess to see who deserves it most I'll just have you fight each other."

"Oh God, no," Team Ten whimpered together.

Sarutobi nodded. "Yes, that'll work. Seven randomly chosen battles with the winners going on to the finals. Hayate, make the preparations."

A short interlude later, the preparations were made.

"All right," the sickly Hayate announced. "The box on the -cough- ceiling will randomly select two people per round. Rules -hack cough- are simple: No holds barred, matches end on surrender or knockout, try not to kill anyone-"

Sakura pulled out a gun.

"-but if you absolutely have to kill someone, just try not to get blood everywhere. This place doesn't have a janitor and sometimes we use it to play basketball."

Sakura put the gun away.

"So, without further delay, let's start -cough- the first match."

Everyone turned their attention up to the name generator, where all the participant's names and faces were already cycling across the screen, finally coming to land on-

The collective group gasped.

Kakashi's heart nearly stopped.

"Um -cough hack cough-, Uchiha Sasuke versus Uzumak-"

A small bolt of electricity hit the screen, causing it to flicker for a moment before changing the second name and picture.

"...Er," Hayate looked up to the Hokage, who merely shrugged. "Okay then, Uchiha Sasuke versus Yoroi, I guess."

"Freakin' lame," Sasuke mumbled as he shambled down the stairway to the fighting area. Everyone genin who wasn't on Team 7 or named Yoroi sighed in relief.

Gai gave Kakashi a reproachful look. "Kakashi-kun, that wasn't-"

"They. Will. ALL. Pass," the unmasked man hissed sharply, leaving Gai at a loss for words a second time.

Down on the floor, Yoroi was doing his best to work up a strategy. Getting matched against one of the freaks was bad, but at least he'd gotten the weakest of the bunch. Sure, he had that crazy blue fire and a Sharingan, but at least he wasn't damn near immortal like the blonde or carrying an entire armory around like the girl.

Still, fighting him would be difficult; his best weapon was his chakra draining technique, and in order for that to work he would have to touch him. But staying in close would be fatal... a hit-and-run tactic would be his best bet for victory. The only real question was which of them was faster?

"Sasuke versus Yoroi: Begin!" Hayate commanded.

Hoping to take the initiative, Yoroi immediately Shunshin'ed into action, charging toward his foe, grazing a hand across his shoulder, and continuing on past him. Stopping, he turned back to see Sasuke still standing in the same spot, slowly turning to face him again.

Emboldened by his success, Yoroi repeated the process three more times with no resistance or retaliation from Sasuke. Yoroi actually smirked, he could already feel his body tingling from the chakra he'd absorbed.

"Well, maybe you're not as bad as everyone claims you are, Uchiha," he gloated. "Here I'd heard all kinds of rumors about you and your teammates somehow killing Orochimaru himself, but now I have to wonder just how much you actually had to do with that. I mean, if you can't even manage to keep up with me, there's no way you-"

"Why are you still talking?" Sasuke interrupted, sounding bored and causing Yoroi to sneer.

"Oh? In a hurry for me to finish you off? And I thought you were the one who always enjoyed throwing out creative death threats during your fights."

Sasuke shrugged. "What I actually meant was that I tore out your liver the first time you ran past me, and I'm a little shocked that you're still alive much less able to run your mouth so much."

"...My... my liver?"

Sasuke held up the bloody organ in question. "I think this is a liver, anyway. Pancreas maybe? I don't know, I'm not that good with anatomy. Pretty sure it's vital, whatever it is. In any case, you wanna finish bleeding out so I can go take a nap?"

Yoroi stared down at the how-the-Hell-did-I-not-notice-that sized hole in his torso, and then did as he was asked and promptly fell over dead.

The whole exchange took thirty-seven seconds.

"Well, that certainly happened. Winner: Sasuke," Hayate announced.

"Wow," Kakashi said, his calm voice belying the violence he'd just witnessed. "That was surprisingly less gruesome than I was expecting."

Sasuke must have heard him, because he lit the organ still in his hand on fire, burning it to a crisp, then bit a chunk off and tossed the remainder away.

"Oh now you're just being an asshole," Kakashi sighed in tired acceptance.

"That wasn't considered gruesome?" Gai asked his unmasked friend.

Kakashi laughed humorlessly. "Compared to what I'm still expecting from the other two?"

Sakura grinned. Naruto stared. Gai sweatdropped.

Gaara, who had been lost in his own little world (again) for the last two days since having his connection cut off from Shukaku by Naruto (again), turned to his sensei.

"Baki, can we go home now?"

And Baki sweatdropped, too.

xxx

xxx

Please Read

Gonna be completely honest with you guys here: the Naruto fandom lost my interest a long time ago. I haven't read the manga/watched the anime in over two years now, and I haven't read a new fanfic in more than one year. Writing for the series is getting harder and harder for me (as you no doubt could probably tell from the six months since my last update), and the only reason I haven't dropped this fic and moved on already is because I'm still having some fun with it, and it's very near to being completed.

So, I'm going to do my best to finish up this story, but after that, I can't guarantee anything for my older Naruto fics (Hiraishin, PoS). I'm really not feeling anything for either of them anymore (and rereading through PoS makes me cringe, to be honest), but I'll let you all know about my final decision later.

For now, hope you enjoyed this long overdue chapter and, as always, more will be up when it's written.

Til then.

LL