dopliss: We´re closing in on who the person attacking our heroes is.
Mizuki: But will there be any prices to pay?
dopliss: (deadpan) Why ask when everyone knows it?
Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine! Honestly!
"Okay, so anyway," Naruto said, "what is the password, again?"
"Forget it, I know it´s you," Sakura responded. "You made it!"
"Naruto! Get out of here!" Sasuke warned, still scared out of his senses by the grass ninja. "What´re you thinking? You don´t know what you´re up against! Hurry! Go now, while you still can!"
"So, Naruto, you managed to escape from my friend," the grass ninja said. "Well done."
Naruto understood what the woman meant. I get it. So, that wasn´t just any random giant snake attack. The snake was sent by her, or it, or whatever this demon is.
The woman looked directly at Naruto, but then she spotted Torabu behind him. That is quite a unique specimen, she thought.
He doesn´t get it, Sasuke thought. He doesn´t know what he´s dealing with. What do I do?
"Okay, okay," Naruto began, "I don´t know what´s going on here, but you´ve been picking on my friends, and I don´t like that. So you better slither on back to your home, snake-lady, before I make a pair of shoes out of ya!"
Sasuke was shocked. That little idiot! He´s just gonna get the three of us killed! I´ve got to do something, but what?
Sakura could easily see the anxiety in Sasuke´s face.
Torabu looked at the grass ninja. I knew that there was something fishy about that woman. Who is she?
Sasuke did his best to come up with a plan, but it was futile. It´s no use. There´s only one way. He then looked down. "You can have it!" he said and pulled out his team´s scroll. "The scroll, right? That´s what you want. Alright, then! Take it and leave us in peace!"
The genin were all shocked, but the woman merely smirked. "Sasuke, are you crazy or what?" Naruto yelled. "You´re gonna just hand over the scroll to the enemy? No way! What´s wrong with you?"
"Shut up and stay outta it!" Sasuke returned.
"Very wise. Very sensible," the woman said. "Sometimes, the helpless prey, if they are to save their own skins, realize that their only hope is to distract the predator with something even more precious." She turned to face Sasuke.
"Take it!" Sasuke then threw the Heaven scroll over to the woman, much to the shock of his teammates.
Naruto, not wanting to give up so easily, leaped from the branch he stood on, caught the scroll midair, jumped off of the trunk of another tree, and landed behind Sasuke. "Stop playing the damn hero!" Sasuke roared. "Just stay outta this and leave it to me!"
Fed up with his friend and rival, Naruto turned around and punched Sasuke across his left cheek, making him spit up blood. Sasuke jumped off of the branch and landed on another one further away. "Stupid fool! You don´t know what you´re doing!"
Naruto panted while calming down. "I may not know the password, but I know who I am… You´re the one I´m not so sure about… How do I know you´re who you say you are?"
"What do you mean?" Sakura asked. "It´s him! Don´t be so stupid!"
"What sort of nonsense is this?" Sasuke asked. "It´s me, you loser!"
"Liar…" Naruto growled. "Liar! You may look just like him… you may sound just like him… but there´s no way you´re the Sasuke I know! I don´t care how tough a fight you´ve been through… Surrendering… giving up the scroll… When did Sasuke become a coward? You keep saying that I don´t know what´s going on, but I do! You choke, that´s what it is!"
The woman chuckled and stood up, her legs returning to normal. "Sad, but true," she said. She then licked her lips with her snake tongue. "It doesn´t matter…" She then rolled up her left sleeve, revealing a snake-tattoo. "…as far as the scroll goes, I can simply just kill you and take it." She then bit hole in her right thumb and drew a line of blood across the tattoo.
Naruto growled and ran towards the woman, kunai in hand. "Let´s see you try it!" he yelled.
"DON´T! Naruto, NO!" Sasuke warned.
Naruto just ignored his friend´s warning and leaped at his opponent, who made hand-seals.
"Summoning Jutsu!" the woman exclaimed.
Suddenly, a strong wind burst surrounded the woman, and then a giant snake appeared out of nowhere!
"NARUTO!" Sakura screamed in horror.
The snake reeled back, and then charged at Naruto, but the boy jumped out of harm's way, and the reptile crashed into a tree.
The cat-boy gritted his teeth. "This is where I put my hand down!" he said and prepared to join the fight.
Meanwhile, at the village graveyard, three examiner ninjas had gathered and looked at something. Blood had sprayed out over a Buddha statue. "That is no way to treat a Buddha," one of the ninjas said.
"What do you think?" another asked the first about what they found. "It´s some kind of Ninjutsu, isn´t it?"
"Well, whatever it is, it´s a problem," the third said. "Just when things were running so smoothly… What a drag."
The thing that they found was really three dead bodies, looking strangely like the female grass ninja and her two teammates! "We´ve gotta report this," the third of them said. "Get the proctor."
"Right!" the first one said and disappeared.
Anko sat on top of the stand where the genin teams all got their scrolls, enjoying her lunch. "Mmm-mmm! Nothing makes dumplings go down like a little sweet red bean soup," she sighed as she took a sip off of her soup. "Ahh! Nice!" She ate another dumpling. "Guess it´s about that time. Soon as I finish this snack, I´ll see how the kiddies are doing." She finished her dumplings. "The quicker ones should be finishing soon. I suppose I´ll just greet them at the tower." She threw the empty stick her dumplings were on at a tree, adding to many others she had thrown to stick them in it like a kunai. She had stuck in so many sticks in the tree so they formed Konoha´s symbol. "There! A perfect symbol!" she giggled.
A puff of smoke appeared before her, and then the ninja that left the cemetery appeared. "Pardon, ma´am. There´s a problem," he said.
"Hmm? What sort of problem?" Anko asked, slightly annoyed.
"Corpses, ma´am. Three of them."
"Come on, I´m trying to eat, here."
"I think you want to see them, there´s something strange about them."
Anko swallowed the food in her mouth. "Besides being dead?" she asked.
The ninja brought Anko to the graveyard. "I searched through their belongings, found their identification," one of the ninjas explained. "Ninjas from the hidden grass village. All three of them were registered for the Chunin Exams. They weren´t just killed…"
Anko grimaced at the sight. "All their faces… they´re gone…"
"Yeah… There´s nothing where their faces used to be, like they melted or something," the same ninja said.
Anko reached up to touch the back of her neck. No doubt about it… This is HIS Jutsu. Why is he here? What´s he doing here at the Chunin Exams? She was slightly scared. "Okay! I need photos of what these three used to look like! Where´s their IDs?"
"Right here, ma´am!" one of them said and gave her the IDs.
Anko looked at the picture of the female grass ninja with clenched teeth. So this is the face that he stole…! Had it already happened when…? She then remembered how the female grass ninja returned her kunai. "We´ve got big trouble!" she said. "Okay, get moving! Tell Lord Hokage exactly what happened here! And while you´re at it, tell ANBU black ops they better get a couple of convoys to the Forest of Death!" She turned away. "Meanwhile, I´m gonna head in after these guys! Now, go!"
"Right!" the three ninjas said and disappeared.
Anko could not help but to feel fear. He´s come… He´s here in Konoha!
Naruto panted hard as he stared at the humongous serpent in front of him. The grass ninja chuckled. "What a tasty little meal you´ll make for him," she said. "Careful, he likes to play with his food."
Then, two kunai hit the snake´s back, catching its attention. It turned and stared at Torabu. "How ´bout you go for a little appetizer first?" he asked with a smirk.
The reptile hissed and lashed out with its tail, intending to hit the troublemaking ninja. The cat-boy jumped to dodge, landed on the tail, stabbed it with a kunai, and ran up the snake´s body, slicing in it while doing so. The serpent then made a strong upwards motion that sent Torabu into the air. The beast then lunged at its airborne prey and opened its mouth.
"What would good meat be without IRON?" Torabu grunted and threw a few shuriken into the snake´s mouth, which managed to cut off its uvula!
The snake hissed in pain, but its tail lashed in reaction to its damages and smacked Naruto upwards. "NARUTO!" the boy's friends screamed in shock.
Naruto crashed through several thin branches before colliding with a thick one, coughing up blood upon the impact and getting knocked out. The woman chuckled. "Enough playing, finish him off," she said to the serpent.
Torabu landed on a tree branch and cursed as he watched Naruto slowly fall. "Dammit! I´m too far away and I´m not fast enough to get to him in time!"
Everyone believed Naruto to be doomed, but then he opened his eyes to reveal them to be red with vulpine irises. He flipped rightside-up when he was close enough, yelled "Eat this!" and delivered a crescent-kick to the snake´s nose.
The woman stared into Naruto´s eyes in shock. "But how? It´s impossible!" she said.
Naruto then went ballistic on the serpent and threw several punches to its nose, screaming in rage all the while.
"Look at him, he´s gone nuts," Sakura whispered to herself. "Whoa! Where did he get that power all of a sudden?"
Torabu could not believe his eyes, either. What´s gotten into him? He then realized what happened. Is this… due to being the vessel of the Kyubi…? Is that what´s making him act like that? He then remembered Sairento and Konran stating that he went ballistic himself during his fight with Takai. Is this what they mean? Did I act like that? But… why? I don´t have anything in me like Naruto does.
The snake shook Naruto off of it, but the boy leaped off of another tree and headed towards the woman. The woman smiled, held up her left hand, and blew a big red cloud of dust at Naruto, which made him stop midair and fall down through some thin branches and land on a thicker one.
"That fire in his eyes… There´s no mistaking it!" the woman realized.
Sasuke was also impressed. "Whoa…! Is that… Naruto?"
Ooh… things have gotten very interesting, the woman thought. "Now, then…" She turned to look at Sasuke. "…let´s see how you do, Sasuke."
The snake turned and lunged at Sasuke. Paralyzed with fear, the boy was unable to move.
Anko leaped from branch to branch through the forest. This could be bad… she thought. Gotta hurry! And pray I´m not too late!
The woman smiled as she looked at what had happened. Before the snake could have devoured Sasuke, Naruto had jumped up, and stabbed a kunai into the serpent´s nose, which caused it to bite down too early and hit the tree branch. Naruto panted as he held on to his kunai. He stood right in front of the frightened Sasuke. "Hey, kid…" he said. "You´re not hurt, are you… you scaredycat?"
Sasuke´s eyes widened as he stared into Naruto´s red, vulpine eyes. He then remembered that he had made the exact same mockery-question.
"Standing there, frozen like a frightened rabbit…!" Naruto growled. "No way! You´re not the Sasuke I know!" Just then, a very long tongue crept down to Naruto, bound him, and lifted him in the air! It belonged to the woman! "Hey! Oh, man! Disgusting! Put me down before I yank this tongue out of your head!"
The woman held Naruto with her tongue right in front of her. Extraordinary! So, the nine-tailed brat lives… she thought. She then made hand-seals and looked him straight in the eyes. "I see… When your anger is aroused, some of the Kyubi´s chakra is released." Then, purple flames appeared on the fingertips on her right hand! Each of the flames had a different kanji in them. They were the Chinese Five Elements: Metal, Fire, Wood, Wind, and Water. "What an interesting childhood you must have had." She moved the tip of her tongue to lift in Naruto´s shirt, revealing the Kyubi´s seal on his stomach. "The spell that seals it within you has appeared on your skin." She then moved her right hand back. "Five Pronged Seal!" she yelled and slammed her hand into his stomach.
Naruto screamed as the purple flames burned into his skin and made five marks around his seal.
"Sasuke! Hurry!" Sakura screamed. "Do something!"
Sasuke could do nothing but stare in shock.
Torabu gritted his teeth. If I attack, she might kill him right then and there.
Naruto felt his powers fading, his eyes returned to normal, and he lost consciousness.
For twelve years, the seal has remained unbroken, the woman thought. Soon, the demon´s chakra and the boy´s will be as one. She then reached into Naruto´s pocket and pulled out the Heaven scroll. But for now, he´s just in my way. She then used her tongue to toss Naruto away.
Torabu, quick to react, leaped at and caught Naruto, and landed on another branch, making sure that his friend would be safe. He then directed hi attention towards his other friends. "Sasuke, what´s wrong with you?" he shouted.
Sakura turned and looked at the scared boy. She then yelled, "Okay, say what you like about Naruto! That he´s a pest; that he gets in the way; that he´s just a kid… But at least he´s… he´s doing something!" Tears fell from her eyes. "At least… he´s no coward!"
That statement reached through to Sasuke´s mind. He then remembered his ultimate goal: to kill his own brother. "Foolish little brother, you can´t kill me," he heard his brother´s voice in his head. "Your hate´s not strong enough. You´re not strong enough. Your life is too precious to you. So, run. That´s right, run away… and live. Live with the shame."
"NO!" Sasuke shouted and revealed his Sharingan Eyes.
Hmm, it happened at last, the woman thought. His Uchiha blood has finally come to a boil.
"That´s more like it…" Sakura whispered.
The woman got into a fighting position. I think I´ll play with him a little… and learn the full extent of his powers. She then mentally laughed and made her snake disappear.
Team 7´s lives were now in Sasuke´s hands. Will he be able to save them? And who is this person that Anko is worried about?
dopliss: One more chapter until the reveal, folks!
Mizuki: What reveal? Every fan of Naruto already knows who this person is!
dopliss: Maybe, but this is for those who don´t.