A/N: I am so, so, so, so, SO, so, so so sorry this took so long. Real life obligations and really ugly bouts of depression happened. It should get better soon. To be honest, what I'm posting here has been done for months, but my original plan was to go on for longer, but I just realized that I could never wrap this up in under 15k words, and while I am way more relaxed about chapter length than I was when I started writing 10 years ago (when a chapter with more than 3k was considered just a bit too long), I'll probably take some time to get there, and figured that this worked as a chapter on its own. This is when the fanfiction starts featuring OCs. They don't hijack the story or take over or anything, but they're there. Be warned.
21. Uninvited
"I can't believe our exam is so predictable," Naruto pointed out just after they had entered the Forest of Death for the second time in their lives. "This is literally the exact same thing as two years ago."
"Don't complain, at least we're prepared now," Sakura said, looking around. Foliage, trees, more trees, giant roots. Yeah, the exact same environment. "I assume you all have water bottles with you so we won't have to find a water source immediately?"
"You wrote me a list," Naruto answered. "I know you don't think much of my intellectual abilities, but I can definitely read."
"And we still might want to do that," Sasuke added. "I don't want to stay in this forest longer than I have to."
"So we just go to where most people will be headed at this point and then take out the first team we find?" Sakura deduced from his suggestion. "Alright, not a bad idea."
"We could split up and scout out this area first," Naruto suggested, with a shit-eating grin that only intensified when Sakura stared at him in horror and Sasuke in annoyance. "Hey, at least we won't have to come up with fancy passwords this time around!"
"Absolutely not," Sakura said fiercely. "Splitting up didn't work well for us the last time and with the amount of probably especially hostile enemies in this forest..."
"What do you mean with especially hostile?" Naruto asked. "The goal is to take another team out and take their scrolls. Everyone's hostile."
"Well, there are teams that might be reasoned with," Sakura clarified. "Ino's and Hinata's team come to mind, and maybe even Tenten's, though they'd be the most likely to take us on. Then there are teams who are here simply to compete, like hopefully all teams from Suna, and those from minor villages which may or may not have an actual agenda. Those are especially hostile."
"So you agree they're up to something," Sasuke picked up their earlier conversation again. Sakura rolled her eyes.
"Not exactly," she said. "But there are a lot of them here, which is suspicious, they all should be especially pissed at Konoha after everything, and the last time I thought you were just being paranoid, you were actually onto something, so I have decided to trust your instincts more." She bit her lips after admitting that. "Well, and it never hurts to be safe."
"What was your plan, then?" Sasuke asked, looking just a little bit pleased by her words. "You didn't want to immediately go for the water source."
"I'd just roam the forest for a bit, maybe get close to the center already," she answered, trying not to feel flattered that he wanted to hear her opinion. "I mean, sure, at this point nobody there will actually have the two scrolls required, but once we get our second scroll, we reduce the time of vulnerability to the other teams significantly with a shorter way to travel to the center and make ourselves less of a target. And yes, I also don't want to spend one moment longer than necessary here." And since they were being cordial, she turned towards Naruto. "What do you think? Or were you actually serious about splitting up?"
"Nah, that was to mess with you and lighten the mood," Naruto answered, looking both surprised and really happy to be asked for his opinion. "And I don't know, what you guys suggest does make a lot of sense, like, both approaches. And I mean, I do like a good fight, but because of what you guys said about Kusa ninjas and all that, I think we should just avoid causing a big scene or something, and go where there are targets but not too many of them. Dunno whether that's at the tower or the water source, though."
"The tower," Sakura immediately answered. Sasuke nodded. "Though depending on where we are, it's likely we're going to cross the river flowing through this forest before we get there, so we'll likely come across both places anyway. We just need to get moving towards the center."
And so they did just that, travelling in silence for about an hour or two without encountering either the water source or the tower. Or any other teams, for that matter. All these things were a bit strange and didn't help the uneasy feeling being in this forest caused Sakura to have regardless of other circumstances. They were travelling at full speed, and the forest wasn't this big, and... Aw, fuck.
"Hold on!" Sakura called out. Her teammates stopped in the trees before her, looking at her expectantly.
"Something wrong?" Naruto asked.
"How long have we been travelling?" Sakura asked back.
"Dunno, not that long, thirty minutes, maybe?" Naruto guessed.
"Shit," Sakura cursed. "Sasuke, what do you think?"
"Almost an hour," he answered. "Why?"
"My gut tells me it's been longer than that," she explained, looking around uneasy. "Sasuke, please scan the area with your headlights."
Scoffing at the term, Sasuke activated his Sharingan and looked around.
"Shit," he echoed her previous sentiment and immediately formed a release seal. Sakura did the same.
"Wait, what are you guys - " Naruto started asking, then seemed to connect the dots himself. "Oooooh," he made and also did the release sign.
To their credit, their environment didn't change much at all. That was good. Less good was the fact that the position of the sun told them it was at least late afternoon. Really not good was that one exam participant, according to his headband from Taki, was crouching in a tree in their general vicinity, and as soon as they had broken out of the very weak illusion, he let out a loud and shrill whistle that was answered in the surrounding trees. A lot. He even managed to dodge the kunai Sasuke immediately threw at him and dove out of the way, towards where Naruto was standing.
"High ground!" Sakura screeched, hoping the other two would get her tactical approach; they were likely to get swarmed by a large number of enemies, at least make them work for it. Naruto at least had no time to react to her suggestion, as he was too busy fighting off his first assailant, though swarming him was close to impossible anyway.
Sasuke at least shot up right next to her, looking incredibly pissed at how stupid they had been to walk right into this trap. Well, as far as genjutsus went, it was a pretty good one; probably area based, and it screwed around with their perception of time and direction, Sakura noted, as she broke through the foliage and spotted that they had made it only a few kilometers from their starting point before taking a very abrupt left turn instead of getting closer to the center. Apparently, the enemy had tried to lure them there and kept other enemies, be they shinobi or local wildlife, in check to lull them into a false sense of security.
A quick look at the sky also told her that they'd all been off regarding the time they'd spent trying to get to the center; the position of the sun suggested it had at least been three or four hours, so they had likely taken some detours they hadn't noticed either. It also was the only explanation as to how the other teams had been able to split up as efficiently as they did, judging from the numerous single enemies that now made their way to them. And then something hit her from behind and tackled her back towards the trees. Sakura was thrown down into a tree crown while one of the enemies held onto her back to drag her with them, and probably would have succeeded to smash her onto some large branch or even the ground further down, had she not been able to latch onto a tree branch using chakra in her hands, the same way she did with her feet when walking up a tree. This sudden maneuver caught her attacker by surprise, who lost his hold on her momentarily while the force built up from falling and suddenly stopping almost tore out Sakura's arms. He managed to hold onto her left foot, and wasted no time drawing a kunai and cutting her leg open; luckily too low to reach her calf and too high to cut the tendons of her foot, and so failed to do any significant damage. It still stung like hell. Sakura drew chakra towards her other foot and kicked against the hand her opponent was holding onto her with. He screamed out and she could hear a very nasty crunch where she had probably completely shattered the bone. And while the momentum wasn't easy on her shoulders and arms either while still latching onto the branch above her, the maneuver did get the guy off her leg and made him fall down and come down on another, far lower branch with a crunch even nastier than the one of his crushed hand. Well then. At least he was out of commission.
Unlike the kunoichi that was now launching herself at her hanging form, sword pointed forward. Sakura luckily saw her coming early enough to only swing to the side at just the right moment for the other girl to fly right past her, and to swing herself against the back of her newest assailant, feet first, making them both crash through the foliage until another branch caught their fall, Sakura using the body under her feet to launch herself up before the impact. That was another one down, judging by the ugly sound the kunoichi's spine made under her feet as she came down as well. And it only left her almost halfway to the ground, with no significant high ground to speak of given how freakishly tall the trees were, and no less than five new opponents on the exact branch she had come down on, who had apparently been about to attack Naruto, who was fighting about seven more enemy shinobi on the ground under her with the help of his clones.
At least now she was on some form of solid surface again; all that jumping and swinging around had made Sakura increasingly dizzy. But not too dizzy to draw a kunai just in time to block one of the Kusa ninjas' blades, and then ducking in an attempt to get the five of them to crash into each other as they all lunged at her simultaneously. It didn't quite work, but left her with a nice opening to take out a page of her first attacker's book and slice at her opponents' legs, rupturing at least one femoral artery on someone who had left their thighs completely uncovered by cloth of any variety. At least Sakura wore leggings there most of the time, made of sturdier material than they looked. When one of them tried to grab her, she used him as a backdrop to kick another one off their branch, though that wasn't likely to cause permanent injury on them as most ninjas, when not completely surprised or in a high amount of pain, actually knew how to fall and land without breaking anything. She then used her chakra-enhanced power to swing back her legs and come down hard on the ground, dragging the guy holding her up down with her before getting rid of him with a judo throw. The sword guy was back at her now, though, and the girl whose femoral artery she had cut open had tied up her leg and was attacking her, too. So at least they taught their genins first aid in the other villages, even if they didn't do healers there. But for some reason, she didn't exactly feel happy about that, since when she moved out of the lunge the sword guy tried to skewer her with, she accidentally got too close to that very kunoichi and was rewarded with a kunai in the back. Wait, no, not actually the back, more like the side. It still hurt like hell, though, and Sakura's immediate reaction was to elbow-check the other girl as hard as she could, then whipping around, gritting her teeth to ignore the sharp pain in her right side, and punching the girl in the face, hard enough to throw her back against the tree trunk, which she hit with a loud thunk and went down, unconscious.
Sword guy was at it again, attempting to slice at her other side from behind, but Sakura pulled out her tanto and blocked the longer blade, turning around in the process. Using brute strenght, which was extremely unseemly in a sword fight and probably would have made Sasuke cringe indignantly, she pushed down the other guy's sword until the angle was too awkward for his wrist to handle and he dropped it, leaving him too distracted to anticipate the punch she threw with her left hand, which broke his jaw with yet another ugly crunch and also knocked him out cold. And then the fifth person, another kunoichi, came out of cover from behind him and knocked Sakura's legs away from under her with a sweeping kick. She hit the branch, hard, narrowly avoiding landing on the Kunai still stuck in her side and driving it in deeper, while the other girl lifted her own sword to bring it down on her. And then her opponent froze.
Literally.
A thick coating of ice started growing from her skin, spreading out within seconds until it was encasing her entire body, her face frozen in horror. Also literally. All around them, other ninjas from Kusa and Taki fell out of the trees, frozen as well, hit the ground and shattered. So did the girl who had just been attacking Sakura a split second after her comrades hit the floor, the shards of what had once been her body flying away as if she'd been hit by a wrecking ball, causing small cuts in Sakura's face.
She couldn't breathe; the cold and horror of what she had just witnessed had knocked the breath right out of her, freezing her in place, thankfully not literally, staring at what remained of what had been a person just a few seconds ago. Who could do that? Just... Just freeze an entire person over and then shatter them like they'd never been flesh and bone to begin with?
Sakura looked around frantically, trying to figure out where this attack had come from, but only spotting Naruto on the ground level, surrounded by ice shards that had been people too, but thankfully looking mostly unharmed and definitely not frozen.
"Guys?" He called out, sounding as if he was fighting the urge to vomit. "Are... Are you okay?"
Sakura jumped down from her branch, landing next to him.
"Yes," she assured him, not yelling, even though Naruto had most certainly alerted whoever else was in the vicinity. "You?"
"You have a kunai stuck in you," Naruto pointed out. "I'm just a bit banged up, maybe take care of yourself first. And where's Sasuke?"
"All clear," the very same answered, hitting the ground beside them at just that moment. "No more hostiles in our immediate environment."
"Except for the person who just froze everyone," Sakura pointed out, her voice shriller than it should have been.
"Not everyone," Sasuke argued, and pulled two sky scrolls from his pocket, handing each of them one. "The ones we knocked out weren't frozen. Each of you take one of these, I got two earth scrolls with me."
"Give Naruto one of those, instead," Sakura ordered him. "So the two of us have a complete set. Did you see who did this?" She waved her hand at the frozen remains of Naruto's foes without looking at them.
"That would be us," a strangely melodic voice answered, and a group of Kiri ninjas, two teams to be exact, emerged from the underbrush beside them, looking only slightly disheveled. "Sorry to scare you," the guy in the very middle continued. He not only had a voice that sounded a bit too old for his body, but also short purple hair and very bright eyes, which remained somehow unaffected by the consoling smile he was giving them. "And you should take care of that wound now, it looks quite bad." He pointed at where the kunai was still sticking out of Sakura's side. The horror of the shattering opponents had made her completely forget about the pain, which now abruptly came rushing back to her as Sasuke yanked the thing out of her, while at the same time walking past her and drawing his sword at the kiri ninjas.
"What do you want?" He asked them roughly, ignoring the way Sakura was cursing at him for what he'd just done while she now had to heal the wound using chakra. Had the kunai stayed inside, she might have been able to treat it without and withdraw the kunai gently, but no...
"Now, now, put that down, we don't mean you any harm," the purple haired guy said, apparently speaking for all the others, though Sakura did notice how the two guys flanking him had had their hands their own swords as soon as Sasuke had drawn his. "We were ganged up on by these cretins, same as you."
"And you... Froze them?" Naruto asked, gaping at the strangers.
"Ah, no, not me," the guy declined. "That honor went to Yuki here." He stepped aside a bit and revealed a relatively short girl with bright blue hair. The two of them stuck out of the group, as the rest of them had black or brown hair and looked entirely unremarkable.
"If you're victims of this, whatever it is, too, then how did you find the other team from your village so fast?" Sakura asked suspiciously, finishing up the wound but leaving a scar. Healing it completely would be too much of a hassle, cost too much chakra, and she was combat ready as it were.
"Eiji is a sensor," the only talking guy explained and nodded at another guy behind him. "He felt what was going on, figured there'd be safety in numbers and went to find us. That's also how we found you."
"And you just randomly decided to help us out," Sakura concluded.
"Oh no," the guy answered, his eyes now narrowing a little as his smile turned into more of a smirk while he looked at her intently. "No, there is certainly nothing random about you, Haruno Sakura."
Okay. So he knew her name. That wasn't creepy at all.
"Alright then," she said, voice a little more high pitched than she would have liked. "Thank you for your help."
"Not that we needed it," Sasuke added, his usual diplomatic self.
"Who are you?" Naruto asked, apparently not getting Sakura's intent to get away from these people, fast. "And how do you know us?"
"How indeed, Uzumaki Naruto," the guy said, looking at him mockingly. "How could anyone ever hear of your team outside the confines of Konoha, I wonder? What could the three of you possibly have done to... Earn a bit of a reputation, hm?"
"I don't think reputations usually come with a way to know who we are just by sensing our chakra," Naruto argued. "But uh, whatever. Now who are you?"
"Yasume," he answered, managing to both sound melodic and polite and like he was hissing sharply at the same time. "No last name. At your service." He did a mocking bow in Sakura's general direction.
"Alright, Yasume-san," Sakura said carefully. "Thank you again. But I'm afraid we must be off now, it was a pleasure meeting you though." With that she started slowly backing away and pulling Naruto with her, though she made it a point to keep an eye on Yuki to maybe anticipate any of her freezing moves. Whether that would actually help her avoiding those was a different matter entirely.
"Well, that's quite unfortunate," Yasume called after her. "Rumor has it you are many things, Haruno Sakura, and stupid isn't supposed to be one of them."
Don't take the bait, Sakura told herself. Do not take the bait. You do not want to know.
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Naruto took the bait in her stead. "Sakura-chan is, like, the second most smartest person I know, coming right after a guy with an IQ of 200, and that's cheating, so you take that back!"
"Naruto, let's just go," Sakura hissed and tried to pull him along once more.
"What I mean is that we are in a very large forest, filled to the brim with imbeciles who got it in their head to avenge Oto, which wasn't even a real village, by taking out shinobi from greater villages in general and the three of you in particular," Yasume explained loudly. "We are as much in danger as you are, and have the advantage of numbers on our side, and we offer you aid. Walking away from that, especially after how you were almost overcome just now, doesn't quite seem like the wisest course of action, does it?"
While Sakura could indeed see the reason in what the other guy was saying, the way in which he said it made her skin crawl and gave her the urge to get as far away as possible as fast as she could.
"We didn't need your help," Sasuke now got involved in the conversation again too. "Our reputation should have told you as much."
"You may not," Yasume agreed. "But can the other people from your village say the same?"
"Everyone we care about has someone on the team with abilities to find us, if necessary," Sakura said calmly. "I do think they'll manage."
"If they can still use them after the guys from the smaller villages are done with them," another guy from the group, standing next to Yasume, now got involved in the conversation for the first time. His voice was a lot less creepy than Yasume's, and in general he looked really laid back and had something of a comforting aura about him. "I mean, sensate abilities are great and all, but they don't help you any in telling whether your friends are in trouble, do they?"
Sakura could almost hear Naruto swallow at that. It wasn't a bad concern, of course, but... Ugh. Now it got into her head as well.
"I can handle this just fine, thank you," Yasume snarled at the other guy. Sakura saw the other two guys and a girl with long, brown hair wince at his tone, yet Yuki and the guy talking to them seemed completely unfazed. She wasn't sure which was more unnerving.
"Oh, yeah, I can tell," the other guy retorted, causing the brown-haired girl to gasp. "Especially saying you're going to handle stuff is so going to make them trust us, bravo."
"Just tell us what you want," Sakura interjected before this could turn into all-out bickering. Or... Something worse, as most members of the Kiri group seemed to fear.
"An alliance," Yasume answered before his companion could, but was interrupted before he could elaborate further.
"Yasume-sama," the guy who had been introduced to them as Eiji the sensor said just loud enough for Team 7 to hear from where they were standing. "They're regrouping and preparing an attack. The target is a team from Konoha, not far from here."
"What team?" Naruto asked immediately. The sensor gave him an irritated look, then looked at Yasume questioningly, who just shrugged.
"A team from Konoha," Eiji then repeated. "Three people. Two with somewhat similar chakra, the other not so much. That's all I can tell you."
"Seems like Karin really is special," Naruto muttered, looking stressed. "If that's all he can tell."
"More like all he wants to tell us," Sakura muttered back, then raised her voice again. "And what would that alliance look like? How long would it last?"
"As long as it's convenient for both sides," Yasume answered the latter question.
"There you go, being creepy again," the other guy chided him, getting another glare from Yasume and shocked looks from the other Kiri ninjas. "What he means is that we stick together in this forest," he then addressed Team 7 again. "I mean, sure, you've seen the ice thing Yuki can do. It's amazing and deadly, but she has to recover for a long time after using it, especially after using it on so many people at once. The rest of us? Not so great in combat, especially when outnumbered. Sure, we're six and you're three and we could probably threaten you with Yuki so you'll help us. She's not someone you want on the other side. But, you know, we all have the scrolls we need, why make more enemies in this forest than necessary?"
"And you'll help us find other teams from our village?" Naruto asked, too concerned now to be wary.
"Yes," Yasume answered that. "If that's what it takes. We might even do it before the maggots are done with them if you agree."
"Still awfully altruistic," Sakura remarked, but she could already tell there was no way to steer Naruto away from this now.
"Well, let's just say if this should develop into a long-lasting friendship beyond this forest or exam, that might be quite beneficial for both sides, wouldn't you agree?" Yasume said, apparently trying to sound more approachable, and smiled at her again. Which did nothing to reassure her.
"They're closing in," Eiji chimed in again, in what seemed just a bit too convenient in timing to be a coincidence.
"Sakura-chan," Naruto urged her. "Don't we kind of owe all the others a rescue? I mean, from what you told us happened while we were knocked out last time..."
"I can't believe you're falling for this," Sasuke hissed at him. "They're playing us. There's no way this alliance is going to benefit us."
"Funny," Naruto hissed back. "I'm pretty sure you would have said the same about Gaara and his people back in the day, and the alliance with them has helped us plenty."
"After you beat Gaara to a pulp and kind of forced your friendship on him," Sasuke reminded him, still hissing. "And only your close friendship and convenience for both parties holds it together. I say this is too risky."
"Well, that guy is creepy," Naruto assented. "But he sure does seem interested in, uh, a close friendship." He cleared his throat. "Just not with me, that is."
"All the more reason to just leave," Sasuke argued, glaring at Sakura for good measure.
"Are you saying Sakura isn't likable enough for people to want to ally with her?" Naruto asked for clarification. Sasuke stared at him too indignant to answer for a few moments.
"If we turn them down, we pass up the opportunity to help the others," Sakura tried to bring this discussion back on a rational level. "I'm sure Team 8 and Team Gai can handle themselves just fine, but Ino and Chouji are lacking Shikamaru to balance out their techniques and Karin is not a combatant. And we're kind of to blame for their situation in more ways than one." She bit her lips. "Also, if we turn them down, they might just stalk us until that girl recovers enough to freeze us solid and shatter us like the others."
"They might still do that," Sasuke pointed out. "Allying with them just means they have to be less sneaky about it."
"Less sneaky means easier to stop," Naruto claimed. "It's not like we'll just pretend they aren't there or whatever. Especially once we get the others and even out the numbers."
"I'm honestly more concerned what this might mean after the exam," Sakura mentioned. "I mean, we don't know who these people are in their village, really. They might just be bluffing and not actually have the power to make any allegiances, or they might be really important."
"The purple guy sure thinks he's important," Naruto noted, wrinkling his nose. "And the others seem to buy it."
"My point exactly," Sakura agreed.
"But is that really worth abandoning Ino and her team?" Naruto asked her. "They're probably getting their asses kicked while we're talking!"
"They knew that was a possibility when they entered," Sasuke scoffed. "They don't hand out the consent forms just to make people quit."
"But their odds are significantly worse than usual," Sakura reminded him, getting increasingly nervous. They were running out of time. "And in a way, that's our fault. We got the mob enraged by getting you out of Oto, and uh, causing collateral damage."
"Which I didn't ask for," Sasuke reminded them. Sakura and Naruto rolled their eyes.
"You actually kinda did," Naruto then claimed. "By running away in the first place, I mean. How long did you think we'd let that last?"
"And beside the fact that you have since strongly benefitted from returning here," Sakura added before Sasuke could argue, "Taking Karin with us and having her enroll as a Genin in Konoha was your idea. So you did actively help in making their chances worse. Not to mention that we owe them, since none of us would be here if they hadn't helped me in time."
"You were beaten into a bloody mess when they decided to intervene," Sasuke reminded her. "Hell, they let Lee be knocked out before they bothered to help at all."
"But they did help," Sakura repeated her argument. "And considering how long we've been talking, we're probably going to find them in a similar state at this point, so there goes the moral high ground."
"We'll do it!" Naruto then declared, loudly, and in the general direction of the Kiri guys. "We don't really trust you and only agree to stuff you tell us about first, but we'll team up with you for this part of the exam if you get us to our friends in time to help them. And also the deal is off once any of you try some creepy shit, like freezing us or something."
"And your team agrees to that?" Yasume asked, looking directly at Sakura. She glanced at Sasuke, who just rolled his eyes.
"The terms sound fair," she then said. "Especially the part about anything going beyond this forest depending on prior negotiation after we successfully helped our friends."
"What she said," Naruto agreed, more forcefully than he usually did. "Can we go now?"
"Well, if we don't, I'm afraid helping your friends will become a bit more difficult," Yasume said, in a strangely celebratory tone, before he gestured for his posse to get going.
"You'll lead," Sasuke grimly instructed the sensor. "We'll stay behind all of you at all times." He glared at Naruto and Sakura for good measure. "And for the record, I still think this is a horrible idea."
"It's good that nobody cares about what you think, then," Yasume pointed out sharply before following the rest of his group into the trees. Naruto snorted audibly, and even Sakura couldn't help but smile at the way Sasuke glared daggers at the other guy for that comment in particular.
A/N:
I solemnly swear I am up to no love triangle