dopliss: What is a better way to start off the new year than with a new chapter?
Mizuki: Just don´t slack off.
dopliss: Like you usually do? Oh no, I didn't!
Disclaimer: If I say that I don´t own Naruto a hundred times this chapter, would I then be free from saying it the rest of this story? Probably not.
At the entrance to Konoha, the mysterious stranger from chapter 19 stood on top of the village sign, scouting the city with sharp eyes. "This village has not changed so much since I last was here," he mused aloud to himself. "No matter… I will find you, Torabu." And with that, the stranger leaped off to one of the rooftops.
At one of the convenient stores, Takai packed the groceries that she had bought into three plastic bags. "Why are you buying so much, if I may ask?" the clerk asked.
"It´s to celebrate my friend´s homecoming from the Chunin Exams," the fiery female answered. "He´s been gone for four days now."
"Is it anyone I know?"
"Oh, you should know him. He´s kinda hard to miss."
"Any clues?" the clerk asked, getting curious as to whom the woman was talking about.
"You know, cat ears… cat tail…"
"Oh! Him! The self-proclaimed 'king of pranksters'!" the clerk realized, referring to Torabu.
"Yep! See ya!" Takai said and left for Torabu´s apartment with the groceries.
Unknown to the fiery female, however, the stranger stood on top of a roof and spied on her with narrowed eyes. "I believe it is time to greet your friend, brat," he said and leaped off.
Naruto and a bunch of his Shadow Clones were standing on a cliff and looking at a creek filled with fish with hungry eyes. All of them were down to only their boxers and planning to get as many fish as possible. "Breakfast time!" all of them said. "Shadow Clone Fishing Jutsu! Banzai!" And then they all jumped into the creek.
At the side of the creek, Sasuke stood ready with kunai in hand. When Naruto and his clones threw a fish out of water, Sasuke threw a kunai at them to stick them to a tree. Once three fish were caught, Naruto surfaced to get some air. "Well?" Sasuke asked disappointedly. "Come on, is that it? I only caught three. Now go and do it again."
"What?" Naruto protested, very angered by his rival´s bossy behavior.
"I could eat three fish myself."
"Well, if you think it´s so easy, why don´t YOU get wet and I´LL stay on the shore?" Naruto asked, flailing his arms up and down and making splashes.
"Sasuke~!" Sakura called from afar. "The fire is ready to light! I could use one of your fireballs!"
"I gotta do everything around here…" Sasuke groaned as he walked over to his other teammate.
Naruto, having heard his rival´s complaint, shouted, "You do, huh? What have I been doing?"
Later, all three members of Team 7 were gathered around a campfire, roasting several fish over the flames. "It´s already been four days since the second exam began," Sasuke stated.
"That´s right," Sakura confirmed, being fully aware of the consequences of being too late.
"We´re sure not gonna break any records, and we only have twenty-four hours left."
"I wonder how many of the other teams have already gotten their scrolls and finished?"
I wonder when this fish is gonna be done? Naruto thought, completely ignorant to his teammates´ serious conversation. I could eat a whale!
If we don´t get a break soon, we´re finished, Sasuke thought while looking at the Earth scroll that Torabu has given his team.
Naruto starred hungrily at the frying fish, drool almost escaping his mouth. Almost ready…! If I move fast, I bet I could snatch the biggest one before the others get it!
Somewhere else in the forest, a team of ninjas were taking a stop at a clearing. "What´re we doing? Who´re we chasing? There´s probably no one left in the forest, anyway!" one of them whined.
"So what do we do?" the other asked. "You´re right… the others are probably finished by now."
"Yeah, it´s been four days," the third of them said. "Anyway, we´ve been going since dawn, no need to kill ourselves. I´ll go and try to find something to eat." He turned away from his teammates. "You guys rest." And then he leaped off to search for food.
The two remaining ninjas sat down against a rock and waited patiently. After a big moment of silence, one of them said, "Hey…"
"Yeah?" the other asked.
"If I remember right…" He took out an Earth scroll and looked at it. "…I think the other scroll… it had 'Heaven' on it and it was different from this one ´cause it was white around the edges, right?"
"I guess so," the other ninja shrugged. "I wasn´t really paying too much attention when they showed them to us. Anyway, why? What´s the big deal all of a sudden?" His friend stared at the scroll and chuckled mischievously. "Whoa! You´re not really thinkin´…!"
"We have to face it… there may not be any more Heaven scrolls left," Sakura depressingly said as she and her friends were eating the fish.
"Well, that´s a cheerful thought," Sasuke said sarcastically.
"Maybe so, but it´s true. Look, you said it yourself, Sasuke, this is the fourth day we´ve been out here. That means we´ve already used up 80% of the time we´ve got to complete the exam. Only thirteen teams can pass, as there are only thirteen pairs of scrolls and you´ve got twenty-six teams – 78 people – out there looking for them. And if those odds weren´t bad enough, things have gotten even worse. Don´t forget that creep, Orochimaru, burned the scroll we had."
"Yeah, I remember," Sasuke nodded.
"The number of complete pairs of scrolls that can be found was reduced by one right there. Not to mention all the other teams had found and secured since then."
"Maybe we gave ourselves too much time to recover after our last fight. I don´t know. What I do know is that we got to get serious now and make up for lost time. The next enemy we face could be our last chance." Sasuke stood up. "I´m gonna get water." And then he left with a drinking bottle.
Naruto starred at the scroll, tempted to know what was so special about it. He picked it up and whispered, "Hey, Sakura, I know how we can do this without having to fight anyone. Look." He then opened his backpack and took out several ordinary scrolls.
"Look at what?" the pink-haired girl asked, curious as to what her friend could be getting at.
"What do you mean, 'look at what'? Scrolls! I´ve got tons of them! You know, manuals on Ninjutsu and stuff like that. We could change one of them to look like the Heaven scro-"
"Stop!" Sakura interrupted. "Don´t even! Even if you could fake the outside, how do you fake what´s written inside? You couldn´t know without reading it, and that´s against the rules! Idiot!"
"I´ve got it all figured out." Naruto cupped his chin. "I think these things have a secret code written in them that only makes sense if you put ´em both together. Yeah, and that secret code is like the password you need in order to get into the tower at the end of the exam. Get it?"
"All I get is that you´re a nimrod," Sakura sighed. "We don´t even have a Heaven scroll, so how in the world are we gonna fake what´s inside it?" she shouted. Naruto hung his head in defeat. "The next brilliant idea you get, how about keeping it to yourself? We got enough problems."
"But wait!" Naruto said. "We DO have a clue of what´s inside the Heaven scroll – the Earth scroll!"
"You wouldn´t!" Sakura warned, afraid that her teammate might be stupid enough to open the scroll and peek inside it.
"It´s our only chance. I´m gonna open and read this scroll."
Sakura whacked him on the head. "Naruto, can´t you get it through your empty head? We´re expressly forbidden from opening the scroll before arriving at the tower!"
"I know! But if we don´t do anything, we´ll never make it!"
Both then looked at the Earth scroll, thinking gravely about what to do.
One of the two ninjas prepared to open the scroll, hands shaking nervously. The one holding it looked at his friend and nodded. "Careful, it might be booby-trapped or something," the friend said.
"Yeah… I´ve thought of that…" the one holding the scroll said as he slowly pulled it open.
Naruto held the scroll in his hands, his heart pounding as he prepared to open it and find out its secrets. He looked at Sakura, who nodded in agreement with his actions. He sweated bullets as he placed his hand near the fold of the scroll.
The ninja dug his thumb under the fold of the scroll. He then pulled on it slightly, and then finally opened it fully…
What followed was the horrified screams of the two boys as something happened to them.
The third member of their team had heard them and had hurried back without the food to check on them. When he arrived, he found both of his friends unconscious. He looked around for any opposing teams before running up to his fallen friends. "Hey! Guys! What´s wrong?" he asked, and then he noticed the open scroll. "What´s the scroll doing there? What happened? What did you guys do?"
Naruto stared long and hard at the scroll, becoming unsure about his actions. He then swallowed and pulled in it-
-only to be stopped by someone who grabbed his hand. "I wouldn´t do that if I were you," the person said.
The two stared in shock as they realized that the person that had interrupted them was none other than their new friend, Kabuto Yakushi.
Just then, Sasuke returned with water, but then he saw Kabuto from a distance, and unable to identify him, he assumed that he was an enemy.
A little later, after all was settled down, Kabuto scolded, "I can´t believe you guys! If I hadn´t come along when I did…"
"Sorry, Sasuke…" Sakura apologized in shame. Naruto mumbled something incomprehensible, but it was in just as much shame.
"There have been others who have broken the rules and tried to peek at the scrolls. I´ve seen it what happens to them," Kabuto said. "They´re protected by a powerful hypnosis Jutsu, a kind of booby-trap for anyone unwise enough to try to read them. It´ll knock you senseless, and by the time you wake up, the exam´s over."
"'Kabuto', right?" Sasuke asked. "We met at the registration. What´re you doing, wandering around by yourself?"
"Don´t worry, I´m not after your Earth scroll."
"I guess not. I suppose if you were, you would´ve just swiped it from Naruto when you had the chance. So, you´re looking for a Heaven scroll too, huh?"
"Not really. You see, I already have them both." And here Kabuto pulled out the pair of required scrolls from his pocket. He put them back and said, "I had a run of luck. I was just on my way to the tower to wait for my teammates to show up. So, if you´ll excuse me…" And then he turned to walk away.
"Hold it!" Sasuke said. "I´ll fight you for it."
Unbeknownst to them, the same ninja who had impersonated Naruto was watching them from the treetops. "What a lucky break…" he said to himself.
"You wanna fight me for it?" Kabuto asked with a smirk, referring to the Heaven scroll.
"Hold on a second! Is this a joke or what?" Naruto asked, angered by Sasuke´s challenge.
"Are you serious?" Kabuto asked again.
"Perfectly," Sasuke answered. "Sorry, but I don´t have time to play nice."
"Back off, Sasuke!" Naruto warned. "In case you´ve forgotten, this guy saved our butts!"
"Naruto´s got a point," Sakura agreed. "We don´t wanna be ungrateful or anything…"
"Shut up," Sasuke said. "It can´t be helped. It´s either him or us. Out here, it´s all about surviving and winning – nothing else matters!"
"You´re lying," Kabuto smirked and turned to face them. "C´mon, admit it. For all your tough talk, your heart really isn´t in it. If it was true, if winning was really the only thing that really mattered to you, why openly challenge me to a fight? Why announce it and put me on my guard? Why not just jump me when my back is turned? After all, that´s what a ninja would do."
"That´s pretty deep," Naruto said, impressed by the elder boy´s logic.
"It´s okay. Actually, I admire you for it. So here´s what I´ll do: I´ll show you the path you should follow." Kabuto turned around. "But let´s go. It´s best we get outta here. The smell of that cooking fire is going to draw every wild beast in the forest. And not only the animals, but the competition too.
The ninja then quickly left his hiding place, afraid that Kabuto might have found him out.
Later, Team 7 and Kabuto were leaping through the forest, heading for the tower. "You think there´s still other candidates out here?" Sasuke asked.
"Oh yeah," Kabuto answered. "Just think about it – what do you think the most efficient way of finding scrolls in an area as large as this? To go searching through the forest for them?"
"Uh, no?" Sakura guessed.
"No, you wait for them to come to you. The tower at the center of the forest is the goal, right? So on the last day of the exam, that area will be crawling with teams converging on the tower with their scrolls."
"Oh yeah, I get it! Like an ambush!" Sakura realized. "So we just head for the tower, find a hiding place, and when a team comes along with a Heaven scroll, we jump them and take it."
"That´s one third of the problem. You guys aren´t the only ones thinking of this. Every other team lacking a scroll will be lying in wait, just like you."
"So what?" Naruto asked. "The more, the merrier, I say! Whoever they are, we´ll take care of them! Wouldn´t want this to be too easy! That wouldn´t be any fun! Okay, so we grab someone else´s scroll, keep those losers from grabbing ours, and bingo! We´ve passed the second exam!"
"That´s two thirds of the problem."
"Well, at least we´re getting closer," Sakura said. "What else?"
"Well, there´s bound to be some 'collectors' near the finish line."
"'Collectors'?" Sakura asked.
"Even when you think you´re home free, you can´t relax your guard for an instant. This kind of exam always brings them out. Collectors… They gather extra sets of scrolls for various ends. For example, to bribe their way out of unexpected situations, or to provide their village mates with the scroll they´re lacking. Some steal them to keep candidates from rival villages from passing, or to help out teams from their own village who couldn´t find scrolls on their own. Others steal them for their own dark purposes. They´ll hang on to them to use against the stronger teams farther down the line. They´ll be there, alright… and they´re bad news. The closer you get to the tower, the more likely you´ll run into them."
"I see…" Sasuke smirked. "And I think I´m starting to understand why you brought us along with you. It´s because you´re frightened, aren´t you?"
"You bet I am," Kabuto laughed.
Later that night, Team 7 and Kabuto were still traveling towards the tower, now on foot. "There´s the tower, and that means the end is in sight," Kabuto said. "Now comes the hard part."
"Well, it´s about time! Bring it on!" Naruto shouted, much to the others´ dismay.
"There´s someone back there!" Sakura noticed and turned around.
On instinct, Naruto threw a kunai at the being behind them. A sickening sound was heard when the projectile hit the target, and the being was revealed to be a giant centipede.
"False alarm, it´s just a centipede," Naruto calmly said.
"Just a centipede…?" Sakura asked, sick to her stomach by the insect´s size. "That creepy thing´s as big as a bus!"
"Hey, Naruto…" Kabuto started, gaining the boy´s attention, "do us a favor and try to keep it down to a dull roar, would you? See, the whole idea is not to let anyone know we´re here. If you go crashing through the forest like an elephant, you´re going to attract collectors like flies. We wanna find them before they find us."
"Oh… yeah… I see your point…" Naruto said, embarrassed over his reckless action.
"Take it slow and quiet. Let´s use all the time we´ve got left."
After agreeing, the four began to sneak closer to the tower.
At one point, our heroes looked up and saw several corpses, all impaled with kunai. Naruto had accidentally stumbled into one himself, and had to get saved by Kabuto.
After even more walking, our heroes were starting to tire. "For crying out loud…" Sakura groaned and fell to her knees in exhaustion. "How long have we walked? That tower is not getting any closer."
"Now that you mention that, I was thinking that too," Naruto agreed. "Weird."
"Maybe not," Sasuke said and looked around.
"It would seem we´ve been spotted," Kabuto said. "Somebody´s playing games with us. Look." He pointed at a tree. "Ring a bell?"
Team 7 looked and saw the exact same centipede that Naruto had killed. "What´s going on?" Sakura asked.
"Genjutsu…" Sasuke realized.
"That´s what it looks like," Kabuto added. "And we fell for it completely. We were so concerned by not being seen by anyone, we didn´t see we were walking around in circles."
"What´s their game?"
"They´re probably trying to wear us down and strike when we´re frustrated and physically exhausted."
"You mean like we are right now?"
"Right. They´ll be coming soon."
Suddenly, unnerving black figures began emerging from the trees surrounding our heroes en masse! Strangely enough, they resembled the Naruto impersonator. "Well, Naruto, you wanted a fight…" Sasuke said.
"Four against forty? I like those odds!" Naruto smirked.
"What are they?" Sakura asked.
"Clones, from the look of it," Kabuto answered. "And a whole lot of them."
"Like cornered rats…" one of the clones laughed.
"Oh yeah? Cornered rats, are we?" Naruto roared, leaped at a clone and punched him in the stomach.
Well, whatever they are, they sure can´t take a punch, Sakura thought. "That´s showing them! Way to go!"
Then Naruto´s punch managed to go right through the clone and rip a goo-like substance out of it! While Naruto looked at the clone in shock, another torso emerged from the hole with a double bladed kunai!
Sasuke, having activated his Sharingan, saw that the mutilated clone was about to attack and shouted, "Naruto! Watch out!" and threw shuriken at the clone, ripping its arm to pieces! The clone changed its attention to Sasuke and threw another kunai at him. Sasuke prepared to dodge, but the mark that Orochimaru had given him acted up and paralyzed the boy, leaving it up to Kabuto to save him and get his arm cut in the process.
Kabuto went over and looked at the kunai as Sakura looked over her paralyzed teammate. This thing´s real enough. No illusion here, the former thought.
"Surrender your scroll," all of the clones kept saying over and over again.
"These things are real Shadow Clones!" Naruto realized. "But Shadow Clones are supposed to vanish when you give them a good shot! These things don´t, so what the heck are we dealing with? Some kind of Genjutsu?"
Naruto prepared to engage the clones in battle, when Sasuke yelled, "It´s no use! Save it! You´ll only be fighting illusions. It´s Genjutsu, alright."
"But how?" Sakura asked. "That cut on Kabuto´s arm is real enough."
"That´s true," Kabuto agreed. "But still, Sasuke´s right. Could be… the real enemy´s in hiding. Somewhere in the woods nearby, launching real attacks from behind a smokescreen of illusions and coordinating their movements with them, so that we´re fooled into thinking these Genjutsu ninjas are the ones attacking us!"
Behind a bush, the Naruto impersonator stared at the scene with glee. Behind him were two ninjas that wore the same outfit as him, but one had a sash that covered both eyes, and the other had a sash that covered only the right eye. "Lucky guess…" the one with two eyes whispered.
"Well, whatever they are, what´re we gonna do, just stand here?" Naruto asked. "Let´s go find these clowns and take care of them!"
"Hold on, Naruto!" Kabuto said. "They would like nothing better than for us to searching blindly through the forest while they sit back and take us out, one by one. We´d be making their job easy for them. I know this kind of attack. The kind who use it do so because they are weak in Taijutsu and afraid of close hand-to-hand combat, according to my data. We´ve no choice. All we can do is hold our ground and fend off their attacks."
"Okay, fine! Whatever, let´s just do it!" Naruto said and prepared a kunai.
"How long do you think they can hold out?" the ninja with one visible eye asked.
"The night is young," the ninja with no visible eyes laughed.
The clones then began to throw kunai at our heroes, forcing them to dodge. After a while, Sakura complained, "Man, how long is this gonna go on?"
"Okay, this isn´t gonna work!" Naruto deduced and made a hand-seal.
"No, it´s pointless! You´ll only waste your chakra!" Kabuto said. "By trying to fight these things, you´ll do just what they want."
"If we were to eliminate all the illusions, whoever´s casting them wouldn´t be able to hurl kunai at us without us being able to see where they´re hiding! I´ll show him two can play this game! Shadow Clone Jutsu!" And then Naruto made many clones and began initiating his plan.
The Naruto clones all attacked the enemy clones, but no matter how much they got attacked, they just kept reforming and recovering. "Sasuke, shouldn´t we help him?" Sakura asked.
"Jerk!" Sasuke cursed. "He has given us no choice! We´ve got to now!"
"You´re right," Kabuto agreed. "He´s gonna need us, so that´s that! We fight!"
And then the rest of Team 7 and Kabuto joined the fray.
The fight went on, and once it was daybreak, our heroes were beaten. They panted heavily as they recovered from the nearly-endless fight.
"The sun´s coming up… time to move in for the kill," one of the enemy ninjas said and took out kunai.
"I think you´re right," another laughed as the clone disappeared. "We´ve crushed their spirits, now to crush their bodies."
"Lucky us…" the third said as the three emerged from their hiding place.
"You!" the one with two visible eyes growled at Sasuke. "I know you! You´re the one who cut me on the shoulder! That really messed me up, you know! Oh well… Now I can finally pay you back… with interest!"
Naruto seemed to be shaking with fear, but then he smirked. "Well, well… now who´s the cornered rat?" Sasuke´s voice sounded from somewhere.
"Works like a charm, Naruto," Sakura´s voice was heard.
The enemy ninjas turned around and saw Kabuto and the other two members of Team 7 standing with no signs of fatigue. "It can´t be!" one of them said. "If they´re over there, then who´re they?"
"Confused?" Naruto asked mockingly. "Sorry, but it was the only way to get you guys to come out of hiding." And then the Sasuke, Sakura and Kabuto next to him turned into Naruto clones.
The enemy ninjas were shocked. "How? Don´t tell me that little brat…!"
"The Shadow Clones were only the first part of it," Naruto said and stood up. "My real trick was coming up with clones of the rest of my team."
"While our doubles did all the fighting and took the beating, we were safe and sound, waiting for you to show yourselves," Sasuke followed up. "What do you think, guys? I think our little plan worked!" Naruto then fell to his knees, exhausted from the big use of his chakra. "Naruto, take a break! You´ve used up too much of your chakra. Don´t worry, I got them!"
Naruto then dashed up to the enemy ninjas and delivered a punch to one of them, which caused him to fall into the others like a domino. "After all the work I´ve done, there´s no way I´m gonna stay back and let you have all the fun!" he panted.
Whoa! Is this… the same Naruto? Sasuke asked himself. What happened? When did he get this good?
"This kid shouldn´t even be able to move, let alone this!" one of the enemy ninjas said as he and his friends got up.
His chakra is incredibly resilient! Kabuto thought. To be able to pull off a multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu, and then to transform three of them into his companions… and to still come up fighting! And all this on the fifth day. If he ever masters his chakra, this kid will be unstoppable.
"Not bad, but that doesn´t mean it´s over!" one of the enemy ninjas said as he and his friends made hand-seals. "We´re still feeling lucky! And besides, time´s running out for all of us, so we´ll just have to take the gloves off and show you our Ninjutsu! Ninja Art: Fog Clone Jutsu!"
And then an entire army of the enemy ninjas appeared. "Those are real clones!" Sasuke said. "Don´t waste your strength, bonehead. Let them make the first move."
"If these are clones, then the real ones are in there with them!" Naruto smirked. "All I gotta do is smash my way through until I find the ones that squeal!"
"No, don´t be an idiot! Listen to me!"
"Get off my back, will ya? Just stay outta it! I can handle this!"
And then Naruto ran headfirst into the army of clones. While Kabuto leaped out to help, Sasuke was again paralyzed by the mark. Naruto began punching through each of the clones, and he deduced that those he fazed through were clones. Sasuke tried to use his Sharingan, and when he did, he saw that all of the clones held none of the originals amongst them. But once he had used his technique, his mark began to hurt him and he collapsed.
"Never give your opponent an opening!" one of the ninjas shouted.
Naruto was distracted by Sasuke´s scream of pain, and one of the clones tried to stab him, but Kabuto took the hit and got cut on the leg again. Angered by his friend´s new wound, Naruto growled, "Now you´re gonna get it!"
"Forget it, Naruto!" Sasuke shouted. "You can swing at those guys all day, you´re just wasting your time on them! The real ones aren´t there!"
"What´re you talking about? That last attack didn´t come from any clone! Of course the real ones are here, they gotta be here! If they´re not, then where the heck are they?"
"Use your head! If I knew the answer to that, we wouldn´t be in this fix!"
"Looks like they´ve reached the end of their rope," one of the clones said. "Too bad. It was fun while it lasted."
As the clone prepared to attack, Naruto did not notice that the real ninjas crawled out of the ground behind him – using a Jutsu – and prepared to use their kunai. Being the one closest to them, Kabuto was unfortunate enough to get cut and punched down onto the ground. As the ninjas got fully out of the ground and prepared to deal the finishing blow to the downed boy, they were taken aback by a strange look in Kabuto´s eye.
Taking advantage of the situation, Naruto roundhouse-kicked all three of the ninjas, sending them skidding across the ground and knocking them out, their clones disappearing as a result. "Like you said, never give your enemy an opening. Good advice," Naruto said.
"Thank you, Naruto," Kabuto thanked while sitting up. "You saved my neck."
"Way to go, Naruto!" Sakura cheered as her friend sat down.
"Aw, it was nothing," Naruto shrugged.
A little later, Naruto was rummaging through the enemy ninjas´ pockets, looking for their scroll. "That mark on your neck… was is it?" Kabuto asked Sasuke, referring to the curse mark. "A bruise?"
Sasuke covered the mark and glared at Kabuto. "It´s nothing," he lied.
Naruto then struck gold and stood up while shouting, "Hey, guys! Here it is! Just what we needed – a Heaven scroll!"
"Good for you!" Kabuto congratulated.
Sasuke, however, was more interested in Kabuto. There´s something about this guy… something I don´t like.
After a few minutes of walking, our heroes had finally reached the tower. When at Team 7´s entrance, two other people joined them. They both wore the same outfit that Kabuto wore, just with masks that covered everything except their eyes, and one of them wore sunglasses while the other wore round glasses.
"There you are, Kabuto," the one with the sunglasses said. "You´re late."
"Sorry about that," Kabuto apologized. "I got a little… sidetracked."
"Yeah, and I´m really glad you did," Naruto said. "After all, it was thanks to you we got both the scrolls."
"Not really. You did most of it on your own. Especially you, Naruto. Very impressive." Kabuto then looked at the door that was right beside Team 7´s. "Well, this is the door we go through. So long and good luck to us both." And then he gave them a 'thumbs up'.
Both teams entered at the same time, but when Kabuto´s team was fully in, a person asked, "Good harvest?"
"Yes… even better that expected," Kabuto answered. "I learned a lot about him during the second exam, and I recorded all the data on this." He shoved a Ninja Info Card. "You want it?"
"Of course. So tell me, what do you think?"
"Your curiosity is truly insatiable, Lord Orochimaru."
Indeed, it really was Orochimaru in the room. "As a sound village spy, you see things others don´t," he said to Kabuto. "Your opinion is of interest to me."
"Oh, it doesn´t really matter, does it? Whatever I think, you´re the one who decides. Isn´t that always the way?"
"By the way…" Orochimaru´s eyes showed great curiosity. "…do you know something about the cat-boy?"
Kabuto shrugged. "All I know is that his name is Torabu Maka and his teammates are Sairento Josei and Konran Reijingu."
The snake-like man´s eyes widened when he heard that information. "'Maka', huh? And little Konran… how I´ve missed him." He smirked and began chuckling.
Inside of the room Team 7 had entered, there was not a living soul to greet them. The only thing worthy of interest was a plaque on the wall. They looked at it and Sakura read aloud, "'If qualities of Heaven are your desire, aquire wisdom to take your mind higher. If Earthly qualities are what you lack, train your body and prepare to attack. When Heaven and Earth are opened together, the perilous path will become righteous forever. This – something – is the secret way that guides us from this place today.'"
"This what, or is that a secret too?" Naruto asked, referring to the one thing that was not said.
"It´s like there´s a word missing here," Sakura said. "Anyway, it´s about the scrolls… I think… we´re supposed to open and read the Heaven and Earth scrolls now."
Sakura and Naruto then held the Heaven scroll and Earth scroll respectively and stared nervously at it. they could be right about opening the scrolls, but they could still be wrong. And what connection does Orochimaru have with Torabu and Konran?
dopliss: And that´s the final chapter-
Mizuki: WHAT? You can´t be serious!
dopliss: -of the Forest of Death arc. You didn´t think I was gonna end it here, didja?
Mizuki: No, I expected you to end the chapter sooner.