Akira, Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto stood in front of one of the gates that lead inside the Forest of Death, looking beyond it and at the darkness that waited for them. Akira wasn't speaking, simply staring at everything her eyes could land on, examining the spaces between trees, their height, the terrain. Her fists were clenched at her sides, twitching once in a while, which was brought to Sakura's attention when Akria cracked her knuckles. The pink-haired girl looked at the female Uchiha with concern.

"You know, it's okay to be scared, Akira," she said softly.

"Scared?" Akira laughed. She turned to Sakura, eerily poised. "I'm excited."

"Are you sure? You seem a little... different."

"That's just how she is in battle," Sasuke said. "Did you never notice?"

Sakura frowned as Akira turned back towards the gate. A ninja walked over and stood in front of the gate, checking his watch. A few moments later, he took out a kunai and tore the paper bombs and unlocked the padlocks that kept the gate closed.

"Come on! Bring it on! Anyone who dares to attack me, I'll give it back twice as hard!" Naruto shouted, punching at the air.

"That's my kind of thinking," Akira said with a smirk.

Just then, the ninja in front of the gate pushed the doors open and stepped aside. With a war cry, Naruto yelled and ran inside, just as excited Akira was. Akira scoffed, amused, and ran after him, Sasuke and Sakura following closely behind them. Akira's mind immediately began running a million miles a minute. Naruto had peeved quite a few people; she was sure that lots of teams would be coming for them first. Shikamaru, Kiba and Kai would probably convince the rest of their team to come after Akira just to prove a point... mostly Kiba. Akira frowned as she and the rest of team seven ran through the thick, dark forest. Kiba was at his best in this kind of situation. With senses like his, a survival test was going to be a breeze for him. For the sake of her pride, Akira needed to beat Kiba to the tower.

Suddenly, there was a collection of screams and Akira stopped moving. It was coming from their left. She didn't recognize the voices, so it wasn't a team that she knew. The girl smiled. Kai, Kiba, Shino and Hinata had already gotten their first team.

"That sounded like someone screaming," Sakura whispered, coming to a halt beside Akira.

"Kai's team," Akira said simply. "Kiba is at his best in this environment. They've probably caught an opponent already."

"They're really that good?"

"It isn't wise to underestimate an opponent."

"Oh, I don't like this at all."

"I'm sure it was nothing, Sakura," Naruto said. "Akira's just a little crazy."

"Fine, don't believe me," Akira said airily. "It's your funeral, not mine."

"Whatever, I'm just gonna - I gotta..."

"You moron!" Sakura shouted, Akira turned towards them. "Go find a bush or something, this isn't a kennel! You wont be doing that in front of me!"

"Do we really have time for a bathroom break?" Sasuke said, annoyed.

"It'll only be a second!"

Naruto disappeared behind the bushes and the rest of the team waited for him in silence, Akira's and Sakue's senses on high alert since Sakura was still fuming at Naruto. The forest was dark and foreboding, but there was peace in its sullen ambiance. Akira's eyes flickered over the thick, dark trunks of the trees that rose steadily into the sky, its branches interlocking with its neighbors like giant's arms linked together protecting their home. The trees were densely packed together, leaving just enough space to allow someone to maneuver through. Akira pressed her palm against its rough bark, and breathed in the scent of the forest. The musty scent of leaves after rainfall, the warm soil packed against the earth by scurrying animals, the scent of things in different stages of blooming and growth. The smell of life. The forest was teeming with it.

"Wow, that was a lot!" Naruto said, returning from his bathroom break. "I wrote my whole name."

"You're such a pig!" Sakura complained.

Akira turned around to tell them to shut up, but she ended up throwing a kunai at Naruto, which embedded itself in his shoulder. Sasuke, with lightning speed, then ran over to him and kicked him in the jaw, sending him flying into a tree. Akira wasted to time in pulling out her tachi and unfolding them, eyes scanning the forest around her.

"Guys, it wasn't that bad!" Sakura gasped. "Don't you think you went a little overboard!?"

"Yeah! Why the heck do I have a kunai in my shoulder!?" Naruto yelled, pulling out said kunai.

Sasuke lunged at him again, aiming to kick him, but Naruto ducked and dodged. Sasuke landed on the tree and pushed off with his feet, sending his foot towards Naruto's head. Naruto jumped up on a branch to evade him, but Sasuke followed and kicked him down with ease.

"Better watch out, Sakura," Naruto said, standing up. "I think they've gone crazy."

"Yeah, you wish," Sasuke said. "We just struck before you could!"

"Sasuke! Akira! What's going on!?" Sakura asked, scared.

"All right, then, bring it on!" Naruto shouted.

Naruto and Sasuke lunged at each other with kunai and sparred for a few minutes. Meanwhile, Akira placed her hand to the ground and closed her eyes, focusing her chakra into the palm of her hand. When she opened her eyes, everything was black except for all the chakra signatures in the surrounding area. There were indeed four of them, but the person thought to be Naruto didn't have the usual light blue chakra. It was white. It definitely wasn't Naruto. Akira closed her eyes again then reopened them to see Sasuke and Naruto still fighting. She ran at them with incredible speed and, with one swing of her tachi, made both Sasuke's and Naruto's arms fly up, allowing her to ram Naruto in the stomach with the pommel of her sword. He slid back, panting, trying to catch his breath. Akira pointed her blade at his head.

"Sasuke, Akira! What are you doing?" Sakura asked.

"Take a good look at him," Sasuke said.

"Talk," Akira demanded. "Where is Naruto?"

"What!?" Naruto gasped. "What do you mean? I am Naruto!"

"Then where's the cut on your cheek?"

Naruto's eyes widened.

"I'm guessing you didn't know the real Naruto got a cut on his face before the start of the test," Sasuke said.

"You're also wearing your shuriken holster on your left leg. Naruto is right handed," Akira said calmly, staring directly into the impostor's eyes.

"Your transformation skills are worse than Naruto's. Tell us who you are!" Sasuke demanded.

Naruto disappeared in a puff of smoke, only to be replaced by an Amegakure ninja. He wore a ghastly yellow jumpsuit and a rebreather on his mouth, and his face was covered by a white bandanna with eye-holes cut out.

"All right, you got me," he said in a voice that was robotically distorted by his rebreather. "So what? I'm still gonna take your scroll. Now hand it over, or else. So... Which one of you has it?"

No one answered.

"Fine then. Guess I'll just have to take out all three of you!"

Just as the Amekagure ninja dashed forward, Sasuke jumped into the air and sent a volley of fireballs at him, allowing Akira so charge her tachi with electricity. She slashed at him, but he was faster than he looked, and he dodged it, jumping up in the air to throw kunai at Sasuke. He blocked it with ease and immediately took out another one, his kunai clashing with the other ninja's. The Amegakure ran off as soon as he was in the clear, and Akira and Sasuke followed after him, releasing a tied up Naruto by throwing a kunai at the ropes that bound him. This distracted both Sasuke and Akira, and let the Amegakure ninja throw senbon and kunai at them, which they dodged, but didn't notice the paperbomb attached to one of them until it blew up in their faces. Sasuke and Akira were blown back, but they regained composure. Sasuke landed on the ground with steady feet, and Akira landed almost gracefully beside him, tachi at the ready. The Amegakure ninja snuck up behind them, but didn't get a chance to attack before Naruto arrived and threw numerous kunai at him. This gave Akira the opportunity to twirl her swords in hand and slash at the ninja. He didn't move fast enough to avoid a large cut to the shoulder, over where she'd thrown a kunai at him. He jumped back, but Sasuke, concentrating chakra in one of his foot, held a kunai underneath it and flipped himself, throwing the kunai in the process. The Amegakure ninja avoided it, but by the time he'd dodged it, Sasuke had already stabbed him in the stomach with another kunai. It wasn't long before he was gone.

"He was alone," Akira said, putting her swords back in the holsters. "I didn't sense any other chakra signatures."

She turned to her brother and gave him a look.

"Right," he said, agreeing to whatever mental communication he and his sister had just had. "That proves we can't just trust appearances. We need to come up with a way to know we are who we say we are, and not some impostor using a transformation jutsu."

"All right, so what do we do?" Sakura asked.

"We need a password," Akira said, not looking at her teammates, but at everything else, eyes scanning the area.

"What kind of password?" Naruto asked.

"A secret one. Something known only to the three of us. And don't trust anyone who doesn't know it. No matter what." Akira turned back to her teammates. "Listen closely, I only want to say this once. The question will be: 'when does a ninja strike?' And the response is: 'A ninja waits until the time is right. When the enemy sleeps and drops his guard. When his weapons lie forgotten in the stillness of the night. That is the moment for a ninja to strike.' Got it?"

"I got it," Sakura said, and Sasuke nodded, agreeing.

"You got one a little shorter?" Naruto asked.

"No, Naruto," Akira said. "That's it."

"Come on, what's wrong?" Sakura asked, annoyed. "Didn't you get it? I memorized it easy."

"Yeah, sure, I got it! No problem." Naruto said. "I just thought it was going to be a pass-word, not a pass-speech."

"All right, then," Sasuke said. "I'll take the scroll."

Suddenly, a gust of wind blew towards team seven and Naruto's face was scratched by something. Akira turned towards it and braced herself just as a giant wave of wind blew of them, nearly knocking them over. It was blowing away most of the vegetation, and Akira worked hard to maintain the chakra in her feet to stay up. When it died down, there was a crater leading to them so they all hid in the bushes that hadn't been destroyed. Akira sensed something behind her and stood, pulling out her tachi and pointing them at whoever was behind her. She ended up pointing one at Sakura and one at Sasuke.

"When does a ninja strike?" she asked without a beat.

Both ninja gave her a correct answer, as she'd expected. But when Naruto came out of the bushes and also gave a correct answer, Akira glared at him. She planted her swords into the ground, performed a few hand signs, and grabbed them again, her blades immediately charging with buzzing yellow lightning chakra. Meanwhile, Sasuke rapidly threw a kunai at Naruto, and by the time he'd dodged it, Akira had put herself in her classic offensive position. Sakura looked at her, surprised and a little scared. The last time she saw this jutsu was when Akira had killed Haku. Akira wasn't aiming to kill was she?

"Gotta hand it to you," Sasuke said. "You're faster than the last one."

"Akira, Sasuke, no!" Sakura shouted. "He said it properly! Don't do it!"

"That's why it isn't him. Do you really think Naruto, of all people, would remember a long password like that, without a single flaw?" Akira said dangerously, waiting for the intruder to strike. "You'd have a better chance teaching it to a hamster."

"Oh, right, you've got a point," Sakura admitted.

"Besides, you saw the way this guy moved when I threw the kunai at him," Sasuke said. "That was definitely not a Naruto move."

"All right, play time is over," Akira said sternly. "Come out, come out whoever you are," she added in a sing-song voice.

Naruto's face broke into a near inhuman grin and he licked his lips.

"Aren't we the clever ones," said a voice that didn't sound like Naruto's at all. Suddenly, Naruto transformed himself into the creepy grass ninja from earlier. Akira glared. "Tell me, if your teammate is really that dimwitted, why'd you come up with a password he'd never be able to remember?"

"See, it wasn't as much for Naruto as it was for anyone nearby trying to eavesdrop on us," Akira said with a smirk, a little proud of herself. "It was meant as a trap and you stumbled right into it."

"I'm impressed," the Kusagakure ninja said, removing her straw hat and looking at the three rookies darkly. "You certainly haven't dropped your guard, have you? This promises to be very entertaining."

The woman slowly removed an Earth Scroll from a pouch she was carrying, and Sakura gave them away by gasping at the sight of it. The Kusagakure ninja smiled maliciously.

"Ah, you'd love to get your hands on our Earth Scroll, wouldn't you? It would go so nicely with your Heaven Scroll."

Suddenly, the woman's painfully long tongue wrapped itself around the Earth Scroll she was holding near her face, and she easily slid it down her throat. Akira was suddenly reminded of a snake swallowing its prey whole.

"Well, when this is all over, one of us will have both scrolls. And the other will be dead!"

The Kusagakure ninja slowly looked up at them, her eyes no longer black, but golden with slitted pupils. Akira immediately closed her eyes and turned away, fully aware of what this was. She'd experienced it before... a long time ago. It wasn't a technique, jutsu or genjutsu at all. It was killing intent, pure and simple. If anything, it was even more terrifying than a genjutsu, because it was real. It was one hundred percent true intention to commit murder.

Akira didn't dare open her eyes until she heard someone fall to their knees and vomit. Her midnight blue eyes then, and only then, slowly opened. Sasuke was the one on his knees, Akria could see it now. And in the corner of her right eye, she could see that the Kusagakure ninja was only glaring now. Akira turned back to look at her and clenched her jaw. Sasuke and Sakura were in no condition to fight, and with Naruto nowhere to be found, Akira was completely alone against this... monster. The only smart thing to do was run. But Akira had a feeling that was easier said than done.