Chapter 19: A Sign of Worse to come?

"In society, those who don't have many abilities, tend to complain more."- Kakashi Hatake


He stared outside from the ins of the carriage, looking past the window as the only way of passing time while on his way to the shinobi exam.

Seeing nothing but nature amidst his ride he thought, 'Trees and Bushes, what else would I expect from a forest?'. He props up his feet on the empty seat in front of him. 'Damn it I should have stayed at home if it takes this long just to watch a stupid exam.'

A few minutes later, he gets thrown across the wooden floor just as the carriage comes to an abrupt stop.

'Ugh, What in the hell was that?' He ask himself as he begins to fix his ruffled clothing, before opening the door "Hey, what's the deal out there? I payed good money for this!" He shouts to the driver. No response.

"Gods.. I pay a hefty amount and this is what I get in return? Ridiculous." He mumbles to himself as he checks upfront "Hey-"

He clambers back as the sight of a kunai embedded deep in the drivers forehead enters his sight . He gags, and vomits the remainders of his lunch. He runs back inside the carriage, shaking with fear.

"Hey now, where do you think you're going?" He hears a deep voice grumble behind him. As he turns to look back at the voice his view shifts from the ground, up to the air as he's suddenly been thrown to the ceiling of the vehicle, and pulled down to the floor with a heavy crack, from where his arm landed, resounding inside the carriage.

"Arghh!" His voice leaks out from the flash of pain. His eyes quickly glance over where he thought the deep voice was located, but sees nothing, nothing but an empty seat.

He stands up while clutching his arm, and scans the interior before getting pinned onto the rough surface of the wooden floor boards.

"Who the hell are you! What do you want from me?" He shouts vigorously at the figure clutching him down. It was all for naught however when a hand covers his mouth.

He Struggles in this figures grasp, before feeling the cold touch of sharp metal along his spine.

All the hair on his body stands up as he feels a heavy windy breath at the tip of his ear, and the beating of his heart was the only thing he could hear before the silence was broken, the figure speaks up.

"Nice to meet you." The deep raspy voice whispered "If you scream…Well to be fair no one would hear you anyways, much less help, so let's try not to struggle shall we?"

"What do you want?!" his voice leaks out from the hand covering his mouth.

"What do I want? Well… It would be quite generous of you to just hand over all of your cash, wouldnt it?" The man says as his other hand pulls out a kunai "But, apparently I need verification from you to get it from the bank, so I need your help"

"I'll give it to you! Just let me go alive, please!" He manages to mutter out. The man chuckles as the kunai he pulled out earlier gets ever nearer to the man's neck.

"Well from what I remember, what was it again? Ah! Yes I only need your blood after all, how lucky I am dont you think?" The figure says as he quickly slits the throat of the grappled man.

The figure lets him go, and as the man tries to block the wound with his hand he saw as this figure scoops up a vial of his blood and hands it over to a stout young lad. "Give this to the bank attendants and tell them to withdraw everything." He heard his deep voice say to the other figure. And as his remaining consciousness slip away, the last sight he bore from this world, was his killer wearing a white porcelain mask.


"What happened?"

Hiruzen looked at the report he got a few minutes ago. It was the day of the second exam, and he was supposed to watch it in his crystal ball before…this.

"A merchant was killed on his way to Konoha. Based on his lack of wares, we assumed that he was going to watch the last exam." The guard answered "It was pretty gruesome, Hokage-sama. His carriage driver was cleanly killed in the head by a kunai, and the merchant with a quick slice through the two carotid arteries on the neck. Medic-nin said he bled out, as his hands was on his neck."

'Mercenaries, and now murders near Konoha? What is happening?' Hiruzen looked at his window, before he put his pipe on a drawer in his table. "What are the number on this kind of cases?"

"Within this week, we had 5 cases. We thought it was just the usual bandits and street robbers, but when we looked closer, we found they were all merchants with a lot of influence and/or money." The Shinobi reported grimly "We tried to go deeper, but before we could, civilian police said that they would take over."

"Then why did you let them take over?" Hiruzen asked the Shinobi.

"I'm sorry, Hokage-sama! They argued that since they were civilian merchants, it was in their jurisdiction, and we found no argument to contradict their statement."

Hiruzen took a deep sigh "And it is true. These were civilian merchants. We have no right to argue." He said as he looked over the report "Yet, it is worrying…"

He pressed a button under his desk. A second later, the door opened.

"Yes hokage-sama?" A woman with sharp clothing, and a stern face, his secretary answered

"Put out a B-Class Mission. Omit any details, and tell them that to meet me in my office immediately." Hiruzen ordered with the secretary replying with a nod.


As the sun stood in the middle of the sky, multiple screams filled the forest, as an orange light flashed from multiple parts of the forest.

"Your younger self had no battle sense whatsoever huh? Left, 50 meters" Kurama rambled on his mind, as Naruto threw out a kunai on his left, and a scream could be heard before a thud.

"Is he alive?"

"Based on how he's chakra is circulating right now, he's not gonna be walking for the day."

Naruto sighed "It's get annoying, dattebayo! This lack of battle sense is driving me nuts! I could sense them but I have to exert effort to do anything!" Naruto said as he kept running. "Atleast Sasuke has a miniscule form of intuition but I have none whatsoever!"

"Shut up, you brat. It'll come back as time goes on, or if you go back to the future."

"I guess so… Anyways, what have you been doing being so silent for the past few weeks?"

Naruto heard a deep grumble "Sleeping, of course. Your father's old seal took my old self a bit of a beating."

"So, basically, your finally in full power?" Naruto asked enthusiastically "Finally! I could kick ass once-"

"Woah there brat. You forget, In this time, my yin chakra is still inside your father-"

"Inside?" Naruto said as he gagged "I can't get that thought out of my head now."

"You know what I mean, you stupid horny-"

"I'm just joking, geez! Anyways" Naruto said as he stopped running, and sat down in one of the branches high above the tree "Sakura and Sasuke should be arriving."

As soon as he said that, a black and red blur came into a view, before they stopped near Naruto.

"Dobe. You got a scroll?" Sasuke asked Naruto as he leaned at the trunk of the tree.

"Nope! I looked around. Couldn't find one. How about you?" Naruto asked him.

Sasuke sighed before he rummaged in his pack and took out a Heaven scroll and showed it to Naruto "See?"

"Finally! How about you Sakura?"

Sakura shook her head "The same as you. I found nothing."

Naruto sigh "Atleast we just need the earth scroll. Come on let's go look for one." He said as he dropped down to the ground.

For a few hours, that's what they did. They looked around for any sort of sign, or tracks just so they could acquire the scroll.

After the first exam, Anko Mitarashi, the proctor took the remaining genin left, which was less than half the amount of genins were when the first exam started, to the second exam, to the forest of death. As soon as the second exam started, half of the genins who just took their few hours inside the forest of death were immediately disqualified, for unknown reasons. The only remaining participants were all of the Konoha nine, who had an unspoken rule of not interfering with each other, Team Gai, and four other teams who all had a scroll.

The sun was setting, and team seven walked through the seemingly empty forest.

Naruto stretched and yawn "Is there anything?" He asks out of boredom

Sakura takes a deep sigh "Nothing. Is your sensory skill not working?"

Naruto shook his head as he rubbed his eyes "Kurama said that it's basically on half power, so I can still sense a lot of stuff. But this forest is overloading a lot of it. Every tree and creature has been grown, attacked, or is filled with chakra, that its basically useless. Sasuke, why don't you use your sharingan?"

Sasuke shook his head too "The sharingan isn't like that. And even if it was, it would be like searching for a hot coal on a pool of lava." Sasuke said before they heard a subtle snap of a twig.

"Up." Sasuke as he run up the tree. Naruto and Sakura quickly followed suit. A few seconds later they heard a few ruffling of foliage before they hear a high pitched voice

"Gods Shikamaru, are you sure there's someone here? There's no one!"

They took a look down, and saw the three figures were Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji.

"I thought I heard a couple of voices here. I was mistaken. What a pain." Shikamaru said as he looked around again just to be sure.

"Well, lets hope we can find a scroll. It's getting dark, and I don't want to eat up all of my snacks!" Chouji replied as he mysteriously got a pack of chips and munched on them.

"Me too. I don't want to stay in this stupid, annoying forest anymore!" Ino said as she stomped then sighed "I wish I was on Sasuke's team, and not that stupid pink haired walking billboard."

Shikamaru raised a brow " Even though he was pretty harsh with you yesterday?"

Ino pouted " I'm sure Sasuke-kun was just moody that day! Yes, moody! I still have a chance!"

"Even though…such a pain" Shikamaru mumbled before he walked back into the bushes with Ino and Chouji following him.

Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke waited for a few mins before they jumped back down. Naruto patted Sasuke's back .

"There, there. You thought you finally lose on of your rabid fangirls but, I guess life told her to persevere."

"Shut up Naruto."


Neji looked in the distance, as he searched for any chakra signatures he could hone in on, but was disappointed when he couldn't find anyone. He turned off his Byakugan and jumped down.

"Nothing?" Tenten asked Neji, which he replied with a nod "Man, this is getting annoying. We just need the earth scroll, and we'd be set!"

"I am sure we will find that Earth Scroll, Tenten. We shall need to persevere and follow Gai-sensei's tenants of winning!" Lee said enthusiastically "The first Tenant! Never give up! The second Tenant! Always give your best! Third! ALWAYS STAY YOUTHFUL!"

"Shut up Lee. You might attract the tigers again" Neji scolded Lee "We will find a scroll. Then I will win the exam, as fate decrees it to be."

"Uh Huh, as you say Neji." Tenten said before she looked at the fire they made "What do you of those three we met?"

"What three? The one with the redhead-"

"Did you mean the one with Uchiha-san?" Neji asked.

"Yeah. They were pretty… interesting. Especially the blonde and the Uchiha." Tenten said as she tented the campfire with a stick "What do you think?"

Neji thought of that situation. Well, Neji couldn't get it out of his mind. Faith always decreed that he was the strongest out of all of them, or so would his belief would be. This was fueled by the constant praise that his fellow branch and main family members(These would be rarely given) would give to him as he continued to give honor and pride to the Hyuuga name. The only one that would contest him would be the last Uchiha, Sasuke Uchiha. Top of his class, with a rivalling doujutsu of his own. Or so he thought.

The blonde had interested him a lot of times. The first time being amused when he tried graduating early, and was pulled back, back to his age group. He felt like laughing when he saw a scrawny child, with a row of soon-to be genins. Then he would see him again, the day before, and he saw a big change. He was more fuller, more toned, more…better. Then he made the mistake of looking at the blonde's chakra. It overwhelmed him, to say the least. It was like staring into an ocean, which compared to his, was miniscule. However, it didn't deter Neji, to say the least.

"I think, their future has already determined their courses. They are interesting, however. The Uchiha is destined for greatness, as his family had always be destined for greatness. I do not feel the same for the blonde. He will fail as destiny said he would."

"That's…harsh"

Neji opened his mouth to say more but suddenly he felt the ground shake. He looked at the distance as he saw the bright red light of flames


A/N: Hello there! I told you I would post another one within this week. Don't worry this isn't rushed or anything. In fact this had been planned out and beta-read by some of my writer friends, so expect a lot of stuff, well you already read it, so it was a lot of stuff. If you've noticed, my writing had gotten way better, and that's because I found someone to help me with this! Help meaning he's paid. Paid for something different, but he said he would help, so I'm pretty grateful for that. I'd like to thank CapnBallEater(name still in progress) for helping. Remember, if you want to help out, or anything, just hit me up with a pm, and we'll talk about it. You'd be credited and given an early access to read my story as a prize for helping. Anyways, hope you enjoyed! ありがとうございます!じゃね!