Chapter 33
Limping Out the Gate
Every team sits huddled around a map they've been provided, scattered around a field and speaking to each other in whispers, mumbles, and code. Naruto switches rapidly between handsigns to get his point across. Mi, Sha, Tori, Tora, Saru, Ne. Sakura hums, then repeats Mi and Sha followed by wiggling an incomplete Kai. Naruto responds with Rin, Mi, and using both hands to complete a Wakai sign. She sighs and nods reluctantly, before turning to Sasuke. He stares at the map for a few more moments before humming and nodding. "Seems most solid to me. Let's run with it."
The map between them present four separate extreme training grounds. The first is ground 44, the Forest of Death. They've heard plenty of stories about it from Anko, so they have an idea of what to expect there. After that is a great ravine north of there made in a great battle between the Shodaime Hokage and Tsuchikage. The last stretch is an urban training ground modeled after blockier industrial designs found in the northeast territories of the elemental nations. The starting points of each are labeled clearly, with the tower at the center of the forest as the start of the entire relay. One genin runs each stretch, passing their scroll to a teammate and sending them on their way.
"So, got your signals ready?" Sakura looks to the boys and they nod, each holding a scroll of Naruto's making. "Ok, we're as ready as we can be. Armed to the teeth, trained up with new moves…" She sighs shakily. "Yeah, we can do this. I'll see you boys at the end."
A buzzer sounds and the teams separate, each sending one unit to one of three proctors. They gather through a doorway into an enclosed room where they can separate into their chosen parties unseen, and given black cloaks that hang nearly to the ground to shroud themselves in and hide in the back of a cart that will take them to their destination.
Nobody will know who they'll be racing and fighting against in each stretch until the race has begun and kunai start to fly.
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Hiruzen watches the divisions closely through his crystal ball. One by one, he determines each team's likely and potential strategies. Gai's driven by pride in talents. Kurotsuchi's by terrain advantage. Team 8 by abuse of specialties and unique skills. The moment Tea 7 splits up, he begins to laugh. It starts as a hearty chuckle, then slowly turns into a full-blown hysteria. "I swear, you're going to have this whole exam by the balls by the time this is over!"
Danzo huffs from across the desk. "I must admit, I expect this to be one of the most interesting exams since our heyday. Remember when we dealt with that menace Jitekkou?"
Hiruzen snorts. "Wasn't the least bit surprised he went on to become the Sandaime Kazekage. If I recall, you almost took a spike of iron sand up your-"
"Yes, well, you didn't come out of that mess quite unscathed either. I'd say he was one of the few kage of the generation to come close to us. The Sandaime Mizukage certainly didn't measure up, and that brat Yagura made quite the mess."
"Don't remind me. Thankfully, there's three survivors of that mess out there right now about to make these exams far more entertaining."
"I don't think I've seen this many kekkei genkai in one place for quite some time. The variety of techniques should be staggering. You might even see a few new ones to pick up for your personal library."
"I'd be shocked if I didn't. For now though, how about a bet?" He peeks up to Danzo with a smirk. The man is usually far too reserved to gamble, but his competitive streak with his old rival is the one thing that can bring it out.
He hums, but the gravely nature of his voice almost makes it a growl. "I suppose that depends on the nature of the wager."
Hiruzen points to the cloaked genin visible in the ball. "I'll bet on Team Seven to make the top three in this round. You keep telling me that letting the last Uchiha and our jinchuuriki roam free is stifling their potential. I'd like to use this round as proof otherwise, and that having them free is making the rest of our genin far better as well."
Danzo's eyes narrow for a few moments. "… Very well. I suppose I can take this wager, on the condition that should you be wrong, you turn them both over to me."
Hiruzen takes a quick puff from his pipe, then reaches out to shake hands. "Fine then."
Danzo gladly shakes. He knows Hiruzen's faith in his genin, especially of this generation, is unwavering. But faith means nothing when he knows one of them is a target chosen by his new business partner.
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Deep in the Forest of Death, a several boats full of cloaked genin ride up the river towards a tower at the center of the grounds. The beasts of the forest remain at a distance, but many can still be seen stalking from beyond the trees, waiting for the numbers to spread and thin. The waters are slow and calm, and everything around them is far too quiet. Every creature in these woods is either quiet and hidden well enough for shinobi to barely notice or a predator on the hunt. The plants themselves even appear threatening, a myriad of colors warning of imminent suffering and death should you erroneously make contact.
The silence is broken only as they disembark and are lead into the tower. Every genin chooses their own exit from the tower, at any angle and any floor, be it window or door. In an escape mission, one must carefully choose their exit strategy.
Minutes of silence pass on, and genin from all walks of life await the start of their most grueling challenge yet.
The buzzer sounds and the grounds north of the tower erupt into chaos immediately.
Black cloaks burst through windows in mass, while those emerging through lower floors are bombarded by a salvo of kunai- some of which explode- right out the gate. As the fireball of the explosions clears, Tetsuma emerges clad in a suit of steel samurai armor that's folded around him defensively and unfolds with a hand sign command. Another cloaked figure rushes out the gate after the mayhem dies down and trails at the back of the group.
Up ahead, one cloak flies off prematurely to reveal a green blur far ahead of the rest of the pack. Kunai fly after him, but he keeps ahead and swings on branches to avoid just a few, proving to have this leg of the race in the bag.
Down below, the river seems to suddenly double it's pace as a humanoid figure slowly emerges from it and bares shark fangs. Suigetsu surges forwards with reckless abandon, dipping in and out of the water as attacks come his way.
A kunai manages to catch one competitor in the back, but he fades away into a cloud of kikaichu that homes in on the attacker, while the real Shino rushes ahead from behind the cover of the tree line to the west of the river.
A few bloodthirsty competitors looking to thin the herd head after one who strays from the pack, but many of them start to slow and stumble after a stretch of missing all their throws and being led through some particularly colorful fields. Ino peeks back with a smirk with a vial between her lips, then leaves her would-be assailants to suffer through the poisons she led them through.
One competitor in the middle of the pack with a suspiciously humped back gets blasted with a fireball. The cloak burns away and the genin's head turns completely around to reveal a wooden mouth and eye through their charred mask and fires a poisoned kunai directly into them while Kankurou unwraps himself from the bundle in Kurasu's arms. He then starts lashing out his chakra strings to attach himself to branches and swing about at a much higher speed than his legs could carry him. Puppet masters are usually quite stationary, but he's had to adapt to be more agile just to deal with his sensei's slave-driving and his brother's foul temper.
Shino cringes as he begins to realize a sound has been building in his ears and starting to throw off his balance. He plugs his ears with kikaichu and directs them to track the source of the noise.
Kabuto grimaces and plugs his ears with seal-carved plugs. Dosu's far too much of a competitive hothead, just as Orochimaru had warned him. For now, he focuses his attention on the last major player to remain cloaked. He's already deduced who they are, his personal target for this exam. He'll have to slow her down, just a bit.
Dosu fails to notice the few bugs that track him, none of them able to get close enough to absorb his chakra. The constant vibrations he's putting off are disorienting them enough to lose their flight path completely and crash to the forest floor. Anyone else who gets close is met with a counter and a wave of crippling nausea and ear pain that surely puts them out of the race.
Everyone fails to notice a single shinobi traveling through the ground the entire time, only peeking up for a few moments to catch some air through his respirator.
Kabuto finally takes his shot, throwing a kunai at Sakura, who's avoided notice through a total lack of jutsu usage and combat thus far. Lying low has kept her safe thus far, but as the numbers die down, she becomes a clear target.
A viable excuse if he's ever seen one.
A quick throw of a single kunai catches her cloak and rips it off, revealing Sakura in her usual attire, but her top is tied down at the waist by a pink sash and similar cloth appears to be wrapped around her arms. She cringes as a cut weeps on her shoulder, but she grabs onto a branch, swings to crouch on it's side facing north, and kicks off with all her might.
Tetsuma, just a short distance ahead, catches sight of her coming and rushes through handsigns, then reaches down and barely touches the ground with his fingertips as he runs. A boulder bursts into the air and threatens to crash into her, but Sakura narrows her eyes and rears back a fist.
Suddenly, the cloth wrapped around her right arm and knuckles becomes rigid, and a single punch crushes the boulder!
The impact slows her down a good deal, but the moment Sakura touches ground she breaks into a full sprint. Her mornings jogging with Lee are paying off as she starts progressing towards the front of the pack.
Kabuto growls, knowing he can't allow this. Most of his jutsu are off limits, so he'll have to rely entirely on strategy and tools. He draws a few explosive kunai from his pouch and flings them ahead into a particularly large branch. The ensuing explosion collapses the branch into everyone's path, and only a few manage to avoid it.
Lee's stuck to the ground for most of his race and dips to his left to go around it with ease. Dosu roars and swings the back of his gauntlet into it, creating a localized sound blast that puts out the fire in front of him and splinters some of the wood in his way, softening it enough to not be thrown completely on his ass and instead tuck and roll over it. Suigetsu goes under through the river, while Tetsuma uses an earth jutsu to vault over it after it lands.
Sakura is less lucky, hitting one of the smaller burning branches off the main branch as it rolls and shifts ahead of her. It smacks her out of the air and into a nearby trunk, stunned and immobile for a few moments.
Kabuto hums contently as he passes, smirking as he's now certain she'll take long enough for his lord to complete his mission.
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Far to the north, at the southern points of the ravine, where multiple branches of the fissure and sharp rock formations dot the landscape, Sasuke sits cloaked and alone, staring down to the south as his mind wanders.
It wanders so much that he fails to notice another genin sneaking up on his flank until they speak, or so he assumes. In reality, he never would have noticed their approach at all, even if he had been paying his full attention.
"Lovely afternoon, I must say."
Sasuke jumps and wheels around, reaching for his kunai pouch, but the Kusa genin ahead of him raises her hands defensively. "Oh, my! No, no, I'm not looking to fight. I mostly had questions for the last loyal Uchiha. My village and your clan have quite a history!"
That much, Sasuke knows to be true. Kusagakure is known to be among the foremost tool experts among shinobi, and the Uchiha clan sold a good deal of armaments to them for many, many good years. Despite Kusa's closer proximity to Iwa, their relationship with Konoha has been far better, with their relationship with Iwa being largely focused on a surplus in crop trade they desperately need.
Sasuke grumbles as he looks her over. An unassuming getup really, save for the obnoxious purple rope belt. "Fine, then. I suppose I have time for that." He lowers his guard, partially, but his eyes remain focused.
"Oooh, those piercing eyes. Mark a true Uchiha, there. Even the Hyuuga can't quite manage a death glare of such potency, and you haven't even activated your sharingan. I must say, I'm impressed!" She chuckles. I haven't felt a stare like that since an unfortunate encounter with your brother."
And that one word sends Sasuke's mind into a spiral. He grips his pouch and scowls. "The hell do you know about Itachi?"
She laughs heartily. "Oh, quite a lot! I first met him when he was just a young genin himself, already so focused and easily irate with the nature of things. Quite the philosopher, that boy was." She sighs wistfully. "Indeed, a prime specimen of a shinobi, if not for the atrocity he committed. Honestly, it's an event I still can't get my had around, but I've heard you were there for it. Must have been quite the grisly sight."
Sasuke grits his teeth and slips his hand into his kunai pouch. "And what of it? Either make your point, and a good one, real damn fast or this is gonna get ugly."
"Ooooh, touch a nerve, did I?" Her grin slowly spreads into something unnatural, and sickening. "Good."
Suddenly, Sasuke feels his ankles have been grabbed and peeks down to find a pair of snakes emerging from the ground and holding him down.
His attacker rushes in to strike. Sasuke switches on Moeruken in a blaze of glory and the snakes at his ankles reel back from the flames. Ankles free, he rolls back into a backflip and lands on his hands, then pushes off for a donkey kick.
He whiffs entirely and takes a knee to his spine. The following punch to his face flips him backwards and tumbles him towards a stone wall, but he flips up to stand on it's side with his two-tomoe sharingan spinning.
She takes a moment to inspect her hands and knee, and the burns accumulated there from sparring with the boy's technique. "Fascinating. I've never heard of such a jutsu, but it simply makes all the sense in the world. My my, you're proving more impressive by the moment, Sasuke!" She giggles and runs through a few handsigns. "Seeing as you've essentially removed taijutsu from the equation, then how about ninjutsu? Sen'ei Jashu!"
A slew of snakes bursts from her sleeves and towards Sasuke, who draws his sword and switches to Mahiken. The edge of his blade sparks in unison.
The chakra-sharpened edge slices through the snakes with relative ease, but a pair of them bite down on rocks to throw them at him from odd angles.
He can't manage to block both at once and takes one to the shoulder, throwing off a swing and leaving him open for a quick bite.
The poison starts to set in quickly, even with the lightning in his veins holding it off.
As she rushes in with more snakes emerging form her left sleeve, Sasuke's eyes spin and he dips into the earth rapidly.
She peeks around for any sign of him, but has her back turned to Sasuke as he bursts from the ground with his blade extended to impale her.
She whips around with a wind-enhanced kunai and counters, forcing Sasuke to skid back through the jutsu-softened earth until his feet fully surface at the end of a ten foot trench dug with his own legs.
"Excellent, Sasuke!" Her tongue rolls out as her face stretches and folds with her grin, like soft rubber across her skull. "Show me the strength of your will!"
Sasuke's heart stalls in horror as her legs turn to a snake tail as she slithers rapidly around the rocks, dipping in and out of view. He struggles to track her movements as his mind races and pieces together her jutsu into a vivid, horrible picture.
He spins around and clashes blades with her, finding himself on the backfoot even as he keeps swinging.
Her counters drive him back, and she's barely bothering to attack. Every swing rattles his bones and jars his shoulders as his technique grows sloppier by the moment.
The poison is setting in faster.
As one final clash knocks the blade from his hand, Sasuke locks eyes with yellow, slit irises. He nurses his hand, crouching and hunched. "O-Orochimaru?"
"Oh?" He starts to cackle maniacally beneath his disguise. "You already know of my magnificence? Well, I see no point in delaying any longer." A plethora of snakes to emerge from behind a boulder and ties him down to it. Sasuke writhes and struggles, but he can barely move any longer. "You've proven yourself excellent already, dear boy." Orochimaru chuckles and slowly peels his mask off, unveiling a pale, angular face and lavender markings beneath his eyes. "Should I do this now, you should have plenty of time to recuperate and complete the exam." He smirks as he pulls a vial from his belt and bites into it, sucking the concoction into his fangs.
"What… the HELL do you want with me?!" He tries to charge Moeruken, but the venom's settled in. That last impact broke his focus and halted Mahiken, and how it runs unbridled in his bloodstream, numbing his limbs uselessly.
"Oh, it's quite simple, boy. You're going to test the next step of my greatest achievement." He hums and starts shifting through hand signs. "It's quite lucky, really. When I infiltrated Kusa to replace one of their genin, I discovered an incredible new resource there. I'd thought her bloodline long gone, but now I've an excellent and seemingly endless supply of material to work with. It just to happens to mesh with the properties of the sample already in my possession excellently." He grins as his jutsu sequence ends. "This experiment should be enlightening to say the least."
"Stay… the hell away from me…" Sasuke would be shaking beneath those serpents, if not for the venom crippling him. All he can do is watch in horror as Orochimaru's neck extends and his fangs descend into his shoulder.
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Sakura wakes with a groan, finding blood dried over her left eye. She narrows down eyes and glares into the distance, trying to focus for just a moment. A few quick motor tests and gently inspecting her own head with gentle fingertips confirms it's safe to stand, and she starts a basic Shōsen jutsu to fix the cut over her eye before cleaning the blood away with a little water form her canteen. She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes to clear her head…
and slings her pink silk bandages up onto a low branch, a faint blue glow flowing through them as they wrap around the branch and hold on tight. Sakura pulls herself up and launches herself over the fallen branch, spotting her competitors far head as a few explosions sound in the distance. "Hmph… fine. Suigetsu shouldn't be an issue this far back…"
She takes to the river and runs along it, but soon begins to pump water chakra into her feet and skate along as she picks up speed. With a quick application of water chakra back into her bandages, she whips it out and grabs a jagged rock jutting out of the river, pulling herself to it to slingshot ahead.
Even as rapids come up ahead, she skates along on them in winding patterns to navigate the worst of it. She almost giggles, reminded of ice skating with her classmates last winter, long before graduation.
She has quite a distance to cover before catching up, but she's far from out of the race. Even leaving last, Sasuke's speed should be more than enough to make up for it, and Naruto's tricks should cover the rest. For now, she just revels in how far she's come, almost dancing through one of the most hazardous locations in Konoha's reach.
Far ahead, an alarm sounds confirming that the first student to clear the first leg of the race has done so. She doesn't need anyone to tell her it was Lee, that much was frankly obvious from the start.
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Far up the path, at the northern tip of the ravine, Naruto sits in his cloak, meditating, and just barely lifts his head as the alarm blares. Kurama speaks up in his head.
"I believe your obnoxious friend in green just passed the first line. Who do you suppose he passed his scroll to?"
"Oh, that's kinda obvious. This urban setting it best reserved to Neji's eyes, so Tenten's running the ravine. It's the most open space, so she's free to use her weapons, and although she's the slowest, she can certainly slow everyone else down, especially if she's ahead."
"I should expect to hear a lot of explosions in the distance then, shouldn't I?"
"Probably." He pauses as a new slew of memories hits him. "Stage 5B is set. That one should be fun."
"You know wars have been started over the sort of things you're about to do, right?"
"Eh, everyone signed a liability agreement. I can't be held accountable for anything in here, so why not test a few new tricks?"
"Now this is exactly why you're the only jinchuuriki I've liked."
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Back in the middle of the pack in the forest, Kurasu barely manages to protect Kankurou from a hail of Testuma's kunai, one grazing his left shoulder. Kankurou returns fire with a poison smoke bomb, forcing most of the competitors to scatter away from it. Shino huffs and orders a kikaichu ahead through it, and as it confirms the kikaichu can survive it, he commands them into a spiraling flight pattern that splits the cloud and makes a clean tunnel through it.
Noticing Shino rushing in, Suigetsu plans to kill two birds with one stone by unleashing a wave to dissolve the cloud and crush Shino's hive in the process.
Shino manages to hear him coming and one section of his kikaichu horde intercepts him, surrounds him, and unloads a lightning jutsu in a wide net across their entire swarm. "Hijutu: Dengeki Mushi Shōmi." (Hidden Jutsu: Shocking Bug Net)
While Suigetsu splashes unceremoniously back into the river, Tetsuma leaps across the river to intercept Kabuto. Kabuto ducks past what would have been the range of his broken blade, but a full katana instead swings from Tetsuma's sheath and gets a long grazing strike across his arm and chest.
Kabuto's eyes narrow on the blade and he catches sight of a clear divide that glows with a small amount of chakra. He groans and backs up past the trees to disappear and nurse his weeping wounds while Testuma rushes ahead towards the ravine.
Just as Suigetsu starts to get back up, he peeks back to find Sakura's foot swinging through his head. She skates across the water with ease, humming to herself as she recites the advice of an ice-wielding angel. "If you want to support your team, you have to hold your own in any chaos. Be quick, be controlled, be untouchable, and take advantage of every opening."
With everyone having been so focused on competing with each other up ahead, they left a wide berth for her to breach through and take the lead among those remaining in this stretch.
Dosu takes notice instantly and aims his gauntlet, giving it a flick.
At first, Sakura flinches and stumbles, but she grabs her head and runs another Shōsen through her ears.
She stumbles just long enough for Dosu to catch up and swing for her, but she backflips over and performs a quick chain of handsigns out of his line of sight.
As he turns around to block whatever she counters with, he's surprised to find it's not a kunai or a kick, but a quick-spit wad of dense, slimy mud that splatters against his gauntlet and plugs every hole! "What the hell?!" He backs up and tried to wipe it all off, but Sakura performs one last handsign.
"Doton: Doryūheki!" The mud wad rapidly expands into a dry wall of cracked soil, dropping Dosu to the floor and pinned by his arm.
"DAMN YOU!" Dosu rages as he fights to pry himself free. Sakura only giggles as she races ahead. "When I meet you in the next round, I'm gonna flay you alive!"
Dosu pauses as he hears a disapproving "tsk" nearby, finding Suigetsu floating by as he finishes reforming. "That's just poor sportsmanship. Ya lost, get over it, be glad you're alive." He raises the water around and behind himself in one swift wave of his arms. "Later, loser!"
With a quick push, another wave sends Suigetsu racing after the other competitors.
Dosu would have called after him with every name in his very long book of insults if not for a sudden pop as he kept fighting to free his arm. Then he was too busy swearing at everything in general.
Every competitor remaining knows better than to waste time fighting. Numbers have dwindled considerably, stamina is running low, and only a few half-hearted strikes are exchanged when opportunity arises. As Sakura nears the ravine, she pulls a flare from her pocket and fires, unleashing pink smoke and light into the sky.
But no signal is returned. No blue flare, no smoke, nothing. Worry creeps into her mind. "Sasuke, where the hell are you?.."
All the while, other competitors split up to find their own teammates, scattered amongst the rocks at the base of the ravine, on either side of the waterfall running into it. Ino passes her scroll to Chouji, who takes off with fire in his eyes. Tetsuma tracks down Kurotsuchi, who takes to the walls and ledges within the ravine. Suigetsu finds Haku and tosses the scroll before plopping back into he water to just chill. Haku frosts him over so he'll really chill before making a path of ice down into the ravine to slide her way north. Akamaru accepts the scroll from Shino before he and Kiba sprint off into the woods atop the cliff. Temari is already gliding ahead on her fan.
But Sakura still cannot find Sasuke.
It takes her another two minutes, precious time in this race, to find him unconscious, slumped in the middle of a scorched clearing. "Sasuke!" She rushes to his side, checking him over with a basic diagnostic jutsu- only to freeze as she spots the angry, swollen spot on his neck, sporting a seal of three tomoe, a mockery of the Uchiha's eyes, turned against one.
She narrows her eyes and steels her will, focusing on bringing down his fever and evening his breath. "Just what kind of seal is this?" She turns her head to observe the battlefield, taking in every cut mark, every burn, and every hole. "Something bigger than the exam is going on here…"
All the while, far up north, Naruto scowls as he silently waits, eyes on southern shy. He saw that spark of pink in the distance, and no blue to answer. Yoko growls faintly at his side. "Yeah, I don't like this either… but I trust Sasuke to get back up and finish this race."
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The pressure of Hiruzen 's chakra could be felt all throughout the tower. A rage powerful enough to end nations runs through his veins and into the air, strong enough for Danzo to be wary and distant.
The crystal ball has settled on the image of Sakura attempting to heal Sasuke and inspecting his seal. In the peripherals of this vision, several warped and faded images of slain guards can be found, laid around the perimeter of the exam's second stage.
An injured Izumo kneels by the desk, head bowed in respect and shame.
"Get every Anbu, Jonin, and Chuunin in the village without students in the exam searching for that snake this instant! If he's found, orders are to report before engaging, but not to engage in civilian areas. We cannot risk him summoning Manda to distract us with civilian casualties." His grip on his cane tightens enough to crack the wood. "And get a medic team to Sasuke Uchiha immediately, but should he wake, defer to his judgement."
An Anbu fades into view in the corner of the room, then disappears with a nod.
"I will not have my failed student run free ruining more children's lives. I'll end him myself this time."
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A.N.: Hey, sorry this took so long! I had most of it done for about two weeks, but then I just got seriously sick. Still recovering a bit, tail end of this chapter may feel a bit rough, but quite a few people are begging for an update.
Regardless, I hope you all like the upgrades I've given everyone here! I'm especially proud of what I've done with Sakura and Shino. So much potential, so little used. Well, not in my fic!
Meanwhile, I uh.. I'm not sure how long I can keep this up. I'm broke, job hunts are taking me nowhere, and my freelance stuff if going nowhere. I still have my youtube channel going too, but it's uh... yeah, despite all my uploads, it's really dead. Vary rare I get any comments, likes, or subs. So if ya wanna help me survive so I can keep this going, feel free to pop over there, give my channel (same username) a peek, maybe help me get that monetized!