Chapter X: The Forest of Death

"Sakura, you're really starting to piss me off, you know that?" Ino said. "Now hand over the damn scroll already!"

"Don't even think about it," Sasuke said as Sakura began to reach for her pouch with shaking hands. "I've had about enough of this. Why don't you go lead your own team to failure and leave mine the hell alone!"

"I thought I told you to get lost," Ino said, glaring at Sasuke from across the forest clearing. Looking at Sakura, she said, "We've already got both scrolls and I want to head over to the tower now. If we hurry, I bet we can set the record for the quickest time!"

"She's not going anywhere with you," Sasuke said. He stepped around the body of the unconscious Rain-nin on the moss-covered floor and moved to stand in front of Sakura, blocking her from Ino's view. "Were you even listening to the rules? The proctor clearly stated that the only way to pass the test is for your entire team to make it to the tower with both scrolls."

"Yeah, so?"

"So, " Sasuke said, "That means your team is disqualified."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ino said. "All the members of my team are right here."

"Team Ino isn't a real team! What is wrong with you?!"

Sakura flinched. You knew things had spiraled out of control when someone like Sasuke had been reduced to high-pitched shrieking. She didn't blame him, really. Ino had been insufferable since she had found them. And, judging by the three unconscious ninja at her feet, Sakura's fear that Ino would abuse the hell out of Mokuton was, in fact, well-justified.

Even worse, Shikamaru and Chouji were nowhere to be found. Sakura hoped they were still alive. Speaking of which...

"Hey, Ino," Sakura said, "Who is our third team mate?" She hadn't seen Hinata around, nor had Ino mentioned her.

"Third team mate?" Ino said. She fiddled with the two earth scrolls in her hand as she thought about it. "Naruto, of course."

"What?" Sasuke's face was starting to turn red. "You can't—Those are my teammates!"

"You snooze, you lose," Ino said, "Besides, you're just going fail the exams and defect from the village anyway."

"Ino!" Sakura gasped. "You can't just—"

"Yo," A voice called out. Four heads turned to see Shikamaru enter the clearing. He seemed as unphased as ever, and appeared to be unharmed (Sakura had worried there, for a moment). Chouji didn't appear to be with him.

Shikamaru looked at the men on the floor, and then looked back up at the two earth scrolls in Ino's hands. "You probably shouldn't wave those scrolls around like that."

"Huh?" Ino said, before stuffing them back into her vest. "Oh, yeah."

"Where's Chouji?" Sakura said.

"Oh, uh..." Shikamaru scratched the back of his head. "..Yakiniku Q?"

"What?!" Sasuke said.

"There's a Yakiniku Q here?!" Naruto's eyes widened. "That's awesome! Where is it? I'm starving."

"Don't be an idiot, Naruto," Sakura whispered, edging towards him. "He means Chouji quit."

"Actually, I think Ino fired him..." Shikamaru said. "Don't worry about Chouji, though. He's fine."

"I thought you weren't allowed to quit halfway through," Sasuke said. "You do know that means your team is disqualified, right, Shikamaru?"

"Hn... that's troublesome," Shikamaru sighed. He seemed put-out, but not nearly as put-out as Sakura would have thought. Shikamaru wasn't exactly high energy, but he was responding as if someone had just told him he had to run an extra 20 laps during training and not that he had just failed a very important career related exam. And she would have never guessed that Chouji would have just walked out of the test. What on earth had happened since they entered the forest? It had only been a couple of hours since the second test had started.

"So what now?" Shikamaru said.

"Now we head down to the tower," Ino said. "We've got both of the scrolls, and an extra earth scroll to boot. Speaking of which..." She turned back to Sakura, who reflexively shrunk in on herself. "Hand over the heaven scroll already! I'm team leader, so I should be the one who gets to hold onto it."

Sasuke responded by pulling out a kunai and holding it out menacingly in Ino's direction. "Sakura, if you hand that over to her, I swear I'll—"

"Why don't you both hand over your scrolls to me, instead?"

The five genin turned towards the voice. Above them, a woman with long black hair and a grass head protector was standing atop one of the huge, twisted branches.

"Or if you'd prefer," she continued in a deep, insidious voice, "I can pry them from your cold, dead fingers."

Sakura felt her eyes widen, and realized she had been holding her breath since the woman had spoken. She could feel her eyes starting to water. "Oh, no..."

That was Orochimaru. Orochimaru was going kill them all. He was going to put that seal on Naruto, and then he was going to give Sasuke the curse mark, and then both of her teammates were going to be unconscious, and then she was going to be stuck here, alone, with Ino—

Before anyone had time to move, Sakura crumbled to the floor. "We're all going to die out here," she said in between tear-filled gasps. "I-I should have left with Ch-Chouji when I had the chance!"

"You've got to be kidding me," Sasuke said. With one hand, he grabbed the back of Sakura's collar and yanked her up off of the floor. "Pull yourself together. You're supposed to be a ninja. She hasn't even attacked us yet," Looking back up at the woman, Sasuke said, "We're not giving you anything."

The others seemed to be in agreement with him. Ino hadn't said anything since the grass-nin's appearance: she seemed to be thinking about something, which Sakura knew was never a good sign.

"Ino," Sakura said. "Are you—"

Sakura's words were cut off by the roaring sound of wind. The ensuing gust knocked her clear off of her feet, catching her by surprise. She landed on her back, knocking her skull soundly into one of the many gnarly roots covering the forest floor. Sakura wasn't sure how long she lay there, clutching her head, but when she looked up, she found herself staring into two huge, serpentine eyes.

Oh, dear God.

Choking on air, she scrambled backwards frantically on all fours in an embarrassing version of the crab-walk, before finally getting to her feet and running as fast as she possibly could. Could she even outrun a snake that large? Was it even possible? She didn't know what was worse: facing the snake and knowing it could lunge at any moment, or not facing it and having no idea where it was or what it was doing.

It didn't matter, anyway. Sakura only managed to get about ten feet before she tripped over a tree root. The last thing she saw before losing consciousness was the large boulder her face was about to make contact with.

"Sakura!" Someone was shaking her. "Sakura-chan, wake up! You gotta hurry!"

Blearily, her eyes shot open. Naruto was staring down at her, looking a bit dirty but otherwise unharmed. Behind him, the snake was lying curled on the ground.

"S-snake!" She yelped, sitting up so quickly she nearly banged her head into Naruto's chin.

"Don't worry about it!" Naruto said. "I took care of it, all by myself! Isn't that awesome?"

"Really?" Sakura said. That was pretty impressive.

"Really!" Naruto said excitedly. "I wasn't going to let it get you, Sakura! All I had to do was throw some kunai at its neck and it went right down. It did almost eat me instead, though..." He trailed off. "But that part's not really important."

"Where are the others?" Sakura said, looking around worriedly.

He pointed past her, in the opposite direction of the snake. "Up there. I think they're fighting that lady. Come on, let's go."

"Um..." Sakura said, suddenly not feeling quite so relieved, "Maybe it'd be better if we didn't..."

Ignoring her, Naruto stood up, dragging her with him. "I'm not gonna let Sasuke up-stage me! We better hurry!"

The first thing Sakura noticed when they reached the others was that Shikamaru was missing. That didn't necessarily mean anything, but given what she knew about Shikamaru, it could've been a bad sign.

The second thing she noticed was that Ino appeared to be yelling at the disguised Orochimaru. Sasuke was standing near her, and some ways ahead of them, one of the giant snakes was trapped in a large, wooden cage.

Mokuton. Of course.

As they drew closer, Sakura could finally make out what Ino was saying.

"...thought you could toy with us like that, huh? Jokes on you! I know who you are... Orochimaru."

Sakura could feel the blood draining from her face. What was Ino doing? Had she completely lost her mind?

"I-Ino!" Sakura said. She saw Sasuke look towards her, but Ino's eyes remained plastered on Orochimaru.

"Do you now?" Orochimaru said.

"Of course," Ino said. "And that's not all I know."

Oh dear God.

"Ino!" Sakura said, much louder this time. "Don't you dare—"

"And what is it that you know, exactly?" Orochimaru drawled, her—his? it's?—tongue creepily slithering out as he spoke.

"I know that you're here to interrupt the Chunin Exams," Ino said. "I know that you claim you're here to test Sasuke, but that you're actually here for me."

Sakura and Sasuke both looked at each other, and then at Ino.

"Wait," Sakura said. "What?"

"Test me for what?"

"And why would you think that?" Orochimaru said.

"Don't play dumb," Ino said, rolling her eyes. "I realized what the truth was a few hours ago. It was Sasuke who tipped me off, actually. He kept complaining about how I couldn't be adopted because I had Yamanaka eyes, and that there has to be some other reason why I could use Mokuton. So I asked Sakura-"

Oh no, Sakura paled. She remembered that conversation, just barely. Ino had only just found them in the forest, and Sasuke hadn't quite lost his patience with her. At the time, Sakura had suspected that he had planned on stealing Ino's scroll. He dropped that idea as soon as he realized Ino was willing to skewer him if he pushed her too much. Sakura hadn't thought much about Ino pressing her for more information, since she assumed everything she said went in one ear and out the other.

Apparently, that wasn't the case.

"...so you see, it makes perfect sense."

Wait, what makes perfect sense?

"You're—you're not seriously claiming that you're the result of a genetic experiment combining the DNA of this - this creep - and Tsunade, are you?" Sasuke said.

WHAT?!

"And besides," he continued, pointing a shaky finger at Orochimaru. "That's clearly a woman!"

Orochimaru slowly turned his head towards Sasuke. With one hand, Orochimaru ripped the skin off of his face.

"Oh my god," Sasuke paled.

"Oh, I don't know. Is it really that impossible?" Ino said, turning towards the newly revealed snake Sannin. "Why don't you tell me, dad?"

"So," Orochimaru hissed, "You've finally figured it out."

"Ha!" Ino said triumphantly. "I knew it!"

"How could you possibly have been grown in a lab, kidnapped by the village from one of that snake-thing's hideouts, and then secretly adopted by the Yamanaka clan?" Sasuke said in a shrill voice. His eyes were moving back and forth rapidly as he stared at blankly in front of him, either unable or unwilling to accept the reality of the situation. "I saw those adoption papers with my own eyes. If Tsunade didn't give birth to you, why would those even exist?"

..Sakura never should have left Ino alone with a main antagonist.

"That's easy," Ino said. "They were forged."

"Why would you forge a fake birth certificate for Tsunade, and then another fake birth certificate when you were adopted by the Yamanaka clan? That's stupid."

"Shut up!" Ino glared at him. "Maybe it was to throw off suspicion. Yeah, that's it! Nobody would suspect two forged birth certificates."

"That doesn't even—"

"Stop it!" Sakura said, running up to Sasuke and grabbing hold of him by the shoulders. "Stop encouraging her! You're only going to make it worse!"

"Make what worse?" Sasuke said. "How could this possibly get any worse?"

"Just..." Sakura stopped. She took a quick look at Ino (who had turned her attention back towards Orochimaru), and at Naruto (who seemed to only be half-listening to what was going on), and began dragging Sasuke away by the arm.

When they were almost out of ear shot, Sakura said, "Look, Sasuke. There's stuff going on that you just can't understand, okay? You're just gonna have to trust me. Just please, please don't argue with Ino anymore, okay?"

"What are you talking about?" Sasuke said. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Ino is... Ino is going through something right now. You know how Naruto's got the Kyuubi in him? Well, Ino's got... um, issues," Sakura had no idea where she was going with this, "She's suffering from post-traumatic stress. On account of the Mokuton."

Sasuke stared at her.

"It just happened overnight. She's having trouble coping with it," Sakura insisted.

"Really," Sasuke said skeptically. "Is this Orochimaru guy suffering from post traumatic stress too?"

"..Probably? ...Hey, where are you going? Sasuke!"

Sasuke ignored her and continued to walk back towards the others. Sighing in defeat, Sakura followed after him.

"..and there's no way I'm going back with you!" Ino was saying as they returned. "You might be my biological donor, but you're no father of mine!"

Orochimaru chuckled to himself. "You're quite the spitfire, aren't you? Very well. You seem to be doing well here. I look forward to watching you develop. Now that the truth's out, Ino, I know you'll seek me out eventually. Your potential is wasted here. I could teach you so... many... things..."

Sakura wrinkled her nose. That sounded so much creepier than it really should have...

With one last, "Goodbye, darling daughter," Orochimaru and his giant snake, now free from Ino's wooden cage, slithered away and out of sight, leaving Team Seven and Ino alone for good.

"Now that that nasty business is finished," Ino said, turning her attention back towards the rest of them. "It's about time we headed towards that tower, don't you think?"

"That would be great," Shikamaru said.

Sakura jumped, shocked to see him standing there like nothing had happened. "Where were you this whole time?"

"Hiding in the bushes," he shrugged.

..Fair enough.

"Sakura," Ino said. "Hand over the scroll already," she demanded, palm outstretched.

Not this again... Instinctively, Sakura reached for the object nestled in her pouch... only to realize it was empty.

"Oh no," Sakura whispered.

"Oh no?" Ino said. "What do you mean oh no?"

"I-I-" Sakura stammered, "I-must-have-lost-it-in-the-fight!"

"YOU WHAT?!"

"I'm sure it's fine! I-It's probably on the floor somewhere!"

It wasn't on the floor somewhere.

The five of them scoured the area and found absolutely nothing of interest. In their search, they passed by the three rain-nin from earlier, who were beginning to regain consciousness. Naturally, Ino took out some of her rapidly growing fury by knocking them out cold again.

"This is unbelievable," Sasuke was saying to himself. "It's like you've all gotten even dumber since I first met you. How is that possible? How did you even survive our mission to Wave?" Turning to Ino, he said, "How have you not been kicked out of Team Ten?" When nobody responded, he shook his head. "You should all be dead by now. All of you."

"The only one who should be dead right now is Sakura," Ino said. Sakura gulped. "If we don't find another scroll and soon, you're going to regret it."

An hour later—just when Sakura thought Ino was going to turn on her—they had the fortune of running into a trio of hapless leaf-nin. The shinobi were hesitant on being outnumbered at first, but ultimately underestimated the group due to their youthful appearance. To be sure, tree branches sprouting out of a little blonde girl's hands and rushing at you like bizarre, wooden tentacles was enough to make most people shit bricks. It helped that most ninja hadn't seen Mokuton in action before. And Ino always went for the jugular.

Even better, the leaf-nin had a heaven scroll on them. It just as easily could have been the one Sakura had dropped on the floor, all things considered. They had gone down rather easily...

"That's it," Ino said, after tucking the heaven scroll into her vest, next to the two earth scrolls. "Sakura, you're fired."

"Huh?" Sakura said dumbly. "Fired from what?"

"From Team Ino. Naruto," she said, turning towards him. He perked up at the sound of his name. "You're my new number two."

"Awesome!" Naruto said. "What's a number two do?"

"You don't want to know," Sakura said darkly. They were almost at the tower now. It was only 10km away from the starting gate, which was about two hours of a walk away. "So, I guess it's just you and Naruto completing the test, huh?"

"Don't be daft," Ino said. "Shikamaru is also on Team Ino."

Since when?

Sasuke started laughing. The sound made Sakura shiver.

"Um, Sasuke," Sakura said. "Are you doing alright?"

"Oh, I'm fine," Sasuke chuckled. "Totally fine. Sakura, let's just go. We'll go to the tower. When we get there, me, you and Naruto—I mean, we're the only full team, and we'll have both scrolls, and it'll be fine. Everything will be fine."

Sakura was starting to get scared. Did canon Sasuke talk this much?

I think he might be starting to really lose it, Sakura thought. It made sense. Sasuke did have a few screws loose by the end of the manga.

In the end, the five of them made good time. They were so early, in fact, that nobody was camping out at the tower waiting for them. To Ino's disappointment, they later found out that Gaara had still made it there before them, but all things considered, the second exam was a success.

After all five of them walked through the same set of doors, Sasuke and Ino had argued with each other for quite a while over who got to open the scrolls. He tried to cajole Ino into letting Sakura and Naruto open them, hoping that Ino would be tricked into letting Team Seven "win" while holding onto her delusion that they were all a part of Team Ino, but in the end, she wouldn't cave. Naruto did get to open the earth scroll, but it was Ino who opened its pair with him.

And when the scrolls were thrown to the floor, and the smoke cleared, it wasn't Iruka who stood before them.

"Congratulations, Team Ino," Asuma said as he smiled down at Ino, Shikamaru, and Naruto. "You've passed the second exam."

Sasuke had been strangely quiet over the last four days. He seemed to be going through the days in some sort of dissociative fugue, only giving one word responses when spoken to. Sakura figured it was shock.

She was pretty shocked herself. On the bright side, though, she didn't have to fight anymore and her life wasn't in imminent danger, so all things considered, this counted as a win in her book.

Since they had finished early, they hadn't had much to do outside of wait for the time to run out. Sasuke and Sakura had been allowed to stay and observe the rest of the exam, supposedly as a courtesy for reaching the tower with Team Ino, but mostly, Sakura suspected, because Ino had insisted and Asuma seemed disinclined to disagree with anything she said.

Honestly, I'd rather be at home right now... Sakura thought glumly. Everyone was gathered in the arena. Sakura stood near the back of the arena with Sasuke and a few chunin security guards, watching as the last contestant lines up and the Hokage recited his speech about the third exam.

"Sakura... Sakura!" Sasuke whispered. "We need to talk. Come here." He was motioning towards her as he began walking out the large open doorway near the back.

After following him around the corner, Sakura said, "What is it?"

Sasuke quickly glanced around the area, making sure no one was within hearing distance. Seemingly satisfied, he stepped towards her and lowered his voice. "Sakura, I think there might be some kind of conspiracy going on."

"Uh... huh?"

"Don't you see? Ino should have been disqualified from the exam."

"Um," Sakura nodded. "Yeah..."

"Well?" Sasuke said impatiently, "The exams are rigged. The system is rigged."

Sakura just stared at him.

"Look. What if they've already decided who's going to be made chunin?" Sasuke whispered. "How else do you explain what happened?"

"I—I don't—"

"What if... what if it's all true? What if Ino really is a Senju?" Sasuke said. "I've been thinking about everything... Ino showing up with some sort of secret birth certificate, and the way she beat up Rock Lee like - like it was nothing."

Sakura had no idea what to say.

"And then that creep in the Forest confirming everything," Sasuke shook his head, "This whole time I've been wondering why no one's ever said anything about Team Ino or called her out on her behavior. Ino should have been disqualified, but she wasn't. And do you know why?"

"Um... no?" She said weakly.

"Because," Sasuke said, "She's a Senju. You heard what the Hokage just said. The chunin exams are about showing off the village's strength - it's a show of power. Attracting clients and warding off rivals. They let her get away with everything because she's a Senju and the village is going to make her a chunin no matter what because of who she's related to and what she represents. They've - they've rigged the exams so she gets to move on while we get screwed over!"

That doesn't... No, Sasuke. You're so, so wrong. So wrong.

"They wouldn't do something like that. The village is founded on, um—" Sakura stammered, "—honor and pride and stuff. And who is 'they' and why would they want to screw us over?"

"They—you know, the, the chunin exams. The Hokage. The government," he said, glaring. "I bet it's because of my brother. I bet they're worried that if I get too strong, I'll turn on everyone like he did. That's the only possible reason they would have stuck me with you, that idiot Naruto, and a teacher who sleeps all day. It's all starting to make sense now."

Nope.

"No," Sakura said. "I think that maybe you should lie down and we can talk about this tomorrow when you're feeling—"

"I'm not resting until I figure out what's going on. Sakura, how can you just sit down and take this? You're really okay with Ino cheating? I thought she was supposed to be your rival! Don't you care that the rules were changed just to let her win?"

"Okay, yes, I care, but I really think you should calm down. We'll get to the bottom of this, just... Look, when the first match starts, we'll go talk to Kakashi—"

"You can't talk to Kakashi!" Sasuke said. He grabbed her arm and dragged her back through the door. "Just look at him up there," Sasuke pointed up at where the four genin teachers stood on stage next to the Hokage. "He's a part of the establishment!"

"Uh," Sakura said. What did someone even say to something like that?" "Right."

"I've got some things to look into. I'll be back later. Sakura, I need you to stay here and keep an eye on Ino for now. I'll meet you afterwards."

Sakura watched Sasuke dart off, wondering where on earth he could possibly be going. Honestly, she didn't want to know.