In a remarkably short period of time the second test was explained, Naruto traumatized by the bloodthirsty proctor, release forms signed and heaven and earth scrolls distributed. Team Ten stood before the chain link fence of gate 17 waiting for the test to begin. Even at its edge there was an ominous silence to this forest. The towering old growth stretched across the horizon and had massive weight to it that seemed to press down on you, as if the forest itself was plotting against you. The chain link fence circling the forest seemed like a fragile, pitiful thing in comparison.
The chunin guarding the fence's gate cocked his head, obviously receiving a transmission through his headset. "Roger that," he said into the mike, "Will do, over and out." He looked at Haku, "Team Eight's at gate 26 and Team Seven is at Gate 12, you have five minutes so you'd best get moving."
"Right", Haku said putting his hands together and summoning two shadow clones. They appeared with a pop of displaced air and a puff of smoke and then were off, leaping up and over the fence and heading west. He hoped there were no major incidents any time soon, those clones had him down to one third of his chakra and he didn't want to have to use a soldier pill this early on in the exam.
"What was that!?" Ino squawked in surprise.
"Something to do with the Kazekage's children's I'd guess." Shikamaru said, stroking his chin in contemplation. "Haku's mentioned them several times as a serious threat, while downplaying the rest of the field."
"You'd make your father proud Shikamaru," Haku said with a smile. "The issue is the Kazakage's youngest son. He's certifiably psychotic and is said to have bloodily foiled several assassination attempts against him by his father's own ANBU."
"No way!" Ino gasped, clearly disturbed. But whether she was disturbed by a father attempting to assassinate his own son, or the idea that they might have to fight a boy who had survived such attempts was less evident.
"Troublesome seems like an understatement in this case." Shikamaru opined, clearly displeased by that fact.
"Definitely," Haku agreed. "Especially when you consider who makes up the rookie teams this year. They're almost all children of prominent clan families, many of them actual clan heirs," Haku said, taking time to look directly at the two of them. "The Kazekage, while technically an ally, no doubt resents being the junior partner in our alliance as being unfitting of one of the five great shinobi nations. If he could encourage Gaara to clear the field so to speak, then he could seriously damage our standing in the eyes of the rest of the ninja world."
"So you're our bodyguard then? I thought it might be something like that." Shikamaru sighed.
"Why would the Hokage let someone like that into the exam?" Ino asked quietly.
"He's only twelve, the Kazakage can easily argue that he hasn't shown the leadership and maturity to be promoted yet," Haku explained. "If the Hokage denies him entrance then it's only a short step from that to a spiraling cycle of retaliation that could bring the whole exam system crashing down."
"Politics," Shikarmaru griped, "another synonym for troublesome."
"That's where I come in," Haku told them. "Since I've only run missions with Jiraiya sensei or by myself, the Hokage can make the same argument that I haven't shown leadership potential and that I am a valid candidate for the exam." Then he gave them a mischievous smile, "Of course, I really shouldn't be allowed to enter the grounds early, but I won't tell if you won't."
"What if Team Seven or Eight gets in trouble with another team?" Ino asked pensively.
"My orders are to let other fights run their course unless I have reason to believe that their opponents are of a similarly elevated level," Haku replied. "Still, working within that restriction I'll try to make sure no one dies where it can be prevented."
Ino, and Shikamaru for that matter, didn't really seem satisfied by that answer. But it took most shinobi a long time to come to grips with the deadly nature of their profession. 'It's something I still struggle with myself,' Haku thought with somber reflection.
That put a damper on further conversation. They simply waited in silence for the chunin in charge of the gate to unlock it and swing it open.
Then they were in, bounding high up into the canopy and the second exam had begun.
"Everyone's going to be heading to the tower eventually," Shikamaru observed. "We should head there first and try to ambush teams with two scrolls. They'll have what we need and hopefully be worn out from fighting and the trip."
"It's as good a plan as any," Haku agreed. "On the way there we should stay close to the river. It'll cost me a lot less chakra if I have a ready access to a large source of water."
"Sounds good," Ino said as Shikamaru nodded in agreement. And then they were off, traveling at a swift and steady pace, hopping from branch to branch.
Haku observed Team Eight from high up in the canopy of the forest, off to their left and downwind. Kiba didn't seem to have noticed him, though his two teammates had. It was subtle; they were good for genin at hiding their reaction to finding him, but he could tell. A slight movement of the head, a shifting of the feet, and a dozen other tiny actions made it clear to anyone trained to read them.
These three worked well together and they worked fast. They'd managed to throw together a pretty effective looking trap in no time, and it looked like another team of Leaf genin were about to take the bait. They were circling around to take the best attack angle, moving right into the kill zone of Kiba's trap. 'These guys definitely don't have the situational awareness necessary to become chunin," Haku thought disparagingly.
The trap went off, the victims howling in pain and terror as they were showered with giant jumping leeches and ensnared in a net. Their struggling was brief as the potent numbing agent of the leeches took effect and they lost consciousness.
Haku moved in closer to observe what the rookies would do with them and didn't like what he heard.
"Five minutes of sucking and you'll be in the next world!" gloated Kiba.
Haku shook his head at that, 'I've killed my share of ninja over the last few years for my master Jiraiya, but I've never killed Leaf nin.' Troubled, he thought back on his lessons on shinobi law, both the letter and the reality. 'I know there may be times when it's necessary, if a comrade goes rogue or commits treason or espionage. But an exam, when you've already won? No,' he decided and leaped out onto a branch that overlooked the ambush zone.
Drawing two fists full of senbon, he let loose and skewered each leech through the head. The steel needles puffed away after impact but the damage they did remained. They gave chittering little shrieks as they thrashed and twisted about, oozing blood and thick viscous bile as they died.
Kiba moved as if to lunge forward, but jerked to a halt when Shino grabbed an arm. "Wait", he said. Kiba looked at Shino sideways, eyes narrowed, but whatever he wanted to say he kept to himself in front of Haku.
"A little blood thirsty aren't you?" Haku said coolly. "People do die in these exams, it's inevitable. But letting comrades die after completely incapacitating them, and being able to prevent it with no risk to yourselves, well that's just unacceptable."
"They're no comrades of mine!" Kiba growled.
"They wear the Leaf on their headband don't they?" Haku asked, disdain lacing his voice. "That kind of attitude better belongs to the Blood Mist Village or the time of warring clans from before the establishment of the Hidden Villages," he said scornfully. "Aren't the Inuzuka supposed to be all about the good of the pack?" Kiba jerked at that, face shading red, thought whether in embarrassment or offense was hard to tell.
Haku continued on, "Even putting morality aside, did you think that letting them die wouldn't have repercussions? You're supposed to be chunin, think ahead!"
"We're simply fulfilling the objectives of the exam in the most efficient and logical manner," Shino commented.
"It's too bad people aren't logical then." Haku said dryly. "There are cameras throughout this forest, including one focused on this clearing" he told them, motioning at it with a small nod. "While it might help you pass this exam, do you think this kind of thing will engender good will and trust between you and the jonin? And what of their families and revenge? You think people won't talk, just because the shinobi rules say not to?" He shook his head slowly, "That's too naïve. The only one who's likely to wholeheartedly approve of this is a man who you very much do not want to draw the attention of. He would break you and send you on missions that would make what's left of your sullied soul scream from where it's imprisoned deep inside, while you looked out at the world with dead black eyes."
Hinata looked worried and cutely embarrassed, looking down and flushing red, pressing her fingers together. Shino had his cocked back as if he was thinking on what Haku had said, and Kiba with a disgruntled look on his face was nodding. It seemed he agreed with what he was being told, though he either didn't like the message or the messenger. It was the later Haku thought, Kiba was still giving him a suspicious eye.
"Looks like you understand," Haku said. "Head to the tower and think on what I've said. The Kazekage's children are still out there, and you definitely didn't want to run into them." He jumped up into the canopy, fading back into the leafy crowns of the great trees.
"Who the hell is this Haku to talk down to us like that!?" Kiba growled. "And why is he following us?"
"Ah… that's a long story Kiba." Hinata stuttered. "I'll tell you on the way."
"Yes, we should take their scroll and leave," Shino said, putting action to word and beginning to search their unconscious victims.
"Alright, but I want to hear everything you know." Kiba demanded, as he rifled through one of their opponent's pockets. He jerked, and with a grin withdraw a scroll of Heaven. "Yahooo! We got we need, let's go!"
After a quick search to see if the other team had anything else of use on them, Team Eight leaped up into the high branches and started heading east toward the tower.
The shadow clone following Team Seven frowned. Someone was watching them, and it wasn't the Rain ninja that had attacked his charges either. He'd been easily taken care of by Sasuke. 'No, this feels like someone much more dangerous,' he thought.
He stretched out his senses, hearing the faint rustle of leaves in the wind and feeling the soft breeze brush his face. He wasn't a chakra sensor, but something kept drawing his attention to the clearing Team Seven was in. 'What is this? I don't see anything unusual,' he thought with concern. 'Wait, that reed is definitely out of place!' he realized. 'There must be someone spying on them from underground.
He crept silently along the uppermost branches of the canopy that overhung the clearing. The kids were getting up now, Naruto complaining "Hey is this code word really…"
'Hmm, I would have liked to hear that,' Haku thought as Sasuke cut the blonde off brusquely, "I'll hold the scroll."
A splinter of wood zipped past Naruto at tremendous speed, slicing open a shallow cut. "Ow! What the…?"
Haku looked down field in alarm to see a great gust of wind, thick with debris and plainly too strong and broad to be natural, right before it slammed into the unprepared genin, scattering them.
Haku, clung to the branch he was on, lucky that the wind was not as strong high up as it was at ground level. He watched as a trio of Grass ninja flickered into the now empty clearing. Two of them wore masks, and the third was the shinobi who had returned the Proctor's kunai to her with his tongue. "You guys just play around over there, I'll take care of them myself," he said to his fellows, gesturing off in the distance.
'This guy is dangerous,' Haku knew it instinctively, but he could not say why. It wasn't that the Grass ninja looked any different than he had when he'd been waiting outside the forest, when he'd merely seemed creepy. Still, now he just seemed to exude menace and a dangerous competency. 'If I wasn't using Sensei's transparent escape technique this guy would notice me for sure,' Haku thought. "He's probably a ringer like me," he decided. "But why Grass? Does he plan to cut out and take Sasuke's eyes?" he wondered.
The Grass ninja transformed into Naruto and took off towards the northeast and Haku followed, drawing forth a kunai with an exploding tag with his left hand and his short sword with the right. The fake quickly came upon Sasuke and Sakura. "Oww…you guys alright?" the false Naruto asked, rubbing his bloody face.
"Naruto, wait a second, the code word!" Sakura demanded.
"I know…," he answered with a rueful smile and then quoted, "A large amount of loud enemies is the friend of the shinobi, hide and remain silent. A shinobi must understand the proper time, when the enemy is tired and ill prepared."
Sakura sighed with relief, but Sasuke simply smirked and flung a kunai at him.
"Woah" the transformed Grass ninja yelled as he dodge the incoming projectile. 'How could he tell?' Haku wondered, circling around and waiting for the right moment to strike.
"Sasuke! Why?" asked a dumbfounded Sakura.
"So this time it's someone who can dodge my attacks," Sasuke commented, seemingly talking to himself and ignoring Sakura entirely.
"What are you talking about Sasuke?" Sakura shouted in confusion.
There was an impressive puff of smoke as the fake dispelled his transformation in an overly dramatic fashion. "Impressive that you knew," he remarked. "How did you know? That I was a fake?" he asked.
"I knew you were listening to our conversation from under the ground," Sasuke answered. "That's why I made the code word like that. There's no way Naruto could remember a song that long. So you had to be a fake," he explained with a grin.
'Makes sense. Naurto isn't the sharpest shuriken in the set," Haku thought, impressed at the Uchiha's forethought.
The Grass ninja seemed to feel the same. "I see…neither tired, nor ill prepared are we? This will be more fun than I thought."
"It wasn't Naruto again?" the pink haired girl growled with frustration. Both her and her teammate seemed to sense that this opponent was on another level from them, and the Uchiha wasn't happy about it. Sasuke was glaring at the Grass ninja as if he was a personal affront. Sakura on the other hand looked wary, left hand hovering near a kunai holster, ready to draw.
"You want the Earth scroll right?" the Grass ninja asked, tongue lolling obscenely from his mouth as he pulled said scroll from a pouch. "Since you guys have the Heaven scroll…"
Haku and the Leaf genin watched in disgusted astonishment as the Grass ninja tilted his head back and smoothly pushed the scroll down his throat. "Now let's begin the battle for each other's scroll, with our lives on the line" he said ominously, licking his lips.
'I just missed a good opportunity to attack,' Haku berated himself. 'I got distracted by his weirdness; I should be immune to that kind of thing after living with Sensei so long!'
Then the Grass shinobi unleashed a vast torrent of unspeakable killing intent. Haku wasn't in his line of sight, so he was only brushed by the fringe, but that was enough to curdle his blood. 'This isn't someone on my level,' Haku realized with dismay. 'This is someone as far above me as Jiraiya sensei! There isn't a Grass ninja on that level as far as I know, who the hell is he?'
'This is bad, really bad,' he thought as Sasuke vomited and Sakura began to tremble and weep.
"He he, you can no longer move," the Grass ninja giggled darkly.
His whole body shuddering, Sasuke took a kunai and stabbed himself in the thigh, breaking the spell of paralyzing fear. He rolled to his right, grabbing Sakura and absconding with her. Twin kunai hit where they had lay frozen a fraction of a second later.
'He's playing with them,' Haku realized. 'He could kill them anytime he wants to. What is this guy after?'
The Grass ninja went to retrieve his kunai and smiled. It was a vicious, tight little smile like one worn by a cat who's found an interesting mouse. Then he summoned a snake four meters long, was willingly swallowed by it and Haku knew exactly who this was. There was no way in hell a clone could even hope to slow him down, so he dispelled himself and let the original know what was going on.
Anko was not enjoying her dango has much as she had expected to. Oh, they were as sweet and delicious as always, but they weren't the problem. No, the problem was the man sitting in the crook of the tree to her right. Big and bold, with shocking white hair highlighting his red coat, no one could miss Jiraiya. Unless he wanted you to of course, then almost no one could find him. He was scribbling in that little notebook of his, giggling perversely, and sneaking a peek over the top of it at her whenever he thought she wasn't looking.
He'd appeared in a puff smoke, flickering in from who knows where, and she'd greeted him with a hail of shuriken that he'd knocked away with his hair. It was all very nonchalant and infuriating. He hadn't even bother to object to the attack or say hello, or anything. He'd just whipped out that notebook of his and started writing. 'My standard procedure of terrifying whoever's bothering me just won't work with this man,' she seethed in frustration.
"Why are you here Jiraiya," she asked bluntly, fed up with the situation and no longer willing to hold back.
"The Hokage wanted me to be on hand if Gaara or Naruto lose control of their Tailed Beast," he answered. "It would hardly make the Leaf Village look good if Shukaku went on a rampaged and killed all the contestants," he said with a laugh.
"Ok, that's reasonable," Anko replied. "But what does that have to do with you setting up shop in that tree to annoy me?" she asked with a sugary mock sincerity. It was the kind of tone that would leave her peers far more alarmed than her casual bloodlust, but Jiraiya just raised an eyebrow at her.
He opened his mouth to reply, but he was preempted by a chunin flickering into being before them. "Big trouble Lady Anko!" he declared, and then quailed at the scathing look she sent him.
"This better be good, I'm already having a bad day," she told him.
"It is," he said, explanation . "There are bodies, three of them, and they are just weird. Please come and look!"
Anko cocked her in surprise. 'Well, that wasn't what I expected.'
"Sounds like it could be important," Jiraiya opined from his perch. "What do you mean by weird?"
"It's their faces Lord Jiraiya…they look they've been melted off somehow, as if the flesh flowed like hot wax rather than burning, leaving their faces blank."
Jiraiya's face grew darker with every word, a furious expression settling on his face. "Orochimaru," he spat venomously.
"What did these three ninjas look like?" Anko demanded with a wild look on her face.
"Ah, Kotetsu has their photos and identification papers," the chunin answered quickly, "but they're definitely one of the Grass teams that passed the first test."
"I know which one he's masquerading as," Anko said, her mind replaying the Grass ninja with the prehensile tongue. "How did I not notice that was him!" she berated herself in disgust.
"Summon the Lord Hokage and the ANBU." Jiraiya commanded the chunin. "We're going in after him." And with that they disappeared in a swirl of leaves as they entered the Forest of Death.
Haku's eyes widened in shock as the memories of his shadow clone arrived. The rest of Team Ten jerked to a halt as he suddenly stopped. "Orochimaru is in the Forest of Death!" he exclaimed in surprise. Ino's face went pale, and Shikamaru's wasn't exactly composed either. Quickly producing a shadow clone to stay with his team, he popped a soldier pill to restore his chakra reserves and launched himself into a freshly formed mirror to the astonishment of his teammates.
He flowed into the mirror like quicksilver, entering it without causing a ripple and then seeming to vanish like a fading light. Forcing himself to the edge of his limits, a second mirror formed, five hundred meters to the southeast. It was out of his original line of sight but that wasn't a problem, his mirrors simply wouldn't form inside a solid structure. They would instead shift to the nearest open area of the appropriate size. He passed through the space that was not, riding a frozen prism of light between the mirrors and flowing out of the second mirror a fraction of a second later. It made the body flicker seem slow. In fact it made everything seem slow; even though he was moving at tremendous speed he was able to take in everything outside that mirror as if he was soaking it in with a leisurely glance. Anyone and anything outside the mirror seemed to be moving in slow motion.
He made a third mirror and jumped into it, a flash of turquoise light between mirrors that would seem to most to have started to crumble as soon as they finished being formed. He made a fourth mirror, and a fifth and a sixth. With the seventh he'd reached the last position of his clone. The fighting had moved off a bit, a hundred meters to the left and thirty meters further off the ground. The head of the summoned snake had been cut to ribbons by a hail of kunai and shuriken, and Orochimaru was tearing open its neck from the inside, rising dramatically from the bleeding corpse with head bowed before the shocked faces of Sasuke and Sakura.
"You guys shouldn't relax for even a moment," he lectured the frightened genin as a crystal ice mirror solidified behind him and Haku blurred out of it, wakizashi drawn and flowing with wind chakra. With inhuman quickness Orochimaru spun around and hit Haku in the face with a brutal backfist as the boy cut him in half at the waist in a red spray of blood. The force of the blow flung Haku off his feet and sent him skidding back across the branch while the top of Orochimaru was separated from the bottom by a hands worth of space.
'I won!' Haku thought in amazement only to have the euphoria of victory that was blossoming within him dashed as dozens of snakes slick with crimson emerged from both Orochimaru's torso and waist, bridging the gap between them, entangling with each other and drawing the two halves together. Binding up the wound so quickly and seamlessly that only his blood soaked clothes hinted that he'd ever been injured.
Haku staggered to his feet, spitting blood and feeling at his teeth with his tongue. 'Should have known it wouldn't be so easy,' he thought ruefully. 'Nothing's loose at least, just cut up the inside of my cheek.'
"Kukuku!" the traitor cackled. "Now that's an interesting technique, but you won't catch me twice with it. The feel of unnatural cold air forming behind you gives it away," he declared with a mocking tone. "Still I am impressed, if there's one thing Jiraiya can do, it's teach. But then they say that those who can't do, teach." He leered at Haku, distended tongue licking his lips. "Looks like I might be giving more than one kiss tonight."
Orochimaru blurred into motion, spiraling down the tree as he dodged a hail of kunai and shrunken. "Shut up and die you sick freak!" Naruto shouted at him, before sheepishly rubbing the back of his head and looking at Sasuke. "Sorry Sasuke, I forgot the code word."
"Naruto, are you suicidal!?" Sasuke yelled. "This guy just pulled himself together after getting split in half. Run and don't look back!"
"All three of you should run. Make for the fence and don't stop for anything. This isn't about a promotion anymore." Haku exclaimed. "He wants to brand Sasuke and me with his cursed seal and make us his slaves!" The Uchiha paled with disgust at the pronouncement and Naruto and Sakura looked outraged and worried in turn.
"Kukuku," the rogue ninja laughed. "You're not that good enough to stop me yet and if you try too hard to get in my way you won't live long enough to even get close."
"We'll see about that," Haku said forcefully. He looked cool, collected and confident on the outside, but on the inside it was a different story. 'That's easier said than done; my ice crystal dome won't work,' he thought, frantically turning the situation over in his head. 'He can just summon Manda, and if that doesn't break my mirrors, it's still too much mass for the dome to contain. Manda would at least force them apart and enable his master to escape.' He quickly cut off that line of thought. 'Don't think of what I can't do, think of what I can. I'm not going to beat him straight up. I have to provoke him into making a mistake. Play on his ego and pride, that's always been his flaw.'
Grasping that thin reed, Haku smirked and said, "You may be the great Orochimaru of the Legendary Three Ninjas, but you're not invincible." Sakura gasped, and Sasuke eye's widened, the two clearly recognizing the name. Haku went on, needling the monster in front of him, trying to provoke him into doing something rash. "In fact if I remember Jiraiya sensei's stories right, isn't that how you all earned that nickname? By getting your ass handed to you by Hanzo the Salamander?"
Orochimaru narrowed his serpentine eyes at him. "Don't speak of things of which you know nothing boy."
"Oh I think I know enough." Haku smiled. "My master loves talking about how you left the village because you just couldn't handle your genius being matched by that of your team mates, let alone having it be outshone by one of their students."
"A pity for you that you're not that student then." the Snake sage hissed. "Let's see how much Jiraiya loves to talk when I deliver him your head in a box." And with that he drew a hand across his blood splattered shirt and swiped his thumb down a tattoo on his left arm, leaving a sticky red trail. There was a great poof of smoke and an enormous serpent rose from the shadows within like a leviathan, Orochimaru standing tall on its head like a ship cresting a wave.
'I really shouldn't have turned down Sensei's toads,' Haku castigated himself. 'Or at least made him let me take that trip to the northern mountains on the shore of the Frozen Sea to treat with the Snow Bear King. My style or not, those toad's would be really useful right now.'
Then the snake twisted with inhuman grace and struck down at Sasuke, and everything was chaos, moving at speeds too fast to think. One could only react. As the snake turned Haku sensed movement at his flanks, and he jumped high and back, dodging an attack by a clone from the left, and deflecting an attack by a clone from the right with his sword. Then it was a whirl of blades as they hacked and slashed and Haku desperately defended himself.
He could see flickers of blurred motion in the distance as blades clashed, exploding tags detonated and balls of flame flew through the air. Naruto was screaming in the background, a scream bleeding into a roar as the air grew thick with malevolence, both his and Orochimaru's. Haku blocked left low, and right high and then sliced off the hand of the clone to his right, blood spraying and morphing into viscous mud. Before it could completely dissolve Haku took a vicious kick to the chest from it that sent him flying and slamming into the tree's trunk with bone jarring force. The impact splintered the bark, and wood tough enough to dull the sharpest ax cracked underneath him.
'Shit!' he cursed to himself, hurling himself to the side and throwing himself off the tree, kunai slicing along the side of his arm as he just narrowly missed being run through by the second clone. It followed after him without hesitation, diving off the branch head first, kunai held with its sick tongue and aiming for his back.
'Wrong move!' Haku grinned tightly, forming a mirror below him. He fell through it like an open window, exiting a second mirror that formed right above Orochimaru's clone. It hit the first mirror with sick splat, head smashing open against a pane of ice stronger than steel in a scarlet shower of blood and muddy chunks. Haku sprung off the mirror, using it as leverage to leap high in the air back towards the rest of the action. He bounced off a trunk up into the high branches. Over in the crown of the next tree stood Orochimaru, his face half melted and torn to shreds but still standing proud, across from the horrified countenances of Sakura and Sasuke. His hands started to flash into signs and Haku's followed.
One seal later and a roiling dragon of water exploded from his mouth at Orochimaru and his grotesquely extending neck. It slammed into him with full force, knocking him ass over teakettle and off the branch. Or so it seemed, for as the crash and splash of impact dispersed the water it became clear that he had used his hideously distended neck to wrap around the branch and prevent himself from being thrown off completely. He slithered back up, dodging shuriken from Sasuke as he did so without even a glance.
"You choose the wrong time to interfere," he hissed spitefully, "and now I'm going to", he leapt back suddenly as a big red and white blur pounced down onto his former position.
"Die." Jiraiya said solemnly. "That's what you're going to do."
"Feh, seems like this opportunity has passed." The Snake Sage spat. "But don't worry Sasuke," he said with a sick smile. "I'll be back for you when you least expect it." Then he whirled around, kicking the Proctor in the stomach as she tried to attack him from behind, sending her sailing off the tree and to the forest floor below. And then he was off, barely dodging a rasengan that left a terrific crack in the branch where he stood.
"Keep an eye on them" Jirayia roared as he sped after him, Mitarashi quickly following. As they disappeared into the distance, tension just seemed to bleed out of the air. Sakura collapsed to her knees and Sasuke stepped back to sag against the trunk of the tree. Naruto hung from another tree, jacket pinned to the trunk with kunai. He seemed unconscious but otherwise alright.
As the adrenaline leached out of him, feeling returned full force and with it pain. His jaw ached fiercely, his right arm was bleeding and his back was no doubt black and blue. 'But I'm alive, and so are they and that's all that matters.'
"Take Naruto down, we've got to get out of here before the scavengers start sniffing around."
"Right," Sakura said staggering to her feet. Sasuke nodded, and with that they went wearily into action, rescuing Naruto, salvaging what weapons they could and fleeing the scene.