AN: Alas, Naruto is still not for sale, so I cannot buy it... Thanks to everyone who has been reviewing! Yes, I know the written exam thing was short, but it's boring enough as an anime without listening to some long-winded written description of it. That, and I'm too lazy to write said description. The Forest of Death will be much longer, I promise! Enjoy this chapter!

-demonicnargles

"Speech"

thought / talking in mind

"Demon speech"

Demon thought / talking in mind

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Kakashi walked slowly around the edge of the Forest of Death, hands in pockets. Although it was not obvious, he was worried about his students. He was not reading his book, and glanced into the forest every so often. Occasionally he would stop and sigh.

I hope Sasuke is careful in there. Naruto hasn't done anything yet, but there is not telling what sort of other effects the demon could have on him. Sasuke is smart enough to have figured out what happened on the bridge, if only because I talked about it in public to Asuma. I thought I felt his presence, but then, I wasn't paying a lot of attention.

Kakashi looked into the forest again, but the dense forest prevented him from seeing any further than a few yards in.

Stay safe, Sasuke.

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Kyuubi followed Sakura and Sasuke, leaping from tree to tree. He readjusted his cloth mask, which had started to slip down. Kyuubi tightened the knot.

Team seven had been wandering somewhat aimlessly through the Forest for the better part of half an hour. They needed to find a team with a heaven scroll, but so far they had not found any other teams.

Sasuke stopped on a large branch 50 feet from the ground. Sakura and Kyuubi landed on either side of him. Kyuubi sniffed the air. Another team was nearby.

Sasuke spoke. "There is a team just ahead. Sakura, you go around that side," he pointed to their left, "Naruto, you go around that side," he pointed to the right. "I'll go check out this near side. See if you can find out what scroll they have. If you see a heaven scroll. come and tell me, and we can plan an attack. If you see an earth scroll, come back and we'll leave. There's no point in unnecessary fighting."

Sakura and Kyuubi nodded, and jumped towards the indicated positions. Sasuke crept closer to the other team. Looking around some branches, he saw three sound-nin. The one walking in the middle was a girl. She had long black hair that reached to just past her shoulders. She wore a grey vest and black pants. On her left was a boy, who had short, messy black hair, and wore a tan jacket and black pants. Not much was visible about the guy on her right, whose entire body appeared to be covered in bandages, over which he wore a thick grey coat and thick black pants. The bandages left just enough of a space over the guy's face to allow him to see.

Sasuke looked carefully, trying to see where they might have hidden their scroll. After a moment, he saw a slight bulge on the right side of the bandaged boy's coat. Maybe Naruto will be able to see it better.

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Kyuubi looked at the strange group through the leaves. Thankfully, the leaves were thick enough that they blocked most of the sunlight today, allowing Kyuubi to use his black uniform to better effect.

He saw a small bulge on the near side of the coat the mysterious boy was wearing. He crept along the large branch he was perched on, keeping pace with the group of sound-nins. Kyuubi couldn't see into the pocket with the bulge, because the boy's hands were in the way.

Suddenly, Kyuubi froze when he heard a loud snap from the other side of the group. The sound-nin stopped in their tracks and pulled out kunai. Kyuubi looked down, and saw that the bandaged boy had moved his arm out of the way. The sound-nin had a heaven scroll.

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Sasuke silently cursed. How could Sakura be so stupid? He dropped silently to the ground and crept as close as he dared to the enemy-nin, hiding behind a large tree trunk.

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Sakura did not dare to breath. She had not seen the dead twig sticking out of the branch she had been standing on, and when she had moved to get a better view, she had stepped on it, breaking it with a horribly loud snap.

Sakura pressed herself against the tree, and prayed that the sound-nin would not come to investigate.

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"I'll go investigate," said Kin, the black-haired girl.

Dosu nodded, his stern expression somehow visible despite the amount of bandages obscuring his face.

Kin leaped into a tree, and looked around. The sound had come from somewhere around here.

Dosu suddenly felt a presence, and spun around to block a kick from a short ninja dressed in all black. The dark ninja punched at Dosu, who leaned back to dodge, then jumped back and flipped over Zaku.

Zaku held his arm extended toward the dark ninja, palms out. The strange red gem in the center of his palm glowed briefly. Then a vicious whirlwind sprang out, knocking the black-garbed ninja back into a tree, where he vanished in a puff of smoke.

A dozen more identical ninja dropped from the trees. Zaku and Dosu stood back-to-back in the clearing, prepared for anything.

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Sasuke saw the first clone attack and get annihilated. When he saw a dozen others begin to attack, he assumed that Naruto had things under comtrol, he went to Sakura's aid. Not that he cared so much for her, but for him to pass required that all of his team make it out.

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Sakura could hear the sound girl land on a branch on the other side of the same tree she was on. Then she heard a loud noise, like a huge gust of wind. What on earth was that? Sakura peeked around the tree, and saw the other girl distracted by what appeared to be several Naruto clones' attack on her teammates. This could be my only opportunity!

Sakura threw a kunai straight at the back of the girl's head. It sank deep into the girl's skull.

But then a poof of ninja smoke revealed a kunai embedded in a log.

Sakura gasped, and turned around in what seemed to be slow motion. The sound girl smirked evilly as she threw her kunai at the surprised pink-haired kunoichi.

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Kin smirked as she threw her weapon at the hopelessly surprised girl. What a pathetic excuse for a kunoichi.

Her smirk froze awkwardly on her face, however, when another kunai came from behind her and deflected her kunai. She turned around, experiencing the same feeling of slow motion that Sakura had not seconds before. She saw the bottom of a blue sandal, and a pair of fierce red eyes with strange comma markings in them, right before she saw nothing at all.

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Sauke landed on the branch next to Sakura. He heard the sickening thud of the sound kunoichi landing on the ground. If she were lucky, she would only have a few cracked ribs.

"You alright?" he asked Sakura gruffly.

"I- I think so, Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke grunted, then leapt to help Naruto with the remaining two sound-ninja.

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Naruto frowned as he leaned against the trunk of a large tree. The two sound-nin were rather effective at destroying his shadow clones. The one with the gems in his palms could shred clones at a distance, and the one with the bandages did something that took care of any clones that made it too close.

It's a good thing we've been doing all that training. I can send these clones all day. With any luck, their techniques require chakra, and they will eventually run out.

Kyuubi formed a hand seal and created another dozen clones. The clones ran into positions in the trees, and flung their kunai at the two sound-nin. As with every time before, the more normal of the two sound-nin sent a scathing wind that dissipated the cloned kunai. The clones attacked. Three were caught in the second whirlwind unleashed by the ninja, while the others mysteriously poofed out of existence when they neared the other ninja.

Before Kyuubi created another set of clones, he heard the familiar sound of a strong wind, which sounded like it had been directed at the other side of the clearing. Looking around the huge trunk of the tree, Kyuubi saw Sasuke dodging out of the way of the dangerous vortex.

Kyuubi formed the familiar hand seal, and created two dozen clones. Then he and his clones attacked.

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Zaku shot another blast of air at the raven-haired leaf-nin. There was no way he was letting that punk get away. He noticed another horde of darkly dressed ninja fling their kunai at him. He turned, blew them away, and returned to firing at the leaf-nin. But where had he gone?

Dosu groaned as another, larger wave of ninja launched themselves in attack. He concentrated, and released his overpowering waves of sound. The clones dissipated as they reached the edge of his attack. But suddenly one broke through the smoke, seemingly unnaffected by the sound waves, and punched Dosu into Zaku's back. The two fell to the ground in a heap.

Dosu looked up to see a giant fireball flying straight at him. And with Zaku trapped underneath him, there was nothing he could do about it.

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Kyuubi leapt away as Sasuke's Grand Fireball struck the two stunned ninja, exploding in an impressive show of light and heat.

Kyuubi walked over to the unconscious ninja, and took the scroll from the charred coat pocket of the smoldering, bandaged sound-nin. He stuck the heaven scroll into the pocket where the original earth scroll was.

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Sasuke walked over and surveyed the scene. Every tree in the clearing had lost all of their branches, excepting the ones that were unable to be seen from the clearing. It then occured to Sasuke that there hadn't been a clearing here before. How long did Naruto dodge those blasts? He couldn't have so much chakra to be able to use clones that whole time, could he?

He looked over at Naruto, and saw the completely unruffled black outfit. It did not even have wrinkles you would expect after running around, nor was it damp with perspiration.

What kind of ninja is Naruto?

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End of chapter. Please review!