(A/N) And we are back. Sorry about not updating yesterday, but I wasn't in the mood to write. Also, tomorrow is my birthday, as well as this story's one month anniversary. I don't think that I will be able to get a chapter out tomorrow, as I'm pretty busy.

I have one question on my mind right now: What the hell is Madara's gunbai freaking made of? It reflected a mini tailed beast ball and didn't get hurt. WTF?

I've also gone back and edited Waka's prophecy just a little bit, so that it fits more with something. He now says that the snake is named after a demon.

Anyways, on with the chapter!

()()()()()()()()

Chapter 28: The Forest of Death

As Naruto and Hinata tree hopped deeper into the forest, Hinata kept watch on the Kumo and Iwa teams with her Byakugan. After a little bit, she relayed her findings to Naruto, saying "All six teams are steadily moving diagonally towards us. They all must have sensors on the teams. However at the angle they each are moving, they will meet with each other before us. I think we can safely assume that they are teaming up on us."

"Well then, let's continue on until we can find a nice clearing for a good fight, and then pretend to set up camp. We will let them make the first move." Replied Naruto.

The couple continued a little until they found a clearing. In the middle of the clearing, they sat down and started talking. To any observers, they would have thought that the pair were completely defenseless. However, both had their god-enhanced senses on high alert, and Hinata was discreetly watching the six teams get closer and closer to each other with her Byakugan.

When the teams met, Hinata said "Ruto-kun, they have come together and the Kumo and Iwa groups appear to be arguing. We can use that to our advantage if we have to. Now they are all splitting apart again, and it looks like they are going to surround us."

Naruto and Hinata waited for five minutes in silence. Hinata then informed Naruto that they were now completely surrounded.

However, instead of using their numbers to ambush the pair, one of the Kumo teams entered the clearing stupidly, and the leader said "Hand over the girl if you don't want to get hurt!"

Naruto and Hinata were both shocked by the stupidity of the Kumo nin, and Naruto made that known by saying "Are you freaking idiots? There are a total of eighteen of you and you walk in with only three and demand that I hand my wife over. You would have stood a much better chance if you actually tried to ambush us."

The Kumo leader just gave a cocky grin and said "Why would I need to use those other weaklings to just take a weak girl from her demon protector? I'll let you know that my team are all jonin! Sneaking into this exam was pathetically easy! Besides, my father is on Kumo's council, and he will reward me greatly once he hears that I was the one to bring in the Hyuuga that they have wanted for so long! The Raikage was a soft fool for not approving this. Kidnapping other bloodlines is so much easier than finding people who are willing. The council sees that."

It was at this point that the rest of the nin who were surrounding Naruto and Hinata jumped into the clearing. One of the Iwa nin yelled at the Kumo nin who had spoken, saying "What the hell do you think you are doing? The plan was to ambush them! You gave away our element of surprise!"

The Kumo nin just said "Why would we need to ambush them? According to our informant, the Hyuuga bitch is weak and the boy has no control over his demon. He is no threat."

The Iwa nin responded by saying "He's a Namikaze! His father murdered our entire army in the blink of an eye! Do you really think that he would be no threat?"

The Kumo nin arrogantly responded "Your nation is just weak if a single leaf ninja killed your entire army."

Naruto then interjected, saying "I hate to break up the cat fight, but if you are not going to attack my wife and I, then we will be on our way. If you do attack, it's your funeral."

The Kumo nin snapped back to Naruto and said "You little punk! I'll kill you and take the girl myself!" He then began to cackle evilly before saying "Maybe I'll have a little fun with her later. It's not like you can do anyth-"

He was interrupted by a rather oversized rasengan being slammed into his gut. The rasengan ground straight through his flesh, and Naruto pushed it through the man's body, leaving a gaping hole where his stomach used to be.

Naruto removed his arm from the hole as the nin's body fell to the ground, and said "The bastard said too much…"

Instantly Hinata was by his side and was pulling on Naruto's ear, resulting in an "owowowowowowowow" from the boy. She said "Naru-kun, Yugito-chan said not to kill any of them!"

All of the other nin were instantly on guard. None of them had seen either of the two move.

One of the Kumo nin said warily "Who is this Yugito you speak of?"

Hinata released her hold on Naruto ear and turned to the nin, and said cheerily "Oh, she is only the person who has been giving you false information to you on me ever since she became a genin. By the way, she says that she quits being a Kumo nin, and that she is officially joining the leaf after the exams."

Another Kumo nin said "So the demon turned traitor. We will deal with her later. Her giving us false information won't stop us from taking you!" He lunged at Hinata, who gently sidestepped, and tapped him so rapidly that no one besides Naruto could see her move. The nin crumpled to the floor, completely conscious, but unable to move any of his limbs.

Naruto grinned at the downed man and said "Actually it will, since she lied about two main things. First, that Hina-chan is weak. And second, that I have no control over my demon's power."

Naruto nodded to Hinata and they both said "Kai". All of the other nin were forced to take a step backwards as Naruto and Hinata were encompassed inside a whirlwind of orange and lavender flames respectively. When the flames died down, Naruto and Hinata stood in all of their full Hanyou glory.

All of the opposing nin leapt into action. However, the fight was very one-sided and did not last long. All of the Kumo nin targeted Hinata, and the six who were not of the dead man's team actually worked together to pull of some decent combos, but they were completely useless before Hinata's grace and flexibility, as she used her Juho to dodge and counter. Each of the seven Kumo nin were soon in the same position as the nin who had called Yugito a traitor.

The Iwa nin all targeted Naruto, and all nine of them coordinated their attacks perfectly. However, as Naruto dodged them all, he took a total of eighteen slips of paper out of his tool pouch, before he exploded into orange flames and vanished. Within two seconds all nine of the Iwa were lying on the ground motionless with two papers stuck to each of them. When Naruto finally slowed down, the Iwa nin were treated to the sight of what he called "Orange Flash Mode". His body and tails were glowing in an orange chakra shroud that flickered with orange fire (A/N: Essentially, he looks exactly like canon's nine tailed chakra mode, without the black markings). Naruto even had enough time to enjoy watching Hinata make fools out of the Kumo nin.

When all of the attackers were finally incapacitated, Naruto stepped up to Hinata and gave her a kiss, before crouching down to one of the Kumo nins and saying "Would you care to tell us why you disobeyed your village leader and tried to kidnap my wife?"

The Kumo nin just spat "Why would I ever tell you anything?"

Naruto grinned evilly and said "If you don't, I might tell my wife to persuade you to speak. She's quite good at making people talk, you know. Especially people who know about why she was almost kidnapped when she was three."

"Do your worst!" was all the Kumo nin responded.

Naruto frowned and said "I tried to warn you." He then nodded to Hinata, who walked over to the downed nin and crouched beside him.

"Now, if you don't answer my Ruto-kun's question, I'll be forced to hurt you. This is your last free chance, so speak up." Said Hinata to the nin in a scarily sweet tone.

The nin grinned and said "You couldn't even make me flinch, you bitch!"

Hinata then gave an evil smirk and said "I hoped you would say something like that." She then activated a single Kitsuneken, and tapped one of his arm's tenketsu. He howled in pain as the tenketsu suddenly ceased to exist.

Hinata then sweetly asked again "Care to rephrase your answer?"

Her response was a pained "Not on your life, bitch!"

"You're only doubling your pain by doing so." Responded Hinata, before she tapped another two tenketsu, obliterating them.

The nin screamed as the pain coursed through his body, but he still said "I will never tell you anything!"

This caused Hinata to smile again as she tapped another four tenketsu. She also said over his screams "If I keep this up, the chakra flow in your arm will cease to exist. Without it, your arm will become dead weight and will have to be amputated. I'm quite happy to do the job myself, but it won't be a pleasant experience as I won't dull any of the pain."

The nin had tears in his eyes, but he still resisted, until Hinata tapped his other arm eight times, shattering eight tenketsu. When the scorching pain died down enough so that he would be able to speak, Hinata said "This is your last chance. If I have to kill off sixteen more tenketsu, then your chakra network will go out of control, literally melting your insides. I've heard that that process is one of the most painful ways that you can die."

Finally the Kumo nin said "All right, I'll talk! Just please don't do that anymore!"

Hinata looked a little disappointed, but said "Fine, why did you disobey a direct order from your Raikage?"

"We did it because the civilian council offered us a high position in the village for after they overthrow the Raikage! They said that we would never have to worry about money ever again if we succeeded. It seemed like such an easy mission too, especially since we already had Yugito as an informant."

Hinata then said "So the civilian council is throwing a coup? Did they ever mention when? And how would they overthrow someone as powerful as the Raikage?"

"I overheard them mention that they would do it in around a month, but I don't know they planned on doing it, I swear!" said the nin.

Hinata sighed and turned to Naruto before saying "Well it looks like a meddling civilian council is a common theme in hidden villages. I've learned enough personally, so if you could seal them away, Ruto-kun."

Naruto nodded and took out a special scroll. He then placed the scroll on the nin that was tortured, and ran his chakra through it. There was a small poof of smoke, and the nin disappeared. Naruto then repeated this process for each of the Kumo nin, after he took each of their exam scrolls off of them. He got two earth and one heaven scrolls.

He then went to one of the Iwa nin, and took a brush and ink out of his pouch. Naruto then dipped the brush into the ink and painted a little extra onto one of the paper seals that was on the nin.

When he finished, the nin said "What have you done to us? Wait, I can speak now!"

Naruto chuckled and said "I modified your paralysis seal a little so that you can speak. As for what I did, I simply placed both a paralysis and a chakra sealing seal onto each of you. Now it's my turn to ask a question. Why did you team up with those Kumo bastards? If you don't answer, then I'll have my wife do what she did to that Kumo nin to you."

The Iwa nin wisely chose to answer and said "The Kumo nins approached us after the first exam and asked for our help in capturing the Hyuuga girl. They said that we could keep your head if we helped them. Since we learned that you were a Namikaze, we figured that we could get honor in our village if we returned with your head, so we agreed. In hindsight, going after the son of the only one who ever received a flee on sight order in our village wasn't a good idea, since we are all only genin. The odds were never in our favor, even with the Kumo nin on our side."

Naruto chuckled and said "Well it's a bit too late to realize your mistake now. However, I appreciate your honesty, so I won't take you guys in for interrogation, and you actually have the right to be here as genin, unlike those Kumo bastards. They were all either chunin or jonin. However, this is still an exam, and I hate to say it, but you guys lost."

Naruto then collect two heaven and one earth scrolls from them, before he bunched them all up into a group. He then jumped high into the air and threw ten kunai into a circle around them. After landing, he and Hinata stepped out of the circle of kunai, and Naruto went through some hand signs before saying "Fuinjutsu: Ten-point Barrier". A large see-through purple barrier was then built up, starting from each of the kunai and ending in a dome above them.

Before leaving, Naruto said "The paralysis and chakra suppression seals on you guys will wear off in five days' time, as will the barrier. The paralysis seals also prevent you from going hungry or thirsty, so you guys won't die of that. You'll be picked up at the end of the exam. Ja Na!"

With that Naruto and Hinata jumped away. As they were tree hopping, Hinata said "It looks like that Waka fellow was right. We have had fun with stones and clouds. We've also met the large raccoon that he was talking about, but what about the snake that is named after a demon?"

"Well he could be talking about Anko, but I doubt it, as her name has nothing to do with demons. That Kabuto guy smelled like snakes, now that I think about it, but again no demon name. Who else could he be referring to though? Unless he means…"

Naruto and Hinata both stopped on the same branch and looked at each other. They then said at the same time "Orochimaru!" Hinata grabbed Naruto's hand and activated her Byakugan. Focusing on where the Hokage was in the central tower, she thought "Sorime!" and warped.

(Tower, Hokage's room)

Hiruzen was sitting in a chair, smoking his pipe. He was contemplating why he had to be here so early. It's not like any of the genin would be able to get to the tower within a few hours. And even if they did, why would they ever need to speak with him?

Of course, he was immediately proven very wrong as Naruto and Hinata appeared in a flash of lavender in front of him, and Naruto blurted out "We need to tell you something immediately old man!"

Startled, Hiruzen said "Calm down Naruto. What do you need to tell me?"

Taking a deep breath, Naruto said "Hina-chan and I have a very good reason to believe that Orochimaru is going to come to the leaf sometime during the exams!"

Hiruzen let his pipe clatter to the ground and said in a steely voice "Explain your reasoning. Now."

Naruto then shot off into his explanation of the day Ammy came, and how Waka made his initial prophecy. He then explained how they met the Shukaku, and the day's events in the forest and how they had reminded them of Waka's prophecy, and how they came to the conclusion that Orochimaru was the snake named after the demon, Orochi.

After their explanation, Hiruzen said "This is most worrisome indeed. If you two are indeed correct, then Konoha is in severe danger. I will up the ANBU patrols at once. However, I dare not cancel the exams. Thank you very much for telling me this. If you will give me the scroll with the Kumo nins, I will send them to Ibiki at once. By the way, congratulations for finishing the second exam in record time. Two hours will be tough for anybody to beat. You two are dismissed. You have free reign over the tower for five days, until the exam ends. There are plenty of beds, as well as some dojos to train in."

Naruto and Hinata bowed and exited, leaving Hiruzen to ponder the return of his old student.

(Timeskip no Jutsu)

The next five days past rapidly, with only one main thing happening other than the genin teams gradually entering.

Later on in the first day, Gaara's team arrived, completely unharmed.

On the second day, team 8 arrived, all of them still under their henges.

On the third day, team 9 arrived, as well as the event that proved that Naruto and Hinata's suspicions were correct.

(Flashback no Jutsu)

Naruto and Hinata were talking with the Hokage about when Orochimaru might show up, when all of a sudden, an out of breath Anko burst into the room.

She said "Bad news. My old sensei is back."

Hiruzen immediately said "Explain."

Anko then explained…

(Flashback within a flashback no Jutsu)

Anko had been happily sitting outside the FoD, eating dango and enjoying the screams of helpless genin, when she suddenly felt a slight tingling in her curse mark. She knew what that could possibly mean, so she leapt up and hopped into the forest. As she went deeper into the forest, the tingling grew steadily more intense.

Suddenly, the tingling skyrocketed, and she heard a voice behind her say "Kukukukuku, what do we have here? If it isn't my old failed experiment, Anko Mitarashi."

Anko whirled around to see a clump of mud form into Orochimaru. She immediately pulled a kunai out and said "Well if isn't my old bastard of a sensei, Orochimaru. What the hell are you doing here? Not that it matters, cause I'm gonna kill you NOW!"

Anko lunged at Orochimaru, but he just made a single hand seal and said "Activate." Immediately, Anko fell to the ground, screaming in pain and clutching her curse mark.

Orochimaru started walking towards her and said "Kukukukuku, you were always the hothead, weren't you. However, you still refused to use the power of the gift I gave you, and because of that, I abandoned you as a failure. But no matter, I've just given that same gift towards a much more promising individual. He has the most amazing eyes, capable of copying whatever they see. And soon he shall be all mine. But now you know too much, so you must DIE!"

He lunged at the screaming Anko, only for her to suddenly stop screaming and say "Just kidding" before jumping up and slashing Orochimaru across the chest with a kunai.

Orochimaru's chest was bleeding heavily, and he glared at her and said "That's impossible! I felt the seal activate!"

Anko grinned a sadistic grin at her former sensei, and said "It did activate. Only, its power didn't reach me because of a barrier seal that someone put on me. Ever since he did that, he became my little brother."

Orochimaru hissed at her and said "Not even that doofus Jiriaya could produce a barrier of that magnitude. The only one that I could possibly think of being able to make a barrier like that was Minato Namikaze, and he is long dead. Unless…"

Anko's grin widened and she said "That's right! My little brother is the fourth Hokage's legacy. But now YOU know too much, so let's end this!"

Anko lunged at the weakened Orochimaru, and dealt another slash with her kunai. To her surprise, Orochimaru melted into mud, and she heard his voice echo "This certainly is an unplanned turn of events. Mark my words, the leaf will fall, and now the Namikaze brat has a death sentence for messing with my work. I will retreat for now, but I will return!"

(Flashback within a flashback no Jutsu KAI!)

"And I rushed here as soon as he stopped speaking." Concluded Anko.

"This is most worrisome. It sounds like he has marked Sasuke with the cursed seal. Naruto, I need you to put the same barrier that you put on Anko onto Sasuke when he returns!" said Hiruzen.

Naruto grimly said "I probably won't be able to. That barrier will only work on someone who is willing to receive it. And I know that Sasuke won't accept anything from me. That is also the only barrier that I know that would be able to suppress that mark. It is too strong for any other barrier."

Hiruzen sighed and said "That is very unfortunate. I will have Kakashi put the Evil Sealing Method on him when he gets here, and I can only hope that Sasuke will resist the temptation of the power that the cursed seal gives."

(Flashback no Jutsu KAI!)

On the fourth day, team 10 and the sound genin team arrived.

On the fifth and final day, team 7 and Kabuto's team arrived.

(Timeskip no Jutsu KAI!)

Now it was the day after the second exam ended, and all of the surviving teams were together in a huge room that had a giant pair of hands making the tiger hand sign in it. There was also a huge television screen on one of the walls of the room. The Hokage and several jonin stood in front of them.

The Hokage cleared his throat before saying "Congratulations for passing the second exam all of you. However, far more of you passed than was expected, so we will be holding a preliminary tournament to decide who will be going to the finals. The rules are as follows: The last person standing wins. Now is the chance for anybody to drop out if they wish."

At this, Kabuto timidly raised his hand and said "You got me. I used too much chakra in the forest, and I'm not completely healed, so I will be dropping out this time."

As he was escorted from the room by some ANBU, Hiruzen said "Does anybody else wish to drop out? No? Very well, if you will all turn to the screen on the wall, we will see who is in the first matchup."

Everybody turned to the screen and watched as it flickered on, and started cycling through the names of all the genin. It finally slowed down and landed on…

Sasuke Uchiha vs. Ino Yamanaka

()()()()()()()()

And that's a wrap. The prelims are next, and I am so excited! However, as I said before, I probably won't get a chapter out tomorrow. When I do the prelims, they will all probably be in the same chapter, so it will probably be my longest one yet. These are going to be fun fights, and I've already decided the matchups and who wins and who loses. I've also decided the finals matchups as well.

Today is a good day, since this chapter marks me passing 100,000 words in my story!

Until next time,

Slice N Dicer