Chapter 30: Chunin Exams (2): Reunion with an Old Acquaintance.
Disclaimer: I do NOT own Naruto. Naruto is the work of Masashi Kishimoto.

The genins collectively agreed that the first phase of the exams was boring, and when they ran toward the forty-fourth training ground, their smiles couldn't get any wider.

"WELCOME, BRATS!"

Came the roar of a woman with a sword-sharp tone. When the genins looked at the rusty, iron fences surrounding the thick trees behind it, and in front of the sturdy iron gates was a woman wearing a grey coat and chainmail underneath it.

She was wearing very little clothing, and it seemed as if the chainmail was her clothes, but her coat moves like a living creature to skillfully hide her figure, while at the same time teasing the viewer outside.

The woman smirked when she saw the incoming genins and stretched her arms outward as if to embrace the little chickens coming to the blood-stained butcher.

"I am Anko Mitarashi, Konoha's special jonin, and the proctor of this exam!" Anko paused, looking at each genin's eye, and laughed, "WELCOME. To the forest… of DEATH!"

When she saw the genins turn pale and gulp a pool of saliva in their mouth, Anko licked her lips to savor the taste of fear in the genins' hearts.

"Wow, how sadistic."

Crack—

When she heard the faint muttering on her right, Anko's head nearly snapped when she turned her head. Her eyes landed on a boy with long, brown hair and coffee-colored eyes.

"Ho-ho-ho! Someone's a brave one, I see."

Woosh!

Before the genins can process her sentence, Anko's body became a blur and leaped toward them like a python ambushing her prey.

SSSSssss—

The genins shivered, rubbing the standing hair on their arms and turning toward the hissing sound behind them. When they turned, they saw a thick brown python wrapping itself around Hiroko and Anko standing behind the shivering boy. As the python wrapped itself around Hiroko's body, wanting to eat him, the python hissed and turned to look at the pale genins.

"Boy, if I were you, I would get a little something called 'caution' embedded deep in my brain. Because in the forest of death… any one of you can die, and no one will care!"

Anko whispered in Hiroko's ears, but the forest was too silent and her voice seems to echo in their ears as well as if Anko was behind them. Several genin turned back just to make sure, only a couple was unaffected.

Anko covered her mouth as her shoulder bobbed up and down before ordering her summon to get down from Hiroko's body.

SSSsss…

After the python slithered into her sleeves, Anko got a glance of a tall, long-haired genin standing behind Hiroko, licking his lips with his long tongue and his eyes gluing themselves on the boy's back.

"Oh, and, death may be better if you encounter… perverts… inside the forest. Pretty boy, you ought to be careful."

Anko whispered to Hiroko while giving the tall genin from the land of grass a sideways glance. The genin saw her stare and started chuckling, turning to discuss something with his teammates.

"Damn creepy-ass pervert," Anko scoffed before turning her attention to the rest of the genins.

"All right, brats! Come here and sign this paper. If any of you die in the forest, konoha wouldn't be held responsible for your sorry deaths!"

When Anko handed out the papers, the genins hesitated, some choosing to participate and some choosing to back out. Anko sneered at the "scaredy cat genins," before handing out scrolls to the remaining genins.

"One scroll is a heaven scroll, and one scroll is an earth scroll. Your mission is to get one of each scroll and get to the tower in the middle of the forest. If by the fifth day, your team doesn't have both scrolls, you'll be disqualified," Anko paused for a minute before asking, "Any question?"

A genin raised his arm. It was Hiroko. Seeing him, Anko chuckled before shrugging her shoulders, leaving after shouting, "BEGIN!"

"Ah! What about my question?"

Hiroko's shoulder slumped, his face frowning, brows furrowing, using his hands to pull at his hair while watching all the genin teams, except his, enter the forest of death.

"What did you want to ask, anyway?"

"Oh, I wanted to ask where the bathroom was."

Fooooosh—Thud. Thud. Thud.

As they enter the forest, team Hiroko jumped from tree to tree, their eyes spinning around trying to locate any potential traps or ambush.

'Naruto, your lover is fighting someone.'

'Who?'

Thud.

"Hiroko?"

Woooosh!

Ken and Akemi were startled, shooting past Hiroko, unprepared for the latter's sudden halt.

"Ah? Nothing."

Hiroko laughed, rubbing the back of his head before jumping past Ken and Akemi. The two shook their heads before following Hiroko.

'Who?'

'Your hyuga lover.'

'She's not my lover.'

'Then why did you participate in the exams?'

Hiroko's mind started turning, trying to connect a plausible reason and answer to Kurama's question when he came to a realization.

'Why did I participate?'

His original plan was to ally with the land of hot waters and have their genin team spy for him in the chunin exams. Since the village hidden in hot waters was a pacifist bunch, it was the perfect village to spy on konoha, as the latter wouldn't suspect a thing.

Of course, as a pacifist village, it took him over half a year to cultivate a corrupt figurehead to manipulate the strings behind the puppet, but it was worth it in the end.

'I was supposed to leak information to the other villages…'

He wants to let konoha suffer like how the Uzumaki suffered. He wants the other four great ninja villages to come and invade konoha.

Even if the invasion failed, Naruto would be happy as long as they tried.

But when he heard team eight, Hinata's team, was participating in the exams, he threw his Yukito outfit out the window and wore another clothing by the name of "Hiroko."

'I was getting bored, so I thought to do things myself…'

'Sure you are…'

Kurama paused. The next time he opens his mouth, half an hour has already passed.

'Naruto, you lover broke the world record.'

'What do you mean?'

'She already finished the damned exam.'

'WHAT?!'

BANG—CRASH!

Chirp—chirp—chirp! Caw… caw… caw…

"Hiroko!"

"What's gotten into you?"

Akemi can't take it anymore and went to slap Hiroko's back. Hiroko was running in circles, and since he was leading their team, they also ran in circles. This was already the fifth lap.

"What? I'm just excited! I want to quickly pass the chunin exams!"

". . . By going in circles?"

". . ."

Ken scratched his head when the team stopped, engulfed in a long silence.

"What? We were going in circles? Why didn't you tell me?"

"You… didn't know?"

Akemi's face started twisting, resisting the urge to slap Hiroko silly.

"All right, Ken, you lead the team."

Finally, Akemi's rationality won, sighing and ordering the older boy in the team to lead them.

"Okay."

After taking the role of team leader, it didn't take Ken one hour to find traces of another team. When he did, he ordered his team to set up traps and after half an hour, the fisherman caught a fat fish.

"Damn. We surrender!"

"Okay. Give us your scroll."

"Here."

Hiroko's eyes couldn't get any wider. The land of hot waters barely did any fighting, so he guessed that their ninja's skills were below average.

If so, why is Ken and Akemi's skill so overpowered? Is it because of his identity?

Ken and Akemi were tasked to protect him in the chunin exams, as he was the current village head's only son. At least, that was the official story.

"Damn! It's another heaven scroll!"

Of course, his shock was buried deep within his soul. His cheerful appearance never took a hit.

"Sigh… maybe we can ask another team that has an extra earth scroll to trade with our heaven scroll."

"Ken, you wish. How many teams braved the forest of death? What if we met another team, and they too had the heaven scroll?"

"Then…"

Ken thought for a while and realized that Akemi made sense. He shook his head and sighed. It didn't make a difference anyway, and they can only try their luck.

"Wow, Hinata-chan, when did you get so powerful?"

Hinata's eyes began twitching from being called "Hinata-chan" by Kiba. While she didn't mind the title, it was a different story when it was Kiba who said it.

Because Kiba had been openly hitting on her, and even openly announced that she is his fiancé. That day, Kiba returned home with broken bones and a torn-up spirit.

But it was no use, as when Kiba left his house the next day, all his trauma was thrown into the garbage can. Hinata shook her head and turned to her other teammate.

"Shino-kun, was it successful?"

"Yes, Hinata-san. I placed a bug in every genin team… well, except the sand team, grass team, teams ten and three, and the hot waters' team. They all found the bugs."

"We can't do anything about that. The other teams, have you learned of their abilities yet?"

Hinata asked. They were going to fight the other teams in the final round, so it was best to learn about their enemy's abilities.

At being asked, Shino began narrating the abilities of the other Genin teams.

"What about team seven?"

"Team seven… Sakura-san was adept at using medical jutsu, but she can only use C-rank medical ninjutsu. Sasuke-san already activated the sharingan up to the second level, and he is very skilled in fire jutsu. Benjiro-san is good at using wind-style jutsus, but his main affinity seems to be water-style. It's just that, he knows more wind-style jutsus than water-style jutsus."

"Hmm. I get it. Thank you, Shino-kun."

"No problem, Hinata-san."

After leaving her team, Hinata went to her room and sat to meditate.

'My strength is at most elite-chunin level, and my eyes can see up to a hundred meters away, twice as much as Neji.'

Hinata sighed. Even after two years, her skill can barely match Neji's. The only thing she surpassed Neji on was in her byakugan's range.

'But even if I fight Neji, I can at least tie with him.'

Neji has been training with the gentle fist for his entire life, while she only started taking her training seriously two years ago. It was already impressive that she can compete with Neji, the Hyuga's greatest genius.

'Well, what about the other teams? I'm not sure about the foreign teams, but I can win a fight against any of team ten… well, Shikamaru-kun will be tricky.'

In battles between genin and chunin, strategy and skill were half the battle. The other half was information. Beyond genins and chunins, jonins can use brute force to make their opponent submit.

'As for team seven… Benjiro-kun can use wind and water style, while Sasuke-kun has the sharingan and is good at fire-style...'

"Shika, did you notice anything about Hinata?"

"Oh?"

Meanwhile, Shikamaru and Ino were leisurely chatting, while Choji was eating chips, sitting on top of a genin that they knocked out.

The poor guy called Choji "fat," so no one paid attention to him as Choji sat on his face.

"Hinata, huh? Well, all I can say is that she's hiding her strength."

Shikamaru shook his head. He didn't lie. How could he know anything about Hinata when Hinata hadn't shown anyone her skills?

"Perhaps team three knows, especially Neji, but I don't think they will give us information for free."

"Urghhh, so annoying! And forehead-girl is acting all weird too! She started talking about medical this and that…"

When Ino started blabbering, Shikamaru groaned and looked up, watching the clouds slowly drift in the distance.

"Sasuke, are you all right?"

"Ha… Ha… Yeah… what was that?"

Team Seven was being harassed by a genin from the land of grass. The man was strong, and Sasuke hated to admit it.

Just now, the man's neck suddenly elongated and tried to bite his nape, but Benjiro reacted in time and pushed him away. Seeing that he missed, the man chuckled and sank into the ground.

Although the man was nowhere to be seen, team seven was tense. It was because the man couldn't be seen that they were sweating bullets, their eyes spinning around like a wheel.

"Hello! What happened here?"

"AHH!"

Team seven jumped, aiming kunai at the voice, and made distance. When they calmed down, their eye's twitched upon seeing the newcomer.

He had long, brown hair that was tied behind his back, and his arrival was like an angel descending from the heavens, although team seven reacted as if they'd seen a devil.

"It's Hiroko—"

"My, my, if it isn't the genin team of hot waters."

Before Benjiro could cheer, the man from the land of grass emerged from the ground like an illusion, staring at both genin teams.

"Hiroko, please stay behind me and Akemi."

Ken said, jumping in front of Hiroko, who just chuckled without saying anything.

"Who are you?"

Akemi shouted and took out a kunai.

"Well, I'm just another…"

"Oh! I remember! he's a snake, a ninja, a snake ninja! He's Orochimaru!"

Hearing the clear, high-pitched voice of Hiroko, which sounded like a child who happened to see his favorite mascot, the tall man's brow twitched.

'This Hiroko brat… he looks familiar?'

Before Orochimaru can say anything, all five genin paled when after hearing Hiroko reveal the tall man's identity, and although they didn't know whether Hiroko was right or not, they all bolted like a rabbit who came across a leopard.

Hiroko's team went south, while team seven went north.

It was obvious which direction Orochimaru will head toward.

"Fu-fu-fu... Ninjutsu: Shadow Clone Jutsu."

BOTH!

End Banner has something to say: Well, how did you like the chapter?

If you want to read more chapters in advance (up to chapter 40, and 9 rewritten chapters) and influence the story, you can check out my pátreón!

pátreón.cóm/endbanner (replace the accent letters)