"Where are we going?" Naruto asked Kakashi as he silently led his team through the dense forests surrounding the bounds of Konoha.
"Somewhere remote," he responded without looking back at them. "A place we won't be bothered. A place we won't be found."
Naturally, that response did nothing to assuage the worries of the three genin in his care. In fact, it only made them warier, which they were certain that Kakashi took note of. They had all been wary ever since they explained what happened in the Forest of Death (minus the specifics about what Naruto's cursed seal actually entailed, of course), but none more than Naruto. He had always had inklings that he was being watched growing up, but the feeling felt exponentially stronger ever since he left the tower, and their sensei breaking into his home and eavesdropping on their conversation did not inspire a ton of confidence about his already low standing in the village.
"…How do we know you aren't taking us into the wilderness to murder us discreetly?" Sakura was the one to vocalize their shared thoughts. On the surface, the question seemed like a dark but ultimately innocuous joke.
"Why would I waste energy taking you out of the village for that? Killing you three inside Naruto's apartment and ensuring your bodies were never to be found would be child's play."
Kakashi's tongue-in-cheek yet surprisingly blunt rebuke of Sakura's actual question hidden underneath the underneath was most likely intended to help clear the air about the reality of their situation without coddling them, or at least that's what Sakura figured. However, her unflinchingly stony countenance and the pointed gazes of both Sasuke and Naruto made it evident that he hadn't really succeeded in inspiring much trust, and his slight, downcast sigh was indication enough that the message was received.
"So…" Naruto drawled, breaking the mildly tense silence before it could fester. "Where are we going?"
"Our matches are individual," Sasuke spoke up, ignoring Naruto's question entirely. "There's no way that you'll be able to devote enough singular attention to each of us. Are you planning for us to go into the finals knowing all that we can do?"
Thankful for the deviation in subject matter, Kakashi hummed with a stroke of his chin. "Hmm, that is the conundrum, isn't it…"
Faster than anyone could blink, three kunai shot out of the trees behind them and nicked each one of them on the cheek. While Sasuke and Sakura were startled, Naruto was already having flashbacks to just before the second exam began. Refusing to be licked again, he whipped around with his hands locked and loaded in a cross to make shadow clones at a moment's notice, and his teammates weren't far behind him with kunai in hand.
"Your kids are jumpy, Kakashi," a voice from above remarked before a familiar figure in a trench coat dropped to the forest floor in front of them. "They're still too slow, though."
"Stay away from me, you pervy psycho!" Naruto demanded.
"Aw, you remember me," she gushed, flickering behind Naruto once again and trapping him in her arms. "Your blood tasted really nice last time. I couldn't help but get another fix."
While Naruto struggled to wriggle out of her grasp, a long-suffering sigh dragged itself out of Kakashi after he facepalmed. "Not the way I wanted to properly introduce you all, but I suppose now is as good a time as any. You've all met Anko, right?"
Sasuke and Sakura hesitantly nodded as Naruto finally fished himself out of her clutches and scuttled away, eventually putting Sasuke in between himself and Anko's victorious grin.
"How did she know where we were going to be if no one was supposed to find us?" Sakura questioned.
"I've been following you all the whole time," Anko casually dismissed, drawing surprised expressions from all three of them. "Tracking is one of my specialties."
"Damn, I didn't hear her at all," Naruto muttered. "She's good."
"Why is she here?" Sasuke asked.
Rather than respond verbally, Anko stepped forward and pulled back the collar of her trench coat to expose her collarbone, showcasing her Cursed Seal of Heaven to them in all its glory. Sakura gasped while Sasuke immediately tensed, and his hand subconsciously traveled to his own mark.
"…I'm intimately familiar with your situations," Anko lowly remarked, readjusting her collar. "Kakashi asked me to come help you brats train for the finals because I'm uniquely qualified to teach you how to function with one of these."
"How so?" Sasuke asked.
"Remember when you fought back the mark during your fight in the preliminaries?" she asked, and Sasuke nodded. "You were low on chakra, and without a containment seal, the mark will brute-force its chakra through you to fill the void when you start to run your reserves dry. I give you props for beating it back regardless, kid."
"So, with the containment seal, we won't have to worry about that?" Sakura asked with a flicker of hope that her newly installed containment seal would eliminate any issues.
"No, you still do," Anko denied, shooting her hopes out of the sky before they could even get anywhere. "Orochimaru wouldn't craft a cursed seal that can be subdued by a simple containment seal. All it does is raise the threshold for how low your reserves have to be for the mark to attack, but the mark still can attack. The containment seal isn't going to stop the whispers, either. It's only as strong as your willpower to not use the mark. So, if you know how to operate at full capacity without running the risk of entering that threshold, you won't ever think about having to tap into that power."
She grinned and thumbed at herself. "That's what I'm here for. You brats are gonna learn how to not be wasteful with your chakra and how to maximize your output relative to your use. Who better to do it than two chakra powerhouses and a maestro at chakra control, at least according to Kakashi?"
Sakura was floored, and even Sasuke had to admit that he was interested in everything both she and Kakashi could teach if Kakashi's earlier statement about training them into the ground held true. Naruto, meanwhile, had lost himself in thought upon seeing the curse mark. He remembered the empathy in her gaze when she looked at him, as fleeting as it may have been. At least now he knew why; still, receiving any amount of empathy from someone in Konoha was a depressingly infrequent occurrence, and he wasn't going to just dismiss that.
"I'm in," Naruto suddenly spoke up with a resolute expression.
His teammates weren't expecting him to so quickly be on board after he blatantly made his aversion to her known, but his sureness compelled them to nod their assent. They were ready for whatever the two adults had to throw at them.
"Fantastic!" Anko cheered, appearing behind Naruto in a flash and trapping him in her arms once again. "We're gonna have so much fun this month, aren't we, Foxy?"
"I need an adult," Naruto squeaked, and Sakura at least attempted to stifle her laughter.
"I am an adult," Anko replied with a grin.
"Highly debatable," Kakashi smoothly added his two cents.
"Suck my ass, Scarecrow."
Unseen to the group as they continued onward to the area Kakashi had sequestered for them, a small toad poked its head out of a nearby bush and watched them retreat before vanishing in a puff of smoke.
"Get up."
Sweat droplets plopped to the floor of the dojo as Neji struggled to push himself up on all fours. His muscles were screaming in protest, his bones were crying for respite, and his pride had taken a beating so savage that not even the Sage of Six Paths himself could restore his dignity.
"On your feet, boy!" Hiashi demanded.
Neji heaved a sigh, which was a mistake as his ribs could barely take any more punishment. Still, he fought through the torment and finally climbed back to his feet, reentering the beginning stance of the Gentle Fist. Hiashi did not allow him a single picosecond to gather himself before he struck with violent fury, laying waste to Neji in a brutal, unrelenting series of strikes. He shut down chakra points, slammed into pressure points, and all-around beat Neji senseless like he had been for the last ten minutes. A final open palm to his chest launched Neji backward, sending him rolling across the dojo into a sweaty, coughing heap.
"You disgrace your father's memory," Hiashi growled as he stepped toward his downed nephew. "You spit on his sacrifice so cavalierly, and for what? Petty resentment and misplaced anger?!"
On the ground, Neji was shaking, and his skin was growing hot. His fingernails dug into the floor as his vision slowly grew unfocused. His pain had completely left his mind at the utterance of one single word out of the mouth of the clan's patriarch. "Sacrifice…"
"Do you have something you wish to say?" Hiashi asked in a low, cold tone.
The unspoken threat snapped Neji out of his descent and refocused his senses. He shook his head. This was no place to die.
"Get out of my sight," Hiashi ordered.
Neji once again struggled back to his feet as best as he could, and then he limped towards the door while clutching his abdomen despite his entire body feeling like one giant bruise. Once the entrance to the dojo had slid closed behind him, he began his slow, embarrassing trek back to his quarters in silence. Everyone he passed along the way, both main house Hyuga and branch house servants alike, pointedly avoided his gaze. He had quietly become persona non grata among the compound, as even if the branch house weren't fans of the main house and his cousin by extension, openly showing support for a branch house member after he had slain a main house Hyuga was suicide.
Neji was no fool. He knew that the only reason he was still alive was because of his familial ties. He knew that Hiashi had pulled his punches (even if only just so much) to avoid killing him outright. He knew that Hiashi and the clan elders were likely still deliberating on exactly what to do with him.
He so dearly wished that they'd simply kill him already and get it over with. Death was preferable to whatever existence he had left.
As he turned the corner into the hallway where his quarters were, he was met with a sight that opened the pit of his stomach into a sinkhole. Standing in front of the door was the former patriarch of the clan and Hiashi's father, Hinome Hyuga.
"Be grateful that it was only the failure that was slain at your hand," he gruffly addressed with none of the warmth that his namesake alluded to. "Your use to this clan is null now that you have proven yourself to be a mad dog."
Neji felt the white-hot rage in his core burn once again, but he clenched his teeth and kept his mouth shut.
"However," Hinome continued stonily, "your combat prowess and proficiency over our clan's taijutsu speaks for itself. You have advanced to the finals of the chunin exams."
Hinome stepped forward and pinned Neji to his spot with a cold glare. "You will not only defeat the Uchiha scion; you will embarrass him. You will demonstrate the unending might of the Hyuga, and perhaps you may get to keep your miserable life. Should you fail…"
With a single hand sign, Neji's Caged Bird Seal activated, and he crumpled to the floor with a vicious, guttural wail of agony. Searing pain lanced through his brain and radiated like a spiderweb of excruciating torment, catching him in its trap and bundling him in a nightmarish cocoon as he waited to be swallowed up by the dispassionate embrace of brain death.
Then, in a single moment, it was over. The seal etched into his forehead was deactivated, and the pain had vanished. He was left writhing on the floor to slowly regain his bearings as his grandfather stared down at him without an ounce of pity.
"Are we clear?" Hinome asked, and he waited for Neji to bring his head up to look him in the eye with nothing but hatred.
"Crystal," Neji gritted out with enough venom to take down the entire village.
"Come on, I know you can do better than that!" Anko joyfully called out to the downed genin in front of her.
"Why did I agree to this??" Sakura moaned from her place on the ground, slowly pushing her achy body up to a sitting position. "What's the point of this? I can't land a hit on you."
"True," Anko hummed before tossing Sakura a water bottle. "But you also haven't been getting tagged every single time. Your reflexes and flexibility are definitely up to par, even if your raw taijutsu ability is mediocre at best."
"…That's honestly more generous of an analysis than I expected," Sakura remarked after taking a swig of water. "I'm not particularly strong like some of the guys in my graduating class, and I'm definitely not the fighter that Hinata i-"
She faltered when the memory of Hinata's battered body at the hands of her cousin flashed in her mind, and a deep shudder came over her. "…was."
"Shit finally becoming real for you?" Anko asked, placing her hands in the pockets of her coat.
A long, silent moment passed before Sakura finally opened her mouth to respond. "It's been real for me since Nami, and if it wasn't, Orochimaru made sure that it was. It's just…"
"Seeing a comrade killed in the flesh is new for you," Anko surmised.
"By her own flesh and blood!" Sakura shouted. "He didn't even give her a chance! You could see in her eyes that she didn't even want to fight him, but as soon as the match started, he just pounced and wouldn't stop until Kurenai-sensei nearly took his head off."
"Yeah," Anko sighed. "It was rough. That's the life we chose, though. It can end or be turned upside down at any time by anyone, so it pays to keep your head on a swivel, be ready for anything, and be careful about who you place your trust in."
Sakura gazed at her when she said this, and her eyes briefly lowered to Anko's collar. It wasn't particularly difficult to piece together what she meant and why she would say that given what they knew about her, and the fact that it was far more applicable than Anko probably even considered based on what Orochimaru revealed to her and Naruto only added to Sakura's growing exhaustion.
The sounds of many Narutos cheering in the distance as he worked on his wind nature with Kakashi and the sight of a much larger-than-average fireball blasting into the sky brought her wandering mind to her teammates. Comparatively, they had much tougher battles ahead than she did, and they were immersing themselves in nonstop training without a second thought. Meanwhile, she had more holes in her skillset to fill, so she'd have more ground to cover in less time to do it.
A long, weary huff escaped her. "Monsters like him and Gaara are the kind that we'll have to be on the level of…"
"Which is why we don't have any time to waste," Anko said, extending her hand to lift Sakura to her feet. "I can tell that you've got a lot to prove, so let's build you up into someone who can do just that, huh?"
Taking the offered hand and getting back to her feet, Sakura dusted herself off and took on a determined expression. "Let's."
"Alright guys, we almost had it before, so let's try this one last time!" Naruto shouted to the gaggle of clones surrounding one side of a pointed boulder, each with both hands firmly planted on the stone.
"Right!" chorused the clones.
"On three!" Naruto directed. "One! Two!"
"Three!" they all said in unison, and a collective blade of wind shot through the boulder and sliced it in two, the force of the blade even making the boulder jump an inch off of the ground.
The gaggle of Narutos erupted into cheers and celebrated by jumping victoriously around the now unsteady boulder. The vibrations of the merriment caused the pointed top half of said boulder to slowly slide off entirely, smashing point-first into the cranium of an unsuspecting clone and dispelling it into a puff of smoke. The sudden death of a brother paused the merriment, and the original Naruto winced as the memory of getting brained by a jagged stone entered his mind…
"Wait, what?" Naruto spoke up in confusion. "Why do I remember it as if it happened to me and not a clone? Unless…"
Naruto produced a kunai and threw it at the nearest clone, fright and betrayal being the last thing it felt before the kunai slammed between its eyes and dispelled it. Shortly thereafter, the memory of a kunai darting toward him accompanied by the phantom sensation of being stabbed in the face came over him, and he lit up in excitement. The other clones, sensing imminent danger, quickly dispelled themselves at once.
"Holy shit, I get the memories of my shadow clones!" Naruto exclaimed before stumbling at the slight ache caused by all of the memories of his clones rushing back to him at once.
"You didn't already know that?" Kakashi, or rather his clone that was overseeing Naruto training his wind nature, asked as he stepped forward.
Naruto blinked away the remaining disarray before sheepishly scratching the back of his head. "I guess I hadn't really put a ton of thought into it. Most of the time, it's just a mess of images that sorta just blend into what I'm already seeing."
Naruto paused when something else occurred to him. "Wait, if I get back what my clones experience, that means I can have them do other things for me, and I'll still retain all that knowledge, right?"
Kakashi nodded. "The Shadow Clone Jutsu's original purpose was information gathering. It's just that most people can't make very many if any at all, so its uses were effectively limited. You don't have that issue, though."
"I can make as many as I want," Naruto nodded in confirmation, and then he began thinking once more. "Come to think of it, I noticed that when I made more clones, I started to figure out how to properly mold my chakra into wind a lot faster…"
Naruto fell into a thoughtful silence as he pondered the ramifications of that discovery. Kakashi remained silent, as well, allowing Naruto to come to the conclusion he knew he was just on the brink of himself. Half of getting stronger was training your mind alongside your body, after all.
Then, Naruto lit up once again, and he faced Kakashi with bright eyes. "I can use them to speed up training!
Kakashi smiled and nodded in confirmation. "Yes, yes you can. I was actually going to introduce the concept to you once you got this down. Since memories and experiences carry over, chakra control and manipulation exercises can be done however many times over at once, whereas physical training won't transfer. You'll have to train your real body for that."
"Then let's get started!" Naruto declared, pounding his fist into his palm. "What's next?"
Sasuke dashed away from the spot where a deluge of kunai and shuriken impacted mere milliseconds later, parrying an incoming shower of more metallic death with kunai in both hands all the while. He no longer kept track of exactly how long he'd been moving, only that it had been nonstop. He needed to grow a lot faster than he currently was, as his scuffle with Rock Lee so graciously reminded him. His Sharingan was useless if he couldn't react fast enough to do anything about the attacks he perceived, so Kakashi was running him ragged to improve his linear speed, reaction speed, and agility in one fell swoop.
If the narrowly dodged shuriken, tanto, mace, nunchucks, and inexplicable anvil that nearly flatted him were any indication, he was making decent progress. Now, all he had to do was continue wading through the hailstorm of kunai being lobbed at him from every which way to finally catch and maim the masked bastard who was doing everything he could to skewer him.
With a hearty dash, he was finally within crisping range of his sensei. A few quick hand seals later, a ridiculously large, needlessly bright ball of fire rocketed out of his mouth and carved through the landscape and the incoming weapons, clearing a path for him to finally tag Kakashi. He'd definitely thank Anko for the tip about maximizing chakra output while minimizing expenditure. It was crazy just how much chakra he was wasting by, well, brute-forcing jutsu. That's the way he'd been doing it since he was practicing the Grand Fireball as a child, and pretty soon after that, no one was around to correct him…
Just as that thought crossed his mind, he jerked out of the way of a katana that was primed to impale him like a javelin, and he watched Kakashi shoot him a peace sign before flickering away once again. Seriously, where the hell did he even get all these weapons, and where the hell was he stashing them??
Back in a little weapons shop in Konoha, Tenten's maniacal laughter echoed through the building as she gingerly counted wads of cash behind the counter, careful not to aggravate her injured back any further.
The night was still, and the only sensation Gaara could feel was the gentle breeze sliding across the village as he sat on the roof of the hotel they were staying in. The full moon illuminated the night sky, but something was wrong. Gaara felt none of the usual stirring, agitation, or excitement from his demon that usually bubbled when the full moon was out. The void inside of him was unnaturally silent, and that silence was eating away at him. He had become so used to the constant screaming for blood and viscera that the absence of it was somehow even more maddening.
Why had Mother gone silent? Why was she ignoring him? She had begun acting strangely ever since that odd, dreadful aura bore down on the Forest of Death, and every time he looked at Naruto Uzumaki, Mother would panic and violently command him to stay away from him. Gaara never imagined that it was possible for Mother to be genuinely frightened by something, but the fact that something, or someone, was capable of that intrigued him. What was it about Uzumaki that frightened Mother so?
"Hey, kid!"
Gaara blinked, taken by surprise by the sudden communication. "Yes, Mother?"
"If you never listen to anything I say ever again, just hear me out this one last time: DO NOT fight that blonde kid!"
Gaara furrowed his brow. "Why not?"
"That kid has a truly horrible creature inside of him…"
Now, Gaara was even more intrigued. "He's like me?"
"Worse. He's got something inside of him that's older than even me! And that something wants to fucking eat me!"
"I don't understand…"
"That creature inside of him is a horrible monstrosity that's more dangerous than anything you have ever encountered or ever will. It's stronger than you. It's stronger than me. Hell, it's stronger than the strongest version of me!"
Gaara was floored, unable to fathom the shockingly coherent ramblings echoing within him. "Stronger than…"
"Listen, brat, if you fight him, I will die, and I WILL NOT allow you to get me killed, damnit!"
"Stronger than…" Gaara mumbled, his mind spiraling into a storm of denial, uncertainty, incredulity, and confusion. Mother had always commanded him to kill. She had always commanded him to feed her the blood of the weak. She had always reveled in him exercising dominance, taking the lives of others to showcase his own and prove that he was the strongest.
Now, she was saying that there was someone stronger? There was someone with a demon stronger than even her? There was someone who could kill not only him, but he could kill Mother, as well? It was impossible. It was asinine. It was…
"Perfect…" Gaara rasped, a crazed, face-splitting grin coming over him. "Yes… YES! Killing Uzumaki will prove my existence like no other! With his blood, I will be forever undeniable! No one will ever be able to challenge me!"
As Gaara descended into a haunting, maniacal fit of laughter, the biju inside of him genuinely facepalmed.
"If shit goes sideways, I'm freeing myself from this seal the first chance I get and hightailing it the fuck outta here."
Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura had stopped counting the weeks that they had been in isolation with Kakashi and Anko. Their sensei had made good on his promise to train them into the ground, and they certainly looked the part with their torn, muddy clothes and an assortment of bruises on every inch of their bodies. And yet, none of them would have it any other way. They had grown more in this single period than they had since graduation, and the results would speak for themselves soon enough.
"Alright, you three, front and center," Kakashi called to them, and the three quickly complied, standing at attention before a smiling Kakashi and smirking Anko.
"It's time you reached the culmination of what you three have each been working towards," Kakashi began, and he had their rapt attention. "Naruto, your chakra control has advanced enough for you to try out this neat little jutsu my sensei created."
Naruto furrowed his brow, as did Sakura and Sasuke as Kakashi opened his palm and grabbed his wrist. The concentration was visible on his face, sparking even more interest in the genin at what this jutsu could possibly entail. Soon, their questions were answered when visible chakra began to coalesce into a ball in his palm. The frantic sounds of several thousands of strands of chakra spinning in all directions within that ball filled the clearing, growing even more wild as the ball grew in size until it was about as large as his palm.
"This is the Rasengan, one of the signature jutsu of the Yondaime," Kakashi said.
"Holy hell…" Naruto exhaled in awe of the jutsu. Despite his recent, increasingly complicated feelings about the Yondaime and the village as a whole, he had to give credit to an awesome jutsu when he saw one.
"What does it do, exactly?" Sasuke asked. As far as he could tell, there were no chakra natures anywhere in the jutsu.
"Observe," Kakashi instructed, and then he turned and drove the Rasengan into a nearby boulder, grinding a deep crater into it until it exploded out the other side, blasting chunks of stone in all directions. "That. It does that."
"Awesome!" Naruto cheered, practically salivating to begin working on it. "Could I add my wind chakra to it?"
"I'm glad you asked," Kakashi eye smiled. "The Rasengan is actually an incomplete jutsu. It's the pinnacle of shape manipulation, as you noticed, there is no nature transformation involved. The Yondaime never got around to adding any natures to it before he died, and I've never been able to regardless of how hard I tried. In fact, the jutsu I have for Sasuke is a direct result of one of those attempts."
Now, Sasuke was even more interested, especially once Kakashi lifted his headband to expose his implanted Sharingan. They watched him run through a series of hand seals before lightning crackled in his open palm and began frantically spilling out. The three genin were transfixed by the sight, and Sakura quickly remembered the sounds of birds chirping from the battle at the bridge in Nami.
"This is the Chidori," Kakashi continued. "While I wasn't able to add lightning to the Rasengan, I was able to wield pure lightning chakra in my hand. It comes with a few caveats, though."
Right as he finished, he vanished from his spot and slammed his fist into another boulder on the other side of the clearing within moments, stabbing right through it like hot butter. Jerking his arm out of the rock, he faced his students once again.
"The immense boost in speed that using the Chidori grants will cause tunnel vision between you and your target, eliminating your ability to see any potential dangers coming from either side of you. The only thing that can mitigate this is the Sharingan, which is why only Sasuke among you can safely use this jutsu."
Sasuke nodded, not even bothering to hide his smirk from Naruto. Naruto couldn't even be upset about it, as he was perfectly content with being given the Rasengan to learn. That only left Sakura.
"What about me, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura spoke up, and Kakashi sighed.
"Unfortunately, you are one of a breed of special cases whose chakra is naturally in tune with two natures without a verifiable elemental kekkei genkai," Kakashi began, but he continued before Sakura could deflate. "As it happens, I don't have any water or earth jutsu that are as potent as the Chidori or the Rasengan."
"Which is where I come in," Anko picked up, earning Sakura's full attention. "I've got a jutsu for ya that will work nicely in your fight with the wind girl from Suna. The only hurdle is that it's a fire jutsu, and a really high-level one at that. Learning it means developing your ability to mold fire-natured chakra from the ground up while fighting against the other chakra's natural behavior. You game for it?"
"Absolutely," Sakura nodded with nothing but determination.
"Excellent," Anko grinned. "Fortunately, since your water nature is already fighting against your earth nature to simply exist, you should have a good bit of experience with dueling natures, so this shouldn't take very long for you to get the hang of."
She stood back and turned to a third, undisturbed rock formation. "I created the jutsu myself, so you won't get pointers for this anywhere else. Watch and learn."
With a surprisingly short sequence that was bookended by the tiger seal, Anko puckered her lips and spat what looked to be a lightning-fast, ultra-thin senbon that was glowing red-hot. Then, it impacted the rock formation and erupted into a gargantuan fireball that Sakura was woefully unprepared for, as were Sasuke and Naruto since all three of them were knocked on their asses by the surprising force of the eruption. The flames reflected in Anko's manic gaze, illuminating the clearing in a malevolent, orange glow.
At least, that was the case until a Water Trumpet blasted the impromptu bonfire and doused the flames.
"I think you've had your fun, Anko," Kakashi casually chided, causing her to huff and cross her arms.
"Fuckin' party pooper," she grumbled.
"Alright, you three have your tasks," Kakashi said, ignoring Anko before producing a water balloon from his flak jacket and tossing it to Naruto. "Let's get to work."
"Actually, I'd like to interrupt if you wouldn't mind," came an unfamiliar voice from the edge of the clearing, and all five present turned in surprise to find a tall, white-haired man approaching them.
"Jiraiya?" Kakashi asked, and his tone indicated that even he wasn't expecting this new arrival. "What are you doing here?"
"Came to check up on our pal, Naruto," he said, surprising Naruto even further. "A bit of an inspection, you could say."
Naruto scratched his head and squinted at him. "Who the hell are you?"
"I'm glad you asked!" Jiraiya perked up, and he prepared to begin his grand, kabuki introduction before he leaped out of the way of a barrage of kunai courtesy of an irritated Anko.
"No, none of that shit," she growled. "You're interrupting their training."
"Fine," Jiraiya sighed dramatically.
Meanwhile, Naruto leaned over to whisper to his most knowledgeable teammate. "Sakura, who is that?"
"That's Jiraiya of the Legendary Sannin," she whispered back. "Three of the most powerful ninja to ever come out of Konoha and students of the Sandaime."
Naruto's curiosity dimmed minutely at that last revelation. "Oh, thanks."
"Your teammate's right, kid," Jiraiya suddenly acknowledged from behind Naruto, where he absolutely had not been mere moments prior. "I'm here to check up on your situation."
He was clearly trying to be discreet about it, but Naruto was having none of it. "My team already knows. You can just say it."
That actually surprised the older man, but he just shrugged. "Alright, makes things easier. Lift your shirt so I can take a look at the seal."
"Why?" Naruto slowly drawled in suspicion, though he realized a bit too late after he asked that blatant suspicion may not have been the best move if the goal was to stay under the radar for now.
However, the biggest surprise of all was Sasuke coming to his defense. "How do we know that you're not some old pervert trying to cop a glimpse at some preteen's body?"
None of the adults, nor Naruto himself, were expecting that question, and the results were immediate: Kakashi fell to his knees in incredulity, Anko fell over in raucous laughter, and Jiraiya nearly jumped out of his skin at the insinuation.
"Yeah!" Sakura stepped in next, putting herself between Naruto and Jiraiya. "Keep away from our friend, you creep!"
While Jiraiya shot into indignant sputtering and attempted to clear his name, Naruto gratefully took the allotted moment to confer inward. 'Kyubi, what should we do? What if he looks into the seal and sees the Jubi?'
"He won't. The seal that binds me to you and the one that binds the Jubi to you are separate entities. The bars that trap me are a representation of the seal that he is seeking to inspect."
'Wait, then why are you guys in the same room if the seals are separate?'
"Because it's easier for your feeble, human mind to visualize it as such."
'Hey! Was the insult necessary, you jackass?!'
"That's sure not a whole lot of 'finding my other half' that you're doing right now."
'Ugh, whatever. Thanks for the reassurance regardless, Kyubi.'
Coming back to reality, Naruto was met with Sakura fending Jiraiya off with a kunai while Sasuke prepared to blast him with a Dragon Flame Jutsu.
"Um, guys?" Naruto said, pausing the mayhem before it could devolve. "It's fine. He can look."
With Naruto's assurance given, his teammates stepped back and allowed him the space to work while maintaining narrowed glares. Jiraiya sighed and kneeled as Naruto lifted his shirt and molded chakra, making the seal visible for him to inspect.
Jiraiya hummed. "Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary. Still the same immaculate work as always."
'As always?' Naruto thought in confusion, not remembering meeting Jiraiya at any point in the past.
"Alright, you can pull your shirt down," Jiraiya said, and Naruto did so. "Show me the cursed seal."
Naruto hesitated once again, but he complied and tugged at his collar to expose the mark left by Orochimaru. Jiraiya peered at it, and he whistled.
"I've never seen this variety before," he remarked. "Must be new. At least it's contained for now."
Jiraiya stood back up and sighed. "My old teammate never fails to impress."
'Old… teammate?' Naruto minutely grew alarmed, and then something Orochimaru said in the Forest of Death replayed in his mind.
"The Hokage knows, the village elders know, and I'm sure your sensei knows. Even my former teammate has to know; he was named your godfather, after all."
'Godfather…'
"Well, that about does it," Jiraiya announced. "If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to borrow your two sensei for a bit."
"What for?" Anko asked, having finally calmed down from her laughing fit.
"Stumbled on some info I figured you'd wanna know about," he vaguely replied.
"Take five, you three," Kakashi instructed. "We'll be back in a minute."
Once the three adults flickered away, Sakura immediately pulled the other two into a huddle.
"How the hell did he find us if this place is specifically supposed to be a secret from everyone?" she whisper-shouted.
"If one of the Sannin can find us, then who's to say one of the others can't, as well?" Sasuke muttered with a glower.
"Exactly! And who knows who else is watching us if that's the case?" Sakura stressed.
"You think the Hokage is keeping tabs on us all the way out here?" Sasuke surmised. "Is Kakashi in on it?"
"I don't know," Sakura huffed in frustration. "It's tough to say. He seemed surprised, too, but we can't truly know either way."
"He's my godfather…" Naruto mumbled, catching both of their attention.
"Wait, what?" Sasuke asked in confusion.
"That guy, Jiraiya," Naruto clarified, his tone growing darker. "He's my godfather."
"But you're an orphan," Sakura pointed out, equally confused.
"I am," Naruto nodded. "Orochimaru said that his teammate was my godfather and that he knew my parents."
"Then where the fuck has he been all these years??" Sasuke whisper-shouted in growing rage.
"Is that why he was fixated on the seal?" Sakura thought aloud. "Did he come to inspect it on the Hokage's orders?"
"Don't know, and I frankly don't care," Naruto lamented. "Just another untrustworthy person to add to the pile."
"We can definitely confirm that the Sandaime is keeping tabs on us," Sasuke nodded in agreement. "Whether or not Kakashi and Anko are involved remains to be seen."
Naruto grunted, and the other two turned to him. "I think Anko might be cool, and I'm willing to give Kakashi-sensei the benefit of the doubt. They wouldn't be teaching us such dangerous jutsu if they didn't trust us."
"That's… a surprising level of deduction from you," Sasuke remarked, swiftly dodging his foot out of the way of Sakura's stomp.
"Anyway," Sakura irritably said, "so long as things remain the way they are, we may have to rely on ourselves around here for the long haul."
"Seems that way," Sasuke agreed.
"Team 7 sticks together," Naruto announced.
"Team 7 sticks together," Sakura nodded in agreement.
"Team 7 sticks together," Sasuke affirmed.
Then, Kakashi and Anko returned to the clearing, and the three genin broke the huddle and faced their sensei.
"Alright, let's get to work," Kakashi announced, and they nodded.
The festive mood of the village about the finals of the chunin exams was no more apparent than within the packed stadium. The energy was electric amongst the spectators, many traveling far and wide to watch the vaunted spectacle of adolescent bloodsport. People from lowly peasants all the way to esteemed nobility and everyone in between were in attendance. The roar of the crowd reverberated through the arena, filling the ears of the genin standing in the center of it all.
It was all so trite and pointless in Orochimaru's opinion. Once you experience one chunin exam, you've experienced them all, so the luster of the event wore thin very quickly. He didn't care for any of the lowly genin battling for their pride and a chance for career advancement, nor did he care for the blatant pony show the village put on for prospective buyers. He especially didn't care for the dick-measuring contest between hidden villages that these exams ultimately amounted to. If you were going to go to war, just go to war and spare everyone the needless peacocking.
What Orochimaru did care about, though, was the old monkey beside him, or more accurately, finally killing the old monkey beside him after he watched the village he loved so dearly go up in flames. He cared about the total annihilation of Konoha and all its inhabitants in a blaze of glory. He cared about finally watching the fruits of his labor in marking Team 7 come to fruition. Yes, he was practically salivating to watch just how far Team 7 had progressed over the course of a month…
…provided they were ever present to begin with, which they currently were not.
What the fuck?
Where the hell had that brat, Kakashi, taken them, and why weren't they here right now? He had half a mind to rip off his disguise and hunt them down himself before bending that silver-haired dipshit over his knee and disciplining him for poisoning his future protégés with a total disregard for punctuality. He'd be sure to signal to Kabuto to give Kakashi Hatake an especially gruesome death once the invasion began in earnest.
"You seem troubled, Rasa," Hiruzen spoke up from beside him. "Is something the matter?"
Orochimaru cleared his throat and put on the deceased Kazekage's voice. "No, I'm simply still feeling the effects of the trip. I've only recently gotten over a bad cold, which is why I elected to keep my mask on to avoid spreading any lingering germs."
"How considerate of you," Hiruzen chuckled. "If only my former students were considerate enough to visit every once in a while. They always enjoyed watching these exams with me back in the day."
"I can certainly imagine," "Rasa" chuckled along. 'I'll be sure to be especially considerate when I snap your fucking neck, you phony piece of shit.'
Just then, Raido Namiashi appeared kneeling beside Hiruzen. "Lord Hokage, Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno, and Naruto Uzumaki are still nowhere to be found. What do you suggest?"
"Begin the matches as planned," Hiruzen answered. If they are not here by the time their matches begin, I'll make a final determination."
Raido nodded and flickered away to inform Genma to begin the proceedings. Internally, Orochimaru groaned. If it was just one of them missing, then perhaps he could have persuaded Hiruzen to push the match to the end with some bullshit about the nobles traveling a long way to watch these high-priority candidates in action. With all of them gone, though, it would take a miracle to spare them all disqualification.
He was milliseconds away from signaling to Kabuto to focus exclusively on Kakashi after he cast the genjutsu, but a leafy whirlwind in the center of the arena stayed his hand. It captured the attention of the entire stadium, as well, as right as Genma was going to begin the first battle, Team 7 in all their glory appeared in a flashy, crowd-pleasing entrance no doubt devised by Kakashi. Cheeky prick.
Scanning over his newest projects, Orochimaru was admittedly taken by surprise by each of their new getups. His eyes landed in particular on the pink one's trench coat which was very reminiscent of Anko's. Of course, she'd sink her claws into her when she found out that he branded her, as well. Anko should have spared herself the double dose of heartache she would no doubt feel when they abandoned the village and came to him.
No matter. All of his pieces were now in play, and all he had to do was wait for the moment to strike.
This chapter posted a duplicate for some reason. Sorry about that.
I never did find that MLP battle shonen. I'll keep looking.
Thanks for reading.