6
Looking back at the forest, all I could see were trees. Trees and grass and leaves.
How delightfully boring.
A ridiculously over-sized tiger roared as it collided with one of the trees, crushing the trunk and looking no worse for the wear.
It growled as it kicked off the remainder of the trunk, it's large and probably obnoxiously powerful limbs leaving small craters in the incredibly thick wood.
It disappeared not a second later into the tree line, it's faint roar all that could tell me where it had gone.
Huh.
While there are things like that around, I'm not leaving the ground. I like my nice, and more importantly; safe, shadow form.
The tiger came back a second later, carrying a chunk of meat in its mouth that was several times the size of my body.
A gigantic fucking bear chased after it, far more agile than its size would suggest. It was missing a part of its arm, no doubt the piece of meat the tiger had taken.
The tiger darted away, its prize in mouth. The bear chased it, but I'm sure that it wouldn't catch the tiger.
I'm also pretty sure that I just figured out where I am. The Forest of Death, because where else did animals grow to such size? And now that I thought about it, had that tiger just kicked off a tree without falling down?
Well, at least that told me how I could get out of here. The Forest of Death was fenced in, an almost perfect circle surrounded by gates on all sides. In other words, it was a matter of picking a direction and going.
It also meant that I might be able to get to Konoha somewhat easily. Even if the direction I picked was the wrong one, I could simply follow the fence until I found a road that led back to the village.
Of course, that was a surefire way of getting detected quickly. It was pretty big risk to take, but, on one hand, I could influence canon for the better.
On the other hand, I risked death, sealing, suspicion, torture and any number of things that were not healthy towards my continued existence. It was a ninja village after all. Even if it was headed by the third or the fourth Hokage, there were still a lot of unsavory individuals around.
Like Danzo. And any spies that happened to be laying around.
For a second, I cursed my lack of ability to sigh.
Why couldn't anything just be easy?