Hello and welcome back :)

Kimiko is starting to make changes, but the actual design of the test has not changed, so we are going to jump right in! Thank you for the kind reviews, favorites and follows. They keep me motivated!

Flashback

Naruto nervously walked towards the bathroom stall, rubbing his sweaty palms on his pants. He knew Sasuke and Kimiko were counting on him to get the answers somehow. He knew he couldn't answer any of them, so he would be forced to cheat. He just had to be sure not to get caught, or he'd take his teammates down with him. And he could NOT let that happen. Sasuke was still a bastard, sure, but he was also kind of his best friend, somehow. And Kimiko was always so nice

"Hurry up." Said the guard, looking pissed that he had been selected for bathroom duty.

"Right…um…my zippers just stuck…" Naruto said, starting to put his plan in motion. No going back now. I have to distract him - I can't fail! He turned around with big puppy dog eyes. "Can you help me?"

The guard stared at him in horror. "Are you sick in the head?"

"Got it!" Naruto said triumphantly, pulling his zipper and dropping his pants in front of the guard. This is for you, Team 7. He thought as the guard recoiled in shock and disgust. Naruto took the opportunity to deck him as hard as he could in the chin, right where Kakashi-sensei taught them to knock out an enemy as quickly as possible.

You're like a tornado, Naruto. Kakashi-sensei had told him once. You have all of this chaotic energy. If you focus it into one, solid hit…that's all you need. Naruto focused all of his desperation (and embarrassment) in the one hit, and was rewarded with the glorious image of the Chunin's eyes rolling back in his head, and he also would swear later he heard a bell ring as he caught the Chunin before he hit the ground.

"Sorry, sorry." Naruto whispered through clenched teeth, dragging the Chunin to the far stall. He created two clones who helped him shove the Chunin basically into the toilet feet first so no one could see him unless they opened the door.

"Okay, one of you henge into him, one of you henge into his shirt. Once you've seen enough answers and memorized them, dispel the shirt only that's UNDER his vest and try to make as little smoke as possible, so then I get the answers." He would forever be grateful for Kakashi-sensei teaching him THAT little trick.

"Roger boss!" They saluted, before hengeing as requested. Naruto quickly finished his business - he DID have to pee - and hurried back to the testing room.

Present Time

Kimiko waited at their designated gate with her team. Naruto was given the scroll, as his ability to make clones made him an ideal difficult target to pin down. Mitarashi-san was…interesting to say the least. She trusted her more than the Grass shinobi with the creepy tongue. That girl…she shuddered just thinking about her.

"I say we head straight for the tower," Sasuke said. "We make a great ambush team, and we're fast."

"Traps?" Naruto asked with a feral grin that highlighted his strange whisker birthmarks.

Sasuke graced him with a rare Sasuke Agrees With You smirk. "Traps."

"I still can't believe you knocked out a Chunin guard and made your shadow clone to henge into him, AND a clone henged into his shirt so you could dispel it without anyone seeing the smoke." Kimiko said, still amazed at her teammates' creativity.

"Eh, seems like a lot of work for what was essentially a useless test." Sasuke said with a shrug.

"Well we don't all have Uchiha hacks!" Naruto snapped.

"Uchiha hacks?" Sasuke said, raising his eyebrows. Naruto mockingly put his fingers in circles around his eyes. "Ooh, I'm Sasuke, I can cheat on tests better."

Sasuke twitched. "The Sharingan is way more than that, you idiot."

Naruto sniffed and crossed his arms. "Whatever, cheating bastard."

"The point was to cheat!" Sasuke responded, exasperated.

"So I'm thinking I'll lead, right?" Kimiko interrupted, used to her role as a distractor.

"Yeah, with your super useful chakra sense," Naruto said, ignoring the killing intent leaking from Sasuke as he got in one last jab about Sasuke's Sharingan, "you should lead. I'll make a bunch of clone parties and spread them out in the back and sides too."

Kimiko and Sasuke nodded. She wasn't sure exactly how much chakra Naruto had, or why, but he was a juggernaut when it came to sheer chakra capacity. Sasuke had looked livid when Naruto casually mentioned he had once made almost one thousand shadow clones, and Kakashi-sensei had taken him aside to talk. Kimiko wasn't sure what was said, but Sasuke seemed less murderous when he came back and hadn't really commented on it since then.

"Let's go." Sasuke said at the signal, and Team 7 dove into the Forest of Death.

—-

They maintained an all-out sprint, straight towards the heart of the forest. Naruto's disguised teams took different routes, with instructions to dispel if they got any important information or if they were able to best a team and retrieve a scroll. Kimiko occasionally felt other shinobi flitting on the edge of her senses, but the main team remained unbothered...for a time. However, about an hour into running, Naruto informed them that the creepy Kusa ninja seemed to be hunting their team specifically. With the first team she encountered, she creepily swallowed her own scroll, paralyzed them with killing intent, and killed the Kimiko clone with a kunai to the eye. She seemed surprised that they were clones, almost happy, Naruto said.

The second team, prepared for her attack, attempted to engage her in a fight. Naruto said she moved so quickly he could barely follow her movements.

The third team, once the Kusa ninja established they were also clones, was also quickly dispelled.

"What is with this girl?" Sasuke demanded after the third report.

"I don't know, but I don't like it." Kimiko said grimly.

"You don't? I've died like, nine times in the last ten minutes." Naruto complained. He froze for a second, then grimaced. "And it gets worse; the team closest to us just dispelled."

"Even if we reach the tower, there's no guarantee that we will be able to get a scroll and finish the test before we face her." Kimiko said worriedly.

"We have to set our ambush here. We only have a few minutes." Sasuke stopped on one of the ridiculously large trees. "Naruto, get to work. I'll help you. Kimiko, let us know when she's close."

"Did the last team learn anything new?" Kimiko asked as she stretched her senses.

"No," Naruto called from where he and Sasuke were making some kind of web trap with explosive tags. "We just have to break out of the killing intent or we're screwed."

"Great." Kimiko mumbled. She slowed her breathing and heartbeat, realizing she was tumbling into a panic. She was a kunoichi - a student of Kakashi Hatake. She was with her team. They could do this.

At that moment, she felt a blip. "She's nearby." Kimiko warned, causing her teammates' to quickly tie off their last trap.

"None of the other groups displayed any chakra sensing. You must be the real ones. Clever, with the shadow clones." Her voice came from everywhere and nowhere, and Kimiko had the uncomfortable feeling that she was being watched from every side. Naruto and Sasuke jumped to her side, naturally creating a triangle as they put their backs to each other.

"Why are you after us?" Sasuke demanded. Kimiko was tempted to look towards where he was talking, but her training held her in place. This ninja was fast - she needed to be protecting her teammates' backs.

"Kukuku…Sasuke-kun, I'm not after your team." The voice practically purred, her chakra oozing out and washing over them in a way that made Kimiko feel like she was being swallowed, surrounded in darkness and pressed in on every side.

"I'm after you."

Sasuke POV

"I have a gift to give you." The woman continued, slowly stalking towards them. Sasuke noticed with frustration that she avoided every trap. Almost against his will, Sasuke pressed his shoulders back, feeling the comforting presence of his teammates. Not that he would ever admit it, but he was glad he wasn't facing this psycho alone.

"Really? Cause it sounds like you just want to kill us." Sasuke said, making sure his voice didn't shake when he spoke.

"Pretty crappy gift, lady." Naruto chimed in.

The woman laughed like he had told a very witty joke. "I killed those clones because they were useless. You, Sasuke, are not useless. You have so much potential. I merely want to help you reach it."

Even prepared, the killing intent still locked his limbs in place. He heard a strangled gasp from Kimiko, and he knew with her chakra sense, she was probably completely gone. Her body started shaking, and Sasuke would have cursed if he could unclench his jaw.

"Show me you are a predator, and not prey." The voice practically purred. Sasuke could barely focus his eyes on her anymore. She swam and dipped in front of him, and all he could see were kunai heading towards him, lodging in his throat, his eyes, his stomach, over and over again as his life blood soaked the forest floor…

Kimiko sank to her knees beside him, a whimper escaping her. He couldn't tell how Naruto was doing. Fight it Sasuke! You can't die here.

Foolish little brother…Itachi's voice echoed, and Sasuke began to shakily move his hands in defiance of his brother's parting words. Not here…not now…not again…The last thought surprised him, but the thought of his teammates being senselessly murdered because this lunatic was chasing Sasuke specifically felt…bad. A separate bad than the overwhelming bad from the Kusa ninja. His heart clenched in an old but familiar way, and while he didn't have time to analyze it, it caused a new swell of fear to rise in his throat.

"Poor Sasuke-kun. I guess your brother really was an anomaly. Such a disappointment. Know you are small, and weak, as you die to the predator." The Kusa ninja sighed as Sasuke's hands continued to move slowly and almost pointlessly, and threw a slew of kunai towards Team 7.

I don't want to die. I don't want them to die. I…have…to…move! Sasuke bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, and the small amount of pain gave him enough strength to flush his chakra system. He turned, his arms wrapping around Kimiko and lifting her up and away from the ground.

"Move, Naruto!" He shouted, desperate, because he didn't have the strength in his shaking limbs to carry them both. He felt heat from Naruto's position, his chakra palpable and hot as Naruto suddenly moved with them, and Team 7 fled the scene.

They landed just a few hundred feet away, knowing that escape was impossible but they had a few seconds.

"I'm not a scaredy cat." Naruto growled - actually growled - before Sasuke could say a word. "Not again." His eyes were red and his whiskers were more pronounced than ever. Obviously, he had been going through his own mental monologue while Sasuke had been struggling.

What the…Sasuke thought, but didn't have time to ask him what his deal was as Naruto moved and a giant snake that had been moving towards them was slammed down into the branch by the force of Naruto driving a kunai into its skull and stopping its momentum with sheer physical strength. He snarled, his voice deeper than it normal was, as he slammed the kunai in a few more times for good measure.

"N-naruto…" Kimiko's breath came in pants, but she managed to speak slowly. "Your…your chakra…" She was obviously still in shock if she was more concerned about Naruto than the giant snake that just tried to eat her.

So Sasuke slapped her in the face.

Startled, her eyes focused on him, her mouth forming a small "o" of surprise when her brown eyes met his spinning Sharingan red.

"We need you to focus, Kimiko. It's going to take all three of us to get out of this." Sasuke said firmly. He wasn't just motivating her - he was speaking the honest truth. It galled him, but whatever the Kusa ninja was, she was out of Sasuke's league. It looked like Kakashi-sensei really did know what he was talking about when he drilled Sasuke about teamwork after all.

Their strength IS your strength. He would say to Sasuke. Use it. Embrace it. Don't throw away such a useful tool for something as small as pride.

And now he would need his teammates' strength if he had any hope of getting out of here alive to kill his brother and restore his clan. He should be strong enough on his own. But he wasn't. And now he was going to use teamwork as a tool to get out of this situation alive so he could pursue his revenge. He ignored the quiet voice in his head insisting it was more than that, reminding him of how he felt when he thought they were going to die a second ago.

"Little prey trying to hide." The Kusa ninja cooed. "How pathetic."

"No more hiding. You with us?" Sasuke asked Kimiko. She stood up, still staring into his eyes, and then Naruto's new smoldering red eyes from where he had pinned the attacking snake, which vanished in a burst of wind and dust.

"Yeah. Okay." She nodded.

Just in time too, as a dozen snakes suddenly launched themselves at their location. Kimiko leaped up and away, while Sasuke and Naruto leaped straight towards the source.

"Finally ready to show me if you're worth my gift?" The predator laughed. Sasuke launched shuriken that arced around Naruto as the genin went straight for a taijutsu brawl along with ten clones. They were dispatched with contemptuous ease, but the last four were caught in Sasuke's wires. They purposefully let themselves get pulled towards the Kusa nin, arms outstretched to try and force her to stay in the trap.

She jumped up and was met with an onslaught of senbon needles. She pulled a kunai to block them, but they had one more measure to keep her down. Kimiko came barreling from the sky, launched by Naruto, who had used a substitution jutsu to get into the air and used his Wind Style to propel Kimiko with greater force. Kimiko slammed a hammer kick into the Kusa ninja's cross block.

It barely countered the opposing ninja's upward momentum, but it was enough that the top of Sasuke's wire trap wrapped around her ankle - and that was all he needed.

"Lightning Style: Paralysis!" Lightning arced through the wire, streaming through the Kusa ninja's body as Kimiko and Naruto fell to either side, Naruto's remaining clones popping at the force of Sasuke's jutsu. The woman hit the branch hard, and just for good measure Sasuke also switched his element to fire, completely melting the skin of the enemy ninja and basically fusing her corpse to the branch.

The manuever was executed quickly and confidently, the product of hours and hours of training, fighting, sweating, and bleeding together, both on the field and in missions.

"My genjutsu didn't find any purchase on her," Kimiko mentioned as they grouped together, referring to her layered attack with the senbon, "but I did sense she had monster chakra. If she hadn't underestimated us…" Kimiko left the sentence hanging. She also was rubbing her leg - Naruto's Wind Style had more "oomph" than usual, and she was pretty sure she had bruised her own leg in the attack.

"But she did, and we defeated her, cause we are awesome." Naruto declared, delivering a crisp high-five to Kimiko. Sasuke noticed his nails were longer and looked more like claws, but decided to tuck that information away for now - Naruto didn't seem all that concerned anyway.

"What did she want with me?" Sasuke asked, surprising himself by voicing the question out loud.

"I don't know, but whatever her "gift" was, was probably more like a curse." Kimiko observed.

Naruto opened his mouth to add his own thoughts, but was interrupted by cold, deep laughter coming from the burned body.

"You really are Hatake's students. I didn't expect such an excellent combination attack." A figure emerged from the husk, similar in body style but definitely more masculine. This figure had piercing yellow eyes, purple tattoos, and a strange purple rope tied in a bow around his cream robe.

"Wait, are you a girl or a guy? Cause I am NOT doing the Haku thing again." Naruto blurted out.

The new figure stared at him. "You are certainly…interesting. But not what I'm after. I'd like to have a conversation with Sasuke alone, and you talk too much." Between one syllable and the next, the snake was on them, five glowing fingers slamming into Naruto's mid-section. Naruto's eyes bugged out, and he collapsed like a bag of stones.

Kimiko and Sasuke launched themselves at the enemy, but they simple ducked under Sasuke's kick and released another barrage of snakes at Kimiko. They wrapped around her body and as they swung their arm, they launched her so quickly into the forest that Sasuke lost sight of her in a second. By the time he had created hand signs for "Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu", Naruto's unconscious form had also been sent into the darkness after her. From one moment to the next, Sasuke was battling alone.

The ninja weaved through the miniature fireballs like they were dancing some creepy, bending dance that only required semi-human limbs to do. It was both terrifying as an image, and also because Sasuke's attack was practically worthless.

"There. Finally alone." They smiled, and Sasuke braced himself for the toughest fight of his life, pushing his teammates' safety to the back of his mind as he focused everything on surviving.

He wasn't wrong - this guy made Zabuza look like a rabid dog. Sasuke used every trick he knew of. The ninja had learned to avoid his wires, and when Sasuke tried to lead him back into his preset traps, the ninja used them against Sasuke. Sasuke didn't have his teammates at his back - they were far away, possibly dead - and he didn't even have time to think about that, or the tightening in his chest, because every movement he made had to be precise and calculated or he was dead.

I can't lose. He thought, and he couldn't tell if his breathing came from panic or exertion or both as Orochimaru (he had casually introduced himself after Sasuke screamed at him, demanding to know who he was and why he was tormenting him) wrapped his body around trees, used his tongue as a whip, and overall did his best to become the front row in Sasuke's every nightmare for the next week. And he was losing. He was being toyed with, and he couldn't do a single thing. All of his training - for nothing.

"Alright then." Orochimaru said as Sasuke stood, trembling and panting from their last taijutsu bout where Sasuke had tried to channel lightning chakra through his body into Orochimaru and failed. "You aren't so bad after all. Let's see if you're strong enough to deserve my gift."

His neck suddenly extended, faster than even Sasuke's sharingan could track, and sharp, sickly white fangs sank into Sasuke's neck.

"Sasuke!" He heard a scream, and his last thought as he crumpled to his knees was Why…why didn't she run? Why did she come back…for me? And then the darkness took him into a hellscape of pain.

I hope you guys enjoyed seeing the small changes in the test, their team dynamic, and their fighting. However, it is Orochimaru - no amount of training is going to prepare them for Orochimaru this early on. They are getting stomped lol. Please review!