"We're going to work together in a mutual defense pact to cut down anything that looks at us funny."
I blinked.
Ino looked up at me unblinkingly.
Everyone who wasn't on my team or Tenten's did the same, following our respective leads.
The oppressive nature of the Forest of Death, its sounds and rhythms, added weight to already weighted words.
What did I say? What did I do?
"...Who starts a conversation like that?" I asked, realizing that much more had happened over the last week than I could have imagined. "What's happening?"
I finally said what I'd been thinking as my capacity for tolerance cracked. That's what.
We weren't fighting each other? Were we working together? On purpose, and not because it meant we might die?
There was no open grabbing at glory and selfish career-advancing nonsense to be seen or heard?
It hadn't even been five minutes!
"If you'd been around, you'd know. And if Naruto hadn't been busy falling for a honey pot op, I'd have told him and Sasuke, too. But you weren't. And he did. So here we are." Ino crossed her arms over her chest; without needing to use ninshu, I could see she was pissed. "Team Tenten gets a pass."
"Thanks?" Tenten waved, visibly baffled, while Neji narrowed his eyes and Lee struck a pose.
"My dad agreed with you." Ino continued, seething as I jolted at that admission. "There's a lot about these exams that isn't adding up. And digging into it just made it worse."
…Alright. Ignoring that she talked to her dad about the things I said. I would ignore it and not think about how this most likely wasn't the first time she'd done so.
That was for later. This was now.
Inoichi had taken what I'd said to get out of an awkward moment seriously ? I… I mean, yes. I hadn't lied about anything I'd said. It was all true from my perspective, even if lacking in depth and nuance. But you'd think he had spies. Old friends that talked geopolitics over a bottle of sake.
I shouldn't have to reason my way through why he considered my words worthy of governmental action.
"Hey! Temari isn't a honey pot! She's a lady!" After enough time had passed for him to look through his mental dictionary, Naruto snapped. "You take that back!"
And he didn't help his case even slightly in doing so.
"Anything else I could say about that is classified." Ino pointedly ignored Naruto's protests and silenced them by dropping the 'Big C'. "But preventing future competition is what we're supposed to be doing anyway. Besides us working together for this and sharing the spoils, nothing has changed."
A nice euphemism for targeted assassinations. Very clean. And the only way Tenten could have been more excited about this loose idea of burying our enemies under the weight of numbers before taking their things involved illegal stimulants.
Once again, I didn't even have to look to know that. Fish swam. Birds flew. Tenten looted. She was incorrigible.
The tortured wheel of my existence continued to turn as I considered the ramifications of Ino's decision, which involved us all.
Orochimaru wouldn't care about numbers. If things went as they did in my dreams, something I was forced to acknowledge was somewhat unlikely at this stage… The best I could hope for is that we were attacked by giant snakes so that he could isolate Sasuke. And Naruto did what he was known for, charging headfirst into danger and surviving against all odds.
That or he didn't show up at all, but I wasn't that lucky.
At the worst, we were going to die screaming as he took advantage of us all being together to declare his presence to the village at large.
The whiplash of how my day had gone so far was almost physical. From good to bad to good to bad again, I doubted I could convince Ino to abandon this idea. Not if she'd been set on it since my departure while using my words as the basis. Any argument I could make about why I didn't want to work with my comrades would either make me look suspicious, damage my reputation, or be mentally unsound.
Ino had used my own words against me… There was only one thing to do until conditions changed.
"Alright. I see no fault in your reasoning," I agreed as Ino gave me a smug look. "All of us together, or close enough to give each other back up when necessary?"
"I was thinking the second."
"Keeping the net wide and ensuring that any ambush wouldn't catch us all." That made some things easier… I hoped. "I see."
"And as long as no one decides to do something stupid, anyone watching us won't know what scrolls we have or who has them. Twelve people is a lot of guessing." Ino threw her hair over her shoulder as a sour Shikamaru glared at her turned back. "I thought this through."
Shikamaru, the person who had done the thinking for this plan as most of us knew, scoffed.
"Sensible."
"Except that you thought that no one would disagree with you. Or that we'd all be so weak that we'd be grateful for others to lean on," Neji, newly designated killjoy and my only ally when it came to banding together even if unaware, coldly pointed out. "All we have to rely on that we're in danger is your word. And a ninja's life is deception."
Ino bristled, eyes flashing in anger as I straightened up.
"Are you saying I'm a liar?"
"I have no reason to believe you're telling the truth. And I'm asking why I'd want you people to slow me down."
…You people? Who?
Hinata sank into her hoodie, eyes glistening as hate and sadness filled the air between them.
Oh. I see.
A palm-strike to the heart.
Enough.
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"Leave."
The forest was silent. No more birds. No more tigers. No more wind rustling the leaves.
The world was silent as the color left it, evading even Neji's eyes as the sun grew cold.
His focus was forced away from Hinata, that trash, as death turned its gaze on him.
"No one is keeping you here. No one will stop you. You don't need to explain yourself." The person-shaped void rumbled, green lights burning in empty sockets and blood-wet hair, a splash of color waving in still air. " If you want to leave, leave. "
Neji knew what killing intent was. He'd felt it before. He'd inflicted it on others. This…
His stomach roiled and heaved as his eyes told him he wasn't seeing what he was seeing—that he was looking at a woman—a tall, powerful woman, but a woman.
His mouth went dry, and his throat tightened, but his heart and mind told him otherwise.
That he wasn't looking at a human at all.
Teeth.
Walking hunger.
A ghost.
"We're wasting time while the enemy goes to ground," Neji forced out as he turned, his pulse racing as blood and chakra rushed into his eyes… They were active. And he kept Haruno out of his blind spot as he dug a heel into the dirt, crushing leaves underfoot. "Keep up or be left behind."
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Neji jumped away into the treetops as his answer, while Lee and Tenten shot me startled looks before doing the same, and I supposed that was that.
I didn't fault Tenten for this. Or Lee. The team was the team. They'd been together for a year, and Ino's plan had been sprung on them at the last minute. But I could not, in good conscience, work with Neji at this juncture. Not if I wanted to keep Hinata as safe as one could be in the Forest of Death.
He wanted her dead. At this stage of the exams, he would be well within his rights to try and kill her. Officially. And I did not believe now was the right time to try and change his mind.
Beating him until he was nearly unconscious before letting Naruto talk to him for a while wouldn't go well with anyone. And, so, this.
I didn't trust him not to be the one that did something stupid. Simple as.
"Holy fuck, Hinata," Naruto spat out before I could try explaining what I'd done and why without sounding crazy or sending Sasuke on the warpath. "Your cousin is a fucking asshole!"
"The fuck was his problem?" Kiba growled as Akamaru poked his head out of his partner's jacket to snarl. "'You people'. Can you believe that shit?"
Yes.
"We could have used them, Sakura. Talk to me next time," Ino hissed at me under her breath as she stomped her foot, and her volume returned to normal. "Yeah, what Naruto said." She turned to look at Hinata, who was so deep in her hoodie that I could only see her eyes. "Are you okay?"
"I'm sorry for the trouble…" Hinata paused, voice watery, before she cleared her throat. "I'm a-alright."
I didn't buy that for a second. And I'm sure that the returning tigers and various tiny scavengers, just out of sight if they could have opinions on this, would agree. "If you're sure."
"Hmm." She sniffed as Shino gave her a gentle pat on the back.
Girl's night. Soon. And a box of cinnabuns.
"The plan will still work with three teams instead of four. If this exam is anything like the others, no ninja has decided to do what we have. Numbers are their own kind of quality." Shikamaru forced us back on track. "And none of us are weak."
Choji took a chip out of his bag, a single chip…and ate it.
My lips twitched.
Someone's pride was injured, I see.
"Let's get this over with. Hinata, Kiba, whoever. Track em' down so we can roll them up," he grumbled as he stretched in place until every joint had a crack, and he said the most Nara thing he possibly could while still being sympathetic. "I miss my bed, damn it."
"Same. I just came from here." A ninshu sweep deepened my grimace, and I pointed into the deeper parts of the woods...not too deep. Eleven minutes since the start. Twenty-two seconds. "Leeches downed a team—half a kilometer in that direction. Check the trees. Halfway up."
What an awful way to die.
Shino, our resident insect expert and living hive, only nodded as he led the rest of Team Eight there without a word.
He knew what to do.
"Hey. Wait. This is where you've been all week? This is where you've been training?" Ino asked, stunned as the forest around us stirred back into tentative life. "Here? Training Ground Forty-Four?"
Not for the first time. Probably not the last. "Yes."
"The Forest of Death?" Ino whispered as she spoke again, this time because she hadn't taken enough breath to speak louder. Scream. Whichever. " Here? Alone?"
It sounded terrible when she said it like that…because it was.
It most definitely was, but admitting it was the greatest sin.
"I suspected-" Knew. "-that this would be the site of one of our tests. And, if it weren't, I'd be ahead of the competition by default…besides. I had some private training to do, and I couldn't think of anywhere more isolated."
No one came here without a reason because most people were more intelligent than that. So why not take advantage?
I mentally shrugged as her hands moved toward my neck, pointing finger moving to the side as a chakra signature went dark, smothered by another twenty times its size, as yet another was thrown into a tree…the last of the three genin was bundled up under another tree. Hiding, I assumed. Sensible of them. "Bears."
"How the hell -"
"I'll explain on the way, but it's called 'being a chakra sensor,'" I interrupted Sasuke by jumping away as Ino lunged to throttle me, the boys immediately following so she wouldn't turn her wrath on them. "Follow where I jump exactly unless you want to risk the wildlife. And let's hope the bears haven't eaten the scroll before we arrive."
And that would be a shame. The predator-prey balance was fragile, and the results would be unpredictable if ever disturbed. But undoubtedly detrimental. Especially after what I'd done to it over the last few years.
They'd needed to learn that attacking me wasn't in their best interest. And I'd rather not deal with being the one that pushed the population past the tipping point.
That, if anything, would ruin my year… Also, that would be a lot of wasted meat if I were forced to retrieve the scroll—enough for a month if I shared it, if a bit gamey.
Meat that I'd be forced to leave. We were on a time limit, after all.
Shame.
"D-Damn it."
Karin was going to die.
She didn't have a choice, or hopes, or options. She was going to die in these woods, just like her team had.
Whether it was by the bears that had swatted Shigeri out of the air as it stepped out from behind a tree, waiting, or by another ninja…she was going to die. And crawling into the hollow she'd found, with Naoki's body, having fallen across the entrance after he'd thrown her as a distraction before he'd tried to run, had only pushed it off.
There had been no love lost between her and them. She was a tool. A walking bandage. They were the ninja using that tool. The only thing that bothered her about them dying was that it meant that she wasn't going to be far behind.
Grass hadn't even bothered teaching her how to run. Fighting was out of the question.
If she lived another hour, she'd be shocked. And, feeling numb, all she could be besides 'accepting' was 'glad' that she was that optimistic.
There had been two bears. Two. And a single dead genin wasn't enough for even one when each bear was as big as a house…and she didn't even have a kunai. Why would she? It wasn't as if she knew how to use them.
Karin sighed, tucking her legs closer to her body as she rested her head on her thighs.
…It would have been nice to have it right now, anyway. Just to get this over-
A bear roared, making her try to jump onto her feet and bump the top of her head on a root - and that roar ended with a squeak while she was holding her head and cursing while a very short fight happened outside.
What… What was happening?
Karin dared peek her head out, not having anything to lose. One hand adjusted her glasses as dirt fell from her hair and in front of her eyes instead of blinding her.
What she saw took her breath away.
One of the most handsome boys she'd ever seen was standing atop a fallen bear's gigantic head…looking down at her as the other bear ran into the woods like it was being chased.
Karin felt her cheeks warm, and her heartbeat quickened as he smirked.
He looked…dare she say it… dashing , like a hero from a storybook, saving her from a vicious beast after losing all hope.
And his chakra. His Chakra.
It was love at first sight.
He opened his mouth to speak, his chakra radiating light like a lighthouse in a storm, ready to spirit her away to safety and-
"Hey. You." He pointed at her, Naoki's body not hiding her from his eyes. "Where's your scroll?
… Huh?
Wait?
Eh?
That- That wasn't how this was supposed to go!
"Are you for real, Sasuke? Seriously? 'Where's your scroll'?" A blond ninja, this one a boy in orange, jumped on the bear too and shook his head while the now named Sasuke's smile fell off his face, his cool aura falling apart in seconds. "Read the fucking room, dickhead!"
Karin shuffled back into her hole a bit, shading her eyes as the sheer power leaking from him nearly blinded her.
She didn't even know it was possible to have that much chakra!
"Read the room? What the hell are you talking about?" Sasuke jabbed a finger at the blond's face while he kept shaking his head. "Did you forget why we're here? What the mission is?"
"Yeah, I do. And I don't remember the part where we have to be assholes about it." The blond returned the finger jab. "Her friends are dead! Where's your fucking manners?" He turned his head to look at her with an apologetic expression, the markings on his cheeks and the narrowing of his eyes reminding her of…a fox? "Sorry about this, ma'am. He's not house-trained yet."
Karin slowly nodded as his chakra didn't change. It stayed the same, the fires of a sun that only wanted to warm everyone in its light. "... Okay?"
He didn't want to hurt her. And neither did Sasuke, as she forced herself to focus on the fluctuations and changes in their chakra (so what if he was kind of a jerk? He was pretty enough to make up for it)... So, screw it.
They could have the scroll. Karin didn't care anymore. They could have it, and she'd try to return to the fence. It wasn't that far away.
"Crawl up your own ass and die, Naruto." Sasuke slapped the other boy's finger away as he looked at her, the scowl looking more uncomfortable than angry. "I'm sorry for your loss."
How cute!
"D-don't be. They didn't like me, and I didn't like them." Karin chuckled nervously as she pushed her glasses further up on her nose, very aware of the dirt on it as she did. "The one in front of me threw me at the bears, so..."
"Hey, wait. Threw you?" Naruto interrupted, "the fuck?"
"Yeah." Karin sighed. That had been her thoughts when she hit the dirt. "Me too."
"And that's why Grass is a minor village."
Karin hit her head on the root again with a yelp as another voice, this one just above her hiding place sounded out.
A woman.
Three. There were three ninja per team. Damn it, how'd she forget something that simple?
She whined, holding her head again as she dug around in her pack for her scroll.
Karin wasn't cut out for this life.
"No sense of comradery." The woman, the last member of the Leaf team that held her life in their hands, shuffled on the tree to look at Karin upside down with unimpressed green eyes as her pink hair dragged in the dirt. And with chakra so expressive yet flat, warm, cold, still, and fluid...Karin had never seen anything like it, and it was making her dizzy. "I have a question for you."
"You can have it." Karin pushed her heaven scroll out. "I surrender."
"...Well. Thank you. I appreciate it. But that wasn't the question." The other woman blinked, her eyes flickering over Karin's form as her hair plucked the scroll off the ground. "Uzumaki?"
Karin winced and resigned herself to whatever came next as she looked away. Stupid red hair… "Yeah?"
"Yeah?" Naruto said at the same time.
…Eh?
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Screw it.
Why not.
This might as well happen.
It hadn't even been half an hour; what the hell.
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