I awoke to find myself laying somewhere dark, covered by a camouflage field blanket. It was quiet, the only sound I could hear being that of a flowing river nearby. Sitting up and looking around, I realised I was in a small cave, the entrance off to my left. The outside was bathed in orange, so it was either dawn or dusk, and Naruto and Sakura were sat outside. It looked like they were cooking over a fire. I applied my Henge before heading out to join them.
"How long was I out?" I asked casually, taking a seat by the fire. They both looked happy to see me up, though Sakura's smile was tinged with concern.
"Almost a whole day," she told me. "We found this cave and decided to hunker down and let you rest."
"I see. Thanks for watching over me like that. Is one of these for me?" There were three fish skewered and cooking over the fire. They nodded. "Thanks, I'm starving."
"Um… I'm sorry I genjutsu'd you earlier, but you were really in no shape to go after that guy."
"Don't be, you did the right thing," I assured her. "I wasn't thinking straight. That genjutsu he hit me with…" I shuddered at the memory and shook my head. "I was out of chakra anyway, would have just gotten myself killed." Or cursed, more likely.
"What happened? And what was that black fire?"
"Yeah, and that crazy purple skeleton-thingy! That was so cool, dattebayo!" Oh boy, this would take some explaining. I told them about the Mangekyou Sharingan – how it worked, how it was awakened, the effects of using it, and how those effects might be avoided through the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan. I didn't tell them exactly what Orochimaru's genjutsu had shown me, of course, only that I saw someone I cared for deeply die.
"In my case," I finished, "to avoid blindness from using these powers, I would need to take my brother's eyes, and he needs mine. That means you can't tell anyone about me having this, understand? If word were to get out, he'd come for me, and that can't happen before I'm ready." Of course, what I was really trying to avoid was Danzo finding out about this. I needed to be able to get the drop on him when the time came.
"But what about Sensei?" Sakura asked.
"I'll talk to him myself once we get out of here. Speaking of which, we need to make plans. Are you both up to some scroll hunting tonight?"
"Of course!"
"You bet!"
"Good. Then let's eat up and have Naruto's clones find us a target."
"Alright, I've found two teams." Sakura and I both sat up and listened when Naruto spoke. He pointed north. "There are two guys and a girl from the Hidden Cloud camped out a few minutes away in that direction." Then he turned west. "And Lee's team is over there, a little closer."
"Did you see which scrolls they had?" He shook his head in response to my question. "Alright. Considering how strong Lee is, I think we should avoid his team and go after the guys from the Cloud Village." They both agreed, and we began moving as quickly and quietly as possible through the trees.
The three Kumo genin were discussing plans for the next day when Samui froze up suddenly.
"We're being watched." Being the calmest, most observant member of her team, it was no surprise that she was the only one who noticed. Their observers knew what they were doing.
"How many?" Karui demanded, voice low. "And where?"
"Six. Two behind Omoi, two behind you, two behind me. All up in the trees."
"Six people?" Omoi asked nervously. "What if it's two Hyuuga teams, here to take revenge on Kumo!?"
"Shut it, Omoi! Stay focused!" The three of them stood up with their backs to eachother, swords drawn.
"Hey!" Karui shouted, "We know you're there! Show yourselves!" In response, a hail of shuriken forced them to scatter. Samui briefly saw her teammates engaging in close combat with two identical blonde boys each before a pink-haired girl dropped down in front of her, attacking her with a knife.
Where's the other one? She got her answer when the pinkette suddenly backed off, another girl with dark blue hair appearing in her place with a Shunshin. A pair of crimson eyes glared into her own, and she immediately found herself frozen, unable to move or even speak.
After applying the paralysis genjutsu with my Sharingan, I casually disarmed and stepped around behind the swordswoman, then held a knife to her throat and coughed loudly. Omoi and Karui both glanced back and froze on the spot.
"Greetings, Kumo team!" I spoke in a friendly tone. "As you can see, we've got your friend here under paralysis. If you would be so kind as to hand over your scroll, we'll be on our way and no one needs to get hurt." For a long moment, nobody moved.
"Fine," Karui finally spat, pulling the scroll from her pouch. "Take it and go." She tossed it on the ground, and Sakura went to fetch it.
"It's a heaven scroll," my teammate confirmed. "Just what we needed."
"Good. Thank you, Kumo-san. We'll just be off now." With that, we all dropped smoke bombs and made our escape, returning to the cave from earlier.
"Man, that was really easy," Naruto complained once we were back at our campsite.
"We've fought a Swordsman of the Mist and a psychopathic snake summoner," I commented drily. "We deserve an easy fight for once."
"I know, but it's still disappointing."
"I'm sure you'll get your chance to show off during the third stage. For now, we should be on our way to the tower."
On the way to the tower, I began to get an uncomfortable feeling. Something just didn't sit right with me, so I told my teammates to stop. Activating my Sharingan, I realised what was going on.
"We're under a genjutsu!" Thankfully, my dojutsu made breaking genin-level genjutsu trivial for me, and Sakura had learned how to break it from Kakashi, so she could dispel it on both herself and Naruto. Free of the jutsu, I now noticed what it had been that was making me uncomfortable – we had been going around in circles. The Rain ninja? But they shouldn't be able to continue with their teammate crippled. Observing the wispy chakra that hung in the air, remnants of the genjutsu that had been cast on us, I noticed that it emanated from small bells hanging from senbon that were stuck in the trees along our path. A sonic genjutsu. So it's Orochimaru's pawns. Just the thought of that snake set my blood aboil after what he did to me. Looking around more, I caught sight of chakra signatures in the bushes. "You three, hiding in the bush there. Show yourselves."
"They saw through your genjutsu, Kin," Zaku commented, getting up and dusting himself off alongside his teammates. "You must be losing your touch."
"Well, the boss did tell us the Uchiha would be perceptive," she replied.
"Your boss wouldn't happen to be a pale guy with snake eyes, would he?" I asked casually.
"So you've met Orochimaru-sama and still live. Impressive," Dosu complemented. Well, this was an excellent opportunity to find out just how much of a boost I got from unlocking the Mangekyou.
"Naruto, Sakura, stay out of this. No arguments. I'm sending our snake-eyed friend a message."
After a brief moment of eye contact, Kin began screaming in terror and fled off into the woods.
"Kin, what the hell!?" Zaku shouted after her. "What did you do to her!?"
"Oh, nothing much. She just seemed to like genjutsu so much that I thought I'd show her one of mine. She'll stop running eventually, once she realises I didn't actually summon the Shinigami to eat her soul. That, or she'll pass out." I shrugged. "Either way, she'll survive as long as she doesn't run into any dangerous wildlife." Or Gaara. "Too bad I can't say the same for you two."
"Oh yeah? Tough talk for a little girl! Eat this: Zankuuha (Decapitating Airwaves)!" His attack was trivially easy to dodge thanks to the Sharingan's predictive power. A simple Shunshin took me about three metres up a tree to the left of him. "Huh? Where'd she go!?"
"Up here." In my hands I held the second and final water scroll I'd brought with me into the forest. They both evaded the torrent of water that blasted forth, but in the process they were separated. Perfect. "Mizu Bunshin no Jutsu." Two clones arose from the enormous puddle I had created: one to distract Dosu with ranged attacks, while the other would work with me to fight Zaku.
I dropped to the ground and, along with my clone, circled around Zaku so we were both standing on opposite sides of him.
"You think clones are gonna help you against me? Zankuuha!" Holding out his arms to both sides, he fired off blasts of pressurised air at both myself and my clone, which we dodged with ease.
"Is that all you know how to do?" I asked mockingly.
"I think it might be," my clone agreed.
"And you call yourself a ninja…"
"Shut the fuck up! Zankuukyokuha (Extreme Decapitating Airwaves)!" I quickly Body Flickered out of the way again just before his attack tore an enormous furrow in the ground behind me. At the same time, my clone used her own Body Flicker to get behind him and grab hold of him.
"Too hot-headed," she commented idly as I ran through nine hand seals.
"Chidori!" Zaku's eyes went wide. He opened his mouth, but did not get a chance to protest before I rammed my hand through his heart. Without a second glance at my fallen foe, I dispelled my clones and turned to Dosu, who immediately turned to flee. Two more uses of Shunshin left me standing in his path. All it took was a single instant of eye contact, and he was paralysed. A second more, and a shuriken found its new home in his throat.
Sakura was stunned when I rejoined my team, and Naruto looked uncomfortable.
"You… You killed them…"
"We're shinobi, Sakura. That's what we do," I pointed out. "And none of us have clean hands, in case you've forgotten what happened in Nami."
"That was part of a mission!" she protested. "These guys-"
"Trapped us in a genjutsu and would have let us wear ourselves out walking in circles before killing us. Besides, they worked for Orochimaru. If you need a reason to justify what I just did, ask Kakashi-sensei about that name once we get out of here. Specifically, ask why he was driven out of Konoha." I wiped the blood from my hand using some leaves, then turned away and continued on our path to the tower, my teammates following silently behind. You were right, Kakashi, I thought to myself, working to still my shaking hands and avoid thinking about the sticky feeling on my right one. It does get easier.
I'm glad you can't see what I'm becoming, Katie.
Karui gulped as she watched the Konoha genin walk away.
"...We're letting them go."
"Yeah," Omoi agreed. "We can get the scrolls we need somewhere else." The Kumo squad quickly grabbed the earth scroll from the mummy guy's body, then headed off in the opposite direction from the Konoha nin. The plan had been to track the team that took their scrolls and take revenge, picking up the extra scroll they needed in the process, but after seeing the Uchiha wipe the floor with those Sound guys, who were apparently working for freaking Orochimaru(who the Leaf team had actually survived an encounter with, somehow), it was clear that the smart thing to do was put aside their pride and look for a weaker target.
The rest of the trip to the tower was uneventful. Kabuto didn't try to ingratiate himself with us, the Rain team didn't try to ambush us, and we never ran across any other shinobi. We ended up entering the tower just as the sun began to rise on the morning of the third day of the test.
"There's no one here," Naruto complained. "After all that, they couldn't send someone to greet us?"
"That poem up there says something about 'heaven' and 'earth', maybe we're supposed to open the scrolls?" Sakura suggested. I took the earth scroll we were given at the beginning of the test from my pouch, and she pulled out the heaven scroll we got from the Kumo team, then began counting down. "Three… Two… One!" We opened the scrolls, which immediately began streaming out smoke. We tossed them on the ground, and when the billowing cloud dissipated, Iruka was standing there before us.
"Hey! Long time no see!" His eyes briefly flickered to my right hand, where my arm warmer was still stained with blood, but he didn't say anything about it. "Looks like you guys had a little trouble."
"Wait, why were you summoned Iruka-sensei!?" asked Naruto.
"At the end of the second round, we chuunin meet up with the exam-takers, and I was allowed to be the one to greet you. So, here I am to tell you that you all pass the second stage! Congratulations! Now, I'd like to buy you all ramen to celebrate, but-"
"We did it!" Naruto tackled him around the waist, laughing joyously. "We did it, we did it, we did it! We did it!" I shook my head, though I was smiling. Iruka explained the meaning of the poem on the wall before letting us through.
"There are rooms set up for those who passed the test on the second floor," he informed us. "There's also food and kitchen facilities. Once the five days have passed and the second stage is over, the third stage will be explained to you." Naruto and Sakura thanked Iruka and headed through, though I hung back.
"Something wrong, Makoto?"
"Would it be possible for Kakashi-sensei to visit the tower? I need to talk to him. It's about Orochimaru."