章節 38: The Redheaded Girl

The following day, Sakura and her teammates headed towards the Forest of Death, where the next exam would be taking place, and once they had arrived, they found that most of the other exam takers were already present. Sakura stood on the tips of her toes, rising to her full height of 149 cm, and she attempted to search the crowd for the red-headed girl from the previous day.

At last, the crowd parted, and Sakura finally caught sight of her target…

"Whatcha lookin' at?" Naruto asked Sakura, noticing her staring at the redhead.

Bright red hair, obvious bite marks on her exposed arms… That girl was quite obviously Karin from the Shippuden part of Naruto, wasn't she? Why in the world was she participating in Konoha's Chūnin exams? Sakura scratched her head in confusion. It had been a while since she had seen the anime; she needed to take notes on what she remembered, because she was bound to forget more as time went on…

If only she hadn't followed a guide and watched the fillers!

"I was looking at that girl's hair," said Sakura thoughtfully. "Y'know, Naruto, I read somewhere that Uzumaki clan members have distinctly red hair, just like hers," she said, mixing truth with falsehood. "Who knows, she might be a distant relative of yours."

"Huh?" Naruto blurted out in surprise. "Are you sure? Then, how come my hair is so blonde, then?"

"It might be a blood purity thing," Sakura explained.

As an orphan, Naruto had always believed that he had no living relatives. But if Sakura was right, then maybe he wasn't as alone as he'd erstwhile thought.

"Wait, Naruto, not right now—"

Sakura caught a glint of black steel out of the corner of her eye; a kunai! She quickly reached out and grabbed Naruto by the collar, pulling him out of the way of the kunai's flight path. Quite a few people in the crowd reacted as well, turning to see what all the fuss was about.

The red-headed girl turned around as well, and Sakura at last managed to confirm that the girl truly was Uzumaki Karin. She was currently wearing a Hidden Grass forehead protector, and Sakura could clearly see diamonds of pale white skin through her clothes; Karin was wearing those black fishnets that didn't leave much to the imagination— not that there was much to imagine, since her chest was quite obviously as flat as an okonomiyaki pancake.

As much as Sakura would have liked to steal her potent Uzumaki chakra and all the benefits that accompanied it, it didn't seem like she'd be getting much of anything if she harvested her right now, since Karin didn't have much in the way of breasts to begin with, especially before the timeskip.

Besides, Sakura felt bad for Karin, all covered with bite marks as she was…

"Pay attention to my instructions, please!" Anko called out from the front of the group, smiling dangerously at Naruto and Sakura. "This place right behind me," she continued, pointing behind her with her thumb, "isn't known as the Forest of Death for nothing. You'll be going in there for the next part of the exams, not for a picnic!"

The head examiner for the second part of the Chūnin exams was the beautiful Mitarashi Anko, who was most famous for growing fat in Boruto. Anko certainly had a flair for the dramatic, because she had dived through a window to make her entrance, when she had come to fetch them the previous day to show them where the second part of the exams would take place.

Which had been quite weird, Sakura had to admit.

Incidentally, it seemed like fishnet clothing was quite popular among Kunoichi; Anko was also wearing fishnets under her trench coat, though they were much more visually appealing on her curvy figure. But try as she might, angling her head every which way, Sakura just couldn't manage to get a glimpse of Anko's nipples through the pretty much see-through material…

She could see her belly button, so why…!?

"Now, before we begin the second part of the exams," Anko continued, "I'm going to have to make you sign these—" and upon saying so, she pulled out a thick sheaf of papers. "These are the consent forms you're going to have to sign— it's so we can't be held liable if you die!"

Anko laughed, and this time, her smile was completely genuine.

"There's a good chance that not all of you will make it out alive, and we don't want to be held liable for wrongful deaths," she explained. "Now, before you sign those, I'm going to explain what it is we'll have you do in there, and after that, you'll be free to sign those consent forms or chicken out, whichever you feel like doing."

Basically, they would be going into the forest for a kind of battle royale; half of the 26 teams would get a heaven scroll, while the other half would get earth scrolls. The goal was to hunt down a team who owned the version of the scroll that you didn't have and steal it from them, before making it to the tower at the centre of the forest with both versions of the scrolls in hand— without losing your scrolls or any teammates along the way, whether it be to deaths or grave injuries. The time limit would be five days, and under no circumstances were they supposed to look inside the scrolls before they were inside the tower!

In theory, half of the twenty-six teams could pass, but in practice, anything could happen…

In any case, there was no way that Team 7 was going to back down after having made it this far, so they signed the release forms, got in line and obtained a heaven scroll, which Sasuke quickly shoved into one of his numerous pouches.

Obviously, the teams weren't all going to be starting in the same spot, because then the exam would devolve into an uncontrollable melee right from the start. This would defeat this exam's purpose of testing their hiding, hunting and survival skills, so each one of the teams would be entering the Forest of Death from a different gate.

And so, once Team 7 had received their heaven scroll, one of the proctors began leading them along the chain-link fence that surrounded the Forest of Death to what would be their entrance point.

"I have an idea, but keep it quiet, so that Naruto doesn't hear," Sakura whispered to Sasuke as they walked. "Can you make a copy of this, in case we run into a stronger team and we need to give them a fake?"

"Given enough time," Sasuke replied succinctly.

"No, I mean like with Ninjutsu," Sakura specified, but Sasuke shook his head.