章節 39: The Forest of Death

"…it's not going to work," said Sasuke flatly, having just finished listening to Sakura's idea. "A scroll is nothing like a shuriken."

"Just try it," said Sakura encouragingly, "at worst, you'll only waste a little bit of chakra…"

Sasuke seemed unconvinced, but he still cocked his arm back and threw the heaven scroll at Sakura, before making a series of hand signs: Ox! Dog! Dragon! Rat! Dog! Boar! Snake! Tiger!

"Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

The scroll began oscillating slightly as it spun through the air; and then, an exact copy of it flickered into existence next to it. Sakura jumped up into the air and caught both the scrolls, before throwing the fake one made of shadows back at Sasuke and slipping the real one into her plump cleavage.

Sakura's plan was to have Sasuke and his fake scroll act as decoys; this way, he would draw the enemy's attention from the real one in her possession. Team 7's foes would be more likely to guess that that Sasuke, the supposedly strongest member of their team, would be entrusted with safeguarding it.

Although, at this point, it was unclear which one out of the three of them was actually the strongest…

"It actually worked," said Sasuke, with a hint of surprise in his ordinarily cool voice.

"I'm actually more surprised that you knew the Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu," said Sakura sheepishly. "I didn't know there was a difference between that one and the Shadow Shuriken Jutsu…"

"Hey!" came Naruto's angry voice from farther up ahead. "Why are you playing catch with the scroll!?" He stamped his foot impatiently, before adding, "you're not taking this seriously enough, ya know!"

At some point, Naruto had turned around to check up on what Sakura and Sasuke had been up to, lagging behind him and the proctor as they walked along the chain-link fence that surrounded the Forest of Death. Luckily, Naruto hadn't seen Sasuke making a copy of the scroll; he had only seen Sakura yeeting the fake scroll at Sasuke.

"That's my line!" Sakura snapped at Naruto. "You're the last one I want to hear that from, Naruto—"

Sakura would have said more, but she was interrupted by the proctor who had been assigned to take them to their starting location.

"Alright, we're here," said the proctor. "Gate 12. I'm going to unlock the gate right now, but wait until my signal to enter."

Sakura gulped nervously; to her, the Chūnin exams represented the first real test of her skills. She didn't know if she still had plot armour as a member of the main cast, but seeing as the previous Sakura had died of a nosebleed of all things, she was guessing that no such thing existed outside of the sacred timeline of Kishimoto's original story.

In other words, Sakura could actually die if she wasn't careful. Daydreaming about harvesting Orochimaru's chakra was all well and good, but what good would it do her if it ended up getting her killed? She began shivering in apprehension as she waited for the proctor to give them the go-ahead; what had she been thinking!? She wasn't ready for this!

Just like Anko had said, the Forest of Death wasn't called that for nothing; it was filled with all sorts of disgusting insects that Sakura didn't even want to think about, and it was also home to some gigantic animals. The First Hokage himself had created this forest, and by the looks of it, he hadn't taken half measures growing its gigantic trees with his Wood Style Senjutsu…

While Sakura was staring blankly into the murky depths of the forest, the proctor was attentively staring at his watch. The second hand on his watch skipped around and around, producing its regular ticks, when suddenly…

"The second part of the Chūnin exams begins in… 3— 2— 1—, now!"

"Alright, let's go!" Naruto shouted excitedly, immediately alerting all nearby teams to their location.

Sakura seized the pommel of her sword, forcefully stilling the trembling of her limbs. She'd worry about dying later; the last thing she wanted was to freeze in terror, like the original Sakura often did!

"Let's move out," said Sasuke in a measured tone. "Our goal is an earth scroll."

With that, Team 7 was finally ready to get started! Gathering chakra under their feet, they rapidly left the starting area, knowing that the stronger teams would be aiming for them first; as first-year rookies, they would be seen as easy targets…

But Sakura knew that this was the least of their worries; Orochimaru himself would be personally hunting them down, since he was interested in Sasuke's body…

"Er… guys?" said Naruto sheepishly, after a short while of jumping from branch to branch. "I kinda have to take a leak…"

"Ugh," Sasuke grumbled, and he held out his fist in the air to signal for Team 7 to stop.

Sakura watched on enviously as Naruto turned his back to her to unzip his fly. Once upon a time, she too had possessed the ability to pee standing up… but that ship had sailed.

"Are you almost done?" said Sasuke impatiently. "We're exposed, we're still too close to the perimeter."

"Nearly there," Naruto grunted.

As they waited for Naruto to finish, Sakura noticed Sasuke beginning to act strangely. His eyes kept flickering between her and a piece of bamboo sticking out of the ground, for some reason. What was he on about.

Had he noticed something that she hadn't?

And at last, Sakura's eyes suddenly lit up in comprehension; of course, the bamboo was just like a scuba diver's snorkel. There had to be someone hiding under the ground underneath it! And it just so happened that she was the only one of them who possessed a weapon long enough to strike at a buried enemy…

Sakura silently unsheathed her sword, nonchalantly ambled over to the piece of bamboo, before suddenly reversing her grip on her sword and planting it deep into the ground, fully expecting to hear cries of pain. However, when no such cries came, Sakura withdrew her sword, finding it to be only coated with dirt.

She hadn't missed, had she?

But as Sakura returned to Sasuke's side, time suddenly seemed to slow down to a crawl. A shiver of apprehension ran down her spine, and without even making a hand sign, she gathered a mass of chakra under her feet and jumped, just as the ground below her fissured and crumbled.

"Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu!"

A pair of hands burst out of the ground under Sakura, grasping at her ankles, but they were a fraction of a second too late. Realizing that his Jutsu had failed, the enemy shinobi rose out of the ground in one go, and Sakura's heart nearly stopped.

A Hidden Grass forehead protector, an elongated tongue, lipstick, a straw hat, a shimenawa rope around his waist… it was the disguised Orochimaru already, no doubt about it!

"You have good reflexes," he said, licking his lips appreciatively.

"Shit!" Naruto cried out in panic, as he fiddled with his fly. "You coward, attacking a man while his pants are down!"