A strange new life

3.8

No one moved. Anko's face darkened. Ibiki poked his head from behind the cloth. “Can’t you sense the mood in here?”

“Seventy eight?” Anko turned to the scary jounin commander. “You obviously went easy on them.”

Ibiki shrugged. “We have,” he paused, just for a moment, “exceptional applicants this year.”

“Right, right,” Anko dismissed, “I’ll cut that number by half before the next test is done. Come on people, follow me. I’ll explain things at our next location.”

We followed Anko out of the building, around the less frequented parts of the village, until we stood out of a fenced area. Huge rooty and contorted trees filled the field in front of us. The atmosphere was heavy on the other side of the fence, not helped by Anko’s introduction of the place.

“This is the arena for the second exam: training ground 44, also known as Forest of Death.”

Anko did the song and dance of scaring people. I thought I would fangirl over her. Anko had been one of my favorites, even if she didn’t have much screen time in the original show. But not here, not now. She creeped me out. It might have been because she smiled while she cut Naruto’s face with a thrown kunai, only to appear behind the brat, grab his head and lick the blood. It made all my innards churn. Worse still when what I really hoped wouldn’t happen, happened.

The tall, pale lady with long black hair and longer tongue provoking Anko. That was Orochimaru, wasn’t it? I looked away. Started trembling. Wasn’t even sure why I was scared.

Anko continued with her piece. Handed out consent forms. Did that mean we were adults already? I guess so. Explained the two scrolls, each team had a random one, Heaven and Earth, we needed the second of the pair. Five days to reach the tower at the center. Forty four entrances. If any of your team dies, you’re out. You need all three members of the team alive and with two scrolls to enter the tower. Do not open the scrolls until you are at the tower. Under no circumstances could you leave the forest before the five days ran out. There would be no jounin interference, with no exceptions. Not once did she say we couldn't maim or kill the opponents. The kid gloves were off, it seemed.

“That’s all explanation you’ll get. When you’ve got your scroll, a proctor will take you the gate you’ll start from. Everyone will start at the same time.” Anko looked serious. “And one final piece of advice. Stay alive!”

Teams were called inside a cabin with red curtains. Soon we were called out. The proctor handed me a heaven scroll. I handed it over to Naruto. “Keep it hidden Naruto-kun, don’t ever tell anyone you have it. They’ll expect Sasuke-kun to be the one holding it, you’re our secret weapon.”

It was a bit cheesy, but it did the job. Naruto smiled wide, before schooling his expression. We left the cabin to wait until all teams had their scroll. I hoped the proctor wouldn’t complain about the pebble-clone-chan I left inside the place to scout the remaining teams. We’re ninja after all, we needed information.

A proctor led us toward gate 12. I checked my seals. Kakashi hadn’t told us to pack, so I had my essential stuff bag. Which was basically everything. It was just paper. Naruto and Sasuke had only a small bag with their tools. We had to survive five days. I knew the test would be dangerous. I didn’t want to fight Orochimaru. It could always be a coincidence, right? That tall lady was a genuine contender, bent on killing us and taking our scrolls, not some S-rank murder hobo disguised bent on killing us for the funz of it.

“Are you okay, Hinata-chan?” Naruto came over, crowded around me.

My own logic didn’t make things easier. I nodded, shook my head. I opened my bag, took one of my storage scroll rolls, much to the proctor amusement. Out popped my special exploding kunais. I handed each of the boys a few. I wrote. “Take care with those, they are extra.” Just because, popped a few cupcakes, offered some to the proctor. No need to break my good impression policy just because I was scared.

I might have stress eaten one or ten cupcakes myself. Don’t judge me.

The proctor checked his watch. Turned around. Opened the locked gate. Waved us in. I had expected more fanfare. We crossed, the man closed the gate with a final clang. I raised my hand, popped my board. Unpopped pebble-clone-chan. Details flooded my mind. I organized my findings.

“Gate 15, 18, 9, 6. Those are the closest teams with Earth scroll, which one should we target?”

“How do you know, Hinata-chan?” Naruto asked.

“Left a clone disguised as a pebble in the cabin.” I wrote back. Sasuke nodded, Naruto smiled.

“By distribution, shouldn’t we have more teams near us with Earth Scrolls?” Sasuke asked.

I nodded, wrote again. “Didn’t catch all the teams.”

“Nine,” Naruto pointed out. I nodded. We dashed inside the place, angled our movements toward that direction. We’d have to cross the path of three other gates, but that was fine. I stopped gimping my perception. Now it was a weapon I needed to wield, not something hindering me. We hopped branch over branch.

A scream sounded in the distance. We stopped, looked at that direction.

“Did you guys hear someone scream?” Naruto asked, looking toward were the sound came from. “This place is creepy.” He added.

Mid Naruto speech, three bundle of chakra entered my perception, then, like they knew were we were, circled around us. I tapped my foot, like I was impatient. Enemy, north, east, west, trees. To my immense surprise, it was Naruto who answered.

He scratched his head, fingers spelling the code. Understood, received. Out loud he said something else. “Urgh, I gotta take a leak.” He walked toward a bush, which placed him on the path of the east enemy.

“Don’t take too long.” Sasuke growled, then turned around and walked west. That settled, I took a knee, pretending to check something on my bag.

Things kicked off when the bush Naruto walked behind exploded. I’d recognize those explosions anywhere, it was my extra spicy seal. I used the c-rank doton jutsu to hide under earth, left a normal clone in my place as decoy. Sasuke also moved, he threw another exploding kunai toward a particular branch, forced the hidden enemy to flee, gave chase.

The enemy in the north fell for my trap. With my clone being left behind and looking scared, the shinobi from Amegakure with the strange breathing mask and cloth covering both eyes attacked. I activated the perimeter barrier once he got close, then the exploding tags I hid there. It wasn’t one of my best, just a normal explosion, but the explosion in the confined space did it’s job. I left my hiding place, went to my enemy. The shinobi was burned and battered, but still alive. I tied him down. He wasn’t in any condition to fight, but that wasn’t my problem. I patted him down for the scroll, found none.

There were a few yelling from Naruto side, a few explosions — not from my seals — from Sasuke side, and soon after both boys returned. Naruto was a bit banged up, dragging another unconscious ninja and a large metal crossbow. He had a cut on his arm and hand. Sasuke looked fresh and unhurt. He dragged the third shinobi. The only way I could differentiate these guys was by the number of eyes on display. I remember this team. Wasn’t they some sort of genjutsu user or something? My guess is that we looked weak enough to not warrant any serious attack from a perceived ambush. We turned things up pretty easily.

I looked at Naruto and Sasuke. Gave them a thumbs up. Once the enemy were gathered, I searched them for the scroll. They had earth. Lucky! I stored it on one of my miniature seals. Hid it in my skirt waistband pocket. Then we ran, deeper inside the forest. I couldn't believe how easy that had been. Would we break the exam record?

Unfortunately, I thought too soon. Cursed myself, cursed our team. The huge blaze of chakra, dwarfed only by Naruto’s own, entered my perception. I didn’t stop. I had a feeling I knew who that was. My body agreed with me.

With trembling hands I took my special kunai, ten of them. Clinked one against my forehead. Enemy, strong, run. I calculated the distance, the speed and what I thought the explosion range would be. A dark part of my mind remembered question two. Heh, I could calculate. I threw all of them on an area around and behind us, ran faster.

“What, Hinat—” Naruto didn’t finish. We had left the trap area, but we were still too close. The blaze of chakra entered the trap area, the kunais exploded. Couldn't waste that opportunity. It felt like I detonated a nuke, the explosion impact and devastation way bigger than I thought it would have been. It would have been beautiful if I wasn’t so scared.

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