The ROOT Cause

by Phyre_star

Summary:

She was cast out.
For weakness, for embarrassment, for disgrace. Abandoned by her clan, Hinata Hyuga would be turned over to another, swallowed by the shadows of Konoha, down to its dark roots.
This is not the story of a shy girl finding her strength. This is the story of a shattered weapon. Of a child reshaped by whispers, discipline, and the belief that love must be earned through silence and pain. A story that details even broken obsidian can be deadly.
As the village honors heroes, she carries out missions no one will speak of. Her devotion is absolute. Her obedience near worship. And in the quiet moments between the blood, she finds herself drawn to another—one who understands what it means to be bound, to be gripped by the abyss of the mind.
But nothing in the dark stays untouched forever.

Notes:

Hello Everyone, this will be my first fanfic so any advice will be much appreciated! Let’s see where this thought process I’ve had for a while take us :)

Chapter 1: Mask of the Hyuga

`Prologue — The Mask of the Hyūga

Setting: Morning in the Hyūga Compound

There was a stillness to the Hyūga estate in the morning, a cultivated quiet that clung to every polished surface and swept stone path like mist over a graveyard. Even the breeze, soft and chilled from the lingering grip of night, seemed to pass through the courtyard without daring to stir the sakura branches overhead. Everything here had its place. And everything remained in it.
Hinata sat perfectly upright at the low lacquered table on the engawa, her knees folded beneath her in the seiza position, hands resting gently in her lap. She did not shift. She did not fidget. The heat from the porcelain teacup between her palms was steady—just below burning. She liked it that way. The subtle pain kept her in the present, away from the suffocating nature of her thoughts.
Across the veranda, the koi pond reflected the peach-stained sky of dawn. The fish, gliding just beneath the surface, moved without urgency or direction—creatures born to follow paths drawn by others. Even they had more freedom than she did.
She took a slow sip of tea. Jasmine and white plum. Delicate. Refined. Just like she was expected to be.
She hated it.
Her mouth held no flavor anymore. Everything she consumed tasted like steam and obligation.
"A daughter of the main house must exude serenity in all things."
The voice of Elder Tomoe echoed in her memory—an old woman with eyes like polished glass and hands that trembled only when no one watched. That particular lesson had been delivered when Hinata was nine years old and had spilled her tea during a clan banquet. Her hand had been bruised for a week afterward.
That had been the first time she realized something important:
Grace is enforced. Serenity is fear made silent.
She lowered the cup carefully onto the lacquered tray, making sure it didn’t clink.
…
To her right, her father sat in rigid stillness, reading through a scroll in the dim light of the morning. His robes were as immaculate as always, cream white with the violet clan crest stitched flawlessly into the back. His posture was impeccable. His aura unreadable.
He had not looked at her since entering the room.
Hiashi Hyūga did not often raise his voice. He did not beat his daughters (at least not outside the sparring room) nor bark orders like the gruff shinobi commanders that filled other households. No—his form of cruelty was elegant. It was the absence of acknowledgment. The withdrawal of warmth. The way he looked at you as though seeing a reflection in tarnished glass, one might as well be non-existent.
She could not remember the last time he addressed her by name.
“Your tea is cooling,” he murmured, eyes never lifting from the scroll.
Hinata blinked. Her hand had frozen above the cup.
Too slow.
She picked it up again and drank, ignoring the burn along her tongue.
…
Hanabi arrived next, graceful as always. Her footfalls were light on the wood, just enough to signal her presence without drawing attention. She bowed with precision before taking her place beside their father, her posture so identical to his that it seemed carved from the same stone.
“Good morning, Father,” she said.
Hiashi gave a soft hum of acknowledgment. Hanabi turned her head just slightly and nodded toward Hinata. Polite. Controlled.
Hinata nodded back with equal precision, her smile practiced.
There was a time when Hanabi’s presence would have stung, when her sister’s growing prominence—her skill, her strength, her poise—would have reopened the wounds left behind by Hiashi’s rejection. But those wounds had long since scarred over.
What she felt now wasn’t jealousy. No, she had cared too much for her sister to ever be truly jealous of her.
It was detachment.
A gentle emptiness that hovered just beyond reach. She could admire Hanabi's form and footwork and success the same way one might admire a sword hung on a wall. Beautiful. Lethal. Entirely irrelevant to her own place in the world.
“You are no longer part of the succession.”
Hiashi’s voice. Four years ago. Cold and clean, like frost on a blade.
“You will bring dishonor if you remain. Hanabi will take your place. You are to serve in silence.”
And so she had.
…
A gentle clatter pulled Hinata’s attention back to the table. A servant had arrived to replenish the rice bowls. Hinata offered a bow of gratitude, which was ignored.
Of course.
She was no longer the heir. No longer the jewel of the main family. No longer the “princess of the Hyūga.” She was the shadow that sat beside it—dutiful, silent, and ultimately disposable. Waiting for the day to be sent off on some political marriage or maybe spend the rest of her days entertaining the elders every whim.
But not all shadows are meek.
Some are blades waiting in the dark.
And beneath the pale violet kimono, beneath the softened voice and bowed head, beneath the burn of her clan’s seal hidden behind her bangs—
Hinata Hyūga was sharpening.
________________________________________
Setting: ROOT subterranean training facility, hours before dawn

The last boy hadn’t even screamed before he stopped breathing.
His windpipe had collapsed with a dull crunch beneath the edge of her forearm, his eyes wide, mouth working in silent confusion as his legs spasmed beneath him. Blood frothed between his lips. He’d been no older than she was—sixteen, maybe seventeen. She hadn’t caught his name.
ROOT didn’t assign names to those deemed replaceable.
His body now lay crumpled against the training wall, just another indistinct shadow in the dimly lit chamber. Two others already littered the floor, each dispatched in similar fashion. One with a palm-thrust to the heart, the other with a ruptured spine courtesy of a feint-to-kill elbow. All executed cleanly. Efficiently. Without excess.
Hinata stood in the center of the chamber, breath steady, chest rising and falling with perfect rhythm. Her Byakugan remained inactive. She didn’t need it for this.
Not anymore.
Blood dotted the mat beneath her bare feet. None of it hers.
The silence after combat was always the heaviest. Not because it was still, but because in that stillness came reflection—the brief, unwelcome echo of what she had just done. What she had become. Who she had killed. Sometimes, if she let her mind slip, she could still hear the moment when their breathing turned to gurgling. The moment when she knew they would never rise again.
But tonight, she wasn’t slipping.
She stood tall, shoulders relaxed, her hands slightly stained and trembling—though only just.
Danzo’s voice cut through the chamber like frost:
“You hesitate less now.”
From the shadowed alcove above, his presence loomed—half-shrouded in iron torchlight, his single eye glinting with quiet satisfaction. Three ROOT handlers flanked him. Still. Silent. Awaiting command.
Hinata turned slowly to face her master and dropped to one knee. Head bowed. Palms resting flat against her thighs in the formal ROOT report posture. Her voice was calm. Even.
“Three targets. Eliminated. No chakra used. Minimal energy expended. Estimated recovery time: two hours.”
A long pause. Then:
“Noted.”
She waited for more—for criticism, praise, reassignment—but Danzo remained quiet. She dared a glance upward, and found his gaze fixed on the bodies behind her. He wasn’t watching her. Not yet.
He was watching what she had done.
And then, after several long seconds, he looked down at her—really looked—and nodded faintly.
“You are becoming exactly what I need you to be.”
The warmth those words stirred in her chest was immediate. Sharp. Addictive. It filled a space that had long ago hollowed out from her father's cold stares and the clan’s quiet disdain. It was twisted, she knew, this desire to please a man who treated her as a tool—but it was all she had. All she was.
She lived in that duality: shame and purpose. Weakness and power. Rejection and devotion.
And Danzo knew exactly how to feed that contradiction. Nevertheless, she sought his praise. Ever since that day, she vowed to devote everything to him and more.
…
Later, she sat in the washing chamber, her legs folded beneath her on the cold tile floor, sponge in hand. The blood came off easily with hot water. ROOT had long since taught her how to scrub everything away.
But she kept seeing the boy’s face. Not in horror. Not in complete guilt. Rather… in detail.
The slight wideness of his eyes. The flutter in his throat as the windpipe gave way. The heat that had splashed across her chest when his body dropped.
She wasn’t disturbed… much.
She was studying.
Cataloguing the way death looked in the eyes of the dying.
Her hands moved automatically, dragging the sponge across her arms, across the faint bruises from the earlier sparring matches. She did not wince. ROOT bruises were reminders. Lessons.
She touched the edge of the seal on her forehead, just beneath the wet strands of her bangs. It throbbed faintly, like a heartbeat she couldn’t control.
Not because it had been activated.
But from the fear that it would be. Because she feared the Hyūga still held that power.
Danzo had told her otherwise.
“The seal is theirs in name only. I’ve rewritten its fangs. As long as you serve me, no one can hurt you again.”
He said it weeks after the sealing—when she was eleven, shivering and half-mad with shame, loss, the scar still smoking on her brow. He said it without comfort. Without affection.
But he said it with certainty.
And that certainty had become her anchor.
…
As she rose to redress—her movements slow, deliberate—she allowed herself one brief moment of indulgence. She closed her eyes and whispered, barely audible over the hiss of the steam:
“Thank you… Lord Danzo.”
Not because he loved her. He didn’t, yet he cared enough.
Not because he would protect her out of kindness. He wouldn’t, yet he still chose to help a failure like her.
He had given her a place—a reason to endure, to grow, to learn. He had taken what her father, her clan had discarded and forged it into something that could cut, weave and kill.
A blade does not need the love of others.
A blade only needs to fulfill the purpose and will of its wielder.
And tonight, she had fulfilled that aim once again.
________________________________________
Setting: Konoha outskirts, mid-morning

The air above the northern edge of Konoha shimmered faintly with heat. Not yet oppressive, but warm enough to draw a faint line of sweat down Hinata’s spine as she walked the familiar path to the training field. She adjusted her travel pack with deliberate care, allowing the cloth to rest naturally against her back. Any awkward movement—any excess tension in her posture—might betray something.
She always had much to hide whether from her clan during meal times such as the one earlier in the morning, or from her team.
She moved with light, almost hesitant steps, her sandals brushing dry gravel and scattered leaves. Every detail of her appearance had been fine-tuned before she left the Hyūga compound: hair tucked just-so, bangs draped low enough to cover her seal but not seem suspicious, sleeves pressed smooth, pack weighted evenly. Her voice, when used, would be soft. Her eyes would flicker downward when spoken to. She would laugh—sometimes, if prompted—but it would be a breathy, nervous sound. Nothing confident. Nothing assertive.
This was her costume. And like any performance, it demanded perfection.
ROOT had taught her many things: how to kill without chakra, how to unmake a man with a single palm, how to strip a corpse of identifiers in under sixty seconds.
But Danzo had taught her something deeper.
He had taught her how to wear innocence like armor.
…
She arrived at the clearing moments later. The others were already gathered.
Shino stood like a silent statue near the edge of the woods, arms crossed, visor glinting in the sun. Kiba was mid-stretch, twisting at the waist, shirt bunched up to expose lean muscle built from feral, high-speed combat. Akamaru was sprawled at his feet, tail swishing lazily, half-dozing.
Kurenai-sensei leaned against a large cedar, arms folded, watching them with that same unreadable expression she always wore—part calm, part wariness, part something else Hinata never dared to name.
Hinata stopped just beyond the trees and inhaled slowly.
Drop the shoulders. Lower the chin. Let your breath quiver on the exhale.
Step into her. The girl they expect. The girl who cannot hurt anyone.
Then she stepped forward.
“G-good morning…” she said, dipping her head, voice as soft as folded silk.
Kiba looked up at once. “Hinata! We thought you overslept or something.”
His grin was broad, good-natured. She smiled back—timidly. Not shy enough to be strange. Just enough to match what he thought of her.
“I—I’m sorry,” she said, brushing a nonexistent wrinkle from her sleeve. “I was slow gathering my things…”
Shino gave a polite nod. Kurenai’s eyes opened halfway. She offered Hinata a neutral look—acknowledging, but brief. Nothing about her face suggested suspicion, but Hinata had long since learned not to be comforted by that.
Kurenai a Jonin, an elite who specialized in genjutsu. She saw things others didn’t. She’d noticed the subtle shifts in cadence, in posture, in aura. If anyone was close to piercing her mask, it would be her.
And still… even she hadn’t looked too closely yet.
Hinata made sure of that. Even an elite Jonin like Kurenai could be fooled with her guard down. That meant ensuring no suspicion ever arose.
…
Kiba flopped down beside Akamaru and yawned. “Escort job again, huh? I was hoping we’d get something a little less boring this week.”
“C-rank missions provide necessary field conditioning,” Shino murmured.
“They also provide total boredom,” Kiba countered. He reached down to scratch Akamaru’s ear. The dog yawned and licked his hand once.
Hinata knelt beside them, hands folded in her lap. She smiled just enough to show she was listening. She didn’t speak.
Kurenai stepped forward then and unrolled a scroll.
“You’ll be guarding a merchant caravan traveling the western Fire Country border,” she said. “No known threats, but the terrain is open, and there have been rumors of missing travelers near the fork past the Kawa trail.”
She handed out mission specs.
Hinata accepted hers last. As she grasped the scroll, she felt a slight tingle of chakra.
Her pulse didn’t quicken. Her breath didn’t catch. She simply unrolled it, scanning the first few lines, then paused when her fingers brushed against something folded between the inner crease.
A slip of paper. Unmarked. Sealed with crimson wax
ROOT.
Secondary directive: One embedded target. Former Leaf-aligned operative. Suspected defector. Embedded in the third cart. Eliminate discreetly. No witnesses. No deviation. Maintain cover.
The letter was unsigned, but it didn’t need to be.
She moved to close the scroll, crushing the wax seal on the note as she did so. The paper immediately crumbled away to dust, leaving nothing for anyone to notice.
Not even Kurenai.
…
A gust of wind rustled the treetops behind them, carrying with it a sound that turned her breath to glass.
Laughter.
High, bright, unguarded. Not near, but not far. On the other side of the clearing—another squad’s field.
Hinata froze for half a heartbeat, her body stilling before she could stop it. She didn’t need to look. She knew that voice. Knew the rhythm of it. The warmth.
Naruto…
It filtered through the canopy like sunlight.
She turned her head slightly, letting her eyes trace the edges of movement beyond the trees. Just out of reach, past a veil of green and gold, she caught the flicker of orange. The messy hair. The idiot smile.
He was talking to someone—maybe Sakura, maybe Kakashi—but his voice was the only one she heard.
Naruto Uzumaki.
Her first memory of him was not the academy. It was the day she saw him standing up to three older boys after they shoved a crying child into a river. He’d gotten punched. Bloodied. But he hadn’t run.
He’d smiled.
And in that moment, she'd seen something in him she'd never seen in herself: unshakeable resolve. Not from power. From heart.
A heart untouched by shadows.
She turned away before she lingered too long.
Hinata wondered if he could ever understand this world. Her world.
He was light. A sun that burned too clean to survive the dark soil she was buried in.
And yet…
He’s the only part of me that still remembers what light looks like.
He’s the piece I keep buried in my chest like a shrine I’m not allowed to pray at.
Would he recoil if he saw what she did at night? Would he look at her the way her father had, abandon her like the clan, look with painful pity as Hanabi had done?
No. Naruto wouldn’t do any of those things.
He would try to save her most like. Try to bring that glorious light to her direction, no matter how unworthy she was.
That thought—soft and beautiful—was also dangerous.
Because she wasn’t someone who needed saving. Not anymore.
She had already been saved. And now she served the man who had done so. The one that had protected her and seen her when no one else did; not even Naruto.
And now, she was someone who would gladly kneel in blood to hear him say, “You’ve done well.”
She lived for that. For the words Danzo spoke brought her joy and stability.
…
“Hinata?”
She blinked. Kiba was looking at her.
“You alright?”
She gave a quick smile and nodded. “Y-yes. Just… thinking.”
He laughed. “You think way too much. It’s just bandits and wagons. Try to enjoy the breeze or something.”
Shino raised an eyebrow. “Vigilance is a virtue.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Kiba ran a hand through his hair. “Let’s get this trek over with. I’m starving and we still got some ground to catch.”
As the group began moving, Hinata adjusted her pace to stay behind them by a few paces. Not too far. Just enough to be overlooked. Enough to vanish from memory, if needed.
Her hand brushed her scroll again. The kill order. Third cart. No witnesses.
Danzo-sama is watching. He always watches.
And I will not fail. I can’t. Not him.
As they passed the village gate, the sun high and golden above them, Hinata let her fingers rest briefly over the place where her seal lay hidden beneath her bangs.
It was still cool. No pain.
She was still his.
And she would make sure no one took her place away again.

Chapter 2: Paper Faces

Notes:

New Chapter! So it occurs to me I should make a timetable of sorts for this story. Generally I'm aiming to update around once a week, give or take a few days depending on how busy I am at that moment.

Prologue: Paper Faces
Setting: Road to the western Fire border
________________________________________
The morning sun filtered down in golden shafts through the thick canopy above the forest path. Dust from the wagon wheels clung to the air like chalky fog, stirring with every step. Leather harnesses creaked, oxen snorted, and the wheels clattered unevenly across gnarled tree roots pushing through the dirt road.
Team 8 was spread out in a loose escort formation, weaving like phantoms between the carts. Kurenai led at the front, her crimson eyes alert beneath her dark fringe, while Shino walked just behind her, occasionally pausing to watch the treetops as if tracking something only he could see. At the rear, Kiba trudged lazily beside a cart stacked with rice sacks, his hands behind his head and Akamaru riding on his shoulders like a small white sentinel.
Hinata stayed near the center of the line.
Quiet. Observant.
Hidden in plain sight, a role she knew all to well with.
The caravan was larger than the usual ones that passed—eight wagons, two dozen civilians, and three handlers in civilian attire who spoke like farmers but walked like trained men. The kind of job that appeared uneventful until it wasn’t.
She walked with her head slightly lowered, letting her long bangs obscure the faint throb of her mark. Her mouth was relaxed in a soft expression—on the edge of a smile, though not quite there. She kept her hands close to her body, clutching the edge of her pack as if she were nervous about dropping something.
All of it was intentional.
Every movement, every expression, every tone of voice was part of the performance.
Be smaller than they remember. Quieter than they expect. Gentler than they fear.
They must never know what you are. A Ninja must embrace deception.
“Hinata,” Kiba called back toward her. “You okay with that spot?”
She looked up quickly, blinking as though startled by his voice. She added a small stammer for texture.
“Y-yes. Thank you…”
“Cool.” Kiba turned back around without a second thought. “I’ll take the back with Akamaru. Shino, try not to bore the merchants with beetle facts.”
Shino adjusted his collar with a stoic shrug. “I will do my best to contain myself.”
Hinata smiled, letting a small breath of laughter escape.
Keep them close. But not curious.
That was the balance she had learned to maintain. Friendly enough to avoid suspicion. Timid enough to deflect interest. They all knew her as shy, kind, soft-hearted—maybe even fragile.
That version of Hinata had torn herself apart nearly four years ago in a self-loathing rage. Only for him to find what was left.
But they didn’t need to know that.
…
By mid-morning, they reached a narrow stretch of road, flanked on one side by forest and the other by a sharp, sloping descent into a shallow river valley. The caravan moved slower here, adjusting for the rough terrain. Kurenai signaled for the team to rotate positions.
“Hinata, take point for the next hour. I want your eyes forward.”
“Yes, sensei,” she said, bowing slightly before moving up the line.
She took her time as she passed each wagon, her eyes flickering—never directly, never long enough to draw attention. She cataloged details with machine-like precision.
Those first years after she was branded, when those dark dungeons underneath village became her home in all but name Hinata was taught in detail the art of being aware even among civilians. Seeing the little inconsistencies that most would miss, the key aspects that could unweave a fabricated lie.

Cart one: food goods, nothing suspicious. Cart two: mostly silk, merchants elderly, hands soft.
Cart three…
Her gaze caught on a man seated on the outer edge of the driver’s bench. He was dressed like a retired farmer—plain travel cloak, bandaged knee, slow posture. But his hands…
Callused in the wrong places.
His chakra network was compressed.
Coiled.
There.
Hinata didn’t break stride. She moved past the cart, pretending to adjust the straps on her pouch. Her Byakugan activated behind a subtle blink—just for a moment, just long enough to confirm what her instincts already told her.
His chakra was not normal. He had implants in his chest and right leg—some sort of chakra regulators, disguised under bandages. Possibly suppression seals to keep possible ninja from sensing any chakra leakage.
An individual trained in the arts of Shinobi, or at the very least familiar with them. Disguised. Hidden.
Third cart. Embedded target. Eliminate. Do not deviate.
Hinata’s stomach did not turn. Her hands did not shake.
The order settled into her mind like a coin dropped into deep water—quiet, final, and cold. It was simple, she received an order, and she would do it.
…
The hours passed in a blur of idle conversation and creaking wheels. The caravan rolled on through a gentler stretch of road, the forest canopy thinning just enough for golden sunlight to pool along the trail like warm syrup. The air smelled of pine and old leather and the faintest trace of dried plum and iron—sweet and blood-sour in turns.
The wagons groaned with each rut and dip in the earth, and voices carried lazily between the carts. A merchant riding shotgun beside a chest of preserved rice cracked a joke about Suna tax officers—something about sand up their robes and no sense of humor. Kiba howled with laughter, nearly slapping Akamaru off his shoulders.
“Come on, Shino,” he said between wheezes. “Even your bugs gotta admit that was funny.”
Shino blinked behind his visor. “Insects don’t process humor.”
“That’s what makes it funny.”
Even Kurenai allowed herself a faint exhale through her nose.
Another merchant offered a small cloth pouch to the group as they passed—dried sweet plum, salted and chewy.
“Payment for keeping us in one piece,” he said cheerfully. “At least until we’re robbed blind.”
Kiba accepted some with a grin. “See? These guys get it. Food first. Danger later.”
Shino took one. Akamaru sniffed and refused.
Hinata only smiled—small, polite, perfectly in character.
She declined with a soft shake of her head and murmured, “Thank you… I’m not hungry.”
At least not for food.
No, she hungered to be seen, to be validated. For those words she’s learned to craved like breath in drowning lungs.
You’ve done well.
She walked with her hands folded lightly at her waist, eyes cast low as if shy—but in truth, she was scanning. Listening. Watching the flow of chakra in every living being around her with the corner of her awareness. Every heartbeat. Every flicker of energy. Searching for any other that may be a problem.
Most were mundane. Uneven, sluggish. Deactivated. The typical turbulence of untrained civilians whose chakra networks were undeveloped.
All save for the man in the third cart
…
He hadn’t spoken much since morning. Occasionally he asked about distance. Sometimes he scratched the back of his neck or adjusted the wrappings around his right knee. Never more than that.
But his chakra was wrong.
It didn’t flow like a merchant. It sat compressed in the center of his chest—coiled in a tight spiral of discipline. His body moved like a civilian, but there was tension in the shoulders. Efficiency in his breath control. Balance in how he sat on the cart edge, left foot dangling—but the right perfectly braced for motion.
Hinata’s Byakugan didn’t need to be active to know a trap when she saw one. This man was ready to flee at any moments notice. Of course she wasn’t the only one to notice. Kurenai herself had walked up to the man to give him assurances that all will be well. She assumed the man was worried about bandits, not about being hunted.
And then—
He looked at her.
Just once.
No shift in his posture. No turn of the head. Only his eyes moved—dark, unreadable—and locked with hers for less than a second.
A glance. Nothing more.
But it shattered her rhythm.
Her next step faltered ever so slightly. A barely-there hitch of muscle.
Her hands curled tighter at her sides.
And he knew.
Not everything. Not her name or allegiance or mission—but something. Something primal in him had recognized the danger in her. The stillness that wasn’t fear. The restraint that wasn’t civilian.
He sees me.
Her thoughts did not race.
They tightened.
Like a wire wrapped around her throat.
She had studied every detail, waited for the window. But now, with that glance—so small, so brief—it felt like everything was crumbling. The timing, the plan, the mask she had worn so perfectly.
Did I make a mistake? Was my step too quiet? Did I watch too long?
No one else noticed. Kiba was still laughing. Shino was dissecting a beetle that had landed on the wagon’s canopy. Kurenai was scanning the treeline. No one saw her falter.
But she had, and now it was all she could focus on.

…
For a brief, unbearable moment, her breath caught in her throat—not because she feared being exposed. Hinata had long abandoned any notion of keeping the status quo.
She feared what would happen if she failed, how those eyes would look at her.
Danzo-sama entrusted me with this.
If he sees hesitation again… if I falter like I did before…
The thought turned her insides to lead. Cold. Unforgiving.
What would he say this time? Would he say anything?
Or worse—would he say nothing… and not even look at her.
Hinata swallowed, trying to force down the strange trembling at the base of her neck. Her chest felt tight. She could feel her pulse in the hollow of her throat, shallow and rapid. Not panic. Not yet.
But fear.
Not for her life.
For her place.
…
He gave me purpose when I was discarded.
He gave me strength when my own blood called me weak.
I cannot—
I must not—
fail him.
…
She reached up and adjusted the strap on her travel pouch—mechanical, controlled. Her face returned to neutral, her lips softening again into that shy, tentative smile she had perfected. She ducked her head slightly, as if overwhelmed by noise.
It was enough.
The man looked away.
The moment passed.
But her pulse did not slow. Not fully.
A fracture had opened—thin as a hairline crack in glass.
And she didn’t have time to seal it.
He knows. And now, I have to move.
Not to survive. But to remain worthy.
…
Near sunset, as the sun bled orange across the treetops, the caravan made camp in a small clearing. Tents went up. Cookfires were lit. Merchants pulled out crates of dried noodles and pickled vegetables while handlers checked wheels and feedbags.
Kurenai ordered a perimeter rotation.
“Hinata, take the west side with Kiba. Keep it tight.”
“Yes, sensei.”
She and Kiba moved into the treeline. Akamaru loped ahead, nose twitching.
They circled for twenty minutes in silence, then met back near the edge of the camp.
“Smells clean,” Kiba said. “Probably no bandits tonight.”
Hinata gave a small nod. “That’s… good.”
“You okay?” he asked. “You’ve been a little quiet today. Even for you.”
She shook her head, letting her eyes fall.
“I—I’m just tired.”
Kiba smiled and ruffled her hair gently.
“You’ll be fine. Get some sleep after dinner, yeah?”
She nodded again and watched him go.
Then she turned her eyes toward where he would be settling down.
…
Night had settled like ink over the forest, thick and damp. Crickets chirped beyond the perimeter, and the merchant fire had dimmed to smoldering logs. Most of the caravan was asleep. Kiba and akamaru stayed up to watch out for any bandits or forest creature foolish enough to draw too near to the group.
Normally anyone would have trouble trying to move around or draw blood around an inuzuka. Their noses notorious for being nearly as capable as their ninja hounds. Course that did not mean there weren’t ways to get around it. Specially crafted oil that when channeled with chakra allowed one to temporarirly mask any scent so long as the nose in question wasn’t too capable. There was no way this would fool Chunin, let alone Jonin inuzuka. But it was more than enough for Kiba.
Hinata stood at the edge of the clearing, shadows casting long across her face. She was still, quiet, nearly invisible against the tree line.
She was watching the third cart.
And he was waiting for her.
She approached slowly, barefoot now, her sandals discarded to soften each step. The man stood beside the cart, wrapped in his traveler’s cloak, looking up at the night sky as if it might offer him clarity.
He didn’t move when she came into view.
“You’re late,” he said quietly, voice gruff but unhurried. “I half expected you to strike during dinner. Poison maybe. Or a kunai while I watered the trees.”
Hinata tilted her head slightly, stepping into the moonlight with a softness that made her seem weightless.
“You knew?” she asked, voice barely above a whisper.
“I suspected,” he said. “Your posture, too disciplined for a genin. Meanwhile my fellow civilians are all too noisy. ROOT likes to send ghosts in civilian clothing, not bubbling baffoons”
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, then chuckled.
“I didn’t expect the one they’d send to look like... you.”
Hinata’s expression didn’t change.
Smile just enough. Let him speak.
He turned to face her fully now, arms folded.
“Hyūga, right? Those pale eyes must see a lot. Pretty face. Good posture. Lived one hell of a privileged life I bet.” He sighed. “How’d you end up crawling through ROOT’s sewer pipes?”
She blinked slowly. “I asked to be useful.”
He barked a short laugh. “Useful? To him? To that fossil-puppet-master playing games with the world?”
He took a step forward. Hinata mirrored it.
“Yea, I wanted that too at first. Wanted to prove my pride to this damn country.” The man took another step toward her.
“Do you have any idea girl what ROOT wants? What they do? What they are capable of? I do. That’s why I’m leaving. I want out, nothing more, nothing less”
Hinata gave him a blank, soft glace. “I’m afraid ROOT doesn’t see it that way.”
The man gave a snort.
“It’s a waste,” he said. “All that poise wasted on a glorified hit list. They’ll discard you the second you're cracked you know. That’s how ROOT works. They don’t raise great ninja, they create radical zealots.”
Another step. She let him take it.
“You’re just another blade in his drawer. And when it rusts—he’ll toss you.”
She kept walking toward him, inch by inch. Head low. Arms at her sides.
He smiled, misreading the silence as her resolve faltering. “Perhaps you think yourself special, that he will keep you as a damn pet?”
Hinata’s breath was quiet. Unmoving.
He leaned closer, thinking her guard was down, the points of several senbon peaking out from his sleeve.
“It's disgusting” he muttered. “A delicate thing like you, being groomed in ROOT’s name. No one deserves this role. That’s all the proof I ever needed that leaving while I can is right. ROOT is nothing but rot and Danzo is the heart of the cancer that should..."
That was the moment.
Hinata moved.
It wasn’t explosive. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t even fast in the way most shinobi expected.
It was simply well timed and therefore, inevitable
Her hand lashed forward, striking the base of his throat with the soft edge of her palm—collapsing his voice box before he could shout. He choked on air, stumbling backward, senbon dropping to the grass below. She moved with him, guiding his fall with a foot behind his heel and a twist of her hip.
They landed behind the cart.
Hidden.
Silent.
One final strike entered beneath his ribs, angled upward—chakra flowing into his heart, rupturing it from within. He gasped, body locking in place. Blood welled in his throat but never left it.
She straddled him on the earth, both knees pressed to his sides to hold him still.
His eyes widened.
She saw them focus—not on the stars above.
But on her.
And as he lay dying, he saw this murderous flower's face change
Gone was the mask of the shy, delicate girl. Her lips curled, not into a smile, but a snarl—silent and full of wrath.
Her pale face, smooth and serene in every other moment, now blazed with fury.
“No one gets to insult my savior! What would you know, a slimy traitor that broke his trust. I know what I am, I know my place. You forgot yours!”
She whispered it like a curse as his gaze dimmed.
The last thing he saw was the glint of the stars reflected in her livid eyes—white, endless, and full of obsessive, loyal hate.
Then he was still.
Hinata's breath came out quietly in ragged fury as she stared at her targets body. "We are meant to do. To answer and to perform. Never to defy for he is our savior" …
She sat over his body for a moment longer, collecting her ragged breath as her mind stormed with feelings of fury, adoration, frustration and that ever present self-loathing.
Then she moved.
Everything after was automatic. She dragged him beneath the tree roots behind the cart, concealed his body in a hollow she'd scouted earlier. She erased his chakra trail with a special suppression seal that would make even the hungriest of chakra eating insects crawl on by and scattered foxglove spores on the surrounding ground to confuse scent-trackers (Kiba in particular).
The trail was clean.
Quiet.
Perfect.
…
She sat alone by the central fire, hands folded, gaze distant.
The fire had long since burned to embers, but Hinata remained beside it.
She sat quietly, her hands folded over her lap as though still meditating, but her mind no longer touched the present. Behind her, the merchants snored inside canvas tents. A few muttered and shuffled on the outskirts of camp, minds already dulled by fatigue and slumbering rest.
Her body was still. Her expression empty.
But beneath her skin—beneath the faint weight of her forehead seal, beneath the false softness of her voice and the practiced slouch in her shoulders—Hinata was vibrating.
I did it. I completed the order once again.
I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t fail him.
She stared into the cooling fire, her Byakugan inactive, her mind pulling inward—back to the first time she had hesitated.
...

Flashback
Setting: Land of Claws; Two years prior

The kill had been hers to make.
The wretched, loose tongued merchant who tried to sell of ROOT secrets (Purposely leaked to determine his loyalty) had begged.
Not for his life, but for his daughter.
“I’m all she has left,” he had rasped, clutching at his ruptured side.
Hinata had paused. Not long, only a few seconds had her will wavered. But, it was long enough.
Danzo's agents had been watching from afar.
When she returned to the hideout, troubled and hollow-eyed, he had not raised his voice. Not offered violent repercussions (though those were often the case).
Rather, as he passed by, he simply said:
“I gave you a target. Not a choice.”
And he had walked away.
She had disappointed him. And worse: for days he ignored her. For the first time since he saved for from the clan, gone was that calm and calculating gaze that protected her. In its place, was nothing. As if she was a ghost not worthy of being seen…
She didn’t sleep in all that time he ignored her. Not from guilt—from the loss. The self-hate consuming her like a worm burrowing across her body. Her voice gone, torn from sobs to manic screams, desperate to hear him speak to her again… Until finally he summoned her, and chose to forgive her stupid weakness. She wept for joy when he looked at her, and saw something useful.
…
Now, two years later, she hadn’t hesitated. The kill had been flawless. Absolute.
But the silence still pressed on her like lead.
Her fingers flexed faintly in her lap. She had washed them after disposing the body. Still, she could feel something clinging there—not blood. Something else.
Something that felt like… absence. 
“You haven’t moved in over an hour.”
The voice came from behind her, soft but neutral.
Hinata turned, startled—but not visibly. She knew better.
Shino stood half in shadow, the firelight glinting faintly off the opaque lenses of his visor. He wasn’t looking at her. Not directly.
But he had noticed.
“I was reflecting,” she said.
Shino stepped forward slightly, stopping just outside the fire’s glow.
“You’ve been quieter on this mission than usual,” he said. “Even for you.”
“I’m sorry…”
He tilted his head. “I didn’t ask for an apology.”
Silence stretched between them. She let it hang there, unchallenged, her expression passive.
Shino’s insects rustled faintly beneath his collar. He folded his arms, gaze still unreadable.
“There’s a gap in the merchant’s manifest,” he said at last. “One of the passengers is gone, not part of the official caravan. No signs of departure that I can tell.”
Hinata’s heartbeat remained steady.
He’s not accusing you. He’s observing.
She responded with just enough confusion in her tone to remain plausible.
“Oh…? M-maybe he left when we were settling down? I-If he wasnt part of the official group, he may j-just wanted company for part of his road.”
Shino didn’t nod. He didn’t correct her. He simply watched for one breath longer, then turned and walked away.
She watched him go, her hands now clenched faintly in her lap.
I was careful.
He didn’t see. He’s just guessing. Reaching.
But Kurenai will know if he mentions it…
...
Later, as the sun rose over the hills and the caravan began to move again, Hinata walked alone near the back, eyes forward, posture perfect.

Every once in a while she’d glace at Shino, then allow her gaze to drift subtly toward Kurenai-sensei who was watching from behind.
She tried not to let it burrow into her chest, but it did. Every step, every breath felt like failure waiting to be named. What if somebody had seen? What if the kill wasn’t clean enough? What if Shino discovered the truth? What if Kurenai now knew?
Please let it be fine
Please let him say I did well.
Please… let him say anything.
…
Several days later At the gates of Konoha, Team 8 turned in the completed mission report. Some of the few returning merchants offered thanks. One of them even tried to hand Hinata a silk ribbon in gratitude as she was looking at a pair of chipmunks. 
She blinked at the gift.
Then smiled.
And took it with a look of softness. All the while, the chipmunks ran off with a small report in their mouth.
…
That night, back in her quarters at a desolate corner of the Hyūga compound, she knelt on the bare tatami floor. A special scroll lay in front of her like a relic. It had greeted her the moment she walked in, the sole object in the center of the room. 
She stared at it.
A thousand times, she had imagined Danzo opening parchment the chipmunks would have brought him. Reading her report. Nodding.
She imagined his voice saying: “You did not disappoint me.”
That would be enough.
She unsealed the scroll.
A single phrase had been written beneath the ink report:
Sufficient.
Hinata exhaled—long, shaky, empty.
Not excellent. Not perfect. Not praised.
Just… passable.
She folded the scroll and pressed it to her forehead like a prayer.
It still means I’m his.
And that’s enough.
It has to be.
Because if Danzo ever stopped seeing her...
She didn’t know what she’d do. 

Notes:

Alrighty, and that completes this little prologue I had in mind to set the tone and all. Next chapter will be the official start of what I had in mind.

Chapter 3: The Chunin Exam

Notes:

Hello Everyone, here is a new Chapter! Hope ya'll enjoy.

Chapter 3 – The Chunin Exam

Setting: Training field, Konoha outskirts | Late afternoon

The sunlight filtered through the leaves in soft gold waves, casting slow-moving shadows across the training field where Team 8 had gathered for their afternoon drills. Cicadas buzzed faintly in the tall grass. The wooden posts lining the field were dented from years of impact—kunai strikes, blunt blows, scorched bark. Faint echoes of younger teams remained here, ghosts of laughter and discipline, effort and failure.

Today, however, the air felt heavy. Like something was coming.

Kiba paced restlessly at one edge of the field, twirling a kunai between his fingers. Akamaru lay sprawled nearby, panting contentedly, tail twitching as if already bored of the exercise. Shino stood beneath the shade of an elm tree, unmoving, his visor catching the late light as if part of the tree itself. He read from a field report with the same calm intensity he applied to collecting his insects.

And Hinata watched them both—watched everything.

She stood near the center of the field, her hands clasped delicately in front of her, chin slightly downturned. Her long dark hair had been tied back into a loose ribbon to keep it from her eyes, her bangs as usual hiding that ugly seal. She kept her posture subtle: one shoulder lower than the other, knees not quite locked, the smallest tremor in her hands that wasn’t entirely real.

She’d practiced this stance in the mirror until it felt like muscle memory. Quiet, unsure, sweet. It invited dismissal, pity. Never suspicion.

You are the background. The unspoken. The one no one questions. The girl behind the strong boys.
Let them see that. Let them believe it.

Kiba tossed his kunai into the post with a loud thunk, cracking the wood near the center.

“Alright!” he called out. “That’s gotta count as a bullseye. I think that’s a sign from the gods or something.”

Akamaru barked, agreeing wholeheartedly.

Shino didn’t even look up. “Your gods are poor mathematicians.”

Hinata gave a quiet laugh—just a breath and a smile.

Not because it was funny.

Because it was time.

Normal girls laugh when boys bicker. Shy girls smile when attention glances their way. Keep your rhythm, Hinata. Keep your lies soft and warm.

Kurenai appeared a moment later, her approach as soundless as shadow over grass. The wind barely stirred her dark red cloak.

“Team 8,” she said. “Assemble. I have something for you.”

They gathered with practiced efficiency, Kiba fast and bouncing with excitement, Shino precise and measured, Hinata moving just slow enough to appear nervous.

They formed their line in the worn grass, shadows long behind them.

Kurenai didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t need to.

“With the completion of this last mission, this team has fulfilled the necessary requirements to achieve the next level of your ninja careers. I’ve nominated all three of you for the upcoming Chunin Exams.”

A pause.

Then Kiba shouted, “Yes! Hell yes, I knew something big was coming today. Ready to kick some ass Akamaru!”

Akamaru barked in response, tail a blur.

Shino said nothing. But his fingers tightened slightly on the scroll in his hand. A nod.

Kurenai’s gaze slid past both of them and stopped on Hinata.

Her voice softened slightly. “I know this is a lot, Hinata. But I believe you’re ready.”

Hinata blinked—once, then twice—and lowered her head. She let her cheeks color just slightly, a trace of pink warming pale skin. Her hands tightened over one another.

“I… I’ll try my best, sensei.”

Her voice cracked gently, like porcelain in a warm breeze.

Kiba beamed. “See, Hinata? Told you we were ready! We’ve been crushing missions all month. Bandits, smugglers, even that border patrol thing near the Land of Tea? Easy.”

“We lost one third of our rations due to his negligence on that foray in the Land of Tea,” Shino offered.

Kiba pointed a finger. “Still completed the mission!”

Hinata looked down, a small smile touching her lips.

Play the role. But don’t disappear completely. Let them love the mask. Let them trust the voice that isn’t yours.

Kurenai stepped forward.

“This will not be a light task. The Chūnin Exams test more than combat. They test discipline. Intuition. Cooperation. You will be facing the best Genin of every village in the alliance—and some who do not play by the rules.”

Her voice lowered.

“Be ready for danger. Be ready for deception.”

Then, after a moment, her tone shifted—softer now. Directed only at Hinata.

“You’ve come far, Hinata. I’ve seen your growth. Don’t let fear decide your pace.”

Hinata met her eyes, just long enough.

She nodded once.

Danzo-sama will hear of this. I was recognized. I belong in this trial.
And I will be his chosen.

...

Later that evening, as the last of the sun died behind the wall of Konoha, Hinata returned to her family estate.

The main clan house was quiet. Cold.

She passed hallways where Main Branch elders whispered. Bowed slightly at corners where servants watched but never spoke, only giving the usual pitiful glances.

She soon crossed the entirety of the house and proceeded to cross the serene hyuga gardens to her room in the furthest corner of the hyuga estate and shut the door behind her.

Removed her headband. Unpinned her hair.

Kneeling on the floor beside her unused bed, she lit a small candle and waited.

Hours ticked by, and as the last sunrays gave way to darkness, Hinata's mind wandered as it usually did when she let set down her emotional mask. It was hardly pleasant.

That consuming fury in her core, that self-hatred that permeated her veins. The disgusting anger that felt like it was suffocating her, a festering rage against her own weakness and uselessness, against her clan, her father... She stared at her hands as they gripped her knees, blood trickling as her nails dug into her pale skin. A desperate scream bubbled in her throat. But through this sinking mud of despair that constantly nipped at her sanity every night, two forces kept her from tumbling into the abyss. 

That happy go-lucky grin. Naruto's almost blistering light that almost seemed to burn her ugliness for a few precious moments. And her savior. The cold, stern face of the man that saw someone as worthless as her and gave her a chance. 

Her thoughts were interrupted as the scroll arrived with the faintest rustle of feathers.

Black wax.

ROOT seal.

A summoning call.

Her hands trembled from nerves, from insecurity, from exhilaration.

She must continue to prove herself.

Whatever Lord Danzo asked of her she will rise to it.

----------------------------------------

Setting: ROOT headquarters, pre-dawn

The one faint grace of being the worthless scum of the Hyuga clan was no one cared when Hinata left in the early hours before dawn. No longer was her every action judged by a clan that deemed her nothing but a irredeemable failure.

The dark corridors beneath Konoha’s surface had no names. No banners. No warmth. Only torchlight and stone. The walls seemed to absorb sound, not echo it—each footstep dying in the air as if the structure itself rejected the concept of noise.

Hinata walked alone through these tunnels, deep beneath the surface world where her mask was born. Here, her name didn’t matter. Her team didn’t matter. Only function. Only obedience. Effectiveness

The torches lit her path every ten paces, flickering in a rhythm that matched her heartbeat. Each flame was identical. Unwelcoming. As if designed not to illuminate but to expose.

She knew this route intimately now. Truth be told, they actually provided some comfort now. She had spent several years, practically every night in these tunnels. As she walked on, she once more let her mind wander momentarily on the past.

----------------------------------------------

Setting: Hyuga Estate, Four years ago

The sounds of a fierce duel could be heard in the Hyuga inner sanctum. Surrounded by several figures, two sisters clashed for the future. The eldest by five years, Hinata the current heir. The younger, Hanabi, second child of the current clan head. This duel would decide who would become the new clan head. The soft weakness of Hinata, or the cold pragmatism of Hanabi.

The courtyard stones were slick with blood — most of it hers.

Suddenly the sounds of the fight stilled.

Hinata knelt where she had fallen, her left arm limp at her side, her lip split and trembling, her vision clouded by the impact of her sister’s final strike. Hanabi hadn’t held back. She wasn’t supposed to. This was no spar. This was a verdict written in bruises and chakra burns.

The Hyuga elders watched in silent judgment from the shaded alcove behind the garden pillars, their pale eyes impassive, robes rustling softly in the cold wind. The duel had been designed to be private — no audience but the elders and the clan head; her father.

Of course that did not mean there weren’t any other observers. Even the all-seeing byakugan was blind when it let its guard down. Minuscule beetles and a intricately placed seals allowed for an outside audience to see the results of this battle. No fanfare, just consequence.

Hanabi stood across the courtyard, chest rising and falling in steady rhythm, eyes still lit with faint Byakugan traces. Not pride. Not regret. Just duty.

Hiashi rose from his place at the center of the dais.

"It is done," he said.

Three words, and her world ended.

Hinata bowed her head, strands of violet hair falling over her face like a curtain. She didn’t cry. She didn’t plead. She had already done both. In private. When it still might have meant something.

Hiashi descended the steps with the grace of a practiced executioner.

"She is no longer fit to bear the responsibilities of heirship," he announced, voice dull and cold, without any emotion. "Effective immediately, Hanabi will be recognized as the Hyuga Clan’s successor."

No gasp. No murmur. Only the rustle of ceremonial scrolls being sealed and re-stamped.

Hiashi turned his cold gaze toward his eldest daughter. “You are no longer part of the succession. You will bring dishonor if you remain. Hanabi will take your place. You are to serve in silence.”

Hinata felt her pulse echo behind her eyes.

"You will prepare for the marking ceremony tomorrow morning," an elder said. His voice was gravel wrapped in tradition. "The seal must be administered before public notice of the transfer is made to prevent any loss of prestige or… question of validity."

It made sense. The Hyuga were as close as royalty to the land of fire one could get outside the Daimyo. The sheer political clout the clan wielded made them a driving force for the entire country, not just the hidden leaf. A change in heir was no small decision and could risk political fallout.

However, that was not what hinata’s mind homed in on.

The seal.

She had known this was coming. Had feared it. Scorned it. Wept hours on end at the prospect of it. But hearing it aloud now made her stomach twist, her very reality fracturing.

"I understand," Hinata said softly as tears streamed down her face.

No one acknowledged her. The elders moved to give their honor bound allegiance to the new heir while Hiashi offered his muted congratulations. All the while a girl broke down on the floor across from them.

Meanwhile across the village, a bandaged covered elder was eager to add another weapon to his arsenal.

------------------------------------------------

Setting: ROOT Hideout, Present

Twenty-four right-angle turns. Twelve downward slopes. Three silent checkpoints where no guards visibly stood but always watched. Each time she passed, she felt the faint brush of a presence—a chakra signature she could never fully trace.

ROOT saw everything.

The final chamber was cold. Not from wind. There was no airflow this far below, but from stone, aged and sunless. The walls were carved from the mountain itself, untouched by decoration. At the center stood a narrow mission pedestal, flanked by two unmarked shinobi in full black attire. Their masks bore no symbols. Their chakra signatures were deliberately suppressed—compressed into near nothingness.

And seated in the only chair in the chamber, one leg crossed over the other, was her savior Danzo Shimura.

He did not move as she entered. He didn’t need to.

Hinata approached and knelt, her hands folded flat across her thighs, forehead bowed low. She waited—not for greeting, but for permission.

Danzo’s eye lingered on her. The silence stretched for almost a minute.

Finally, he spoke.

“Your team has been nominated for the Chunin Exams.”

“Yes, Danzo-sama,” she said softly.

“I’ve reviewed the proctors. Several are competent. Many are not. Too many variables. Too much faith in sentiment. As comforting as ideals may be, emotions alone will not prevent the village from falling.”

He uncrossed his leg and leaned forward just slightly.

“We are past the age of idealists. You understand that.”

She nodded, taking in his voice.

“Yes, Danzo-sama.”

“Then listen closely.”

He gestured with two fingers. One of the masked operatives stepped forward and placed a scroll at her knees. The wax was unbroken. The ribbon was not black this time—but a shade of muted violet.

Observation level. Embedded detail. No kill orders unless provoked.

Danzo gestured toward the maps behind him—One was the floorplan of an academic building, one of the Forest of Death, one of the tournament coliseum at the eastern section of the village.  She saw several photos with names on the map. Gaara. Kabuto. Dosu A few marked unknown.

“These are the anomalies.”

His voice was even, but not flat.

“Suna has decided to send us the favored weapon of their Kazekage. Our records indicate Gaara has demonstrated pre-exam aggression. The fact he has never been recorded being injured is troublesome enough. Meanwhile the sound team has already falsified two identity scans. They must be watched.”

Hinata’s body was still, her eyes focused entirely on Danzo as she took in his information.

“Meanwhile we’ve identified a suspicious individual: Kabuto Yakushi, former medical corps apprentice. He has cycled through four different squads in five years. None of his teammates remember him clearly.”

Hinata felt a chill—not from fear, but from pattern recognition.

“These individuals are converging for a reason,” Danzo continued. “Orochimaru’s name has surfaced three times in the last month. Once near Kusa. Once in a medical village we no longer control. Once in the mutterings of a half-mad traveling merchant elder after our interrogators loosened his tongue. Furthermore, there is reason to believe there may be a threat to the Uchiha scion”

He didn’t elaborate.

“Surveillance is now a matter of strategic defense. The Hokage refuses to act, refuses to see the obvious danger that is brewing. He believes this is a mere tournament. A performance. A time of which the players of his precious alliance may strive together in harmony, avoiding war by throwing our genin at each other.”

Danzo’s tone turned bitter.

“The third is too slow. He places trust in those who haven’t earned it. He clings to the fantasy of peace through patience. Unfortunately, the continent doesn’t work that way. That is why ROOT exists.”

His eye locked on her.

“That is why you exist.”

Hinata’s breath hitched—but not from fear. From need.

“Yes, Danzo-sama,” she said again.

The scroll lay between them like a communion wafer. She could feel the chakra embedded in it—layered seals designed to self-erase if tampered with. ROOT never left records behind.

Danzo remained seated but allowed his voice to lower, not quite softer—just closer.

“Gaara, Kabuto, Dosu. These three must be kept in check. You are not to engage unless discovery is imminent or unless one of the targets compromises Konoha assets. Otherwise, you will observe and report. Your Byakugan gives you reach. Your silence gives you freedom. Your loyalty gives you clarity.”

“Yes.”

“This is a test. Not of strength. Of understanding.”

She nodded.

Danzo rose.

“You were not born useful. But you have made yourself necessary.”

That sentence settled in her chest like fire wrapped in silk.

She bowed again, lower this time, nearly flat to the ground.

He sees me.
He trusts me.
Please don’t stop seeing me.

As she stood and turned to leave, the silence behind her shifted.

Danzo spoke one last time—so low she nearly missed it.

“If something threatens the balance of this village… and Hiruzen fails to act… then we must ensure that balance ourselves.”

He didn’t say kill.

He didn’t have to.

Hinata didn’t answer.

But in her heart, a new thread had been pulled taut—one she would never untangle.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Setting: Chūnin Exam Hall, morning before the first test | Theme: Performance and perception

The exam hall was louder than she expected.

Voices overlapped in waves—some hushed, others barked. Chairs scraped, footsteps echoed, nerves manifested in every cough, fidget, and half-suppressed boast. The room was packed with at least sixty genin, all jammed into poorly spaced rows of desks that ran wall-to-wall with no symmetry. The ceiling lights were too bright. The air smelled of steel ink, sweat, and anticipation.

To most, it must have felt like a battlefield disguised as a classroom.

To Hinata, it felt like a stage.

Her hands trembled faintly as she moved to her assigned desk, fingers fluttering as if from nerves. She made her motions slow, deliberate, allowing the soft sway of her hair to obscure her eyes, letting her body shrink in on itself just enough to invite dismissal.

Meek. Unimportant. Decorative.
Let them look once. Let them forget.
They always forget the flower that bows its head first.

She slid into the chair near the middle of the room—equidistant from every corner. From here, her Byakugan could map the field without turning her head.

Kiba had taken the seat two desks to her left, already grumbling to himself about how boring it looked. Shino was to her right, his chin dipped just slightly, fingers tented in front of him. His posture was calm. Controlled. His insects were already moving beneath his cloak.

Hinata blinked twice and activated her vision—briefly, carefully.

Not enough to draw suspicion. Just enough to map chakra flow.

What she saw made her breath still.

Gaara of the Sand sat with his team in the farthest row from the door, his head slightly lowered, hands resting on the edge of the desk. He didn’t blink. His chakra was still. Not dormant—held. Like a storm in a bottle which could erupt at any moment. It didn’t fluctuate like normal chakra. It vibrated. The girl beside him, Temari, radiated confidence. The puppet master, Kankuro was at ease, a hand constantly on the package he held on his back.

She knew instinctively: those two moved as a unit. If they attacked, it would be as one. But Gaara… Gaara was something else.

Too perfect. Too still. That isn’t discipline. That’s hunger.

Three rows ahead, Kabuto adjusted his glasses. Again.

And again.

Too rhythmic. Too convenient.

He’d already introduced himself to two other teams in under three minutes, using almost the exact same tone: cheerful, harmless, over-eager.

His chakra was strange—muted. Almost like a seal was suppressing their flow. 

A result of medical corps training? 

Hinata knew ROOT had flagged Kabuto as a major unknown. She also knew the ROOT agent assigned to track him on his 6^th chunin exam attempt had gone silent.

The Sound team sat in formation by the third column near the far window. They hadn’t spoken once. The chakra from the middle boy, bladed hair, sallow eyes, scratched at her senses like teeth on porcelain. It felt more like a machine then natural. The girl was still save for the occasional tilt of her head like an owl. The third was wrapped in bandages and was humming in inaudible frequencies. Her vision blurred for a moment just looking at them.

They are dangerous.

And then her eyes moved—

To him.

Sasuke Uchiha.

Danzo had told her the last of the Uchiha may be a target. 

He stood to her left several yards away, slightly diagonal. Like Gaara. But unlike Gaara, his chakra wasn’t still. It was coiled. Moving. Sharpening. The aura around him wasn’t hunger—it was purpose. Precision. Pain, held with surgical grace.

She had never bothered to notice the Uchiha survivor before. Truth be told, she didn’t care much. However, Lord Danzo had interest in this boy, and Danzo’s interest was her own.

For the first time, she focused and studied him.

Truly.

His face was beautiful, there was no doubt about that. Sharply angled, controlled, resting in a permanent expression of watchfulness. Slightly cold. A tinge of arrogance. The way a predator might look before leaping. Or the way someone dying might look before they accept it.

But she felt him.

I’ve seen many chakra signatures. I’ve profiled dozens of anomalies.
But he doesn’t feel like a puzzle. He feels like a line drawn in blood.
Straight. Unforgiving. Final.

She felt unease stir.

He was a figure that demanded her attention.

It may be best to watch-

A voice broke through her thoughts.

"Oi, Hinata! Hey! Did you hear we’re in the same group for the first exam?!"

Her breath caught.

And then warmed.

She turned her head, just slightly enough for her eyes to find him.

Naruto Uzumaki.

His blond hair was messier than usual. His orange jumpsuit was loud, ridiculous. His grin was wide enough to eclipse the sun. He waved with both hands like they were at a festival.

Several heads turned. A few chuckles. A few sneers.

But Hinata?

Her world softened.

For just a moment, she forgot the scroll in her cloak. Forgot the surveillance marks and chakra profiles. Forgot the ROOT hideouts. Forgot even lord Danzo

He smiled at her. Because of her. Without suspicion. Without calculation.

He sees me…
No, not really. But he smiles like he does.
He glows.

She smiled back.

Small. Real.

Then quickly turned away, face red, hands in her lap, trembling.

...

While Hinata turned red as Naruto plastered on his antics, two other figures made their own calculations.

Kabuto let out a small smile as he conversed with Sakura.

Well, well. Seems this Hyuga kunoichi has watchful eyes. Practically no one here has taken the opportunity to size up the competition. I wonder what kind of data she’ll bring.

Across from Kabuto, Sasuke looked up and glanced lightly toward Hinata.

Expression unreadable, but his showed a feint spark of challenge.

Hinata, who was grasping her burning cheeks, lifted her gaze and the two met eyes.

Just for a second.

Then he looked away.

She looked down quickly and closed her eyes.

This was no time to get flustered. She must recollect herself.

But she would remember that moment. Just like she always remembered Naruto’s infectious smile. Just like she always remembered Danzo’s voice.

Another presence would grow a hold in her mind:

A boy whose chakra was coiled and refined.

A boy who didn’t smile but noticed.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Setting: ROOT strategic command, Several Hours Later

Far beneath the Hokage Monument, behind sealed corridors and earth-fused stone, a chamber pulsed with unnatural light. The torches here burned with a chakra-fed flame—cold blue instead of red, casting long shadows like wounds across the walls. Scrolls of classified intelligence lined the periphery, organized by era, rank, and secrecy level. Nothing in this space bore Konoha’s crest.

Because this place did not exist.

And at its center, surrounded by silence and light, stood Danzo Shimura.

He was motionless, one hand clasped behind his back, the other resting on the edge of a massive chakra-sensitive map that took up the length of a large table. Lines etched into the parchment glowed softly—tracking movement, density, fluctuations in the chakra signatures of every genin team as they slowly trickled in to the waiting area for the the second phase of the exam: The Forest of Death.  

To most, the exam was just a gauntlet.

To Danzo, it was a net—and the predators had already entered the web.

Behind him, a lone ROOT analyst stood at attention. Masked, nameless, genderless. A specter in flesh. Danzo's top advisor. 

“Activity spike near Sector D-7,” the analyst said. “Grass team moved in irregular patterns before arriving at the waiting area. Chakra inconsistency in the leader.”

The analyst brought forth a classified scroll and laid it at the table.

Danzo reached out and began to read the scroll, his facial features still save for a single twitch of his brow.

“Match to file 2032. Do not engage. We observe.”

“Yes, Danzo-sama.”

A soft click of sandals. Then silence again.

Danzo finally stepped forward, his old leg dragging slightly. Not from weakness—never weakness. From weight. The weight of countless wars. Countless decisions others were too soft to make.

His fingers hovered over the central region of the map—three pulses moved in delicate choreography.

Team 8.

Kiba. Brash. Loyal. Predictable.
Shino. Methodical. Calculating. Useful.
Hinata…

He let the name settle in his thoughts—not fondly. Not cruelly.

Just precisely.

...

Hinata Hyūga.

He had long sought to acquire a member of the coveted Hyuga clan into his faction. But the Hyuga were strictly aligned with Hiruzen. Even after the Hyuga affair debacle, the powerful clan refused to break step with the third. A frustrating turn of events. Any hope of breaking Hiruzen's political grip withered immediately if the Hyuga held fast to their loyalty to the third. 

However, then came the day he had seen a pitiful Hyuga girl weeping her eyes out in the middle of a training field, her palms bloodied. Indeed, she had been nothing when he took notice of her. A trembling, weak little heiress with no spine, no talent, no future in the rigid traditions of the clan. A relic of a bloodline too proud of its purity and too afraid to use its eyes for anything but traditional combat. 

But Danzo had looked closer.

He had seen beneath the softness. Beneath the tears.

A girl who would endure anything if told it was her fault. A child who craved praise like it was breath.

And so he taught her. Gave her pain, gave her life. 

That pain was proof of purpose.

That love was control in disguise.

That obedience was devotion.

Danzo considered his ability to find and refine weapons a grand gift. Not all weapons need forged or woven into emotionless servitude.

Some weapons like Hinata Hyuga did better when teetering on the edge. Afterall, Obsidian is only useful when its broken shards form jagged edges.

She had bloomed in silence. In blood.

She had become his.

Not because of brute force.

But a more subtle approach. Because he let her believe it was her choice. Either perform and be seen or fail and be forgotten.

She is almost ready, he thought.

His hands glided down toward another black scroll with the symbol of Hyuga Clan, purple symbols on its sheath.

Danzo mused on its contents, or rather its limited contents. There isn’t enough information available to us. The Byakugan mutates slowly unfortunately. But the will can be sharpened faster than the eye.

He remembered her first kill.

Not the strike. But the aftermath.

How she returned with blood on her palms and tears in her throat, guilt overflowing—then smiled when he said, “Well done.”

...

His gaze shifted to the west quadrant.

Uchiha Sasuke.

Another potential blade.

Another lineage poisoned, this time by illogical emotion. A name Hiruzen coddled out of guilt. A bloodline that was dangerous, yet somewhat useful if brought to heel. Every village needed a good attack dog after all. However, the fools dared to plan a ruthless coup against the grandeur of the leaf village. The plan was laughable at best, pure and utter stupidity at worse.

Danzo refocused on Sasuke’s image.

He seeks power. That might make him usable. But he is defiant, and a defiant tool is a useless tool. Perhaps a more subtle touch is needed…
Then there is this matter.  File 2032. The ROOT designation for the Snake Sanin.

His return to the Land of Fire was concerning. Few could match the ferocity and power of that snake. Danzo could take a guess of what the rogue ninja was after. After all, while they weren’t exactly friends they had been allies to a degree in trying to wrest political control from Hiruzen.

The Snake most likely wants Sasuke, especially now that the bloodline is all but destined to be defunct. Maybe... that could work. It would rid us of the Uchiha taint that's longed threatened the village and perhaps nip another threat at its bud. 

Two weapons in play. A Hyuga. A Uchiha.

Both broken in their own way. Both hungry. One for Validation, One for Vengeance

Both beautiful in different ways.

A second pulse flickered on the map.

Gaara.

Danzo’s eye narrowed.

“Send update to Tactical Relay Unit. If the Suna jinchūriki deviates from his squad’s path toward the waiting area again, mark for contingency scenario gamma. I will not let a demon run amok in my village.”

“Yes, Danzo-sama.”

“And Kabuto?”

“Moving between three teams. Reports indicate he is gaining trust. Signature remains suppressed.”

“Hm.”

Danzo turned finally, his arm still behind him.

“The others are playing at exams. We are playing for future.”

He walked toward the scroll table at the back of the room. Dozens of records sat there—sealed, labeled, red-tagged. War plans. Alliance breakdowns. Internal traitor lists. Chakra degeneration studies.

His hand stopped on a scroll marked with a single glyph: 腐 — decay.

He traced it lightly, a small smile on his lips.

Soon.

The analyst behind him hesitated. Then spoke. “Danzo-sama…  If I may burden you?

Danzo answered with a small wave of his hand. 

"Your faith in the Hyuga girl. It’s unusual.”

Danzo didn’t respond immediately.

He stared into the wall, into the torchlight that flickered like fire under ice. It was true. While Danzo took measures to personally train or oversee certain trainings of all ROOT members, he had taken Hinata's training entirely on his own. 

The analyst shifted uncomfortably "While she has become more capable than most would have thought, she is far from absolute."

He glanced toward the Hyuga and Decay scrolls Danzo held. "Why waste so much time on a tool when there is no guarantee this will work?"

Danzo took a moment to respond. 

“You are right. She’s far from perfect. Even now, she is cracking. Threatening to spiral at any moment”

Another pause.

“And that is what makes her malleable. She will break in the direction I choose, and tear anyone in her path.”

The analyst waited.

Danzo looked back at the map.

At the small pulse that was her chakra.

“She still dreams even now. Still harbors factors that inhibit her growth. But soon she will finally purge these undesirables, and once she reaches that point, she will be ready."

The analyst simply bowed his head as he accepted the answer before continuing. 

"Project Black is proceeding ahead of schedule"

That caught Danzo's attention. He turned to meet the gaze of his advisor. 

"Well done. It's always best to have more than one kunai ready to draw."

Notes:

So I probably should have said this earlier but in this story, I'm aging up the characters for the two reasons: to me Part 1 Naruto characters act more like 15-17 years old half the time, definitely not 12... and for what I have in mind (very far down the line) as the story continues, I'd prefer them to be a bit older anyway. So, in this story, the general age of the 9 Rookies is 16. That also gives Hinata four years of fun training under Danzo after she loses her title to Hanabi at around 12ish.

Chapter 4: Death Awaits

Notes:

A new chapter has appeared! Enjoy :)

Chapter 4: Waiting for Death

 

------

Setting: Path to the Forest of Death, noon

After nearly half an hour of walking, the silhouette for the location of the second Exam slowly came into view.

The infamous forest of death. All academy students in the leaf village learned about the off-limits training zone early on in their classes. The forest was meant to simulate behind-the-line operations under intense circumstances. It was also used for Chunin and Jonin squads as an apt location to perform wargames and keep the new generations ready should conflict ever erupt.

The sound of iron groaning with the breeze could be heard up ahead.

Ahead, the grand iron gates which surrounded the forest as well as the many tents and posts outside its perimeter were being slowly drawn open to allow the incoming genin teams access.

They were close to their next task.

The second phase would begin soon.

“Damn it!” Kiba barked abruptly “That tenth question crap ticks me off!!”

Shino adjusted his glass “It served its purpose for removing those incapable of remaining calm”

Kiba let out a exasperated breath. “They were just messing with us! What’s the point of gathering information if you just pass everyone that stayed anyway!”

Hinata walked a pace behind the two continued talking, thinking back on the written exam they had just passed.

-------

Setting: Exam Hall, late-morning

The First phase of the Chunin exam had been a trial of the mind and ego. Hinata understood the trap as the instructions were being given. One’s own intelligence never meant anything as far as the proctors were concerned. It was designed to test the will, endurance and ability of the ninja to gather intelligence.

The silence weighed heavily in the room, increasing the pressure of this assessment tenfold. The proctors weren’t watching for answers but for movement. It was a theater of shame designed to induce emotional collapse.

Failure of the test wasn’t what failed.

It was exposure.

Cheating was expected, even required if one had any hope of answering absurdly difficult questions. Her Byakugan had scanned the room before the first pencil scratched paper. She memorized the positions of every readable exam near her, made note of subtle signs of confidence to determine who knew the answers. With 360-degree x-ray vision, the exam was no challenge.

Hinata watched from her seat as team after team were disqualified, unable to handle the pressure or too inept to not get caught cheating. She even watched as one of the Hidden Waterfall boys to her right broke down sobbing after rather sloppily trying glancing at her own sheet too many times, only for a series of shuriken to turn his exam into a pin cushion.

Regardless, Hinata never lifted her pen more than twice.

She made a small show of glancing nervously at her own paper. Bit her lip when the proctors glanced at her direction. Folded her shoulders inward like a flower wilting under too much light.

Let them see the girl who’s trying, but too weak to cheat. Let them assume she’s harmless.

Meanwhile, she had already gathered the correct answers behind her pupils, her byakugan pulsing silently through micro-movements. The ability to utilize emotions as weapons, to keep ones chakra in focus, to keep some semblance of composure.

Using her byakugan she gazed toward her squadmates at the rear. Kiba grabbing answers left and right from Akamaru who was perched on Kiba’s head like a sentry. Meanwhile Shino sat calm and collected while the occasional insect buzzed around him.

Then of course, there was the figure beside her.

Naruto.

Hinata had been resisting the urge to look at the shining sun beside her to keep her thoughts cool and collected. Her breath caught as she finally gave in and stole a direct glance at him.

He was fidgeting. Shaking. Chewing the edge of his pencil like it owed him money. The strain was painted across his face with no shame, no pretense.

He was faltering.

That much was plain to see. Her precious sun was flickering, grasping a completely blank exam paper.

Something seized her in that moment.

Not pity. Not calculation.

Impulse.

She leaned forward, ever so slightly, and whispered:

“N-Naruto… you can copy… if you want…”

Naruto had looked at her as if she had grown another head for a moment before wrestling with what seemed to be joy, mistrust, and fear. Eventually he appeared to relent and accepted her offer much to her inner delight.

Finally, she could make Naruto see her and be rewarded with that sun-filled smile.

That delight quickly morphed into shock when he suddenly switched gears and decided not to cheat. He claimed he didn’t want to cause her trouble.

Despite her best attempts to maintain calm, she couldn’t resist that smile, brighter than any Sunny day. She had felt her face flush red, and all the semblance of control tossed out the window.

He cares… he doesn’t want me in trouble with the proctors.                 

After muttering a soft agreement, it took Hinata nearly ten minutes to pull her head from the clouds and regain her composure.

By that time, the final minutes of the written exam had come and went, a palpable shift thickened the air. It came with the stillness of a predator in the room.

Ibiki stepped forward, scarred face unreadable, clipboard tucked under one arm. His next words cut like wire.

“Now. The final question.”

All pens stopped. Breath held.

“But be warned—once you hear this question, you must answer. If you choose not to, you and your team may leave unharmed. No penalty. No shame. Walk away, and try again next year.”

The silence twisted.

“But… if you choose to answer and fail… you will never become a Chūnin. You will be barred from taking this exam again.”

A collective gasp. Whispers surged like a wave of dread. Fear began to bloom. Hinata saw even Shino’s hands paused.

Hinata sat still.

Perfectly still.

But her breath shortened.

This… wasn’t part of the script.

Her thoughts whirled at the implications for a moment. The thought of not becoming chunin meant little to her. Hinata could stay an academy student for all she cared. All she wanted was his approval, and to continue to have that she needed to pass this exam!

Hinata forced herself to calm. She wasn’t done yet. She will pass the question.

She glanced, carefully, toward Naruto, who looked as if the floor had vanished beneath him.

The panic in him was contagious. People began to stand. One by one, teams surrendered. Fear, guilt, indecision.

In just a few short minutes, nearly half the room had surrendered and left the exam hall.

Then—

He stood.

Naruto Uzumaki.

And he shouted:

“I’m not gonna quit! I don’t care what happens—if I can’t become a Chunin this way, I’ll just become Hokage another way!”

His voice rang out like a hero’s trumpet. Bold. Raw. Powerful

But something about it was…

Pure.

That spark. That same glow that had drawn her years ago in the academy, that warmth she’d buried beneath her missions and masks.

It flared.

And for a moment she wondered what it would be like to stand beside that blazing sun. That thought quickly wilted when the voice of Danzo reverberated through her mind, and Hinata simply let out a small smile.  

Ibiki had merely smirked at the outburst, before dragging his gaze across the room.

“Good. Then the test… is over. You all Pass.”

Gasps again. Confusion. Hope.

“The true point of this test, as many of you are aware, wasn’t about knowledge, it was courage, will and ability. The will to face risk, to gather information, commit despite consequence.”

Ibiki let out a bright smile, somewhat uncharacteristic for his scarred face.

“So, rejoice. the remaining teams have passed the first section of the Chunin exam!”

…

As the teams began preparing to head towards the location of the exams second phase, Hinata had found herself replaying her attempt to allow Naruto to cheat again and again, the familiar bitter bile of self-loathing rising within her.

I should’ve known better. That was impulse. That was weakness.

She had nearly failed the mission, not in the skills but in spirit.

All it would’ve taken was a proctor noticing the whisper, the shifting of paper, one wrong glance… and ROOT’s surveillance would’ve collapsed.

She could’ve compromised Danzo-sama’s entire plan.

Her breath hitched. Nails dug into her palm until she felt skin split. Good, she relished the pain. It was miniscule to what she deserved for her stupidity.

Stupid. Useless. I would’ve failed him from that ridiculous impulse-

She caught the thought, crushed it. That was the problem. The lack of control. Danzo had taught her better.

Failure is a decision. Pain is training. Emotion is a tool.

The head exam proctor Ibiki was certainly a master of placing pressure on people, but this show was laughable compared to being trained in the dark chambers beneath Konoha.

Danzo’s lessons ran too deep to forget.

She remembered that particular lesson, meant to teach instill in a weakling like herself a fragment of the will her savior had.

-------

Setting: ROOT Training Halls, Three years ago

Everything in the room was black stone. From the high cavernous ceiling to the chiseled floor and perimeter walls.

They were far below the surface, within the forgotten caverns far below the deepest foundations of the village. There was no better training area for ROOT.

That also meant it was cold. Very cold.

This was made worse by a constant flow of icy mist from multiple small vents.

Her precious savior sat across from her, hands folded. The icy conditions not even provoking a shiver. No, Lord Danzo looked as pristine as ever. The mist didn’t even seem to accumulate on him.

Hinata though was very much aware of the cold. She stood in the center of the room in nothing but her undershorts and upper binding cloths.

Though standing was not the right description. Rather she balanced on a swirling pool of water while keeping her byakugan activated to its max visual distance, meant to keep her constantly focusing on channeling her chakra to her feet and eyes.

A candle burned on the desk between them. Small. Flickering. Its light cast shadows that trembled like old secrets.

“You will not leave this room,” Danzo had said, “until you extinguish this flame. But you may not move, may not speak. You may not close your eyes for longer than a second. You will find another way. All the while failure to maintain your byakugan or stay on the water’s surface will result in failure.”

Those dreaded words. Failure She swallowed thickly as the task daunted on her.

Danzo spoke one last line “You won’t fail of course, Afterall a true ROOT weapon wouldn’t dare fail such a simple task”

And with that, Hinata began her task. A storm of desperation in her mind.

The tense assignment lasted thirteen hours.

After the first hour, her body was shivering violently, her hair soaked as it clung to her pale body.

By the third, her legs trembled and ached, eager to stretch and relieve the constant strain of water walking.

By the sixth, her vision blurred from the constant strain.

By eighth, she began to weep; silently, convulsively whimpering as she found no way to end the assignment.

Still, she stared at the candle. Danzo said nothing, he remained seated with a calm and emotionless poise.

None of this highlighted the storm in her mind, as she ripped at her weakness to find a solution. Her savior expected something from her, believed she would do it. And here she was, failing, unable to do anything but cry. Weak, pathetic, useless, WORTHLESS,

By the tenth, she gave up on formulating or pondering a solution. The only word that repeated nonstop: FAILURE

She had lost all feelings in her fingers. Her body was beginning to shake uncontrollably. Her vision throbbed at the edges, while the chakra flow to her feet was becoming increasingly hard to maintain as she threatened to slip under the swirling water.

If I pass out, I fail. If I fail, I am discarded!

She looked at Danzo again.

And something… clicked. Not from the pain but desperation

He wasn’t shivering.

Despite the frozen mist clinging to everything, despite still in open sandals and a loose robe he hadn’t even blinked from the cold.

Her Byakugan flared towards him.

And she saw it.

Chakra.

Flowing not outward—but within. Controlled. Precision currents cycling just beneath the skin, radiating heat, protecting vital points. The mist seemed to veer around him—repelled, not ignored.

He was using two techniques at once.

One to regulate his internal body temperature, the other to push away the mist subtly.

He’s not just immune to the cold. He’s cheating nature.

She trembled harder now—not from the cold, but realization.

Then I can too.

She focused inward. It took several tries. Her coils responded sluggishly, but she forced them into motion—first a flicker, then a slow spiral. Down the spine. Across the ribs. Into the limbs.

She imagined herself wrapped in fire. Not burning—circulating.

Control.

It took nearly an hour to stabilize. She stopped shivering. Her breath no longer fogged the air.

For the moment she wasn’t dying. But time remained the issue. Already low, Hinata was now burning chakra significantly faster staying warm and repelling the mist.

But she wasn't done.

She pushed further.

The chakra is dense together keeping me warm, almost like a tense cable. If Ican push it outward—just a little, overload the flow—then…

She expanded the flow beyond the surface of her skin, pumping chakra to her collarbone.

There—a flare.

The air shimmered.

The candle flickered violently as an invisible wave of chakra burst out of her… then extinguished.

Silence.

Hinata’s knees gave out, but before she sunk into the water her saviors' arms suddenly hoisted her by the waist and carried her from the pool to solid rock.

Danzo didn’t smile.

But he nodded as his fingers grazed her hair lightly.

“You are learning,” he said. “Emotion is a tool. Suffering is a whetstone. Loyalty… is silence.”

She didn’t

She didn’t cry.

But somewhere inside, a fragile part of her shivered in utter reverence.

He’s watching me. I’m useful.

…

There were many more days when she nearly broke down, but she would continue to push on. She owed everything to her savior, who continued to train her despite her shortcomings. Everything he did, after all, was for her own good.

Hinata slowly pulled herself out of her reverie as they passed gates and into the assembled clearing for the second phase of the exam.

---------

Setting: Edge of the Forest of Death, Afternoon

The inner gates to enter infamous Forest of Death stood strong. Ironwood struts, reinforced with chakra seals, towered over the assembled genin. Beyond them, the canopy was dense and sunless.

The waiting area was quiet.

Too quiet for the number of people here.

For most, this was the calm before a storm.

She stood beside Kiba and Shino in the designated zone waiting for further instruction all the while watching the proctors move from station to station with clipboards and scrolls. The series of tents in the distance buzzed with quiet energy. Some genin shifted from foot to foot. Others cracked jokes to hide their nerves. A few had already withdrawn as nerves got the better of them.

Her teammates were composed enough.

Kiba grinned like a hyper dog ready to be let off leash, his knuckles cracking every few seconds. Akamaru growled in agreement, tail wagging fast. Shino stood perfectly still, only the faint twitch of his collar betraying the swarm beneath, eager to be unleashed.

And herself?

Hinata stood calm. Passive. Demure.

Kiba suddenly spat into the dirt. “They’re taking their sweet time.”

“Likely stalling to allow late teams to arrive and make their final decisions to commit or not” Shino said without looking up. “It’s also a psychological tactic. Fatigue dulls judgment. Nerves induce mistakes.”

Kiba rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. You read too much.”

Hinata remained quiet.

But inside, her thoughts moved faster than they ever showed.

Delay is a form of control.
Danzo taught me that. If you force your opponent to wait, they break on their own.
Only those with purpose survive tension.

She looked up at the arching gate as movement caught her eye.

The bustling movement of the proctors for the exam brought the gathered genin to attention.

A figure stepped forward from the shaded outpost.

Anko Mitarashi. The second exams head proctor that had arrived in a whimsical fashion at the end of the written exam.

Dark hair pulled into a tight bun, fishnet sleeves, wild grin. She carried herself like a woman who had already imagined your funeral and hoped it would be amusing.

“Alright, brats,” she called, stretching a bit too dramatically. “Hope you brought your wills. You’ll be writing them in your own blood.”

Kiba muttered, “What the hell—?”

“Silence,” Shino said flatly.

Anko’s wicked smile widened as she took in the remaining teams.

“I hope everyone has had ample time to consider their next actions. For those committed, you’re about to enter the Forest of Death. The rules are simple. Survive. You will have five days to make it to the center of the forest where a tower awaits you. To gain entry, you must possess a heavens scroll, and an earth scroll.”

The head proctor held up two different colored scrolls for all to see.

“Each team will receive one of the two shortly, you’ll need to duke it out with your fellow teams to get the other. Do be sure not cry when your spleen ends up three trees away.”

She paused, scanning the crowd with a manic grin.

Anko’s voice rose again.

“Gates open in thirty minutes. For those continuing, your team must fill out the necessary waivers, blah blah blah, your clan or wealthy parent can’t go throwing a hissy fit if you end up headless, just the usual stuff”

Small murmurs began to seep across the crowd from Anko’s blunt words.

“After all waivers for the team are submitted, they will receive their respective scroll. When the team is ready, they can head to your assigned opening and wait for the fun to begin. Once you’re in, you’re in. No early exits. No do-overs.”

Anko let out a chuckle as she began turning back towards the post.

“And remember, if you die… well, that’s between you and the forest! Try not to die though, means more paperwork for me trying to find all your pieces!”

The wind shifted as Anko’s voice faded, her silhouette shrinking into the trees with the same energy she’d entered, wild, unapologetic, and vaguely unhinged. Then, like a current breaking against stone, the teams began to disperse in cautious waves, teams murmuring, adjusting gear, stepping toward the tents to submit their wavers and gather their assigned scrolls.

Hinata’s eyes scanned the crowd, quiet and demure as she kept her gaze on her targets.

She had already memorized the key positions.

Kabuto’s team: to the left of the platform, near the rear. Feigning ease but heart rates erratic. Kabuto is too calm. Pretending to pretend.
Gaara: north-east quadrant. Still as ice. His chakra… like a frozen storm. No flow. Just pressure.
Dosu’s group: center-right. Bladed chakra signatures. May be artificially enhanced. likely through external amplifiers.

Danzo’s orders had been clear: identify anomalies. Record behavior. Observe reactions during duress.

She moved when Kiba began grumbling about the noisy line to the waiver tent getting long. They joined the other teams one by one—Shino silent, Kiba impatient, Akamaru alert and twitching beneath his coat.

Hinata remained in character.

Shoulders low. Voice soft. Eyes wide.

Just a girl trying not to trip.

After several minutes of waiting and watching the collective mood of the gathered genin become more tense, team 8 arrived at the tent to receive their waivers.

As the team began filling out the necessary information, Hinata found her attention being pulled elsewhere. She could feel it. That stare of utter contempt. She had been noticing it for a few minutes now.

Across the room, beyond the blur of teams and proctors, Neji Hyūga stood alone, one arm crossed, the other resting lightly on his side.

He was watching her.

No, staring.

Like a blade pointed in silence.

He hadn’t spoken to her in years. Not since the sealing. Not since the clan elders pronounced her a failure and installed the mark of the Caged Bird on her brow. They had taken her title, her birthright, her family, her home, her worth. Left her with only a lie and a scar.

And yet he watched her now as if she still carried something that mattered.

"You cost him his life."

The words weren’t said aloud, but she heard him say it just the same.

She lowered her gaze as any good mask would. Shy. Small. Humble.

Inside, she boiled.

They called me a disgrace.
They tormented me, ripped me apart. .
Because I was born inconvenient. Born wrong.

Unwanted memories returned to her mind like rot surfacing under still water.

…

“You will be removed from all future clan affairs.”

“You may remain under the protection of the Hyūga in name only.”

“You will refrain from being seen in any public events or commune with political factions”

“Your failure ends here. Accept the mark.”

That cold floor. The hands forcing her still. The pain. The screams. The smell of burning flesh.

And afterward, nothing.

No visitors. No comfort.

Just silence

Just the tiny room at the very edge of the Hyuga estate they assigned her. The meager meals pushed through a slot in the door.

Made it easy to forget she existed.

And forget they did. She had become a living ghost, where the main branch didn’t even acknowledge her whilst the branch members simply stared with that accursed pity in their eyes. But no one talked. No one spoke.

That was when she began to fear it. To fear silence. It was in those days when she sobbed just to fill the void, when she tore her skin to feel anything but the drowning wave of silence. More then once, the thought of ending everything bloomed in her mind.

Until he came.

Until Danzo.

Her Savior

He hadn’t offered her a home.

No, he had offered her use.

And she had clung to it.

“You are no longer a daughter, an heir, a child, a civilian. You are a blade, and I take care of my weapons.”

She had believed him.

She still did.

Her eyes rose again—and met Neji’s.

His face was stone. His posture perfect.

But in his gaze, there was no grief, no anger

Just disdain.

He doesn’t know.
None of them do. But one day they will.

Hinata knew how much her clan frustrated her savior, how their actions caused trouble for his goals.

When the time comes, they will kneel before Danzo-sama’s words. One way or another.

Her mask smiled—soft and empty.

She turned away.

As Team 8 moved to submit their paperwork, Hinata made sure she was the one to deliver the forms.

One of the many proctors behind the series of desks wore a hood low over his face. Civilian appearance—loose sleeves, a bored expression.

But as she handed over the packet, his fingers tapped once, then twice, in coded rhythm.

ROOT cadence.

She extended her palm flat to receive her teams scroll.

The man handed her a small box with the scroll, as well as a folded sheet of parchment beneath said box—black-edged, sealed, thin as skin.

She palmed it in a single motion and bowed politely.

“Th-thank you,”

He said nothing.

By the time Hinata stepped out of the tent, the parchment seals were already secured beneath the inner lining of her tool pouch, laced in chakra-resistance silk.

Two uses only.
No room for error.

She would report on Kabuto’s subtle subversion, on Dosu’s chakra instability, and Gaara’s terrifying stillness.

But not yet.

Timing was everything.

She had just gone a few steps when a voice stopped her.

“Such beautiful eyes.”

The voice was soft.

Almost feminine.

But beneath it, something oily. Off. Wrong

Hinata turned.

A Grass ninja stood alone just outside the tent.

Slender. Pale. Long, inky hair that fell like silk over sharp collarbones. Their features were androgynous—almost too symmetrical. Lips curved in a soft, amused smile that never reached her eyes.

But their chakra…

Hinata’s skin prickled. She didn’t need her byakugan to know that this genin held dangerous chakra levels.

Wrong.
Too clean. Too strong. It bends the air around it.

The stranger’s eyes flicked lazily across her face, lingering on her forehead, the soft marking of the seal behind her bangs, on the veins beneath her skin. “Such exquisite eyes,” the stranger said, tilting their head ever so slightly. “Like polished frost. A shame to waste them here.”

Hinata blushed automatically. Looked down.

“T-thank you…”

A giggle. Soft. Measured.

The Grass ninja stepped a little closer, a unnaturally long tongue oozing out from their mouth

“The forest,” she said, as if casually observing weather, “is no place for something so delicate.

Hinata flinched inward, but smiled—meek, apologetic. “I’ll be fine.”

She turned to walk away. She needed to get some space from this ninja.

But before she could step, the voice coiled behind her again—lower this time. Calm. Clinical.

“Funny, though. How well a delicate flower hides its viscous thorns.”

Hinata stopped, frozen in shock.

The words struck like a pressure point, too precise.

Her stomach turned.

She looked back.

But the Grass kunoichi was already gone, walking away toward a pair of waiting teammates—one with a jagged hunched posture, the other tall and masked.

They didn’t look back.

Hinata remained standing there, still as a shadow.

She knew.
No—she sensed.
That wasn’t… normal.

A beat passed.

Then another.

Only once her breath steadied again did Hinata rejoin her team—smile back in place, shivering heartbeat buried deep. As Kiba yammered on about ripping other teams to shreds.

Observe. Do not react. ROOT does not flinch.
Even when the enemy smells your blood

…

Thirty minutes later, the last clang of the opened gates echoed like a war drum.

Team 8 stepped forward.

Hinata inhaled once—shallow, steady.

And crossed the threshold into the dark.

Notes:

Any feedback is greatly appreciated!!

Chapter 5: Into the Forest

Notes:

New Chapter! :)

Chapter 5: Into the Forest

-----------

Setting: Outer borders of the forest of Death, Two Hours In

The forest didn’t feel natural. Anyone with any semblance of awareness could see understand what Hinata meant.

The air was humid and thick. Birds called all around, but not rhythmically. The flutter of many sizes of wings echoed all around them, and many a time one could feel the constant gaze of creatures amid the leaves. Too quiet in some pockets, utterly deafening in others.

The trees themselves grew in unnatural angles. Their massive trunks rose dozens to even hundreds of meters high. Some trunks pulsed faintly with chakra signatures too old to trace. The canopy choked most of the light, leaving the ground below in perpetual night.

It was immediately clear that to sleep on the ground without protection would mean death, either from other teams or the denizens of the forest.

Death truly was a constant specter in this forest. But that did not slow team 8 down.

While by no means a heavy hitting squad compared to other genin teams, their ability to track and hunt down their mission was second to none among the rookie nine.

And within the first hour mark, they found their prey.

A team of three Amegakure genin was moving north-northeast; careless, overconfident.

Perfect.

Hinata’s Byakugan tracked them from above, eyes cutting through branch and bark with clean precision. One had a broadsword too heavy for his frame. One carried paper-bomb holsters improperly rigged. The third trailed behind, a light cough.

Kiba crouched beside her, nostrils flaring as he inhaled the scents riding the stagnant air. “I count three, and a whole lot of sweat. They’re loud. Sloppy too.”

“Agreed,” Shino murmured from above. He stood motionless on a thick branch overhead, his insects moving silently beneath his coat, sensing with precision. He adjusted his dark glasses before continuing:

“Let us proceed on plan C. Silent engagement. Minimal chakra use.”

Hinata nodded, allowing her hands to tremble lightly.

A feral grin graced Kiba’s face “Oh hell yeah!”

He turned to Hinata, resting a hand lightly on her shoulder. “Don’t worry Hinata, these guys won’t know what them. It’ll be over in a flash”

“Y-yes, of c-course” Hinata muttered out

Maintain deception. Never reveal unless absolutely necessary

The three readied and moved out to get their needed scroll.

…

It was over before the Amegakure team even realized they’d been found.

They thought they had stumbled upon an unsuspecting team 8 standing in a clearing. Never did it cross their mind that it was a trap.

It was a simple rule. If something looks too good to be true, its always a trap. A Ninja must see through deception.

The leader of the Amegakure team didn’t sense the leaches pouring silently down the tree trunks around him, slipping into the folds of his cloak.

By the time his teammates noticed the massive leach on their leaders back, the trap was set.

Hundreds of leeches descended from the canopy. Shino’s kikaichū buzzed with perfect synchronicity, herding the parasites toward open skin, bleeding the genin till they dropped.

In just a few seconds, the skirmish finished in a total victory.

The team allowed a minute for Shino’s insects to herd the remaining leeches away prior to claiming their price. Kiba rummaged through the bodies of the genin before proudly holding up a scroll.

“Oh yeah!” Kiba roared. “We got ourselves a Heaven Scroll!”

While Hinata let out a small smile.

The scroll set is secured. No injuries. Minimal movement. Danzo-sama would approve.

Shino who had been keeping an eye on their surroundings, turned toward them. “It’ll be best if we move on from here lest we attract the attention of the other teams in the area”

---------

Setting: Forest of Death, elevated canopy, Midday

Team 8 had been moving through the dense branches for just over an hour before taking a brief respite. The forest was beginning to thin slightly as they approached a series of small rivers. Sunlight filtered through in gold-threaded slivers now, brushing against damp branches and moss-streaked bark. Birdcalls echoed overhead—louder, more erratic than before. Somewhere to the east, a distant rumble of chakra reverberated like a heartbeat through the roots. Someone was fighting. Someone was losing.

Kiba’s eyes gleamed with restless excitement.

“We’ve got the scrolls, yeah,” he said, pacing back and forth on a thick branch, “but why stop now? We take out a few more teams, we improve our odds. Think about it! Fewer enemies, cleaner path to the tower and less trouble we must deal with in the third phase of this exam.”

Shino adjusted his glasses behind his collar.

“Statistically speaking, movement increases detection risk. Our current scroll condition meets requirements for advancement. Pursuit of further engagements is strategically—”

“Boring,” Kiba cut in.

Hinata kept her expression quiet, fingers folded in front of her as she stood at the edge of the platform, appearing to listen without interfering.

But beneath her passive posture, her mind worked like wire.

Gaara’s chakra is a storm. Kabuto’s movements are too fluid for a mere genin. Dosu’s pulse reads like a misfiring weapon.
Danzo-sama wants information. Not caution.

Her mission didn’t end with the scroll.

This phase was the perfect smoke cover. All the chaos of the exam… and ROOT would be watching.

But I can’t lead. I have to make it look like it was Kiba’s idea.

She gave a small, carefully-timed glance toward Kiba—downward tilt of her shoulders, a breath of hesitation. Then softly, just loud enough for them to hear:

“M-maybe… if we find weaker teams on the way to the tower? It w-would be safer than waiting to be ambushed looking for teams here.”

Kiba turned to her with a feral frin. “Now you’re thinking like a wolf.”

Shino stared at her for a moment too long. Not suspicion—calculation.

Then: “Very well. But we proceed with caution. I’ll deploy forward scouts.”

Hinata nodded gently. Her heart did not race. Her mind, however, sharpened.

They began moving again in a tight formation, tree to tree, silent except for the rustle of leaves underfoot and the distant calls of disturbed wildlife. Hinata suppressed her chakra, keeping her Byakugan active, constantly pulsing her vision in search of her mission.

Three teams were clashing to the west of them

A lone team was moving quickly to the east.

Two teams appeared to be facing off just north of them.

One of the individuals held a chakra network that looked like a bomb ready to go off.

Gaara…

She tensed. They would need to reroute around that region if she wanted to gather any information.

“Turning west,” Shino muttered. “Two sets of trails northward. One fresh, one erratic.”

Kiba nodded. “Let’s hunt.”

They pushed faster now—vaulting over broken branches, ducking under gnarled moss-arcs, weaving between old training traps. Akamaru’s ears twitched, sniffing, tail taut and alert.

And then—

The bark beneath Kiba’s feet snapped as Akamaru let out a yelp—not pain.

Terror.

Kiba halted mid-jump.

Akamaru spun in a circle, backpedaling on all fours, his whines pitching into something wild as he leapt into Kiba’s confused arms.

“Akamary? What is it boy?”

Akamaru whimpered in reply, trying to burrow himself into Kiba’s jacket.

Kiba stared in concern “Somethings up. You know how Akamaru can smell the strength of an individual…” Akamaru let out a series of pitiful whimpers

“He says he caught whiff of someone to our east… He says whatever it is, its easily far stronger than Kurenai Sensei”

Shino tensed at that “Is he sure? That shouldn’t be possible for a genin, and this forest doesn’t have the necessary conditions to hold a creature of that power”

Kiba grimaced as he comforted Akamure, “Afraid so. Akamaru doesn’t make mistakes on this, none of the Inuzuka pack do.”

While her teammates focused on the trembling dog, Hinata turned her attention toward the direction of this threat.

If there was a fourth anomaly in the village, it was imperative to get sight of it and report to Lord Danzo.

As she focused forward, Hinata froze.

Something ahead. Something dark.

Not like the storm she sensed Gaara—worse.

Its chakra didn’t surge like most shinobi.

It dripped like oil.

A thick sphere of raw, wicked power.

Hinata felt a tinge of fear as she saw the chakra emanating far forward. Akamaru was right. Whatever this thing is its powerful… this feel like that grass-nin-

Suddenly she felt her skin prickle as she caught sight of something moving at the perimeter of her vision.

“Move!” She gasped

But it was too late.

The sound of metal slicing air.

A dozen kunai burst upward from the canopy above—each tagged with inked seals glowing red.

“DISPERSE!!” Shino shouted, already hurling a handful of insects to intercept.

Kiba and Hinata leapt—each in opposite directions—just as the branch behind them exploded in a bloom of smoke and fire, showering scorched leaves into the air.

The shockwave knocked her off trajectory. She hit a side branch hard, rolled, and landed on a lower perch with a thud, branches whipping past her.

Then—

A voice.

Mocking. Male-sounding, raspy with distortion.

“Well, well… look what I found. A trio of skulking rats.”

From above, a figure descended slowly, stepping onto a curved bough with theatrical flair.

Their flak vest was scratched and worn. A Grass headband sat tied around a clean-shaven head. A wooden mask covered most of the face save for his mouth.

“You rats must be having a bad day. I can’t let you move any further. Orders are orders.”

He tilted his head, arms spreading.

“How about I get my third scroll from your corpses? That ought to be fun!”

Team 8 tensed. Shino’s insects began to buzz angrily around him, Kiba and Akamru growled in challenge.

Hinata prepared herself, byakugan ready. This isn’t ideal, we must get remove this obstacle without arousing suspicion. 

The grass ninja moved a hand to their pouch

“Time to die worms!”

A beat passed.

Shino moved first.

Insects surged.

The masked ninja didn’t even flinch. With practiced cool efficiency he pulled out a silver metal flute.

A single note spilled from it.

Not high. Not loud. Yet sharp. 

It cut through the air like a needle through flesh.

The cloud of insects scattered in an instant—screaming in frequencies no human ears could detect. Some dropped dead. Others twisted violently in midair and fled into the trees, confused and blind.

Shino faltered.

“What—?”

The masked ninja hurled three kunai in rapid succession; each marked with tags.

Hinata's eyes went wide.

“Shino!”

The first kunai embedded in the trunk behind him. The second detonated midair, scattering wooden shrapnel like razors. The third embedded itself just inches from his foot, before erupting in a flash of heat.

Shino was flung backward, crashing into a lower branch and rolling limp.

He didn’t rise.

“Bastard! You’ll pay for that”! Kiba roared.

No, we must be cautious!

Hinata’s voice rang out “Kiba wait!”

But it was no use, Kiba and Akamaru charged on all fours at the grass ninja. Just as they were about to throw themselves at the enemy, the flute sang again, another note, lower this time, vibrating with pressure.

Akamaru howled in pain.

The pup collapsed, clawing at his ears, yelping uncontrollably. Kiba caught him mid-fall, clutching him to his chest. “Akamaru!”

A third note.

Kiba’s knees buckled. His mouth opened in a scream, but no sound came out.

His body locked.

Then twitched.

Then fell into the shrubbery below. 

Hinata’s eyes kept track of him, of hos rippling chakra; distorted. Genjutsu.

Hinata’s nails dug into her palms as she faced the masked grass nin alone, the flute already moving. This ninja… he’s crushing us!

Another note came and with it, a wave of illusions. Visions of speared chains and hooked daggers tearing at her body, pinning her to the ground. 

But just as quickly as the illusions came, they faded away like morning mist on a hot day.

She breathed out once. Quiet. Steady. A whisper of chakra flowed through her fingertips.

Danzo-sama…

The masked ninja tilted his head.

“My, my… You’re still standing?”

Hinata said nothing as she closed her eyes to focus.

“Well, he did say you may be a fun little flower. Those fancy eyes of yours are useful. The Hyuga bloodline lets you see through my Genjutsu, makes it harder to catch you in one.”

Hinata’s chakra answered as it began to flare. Kiba was trapped in a Genjutsu, and Shino was knocked unconscious all in the span of a minute. But that also meant no one else was around to see.

If I hold back here, the mission might become impossible to complete…

Fear pumped into her system then. Not for her life, not even for defeated teammates.

No.

She felt fear of her savior turning away from her should she fail. The fear of being abandoned… again. 

The ninja stepped forward, one foot on a higher branch, flute still resting in his right grip like a blade.

“Those eyes of yours are going to be a problem,” he mused. “It’s a shame I can’t introduce you to my Doki, I’ll just do this the only fashion way!”

Three senbon suddenly appeared in his left hand.

Hinata gripped her fingers to keep the tremble under control. But her skin felt cold.

The grass ninja let out a snicker “Well then, Let’s see how sharp that little mask really is!”

He moved.

So did she.

Their clash was a blur—palm against senbon, steel arcing through the air like glints of malice.

Spiral motions carved into the canopy as the masked ninja unleashed a flurry of blades, the weapons cutting through branches and bark with reckless grace. Hinata danced between them, deflecting each projectile with minimal chakra bursts and sharp flicks of her wrists, her Byakugan mapping their trajectories in glowing veins of motion.

Leaves scattered in her wake.

Each senbon clattered off her palm or was swatted aside with surgical precision.

And yet—the music didn’t stop.

That flute whined again—soft and slicing. The notes bent unnaturally in the air, vibrating against her skull. Hinata moved to swat incoming senbon toward her left, only for her palm to touch nothing but air. Her shock lasted hardly half a second before a piercing pain struck her side as two senbon dug deep into her abdomen.

Pulse out chakra… disrupt the illusions… see what’s real.

She did so, again and again. Each wave of chakra pushed away the veils that threatened to drown her. But it was costing her. Her energy began to dip. Her vision flickered. Her footing grew slower.

Hinata unleashed a flurry of hand seals before forming a cone with her hand and bringing to her mouth: Fire style: Ember Shot. A flurry of red hot embers flew towards the grass nin who answered with his own jutsu, as an orb of concentrated sound punched through the incoming embers, nearly taking Hinata out had she not leapt away.

Range won’t do; I need to close the distance!

She focused her chakra into her soles—Hyuga style: chakra propulsion—and launched forward like a silver arrow through the trees.

The Grass ninja gaped in shock but recovered instantly, pivoting in place just as Hinata’s palm streaked forward. Her fingers honed in on his core—aiming to shut down chakra points across the ribcage.

He twisted at the last moment, weaving in tangent with her movement.

Their momentum tore through the branch they’d fought atop, shattering it beneath them. Both rebounded off nearby limbs.

There!

Hinata lunged again.

He weaved beneath her spinning kick—only to find her second palm snapping toward his rib.

He spun, ducked, and dropped low.

Then kicked.

She just managed to duck—his heel missing her nose by inches.

Another pulse of sound radiated outward from the flute. Stronger. This one bent the very air between them. Shapes shimmered. Colors ran.

Break it! Break it!

She surged her chakra again, snapping herself free. Reality crashed back into place just in time for her to jump back—shuriken whistling down from above like falling stars.

She landed on a branch five meters back, feet scraping for balance, chest rising and falling fast.

Her fingers flexed.

His style is viscous. Improvised.
Not refined.
But dangerous.
He’s used to controlling the fight from range—picking targets apart with tools and illusions.
A precision predator.
Not a brawler.

That flute. It was a genjutsu conduit.

And every time she let her rhythm slip, it bled into her, distorting senses, weakening reaction time, chipping at the edge of her perception.

Still… he’s not perfect.
He reacts. I analyze.
One blow. That’s all I need.

She steadied her breathing, tensed her stance, prepared to rush him again—

And then it hit.

Her stomach turned violently. Vision warped like rippling water. Vertigo slammed into her. She stumbled, caught herself on her palm.

What—?

A nauseating pressure crushed the inside of her skull.

Her Byakugan pulsed. Even its clarity was failing.

A laugh drifted down from above.

Soft. Cruel.

“Looks like it didn’t long for the flower to wilt… So much for viscous thorns”

Hinata’s jaw clenched.

The sound… not just illusion…
It’s infused with chakra.
Targeted dissonance.
It’s breaking my equilibrium.
I… should’ve known. Stupid. STUPID.

Her hands trembled with ardent frustration.

If I fail—if I fall now—Danzo-sama…

She didn’t finish the thought.

A second later, the sound swelled again, forcing her on the backfoot.

The masked man crouched on a branch across from her.

“Honestly Hyuga.” he said, voice slurring with delight behind the mask. “I’ve seen butterflies hit harder.”

She ground her teeth as he let out a sneer.

"I thought tea-set dolls weren’t supposed to play ninja. Whoever took the time to train you must be just as pathetic as you.”

Her eyes widened, breath caught in her throat.

Danzo…sama…

The tremble stopped.

Her fingers stopped shaking.

Then curled into a fist.

She surged forward with a snarl—not the shy girl’s whimper, but something deeper. Her chakra flared like blue wildfire across her arms, shimmering with force. Her eyes glowed faintly as chakra poured toward her eyes to allow Hinata to keep a loose equilibrium.

NO ONE INSULTS MY SAVIOR!!!

The heat behind her ribs ignited—rage, cold and clear. It rushed up from her stomach like a poison finally uncorked.

Her next strike wasn’t precision.

It was wrath.

The flute barely lifted before she was on him.

Palm met metal—struck the flute from his hand with a violent crack. The masked ninja spun away, pulling a kunai from his belt, slashing defensively.

Too late.

Hinata pressed in.

She was faster now. Not cleaner. Not smarter. Just angrier.

Fury was a lens. It sharpened the edges of her sight, even through the sheer dizziness. She struck high, low, fainted a sweep, as she kept pushing, preventing her enemy from gaining distance, looking for an opening.

The Grass-nin jolted, aiming a kunai at her chest as she dodged a kick. Suddenly Hinata twisted her hips, narrowly weaving around the kunai and charged a palm toward his chest.

The ninja reacted quickly and twisted backward. She missed her mark snd instead slammed her palm into his right shoulder. Just as Hinata made contact, she noticed a buzz around the ninja, almost like static.

He backed off quickly, flipping backwards toward another branch.

“You Bitch!!” the masked ninja growler, clutching his now useless arm. The strange static around him dissipated. Whatever the buzz was, she could tell her enemy was rattled.

It wasn’t the heavy blow she sought, but it was decisive nevertheles. He had taken a full palm strike to his right shoulder, completely scrambling his local chakra network and as well as area’s muscles.

Hinata’s porcelain face was twisted in fury and her eyes were pale fire as she prepared to advance again. This next bout will finish it!

Hinata stepped forward—ready to end it.

But the air shifted.

Suddenly, her opponent’s posture corrected. His breathing leveled.

A violet shimmer flared at the edge of her Byakugan’s range—a mark, faintly glowing at the left base of his neck, where chakra almost appeared to flow unnaturally.

And then—his chakra changed.

It thickened. Hardened. Became like boiling tar inside his network, lashing wildly yet channeled with razor precision. The very edges of his silhouette blurred with speed.

What… That mark… It’s stabilizing his arm!

She didn’t get time to question. 

He moved, jumping far above the canopy.

He’s faster!

The kunai came first—two of them, hurled with enough force to split wood as they zipped toward her. She deflected one, barely, her palm ripped open from the force. The second grazed her thigh despite dodging it. 

These attacks… their laced in chakra…

The next moment, a barrage of wire-laced shuriken slashed at her from the side—looping around trees to trap her in spirals.

She flipped backward, severing the wires with a burst of chakra from her palms.

Another flute note screamed through the trees, and Hinata found herself on her back as a burst of sound hurled her across several branches.

Hinata got to her feet, dully aware of the blood trickling down her ears and nose. The Byakugan allowed her to push through the vertigo, but her vision was swaying intensely now. This isn’t good, his attacks are more calculated now.

She surged forward, chakra pulsing into her legs. She couldn’t let him keep distance. One strike was all it would take, this time she’ll make his heart some survive! 

She leapt—palm aimed center mass.

But he wasn’t there.

Her strike hit air, the genjutsu illusion fading. 

The masked ninja stood on a branch twenty feet to her left, already mid-motion. A pair of kunai shot toward her core; she knocked them away, but barely her palms bleeding profusely now. 

Then came another wave of genjutsu notes.

The forest bent around her.

Pulse… pulse again…
Can’t waste chakra—damn it— 

She grit her teeth and twisted mid-air:

Water Style: Piercing Stream!

A high-pressure arc lanced through the trunks toward him, but its aim was off. He merely sidestepped, flipped backward through the branches, and vanished again behind layers of leaves and sound.

It’s still not ready… and he’s bleeding me out

Hinata landed rough, skidding onto a branch. Her breaths were sharp now. Her reserves thinning. Her control fraying. Her thoughts however, swirled. 

He's not a Grass genin.

She didn’t know why she hadn’t seen it sooner.

His posture was too fluid, far too capable. His counters too honed. These weren’t the attacks of a typical genin.

My earlier strike… the buzz! My palm strike must have nearly disrupted a disguise jutsu.

She tensed, preparing for the next rush.

But her legs wobbled.

Too much chakra. Too fast.

Hinata pulsed chakra into her eyes to expand her vision only to gasp… as a barrage of shuriken came down like black hail.

She darted aside, twisting through the assault, desperately trying to palm as many shuriken out of the air, only to find most were illusions. Most. Not all.

One dug deep into her left hip, and two struck her right arm. All carved into the bone. 

She staggered—but didn’t fall.

I’m not done. I can’t… wont let my savior down.

She growled low and readied her stance again.

He landed thirty feet away, calm, crouched, flute spinning idly in one hand.

His voice was sharp with amusement.

“Nice moves earlier worm. Thought you almost had me for a second.”

He raised his hand slowly.

One last kunai, wrapped in gleaming chakra.

“This one’s for keeps.”

He threw.

She lifted her arms into an x to block the blade. 

But a howling spiral erupted to her side.

“FANG OVER FANG!”

Kiba burst from the right, spiraling like a comet of fur and fury. The kunai shattered mid-air—its threads frayed to nothing. Akamaru barked weakly behind him, back on his feet, eyes still twitching but standing.

“Hinata!” Kiba barked. “Back up! You’re seriously hurt!”

Hinata didn’t respond, she just lowered her arms slightly, expression soft again as a faint tremble took hold of her previously rigid hands..

The Grass ninja stood above, watching them, motionless as if pondering.

Kiba and Akamaru began to focus their chakra. “Hey bastard why don’t you take on someone your own size!”

“Well damn,” The Grass ninja grumbled. “Thought for sure this rat would be in that genjutsu for another 3 minutes…”

He paused.

Then… stilled.

His head turned slightly to the side. His fingers brushing his neck.

“…Well, hell.”

He took a step back and exhaled.

“Guess the experiment’s over for now.”

Kiba blinked. “What the hell are you—?”

“No more time to play, boss just called” the ninja muttered. “You worms are getting a miracle today.”

He reached into his vest, pulled something from within—a thin slip of cloth covered in faded seals—and crushed it in one hand. Chakra pulsed faintly across his skin.

And he disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

…

Far from the battlefield, deep in the southern quadrant of the forest, the grass ninja landed on a solitary limb and exhaled.

A puff of smoke was released as their features suddenly changed in a puff of smoke while they removed their mask.

Beneath the smoke and mask, tangled red hair fell over fair cheeks. Hazel eyes glinted in the low light.

A jagged curse mark pulsed at her neck, faintly glowing.

Tayuya clicked her tongue.

“That damn Hyuga…”

She rolled her shoulder, heavily bruised from that palm strike that very much nearly cost her the fight.

“…has some Fuckin’ teeth! “That psycho snake bastard said this one might be worth testing, not that she might nearly cost me an arm!”

A wicked scowl appeared on her face.

“Guess four eyes was right though. Someone has a nasty little bitch in the exam.

Tayuya flinched as she stretched out her injured arm. “If I see that fuckin’ Hyuga again, I’ll make her wish she died here! Orders be damned!”

And with that, she vanished into the trees.

 

 

 

Notes:

Any feedback/tips is always appreciated!

Chapter 6: Lurking Shadows

Notes:

Hello Everyone! New chapter inbound :)

Chapter 6: Lurking Shadows

 

-------

Setting: ROOT Caverns

The chamber pulsed with sick light and low moans—part laboratory, part tomb.

It lay deep beneath the earth, beneath the ANBU archives, beneath the Hokage’s memorial vault. A space no civilian had ever seen and no shinobi had ever left sane.

Four chakra conduits fed into the central slab, each wrapped in layered sealing matrices that flickered with unearthly sigils—some of which hadn’t been spoken aloud since before the founding of the village. The air reeked of formaldehyde, ozone, and blood—a sickly cocktail that coated every breath with metallic heat.

The subject on the operating table twitched violently as another vial of blackened serum was plunged into his spine.

His scream, when it came, was not fully human.

It rose in jagged bursts—warped by chakra, shredded by sealing pain—and made one of the younger assistants gag audibly. The boy turned away, trembling, a hand clutched over his mouth.

“Contain yourself,” the lead researcher snapped, eyes never leaving the monitor. “Your hesitation will kill him before the serum does.”

“Pulse rate climbing,” another reported. “Chakra distortion rising past the ninety percent threshold. Network instability localized to thoracic and cervical flows. Neurological bleed imminent.”

"Restraint seals holding—for now."

A groan echoed through the slab’s framework as the subject’s body arched off the metal, bones creaking. Burned veins etched a black spiderweb across his neck and collarbone. Skin steamed from beneath the contact glyphs. His eyes rolled into his head—then snapped back down to fix on the ceiling with hollow, blazing panic.

Still conscious.

Still aware.

And somewhere in that flickering chakra signature was the echo of a soul breaking.

A pause.

Then a new sound.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The cane struck the steel floor three times. Calm, deliberate, final.

The entire room fell still.

Danzo Shimura stepped into full view, the edges of his cloak brushing the pooled light cast by the seal arrays. One eye—dark, calculating—scanned the data displays.

He said nothing. But his presence pressed down like a tightening vice.

The researchers straightened. Even the senior medic involuntarily clenched her jaw. No one bowed. No one dared move too much.

Danzo's shadow stretched across the slab like a second operating table.

The screams subsided into low moans.

“Current condition?” he asked, voice as dry and even as flint.

“Subject is alive,” said the lead researcher. “Chakra containment failed in the left quadrant, but spinal integrity held. Neurological burn-out projected at sixty percent but stable. Organ failure avoided. All damage is repairable.”

Danzo stepped closer.

The boy on the slab gasped, bloody spittle bubbling from the side of his mouth. A single eye—barely lucid—shifted toward the approaching figure. Whether it was fear or recognition, no one could say.

Danzo did not blink.

“He lives.”

A pause.

“But can he obey?”

“Too early to confirm.”

“Can he fight?”

The room went quiet.

“No, sir,” the researcher admitted. “He’s… coherent, but unstable. The… ‘special’ chakra hasn't harmonized with his natural flow. He can’t control the surges.”

Danzo’s eye flicked toward the glowing restraints.

“So he’s breathing. That’s all.”

Another silence.

Then Danzo spoke, low and cold.

“A soldier who can’t control his weapon is already dead.”
“A weapon that can’t cut is waste.”
“Don’t confuse motion with meaning. Survival is not success.”

The younger assistant flinched again.

Danzo didn’t look at him. He turned to the analyst seated in the rear alcove, who had watched the entire process in silence; arms folded, a long scroll unspooled before them across a control slab.

“What of the northern excavations?” Danzo asked.

The analyst adjusted their gloves, unfazed.

“The teams have breached the central glyph chamber at site E. Antechamber contained long crumbled corpses. No chakra residue. The linguistic pattern matches our previous hypothesis: Construction is believed to be from the time of the Sage of Six Paths at least.

The Analyst paused for a moment to gauge Danzo’s reaction before continuing.

“The same cannot be said for site F. With this site being out of our borders, it has been… difficult to maintain a steady supply chain needed to breach the collapsed sections. Teams report excavation activity has been detected by Iwagakure and have slowly been closing in on the site’s location. Teams request further instruction on how to proceed.”

Danzo’s tone didn’t change, but something in the room did. The chakra conduits dimmed slightly. The lights flickered.

A wave of silent, unplaceable pressure spread outward from him—without motion, without word.

Even the machines seemed to whine under it.

Disappointment.

Cold and unseen—but unmistakable.

“Understood,” Danzo finally said. “Have Site E continue triangulating the sigils discovered. Once data is received compare them to what we have found at sites B, C, and H as well as our own experiments. I want results. As for site F, scrub it clean and pull back excavation teams”

Before anyone could respond, a flicker of chakra shimmered at the edge of the room.

The seal marker on a desk ignited, glowing like a blue flame.

The scroll burst open on the wall—unfolding into the black-inked lotus of ROOT.

Danzo moved to it instantly.

One of the researchers froze. “Is that—”

“The western cell has finally contacted” the analyst murmured.

“No,” Danzo said quietly.

His hand closed around the scroll.

“This one is from her.”

He turned without a word.

And vanished into the corridor.

…

The echo of Danzo’s footsteps faded down the corridor.

For a moment, the chamber was quiet—no orders, no screaming. Only the soft clicks of recalibrating seal arrays and the drip of cooling blood from the slab’s edge.

Then the analyst moved.

They descended from the observation platform with slow, deliberate steps, boots tapping the carved floor seals. Each footfall seemed louder than it should have, as if the very foundation of the lab strained to listen.

Their coat flared slightly as they walked past the surgical team, face unreadable beneath the glow of chakra lights. Their hands were gloved, pristine, and still.

But Their voice was not.

“This,” they muttered, coming to a stop beside the slab, “is what you call progress?”

They gestured, once, sharply toward the brutalized subject, still twitching feebly against blood-stained restraints.

“Look at it. A breathing husk. The living corpse of a boy who once held rank and meaning. And now? He pisses blood, screams in pulses, and can’t string two words together.”

The younger researcher who had flinched earlier tried to meet his gaze. “We followed the harmonization model—dose ratios, chakra synchronizations, decay-laced infusions. It matched the parameters from test cycles six through nine. We—”

“You copied instructions,” the analyst interrupted, voice slicing through the air. “You did not understand them. There is a difference.”

Another medic spoke, this one older but visibly exhausted. “We’ve been operating without rest. The glyph-work alone takes hours to reconstruct after every flare. The runes keep shifting alignment under chakra pressure. We’re doing everything we can with what little we understand.”

“‘Little’ is generous,” the analyst sneered.

They walked away from the slab, toward a long worktable tucked beneath a thick shielding barrier of reinforced chakra glass. Upon it lay a sealed Stone, thick bands of silver holding the casing shut, the wax imprint of an old glyph glowing faintly beneath its protective film.

腐

The Glyph for decay.

They reached toward it, gloved fingers hovering over the surface—not quite touching.

“Do you know what this is?” they asked the room without looking up. “This is not simply an old rock. Just as the scroll Lord Danzo discovered is far from ancient parchment from a broken ruin.”

“It is an idea,” they said, voice dropping into reverent murmur. “A truth. One the world long lost to the march of civilized time.”

The senior medic narrowed her eyes slightly. “A truth?”

The analyst looked back over their shoulder, eyes gleaming.

“Yes. A truth that pre-dates every clan. Every bloodline. A truth that predates even our understanding of chakra.”

They stepped away from the glyph and turned to face the team fully.

“Centuries before the Hyūga learned to shape chakra into sight, before the Uchiha learned to twist emotion into fire, there was another understanding. Not of nature… but of entropy. Of collapse. Of the law that all things—no matter how strong—rot in the end.”

Silence met their words.

“The sigils describe it as decay’” they said slowly. “We call it liberation. Chakra that has shed the burden of form and morality. A chakra that doesn’t care if you’re born into royalty or in the mud. Chakra that consumes—equally.”

The junior medic spoke again, voice trembling. “We’ve lost ten elite operatives to exposure alone. The test subjects die screaming. Even this one…” he gestured toward the boy on the slab, “He’s been by far our most successful, but there is only so much the body can take.”

The analyst approached him slowly.

“Then we’ll keep using him until his body breaks or it adapts. And should he die, we’ll gather ten more. One hundred more. A thousand if needed. There is no shortage of street urchins that the middle and high societies wish to be blind to, and if that isn’t enough will take higher children as well. That is the cost of unmaking the old world.”

They turned, speaking now to the entire room—eyes gleaming, tone colder, sharper.

“Imagine it,” they said. “No more clans. No more inherited thrones of power. No more prodigies resting on birthright. Lord Danzo would be able to give power as he pleases!”

“We won’t need Uchiha eyes,” they hissed. “Or Hyūga veins. Or Senju blood.”

He reached back and tapped the cylinder once, softly.

“We will forge weapons. One cut at a time.”

Another pause. Then quieter, more dangerous:

““And if this prototype stabilizes… we can prove to Lord Danzo the power of reconstruction. We’ll convince him he’ll no longer need her.”

No one answered. All were caught up in the golden future where Danzo ruled, as he was destined to.

Only the sound of the failing subject's shallow, wet breaths echoed back.

And the faint hum of the decay sigil—still glowing in the dark.

 

------

Setting: Forest of Death, Third day, noon

The sun hung low in the sky, hidden behind a ceiling of rust-colored leaves that turned every shaft of light into a bleeding halo.

Day three in the Forest of Death.

They’d found shelter among the branches, far from the ground. It was a hollow den within a tree trunk just wide enough to shield three shinobi and a wounded hound. The air inside smelled of damp wood and crushed bark. They had been here for a day now, resting and treating their wounds. No one talked though. It was quiet.

Akamaru whimpered in his sleep, curled in the soft moss beside Kiba’s leg. His ears were wrapped in gauze, and every so often, he twitched at sounds only he could hear.

Kiba sat cross-legged, fists clenched, jaw tight. His usual brash energy had collapsed into a simmering silence. Every glance he cast toward his teammates was filled with guilt.

“It should’ve been me,” he muttered under his breath, barely audible. “Should’ve smelled him. Should’ve known. Should’ve damned listen and not look for more fights…”

Across from him, Shino lay propped against the inner wall of the trunk, his right leg encased in makeshift splints. The blast wounds still oozed faintly beneath the gauze, and his sunglasses—cracked at the edge—rested uneven on his bruised face. His beetle colony was silent, the queen cluster in hibernation to avoid stress shock.

Hinata sat between them, legs folded neatly, her expression soft. Meek. Silent.

But beneath her skin, her muscles burned with unrest.

She sat in her black shirt and pants. The white coat she normally wore was neatly folded beside her, tattered beyond repair, gashes along its sleeves marking where kunai and shrapnel had nearly torn through her arms.

Her stomach and arms were tightly bandaged. Her left thigh ached from where the masked ninja’s blades had torn into bone.

But her face remained untouched. Fragile. Controlled.

“H-Hinata,” Kiba said, finally turning to her. “You… you okay? You haven’t really moved since…”

She blinked slowly.

“I’ll be alright,” she said, voice faint but even. “I wasn’t hit as badly.”

Kiba frowned but said nothing. Even Shino looked as though he wanted to comment—somewhere behind his mask of stoicism, he sensed there was more.

But neither pressed her.

That was how she’d trained them after all.

She was the soft one. The quiet one. The one who needed help, not the one who delivered it. It had taken time to shape her mask, but now it was airtight.

Only she knew the truth.

Only she remembered the duel. The cold air. The suffocating genjutsu. The taste of her own blood. The way her fury had burned brighter than fear.

Only she remembered the look in that ninja’s eyes when she’d landed that strike.

He wasn’t playing.

Neither was she.

But to Kiba and Shino, it would remain a story of a cruel enemy playing with prey—one who injured them all before slipping away.

All that Kiba saw was Hinata, bleeding from many deep wounds as the enemy prepared to launch a shuriken as the final strike. Shino had been unconscious the entire time, the result of paper bombs nearly blowing his leg off and the concussion afterwards.

Hinata had encouraged that version of course.

She needed to.

A weapon that’s seen for what it is becomes a threat. One that hides in plain sight? Much more convenient.

She glanced toward Shino’s pack, her eyes narrowing slightly.

A dark hole had been burned through the kunai pouch normally on his right thigh when the bombs blew.

And within it—their Earth scroll, half-ash, warped by the blast. Useless.

Hinata tilted her head downward, her face showing soft dismay.

“I-I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I… I should have been stronger.”

Kiba looked up sharply. “Hey—don’t say that. You were incredible out there.”

His voice wavered slightly as he rubbed akamaru’s head. “We’re all still here. That’s what matters.”

Hinata bowed her head, hiding her eyes.

But inside, she was calculating.

One scroll down. Shino crippled. Akamaru deafened for the time being. Kiba wracked by guilt. That left her as the only viable fighter.

Good.

They’d be slow. Predictable. Resting.

Which meant time for her and her mission.

She slowly reached into her pouch and pulled out a water flask, pretending to check its weight.

“Would it be alright if I looked for a stream?” she asked. “And maybe food?”

Shino said nothing.

Kiba looked hesitant. “You need to rest. I should go, hell I’m the only one here that came out nearly scratch free!”

Hinata shook her head softly “there was nothing to be done. We were just unlucky.”

Kiba looked about ready to force the issue on him going out, so Hinata used her secret weapon:

“Besides, Akamaru needs you with him since he can’t hear correctly right now”

That brought a flinch to Kiba’s face whose aggressive posture deflated “Are you sure”

She nodded softly.

“I just… I want to help. I don’t want to feel like a burden.”

A pause.

Kiba looked away, guilt still lingering in his expression.

“…Alright. But be back before sundown. Any second after that and I’ll tear this forest apart to get you!”

Shino titled his head. “Stay alert. Don’t do anything rash.”

She nodded again.

Inside, her pulse steadied.

Outside, her mask never slipped.

Hinata stepped into the woods alone—quiet, unassuming, forgettable.

But not unarmed.

…

Hinata moved swiftly and silently through the underbrush, every step measured, every breath in rhythm with the sounds of the forest. Birds chirped in distant bursts. The air was damp with rot and moss. Shadows slid through the leaves overhead like whispers.

She traveled over a kilometer from her team’s resting site before finally stopping in a small hollow, surrounded by the tall, broken stumps of long-dead trees. No eyes here. No voices.

Only her.

She knelt and unsealed the small parchment seal tucked inside her right sandal. Identical in design to a small, thin piece of parchment but marked with a faint black edge of ink that shimmered only when touched with her chakra. This was how ROOT remained connected to Danzo. 

The specifics were lost to her, although she understood it had something to do with a jutsu from the Fourth Hokage. By channeling her chakra which was previously imprinted on it, the seal on the paper will activate and teleport its message to its connected seal back in the ROOT caverns. While immensely useful they were rare due to the amount of work it was said to make single copy, and each were only good for one full trip. 

The return seal flared open with a hiss.

Words had appeared were hers had disappeared hours earlier.

Hinata held her breath, scanning the contents. There were only a few lines.

Continue observation. Uchiha now a priority. Position North-East. Maintain close proximity. Report on anomalies if encountered.

That was it.

She stared at the message for a long, frozen moment.

Then read it again.

And again.

And again.

Nothing about her skills in the battle. Nothing about the false grass ninja. Nothing about her pain, her effort, the rage she’d let loose to turn the battle.

Not one.

Her lips parted slightly, the faintest breath escaping. Her hands were trembling now, just enough to make the scroll quiver in her grip.

She was quiet.

Then—

A whisper in her head. Danzo’s voice. Flat. Icy. Brutal.

“A shinobi who expects praise is no shinobi at all.”
“A mission completed without flaw is the baseline. Anything less is failure.”
“Emotion is noise. Eliminate it.”

Her throat clenched.

She curled the scroll back into its sealed form, but her fingers didn’t release it. Her knuckles whitened with tension.

“He didn’t care…” she whispered. “He didn’t… even mention it…”

She closed her eyes.

She had nearly died. She had been impaled. She had used every ounce of control, discipline, power she had learned from him—and it wasn’t enough to warrant even a word.

A single sentence would’ve meant everything to her.

A nod. A phrase. "You did well."

She clutched the scroll to her chest, her nails biting into the paper. Her shoulders began to shake.

“You’re so stupid,” she breathed. “You should have seen the attack. You should have detected the genjutsu pattern. You were supposed to monitor anomalies, not stumble into them.”

Her head bowed, hair falling across her face like a veil.

“What if I had failed…?”

Her voice broke.

“What if I made myself look weak to him?”

That thought sent a cold bolt of terror down her spine.

Danzo had given her everything. Purpose. Power. Identity. Without him, what was she?

A castoff heir.

A broken flower.

A burden with pretty eyes and no backbone.

Not a Ninja, not a noble, not worthy, not useful, not needed, not wanted.

She gritted her teeth, pushing back against the tide of emotion rising in her chest. Her chakra spiked and then receded as she forced it back down—burying her fury, her self-hatred, her pain.

No tears.

Tears were betrayal.

Tears were shame.

And shame made her useless.

She took a deep breath.

Slow.

Controlled.

Then she opened her eyes—blank again, hollow again, calm.

A tool once more.

Danzo-sama wanted her to maintain a close proximity to Sasuke, then that's what she will do, though there was a problem. The trouble wasn't finding him. With her byakugan and her instructions, it would be a simple matter. The problem lay in how she would maintain close proximity without leading to a clash...

A faint wind rustled the leaves overhead.

She sealed the scroll into the false compartment of her pouch, rose to her feet, and began walking again—this time toward a shadow she’d sensed on the edge of her Byakugan range.

Another team was in the vicinity, and from their movements were clearly distressed. Another team that may hold a scroll. 

Perhaps another opportunity to fix the problem she had made. Whoever this team was, they were traveling in the correct direction where Lord Danzo stated Sasuke was. If anything, she'd at least make progress in her primary objective. She began moving quickly through the trees, closing the distance between her and the team. It wasn’t hard.

As she got closer, Hinata noticed a faint trail of trampled grass and smeared blood through a low ravine cloaked in fog. Footprints zigzagged chaotically. Chakra prints stumbled, thin and fractured. Whatever team passed this way had obviously just been fighting for utter survival.

She advanced slowly, veiled in silence, until she detected them fully with her vision.

A clearing.

Three bodies slumped beneath a twisted tree. From the sorry state of their gear: tattered, stained, ruined… they were done. Beyond spent.

The insignia of the Leaf village shone dully on their headbands.  

One, a boy was lay sprawled, unconscious, blood leaking from nose, mouth, and ears. His chakra network flickered like a dying flame. Gentle Fist trauma.

Neji.

Of course.

That boy would be lucky to survive the night.

Another girl knelt beside him, dark hair plastered to her face with sweat, arms shaking as she applied pressure to his wounds.

The third girl, the tall one was off to the side, frantically sorting through a shredded med-pack. Her mouth was twisted in a bitter scowl; eyes locked on the boy. Fury. Powerlessness.

Hinata watched from the trees, silent, now at the edge of the clearings tree line.

They hadn’t noticed her yet. Sloppy. An enemy should never get this close.

An image of the false Grass-nin flashed in her mind. She allowed herself a thin, bitter scowl. She supposed she didn’t have much authority to judge.

As she continued watching them, a thought creeped into her mind. She could end it now. Quick, clean. Eliminate the threat. Remove witnesses. Gain their scroll, if they had the necessary one.

No one would know.

She glances toward their pack where gauze and medicinal pills had spilled out. One of them must be a healer of sorts. Those materials would be useful. Anything could help Shino’s leg right now and increase their chances.

Her hands shifted instinctively into a killing form, chakra gathering at her fingertips… and froze. Was it right to attack this group? They were no direct threat to her. Danzo’s orders were clear: remain hidden, report on anomalies, maintain close distance to Sasuke. Returning with a scroll may rouse the suspicions of her teammates, breaking her carefully crafted mask. Yet to continue to report she needed to acquire another scroll and ensure her team passed.

She hesitated, weight shifting forward, then back.

Tunnel vision is failure,
Focus, or be discarded.

After a long breath, she made a decision.

Hinata stepped forward from the treeline and let out a pulse of chakra—faint, controlled, but unmistakable.

The tall girls’ head snapped around. “Hey! I can sense your chakra flow! Come on out, or I’ll make you!”

You only sense me because I allowed it.

Hinata slowly stepped out into the clearing.

The tall girl’s expression curdled.

“You,” she spat. “A damn Hyuga. Get out of here or you’ll be sorry!”

Hinata paused, just outside the tree line, blank-eyed.

“W-wait please!” The other girl gasped. “we’re from the same village, we’re not enemies”

Hinata didn’t respond.

The bruised girl bowed her head. “P-please… we’ve already been in a fight. Our friend, he’s not waking up.”

Hinata simply stared for a moment before answering. “His chakra network is scrambled. He’ll be lucky to survive the night”  

The smaller girl let out a broken sob.

“But you are also a Hyuga… Cant you do something? Please!

A few seconds passed.

Then Hinata began walking towards them slowly, each step measured. Not a threat—but not a reassurance either. Her face remained calm, unreadable.

“Are you insane?” the tall girl snarled at her teammate. “Did you forget what these bastards did?!”

Then, to Hinata again: “Look what your clan did!”

Hinata’s expression didn’t change, but her steps slowed.

The tall girl pointed at the wounded boy. “He begged to surrender after the fight was clearly over. We offered our Earth scroll, only to find out they were looking for heavens scroll. That Hyuga bastard didn’t care. Just looked down on us… then crushed his chest like paper! Said some destiny crap like were always meant to lose.”

Her voice cracked.

“And now you show up. Another white-eyed bitch come to finish the job?”

“Kaori, don’t—” the other girl pleaded.

“Shut up, Tsuki!”

Hinata didn’t blink.

Her Byakugan was active.

Kaori’s chakra was wild. Frayed with grief. But not a threat.

Not yet.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” Hinata said quietly.

Kaori sneered. “That’s what your fellow clan member said.”

“He’s not my family.”

“Bullshit. I saw you before the exam, you wore your clans symbol on your coat!”

Hinata’s jaw tightened.

“I didn’t choose to.”

Kaori seemed to falter—just a breath. But she held her ground.

Tsuki stepped between them. “Please… we don’t have the strength to fight. We just want to live.”

Silence.

Hinata stepped closer. She crouched beside the genin, studying her fingers, her materials.

“You’re have medic training?”

Tsuki nodded.

“Do you have anything for blast trauma?”

Surprised, Tsuki nodded again. “Ointments. Gauze. Field sealants.”

“I’ll help him. In exchange, I get the supplies.”

Kaori growled low in her throat, but Tsuki overrode her instantly.

“Yes—yes, please.”

Hinata placed her palms on the boy’s chest and channeling her chakra into him. His chakra network was warped and deactivated. She could reactivate it of course. Learning to reactivate a chakra network was standard in the Main branch, even she managed to learn it; however that wouldn’t rewind the internal damage already done to his organs. At best, he would be crippled for the rest of his life. At worst, she just gave him an extra week.

She could avoid spending chakra all together. Make a little show of trying, claim he'll be fine and get Shino's treatment. His life was not her problem honestly... And still, that all too familiar pang of guilt rang deep, a ringing she constantly tried to bury. 

After a few moments she spoke softly: “He should wake in the coming hours. I don’t recommend doing any major running... or doing anything really.”

Tsuki’s eyes welled with tears as she gave Hinata a small pack. “Thank you! You don’t know how much this means to me!”

Hinata said nothing. She grabbed the pack, stood and walked away toward the tree line.

Behind her, no one followed.

But something inside her did.

Two voices—one soft, one cold.

They’re no threat.
Kill them.
They’re weak.
You were weak once too.
Mercy is failure.
Then why does it hurt to leave them behind?

Suddenly, Kaori’s voice cut after her like a knife. “This doesn’t change the fact you Hyuga are monsters!”

Hinata kept walking.

They're wounded. No threat. No orders. Let it go.

But her jaw tightened.

So much hate—for something I never chose.

She felt it then.

The flicker of killing intent. That moment when fury overloads rational thought. When a decision is made that changes everything.

She pivoted just as the glint of iron caught her eye.

A shuriken, spinning straight toward her back.

Kaori had thrown it—quietly, furiously.

A kill shot.

Hinata moved like lightning.

Her body twisted, hand snapping forward. She batted the shuriken aside with a palm then surged forward.

Kaori barely had time to scream.

Hinata’s palm struck center mass. Chakra flared—silent, clean, deadly. Organs bursting like a overripe melon.

Kaori’s eyes went wide. She crumpled to the forest floor, convulsing once.

Then still.

The medical-nin froze, hands over her mouth, tears pouring from her eyes. The boy moaned faintly in his unconscious state.

Hinata stood over the body, chest heaving.

No rage.

Just silence.

“She made her choice,” Hinata said.

It wasn’t an excuse.

It was an explanation.

But even to her own ears, it felt thin.

She turned again and vanished into the trees.

…

Her breathing was steady, but shallow.

Each step through the mist-cloaked branches felt less like movement and more like drifting. Time had lost its meaning out here. She couldn’t tell how long she’d been walking. Seconds? Minutes?

Her thoughts were chewing on themselves again.

She didn’t regret the kill.

But it didn’t sit right, either.

Not because she’d done it. The girl has attacked first after all.

But because Danzo hadn’t ordered it.

The girl's death did not improve her standing with Lord Danzo, did not give her more to report, nor did it help her team pass this exam. It was a worthless death.

That fact alone made her feel… untethered.

I need more instruction.
With more instruction, there will be no reason to think nor to feel…

Then there was her own words that keep resonating within her.

You were never worth saving.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that those words hadn’t been meant for the genin team…

Hinata shook her head violently.

This cursed silence! I need… wait

That was when she noticed it. A strange… wrongness. Not from within, but around.

The birds had stopped chirping. The trees no longer rustled. Even the insects had fled.

Hinata slowed, turning her head slightly. Her Byakugan flared.

Another stupid mistake! I should have noticed this!!

Hinata scanned her surroundings. Chakra residue… warped. Faint, but potent. Thickening the air like smoke from a distant blaze. A wide range genjutsu. Not powerful, but subtle enough to be weary.

She wasn’t alone.

Then she felt it.

A pressure—coiled and seething.

It wasn't raw power. It was purposefully contained. 

She advanced slowly from her vantage point—and saw him.

Sasuke Uchiha. Alone. Crouched beside a creek.

His face was unreadable—half-shadowed by the swaying canopy—but his body was tense, the scowl etched into it as deeply as any scar.

But Hinata’s eyes caught it instantly.

The mark. Black and angry, pulsing faintly beneath his collar.

Same mark as the grass-nin. But this one feels... dormant. Almost muted.

Her gaze narrowed.

Should I report this immediately? Or watch longer?
No. Danzo-sama will want more. More detail. More certainty. More... control.

She crouched lower in the tree’s fork, watching him pace.

If I play this right… he’ll lead me straight to what Danzo-sama wants most.

Her thoughts turned briefly to her teammates. The sky above had begun to bleed orange—the sun dipping behind the thick trees. They would be looking for her soon. Shino especially.

She lifted her bandaged arm, eyes settling on the faint shimmer of a tiny black beetle crawling near her elbow.

Shino’s work. Always subtle. Always watching. Even now, heavily wounded and likely frustrated, he hadn't trusted her to be entirely alone. Not because he doubted her strength. But because he understood the stakes better than most.

Hence why he tried to subtly place the beetle on her back at camp, of course she was aware the entire time. 

A part of her found it oddly comforting. With this beetle, it wouldn't take her team long to find her.

They’ll be here soon. Actually...

Her gaze lifted. The forest blurred and shifted under her Byakugan’s expansion, swaths of territory swirling into view.

She searched carefully… and then smiled faintly.

There.

It was all too easy for her to locate Naruto, He was impossible to miss. He and Sakura weren’t far. Probably looking for Sasuke by the looks of it. Probably arguing too.

She tilted her head, calculating.

This might work better than I hoped. Two birds…

No—three.

If she could align the timing right, she could create the appearance of chance. Let them stumble into each other. Let the tension rise. Let them underestimate her again… then suggest the alliance. Casually. Peacefully. From her lips, it would seem logical—obvious even.

She dropped down to the forest floor silently, hiding in the tree line and turned her focus inward, letting her chakra leak.

Not much. Barely a thread. But just enough for someone like Sasuke—someone marked, someone volatile—to feel.

One minute passed.

Then two.

At the third, she saw it.

His spine stiffened.

His shoulders squared. He looked around, eyes narrowing, nostrils flaring slightly.

The hunter had sensed another predator.

By the fourth minute, he stood.

No longer kneeling—now turning in place, his hand drifting toward a kunai pouch.

His eyes swept across the treeline. His voice, low and even, cut through the hush.

“I Know you're there.”

His Sharingan flared and he met her gaze.

Slowly, she stoop up from her hiding area, meeting his eyes.

Neither spoke.

The silence said enough.

 

 

 

Notes:

Any feedback is appreciated!

Chapter 7: Gazing at Lies

Notes:

A New Chapter!

Chapter 7: Gazing at Lies

 

Setting: Forest of Death Mid-ring, Late Afternoon

Sasuke moved through the thickets at a steady pace, each step designed not to draw attention, but not exactly to avoid it either.

He needed the couple hours of solitude. Not for safety, but for thought.

His body moved on reflex—leaping, landing, stretching. Light training under the canopy while his mind spun circles around the past few days.

Everything since the exams began had been a blur of violence and confusion.

Rock Lee.
The fight still replayed itself behind his eyes. The speed. The power. The humiliation. Sasuke hadn’t even seen some of the hits coming. That one moment when Lee vanished and reappeared at his side like a specter—he could still feel the impact in his ribs.

He’d told himself it didn’t matter. That Lee had been born with freakish speed or that he’d trained too hard, too long, in one specific direction and therefore was inferior to his more rounded skill set.

But excuses didn’t make the bruises fade faster.

And then there was Orochimaru.

Sasuke stopped on a branch and exhaled through his teeth.

That encounter had changed everything.

The pressure of that chakra—cold and slithering and wrong—had paralyzed him in a way no enemy ever had. His instincts screamed to run, to hide. To collapse.

It had been Naruto—of all people—who snapped him out of it. Yelling. Challenging him. Calling him a coward.

Sasuke hated it.

But he’d needed it.

And in the end, he had fought. He remembered lunging forward, the blood pounding in his ears. The snake freak had smiled while Sasuke had thrown everything at him.

It wasn’t enough.

Despite it all, despite using his most potent fire jutsu he'd been saving for this exam; that ninja... that demon had shrugged it off. 

And then… the was the mark.

Sasuke’s hand drifted to the back of his neck, fingers brushing the skin. It still tingled there sometimes, like something was squirming just beneath the surface.

He hadn’t asked for it. But now that it was there—now that he’d felt its power—he couldn’t imagine letting it go.

When he awoke from the hellish fever, something inside him had shifted. A new well of power had opened up—dark, thick, intoxicating. He’d felt every inch of it when Dosu’s team tried to ambush them afterward.

He’d snapped Zaku’s arms without hesitation.

The screams hadn’t bothered him.

What bothered him was how good it felt. How natural.

That scared him more than Orochimaru did.

Still, he hadn’t spoken a word of the hellscapes. The ones that came every time he closed his eyes. Of his brother standing in the ruin of their home, of red eyes and silence and blood. Of his own helplessness. 

He kept that to himself.

He also hadnt mention the handicap on his eyes. For whatever the reason, the mark seemed to agitate when he used his sharingan extensively. He could wield it for watching and analyzing, but he quickly discovered any attempt to use it while focusing chakra left him paralyzed. A frustrating turn of events. 

Sasuke was no fool. He knew the mark was whispering to him in his sleep, knew it was urging him on. To what? He couldn't be sure. All he knew was this mark was hampering his eyes... yet it provided a way to power. He'd figure out how to make full use of his eyes once they were out of this forest.  

He would become stronger. That was the only path forward. 

Fight Lee again.
Fight Neji.
Fight Gaara.
Fight Naruto.
Fight anyone until he stood alone at the top. And was ready to face him.

But even with all that, one thought kept returning like a whisper he couldn’t shake.

Hinata Hyūga.

He didn’t know why she’d lodged herself in his mind. He hadn’t spared her a thought since their Academy days. Quiet, frail, the kind of ninja who would pass a theoretical test but get brutalized in their first real fight. 

But something had changed.

He remembered her from the waiting area before the first exam.

The others had looked at him with awe or envy or desire.

She looked through him.

Not with hate. Not with admiration.

With calculation.

She hadn’t blushed or flinched. She had watched him like one shinobi watches another—assessing, measuring. And the moment she realized he noticed, she’d looked away… just fast enough to keep up the illusion of shyness.

That stuck with him.

She had disappeared since then, as unremarkably as she appeared. But that only made it worse. Sasuke didn’t trust things that moved like smoke. 

Especially ones with eyes like hers. His eyes were no doubt stronger, but they were still powerful. 

He dropped down from the branch and approached a quiet brook, kneeling beside it to fill his canteen.

The surface rippled.

His gaze sharpened.

Something was wrong.

He straightened slowly. No noise, no scent. But someone was nearby. Not approaching—watching.

He turned his head slightly, eyes narrowing. His chakra sharpened.

Whoever it was, they were suppressing their presence to a degree most genin couldn't manage.

But Sasuke could feel it. That static tension in the air. The unmistakable weight of being observed.

“I don’t recall asking for company,” Sasuke muttered, brushing his wet hand on his pant leg.

He rose, gaze sweeping the trees beyond the brook.

“I know you’re there,” he announced.

From the tree line, a figure rustled in the foliage forward. 

The Hyuga girl

Her expression was meek. Her posture docile.

The pale-eyed girl stepped from the trees in silence, half of her body cloaked in shadow, the other bathed in the last amber glimmers of dusk. Her hands were loosely clasped before her, fingers twitching faintly. Her gaze didn’t quite meet his, eyes cast low beneath a curtain of dark bangs.

Sasuke's eyes kept shifting around them.  

Something was wrong.

There was no real reason for her to be here. Alone. Silent. Watching.

He did not have the scroll he took form Dosu's team. Sasuke had left it with Sakura back in the camp, he wasn't so arrogant he would hold on to it away from his team. Furthermore, someone of her caliber couldn't hope to stand a chance against him... However,... He had no intention of underestimating anyone. 

Not after the supposed grass genin had turned out to be a demonic ninja in disguise.

His stance shifted subtly, his muscles taut beneath the surface. The Forest of Death had already torn the blinders off for him believe this exam was just a formality. They’d seen what real threats looked like—monsters in human skin, power wielded like a blade—and Sasuke had no intention of underestimating anyone again.

He activated his Sharingan. Just for a moment.

What he saw made the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

Her chakra was steady. Too steady. Not the scattered kind most genin carried after days of surviving off nerves and adrenaline. It was concentrated, purposeful, like a candle’s flame pulled tight to a single wick. Bandages looped across her arms and waist told a story of quite a few recent injuries—but her stance didn’t support it.

“So,” he said coldly, his voice low and even. “Care to explain why you’re watching me?”

Hinata blinked, slowly, as though caught off guard. “I-I was scouting the area,” she replied, voice gentle, barely above a whisper. “I sensed… a familiar chakra.”

Sasuke’s jaw tightened. “You’ve been standing there for over a minute. Watching me. That’s not scouting.” He flicked his wrist toward his leg pouch, a kunai sliding smoothly into his hand. “That’s spying.”

She let out a soft gasp and took a step back, bowing her head lower. “No, I—I wasn’t hiding exactly. I just… wasn’t sure if I should come out.”

Sasuke’s gaze narrowed for a moment. 

His eyes could not be so easily fooled. 

Her entire body spoke differently than her voice. That meek posture—the clasped hands, the slight stoop, the trembling words—none of it aligned with what his Sharingan picked up.

Knees were slightly bent. Weight evenly distributed. Elbows tucked in, ready to move. Her chakra flow was tight, coiled, held like a blade under cloth.

She was ready to fight. But she didn't strike first. Lets try to pry some information about her team.

Sasuke’s gaze motioned to her bandages. “Doesn’t seem smart to ‘scout’ while wrapped in injuries.”

“A-a battle,” Hinata stammered. “We were ambushed.”

“By who?”

“A Grass-nin,” she answered too quickly.

Sasuke’s blood chilled.

A Grass-nin.

His thoughts flashed—fangs, serpents, fangs again. Orochimaru. The mark. That burning, branding sensation on his neck. His fists clenched.

“Did they use snakes?” he demanded. “What kind of jutsu? What were their motives?”

Hinata hesitated—not long, but enough.

“I—I don’t know. They used ranged techniques. Sound-based illusions. We were attacked hours into the exam. I lost contact with my team for a while as we tried to fight. The ninja eventually j-just left us.”

Her fingers flexed against each other, white-knuckled. The lie, if it was one, was smooth—but not perfect. 

That didn’t match his Grass-nin. Not Orochimaru. The timeline didn’t line up either as Orochimaru had also attacked them hours into the second exam.  But there was still something gnawing at him.

Sasuke stepped in a slow circle around her, his kunai swinging in loose arcs at his side. Testing. Watching. His Sharingan dissected every twitch, every breath.

“You act fragile,” he said. “But my eyes say otherwise. Those aren’t the movements of a pampered clan princess.”

For a moment, her mask cracked.

Not visibly—there was no flinch. But her stance adjusted half an inch. Her weight slid to the balls of her feet. Muscles in her calves tensed.

It was enough.

“I’m no princess,” Hinata said softly.

Then she looked up at him—truly looked. Her pale eyes met his fully, and for the first time, he felt the Byakugan’s presence like a wall of frost.

A breeze stirred the leaves around them.

They stood ten feet apart now, unmoving.

Sasuke watched the tension in her spine, the perfect stillness of her breath. This girl wasn’t hiding because she was afraid.

She was hiding because she was good at it.

That realization unnerved him more than open hostility ever could have.

He pressed further. “You don’t act like a common Hyūga either. You don’t act like anyone.”

Hinata didn’t move. But her expression softened. “Is that a bad thing?”

Her voice was gentle. Almost innocent.

Sasuke’s fingers tightened on his kunai.

No. Not innocent.

This wasn’t some wallflower he could dismiss with a glance. Her performance was too perfect, too seamless. She had rehearsed this role a thousand times, and wore it like skin.

“Who trained you?” he asked flatly.

Hinata shrugged once, almost helplessly. “I’m a Hyūga.”

“But not just a Hyūga,” he said.

Again, a silence. Longer this time. Her lashes dipped low. Her posture, still meek, didn’t change—but his eyes saw it, the slight shift. A tightening. A contraction.

She was calculating.

She was thinking.

And that alone set every instinct he had on fire.

Sasuke took another step forward. “You slipped,” he said.

Hinata tilted her head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Her voice didn’t rise. Her face remained calm.

But her eyes didn’t lie.

They never had.

And what he saw in them now wasn’t submission.

It was a warning.

That ignited a cold fire deep within him. Who did this girl think she was trying to play games with him! The Uchiha were to be feared and respected, not trifled with! Chakra began to dense in his body. Perhaps its best if I send a message to her team... stay out of our way I'll break you down.

Sasuke’s breath came slow but sharp, a kunai still loosely balanced in his grip. Hinata's body hadn’t moved. Not an inch. But he could feel the chakra concentrating around her. 

His sharingan flared again, watching every twitch, every minuscule muscle shift in her frame. Her chakra was wound tight as steel wire—but never spilling, never trembling. It wasn’t fear holding her still.

It was discipline.

“You’re waiting,” Sasuke muttered.

Hinata’s head tilted faintly. “Waiting…?”

“For me to move first.” His eyes narrowed. “That’s how you fight, isn’t it? You play weak until someone steps too close. Then you strike.”

Her face didn’t change. “That would be very effective… if true.”

It was so smooth, so softly spoken—no challenge, no rebuttal. But it landed in his gut like a knife twist. She was mocking him without ever breaking form.

Sasuke’s grip on the kunai tightened as that cold fury grew. 

“I don’t know what you’re trying to hide, but I can feel it. You’re not some gentle flower.” He stepped forward. “You’ve been pretending since day one. But I see it now. You will tell me what you are doing... one way or another”

For the first time, Hinata blinked slowly—lashes low, like a predator gauging distance.

Then: “Do you intend to fight me, Sasuke-kun?”

The way she said his name—too polite, too careful—was a slap to the face.

He didn’t answer. The kunai was halfway raised.

Then—

“Hey, Sasuke!”

The shout cracked through the stillness.

Sasuke tensed and pivoted just enough to see orange and pink flash through the trees. Naruto’s voice rang louder this time, followed by the rustling of underbrush as Team 7 arrived in tandem.

“Sasuke! What the hell, man—we’ve been looking for you forever!”

Sasuke cursed inwardly. He hadn’t even noticed them approach. His focus had been so zeroed in on Hinata that the forest could have burned around him and he wouldn’t have noticed.

He stepped back half a pace, kunai lowering only slightly—but his eyes never left Hinata.

Naruto and Sakura burst through the leaves a beat later, breathing hard. They froze as they saw who Sasuke was facing.

“Wait… Hinata?” Sakura blinked. “What are you two doing—?”

The pale-eyed girl remained still for a moment. Then something imperceptible shifted in her posture—her shoulders loosened, her spine curved in just the right way. In the space of a single breath, the dangerous shinobi Sasuke had been facing transformed into a wounded, bashful girl.

She bowed slightly, voice cracking at all the right points.

“Hello, Naruto-kun.”

Naruto blinked. “Whoa Hinata—you look… awful!”

He casually walked up to her side, curious concern across his face. “Are you okay?! What happened? You look like someone tried to mummify you”

Sasuke’s jaw tightened.

That fast.

It had taken her less than five seconds to take command of the moment.

“N-Naruto-kun,” Hinata stammered, her voice delicate, trembling. “W-we, were ambushed… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I was j-just trying to help my team.”

It was flawless. Every word measured. Every tremor perfectly timed.

Sakura folded her arms, a figment of suspicion in them. “Wait—why are you here with Sasuke then?”

Sasuke said nothing. He wanted to see how she’d spin it.

Hinata looked down, casting herself in shadow. “W-we crossed paths by chance. I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”

Naruto frowned. “Sasuke, were you giving her a hard time?”

Sasuke’s fists clenched at his side. “She was watching me. I don’t like being watched.”

“Watching you?” Naruto blinked. “Like… spying?”

Hinata’s head lifted ever so slightly. Her voice remained soft, but her tone gained a fragile edge. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”

Sasuke watched Naruto and Sakura dropped their guards completely. 

His teammates—his allies—were being manipulated right in front of him despite what they had faced with Orochimaru... 

“Geez,” Naruto scratched the back of his head. “Well you’re always so quiet"

The blonde ninja's eyes turned toward him "Sasuke maybe she just got separated from her team or something, no need to make a big deal about it."

Sakura nodded slowly. “She looks like she’s been through hell. I doubt she was planning anything.”

Calculated.

He saw it now—her control over the moment. How smoothly she had rerouted the conversation, flipped from suspect to victim, drawn sympathy like it was a jutsu.

They were all under her genjutsu—and she hadn’t cast a single illusion.

His blood began to boil with more fervor. He truly is the only competent one here!

“She’s lying,” he snapped suddenly. “Back away, all of you! All of this is her trying to get your sympathies."

“But Sasuke...” Sakura questioned, uncertain. “Maybe you're being paranoid, I don't think she's any harm to us.”

“And you’re being manipulated,” he growled.

Naruto turned defensive immediately. “Back off, man! Hinata’s not doing anything wrong! She’s not even in fighting shape!”

Sasuke’s eyes never left her. “That’s exactly what she wants you to think.”

And still—Hinata didn’t break. Her expression trembled just enough. Her eyes glistened just faintly. “I… I'm sorrry... I don’t know what I did to disturb you Sasuke-kun…”

Liar.

She was dancing circles around them all—and Sasuke was the only one who could see it.

Sasuke’s grip tightened around the hilt of his kunai.

“I’m done playing along,” he said, low and sharp. “This is the Chūnin Exams. It’s pass or fail. Them or us.”

“Sasuke, what are you—” Sakura started.

“We need a scroll,” he cut her off. “And her team has one. I'm willing to bet their trade it for their teammate.”

“Sasuke, come on!” Naruto stepped between them. “You seriously want to take Hinata hostage? Are you losing it?!”

“She’s not who you think she is.”

His voice had turned cold—deadly calm. The kind of calm right before a storm hits.

“She’s hiding something. She’s been watching us since the first exam. I felt her stare. Calculated. Dissecting. surveillance.”

Hinata didn’t respond.

Not directly.

But she did meet his gaze again, and in that one look—behind the polished mask of innocence—Sasuke saw it.

Acknowledgment.

He raised his kunai.

“I’ll ask once. Where is your team’s scroll?”

“Sasuke—don’t!” Naruto shouted, stepping forward, hands raised.

Sasuke’s Sharingan spun.

“If she won’t answer, we make her-"

He didn't get the chance to finish before a voice thundered from the treetops.

“Hinata! Fall back!”

From the branched above, Kiba dropped down toward them. 

He skidded between them, placing himself protectively between Hinata and Team 7, claws already gleaming.

“I swear, if either of you so much as scratch her, I’ll rip your damn heads off!”

Sasuke immediately shifted his stance, but his eyes snapped wide as another presence moved from the opposite edge.

A figure descending more slowly behind him. 

Shino.

He looked worse than expected—his right leg heavily bandaged, a broken branch strapped beneath it as a crude splint. But his posture was controlled. And more importantly, the air around him buzzed faintly.

Insects.

Hundreds of them.

“You’ve made a mistake, Uchiha,” Shino said coolly, his expression unreadable behind his dark glasses. “If you attack Hinata, I’ll personally turn your corpse into a hive.”

Hinata blinked. “Kiba-kun… Shino-kun…”

Sasuke didn’t move. His fists clenched tighter.

Sasuke stepped back, evaluating. Another major fight was about to break out—but not one he had any interest in. Yet. 

Naruto raised his hands. “Whoa, whoa! Time out! We weren't fighting anyone here!”

Kiba snarled, eyes still locked on Sasuke. “Could’ve fooled me. Looked like your teammate was ready to attack Hinata!”

“He wasn’t—” Naruto started, but Sasuke cut in.

“Don’t speak for me.” His voice was low, sharp. “I don’t trust her.”

Shino tilted his head. “Trust is a rare commodity here.”

Kiba’s growl deepened. “Anyone that touches our team will pay. I don’t care if you’re the Uchiha golden boy or the Hokage’s grandma got it!”

Silence stretched between the two teams like a blade drawn across a whetstone.

Only Hinata stood quiet; watching, waiting.

Three shinobi from one team—three from the other. Everyone injured. Everyone on edge.

Sasuke looked at Hinata one last time. Her face full of fear, her body looking like a wilted flower. But his eyes wouldn’t be fooled. Those pale eyes were held no fear.

Her mask never cracked.

But he knew now.

She wasn’t the scared girl everyone assumed she was.

A snake hiding in a garden of weeds.

“K-kiba, wait,” Hinata said suddenly—soft, but firm. “It’s alright.”

“No it’s not!” Kiba shouted, fury thick in his voice. “We leave you alone for several hours and you’ve got this Uchiha bastard ready to use you as a punching bag!?”

Hinata’s soft voice reached out again “P-please, its just a misunderstanding”

“There’s no need to fight,” she said gently, turning her head just enough that her words were directed at both teams. “We’ve all been injured. Fighting each other now only weakens us.”

Naruto's voice rose up again "Come on guys we arent looking for a fight, we should be fighting other village teams!"

“This is the Chūnin Exams. It’s not a game, Naruto." Sasuke growled "Every team is competition. And right now? We still need a scroll. If we don’t get one, we fail.”

He looked to Shino, then to Kiba.

“And I’m betting they have one.”

“You planning to take it by force?” Shino asked quietly. His voice was mild. Almost bored. But there was steel beneath the words.

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Try it,” Kiba growled. “And I’ll bury you.”

Sharingan eyes flared “I’d like to see you try.”

“Stop it!” Hinata’s voice wasn’t loud, but it cut through the air like a kunai.

All eyes turned to her.

She stood now between the teams—still small, still battered, but unshaking.

“Y-you’re all acting like we have the luxury of fighting each other,” she said. “But the only thing that’ll do is get us all killed.”

She turned her eyes on Sasuke—not backing down, but not challenging either. “W-we both know we’re not at full strength. And you’re right… this is the Chūnin Exams. But isn’t adaptability and teamwork part of being a shinobi too? What if we... helped each other?”

Kiba let a growl "These bastards were just about to skewer you and now you want us to be friends with them!"

Naruto crossed his arms, face emulating a wise smirk. “She’s got a point. If we work together, everything should be a piece of cake!”

"I don't know... There is no guarantee we'll find enough scrolls even if we work together" Sakura said, her eyes watching Kiba wearily. 

"Its not without merit" Shino's voice rasped. "We still haven't recovered, strength in numbers is a powerful advantage in this scenario"

Sasuke said nothing. His eyes flicked to Hinata’s wounds, then to the exhaustion in Kiba’s stance, the not-so-subtle limp in Shino’s step. And then… inward. To his own bruises and aches which had yet to heal. To the burning mark on his neck and its voice whispering promises in the dark.

They needed one more scroll and time was running out. They didn't have much options. 

He closed his eyes.

“Tch. Fine.”

Naruto grinned. “You mean it?”

“It’s not permanent,” Sasuke snapped. “Just until we reach the tower.”

Hinata turned her soft gaze toward Kiba who held it for a moment before letting out a sigh. 

“Let me make one thing clear, this does not make us friends” Kiba said, cracking his knuckles. “I don’t like any of you.”

Shino finally moved, limping over to stand beside Hinata. “Then it’s settled, we'll make a temporary alliance. Nothing more, nothing less.”

There was a moment of uneasy stillness, but the tension finally began to bleed from the air as the two teams began to gather toward a new campsite. 

...

The two teams sat down beneath the trees, forming a loose circle. They didn’t relax—not fully—but weapons were sheathed, and eyes watched, not with outright hostility, but with caution.

Naruto flopped to the ground with a groan. “Ugh, finally. My feet are killing me.”

Kiba rolled his eyes. “You’ve been walking for what, twenty minutes?”

“We were lost!”

“You got us lost! What kind of ninja doesn't know the way back to their own camp!”

Sakura sighed, rubbing her temples. “Please stop talking.”

As the arguing continued, Hinata sat quietly near the edge of the group, her back to a tree, listening.

Carefully.

Naruto, ever the loudest, took it upon himself to lift the mood.

“So get this,” he began, gesturing dramatically with a half-eaten ration bar. “You would not believe the crap we went through on day one. We ran into some total freak in the forest—like, literally snake arms! This guy just shows up and blasts through a bunch of trees. Almost took Sasuke out in one hit!”

“Thanks for the reminder,” Sasuke muttered darkly from the corner.

“No, no, but hear me out!” Naruto grinned, oblivious to Sasuke's annoyance. “It was like something out of a nightmare.

Sakura nodded, her arms crossed. “We thought we was going to die. The chakra he let out afterward... it was like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

Hinata remained silent, listening.

But behind her soft expression, her mind moved like a scalpel.

She bowed her head slightly, just enough to keep her expression unreadable.

Naruto continued, now puffing up slightly. “Anyway, after that, we had to deal with another team—Dosu and his freaky sound squad.

Shino turned his gaze slightly. “The sound team? Interesting… ”

Naruto continued his boast: “Yea! Well actually Sakura was the one to fight them! Before things got too dicey Shikamaru's team showed up to give us a helping hand and Lee showing up with a kick so hard it made the trees shake—we totally crushed ’em.”

“You didn't even see the fight; the dope was knocked out the entire time" Sasuke muttered.

“Hey we won, didn’t we?”

Hinata’s voice was almost dreamy. “That’s… very impressive, Naruto-kun.”

He scratched the back of his head. “Heh, yeah, well… it wasn’t all me, Sasuke might have helped a little."

From the shadows, Sasuke said nothing.

But his fists clenched beneath his cloak.

She had them all eating from her palm. Playing them like instruments. Not with lies. But with subtlety. Subtext. Emotion.

Sakura turned to Hinata. “What about your team? You said you were ambushed?”

Hinata nodded softly. “Yes… it was quick. Shino was injured. Kiba too. We had to separate. I… I almost didn’t make it out.”

Another half-truth, Sasuke had no proof of course. But every word out of her mouth felt rehearsed—too practiced for a frightened genin.

Still, no one else saw it.

No one else wanted to.

They’d all bought into her illusion.

And that made her just as dangerous as Dosu's team.

 

Setting: Forest of Death, Midnight

-----

The forest deepened into silence as night fell. In a forgotten alcove buried beneath twisted roots and heavy mist, two figures stood beneath a jagged cliffside—veiled in illusion, sealed from even the most sensitive chakra detection.

The hideout was small. Temporary. But it suited Orochimaru’s purposes.

He lounged against a moss-slicked rock, his pale skin near luminous in the moonlight, serpent eyes half-lidded. A slow smirk traced his lips, as if savoring some forbidden delicacy. Kabuto knelt beside a scroll spread across a low table of stone, scribbling notes in a tight, meticulous hand.

“Report,” Orochimaru drawled, his voice oily and languid. “How did our little experiment perform?”

Kabuto adjusted his glasses, never pausing in his writing. “Tayuya made contact with the Hyūga girl. She forced her into a high-intensity engagement within minutes. Results were… illuminating.”

“Oh?” Orochimaru’s smirk deepened. “Do tell.”

Kabuto reached into his pouch and removed a sealed tag embedded with sensory ink. “We recorded the spike in her chakra emissions during the battle. Her ability to parse genjutsu was expected—but the speed with which she adapted to Tayuya’s assault? That was unexpected.”

Orochimaru chuckled low in his throat. “So… the little wallflower truly does have thorns. Interesting.”

Kabuto nodded. “Tayuya got cocky, started throwing insults. One of them seemed to stick, leading to the girl landed a hefty blow on our dear Tayuya. She was forced to activate her Curse Mark to not get battered by the Hyuga style. 

A soft hiss slipped from Orochimaru’s lips, somewhere between laughter and reverence.

“She made Tayuya activate her mark…” He leaned forward, golden eyes sharp. “And she’s still hiding her full potential, no doubt. How fascinating.”

“She’s more than just a Hyūga,” Kabuto said, rising to his feet. “Her movements are precise, almost mechanical. Her emotional control is extreme. She mimics fragility with surgical accuracy. And based on the way she’s begun observing Sasuke… I suspect she’s not acting alone, I haven't discerned were patrons though.”

Orochimaru’s smile stretched wider. “No… of course not.”

He turned away, staring into the darkness beyond the alcove.

“Only one man trains ninja like that. I can smell his darkness on her already.”

Orochimaru’s smile thinned, but his eyes lit with fascination. “Mmm… that old schemer must be grooming her. It’s his style, after all. Molding weapons in the dark to use in his grand game.”

He leaned forward, chin resting on the back of one hand. “Danzo.”

Kabuto blinked in Suprise. “…I thought he lost all his political power after the war. His personal force was disbanded and his estates confiscated. He rarely makes any appearances anymore.”

“Oh, he did lose much of his prestige. But you see, he fled back into the shadows. ” Orochimaru whispered. “Which is exactly where he thrives.”

He stood again, slowly, pacing with newfound energy. “Danzo’s not the type to let talent rot in the open. He collects it. Sharpens it. Hides it until the right moment. If that girl is his little pet, then her potential is likely far greater than even she understands.”

Kabuto crossed his arms. “How can you be sure she is a pet of his and not a disposable genin?”

The Snake Sanin let out an amused laugh. “Its rather simple actually. She still as a name, something of an identity. You see Danzo wipes clean his foot soldiers. Turns them into emotionless pawns. But she… She still as her emotions, however twisted they may be. Oh, how I wonder what plans he has for her.”

Kabuto narrowed his gaze. “Should we be concerned of her?”

“No,” Orochimaru said immediately. “Sasuke is all that matters. But…” He let the word hang, tasting it.

“That girl… she intrigues me. A crafted weapon buried in the persona of a porcelain child. And with Byakugan no less.” He clicked his tongue. “No wonder that old schemer was drawn to her, I suppose we both are aiming for our own pets”

“She could prove an obstacle.”

“She could prove useful,” Orochimaru countered. “Perhaps even… a good catalyst.”

Kabuto frowned. “Catalyst?”

“I’ll let you ponder the implications,” Orochimaru said with a soft laugh.

He turned away, walking deeper into the shadows of the stone alcove. “Sasuke still holds priority. He carries the legacy of the Uchiha. The Sharingan is too valuable to risk.”

“But the Hyūga?” Kabuto pressed.

“Let her dance in the palms of our hand. Let her sharpen herself in the fire. If she survives what's to come, perhaps we’ll offer her… an invitation.”

The wind shifted. The forest creaked. Two teams planned on their next course of action. 

And far above them, under the canopy of stars, the game continued—pieces moving slowly, patiently to their new places.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes:

Feedback is always appreciated! :)

FYI: Have an upcoming trip so NO CHAPTER NEXT WEEK. Next update will be around July 10-14.

Chapter 8: Trap in the Leaves

Notes:

New Chapter!

Chapter 8: Trap in the Leaves

Setting: Forest of Death, Mid ring, Late Evening

The clearing held a rare and delicate stillness. Tucked within dense curtains of cypress and tangled bramble, the forest parted just wide enough to offer a dome of fractured starlight. Overhead, the canopy formed jagged silhouettes, casting pale ribbons of light onto the moss-laced earth. Wind did not reach this place. Even the trees, so ancient and gnarled, seemed to hold their breath.

A silver creek threaded through the clearing, its waters murmuring softly over smooth stone. Beside it, two squads of Konoha genin made camp, their presence quiet but unmistakable.

A single low fire glowed in the center of the space, no brighter than a lantern flame, casting flickers of orange against bark and bone. Kiba and Naruto sat closest to it, bickering—again. Their voices rose and fell like waves, lurching from laughter to threats of combat to mock sobs and back to grins.

Shino remained still. He leaned against a weathered log, posture rigid, face unreadable. His right leg was extended, wrapped tightly in gauze soaked through with dull, greenish medicinal paste. His jacket lay folded among other things as heat poured off him—not chakra-induced, but fever-born.

The wound was worsening.

Charred flesh clung in flaking sheets across his thigh and calf, interrupted by deep lacerations that bared muscle and tendon. Kiba had muttered it was a miracle he could walk at all. Sakura, upon seeing it, had gone pale and whispered about possible tendon damage and infection. She was right. The gashes had already begun to sour.

But Shino said nothing. Not out of stubbornness, nor to appear strong, there was simply no purpose in drawing attention. There was nothing to be done. Team 7 nor 8 held the necessary abilities to provide further aid to the wound.

Instead, insects crawled across his fingers, disappearing into the folds of his bandages, gnawing dead tissue to stall the rot. Every shred of stamina counted now and it was imperative to retain the ability to move.

Hinata knelt beside him. Her hands trembled slightly as she pressed more of the paste into a raw edge. She worked in a habitual silence. It was easier not to speak.

Shino, however, did not grant her silence as he eyed the paste she was spreading on his leg. "Where did you get this?" he asked, voice low and direct.

Hinata froze briefly, then tilted her head up. "I… traded for it. Near one of the streams. A wounded team—one of them had chakra network trauma. I helped… and they offered this."

"You approached another team alone?"

She nodded, eyes lowered. "They were already hurt. Supplies scattered. I thought they'd accept help."

Shino didn’t move. Behind his glasses, his gaze dissected her. He said nothing more.

"The green flecks," she added, applying another layer. "That's s-silverleaf. It helps the body draw out infection, even strengthens the chakra n-network. It was part of our herb lessons."

"You remember more than I did."

Hinata offered a faint, shy smile. "I just didn’t want you to suffer. We need to focus on your recovery… if we’re going to pass this exam."

Another silence settled between them. Then Shino said, softly, "If the infection sets in, and we stay resting another day, we’ll fail."

Hinata’s fingers faltered. But she quickly resumed wrapping. Steadier now.

“…Then we’ll leave before that happens.”

She rose, brushed her knees, and walked away without looking back. Shino remained still. A beetle crawled to the edge of his palm and chirred once, as if sensing his doubt.

In this profession, trust was vital. But so was perception.

Kiba had always trusted blindly, Inuzuka pack instinct, Shino supposed. But Aburame trusted with their eyes open. The clan didn’t achieve noble status for nothing. Insects could detect and persons emotions with ease all based on body heat, scent, and stress; thus enabling the Aburame to be natural lie detectors.

And something about Hinata didn’t add up. Her story. Her demeanor. Even when team 8 had first been formed, he couldn’t shake the feeling his teammate was not all what she seemed. Too many small inconsistencies that accumulated like a snowball. Still, he opted to ignore those misgivings. When most were nervous around members of his clan, she had always been kind and gentle.

And yet… He thought of her eyes after they had been beaten by the mysterious grass-nin. Beneath the tranquil calm of those pale eyes, there was a rage he never felt in her before. He wasn’t certain what the truth was, but she wasn’t telling all of it.

As she settled quietly beside the fire, hands folded, back straight, expression demure… Shino kept watching. And wondering.

…

Hinata sat near the edge of the circle, spine straight, hands folded neatly in her lap. Her expression was soft—almost childlike in its serenity. Her eyes were downcast, her face clean. Even the way her knees were tucked beneath her made her seem delicate, unthreatening.

She had spent the last hour quietly tending wounds across both teams, reinforcing field bandages with swift, yet trembling movements. She spoke softly and caringly; she never raised her voice.

But beneath the gentle exterior, her mind worked like a blade, analyzing the potential of the teams.

We need a plan of attack... more efficient for Danzo-sama. Naruto is wonderful… but he charges too recklessly. Kiba reacts too easily. Sakura is unfocused, her chakra control has improved, but her posture reveals uncertainty. Shino is better, calculating, centered. Sasuke...

Her eyes lifted just slightly, gaze grazing across the boy seated at the edge of the clearing.

Sasuke watches.

Hinata felt that undertone of frustration beneath her skin. While her plan to unify the teams for the sake of the examination had been achieved, it wasn’t without fault. She hadn’t meant to come off so abrasive to the Uchiha, yet for reasons unknown to her, his words had chipped away at her control until she was prepared to break the boy down. Now Sasuke peered at her with distrust and contempt. Nothing she wasn’t used to, but it made getting close to him difficult.

That look lingered now.

He hadn’t said a word about it the initial confrontation since. But she could feel it in every shift of his gaze, every slow blink. He was trying to put pieces together.

Not enough to see the truth. But enough to suspect. She’d need to nip those suspicions in the bud soon. She would not fail Danzo.

With a soft voice, she prodded the alliance “M-maybe we should talk on what to do now, how to p-pass the exam”

Kiba stretched upward before replying “Hinata’s right. So what’s the plan? We are temporary buddies now, both teams need one scroll, yeah?”

Naruto flopped backward onto his pack. “We’ve got an Earth Scroll. Just need the Heaven one.”

Shino nodded. “We hold a Heavan scroll and require the Earth Scroll.”

Sasuke let a chuckle that drew everyone’s attention.

“Just so we’re clear, if it comes down to it, I’ll take your scroll by force if I have too. I am not failing this exam”

Kiba let out a concerning growl as Naruto jumped up “Come on Sasuke! Lighten up a little, we are all leaf shinobi here, it should be no problem getting some more scrolls.”

The Uchiha simply turned his head with a hmph

As Naruto settled down, Shino pulled out a scroll from his pack before continuing “Genin still in the exam will be heading toward the tower by now. Injured, fatigued, desperate. We can intercept them under the right circumstances.”

The insect user pulled open the scroll revealing a rudimentary map of the forest of death.

“Hey, how come you got a map and we didn’t!” Naruto complained

Shino answered while straightening the map “The Aburame clan notes every area or region with heavy insect activity. Of course, this training area is off limits even to most members of my clan so this map is a rough estimate at best, but it allows the formation of a plan.

“It lets us set up an ambush,” Sasuke said quietly, turning to study the map. “Nothing too fancy. The Tower only has so many entrances, we just need to wait in the inner circle of the forest…. Here”

Sasuke pointed on the map which detailed a deep river gorge with sharp cliffs channeling toward the outpost.

“The geography will act as a funnel, allow us to have our pick on what teams to dismember”

Shino nodded in agreement “Good but we must beware. Any trap must be executed perfectly. Last thing we want is to attract other desperate teams and the area becoming a bloodbath. This trap must be completed with a maximum of five minutes all the while we need to ensure we keep the element of surprise and not fall into a trap ourselves”

“I can provide overwatch as an observer” Hinata added softly. “I’ll just need to perch on viable branches. From there, I can monitor chakra movement and alert the team on any movements, e-ensure we keep an eye on everyone in the area.”

Shino nodded in agreement “Very good. Hinata’s eyes are keen, there are few things she won’t be able to see. I suggest we begin moving to the gorge now. A trap is only as good as the position our observer is.”

Naruto beamed. “Wow you can do that? Nice, Hinata will be like our guardian!”

Hinata’s heart skipped in her chest, from the simple, golden warmth in Naruto’s voice. He looked directly at her as he said it, grinning like the forest hadn’t tried to kill them yesterday. Like he meant it.

He looked at her like she was part of the team. Like she was useful.

She blushed. Fiercely. The warmth flooded her cheeks and ears before she could stop it.

Sunlight.

That’s what he felt like. Every time he looked at her, even casually, it was like the sun had turned its gaze just slightly in her direction. She could feel the heat of it even now, crawling up her neck, and she hated how much she wanted to stay in it.

Naruto had already turned away, laughing about something else.

He didn’t see her blush.

He never did.

To him, she was just another teammate — weird, maybe pleasant, but distant. No deeper connection. No understanding of what he meant to her. And maybe that was for the best.

Focus, she told herself, forcing her hands to stop trembling. You’re a weapon. A weapon controls. A weapon obeys.

Her face returned to calm, the heat retreating beneath the surface. The sun was always out of reach.

…

Setting: Forest of Death Inner-ring, Gorge Entrance

The night pressed close around them, warm and wet, thick with the scent of moss and rotting wood. The trees whispered overhead, low and ancient. Even the insects seemed cautious, chirping only in soft, staggered pulses.

Earlier, they had eaten what little food they had left—dried ration packs, hastily caught sewered, berries Kiba and Akamaru had sniffed out and a few nuts Naruto had somehow stumbled upon. With their bellies half-full they moved quickly through the trees toward the gorge, senses keen for any movements to avoid falling into any trap themselves. Now they sat in a loose circle high in the branches within the gorge, scrolls and the crude map laid out between them.

Sasuke took the lead.

He knelt beside Shino’s map, marked with a charcoal stub. “The river crossing is here,” he said, tapping it with one finger. “Northwest from our position. The incline narrows into a choke point—cliffs on one side, thick marsh on the other. No easy exit routes.”

Shino adjusted his seated posture, folding his hands across his lap. “A natural ambush point along with many towering trees for Hinata to keep on an eye on everything. Once we rest, we can begin to set traps into a cone perimeter, forcing any incoming teams into single-file approach. Our trap must be fierce and quick. With any luck, the first team we attack will have two scrolls.”

“It’s risky,” Sakura murmured, leaning over to see better. “If it’s that obvious, won’t other teams expect it?”

“Of course, but that’s what the cliff’s for,” Kiba said, voice a low growl. “It’ll keep any company away for a short time. All we need is a few minutes to pound are prey into the ground”

Hinata’s voice barely rose of the rustle of the leaves “There’s a split in the canopy. If I take a position above us, I can guide us on their movements. I’ll know if they’ve scouted it or not.”

Sasuke nodded once, slow and thoughtful. “Your Byakugan gives you a wide field right?”

“A-a full 360,” Hinata murmured. “But I’ll only use a third of my range… My eyes burn chakra quickly…”

The pale-eyed girl fidgeted with her jacket cuffs “D-despite that, I can spot chakra patterns up to half a kilometer out, especially if they’re injured. Ninja who are injured emit more wild chakra due to pain or discomfort.”

Kiba whistled low. “Damn Hinata, said before and I’ll say it again; Hyuga eyes are cheating, but anything including cheating goes in these exams.”

“Useful,” Sasuke muttered, but his eyes stayed locked on Hinata for a beat longer than they should have.

He said nothing else. But he was noting it. How she had spoken, how her assessment was.

Hinata felt it, the weight of his stare. Her stomach twisted. Not in fear. In calculation.

Too much. Pull back.

She looked down at her knees and added quickly, “It’s… what I was taught from my clan. I just memorized the patterns. That’s all.”

Naruto chuckled. “Don’t sell yourself short, Hinata. That sounds awesome.”

The words scraped gently across her ribs, as if kindness were a blade blunted by time. She gave him a tiny, perfect smile. “Thank you, Naruto.”

But Sasuke still hadn’t looked away.

“Whoever holds the scrolls will be the priority” Shino said, interjecting smoothly. “If we do not keep pressure on the scroll holder, its likely we’ll win the fight yet have nothing to show for it. Should there be one holder, Kiba should place pressure on them. If there are two, I will take the other. It will be tough for them to lose us.”

“You’re leg is still injured, you really think you can do much in your condition?” Sasuke said flatly.

“I can move enough,” Shino replied with a shift of his glasses. “And even if I’m stationary, my jutsu will be just as effective. I only need one beetle.”

“Fine. Kiba and Akamaru’s nose will be the first thing we throw at them. Sasuke said. “Naruto, Sakura—you cover Shino. Last thing I need is for our weak link to get himself killed.”

Shino simply shifted his glasses to Sasuke’s jab.

Naruto saluted sloppily. “You got it, captain.”

Sasuke’s eye twitched slightly. “Focus you dope, last thing we need is you getting ahead of yourself.”

Kiba snorted. “Aw, lighten up Uchiha, don’t tell me you are getting cold feet now”

“I’m trying to be cautious and efficient.”

“You didn’t deny getting cold feet Uchiha.” Kiba said with a smirk.

A faint tension rippled across the group. Not hostility, exactly. Just friction. Too many leaders in one clearing. Shino’s calculation, Kiba’s aggressiveness, and Sasuke’s coldness.

Sakura would break tension. “Well since we got a gameplan now how about we do some last checkups and get some rest? We’re in for a difficult day in a few hours. We should decide the order of our watches.”

“True,” Naruto grinned. “I’ll take the first two.”

Sakura nodded in agreement. “I can take the third watch then.”

Kiba scoffed at Naruto “Well aren’t you energetic taking two watches. Akamaru and I will take the fourth and fifth two watches then. That leaves one last shift”

Hinata looked up. “I can take the final shift. My Byakugan can work r-regardless of the dim light.”

She took notice of sasuke’s mouth tightened just slightly.

I may need to rethink how to get close to him…

Meanwhile as the group toned down for the night, Sasuke was grimacing at how easily the soft pale-eyed girl weaved around the team.

And yet… none of the others saw it.

They liked her like this—shy, helpful, strange. To them, she was a shrinking violet. Polite. Fragile. The quiet Hyuga girl who stumbled through sparring matches and turned pink when spoken to.

But Sasuke had seen that shift. Those frost-like eyes staring into him when she walked out into the clearing. He saw her mask falter for just a second.

He didn’t know who she was. But she was dangerous.

But if they were to pass this damned exam, then he needed her to play her part.

He laid on his chosen sleeping area and stared at the stars above, pale eyes ruling his thoughts.

He simply couldn’t get it out of his head. Back then, Hinata had been a stammering shadow behind the top clans’ children.

But now? Every time she opened her mouth, something inside him clicked like a tripwire.

It was the amount of lies.

It wasn’t her skills—skills could be trained. It was how controlled she was. How every sentence came pre-measured. Every movement calibrated. Every act of hesitation performed with theatrical subtlety.

Even her blush earlier when Naruto praised her… Was that even real? Perhaps it was just long enough to look genuine. Just short enough to pass.

Is that the real her? Or yet another deception?

He didn’t know what bothered him more: that she might be hiding something from them — or that no one else could see it.

They all liked her. Sakura tolerated her. Kiba teased her. Naruto outright trusted her… though he’d trust anyone that was willing to listen to him. Shino, even wounded, leaned on her like she was some kind of anchor. And maybe she was.

But Sasuke had learned to look past the surface.

It was how he’d survived his clan’s destruction, how he survived him. Nothing was what it seemed. People wore masks — some because they were afraid. Or perhaps they were cruel and loved to play games

Others because they had something to hide or they were ashamed.

And Hinata’s mask?

Sasuke turned towards the form of the Hyuga in gentle sleep and took in what he saw. Slender, porcelain skin, and delicate facial features which held the powerful Byakugan. She was graceful. Fragile. Flawless in an exquisite glass kind of way. That wasn’t a sentiment Sasuke would never admit lightly. Only a fool wouldn’t see the beauty the Hinata held.  

That didn’t make her any less dangerous.

What was real about her? Her voice? Her softeness? Her mind? What was the difference between the flower that doted on her teammates, and the ninja with those frost-like eyes that was prepared to fight him.

His thoughts were briefly interrupted by a subtle spike chakra. His hand immediately grasped his kunai, his eyes glancing around the area before realizing the spike was coming from her. He stared at her for a few seconds, noticing the subtle tension in her sleep before relaxing once more.

Sasuke felt a spark of annoyance, anger and annoyance bubble within him before forcing himself to calm. There was no reason to get worked up over whatever sleeping fantasy she was having. Whatever she was, she didn’t know true suffering or anguish like what he had endured. He is the one with dark shadows every night, made even more hellish now with this damned mark. What possible reason could she have to meet demons in the dark!

He turned himself over with a huff.

She’s dangerous that much is certain. But she is also weak if being a pampered clan heir gives you nightmares.

…..

Setting: Somewhere between dreams and memory…

Hinata stood in the familiar dark again.

No ground. No sky. Just weightless pressure. Like being underwater without the sound.

Then—

A scream.

It wasn’t hers. But she felt it in her throat all the same.

She blinked. The world snapped into focus for a moment:

Kaori.
The older girl’s body writhing on the floor, blood erupting from her mouth blood in spirals as her organs crumpled in on themselves.
 Not an order.

“Y-you didn’t have to—” Kaori gasped, hand reaching. “We were done—done—”

Hinata stood there. Not blinking. Not breathing.

Danzo’s voice echoed from nowhere:

“Emotion clouds judgment. Regret is the privilege of the undisciplined.”

The scene bled away.

Now she was younger—kneeling naked in the black waters of ROOT’S headquarters, frost biting deep into her legs. His shadow loomed over her as another operative screamed in the background—bones breaking beneath the surgeon’s hands.

“You will forget your weakness, your disappointments. Your mercy. Your self.”

The area shifted again.

An oily, black ground. A seemingly endless ceiling. Just endless black.

No…. She was in that room.

She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t blink.

Then—Her saviors voice:

“You disobeyed.”

She flinched. The word hit like a blade.

She saw him them, Lord Danzo looking at her…. No… it was as if he was looking behind her. Like she didn’t exist.

No, please look at me, see me! I’m still useful, I can still do whatever you want!

“Danzo...” She tried to speak but her voice barely croaked. She forced her body to move forward, but her legs simply wouldn’t work and she collapsed on the cold floor.

“You were supposed to follow orders.”

Danzo’s voice. Calm. Measured. Not angry. Disappointed.

“Perhaps I was wrong to care for you”

Her fingers were clawing at the stone, trying to drag her body to her savior

I’m sorry Danzo-sama, I can do better, I’ll rip out this weakness. Punish me, give more orders, just don’t leave… PLEASE!!

The room spun.

Faces flickered past her like broken film: A burning estate in the northern land of fire, a crying child in Ame, a series of bleeding corpses on the road. A pale mirror version of herself, eyes blazing with what seemed like frost fire. The mirror whispered gently: “You wanted to be seen. And now they all see you, don’t they? They all see… WHAT YOU ARE!”

Danzo’s shadow suddenly consumed her mirror self, staring at her with heart wrenching contempt.

“You are not worthy.”

Hinata screamed…

She woke.

Gasping. Bent forward at the waist.

She stayed still for a moment, fists trembling, eyes wide and damp. Her breath came fast and ragged. The taste of guilt and pure fear clung to her tongue like acid.

Almost by default she felt her nails biting into her forearms, digging and tearing until she felt droplets of warm blood, urging the pain to ease the panic in her chest.

A weapon shouldn’t have these pathetic dreams… I should be stronger, more capable. How can I serve Danzo if every night its…

She gnashed her teeth in frustration before looking around.

The fire was dying. The others were still asleep. Even the trees seemed to hush.

Then—slowly—mechanically—she forced herself upright.

Inhale. Exhale.

You are a weapon. You are useful. You are loyal.

You are what Danzo-sama made you, what he wants you to be, what you should be.  

They abandoned you, forgot you. He will not so long as I am not weak.

Images of her clan fluttered in her mind, and the familiar ache of that loathing fury helped dull the panic.

“Hey you ok?”

The voice made her jump as she peered at Kiba’s concerned face. Akamaru whimpered slightly from his coat.

“I-I’m sorry, b-bad d-dreams.”

She felt The true stutter always returned when those dreams ravaged her mind.

Kiba’s eyes were full of sympathy. I can take your watch if you want-

“No!” she gasped. “I-I’d rather stay awake”.

Kiba looked ready to argue for a moment before nodding. “Alright Hinata, wake me if you need anything.” He gave her shoulder a warm grasp before tottering off to his pack.

She rose in silence and melted into the tree line, Byakugan flickering to life.

Time to observe.

Time to make herself worthy again.

…

Setting: Inner Forest Ring, River Gorge

The mist clung low to the ground, thick and heavy as milk. Every footstep was muffled, every breath dampened. High above, hidden in a gnarled pine branch twisted by wind and time, Hinata knelt with perfect stillness.

Her Byakugan flared, silent pulses mapped the terrain below.

The trap had been set hours prior, now they just waited to catch their enemy. Her eyes had been tracking the movement for nearly half an hour. A series of false, obvious traps along the gorge set up by Naruto’s shadow clones had succeeded in funneling a team toward their location… or rather teams.

Six enemy signatures approached through the dense ravine. As they drew increasingly closer, she noted their attire: three Rain-nin, three Mist-nin. Together. Coordinated. It seems they weren’t the only teams to get desperate enough to work together.

Or maybe not… Hinata’s eyes took note of the battered bodies of the Mist nin, while their rain comrades look clean and healthy. Either the mist team was being held against their will or ad submitted to the rain team for aid. The rain genin moved with unusual sharpness, like a blade already half-drawn. She noted one of the rain genin in particular, who held a collection of scrolls on his body and bag.  

She briefly pondered what circumstances led the mist team to get strapped along to the rain team who clearly held their reigns before dropping the thought. Whatever the reason, they had the scroll both teams needed, and no mercy would be shown.

Hinata adjusted her focus before dropping below to rejoin the others. “T-targets entering trap zone. One of the Rain genin holds a number of scrolls. He might have the scrolls we need as well as decoy scrolls. The mist team is clearly exhausted, however the Rain team appears fresh” She whispered.

Sasuke’s voice crackled from below. “Let’s get into our positions then. How is Akamaru?”

“Ready for action,” came Kiba’s excited reply.

“Shino?”

“Ready,” said the insect-user from his perch behind a thick stump. “Naruto and Sakura?”

“We’re good!” Naruto exclaimed a little too loudly for their trap which was met with immediate glares from both Sasuke and Sakura.

Hinata’s eye twitched but smiled to herself regardless. The sun would always shine regardless of whose surroundings.

Kiba let out a small, exasperated sigh. “Loud and proud as always.”

The group waited a few more minutes until Hinata gave them the signal: The enemy genin were within the trap’s perimeter.

Sasuke’s voice rasped “Hinata—initiate.”

Without a word, she released a pulse of chakra into a line of wire—small, sharp, and masked under the hum of forest.

Below, paper tags connected to the wire, hidden among the trees snapped to life with a pop-hiss-crack, and the clearing lit up with flickering chakra mines.

BOOM—!

The trap detonated perfectly. Trees groaned. Roots tore. A Mist genin screamed as they were flung from their formation, an arm flying sloppily through the air. Smoke flooded the field. Shouts rose in all directions as the Rain-Mist ninja reformed.

And then: chaos.

Sasuke was the first to strike.

He blurred forward from the shadows, shuriken flying from one hand, kunai flashing from the other. A rain genin jumped back to avoid the shuriken while one of the remaining Mist-nin moved forward to meet him—Sasuke spun low, swept his leg, then drove the kunai into the boy’s ribs and sending him barreling towards the ground with a sharp kick.

Behind him, Kiba roared. “LETS GO AKAMARU!”

Fang Over Fang exploded through the underbrush, whirling teeth and claws catching the scroll holder off guard. The boy’s yell was muffled by the force of the blow as they tumbled backward into the fauna below. The Beats duo jumped quickly followed suite.

Two dozen Naruto leapt into the fray next, flinging two kunai toward the remaining mist ninja who responded with a flurry of water style shuriken.

Sasuke took in the fight around him to determine his next action. That mist genin is exhausted already. Naruto will be fine, though I seem to recall telling him to stick with Shino! He glanced where Kiba and Akamaru had dove through the thick foliage. Their scroll holder won’t lose Kiba with his nose. Together they should make quick work of their opponent.

He turned to Sakura who was rushing to where Shino knelt behind a partial log barricade, directing his insects toward a rain genin who was weaving hand signs, orbs of water flowing around him.

Sasuke made his move as he saw the third rain genin appear from the canopy, behind Shino and Sakura. He landed on a low branch, keeping the kunoichi from supporting the mist genin. Blood dripped from grazes across her face and arms, courtesy of tree shards from a explosion. “I’m only going to say this once. Either drop your weapons and leave, or die here”

The girl didn’t answer, instead she pulled out a saber from her back and flung herself toward Sasuke who responded in kind, a Kunai in each hand.

…

She gazed at the motion of the battlefield.

The plan is coming together nicely. But the fight wasn’t won yet. This will be pointless if they don’t get scrolls!

A few seconds of searching was all it took for her eyes to find her goal through the flurry of motion.

Once the fight began in earnest, she had seen how this one had immediately turned tail, ready to dive into the tree’s to escape, only to be plowed into by Kiba and Akamaru’s jutsu. The flurry of movement as the beast duo hunted their prey made her lose the scroll holder for a moment, but she found them again.

Slender. Skintight tank top and mask covering his mount. Bare arms painted with red rain sigils. No weapon. Just a pair of bare hands and cold, unreadable eyes. He crouched on his tree branch, taut like a drawn bow, a light trickle of blood dripping down from a series of scratches on his forearms.

Kiba and Akamaru stood a ways apart on all fours. Akamaru was using his beast mimicry, a feral Kiba growling and drooling.

Hinata activated her byakugan. Her eyes not only told her who was who due to their chakra networks but also keep tabs on the scroll holder who seemed irritated.

Then he moved.

Fast.

Far too fast…

He vanished and reappeared behind a surprised Kiba, delivering a sharp blow that sent the boy flying into a rock wall with.

Hinata’s eyes widened at the speed.

Akamaru howled and surged forward, landing a clawed strike on the boys shoulder only to be sent flying by a brutal kick to the chest.

He’s faster than most chunin!

“You bastard!” Kiba emerged from the undergrowth in a flurry of claws, all of them parried with a slew of rapid strikes.

The two shinobi clashed like animals beneath the thick canopy. Kiba snarled through bared teeth, his claws slashing in rapid arcs that scraped fabric and shallow flesh. But every blow he landed came at a cost. The Rain ninja’s form was compact and brutal. iron-wristed punches, shoulder checks that cracked bark, knees that shatter wood. 

Hinata, perched high in the trees, clutched the bark beneath her fingers. Her Byakugan pulsed softly, tracking each shift in chakra. I can’t intervene unless its necessary

Akamaru rejoined the fight shortly after and the duo fought the rain ninja claw vs fist.

Kiba stumbled again, taking a blow across the collarbone that sent him spinning. Blood sprayed from a split lip. Akamaru yelped and lunged, teeth flashing, forcing the Rain genin to dodge and parry — but the difference in weight, in intent, was glaring. 

The beast ninja roared and launched himself again. The Rain ninja caught his wrist mid-strike — and twisted. Kiba screamed before being pounded by the rain who used his arm to hold Kiba in place has his iron punched came again and again. 

Akamaru charged in blind fury, only to be kicked aside without so much a second glance. 

They can’t beat him…

Hinata moved, throwing a shower of shuriken from her hiding place, forcing the Rain ninja away from Kiba who crumpled to the ground in a daze.

Before the ninja could react to Hinata’s attack, he was forced back once more as Akamaru unleashes a fang passing fang attack, a corkscrew of destruction homing in on him. 

The genin gathered some distance from Akamaru, letting out a small chuckle as he formed into a fight stance. “I've had enough this mutt"

Hinata saw the boy blur, a harsh strike landing on Akamuru's back and a poof of smoke as the dog's transformation ended. But the ninja wasn't done, he blurred once more. 

Too fast. Almost like—

Rain style: Strike Burst!

The Rain genin struck Hinata’s branch, hardened fist puncturing the wood like brittle glass.

With a sharp crack, it splintered beneath her as the branch exploded in a burst of splinters and water.

Twisting mid-air, she caught a hanging vine, slowed her descent, and landed in a kneel. Dust curled around her like a soft cloak.

The Rain-nin landed opposite her, crouching. “Nice eyes. You're the scout right?” he said flatly. “I kill you, and we escape!”

Too many eyes… I can't fight!

“I-I.. w-wait! ,” she stammered, shrinking slightly, eyes wide. “P-please, don’t—”

He moved to strike as Hinata braced herself.

Sasuke suddenly appeared and intercepted from below, pushing a kunai against the genin’s arm only to clash against a shockwave of water.  

Both Hinata and Sasuke backed away from their foe.

The Rain-nin mouth curled into a sliver of a grin as he straightened himself “You’re that Uchiha everyone talks of. Good reflexes”

“Hmph. A taijutsu specialist huh, that’s some chakra you got there” Sasuke said, tightening his grip.

The rain genin raises his arms in a new fight stance. “I was hoping I’d get to show off my clans power. It’s high time you leaf clans were knocked down a peg”

“Fine. Hinata back off!” Sasuke smirked “lets get this over with then!”

The Rain Genin was already in motion without a wasted breath.

Sasuke’s kunai scraped against a bone-hard elbow block. A follow-up strike came like a piston to the ribs. Sasuke twisted away, but the blow clipped his side, drawing a tight grunt from his lips.

He’s fast… not Lee fast, but close.
But unlike Lee… he has chakra control.

The next attack proved it.

Rain style: Flowing Stance

A sweeping kick that should’ve overextended him suddenly jerked mid-motion, water forming beneath his foot. It shifted his balance perfectly — and turned a vulnerable spin into a fluid redirection. He came back around with a heel aimed at Sasuke’s shoulder.

Sasuke blocked — but it felt like being struck by a current. The water-enhanced blow knocked him back two steps.

That’s water style integrated directly into his form. It doesn’t strike itself, just raw layering.

He activated his Sharingan. Every motion, every pulse in the boy’s shoulders, the minute bend in his knees—he began to read it. He couldn’t move with it activated, but he could at least get a handle of his oppenets form. Not perfectly. But enough.

The Rain Genin struck again — this time, Sasuke ducked beneath the opening jab and returned a two-hit combo: one palm to the abdomen, then a backfist toward the neck.

Both landed — barely.

But the Rain Genin didn’t flinch. Instead, water bloomed from his shoulders like armor and absorbed the brunt of the blow, pushing Sasuke back with the recoil.

He’s reinforcing his limbs... This is a problem!

The thought passed just as the Rain Genin surged forward again.

Sasuke leapt up into the trees, breaking the pattern. Can’t beat him trading blows. Not without an opening.

He darted through the canopy, letting his chakra flow build up.

Below, the Rain Genin pursued.

Lee’s faster, stronger Sasuke reminded himself, but this one uses chakra offensively.

He dropped low onto a thick branch and spun around, forming seals mid-fall.

Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!

The small fireballs rained outward—scattering in a wide arc.

The Rain Genin didn’t flinch. He raised both palms, water swirling from his arms like twin shields.

Rain Style: Arcing Flow!

The flames hissed and evaporated, some turning to steam before impact.

But Sasuke had closed the distance in that moment. He burst through the rising smoke and aimed a chakra-infused roundhouse for the boy’s throat.

The Rain Genin ducked, caught Sasuke’s ankle, and threw him into a tree.

Bark cracked. Sasuke coughed, righting himself just before the Rain Genin closed the gap again.

This time, Sasuke pulled out a second kunai, briefly activating his Sharingan once more to anticipate the flow—catching a high elbow, ducking a sweep, and finally grazing the Rain Genin’s thigh with a shallow slice.

Just as Sasuke was about to lunge forward, he felt it. The mark on his neck seared, his chakra flow disrupted. Damn, I can’t keep using my sharingan… getting paralyzed here means death!

His opponent saw him pause and took the chance to create space, stepping back for the first time, water pooling under his feet to mend the wound.

“The Uchiha is slowing down,” the Rain Genin said with a slight grin.

Sasuke wiped blood from his lip. “And you’re bleeding.”

A flicker of anger passed through the Rain Genin’s face as he reformed his fight stance.

As Sasuke’s prepared for another round his eyes darted upward. A flicker of movement — pale eyes in the dark.

Hinata.

She was watching. No — she was calculating.

For a brief second, their eyes locked.

He hated the thought — hated the trust it required. But logic burned louder than pride.

I can’t finish him alone without taking too much time!

She gave no signal. No nod. No word.
Just a whisper of intent behind her gaze — like a scalpel waiting for the incision.

Sasuke’s chest tightened.

She’s hiding something. Masking everything.
But she can end this.

She just needed an opening.

Sasuke struck — hard and fast, chakra surging through his limbs.

The Rain Genin blocked low, then high, parried a strike aimed for his throat — but the tempo shifted. Sasuke wasn’t aiming to land a decisive blow. He was herding him. Pressuring him.

Sasuke winced as a heavy blow landed on his side, his bones rattling from within.

“Is this all the last Uchiha can do!” the ninja sneered as he launched another Arcing Flow toward Sasuke.

The wave of water rushed passed Sasuke, nicking his back as he scampered to keep upright.

Damn it already, drop your guard!

The Rain Genin lunged now, and even without his sharing, he saw his opponent had moved too far forward, his layers of water gathered on his arms.

In that instant, Hinata blurred behind him.

One strike. Two. Three.

She didn’t shout. Didn’t flinch. Her palms touched the Rain ninja’s back, side, and base of the neck in a flash of controlled precision. Each hit reverberated with concentrated chakra, collapsing flow points and sending ripples through his network.

The Rain Genin gasped, staggering forward as portions of his body went numb.

But the moment didn’t last.

A blur of steel flashed from the tree line.

Sasuke turned just in time to see the saber-wielding Rain kunoichi — the one he had dropped two minutes ago, darting toward Hinata’s flank as she was preparing to deal the final blow. Her arm was still bleeding, one leg limping slightly, but her eyes burned with resolve.

“Tch—!” Sasuke moved, but Hinata had already shifted back, her body twisting with delicate precision as she narrowly avoided the blade. The kunoichi’s momentum carried her past, but the moment of danger forced Hinata off the Rain Genin — who retreated, panting, clutching his abdomen and side.

Kiba appeared beside them with Akamaru, bruised but moving. Naruto dragged along Sakura and Shino toward them, his breath ragged. All six were in rough shape — scraped, and bloodied. But alive.

The two Rain ninja stood defiant, breathing hard, weapons raised. The scroll holder stood with fury in his eyes as he faced the two teams.

“You Leaf scum want these scrolls? You are going to have to pry them from our hands!”

Naruto shouted immediately “I’ll beat you black and blue until you hand them over then!”

Akamary barked in agreement.

Hinata stared intently at the scroll holder. What remained of his chakra network was erratic.

“He’s taken something,” she whispered, her gaze flicking from the scroll holder to his companion. “A stimulant of some sorts. It’s flooding his system. He cant use chakra but he can move.”

Sasuke clenched his fists. “Which means we’re running out of time…

A deep rumble echoed from beneath them, low and wet, like a beast exhaling under the soil.

Shino’s eyes widened. “No—there’s a chakra surge under us!”

Down below, inthe center of the ruined clearing, the last Mist ninja — silent until now — dropped to one knee, hand slammed into a soaked tree root. Blood and ink swirled in the seal beneath her.

“Raging Death Fog!” she screamed.

The world erupted.

A thick, boiling fog surged upward in a roaring vortex — oily, caustic, and burning the skin. Visibility dropped instantly. The heat sizzled in their lungs.

“Scatter!” Sasuke shouted,

“Don’t breathe it in!” Sakura gasped, already dragging Shino with her, both choking on smoke.

Naruto grabbed Kiba and Akamaru and veered left. Sasuke bolted right. The world was all smoke and cracking earth.

Through the haze, Sasuke caught a glimpse — pale eyes. Hinata, darting away from the center.

She wasn’t retreating.

She was chasing someone.

The Rain Genin — the scroll holder.

“Damn it—Hinata!” Sasuke surged forward. “Naruto, with me!”

“Right!”

The two of them sprinted into the mist, weaving through wreckage and brush until they broke into a less toxic stretch of forest — just in time to see the two Rain Genin stop, heaving for breath, back to a tree.

Hinata stood before him, shoulders heaving slightly, arms loose at her sides. She didn’t speak.

The Rain Genin let out a breath. “You’re persistent.”

Sasuke landed beside her. Naruto skidded to a stop a few meters away.

“Three on two” Naruto said. “You should just give up.”

“Not yet.” The Rain Genin’s hands trembled. He pulled a small vial from his pouch, cracking it between his teeth.

The Rain Genin roared as his chakra spiked. Veins bulged across his arms and neck, his eyes bloodshot. Water chakra exploded from his skin in steaming bursts.

“C-Careful!” Hinata’s voice sharpened. “Whatever he took just f-forcibly activated his chakra network!”

Naruto let out a yell of frustration “oh com on, now we got to deal with this!”

“Only for a few minutes!” Her eyes took in the state of the revamped chakra network in front of her. “His body can’t handle the reactivation, his network will shutdown in a few minutes.:

“I only need five minutes,” The rain ninja hissed. “That’s all it takes to end you.”

Sasuke stepped forward. “Naruto — take the girl.”

“What? I want a piece of this guy too—”

“Damn it Naruto, now’s not the time!” Sasuke snapped. “He’s mine. Hinata — with me.”

Naruto growled but turned to face the kunoichi. In a flash the two clashed as the kunoichi faced a dozen kunai wielding Naruto’s

Hinata stepped up beside Sasuke, her fingers already pulsing with chakra.

The Rain Genin cracked his neck, smiling through the pain.

“Let’s dance.”

 

Chapter 9: Fire and Water

Notes:

New Chapter!

Chapter 9: Fire and Water

-----

Setting: Inner Forest Ring, River Gorge

The world blurred around her as Hinata stared down the scroll holder in front of her. Failure wasn’t an option.

Not with Danzo watching.

She had to win.

She had to prove she was still useful. Still loyal. Still salvageable.

Her heart faintly lurched as soft sounds of battle echoed a distance from them. Naruto’s bright figure had thrown itself against the rain kunoichi while Sasuke, radiating tension and calculated violence stood a few branches from her.

Hinata took a small breath while she refocused on the goal in front her.

I must maintain myself in front of Sasuke… however I cant afford to hold back too much here. A lesser degree of control may be needed here to serve Danzo.

She locked on to his chakra signature—once steady, now erratic, lashing through the terrain like a cornered animal. There was desperation in the shape of his network, like sparks leaping from frayed wires.

That’s new, she thought sharply.

Just moments earlier she had successfully targeted his chakra network, fracturing the flow of chakra between his chakra coils and chakra points. But now whatever was in the vial had reawakened him. Forcefully. Not even Hyuga healers could reawaken a network so fast or so forceful. The chakra was burning too hot, his coils overcompensating with unnatural intensity.

The boy had sacrificed long-term control for short-term rage. It made him stronger, yes—but jagged. Unstable. One wrong surge and his network could collapse in on itself.

Is your hatred for us worth that? she wondered. Worth burning your future just to hurt the clans of the Leaf?

She’d seen this before. In ROOT, in the experiments. Chakra pushed past its limits didn’t just break the body—it broke the soul. Turned people into echoes.

You’re going to burn alive, she thought coldly.

But she buried the emotion. There was no room for it.

He faced them like a cornered beast—breathing hard, muscles taut, water clinging to his arms in thick layers. His body was trembling slightly, but not from fear. His chakra was boiling, surging past reason. Even his mind seemed frenzied, his pupils dilating, a wicked grin on his face.

He’d made himself a bomb.

So be it. She’ll break him down and earn her worth.

for a few moments, none moved, even the forest seemed to hold its breath as the ninja faced off.

The Rain Genin tilted his head, a crooked grin spreading across his face.
“An Uchiha and a Hyuga. Guess I should feel honored,” he said, cracking his neck. “Don’t worry—I’ll make it quick.”

Rain Style: Flowing Stance!

His chakra flared like a pressure front, slick and dense. The forest air bent with humidity as layers of water wrapped itself around the genin.

Sasuke didn’t respond. His Sharingan spun to life.

Beside him, Hinata dropped into a low stance, one hand forward, the other near her ribs. Her expression was unreadable save for the strange intensity in her Byakugan.

Then the Rain Genin struck.

He blurred forward with shocking speed, chakra-enhanced water twisting from his feet as he vaulted from tree to tree, rebounding mid-air to close the distance at a vicious angle. Sasuke intercepted, kunai clashing against high-density water blades that hissed and steamed.

Their fight exploded into motion.

Sasuke ducked low, slicing at the Rain Genin’s knees. The boy twisted, skimming backward across the forest floor in a swirl of mist—just as Hinata swept in from his flank.

She aimed a palm at his shoulder joint. He caught her wrist.

“Nice try, sweetheart.”

But her free hand slammed into his ribs before a burst of chakra blasted him several meters away.

Sasuke didn’t wait. He launched Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu—a scatter of blazing projectiles tearing through the undergrowth, forcing the Rain Genin to retreat behind a rising wall of mist. Water hissed, igniting trees and bark in crackling flame.

The Rain Genin surged out of the steam a heartbeat later, dragging a whip of pressurized water behind him.

It snapped toward Hinata like a serpent, but she rotated her frame just enough to avoid it—her movements precise, unshowy, clean.

Sasuke pushed again—his eyes tracking everything. It was time to show this clown the power of the Uchiha!

Sasuke darted forward, chakra pulsing hot through his limbs. The Sharingan burned in his eyes, reading every twitch of the Rain Genin’s muscles—every misstep, every flicker of intent.

The Rain Genin struck first, two rain style whips slicing down in a spiral arc.

Sasuke’s Sharingan flared, but he wasn’t alone.

Hinata shot forward beside him—graceful, low to the ground, her hands already glowing with chakra.

Where Sasuke would’ve met force with steel, Hinata’s approach was silent precision.

As the whip curved toward them in a wide arc, Hinata pivoted on her heel and struck.

Her palm met the liquid weapon directly, her chakra streaming into the structure—subtle, invasive, piercing through the water’s cohesion.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then—

The whip detonated in a burst of steam and splatter, the overloaded chakra inside it collapsing in on itself.

The Rain Genin’s eyes widened. “What—?”

Sasuke appeared in front of him, slashing toward the Rain-nin’s exposed flank. The enemy barely raised a guard, catching the kunai with a wrist braced by a sudden splash of chakra.

Their coordination wasn’t perfect—but it was lethal enough.

The Rain Genin grunted as the kunai scraped across his guard. He twisted into a kick, but Hinata was already there, parrying the strike with a compact, two-handed block that shimmered with water chakra.

“She reads my rhythm,” Sasuke thought, half-impressed, half-annoyed.

He dropped low, forcing the Rain Genin to adjust.

Hinata struck high—palms aimed for the shoulders, aiming to disrupt his chakra points with rapid palm strikes.

The Rain Genin weaved between them, a blur of efficiency, but the pressure was building. He couldn’t focus on one without exposing himself to the other.

Sasuke’s foot swept low—

The Rain Genin vaulted over it—but Sasuke had baited him.

The moment the boy was airborne, Sasuke twisted and launched three shuriken, then appeared behind them in a blur of speed—his body angled for a flying roundhouse. The Rain Genin blocked two shuriken with water walls, but the third sliced his forearm just as Sasuke’s kick connected with his ribs.

“Got you—” Sasuke growled.

The Rain Genin slammed backward into a tree trunk, bark splintering from the force.

But he didn’t fall. Instead, his arms swirled outward in a spiraling guard, drawing moisture from the air into dense beads across his skin. Rain Style chakra hardened around his fists like gauntlets.

The humidity around them intensified suddenly, chakra-laced rain striking the ground in rhythmic pulses.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes.

He saw it—every droplet traced in red through his vision, every twitch of the Rain Genin’s fingers.

It didn’t matter.

He would outmatch him.

He would—

Until he didn’t.

A flare of pain tore through his spine.

Sasuke’s foot caught against the forest floor—and locked.

No—

His leg wouldn’t move. Not even tremble. The Curse Mark pulsed violently at the base of his neck, sending jagged lines of burning chakra straight into his back and skull.

The Rain Genin saw it.

Rain style: Flowing Burst!

His forearm became encased in water, his fist becoming a swirling hammer with chakra pulsing from it.

“You need to move!” Hinata cried out.

Damn it, I would if I could!

In two strides, the rain-nin closed the distance, with a strike primed to kill.

Sasuke’s eyes widened as the blow came: Move, move, MOVE!!

“Sasuke-kun!”

Hinata suddenly blurred between them, an orb of swirling water between her hands

Water style: Swirling Guard!

The orb of water stretched and expanded into a thin wall just as the rain genin’s strike came upon it.

For a moment Hinata’s jutsu held the Rain jutsu back.

But the wall couldn’t hold.

The swirling defense shimmered, rippling as cracks spiderwebbed across its surface. The Rain Genin snarled, pressing forward with raw force—his hammerlike fist twisting into the vortex with relentless pressure.

Hinata’s feet slid back across the bark, her arms trembling, chakra surging as she tried to maintain control.

Then— Snap.

The barrier buckled in a single pulse, the force of the blow detonating through the weakened jutsu like a cannon. Hinata barely had time to brace.

The blow struck her abdomen with a sickening crack.

She was thrown like a ragdoll—smashing into Sasuke and sending both through the branches until they hit the ground hard behind a tree root, dirt spraying up around them.

As the dust settled, Sasuke blinked, resisting the urge to black out. He will his arms to move but to no avail. His body remained paralyzed.

Come on, Move! That ninja will be on top of us in a few moments.

His head still rang from the impact, the back of his head warm and sticky. He was vaguely aware of the pale girl beside him, whose body trembled against him.

Her breathing came in short through series of wet coughs.  

She didn’t cry out. Not once.

But Sasuke felt her blood hit his skin.

The scent of copper filled the air as she shifted into his line of sight. Her body shook beside him, and she coughed again—low and raw, staining her lips red. The attack had sheared right through her black shirt and mesh underclothing; revealing her smooth, porcelain abdomen which was beginning to blotch and swell.

And still, her hand moved—weak but determined—pressing to the back of his neck.

“What are you…”

He became aware of chakra flowed into him—not like healing, but surgical. Controlled. Directed. A warmth like warmed water flowing down his spine.

Sasuke gasped as he felt the paralysis ebb slightly. The pain was still there, but dulled.

“What the hell are you doing—!?” he snapped, weakly swatting her hand away before realizing he could somewhat move again.

Hinata knelt beside him, breathing hard, her Byakugan already flaring again.

“I can see it,” she said. Her voice was steady now—too steady. “That strange mark. You’re trying to suppress it, but you can’t. Not completely.”

Sasuke’s breath hitched.

“Forgot you saw it” he growled, gritting his teeth as he tried to get his legs to obey him.

“Listen, to me… it looks like a parasite,” she continued. “Throbbing. Roots in your network. It’s digging into you.”

She pressed her palm to his shoulder. “I’m… going to isolate it. Hold still.”

“Don’t you da—!”

Her fingers struck.

One. Two. Five chakra points in rapid succession—tapping around the base of his neck, shoulder, and back. Each point sent a pulse of disruption through his chakra network.

Sasuke convulsed, his Sharingan flickering—but the paralysis eased.

He could move. He had strength again.

But something was wrong.

He looked down. His chakra felt thin. His vision was clear—but weaker. His sharingan was active yet it felt like he was seeing through fog.

“You—” his voice seethed, “Did you weaken my Sharingan!”

Sasuke shoved the girl away from him, duly noting she was stronger than what she seemed.

“I don’t care what kind of pampered princess life you live; you don’t get to do whatever you want with me or I’ll break you into the ground!”

As he pulled himself to his feet, he felt a small hand grasp his should… hard.

He turned, expecting to see the same soft pale eyes, instead came to face with hardened frost.

No tremble. No hesitation.

For a split second, Sasuke felt like prey.

Her chakra pulsed—subtle, but condensed, drawn tight like a coiled spring. It didn’t lash out, but it radiated something... off. Not bloodlust. Not even killing intent. No, something colder. Something… almost manic.

“I don’t need your permission,” she said softly. “Only your survival.”

Then, just as quickly, she let go and looked away—shoulders curled slightly inward, mask of timidity sliding perfectly back into place.

But the frost never left her eyes.

He surged to his feet, clutching his shoulder. “You don’t touch my chakra again, understand?”

Hinata said nothing.

They both turned to the intense chakra coming toward them.

“I think its time we end this”

The pale girl once again said nothing, the pressure of her chakra building around her.

The Rain Genin didn’t wait.

He moved like a hammer dropped from the sky—fast, brutal, and with the force of a collapsing wave. Chakra burst from his legs in a violent spasm, propelling him toward Hinata and Sasuke in a straight line. No tricks. Just overwhelming force.

Sasuke’s weakened Sharingan flared to meet him. He saw the angles, the muscle tension, the kill vector. His head pulsed from residual pain, but he could move now—and that was enough.

"Left!" he barked.

Hinata dropped low, sweeping out in a spin—her palm lashing toward the Rain Genin’s thigh. But he twisted, water erupting from his limbs, slamming her strike aside with a sudden torrent.

"Not this time," he hissed, spinning mid-air to strike Hinata across the shoulder.

Sasuke was already there, intercepting with a brutal kick that connected with the Rain Genin’s side. The impact sent the boy skidding back across the slick earth—but not far enough.

He stopped himself in a swirl of mud, blood dripping from his lip. His whip coiled again—longer, more unstable now. Chakra threads ran through it like veins, fed directly from the core of his erratic network.

"Let’s see how long your teamwork lasts," he snarled—and flung the whip at Hinata.

It sliced through the air like a living serpent, humming with raw energy.

Hinata didn’t blink.

She stepped forward into its path and brought her hands up, palms glowing faint blue.

"Now!" Sasuke shouted, fire already gathering in his lungs.

The whip cracked against her outstretched arm.

She struck.

A precise Gentle Fist blow, chakra surging into the whip's core—and disrupting it.

The entire construct burst—spraying water in all directions, leaving only a sputtering stump of energy in the Rain Genin’s grasp.

Before he could finish, Sasuke was already moving—flames licking across his lips.

"Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!"

Blazing orbs shot forward in erratic patterns, arcing past Hinata to bombard the stunned Rain Genin. He rolled beneath one, ducked another—but one caught him square in the chest, detonating with enough force to scorch his jacket.

Hinata was on him a second later—palm strikes blurring toward his ribs, shoulder, and thigh.

He managed to deflect one—two—then gasped as a third grazed his abdomen.

He rolled once, blood trailing from the corner of his mouth—and came up in a crouch, laughing, gasping.

“You Leaf bastards are infuriating!”

His chakra sputtered.

Sasuke moved in tandem, swinging a kunai low. The Rain Genin caught it with his forearm, twisting it from Sasuke’s grip—and retaliated with a sweeping kick that knocked Sasuke back.

Hinata tried to follow up—but a flicker of instability pulsed through the Rain Genin’s chakra, like static in the air. She faltered, eyes narrowing.

He’s breaking apart… but he’s still standing.

They regrouped, Hinata landing beside Sasuke again.

He spat blood onto the grass. “He’s fast, but sloppy now.”

“He’s overdrawing,” Hinata said, voice low. “His network’s tearing itself apart.”

“Good.”

But the Rain Genin only smiled wider, chest heaving, blood on his teeth.

“You think I need long? I just need to drag you down with me.”

He put his hands together, chakra pulling humidity from the air like a magnet. Every surface was slick now—leaves, bark, skin. The Rain Genin’s body steamed where the mist met his skin, veins visible as they became overclocked chakra.

He raised both hands.

“Rain Style: Tyrant’s Deluge!”

The air around them seemed to pulse with atmospheric pressure. Water condensed unnaturally, chakra pulling it into a spiraling column of gravity-bound force. From the branches overhead, spears of liquid sharpened by chakra began forming—long, thin, and humming with murderous intent.

Hinata’s breath hitched. Those aren’t just orbs of water… they’re pressurized to the point of tearing through stone.

Beside her, Sasuke’s eyes narrowed. “We need to finish this. Now.”

Hinata didn’t nod. She simply moved.

She moved her hands to her mouth. “Water Style: Piercing Stream!”

A spiraling lance of water erupted from her mouth, infused with chakra so sharp it cut the falling rain midair. It carved a spiraling path toward the Rain Genin—but he was already weaving hand signs, redirecting one of the descending spears to intercept.

Steam and water exploded in a deafening hiss.

At the same moment, Sasuke flared his chakra.

The heat swelled—then burst from his chest as he roared: “Fire Style: Dragon Flame Jutsu!”

The forest ignited.

A roaring jet of fire, shaped like a serpentine dragon, surged forward with savage elegance. Its mouth opened wide as it tore through the air, splitting the rain in its wake. The humidity warped with violent heat.

The Rain Genin snarled and countered—his arms flung wide, the remaining spears of his Tyrant’s Deluge descending like the wrath of gods.

They met in the center.

Water spears crashing into flame dragon—each impact shaking the trees, kicking up ash and mist and shards of exploding chakra.

But in the smoke—

Hinata was there again.

Beneath the cover of the elemental clash, she had moved. Low. Quiet.

The Rain Genin barely had time to register her presence.

Her voice was a whisper. “You lost the moment you relied on power over control.”

Six strikes.

Two to the ribs. One to the shoulder. Two to the spine. One final strike—directly to his lower chakra center.

His entire body locked up, spasming. His arms dropped. The last of his jutsu unraveled.

Sasuke appeared behind him, Sharingan glowing through the smoke.

“You’re through!”

One solid kick to the Rain Genin’s sternum sent him crashing into a tree trunk, the bark shattering on impact. He slumped forward, unconscious, the vial's poison finally catching up—his chakra sputtering like a candle guttering out.

Silence reclaimed the forest.

Sasuke exhaled sharply and lowered his hands.

Hinata’s posture didn’t change. Her Byakugan was still active, her breath steady.

But her eyes—those pale, quiet eyes—lingered on the unconscious form of the Rain Genin.

And behind them… something stirred.

Not pity.

Not victory.

Something colder.

Something searching.

Sasuke glanced around their surroundings. The steam still curled in the aftermath of their jutsu clash, rising in slow, dancing tendrils around the shattered clearing.

“Hn,” Sasuke grunted. “He’s done.”

Hinata blinked, finally deactivating her Byakugan. The veins receded. “His network is collapsing,” she murmured. “He won’t be moving for hours. Maybe days.”

Sasuke nodded, then narrowed his gaze slightly as he looked her over, her exposed waist taking a concerning color. “You’re hurt.”

“I’ve had worse.” Her voice was quiet, but flat.

He frowned. “You took a direct hit. From a chakra-enhanced blow.”

She didn’t meet his eyes. “That’s what I was trained for.”

Sasuke’s frown deepened—not at the answer itself, but at the way it came so quickly. Mechanical. Hollow.

Before he could say more—

“HEY!” A loud crash from the undergrowth cut through the haze.

Naruto burst into the clearing, scratched, bruised, and with his orange jacket concerningly singed around the collar. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat while faint plumes of smoke drifted from the tips.

“I got her!” he shouted. “She ran away after I clone-bombed her into next week, but I made sure she dropped everything. Even got her headband too! Nothing but a piece of cake for a great ninja like me!

He held up a tattered Ami forehead protector with a shining grin.

Then he saw the Rain Genin.

“…Whoa.”

He stopped walking, taking in the splintered battlefield—the shattered tree trunk, the broken jutsu-crater near Hinata’s feet, the numerous tattered branches, the unconscious enemy.

Naruto’s eyes flicked from Sasuke to Hinata. “You two did all this?”

Sasuke scoffed. “What do you think you moron.”

Hinata lowered her head slightly, tucking her blood-stained fingers behind her back. “We only won b-because he overused his chakra,” she murmured. “His jutsu was t-too unstable…”

Naruto was already beside her, eyes wide. “Hinata… that was insane. I mean—” he glanced back at the enemy again, “—you really kicked ass!”

Hinata felt her face reddening with fierce intensity. “I-I just… I only helped a little…”

Sasuke snorted at that.

Naruto smiled, oblivious. “Don’t sell yourself short, Sasuke thinks he all that but he’s not. I mean it!”

Hinata stared at the ground. Her lips twitched.

But beside her, Sasuke watched closely. Her posture, her breathing. He couldn’t shake the feeling that what he saw wasn’t the full extent of her abilities.

“Let’s grab the scrolls and go,” he said, turning away. “This place is far too exposed and we’ve taken long enough.”

Naruto was already stuffing the Rain Genin’s scrolls into his pouch, giving the unconscious body a poke before rising to his feet. “Think he’ll live?”

“Does it matter?” Sasuke said.

Hinata’s eyes lingered longer.

“It does,” she said quietly.

She crouched down and placed a hand on the still body’s chest. “i-I’ll soothe his c-chakra network. T-that will give him a fighting chance.”

Sasuke felt a scowl reach his face.

He stepped closer, his sharingan spiraling.

Hinata’s hand hovered over the Rain Genin’s chest, her chakra pulsing in soft waves—too soft. Too careful. She murmured something under her breath, something Naruto couldn’t hear. But Sasuke wasn’t the moron.

He saw it.

The way her fingers paused for half a second over the genin’s heart—then pressed.

Not to heal.

To sever.

The Rain Genin’s breath hitched almost imperceptibly. His chakra stuttered… then began to fade. Not rapidly. Not obviously. But steadily—like a candlewick slowly drowning in wax.

Naruto, still checking over the other scroll, called out without turning, “Man, you’re always looking out for people, huh Hinata?”

She didn’t respond. Just kept her hand where it was, the faintest trace of moisture clinging to her lashes—whether from exertion, guilt, or something colder, Sasuke couldn’t tell.

He looked at the body, at the thin dribble of blood from the boy’s nose and ears, the faint glaze forming over his half-lidded eyes; then turn to her, his gaze unreadable.

She wasn’t trembling as she rose from the dying body.

She hadn’t trembled for a while now as they made it back to the meeting point.

No one else would notice.

But Sasuke did.

That wasn’t kindness.
That wasn’t mercy.
That was damn execution.

And no one else saw it.

The trees parted ahead, revealing a sloped clearing carved out by recent violence. Roots were torn, earth splintered, and a jagged overhang loomed at the far end—half-collapsed from the aftermath of their battle.

Team 7 and Team 8 reconvened beneath its shelter, wounded, breathing hard.

Sakura knelt beside Shino, her hands stained red as she examined his leg. Much of the earlier wrapping had torn, exposing blackened flesh beneath the gauze. His jaw was tight, but he made no sound.

Nearby, Kiba sat slouched against a log, holding a cold cloth to his ribs. Akamaru lay curled beside him, tail twitching as he licked a cut along Kiba’s forearm.

Hinata had moved quietly to the clearing edge for a bit of privacy as her pale fingers tightened gauze around her exposed abdomen. The purple discoloration stood out sharply against her skin.

Naruto flopped to the ground with a long groan. “We actually did it. Two scrolls.”

“Barely,” Sasuke muttered, wiping blood from his chin with a torn sleeve. “We pushed too long.”

Sakura leaned back from Shino, holding a cold cloth to her left wrist which had been sprained in the early moments of the fight “All things considered, we walked away ok. We just need—”

Shino suddenly raised a hand for silence, multiple flying beetles landing on his fingers.

Everyone froze.

“…we are being watched,” he said.

Hinata’s eyes widened, activating her Byakugan at once. Her vision stretched through the forest.

“m-multiple chakra signatures to our east and west” she said sharply. “All heading this way—fast.”

“Damn it,” Kiba growled, shoving materials back into his pack “Other teams must’ve heard the fight.”

Sasuke’s expression darkened as he rose to his feet. “That’s not good, we cant afford to be pincered in.

Naruto shot upright. “We can take them! These ninja will be begging after we’re done with them!!”

“No.” Sasuke’s voice was ice. “We’re out of time. We’ve got what we need—we run.”

“But—”

“Shut up you idiot!” Kiba snapped. “We’re in no shape for another fight; all we know they may be teaming up too!”

Akamaru barked in agreement, already bounding ahead.

Shino’s adjusted his glasses “There is also the possibility that these teams are converging without knowing of the other. If we stay, we risk getting caught in a mass battle.”

Hinata stood, clutching her abdomen. “The outpost’s about a kilometer north. If we take the high ridge, we can avoid low-ground chokepoints.”

“Then we move,” Sasuke said, already leaping into the trees. “Now.”

One by one, they vanished into the branches—wounded, exhausted, but alive.

And behind them, the forest stirred again.

Desperate predators had caught the scent of blood, it was only a matter of time now.

…

The forest rushed past in a blur of shadow and breath.

Hinata ran near the back, her steps measured, precise, even as her ribs ached with every inhale. The wind clawed at her skin. Leaves scraped her arms. Chakra pulsed faintly at her fingertips—not enough for battle, only enough to keep moving.

She didn’t speak.

Couldn’t.

Not with the storm inside her head.

You killed him.

That whisper again. Quiet. Clammy. Distant.

You watched him die. Forced his heart to stutter until it burst. You ended him, and you lied with a smile.

She hadn’t hesitated.

She’d seen her chance.
And she’d made sure he’d never rise again.
It had been the right move. Necessary. Clean, to ensure her secrets.

And yet...

The ease of it chilled her.

Not the act. Not the blood. No, once more it was the silence that followed.
It chilled her to the bone.
How easy ending the boy’s life was.

Her legs kept pumping beneath her, muscle memory doing what thought couldn’t. Even Naruto’s sunlit voice which kept pouring out cheers and encourage was a faint echo.

Her fingers twitched slightly. She flexed them, then stilled as her thoughts wracked her mind.

You’re not pure enough.

You’re not good enough.

You’re not worthy enough

She clenched her teeth.

Danzo-sama would approve of her actions.

She had done what was necessary. To protect the mission. To protect her team. To protect him.

Her savior would be proud. He would say she made the right call. No loose ends. No witnesses. Tools do not question the blade they wield... right?

Still… the weight pressed harder.

Sasuke was seeing her. She had been forced to reveal more to him than anyone else since she had been saved.

She forced her breath to steady, but the ache in her chest wasn’t just bruised ribs, it was a hollow throb that refused to die.

Just ahead, the canopy broke, rays of fading gold slashing through the trees, illuminating stone in the distance.

The tower.

Relief should have come. It didn’t.

Instead, she felt an incoming wave of pressure behind them.

A sharp flicker of chakra.

Her Byakugan flared instinctively.

Movement—fast, converging.

Not one group. Three… maybe more

Enemy teams, closing in from all angles like wolves circling wounded prey.

Her eyes widened.

“They found us,” she whispered.

Then—

A blade of wind tore through the undergrowth behind them.

“Suna—!” Sakura shouted.

“Get in formation, Sprint!” Sasuke barked, quickly placing himself in the line’s front.

Leaves screamed beneath their feet as she and the others tore through the undergrowth, chakra flaring in desperate pulses. The dusk-hung canopy flickered with shadow and gold light, fractured by the frantic movement of eight bodies threading a needle through death.

Hinata ran at the rear of the formation—just behind Naruto and Sakura, Kiba moved just ahead of them…

…while also carring Shino on his back.

The Aburame’s arms were slung around Kiba’s shoulders, his body held upright by a makeshift harness of belts and wire. One leg hung limp—still wrapped tight in medicinal paste and gauze, now stained dark with blood, pus and forest grime.

“My leg is not dead, I can keep up on my own,” Shino muttered, trying to move.

“Yeah?” Kiba grunted. “Then sprout some wings, 'cause I’m not dropping you!”

Hinata’s chest tightened. They couldn’t afford to slow down.

Not now. Not with the tower so close.

Danzo-sama, I will not fail.

Behind them, chakra signatures flared—six of them. A wave of kunai hissed through the trees, embedding in the bark to their left. No impact yet, but too close.

“Move!” Kiba barked. “They’re flanking again!”

“I know!” Naruto shouted, his clones bursting through the underbrush behind them.

An explosion erupted to the right. A team fighting another team—Leaf, Rain, Grass, Waterfall, it didn’t matter. The inner ring of the forest had turned into a feeding frenzy.

Hinata’s Byakugan activated in a sharp flash. She saw it all: the chakra clashes, the fraying edges of jutsu, a girl screaming as she vanished in smoke.

“Sasuke-kun…t-there’s a bottleneck ahead!” she called. “N-north-east! There’s a fallen ridge, enemy ninja wating!”

Sasuke slowed for a moment, his eyes already glowing. “Then we’ll blow through.”

“Wait but that’s—” Sakura started.

“GO!”

They didn’t have time to argue.

A giant ball of fire burst forward from Sasuke’s mouth, clearing the foliage ahead with a roar. The enemy team waiting scattered, two of them leaping from trees, the other rolling for cover. Hinata ducked low, skimming under branches. She felt the heat singe her sleeves.

Kiba shouted, “Hold on, Shino!” and dove through the smoke. Shino didn’t respond—too focused on directing a swarm of beetles behind them, latching onto pursuers to slow them down.

Another trap ahead. Hinata spotted it—trip wires and a series of paper bombs. .

“T-traps! I’ll handle it!” she called and pushed herself in front of the group. Her chakra pulsed into her palms as she severed the line mid-dash, scattering wire and rendering the paper bombs useless in the dirt.

“Nice one!” Naruto whooped behind her.

And then—

“I see it!” Hinata gasped, eyes flaring. “The tower gates—it’s just ahead!”

More chakra flared behind them quickly followed by a series of screams and explosions.

“Time to finish this!” Sasuke snapped. “Naruto—clones, now!”

“On it!”

Dozens of Narutos split from the brush and tore off in different directions. The forest screamed with overlapping footsteps, shouts, and jutsu.

Kiba roared and surged ahead, Shino still on his back. Sasuke kept above, flickering from branch to branch. Hinata pushed herself to match them, every limb aching, her vision swimming.

The tower loomed. Tall. Imposing. Real.

They burst through the outer gates as another attack exploded behind them. The heat licked her back. The screams faded into the distance.

They crashed through the wide iron gates like a breaking tide.

No enemies waited. No traps. Just silence.

A long corridor of cracked stone and peeling banners stretched ahead, illuminated by soft paper lanterns. Somewhere above them, a bell tolled — marking only a few final hours of the Chūnin Exam's second phase remained.

Naruto doubled over, gasping for breath. “We... we made it. Hah… WE FREAKING MADE IT!”

Kiba slid to his knees, carefully easing Shino down. “Careful getting down. Your leg is in bad shape, I could smell the infection while carrying you.

Sasuke stood still for a moment, chest heaving, eyes burning. He didn’t speak. Just stared ahead at the open hall.

Hinata walked forward slowly. Her steps felt distant, like they didn’t belong to her anymore. Her limbs trembled from fatigue, but her face remained composed — or at least enough to fool the others.

“Still… it’s quiet,” she murmured. “Too quiet.”

Everyone looked at her.

“You’re expecting something?” Sakura asked as she placed a bandage on her check where a branch had whipped her in their final sprint.

Hinata hesitated. Then shook her head. “N-no. Just… b-being cautious”

They began to sit — or rather collapse — against the walls.

Sakura crouched down beside Sasuke, who made a point to place a few inches of distance between them.

“I can’t believe we made it,” she said, softly. “After everything.”

“Of course we did!” Naruto grinned, wincing. “You’re looking at the future Hokage! This was a piece of cake”

“Man, does anything tire this kid out,” Kiba muttered.

Sasuke stood at the edge of the group, arms crossed, Sharingan long since deactivated but eyes still sharp. His gaze drifted from face to face. He wasn’t one for words. But he gave a slight nod—to Naruto, to Kiba, even to Shino.

Acknowledgment of will, respect for their strength.

He saved Hinata for last.

She stood apart from the others, slowly inching toward the door marked for Team 8, pale hands working on the wrapping around her waist. Her posture was controlled, her hands clasped in front of her. Calm, collected… unreadable.

But when Sasuke looked at her, she met his eyes.

Just for a moment.

And he saw it again—that flicker of something deeper, colder, buried beneath her mask.

“You fight well,” he said quietly. “Even if you lie with every step.”

Her lips barely moved, those pale eyes burning into him. “And you see well… even if you don’t understand what you’re looking at.”

Sasuke felt his eyes narrowing slightly. Sparks of frustration running through his blood. But more then that… fear.

Not of her of course. No. He looked at the Hyuga up and down, her bent knees, her slender form, her smooth, pale skin, those admittingly powerful eyes, to even the faint mark on her forehead which she kept behind her bangs.

She looked meek and fragile…

And he feared he was weaker than her…

Naruto suddenly interrupted the two as he jumped between them with a wide grin.

Hinata barely resisted the urge to flinch when his hand landed on her shoulder. Not from pain… but because it was him.

“You were amazing out there,” he said, smile glowing. “Seriously. I never knew you were this strong!”

Her throat tightened. She couldn’t look at him as her cheeks warmed

“I-it was nothing... I j-just did what I was taught.”

Naruto grinned. “Well, your teacher must be scary as hell.”

A beat passed. Her thoughts turned to images of her savior. His strength, his might, his power, his affection. A soft smile graced her face. “I-I guess y-you’re right.

Sasuke watched with a neutral face, noting her reaction.

He felt Sakura approaching behind him, her hand touching is arm. “We need to go through our door.”

Kiba nodded, stepping toward the opposite door, Shino still leaning against him. “Guess this is where we split.”

“For now,” Naruto said, thumping his chest. “We’ll meet in the finals. Count on it!”

Sasuke gave a low snort. “Assuming you don’t get knocked out in the first round”

“As if! I’m going to win this thing, you just wait!”

They turned toward their doors—three and three.

The doors closed behind them with a heavy, echoing thud.

Silence returned.

And the next test awaited.

…

The heavy stone door clicked shut behind them.

Silence.

Hinata, Kiba, and Shino stood in the dim, lantern-lit chamber — its walls lined with ancient calligraphy and engraved with the symbols of Konoha. In the center, a pedestal waited. Two scrolls rested atop it, bound with chakra seals.

Kiba dropped Shino carefully against the nearest wall, wiping sweat from his brow. “This place gives me the creeps.”

Hinata approached the pedestal, her fingers trembling slightly as she held up their two scrolls. One Heaven. One Earth.

“They match,” she said softly. “We can open them now.”

She glanced at her teammates — Kiba gave a nod, and Shino merely closed his eyes behind his glasses in quiet affirmation.

With a deep breath, Hinata pressed both scrolls to the stone pedestal.

The seals ignited — a burst of chakra light flared, blinding for a moment—

Then in the center of the pedestal, a puff of smoke erupted with a distinct poof!

And from within it—

“—Congratulations,” said a warm, clear voice.

Kurenai stood in the middle of the chamber, her red eyes sharp and shining with quiet pride.

Hinata’s breath caught in her throat.

Kiba blinked. “K-Kurenai-sensei?!”

“You’ve all made it,” she said, folding her arms. “You have gone through a fierce and agonizing test which strains the mind, body, spirit. Places you in situations of life and death, teaches you what it means to be a chunin. And I couldn’t be more proud.”

Shino bowed his head faintly. “It was all thanks to your guidance”

“Your own work got you here,” Kurenai replied. “You adapted. You overcame. And more importantly… you protected each other.”

Her gaze lingered on each of them in turn.

“Kiba, your instincts are fierce. Your loyalty to your teammates and the desire to protect them is admirable.

Kiba flushed slightly but grinned.

“Shino, your focus is key. A discipline that keeps the team alive.”

Shino gave a quiet nod.

Her eyes landed on Hinata last.

“And you…”

Hinata stiffened, eyes widening just a touch… Does she know…

“…You have a gentle heart Hinata, yet below that, Courage. You possess a will to grow and exceed. I know it wasn’t easy.”

Hinata bowed her head, willing her lips to tremble slightly.

Kurenai stepped closer, voice softer now.

“You’re growing stronger, Hinata. I can see it. Don’t be afraid of what the future holds, and continue to grow stronger, for yourself.”

Hinata gave her sensei a soft glance before nodding slowly. “T-thank you… sensei.”

There was a long pause. Warm. Grounding.

Then Kurenai smiled faintly. “Eat. Tend your wounds. You are to gather in the assigned meeting room in 12 hours.” She handed Shino a small parchment detailing the meeting point.

She turned toward the exit.

“Be proud,” she said. “You’ve earned it.”

And just like that, she vanished in another puff of smoke.

…

Setting: Forest Canopy – Near the Tower, Evening

High above the branches, where even the wind forgot to breathe, a lone figure crouched in silence.

Kabuto adjusted the edge of his glasses with one gloved finger, his eyes gleaming with faint amusement as he watched the distant silhouettes of Team 7 and Team 8 disappear into the tower’s side entrance. The chase was over. For now.

He had expected to meet Team 7 at some point—pose as a stranded ally, earn their trust, and quietly observe Sasuke’s condition. Monitor the curse mark Lord Orochimaru had so generously gifted him. An easy plan.

But that Hyūga girl had changed everything.

Kabuto’s lips curled in a thoughtful smile.

Hinata Hyūga. Quiet. Unassuming. At first glance, hardly worth noting. But she had revealed more than she intended. More than she probably knew.

He replayed the earlier encounter in his mind: her subtle movements, the way she had moved in sync with Uchiha, the moment she stabilized the curse mark—if only briefly.

That wasn’t something just anyone could do. Even most jōnin wouldn’t risk tampering with Orochimaru’s chakra.

And she had done it mid-fight.

Fascinating. That was some chakra control she had.

Kabuto rose slowly from his perch, boots silent on the bark. Behind him, the limp body of a dead ROOT agent hung from a tangle of wire, half-shrouded in shadow.

The man's throat was crushed. His notebook had been carefully extracted from his pouch and now rested in Kabuto’s hand.

He flipped through the entries; brow arched in interest. Pages full of meticulous chakra readings. Hinata’s chakra levels. Combat surges. Emotional spikes. Suppression cycles.

Kabuto let out a quiet chuckle.

“So… Danzo is keeping a close eye on his little pet.” He turned the page. “Monitoring her like a test subject. Lord Orochimaru was right, seems Danzo has a vested interested in this girl.”

His gaze drifted back toward the tower, where the two teams had just vanished from view.

“So why spy on her?” Kabuto mused aloud. “Is he worried she’ll turn against him? Or perhaps…”

He paused on a particular page that held a single symbol, unknown to him.

腐

Decay.

He tucked the notebook into his coat.

“Secrets inside secrets.”

Then, with a final glance at the corpse behind him, Kabuto vanished in a whisper of leaves—his body dissolving into the dark, like a shadow that had merely paused to listen.

 

Notes:

As always, any feedback is appreciated.

Chapter 10: History of the Land

Notes:

A new chapter posted! :)

Chapter 10: History of the Land

Shino lay motionless on the narrow cot near the far wall, his breathing steady but shallow. Fresh bandages wound up his leg, tight and pristine, still gleaming faintly with a translucent medical sealant. The medic-nin who had treated him earlier had been efficient, brisk, and silent, offering no pleasantries as they cleaned the wound and reinforced his deteriorated muscles with a thick chakra-thread suture. The smell of disinfectant still lingered in the room—sharp and clinical, faintly metallic—and it clashed with the humid scent of sweat and forest rot which clung to their old clothes now lying on a heap at the edge of the room. 

Kiba sat on the edge of a bench with one leg swung over the side, tearing voraciously into a stack of rice balls. The metal tray beside him was already half-empty, bits of pickled radish and miso paste smeared across the surface. Akamaru lounged comfortably across his lap, gnawing at a scrap of meat with wet, satisfied snorts. Kiba ate like a man who’d just survived a war—Hinata supposed in a way, he had.

“I’m just sayin’,” he mumbled, crumbs stuck to his cheek, “despite all the crap we had to go through, especially with that damned grass chick; we did alright! If we didn’t get sucker punched by the chick, those other squads wouldn’t stand a damn chance. Those Ame ninja think they’re all a bunch of bigshots. Leaf’s still top dog. No contest.” He laughed through a mouthful of rice, reaching for another onigiri.

Hinata sat in silence, legs tucked beneath her, her tray untouched in front of her on the floor. Her chopsticks hovered above a small pile of steamed vegetables, unmoving. She hadn’t eaten since morning. The food wasn’t unappealing, but her stomach had twisted into something too tight, too anxious for comfort. That familiar silence, the all too familiar mental storm. Her fingers barely trembled, but the tension in her posture betrayed her—a kind of quiet coiling, as if she were a wire pulled taut, waiting to snap.

Kiba’s voice softened when he glanced her way again. “Hey. You alright? You’ve been off since we got in.”

She blinked and looked up slowly, lips parting, the delay between recognition and response too long. “Yes,” she said, almost convincingly.

“You sure? You kinda look like a ghost right now,” he said, trying to keep it light. He scratched the back of his head, glancing at her tray. “Still spooked from that final rush to the tower? It was a little intense, I’ll admit. But relax a little, we all made it after all! Not everyone could have kept it together with all that commotion.”

“I-I’m ok, it’s n-not the last r-rush” she said, gently. “Just… thinking.”

Kiba smirked and leaned back, folding his arms behind his head. “Thinking, huh? Alright, well, just so you know... You were badass out there. Kurenai-sensei was right. You’ve got way more strength than you give yourself credit for. You’ll keep doing great Hinata, I know it!”

She didn’t answer, only nodded, her gaze falling again to the untouched food.

But her thoughts were far from the present.

The last twelve hours at every opportunity, she had searched what she could hoping he may appear. Her precious savior. She searched every corner, every balcony, every ajar door with the hope of seeing him. As if he could step from the shadows themselves with that quiet, even voice of his and offer her a single word of reassurance.

He didn’t.

Of course he wouldn’t. Danzo never walked into places where others could see. He moved behind the seams of the world. He whispered through notes, through mission scrolls, through silence. But she had hoped, hadn’t she? Some foolish part of her had hoped he’d be here. Watching. Judging. Praising.

He has to be watching. He has to.

She closed her eyes. She needed to know. Needed certainty. She couldn’t make decisions on her own. That wasn’t the purpose of a tool. That wasn’t what she’d been trained to do. Every time she chose, she risked misaligning with his plan. Risked compromising his vision. If she strayed even slightly, she could endanger everything. Just look what happened in the forest.

Danzo’s plan for the Leaf was too important.

I can’t afford to think. Not even a little.

She breathed in through her nose, trying to steady herself, but the tightness in her chest only deepened. All she wanted was a sign. A small signal. Even a coded message delivered through a whisper. Anything to prove he still acknowledged her.

A soft tap at the open window caught her attention. Wind moving a loose curtain. Reflexively, she stood and walked toward it, tray forgotten behind her.

The room’s light fell away behind her, and the world outside opened—wide and endless and cold.

The Chūnin Exam tower loomed above the forest like a monolith, its iron bones gleaming beneath the soft gray veil of dusk. The trees below swayed in silence. No smoke. No movement. Just the eerie stillness of a battlefield at rest.

Her reflection wavered in the glass, overlaying the view with a faint double image.

She stared at herself.

Her thin lips, pale skin. Her eyes too wide, the ugly mark peeping behind her bangs. Soft. Peaceful. Weak. Worthless

She pressed her palm to the glass.

The cold bit into her skin.

For a moment, she wished it would cut deeper—not her flesh, but the reflection. The girl looking back. That soft-eyed thing with trembling lips and branded shame. The creature the they discarded. The failure that wasn’t worth saving.

Danzo-sama had given her purpose. Carved worth into her with his own hands. Burned parts that didn't belong. Cleansing her of the girl she used to be.

And as long as he kept molding her—as long as he didn’t leave—she could become something better, be worth something. 

As she stared at the window, images seemed to morph in front of her as she let her thoughts flow. There was the Grass kunoichi. The sound-based attacks emanating from her flute. The paper tags hidden in her sleeves. Her chakra had felt unnatural—twisted. Dangerous. Hinata had seen it with her Byakugan, seen the subtle disruption beneath the girl’s skin, and still barely walked away alive. It wasn’t a fight she’d won. It was a fight that had simply ended because her opponent chose to end it.

She saw the fellow leaf genin, Kaori—the one she’d killed. Not strong, not weak. Just unlucky. The girl’s skin had turned crimson in seconds after the blow struck her chest, her chakra network collapsing like a crumpled fan beneath Hinata’s palm. There had been a moment, a split second, when their eyes had met. The girl’s hatred morphing into fear and surprise. Hinata had killed her with surgical precision, despite no order being given, and now the image lingered like a bruise behind her eyes.

She tried to shake it, but the scenes kept moving—drifting from death to sunlight.

Naruto’s smile rose in her memory unbidden, warm and blinding. The way he stood tall in the forest, scratched and bloodied, still grinning like the world was something worth laughing with. Not at. With. That smile didn’t come from strength or cunning—it came from a kind of stupid, stubborn hope. He had no idea what he was—how much hope he carried in his voice, how much it burned when he laughed like the future belonged to him. He didn’t understand the darkness they crawled through. He didn’t know what it meant to serve in silence.

And yet…

“He sees such a great and wonderful world...” she whispered, her fingers gripping each other. “I wonder if one day I could bask in that light.”

It was a foolish thought. A childish one. But it bloomed in her chest like a weed through cracked stone—uninvited, fragile, and somehow stronger than it had any right to be.

Because that hope was dangerous. It made her weak, made her soft, made her worthless.

Her chest twisted with something sharp—something too raw to be longing, too deep to be dismissed. She couldn’t afford this kind of sentiment. It was indulgence. Weakness. The kind of rot that made weapons dull. She knew Danzo would see it that way. And he’d be right.

But even now, in the silence of this sterile room, her heart clenched at the memory of Naruto’s laugh—bright, unburdened, impossibly kind.

And she hated how much she wanted it to be real.

She exhaled slowly, willing the thought away, forcing her breathing into an even rhythm. These thoughts were distractions from her purpose. From his purpose.

And yet, as the warmth of Naruto’s presence faded like sunlight slipping through clouds, another image stirred in the recesses of her mind—sharper, colder, harder to pin down.

A certain Uchiha.

The thought came uninvited, and even as it settled into focus, Hinata frowned inwardly.

Why am I thinking about him?

She didn’t want to be. Her mission he may at the moment, there was no reason to ponder on missions longer then need be.

He wasn’t warm like Naruto. He wasn’t kind or reckless or bright. He was proud. Distant. Infuriatingly arrogant and far too focused on her mask. Though he was capable, she admitted begrudgingly. Not just physically, but in the way he moved—with quiet assurance, like the world owed him answers and he had no intention of asking politely.

What unsettled her most was not his suspicion—but that he had seen her and hadn’t flinched. He had looked at her not with pity or revulsion, but with curiosity and weariness—and worse, recognition.

And that, more than anything, had made her nervous.

No, she thought. That path is not mine to walk. I don’t get to be curious. I don’t get to wonder what lies behind someone else’s eyes.

Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what Danzo saw in him.

Power, certainly. Control, perhaps. Potential, yes. But power without loyalty was dangerous. Sasuke doesn’t serve anyone or anything… or does he…?

Hinata was well aware of how Itachi Uchiha massacred his clan in cold blood. It didn’t take a genius to predict then that Sasuke’s drive for power was to eventually avenge his clan. That drive for power, for might; whoever held it could lead the boy along like a pig following a carrot.  

She shook her head slightly, as if to scatter the thoughts like dust. She was thinking too much again. Drifting where she shouldn’t. blade doesn’t wonder. A blade waits.

With that, she turned from the window and rejoined her team.

…

Setting: Team 7 waiting room

The room was warm with breath and dim light, the stale scent of sweat clinging to the walls like old regrets. The stone floors were worn smooth from decades of feet, and the wooden ceiling creaked faintly as the wind pressed against the tower. Two beds pushed against opposite corners, a metal table at the center with trays of food that had long since grown cold.

Naruto sat cross-legged on the floor, devouring his noodles with the same reckless energy he brought into every fight. Bits of broth splashed across the tabletop as he leaned over, gesturing animatedly between slurps. “I mean, c’mon! Between that snake freak, those Rain guys, and the bear trap forest from hell, I bet the proctors are going to award us a bunch of points! We were like an unstoppable force!.”

Sakura sat nearby, stirring her rice absentmindedly. Her exhaustion was visible in the slight slump of her shoulders, the smudge of dried blood near her collarbone she hadn’t bothered to clean. “You do remember we barely made it, right?” she muttered. “We weren’t exactly early.”

Naruto frowned around his chopsticks. “Yeah, but we fought a bunch of crazy ninja! Doesn’t that count for something right? Like some bonus points or maybe a hidden point system?

Sakura sighed. “The exam rules said the only goal was acquiring the scrolls and making it to the tower within the time limit. You read that, right? If anything, because we barely made it in time, we probably didn’t even receive a great mark.”

He mumbled something unintelligible, cheeks puffed full of noodles. When she shot him a flat glare, he looked away sheepishly, slurping louder to fill the silence.

Sakura let her spoon drop into her tray with a soft clatter. Her gaze drifted sideways to the darkest corner of the room, where Sasuke sat with his back to the wall, a kunai glinting in his hand as he methodically honed its edge. His eyes were half-lidded but alert—always watching, never resting. The tension in his shoulders hadn’t eased since they left the forest.

She hated seeing him like this.

Ever since the encounter with Orochimaru, he’d changed. It was subtle at first—quieter, colder—but it was more than fatigue. It was something deeper. Those marks, black and unnatural, had burned across his body like a second skin when it awoke, and for a few terrifying moments, he hadn’t seemed human at all.

She still remembered the way the air had twisted around him, heavy and wrong. The way his voice had dropped an octave. How easily he had broken their enemies.

He had saved them of course, but was that even him anymore?

She wanted to ask him—Are you alright? Is it hurting you now? But she knew he wouldn’t answer. He barely spoke to her unless it was absolutely necessary now, seemingly caught up in his thoughts... Actually, that wasn't true, he hardly spoke to her even before the exams. It was just a part of who he was, a part she admired but also grew frustrated at times.

Still, her eyes lingered on him, searching for any sign of pain.

She thought back to team 8’s unexpected intervention. At first, she’d been suspicious. Everyone was a potential enemy. But Hinata’s team had pulled through. Shino’s strategy, Kiba’s ferocity—they’d held their own. She’d even come to appreciate their presence. Without them, she doubted Team 7 would’ve made it to the tower in one piece.

But even so… she couldn’t help noticing the way Sasuke had kept looking at Hinata.

It wasn’t anything obvious. He hadn’t smiled, hadn’t spoken more than necessary. But after they’d found him alone, face-to-face with her… he’d kept looking. Not like a crush, not like Naruto’s usual idiocy. More like he was trying to solve a puzzle.

Sakura had told herself it was nothing. And maybe it was. Afterall, she had more immediate things to concern herself with like the exams then winning Sasuke's heart. Besides, Hinata clearly favored Naruto—her eyes had lit up the moment they’d reunited. That kind of blush didn’t lie.

Still, something about the quiet stares made her feel... small.

Meanwhile while Sakura slowly went through her rice, the lone Uchiha was also lost in his thoughts.

Sasuke’s blade hissed as he tested its edge with his thumb. A bead of blood welled up but didn’t fall.

He was thinking about her—Hinata. Her movements, her chakra, her presence. The way she looked him in the eye without fear, even when masking herself behind that meek little stutter. It was like watching a weapon sheath itself and vanish.

He hadn’t told the others what he saw in the battle. When Naruto had tried to squeeze details out of him after the fight with the Rain genin, he brushed it off. Kept it vague. Sakura hadn’t asked. She probably assumed Hinata had just provided support from the background.

That suited her fine. That also suited Hinata fine.

She wanted to remain unseen.

And for reasons he hadn’t fully unpacked, he let her.

He told himself it was because she wasn’t a priority with the forest of death over. That with this strange mark only continuing to awaken within him and that Orochimaru freak slithering in the shadows, he had bigger things to worry about. But deep down, he knew better.

Personally, he hadn't dropped it, for one simple reason.

All he could see were those eyes.

Pale, unblinking, frost-like. Cold intelligence behind a façade of innocence. A lethal ninja built to disappear.

Who trained her?

Considering the mask she wielded, he doubted it was her sensei. He could see no reason as to why she would want to keep it hidden, even from her own teammates, who seemed woefully unaware of the kunoichi's true abilities. 

Whoever it was didn’t just teach her how to fight with impressive skill. They taught her how to vanish in plain sight.

She unsettled him—and not just because she was dangerous. There was something else, something colder.

He tightened his grip on the kunai as Naruto said Hinata’s name aloud—praising Team 8’s support. Sasuke didn’t react outwardly, but the tension in his forearm was unmistakable. A wave of sickening frustration boiled within him, a more common occurrence since he got this mark on his neck. 

He felt like a fool. A shinobi’s duty was to see through masks, not be fooled by them. But he hadn’t seen her before. 

He’d been so focused on threats he could see—Neji’s precision, Gaara’s strange strength, Lee’s impossible speed, even Naruto's admittingly impressive growth—that he’d ignored the quiet ones. The one that smiled softly, bowed timidly and whispered behind the mask.

His thoughts drifted, unbidden, to his brother.

He had never underestimated anyone. He should be better than this!

Flashes of the fight with the rain genin flowed into his thoughts: If I had been alone... the mark seemed to itch as his frustration grew, as he remembered the feel of her soft hands on him, the feel of her chakra invading him! But it let him use his birthright... even a weakened one. 

Sasuke resumed sharpening the blade, slowly now, the soft scrape of metal against stone filling the silence in his corner.

He wasn’t going to get distracted. He couldn’t afford to. Not with this strange mark burning beneath his skin. Not with his goal still so far. Not when others showed how inept he was. He must get stronger.

Naruto, oblivious, slurped noisily again. “Totally gonna crush whatever’s next,” he said with a grin, noodles hanging from his mouth like triumphant streamers.

…

Several Hours Later

The loudspeaker crackled to life with a burst of static, harsh and grating in the quiet halls. Then came the voice—flat, impersonal, like stone dragged across metal.

“All remaining participants are to report to the lower auditorium. Immediately.”

The words echoed through the tower like a commandment. Cold. Final. No room for delay.

For a moment, the silence that followed was deeper than before—thicker. Then the tower shifted. Floorboards creaked under sudden footsteps. Doors opened with the groan of tired hinges. Murmurs broke the stillness, low and uncertain. What came next was unknown—but it would come all the same.

In one room near the west wing, the Sand siblings stirred without a word. Gaara pulled his gourd across his back with an audible rasp of sand against metal, his face unreadable. Temari’s eyes narrowed as she checked her fan’s clasps. Kankuro muttered something under his breath, but neither sibling replied. The weight of their presence filled the space long after they left it.

In another, Dosu’s team stood in tight formation. Zaku rolled his shoulder stiffly, both arms wrapped in a sling. Kin exhaled once, low and steady, as she pulled her hair back into a tight knot. Dosu simply nodded to the door, and they moved.

Further down, Kabuto adjusted his glasses, feigning confusion with a light chuckle as his team filed out. “Well now,” he murmured to no one in particular, “isn’t this dramatic.”

The tower was beginning to breathe again—no longer a resting place, but a gathering storm.

In Team 8’s quarters, the air was different. Still hushed, still worn with exhaustion, but now taut with something unnamed. Shino sat on the edge of the cot, his leg freshly re-bandaged, the long white wrap reinforced by thin lines of chakra-thread still pulsing faintly along the seal marks. Two medics stood over him—one inspecting the wrappings, the other reviewing the recovery chart with a scowl.

“The muscle’s stabilizing, but only just,” the elder medic muttered. “Your parasites handled the worst of the rot, but the structural integrity is fragile. You shouldn’t be walking at all to be honest.”

Kiba snorted. “Yeah, well, he’s gonna walk anyway. That’s just how he is.”

The medic shot him a flat look but didn’t argue.

Shino accepted the crutch handed to him without complaint, testing its weight with a measured shift of posture. Every movement was restrained, deliberate—he was in pain, but no one would hear it from him.

As the medics packed up, one of them stepped close to Hinata.

No words. Just a subtle movement—two fingers brushing against her palm, passing something small and folded into her grasp.

She took it without a blink, her sleeve swallowing the motion. Her pulse, however, surged.

Kiba came to Shino’s side, muttering something sarcastic about ‘limping into greatness’ as he helped him up. Akamaru padded beside them, tail flicking. The moment might’ve passed as ordinary—just another injured team preparing to move on.

But for Hinata, everything had narrowed to the tiny slip of paper hidden in her hand.

She didn’t look at it right away. She waited.

The hallway outside was beginning to fill—distant footsteps, low voices, the shifting clatter of gear being re-fastened. Other teams were already moving. There would be eyes. Watching.

She waited until they were in motion, until her teammates were walking beside her in the hallway, flanked by the dull gold light of the tower’s lamps.

Then, with the softest motion, she glanced down and unfolded the paper beneath the shadow of her palm.

Just two words.

He watches.

Her breath caught like a fishhook lodged in her ribs.

It wasn’t a mission scroll. Not an order. Not even a cipher. Just a single sentence—barely that. But it said everything.

Danzo was watching.

Her steps didn’t falter, but her mind did.

The silence inside her cracked open like ice under weight, and for a heartbeat, she could feel everything. Relief. Fear. Hunger. Validation. Pressure. It was too much and not enough. Her chest tightened with a mix of longing and dread. With no update despite being in the tower for twelve hours, she had felt increasing panic bubble within. He hadn’t forgotten. She was still his instrument. Still relevant. Still chosen.

That meant something was coming up. Her savior never attended personally unless it was of interest. 

Whatever it was, every motion, every breath, every glance. She had to be exact. Controlled. Invisible.

She had to be Perfect.

A single misstep could ruin everything—not just her place, not just her safety, but his vision. And she couldn’t afford that. She wouldn’t. She’d already come dangerously close in the forest. Too emotional. Too exposed. That could never happen again.

She repeated the words in her head like a mantra.

He watches. He watches. He watches.

Behind her, Kiba was laughing softly with Shino, keeping the mood light. “I bet they’re gonna put us in front of everyone and make us tell war stories,” he said, flashing a grin. “They’ll beg for autographs.”

Shino’s reply was calm. “Unlikely. But if they do, I’ll let you take the stage.”

Hinata didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. Her silence was part of the mask, and neither of them questioned it.

But inside her chest, the pulse had become rhythmic. Calculated.

She thought of what might be coming. This was supposed to be just a meeting to inform the gathered teams of how the third phase will play out. But if her savior was watching… It was obviously going to be more then that.

She walked like a shadow between her teammates, her heart ironclad in its resolve.

The hallway spilled into a wide corridor, where the lighting dimmed and the temperature dropped. A pair of massive double doors loomed ahead—half open, yawning into shadow. The distant echo of footsteps beyond them hinted at just how large the space was.

Beyond them, the world opened—silent and vast.

The auditorium was massive—colder than the rest of the tower, older too. It wasn’t merely a room but a chamber built for judgment. The domed ceiling stretched so high that sound died before it could rise, and the heavy iron ribs that lined the walls cast long shadows over the cracked marble below. Time had worn grooves into the floor—too many footsteps, too many fights. The air was dry and still, heavy with anticipation, like a breath being held just a little too long.

One by one, the survivors trickled in.

No ceremony. No announcement. Just footfalls and silence.

They came in clusters, each team moving like its own unit—some limping, some upright and tense, some unshaken and frighteningly calm. No one greeted anyone. No one dared. This wasn’t camaraderie. This was an assessment. And every eye was watching.

Sasuke stood near the southern wall, arms folded, back straight, gaze flicking from team to team. His face was unreadable—composed but alert, like a blade balanced on its edge. Sakura stood to his left, hands behind her back, posture soldier-stiff despite the exhaustion that tugged at her bones. Naruto rocked back and forth on his heels, eyes wide and bright, as if the tension coiling around the room hadn’t touched him at all.

The Sand siblings were the first to draw the room’s attention. Gaara’s presence struck like a sudden drop in temperature—his eyes wide and hollow, his gourd scraping faintly as he moved. He didn’t look at anyone. He didn’t need to. His chakra filled the space like smoke, poisonous and thick. Temari and Kankuro flanked him, their expressions tight. No one approached them.

Dosu’s team entered just after, steps synchronized like soldiers. Zaku’s arms were in a dual sling, eyes flicking toward Sasuke with barely-contained hostility. Kin wore a loose, half-bored smirk that didn’t reach her eyes. Dosu remained silent, his body still, but his gaze behind the wrappings scanned the room slowly—as if memorizing every weakness.

Kabuto’s team was casual by comparison. Kabuto pushed his glasses up with one finger, his ever-present smile polite but hollow. He looked around as if amused by the gravity in the air. The rest of his team lingered at the edges of the room, seemingly indifferent.

Lee’s team entered with practiced coordination—Neji upright and unreadable, Lee upright like a board, almost like a soldier ready for battle and Tenten who was quiet, focused. Their unity stood out more than their light injuries.

Next came Shikamaru’s group. Ino walked a half-step ahead, her mouth set in a line. Chōji trudged along behind her, still chewing something, as if unaware they weren’t headed to lunch. Shikamaru slouched at the rear, hands stuffed into his pockets, muttering “troublesome” under his breath even before they reached the floor.

Then, Team 8.

They entered without flair—quiet, composed. Kiba walked with casual confidence, his jacket unzipped, Akamaru perched on his shoulder. Shino moved beside him with his usual eerie stillness, crutch tapping softly on the stone. And Hinata... Hinata trailed just behind them, head slightly bowed, her expression placid. She didn’t draw attention. She didn’t seem to want it.

But Naruto’s eyes lit up the moment he saw them.

“Oi, Hinata, Kiba, Shino!” he called, waving big and wide.”

A few heads turned toward the sound.

Hinata flinched—not visibly, but deep beneath the mask. Her gaze flicked up instinctively, drawn to the brightness of his voice.

And in that moment, a voice cut across her path like a razor hidden in silk.

“Tch… didn’t think they’d let the trash walk in with the rest of us.”

The words were low. Dismissive. Almost too quiet to hear.

Hinata stopped mid-step.

Neji Hyūga passed behind her, hands calmly clasped behind his back. He didn’t look at her. Didn’t acknowledge her. The insult had been tossed like a scrap of meat into a ditch—an afterthought. To him, speaking to her directly would’ve been like addressing a cracked tile on the wall.

Something sour bloomed in her throat. Hot. Metallic. She didn’t move. Didn’t speak. But a storm was rising behind her eyes.

She felt it surge—a raw, corrosive pressure just beneath her skin.

Not from shame. Not from sadness.

Wrathful fury

Her breath stayed level. Her posture unchanged. But inside her—an uncoiling.

All these years, she had forced herself to forget the clan. To erase its name from her thoughts. But Neji… he was the last remnant. The perfect heir to a diseased tree. He stood tall with that same self-righteous coldness, the same glare their elders used when they cast her aside like a broken heirloom. His words weren’t just cruel—they were a mirror to every scorned glance and branded silence she’d endured since that day.

She felt teeth tear into her cheek, the taste of blood running down her throat as she tore a chunk of her inner mouth. Pain helped her think. 

Danzo-sama wouldn’t want this. Not here. Not yet.

She forced the monstrous rage down, buried it in that deep cold place to haunt her when the silence came later. 

Only then did she move again—quietly, fluidly, like the moment hadn’t happened.

Naruto’s voice cut back through the static, his smile still oblivious. “Glad to see you guys again!”

Hinata gave a faint nod, her lips forming a practiced curve.

But across the room… Sasuke was watching.

He hadn’t heard the insult, but he’d seen her freeze.

He saw the tightness in her jaw, the way she moved like glass that had just been cracked.

And he filed it away.

Sakura, standing at his side, noticed him staring.

She followed his gaze toward a blushing Hinata as Naruto waved, missing entirely what came before.

Of course.

Sakura sighed inwardly.

She liked Hinata—always had, in a vague, distant way. She was polite. Quiet. And clearly liked Naruto, which meant less competition in the long run for Sasuke. But lately… there was something strange about her. Something about her stillness at times, like a too tight string. Regardless, Sakura wasn’t sure what it was, and frankly, she was too tired to figure it out.

Her eyes drifted sideways again to Sasuke.

She bit her lip.

She hadn’t told anyone about that mark. Not even Kakashi-sensei when they met him after they opened their scrolls. Part of her wanted to. She should’ve. It was the responsible thing.

That mark was changing him. She’d seen the way it spread across his skin like rot. She’d heard him whisper in his sleep.

Still, she said nothing.

It’s fine, she told herself, watching him out of the corner of her eye. He’s still in control.

He had fought well in the forest. Despite the dangers, the battles, the final rush to the tower; the mark seemed to have stopped its negative effects on Sasuke, at least when he was awake.

Sakura glanced around the auditorium as doors began to close.

The crowd gathered in a strained silence, the final number now visible.

Eight teams.

Twenty-four genin.

The sound of footsteps caused the genin to turn to the newcomers. Several figures stepped forward to stand behind it—Anko, arms folded and jaw tense; Ibiki, as still as iron; Hayate, face pale behind his high collar, coughing once into his hand.

And then, the Hokage.

Hiruzen Sarutobi stepped forward in full robes, the brim of his hat casting a long shadow down the lines of his face. He looked smaller than many had expected—old, perhaps even tired. But when he raised his gaze to the crowd, the stillness in the room changed. He didn’t need to speak yet. His presence alone commanded it.

His voice, when it came, was quiet but carried.

“I want to begin by saying this: you’ve survived.”

He let that word settle. Survived. Not passed. Not succeeded. Survived.

“Many of you have seen things in this forest that cannot be un-seen. Pain, violence, desperation. Perhaps even death. Some of you inflicted it. Some of you barely escaped it. That is the shinobi life.”

No one interrupted. No one shifted.

“I am often asked why the Chūnin Exams are structured this way,” he continued, slowly pacing the stage. “Why children are placed in positions where they might die. Why we allow so much danger in what is—on paper—a promotional test.”

He stopped. Looked across the rows of genin.

“You may find there is no simple answer, rather a solution based off the turmoil so long suffered. Nevertheless, let me offer an explanation as well as the history of the conflict our home has endured.”

His tone shifted—still calm, but now laced with something heavier. A Professors rhythm, wrapping around something sharp.

With a clap of his hands, a sudden explosion of smoke burst behind the Hokage’s back. When the mist cleared, a massive map pinned on a board had unfurled behind him, its surface glowing faintly with chakra.

A grand map of the world spread across its length—vast and intricate. Mountains, rivers, forests, and borders marked in deep red ink. The Eastern Continent. Home.

“The world we know… is only half the world,” he said. “This, the Eastern Continent, is our home. But it was not always separated from its western sibling."

The map shimmered, shifting westward. Across the lands of Wind, Fang, Bear, and Mountains, a black wall stretched like a jagged scar—the Kage Mountains; geography so dangerous, so inhospitable it made travel through them all but impossible.

“These mountains were not formed by time. They were made. Born of desperation. The specifics are rather unclear I'm sure everyone here is aware, only that during the end of what is known as the "lost Period" a flood of refugees and warlords came from what is now known as the Western Continent—a land shattered by some ancient cataclysm none remember.”

His voice lowered.

“Those who fled were not innocents. Rather, they were warriors—iron-clad, rigid in their ways. The early samurai. And they brought with them conquest.”

The map brightened—icons of ancient cities, clashing armies.

“At the time, the East was no paradise either. It was fractured—a wild frontier ruled by wandering bloodlines and feuding city-states. Nomadic shinobi tribes. Clans of elemental sages. Mercenary lords who carved kingdoms from stone with chakra alone, attuned with the old, natural chakra of the world.

“They were powerful, aligned with the way of the world. But they were not united. And that made them weak.”

Another shimmer—the red sun crossed with two blades sigil of the Imperium pulsed onto the map.

“The old samurai struck with terrifying precision. They forged an empire of iron across our land—cold, ordered, absolute. It was said the very skies went silent when the last jutsu temple fell.”

Hiruzen stepped aside as the image changed again.

“In the midst of this war, it is said the greatest shinobi, master sages of the age gathered in a desperate bid to stop the wave of iron flooding our home. These great sages sought to rupture the land into a great spine of stone, darkness and death, and so the Kage Mountains were born. To keep the chaos of the outside world out. A sealed gate carved from earth and will.”

A breath. Then:

“It worked in keeping out new invasions certainly, fully cutting off the east from the west... But it was too late. The early samurai already here could not be beaten and with the sages, temples and city states mistrustful of each other, in a series of wars, the eastern continent fell". 

His voice softened.

“For over a thousand years, the Iron Imperium ruled the Eastern Continent. Shinobi arts were outlawed. Cultures sterilized. History rewritten. An entire millennium of silence followed... because the people couldn't bother to put aside their differences.”

Then, he straightened.

“But blood could not be made to forget. In time, hidden families and groups, wielders of Kekkei Genkai long thought extinguished—began to stir. Small dynasties in hiding. cultivating power and numbers. Generations of whispered jutsu kept alive in secret. And at last, when the imperium was at its weakest, they rose. Not for coin. Not for conquest. But for honor, for pride, to return what was lost to the land.”

A surge of energy flickered through the air, as if the very chakra in the room resonated with that truth.

“They led a revolt. The Great Rebellion tore the Iron Imperium to pieces. One by one, the bloodlines returned and quickly grew to greater prominence as became guardians of new domains. The shinobi arts spread once again through the East and with it, the clans hoped for peace and prosperity at last…”

He paused, face solemn.

“But… liberation did not bring unity. Instead, it gave birth to chaos—one empire fell, and a thousand rose to replace it.”

The map faded. Hiruzen turned back to the crowd.

“In just a few short decades, the newly empowered clans became drunk with power, tensions shattered the land again in a new period of conflict characterized by: Isolation. Hate. Bound by blood and soaked in it. The strongest rule. The weak died. Peace became nothing more than a pause between massacres.”

“This period is known as the warring state period, a horrific time that saw endless suffering for nearly 300 years as clans warred for power and control. Each clan had its own customs, its own pride, its own feuds. They were armies with a state, mercenaries for hire, assassins in the night, executing contracts not for principle, but for coin, vengeance and ambition, striving to shear a chunk of territory to rule and seeking to ever expand.”

He turned, letting that image settle.

“Young shinobi—your age, even younger—were raised not in classrooms, but on killing fields. They lived and died by the blade.”

The room was silent but full—breaths held, eyes fixed.

A ripple moved through the younger genin, but no one spoke.

“Then came the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju. He dreamed of something better. A village—not just a stronghold, but a sanctuary, a heart of a nation. A place where children might grow up before they bled. He brokered peace with the Uchiha. Founded Konoha. And soon, the other Great Nations followed suit—Hidden Sand, Hidden Stone, Mist, and Cloud. For a moment, it seemed like the era of endless slaughter had passed.”

He inhaled, slow and deep.

“It hadn’t.”

There was a pause. Then:

“The First Great Shinobi War erupted just a few years later. Villages turned their newfound military strength against each other. Thousands died. The peace that had been built on hope was shattered by suspicion and fear..”

A flicker of pain moved across the Hokage’s face.

“The Second War was worse. Medical ninja were born of necessity, not innovation. Entire villages were leveled. I remember the screams. The fire. We fought not for victory, but for utter survival.”

A shadow passed behind his eyes, but his voice remained even.

“Then came the Third. Blood soaked the soil from the Kage Mountains to the edges of Lightning. New jutsu were unleashed that no child should witness. Children were conscripted en masse. The war took so many… too many. Including those I loved.”

His hands curled faintly behind his back.

“Each war began not with hatred... but fear. Fear of falling behind. Fear of losing what we’d built. Fear of being seen as weak.”

He looked down upon the genin below him.

“The Chūnin Exams are not merely about promotion. They are a pressure valve—a demonstration. A message to our allies and enemies alike. That we are strong. That we are ready.

He paused.

“To remind each other what war looks like—before it begins again.”

The room was silent.

Naruto stood tall now, eyes wide, the words soaking into him.

Sakura looked troubled. She hadn't expected the speech to feel like a eulogy.

Neji’s gaze was sharp, unreadable. He stood like a statue, arms at his sides, eyes half-closed in judgment.

Gaara blinked once. Slowly. His expression didn’t change, but a faint sneer tugged at his lip—as if the whole concept bored him.

Hinata watched the Hokage closely, her face without emotion.

And Sasuke… Sasuke barely seemed to be listening. His eyes were on the floor, on the shadows, on some memory far beyond the room. But he heard every word. And quietly, he wondered: if peace was a performance, what part was he meant to play?

On the stage, Hiruzen finally came to a stop.

“You are all here because you endured. And because your nations are watching.”

He lifted his chin.

“Make no mistake: the exam is not over.”

…

As the Third Hokage gave his speech on the origins of the chunin exams, two figures pondered on their words.

High above the auditorium, behind a rib of steel and shadow, a narrow platform overlooked the silent gathering below. It was not marked on any blueprint. No door led there openly. It existed for one purpose: to observe without being seen.

Danzo stood alone at the edge, robes drawn close, one hand hidden beneath the other. His bandaged eye remained closed. His uncovered eye didn’t blink. He watched the children arrayed like offerings at the altar of peace, and he listened to the old man’s voice echo through the stone.

He’d heard this speech before. Too many times. Different names. Different words. Same dream.

Behind him, the Analyst stood still—thin, faceless in the dark.

Danzo’s lips parted just enough to speak, barely above breath.

“Hashirama’s dream was a lie, nothing but a child's feeble fable that ignored the realities of the world.”

He didn’t sneer. He didn’t scorn. There was no venom in his voice—only tired certainty. The kind that came from witnessing history repeat itself until all sentiment had burned away.

“He had them. The clans, the fields, the power. He had them all—and instead of breaking the other nations, he invited them to be friends. To join hands in peace.” His voice lowered, bitter now. “He let them rise. He gave them air.”

His eye moved across the assembled genin like a hunter assessing prey.

“And for that mercy, he was assassinated, brought down by the very same ‘friends’ he held in so high esteem. And the continent drowned in its first great war.”

There was no anger in him. Just clarity.

“The First Hokage believed peace could be built on respect. That mutual trust could replace domination. That the age of the sword could become an age of discussion.” A pause. “Foolish.”

Behind him, the Analyst’s head tilted slightly.

“But Tobirama…” Danzo’s voice changed—softened with something almost reverent. “He understood. My sensei… he knew that peace is not a natural state. It must be enforced. Fed by fear. Upheld by strength. He created the institutions that endure today. The Academy. The Police. The ANBU.”

He breathed in slowly, the shadow of pride beneath the words.

“He was a man who knew war intimately—and never apologized for surviving it.”

A pause followed—heavy, reflective.

“But even he hesitated. Even he refused to cut deep enough. The rot of sentimentality, the chains of loving peace too much. He feared the cost of cleansing it. That was his flaw.”

Danzo’s eye narrowed.

“And Hiruzen… Hiruzen inherited the crown and forgot what it was for. When the lesser powers rose up against the rule of the ruling powers in the Second Great Shinobi war, Hiruzen's power and his own calculations led the leaf to victory; yet he refused to demand concessions among the other nations. His compassion undermined discipline. His diplomacy fed weakness. And the result was the catastrophic Third Great Shinobi War...”

He looked down at the floor now, though not at any particular person.

“It was the bloodiest war of all. Because we allowed the world to forget who we are. We allowed the lines to blur. We gave the illusion that all ninja... all individuals are equal—when we are not.”

His tone hardened.

“Do you know what we lost when we abandoned conscription of ninja? When we stopped the conscription of commoners into a standing force to march on enemy strongholds? After the Second Great War, Hiruzen decreed we'd stop stopped sending armies of commoners to the battlefield in defense of their homes. After the Third Great War, the damned fool of a Hokage ordered the ending of even shinobi conscription!"

His hand clenched beneath his robe.

“We squandered our elite—letting brilliance rot in shallow graves before it ever reached its peak. We are precision. Discipline. Weapons forged for the preservation of the state. Allow the common masses to bleed for borders and banners. Meanwhile we shinobi will win them entire lands.”

His eye drifted briefly toward the image still lingering in his mind—the map, the scroll, the talk of the Iron Imperium.

The old samurai empire.

A thousand years of unbroken rule. A brutal, tyrannical age where jutsu was forbidden and shinobi were hunted like wolves.

Danzo did not flinch at the memory of it. In truth… he admired it.

“The Imperium,” he murmured to himself, “was an imperfect solution… but a necessary one. It understood control. Discipline. It knew the value of fear. It conquered weakness. It silenced disobedience.”

He paused.

“But it was flawed. Too rigid. Too slow to adapt. It relied on its own limited numbers, on structure and refused to evolve. And when the bloodlines returned, when chakra usage spread liek wildfire, it collapsed, the samurai retreating to their bastion: The Land of Iron."

A slow breath.

“Shinobi are the answer to that failure. We are precision. We are power. We are what comes after empire—if we have the will to seize it.”

He looked down at the genin again.

“Hashirama dreamt of peace. But peace without supremacy is just waiting to be outnumbered, waiting for the urchins around shove a kunai in your back.”

His voice sharpened to a blade’s edge.

“Konoha should not be one nation among many. It should be the axis around which the world turns.”

He scanned the room again—twenty-four genin, standing like candles waiting to be blown out.

“I adore this village,” he whispered. “And that is why I will burn away the rot. If the village is to survive… we must remember our roots. The roots of power, of will, of dominance. That is why ROOT exists. To do what needs to be done to maintain leaf prosperity, leaf security when the soft-hearted fools that lead us refuse to”

His gaze paused, unblinking, on one girl near the edge of the crowd.

Hinata.

Still. Perfect. Face downcast. Every line of her posture screamed submission—but there was tension there. A flick of her thumb. A breath held too long.

Waiting for him.

Danzo didn’t move. But his eye sharpened like drawn steel.

The loyalty was real. He had ensured that. Her clan did the dirty work, he just needed to… educate her a bit. She hungered for his approval. For instruction. For control. That was good.

But….

It wasn’t enough. Not yet. 

What he sought required more than obedience. More than blood. More than raw potential.

His mind drifted briefly to the sealed scroll now locked in ROOT’s deepest vault—a curling black manuscript unearthed beside the remains of the decay experiments in forgotten ruins. Its descriptions called it unnatural withering. Hungry. Rotting. Decay. The Analyst called it "like an open wound that never healed."

And then there was the Hyūga scroll—unearthed from a forgotten vault in the northern territories. Even the Hyuga’s personal libraries held no mention of it, though it took great pains to discover that.

That scroll had whispered something different: Potential. Mutation

Lost. Wild. Dangerous.

Time was not yet ripe. But the seed had taken.

Danzo’s expression remained still, but beneath the surface, calculations moved like razors as he pondered the potential of his blade. 

A careful series of soft knocks on the thin door behind interrupted his thoughts. The Analyst quickly answered door, before turning back to Danzo. "Contingency protocols are in place Lord Danzo".

"Good". Danzo said without turning. "Ensure teams are properly positioned. Have the sealing team on standby in the case our sand friend gets overly excited".

The Analyst bowed once, then vanished—melting into the tower’s bones.

Danzo lingered a moment longer, sweeping his gaze across the genin below—until his eye caught on a lone figure standing at the edge of the Sound team.

Pale. Serpentine. Amused.

The white-skinned sensei tilted his head lazily, as though he felt Danzo’s gaze.

As though he could see him.

Danzo’s single eye narrowed.

Too many anomalies, too many inconsistencies...

Notes:

So little bit of a history lesson in this chapter. Had a hard time on how I wanted to write this out, but then I remembered the third was known as the professor. So I just went with it.

Chapter 11: Genin Clash

Notes:

A New Chapter has arrived!

Chapter 11: Genin Clash

…

Setting: Forest of Death; Tower Arena

A single cough cracked through the silence.

Hayate stepped forward from the row of proctors, gaunt and grim beneath the flickering overhead lights. His voice followed a heartbeat later, dry and deliberate, as if pulled from a throat long unused to mercy.

“Before any of you start pondering on training… the next phase begins immediately.”

The silence fractured like glass.

Naruto jerked upright. “WHAT?!” The word echoed off the stone walls, bouncing like a thrown kunai. “But we just came from the stupid forest a few hours ago! I haven’t even had dessert yet!”

Sakura snapped, “Idiot—this isn’t lunch break!”

Gasps and curses rippled through the gathered genin. Kiba muttered something foul under his breath. Shino’s fingers flexed slightly at his sides. Even the Suna team flickered with alarm—Temari stiffening, Kankuro’s smirk faltering.

Only a few stood motionless.

Neji. Gaara. Dosu.

As for Hinata.

She didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. Tension and a slight tremble, her pulse spiked like a blade tapping steel.

He watches.

A public fight meant performance. But performance meant risk.

She couldn’t win too quickly. She couldn’t look too skilled. But she couldn’t lose either. She had to walk the razor’s edge—bleed enough to be underestimated, survive enough to be permitted.

No fanfare. No overkill. No mistakes.

Her stomach twisted beneath her ribs, tight as a fist. Danzo is watching. I have to be perfect.

Hayate coughed again, then gestured toward the far wall.

With a low, mechanical groan, a heavy panel descended from the ceiling. Dust puffed from its joints, and the metal screen flickered to life with static-laced text.

“Too many of you passed,” Hayate said simply. “That wasn’t expected. So, we’re adjusting.”

His tone was flat. Deadpan. But final.

“We’ll be holding a set of one-on-one preliminary matches—immediately. The rules of simple. You lose; you're done.”

There were no cheers. No protests this time.

Just quiet.

Thick and growing.

“These matches are monitored by med-nin and your respective sensei. If lethal damage is likely, I’ll intervene should I wish—but if you expect a safety net, don’t fight.”

Another screen activated with a cold ping, and the first names appeared in stark black letters:

PRELIMINARIES BEGIN NOW.
MATCH ONE: SASUKE UCHIHA VS YOROI AKADO

The breath went out of the room like a candle snuffed.

Sasuke’s name hit like a hammer. And in the same moment, every pair of eyes shifted.

He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t react. Just inhaled once and began to walk—shoulders squared, chin high, every movement sharp and measured.

Naruto shouted something after him—loud, brash, supportive. Sakura followed with a soft “be careful.”

Sasuke didn’t look back.

He didn’t need to.

This was what he came for.

As he moved forward, he was stopped momentarily by Kakashi who spoke in a hushed whisper.

As Sasuke and the masked Jonin spoke softly, a pale eyed figure looked on with interest at the Uchiha. 

Though his gaze was more of contempt.

Neji stood apart from the others in the elevated waiting area, arms folded loosely across his chest, posture as straight and polished as any Hyuga ever trained to be. His eyes followed the easy way Sasuke moved, the way even jonin like Kakashi seemed to speak to him in low tones, with subtle respect.

It was only natural for a gifted prodigy.

Born with power, given attention, rising through favoritism masked as merit. He’d seen it before—lived under it. The world praised talent when it bloomed from the right bloodlines, when it came wrapped in tragedy and pride.

His lip curled slightly.

And then there was her.

The other pale eyed individual

That thing trailing behind Team 8, cloaked in weakness and disgrace. Even now, standing on the same floor as him, she remained beneath notice. It was only because he tried search that he even noticed her at all.

Branded and cast out, a walking embarrassment the clan refused to speak of. She wasn’t his cousin anymore. She was nothing, a sickness snipped from the family tree.

He’d seen the brand once. Saw it peeking beneath her bangs when she knelt before the elders, eyes dry and empty. Since then, she’d become a ghost. Not even worth contempt.

Neji’s jaw tightened as that sour wave of jealous indignance pulsed through him. The main branch was only superior because fate had decreed it that way. Still… that did not mean the branch family need be weaker.

To him, she was a symbol of everything wrong with the Main House. They bred weakness when it was clear his own power rivaled their own. 

And when the cost of their naivety arrived—when his father paid the price—they still kept their place atop the throne.

She got what she deserved.

No one mourned her banishment. No one missed her absence. And yet here she stood again, like a phantom clawing out of a shallow grave.

That she’d made it this far meant nothing.

Fate corrects its errors.

And in time, it would erase this one too.

Neji's stare lingered—piercing, cold, dismissive.

But the world below was already moving on.

Sasuke slowly stepped toward the center of the arena floor. Kakashi was beside him now, just a shadow at his flank. The silver-haired jonin didn’t look at him when he spoke—just kept his voice low enough to not carry.

 “Don’t overextend your chakra. That mark—whatever it is—isn’t natural, far from it. Your life may be in danger should it flare up. Should that occur, I’m pulling you from the exam.”

Sasuke didn’t flinch, but his eyes narrowed.

He hadn’t expected Kakashi to notice so soon. Then again, Kakashi noticed everything.

And yet…

Kakashi didn’t appear to know that Hinata had done something in the forest—somehow using her chakra laced jabs to weaken the marks grasp on his network. Apart from the strange sensation of someone else’s chakra entering him; It hurt like hell. But when it was done, the mark’s pull had substantially weakened.

The fact he was no longer suffering from paralysis proved she had weakened it, however…. He could still feel it gnawing. A subtle pulse that had been gradually growing. Whatever she did wasn’t a fix.

That thought alone set his teeth on edge, the thought of only being here due to another’s questionable goodwill.

I won’t be handicapped here, I’ll pass this exam myself without anyone!

“I’ll be fine,” Sasuke muttered, activating his Sharingan with a soft glow. “I won’t let it hold me back.”

Kakashi didn’t look convinced.

“Make sure you don’t.”

With that, Kakashi turned and headed toward the elevated gallery.

Yoroi was already waiting at the center end of the arena, arms crossed, a posture of cool arrogance. “Hope you’re ready, Uchiha. I like my fights short.”

Sasuke said nothing. Just stepped into position as Hayate gave the two a brief look over and a few seconds to decide whether to drop out of the match.

From the gallery, the sound genin’s sensei smiled faintly, disturbingly white skin almost glowing in the light. His eyes glinted as Sasuke raised his fists.

“How exciting… show me your resolve Sasuke, show me what you are willing to do!”

…

The tension in Sasuke’s shoulders didn’t ease as he watched the proctor take a few steps backward, each footfall echoing across the polished arena floor. The whispers from the crowd dulled into white noise—useless. All that mattered was what lay ahead.

He reached up, fingers brushing the base of his neck. Even now, that cursed heat simmered beneath the skin like coiled flame, dulled only slightly by the needle-like residue of Hinata’s strange chakra.

He rolled his neck once. Stretched his fingers.

Lets do this!

Hayate gave a cough, voice brittle but firm.

“Begin.”

The match began with a blur.

Yoroi shot forward, closing the distance in a heartbeat, fingers outstretched.

He’s fast I’ll give him that. But my eyes have seen faster!

The sharingan tracked his opponent’s movement with sharp efficiency. He ducked low, parrying with an elbow and spinning out of reach—but not before feeling the faint drain of chakra through the near-miss.

“He absorbs chakra,” Sasuke realized aloud, sharingan eyes narrowing.

The masked genin chuckled. “Smart boy.”

Sasuke lunged, fists flying in quick, calculated arcs. Genin-level taijutsu, tight and technical—designed to test, not overwhelm. His opponent kept up, weaving between blows, hands reaching again and again. Sasuke deflected, stepped back, circled. Each time those hands grazed him, his chakra wavered slightly.

Sasuke struck first this time—a forward feint that transitioned into a sweeping left kick, timed perfectly to Yoroi’s movement. But hr twisted away with surprising agility, letting the blow skim his side and retaliated with a sharp jab toward Sasuke’s collarbone.

Sasuke blocked, twisting at the waist and parrying the blow upward. But again, he felt it—his chakra slipping. Just a thread. And the mark burning.

Yoroi was leeching from every touch. Every graze.

It didn’t matter. Sasuke switched tactics, tightening his footwork, relying on balance instead of strength. His strikes came faster now—short, rapid bursts designed to disrupt his opponents rhythm.

The crowd started murmuring again.

Sasuke flipped backward, avoiding a grasp and launched a flurry of shuriken—not to wound, but to scatter the leaf genin’s stance.

Yoroi deflected three but was forced to leap aside, giving Sasuke a critical second. He darted forward, landing a solid blow across the man’s jaw—but not before a hand scraped his forearm.

Another drain. Another tick down.

His pulse quickened.

He could feel the mark begin to stir.

Then it flared.

The Curse Mark burned hot at the nape of his neck, like a branding iron awakening from slumber.

Sasuke staggered in painful suprise, just for a second.

Yoroi grinned as he took the initiative to lunge. “Got you now.”

Sasuke’s limbs locked for half a breath—his chest seizing as a wave of black heat coiled up his spine. The Curse Mark surged, clawing against the boundaries inside him like a caged animal smelling blood.

But it didn’t spread.

The mark throbbed and pulsed, but it stayed contained. Isolated. The threads Hinata had laced through his network were still holding, despite their obvious weakening.

He gasped, dropped low, and kicked Yoroi’s leg out from under him in a blur of motion just before the leaf ninja’s hand made contact with his head.

The crowd murmured.

The false sound sensei’s brow twitched.

What is this? It’s…. contained? That shouldn’t be possible…

His golden eyes flicked to Hinata, standing quietly with Team 8. She didn’t move. Didn’t blink. But her Byakugan was active, hidden beneath her meek posture.

Orochimaru’s tongue flicked across his lips behind the illusion of his disguise. From her posture alone, he could tell Hinata was aware something was wrong with Sasuke.

 “Ah… so that’s what you did.”

Orochimaru chuckled softly.

My my, what an interesting development. She neutralized it. Albeit temporarily. Still, alll you’ve done is delay the fall. Afterall… now Sasuke knows he’s inferior to you.

He glanced again at Hinata, lips curling in a subtle grin.

That little thorned flower… to have such control and chakra skill. I wonder if she’s even aware of what she’s blooming into. Perhaps this child would make a good substitute should things not go to plan…

His smile sharpened at the thought before turning his gaze back to Sasuke.

Regardless, it’s a small setback, but in the end… he’ll crave the mark again. He’ll beg for its strength!

Back to the fight below, the two genin had just pulled apart with the masked ninja being knocked backwards from a fierce kick.

Yoroi rose quickly, battered, previous aura of confidence beginning to wane.

“You’re slowing down, Uchiha. Let me help with that!”

His palms flared as he lunged, fingers coated in a layer of swirling chakra, ready to rip away Sasuke’s remaining chakra.

But Sasuke had already moved.

He vaulted over his opponent, seizing Yoroi’s wrist mid-air and twisting it at a brutal angle. The older genin cried out as chakra bled from Sasuke’s arm, the drain biting deeper with each second—but Sasuke didn’t hesitate. He drove punishing blows into Yoroi’s side, then hurled him into the wall with a jarring crash, ramming a knee into his ribs before springing back to avoid further contact. Sasuke hit the ground low, breath sharp, body coiled like a spring.

The moment’s opening had cost him— the chakra drain lingered like a fog in his limbs, numbing, slowing.

He flexed his fingers once. Twice. His nerves responded sluggishly.

Not enough. He was beating down his enemy, but he had yet to give a decisive strike.

Across from him, Yoroi groaned and peeled himself from the wall, stumbling once before finding his balance.

The masked genin growled, shaking out his limbs, and charged again. This time he came from above—leaping into the air and spinning down with a strike aimed at Sasuke’s skull.

Sasuke slid forward, dropped to a knee, and slammed his palm into Yoroi’s stomach, redirecting the momentum and making the genin stumble.

But Sasuke faltered too—his breath ragged, a burning agony smoldering in his neck.  

The mark is burning worse now! I’ve got to end this fight!!

His eyes snapped forward, calculating every line of muscle, every twitch of chakra before arriving at a conclusion.  

He let Yoroi grab him.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. He just stood still—shoulders loose, posture deceptively open—as Yoroi lunged in again, palm crackling with hungry chakra.

Come on, Sasuke thought coldly. Take the bait.

And Yoroi did.

The moment his hand clamped around Sasuke’s neck, Sasuke’s entire chakra system lurched. The drain hit him like cold fire, hollowing out his reserves with a sickening pull. For a heartbeat, his muscles locked. His vision blurred.

But his Sharingan didn’t blink.

He saw the fault—the arrogance in Yoroi’s stance, the lazy grip, the overreliance on his absorption technique. Sasuke had been feigning just enough exhaustion to provoke it.

And now?

Now he would make him pay.

Yoroi sneered, absorbing energy through his palm. “You're done.”

Sasuke moved.

With a savage snap, he drove his forehead into Yoroi’s face—bone meeting bone with a wet crack. Before the man could reel, Sasuke twisted within the hold, locking his elbow and pivoting with sharp, perfect brutality.

A sickening pop echoed through the chamber.

Yoroi scrambled back a few step screeching while grasping his awkwardly angled arm.

Sasuke didn’t give anytime for his opponent to recover.

Quickly maintaining pressure, he yanked the injured man forward and slammed his knee into his gut, then spun—pivoting into a savage elbow to the jaw that sent teeth scattering on the floor. 

Yoroi stumbled to the ground in a daze.

But Sasuke wasn’t done.

His foot came down hard on the man’s chest, the impact knocking any air in the genin’s lungs and leaving him a twitching pile on the ground.

“Try stealing my chakra now,” Sasuke muttered, voice like ice.

Hayate casually stepped forward, eyeing the battered genin. hand raised.

“That’s enough. This match is over. Winner—Sasuke Uchiha.”

Sasuke stood tall.

Weakened, a burning sensation on his beck… But victorious.

There was a short, scattered murmur from the crowd. A few raised brows. One or two scoffs, a comment or two at going overboard.

Then silence settled again, normal, expected. The kind that followed a clean victory, even if it was harsher than expected.

This was a battlefield, after all and everything went.

Sasuke remained still for a breath longer, his chest rising and falling. The mark burned beneath his skin, an ugly throb that tugged at the edge of his mind. His fingers twitched once, then steadied.

He exhaled slowly and turned away from Yoroi’s crumpled body.

From the crowd, Sakura gasped softly, but it was Naruto who moved first—practically bounding down the steps.

“Yo! That was awesome!” he shouted, his grin wide as ever. “You crushed that guy!”

Sakura followed with more caution, her eyes flickering from the blood on the floor to the tension still riding Sasuke’s shoulders.

Sasuke barely acknowledged the approaching his teammates, still steadying his breath. Sakura hovered close, worry clear in her eyes.

Kakashi suddenly appeared beside him in bored fashion.

“No more stalling,” he said, hand gripping Sasuke’s shoulder. “We deal with that now. Or you’re out.”

Sasuke clenched his fists.

He didn’t argue. He hated the idea—hated walking away when the real matches were just starting. But he wasn’t stupid. The mark would come again, and next time… it might not listen. That last thing he needed was to be paralyzed in the middle of a fight.

As he turned to follow Kakashi, his eyes passed over the crowd.

He paused.

Hinata was watching him.

Still. Focused. Her hands folded delicately in front of her. But her Byakugan was active—and for a split second, he swore he saw something stir behind those pale irises.

A cold Recognition.

Then she looked away.

And so did he.

As Sasuke and Kakashi disappeared through one of the dark tunnels, medical ninja scuttered in the arena.

The metallic groan of a stretcher echoed faintly as the medical team carried Yoroi’s unconscious body off the battlefield. A thin film of silence clung to the air, broken only by Hayate’s next weary cough which prompted the screen to select the next match.

The names flickered across the device:

MATCH TWO: SHINO ABURAME VS ZAKU ABUMI

There was a beat of silence before Hayate’s rasp broke the air

“Contenders, come forward!”

In the gallery, team 8 shifted. “Hey,” Kiba muttered, glancing to the side. “You sure you’re good to go?”

Shino didn’t answer immediately. His hand hovered briefly above his thigh—fingers brushing the wrappings tight around his left leg. The wound was still raw beneath the bandages, pulsing faintly with each heartbeat. The medical team had tended to the wound but the muscle hadn’t fully recovered, wouldn’t for at least a week. Movement would be limited. Pain would be constant.

But pain was irrelevant.

“I’m fine,” he said simply. And with that, he began walking, calm, measured, limping just slightly.

Hinata stood beside him, her pale gaze flicking toward Shino’s leg. Even beneath the thick layers of tape and medical splints, the bruising was evident. She could still see the rupture where the muscle had torn in the forest. “Be careful,” she whispered.

Kiba hesitated, then nodded. “He’s smart. He’ll adapt.”

But even as he said it, Kiba’s fingers tensed at his side. He knew better than anyone how badly Shino had been limping since the forest, how he hadn’t said a word about the pain but had to rest between every few steps. His body was breaking down—but his mind?

That was still razor-sharp.

Shino descended the steps slowly, every movement deliberate. His coat flared slightly in the dust-streaked breeze that funneled through the stadium’s cracked stone walls. As he stepped into the light, his limp was undeniable. Each step on his injured leg sent a faint jolt through his frame, though he betrayed no pain.

Zaku’s grin widened when Shino entered the arena and saw the limp.

“Oh, that’s cute. You’re already broken.”

“I don’t need my leg to end you,” Shino said flatly. His tone never shifted. His eyes never lifted behind those round glasses. “But you’ll need both arms. Do you still have them?”

Zaku’s smirk twitched.

Hayate gave them both a look, coughed once.

“Begin.”

Zaku wasted no time. He yanked his right arm free of the sling, revealing a fully unwrapped sleeve and a surgical scar that traced from shoulder to wrist. The crowd murmured. His fingers flexed with tension.

“Well what you look at that! Guess I got one of my arm’s back. All I need is one to crush you!”

With a sudden twist, Zaku raised the limb and let loose a compressed blast of sound. The concussive wave screeched through the air, warping the space in front of him as it barreled toward Shino.

Shino leapt to the side, gritting his teeth as his injured leg absorbed the shock of landing. His coat rippled, but his expression didn’t shift.

“Quick on your feet aren’t you? Lucky you I guess” Zaku spat, already shifting his stance. “Lets test your reflexes then!”

With a sudden twist, Zaku raised the limb and let loose a compressed blast of sound. The concussive wave screeched through the air, warping the space in front of him as it barreled toward Shino.

Shino leapt to the side, gritting his teeth as his injured leg absorbed the shock of landing. His coat rippled, but his expression didn’t shift.

“You can still move huh? Lucky you I guess,” Zaku spat, already shifting his stance. “Let’s test your reflexes then!”

Zaku pivoted, slamming his palm against the ground and launching another shockwave through the cracked arena floor. Stone and dust split outward in jagged arcs.

Shino moved in tandem, rolling leftward and letting the wave pass behind him.

Another pulse followed instantly—wider, sharper, more focused.

He darted forward, tossing a series of kunai mid-dodge to disrupt Zaku’s timing while ducking low under the next wave.

But it came faster than expected. This one was different—thinner, more condensed. A spear of sound, not a blast.

It caught him.

As the Aburame attempted to duck below the spear, its edge skimmed his coat—then slashed across his lower back like a kunai made of pure pressure.

Pain erupted as the pressure removed strips of flesh.

His injured leg buckled, and he hit the ground hard, the pressure sending him skidding shoulder-first, rolling into the cracked tiles. The impact rattled his ribs. Blood traced down from a new gash across his good knee.

For a second, the world rang with static as he dully noted the wetness soaking his clothes.

Up above, Hinata gasped, her Byakugan catching the fine ripple in Shino’s chakra network where the injury flared anew.

He aimed Shino’s weak side… It’s a shame, but his match may be over.

Zaku stood tall, smirking. His fingers twitched, still humming with vibration before letting out a cackling laugh.

He could have ended the fight right there. Send a slicing sound wave on the downed opponent. Maybe knock him out cold, maybe maim him, perhaps even kill him.

But he didn’t.

He simply watched as the Aburame struggled to get back up.

The sound genin sneered. “Oh, that looked like it hurt. Maybe I’ll go for the arms next. Or maybe I’ll just leave you crawling like the bugs you love so much!”

Another blast exploded near Shino’s downed form, sending dust and broken stone raining down. Shino shielded his face with one arm as jagged stone pieces scraped his skin before managing to shift to his knees.

From the stands, Kiba cursed. “Damn it—get up, man… You got to move!”

But as the seconds ticked by, Hinata noticed something else. As Shino rolled again from another blast—more sluggishly this time—tiny black dots slipped off his coat and disappeared into the many crumbed stone pieces that littered the arena. Not retreating... Spreading.

He was planting them.

Lying in wait.

Shino let out a small groan as he pulled himself to his feet again, trickles of blood coming from gashes on his temple, arms, and cheek. His coat was torn across the shoulder where he skidded. His injured leg dragged more than before, and blood continued to drip lazily from his lower back, but he stood.

Barely.

Zaku leaned forward with a twisted grin. “Tch. Is that it, bug-boy?” he called out. “You’re even lamer than I thought. Come on, let’s make this fun!”

He raised his arm again—priming another shot.

He charged forward again, unleashing a series of short-range bursts—quick jabs of compressed air meant to herd Shino into the open. But the Aburame didn’t take the bait.

Instead, a cloud of insects buzzed outward in a controlled spiral. Not enough to swarm—just enough to confuse.

Zaku swatted instinctively, backpedaling while sending small blasts at the swarm. “You seriously think your little bugs can beat me?!”

Another series of deafening pressure.

Up in the stands, Sakura flinched as the echo of each blast rolled over the audience like distant thunder.

Naruto leaned forward, hands gripping the railing. “Come on Shino! You can’t get your ass kicked by this guy!”

Hinata didn’t speak, just stared at the unfolding fight.

The sound ninja was clearly cruel but… that may give Shino the advantage if he wont end it.

Her eyes swept the field. The insects were spreading beneath the arena’s rubble, converging toward the sound genin’s feet. Then she noticed the chakra—

Zaku’s active arm throbbed with erratic pulses. Not natural. Mechanical.

But his other arm—still in its sling—was also glowing.

Active.

Prepared.

Something’s wrong… can he use his second arm?!

Down below, Shino was calculating as the battle stretched. Every attack came from the same angle—same tempo, same strategy. Zaku’s power was raw, unrefined. He was trying to overwhelm, to stun, to dominate through brute force.

But he was utterly arrogant.

Predictable.

The sound ninja lunged forward, stomping toward him with another blast primed.

“Come on! You’re not even trying to fight! What’s the matter, scared I’ll break the rest of you?”

Shino didn’t answer. He shifted again, narrowly avoiding the edge of another wave as it cracked the stone floor beside him. His bugs stirred under his coat, waiting.

Zaku smirked. ““You hear me, freak?! Or is your head just full of your disgusting bugs!”

Another shot.

It clipped the leaf genin’s side, sending him sliding back, coat flaring outward.

The crowd gasped.

But Shino was already adjusting his footing.

Up in the gallery, Hinata’s eyes narrowed slightly as she watched the exchange. That contact had been minimal. Controlled. Her gaze followed a thin line of insects crawling steadily up Shino’s leg.

I see... this match is already over.

Below, Zaku raised his arm again, ready to fire.

But nothing happened.

“Huh?”

The air stuttered. The chakra failing to build. And then he saw it.

Dozens of tiny black beetles crawled up and down his arm.

They were disturbing his chakra flow, preventing pressure from building up

“These dammed insects!” Zaku hissed, his eyes wide.

Shino straightened fully. His limp had worsened, blood still seeping down his leg, but his composure was unwavering.

“You talk too much,” he said coolly. “And you never once looked beneath your feet. My beetles feed on chakra. They make it difficult to channel in a given area… especially in something artificial like your arm.”

Zaku snarled—then let out a bitter laugh.

“Guess I’ll need it after all!”

With a jerk of motion, he tore his second arm free from its sling, brushing aside a few beetles still clinging to the wrappings.

The crowd gasped.

Both arms now extended, steam and chakra began pouring from the reinforced tubes embedded in his flesh.

“I’ll blow you and your damn bugs into pieces!”

Chakra surged wildly from his limbs, unstable and excessive. He braced himself, planting both feet into the stone. Veins bulged along his neck, rage overtaking reason.

“I’ll wipe you out in one go!” he roared.

Shino’s eyes narrowed behind his lenses. At his feet, insects crept across the cracked arena floor—spreading in symmetrical formation like ink through water.

Up above, Hinata followed the flow with her Byakugan. Her voice was barely a whisper.

He doesn’t realize…

Zaku stomped forward.

“You think you’re better than me?! Let’s see how your freaks handle this!!”

He thrust his left arm forward, pouring everything he had into one final blast.

“DIE, LEAF SCU—”

Silence.

The blast never came.

Only a shrill shreeeeeek—a compressed, unstable buildup that collapsed in on itself.

Then—

Boom.

Zaku’s arms exploded.

The pressure tubing had bloated beyond its limit—stuffed with beetles, sealed with chakra, and pushed past containment. Shards of scorched metal, cloth, and gore scattered across the arena floor.

Zaku dropped to his knees, a hideous scream ripping from his throat. He stared down in horror at what remained of his limbs.

Or rather, what didn’t.

Just shredded, mangled stumps.

Blood. Smoke. Bone.

Silence blanketed the arena.

The sound ninja no longer screamed, having crumpled to a motionless ball on the floor.

Hayate slowly made his way toward Zaku, kneeling for a moment before rising to address the crowd.

“Winner: Shino Aburame.”

Some in the crowd clapped slowly. Others looked shocked.

Sakura turned away, pale. Naruto stared in awe.

Kiba exhaled, slowly shaking his head. “Told ya. He’s scary when he’s serious.”

Hinata’s clasped her hands together “I-it was difficult, but S-Shino won!”

Kurenai didn’t speak, but her nod was quiet and firm. Pride flickered in her eyes—subtle, restrained.

Down in the arena, Shino stood still, coat torn, blood trailing from his leg and side. The insects that had won him the match were already crawling back beneath his collar and sleeves, silent and disciplined.

As his opponent was carried off to the medical wing, medical ninja urged him to also come with them to treat his injuries. His limp had worsened, and it was clear the wound had once again reopened. His shoulder was heavily bruised and skinned, lower back stripped of flesh, a thin line of blood trickled from his side where that last sound blast had grazed him.

Kiba gave him a fist bump as he passed by in the medical teams stretcher. “You got him, man.”

Shino simply nodded. “Took longer than expected.”

Hinata bowed her head slightly. “Y-you did well, Shino-kun.”

For a second, just a flicker—Shino’s mouth twitched in the barest hint of a smile before he was taken to the medical wing.

The genin muttered among themselves as the arena was quickly patched up and rubble removed.

…

Meanwhile, beyond the arena, a dim chamber flickered with low chakra light.

The screen in front of him blinked. Code scrolled in tandem with the match queue.

The Analyst sat motionless; hands laced, expression unreadable.

Their eyes tracked the remaining matchups.

A faint frown tugged at the edge of their mouth.

“Too chaotic,” they murmured, voice deep, rich and soft.

They touched the console.

Chakra thread slid into the controls, vein-thin, invisible to most.

The list of randomized matches began to shift. Not all. Just some.

Rearranged with a surgeon’s care.

No alarms. No fail-safes triggered. Not even the proctors would notice the swap.

Only a select few upstairs would suspect.

But suspicion was irrelevant.

They leaned back, eyes narrowing at the screen.

“Danzo-sama prefers ability over spectacle, results over politics” the Analyst muttered.

“The random draws were insufficient. If Konoha is to rise beyond sentiment, it must be trimmed like any weapon—hardened and honed. Lord Danzo deserves nothing less.”

They pressed one final seal. The changes locked.

The system would refresh just before the third match.

The Analyst stood, smoothing their cloak with mechanical precision.

They didn’t watch the screens as they left. There was no need to.

The plan was already in motion.

Now to report to Lord Danzo, the future savior of this sick nation.

…

 

The genin stared intently at the screen as it shifted once more.

MATCH THREE: CHŌJI AKIMICHI VS MISUMI TSUBAKI

A ripple moved through the crowd.

Hayate’s voice cut through the air. “Next contenders, step forward.”

From the gallery, Chōji startled upright, half eaten onigiri in his hand. “Wha—oh, man, it’s me…”

He hesitated before stepping toward the railing, eyes darting nervously toward the arena floor.

“You’ve got this, Choji,” Ino said sharply. “This is your chance to prove yourself!”

“Yeah,” Shikamaru added lazily while clapping his shoulder. “Just don’t hold back. You’re strongest up close, best to crush him quick.”

The bigger genin nodded wearily, nerves practically jumping out of him.

Asuma gave him a nudge with a smirk. “Tell you what—win this match, and dinners on me. All-you-can-eat barbecue.”

His eyes widened. “You really mean that Asuma-sensei? Even… double meat?”

“Triple,” Asuma said. “But only if you don’t hold back.”

That did it.

Choji stood tall, stuffed rest of the onigiri in his mouth and marched down below.

As he descended the stairs, Misumi was already standing in the arena—arms loose at his sides, expression unreadable. He didn’t smile. He didn’t speak. Just waited.

As the bigger boy stepped into the light and got into position, eyes blazing now; not with killer intent, but with the sacred hunger only meat could awaken.

Hayate stepped back a few paces, eyeing both ninjas.

“Begin!”

The two genin circled briefly for a few moments before bolting to action.

Choji sprang backward, reaching for his kunai pouch and flinging a quick handful of shuriken and kunai toward Misumi—erratic, scattered, mostly wide.

Misumi hardly even moved, causally sidestepping the few on point shuriken.

Most of the blades clattered harmlessly to the stone floor.

“Oh come on, is this joke greaseball!”

Misumi gathered his own kunai and charged forward.

But the bigger boy wasn’t aiming.

No, he was buying precious seconds to channel his chakra.

“Expansion Jutsu!” Choji cried.

His body swelled with chakra. Arms, legs, and stomach rounded out in an instant, turning several times his size.

Misumi stopped moving in shock “Wait—what the hell?”

Choji let a snicker “Now I crush you like a BUG!!! Human Boulder!”

He curled into a sphere and launched himself forward like a living cannonball, stone tiles cracking beneath him as he spun.

Misumi’s eyes widened as the bowling ball barreled towards him. He sprang to the side but not fast enough.

CRASH!

Chōji plowed straight into the Sound genin, flattening him against the far wall with a resounding crack. Stone shattered, dust burst upward, and Misumi’s body vanished halfway into the cratered masonry—wedged like a nail in rotted wood.

But Chōji didn’t roll away.

He stuck.

The sheer force of the blow had wedged his expanded body into the cracked wall alongside his opponent.

“Can’t… move?!”

Struggling slightly, the large sphere twisted left, then right. “Ugh… too tight…”

After a few seconds of grunting effort, the spinning ceased. Chakra receded.

Chōji shrank—arms, legs, and belly retracting as his jutsu deactivated. He slipped free of the wall with a loud pop and stumbled backward, blinking at the motionless figure slumped in the crater.

“I… I got him?”

Ino stood, cheering. “That’s my teammate!”

Naruto laughed. “Damn, he nailed him good!”

Even Asuma cracked a smile.

But—

The limp figure twitched.

Then the limbs moved—unnaturally, impossibly.

They uncoiled like serpents.

Before the Akimichi heir could raise his arms, the first wrapped around his throat. The second looped under his arm. The third hooked behind his knee.

Misumi pulled himself forward using Chōji’s own body as anchor.

“Too bad greaseball, you should have kept spinning!”

The bigger boy tried to move, but it was too late. The grip constricted, twisting tighter.

Chōji thrashed, trying to focus his chakra but the lack of air stole his strength, on top he was still recovering from the first transformation. He couldn’t reform the jutsu in time. His limbs flailed, then faltered.

Above, Ino screamed.

Shikamaru muttered, “Damn it…”

And then—darkness.

Hayate stared for a few moments as Choji’s body went limp, foam spilling out of his mouth.

“Stop.”

Misumi obeyed without expression, releasing his coils as Chōji sagged to the ground, unconscious.

“Winner: Misumi Tsubaki.”

No cheers followed.

Only quiet.

Chōji was carried off, arms dangling, face pale.

Ino sat frozen.

Shikamaru let out a sigh as he looked down. “He should’ve finished it. But… he’s not that kind of guy.”

Asuma exhaled through his nose, quietly sitting down again.

Well, I suppose we can still treat him for his attempt. Probably cap it at double meat though

The crowd once more turned to the black screen.

It flickered:

MATCH FOUR: KIN TSUCHI VS SAKURA HARUNO

Sakura blinked at the name. Her name.

She stood slowly, legs stiff, throat dry.

“You got this,” Naruto said beside her, his voice softer than usual. “You already fought her once, right? Just… be careful.”

Sakura didn’t respond right away, but the glance she gave him—tight-lipped, almost grateful—was enough.

Sakura stepped forward from Team 7’s section, lips slightly parted as if to say something—then didn’t. Her gait was steady, but her shoulders stiff. She walked with the nervous posture of someone trying not to look nervous.

Across from her, Kin dropped down smoothly from the opposite stairwell. She didn’t say anything. Just tilted her head slightly, as if studying Sakura’s balance

Hayate’s cough echoed faintly in the open air. “Begin.”

Sakura took a deep breath and dropped into stance, recalling what little she knew.

She’d fought Kin before. Briefly. Back in the forest. But she hadn’t finished that fight—Ino had.

She hadn’t even seen what Kin’s jutsu was.

It didn’t matter! This time, Sakura would come out on top. She had to prove she could stand on her own, Cha!

The first senbon came fast—too fast.

Sakura deflected it by instinct. A second followed, then a third, each one ringing slightly—metal threaded with something strange. Bells hung from each of the senbon.

As the pink-haired kunoichi reformed her stance she noticed tones echoed unnaturally in her ears, bouncing between walls. Too many for the number of kunai actually thrown.

Genjutsu?

Her fingers twitched. She grounded her stance, remembered Kakashi’s lessons—disrupt chakra flow. Find the pattern. Anchor your mind.

Kin smirked. “Trying to stay focused? Cute. Let’s see how long that lasts.”

Then her hands moved.

Sakura felt it instantly—something buzzing near her ears, like a high-pitched whine.

The air wobbled.

Her footing faltered.

Bells jingled again—this time without being touched. The sound rippled inside her head.

The ninja sound was no prodigy in hand-to-hand like Lee, but she didn’t need to be. She darted forward like a snake—fast, sharp, controlled.

Sakura raised her arms to guard, only to be met with a fierce strike to her abdomen.

As she doubled over, a knee collided with her nose, sending her half tumbling, half leaping back to gain distance.

But her opponent wasn’t done, this time she struck with sound.

The bell genin flicked her wrist—hidden threads of chakra wire tugged a bell overhead.

The moment it rang, Sakura’s world tilted.

Up was left. Right was below.

Her vision wavered.

She stumbled, hastily rolling from an incoming flurry of senbon.

Focus, I have to Focus!

Kin was on her in an instant, slamming an elbow into her side—then another strike to the back of her head.

The crowd winced.

Sakura hit the ground, rolled, scrambled up. Blood traced the corner of her mouth.

Come on Sakura! Reset your chakra! You trained for this!

She weaved a quick seal and tried to center herself. The air shimmered again. Her vision cleared—for a second.

Kin gave her no time.

Another bell.

Another tilt in space.

Another blow—this one to the chest.

Sakura gasped and staggered backward, balance gone. She tried to counter, to kick, but Kin slipped beneath it and punished her own kick to the sternum.

“Not bad girly” Kin smirked. “But you really should have trained harder.”

Sakura landed hard, back hitting the stone.

She couldn’t hear clearly. Her ears buzzed. Her limbs felt heavy.

Somewhere above, she thought she heard Naruto yelled her name.

Kin loomed over her, one hand on her bell thread, the other already rising.

The pink-haired genin blinked up at her—dazed, but defiant.

She tried to rise.

Kin struck once more, a clean chop to the neck.

Sakura’s head hit the stone.

And this time, she didn’t get up.

Hayate stepped forward. “Winner: Kin Tsuchi.”

Silence rippled through the gallery.

Even Naruto didn’t speak. His fists clenched white at his sides.

Kin turned with a sneer and returned to her team.

…

Hinata stood in silence.

Hayato had been called by the other proctors, giving the genin a few minutes to anxiously wait for the next match. The talking and mumblings of the ninja around bled into the back of her awareness like distant rainfall. Her eyes remained fixed on the arena floor, even as medics carried Sakura’s limp body out on a stretcher. Naruto was down there, talking to her unconscious form, whether from encouragement or anger, she couldn't tell.

But Hinata saw only chakra.

Fragments of it, disrupted patterns, shaky reserves—each movement of every fighter during the matches was a story told in flickers of light through her Byakugan.

Sasuke’s fight.
Shino’s precision.
Zaku’s reckless decay.
Chōji’s… heart.
Sakura’s collapse.

She was taking in everything.

Her mind lingered now on Sasuke again, not just his movements, but the way that strange mark twisted chakra resisted his own flow. It pulsed like a second heartbeat, snarling through his network like oil slick over water. It’s affects were weakened after she isolated it but… It was almost alive, straining to reconnect.

Her jaw tightened slightly. That mark, that chakra… it had the same texture as the pseudo-Grass shinobi they’d fought in the forest.

And then her eyes shifted—toward the balcony edge, where the Sound trio stood, impassive.

She zeroed in on Kin.

That bell-based genjutsu… the frequency of the chakra was unusual. Not entirely foreign, but the way it utilized specific sound waves to trap an opponent in a series of illusions while their enemy finished them off. It was just like how that flute user fought; though this sound ninja was clearly in a far inferior level them the sound user she at fought.

Hinata frowned slightly. Perhaps its clan-based? A kekkei genkai? An image of Zaku’s arms flashed in her mind… maybe even manufactured somehow.

Her gaze drifted sideways to view what remained of the sound team.

The sound genin’s aura was faint, typical for a ninja of their level but the sound sensei…

Her breath hitched.

She activated her Byakugan fully.

The pale sensei was standing perfectly still, but his chakra network…

There was nothing.

Not suppressed. Not sealed. Simply… gone.

That’s… impossible!

Even Kurenai-sensei couldn’t mask her chakra like that no matter how many intricate layers of jonin level illusions she melded.

In fact, there was only one person Hinata had ever known which could do that; make their network utterly invisible with perfect chakra control.

Danzo-sama.

A chill crept down her spine.

Before she could finish the thought, the man across the arena shifted—and in that instant, he looked directly at her.

Her entire body stiffened. It lasted no more than a heartbeat.

But she saw it with her byakugan.

A knowing smile, just beneath the surface. Piercing yellow eyes that seemed to know more than her own would ever see. An invitation... Or a threat.

Her heart beat faster. She turned away quickly, hiding the sudden spark of fear behind her mask of quiet composure.

What… What was that?!

Sickening waves of dread rolled through her like poisoned water. It took everything she had not to collapse. Only years of conditioning—Danzo’s training—kept her spine rigid and her mask intact.

Kiba seemed to sense her discomfort. He placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry, Hinata,” he said, offering a sharp-toothed grin. “I know these guys look strong, but just believe in us—we’ll come out on top.”

She gave him a faint, nervous smile. She didn’t trust her voice to work.

Meanwhile, the Sannin’s mind pulse with glee as his subordinates took their place beside him.

So… she noticed, did she?

“Danzo’s little pet…” he murmured, voice like honeyed venom beneath his breath.

He watched her shrink back beside her teammate, watched the sweat collect at her temple despite her rigid stillness. Those deliciously sharp, frosted eyes of hers were strong and more disciplined than he thought. She truly does have talent. But the tremble in her breath confirmed the most delicious truth:

She knew exactly how far beneath him she stood.

Still... the girl was intriguing.

Movement brought his gaze upon two medical-nin in standard flak jackets and pale gloves Their faces were masked, posture clinical, steps unhurried.

They moved directly to the Sound Team’s corner.

“Excuse the interruption,” one said, bowing politely. “We’ve been instructed to give an update on your student. His wounds are… grievous. There’s only so much we can do. His life isn’t in danger, but his arms…” He hesitated. “There’s nothing left to save.”

The pale sensei tilted his head, expression unreadable. “How dreadful,” he murmured, voice almost amused. “Still… such is the shinobi life.”

A few more formalities passed. The medics spoke softly, professionally, before preparing to depart. As they turned, one of them paused—offering Orochimaru a stack of Zaku’s medical reports.

Then, with a motion as casual as a handshake, the medic’s gloved hand brushed against Orochimaru’s wrist.

The contact lingered—half a second too long.

Something passed between them.

Thin. Dry. Parchment.

Orochimaru’s fingers curled subtly, receiving the hidden message. He gave no indication. The medics bowed, murmured their farewells, and slipped back into the corridor shadows.

Only when their footsteps had faded did the Sannin let his eyes drift downward—toward the folded note now hidden beneath his sleeve.

Stamped upon it: a black seal.

ROOT.                                                                         

Orochimaru’s gaze rose slowly—tracing the arc of the arena’s highest wall. There, nestled in the darkness, was a hollow space no one else seemed to notice.

Not shadow. Not trick of the light.

A presence.

He saw him.

Danzo.
Bandaged. Watching. Always watching.

Orochimaru licked his lips.

“How nostalgic, you old schemer…”

His grin widened—feral and elegant all at once.

“Perhaps a reunion may soon be in order.”

 

 

Notes:

Feedback always appreciated! :)

FYI: If anyone is interested, I'm looking for few people to share thoughts on future plot points.
https://discord.gg/XQ6fzBNafn

Chapter 12: Strength of Will

Notes:

New Chapter!

 

Chapter 12: Strength of Will

 

Setting: Forest of Death; Tower Arena

How troublesome. The faintest curl of amusement touching the sanin’s lips as he counted no less then a dozen hidden observation windows scattered across the walls of the arena.

Orochimaru had intended to follow Kakashi and Sasuke after a short while. Curiosity pricked at the thought of what little trick the Copy Ninja would attempt in a meager effort to halt his gift’s influence. But his fingers brushed the folded parchment in his sleeve, the one bearing ROOT’s unmistakable mark. That old schemer likely had a dozen contingencies ready to spring if he so much as took a wrong step.

He could ruffle those plans a bit… a sadistic feeling ran through him at the thought of tumbling Danzo’s carefully crafted plans like a stack of cards. It was quite tempting.

But his golden eyes dropped again to the message in his hand. Any fun right now risked disrupting his own designs on top of ending the possibility of a more private meeting with the old friend he fully intended to see before long.

With a soft chuckle, he leaned back against the stone wall, eyes returning to the arena floor undergoing repairs.
Oh well… it makes the game more interesting.

Meanwhile as a team of secondary proctors worked to repair the section of wall Choji’s Human Boulder had demolished, Hayate gathered the primary observers in the upper gallery. The air was tense here, heavy with the unspoken weight of decisions that could ripple far beyond the exam.

They leaned toward one another, their voices kept low, blending into the murmur of the crowd below. Hayate tapped the match roster against his palm, frowning as his eyes moved down the list.

“This wasn’t the original order,” he murmured, voice rough from the cough he’d been suppressing all day. “The screen was only meant to give the illusion of randomness. The matches were drawn up carefully to account for each genin’s abilities—give everyone at least a fighting chance.”

Beside him, Special Jōnin Genma shifted the senbon between his teeth, his gaze fixed on the glowing screen that now displayed the upcoming bouts. “Some of these match-ups…” he let the words trail, but his tone carried the weight of concern. “This will pit heavy-hitters against each other early. Even the other matches don’t consider the genin’s jutsu.

Another proctor leaned in, keeping his eyes forward so as not to draw attention. “Then maybe we scrap the revised list and go back to the original layout. We all know who the favorites are this year—if those three don’t make it to the finals, the nobles will throw a fit. The way it established now, at least one of the three definitely won’t make it to the finals.” He paused, lowering his voice another notch. “And then there’s the Hyuga problem…”

The mention drew a few grim glances as the two pale eyed genin popped into the proctors’ thoughts. The Hyuga had always been dangerous contenders, much like the Uchiha once were, and they had a long history of making life difficult for the exam organizers. What the Third Hokage had conveniently left out of his rousing speech to the genin was the other side of the Chūnin Exams—the part meant for the noble class. Yes, the matches allowed rival nations to let off steam in a controlled environment, but they also served as high-stakes entertainment for the wealthy. Wagers were placed, odds calculated, fortunes quietly shifted.

If more than one Hyūga reached the second phase, it became an unspoken priority to thin their numbers before the finals. The best way to do this was simply to pit them against each other and ensure at least half the assembled Hyuga were removed before every reaching the finals. As one of the Hyuga this year were already slated to make it to the finals, that made the younger Hyuga’s match problematic. While the original match list all but guaranteed the younger one’s disqualification, this new list did not. The pale eyed clan was simply far too prestigious and powerful as it was. It was no secret it took the combined influence of the more powerful middle clans, the Aburame and the Akamichi to balance out the Hyuga influence ever since the Uchiha massacre.

The Hyuga were loyal to the third and followed their vows completely, but that didn’t mean he could allow them to accrue too much. Having too many titled chunin with the byakugan would only be asking for a diplomatic crisis among other nations, as well as an internal crisis in regard to the other noble clans. Was it fair? Not remotely, though the chunin exams never did claim to be fair. The only reason the Hyuga clan took it in stride was because the clan’s genin were given privileges others weren’t unofficial higher ranks, missions outside the Hokage’s jurisdiction, specific missions that allowed expansion of clan influence and wealth. Perks the other great clans quietly envied.

Several sets of eyes flicked toward the visiting support proctors from the Sand, Waterfall, and Grass villages. Their expressions remained flat and unreadable, but there was a sharpness in their watchfulness. The truth was, those “support” proctors were little more than diplomatic window dressing, with no real duties in the exam itself. Still, their mere presence ensured that no Leaf proctor appeared to be favoring one side—or one genin—over another.

“We’ve already given them the match list,” someone muttered. “If it weren’t for the Hokage stepping in, we’d be halfway to a diplomatic incident by now.”

When Kin and Sakura’s bout had appeared on the screen earlier, the proctors had been just as caught off guard as the genin in the stands. But they’d kept their expressions neutral, and the Hokage had moved quickly, explaining to the foreign observers that he had forgotten to give them an updated list—blaming the oversight on the sheer ferocity of this year’s candidates. By humbling himself, he had soothed any brewing suspicion. The alliance he was trying to build was still fragile, and every step required extreme precision.

Hayate let out a quiet sigh, the sound nearly lost under another cough. “If we start changing match orders again after Lord Third’s explanation, it’ll look like we’re either hiding something or don’t know what we’re doing at all.” He closed the roster with a faint snap, his expression settling into resigned focus. “Too late to fix it now. Just keep it moving.”

...

The genin watched with hold breath as the screen above the arena flickered, static rolling briefly across it before the next names flashed into view.

TENTEN vs. DOSU KINUTA.

A few murmurs rolled through the crowd, some of them curious, others uncertain. Up in the gallery, Hayate’s gaze tracked from the screen to the arena floor, his expression unreadable. The match had been set, and there was no undoing it now. “Next combatants,” he announced flatly, the words carrying over the din, and the stairwells at either end of the arena opened.

Tenten emerged first. Her steps were light, measured, her posture radiating the poise of someone who lived in constant repetition until every movement became instinct. The twin scrolls across her back shifted faintly with her pace, their weight perfectly balanced. She swept her gaze over the rectangular stone floor, noting the even spacing, the lack of cover, the stark lines of shadow. Her eyes landed on the opposite stairwell, where her opponent appeared.

Dosu came slowly, the dull wraps around his head and face hiding every flicker of expression. The right arm hung at his side, the muted plates and tubes rattling faintly with each step. His pace was unhurried, but there was a deliberateness to it, as if every footfall was measured, every shift of his stance calculated.

Tenten’s mind flicked briefly to Lee’s warning the night before: That device—don’t let him get close. It attacks your balance before you even realize what’s happening. She’d asked for details, but all Lee had been able to give her was that the sound burrowed into your skull and scrambled everything. No hand signs. No obvious tells. That was enough to make her wary.

They met in the center, neither speaking, each measuring the other in silence.

“Begin,” Hayate’s voice cut through the restless noise above.

Tenten moved first. Her right hand flashed over her shoulder, a scroll snapping open with a sharp crack of paper. Steel poured into the air—kunai and shuriken spinning in a controlled storm, their arcs precise, forcing Dosu into motion immediately.

Dosu didn’t counter, though it was less out of choice and more out of inability. Tenten’s fierce barrage of shuriken and kunai was pinpoint accurate with secondary strikes aimed at possible dodge points.

Steel rang against steel as a handful of kunai were deflected by the flat plates of his Melody Arm, but too many slipped past. A shallow slice cut across his thigh, another drew a line of crimson along his ribs. He pivoted and ducked low, the edges of her weapons hissing close enough to snag at his bandages. Every time he shifted his weight to retaliate, another projectile was already in his path, forcing him back into defense. Tenten’s arms moved like clockwork, each throw feeding into the next, no wasted motion. Her breath stayed steady, eyes locked on his center mass, scanning for any tell, any flicker that might give away an opening. Meanwhile his one visible eye never left hers.

Dosu grunted as blood soaked his bandages. This kunoichi is annoyingly accurate; I’m just not fast enough to dodge them all and in a contest of endurance I’m likely to lose… The Melodic Arm brace gave a faint mechanical hum — so soft it might have been mistaken for background noise as his lone eye gazed at the growing amount of metal ninja weapons scattered about. Hmm… That may satisfy the conditions for that jutsu…

Tenten pressed again, chaining her patterns—shuriken high to force his guard, a whip of weighted chain low to threaten his legs.

The chain snapped at his legs, grazing his shin as he twisted out of the way, the motion carrying him a few steps to the right. His footwork was deliberate—never crossing into reckless lunges, always pivoting just enough to spoil her angles. A kunai sliced through the sleeve of his tunic, leaving a shallow cut along his forearm, and still he didn’t flinch.

 Tenten frowned inwardly. For someone taking these many glancing blows, he’s entirely too calm. Is he just biding his time? Well that suits me, so long I keep my distance, he can’t use that brace on me!

She shifted her stance to keep him at mid-range, refusing to give him an opening to close in. The sound genin’s arm dipped slightly, the faintest movement as his fingers adjusted on the metal brace, but her attention stayed fixed on landing the next strike.

From above, Lee leaned forward against the railing. “Tenten must be careful, this is an enemy to be wary of—just keep him at length!”

“That may be true, but still…” Neji said, his voice flat, pale eyes fixed below. “He hasn’t attacked yet. Perhaps he can’t—or perhaps he is thinking. He’s been hit many times over, but always avoids the critical blows. He reacts well.”

Gai’s brow furrowed but he stayed silent, his gaze narrowing.

Back in the fight, Tenten had switched scrolls in a wicked dance, unleashing a wide spread of curved kunai that angled inward mid-flight to pinch Dosu from both sides. The bandaged man moved once more, using that metal brace to block the lethal strikes, grunting as several hooked kunai dug into left arm and shoulders.

The hooked edges bit into his flesh, one sinking deep enough to tear the bandages and stick for an instant before falling free. Dosu hissed under his breath, but his hand came up to catch another blade on the reinforced ridges of the Melody Arm. The weapon thrummed faintly with each impact, the sound almost lost under the din of the crowd. He angled his body just so, letting two more kunai glance off the brace rather than dodge them entirely, each strike adding another faint hum to the metal’s core.

To Tenten, it looked like sloppy defense—a man getting worn down by superior accuracy. In reality, the vibrations were already coiling within the mechanism, waiting for the right moment to be unleashed.

Dosu’s eye narrowed slightly, the first real tell of intent since the match began. His stance shifted—subtle, almost lazy—but the Melody Arm lifted higher, plates trembling with a low, hungry resonance. A faint pressure rolled out from him, like the air itself was tightening. Tenten’s fingers twitched at her scroll, a reflexive urge to send another volley, but something in the way his body moved froze her for half a heartbeat.

He wasn’t flinching anymore. He wasn’t even trying to hide the way his brace vibrated now, the pitch climbing by the second. Lee’s voice rang faintly from the gallery, urging her to keep her distance, but her mind was already cataloging every weapon in her reach, every angle she could exploit before whatever he was building reached its peak.

The hum from the arm brace sharpened into a single, pulsing tone that cut through the air. Tenten felt it in her bones before she registered the sound itself. Her vision shifted, the floor seeming to tilt sideways beneath her. She gritted her teeth and forced her stance to hold, but her inner ear screamed at her to move the wrong way.

She snapped her wrist and loosed another weapon, but Dosu stepped inside the throw. His elbow came up, a brutal arc that caught her just below the temple. The vibration in the strike rattled her skull. She dropped to one knee, scroll still half-open in her grip.

What! I’ve been keeping my distance… Tenten’s thoughts swam as her vision rolled and waved. Have to keep moving, have to end this!

She shoved herself upright, unrolling the scroll in a full spin that sent three blades snapping outward—not at him directly, but to the ground around him. Weighted chains hissed against the stone, looping to snare his ankles.

He was forced into a full step back, concerning amount of blood spilling as he moved. She used it. Another flurry of shuriken flew high; a lunging strike followed, chain whipping in to catch him in his chest. This time, the impact landed. Dosu staggered half a step, his hum faltering for an instant.

The crowd stirred, sensing a shift. Lee’s voice carried above it all. “Yes! Press him, Tenten!”

She did, though her aim was clearly losing its mark; vision a constant tide ebbing and pulling. A flash of another scroll, more steel in the air, a rhythm of close-range and long-range strikes meant to keep him reacting.

But Dosu’s eye narrowed. He sidestepped a kunai, letting it clatter to the ground at his feet. Another stuck into the stone near his hip. A third slid to a stop just past his boots.

The hum began again, deeper this time, layering on itself. One by one, the scattered weapons around him began to tremble, resonating faintly. The chains, the blades, every piece of steel she’d planted in the floor or left ringing from impact—each became another point in a growing web of sound.

A faint raspy laugh came from the sound genin “Tell me, have you leaf ninja ever heard of a tuning fork?”

Dosu’s head tilted in that strange, almost reptilian way of his, and the low vibration from the Melody Arm flared into a deeper, thrumming growl. He took two sharp steps back—out of the kill zone Tenten’s scattered weapons had created—before his free hand flicked outward in a deliberate sweep. Chakra pulsed along the lines of his arm brace, spilling into the embedded metal and rippling through the air like heat off stone.

The kunai and chains she’d left on the ground began to sing. Not the dull ring of steel after impact—this was sharper, purposeful, each weapon vibrating in perfect harmony with the Melody Arm’s pitch. In seconds, the arena floor around Tenten became a cage of sound, the vibrations ricocheting between each piece of steel in an invisible lattice.

Realization hit her half a heartbeat too late. The air around her thickened with invisible vibration, each note meeting another, creating a cage of pressure and sound. The pitch climbed, harmonics colliding, forcing the leaf genin to drop her weapons and cover her ears in a meager attempt to stop the onslaught.

The first wave hit her like a shove from all directions at once. The second stole her balance entirely. Her breath caught in her throat, the world spinning violently as the resonance drilled into her ears, her chest, even her teeth.

Dosu stepped forward through the wall of sound as if it weren’t there. One final, resonant pulse rolled out from the arm brace, the scattered weapons around them singing with the same killing note.

Up in the gallery, Neji’s eyes narrowed while Lee leaned over the rail, alarm clear in his voice. “What is he—?!”
The mummied man turned his head just enough for his single, exposed eye to catch the crowd. “Everyone,” he rasped, voice sandpaper-rough, “might want to cover your ears.”

Sound Style: Resonance Prison!

Then the pitch spiked to a scream.

The air itself seemed to harden around Tenten as the harmonic field snapped into place. Each weapon thrummed in perfect counterpoint to the others, the converging tones collapsing into a suffocating cage of sound.

Her jaw parted in a guttural scream that the audience could barely hear — faint and muffled beneath the deafening harmonic resonance. Inside the cage, the sound was all-consuming, a living thing that clawed into her skull, tore through her balance, and rattled her bones like loose stones in a jar.

Her nose went next, crimson streaking over her lips. The scream broke into ragged gasps, then a wet choke. A thin dribble of blood slid from the corner of her mouth, the price of vocal cords shredded raw by cries that would never reach the stands.

Dosu didn’t press in for a strike. He didn’t need to. The cage was the strike.

From the gallery, Lee’s voice broke into a hoarse shout, “Tenten! Fight it!” But even he couldn’t tell if she heard him over the piercing resonance or through her own screams.

She stayed upright for a moment longer, knees quivering under the relentless assault. Then, she felt it… something deep inside her ears give way before her body slackened all at once — the sound cage still vibrating as she collapsed in a limp, crumpled heap.

Only then did Dosu let the hum fade, the cage unraveling into silence so sudden it made the crowd acutely aware of the ringing in their own ears. The arm brace lowered to his side with mechanical ease, its faint rattle the only sound he made.

Tenten lay unmoving, her chest rising shallowly.

Hayate’s voice cut in immediately. “Winner: Dosu Kinuta”

Gasps rippled through the stands, followed by uneasy murmurs. Some cheered the efficiency; others frowned at the sheer brutality. Up in the gallery, Lee’s fists clenched until his knuckles whitened, his jaw tight enough to ache. Neji’s pale eyes didn’t leave Dosu’s retreating back, heading back to the gallery with little ceremony.

Gai suddenly vaulted the railing, landing beside his student in an instant.

Lee was there a halfbeat later, crouching down so fast his hands shook.

“Tenten! Tenten, can you hear me?!” Lee’s voice cracked as he eased her onto her back. Blood smeared his gloves — warm, slick, and far too much. Her head lolled slightly, eyes half-lidded and unfocused. The faint, wet rasp in her throat was the only sign she was still breathing.

Gai placed his strady hands on his Tenten’s back, easing her up.

“Stay calm, Lee. Support her head.” His hands were steady as they tilted her just enough to clear her airway, his eyes scanning the damage with a practiced efficiency that belied his usual demeanor.

The first of the medical-nin dropped in from the gallery above, kneeling beside them with a scroll already unfurled. Hands glowing green, they began a quick diagnostic sweep, their expression tightening at what they found. “Severe throat damage and acoustic trauma. We must evaluate her immediately.1’

Two more medics joined in, producing a stretcher in a practiced blur. As they began to lift her, Lee’s grip on her hand lingered until Gai placed a firm palm on his shoulder.

“Lee,” Gai said quietly, “let them do their work.”

Lee reluctantly released her hand, stepping back just enough for the stretcher team to pass. The medics moved quickly, vanishing into the stairwell with their burden, the faint glimmer of healing chakra fading with them.

For a moment, the arena seemed to hold its breath — the crowd’s noise dropping to a low, uneasy murmur. Even the foreign proctors watched in silence, their expressions unreadable. Down on the stone floor, a few stray droplets of Tenten’s blood darkened the pale surface, stark reminders of the match’s brutality.

Hayate straightened from his crouch, casting one lingering glance toward the stairwell before turning back to the glowing screen. His cough was barely audible over the renewed hum of conversation.

The display flickered, the next pairing sliding into place. Whatever sympathy lingered in the crowd began to give way to anticipation once more. In the end, the exam didn’t pause anyone.

NARUTO UZUMAKI Vs. KIBA INUZUKA

An immediate cheer surged. “Its my time to shine!” the orange clad ninja declared.

An immediate cheer surged through the stands. Naruto puffed out his chest, hands on his hips, grinning as if the outcome were already decided. “Heh! My time to shine!” he declared loud enough for half the gallery to hear.

Kiba’s head snapped toward the board, his grin stretching into something sharper. Well, well… guess this just got interesting. When the exams first started, he’d expected Naruto to be weeded out before this point, loudmouths usually were after all, but the Forest had shown him otherwise. The “dead last” wasn’t dead weight. Annoying? Absolutely. But he’d fought hard, adapted when things went wrong. Kiba could respect that. And it made for a better fight. I’ll enjoy this.

Beside him, Hinata’s fingers tightened slightly against the railing. Her Byakugan wasn’t active—she didn’t need it. Every detail of Naruto’s posture burned into her focus: the way he walked with almost careless shining energy, the faint twitch in his shoulders that meant he was ready to explode forward at any moment. Her chest warmed, but a coil of unease twined through it. Kiba was fast. And determined as Naruto could be, speed was one thing he hadn’t yet proven against a real Inuzuka in full form.

She swallowed hard, silently willing him not to underestimate Kiba. I should want Kiba to win but…. She couldn’t help but want that vibrant sun to win this match. Hinata’s gripped the railing, a slight anxious tremor that she couldn’t tell was real or not.

The two boys descended the stairs to the arena floor. Naruto’s sandals slapped lightly against stone, each step bouncing with impatient energy. He threw a glance over his shoulder at the gallery, smirk widening when he spotted Sakura watching. Kiba followed at a slower, more deliberate pace, Akamaru trotting faithfully at his side, tail wagging lazily. The Inuzuka’s gait had the rolling looseness of a predator that knew the chase was about to begin.

Naruto bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, rolling his shoulders, the grin never leaving his face. Kiba mirrored the motion with a smirk of his own, though his stance was lower, more measured, one hand already brushing the top of Akamaru’s head. The Inuzuka’s sharp eyes studied Naruto with the same focus he might give a dangerous prey animal.

“Don’t think I’m gonna take it easy on you just ‘cause we passed the Forest together,” Kiba said, a thrilled growl underneath his voice “Out here, you’re just another opponent, and I aim to be top dog here!”

Naruto snorted. “Good. I’d be insulted if you didn’t give it your best. Besides, it’s about time I paid you back for all that trash talk when we first met. Don’t think Akamaru is free either, he stole my berries in the forest!”

Kiba’s smirk widened into a flash of teeth. “We’ll see who’s talking after this.”

Hayate’s gaze swept over them once, making sure both were ready, before he raised his hand and dropped it in a sharp motion. “Begin!”

Kiba exploded forward instantly, not even glancing at Akamaru as the white blur leapt from his head and arced out to the left, circling wide. Naruto’s eyes flicked toward the dog for a fraction of a second — and that was all Kiba needed to close the distance. His fist came in hard and fast, aimed for Naruto’s ribs.

Naruto caught the strike on his forearm, the impact sending a jolt through his arm, and countered with a quick jab that Kiba ducked under easily. A kick followed, sharp and low, forcing Kiba to pivot away just as Akamaru darted back in from the flank.

The little ninken’s teeth snapped on empty air as Naruto spun, planting a foot and lashing out with a backhand that Kiba caught, twisting Naruto’s wrist and shoving him back a step.

“Well I guess you aren’t too bad,” Naruto said, grinning wider. “Guess I’ll have to stop playing around.”

“Guess you’ll have to try to keep up,” Kiba shot back.

Both ninja clasped their hands together as their chakra built up around them.

Naruto’s hands blurred into a seal. “Shadow Clone Jutsu!”

Three perfect copies burst into being beside him, fanning out immediately. Kiba didn’t hesitate — his nose twitched once, and he lunged, swiping through the first clone with a single sweeping kick that dispelled it in a puff of smoke. Akamaru bowled into the second, scattering it just as easily.

The third clone grabbed at Kiba’s arm, only to be yanked forward into a knee that popped it like a bubble. The real Naruto was already in motion, leaping over Akamaru and dropping down toward Kiba from above with a heel kick.

Kiba rolled clear, his hand already in his pouch. Two smoke pellets burst against the floor, sending a thick cloud curling upward. Naruto coughed once, eyes narrowing, but he didn’t slow. He darted forward, trusting his ears and his instinct — and paid for it a heartbeat later when Kiba shot out of the haze with a driving shoulder that knocked him flat on his back.

Naruto rolled away, springing back to his feet. His cheek stung from where the stone had scraped it, but his grin didn’t fade. “Lucky shot.”

“Luck’s got nothing to do with it,” Kiba said, crouching low again. “Akamaru!”

The ninja hound barked sharply and bounded to Kiba’s side. In a blur of motion, Kiba tossed a small pellet toward him. Akamaru caught it in his mouth — and in an instant, his fur flared to a deeper brown, his form seeming to ripple with energy. The sharp, musky scent of soldier pill drifted faintly to the front rows.

Naruto’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, you’re gonna do that already?”

Kiba just grinned. “Nothing personal Naruto, but I’ve seen first hand how much of an annoyance you can be. Best to go all out!”

They both dropped to all fours in perfect synchronicity. “Beast Human Clone!”

Akamaru vanished in a puff of smoke — replaced by a second Kiba, identical down to the feral gleam in his eyes. The two of them shot forward, moving in a zigzag pattern too quick and erratic for the untrained eye to follow. Naruto threw up two more clones, sending them forward as a screen.

The first clone caught a double kick from both Kibas at once and vanished. The second managed to grab an ankle — only for the other Kiba to slam into it from the side, sending it spinning away before it too dispersed.

The real Naruto leapt back, trying to create space, but the Kibas were on him instantly. The first sweep of claws caught his jacket sleeve, tearing it open. The second nicked his cheek.

Naruto ducked low, hands slamming to the ground as he whipped his leg out in a wide sweep. One Kiba vaulted over him — but the other took the hit, rolling with it and springing up without pause.

“Not bad,” one of them said — he wasn’t even sure which. “But you’re not gonna win by running.”

“Who says I’m running!” Naruto replied, his grin tightening.

Two more clones burst into being behind the Kibas, each grabbing for a leg. They got a grip — for half a second — before one Kiba twisted free and the other stomped down hard, breaking the hold.

Naruto used that instant to dive in, swinging a fist straight toward the Kiba on the right. It connected solidly — and burst into smoke.

“Clone,” he muttered.

“Gotcha,” the real Kiba’s voice came from behind him.

Naruto twisted, but too late — Kiba slammed into him with a driving tackle, sending him skidding across the stone floor. Naruto hit hard, rolling twice before pushing up on one elbow, wincing.

From the gallery, Hinata’s hands curled tighter around the railing, her knuckles pale against the metal while Kurenai stood silently at her side, the jōnin’s burgundy eyes fixed on the match.

He fell for it too quickly… Kiba’s clone trick was simple but effective against anyone who couldn’t read scents or movement patterns. Naruto-kun’s got heart, but heart won’t matter if Kiba keeps pressing like this. Her gaze shifted between the two below—Kiba smirking in triumph, Naruto pushing himself up from the floor.

He’s reckless… always charging in without thinking things through. And yet—her chest tightened as she saw him steady himself—he gets back up every single time. No hesitation. No fear. Just… light.

He just needed one clean opening. A faint tremor ran through her fingers, though her face stayed calm. She would not cheer—not here, not now. But inside, every part of her was quietly willing him forward.

Lee leaned over the railing, eyes wide. “Come on, Naruto! Let your youth explode!”

Neji stood unmoving, pale eyes scanning the fight with detached precision.

On the floor, Naruto spat to the side and grinned again, the expression sharper now. “Alright… done playing nice!”

Five clones erupted around him, immediately splitting in different directions. The Kibas split as well — each chasing two, leaving one clone unmarked. That lone clone leapt high, grabbing the attention of the Kiba closest to Naruto just long enough for the real one to duck low and sweep his legs.

Kiba hit the ground but rolled immediately, avoiding the stomp that followed. Akamaru — still in Kiba form — darted in from the side, forcing Naruto to disengage.

“Not bad,” Kiba said as he got to his feet. “But you’ll need more than that.”

“Oh, I’ve got more,” Naruto shot back.

The next exchange blurred into a flurry of strikes, counters, and feints — the clones weaving in and out, forcing Kiba to split his attention. Each hit landed by one was repaid in kind by the other, neither giving ground for more than a second.

Finally, Naruto saw his chance — two clones converged from opposite sides, forcing Kiba to duck. The real Naruto was already there, coming up from below with an uppercut that connected solidly with his jaw.

Kiba staggered back a step — but his hand snapped up, grabbing Naruto’s wrist, and in the same motion, he twisted, driving a knee toward his ribs. Naruto blocked it with his free arm, the impact jolting up into his shoulder.

They broke apart, both breathing harder now, eyes locked.

The match had settled into a punishing rhythm — Naruto pressing with sheer numbers and stubborn will, Kiba answering with bursts of speed and precise, hard-hitting strikes. Clones fell as quickly as they appeared, each dispelled with a sharp kick or an elbow from one Kiba while the other circled like a wolf cutting off escape routes.

Naruto’s breathing was heavier now, but there was still that stubborn fire in his eyes. Kiba, by contrast, looked barely winded — though the thin scratches and scuffs on his jacket showed he’d had to work for it.

“Not bad,” Kiba admitted, darting in to snap a kick at Naruto’s midsection.
Naruto caught the leg and shoved, forcing Kiba back a step. “Darn right not bad!”

They clashed again, the arena echoing with the slap of sandals and the thud of blows meeting flesh. Then Naruto ducked away, hands flashing into a seal — a puff of smoke erupted, and standing there was a perfect copy of Kiba, down to the cocky smirk.

Kiba’s real grin sharpened. “Nice try! But my nose can’t be fooled!” He lunged without hesitation, slamming a fist straight into the impostor’s face — and Naruto grunted in pain as the transformation dispelled, sending him skidding backward.

“Ha! Told you!” Kiba barked.

But even as he gloated, Naruto’s form blurred again. This time, white fur rippled over his body, and Akamaru’s familiar shape stood where the boy had been. Kiba’s eyes widened. “What the—?!”

The other Kiba — the real Akamaru in disguise — gave a startled gasp behind him. Kiba’s head snapped toward the sound, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his face. The doubt lasted only an instant before irritation replaced it. “You’re done!”

He spun on his heel, fangs bared. “Fang Over Fang!”

In a blur, he tore into the other Kiba with bone-rattling force. The body hit the stone and rolled limply… before bursting into smoke. When it cleared, Akamaru lay unconscious in his true form.

Kiba froze. “…Akamaru… wait—?”

It was all the opening Naruto needed. “Gotcha.”

His hand whipped from his pocket, flinging a small paper packet into Kiba’s face. Sansho powder burst into the air in a sharp, choking cloud.

Kiba gagged, his eyes squeezing shut as his hands came up reflexively to his burning nose. “What the hell—?!”

Naruto was already moving. Four clones exploded into existence, fanning out to box Kiba in. A kick caught his side, another slammed into his ribs, and Naruto himself surged up the middle with a driving uppercut that lifted Kiba off his feet.

The Inuzuka hit the ground hard, the pepper still burning in his sinuses. He groaned once and didn’t rise.

Hayate stepped forward, raising his hand. “Winner: Naruto Uzumaki!”

Naruto, grinning ear to ear, crouched beside Kiba. “Heh, still working on naming that move… ‘Pepper mob’ sounds kinda lame though… maybe pepper barrage?” He hooked an arm under Kiba’s shoulder and helped him sit up. Blood ran from Kiba’s nose, already swelling crooked.

Kiba gave a wet snort that made him wince. “Tch… you just got lucky, twerp. Why do you even have that!” The Inuzuka turned to Akamaru who was limping his way to his owner.

Naruto let out a laugh “Was eating some good ramen in the waiting rooms, Sansho goes with everything!”

The genin looked at the blonde ninja with a blank stare before sighing. “well, guess it was a good match”

As the medics arrived to take Kiba for treatment, Kurenai’s gaze lingered on her student. Concern softened her features at Kiba’s condition, but her eyes soon shifted to Naruto, studying that unshakable grin. For all his bluster, he’d fought with adaptability and grit — qualities she couldn’t help but respect.

Still, she noticed the way Hinata’s pale eyes followed him, unwavering, filled with quiet intensity. A faint crease formed between her brows, but then she let out a slow breath. Poor girl… watching her teammate lose must have been difficult, though perhaps not so much… She had noticed long ago those not so secretive glances she stole at Naruto. And yet, there she stood, calm, composed — a gentle flower who’d always been too kind for the life of a shinobi.

Kurenai’s lips curved in a small, reassuring smile. Hinata would grow, in time. She would find her confidence. And when she did, Kurenai would be there to guide her — to make sure that sweet, fragile light inside her was never extinguished in a world that could be all too cold.

…

While Tenten’s and Naruto’s matches went off, a Jonin and a genin walked through the tower.

Sasuke’s boots scuffed lightly against the polished stone as Kakashi led him out of the gallery and down one of the quieter service corridors. The noise of the matches dimmed behind them, replaced by the faint echo of their steps and the occasional distant cheer.

“Where are we going?” Sasuke asked, his voice even, but his body tense.

Kakashi didn’t answer right away. “Somewhere we won’t be interrupted. That mark isn’t going to seal itself and will require some effort.”

They slipped into a small side chamber lit only by a pair of high-set windows. Kakashi gestured for him to sit in the center of the floor. “Shirt off.”

Sasuke complied, the black fabric peeling away to reveal the angry, flame-like seal burned into the left side of his neck. The skin around it was faintly discolored, like an old bruise, but the mark itself pulsed faintly — dark chakra throbbing in irregular beats. It had been pulsing more frequently since the match.

Kakashi knelt behind him, one hand hovering just above the mark. His visible eye narrowed slightly. “hmmm… It’s far more tame than I expected. Almost like it’s being restrained from the inside.”

“That would probably be the Hyuga’s work.” Sasuke said flatly.

“Hyuga?” The silver haired join inquired.

“Hinata. We allied with Team 8 to get our scrolls. During the last hours of the forest we got into a tough fight with other teams. This mark activated in the middle… She did something during that encounter. Her chakra cut it off — not completely, but enough to where I could use my chakra. Though the effect is wearing off, just focusing chakra makes it burn.”

Performing a chakra precision movement of this level in the middle of a fight after days of pressure?

Kakashi’s brows rose under his headband. “Interesting. You know there’s a reason the Hyuga were the Uchiha’s rivals for so long. Their precision with chakra can be… surgical, and that’s putting it lightly.” He didn’t say more but filed the thoughts away.

Hinata Hyuga had never been on his radar as anything more than a reserved genin. Not much apparent potential, more on the weaker side when considering her clan. However… that kind of chakra precision wasn’t learned in the Academy and certainly not from her sensei. Kurenai was strong and talented, but she was a new Jonin. There wasn’t any chance she possessed this particular skill set.

After a few minutes of drawing a myriad of symbols, Kakashi positioned him just behind Sasuke who sat impatiently on the stone floor.

“Hold still,” Kakashi said, his voice losing its conversational tone.

His hands began to weave slow, deliberate seals. Chakra gathered at his fingertips — a pale, concentrated glow — before he pressed his palm to the mark. The cursed seal reacted instantly, writhing under his touch, the skin seeming to ripple as if alive.

Sasuke hissed through his teeth. “Tch—”

“This will hurt,” Kakashi warned, and pushed more chakra in.

The mark fought him — dark tendrils lashing back, seeking to seep into muscle and bone — but Kakashi’s chakra surged over it like a tide, pinning it in place. He moved slowly, methodically, reinforcing the barriers as he built Evil Sealing formula around it.

Minutes passed, each one stretching into a raging ache in Sasuke’s jaw from clenching his teeth. Sweat traced down his temple, but he stayed upright, refusing to show more weakness than necessary.

Suddenly the pain skyrocketed as Sasuke felt his sensei’s hand press firmly into his neck; a feeling like pure fire blistered up his body as the symbols Kakashi had drawn throughout his body shifted and squirmed to the mark.

Finally, with a last firm press, Kakashi’s hand came away. The mark dulled from its fiery color, and the throbbing stopped. The new seal shimmered faintly before settling in place.

Sasuke nearly fainted on the spot, breath ragged as his vision swam from searing pain he just felt.

Kakashi exhaled, letting the tension ease from his shoulders. “That should hold it — but don’t be stupid. This seal is only as strong as you are, feeding on your willpower. Should you lose the will to resist the mark or become tempted in anyway; the mark will reawaken and unleash all the fury of a wound left to rot.”

Sasuke nodded once, before collapsing onto the ground.

Well, at least I can skip the arrogance today. Kakashi rose, he glanced toward the window. The faint sound of cheering drifted in from the arena. “I wonder if Naruto has gone. I should get back after dropping Sasuke off in the medical wing” he murmured, but his thoughts weren’t on the matches.

They were on a quiet Hyuga girl who seemed to be far more capable than she let on.

…

The arena floor was still settling from the noise of Naruto’s win when the board flickered again.

ROCK LEE vs. TEMARI

A ripple of intrigue swept through the gallery. The Sand kunoichi leaned back against the railing, arms crossed, a faint smirk curving her lips as if she’d been waiting for this all day.

“Finally,” she murmured under her breath before vaulting over the rail in one smooth motion. Her boots hit the stone with a confident thud, the massive folded fan resting easily against one shoulder.

Across the way, Lee’s eyes lit up like kindling struck by a spark. “Yosh! At last my turn to burn with the fires of youth!” He all but leapt the entire staircase in two bounds, landing in a ready stance with a grin so bright it could have rivaled Naruto’s.

Gai, up in the gallery, mirrored his student’s excitement, teeth flashing as he pumped both fists in encouragement. “Lee! Show her the power of your springtime youth!”

Temari arched a brow at the display. “If you’re done posing, we can get this over with. I’ve got better things to do than dance around with some green jumpsuit.”

Lee blinked at her, then straightened with all the solemnity of a sworn oath. “Then I will end this quickly! But know that I will still give you my full respect as an opponent!”

From the sidelines, Neji folded his arms. “If he’s smart, he’ll keep the pressure on. I wouldn’t trust that oversized fan of hers.”

Hinata kept her gaze on Lee, expression unreadable. She already knew he possessed great speed. Naruto had informed  could close the gap in an instant — but she also knew what a well-placed wind technique could do to an exposed body.

Hayate stepped forward, coughed once into his fist, and raised his hand. “Begin!”

Temari didn’t move. Instead, she flicked the base of her fan into the floor, the steel edge sparking against stone. “I must say I’m not very interested in playing with a bowl-cut freak. Let’s see if you can get past the first dance.” With a single motion she snapped it open — the first purple crescent painted across its surface flashing halfway into view and swung.

The air screamed as a blade of wind tore across the arena, fast and broad enough to make the closest observers take a step back.

But the green clad ninja moved with shocking agility and speed.

Temari didn’t so much as flinch as Lee pivoted from her attack and charged; instead, her fan snapped further open, the first purple crescent gleaming fully as she twisted at the hips. With a sharp pull, she brought the edge sweeping across her body, releasing a more intense slicing gust that scoured across the stone. Lee ducked under it, his momentum carrying him in a low slide that shaved past her boots.

She twisted sharply, snapping the fan shut mid-turn and jabbing its steel edge down like a staff to block his leg sweep. Lee’s kick met the reinforced frame with a sharp thock, the force rattling up her arms. Her teeth clenched on the strain. What’s with this freak, that kick could piece rock! The two struggled for a moment but she didn’t give ground.

In the next motion, Temari pushed off and leapt back, the first purple crescent flared into view as she swept it down in a wider arc. The air burst forward in a concussive wave, lifting dust and fragments into the air and forcing Lee to break pursuit with a backflip.

“Tch… fast,” she muttered, eyes narrowing. Most genin would have been bleeding already from the first moon, but he’d dodged its bursts without even looking winded. I need to step it up.

Lee straightened from his landing, dust sliding from his sleeves. “Your wind is strong, I will not deny that; but it cannot match my resolve!” he declared, and then he was moving again, this time weaving unpredictably — short dashes, sudden halts, feints that had him vanishing from her sight for an instant before reappearing at a different angle.

Temari kept the fan between them, twisting her stance, letting short bursts of wind cut at the space he might move through. A nick across his sleeve told her she’d come close, but the lack of blood told her close wouldn’t be enough. She’d have to time him perfectly.

Lee surged in again, and Temari dropped low, using the fan’s long handle like a lever to vault herself sideways. She whipped the fan open mid-air, catching him with a sudden cross-breeze that stole some of his momentum and forced him to land wide of his intended target.

“You’ll have to do better than that!” she called, setting her stance for the next volley.

Lee was already gone, a blur of green darting low along the edge of the gale. The stone where he’d been standing split in a clean gouge.

He came in fast, sandals skidding as he launched into a flying kick aimed at her ribs. Temari caught the motion in her peripheral vision and pivoted, snapping the fan’s closed edge up to intercept. The impact jarred her arm, but she turned the deflection into a spin, opening the fan a second time.

Another gust roared out, sharper and more condensed, and Lee flipped over it mid-air, his momentum carrying him right into striking range. His fist darted out — but Temari was already sliding back, the wind at her heels catching her just enough to extend the distance.

In the gallery, Kurenai’s eyes narrowed. “She’s using her fan to control her positioning, not just attack. If Lee doesn’t catch on—”

“He will,” Gai said, still smiling. “My youthful protégé is nothing if not adaptive.”

Lee darted left, then right, testing for an opening. Each time Temari’s fan swept in a precise arc, the air answering her like a drawn blade, forcing him back into open ground. She was reading him now — her eyes tracking not where he was, but where he’d have to be.

A stray ripple of wind grazed his cheek, stinging like a cut. Lee barely blinked. His expression was bright, almost giddy, even as his sleeves snapped in the gale. Every failed advance was just another chance to adapt.

Temari, by contrast, was calm but calculating, her feet never still, keeping her fan between them at all times. She could feel the difference in their styles — his was relentless pressure, hers was deliberate control. So far, she was winning that battle.

“All right then, how about this! Second Moon!” she barked.

The fan swept wide, the second purple crescent flashing into view — and the resulting wind blast screamed across the floor with twice the force of her opening move. The current was faster, tighter, aimed to catch him in mid-stride before he could spring clear.

Lee didn’t break stride. He pushed off with both legs, flipping into a forward somersault, the gale raking beneath him close enough to tug at his ankle wraps. His landing was light — but not light enough.

The moment his feet touched down, another crescent was already cutting toward him, the steel edge of its wind almost humming in his ears.

“Tch—” He kicked back, sliding several feet across the tiles, sandals squealing against the stone. Temari’s eyes narrowed, catching the hitch in his motion. He’s quick… but quick in straight lines. I can pen him in.

Her next swing didn’t target him directly. Instead, she angled it wide, the gust cutting across his left flank and forcing him toward the arena wall. A follow-up blast slammed into the floor just ahead, the rebounding air and debris closing off his last clean approach.

From above, Kankurō’s smirk was audible in his voice. “That’s my sister — once she’s got your rhythm, you’re done.”

Lee blurred forward again, this time feinting right before cutting hard left, managing to slip inside her outer arc. He darted in with a spinning kick, the wind of his own motion brushing her hair.

Temari’s fan snapped shut, intercepting the strike with a metallic clang once more. She pivoted with the block, twisting her hips and releasing another short, vicious gust point-blank that sent him sliding back again.

Her eyes sharpened. “Let’s end this dance. Third Moon!”

The fan snapped open to its widest — three purple crescents gleaming — and she swung with both arms, pouring her weight and chakra into the motion. The resulting wall of wind was a battering ram, dense enough to rattle the gallery railings as it tore across the arena.

Lee crossed his arms in front of his face, bracing — but the gale hit like a sledgehammer. The sound of impact was swallowed by the roaring wind as he was lifted clean off his feet and hurled backward. His body struck the arena wall with a sickening thud, stone splintering from the force. Dust and grit rained down as he slid to the floor, one knee hitting stone before he pushed himself upright again, chest heaving.

“Persistent,” she said coolly, resting the fan against her shoulder, “I’ll admit, there aren’t many that can take a direct hit from the third moon and still be standing. But I’m afraid this fight is over now!”

Temari took in a deep breath as she took her stance, fan opening wide.

From the gallery, Gai’s hands cupped around his mouth, his voice booming over the ringing in Lee’s ears. “LEE! The time has come!”

Lee’s head snapped up at the words, eyes lighting like twin lanterns. Despite the sweat streaking his face and the shallow rise and fall of his chest, he grinned — wide, unshaken, as if Gai had just handed him victory itself.

“Yosh! At last!” he exclaimed, already reaching down to the thick bands clasped around his ankles. He popped the first open with a metallic click, then the second, holding both weights in his hands for a moment like they were treasured relics.

Temari frowned, tilting her head slightly. “What, you’re taking off your accessories? That’s your big plan?”

In the gallery, Neji’s eyes narrowed fractionally. She doesn’t understand… Then again even I don’t fully understand the absurdity of it

Lee dropped the weights.

They didn’t just thud — they cracked into the arena floor, stone cracking outward in jagged lines as the sound of their impact reverberated on the floor as if Lee has just dropped boulders from his arms. A few of the closer genin actually flinched, their eyes flicking between the twin gouges in the stone and the boy now stretching his legs as if warming up for a light jog.

Temari’s grip on her fan tightened. That… can’t be right...

Lee looked up at her, still grinning. “Now… let’s see if the wind can keep up with the springtime of youth!”

One heartbeat he was there; the next, he wasn’t.

A blur of green closed the gap faster than Temari’s eyes could track, the gust of his passing tugging at her hair before his shadow fell over her. She reacted on instinct, swinging the fan in a wide arc — but the motion carved only empty air.

“Too slow,” Lee’s voice murmured at her side before he pivoted and was gone again, reappearing behind her in a crouch.

From above, Kankuro leaned forward, scowling. “This kid!... he’s too fast!”

Another rush of air — another feint — and Temari turned, teeth gritted, trying to read the patterns. But Lee wasn’t following patterns anymore. He was everywhere and nowhere, each step a sudden burst that left only an afterimage behind.

When the first strike landed — a light but forceful tap to her shoulder — she almost didn’t register until midway through being blasted backwards. Temari twisted and landed on her feet, clutching at her throbbing shoulder.

 This is a problem… she realized. If he gets a clean hit I’m done for

Gai’s voice boomed with barely contained pride. “Yes, Lee! Show them the results of your training!”

Temari’s breath came sharper now as she tried to reposition, snapping the fan open to its widest setting and unleashing the Third Moon again in a desperate attempt to wall him out.

Lee’s voice answered from right in front of her, “Your wind can’t reach me if I’m already inside it.”

Her eyes widened as his foot connected squarely with her midsection, knocking every breath of air out of her body; the blow lifting her off the ground and sending her skidding backward, fan scraping stone as she fought to stay upright.

Temari’s sandals scraped for purchase, her breath ragged as she righted herself, but Lee was already in motion. He didn’t charge straight — he blurred in a weaving pattern, each step a burst of speed that made his image smear and fracture in her vision.

She swung the fan wide in a final gambit, throwing everything into a crushing wave of wind meant to blast him clear off his feet. The gale screamed across the arena, rattling the gallery railings — and missed entirely.

Lee had vanished into its blind spot.

Before she could recover, he was in front of her, his body twisting in a controlled, coiled motion that snapped upward into a high, rising kick. It landed square on her chin, the strike sending a wave of vibrations into her skull. As she lifted from the floor due to the kicks force, she was dully aware of the concerning popping sounds that came with the strike. But she didn’t get the chance to ponder on the damage done as a heartbeat later a heavy-fisted strike came just below her ribs, sending her flying across the arena, skidding to a limp halt.

After allowing a few moments to pass, Hayate stepped forward to assess Temari’s limp form before he raised his hand.  “Winner: Rock Lee.”

The roar from Gai nearly drowned out the cheer from the gallery. “YES, LEE! A most youthful performance!”

Lee straightened from his stance, sweat dripping slightly down his jaw, but his expression was one of calm satisfaction rather than gloating. He gave a single, formal bow toward his fallen opponent before turning to return to the gallery, a look of triumph gracing his face.

Hinata’s eyes followed him only for a moment longer. Respectable skill… but not an opponent to be immediately feared, besides; he isn’t an anomoly. Her thoughts were already sliding elsewhere — to her precious savior, Danzo-sama and the inevitable test that would come. The matchups ahead were unknown, but she could feel his expectation like a hand on her shoulder, pushing her toward whatever prey he desired removed.

Her gaze swept the remaining fighters: The waterfall team had yet to fight a single match, two sand genin remained, five leaf genin including her. She couldn’t help but glance at him That arrogant attitude, those pale eyes staring with superiority. A part of her hungered she would get to fight him… But she forced it down. Now was not the time to let it consume her, that was for the night.

There was sldothe Sound sensei. She had to make sure to report him to Danzo was these matches were over. The ability to hide a chakra network from her byakugan… spoke of frightening skill. A predator in plain sight.

Then there was Naruto. Her chest warmed again at the thought of his earlier victory. She allowed herself to indulge in that bright sun for a moment before new movement caught her attention.  

Kakashi had returned, slipping quietly into the gallery, but Sasuke was nowhere to be seen. The silver-haired jōnin stood near Naruto, listening with what seemed like patient interest as the boy animatedly retold his match, hands cutting through the air in broad, exaggerated gestures.

Hinata lingered on the sight for only a breath before turning back toward the floor, mind already shifting back to calculation. Soon, she would know who she would face. And when that time came, she would not — could not — fail.

As Hinata focused herself, Kakashi’s gaze slid briefly toward her, his expression unreadable — but the faint edge of puzzlement lingered in his single visible eye.

Notes:

Feedback always appreciated! :)

Chapter 13: A Bloody Duel

Notes:

New Chapter! This one fought with me a little bit, but hope ya'll enjoy :)

Chapter 13: A Bloody Duel

The stone tiles of the arena floor were still cracked and wind-scored from the last match, a testament to the sheer force Lee had unleashed. The medics had only just cleared Temari’s unconscious body when the main screen flared to life with the next pairing:

RYU  VS. SHIKAMARU NARA

From the gallery above, Ino shot up with a squeal loud enough to turn a few heads in the gallery.
“Shikamaru! You’re up next! Don’t you dare slack off now — you’ve gotta show them what Team 10 is made of!” She leaned over the railing, waving both arms like a banner. Her blonde hair caught in the draft of wind, her grin radiant.

But as her voice trailed into the steady thrum of the crowd, a seed of unease coiled in her chest. Honestly… can he really pull this off? Shikamaru was brilliant with puzzles and plans — she knew that better than anyone. Yet he was so… unwilling. Always ducking responsibility, always muttering about “what a drag.” She wanted to believe in him, but deep down she feared he’d fold against someone with real drive.

Beside her, Asuma rested a hand on the rail, his expression unreadable but steady. He didn’t raise his voice — he never had to.
“Remember what we practiced, Shikamaru. Don’t rush. Keep your head clear. If you stay patient, the openings will come to you.”

Shikamaru gave no outward sign he’d heard either of them. He slouched further on the gallery rails, chin tilted toward the ceiling as though he’d rather nap through the whole ordeal. After a long sigh, he finally muttered, “Figures… I’d rather be setting up a Shogi board right now.”

Ino nearly toppled forward in exasperation. “Shogi? Seriously?!”

But Asuma just smirked faintly around his unlit cigarette. He’d learned long ago that Shikamaru’s sighs meant more than they let on.

As Shikamaru slowly tuned with a reluctant shuffle, his eyes flicked toward the far side of the stands where the Waterfall genin was also gathering himself. Their posture struck him at once — straight backs, quiet discipline as he spoke to who Shikamaru assumed was the Taki teams sensei; a figure in loose robes and low hanging hood, with two sabers on their back. 

The Land of Waterfalls, he mused, hands stuffed deep into his pockets. His father had once spoken of them during a game of Shogi, voice low, as though the very walls might lean in to listen. A small nation, tucked in the north, yet brimming with sharp edges. They bordered the Land of Iron to the east, Iwagakure to the west, with tenuous seams pressed against Grass and Fire to the south. Not large, not sprawling — but wealthy, refined, and too proud to be dismissed.

His father had said it plain: “They couldn’t topple one of the great nations in a straight war. But they don’t need to. Their strength makes them a necessary voice in any pact. That’s why their more pompous lords like to call themselves the Sixth Great Nation.”

Shikamaru had filed it away at the time, another lesson in the hidden politics his father loved to weave into casual talk. But now, descending the steps into the arena, he found himself glancing again at the Waterfall trio. Truth be told, he hadn’t paid the Waterfall genin much attention until now. They had kept to themselves during the exam — no brash boasts such as the other leaf teams, no mocking stances like the sound, no sinister aura like the sand. They slipped through the crowds like stones under a ponds surface. Easy to overlook.

But as he studied Ryu now, he noticed the details that told their own story. The scuffs on his headband. The faint bandages winding his left forearm. A thin tear on the shoulder of his tunic, patched but not replaced. They weren’t trophies of recklessness — they were marks of someone who had already fought hard in the forest and kept moving forward. The way Ryu stood, centered and grounded, spoke of endurance more than ego.

He’s not flashy, Shikamaru realized, but he’s capable. He wouldn’t be here otherwise.

...

High above, from the dignitaries’ balcony, Sarutobi Hiruzen leaned heavily on this arm of his chair. His weathered eyes followed the two boys stepping onto the cracked stone, but his mind wandered. Konoha and the Land of Waterfalls — their history had never been easy. From the earliest days, mistrust had festered.

The memory cut deep. Once, when the village was still in its infancy, assassins from Takigakure had struck at Hashirama himself, blades and chakra flashing in the dawn mist. They had nearly ended him then, on a morning stroll beyond the palisade walls. The matter had been buried swiftly, sealed behind secrecy. Even the whisper that the God of Shinobi had nearly fallen before shadows from a “minor” nation would have shattered Konoha’s fragile unity and ended the nation all together.

But the shadows of the continent had not relented. Years later, a different attempt finally succeeded, Hashirama’s death created a inconceivable vacuum of power and the world was thrown into the chaos of the First Great War.  Hiruzen’s hands tightened faintly on the lacquered wood of his seat. Even today, the leaf didn’t know who the conspirators behind Hashirama’s death. Some of his advisors staunchly opposed his decision to keep inviting waterfall for this reason, believing it was they who killed the First. Regardless, this mistrust was a wound hidden beneath bandages, never allowed to heal and only festering.

If peace was to be given a chance, recognition and acceptance must be established. Perhaps Taki ninja did indeed bring down the beloved First. Perhaps they didn’t. Regardless, acts of the past mustn’t prevent moving toward a new future.

This was the first time Takigakure had agreed to send candidates to a Konoha Chunin exam. Convincing them had taken months of careful envoys and reassurances.

The old Hokage’s hope was simple yet daunting: to weave the nations of this fledgling alliance into a broader network — not just military pacts, but bonds of commerce, education, and exchange. Konoha could not afford endless wars with every neighbor. Neither could the world. If Takigakure could be persuaded to lower its walls and join this pact of friendship, it might become the lynchpin of a grand economic network — one that could stabilize the continent more effectively than any armistice… and finally end the spectre of a fourth great war.

It was why he had extended the invitation so many times, couching it not in dominance, but in respect. A hand held out, not a fist clenched. For the first time, Takigakure had answered.

Hiruzen’s focus returned to the boys as the one named Ryu stood tall and in position, awaiting Shikamaru who trudged along slowly.

…

Shikamaru finally planted himself in position on the arema, hands stuffed in his pockets and shoulders slouched like he was being forced to clean a training hall on a weekend.

“Man… this is such a drag…” the Nara muttered under his breath as he reached the floor.

In the galleries, Asuma had shifted slightly to stand next to Kurenai, arms crossed, a faint line between his brows. His cigarette hung unlit between his fingers, forgotten. His eyes were on the arena — not the floor, but the distance between the shadows. The mast lights. The broken tiles and scores across the stone.

“You think he’s ready?” Kurenai’s voice was low, soft beside him.

Asuma’s jaw shifted. “Honestly, I’m not too sure. But he’s always… watching. He’s more capable than what he tells himself”

Kurenai shot a questioning glance at the jonin before returning her gaze back below.

Asuma isn’t one to give praise without cause. I wonder just what this genin can do.

Hayate’s voice echoed as he raised his hand. “Ready yourselves.”

Ryu tilted his head, staff still strapped across his back, his voice calm enough to cut through the hushed arena. “You don’t even want to be here, do you? Forfeit now then. It's not common practice in my country to hurt someone who looks like they’d rather be anywhere else.”

Shikamaru glanced up, lips twitching in the faintest smile. “Would be less of a drag, yeah. But then I’d have to explain it to my mom and dad. That’s even worse.”

A flicker of amusement passed through Ryu’s otherwise steady gaze. He rolled one shoulder's to remove any stiffness. “Your call.”

Hayate gave a quick glance between the two genin:“Begin.”

Ryu moved immediately a single hand seal, then slamming both palms to the ground.

Water Style: River Haze!

From beneath him, a thin shimmer of mist began to rise, coiling in slow tendrils that spread out like fingers all around him.

It wasn’t thick enough to cause complete white out, but it warped vision quickly. The bottom level became a shifting opaque, the haze rolling low across the floor and cutting off clarity beyond ten meters.

“Water Style…” Kurenai’s voice was quiet, contemplative. “That’s not Hidden Mist — it’s too light.”

“River Haze,” murmured Asuma nearby, stroking his beard. “Old Waterfall trick. Not as thick, and not as powerful as the Hidden Mist jutsu. Still useful for feints and blindsides under the right circumstances. ”

Kurenai saw what he meant: The mist made it difficult to see, but if one focused they could see a faint outline of Ryu. On top of that, the mist appeared to have a height limit, reaching just over the boys heads before stopping.

Meanwhile, Hinata’s Byakugan cut through it easily. She watched as Ryu calmly unstrapped the long black staff from his back, spinning it once before falling into a low stance. His breathing was even. His steps measured.

He’s not just masking himself, she realized. He’s listening — feeling out every sound Shikamaru makes.

Shikamaru hadn’t moved. His eyes lifted to the ceiling, his fingers lazily twitching in his pockets. “Great… there’s fog. Now I gotta think even more.”

But Hinata’s gaze flicked to the shadow stretching out beneath him — just a few inches longer now. Calculating. Waiting.

From the sidelines, Ino squinted into the haze, hands clutching the rail. “I can’t see a thing! What’s he doing down there?!”

“Focus. Look carefully and you’ll see him watching,” Asuma said quietly, his eyes narrowing as smoke-less breath slipped past his lips. “That’s what he does.”

A splash — faint, but sharp in the stillness — echoed through the mist. A shape darted left. Then another broke right. For an instant it looked as if three Ryus were circling Shikamaru, water glistening off their bodies like beads of glass.

“Using the mist to create illusions,” Kurenai noted, her tone clinical. “Fast formation. This genin likes to set up his battlefield.”

Shikamaru shifted back a pace, eyes flicking not to the clones, but to the shadows twitching under the mast lights. His own stretched forward, distorted by the mist into vague smears. Useless for now.

If I want to use my Jutsu, gonna need more light…

His glanced at the figures moving in the mist, noticing how they seemed to disperse and reform.

Illusions, huh? Troublesome… His fingers twitched once in his pockets, mapping distances, calculating.

If he couldn’t tell them apart by sight, then the only way was through contact.
Guess I’ll have to take a few hits… get a feel for how this guy moves. Can’t trap a shadow I don’t understand.

The first mirage struck, a snap of water and fist breaking through the haze. Shikamaru jerked aside, barely avoiding a clean hit. The form dissolved on contact with his forearm, splattering into a hiss of vapor as a kunai flashed. The steel grazed his sleeve, tearing a shallow line across his bicep before vanishing into spray. The third strike came immediately after, staff whistling down in an overhead arc.

Shikamaru ducked, rolling across damp stone, but even as the blow faded into mist, a knee slammed into his ribs from the real Ryu hidden just beyond. He hissed, clutching his side.

He’s fast, Shikamaru thought grimly. No wasted motion. He’s herding me, not chasing me. Using the fakes to guide me right where he wants.

In the gallery, Ino winced. “He’s just getting pushed around!”

“Not quite,” Asuma said, eyes glinting as he caught the subtle direction of Shikamaru’s retreat. “Look closer.”

And indeed — the Nara wasn’t scrambling at random. Each staggered step, each stumble, carried him closer to a cluster of shattered tiles and shallow puddles, where a mast loomed overhead. His chest rose and fell with exertion, but his eyes never left the outlines in the mist.

Meanwhile, Ryu’s true form ghosted just beyond sight, his real staff striking the floor once — a hollow clack that rang in every direction at once, multiplying echoes across the fog. The illusions pressed harder, their strikes growing sharper, faster, drawing more bloodless grazes across Shikamaru’s arms.

Panick never even made it into his mind. Even as another kunai scraped his shoulder, leaving a red welt beneath the fabric, Shikamaru only exhaled, long and low, as though cataloguing pain as another variable on the board.

If this keeps up, I’ll be down in a few minutes. Better make my move soon.

Shikamaru let his next step drag, heel skidding over a puddle forming from the mist. To the crowd above it looked like a stumble, but his eyes flicked briefly to the puddles fanning out before him — dark mirrors catching the mastlight overhead. Each reflection stretched his shadow in jagged angles, thin threads crisscrossing like lines on a Shogi board.

Almost there.

Another phantom lunged, staff sweeping low. Shikamaru bent with it, rolling across cracked tiles. Pain flared in his side where the earlier knee had landed, but he pushed it down, fingers twitching against his thigh in silent rhythm.

From the mist, Ryu pressed forward — the real one now, his outline thicker, his breath measured even in pursuit. His staff spun once, a blur of black against white haze, before he struck high — a test, not a killing blow. Shikamaru ducked under it, but his path had narrowed, the wall of fog closing in around him.

He’s cornered, Hinata thought, her Byakugan following every faint twitch of Ryu’s chakra through the mist. But even as the thought formed, she saw the truth in Shikamaru’s gaze — not desperation, but calculation.

A kunai left his hand, flicked almost lazily. The throw was poor, deliberately so — arcing wide, harmless. But Ryu instinctively sidestepped, staff already angling to counterattack.

And in that sidestep, he crossed the thin overlap of thing shadow — one stretched from the lights above.

His body froze. For an instant, his own arm jerked against his will, mirroring Shikamaru’s lazy throw. The kunai clattered harmlessly into the mist as the false Ryus scattered apart, dissolving into ribbons of haze as the jutsu’s grip distorted the genjutsu projection.

The crowd gasped, a ripple of recognition breaking through the fog.

“Shadow Possession Jutsu…” Kurenai’s voice carried a thread of admiration.

Ino nearly leapt over the railing. “He caught him! He actually caught him!”

But Asuma’s eyes narrowed. He saw the strain in Shikamaru’s shoulders, the tremor in his hands even as he struggled to force Ryu's hands to mimic the motion. “It’s not over yet.”

Below, Shikamaru grimaced, sweat already prickling his brow. Usually holding the jutsu while tiring was a simply. But this wasn't the case here. Holding the waterfall genin felt like he was pushing against a locked door with his entire weight. His mind flashed through possibilities, force Ryu to strike himself? No, he'd break free by then. Besides he’d need to strike himself too.  Force him into a trap? Better, but—

The decision was made for him as Ryu managed struggle just enough to knock his staff on the ground.

Water Style: Burning Haze!

Heat suddenly surged in the mist as Ryu’s chakra flared. The mist surged violently, bursting outward in a sudden wave, scalding vapor flooding the air, burning against skin.

Shikamaru hissed, instinct forcing him back. He broke the jutsu, retreating into clearer air, arms red and tender where the steam had caught him.

And as the vapor roiled, it bled into the existing haze, folding over itself until the arena swam with new silhouettes. Edges wavered, shadows doubled, and for every movement Shikamaru tracked, two more seemed to twitch in his periphery.

Ryu straightened within the haze, staff angled down, eyes calm as ever. His voice was low but steady, carried just far enough.

“Not bad Nara,” The Waterfall genin pointed his staff at his opponent “That jutsu might Suprise others, but we are more than aware of how to fight it. Courtesy of the last war. You’ll need more than clever shadows to finish this.”

Shikamaru grimaced, flexing steamed fingers. Troublesome.

The vapor rolled heavier now, clinging to skin and clothes until every movement felt slowed, deliberate. Shikamaru’s breath came harsh in his ears, each inhale tasting of damp stone and iron. The clones — no, the illusions — circled like wolves. Three outlines at once, shifting with the curl of haze, never quite solid until they struck.

A hollow crack split the air — staff against stone. Immediately one blurred form darted forward, blade flashing. Shikamaru twisted, but not fast enough; a kunai tore a shallow line across his arm before the attacker dissolved into spray. He hissed and stumbled back a step, but his eyes never left the other two phantoms. Another crack echoed, and the second illusion lunged low, scything across his ribs. This one connected — a stinging blow that burned along his side.

So that’s it, he thought grimly, gritting his teeth. He's seeds the illusions... no his chakra with that staff of his. Every strike moves them like pieces on the board. And the real one hides in the gaps.

Another blow came, this time heavy and real — the staff slamming into his shoulder. Pain jolted through bone, staggering him sideways as he tried to counter only for his kunai to cut mist. He almost dropped to a knee from the pain, but caught himself, forcing his feet under him. He had to. Because each bruise, each line of pain, was telling him something. The illusions always arrived a beat late, never leading the rhythm — echoes of the real strike.

In the gallery, Ino’s voice cracked the tension like a thrown stone. “Shikamaru! You’re getting torn apart down there! Stop just standing there and do something!” She clutched the railing until her knuckles turned white, eyes wide with something between anger and panic. Her mind screamed the truth she’d never say aloud: You’re too lazy for this. Too lazy to win. Don’t let me be right about you.

Naruto’s voice joined hers, just as loud and over-energetic. “Come on, Shikamaru! Is that all you got, are you telling me this is all you can do! Stop letting him push you around and get in there!!

Their cries seemed to echo inside the mist, bouncing off the arena walls until they almost wove into Ryu’s rhythm. Shikamaru let out a long, quiet sigh. Oh great. The peanut gallery’s awake in full force. But they weren’t wrong. If he was going to win this, he needed to move.... His glanced at the multiple waterfall genin coming in and out of view. None held a back pouch...

Another illusion came, feinting high, only for the real staff to sweep low across his thigh. He let it graze him, a controlled misstep, and staggered back again. The puddles were wider now, reflecting faint light across fractured tiles, stretching his shadow into thin, jagged threads. A Shogi board was forming under his feet.

Keep hitting me. Keep thinking you’re closing the net. I only need one gap. One opening.

Blood trickled from his lip. He wiped it with the back of his hand and let his shoulders sag, body language screaming fatigue.

You’ve got a brain with you, Waterfall I’ll admit. But you’re already on my board. And the game… is almost mine.

The mist pressed in thicker than ever, each swirl birthing another phantom silhouette. Some rushed him, others hovered at the edges of sight. He didn’t bother chasing them anymore.

One chance left. He knew it.

He could see it: each step, each retreat, had carried both him and the Ryu’s closer to that shallow puddle. The one he had scraped his heel through in the beginning. It quivered faintly with every strike nearby, but its surface was calm enough that the strip of paper beneath remained flush, weighted just right.

Still there. He almost sighed in relief. Good.

A Paper Bomb.

Another rush of illusions surged from the mist, three at once, their shadows blurring into one another. Shikamaru braced, twisting to the side as one staff crackled against the floor. A second swept in with a high kick — he raised his arm too slow, the impact snapping his head back and sending him stumbling.

Blood ran warm from his nose, dripping into the haze. His vision blurred.

Gotta sell it. Come on! Just a little longer.

He staggered again, this time letting his knee buckle as though his body was near its limit, which wasn’t a complete lie. The Waterfall genin pressed harder, closing in like a current dragging prey beneath the surface. His staff spun in another sharp flourish, striking the tiles with a hollow crack before he lunged.

The clones mirrored him, circling like sharks, each one driving Shikamaru into a tighter corner. The wall of fog sealed behind them, cutting off retreat.

“Finish this Ryu!” A kunoichi shouted from the Waterfall section, her voice sharp with pride.

Shikamaru’s ears caught the echo of faint footsteps, but his eyes stayed on the rhythm of the mist. The pauses between strikes. He drew in a ragged breath, the thought cold and simple.

It’s not perfect and chances are not even in needed vicinity… but it’s now or never!

The knock of the staff echoed as the silhouettes of the Ryu’s pressed in.

That was when Shikamaru’s fingers twitched, subtle in the fog.

The puddle at one of the silhouettes feet erupted.

The explosion roared like thunder, shards of tile and a column of water blasting upward in a violent geyser. Mist shredded away under the shockwave, light lancing across the arena in stark clarity.

But Ryu wasn’t where Shikamaru had hoped. Even as the seal ignited, another silhouette’s staff had already shifted, his weight sliding sideways. He had seen the twitch — felt the wrongness — and though not fast enough to escape unscathed, his reflexes spared him the center of the blast.

The detonation still caught him, hurling him across the stone. His shoulder slammed against the ground, rolling him hard through grit and spray. He came up on one knee, coughing, his staff rolling away on the tiles. Blood trickled down his temple where shrapnel had grazed him, his stance shaken but not broken.

Shikamaru’s lips curled in a grim smile. Close enough.

Because the bomb had done more than clear the illusions and stagger his opponent. It had thrown light across the drenched floor, every tiny tile momentarily forming a shadow. Shadows leapt in jagged arcs from mast to ground to water, a black web stretching wide and hungry.

Shikamaru’s own shadow surged with it, snapping forward like a striking snake.

Ryu didn’t event get a second to rise before suddenly freezing, muscles jerking against the invisible bind.

Ino bounced against the railing, her voice carrying. “He did it! He caught him for real this time!”

Naruto whooped, fist pumping high. “Yeah, Shikamaru! Don’t you dare let go of him this time!

The Nara’s body trembled with strain, as he forced his hands together, his opponent mirroring him. “Can’t have you grasping that fancy staff of yours again you know?” he rasped.

The Waterfall genin didn’t respond, instead gritting his teeth as he struggled to force his body to move.

Slowly, with deliberate care, Shikamaru drew two shuriken from his back pouch. His captive mirrored the motion, fumbling against empty air.

“Guess its not too common for waterfall ninja to keep a back pouch. Shame for you.”

Shikamaru angled the blades toward him, voice low but steady despite the tremor in his arms.

“All I’d be hit by is your imaginary shuriken. Can’t say the same for you though. Who do you think will last longer?”

For the first time, Ryu’s composure cracked. His jaw clenched, his body straining against the bind — but it was no use. Seconds stretched into silence, the arena hushed save for Shikamaru’s ragged breathing as he curled his arm to throw.

Just as Shikamaru was about to throw Ryu exhaled, shoulders sagging. “…Enough. I yield.”

The words echoed, faint but clear.

Hayate raised a hand, his voice carrying over the arena despite the rasp in his throat. “Winner — Shikamaru Nara!”

The gallery erupted as from the cheers of Naruto and Ino, while watching proctors muttered on the surprising result.

Shikamaru released the jutsu with a groan, his body slumping as the shadows snapped back to their natural length. He dropped to one knee, chest heaving, his face pale with strain. The shuriken clattered from his hand. What this guy didn’t know, I’d doubt I would even have been able to maintain the jutsu once the shuriken left my hand. Well, knowledge is power.

Ryu straightened, rubbing at his arms where the pressure had gripped him. His expression had steadied, though the faintest glimmer of respect flickered in his eyes. He inclined his head once. “You are undriven, but sharp enough to be dangerous.”

Shikamaru only groaned, one hand pressed to his ribs as he muttered, “yeah yeah…”

Ino cheered loud enough for half the arena, Naruto pumping his fist alongside her. In the stands, Asuma had a smile on his face while Kurenai looked on analytically.

“Smart. Levelheaded and capable of facing off with an opponent in who also maintains clarity” Kurenai murmured. “But… far too slow to commit. This fight could have ended sooner if he’d used that paper bomb earlier.”

Asuma let out a chuckle "That may be true. But it ultimately proved to his advantage. He got his pieces positioned and came out on top."

Down below, Shikamaru forced himself to his feet, swaying slightly. He glanced once at the lights above, once at the puddle still rippling from the blast, then let his gaze fall to the floor. No satisfaction, no pride — just exhaustion.

This all such a drag… I just want to take a nap…

The genin settled into low murmurs among remaining team, anticipation buzzing like static as Shikamaru and Ryu respectively limped off the arena floor. With a few medical ninja at their sides to assess their injuries.

The board flickered again, characters spinning until they froze.

Yakushi Kabuto vs. Kankurō.

All eyes, genin and sensei alike turned their gaze toward the sand and leaf ninja. The white-haired Leaf genin was supposed to be the veteran of multiple failed exams, seemingly a bookworm who always knew far too much about everyone else. And while Kankuro was all but a mystery, the fact he was associated with the Gaara, the boy whose aura reeked danger was reason enough to be wary.

Kabuto adjusted his glasses with two fingers as he stepped down the stairs, his expression unreadable. Calm. Too calm.

For a brief instant, his gaze flicked toward Misumi who had beaten Chōji earlier still slouched against the rail with bruises wrapped in crude bandages. “Just what is your game here Kabuto” the genin murmured. “I thought you were suppose to forfeit immediately upon entering the tower.”

A faint smile tugged at Kabuto’s mouth. He had half-expected to be “encouraged” to forfeit this match as well, the way his supposed cover story dictated, but truth be told… he hadn’t really stretched against these children. He wondered idly if this Kankurō would make it worth the effort.

“Oh, don’t mind me. Just a little exercise to get the blood flowing”

Amusement flickered behind his eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it came, buried beneath that practiced, polite smile. His thoughts drifted back to the journal he’d taken off the ROOT operative he had quietly eliminated in the Forest of Death and the figure it revolved around.

As he made his way down the stairs and settled into position, he glanced toward that pale eyed figure. A precious frail little thing to look at really — demure, hesitant, easily overlooked. And yet someone like Danzo, someone who in his eyes was second in scheming only to Lord Orochimaru considered her worth watching? Kabuto’s fingers brushed absently at his pouch. What lurks in you, little flower hmm...?

Kankurō finally arrived in position, the weight of the wrapped bundle slung across his back drawing more eyes than his painted scowl. He stopped opposite Kabuto, hands already hovering near his bundle.

“Don’t think I don’t know your type”  Kankurō grinned out, the muffled growl carrying across the still-thick atmosphere of the arena. “All smiles until you get crushed. Last chance before things get ugly”

Kabuto tilted his head slightly, polite smile in place. “We’ll see.”

The proctor motioned with his arm: “Begin!”

Both stood their ground for a few moments, simply staring — one behind painted menace, the other behind genial calm. The silence stretched, taut.

Kabuto broke it first, chuckling lightly. “You know for such scary starting words I expected more already.”

Kankuro simply stood, hand resting on that bundle.

Hayate voice cut through the silence “Either move or both will be disqualified, this is a match not a break.”

Kankurō’s fingers twitched. Chakra threads shimmered faintly, and the wrappings split apart in a rush. From the bundle a wooden contraption sprang forward on snapping joints, its segmented limbs jerking with eerie speed. Its painted grin opened into a jagged maw as it lunged, claws slicing air.

Kabuto moved like water around stone. A simple sidestep, his coat fluttering as a claw whistled past. Then he leaned, letting the second strike skim inches from his chest. His palm brushed the puppets wrist in passing — a faint green glow flashing once.

The puppet faltered, joints grinding as one claw caught in its own momentum before recovering.

Hinata’s Byakugan tracked the exchange closely, her pale eyes narrowing ever so slightly. That wasn’t just a dodge. He had struck the joint with… a gentle fist variation?

How does he know gentle fist?! She took a moment to glance leftwards, towards him to gauge his reaction.

Neji’s face was cool and composed, save for a insignifact twitch of his jaw as he stared hard at Kabuto

She watched the leaf genin’s shifting hands carefully. No… that’s not gentle fist, at least none she’d ever seen. Its almost… like a blade of chakra?

The chakra projection was different, honed and linear, like a blade slicing into the air, a constant flow of chakra refined to a fine point and moving like a saw.

Her fingers curled against the railing in front of her. Kabuto had been one of the names Danzo-sama had pressed upon her before the exam began — one of the anomalies that her savior had deemed suspicious.

Kabuto Yakushi looked harmless enough, over-eager and cheerful though his chakra always felt strangely muted. Even now his chakra remained muted, drawn in on itself, using only miniscule amounts at a time. And beneath it all… intent. Calculated, surgical efficiency wrapped in feigned humility.

He’s dangerous. The thought slid cold and sharp through her mind. Not because he flaunts his power… but because he hides it.

Her gaze deepened, her Byakugan tracing the steady rhythm of his chakra network. Perfectly balanced. Not a flicker out of place, even in motion. Whatever he was doing, he was clearly well-versed.

That disturbed her. People under stress always leaked something: a pulse of adrenaline through the coils, a flare of chakra in the chest, the uneven thrum of instinct over calculation. Kabuto had none of it. He moved as if he’d already measured the pace of this fight before it began, each breath deliberately steady.

Hinata remembered Danzo’s words, quiet and cold in the dark: An anomaly can be more dangerous than a weapon. Because you cannot predict it.

She swallowed faintly, eyes fixed. This man is not a genin. Not in any way that matters…. An image of that false grass ninja flashed in her mind.

Below, Kankurō’s lips curled back. “You—what did you just do to Crow?”

Kabuto retreated two paces, adjusting his glasses again. His tone remained mild. “Your construction is impressive. The chakra flow across the joints is finely tuned… but fragile. Puppets are efficient… until someone knows where to cut.”

The puppet hissed forward again at Kankurō’s twitch, its head snapping open with hidden blades gleaming. Kabuto’s eyes flickered, calculating, before he ducked the strike, rolling low under the puppet’s body. His palm struck the puppet’s leg joint on the way through, another glow sparking as his chakra scalpel cut unseen.

Karasu hit the floor with a jarring clatter, one limb dragging uselessly.

Gasps scattered through the gallery. Even Ino blinked wide. “He… broke it? Just like that?”

Asuma’s eyes narrowed, as he took in a whiff from his cigarette, “No, not broke. That Sand kid is a puppeteer. Those things don’t go down easy”

As if on cue, the limb jerked upright under invisible threads, a hidden blade snapping from the joint as it lashed toward Kabuto.

For the first time, Kabuto’s smile faltered a fraction. “Persistent aren’t you…” he murmured, shifting just in time to deflect the strike.

Hinata, however, had felt her breath catch, her teeth grinding. That technique, that refined movement; it was the same precision her own Gentle Fist aspired to, but with far greater control. If he applied that to a human body…

Her nails dug into her palm until the sting snapped her back to focus. He’s… playing? He could end the fight in an instant. He could stop a heart, sever a lung, or unravel nerves with a simple wave of that unassuming hand. And all the while, he smiled as though this was nothing.

Her chest tightened. The precision of his chakra, the steadiness of his pulse — it gnawed at her, at the countless hours she had bled and squirmed. How hard have I trained, how many times have I torn myself… and yet this “genin” holds a technique that surpasses my Gentle Fist like it was nothing?

As the pale eyed genin squirmed lightly, farther to the left, Kakashi watched the exchange with casual posture — but at some point, his headband had shifted, and the Sharingan gleamed faintly in the gloom. His eye never left the white-haired Leaf genin.

Suddenly Kabuto leaped backwards, creating distance from the puppeteer who merely sneered. “Where you off too? We just started this puppet show!”

Kabuto merely smiled as he raised his hand, his voice calm and unhurried. “Sorry, but I Surrender”

Even as the shock rippled through the crowd, and Kankuro howled in indignation; Hinata kept watching him. Forfeit!... Why when he could win? Why when he was just playing!

She lowered her eyes demurely, mask in place, but her thoughts churned beneath the surface. He is more dangerous than I assumed. He’s on the same level as the grass ninja and… whoever the sound sensei is. If he is talented why forfeit, why hide his chakra, keeping it muted. then what could he do to me? To anyone? He could stop my heart before I blink. He could end me before I even raised my guard. And all the while, he hides behind that smile!

Her pulse quickened. It was the smile that set her most on edge — that false, calculated expression. A mask to fool the watchful. The thought bit sharp at her chest, though she did not pause to consider why.

A dangerous anomaly. A threat to the balance of the board Danzo was building. I must report this immediately. Hinata straightened herself, as she began to turn toward the nearest corridor, building the words she would write in her next report — when the board above flickered again, its characters spinning to reveal the next match.

Hyūga Hinata vs. Hotaru.

Hinata’s heart gave a single sharp beat. The noise of the gallery dimmed to nothing; even her heartbeat seemed to dull as two words floated into her mind. He Watches

The murmurs of the crowd filtered back, faint but insistent, reminding her of the stage she stood upon. Her lashes lowered, the mask slipping into place with the ease of long practice. She drew a slow breath, curving her shoulders inward, the image of meekness tightening around her like a second skin.

“Hinata! You got this!”

Naruto’s voice cut sharp and bright as he approached her. Hinata’s hands twitched at her sides before she forced them to still, a scarlet rush flooding into cheeks. She lowered her head quickly, lips pressing together in the practiced curve of modesty.

Kurenai leaned down from behind her, voice softer but firm. “Hinata — remember your stance, trust your eyes. Don’t let yourself freeze.” Her hand brushed Hinata’s shoulder, brief but grounding.

Hinata gave the smallest nod, careful to let her lips part as though whispering a stammer that no one heard. To the crowd, she looked every inch the frail heiress barely holding on to courage. Inside, she repeated the same prayer: Danzo-sama, I will not fail you.

At the same time, through a shadowed opening above, the bandaged man in question watched with faint interest. The Analyst meanwhile watched with a hardly hidden apathy.

“Her endurance alone has always been questionable…”

Danzo’s single visible eye never left the pale girl below. “Should she fail, we simply toss her. That boy was chosen for a reason. His jutsu against her constrained ability. Range against precision. Obedience against suffering. A weapon must be willing to bleed for its wielder”

Back below, Hinata stepped down the stairs to her test below. Eyes followed her—Leaf, Sand, Waterfall alike—measuring, dismissing, or whispering in doubt. She let her shoulders curl slightly inward, her stride smaller, deliberately feeding the image of the timid former heiress who did not belong on a stage such as this.

But beneath the mask, her Byakugan itched to flare. Beneath the mask, she catalogued every sound: the rustle of cloth as Hotaru descended from the opposite gallery, the even cadence of his boots against stone, the faint metallic scrape of kunai against wood as he adjusted the pouch at his leg.

The arena swallowed her steps as she came to stand opposite her opponent, the lights casting long shadows across the scarred stone floor.

Across the arena floor, the genin named Hotaru stepped forward with deliberate calm. His attire was simple loose-fitting garbs, but across his back rested an elegant bow of lacquered wood, its string dark and taut. A quiver rested at his hip, though the arrows inside gleamed faintly, etched with seals that pulsed with latent chakra. He shifted the weapon into his hands with practiced ease, drawing one shaft and setting it to the string before the match even began.

“That’s unusual,” murmured Kurenai from the gallery. “Archery… I’ve never seen a genin use it as a primary style. It’s a rarity even among Jonin.”

Asuma exhaled smoke, eyes narrowing. “It takes skill to use a bow proper in head on fight, ever more for a one-to-one match. The time needed to draw, and aim is time Hinata can close the distance. If he can somehow buy himself that time, it’s lethal. If he can’t, he’s dead weight.”

Hotaru’s mouth curled into a thin smile, as he greeted his opponent; polite in tone but a faint sneer forming. “The famed Byakugan, huh? Back home they say those eyes can see all.”

The Waterfall genin’s polite stare suddenly hardened. “Forfeit now, or I’ll turn you into a pincushion. Don’t expect mercy just because you look doe-eyed.”

Hinata’s head dipped lower, her lips parting in a tiny, trembling sound. “I-I… I’ll fight…” She let her voice falter, her hands trembling at her sides. To him, she looked weak, fragile. Inside, her resolve was steel. She would not lose here.

The genin’s eyes narrowed. “So be it.”

Hayate’s rasp carried across the floor. “Begin.”

Hotaru’s hands blurred into a seal, clouds of vapor erupting from his mouth, curling across the arena.

Water Style: freezing Haze!

A wave of icy mist barreled outward. Hinata darted sideways, but every motion cost her seconds — and seconds were all Hotaru needed. His fingers drew the bowstring taut, arrow glowing blue as it locked on target.

Hotaru loosed the arrow at once. It shrieked through the mist-tinged air, exploding in a spray of water as it struck stone. The tiles shattered, shards skittering across the floor in a sharp rain. Hinata had already skittered aside, the force rippled close enough to sting her cheek. Her full vision making note of the crater the arrowhead had punched into the wall.

The crowd gasped at the destructive force. Ino clutched the railing, pale. “That would have torn her apart…”

Hinata’s Byakugan activated with a subtle flare of veins at her temples. She saw the truth at once: chakra pouring steadily into the shaft as Hotaru nocked it. Slow. Two… three seconds before it would be ready. But when it was, the arrowhead shimmered dangerously, wrapped in a swirl of pressurized water and chakra.

Break the rhythm, she told herself. That’s the key.

Naruto leapt half out of his seat, fists clenched on the railing. “Wow! How did he do that with just a bow and arrow!”

Kakashi’s eye’s took in the fight, his tone mild and calm “That bow isn’t ordinary, much like the other taki genin's staff. He’s channeling his chakra through specialized seals on the shafts, compressing it until the release detonates. It certainly gives the arrow frightening punching power; however, he is also adding water nature to widen its slicing effect. Its essentially ninjutsu disguised as archery.”

Neji’s eyes meanwhile simply narrowed from his place in the gallery, arms folded. 

Hotaru was already pulling another arrow from his quiver, chakra thrumming into it. Hinata darted forward, her sandals whispering over cracked tiles, eyes fixed on the coil of chakra in his arm. He needed time. She would not give it.

But he was no fool. Arrow in hand, his palm slammed against the ground.

Earth Style: Piercing Crags!

A series of waist-length height stone erupted upward in a jagged wall, earth chakra humming as it cut off her path. She slid to a stop just as the second shot lanced towards her, Hotaru leaps upward to shoot at Hinata from a few fight higher.

The swirling arrow streaked forward. Hinata dropped low, moving to roll away from the shot. Agony flared through her abdomen as the bandages pulled taut — the half-healed bruise screamed at the motion, her roll faltered, sloppy.

She stumbled out of it with her shoulder striking the ground hard. She hissed between clenched teeth, the sound almost swallowed by the whine of the arrow slicing through mist and air. Her body screamed to hesitate, to recoil from the agony in her abdomen — but hesitation was death.

Hinata forced herself upright, her Byakugan burning at the edges of her vision. She caught the gleam of spiraling chakra too late, the arrow’s violent pressure already bearing down on her. For a heartbeat, her mind froze as death approached, Danzo-sama’s voice flickering through memory, the cold tone of command: A weapon endures all.

She tried to pivot, but her pained body lagged a fraction too long. The shaft skimmed past her thigh, but the swirling water around its head did not. It sheared into her flesh in a clean, merciless stroke, blood spraying across the tiles. For a heartbeat, numb shock numbed her leg — then agony flared white-hot.

The arrow detonated a split second later. Pressurized water and pure chakra burst together, and Hinata’s scream echoed in the area as she was blasted backwards. She twisted mid-air, barely catching herself, and landed hard on trembling legs. Her wounded thigh buckled but she forced it straight, staggering forward a step rather than falling.

Up in the gallery, Kurenai’s hands pressed white against the railing. Too close. That blow nearly ended her outright. Her lips parted, but no words came. Was it a mistake to push her for the exam? No... She can do this, she can...

Hotaru’s voice carried smug and cold. “I know how dangerous those fingers of yours can be Hyuga. My village remembers well how many good ninja fell to the Gentle Fist. But what good is a deadly touch… if you can’t reach me?”

His words struck like another arrow. Hinata’s knees threatened to give way, blood streaming hot down her thigh, every nerve shrieking, faint whimpers escaping her lips; some which weren’t fake as she steadied her shaking leg.

Kurenai’s breath caught in her throat. She’s wavering… don’t fold now, Hinata. Please, don’t fold.

Hotaru tilted his head, bow hanging at his side “You’ve already seen what my arrows can do. Just forfeit already. I’m not out to kill anyone in this exam but I can’t promise anything if you keep being stubborn.”

Hinata’s palms shook as she raised them again, the cloth around her thigh black and sticky. She could feel her heart hammering. A light tremble of her palms and legs, but her eyes remained focused, a faint of hardened frost.

“I-I Wont l-lose here!”

While her body trembled, her mind work furiously. The Byakugan traced the lines of the genin’s chakra , watching the flow build in his arms.

Her gaze traced his bow again, watching chakra coil into the next shaft. This one relies on rhythm. Range, cover, charge, release. A machine that works only if every part runs smooth. Break the rhythm… and the machine collapses.

She tested some of her weight on her injured leg. I can move… but outright running risks losing too much blood. Her thigh burned with every twitch of muscle, warm rivulets sliding into her sandal. She drew a slow, careful breath, forcing her shoulders to square despite the tremor in her limbs. I’ll have to close the gap. Time it right. Measure every step. He wants me desperate.

Hotaru’s eyes narrowed at her stubborn stance but he kept the bow lowered, shoulders easing as though ready to watch her collapse under her own weight.

Hinata saw it—the opening, slim and fleeting. Now.

She surged forward, sandals cracking against the tiles, ignoring the firey pain of her injuries. The crowd gasped; even wounded, her pale eyes burned like frost. Hotaru’s head jerked in surprise, his bow half-raised but no arrow charged. For an instant, his rhythm broke.

“Tch—damn you!” He snapped into a seal, desperation flickering across his face. His chakra spiked, surging wildly as he slammed his palm to the ground just as she made it within a few feet of him.

“Water Style: Rolling Wave!”

The stone beneath her feet split apart. Water gushed forward in a sudden wall, crashing low and hard. Hinata’s eyes widened—she pushed chakra into her calves and leapt back just as the tide erupted, foaming under her sandals. Hotaru, already regaining his stance, stepped into the retreat with perfect timing, his arrow loosed.

The tip whistled past her, the swirling vortex leaving long gashes on her cheek, ear and neck; long chucks of strands of hair floating down. It detonated behind her in another watery blast, the mist curling heavy over the tiles.

Gasps rippled through the gallery. Naruto’s cry of alarm rang, but Hinata barely heard it; she was too busy shoving herself upright again, having been staggered forward from the blast.

She breaths shallow through her nose, forcing herself her body to move, vision pulsed at the edges, each heartbeat a hammer blow against her wound. She forced her stance lower, palms open, ready and raised her head once again.

It was when she rose her head, did the aftermath of the arrow make itself known. Long gashed scored her right cheek and ear. sweat plastering strands of indigo hair to her face. But what caught many of the genin’s attention was that for the first time beneath the harsh arena light, a mark long burned into her forehead was revealed; sharp against her pale skin.

Hotaru’s eyes lit with cruel recognition. A grimace forming in his features.
“Ah… so the rumors are true. The all-powerful, noble Hyuga brand their own like cattle.” He lifted his bow, as if to frame her beneath it, voice carrying sharp across the arena. “Then I’m guessing that makes you nothing but a little doll fighting for scraps. Tell me—does your sensei gag every time he sees that seal? Oh wait, as a Hyuga you are most likely too enamored with yourself to even notice.

Up in the gallery, Naruto grimaced in confusion. “What mark? What’s he talking about? And whats this about cows?”

Lee frowned, glancing sideways at Neji. “I have only heard whispers—that the Hyuga clan carry certain traditions… harsh traditions. Ones that decide a person’s place at birth.”

Neji’s expression did not change. His pale eyes narrowed, arms folded tighter across his chest, voice dripping with venom. “It is not for outsiders to speak of. She exposes her shame herself.”

Naruto let out a scoff “Oh come one, that doesn’t tell me anything! What’s so bad about this mark?!”

Kakashi’s lone eye tracked Hinata, half-lidded but intent. He tapped a finger idly against the rail. “The only thing we can say is its not a mark viewed kindly, Naruto. As stipulated by the laws of this village, only a Hyuga can tell you what it means without facing punishment. Ask again when she trusts you enough to answer.”

Naruto’s stomach twisted as his hand brushed unconsciously at his own belly, at the seal hidden beneath his jacket. His breath caught. What kind of burden was she carrying?

Hinata’s chest constricted as though the seal itself had tightened like a vice. The jeer echoed in her ears, louder than the gasps from the crowd. Her skin burned where Hotaru’s words struck, shame flooding hot in her veins.

For an instant, her mask almost cracked. The meek smile she had trained, the trembling hands—those she could control. But this? The reminder seared into her very flesh, the humiliation her clan had carved into her—the weakness branded for all to see. The proof of the worthless thing she really was. She wanted to curl into herself, vanish into the stone floor, let the world pass her by.

Look at them staring. Look at the disgust in their eyes. A doll branded and sent to dance… worthless.

Her fingers shook as she lowered her gaze, bangs swinging forward again to hide the mark. Hotaru’s sneer twisted in her vision, and the shame shifted—twisting, boiling. Not shame of her seal. No. The fury was not at herself. It was at him.

How dare he? How dare a no-name boy from a no-name village speak of me, insinuate about Danzo-sama!?

Her breath sharpened. Beneath the roar of blood in her ears, another voice cut through—cold, commanding, unyielding.

The world sees filth, you will prove worth through blood. What others spit upon, I will turn into a weapon. You exist for me, Hinata. Only me. And I will give you worth.

Her breath steadied. Her pale eyes frosted.

Hinata drew a quiet inhale, her words barely more than a whisper, almost lost in the mist:
“I-I won’t lose… not to you.”

Hotaru smirked at her trembling defiance. “Still stubborn. Fine—then I’ll end this clean.” He began to draw another arrow, chakra coiling thick around the shaft.

Hinata’s gaze fixed on that movement. Her thigh throbbed with every heartbeat, blood dripping down into her sandal. The ache in her abdomen pulsed with every breath. Elemental natures are out of the question, which means no ranged ninjutsu… That leaves Chakra propulsion… A technique drilled into her by Danzo-sama for moments like this.

However.. Her fingers flexed open. If I use it at full strength, they’ll know, my mask will shatter. But if I temper it,  minimize speed, control the burst… it will look like nothing more than a desperate dash.

She exhaled. Just enough.

Her chakra flared in her calves and soles, a subtle surge rather than the torrent she had used against the grass ninja back in the forest.

Hyuga Style: Chakra Propulsion!

Her body snapped forward like a dart, her sandals skimming stone as the arrow roared past her cheek. Gasps flared in the gallery — too fast for the timid girl she pretended to be… But not impossibly so.

Hotaru’s eyes widened at her sudden movement, his arm jerking back instinctively. He twisted as she closed, the bow shifting across his chest like a shield. Too late.

The pale palm slammed into the genin’s forearms, crossed over his chest to protect his organs. The chakra surged, striking deep into the coils. Hotaru cried out, before immediately reacting, twisting sideways and sending a knee straight into her injured abdomen.

White pain seared through her gut. The world snapped blank for an instant as the air was driven from her lungs, her body folding around the blow. A strangled gasp tore free before she could bite it back. She stumbled sideways, clutching her stomach, vision swimming.

The waterfall genin shoved off her retreating frame, boots scraping stone as he bounded back, bow already snapping into position. Distance. Always distance. His teeth clenched against the numbness in his forearms, fury sparking in his eyes.

Hinata whispered just loud enough for him to hear, her word raspy but resolute: “I-I… reached you.”

Hotaru snarled, grasping his trembling arms before taking up his bow again. “You—” his teeth bared, “you dare…!”

As he gathered himself, Hinata’s pale eyes tracked it, saw the disruption instantly — the flow severed. Good. He can still draw, still channel. But no more detonations. He can’t build pressure… which means I don’t have to fear hits anymore…

Another arrow notched. This one flared only faintly, the water chakra curling around its head like a sharp tide rather than a crashing wave. Still deadly, but no longer catastrophic.

Hinata’s core burned as she straightened. She lifted her palms again, mask in place, eyes trembling like a frightened doe — but inside, her mind sharpened. Endure long enough, and I can close again.

Even so, that didn’t mean the waterfall ninja didn’t have more cards. As his arms trembled he quickly let out a series of hand signs

Water Style: Freezing Haze!

A noticeably smaller burst of freezing mist spilt from the Taki genin's mouth. 

Hinata staggered, her abdomen twisting with fire, but twisted enough that the burst of mist only grazed her limbs.

Only for an arrow to come barreling towards her. She attempted to deflect it with her palm, chakra flaring just enough to weaken its impact. Even so, the water laced arrow tore along her forearm, sending a viscous gash up her arm. She winced, but her mask remained, head ducking meekly as if the strike had nearly ended her. The crowd gasped.

Hotaru didn’t hesitate. He saw her stagger, saw the blood on her arm, and pressed mercilessly. Another arrow flared faintly at his bowstring, his chakra spilling ragged through coils already bruised by her strike. His lips curled into a sneer.

“Stand after this Hyuga!”

Her eyes widened as she braced herself; the arrow slamming into her shoulder, burrowing into bone. She staggered, crashing into the ground, vision dimming, breath ragged..

Above, Naruto’s cry rang again. “Hinata! Don’t give up! You can do this!”

“Pathetic,” Neji muttered, arms crossed, eyes hard. “Even injured, he controls her with ease. She lingers because he toys with her. Luck, nothing more.”

Naruto spun on him, fists tight. “Shut up! She’s fighting her heart out down there—”

“It’s just wasting time.” Neji’s voice was cold as steel. “The Waterfall boy is a fool himself. He’d rather make a show of his supposed might then get on with fate.”

Naruto felt his teeth grind but decided to drop the matter for now, turning his attention back to the crumpled hyuga below.

Kurenai meanwhile gripped the railing above so hard her hands shook. The sight of her student’s frame, her body-streaked crimson, twisted something deep in her gut. Pride warred against horror. She had seen Hinata’s fragile growth, seen her precision sharpen like slowly, delicately… but she had never wanted it tested like this. Not here. Not like this.

Hinata’s body trembled on the tile floor. To the crowd, she looked terrified, a little girl out of her league. Inside, her nails dug bloody crescent moons into her forearms. I can’t lose here!! I won't disappoint him, no matter how much I must bleed!!!

Her chest heaved. Her bangs clung to her cheeks in strips of sweat and blood. Her legs shook, yet she forced them to move. Slowly, one step forward. Then another.

Hotaru raised his bow.

She ran.

He fired.

The arrow tore into her forearm — blood erupted down her sleeve. She gasped, nearly crumpling, but she forced her feet to move. Her abdomen screamed as the bruise tore wider, her vision nearly blacking with each step.

Another arrow loosed. She twisted, the shaft screaming past her cheek and shredding strands of her dark hair.

Hotaru’s eyes widened as she closed the gap. Too late.

Hinata’s palms thrust forward, chakra sharp and precise.

“Gentle Fist!”

The strikes sank into his chest. A flare of pale chakra burst into his coils, rupturing delicate channels, tearing his lungs with surgical precision.

Hotaru gagged. His eyes bulged, blood bubbling at his lips. His bow clattered against stone as his knees buckled. He clutched at his chest, mouth working soundlessly, body convulsing as the air refused to fill his lungs.

Hinata dropped to her knees beside him, trembling, drenched in blood, but still upright.

For a moment the arena was silent. Gasps died in throats, Naruto’s half-formed cheer froze. Even the rustling of the gallery ceased.

Then Hayate stepped forward, voice flat, glancing lightly at the gurgling boy writhing for breath at his feet.

“Winner: Hinata Hyuga.”

The gallery exploded in sound, awing at this frail girl who had pushed to victory.

Neji meanwhile scowled, his teeth grinding. That Waterfall trash must have been even weaker than her. Pathetic. A true Hyuga would have ended it without shame. Look at her, drenched in her own filthy blood.

Naruto beamed, slamming the railing with both fists. “She did it! Hinata, you did it!”

But beneath the cheers, Hinata’s trembling fingers pressed into her shirt, sticky with blood. Her thoughts spiraled into the void between pride and shame. They all saw it… the mark.

Her chest ached, her vision swam. She wanted to fold, to vanish. She almost wished the arrow had gone deeper.

Disgusting. Weak. Failure. Always—

No! Her nails dug into her palm. No… I fought for him. Danzo-sama, I did not break. I did not fail. Please… see me…

The words tangled in her mind; bleeding more than her wounds could ever show.

Her breath suddenly caught in her throat, as her vision wavered and blackened, weakness flooded into her joints. Just as her body seemingly gave out, she felt an arm hold her gently.

“Easy,” Kurenai whispered as kept her student from crumbling to the tiles; slowly lowering her to the ground as medical ninja approached.  Her hands gripped Hinata’s shoulders gently but firmly, guiding her against her chest. “You did it, Hinata. You stood tall. I’m proud of you.”

For a heartbeat Hinata’s eyes were blank of emotion, then lips parted into a trembling sigh as she placed head into her sensei’s chest, her eyes shadowed by bangs, as though shy under the flood of voices.

Naruto had already leapt from the railing, skidding across the tiles. “Hinata!” His grin nearly split his face. “That was amazing! You were—seriously—amazing!”
Lee wasn’t far behind, his eyes wide, fists trembling with energy. “Youthful spirit! That was the epitome of courage, Hinata!”

The medical team arrived, kneeling swiftly beside her. Their chakra-gloved hands already pressed against her wounds, and working to dislodge the arrow still in her shoulder; murmuring measurements of blood loss and fracture checks.

Another team was with Hotaru who gurgled weakly on the ground, the Taki sensei beside him, a gloved hand on their shoulder.

Several eyes in the gallery, however, were fixed not on the wounds or the match's outcome, but rather the ability the pale eyed girl showed.

A low, velvet chuckle rose towards the end of the far gallery. Orochimaru, in his sound disguise allowed his tongue to dart faintly against his lips as his golden eyes lingered on the trembling girl below. How rare. Not many are willing to tear themselves apart so happily for others, to blatantly throw away self-preservation for loyalty. And yet she wears her suffering like perfume. His smile slithered wider, his thoughts honeyed and venomous. Yes… my, how intriguing this flower is.

Meanwhile, Kakashi’s lone visible eye simply stared. He leaned against the rail, posture relaxed. Strange… her movements, her chakra…  not all too uncommon, but never any indication she had that much drive. And then there is those fluctuation of emotions... His fingers tapped idly against the railing. Something about her reminded him of something; but he couldn’t seem to catch the thought.

Gai suddenly leaned closer, concern etched across his features. “My number one rival, you seem distracted. Something troubling you?”

Kakashi waved it off with a lazy tilt of his wrist. “Not troubled. Just… admiring the strength of this generation.”

On the arena’s opposite end, the sand shinobi shifted uncomfortably as a maniacal grin plastered itself on Gaara’s face.

Gaara stood at the railing, his dark eyes fixed on her through the haze of silence that followed. The air around him seemed to tremble faintly, his gourd humming with quiet menace. His lips curved into something not quite a smile, not quite hunger, but close to both.

“She bleeds… but still stands.” His voice was low, flat, carrying nonetheless. “Porcelain skin painted red. She knows what it means to survive, to prove ones… existence. She hides it, but I see it. I want to see more.”

Baki’s chest tightened. He stepped forward quickly. “Gaara. Enough. Calm yourself.” His eyes darted to the blood on the arena tiles, unease gnawing his gut. Damn it… that sight may have stirred the demon. I need to keep him calmed before he unravels.

Gaara’s sand twitched restlessly at his feet. His gaze did not leave her, unwavering, devouring as he envisioned that porcelain skin torn asunder, those pearl-like eyes watching as her blood watered his sand.

 

 

 

Notes:

As always and feedback is greatly appreciated!

FYI: Work as picked up a bit so chapters will probably be coming out every 10 days rather than every 7 days for the next month.

Chapter 14: Sand and Palm

Notes:

A New chapter!

Chapter 14: Sand and Palm

The footsteps splashed on the arena floor, wet with water and blood as more medics arrived with cots to take Hotaru and Hinata to the medical wing. Their hands moved with crisp efficiency, unrolling a stretcher in one motion, the canvas snapping taut between its poles.

“We must take you to receive treatment now” one said, kneeling to position it beside her. “Shoulder’s out, severe lacerations as well as heavy blood-loss. We’ll carry her.”

Hinata’s chest heaved with shallow breaths. Her lips trembled, but when she spoke the words were clear: “N-no. Please… l-let me walk.”

The medic frowned, already reaching for her wrist. “Don’t be stubborn. Your half a breath from fainting and walking will only—”

“I-I don’t want them to see me c-carried,” she whispered, the timidity in her tone belying the stubborn light in her pale eyes. Her knees shook, her frame swayed, but still she pressed forward, voice fraying but steady: “I can s-stand. I can endure.”

Just to the pale girls side, Kurenai glanced the retreating leaf genin that had come down to congratulate Hinata before turning her sharp gaze to the medics.

“She’s made her choice,” she said quietly. “I’ll help her to the medical wing.”

“With all due respect Jonin-sensei, we know our procedure—”

“She’s my student,” Kurenai said simply, eyes glinting in the dim. “If she falters, I’ll take responsibility” 

The medics exchanged a look but yielded. The stretcher was folded away with reluctant hands. And so, supported by medics but upright between them, Hinata left the arena on her own two feet — fragile, trembling, but standing.

Kurenai’s hand settled against her back, firm and guiding. She worries they see her weak because of the mark, she thought. And now she wants them to see she’s more than that. You are growing bold Hinata.

Hinata lowered her head, letting her hair fall forward to hide her face. “S-sensei… forgive me. I—”

“No,” Kurenai interrupted, her tone gentler now. “There’s nothing to forgive. You did well.”

The words made Hinata’s chest constrict. It wasn’t her she wanted to hear those words from. For an instant the hallway blurred, light smearing across the walls in streaks of gray. She bit down hard, drawing the copper sting of blood on her tongue. Stay awake. Hold the mask.

Kurenai’s eyes flicked to her, sharp. “Easy. You’re pale.”

“I…. can e-endure,” Hinata murmured.

“You already have.” Kurenai’s voice softened, but it carried a weight beneath it. “Endurance is good. But survival is better. Remember to think of yourself beside her goal. Remember that.”

Her sensei’s words were muddled in Hinata’s mind as only a single word clung—endure. It echoed louder than the steps on stone, louder than the medic rifling through his satchel, louder than her own pulse hammering through her temples.

Endure.

He saw

He saw…

“He saw,” Hinata breathed before she could stop herself. The words slipped past her lips like smoke.

Kurenai slowed. “What was that?”

Hinata’s training surged up lice water. She forced her lips into a weak smile, eyes downcast, cheeks coloring as if from embarrassment. “Th-the Hokage… a-and… others saw…”

Kurenai’s mouth eased into a light smile.

Oh of course, she must be referring to Naruto. It’s practically an open secret, course that knucklehead genin is blind as can be.

“You carried yourself well. You should be proud, everyone see’s that.”

Everyone… She kept her head bowed, but in the pit of her stomach the thought twisted, sour and sharp: Naruto-kun saw it… the mark. He must think me ugly now. Weak. Broken.

The shame burned only for a heartbeat. Then another fear drowned it out — colder, deeper. What if… what if Danzō-sama says nothing at all?

She bit her tongue hard enough to taste copper, forcing the mask of meek obedience back into place as they guided her toward the corridor.

They turned a corner.

The corridor pressed close, narrow stone walls damp with condensation, every flickering torch casting their shadows long and wavering. Hinata’s head tilted down, hair curtaining her face, but she could feel the weight of imagined eyes in every ripple of light. Her hands twitched at her sides, restless, and before she realized it her nails were biting again into the bandages wrapped around her palms. Warmth seeped through,

The action was noticed by one of the medical ninja “She’s tearing the bindings…”

Hinata flinched, murmuring, “S-sorry…” her voice soft enough to vanish into the stone.

Kurenai brushed her free hand against Hinata’s hair, tucking a strand back behind her ear. “Don’t apologize. You’ve given enough of yourself for one day. The rest will come in time.”

Hinata ducked her head further, cheeks warming. “I’ll t-ry harder n-next time.”

“That isn’t what I said,” Kurenai replied with a faint exhale, though she smiled with her eyes. “For now, you’ll rest. That’s my order.”

“Yes, sensei.” The words came easily, obedient and unthreatening.

They passed another landing, where the corridor narrowed before widening again into the medical wing foyer. The smell of alcohol and herbs met them, sharp and clean, undercutting the copper tang that clung to Hinata’s skin. Above the door, bandages hung drying from a line, swaying faintly in the draft.

The older medic gestured to a cot screened off by thin white curtains. “Here.”

Hinata’s legs quivered, nearly giving. Kurenai steadied her once more, fingers gentle on her elbow, guiding her toward the threshold.

“Hinata,” she said softly, pausing before the screen. “One more thing.”

Hinata tilted her head up, eyes wide and glassy.

“If anyone asks you… questions you’re not ready to answer, send them to me. You don’t owe anyone explanations, especially now.”

Hinata blinked slowly. “Understood.”

Kurenai gave a single nod, then stepped back, as the medics closed the white curtains and began to peel away the genin’s clothes.

As the pale eyed girl lay in a daze while the medics worked, her mind muddled. The air above it seemed heavier, watching. Her chest clenched, and a dizzy relief rushed through her blood.

He saw. He’ll say something… right?

…

Hiruzen Sarutobi rested with his robes gathered neatly about him, pipe idle between his fingers. The air was subdued here — no cheering crowds, only the muted shuffle of proctors and the low murmur of jōnin stationed along the wall. Below, the floor of the chamber was being wiped clean of blood, faint streaks glistening dark against the stone.

His eyes lingered on the place where Hinata Hyuga had stood. Frail little Hinata, carried half by medics, half by her teacher, her face pale but her steps stubborn. He had seen the blood already drying in crescents across her palms where she had driven her own nails into the flesh. He had seen the storm that broke behind her eyes when her opponent mocked her mark. He had seen the precision in her movements — not wild or desperate, but deliberate, restrained, as though she were keeping something caged.

Around him, voices whispered their judgments.

“The tenacity of the little girl.” An observer noted

“Luck,” another countered. “She shouldn’t have lasted half as long as she did. The waterfall genin gave too many chances to surrender and refused to take the initiative”

“Tenacity should never mean crippling one’s self. She’ll be a liability to any team acting like that” a third scoffed.

Hiruzen gave the barest nod to acknowledge them, but his gaze never left the empty floor. He had lived long enough to know how easy it was for shinobi to dismiss what unsettled them. He could not dismiss what he had seen in that girl’s eyes.

A faint hiss of breath drew his attention sideways. Neji Hyuga, still seated among the genin, stared daggers at the door through which Hinata had disappeared. His jaw was tight, his hands curled into white-knuckled fists on his knees. Veins at his temples bulged faintly with the Byakugan’s trace, though the boy hadn’t activated it — the mark of a temper straining against its leash.

Hiruzen watched him a moment longer. No words passed Neji’s lips, but his face said enough. Fury. Contempt. Perhaps even disbelief, that the clan’s “failure” had endured where he expected her to collapse.

The Hokage’s pipe tilted slightly in his fingers.

The Hyuga. Always so bound in chains of their own making. He knew better than most the cruelty that lay beneath their polished surface — the caged seal that shackled one branch to another, the suffocating weight of duty pressed into children’s shoulders until their spines bent. He had permitted their continued usage of these traditions despite his clear disproval because the alternative was a civil war within Konoha that would make the potential madness of the Uchiha coup look nothing more but a child’s tantrum. The Uchiha were powerful, but none could match the sheer wealth and influence wielded by the Hyuga. And yet he had never stopped wondering if that continued concession first given by the First Hokage had planted a poison seed.

Now he saw it before him: a child disowned, trembling but enduring in blood, and another simmering with bitterness, carrying the seal of his family like a brand carved into his destiny. Both marked, both twisted by a clan that prized tradition above mercy, honor above empathy..

He remembered the quiet conversation four years ago, when word had reached him that Hinata, eldest daughter of the main house, had been judged unworthy and quietly removed from succession. He had been disturbed then, though he said nothing aloud. A gentle soul discarded due to her gentle soul. She did not have the ability nor will to be shapes into what tradition demanded.

And now here she was — frail, bloodied, timid beyond belief — yet in the heat of combat he had glimpsed something far more dangerous. A child who had been forced to build monsters in her own mind to survive, willing to throw themselves into fire to prove something. A girl who carried fragility in her frame but, in her eyes, something almost terrifying.

The pipe stem pressed between his teeth. He let smoke curl from the bowl but did not draw it in.

What becomes of a gentle soul scorned by tradition until it is removed? he wondered. What grows inside a child who learns too young that… no one wanted her?

On the surface, the others saw courage. Perhaps even admirable defiance. But Hiruzen’s heart was heavy. Having led two great wars, there was a fine difference between being brave and being suicidal. He could not shake the thought that what stirred in that girl was not defiance alone, but something more — a survival shaped by cruelty. And beside her absence, in Neji’s silent fury, he saw another danger: two branches of the same tree, both bending from weight too heavy for their years.

He sighed through his nose; a soft exhale lost beneath the rustle of robes. Outwardly, he praised Hinata’s tenacity, for that was what a Hokage must do. The life of a shinobi was hardly happy, and if a ninja was suicidal, at least they’ll take a few enemy ninja with them… Inwardly, unease settled deeper, a familiar weight pressing against his ribs.

How I desire peace to be achieved. Children may be children and not be shattered and sent to die. That is why this pact must work, to protect the future…

Meanwhile in the veil of shadows above, Danzo sat unmoving. His bandaged arm rested across his lap, his visible eye fixed on the floor below where blood was still being scrubbed from the tiles.

The Analyst stood farther back, silhouetted in the darkness. Their presence was quiet, but the heated silkiness of their voice betrayed simmering tension.

“She nearly collapsed. Her endurance is… wanting. Were it not for that final desperation strike, the boy might have crippled her completely.”

Danzo’s lone eye did not waver. “And yet she did not fall. She bled, but she endured. That is what matters.”

The Analyst tilted their head. “Lord Danzo if I may….

Danzo’s head turned subtly “Speak”

“She is unstable. There is no guarantee the procedure will work, and even if it does; she is unstable and thus ultimately a liability in the long term.”

Danzo allowed the faintest pause. “She has fire. That much is undeniable. Weakness plagues her every movement and yet she moves for me. To fight beneath the weight of shame and still remain standing for my approval—” He let the thought linger, the barest curl at the edge of his tone. “—useful.”

The Analyst’s fingers twitched against their cloak. “Useful? She is erratic, unworthy of your attention. No more than a girl ruled by ghosts. I implore you to focus entirely on Project Black and end this game with the bloodline filth.”

That finally earned them a small glance, sharp and narrow, dangerous. The analyst felt it then. A pressure around the room as if the air itself froze in fear. “You overreach.”

The Analyst bowed their head immediately, though their voice remained firm. “Forgive me Lord Danzo, it is only that Black will surpass her in time. Why invest in a pitiful doll when iron can be forged at will?”

Danzo’s silence stretched, the faint hum of the arena below filling the void. At last he spoke, quiet, measured.

“A weapon is not only steel. It is also choice. The Hyuga girl has proven hers in blood. Black is not yet ready. Until it is, she remains the keystone.”

The Analyst said nothing more, though the lingering tension in their shoulders betrayed their displeasure. Not at Danzo; never at him. At themselves, for being too blunt. At her, for existing at all. Hatred coiled under their composure, an obsession sharpened by the need to prove their ideology right.

Danzo turned his eye back toward the arena, where the next match was being prepared

Danzō did not notice, or rather, he did not care. His mind was already moving. His gaze shifted once more to the arena floor, now cleared for the next match. The faintest shadow of a smile ghosted at the corner of his mouth as he murmured:

“Our sand friend thinks himself famished. Assemble the first division. A seal failure may be imminent."

"As you command—

A masked agents' arrival interrupted the Analyst, quickly handing them a scroll before leaving the room.

After reviewing scroll for a moment, they turned back to Danzo: “The guest we found lost in the village has begun to talk.”

 

Danzo gave subtle nod, unbothered. “Very well. Once you've assembled the division, have the transcripts brought to me."

Analyst bows. “Yes, Lord Danzo.”

 

They melted back into the shadowed wall, the fabric of their cloak whispering against the stone. Yet their eyes lingered on the arena below — not on the sand-shrouded boy Danzō had spoken of, but on the empty space where Hinata had stood.

Prove her worth? The thought burned like acid. What worth is there in a girl carried by blood and chance? She is a relic of a diseased system — a child born with gifts she did not earn, elevated by lineage alone. Fragile, unstable, yet praised simply because her eyes carry the right pattern.

Their hands curled into fists beneath the folds of their cloak. It is an insult to every weapon forged from nothing. Project Black will surpass her. Black will become Lord Danzo’s ultimate weapon... When he does, no rat on this continent will dare intrude on the Leaf again!

Danzo did not look their way. His gaze was fixed wholly on the arena, already moving ten steps ahead. To him, the Analyst’s spite was nothing more than another tool to be used, another ember to keep the fire of his ambitions stoked.

The faint smile remained at the corner of his mouth as the muffled voice of the proctor below echoed through the hall, announcing the next match.

AMI VS INO YAMANAKA

In the galleries, Ino’s hands tightened on the railing until her knuckles whitened. She forced her breath steadily, though her heart thudded so loudly she thought the others could hear it. This is my chance. My moment to prove to everyone the great shinobi I am!

Asuma crouched low beside her, cigarette dangling from his lip, eyes narrowing as he looked her over. “Ino,” he said, voice level, calm as ever. “Stay sharp. Don’t get rattled if she presses you. Remember what we practiced, this will be a speed game. Judging by her teammates, she’s strong in her own right. Keep your distance, find the opening. Utilize your Mind Transfer at range, and you’ll do fine.”

Ino nodded quickly, clutching the words like a lifeline.

Beside her, Shikamaru leaned lazily on the railing, but his eyes were keen. “Troublesome,” he muttered. “My opponent used a staff to focus their chakra, Hinata’s had that scary bow.  Don’t let her lock you down. Keep moving. Wait for the opening.” He glanced towards the waterfall kunoichi who was heading down the stairs. “She carries a saber. Keep an eye on it.”

“I know.” Ino’s jaw set. She drew in one more breath, straightened her back, and vaulted lightly over the rail.

Ami was already waiting, standing straight with a predator’s calm. She was a head taller than Ino, a slender frame wrapped in a dark, skin-tight uniform that seemed to drink the light. The long saber rode easily across her back, the hilt rising over her shoulder, as natural on her as an extra limb. Her eyes found Ino without hurry, cold and glittering, as if appraising her not as an opponent, but as an object.

Ino smirked faintly, forcing bravado into her tone. “What, no words? No greeting?”

The Waterfall ninja tilted her head, voice smooth but laced with venom. “Unless you plan to forfeit, I see no reason to waste breath on a Leaf genin.” She said the word Leaf with an edge that cut.

Heat flared in Ino’s chest. “Oh we’ll see who forfeits!”

Hayate raised his hand. “Begin.”

Ino acted first, forcing her fear into motion. She flicked three shuriken in quick succession, angling them wide to herd Ami’s movement. As they spun, Ino darted left, hands flying to begin the necessary seals. Just one clean shot. All I need is one.

Ami didn’t flinch. Her hand lifted in a blur, knocking each shuriken aside with effortless precision. The steel clattered harmlessly to the floor.

Ino’s teeth clenched. She hurled more shuriken, feinting high, low, then rushing forward — closing the gap, heart hammering as she braced to form her Mind Transfer seal.

Above, Shikamaru murmured, “Not too fast, Ino. Don’t rush it…”

But Ino was already committing as prepared to end the fight.

Mind Transf—

However, Ami moved faster, lips barely moving.

Water Style: Shimmering Haze!

The arena rippled. The air bent. The floor shivered under Ino’s feet, lines of stone rippling like disturbed water. Then light burst across her vision — not firelight, not chakra, but a thousand points of glimmer, dazzling motes that swirled around her in slow arcs.

Mist crept in at the edges, thick and sparkling, curling into shapes that dissolved before her eyes could grasp them. The torches vanished. The arena was gone. There was only the haze — an endless curtain of drifting light.

Ino’s breath hitched. She tried to move, but her knees locked. Her mind felt sluggish, cotton-stuffed, as if every thought had to push through syrup. Her pulse pounded in her ears, muffled, distant, wrong.

What… what is this?

The lights swam, dazzling in rhythm, hypnotic. Her chest heaved, her lips parted, and for a heartbeat she almost forgot why she was here at all. The world beyond the haze no longer existed.

Her hands twitched toward a seal, but her fingers wouldn’t connect. Her body refused to obey. Move. Just move. You can break it if you move.

Her voice cracked in the silence: “I… I’m not going to lose—”

A whisper sliced through the mist, cold and clear. “You are done.”

And then pain.

A sudden, white-hot slash seared across her hand. The haze shattered like glass, light scattering in shards. The arena rushed back into focus, harsh and real.

Ami stood before her, saber dripping crimson.

Ino’s gaze dropped. Where her index, ring, and thumb should have been, only bloody stumps remained.

A horrified scream ripped through the chamber.

She collapsed to her knees, clutching the ruined hand, blood spilling hot between her fingers. Her eyes went wide with disbelief, breath choking in her throat. My hand… my hand… I can’t—

Above, Sakura’s hands flew to her mouth. Shikamaru sat frozen, face pale. Asuma’s cigarette shook between his teeth, ash spilling unheeded.

Ami stood over her, saber dripping. Her gaze was sharp, her tone cool and disdainful. “Honestly do you have to make such a fuss?”

The Taki genin stepped forward, delivering strikes in a brutal rhythm, each one sharp, deliberate, merciless.

A fist slammed into Ino's ribs — crack.
An elbow snapped her jaw sideways, white light exploding behind her eyes.
The hilt of the saber smashed across her cheek, tearing skin and splitting bone.

Every blow something else broke until a heavy kick sent Ino flying into the arena wall. She sagged against it, one hand scrabbling uselessly.

“I… I… I…Ino stammered, voice breaking.

In a heartbeat the taki genin was upon her, boot crushed into her chest. Another crack — ribs splintering under the pressure. Blood bubbled at Ino’s lips as she gagged.

The gallery had gone silent. Even Naruto and Lee, both restless by nature, stood in shock.

Ami’s eyes glinted coldly. She raised her saber, caught Ino’s last good hand which had been trying to drag herself away, and drove the blade through flesh and bone into stone.

Pinned.

Ino screamed again, raw and ragged, her body trembling, blood streaming down the wall.

Ami leaned close, voice soft, deliberate. “Two seconds. Surrender… or I end you.”

Her blade hovered at Ino’s throat.

Ino’s lips trembled, but no sound came. Shock held her silent.

“Oh well, your choice”

Ami’s arm twisted, saber glowing in sapphire with chakra and angled for the final thrust.

Steel shrieked. Sparks lit the air.

Asuma stood there, a trench knife crossed against the saber, his other hand gripping the genin’s arm. His voice was thunder. “That’s enough.”

Shikamaru stood in shock. He didn’t even notice Asuma move!

A freezing presence suddenly washed over him, his breath fogging in the chilled air.

In a blur, a hooded figure appeared beside them, silent as a shadow. A blade gleamed at Asuma’s throat. The Waterfall jonin. Her voice was courteous, almost gentle, but every word was edged in steel. “Unhand my student.”

Asuma’s rage filled face turn slightly. “If you are looking for a fight you are about to get one" he growled.

The chamber tightened. Proctors shifted uneasily, as the sensei for the sand and sound inched toward their own weapons. One wrong twitch and the entire exam hall would ignite.

Hayate moved quickly, his thin frame interposing, blade half-raised. “Stand down!” he barked hoarsely, driving his sword toward the jonin’s side.

The hooded figure moved without effort. Her blade swept, catching Hayate’s with a ringing clash. Ice crackled along the steel, creeping down Hayate’s blade toward his hand. The proctor staggered back, teeth gritted, frost already biting at his knuckles.

Two new shadows fell across the floor. Kakashi and Gai dropped down from the gallery, their presence immediate, the weight of veteran killers in their eyes. Kakashi’s single visible eye narrowed as he placed himself just off Asuma’s flank, voice cool but hard. “Why don’t you take moment to relax, else things could get a little hectic”

Gai’s expression was sharper than usual, his voice low, stripped of its warmth. “Enough blood has been spilled today.”

The Waterfall jonin’s blade lingered at Asuma’s throat for a heartbeat longer, then dipped away. Asuma in turn released the waterfall genin who sent him a smoldering look. Ami lowered her saber and stepped away, calm, unhurried, crimson still staining the blade.

And then another weight pressed over the room — heavier than all the rest.

The Hokage himself descended from the gallery, robes whispering against the stone as he walked into the arena. His eyes swept across the combatants, sharp and weary all at once. “Enough,” Hiruzen said, his voice carrying with the quiet authority of command. “There will be no more blades drawn in this chamber.”

The Waterfall jōnin straightened, bowing faintly at the Hokage’s words, though her tone carried no softness. “This is the life of a shinobi, Lord Hokage. If your students cannot endure the consequences of battle, then they should not be here. No other jonin has stepped in to spare their genin. This girl had her chance to surrender, and she chose not to.”

Hiruzen’s gaze hardened, pipe forgotten in his sleeve. “And it is the duty of a Hokage to ensure the Chūnin Exams do not become executions. Do not mistake cruelty for strength.”

The Waterfall Jonin’s voice sharpened, just enough to carry. “Ah yes. Why should I expect anything but standard leaf hypocrisy from the Lord Hokage himself”

The two locked gazes for a long, tense moment — cold defiance against tempered authority before the jonin turned, walking back toward the gallery with Ami at her side.

The tension lingered for another breath, then broke as the medics rushed in, lifting Ino’s mangled body who had passed out in the commotion. The stretcher vanished into the white-curtained passage, the copper tang of her blood still thick in the air.

Hayate, rubbing his hands, seized the moment to cut in, his hoarse voice slicing through the silence. “This match is over. The winner is Ami.”

in the shadowed gallery, Danzō’s bandaged fingers tightened over his cane. His eye narrowed, cold fury radiating from him in waves. That a jōnin of such a pathetic, minor nation would dare unsheathe a blade in Konoha’s sacred hall — more outrageous still, that they would argue back even as the Hokage spoke. His voice was a rasp, audible only to those nearest him.

“Is this your so-called alliance, Hiruzen…? These are nothing but rats, eager to gnaw us until we bleed.”

…

The sharp scent of alcohol and herbs filled the small chamber, so clean it almost stung. Bandages hung from a drying line overhead, swaying faintly in the draft. Hinata lay half-reclined on a cot, her body wrapped in strips of white that pressed against wounds still raw and throbbing. A loose gown had been pulled over her earlier to preserve some modesty, though its ties were slipping from her narrow shoulders, the fabric so thin it might as well have been air.

Kurenai had been waiting patiently outside but had suddenly been called away by a panicked medical nin. Hinata’s normally keen ears were muddled by the blood loss, and truth be told she didn’t care.

Warm hands moved over her with brisk efficiency. A medic pressed glowing palms against her, slowly moving across her body, a mint like sensation spreading from where she brushed over. Her other wounds ranging from her shoulder to her thigh had been tended to already, sutured and heavily gauzed.

“It looks like you’ll going to be just fine the female medic murmured, tucking gauze across her side. “Hold still a little longer.”

The woman drew the gown open to press healing chakra into her abdomen. The thin fabric slipped to her sides, baring her pale skin beneath the glow.

The curtain rustled. A second medic stepped inside, young and harried, urgency in his voice. “They’re calling for you. Another genin, this one might be bad.”

The woman hesitated for a moment, glancing back at Hinata. “I’ve mostly finished, its just keep the pain levels tolerable. I’ll return shortly to finish the process.”

With that, warm hands left. The room seemed to tilt in her absence.

Hinata’s pulse thundered in her ears, each beat echoing through the hollowness of her chest. She stared up at the lantern above, its glow diffused into a haze. He saw. He must have seen… Please… say something…

The curtain stirred again.

But it was not a medic who entered.

A figure moved soundlessly across the floor — masked, cloaked, faceless. A ROOT agent. He did not glance at the bandages, did not acknowledge bare skin, the gown still wide open. He simply knelt beside her cot, posture rigid, and spoke as though reciting from stone.

“Lord Danzō watched. He says: You endured. Well done. Continue this path, and you will never be forgotten.”

The words struck harder than any blow.

Hinata’s world spun. Her hands clutching the sheets so hard  that fresh blood seeped through the bandages covering her palms. Tears welled, hot and stinging, spilling into the fabric beneath her cheek. Not pain. Not sorrow. Something far sharper.

Tears of joy so fierce they scalded.

He saw me. He saw me bleed and did not turn away. I am not useless. I am not a failure. Danzo-sama… I’ll bleed more. I’ll suffer more. Anything, if it means you will never turn your gaze from me.

A sob tore loose, muffled into the bedding, followed by another and another until her body convulsed with them.

The agent gave no acknowledgment. He rose, silent as the grave, and left the way he had come, the curtain falling closed in his wake.

Different medics returned minutes later, arms laden with blankets and steaming tonic. They found her trembling, face buried in the sheets, tears dampening the linen. They whispered to one another of exhaustion, of shock. A common enough collapse for a young genin after such a brutal fight.

…

At the same time in a different section of the medical wing, Sasuke lay flat on his back, bandages tight across his chest. The skin was still raw after the excruciating sealing process. His head throbbed where curse’s grip had been purged, leaving behind a ghostly heat that seemed to pulse beneath the surface of his skin.

His eyes opened slowly, the ceiling above him nothing but a blank wash of shadow. He did not move. He let the weight of his body sink into the bedding, listening to the faint scratch of his own breath.

The fights of the last several days returned to him in fragments: the rush of chakra flooding his veins, the wild intoxication of strength that was not his own, the jagged fire that burned as something foreign writhed within him, the agony when it attempted to consumed him. And now? Now there was only the dull throb of absence, the gaping hole where a dark power had been caged in.

He let out a sigh before clearing his mind of the mark when an image, sudden and unwelcome, rose from the blur of the Forest.

Pale eyes. Not soft, but sharp as frost. A girl’s figure swaying, bloodied, yet still standing.

Sasuke exhaled through his nose, a sound half frustration, half annoyance. He turned his head slightly on the pillow, staring at nothing.

“How is she faring now…?”

The words drifted into the dark, small but undeniable. His mouth pressed shut immediately after, as though he could bury the question back down into silence, crush it the way the seal had been crushed. He forced his thoughts elsewhere.

Naruto. Sakura.

Naruto — that idiot knucklehead — he didn’t need to worry about him. Not anymore. Sasuke had seen it in the Forest, in the Exam tower. The idiot had grown, reckless still, but stronger. A bit too strong. That boundless energy, that ridiculous faith… It infuriated him even as it pulled at the edge of his thoughts.

And Sakura… He swallowed the apathy there. She wasn’t weak, not exactly, but she was always several steps behind, always looking to him or Naruto to anchor herself. He had no patience left for that.

At least Naruto keeps moving forward. At least he claws for strength.

But that girl… that Hyūga. The image lingered where he didn’t want it. Not meek, not soft like the reputation whispered about her.

Sasuke closed his eyes again. Darkness pressed in, but even there, the pale frost of her gaze lingered — cutting through the void, refusing to fade.

His hand curled slowly against the sheets. I want to fight her. The thought burned, sharper than the ache of his sealed skin. I’ll strip away whatever mask she hides behind.

I need to know. If she has found strength, I’ll take it for myself. If she hasn’t… I’ll break her and move forward.

The image of pale eyes haunted him still, and this time, he did not push it away

…

The chamber was quiet as everyone left looked on eagerly for the next match. No one needed to see the screen the flare its names, afterall only two genin were left, who were already waiting at the edges of the arena.

GAARA VS NEJI HYUGA

Neji stepped forward first, pale eyes already gleaming with the Byakugan’s veins. His stride was smooth, measured, the same perfection in every movement that had made him the Hyūga clan’s rising star. His arms came up in the familiar Gentle Fist stance, poised with exactness, a boy who carried centuries of discipline in every breath.

Opposite him, Gaara moved like something entirely other. He walked with slow, deliberate steps until he reached the center, then stopped. His arms hung loose at his sides, his face eerily blank. The gourd shifted against his back with a dull scrape, and already the sand stirred, grains leaking free to curl lazily around his ankles like serpents eager to strike.

On the gallery, Lee leaned forward, hands white-knuckled on the rail. His voice carried only to Naruto, Kakashi and Gai who stood alongside as well as kankuro who during the pause between matches had opted to take then chance to interact with the leaf genin on the otherside of the gallery. “I do not know what kind of jutsu this genin possesses, but Neji will win. As of said before, Neji is strongest genin here, no doubt about it.”

Gai folded his arms, eyes shining with a strange light. “His stance in the gentle fist is…impeccable. Every motion prepared.”

Kakashi’s eye stared, not on Neji, but on the lazy shifting of Gaara’s sand. “That gourd on his back could be trouble. There is something peculiar about that sand leaking out of it”

Kankuro meanwhile merely scoffed, drawing glances from Naruto and Lee. “You’ll see. No matter how good this Neji guy is, he won’t even touch him.”

Down below, both genin stood in position. Hayate took a few steps before waiting a moment: “Begin!”

The silence shattered.

A wave of sand burst from Gaara’s gourd with a hiss, a rushing tide that lunged across the arena like a living wall.

Neji did not flinch. He pivoted, arms flashing out in a blur. His palms struck the tide again and again, each impact sharp and deliberate, chakra pulsing through his strikes. The wave broke against him, scattered into a rain of lifeless grains that pattered uselessly to the floor before slowly crawling back to Gaara.

Gasps rippled through the gallery.

Lee’s eyes went wide. “So his jutsu is sand! That’s quite the ability, however… Lee paused to glance at his teammate.  “it wont beat him.”

Below, Neji’s pale eyes blazed as he slid forward, every motion smooth as flowing water. “I’ll admit, that’s some trick you have, however it seems to be rather inefficent he said flatly”

Gaara’s eyes shifted, the faintest twitch at the corner of his lips. His voice was calm, empty, only reaching Neji’s ears. “Your eyes are similar, though hers are more jagged. I wonder if your blood will satisfy me…”

Neji’s eyes narrowed. “What nonsense do you speak of?”

Sand rose in answer. Tendrils whipped from the floor, stabbing at Neji from every angle.

Neji moved as though he had been waiting for it. His palms blurred in arcs, each strike deflecting a tendril aside, his body turning with liquid grace. The Byakugan traced the chakra threads through the sand, and his strikes cut them apart with ruthless precision. Every movement was measured, nothing wasted.

“Look at him,” Kakashi murmured, his tone almost clinical. “He sees the chakra in the sand. Every strike severs its control, even if its just for a moment. ”

Gai’s chest swelled with pride, his voice solemn. “As expected of Neji! Even the most unusual jutsu falls before Gentle Fist.”

Lee’s fist slammed the rail, his face radiant with excitement. “Yes! Neji cannot be stopped!”

But below, Gaara did not falter. The tendrils hardened, densified, their strikes sharper and faster. They slammed into the arena floor with enough force to crack stone, lunging from multiple directions at once.

“Why isn’t it stopping?” Shikamaru muttered, trying and failing to map the pattern. “He breaks it, and it—”

“Reforms,” Kankuro finished softly. “Automatically. It’s reacting for him, doing so out of its own accord”

Shikamaru grimaced. Its own accord? What the desert owe this money or something?

Neji’s body twisted through them, flowing with perfect economy. His palms lashed out, striking joints of sand mid-air, forcing them to collapse into harmless clumps. He darted forward, weaving between lashes, and with a surge of speed he broke through.

Neji’s eyes flashed. He read the rhythm, felt the narrow delay between command and effect. That was the opening. His feet skimmed the floor in a sudden burst, body slipping through the smallest seam in the sand storm. Tendrils crumbling to piles as simple strikes rendered them useless.

He was there, within striking distance, his hand slamming into Gaara’s side.

The impact rang as a palm met gaara’s chest.

“This match” Neji said with a smirk “Is over”

The gallery erupted.

Kankurō’s eyes went wide. “He actually—he actually hit him!”

Baki’s hands curled against the rail, his voice low and grim. “…no one has touched Gaara before.”

Gai’s eyes shone, his face filled with fierce pride. “Beautiful! Each strike a perfect cut!”

Lee leaned so far over the rail it seemed he would fall. “Neji! Yes, Neji! You’ve proven it—your Gentle Fist is invincible!”

But Gaara’s face did not change. His lips moved with a whisper only Neji could hear.

“Try again.”

The sand exploded outward in a violent bloom that swelled In every direction, tendrils lunching for his arms, legs and throat.

Neji slid back in an instant, feet whispering against stone, his palms a blur to keep the sand at bay while his eye’s tracked the sand genin.

A patch on Gaara’s body had shifted. Neji’s gaze narrowed as, grains dribbling down like sand from a broken hourglass where he had struck.

I understand. I hadn’t struck flesh at all, rather a thin layer of sand. A shell of armor that absorbed the blow.

Lee shouted in shock “I don’t understand! That was a clean hit, no one can take a direct hit from Neji like that!”

Kakashi’s visible eye narrowed, studying the way Gaara’s sand sloughed away from his chest. His voice was quiet, but it carried to the jonin beside him. “It isn’t his body that took the strike. He’s wrapped himself in a layer of chakra-hardened sand… an armor that replaces the impact before it reaches him. Neji broke part of it, but the boy underneath is still untouched.”

Lee’s brow furrowed. “So even the Gentle Fist cannot reach him…”

“Not yet,” Gai corrected softly.

More sand rushed towards him, tendrils snaking to ensnare. Neji sprang aside, palms flashing into a lattice of strikes that shattered the first wave into harmless rain—but the second and third were already there, converging, heavier, faster. Tendrils thickened to pillars that hammered the floor hard enough to send cracks skittering through the tiles. A blunt-force barrage replaced the grasping whips; Gaara’s answer to precision was sheer, crushing volume.

Neji slipped between them, a white blur threading a moving forest. His breath stayed even, his eyes colder than ice. Each time a column slammed down, his palm cut across its spine a heartbeat before impact, severing the chakra seam and letting it collapse into dead sand. Another column rose; he pivoted and clipped it at the hinge, turning a stabbing spike into a harmless slump that thudded at his heels.

“incredible Kakashi said under his breath. “He’s not blocking. He’s editing the attack mid-flight.”

Gai’s jaw worked once, pride and worry warring across his features. “Hyuga insight… but at a skill and speed that would break most chunin.”

Lee’s fingers dug crescents into the railing. “Neji! Keep pressing!”

Across the arena, Gaara did not chase. He stood as the eye of a storm, letting the sand move in his place.

“Is that all? I expected more.”

Gaara’s lifted his hands as sand tendrils came from Neji at all sides.

Neji’s breath deepened, sweat sliding at his temples. His eyes tracked the shifting grains, each movement illuminated in the Byakugan’s gaze. He struck again, another storm of palms, sand shattered under him, dispersing into scattered sprays.

The final burst of strikes drove a wave of sand back like a parted sea, leaving a trail clear to Gaara.

Neji surged through it. His hand lashed forward for the chest again—only for a wall to erupt at his side, catching him mid-stride. He struck at the seam, severing the chakra threads, and the wall collapsed—but another slammed down behind him, and another before.

The arena shifted around him into a maze of sand, a labyrinth of closing jaws.

Shikamaru’s mutter was grim. “He’s being herded…”

Kakashi’s visible eye narrowed. “…Gaara’s not just defending. He’s keeping him moving his terms.”

Gaara’s face was still as stone. But his lips had begun to curl into a sadistic grin.

The sand lunged again.

Neji’s palms cut one sand tendril away, then another, his body weaving through the collapsing storm, hair whipping across his pale brow. For every tendril he severed, two more rose in its place.

His chest heaved, sweat beading and running down his jaw. I can’t relent. One lapse… and I’ll be buried.

He dropped low, both palms hammering into the floor. Chakra surged through stone, forcing the sand rising there to collapse prematurely, cut off before it could harden into another spike. The grains hissed back into dust, yet the ground trembled again as Gaara’s will poured through it.

From above, Lee’s voice rose, desperate but confident. “Neji! You must press him!”

Gai’s eyes never left the floor. He murmured under his breath, as though to anchor himself. “Every strike flawless… but even a prodigy can tire.”

Kankurō’s throat was dry, but a wary smile on his face. “I’ll admit, this Neji guy is tough. Not many have lasted this long against Gaara.”

The sand surged in from all sides now, not in tendrils but as a crushing wave. Neji braced, his eyes blazing white. His voice rang across the chamber, sharp and resolute:

“Eight Trigrams—Thirty-Two Palms!”

He spun into the rhythm, his palms striking faster than sight, every hit exploding with chakra that severed the wave into falling sheets. The floor cracked beneath the storm of impacts. Sand dissolved, dispersed, beaten back by the unrelenting cadence of Hyūga genius.

For a heartbeat, there was silence. Neji stood at the center of the storm, chest rising and falling, his hands trembling faintly at his sides. He fixed his gaze on Gaara, unshaken. “You can’t stop me. Not with this.”

Then the laughter started—not loud, not full, just a rasping exhale. Gaara’s lips twitched upward in a twitch of a smile that looked wrong on his face.

“I like it,” he whispered. His eyes gleamed, a mad glint leaking through the calm. “I like it when they fight. When they bleed.”

The sand erupted again, faster, sharper, heavier than before. It didn’t lunge now—it crashed, slamming down in hammer blows that cratered the arena. Each impact shook stone, scattering shards across the floor.

Neji struck back, but his movements faltered by a fraction. One tendril caught his shoulder, spinning him half-around before he broke it apart. Another lashed his ribs, drawing a grunt as he staggered, his feet sliding across the floor.

Lee’s hands slammed the rail. “Neji!”

Naruto muttered under his breath, fists tightening. “Damn… he’s not giving up. He won’t—”

Shikamaru’s voice was a grim thread. “But he’s slowing.”

Another hammer of sand fell, and Neji caught it with both palms, his chakra blasting through to collapse it—but his arms shook under the weight. His lips curled in defiance, blood sliding down his chin from where the impact rattled his skull.

Gaara’s sand coiled around him, hissing like serpents, and for the first time the bloodlust was plain to everyone. The chamber chilled. Even the proctors shifted uneasily, hands drifting toward weapons.

Gaara’s voice slithered through the silence. “More. Show me more.”

Neji’s chest heaved, sweat plastering strands of dark hair to his brow. His arms trembled from the strain, but his stance held, Byakugan blazing with desperate light. He had endured. He had read the rhythm of Gaara’s defense, cut his way through the storm, and now—now—

I hoped to save this imperfect technique for the finals, but my opponent is too strong. It must be now!

He surged forward.

“Eight Trigrams—Sixty-Four Palms!”

The words rang like thunder. His arms blurred, every strike a precise burst of chakra, each impact pounding into the sand that writhed to block him. The tendrils shattered, collapsing into rain. His hands tore through the defensive wave,

One Palm

Two

Four

Eight

Neji’s movements ripping the battlefield open until at last—

His palms met Gaara’s body.

Sixteen. Thirty-two.

A storm of blows hammered across chest, arms, abdomen, shoulders, each palm a ruthless needle driven into the flow of chakra. Gaara staggered, his blank mask finally cracking into panic, blood flecking his lips as his chakra lines dimmed under the relentless storm.

Neji’s breath came hard, his voice cutting with each hit. “sixty four palms!”

The final strike drove into Gaara’s chest and hurled him back, sand spilling away useless at his feet.

The gallery erupted.

Lee’s shout broke free, raw with pride. “Neji!”

Kankuro stood in utter shock, the sight of Gaara, blood spilling from his mouth burning disbelief into his features.

Neji straightened, chest heaving, his pale eyes locked. “You fought well” he said coldly, “but your fate is decided. The Hyuga are absolute.”

Hayate moved forward a step. His eyes swept over Gaara’s crumpled form, weighing whether to call the match.

Meanwhile as Neji was turning to the gallery, his vision caught something wrong.

Gaara twitched… then trembled. His lips curved upward, too wide, too thin. A pulse of something… wrong rolled out, thick as oil, sharp as knives.

Neji’s breath caught. This chakra… it isn’t his.

Hayate had already moved away, observing this new phase of the match.

The blood at Gaara’s lips dripped down, staining the sand beneath him crimson. But the grains shivered, twitched, and then surged upward, wrapping around him in a cocoon. A sphere of sand hardened, sealing him within.

“What—?” Neji muttered, staggering back a half-step, his Byakugan piercing the shell. He saw it—saw the chakra points he had closed—snapped open one by one by a force that wasn’t Gaara’s own. A cruel, alien presence flooded the boy’s coils, tearing open what Neji had so decisively closed.

“No,” Neji hissed. “That’s not possible—!”

Inside, Gaara convulsed. His chakra network almost inflating as a powerful, frenzy-like chakra poured through every fracture, forcing his body to stand, to move, to fight.

Suddenly Gaara’s voice came — low at first, warped, dragging like claws across stone.
“Fate…?”

It rose, distorted, edged with a guttural growl.
“FATE!!”

The sand sphere rattled, cracking as the words tore through it.

“You think yourself protected by fate?! You know nothing—NOTHING—of what fate demands! Of the nights it suffocates you, the hate it festers, the agony it feeds! You prattle about inevitability with eyes that are still clean!”

The sphere convulsed, grains shrieking against stone.

“Let me paint them red.”

With a deafening crack, a monstrous arm of spiked sand erupted outward, clawing for Neji.

Neji immediately put his palms up to block the blow…

But the instant he struck, he knew. His Gentle Fist couldn’t shut it down. This chakra wasn’t normal, it was too vast, too strong.

 The blow hit like a collapsing mountain, sand spikes impaling his arms and legs as it wrapped around him in a vice grip before hurling the hyuga genin tpward the far end of the arena. Neji Crashed into into the wall with a great puff of stattered stone and dust.

Lee cried out, half a sob, “Neji!” His knuckles were white on the railing, trembling. Gai’s arms were crossed so tightly his muscles quivered, his proud eyes wide with barely hidden fear. Across from them, Kakashi’s visible eye narrowed—his headband sliding up in a practiced motion to reveal the Sharingan. It spun slowly, locking on the sand sphere, tracing the jagged arm crawling back inside. “This chakra…” he muttered. “This almost feels like…” Kakashi took a quick glance at Naruto before turning back to the arena.

Neji coughed up an unhealthy amount of blood as he pulled himself from the rubble, vaguely aware there were many broken things in his body while blood pooled around him. His vision swam, blood bubbling at his lips. His body screamed, but still he staggered upright, pale eyes blazing with fury. Gone was the calculated calm, replaced by a frenzy.

“Whatever monster you are, I wont lose here!” he shouted hoarsely. “Fate — the Hyuga, are inevitable!”

He charged.

The sand sphere loomed before him, thick and unyielding, pulsing with that alien chakra that clawed its way back into Gaara’s veins.

“This ends now!”

His palms lit with chakra, each strike hammering into the sphere in flawless rhythm.

“Two palms! Four palms! Eight palms!”

The surface shuddered, ripples spreading with each hit. The crowd leaned forward, murmurs rising as the shell weakened.

“Sixteen palms! Thirty-two palms!”

Cracks spread through the hardened shell. Grains bled down like water from a punctured dam.

“Sixty-four palms!”

The final storm of blows erupted, white arcs flashing in every direction. The sphere convulsed — then shattered, sand collapsing around Gaara’s huddled form like broken glass.

The gallery roared. Lee shouted himself hoarse, fists slamming the rail. Even Kakashi’s brow furrowed, astonished at the sight.

Gaara staggered out, sticky blood dripping from his lips, his chest heaving. For the first time, his body faltered.

Neji’s hand was raised for one last strike—

Sand Coffin!

The sand which had scattered all around him surged, wrapping his legs, his arms, his chest, binding him faster than he could tear free. In a heartbeat Neji was cocooned, bound head to toe, sand grinding into his skin with suffocating pressure.

While Gaara’s stumbled closer Neji gritted his teeth, sending chakra into the sand.

Gaara’s manic eyes met the Hyuga’s for a moment “Lets have more blood!”

“Sand Burial!

The words were quiet, but they cracked the chamber like a thunderclap.

Neji’s eyes widened.

The arena echoed with a sickening series of cracks — ribs, shoulder, hip — his body buckling under the pressure. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth, his vision dimming. A howl of sickening pain.

When the sand finally receded, Neji collapsed in a heap. His limbs trembled, bent in angles He gasped shallowly, unconscious, bloodied but alive.

Above, the gallery stood in shock.

Lee and Gai stood stunned at the sight of the broken Hyuga

Naruto had gone pale, the strength of Gaara being made apparent to him.

Kankuro meanwhile was wrestling with shock and awe.

This guy did a number on Gaara and top it off; he survived a full sand burial! No one… no one has ever…

Gaara himself stood too in shock for a moment

The sand… the sands grip had not been absolute. The moment he ensnared him, the genin had leaked chakra into the sand coffin, blunting the execution… stealing away the kill.

That manic smile flickered back in place as he raised hand to finish it—

Hayate appeared in a blur, standing between Gaara and the unconscious Hyuga. “Enough! Neji is beaten. The Winner is Gaara!”

All at once, the room exhaled. Proctors surged forward with stretchers, medics moving quickly but cautiously, eyes flicking to Gaara as though expecting him to strike again. They lifted Neji onto a cot, his body limp, blood seeping through the white canvas. He groaned faintly as they carried him out, but he still breathed.

Lee trembled, both hands gripping the railing until his knuckles turned white. Gai’s broad hand settled firmly on his shoulder, steadying him, though his own eyes were shadowed grim. Kakashi lowered his headband back over the Sharingan, but not before his eye lingered one last time on the chakra still seeping faintly from Gaara’s body.

And in the far shadows above, unseen by most, ROOT stirred. Two dozen operatives had appeared in silence the moment Gaara’s chakra had flared, masked faces watching, hands already poised on hidden blades. They stood along the rafters like vultures in waiting.

Danzo’s visible eye narrowed, his bandaged fingers curling tight against his cane. “So the beast crawls back into its cage,” he rasped softly.

His eye came upon the closest of the ROOT guards. “Enough. Return to position. For now.”

The masked figures melted back into the dark as if they had never been there.

When Danzo turned again, he noticed that the yellow-eyed sound sensei had vanished, the two-remaining sound genin muttering to each other.

On the table before him, a parchment stirred. Black ink bled across its surface in jagged strokes, words coalescing from nothing. The reply he had been waiting for. A single-use seal, passed quietly through Zaku’s medical handler and delivered by his own operatives. Orochimaru’s message, an answer to his request. 

Danzo stood in thought for a moment. Suddenly he tapped his cane, the Analyst and two ROOT guards immediately stood at his side. 

"We have an important meeting to prepare for."

They slipped into the shadows without another word.

Down below, the last of the sand had returned to the gourd. Gaara stood motionless, blood dripping from his chin, chest heaving with shallow, ragged breaths. Medical teams had attempted to give treatment but an icy glare from Gaara as well as assurances from the Sand Jonin sent them away.

Hayate, his voice hoarse but steady, stepped forward once more. “All victors of today’s matches, step forward. Gather here before the Hokage.” One by one, the battered but standing genin obeyed, filing into the arena’s center in a rough line.

At last, the Hokage descended from the gallery. White robes whispered against the stone as he took his place in the center of the arena. His gaze swept the gathered genin, the jonin, the uneasy foreign observers.

“Today’s matches are concluded and thus the second phase of the chunin exam has come to an end. To those who endured, I offer congratulations. You have fought with courage and skill, and proven your worth as shinobi. As for those who have been beaten, they have served their lands well and honored their role as a shinobi.”

His eyes lingered for a heartbeat on the doors where Neji had been carried out. Finally, his gaze rested on Gaara. A flicker of unease shadowed his expression, but he said nothing.

“The finals will take place one month from now,” Hiruzen continued. “That time is yours — to heal, to train, to prepare. Remember, your skills are now known to your fellow contenders. When next you meet, it will be against those who have studied you, who will be ready for you. Make the most of what time you are given.”

Lee raised his hand politely, though his voice carried with honest urgency. “Lord Hokage… what of those who advanced, but who are not present here?” His eyes flicked briefly toward the corridors where Ino and Neji had been taken. “Surely their fates should be spoken as well.”

Hiruzen gave a slow nod, his expression softening. “They will be notified shortly. Each who stands victorious, whether here or under medical care, has earned the same right. Their names will be recorded among the finalists, and they will be informed when they are able to stand.”

Lee bowed his head deeply. “Thank you, Lord Hokage.”

A murmur swept through the genin. Some bowed their heads in solemn focus. Others shifted nervously. A few, like Naruto, clenched their fists with renewed determination.

Hiruzen gave a small nod to the proctors. Hayate stepped forward with a scroll, his voice rasping as he read.

“Finals bracket:

Bracket A:

• Match 1: Gaara vs Misumi
• Match 2: Sasuke vs Hinata
• Match 3: Naruto vs Dosu
  • Match 7: Victors of Match 1 and Match 2
    • Match 9: Victors of Match 3 and Match 7

Bracket B:

• Match 4: Lee vs Ami
• Match 5: Shikamaru vs Kankuro
• Match 6: Shino vs Kin
  • Match 8: Victors of Match 4 and Match 5
    • Match 10: Victors of Match 6 and Match 8

Finale:

• Match 11: Victors of Match 9 and Match 10

As Hayate’s voice faded, the chamber stirred with the weight of it. Eyes darted across the room, measuring opponents, imagining battles yet to come.

Naruto’s heart hammered at the sight of his name against Dosu’s. Lee’s fists clenched in determination at the promise of his match. Shikamaru groaned softly under his breath.

Hiruzen’s voice broke through once more, quieter now, but no less firm. “One month. Prepare yourselves. The true test lies ahead.”

And with that, the matches were over.

The chamber slowly emptied, the genin filing out in tense clusters, whispers chasing them down the corridors. Proctors gathered weapons, medics folded away stretchers, and the Hokage himself withdrew with weary steps, his robes trailing like fading smoke.

But Gaara had opted to linger at the chagrin of his supposed “sensei” who he silenced with a glare.

His face was unreadable, eyes half-shadowed beneath the dim torchlight.

“Not enough blood…” he muttered, the words soft, rasping, meant for no one but himself.

A flicker passed through him, his thoughts sliding, restless. To another. The Uchiha. Cold eyes, already steeped in hate. Gaara could feel it even from afar, the same hollowness that drove him. Yes… those eyes he wanted to crush, to test, to savor.

And then, unbidden, the image of another rose. Pale eyes. Not the pristine glare he just faced but the jagged frost of the trembling bleeding girl. Eyes that had tasted death and begged to prove their existence.

His lips curved into a grin that was too thin, too wide. The sand coiled at his feet, eager, answering the hunger in his chest.
“Yes… their blood. Theirs will be better. Especially hers.”

The grin lingered, sharp and hungry, as the chamber went dark.

 

Notes:

Hope everyone enjoyed the chapter. :) So this pretty much ends what I had in mind for Arc 1. We shall begin Arc 2 next chapter. By the way, there is no timescale, but I'll probably be editing the prologue and first few chapters piece by piece to make it run smoother.

Chapter 15: Hidden Ambitions

Notes:

A new Chapter!

Chapter 15: Hidden Ambitions

The council chamber was built to impress silence.
High ceilings arched overhead, shadows pooling in their recesses. Scrolls lined the walls in ordered ranks, ancient seals glowing faintly on their bindings. At the center stood a long, low table of lacquered wood, polished so smooth the torchlight seemed to ripple across its surface. Every creak of the floor, every rustle of robes, carried far in the hush.

Hiruzen Sarutobi sat at the head, robes heavy on his shoulders, pipe resting cold between his fingers. His eyes, lined with age and sleeplessness, swept the gathered councils. To his left, the two factions of the Shinobi Council were arrayed like weapons. The noble Clans: Hyuga, silent and stiff, Hiashi’s face carved from stone. The Akimichi, broad and imposing. The Aburame, unreadable behind their collars and shades. The current representatives of the lesser clans: The Nara, bored but sharp-eyed. The Inuzuka, feral and uninterested.

To their right, the Civilian Council — silks and rings glinting, merchants and bankers whose fortunes swelled with the village’s power. They were far from warriors, but what they chose to do with their coffers would starve or feed an army and they knew it.

At the far end, the two elders, Homura and Koharu, relics of second Hokage’s order, their presence a quiet rebuke to everything that dared change.

No one spoke first.

The Hokage broke the stillness. His voice carried gently, but with the weight of stone. “Yesterday’s matches have concluded. The Chunin Exams proceed toward their finals. Already our guests from foreign lands whisper their judgments — about our strength, our resolve, and our control.”

Murmurs stirred. Hiashi’s gaze was forward, unblinking.

Hiruzen let his words settle before continuing. “We must speak of these matters plainly. Of the tensions with Takigakure, whose Jonin nearly fought with one of ours. Of the spectacle of Sunagakure’s prodigy, whose… unusual chakra raises questions best left unvoiced. Of the presence of the Sound, whose motives remain opaque. And of our own house — whether it stands united.”

His eyes flicked, deliberately, toward the Hyuga patriarch. “Hiashi. Your… daughter showed unexpected resolve in her match. She carried herself with courage before all nations.”

Hiashi did not so much as blink. “She is merely a discarded branch. Whatever she did, she did on her own. Do not mistake it as a reflection of the Hyuga name.”

The words fell like ice across the chamber. A few of the civilian council shifted uncomfortably. Choza Akimichi frowned. Even Shikaku Nara’s usual indifference sharpened into focus.

Hiruzen’s pipe pressed faintly against his teeth, unlit. “And yet she still is your child by blood.”

Hiashi’s eyes were hard. “Tread careful Lord Third. Do not concern yourself with matters you neither know not of, nor concern yourself. The Hyuga do not tolerate any shame or weakness. If you choose to praise her, do so as an individual.”

The silence stretched. Beneath the table, Hiruzen’s hand curled faintly into his sleeve. He thought of the blood on her palms, of that storm behind her pale eyes. Simply courage? No. Something darker.

Before he could answer, Homura’s voice cut in, brittle as old paper. “Enough indulgence. The true matter is this so-called alliance. You push it too far, Hiruzen. Takigakure’s jonin nearly killed our own, in the middle of our own village no less! Yet, you would still call them allies? The Sand are no less repulsive. They send a boy with that monstrous chakra and you expect us to clasp hands, look the promise of a new day while they already move against us? This is folly.”

The Civilian Council stirred in response. A merchant with jeweled fingers cleared his throat. “What is folly is cutting trade when our coffers swell. The Sand are poor in coin but rich in ore. Takigakure has water rights we sorely need. If profit can be made, then let the shinobi bleed in their exams. It is their role after all.”

Choza Akimichi growled low. “You speak as if they are not our children being bled.”

The chamber rippled with unease, the clash of ledgers and bloodlines spilling into raised voices. The long table became less a council hall and more a battlefield of words, steel traded for venom.

A civilian merchant snapped back, “And what of your missions, Akimichi? Your clan grows with every contract the Hokage grants. Do not posture as though you are above profit. The alliance fills your coffers as much as ours — only you take it in coin from war, not trade.”

Tusme Inuzuka barked a harsh laugh, teeth bared. “At least we earn ours on the field, not by bleeding the village dry from behind ledgers.”

Another merchant laughed mockingly “Oh please dearest, do sit down. You all chose this life, don’t act like YOU don’t groom your own children to live this life. We are merely making sure we do not grow so impoverished we can’t run this village!”

The retort stung; yet in truth, both sides fed from the same vein. Every caravan armed by the civilians lined shinobi pockets. Every shinobi contract secured by the clans kept merchants’ coffers flush.

At that, Hiashi’s head tilted, pale eyes glinting faintly. “Your coffers are not impoverished. They are merely less gluttonous. The Hyuga have invested much into this alliance — and it is by our effort that Takigakure even considers the pact.”

Tsume’s low growl broke through the chamber, sharp as a fang. “By your effort? Don’t make me laugh. You string half the continent into your beds and call it diplomacy. The Hyuga sell their pretty bodies for influence and call it honor. Maybe we’ll find your kin rutting in the red-light districts next, earning coin the only way you know how — flat on your backs.”

A sharp intake of breath rippled through the chamber. Even the civilians shifted in shock at the nakedness of the insult.

The Hyuga’s head turned, the faintest tilt, pale eyes glinting like pale fire. His voice was low, each word carrying like a blade across stone. “Mind yourself, Inuzuka. Do not mistake vulgar barking for strength. Be a good dog… and remember which clan holds your leash.”

The silence tightened, charged, like air before a storm.

Tsume’s lip peeled back, teeth flashing in a wolf’s snarl. Her hands pressed flat to the table, nails scoring the lacquer with an audible scrape. Muscles coiled in her shoulders as if she meant to vault the table and tear into him there and then. Her eyes burned with feral rage, every inch of her body screaming challenge.

Hiashi, by contrast, did not move. His posture remained pristine, his robes immaculate, his expression calm as carved stone. The contrast only made Tsume’s fury blaze hotter — the hound foaming, the aristocrat unmoved.

The Hyuga suddenly gave a soft reply, but it lanced the air like frostbite. “I’m sure you’re well aware, dogs that bite their master’s rarely live long.”

The growl in Tsume’s chest deepened. Her chair scraped as she half-rose—

“Enough! “The Akimichi head rumbled in, hand slamming down onto the table with a force that made the inkstones jump. The boom echoed like a war drum, jolting the chamber out of its crackling tension. His broad face was thunderous, cheeks red with fury.

“You will keep your temper in check Tsume or see your position removed!”

Choza turned then, heavy gaze shifting toward Hiashi.

“And you forget, Hiashi, that without our clans, your sway would not hold here in Konoha. The Hyuga may dazzle nobility, but inside these walls, you are not absolute. Do not ignore our weight.”

A faint rustle of cloth marked Hiashi’s sleeve shifting. “Yes, your… weight… certainly counts. But not against centuries of Hyuga stewardship. Ask the Grass, whose next daimyo is of our blood. Ask the Fire Daimyo’s heir, who seeks to wed into our house. Ask Takigakure, whose nobles now sing the Hyuga name. Ask Suna, whose Daimyo listens when we speak”

His gaze swept the chamber like a blade, before fixing back on Chōza.

“It is our branch work that gives Hiruzen-sama’s alliance root. And you would do well to remember, Akimichi — it was my clan that secured the very contracts you grow so fat upon. And more than contracts. Even the law that once barred our ascent — that relic is gone. Tell me, then, who in this hall can claim their place rivals ours when we are the beating heart of this alliance.?”

For a moment, the air hung heavy from the insult. Then, from the side, Shikaku Nara exhaled through his nose, his voice slow, flat.

“Such a drag… contracts and coffers. I thought this was supposed to be about the exams, not a pissing match between who is more important. If the clans want to measure influence, maybe we should let the kids keep fighting in the pit until the last one’s standing. Save us all the trouble of posturing.”

Hiruzen lifted a hand, his voice quiet but iron-bound. “Enough of this game, we must look past such insignificant points. This alliance is not the property of one clan. It is the future of all our children.”

For a breath, the chamber obeyed — silence pressing in, the faint crackle of torches loud against the stillness. Yet beneath it, the unease swelled. A merchant coughed into his sleeve, muttering about trade routes. Tsume’s nails clicked once against the wood. Even Hiashi’s stillness was a defiance of its own. It was not unity Hiruzen commanded, only a pause, and the pause quickly frayed.

The voices erupted once more, sharp and echoing in the chamber. Shinobi against civilians, Shinobi against shinobi, elders against all. Every line spoken with courtesy but weighted like kunai, each syllable meant to wound.

Hiruzen’s lips pressed thin around the pipe stem he did not light. He had always hated politics — the endless bickering, the masks of civility pulled over sharpened teeth. Once, there had been a man who relished this dance, who wielded words and secrets as deftly as blades. Danzo.

For a heartbeat, he almost longed for that cutting presence, for the ruthless certainty that could silence a chamber with a glance. For the dear and powerful partnership there had been. But the memory curdled quickly. It was because of that ruthlessness; the schemes, the shadows, the compromises that stank of blood — that Hiruzen had forbidden him from ever sitting among them again so many years ago. Old friend, old rival, old wound.

He cut the thought away like a bad root.

Hiruzen’s gaze lowered to the table, the polished surface reflecting flame and shadow alike. His chest felt heavy, as though the chamber itself pressed on him. This was not a unified government. This was a fractured hall at best.  And somewhere in the silence between their words, he heard the faintest echo of what he had seen yesterday in pale eyes: not courage, not hope — but the shape of something forged from cruelty, waiting to bloom.

The memory dragged a knot into his chest. Fragile children carrying weights older than empires, shaped by hands that cared little for their humanity. The clans, the merchants. How many more would Konoha’s “unity” consume before the cracks split it apart? Why could the village not see this alliance could finally end all the strife… all the war…

Stinging words were still being tossed when Koharu leaned forward, her voice rasping but sharp as a blade. “The Third would gamble our children’s lives for the sake of foreign smiles. Yesterday was proof. Takigakure all but executed their heir to the Yamanaka Clan before her clan’s eyes, and Sunagakure all but unleashed a weapon we have not seen since the Nine-Tails. What message does this send? That Konoha cannot protect its own.”

Whispers stirred at the mention of the Nine-Tails. Old scars itched in the silence that followed, the wound of that night never fully healed.

Hiashi voice entered, cool and cutting. “The elders would do well show some restraint with their unneeded flair, though they do speak some truth. My clan does not forget that night. And now Lord third you’d have us parade another vessel through our streets? This Gaara is dangerous, it is easy to see that.”

A ripple moved through the shinobi council. Choza Akimichi frowned. “He is dangerous, yes, but the boy is not ours to judge. He is Sunagakure’s burden. We must treat it as a matter of diplomacy, not hysteria.”

“Diplomacy?” Koharu snapped. “What use is diplomacy with vipers? Did you not see the hunger in that child’s eyes?”

Shikaku lazy drawl broke in, though his sharp eyes belied the tone. “Saw it plenty. Doesn’t change the fact the exams are meant to test will as much as skill. If we condemn every foreign genin who fights like a shinobi, we might as well end the exams now. Our own children are no gentler. Lets forget the Aburame’s child crippled a sound genin, and from what I hear that Taki genin our… He glanced at Hiashi… nameless pale eyed girl beat is still busy drowning with all the blood in his longs. These exams are designed to push our children to become fighters.

“That was no child,” Hiashi said coldly. “That was a monster parading as one.”

The words struck like a hammer. Some of the civilians shifted in their seats, murmuring uneasily.

One merchant, draped in violet silk, raised a hand. “If the Hyuga claim this Gaara is a monster, then should we not press Sunagakure for reparations? Perhaps their trade routes, perhaps tariffs lifted. A monster has its uses if we are clever with it.”

Chōza slammed a hand against the table, making the inkstones jump. “You would now turn a boy into a bargaining chip? Enough of your coin-counting!”

The merchant sniffed. “And you would throw away wealth for pride? The alliance threatens to dilute civilian control. Do you think we do not see? More trade with foreign shinobi means fewer contracts with us.”

The Aburame representative spoke for the first time, voice calm, almost insectile in its detachment. “Our concern is survival, not profit. If Sunagakure sends a child who can warp into a monster at any moment into our midst, then we must be ready to defend ourselves. With or without this alliance.”

Koharu nodded sharply. “At last, sense. We should withdraw now, while our strength remains unchallenged.”

Hiruzen’s pipe rested heavy in his hand. He let the voices clash, the din growing sharper, until he spoke again.

“This is why we hold these discussions.” His voice was quiet, but it cut through the noise like steel. The chamber stilled. His gaze swept over them — Hiashi’s cold eyes, Shikaku’s narrowed ones, the glitter of greed on the civilians, the iron disdain of the elders.

“You all saw Gaara. You saw Takigakure’s jonin. You saw the blade drawn against one of our own. And yet you miss the greater truth. The world watches us.”

He leaned forward, pipe forgotten. “Every nation sent their children here not merely to fight, but to measure us. If we falter, if we fracture, then the message will be clear: Konoha is weak. That will invite more than a monster. It will invite war.”

The word dropped like a stone into water. Even the civilians flinched.

He let the silence hang, then spoke again, softer. “The finals will draw noble eyes from every land. We will present Konoha united. Whatever we think of these foreign shinobi, or of our own, remember this: disunity here will be a feast for our enemies.”

Silence fell again, heavy as stone.

And in that silence, the fractures of Konoha’s heart yawned wide.

…

In another chamber, there was silence save for the scratch of brush on parchment.

Danzo’s hand moved with unhurried precision, his bandaged arm resting across the low desk, the other guiding the ink in narrow, angular strokes. The room was small, lined with shelves of scrolls and ledgers, dimly lit by a single lantern. Its flame sputtered faintly, as though cowed by the weight of secrets in the air.

A dozen reports lay spread before him — neat stacks of intelligence, each marked with the sigil of Root. The paper smelled of iron and ash, faint bloodstains already seeping into the fibers of some.

One file he lingered on longer than the rest. Hinata Hyuga. The medics reported her wounds were grave but not fatal. Her endurance, however, had surprised even them. She would leave the wing within days. He read the lines with no change in expression, yet his fingers pressed faintly into the parchment.

Bloodied, trembling, yet refusing to fall. He had dangled the smallest of rewards — a word, an acknowledgment — and she had performed beautifully. Collapsed not into weakness, but into adoration. A weapon not only tempered, but eager for the hammer.

His hand stilled, resting on the brush. “loyalty carved from rejection, fury drawn from tears.” His voice was low, rasping, as though speaking not to himself, but to the shadows. “A blade must be both fragile and unyielding, all powerful yet brittle. And she… she breaks exactly where I wish her to.”

The faintest curl ghosted at the corner of his lips, too brittle to be called a smile. “But even perfect glass requires constant pressure, else it dulls.”

His eye narrowed, thoughtful.  Still not enough… but she is slowly shaping exactly as required.

A faint rustle stirred as he opened another report. The lettering was sparse, half-coded, the words veiled in clinical detachment. Progress in the southern vaults. The old seals resist stability, but controlled exposure shows promise. Vessel candidates narrowed. Subject 037 nearing viable adaptation.

Danzo’s eye traced the lines without a flicker of emotion. Most would find the script incomprehensible; to him it was clear. The work was not yet finished, but it grew closer. The ultimate decay given form. A tool immune to entropy itself. A perfect blade against imperfection.

His thoughts turned, unbidden, to the war that nearly led to the Leaf’s destruction. The Third Shinobi War had drowned the continent in blood, and yet, amidst the carnage, Root had scavenged. Not out of desire, but rather desperation.

The war had been nothing short of suffocation. Kumo’s raids left rivers red, their shinobi striking deep into the Fire Country’s heartlands, tearing through border towns with blades and lightning. Iwa’s armies pressed like an avalanche from the north, their numbers endless, their earth release swallowing fields, forests, even mountains whole. To the west, Suna’s forces held vast stretches of territory, strangling trade routes and choking supply lines. And even Kiri — fractured, blood-mad, yet still vicious — had dipped its claws into the conflict, their assassins slipping through the mists to cut throats in the night.

The Leaf had stood besieged on every side. Even its unmatched strength bled thin, every victory purchased in torrents of blood. Hiruzen’s leadership may like to pretend it was honor and valor that stopped their enemies, when it was ROOT forces that pushed their enemies back. Yet it wasn’t enough. ROOT had been caught off guard when the war began. His calls to militarize further were ignored and the result? Their enemies had reformed stronger than ever, sacred fire territory torn asunder by the rats of the continent.

The Leaf had been forced to fight everywhere at once — stretched thin, bleeding from a thousand cuts,

Yet it wasn’t without merit. In the churned wastelands where armies clashed, old scars of the continent split open. Forgotten ruins, unearthed by detonations that shook valleys apart. Temples cracked by fire release, their stone bleeding secrets. Tombs of civilizations long extinguished, who had grasped at powers too vast to master. Others saw mere rubble, old bones. Danzo saw design. He saw blueprints, a theory to end all wars on this continent.

Reports had trickled in — fragments, half-burned scrolls, glyphs no scholar alive could wholly decipher. But the pattern was there. An ancient chakra that did not simply wound, but devoured. That rotted what it touched. ROOT operatives had given it a name in their logs: decay. A poor word. Too simple. The name was irrelevant.

What mattered was its application.

Even then, secrecy had been paramount. He remembered standing in a broken crypt as his operatives bled themselves dry to smother the chakra traces, silencing the ruin before the Hokage’s eyes could turn toward it. Hiruzen had believed ROOT his tool, but ROOT had always belonged to Danzo. The Hokage had commanded him to disband it after the third war — disgusted by the methods, fearful of the ambition. Danzo remembered the council chamber, the decree delivered like judgment. His political influence stripped, his power cut down with a word.

The memory still stung. The fury of it still pulsed under his skin. Hiruzen never understood. He bathed in his own glory, the godlike Hokage who quelled nations with his jutsu, while I carried the true burden of what the Fire Daimyo required, what was needed to ensure victory. He was strength. I was the mind. And for that, I was cast aside.

His eye hardened. But even stripped of power, I endured.

ROOT had simply sunk deeper, shifting into caverns and shadows where no decree could reach. He had been Tobirama’s student. He had learned early that true survival was not in firepower, but in foresight — in deception, in contingency, in never allowing yourself to be seen fully. If Hiruzen believed ROOT gone, then that only proved his blindness.

And now, decades later, Danzo still held the secrets no one else even knew to ask about. The ruins, the decay, the work that had grown slowly like roots under stone. Only he could wield it. Only he had the will.

The curtain stirred. The Analyst entered, flanked by two masked operatives. Their movements were noiseless, their presence already anticipated.

“You summoned us, Lord Danzo.”

Danzo’s visible eye shifted from the parchment to the figures before him. “You will accompany me. The eastern edge of the village forests.” His voice was flat, unyielding. “Our special guest stirs. I would hear his song myself.”

The Analyst bowed slightly but could not fully mask the flicker of unease in their stance. The two guards moved without question, their faces blank as carved masks.

Danzo set the brush aside. The lantern flame guttered, shadows stretching across the walls like black roots. As he rose, the room seemed to breathe with him — a space not of life, but of schemes coiled tight, waiting to unfurl.

And in the silence that followed, the name of Hinata lingered in his thoughts not as a child, nor as a shinobi, but as a tool. A keystone. A blade being sharpened, one edge at a time.

The thought pulled him backward through the years, to a different evening, a different silence. To the moment he first stepped from the shadows to test the edge of clay not yet hardened.

…

Setting: Konoha; 4 years ago

The evening air hung thick, tinted bronze by the sinking sun, and the faint chorus of cicadas droned over the silence. In one corner of the training grounds, a child sat slumped against a padded post. Her pale hands were trembling, swollen red at the palms where the skin had split and bled. Faint chakra burns patterned her fingers, the telltale glow of chakra exhaustion still clinging to her raw skin.

Hinata Hyuga, daughter of the main branch, heiress in name only.

She was crying quietly, tears sliding down her bruised cheeks, but her voice made no sound. The sobs had burned themselves raw over hours, leaving only the ragged wheeze of her breath. Her knees were pulled to her chest, her back pressed against the splintered post she had battered until her arms refused to rise. A child of eleven, yet she already wore the look of someone half-drowned — too weak to swim, too afraid to let herself sink.

Danzo watched from the tree line for several long moments before stepping forward. His steps were deliberate, the soft crunch of his sandal against soil timed to announce his presence without startling her.

The girl’s head jerked up all the same. She froze, eyes widening — pale, opals gleaming faintly in the fading light. Those eyes, even inactive, seemed otherworldly in children. In her tear-stricken face, it looked almost ghostly.

Danzo stopped a pace away from her, leaning slightly on his cane. His face was unreadable as ever, the right side swathed in bandages, his expression hidden in the shadow of dusk.

“You’re injured,” he said simply. His voice was calm, deep, neither stern nor gentle. Just a statement, as though observing the weather.

Hinata looked down at her hands as though ashamed to be caught. She wiped her cheeks quickly, trying to hide the fact she’d been crying. “I-I… I’m f-fine,” she whispered, voice hoarse.

Danzo’s one visible eye lingered on her. The way her shoulders trembled, the way she struggled to speak without stammering.

“Fine?” His tone was flat, a blade scraping stone. “Your hands say otherwise.”

She curled them into fists, hiding the cracked, raw skin. “I just… I need more practice.”

A silence stretched between them. In the distance, a crow cawed once, then was swallowed by the droning insects. Danzo studied her posture, the bruises on her arms, the exhausted twitch of chakra still leaking uncontrolled from her chakra points. She was overextending, bleeding herself dry in pursuit of a standard she would never reach.

“What are you practicing for?” he asked at last.

Her lips parted, then shut again. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. When she spoke, it was barely above a whisper: “To… to be s-strong.”

“Strong,” Danzo repeated, rolling the word as though weighing it. He let the silence sharpen before replying. “Strength is not born from tears.”

Her head lowered, shame pressing her spine into the post.

Danzo’s gaze did not soften. He had no interest in comfort. Comfort dulled resolve. Instead he leaned slightly closer, his voice quiet but cutting, the tone of a man laying out an absolute.

“A shinobi’s life is pain,” he said. “The weak crumble under it. The strong endure it. Which will you be?”

Her small fingers tightened against her knees. She didn’t answer.

That was enough.

Danzo straightened, turning away as though the matter was concluded. He did not press her, did not extend a hand or offer pity. He let the words hang in the air like a blade, knowing she would carry them.

As he walked past, he dropped something onto the dirt beside her: a wrapped piece of yokan, the kind sold cheaply in Konoha’s markets. A child’s treat, incongruous against the fading light.

He didn’t look back when he said, “Eat.”

Hinata blinked at the candy as though it were a foreign object. Slowly, hesitantly, she picked it up with shaking hands.

Her lips parted. “Th… thank you,” she whispered, so faint it was almost lost to the cicadas. She dared to look up, her voice trembling as she added, “M-may I… know your name?”

No answer came.

Her eyes flicked once toward the bandaged man, but he was already gone, his figure swallowed into the tree line.

She sat alone in the silence once more. But the echo of his words lingered longer than the cicadas, carving themselves into the cracks of her breaking heart.

Danzo meanwhile walked calmly the shadows of the forest, cane tapping lightly against stone as he followed the worn trail back toward the village. He did not smile, but the single eye behind his bandages glinted faintly.

That would be enough for now. A seed planted.

Lonely children were the easiest clay. Those who had not yet shattered, but lived every day on the verge of it — those were the most malleable.

And Hinata Hyuga was nothing if not malleable.

He would not rush. Seeds did not sprout overnight. They required time, darkness, and a steady hand to guide their growth.

He had not arrived at that training field by chance. ROOT did not gamble; it harvested. For more than a year his watchers had sifted through the Hyuga’s walls — not directly, never foolishly, but through the servants, the merchants, the silences between reports. Pride made men careless in predictable ways. A steward short on coin, a guardsman who drank more than his share, a scribe who lingered too long with a lover. Each was a thread, and threads, once collected, wove a pattern.

From those patterns, ROOT learned of the child. The main-branch heiress who faltered at her stances, who exhausted her chakra until her palms blistered, who failed to answer her father’s expectations and in doing so exposed the clan’s cruelty. She was not spoken of openly. She was referred to in euphemism — discipline, closed correction, delicate matters. But the language of secrecy was itself a beacon. When a clan locked the doors that tightly, it was because something inside had begun to rot.

Danzo had marked her name the way a hunter marks spoor on the edge of a clearing. He did not approach at once. He let the clan do its work first, watched as they pushed her deeper into silence, certain they were pruning weakness. All the while, ROOT mapped her routine: when she trained, where her attendants were dismissed, how long before someone came to fetch her. These were not casual notes. They were the outlines of a cage he meant to step into at precisely the right moment.

And so he bid his time. A year of patience, a year of quiet steps and false disinterest. The Third would have called it meddling. Danzo called it inevitability. The clan had already written her off. He intended only to collect what they had thrown away — a fragment to be honed, a shard to be used.

Even from afar, the Hyuga compound loomed in the distance; a fortress within the fortress of Konoha itself. Pale walls, deeper than stone; traditions layered like lacquer until the grain of truth was long buried beneath polish. For generations, they had been the other pillar — the counterweight to the Uchiha ever since the Senju were all but wiped out in the first war. Wealth, discipline, and the Byakugan’s mythic prestige had made the Hyuga indispensable, a viable rival to the might of the Sharingan. Now, with the Uchiha line bled into ash, that indispensability had hardened into something closer to a stranglehold.

They along with the Uchiha could not take the Hokage’s chair themselves as stipulated by the Second Hokage in an attempt to keep peace. But while the damned Uchiha proved their battle lust extensively, the Hyuga’s role was subtler, yet more dangerous. Their influence was less direct power and more of leverage. Nobles looked to them for assurances, lesser clans for protection, and the Hokage for the illusion of stability. Even the Fire Daimyo respected their presence — not because of fealty, but because the Hyuga carried the weight of land and coin in their silken sleeves. They made the chair untouchable to any who would not align with their goals first.

Danzo had measured that barrier long ago and found it immovable time and time again. It did not matter. ROOT will continue to serve, one way or another…

In the era of the Third’s soft governance, it had become decorous to claim that “the Hokage governs in trust, and the clans serve in honor.” Pretty words. Yet Danzo had learned long ago that trust without verification was negligence, and honor without fear was merely vanity.

The Uchiha had taught Konoha something vital, though none of the factions would say the lesson aloud: clan autonomy was a lever that could topple a village if left to swing unrestrained.

The Hyuga were no Uchiha. They preferred immaculate pressure to open revolt. But pressure, properly read, was a confession. It told him where the pipes ran, and how near they were to bursting. Hinata was not an heir; she was a safety valve. If she cracked, the rest of the porcelain might hold.

A breeze slipped down the narrow street, carrying the faint scent of cedar smoke and broth from a distant stall. Danzo’s eye narrowed. The village at night liked to pretend it was safe, peaceful, a tapestry of warm rooms and dutiful lamps. That was illusion—necessary, even beautiful—but illusion nonetheless. Beneath each eave, within each cask of rice, lay contingencies: coded scrolls, masked watchers, cut corners of maps that led out of the fire and into the forest. He had seeded ROOT through the seams the way moss seeds stone. The Third once called it paranoia. Danzo called it stewardship.

But stewardship was more than patrols and contingencies. It was listening for what the village preferred not to remember, seeking advancement no matter what blood was needed to be spilled.

ROOT had carried back more than reports during the war. From the rubble of temples crushed under stone release, from the vaults of abandoned forts left to rot, his operatives unearthed fragments that the clans had quietly chosen to leave buried. Half-burnt scrolls, broken seals, inscriptions scrawled in languages older than the Hidden Villages themselves. None complete, none definitive—yet together they whispered of something dangerous, something excised from memory with deliberate care.

Those unearthed fragments from the Third war, carried a series of messages that gnawed at him. A truth of Decay and that of the Withered Blossom.

The words were usually framed in vague warnings. Most would dismiss them as lost myth, a fable meant to frighten children away from misusing chakra. Danzo saw them differently. History did not bury what was useless. It buried what was feared.

ROOT had taken great pains to decipher what secrets the Hyuga knew, only to come to a disappointing realization. The Hyuga were too jealous of their bloodline to know of this lost birthright. Whether or not it was they who locked away, it promised something they could not control — a decayed truth they had forgotten.

Danzo’s fingers flexed once on the cane. Perhaps it was nothing but rumor. Or perhaps it was a vein of ore, cut from the bedrock of a clan that prized porcelain purity above dangerous strength. Either way, Hinata’s existence within that system — unwanted, unloved, punished into silence — made her the perfect place to test, to warp, to meld into a viable tool.

…

For the next weeks, he would return to the training grounds, spreading his net. Never staying longer then a few minutes.

The next time he found her, the girl was kneeling in the dirt, palms pressed so hard to the ground her shoulders quivered. She had driven herself into exhaustion again, her chakra stuttering uncontrolled from her coils like leaking steam. Danzo approached without a sound until his shadow fell across her.
“You are collapsing your spine,” he said. Not kind, not cruel — simply cold factual. He tapped his cane against the earth. “A shinobi stands even when the body begs to fold.”
She stiffened, straightening instinctively. Her breaths came ragged, but she obeyed. That was enough. He left her without another word.

It was raining when he found her next. The girl’s hair clung wet to her face, her hands raw again from striking sodden wood. She did not see him until he set down a small parcel wrapped in waxed paper. Inside: chestnut sweets, bought from a vendor on his way.
“You waste energy on pain,” he observed. “Channel it, or it consumes you.”
Her eyes flicked to the gift, wide, uncertain. She whispered thank you. He did not reply, only turned and left, his cane tapping rhythm against the puddles. Gratitude was another form of debt.

Days later, she sat slumped in the shadow of the post, tears shining on her cheeks. He did not acknowledge them. Instead, he pointed to her stance.
“Your weight drifts forward. That is why you fall.”
She scrambled upright, correcting herself with desperate speed. Her shoulders trembled as she forced her body into the new position. Danzo gave the faintest nod. “Better.”
The word struck her harder than any blow.

Another evening, he found her staring at her hands as though they belonged to someone else. Her voice was little more than a whisper when she asked, “Why do I always fail?”
Danzo looked down at her, his bandaged face unreadable. “You are weak,” he said, the girl at his side flinching.

“However all weakness can be cut away… under the right circumstances”.

Her lips parted, as if to answer, but he was already walking away.

After two months, she would wait for him. Not openly, not consciously — but her eyes searched the shadows as though expecting the cane’s rhythm. At times he would simply watch from the shadows, noticing the disappointment in her shoulders when the day ended and he never appeared.

…

5 months later

Danzo leaned on his cane as he took note of the contents of the scroll in front him. ROOT’s eyes and ears already threaded through the fabric of the Hyuga clan detailed that the child would be branded with the Cage Bird Seal. This was not new information of course. He had known the sealing had begun to be discussed weeks in advance.

The seal was nothing new to him. He had studied the branch family’s mark before — the cursed script that locked the Byakugan at death and gave the elders the power to burn obedience directly into flesh. He had seen it used once, long ago, on a branch shinobi caught in disobedience. The man had convulsed until his eyes bled, clawing at his own skull in a frenzy to silence pain only his mind could register. Danzo had filed it away as an efficient cruelty, the sort of mechanism a clan devised when it feared itself more than its enemies.

But this one was not quite the same. His informants reported that additional lines of chakra script, brushstrokes that veered from standard. Not merely a leash. Not merely a brand of punishment. Something more. The purpose, even his agents could not yet confirm. Only that the elders spoke in hushed tones, and that the calligrapher burned his drafts when finished.

Danzo considered intervening. For a moment, the thought lingered — to disrupt the rite, to snatch the child before the brand could be carved into her. But mercy, he knew, was a chain. Rescue breeds gratitude, and gratitude binds a child to memory. He needed her clean. Severed. Wiped. The Hyuga’s actions would do the work for him. They would prune the branch, and he would be waiting with hands open to catch what they discarded.

So he let them do it.

ROOT’s reports painted the aftermath clearly. The girls screams and undignified attempts at mercy. The sealing process was an agonizing process.  The elders called it discipline. Her father called it necessity. Servants called it nothing at all. The girl endured in the only way a child could: trembling, gasping, shattering into smaller and smaller pieces.

Danzo simply waited. Weeks passed. He measured time not by the moon, but by the rhythm of her collapse. There was an art to these things.

Patience was a weapon. And he would wield it.

When the time came, he would step into the cage they had built and present himself not as a mentor, nor as kin, but as something far simpler: Purpose.

…

The council chamber of the Hyuga was a narrow place, though its architects had meant for it to look vast. Polished cedar pillars rose from the tatami like bars of a cage, paper screens painted with serene cranes hiding the fact that nothing spoken here was ever serene. Danzo sat across from three elders, his cane laid neatly beside him, his expression as unreadable as the bandages on his face.

Hiashi sat further down the table, hands folded within his sleeves. His eyes were fixed on the floorboards, as though watching an old stain. He did not speak.

The eldest elder — his hair as white as the walls, his gaze sharp as glass — was the first to break the silence.
“You ask much, Danzo. To take a daughter of the main branch from her house.”

Danzo inclined his head slightly. “I ask nothing. I offer efficiency. Your clan has deemed her unworthy. Shall that judgment be wasted? Better the village salvage what you discard than let her linger as dead weight.”

A second elder leaned forward, his lip curling. “Even an unworthy child bears the eyes. They are not yours to claim.”

“The eyes are sealed,” Danzo replied, voice steady. “By your own hand. You have ensured they will never pass beyond your control. What remains is potential labor. And labor belongs to the village.”

A dry laugh escaped the third elder, a woman whose voice rasped like paper. “Labor? That one? She falters in her stances, she weeps in silence. A shinobi requires steel, not tears.”

“Steel,” Danzo said, “is forged by hammer and fire. Both you have already provided. Allow me to finish the work.”

The first elder’s eyes narrowed. “At a cost.”

Danzo’s eye remained calm. “Very well”

Jowls leaned forward, the gleam of calculation unhidden. “Coin. Substantial coin. A trust established in our vaults to… recompense training hours already sunk.”

“The training hours you now deem wasted,” Danzo replied, tone even. “Very well. State a sum.”

The figure named was obscene. Even Hiashi’s head tilted a fraction.

Danzo neither flinched nor asked it to be repeated. “Approved.”

A ripple went through the dais. They had expected haggling; he gave them none. The lean elder’s eyes narrowed minutely, recalibrating.

“Coin alone does not salvage reputation,” he continued. “Contracts, then. Missions of rank B and A—certain routes, certain patrons—reassigned where prudent to Hyuga teams.”

Danzo’s cane turned the width of a thumb on stone. “A list of patrons, prepared by your accountants, will be delivered to my liaison. We will see what can be… encouraged from the Hokage’s office.”

The third elder—a woman whose hair was white as chalk and whose voice could have split bone—cut across. “Intelligence. You hold channels we do not. We will require notice of… movements. Of particular interest to our estates abroad.”

“Requests by petition,” Danzo said. “Specific in scope, justified in writing. My office answers yes or no. You know the game.”

Her mouth thinned. “We do.”

“And,” she added. “The girl will be expected to sleep within our walls. She goes where you deem fit. She does what you deem fit. But, she will appear when called at clan functions. She is seen to be Hyuga in public. We have already shown her as a main branch and will not lose face because of her weakness.”

Danzo inclined his head the slightest degree. It was a concession he had anticipated, and it cost him nothing. To the elders, appearances were lifeblood. To him, they were camouflage. If the clan wished to parade her as ornament while he sharpened her as blade, so much the better.

“Furthermore, whatever you do this child is below us, however,” the second elder added, voice hard, “On the matter of discipline you will inform us when you… correct her. We will not have a Hyuga, as worthless as she may be, paraded in public with clear marks on her. She will not shame the clan further.”

Danzo’s visible eye did not move. “Your terms are noted.”

The first elder leaned back, satisfied, but there was one more cruelty left to reveal. His tone was measured, casual, as though speaking of the weather.
“The seal we placed upon her differs from the branch family’s mark. It will protect our secrets even in death, yes — but it also ensures her line ends with her. She will bear no heirs worthy of our name. Whether the failure breeds or not, her bloodline will not threaten the purity of the clan again.”

For a moment, the chamber was silent save for the faint hiss of oil lamps. Danzo let the words settle, heavy and foul. He did not flinch. If anything, his thoughts hummed with interest.

Wonderful. This revelation only sharpens my design.

Hiashi stirred, at last, his hands tightening within his sleeves. His mouth opened as if to speak, then closed again when the elder’s gaze turned to him. His eyes flicked once toward Danzo — a fleeting crack in the mask, gone in an instant. Regret, perhaps. Or weakness.

Danzo placed his hands on the table, fingers steady. “Then she is already discarded. What you prune, I will cultivate. ROOT has use for every fragment, no matter how imperfect. Worth is not found. It is carved.”

The elders exchanged a long, silent look. At length, the first elder inclined his head. “So be it. Take her. She is yours.”

Danzo rose, cane tapping against the tatami like a closing verdict. “Then Konoha thanks the Hyuga for their… contribution.”

Neither of them bowed.

…

The isolated room at the edge of the Hyuga estate could hardly be called a room at all, but a box lined with tatami that smelled of damp straw. No lamps, no scrolls, no marks of belonging. A futon thin as paper lay in the corner. The sliding door shut behind Danzo with a finality that told him no one else had entered in days.

She sat hunched on the futon, knees to her chest, nails dug so deep into her porcelain skin that angry welts rose in greeting. Even bloodier marks scored her arms and legs, as if she had tried to claw out her uselessness herself. Her eyes were rimmed red, lids swollen. The mark was cleanly visible on her forehead, the skin still raw and blistered from the seals etchings.

The child looked up as he drew closer, then froze. The silhouette in the doorway was unmistakable: the bandages, the cane, the quiet weight that filled every silence. The man that had visited her so many times.

Her lips parted, but no name came. She had none for him. Only the certainty that he was real, that he had returned when no one else had. In the wake of screams that had emptied her voice, in the ruins of a family that had discarded her, he alone remained. The thought lodged itself in her chest like a splinter: if anyone could answer her, it would be him.

“Do… do I have any w-worth?” The words cracked as they left her, half a whisper, half a plea; her voice a painful rasp from endless sobs.

Danzo’s cane tapped once against the floor, steady as a judge’s gavel. He stood over her, bandaged face unreadable, his voice a blade dulled of sympathy.

“No.” he said.

He let the silence stretch, heavy, crushing, until her trembling deepened.

For the first time, he gave her more. His name.

“I am Danzo Shimura. Come with me child, and I will carve into you the worth you so desire. You will be my weapon. 

Danzo turned, sliding the door open. "And I take care of my tools.”

With that, he walked out; steps echoing down the corridor.

And then, unsteady but resolute, she rose from the futon. Her legs shook, nearly giving beneath her weight, but she forced them forward. Step by step, she followed him out of the barren room. She did not ask where he was leading her. She did not need to.

Danzo did not glance back. He did not need to. Her footsteps, light and faltering, told him all he needed to know. 

…

Setting: Konoha; Present

Deep within the western forests, a ways away from the village where the canopy strangled even moonlight, a chamber had been carved into the roots of the earth. The walls wept with damp, etched here and there with sigils that pulsed faintly, their light throwing crooked shadows across stone. The air smelled of soil and old blood.

Danzo entered first, cane tapping against the uneven floor. The Two masked ROOT guards flanked him before stepping back into the dark corners of the chamber. The Analyst followed at his side, robes neat, expression pared down to stone. Their presence was silent yet deliberate, the weight of another mind sharpened for schemes.

Orochimaru was already waiting. Pale as candlewax, lips curved in that serpentine smile, golden eyes gleaming with their slitted hunger. Beside him lingered Kabuto, spectacles flashing faintly in the sigil-light, and further back two younger shapes shifted restlessly, their postures more predator than guard. A girl with tangled red hair and grim face. Beside her, a lean boy who appeared to have a second head, lulling at his back.

Danzo’s gaze lingered on Kabuto for a heartbeat. Danzo gave no sign of shock, only the calm calculation of a man tallying a debt that would someday be collected.

“Orochimaru,” Danzo said, voice stripped bare of ceremony.

“Danzo,” the Sannin replied, savoring the name. “It seems we are both too old to be prowling the woods at this hour. One might think we’ve run out of faith in the sun.”

Danzo did not rise to the bait. “You know why I called you here.”

“Do I?” Orochimaru’s tongue flicked across his lips, his chuckle low, indulgent. “Or do you mean to test whether I already know?”

The Analyst’s eyes flicked briefly toward Danzo but said nothing, their stillness sharper than any question.

“You move pieces across the board,” Danzo said at last. “Sound. Sand. Even the Uchiha boy.” His visible eye narrowed. “I will not waste time pretending ignorance.”

At that, Kabuto adjusted his glasses, the gleam of his lenses hiding a faint smirk. The two figures in the back shifted again, like wolves impatient to be unleashed.

The ROOT guards for their part didn’t even move, still as statues.

Orochimaru chuckled. “Ah, Sasuke-kun. Such a luminous flame in such a fragile body. It is only natural I would take an interest.”

Danzo’s cane struck once against the stone, echoing. “You will find that some flames burn themselves out before they can be claimed.”

The snake-sannin tilted his head, smile widening. “Perhaps. Or perhaps you hope to douse the fire yourself. Konoha’s garden does not tolerate wild growth, does it?”

Danzo remained silent. The Analyst, watching, caught the silence like a knife unsheathed.

Orochimaru leaned forward slightly, his voice lowering into something almost intimate. “Still… it is not only Sasuke who fascinates me. I’ve developed an interest in another. Perhaps you know of her? So small, yet so deadly. Deliciously pale eyes sharpened and honed. Mmm…” His tongue slid across his lips with languid relish. “Such promise.”

Danzo’s eye narrowed, but his voice was ice. “Your interests matter little to me. I am here to discuss business, not chat with you.”

Orochimaru’s laughter spilled into the chamber, rattling and sensuous, clinging to the damp walls like a stain. Kabuto’s smile deepened; the two figures in the back leaned forward, restless. The Analyst did not move, though in their stillness was a contempt that cut sharper than words.

“Our purposes overlap,” Danzo said, stepping closer into the glow of the sigils. “That does not make us allies. But it makes us… less than enemies.”

“An elegant way to say we need each other,” Orochimaru purred. His gaze slid past Danzo, toward the shadows where the ROOT shinobi waited. “Tell me, do you ever tire of pretending that you kill for Konoha, while I make no excuses for my appetites?”

Danzo’s single eye glinted. “Konoha will rise eternal. With or without you, snake.”

The laughter that followed was low, sibilant, and obscene, curling through the chamber as the roots above trembled — as though the forest itself strained to listen to the bargain being brought fourth.

 

Notes:

As always, feedback always appreciated! :)