We hadn't gone fifty meters before my brain started chewing on itself.
Naruto's Squad Mark hummed steady in the back of my skull. His Pulse Tag sat warm and familiar at my mental fingertips. Both said he was fine.
My eyes kept insisting on replaying him tied up in that root pocket, pants hiked crooked, face slack.
"Stop," I told myself, ducking under a low branch. "He's walking. He's yelling. That means alive. Focus on the jerks who made you use the pee seal in anger."
"Hey," Naruto said, voice still a little thick but climbing back toward normal. "We're gonna go find those guys, right?"
Of course he wanted revenge.
Sasuke glanced at him. "You want to get jumped again?"
"I wanna punch them." Naruto scowled at the trees like they'd personally conspired. "Who ambushes somebody in the bathroom? That's cheating."
"We are in a murder forest," I said. "I'm pretty sure the rulebook is just a picture of Anko flipping us off."
"Still cheating," he muttered.
I hesitated, then nodded once. "They know we exist now. They've seen our gear. If we leave them completely alone, they'll just try again when your pants are even further down."
Naruto made a wounded noise.
"Strategically," I added, because that sounded less petty, "it's better to at least know where they are and what they can do."
Sasuke's eyes narrowed in thought. "They'll regroup somewhere nearby," he said. "Ambushers like to work in familiar terrain."
"Can you track them?" Naruto asked.
Sasuke shrugged. "Maybe. I cut the henge one across the throat. He'll be bleeding." His gaze went to me. "You said you felt him run."
"Not in a useful way," I said. "Just…noise. But between that, footprints, broken branches, blood, and the fact they're idiots, yeah. We can probably find them."
Naruto grinned, lopsided and a little too sharp. "Good. Then we beat them up and take their stuff."
Wow. Konoha's curriculum, everybody.
"Clarification," I said. "We beat them up if they insist on being a problem. Then we take their stuff. Priority order matters."
"Same result," Sasuke said.
"Details," I muttered. "Whatever. Let's hunt our muggers."
Tracking in this forest felt like trying to follow one set of muddy footprints across a Jackson Pollock painting.
The ground was all churned leaf mold and old roots. Every bush had been brushed by a hundred desperate kids in the last few hours. Chakra residue clung to everything like humidity.
But we had a start point: the hole they'd dropped Naruto in. From there, Sasuke did the boring practical thing. He crouched, squinted at the scuffs in the dirt, the angle of snapped twigs, the way the underbrush leaned.
"They went that way," he said, pointing off to the left. "Fast. Four sets of prints. One heavier, three about our size."
"So they dragged you," I said to Naruto.
He grunted. "I don't remember anything after getting whacked. Just boom, nothing, then your annoying voice."
"You're welcome," I said.
We moved slower now, Sasuke in front, Naruto in the middle where I could keep both boys within tag-range. My chakra sense stretched whether I wanted it to or not, tasting for the fading smear of that too-quiet Ame chakra that had worn Naruto's face.
There. Faint smudge to the left, like someone had spilled watered-down ink in the forest's murky green-brown wash.
"We're on them," I murmured. "Still moving, but not fast. Either they think they lost us, or they're tired."
"Good," Naruto said. "I'm gonna make them more tired."
His chakra was bright and spiky again, anger re-inflating him. The weirdly comforting thing was: under the anger, there was embarrassment. Shame at having been taken out that easily. Shame flickering against his usual stubborn "I'm fine."
I understood that flavor too well.
We followed the trail through a thicker patch of trees. The canopy lowered. The air got heavier, louder with insect buzz. Twice, Sasuke stopped us to skirt around things that might've been natural pitfalls or might've been the kind of trap that ended with "congratulations, you are plant food now."
Finally, voices bled through the underbrush.
"…told you it wouldn't work," someone hissed ahead. "You blew the henge too early."
"Yeah? Maybe don't tie the brat up so close," another voice shot back. "His friends were right there."
A third, cracked and nervous: "Shut up. If they're looking for us, they're already listening."
I held up a hand. Sasuke froze. Naruto nearly crashed into his back.
We crouched behind a curtain of moss and ferns. Through it, I could just make out a little clearing: a half-rotten log, a muddy puddle, three Rain headbands glinting.
We'd found them.
One was the fake Naruto: bandage slapped over the cut on his neck, jaw tight. He was pacing in tight lines like a caged dog. Another leaned against the log, picking at his nails with a kunai, trying too hard to look relaxed. The third sat on the log itself, knees up, arms wrapped around them. He looked…small. Freckled. Eyes glued to the forest.
Desperate kids. No adults. No backup.
"Okay," I whispered. "We could do the honorable thing and announce ourselves, or—"
"We ambush them," Sasuke said, immediately.
Naruto actually looked offended for a second. "Hey, they started it."
"Cool," I whispered. "Then we give them a taste of their own…bathroom medicine."
Naruto made a face. "Don't say it like that."
I dug into my pouch, fingers brushing familiar paper edges, cold metal, the sticky feel of drying ink. I'd already burned chakra on Squad Marks, the Pulse Tag, diagnostics—nothing huge, but it all added up. My reserves buzzed low, like someone had turned the dimmer switch down.
Nothing fancy, then. No big traps. Just…tactical rudeness.
"Plan," I said. "Naruto, clones from that side." I pointed to where the underbrush thickened. "Make noise. Be loud. Pull their focus."
"That's my specialty," he muttered, but he was already grinning. "Then I hit them."
"Eventually," I said. "Sasuke, you circle around the other side. Take the henge idiot first. He'll expect you; he already fought you."
Sasuke nodded once. "And you?"
"I stay back with tags," I said. "Support, not frontline. Flash if they try to bail, sticky if they throw anything nasty. If one of them looks like they're about to do something big, yell, and I'll try to interrupt."
"And if they have the other scroll?" Naruto's eyes were bright.
"Then we take it," Sasuke said.
Everyone looked at me.
"Look," I said, keeping my voice low. "I'm not saying we don't loot them. I am saying we don't kill them."
Naruto blinked. "I wasn't gonna kill them," he said. "I was gonna…beat them up."
"Some genin teams are going to kill people in here," Sasuke said. He didn't sound like he liked the idea. Just like he'd already filed it under unavoidable. "If they're that weak, leaving them might just mean someone else finishes it."
"Do you want that on your conscience?" I asked. "Because I definitely don't need 'indirectly outsourced murder' on my file already."
"This is a ninja exam," he said.
"So?" My voice sharpened. "We don't have to aim for high marks in 'efficient child execution.' We knock them out, we tie them up somewhere that doesn't scream 'instant death,' and we keep moving. They live long enough for the proctors to decide if they pass or fail."
Naruto made a face. "We can…do that?"
"Yes," I said. "We absolutely can choose to not be complete assholes. Revolutionary concept."
Sasuke stared at me for a beat—dark eyes, unreadable—and then looked away.
"Fine," he said. "Knock out. Strip gear. Leave them breathing."
"Thank you," I muttered. My heart was pounding faster than the situation warranted. Old ghosts whispering: you know what happens when the adults decide who gets to be disposable.
This time, I was the one making the call. So we weren't doing that.
I took a breath. The forest air tasted like mud and metal and insect wings. Naruto's chakra burned hot at my side. Sasuke's coiled, razor-focus.
"On three," I said. "One. Two—"
Naruto burst out of the bushes at "two."
"HEY, TOILET MUGGERS!" he yelled, already mid-handseal. "REMEMBER ME?"
Subtlety: never an option.
Sasuke vanished in the opposite direction with a muttered curse. I stayed where I was, because someone had to.
Naruto's entrance was, predictably, like dropping a grenade into a tea party.
The Rain kids flinched hard. The fake-Naruto's eyes went wide; the one on the log actually yelped and nearly fell off. The kunai-picker snapped upright, blade in hand.
"N-Not him again," log-boy stammered.
Naruto skidded to a stop at the edge of the clearing, flinging his arms out wide. "You knocked me out while I was peeing," he shouted, voice climbing. "That is a CRIME. I am here for JUSTICE."
"Subtle," I muttered under my breath.
"Get him!" bandage-neck shouted, because of course he did.
They all moved at once.
Kunai-picker flung two blades at Naruto's chest. Log-boy scrambled to his feet and started fumbling through handseals, panic all over his face. Bandage-neck leapt forward, drawing a kunai of his own, clearly aiming to close distance and stab the loudest problem.
Naruto grinned—actual grin this time, stupid and fierce.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
Smoke exploded around him. Three Narutos, then six, then ten spilled out of the cloud, all yelling variations of "TOILET JUSTICE!" as they charged.
The kunai hit clones, dissipating them into smoke. Bandage-neck cursed, slashing through fake bodies. Log-boy lost his place in his handseals entirely, eyes going saucer-wide.
That's when Sasuke dropped out of a tree behind them.
He didn't yell. He didn't announce. He just fell like gravity had been waiting for this. His foot hit bandage-neck in the side of the head, sending the guy sprawling. The kunai flew from his hand and thunked harmlessly into a stump.
I took that as my cue.
"Flash," I whispered.
My fingers were already on the paper tag I'd drawn earlier—simple seal, minimal chakra cost. I flicked it into the clearing. It landed between kunai-picker and log-boy, harmless as litter.
Then it detonated in a burst of white light.
The Ame genin screamed. Naruto yelped. Sasuke swore.
"Warn me next time," he hissed, voice muffled by his forearm as he shielded his eyes.
"Didn't want them to hear," I hissed back, crawling forward through the ferns to get a better angle. My heart was doing tap-dance routines in my throat.
The flash had done its job, though. Kunai-picker stumbled blindly, slashing at air. Log-boy flailed, rubbing at his eyes, tears streaming from the sudden brightness.
"Now!" I shouted.
Naruto clones swarmed. Two grabbed kunai-picker's arms, wrenching them behind his back. Another tripped him at the knees. He went down in a tangle of limbs and swearing.
Two more clones tackled log-boy around the waist, hauling him off the log. He shrieked once, then hit the ground with a thud.
Bandage-neck was tougher. Even stunned from Sasuke's kick and half-blinded, he rolled with the impact, came up low, and swept Sasuke's legs.
Sasuke jumped over the sweep like he'd expected it. His heel caught bandage-neck in the chest. The Rain genin slid back in the dirt, breath leaving him in a loud wheeze.
For half a second, it looked like he'd keep fighting. Then he looked up and saw what we'd done to his teammates: kunai-picker pinned by clones, log-boy face-down with his arms wrenched back.
His eyes flicked to Naruto—real Naruto, standing amidst his clones like a small furious god—and to Sasuke, who had his Sharingan half-awake in his gaze, black eyes gone colder.
Then his gaze slid past them, to me.
I was still half in the bushes, ink-stained, glasses slightly askew, one hand on another tag. Not impressive. Not threatening.
But he'd already learned what happened when he underestimated the support.
He froze, chest heaving.
"Smart choice," I said, stepping into the clearing proper. My legs felt like undercooked noodles; I pretended that was a stylistic decision. "Here's how this is going to go. You answer some questions, we borrow some equipment, we leave you alive. Try anything cute, and we reintroduce you to unconsciousness."
Kunai-picker struggled against the clones holding him. "You can't just—this is an exam!"
"Exactly," I said. "Which means the proctors are watching, and I really don't want to get disqualified for redecorating the forest with your intestines. So work with me."
"Wow," Naruto muttered. "That was dark."
"I've had a day," I said.
Bandage-neck spat blood into the dirt. "You think we're just gonna roll over? We need a scroll. We're not going home without one."
There it was. Need. Not want.
Naruto bristled. "So you just decided to take mine? While I was peeing?"
"Yes," I added. "The indecency is the real crime here."
"Shut up," he hissed at me, but his ears were red.
Bandage-neck snorted. "You were a target," he said to Naruto. "Loud, easy, carrying a scroll. That's the game."
"Yeah, well, the game sucks," Naruto shot back. "Pick on someone who sees you coming next time!"
"You didn't see us coming either," Sasuke pointed out.
Naruto glared at him. "Not helping."
I crouched a few feet away from bandage-neck, careful to stay out of kicking range. "We're not here for moral debate," I said. "We're here for logistics. What did you do with his scroll?"
Bandage-neck sneered. "You think we'd tell you?"
"It's in his pouch," log-boy whimpered from the ground. "We didn't get to open it yet."
Bandage-neck twisted to snarl at him. "Shut up, Rei!"
"Rei, right?" I said, turning toward log-boy. "Hi. Ignore your fearless leader. He has a cut on his neck and a concussion in his future."
Rei sniffled. Up close, he looked like he should be in the Academy still. Baby fat not burned off yet. His chakra felt jittery, thin with anxiety.
I swallowed down the rising guilt and focused.
"Do you already have a scroll?" I asked. "From someone else?"
Kunai-picker spat in my direction. "None of your business."
"So that's a no," I said. "You've got nothing. That's why you're trying bathroom mugging as a career path."
He flushed. "We—We just haven't gotten lucky yet."
"Everyone here is desperate enough to mug a kid while he's peeing," I muttered, more to myself than them. The forest chakra hummed around us, full of little sharp spikes of fear and hunger and ambition. "We are absolutely in the worst gacha."
"What?" Naruto said.
"Nothing," I said. "Okay. Let me summarize. You: three Rain brats, zero scrolls, one incredibly bad idea. Us: one scroll, three functional shinobi, increasingly lousy mood. Right?"
Bandage-neck glared. "So what? You think we'll just give up because you beat us once?"
"No," I said. "I think you don't have anything we need bad enough to justify putting you in the ground."
Their expressions all shifted a little at that.
"What do we need is…" I flicked my gaze over their gear. Standard-issue pouches. Kunai, shuriken, a few obvious paper bombs. No fancy swords, no weird relics. I could smell cheap ink from here.
"Ink," I said. "Tags. Maybe a smoke bomb or two. Medical supplies if you have them."
"You're going to rob us?" Rei squeaked.
Naruto folded his arms. "You tried to rob me first."
"That was a question, not a moral crisis," I said. "Yes, we're robbing you. Genin circular economy."
"No," Sasuke said, deadpan. "We're redistributing resources."
I shot him a look. "Wow," I said. "Did you just make a socialism joke?"
"What's socialism?" Naruto asked.
"Nothing, it's made up," I said quickly. "Point is, we take what we can use that you won't immediately die without, and we leave you tied up somewhere where the trees are less bitey."
Bandage-neck's mouth twisted. "And then what? We just wait to get picked off by someone else?"
"No," I said. "You wait until either the exam ends or you manage to untie yourselves. Given some of the teams I've seen, surviving without a scroll will still impress the right people. Not everyone here measures worth by how many classmates you manage to stab."
I didn't add: and if someone decides you only count if you bring home a scroll, that's on them, not you. My throat had gone tight enough.
Naruto stared at me for a second. Something flickered in his chakra—recognition, brief and sharp.
He'd heard "worthless" from adults his whole life. He knew the weight of being told you only matter if you achieve something impossible.
I shifted my glasses up my nose with ink-stained fingers. "Look," I said, softer. "You tried a crappy plan because you're scared and this place sucks. We stopped you. That's how it works. It doesn't have to end with corpses."
Rei's shoulders shook. Kunai-picker looked away. Bandage-neck's jaw clenched.
"Fine," he muttered eventually. "Do what you want."
"Sweet," I said briskly, because if I stayed in the earnest lane too long I'd implode. "Naruto, clones keep them pinned. Sasuke, scroll check. Me? Shopping."
Up close, their gear was underwhelming but functional.
Sasuke rifled through bandage-neck's pouch first. "No scroll," he reported. He checked the other two quickly. "Nothing. Just standard kit."
Naruto's face fell. "Seriously? After all that?"
"You were the first mark they got close to," I said. "Which means we're either very lucky or very stupid."
Naruto pointed at himself. "Rookie of the year in 'very stupid.'"
"Don't call yourself that," I said automatically.
He blinked at me, surprised.
I pretended I hadn't said it and focused on loot.
Kunai-picker had decent steel, but we all already had kunai. I snagged one of his better-balanced ones anyway and clipped it to my belt. Rei had a small roll of bandages and a half-empty antiseptic vial; I took the vial and left the bandages.
From bandage-neck's pouch, my fingers closed around a little glass bottle that rattled. I popped the cork and sniffed—sharp, chemical, made my eyes water.
"Smoke bomb?" I guessed.
He glared at me. "Flash-smoke mix. Short range."
"Perfect," I said, and dropped it into my pouch. "Thank you for your donation."
He muttered something very rude under his breath.
Then I hit the jackpot: a small, flat ink bottle and a bundle of pre-cut, blank tags tucked into Rei's bag. The ink was cheap, watery stuff, but it was still ink.
"Mine," I said, hugging it for a second like a greedy dragon before I composed myself. "I mean, this will be very useful for…tactical purposes."
Naruto snorted. "You're worse than me with ramen."
"Everyone has priorities," I said.
While I worked, Naruto's clones kept a firm but not painful hold on the Rain trio. No dislocated shoulders, no extra bruises. Just humiliation and rope. Sasuke, efficient as ever, tore strips from a fallen vine and reinforced the bindings, tying neat, practical knots.
We dragged them—gently, by clone power—over to the base of a thick, unassuming tree. No visible man-eating vines. No obvious pits. Just dirt and roots and shade.
"This is kidnapping," Kunai-picker grumbled.
"No, this is detainment," I corrected. "If it makes you feel better, you can say you were captured by the loud idiot, the broody prodigy, and the weird seal girl from Leaf. Very impressive story."
Bandage-neck squinted at me. His gaze traveled from my scuffed sandals up my too-big dark pink shorts, past my mesh arm warmers, to the white top with the big pink bow that someone's well-meaning hands at the orphanage had pressed on me with a "this will look so cute on you."
"What are you even supposed to be," he sneered, "a schoolgirl who got lost on the way to class?"
The words hit harder than any kunai.
Heat crept up my neck so fast it made me dizzy. For a second, all I could see was my reflection in the orphanage mirror: hair yanked into something presentable, bow straightened by gentle fingers, Ino squealing that I looked "so girly" the day she helped me restyle it.
I'd chosen this outfit on purpose. The bow. The stupid pink. It had been a declaration: I get to be this. I get to be soft and obvious and still a ninja.
To him, it was a joke. Costume, not uniform. Decoration, not danger.
Of course it was. That was the point. The world saw the surface. Rarely bothered looking under the ink.
My chest did that hollow drop it used to do when my old family had said, "You don't look like—" and whatever I said after never mattered.
Naruto bristled. "Hey!" he snapped before I could say anything. "Don't talk about her like that."
All three Rain kids blinked, clearly not expecting him to be offended on my behalf.
"She's the one who caught you," Naruto went on, jabbing a thumb at me. "You know that, right? Her dumb little seal is the only reason I'm not still tied up in a ditch. So maybe shut your mouth about her clothes?"
I stared at him. For half a second, the forest's oppressive chakra dimmed.
Sasuke didn't say anything, but he shot me a sideways look. Not pitying; appraising. Like he'd just slotted this exchange somewhere in whatever mental map he kept of "people who matter to me, and how."
I swallowed the lump in my throat and flicked my hair back over my shoulder.
"You heard my very angry client," I said lightly, once I trusted my voice. "I might dress like a lost schoolgirl, but I'm the one who decides how long you stay gift-wrapped for the proctors."
Bandage-neck clicked his tongue and looked away.
Rei peeked up at me through his lashes. "Um," he said, voice small. "Your…your bow is kind of cool."
"Thank you," I said, a little too quickly. "Taste recognized."
I tightened the last knot and dusted my hands off.
"Okay," I said. "Here's the deal. You're tied, but not cruelly. We're taking some gear, but leaving you enough to not die of infection or thirst. If you get free, you can try again on someone who isn't us. If you don't…well."
"The proctors will find you," Sasuke finished. "Or they won't."
Naruto shot him a look that said dude, we were doing a thing, but didn't argue.
I pointed a finger at the Rain trio. "Don't try to eat any weird mushrooms out of boredom," I said. "If the forest doesn't kill you, the hospital bills will."
"Like we can afford a hospital," Kunai-picker muttered.
That landed differently than he probably meant. A little jolt of recognition, like hitting a bruise.
"Yeah," I said quietly. "I get that."
They all looked at me again, puzzled.
I straightened, forcing my shoulders back.
"Anyway," I said. "Enjoy your time in the timeout corner. Try not to die. I hear it's bad for your grades."
Naruto snorted. Sasuke shook his head.
We turned away as a unit, pushing back through the undergrowth, leaving three bound Rain genin behind us in the filtered green light.
Once we were out of earshot, Naruto exploded.
"I cannot BELIEVE they jumped me while I was peeing," he ranted, shoving branches aside with unnecessary force. "I'm never living this down, am I?"
"Absolutely not," I said. "You handed me too much material."
He groaned. "Why are you like this?"
"Coping mechanisms," I said. "Also, you deserved it for trying to skip the clone."
Sasuke walked ahead of us, posture relaxed in that way that meant he was absolutely not relaxed, watching everything.
"You did well," he said abruptly.
Naruto blinked. "Me?"
"Both of you," Sasuke said. "Naruto, for not running in alone without a plan for once."
"Hey, I had a plan," Naruto protested. "Punch them."
"And you waited until we had positions before you punched," Sasuke said. "Improvement."
Naruto preened a little.
"And you," he added, glancing back at me. "For spotting the opening. The flash tag."
"Oh," I said, caught off-guard. "Yeah. I mean. Low-level stuff."
"You turned three-on-three into three-on-one," he said. "Without that, it would've been slower. Messier."
Messier. Like more blood on dirt, more concussions, more ways for things to spiral.
"Small tricks," I said, "in service of not getting skewered. That's my brand."
Naruto bumped his shoulder against mine. "Your dumb pee seal saved my butt," he said. "Literally. So…thanks."
I made a face to hide the flare of warmth in my chest. "Don't call it that."
"It is a pee seal," he insisted. "You put it on me while talking about peeing. That's the origin story. You can't change it now."
"I will redraw the kanji to say 'heroic tracking device' out of spite," I said.
He laughed, bright and free, and for a moment it almost drowned out the low, wrong static still buzzing at the edges of my chakra sense.
We kept moving, deeper into the trees. The light thinned further. The oppressive pressure of the forest settled back over us like a wet blanket.
Naruto chatted about how he was definitely going to come up with "the most humiliating payback prank in history" for future bathroom ambushers. Sasuke occasionally offered dry suggestions.
I let their bickering wash over me and checked my mental HUD again.
Naruto: loud orange-gold, bruised at the edges, but burning steady.
Sasuke: tight violet-black thread, solid, anchored.
Behind us, the Rain trio's chakra turned small and quiet, wrapped in rope and resigned.
Around us, other signatures flared and faded—fights starting, ending, kids winning, losing, dropping.
Over all of it, that distant metal-scrape feeling dragged across my nerves again. Long, slow, patient. Like something big was moving parallel to us just out of sight.
I touched the new ink bottle in my pouch, feeling the cool glass against my fingers.
"First real loot," I thought. "Congratulations, me. You mugged some desperate kids and got stationary."
It should've felt pathetic. It didn't.
Gear was gear. Experience was experience. And choosing not to kill people when the rules said you could—that was a kind of loot too. A little piece of myself I was keeping.
"I'm not going to be like you," I told the ghosts in the trees, the examiners watching, the old world that had killed me alone between trunks.
"If I can help it, nobody on my watch dies in a ditch."
"Hey," Naruto called back, breaking my spiral. "We should name that move."
"What move?" I asked.
"The one where you tag me and then we beat up anyone who messes with me," he said, grinning. "Like…Pulse-and-Punch! Or Seal-and-Beatdown!"
"That's terrible," I said. "Absolutely not."
"C'mon," he whined. "Team techniques need cool names."
Sasuke sighed. "If you two start naming things, I'm leaving."
"Rude," I said. "We're workshopping. Art takes time."
"Just don't write it on my forehead," he said.
No promises, I thought, and smiled, just a little.
We walked on.
Behind us, three tied-up Rain genin glared at the trees and waited for whatever came next.
Ahead of us, the Forest of Death pressed in, full of teeth and eyes and the echo of something huge smiling with too many fangs.
My ink was a little heavier. My pouch was a little fuller. My hands were a little steadier.
First ambush survived. First real loot acquired. First line drawn in the sand about who we were going to be in this stupid, lethal game.
Step by step, we kept going deeper.