The forest tasted like wet bark and bad nerves.
Kiba tore along a branch, Akamaru crouched low on his head, claws dug into his scalp for balance. Leaves slapped his face. The air was thick with other teams' sweat and fear, but the trail they were chasing kept slipping away under a layer of…dirt.
"Shino," Kiba called over his shoulder, "you're sure he was this way? Dude just smells like sand. It all smells like sand out here."
Akamaru yipped once in agreement, then snorted like he'd gotten grit up his nose.
Shino ran a little behind them, coat flapping, hands tucked in his pockets like they were on a casual stroll instead of sprinting toward a potential murder scene. His collar hid most of his face, but Kiba could see the bugs crawling under the fabric, restless.
"He was this way when my insects last tracked him," Shino said. "The trail is cold now, but the chakra residue remains."
"Yeah, yeah, bug radar, very cool," Kiba muttered. "Hinata, what about you? You see anything?"
Hinata was keeping pace, light on the branches, her breathing soft and even. She startled a little when Kiba used her name, then ducked her head.
"Um," she said, hands coming up in front of her chest. "I–I can check again."
Her pale eyes sharpened, veins bulging slightly at her temples as her Byakugan flared to life. She slowed, turning her head in a slow arc, seeing through trunk and leaf and underbrush like they were paper screens.
Kiba vaulted to the next tree and paused, waiting.
Well. Pretending to pause for tactical reasons and not because his thighs were on fire.
He glanced up at Akamaru. "You getting anything, buddy?"
Akamaru sniffed the air, nose twitching. His fur was bristling a little. Not a good sign.
"…wan," he whined, low.
"Yeah," Kiba agreed. His own stomach had that dropped-elevator feel. "Same."
Shino moved ahead a step, eyes hidden behind his shades, but Kiba could tell he was watching Hinata closely.
"Hinata," he said, calm as ever. "Focus two hundred meters ahead. There should be a clearing."
"R-right," she whispered.
Her gaze fixed on something Kiba couldn't see. Her shoulders tightened.
He knew that look. He'd seen it in dogs that had just scented something bigger than they were—ears up, body leaning forward but not quite willing to step.
"What is it?" Kiba demanded. "You see sand-boy?"
Hinata swallowed. "Y-yes. Gaara-kun and his teammates are there. And three…other genin."
"Targets?" Kiba's pulse jumped. "Perfect. We can hit them while they're distracted—"
Hinata flinched. Just a little. Her Byakugan stayed active, but she didn't move.
"He's…already fighting," she whispered. "No, he's done. The other team— they're…trapped."
Her breath hitched. Kiba had never heard her sound like that.
"How trapped?" he pressed.
Hinata's fingers twitched against her jacket, like she wanted to cover her eyes and couldn't. "Th-the sand. It's everywhere. One of them's lifted off the ground. It's…it's…closing around him."
Akamaru's entire body went rigid.
Kiba felt it through his scalp first—Akamaru's claws digging in, hard enough to hurt. Then the tremble started. Tiny at first, a little shiver, then bigger, bones shaking against Kiba's skull.
"Akamaru?" he said, alarm spiking. "Hey, hey. What's wrong?"
Akamaru made a noise that wasn't quite a growl and wasn't quite a whine, somewhere in the middle, all raw. His tail had tucked under so hard it brushed Kiba's neck. Every hair on his body stood up.
Killing intent hit them a heartbeat later.
It rolled through the trees like a pressure wave, not chakra exactly—Kiba's nose couldn't parse it that neatly—but a smell like old blood under dry air, like metal left in the sun. His instincts screamed at him to go the other way. His legs almost did it without asking.
He grabbed the branch under his feet to steady himself.
"H-hey," he forced out, throat dry. "So he's…intense. We knew that. We can still jump him, right? Three-on-three, plus Akamaru, plus bugs—"
"No," Shino said.
Kiba whipped his head around. "What?"
Shino's glasses were turned toward the unseen clearing. Even without eyes, Kiba could tell his attention was locked.
"Hinata," Shino said quietly. "Distance?"
"About…one hundred and fifty meters," she whispered. "He's raising more sand. The others can't move. Th-their chakra is…fluttering."
"Fluttering how?" Kiba asked. "Like 'we can still save them' fluttering or—"
A scream ripped through the forest.
It started human and ended…cut off. Choked. The kind of sound that made your spine curl.
Hinata flinched so hard her heel slipped on the bark. Her Byakugan winked out. Kiba jumped forward on reflex, catching her elbow before she could fall.
"Got you, got you, it's okay," he said, words tripping over themselves. "You're fine. We're fine."
She was shaking. Not Akamaru-level shaking, but close.
Akamaru had progressed to full-body tremors now, claws sunk so deep in Kiba's jacket he could feel each grip individually. His ears were pinned back flat. He refused to look toward the clearing at all.
Kiba's heart hammered. The scent of fear—his, Hinata's, Akamaru's—spiked around them, sharp and sour.
"Shino?" Kiba said, trying and failing to keep the waver out of his voice. "Bugs. Can you…you know. Swarm him? See what we're dealing with?"
Shino didn't answer right away.
Instead, he stepped past them, to the edge of their branch. He lifted a hand, and a dark stream poured out from under his coat—kikaichu, thousands of them, taking wing in a humming cloud.
"Remain here," he said. "I will gather data."
"W–wait—" Hinata reached for him. Kiba grabbed for his sleeve.
He was already gone. Not in the dramatic Naruto way, just…moving. Quiet jumps, hopping branches, always staying in the shadow of trunks. The bug cloud flowed with him, adjusting like a single organism.
Kiba gritted his teeth. "He has the worst timing!"
"Kiba-kun," Hinata whispered. "Should we…go after him…?"
Akamaru dug in harder. Kiba's instinct screamed no. His pride screamed yes.
He compromised.
"We give him a second," Kiba said. "Shino's careful. He's just looking. If Gaara-sand-freak makes a move, Shino'll bug out, yeah? He wouldn't just run into—"
The world went dry.
That was what it felt like—one second the air was damp and heavy, and the next it was all sucked out, replaced with something scratchy that clawed down Kiba's throat. Wind whipped through the branches, flinging leaves past his face hard enough to sting.
A roaring started up ahead, low at first and then building, like a wave of pebbles rolling over each other.
Akamaru yelped and shoved his nose into Kiba's neck to hide.
Sand.
Kiba smelled it a split second before he saw the first grains, fine and stinging, tossed back on the edge of the storm. The trees between them and the clearing shuddered, branches whipping as something big and granular rushed through.
Shino's chakra flickered on the edge of Kiba's sense—there, then moving, then—
The bug cloud hit the advancing wall of sand.
Kiba didn't see it. He felt it. The chakra pattern of the kikaichu—a buzzing, hungry hum he'd grown used to having in the background whenever Shino was near—jerked sharp, then scattered. Tiny signatures winked out all at once, like someone had stamped on a lit sparkler.
Shino himself aborted his approach, chakra recoiling in a controlled retreat. He fell back, moving in an instant from "advancing" to "nope."
Kiba's skin crawled.
"What happened?" he shouted. "Shino?!"
No answer. Just the roar of sand, the groan of branches bending, and then…stillness.
The killing intent lingered, scraping along Kiba's nerves. It didn't feel like a kid who'd just taken out some enemies. It felt like something that had gotten exactly what it wanted and was half-bored with it already.
Hinata's eyes were wide, unfocused. "Th-their chakra… It—it just…stopped," she whispered. "Kiba-kun, it stopped."
Akamaru started shaking harder, tiny tremors running through his paws into Kiba's hair. His nails bit Kiba's scalp.
"I know, buddy," Kiba said quietly. He reached up and cupped Akamaru's side, trying to steady both of them. "I know."
The part of him that was Inuzuka, that loved a good fight, that wanted to prove himself against strong opponents— that part tried to push forward, teeth bared.
The rest of him was looking at Hinata's flinch and hearing Shino's bugs die and smelling the faint curl of blood-iron on the sand-heavy air and thinking: If we jump in now, we die.
"We can't just—" he started anyway. "We can't just walk away. Those guys—"
"They're dead," Shino said quietly.
Kiba spun.
Shino stood a few branches back, half-shadowed, expression mostly hidden. There was a fine dusting of grit on his coat, caught in the folds. His kikaichu were…silent. Kiba had never seen that many of them gone.
"They're dead, Kiba," Shino repeated. "Before we arrived. Gaara of the Sand completed his…execution."
Execution. Not "fight." Not "win."
Hinata's hands curled into fists against her chest. "C-could we have…if we'd gotten here sooner—"
"No," Shino said. "His sand reacted to my insects before they crossed the tree line. It was automatic. Defensive. I doubt we could cross the distance without being crushed."
Kiba's jaw clenched so hard his teeth hurt. "We don't know that."
"Kiba," Shino said, and there was something under the calm now, something like anger, but cold. "You felt it. Akamaru felt it."
Kiba glared at the branch under his feet, because looking at Shino or Hinata meant seeing his own fear reflected back.
He had felt it. That moment when his body wanted to turn and run, when every instinct screamed predator.
Akamaru whined softly and pressed closer.
"We're ninja," Kiba muttered. "We're supposed to…to do something."
"Yes," Shino said. "We are. Which is why we will continue this exam, gather information, and report on what we have seen." He adjusted his glasses with two fingers. "Throwing our lives away in a situation we cannot win does not help the village."
The words were logical. Perfect Shino-logic. Kiba hated them.
Hinata's shoulders hunched. "Sh-Shino-kun is right," she said, voice barely audible. "I'm sorry. I…froze. When I saw him. I couldn't…move."
"Hey," Kiba said, a little too fast. "Hey, hey. You used your eyes. You warned us. That's something." He nudged her with his elbow, gentle. "Nobody's blaming you. If anyone's blaming anyone, they can blame me. I'm the one who wanted to run in."
Akamaru yipped once in agreement, like: yeah, idiot.
"Traitor," Kiba muttered, scratching behind his ears anyway.
Hinata's mouth quirked weakly. "A…Akamaru-kun's just honest."
"Yeah, that's the problem," Kiba said.
Silence settled around them for a few breaths. The forest noises hadn't quite picked back up after the scream; the birds were still holding their breath.
"So what," Kiba said finally. "We just…avoid them? Pretend we didn't see anything?"
"We mark their position," Shino said. "We stay out of their path. And if we meet them in the preliminaries or the finals…" He trailed off, letting the implication hang.
Kiba scowled. "You think anyone can take that monster in a ring?"
Shino adjusted his glasses again. "I think," he said, "that Gaara of the Sand is precisely the sort of opponent the village wants to see in controlled conditions. If the exam continues, it will be because the adults believe they can manage him."
Kiba snorted. "That's reassuring."
Akamaru's tremors were starting to ease. He was still pressed tight against Kiba's head, but the line of his body had shifted from full panic to wary.
Kiba took a breath. Then another.
"Fine," he said. "We pull back. We find a team we can actually fight, take their scroll, and get to the tower. Then we watch out for sand psycho in the arena."
Hinata nodded, biting her lip. "O-okay."
Shino turned away from the clearing that had gone very, very quiet and started back the way they'd come. "Stay close," he said. "I doubt Gaara will hunt us specifically if we are not in his path…but I would prefer not to test that."
Kiba threw one last look in the direction of the scream.
He couldn't see anything from here. Just trees and shadows. But he could imagine it: sand falling like rain. Three bodies that hadn't even gotten to scream properly.
He scratched Akamaru's neck. "We'll get stronger," he muttered, half to himself. "Next time we see him, we won't just stand here."
Akamaru huffed, a small, doubtful puff of air.
"Yeah," Kiba said. "I know. I wouldn't bet on it either."
They retreated, three Leaf genin and one traumatized puppy, leaving the monster and the sand and the silence behind.
The tower at the heart of the Forest of Death was too clean.
Anko's sandals clicked on the polished stone as she stalked down the hallway, and the sound annoyed her. It was too crisp. Too normal. Like any day, any building, any mission.
Her neck itched.
She resisted the urge to scratch at the bite, at the bandaged skin where Orochimaru's teeth had sunk in and then left nothing but a mark and a headache full of old ghosts. She poured the restless energy into her stride instead, duster flaring out behind her.
Two chūnin guards at the door to the central observation room straightened when they saw her. One opened his mouth, probably to make some joke about her being late, then caught sight of her face and shut it again.
Good.
She pushed the door open without knocking.
The room beyond was all big windows and big egos—proctors, ANBU, a couple of council fossils, and, at the far end, the Third Hokage himself, pipe in hand, posture a touch more rigid than usual.
He looked up as she stepped in. His gaze snagged, just for a second, on the bandage at her neck.
"Anko," he said. "Your report—"
A harried-looking assistant practically materialized at her elbow.
"Anko-san!" he blurted, half-bowing, half-falling into her personal space. "Sorry to interrupt, Hokage-sama, but— Anko-san, you should see this."
She stared at him. "If it's another unauthorized corpse, I'm full up."
"N-no, ma'am," he said, flustered. "The scoreboard."
He pointed with both hands, just in case she'd forgotten where the giant wall of names and timers was.
Anko snorted but followed the gesture.
The big board that tracked the teams through the second exam glowed softly. Dozens of team numbers, village symbols, little kanji for "still alive," "disqualified," "unknown." Most of them were still ticking down, hours left on the clock.
Three slots at the top had turned solid.
Completed.
Team 7's box—Konoha, Kakashi's brats—still hovered somewhere in the middle, timer chewing away. Good. They were supposed to suffer a little.
Right under the "COMPLETED" heading, in fresh ink barely dry, three new names had appeared next to the Sand village symbol.
Team Baki. Sabaku no Gaara. Kankurō. Temari.
Elapsed time: 1 hour, 37 minutes.
"Forest of Death clearance," the assistant babbled. "Ninety-seven minutes. They just checked in at the lobby downstairs—no visible injuries, all scroll requirements met."
"Ninety-seven," Anko repeated, flat.
The assistant nodded, bobbing like a nervous pigeon. "N-new record. Previous was one hour fifty-six, by—"
"Yeah, I don't care who by," she cut in.
She looked back at the board, at the neat little Suna symbol, at the timer that had barely gotten warmed up before those kids strolled through the door.
Monsters breeding monsters.
Her mind flicked back to the forest: three Kusa kids in borrowed faces, eyes already dull. Orochimaru's grin when he tossed their bodies aside. The way the trees themselves had seemed to recoil when he laughed.
And now the Sand's jinchūriki, if the whispers were right, finishing her exam like it was a light jog and a snack.
The Hokage's pipe clicked softly against porcelain as he set it down.
"Interesting," he murmured.
Anko's jaw tightened. "You want my professional opinion, old man?"
His eyes slid to hers, tired and sharp all at once. "I am always interested in your professional opinion, Anko."
She jerked her chin at the board. "If this is what the kids are doing in the first forty-eight hours, we should triple the hazard pay."
One of the council fossils made a disapproving noise. She ignored him.
The assistant shifted nervously. "Should I…prepare a commendation?" he asked weakly. "For the Sand team?"
Anko thought about Gaara's dead eyes in the prelims file, the way her skin had crawled even looking at the photograph. She thought about Orochimaru's tongue on her ear, about the corpses being hauled out in discreet black bags.
"Yeah," she said. "Write them a nice card."
The assistant brightened. "Yes, ma—"
"And then burn it," she added. "Just in case the ink offends them and they flatten the village."
His mouth snapped shut again.
The Hokage coughed into his hand, which might have been him hiding a smile and might have been smoke. "Your report on Orochimaru, Anko."
The name scraped something raw in her chest.
She took a breath. Then another, shallow and steady.
"Later," she said. "Unless you want me to puke on your nice floor."
He studied her for a moment…then nodded. "Very well. Take a short rest. We will debrief in my office."
"Sure," she said. "I'll just go find a wall to scream into."
She turned to leave. In the reflection on the observation glass, she caught a glimpse of the Sand kids down in the tower lobby—small figures, gourd and fan and smirk, standing there like they were already bored of winning.
Her fingers twitched toward the bandage at her neck.
Orochimaru, in the forest. Gaara, under this roof. Kids like Sylvie and her teammates running around between them, thinking this was just another test.
Anko shoved her hands in her pockets instead.
"Forest of Death," she muttered under her breath as she stepped back into the hallway. "They weren't kidding about the 'death' part this year."
She headed off to find coffee, dango, and a way to tell her old teacher that his favorite student was back in town and bringing monsters with him.