The Forest of Death was quieter after you'd bled in it.
Not literally—bugs still screamed in the trees, something big still crashed around in the distance—but my brain had crested some kind of horror threshold. Once you'd watched a curse mark crawl across your teammate's skin and then screamed yourself hoarse dragging him back from it, the normal forest murder-ambience stopped scoring as high.
The three of us moved in a loose triangle. Naruto stomped ahead, snapping twigs. Sasuke ghosted to the side, too quiet, hood pulled up to hide the fresh bandage on his neck. I took rear, one hand on my tag pouch, the other on the rough bark of a passing trunk every few steps, leeching the tiniest sips of chakra out of the forest just to keep my head from floating off.
We had both scrolls. Heaven in my pouch, Earth courtesy of "sorry for trying to murder you, here's payment" Sound Trio Customer Service.
We were, technically, winning.
My body did not feel like I was winning. Every muscle lived in that post-adrenaline jelly state: fine if I kept moving, guaranteed collapse if I stopped too long.
"How much farther?" Naruto groaned for the third time. "It's gotta be close, right? We've been walking forever."
"Forever is ninety minutes," I said. "Also 'walking' implies you're not trying to pick fights with every root."
"There are a lot of roots," he muttered. "They start it."
Sasuke made a quiet tch noise that could have meant anything from "you're an idiot" to "my neck is on fire, please shut up." His chakra was all knife-edges and restlessness, pacing tight inside his skin. The Squad Mark on my wrist throbbed along with it, a phantom ache under the ink.
I wanted to tell him it wasn't his fault. I also wanted to not say the wrong thing and have him decide my face was a stress ball.
"You're sure we're headed the right way?" I asked instead.
Sasuke pointed ahead without looking at me. "The tower's that direction," he said. "I saw the top from that ridge."
"Yeah, yeah, the creepy bug-tower thing," Naruto said. "I saw it too. I just wanna get there before my stomach eats my lungs."
"Medically not how that works," I said.
He opened his mouth to argue.
That was when my trap-sense-that-wasn't-a-trap-sense twanged.
Not the tags—those were all behind us now, a graveyard of spent paper and regrets. This was my other net: the foggy ring of awareness I'd kept around us on a tight leash ever since the Sound Trio. I didn't have chakra to spare for a wide scan, but I could manage a fifty-meter bubble if I clenched my teeth and breathed shallow.
Something tickled the edge of it on the left. Three somethings. Human-sized. Sitting still.
The colors that came with them were wrong.
Naruto was all raw orange: loud, messy, lighting up everything he touched whether you wanted it or not. Sasuke was a dark blue-black with those ugly curse-brand sparks spitting off at the edges, like embers from rotten wood.
These signatures were… muted. A flat, pale gray. An even, dull blue. A thin, elastic-feeling thread.
No jitter. No normal teenager static.
"Company," I said quietly.
Sasuke's shoulders tightened. Naruto perked up like someone had said "ramen."
"Where?" he whispered, loud enough to scare birds three trees over.
I jerked my chin toward a patch of bushes up ahead. "Left. Three of them. Hiding about as well as you hide shareable snacks."
Naruto bristled. "Hey, I hide snacks great."
He grabbed a kunai, spinning it once around his finger.
"Uh," I started.
He whipped it into the bushes.
There was a yelp, a rustle, and the sound of someone tumbling headfirst down a small incline. A moment later, a pale shape in a Konoha flak jacket and rectangular glasses popped up out of the undergrowth like we'd shaken him loose from a vending machine.
"Ah—ow," he said, patting at a new tear in his sleeve. "That was a little rude."
Naruto blinked. "Whoops."
The guy dusted himself off, adjusted his glasses with a two-finger push up the bridge of his nose, and gave us a sheepish little smile.
Up close, his chakra was even stranger. That flat gray feeling sat right at the surface—polite, controlled, the emotional equivalent of a clean pressed uniform. Underneath it, though, something… shifted. Slow. Deep. Like water in a well you couldn't see the bottom of.
Most genin felt like the forest around us: messy. Bugs on the surface, roots underneath. This felt like tile over concrete.
Kinda like me, a nasty little thought suggested. Or like you'll be if you keep burning out the top layer.
I shushed it.
"Sorry about that," the guy said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Your friend has good instincts. We were watching you."
"You were spying!" Naruto said, offended and impressed in about equal measure.
"In the Forest of Death?" Glasses Guy chuckled. "Keeping an eye on other teams is just smart, Uzumaki Naruto."
Naruto froze. "Huh? How do you—"
The guy tapped the metal plate on his Konoha forehead protector. "We're from the Leaf too. Yakushi Kabuto." He thumbed at his chest, then gestured back toward the trees. "That's Yoroi and Misumi."
Two more shapes emerged. One was a compact man with a headcloth and his hitai-ate over it, hands stuffed into his pockets, posture vaguely bored. The other was tall and thin, with bandages under his chin and a pinched expression like he'd bitten down on something sour and it had bitten back.
They stayed a few paces behind Kabuto, letting him do the talking.
"It's my, oh, seventh time taking the exam," Kabuto said cheerfully. "You get used to recognizing faces."
Seventh. He said it like "stopped by this ramen shop a few times." His chakra didn't flicker at all.
Naruto gaped. "Seventh?"
"That's pathetic," Sasuke said bluntly.
Kabuto winced in exaggerated injury. "Ouch. Straight to the point, huh? Don't worry, I've passed the written portions every time." He flashed us a flashcard-thin smile. "It's the field parts that get tricky."
He looked us over more carefully then. His gaze ticked from Naruto's scuffed cheeks to Sasuke's hood and clearly-not-a-hickie bandage, then to me.
He lingered.
"Your hands are burned," he observed. "Seal backlash?"
I resisted the urge to hide them behind my back. The skin along my fingers and palms was an ugly mottled pink-gray, hairline black cracks tracing the chakra pathways. Ino had done a quick salve wrap, but I'd ripped most of the bandages off to keep using them.
"I got enthusiastic with my art supplies," I said. "You should see the other guys."
He smiled like he wanted to see them, actually. In a lab. With their skin off.
"Seals are dangerous if you overextend," he said. "Especially for someone your age. I'm impressed you're still on your feet."
He said "impressed" the way a scientist says "curious." Not praising. Not exactly kind. Interested.
His chakra didn't move at all while he spoke. Smooth gray. No ripples.
I'd met people like that before. Adults who never raised their voices, never broke a glass, never left bruises where anyone could see—but who could cut you to pieces with calm sentences. Who could convince a whole room they were the reasonable ones while your own feelings got turned into the evidence against you.
Dangerously composed liars.
Kabuto's not them, I told myself. Different world. Different rules.
My gut still tightened.
Naruto had already moved past suspicion and into hero-worship.
"Seventh time, huh?" he said, eyes wide. "So you, like, know everything."
"Not everything," Kabuto laughed, rubbing his nose. "But I have picked up a few things."
He reached into his vest and pulled out a deck of cards, fanning them with a practiced flick.
"I collect information," he said. "These are chakra-infused data cards. They store mission records, exam statistics, profiles on other participants… that sort of thing."
"Whoa," Naruto breathed. "They're like… ninja trading cards!"
"That's one way to put it," Kabuto said, amused. "If you're careful, they can save your life."
Sasuke's eyes sharpened. "You have information on the teams in this exam?"
"On many of them," Kabuto said. "And on the exam itself." He adjusted his glasses again—a little nervous tick or a rehearsed gesture, I couldn't tell. "For instance, there were originally twenty-six teams. After two days, seven have already been eliminated. That leaves nineteen teams, assuming no one else has dropped out or been…removed."
His tone didn't change on "removed." My stomach did a small, unpleasant flip.
"Time-wise," he went on, "we're just under halfway through the last day. So if you're heading for the tower, you'll want to keep your pace steady, but there's room to rest if needed."
Naruto's jaw dropped. "You can tell all that from cards?"
"From data," Kabuto corrected gently. "The cards just hold it." He glanced at me again. "A bit like your seals."
"Less explosions," I said. "Hopefully."
He chuckled. "Usually."
Sasuke shifted, angling his back slightly so the bandaged side of his neck stayed turned away from Kabuto. Subtle. If I hadn't been watching, I might have missed it.
I stepped closer to him, under the pretense of checking my tag pouch, and flicked my gaze toward his collar.
The bandage had held. Barely. The ugly black seal slept under it, but my Mark could feel it in my own bones—a slow, wrong pulse, like a second heart beating off-tempo.
Kabuto noticed where I was looking. His eyes narrowed a millimeter behind the glass.
"Injuries?" he asked mildly. "The medic-nin at the tower can handle quite a bit, but you might want to consider withdrawing if something's serious. No shame in living to try again."
"Not interested," Sasuke said flatly.
"Yeah," Naruto said, folding his arms. "We're not quitting. We've got both scrolls already. Right, Sylvie?"
Everyone looked at me for some reason, like I had "tie-breaking vote" stamped on my forehead.
"Medically," I said carefully, "Sasuke should not be sprinting marathons or picking fights with giant snakes for at least two weeks."
Naruto pulled a face. Sasuke glared.
"We're not in a position to follow medical guidelines," Sasuke said.
"True," I said. "Medically speaking, we also shouldn't be in a murder forest at twelve. Here we are."
Kabuto's mouth twitched. I couldn't tell if he was amused or filing that away under "concerning."
"You said nineteen teams left," I said to him. "What about their positions? Any big clusters we should avoid walking into?"
He tapped a card against his thumb, focusing a little chakra into it. Lines flickered across the surface—tiny maps, numbers, symbols my tired brain refused to parse at speed.
"There's been heavy activity near the river to the east," he said. "And around a particular choke point about two kilometers south of the tower. Many teams tend to converge there and…thin each other out."
"Bloodbath zone," I translated. "Noted."
"The northwest quadrant is quieter," he added. "Longer route, more ground to cover, but fewer ambushes."
Sasuke's jaw tightened. He didn't like "longer." He also didn't like "fewer fights," probably.
Naruto's eyes had glazed over at "quadrant"; he perked back up at "fewer ambushes."
"I vote quiet path," Naruto said immediately. "We've had enough weirdos for one exam."
Sasuke snorted. "You're the weirdo quota."
I pressed my fingers to my temples. "Okay, democracy later. Kabuto-san, why are you helping us?"
He blinked at the "-san," then smiled a little. "We're from the same village," he said. "It's in Konoha's interest for as many of our genin to pass as possible. Besides…" His eyes slid over us again, measuring. "You three stand out. The Uchiha. The Container. And You."
Naruto crossed his arms and closed his eyes, "Wha...?"
"Me?" I said before I could stop myself. "I'm nobody."
"You're the one who's still standing after all that." His gaze flicked briefly toward the distant signs of our earlier battle—the scuffed earth, the faint scorch marks, the dead curve of a tree branch sheared off by Zaku's panicked blast. "You were at the center of that chakra storm earlier, weren't you?"
My throat went dry. The memory of Sasuke screaming under the cursed mark—itched.
"Coincidence," I said.
He didn't push. "You have an unusual chakra pattern," he said instead. "Smooth, but… layered. And your sensory range, for someone with your reserves—impressive. It's always interesting when the Leaf puts investment into unconventional talent."
It sounded like a compliment. It tasted like someone checking the quality of a knife.
His chakra didn't flicker once.
Naruto, meanwhile, had fully decided this man was his new favorite side character.
"Glasses guy is cool," he declared. "He's like if Kakashi-sensei did his homework."
Kabuto rubbed his cheek, embarrassed. "I wouldn't go that far."
"He's got maps, he knows where everyone is, he knows how much time we have…" Naruto ticked items off on his fingers. "We should totally stick together."
"No," Sasuke said immediately.
"Why not?" Naruto demanded. "More people means more power!"
"More people means more variables," Sasuke said. "We have both scrolls. We don't need them."
Kabuto held up his hands in mock surrender. "I'm not offended. Our team has our required scrolls as well. We were just passing through."
Yoroi shifted behind him, eyes flicking restlessly over us, lingering on Naruto a little too long. Misumi's gaze slid over my hands, my arm warmers, my ink stains, in a way that felt like he was thinking about where he could wrap around and squeeze.
I did not want to be in a crowded hallway with either of them.
Kabuto followed my line of sight as if he'd read the thought.
"In any case," he said, "moving separately is safer for everyone. Too large a group becomes a target."
"See?" Sasuke said.
There was an annoying little logic gremlin in my brain that agreed with both of them.
More people meant more eyes, more chakra signatures, more options. It also meant more mouths to manage, more strangers between me and my idiots if something went wrong.
We're not a clan, I thought. We're a hazard.
"Okay," I said finally. "Then how about this: you point out which way avoids the murder bottleneck and the cursed river, and we'll owe you a thank you and absolutely nothing else."
Kabuto laughed. It sounded genuinely delighted this time. "Direct," he said. "I like that."
He turned one of his data cards toward me and traced a path along it with his finger.
"If you keep angling north from here," he said, "you'll skirt the worst of the fights. There's a ravine—easy to miss, but crossable—and then a relatively straight line to the tower from there."
I memorized the curve his hand made. The card's lines wobbled under my tired vision; his finger didn't.
"Thanks," I said. "In return, some free medical advice: drink water, don't open any mystery packages, and if the forest starts whispering in your ear, run."
He smiled. "Wise words."
Naruto looked between us, baffled. "The forest talks?"
"Only to girls with burned hands," I said.
"It does not," Sasuke muttered.
"Does too," I said automatically. "It told me you're cranky."
"Wow," Naruto said. "Real cutting insight there, tree."
Kabuto's shoulders shook once, like he'd stifled another laugh. "You three are…interesting," he said. "I look forward to seeing how you do in the next phase."
"That's ominous," I said.
"Just honest," he replied.
His chakra still hadn't moved. That bothered me more than his actual words.
He turned to go, his teammates flowing around him like they'd practiced this exact exit formation. Yoroi stuffed his hands deeper into his pockets. Misumi's shoulders hunched a little, like he was glad to be leaving.
Kabuto paused, just at the edge of my sensory bubble, and glanced back one last time.
A sliver of something slipped through the gray then. Not malice. Not exactly. Just…focus. An intense, surgical curiosity, cold and bright as a scalpel.
It brushed over me, Naruto, Sasuke, like he was tagging files.
I went still.
Then the surface smoothed again. He adjusted his glasses, smiled that mild smile, and vanished into the trees.
Naruto flopped backward onto a rock with a groan. "Man, that guy's awesome," he said. "We should've totally teamed up. He had cards."
"You like anyone who has props," I said.
"He kinda reminded me of Kakashi-sensei," Naruto added thoughtfully. "But less late."
Sasuke grunted. "Kakashi would wipe the floor with him."
Kakashi would also flip his book to a new page and make us figure out the map ourselves, but I didn't say that.
Instead, I watched the place where Kabuto had disappeared until my Mark stopped tingling.
Use him for information. Don't give him anything important. That felt like a compromise my instincts and my burned-out chakra could live with.
"Alright," I said, pushing myself upright. "We've got a direction, we've got both scrolls, we've got…most of our blood still inside us. Let's move before the forest decides it hasn't bullied us enough."
Naruto sprang back to his feet, already re-energized by the tiniest whiff of "almost there."
"Yeah!" he said, punching the air. "Next fight, I'm not sleeping through anything. Believe it!"
"Please don't," I said. "You snore in crisis."
He spluttered. "I do not!"
"You absolutely do," I said. "Ask your entire orphanage row."
He went red. "TRAITOR."
Sasuke exhaled through his nose, the corner of his mouth twitching like he was physically restraining a smile.
His chakra was still jagged. Still wrong. But when I brushed against it with my sense—very gently this time—it wasn't drowning in Orochimaru's color anymore. It was him again. Bruised. Cracked. But him.
I tucked that away like a talisman.
We set off in the direction Kabuto had traced, angling northeast through the thinning trees.
Behind us, the forest swallowed the clearing, the scuffed earth, the faint smell of smoke. Somewhere out there, a too-smooth chakra signature moved through the undergrowth with deliberate, careful steps.
Ahead of us, the tower waited.
One more maze. One more test.
At least this time, I thought, adjusting my glasses and tightening my ribbon, we had a map.
Sort of.