"I never expected your family name to be Uzumaki too, Karin. This is really such a coincidence. Mine is too."
Unlike Sasuke, who chose to remain silent, Naruto was much more lively. After hearing that Karin's family name was the same as his, he kept talking to her nonstop, showing none of the distance that usually comes with just meeting someone.
Although Karin seemed a little unaccustomed to Naruto's enthusiasm, the smile on her face showed that she was still enjoying it very much. She was enjoying this experience that she had never had from childhood until now.
After chatting idly for a while, the group didn't delay any longer. They soon set off toward the central tower. Along the way, they encountered several teams that tried to steal their scroll, but their strength was nothing special. Naruto and Sasuke took care of them all without Furina needing to lift a finger.
By the time the group arrived at the central tower, several teams were already waiting inside. The most eye-catching among them was a figure carrying a gourd on his back. Thanks to his overwhelming strength, Gaara had still been the first to reach this place.
"Heh."
After noticing Furina's belated arrival, a hint of amusement flashed in Gaara's eyes. This round, he had won.
Furina naturally noticed Gaara's reaction as well. But right now she had no time to mess around with him. She still needed to hurry and find Kakashi to talk about Karin.
...
"A Uzumaki orphan left adrift outside? All right, I understand. I'll report this to the Hokage. You don't need to worry about the Village Hidden by Grass anymore."
After listening to Furina's explanation, Kakashi's gaze became slightly more serious. Putting everything else aside, just the fact that she was from the Uzumaki clan was enough to warrant attention.
"Then I'll leave it to you, Kakashi-sensei."
Although Kakashi hadn't said much, Furina could still sense how seriously he was taking it. That made sense. After all, his master's wife had also been from the Uzumaki clan. It was only normal for him to care a bit more.
After watching Kakashi leave, Furina returned to the rest area, where she spotted someone rather unexpected: Sakura.
"Not being in Team 7 and still passing the second exam. Such good luck, huh."
Furina had a rough understanding of both Sakura's strength and that of her two teammates. They were in a state of being better than some but worse than others. Compared to other freshly graduated genin, they might be a little stronger, but not by much.
They could manage as genin just fine, but if they wanted to pass the chūnin exam, they were still lacking. In other words, they still needed more training.
But luck was also part of strength. Furina had never looked down on people who were lucky. She only envied them. Envied them, and envied them again.
However, Furina's emotion didn't last long. After "accidentally" overhearing the conversation among Sakura's team, the smile on Furina's lips suddenly became hard to maintain.
"Just now I chatted a bit with Kiba, Shikamaru, and the others. Compared to them, our luck really was way too good. Not only did we pick up the Heaven Scroll we needed right off the ground,
but along the way we didn't run into any other teams trying to steal it either. We basically passed this exam without lifting a finger. They all had to work themselves to death to make it through."
After a simple inquiry, Furina discovered that what Sakura and her team had picked up seemed to be the very scroll Orochimaru had used to disgust her. But by then some time had passed, and it had already dried out...
And that wasn't all. After hiding for a while, the path they chose to head to the central tower just happened to follow right behind Team 7. All the teams that tried to steal scrolls along the way had been dealt with by Sasuke and Naruto. They had basically won by lying down the entire way.
"Wow"
After figuring out the situation, Furina lost interest. The main thing was that it was just too absurd. Who could have guessed that the scroll Orochimaru used to disgust her would end up helping another team?
After waiting a while longer, the second stage of the chūnin exam also came to an end. A total of eight teams had passed this test. That was one more than in the original story: the team Sakura was currently on.
...
"I never expected so many people to reach the third stage in this chūnin exam. Truly gratifying. However, the number of slots for promotion to chūnin is limited. The third stage doesn't need so many participants. Therefore, before that, everyone will need to undergo one more preliminary selection round."
Looking at the Third Hokage on the stage who had started another long-winded speech, Furina suddenly felt that the other really was quite verbose. How had she never noticed this before?
Oh, right. In the past she had always sent a shadow clone to sit through it. Her real body never bothered to go listen, so naturally she never had this annoyance. Now there was no avoiding it.
After listening half-heartedly for a long time, the Third Hokage finally ended his speech with lingering satisfaction. If not for the fact that there was a little Uzumaki girl he needed to go see, he really would have wanted to talk a bit longer.
"Next, we will decide the matchups by drawing lots. First match: Uchiha Sasuke, and..."
After the Third Hokage left, the chief examiner Genma Shiranui immediately stepped to the center of the arena. Without wasting any words, he announced the start of the elimination tournament.
Due to the gradually strengthening effect of the curse mark, Sasuke's condition had been greatly affected. As a result, even dealing with a random weak Sound ninja became extremely difficult, and his situation grew increasingly perilous.
Fortunately, because of Sasuke's "poor" performance, the weak Sound ninja became somewhat careless. In the end, he was defeated by Sasuke, whose speed and power had suddenly increased for some reason.
"It seems like he unconsciously used the power of the curse mark?"
After sensing the cold, eerie chakra emanating from Sasuke, Furina couldn't help feeling a bit puzzled. She remembered that at this point, Sasuke shouldn't have been able to borrow the power of the curse mark. What was going on here?
After recalling the events in the Forest of Death, she suddenly noticed a blind spot. In the original plot, due to the attack from the Sound ninja team, the enraged Sasuke had used the power of the curse mark to repel them.
Naturally, using the curse mark's power would deepen its erosion. So during the third stage, he could only rely on copied taijutsu to fight. But this time was different.
Sasuke hadn't used the curse mark, so the erosion wouldn't be too severe. This resulted in a fight that played out differently from the original.
Perhaps Orochimaru felt that sending the Sound ninja team to trouble Furina would be nothing more than sending them to their deaths with no value at all. So he hadn't ordered them to do it.
After all, rather than wasting them on Furina, it would be better to keep them as material for his future Edo Tensei.
After Sasuke's match, the subsequent fights proceeded in order as well. The matchups were mostly the same as in the original story. The few differences were that this time Naruto didn't face Kiba. Instead, he drew opponents from Sakura's team one after another, and he won both matches.
One could only say that good luck could win for a moment, but to keep winning all the time was still far from enough.