Chapter 56: Foreign Shinobi
"Following the rules of the second exam, the obvious move on entering the Forest of Death is to hide our team, sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight, and wait for an opening."
"That's the normal approach."
The black-haired boy was leaping branch to branch through the canopy.
"Well said, Sasuke."
"So what do you think we should do?"
Sakura glanced back at him.
Sasuke's eyes flicked toward the depths of the forest — almost as if he could already see the central tower at the heart of the Forest of Death. The corner of his mouth pulled into a defiant little smirk.
Sakura saw the look and smiled.
"Obviously — we go straight to the central tower and camp the entrance!"
"And take down everyone who shows up!"
"Everyone here is going to be an opponent eventually anyway. So fewer of them is better for us!"
If Sakura had genuinely been a genin, she would have endorsed Sasuke's plan in a heartbeat.
But if she actually pulled that, Hiruzen Sarutobi would have flayed her. If she singlehandedly washed out every Sand and Stone candidate, the Kazekage and Tsuchikage would lose face on a diplomatic stage — and Hiruzen had not put her into this exam to behave like an actual genin. Wait. Had he?
"YEAH! That's a great idea!"
Naruto, hearing Sasuke's pitch, lit up — and, in a rare show of harmony, voiced his support.
"We'll talk about it later. The person I'm looking for is just up ahead."
Sakura waved them off and pushed her speed up. She'd already caught the flash of bright red through the trees.
Karin trailed silently behind the two burly Grass Village boys, saying nothing.
She didn't know if what Sakura had said was true. But if it could pull her out of this hell, then nothing would be better.
She could roughly guess what the girl named Sakura Haruno wanted from her. The violet mark on Sakura's forehead held a vast reserve of chakra; Sakura needed Karin to keep feeding it.
But —
Being bitten by one person was not the same as being bitten by a swarm. Karin was clear on that distinction.
And the girl named Sakura Haruno — Karin didn't dislike her...
"What are you dragging your feet for?!"
The burly Grass boy in front shot a glare back at her.
"C-coming."
She pushed her glasses up her nose and quickened her pace, nervous.
She didn't know where the girl who'd said you're mine was right now. For the moment, all she could do was follow these two Grass shinobi.
"Tch. We need to find a place to lie low. We get spotted out here, we're toast."
The lead Grass shinobi glanced back at his teammate and then at the gear they were carrying.
"That won't be necessary."
"Because either way, your trip ends here."
A clear, ringing voice rang out directly in front of them.
The Grass team's heads snapped up.
A pink-haired girl was perched on a tree branch above them, arms folded across her chest, looking down. To her left and right stood two boys — one blond, one black-haired.
"Boss — it's a Konoha squad. What do we do?"
The Grass shinobi minding Karin glanced toward his team leader.
"Tch."
The lead Grass boy looked Sakura over carefully — taking in the center-stage poise — and his expression sharpened with combat eagerness.
"Konoha or not, what does it matter?"
"In front of me, even Konoha shinobi aren't worth fearing."
The lead Grass shinobi clearly had ample confidence in himself. Hailed as a prodigy back home in Kusagakure, he was willing to take a swing at a Konoha team to test the waters.
If he couldn't beat them, he'd just hand over the scroll.
"Naruto. Sasuke. They're yours."
Sakura waved them on, and Naruto's face split into an excited grin.
"Leave it to me, Sakura-chan!"
"Multi Shadow Clone Technique!"
Naruto vaulted straight off the branch, completed the seal in midair, and a hundred-plus shadow clones rained down out of the sky toward the two Grass shinobi!
"Looks like I won't even need to step in."
Sasuke arched an eyebrow.
He'd seen Naruto's strength firsthand. Naruto might have been the dead-last in the Academy, but Multi Shadow Clone was genuinely a nightmare to deal with — there was no way to identify the original body, and combined with Naruto's absurd chakra reserves, it made him a real opponent.
The Grass shinobi who'd been about to charge in saw his single opponent suddenly multiply into a hundred physical clones — and his knees executed an absolutely textbook slide tackle, dragging two clean parallel lines through the dirt as he ended in a perfect kneel directly in front of Naruto.
He then proceeded to perform, with zero remaining dignity, a full dogeza in front of the swarm of Narutos.
"Eh?!"
The hundred-some Narutos, who had been bristling with combat intent, all screech-braked to a halt right in front of him. Naruto blinked down at this guy who had just, abruptly, kneeled.
"We surrender! Please, Konoha-shinobi-sama, take our scroll!"
Before Naruto could even process this, the man yanked his team's Heaven scroll out of his tool pouch and offered it up with both hands.
Sasuke's mouth twitched as he watched the Grass shinobi grovel on the ground in front of Naruto.
This is what foreign shinobi are like...?
"What are you doing? We haven't even fought yet?"
Naruto stared down at the kneeling man, completely thrown.
"Sakura-chan... please tell me you weren't looking for this kind of person..."
Sasuke gave Sakura a deeply silent look.
"No. I wasn't."
She pinched the bridge of her nose. Why did the weirdest scenarios always find Naruto.
"Please, just let us go!"
The Grass shinobi's voice rang out, brazen, like he had no concept of shame.
"Uh, ha ha. R-right. Okay then."
Naruto scratched his head with a goofy grin and instinctively dropped the Multi Shadow Clone Technique.
But in that moment the Grass shinobi tilted his head up just slightly — and a vicious flash crossed his eyes.
His head whipped down to slam against the ground — and a streak of black light shot out from the back collar of his shirt straight at the now-defenseless Naruto!
A kunai crackling with electricity flew in from a distance and knocked the streak clean out of the air!
"Eh?"
Naruto, slow on the uptake, looked over at the kunai now embedded in the dirt.
"Idiot. If not for me just now, you'd be dead."
Sasuke walked toward the Grass shinobi, eyes sharp.
Begging for mercy was the camouflage. Getting the enemy to let his guard down was the actual play. Foreign shinobi were even more vicious than Sasuke had given them credit for.
"Hah?"
Naruto, for once, didn't fire back. He just stared dazedly at the kunai in the ground.
In that same instant, the scroll in the Grass shinobi's hand had — somehow — been replaced with a kunai. He launched himself at the still-defenseless Naruto!
"Tch. What an idiot..."
Sasuke, watching, cursed under his breath.