Chapter 32

Title: Chunin Exams 4

....

3rd POV

At his arrival, Shun found that the Genin trio were currently missing a member in Naruto as they faced against a disguised Orochimaru.

'Hmm, seems like I came a bit late.' Shun thought as he looked towards the distance where he felt Naruto's chakra together with a snake's Natural Energy.

'Don't tell he feels Naruto is a weaker foe to Sasuke...I see.' Shun thought as he relaxed to watch the battle unfold.

At this moment, Sasuke and Sakura were exposed to a fraction of Orochimaru's killing intent. Sakura was already on her knees with Sasuke vividly reliving his worst nightmare...

...The Uchiha Clan killing, as well as Itachi's own killing intent.

In a moment of desperation to end it all, Sasuke was so close to plunging his own Kunai into his throat when a sliver of soothing energy washed over him.

It was so fast that it went as soon as it came due to Shun's interference. 

"Not on my watch. This is hurdle be needs to pass on his own Mikoto-san." He said to no one in particular, but a certain astral figure could be seen glaring in his direction to which he just smiled wryly at.

That sliver of energy was so miniscule, yet it managed to bring Sasuke back from the brink of death.

"You..." Sasuke struggled to say. "Who are you?"

"Why? This is the Chunin Exams, I don't think we came here to make friends." The snake tongued girl replied with a lick of her lips.

"You're no ordinary Genin. No Genin should have this massive amount of killing intent." Sasuke bit out in anger as he tried to calm himself.

"Oh? What makes you say that? You tree huggers have become so complacent due to living in peace eh?" She said with a sinister smirk.

"I initially had hopes for you seeing as you were the brother to the famed Itachi, but I guess you're just that." She continued.

This managed to spike Sasuke's anger once again, making him lose his calm as he snarled. "Don't compare me with him."

"Oh? Did I hit a nerve? Not that I care." She said nonchalantly. "Defeat me and I'll give you the Earth scroll and to top it off, I'll even give you some information on Itachi."

"I'm sure you're dying to know about your dear older brother." 

Hearing this, Sasuke grit his teeth as his Three Tomoe Sharingan spun due to his intense anger. This, however, didn't help calm his shivering body, so gripping his Kunai, he plunged it into his thigh's.

The pain managed to relieve him of some mental pressure which he immediately used to form some handsigns to conjure a giant fireball aimed at the girl.

The girl, seemingly unexpecting the quick response from Sasuke, was caught in the attack, but Sasuke wasn't naive enough to believe she was caught and immediately carried the already paralysed Sakura down the tree.

"So you did have some fight in you, little Uchiha. This one is pleased." Sasuke heard the voice but for some reason, couldn't pinpoint the location it was coming from.

"Sakura! Hey, Sakura!" Sasuke tried to snap her out of her daze all to no avail. "Damn! Where's Naruto at a time like this?"

"That teammate of yours should already be dead now..." Sasuke heard the girl say. 

"My Summon can be a little... bloodthirsty, you see." She continued, "so right now, you should worry about yourself."

...

Meanwhile...

"IT ATE ME!! HEY!!" Naruto cried at the top of his lungs as he tried to navigate through the slippery insides of the snake Summon.

"HEY! HEY YOU OUT THERE! YOU BETTER SPIT ME OUT WHILE YOU'VE GOT THE CHANCE!!" Naruto cried out, but all he got was the continuous change in the insides of the snake..

'Shit, I gotta get out of here before this snake digests me! But, how do I get out of this freak?' Naruto thought.

He could feel his skin get hotter in here, not due to the heat but due to the digestive fluids of the snake acting slowly on him.

He might be an idiot, but his many sessions out with Hana has taught him that predator animal's digestive system are much more cruel, considering the fact that they normally took in their preys whole.

'Hmm, digestive malfunction? That could do it, but how? My underwear won't do considering it's a snake... then what?'

Naruto wracked his brains but got nothing, however, he suddenly remembered a scene of Sasuke barfing after challenging him to an eating contest.

"THAT'S IT! [Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu!]"

PUFF PUFF. 

The snake enlarged on the outside as soona s his voice feel and in the next second, it exploded into bits and pieces with flesh and blood splattering all over the forest.

"Geh. Disgusting. But I did warn you." Naruto said as he released all of his clones.

"I'm the Shinobi that'll become the Hokage. You should've listened when I asked. I got better things to do with my life than end up as a big snake's turd." He said as he tried to wipe the grim from his body.

"Right! Next up is to find Sasuke and Sakura...!"

...

Gasp!

With a loud gasp, Sakura finally snapped out of her mental paralysis.

"Sasuke-kun! Sasu-!"

Her mouth was immediately covered by Sasuke who was observing the terrain outside of their hiding spot.

'We've got to move fast or he'll find us again... the question is how to evade him...how do we even run when we don't know where he is?' 

Sasuke thought fidgetedly as he tried to come up with a plan of action.

'Sasuke is so jumpy.' Sakura finally managed to catch up with what's going on. 'I've never seen him like this befor-!'

She thought but suddenly caught sight of something Sasuke couldn't see due to him looking outward.

"Mhnn! Mhunn." She tried to alert him but her mouth was tightly shut but his hand, so grabbing it, she pulled it away and screamed. "SASUKE!! SNAKEEEE!"

Sasuke turned as fast as he could and with quick reflexes, jumped away from his position while also pushing Sakura away.

'Whoa. That was close, my chakra is so out of wack that I overlooked a giant snake.' He thought as he landed atop a tree, however a slithering noise alerted him to another snake waiting in ambush.

Hiss! Hiss!

He heard, before the snake jumped on him. 

Without catching his breath he jumped upwards, which he immediately found to have been a mistake as the snake also followed behind with its mouth wide open to take a bite.

With a quick thinking, he also discovered that the snake was defenceless, so he pulled out a couple Kunai and aimed for the snake. "GET LOST!"

THUMP.

The snake landed back on the tree and slumped, dead, while Sasuke made to catch his breath from all the adrenaline rush he was feeling.

SKRIT!

Sasuke, and the spectating Sakura were immediately alarmed as the dead snake seemed to have been torn apart from the inside, and out of it came the girl.

"A shame Letting your guard down! Stay on your toes, like a good prey should. It makes the chase much more rewarding...For the predator." The girl said and unleashed another wave of killing intent on Sasuke alone.

With quick movement, she slithered around the tree as she made for Sasuke who was momentarily paralyzed due to the immense pressure, however, before she could make contact with Sasuke, she was kicked flying, much to the surprise of all three present.

"Sorry Sasuke!" They heard a familiar voice that elicited a varying degrees of reaction. "I can't remember that stupid password of yours."

Naruto said with a smile as he stood proudly atop a tree branch.

As it turned out, their battle with the sound trio turned out to be better than they had both expected.

Despite their seemingly threatening status, Naruto and Sasuke were able to make quick work of their opponents before coming to Sakura's aid.

Having had the advantage of growing up under the watchful eyes of a group of very skilled Shinobi, fighting against their peers showed to be an easy endeavour.

At first, they were unfortunate to fall prey to the unique attacks of the sound waves emitted by their opponents, but after the first attack, Naruto simply made sure to direct all their attacks to the ground before they could complete it.

Noticing this, Sasuke grit his teeth and immediately followed suit. He wasn't all too pleased to be following Naruto's example, but that was the only thing he could do 

Not following it would entail him discovering his own method and that would take time, meaning that Naruto would have more reasons to say he was better than him.

In his displeasure, he made quick work of Tsuchi before Naruto could come help.

Afterall, she didn't have any weird attacks other than her senbon Mastery.

Sasuke knew he was a genius and Naruto was an idiot, but he also knew that Naruto had his own level of genius when it comes to Taijutsu.

For as long as he had know him, Naruto hadn't been caught in the same trick twice when it comes to physical pain. He was that quick in preventing it from happening a second time.

That was why he was able to come up with a quick fix for the sound attack he was exposed to earlier.

With the battle finished, Sasuke, in a bid to change the subject without it being brought up in the first place, advocated for a password they would use to identify themselves.

However, Naruto was had better things to do, which was to take a piss, so he just causally nodded his head as though he had gotten the password after Sasuke said it.

After that he left to relieve himself. In the next moment after relieving himself, he was immediately kidnapped by some random hobbo who left him tied up.

It took Naruto some time to tear the ropes apart, but after doing that, he was caught once again and quickly swallowed by the snake from earlier.

Remembering his ordeal, Naruto couldn't help but wonder why he didn't use a Shadow Clone to untie himself in the First place.

"Sweet! Naruto! That was awesome!" Sakura praised causing him to immediately forget what he was thinking earlier and smile smugly.

"Naruto to the rescue, huh? I know You're completely psyched to be saving the day but...now would be a good time to run for your life." Sasuke shouted, snapping Naruto out of his reverie.

"This guy is way out of our league!!"

"Hehehe. My compliments on your stunning defeat of the giant snake... Naruto." The girl wiggled and stood up from her position.

Naruto finally turned to look at the girl and was immediately alarmed. 

From his [Analyse] skill, all he got from the girl was [???] In all her stats.

'This guy is a freak. He's a man, that much I'm aware, but all I can see when I look at him is a snake. Everything about him...even his scent... Snakey! I'll bet that snake from earlier was his.' 

Naruto thought angrily as he observed the now confirmed guy.

"Hey! Why don't you pick on someone your own size..? Or something like that?" Naruto began with gutso but ended up asking leaving Orochimaru and Sasuke confused on whether he was provoking or asking a question.

'Stupid! Everytime I try to rescue us, he ends up getting us into more trouble! I've got to stop this before he gets us all killed. Tch, this is all I can think of now.' 

Sasuke thought and immediately shut off his Sharingan and pulled out the Heaven Scroll.

"If it's our scroll you want, come get it. Just take it and go!" He offered.

"What!?" Cried Naruto

"Huh?" Came Sakura surprised remark. For all she knew, Sasuke was the one most hyped on being a Chunin, giving up this opportunity...

"Heh." Smirked Orochimaru. 

What was he going to do with the scroll? He didn't come here to pass the Chunin exams but to beat these two guys up to an inch of their lives.

"Sasuke!! You bastard! What do you think you're doing? Is this some clever way of beating the enemy? By handing over everything we've got?" Came Naruto's angry queries.

"Well done..." Orochimaru said and took on a posture of a predator hunting it's prey. "You're obviously a natural born prey. Instinctively knowing that your only hope...lies in the chance of the predator being distracted by some tastier bait."

"Humph." Sasuke snorted and threw the scroll opposite Orochimaru. "Go get it then."

However, before the scroll could said a few meters away from Sasuke...

Fwip!

There stood Naruto with the scroll in his grip. 

"Oh?" Orochimaru muttered in surprise to Naruto's physical speed.

One had to know that the distance between Naruto and Sasuke was over 10meters wide. To make a jump so quick that he covered over 10.meters in a flash was amazing in its own right.

"Stay away from this!!" Sasuke cried out in alarm. "You'll ruin everything!"

But all he got was a punch to his face sending him flying.

'Huh? How?' Sakura, once again finally caught up to what was going on. One moment Naruto was a good distance from Sasuke, the next he was beside Sasuke, and the very next moment, Sasuke was sent flying.

'What the hell is going on?' She wondered.

*****

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