A/N: Hey guys, sorry for the delay in all this, real life has gotten messy lately. I don't plan on abandoning TLTU anytime soon (hopefully never), so don't worry about that right now. This chapter is a little shorter, but i hit a roadblock planning the next stage and decided to post what I have now instead of delaying again and again. Constructive criticism is appreciated, but please don't flame.

Chapter 10: Petting Zoo

"After you." Naruto said with a small flourish as the two clones dispersed back into chakra-laced smoke, and Sasuke paused for a moment to make another light before leading the trio into the tunnel. Despite their diligent checking the tunnel seemed completely devoid of anything, dangerous or otherwise, and led in a straight line for several dozen yards before coming to a plain wooden door with light leaking out from underneath. All three looked at the door nervously but could see nothing untoward about it, so with a quick breath for courage they pushed their way through.

The sunlight was almost blinding after so long with only a small wisp for illumination, and Team 7 stood just beyond the door for several seconds blinking the glare away before Naruto could make out a large field and a giant painted sign. As his eyes adjusted sufficiently for reading he allowed a smile to spread across his face.

Congratulations, You've Reached the Second Stage!

After his eyes had finished adjusting to the mid-afternoon sunlight the first thing Naruto noticed was the wall: it extended away from them in either direction for hundreds of meters, curving slightly as it went and dotted here and there with gates. The sign letting them know they'd passed the first stage was set up over an unoccupied stand between two of the gates leading through the main wall and had several other groups standing around in a loose semicircle.

"Ruto-san!" Though his voice was pitched only slightly louder than his normal speaking tones, Naruto's sensitive ears easily caught Shino's greeting. He quickly found Team 8 amongst the crowd and made his way over, Sakura and Sasuke following behind for lack of anything better to do.

"I knew you'd make it through!" Naruto said as he clapped Shino on the shoulder and smiled warmly at Hinata, who returned his smile with a much more subdued one.

"Indeed. My kikaichū were able to manipulate the first door without difficulty while the final door posed little trouble for the byakugan." Shino said in a monotone, though Naruto fancied he could detect just a trace of pride in the bug-user's tone. "I take it the task proved equally tenable for you?"

"Er…" Naruto blushed slightly at Shino's question. "I had a little trouble with the first lock so I kinda… drilled a hole in the wall." He finished in a rush. Kiba gaped for a second before sniggering loudly while Shino raised a single eyebrow, which for him was about the same thing, and Naruto looked away embarrassed.

"We still passed…" He muttered, a little petulantly.

Before anyone could respond there was an audible cracking sound that grabbed the attention of every genin currently in the clearing, and many had just enough time to grip weapons or take stances before the earth in front of the banner cracked open and an enormous, sinuous shape shot into the sky. Naruto manifested the beginnings of two chains while a clone silently appeared behind him, ready to kawarimi, but the shape quickly resolved itself into a kunoichi with a Konoha hitai-ite standing atop a giant snake.

The clearing stood frozen for an indeterminate amount of time as the unknown kunoichi stared down at the chunin hopefuls, her eyes unreadable, before bursting into laughter.

"You should've seen the look on your faces!" She said, the words interspersed between bouts of uproarious laughter. She continued for almost a minute before finally pulling herself together and jumping down off the top of the snake.

"Congrats on making it through the first stage, food!" She called out with a vicious smile. Beside him Naruto could see Hinata hang her head slightly and frown. "I am the deadly, dangerous, and most importantly sexy Mitarashi Anko, and I'll be your proctor for the second stage of these exams!" There was a notably lackluster response to her announcement from the genin present, and a small scowl crossed Anko's face as she muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'stick in the mud'. The comment drew the tiniest of smirks from Naruto.

Anko looked around as the assembled genin shifted closer to their newly-revealed proctor before patting the snake she was standing on and dropping to the ground. "Listen up!" She shouted, holding up a set of forms she'd seemingly pulled from nowhere. "Behind me is Training Ground 44, also known as the Forest of Death." A wide smile split her face as she spoke, and she seemed to relish the area's unofficial name. "and this is where the second part of your exams will take place." Most of the foreign shinobi reacted with barely-raised eyebrows or scoffs but Naruto, and surprisingly Kiba, both paled slightly while Shino's bugs began buzzing in agitation. Despite the crowd around them Anko seemed to zero in on their reaction instantly, her slightly-crazed smile growing even larger before she turned back to the crowd.

"Your task for the next ten days is simple." She said with a light tone as she reached into the pocket of her trench coat and pulled out a simple metal band with small etchings on it. "In the forest are several groups of animals in possession of these bands. Get three of them and make it to the tower in the center of the training ground with your team intact." She said before frowning in thought for a moment, then brightening. "Oh yeah, it should go without saying that leaving the forest will mean disqualification."

Several of the genin smiled while Choji looked like he was on the verge of panicking. "What are we supposed to do about food for ten days!?" He called out, only for Anko to shrug with an unconcerned expression.

"You're ninja, live off the land. Hell, go cannibal and eat the other genin for all I care, just don't leave the forest. And speaking of that…" Anko walked over to a small table underneath the congratulations sign and dropped the stack of forms onto it along with a box of pens. "Everyone needs to sign one of these before going into the forest. Don't worry, they just absolve Konoha of any liability should you die during the exams." The last of the smiles died away as the possibly lethal nature of the test began to sink in for the assembled Genin as they slowly filed forward to sign the consent forms. As each team handed in the complete forms they were directed towards one of the entrances dotting the giant wall until all the teams were spread out. As they headed towards their respective starting points Naruto caught Hinata's eye and made a series of quick handsigns causing Sasuke to narrow his eyes and Hinata to nod. As soon as the last team was in place Anko began leisurely making hand signs.

"The second task begins at my signal. Try to at least make it interesting." As she finished the last sign Anko raised her right hand skyward and released a mote of light that streaked upwards before exploding with a loud band at the same moment the various gates to the forest opened and the genin rushed in.

"See anything yet?" Kiba asked as they rested for a moment high in one of the abnormally large trees that made up much of the forest. As soon as the task had started Team 8 had rushed through the gate, intent on putting some distance between themselves and any teams that might think of circling the inside of the wall to 'reduce the competition' a bit. Now, nearly half a kilometer into the forest they were stopping to take stock of their situation for the first time.

"Nothing" Hinata said, her tone clipped as she scanned the area with her doujutsu. "There are a few animals in my range but none of them are wearing bands."

"The ones with bands must be closer to their dens" Kiba said with a frown as he looked deeper into the forest, shivering slightly. Seeing the normally brash and confident Inuzuka so unnerved caused Hinata to raise an eyebrow questioningly. Thoroughly used to the look from his mother and sister, Kiba didn't even try to hold out.

"I don't like this place." He said with a grimace, his eyes constantly keeping watch on the surrounding area. "It smells feral, like too many big predators in too small a place. Plus some of the stories Hana has told me about this place… even she said it's no place to go unprepared." Akamaru barked softly in agreement with his partner's agitation. "Plus I have no idea where we would even go to look for these bands. Maybe near the river or-"

"We stay away from the river." Hinata cut him off in an authoritative tone, garnering her own raised eyebrow from her teammates. Ever since the mission to Yu no Kuni Hinata's personality had taken a more forceful turn, and while neither would gainsay the quiet girl a boost in confidence the rapid change was a bit shocking. "Ruto said some of the things further in the forest would be…bad for us to go up against."

"And he would know that how?" Kiba asked suspiciously, watching as Hinata visibly squirmed as she tried to think of an answer that wouldn't give away what she considered privileged information on her best friend.

"He…he's spent a lot of time in the forests around Konoha." She said slowly. "Enough to be familiar with most of it. If he says to stay away from the deeper parts of the forest, I say we listen to him. Besides, I'm sure there'll be bands near the river. They wouldn't put them all in one place."

'Every band in the whole damn forest must be down there' Naruto thought as he stared at the roiling mass below them.

From his perspective, everything had been going to shit since the moment Team 7 had stepped into the forest. Sasuke stubbornly insisted that they should head deeper into the forest where he assumed most of the animal dens would be, even going to far as to tell Naruto they could split up if he was so dead-set against following them. With Sakura's vote a foregone conclusion Naruto had finally decided that following his teammates was better than the chewing out Kakashi was sure to give him if he abandoned them and they were eaten by a giant slug or something. Not to mention he'd fail if that happened.

"What the hell are those" Sasuke's disgusted voice came from Naruto's right, his face screwed up into a distasteful expression.

"Centipedes"

"No way in hell any centipede grows that big. They've gotta be fifteen feet long!"

Naruto sighed as he made a shushing motion at his teammate while keeping one eye on the mass of predatory insects below. "Fine, they're giant centipedes. Now do you see why I said to stay out of the deep forest?"

Predictably, Sasuke's expression became mulish while Sakura's reflexive defense of the Uchiha was probably only held back by the danger below them and her dislike of insects. He'd thought, perhaps naively, that the two of them might have gained a bit of respect for him based on their more accommodating behavior during the first task, but the moment they were back in a field environment that attitude seemed to melt away.

"They're just bugs. All we need to do is kill a couple of them and we'll be at the tower by sundown." The black-on-red of Sasuke's activated doujutsu was fixed on the mass below them and Naruto was suddenly overcome by trepidation as his hands rose to make a seal.

"What are you-"

Before Naruto could stop him Sasuke took a deep breath before exhaling a giant fireball right into the center of the nest. There was a whoosh as the fireball hit the top of one of the giants right before the fireball expanded to cover a full third of the horde. For a fraction of a second Naruto held out hope they're been lucky and the insects were too stupid to realize where the attack had come from, but any hope died as the chittering sound of mandibles clacking together rose from a low background to an ominous chorus.

"Shit"

They punched through the residual smoke from the fire jutsu in a wave of chitin and mandibles, legs blurring as they gripped the trees and propelled the grotesque forms quickly upwards. Naruto was moving almost before he registered the attack as a quartet of chains burst from his back, two of them anchoring him between two of the massive trees surrounding them while another two shot forward with deadly accuracy and speared a pair of centipedes between their eyes. Even as his first attack claimed its victims more of the insects were surging forward, their beady eyes focused as they saw the prey that had dared attack them. A quick thought moved Naruto even higher into the air as his chains retracted out of the two dead centipedes, pausing only to slip a thin length of chain around the band encircling one mandible on each corpse and bringing them into Naruto's waiting hand.

"We need to get out of here!" He half-shouted to Sasuke as the other boy breathed out a series of small fireballs that impacted against several centipedes, the fire dispersing to reveal concealed shuriken that unfortunately did little but enrage the already-irritated creatures farther.

"I can handle this!" The dark-haired boy shouted back as he threw several kunai with more force and finally managed to penetrate the thick exoskeleton of several approaching enemies. Only one of the three climbers fell to the ground from the attack, but the injuries on the other two managed to slow the insects and, consequently, the ones behind them.

"Maybe you can" Naruto grit out in frustration as he threw a kunai and made a cross sign that multiplied the projectile into a brief rain of metal. "but Sakura can't." He briefly pointed to the terrified kunoichi who had done little more than move higher into the trees and throw a few kunai into the mass of enemies.

Sasuke stared at the pink-haired girl for two long heartbeats, an eternity during battle, before growling under his breath. His next kunai was thrown with enough force to embed it completely into the head of a centipede that had thought to circle around to the other side of the tree trunk for a sneak attack, and he glared at Naruto as the ten-foot-long corpse fell to the forest floor. Their eye contact lasted just long enough for Naruto to see that he accepted the necessity, and a moment later two dozen copies of the redhead were sending their Kongō Fūsa towards the swarm and drawing as much attention as they could. Sasuke's eyes widened for a moment as he saw the number of clones Naruto had made so casually as a mere diversion, but recovered quickly and was soon moving along the tree branches away from the nest. Naruto followed slightly behind, having taken a second to make sure Sakura was following them, and Team 7 spent the next ten minutes putting as much distance between themselves and the carnivorous, predatory swarm of centipedes as they could. When they finally stopped next to a small stream even the sounds of Naruto's clones fighting had faded back to the normal stillness of the forest, which was promptly broken by an angry Sasuke as they refilled their canteens in the clear water.

"We could have taken them." The angry accusation was clear in Sasuke's voice as he turned to Naruto, who simply shrugged.

"The point is to get the bands, Sasuke. Not to murder every animal we come across." Naruto's eyes were unreadable behind his customary shades. "And I'm not so sure we could have."

"You didn't seem to be having any trouble with your clones there to help us." Sasuke snarked back. "And now we've got nothing to show for our efforts but lost energy and time."

"Not quite." Naruto cut off Sasuke's tirade by reaching into his pocket and pulling out the pair of rings he'd taken from the first two centipedes he'd killed. He couldn't resist a small smile as his teammate's gaped at him.

"Two down, one to go." He said in a satisfied voice, putting the rings back in his pocket.

This turned out to be a good thing, as a split-second later something barreled into him from the side and everything went black.

"Tsuga!"

The last echoes of Kiba's jutsu faded away into the forest as Hinata and Shino walked up. Both Akamaru and Kiba were panting slightly but wore proud smiles as the quartet surveyed the downed form of an abnormally large boar, easily eight feet at the shoulder, which had taken the full brunt of Kiba's attack.

"Aaaand that's three!" Kiba fist-pumped as Hinata, after activating her Byakugan to make sure the animal was really dead, removed the band that encircled the right tusk. Kiba's last attack had turned most of the animal's side into a mass of slashed and bruised flesh but what little was left untouched would still make for a decent meal if they couldn't make it to the tower before nightfall.

"So what now?" Still running on the high of taking down his opponent Kiba's voice was louder than Hinata or Shino would have liked, but as Hinata didn't detect anyone within the radius of her Byakugan when she checked on the boar she didn't comment on it besides a small grimace.

"We should head to the tower as quickly as possible." Shino said immediately.

"Aww, really? Why not stay in the forest and see if we can take down a team or two? Less competition for later." Kiba whined.

"Because not every team in this forest is from Konoha, and the forms we were required to sign before this task absolve them of any responsibility should they kill us in self-defense."

Kiba's exuberant expression immediately turned sour at the thought.

"You make it sound like we can't take them."

Shino raised an eyebrow but before he could respond there was a loud crash from somewhere deeper in the forest accompanied by a rising cloud of dust and birds visible even above the giant trees of the forest. As the sound faded Team 8 stood silently alert as they watched for any signs of danger, only relaxing slightly when they couldn't detect anything. As Akamaru's tail slowly began to wag again Shino pinned Kiba with a harsh stare.

"We cannot know for certain if we are stronger than the other teams, but the evidence would seem to suggest that someone out there has more destructive potential than we do. And I, for one, would not like to meet them." Shino turned and started walking along the river in the direction of the center of the forest, Hinata following silently behind.

Kiba's face was pensive as he fell in line.

'What the hell is she?' Sasuke thought with a tinge of panic as his opponent dodged through another hail of shuriken hidden inside his Hōsenka no jutsu. Even with his sharingan active Sasuke would have had trouble replicating the feat, but the girl in the Sound headband didn't look like she was even trying.

"Kukuku, you'll have to do better than that Sasuke-kun." The voice was possibly the most disturbing part of his opponent, clearly male with an undercurrent of covetous intent that made him shiver as he barely dodged several taijutsu attacks before substituting himself with a log and launching another Hōsenka. Just as before the Sound ninja dodged easily between the small balls of fire, a disappointed expression on her face right up until the moment Sasuke tightened his hands and guided the shuriken hidden inside the fireballs to wrap around her body courtesy of their attached wires. The disappointed expression changed to surprise and something akin to pleasure even as Sasuke breathed a line of fire down the wires that engulfed her body.

Standing atop a high tree-branch with his chest pumping like a bellows Sasuke took a brief moment to scan the area around them. Sakura was still huddled against the trunk of a nearby tree, the killing intent the Sound ninja had subjected them to at the beginning of the fight still suppressing her ability to function, and Sasuke had an uncharacteristic moment of gratitude towards Kakashi. If the jonin hadn't subjected him to similar killing intent several times during the extra training the council had ordered he might have been stuck much like Sakura, unable to even move under the face of such malice.

Kodama was nowhere to be found, and if he was honest with himself that was worrying on multiple levels. First, and most irritating, they couldn't pass the second stage without all three members of their team. If they somehow failed to find the redhead they would be kicked out, even if they managed to get the three bands. Second, and only slightly less irritating, was the fact that other boy had also been holding the two rings from the centipedes, meaning they were back to square one either way. Last, and most troubling, was the idea that someone out there had the ability to not only take Kodama by surprise but also put him out of commission entirely. While still firmly convinced that he was better than his teammate, even Sasuke had to admit that the redhead was skilled. And if someone out there could take the boy down Sasuke didn't want to meet them in his current condition.

"Kukuku, impressive." Sasuke whipped his head up to find the same Sound ninja standing on a branch a mere fifteen yards away, a few small darkened points on her clothes the only sign showing she'd been hit by one of his strongest combination attacks. Sasuke stared with wide eyes before glances at the dying flames from his last attack and finding only a pile of vaguely human-shaped mud instead of the corpse he'd assumed was inside the inferno.

The slight wavering of his attention lasted only the smallest fraction of a second, but in that time-frame the Sound girl had covered almost the entire distance between them and it was only the accelerated perceptions given to Sasuke by the sharingan that allowed him to substitute away in time. The tree trunk behind him cracked as the girl's fist went through the log he'd switched with and slammed into the tree behind it, but rather than frustration all the other ninja showed was a wide smile. The killing intent she'd been putting off for the entire fight spiked suddenly as her eyes unerringly sought Sasuke out again and the Uchiha swore under his breath.

'Crap'

Naruto stared at the smoking remains of the giant snake from his perch halfway up a tree as he tried to catch his breath. The giant reptile had smashed into Naruto hard enough to daze him and throw him quite a distance from his teammates but despite the size of the beast it still took nearly a minute for it to catch up with its much smaller prey. In that minute Naruto had landed, deactivated the seals restricting his movement, and made a dozen clones. Half the clones immediately hid themselves in the surrounding forest as Naruto and the remaining copies turned to face the ominous rumbling heading towards them, presenting a united front. When the snake had burst into the clearing and seen the multiple copies of its prey there was a moment of hesitation, and it was in that moment that the group attacked.

Thin chains with spear tips may not be particularly effective against a massive snake by themselves, but when there are several dozen of them anchoring said snake to trees even bigger than it is, they're suddenly much more useful. In seconds the snake was thrashing around as scores of Kongō Fūsa restricted its movements, giving Naruto all the time he needed. Another trio of clones popped into existence and manifested chains that pried the monster's mouth open while the last clone calmly walked over and jumped into the gaping maw with a chakra-aided leap. The clone's own chains anchored it and pressed it against the snake's mouth as it began to glow ominously, the chains holding the mouth open retracting at the same time. The snake's mouth snapped shut a fraction of a second later only bulge outwards and then break apart as the clone detonated itself in a concussive fireball that turned most of the snake's head to scattered debris.

"Messy" One of the clones commented, garnering nods from the other clones as well as the original before something pulled all their attention back in the direction they'd come from. The faintest strands of smoke rising above the treetops from the area Naruto thought his teammates had been acted as a silent signal, and moments later the crowd was silently moving through the treetops.

A rapidly tiring Sasuke exhaled yet another stream of fire, his already-low chakra reserves falling to somewhere between 'fumes' and 'nonexistent', and held in a groan by virtue of exhaustion more than anything else as his opponent simply rotated on the tree branch she was advancing along. The stream passed through the space her chest had occupied a second earlier without stopping and splashed against the tree, the heat causing a few embers but no secondary flames in the well-watered wood, and Sasuke was suddenly flying through the air as a fist connected with the side of his head. Thankfully he landed at the crook of another large branch and didn't fall to the forest below, but his world was spinning dangerously.

"So this is as far as the Last Uchiha goes, is it?" The girl stopped at the edge of the same branch, her yellow eyes focused on his sharingan and a contemplative expression no her face. "I suppose you haven't been a total failure Sasuke-kun. You'll have to grow much faster than this if you want to beat Itachi though." With that one sentence the exhaustion weighing down Sasuke's body seemed to fade into the background as he glared at the Sound girl.

"You know my brother? Where is he!?"

The girl gave a masculine chuckle as Sasuke struggled to stand.

"Now now, is that any way to speak to your betters?" Her face seemed to shift slightly, eyeteeth growing longer while her smile seemed too large for a human mouth. "I'll make a deal with you Sasuke-kun. Come find me after the exams, and I'll tell you where your brother is. I'll even help you get strong enough to kill him." Her visage was definitely reptilian now, and her neck seemed to be extending further out than a human's could. "That is, if you survive!"

The girl's head leapt forward as her neck extended, mouth gaping and aimed directly at Sasuke's shoulder. Despite his sharingan giving him the ability to follow her movements he simply couldn't move his body enough to dodge anymore, and he waited for the inevitable as he saw her bite down. Her head passed out of sight for a fraction of a second before his view suddenly shifted and he was looking at the whole scene from about twenty yards to the side as her teeth sank into 'his' body.

Which promptly exploded.

Orochimaru was…vexed.

Part of the problem was that, up till now, things had been going so well. He had easily snuck into the village via one of the several tunnels he'd created during his tenure in Konoha, easily killed the team from Kusa, and everything was going to plan. Sasuke was good enough to be interesting but weak enough to tempt and oh so emotionally vulnerable. He'd separated that annoying redhead from his quarry and then, just when he was so close to testing his newest possible acquisition, a perfectly-timed kawarimi/daibakuha combo had nearly taken his head off. Now his disguise was damaged (along with his mouth, but a quickly-shed skin could fix that) and Sasuke was surrounded by a dozen copies of a boy he was fairly sure he'd killed. It was all very annoying.

"I admit I'm somewhat surprised to see you alive." He said as soon as his newly uninjured body crawled out of the distended mouth of the old one. "I was quite sure my friend would be more than enough to take care of a single genin." Orochimaru rolled his shoulders as his joints settled back in place and watched the other boy curiously as he shrugged.

"It was just a big snake."

He frowned at the nonchalance in the boy's tone. Shoma was nowhere near his most powerful summon but he made a wonderful enforcer, large and powerful with thick scales that would shrug off most attacks. Even a talented genin should have been easily crushed.

"Yes, well, as impressive as it is that you survived I think you have something of mine." Orochimaru replied, a touch shortly. That explosion would have drawn the attention of more than just the other genin in the forest, and despite his personal power things weren't in place to crush Konoha just yet. He would have to work quickly if he wanted to mark Sasuke.

The boy moved protectively in front of his semi-conscious teammate as the copies around him readied weapons but Orochimaru let loose a blast of killing intent an order of magnitude above the one he'd used before and saw the boy and his clones freeze. A single chakra-strengthened leap took him to the branch his target was standing on and he casually walked past the frozen forms towards Sasuke.

"Now that the interruptions have been dealt with-" He started to say as he leaned towards Sasuke's neck, only to immediately kawarimi with a nearby branch as decades of battle-hardened instincts screamed at him. The moment the technique finished Orochimaru looked back to where he'd been standing and, for the first time in many years, openly gaped.

The space he'd stood only a heartbeat before was currently occupied by a forest of transparent chains, the branch he'd used as his substitute barely more than a cloud of splinters falling to the forest floor below, but that wasn't what had his mind momentarily stuttering. It was the fact that these chains were familiar, and they were all coming from Sasuke's teammate and his copies.

'They're not all dead!?'

For most of his life Orochimaru had had a fascination with Kekkei Genkai and the limits of the human form, but for all his experimentation and genius three had always eluded him. The Sharingan, with its esoteric requirements for activation and advancement, was nearly impossible to get ahold of; first because most of the Uchiha with activated sharingan either stayed in their district or were part of the Military Police (who had had an irritating habit of never being alone, and thus were difficult to ambush) and later because they were almost all dead. The Mokuton, which despite its immense power had only been usable by two people in all the history of the elemental nations despite his best efforts. And finally there was the Kongō Fūsa, which had the frustrations of both rolled into one. There were almost no Uzumaki left by the time Orochimaru became interested in them, and those few he had been able to find hadn't been able to manifest the power at all. The only Uzumaki he'd known of that definitely had the ability had been skilled enough to give him trouble in her own right even if she hadn't been attached to that damnable Namikaze. He'd eventually given up on them as a lost cause and focused on the one that seemed possible, if difficult, to obtain, and now this!

Even as his mind was processing the new knowledge and its implications Orochimaru's body was moving, deflecting several chains and other projectiles as they snaked out from the forest around him. Out of curiosity he pulled the Sword of Kusanagi from its storage snake and took a slash at one of the chains, noting that the barely-visible scratch on the surface lasted only a fraction of a second before returning to its pristine state. He was starting to get annoyed at the constant attacks, which seemed to give off barely any chakra and were difficult to predict, and was getting ready to put the redhead down hard when he felt a familiar mass of chakra coming his way.

'Damn, it's too early!'

Orochimaru scowled briefly as he realized his playtime was up, but the new opportunity to gain one of the few things that had eluded him for so long calmed much of his anger. He could be patient. He had time. 'All the time in the world'. He smiled at his little joke before using a quick shunsin to move to another tree across from the boy.

"It's been fun, but our time is up." He began making hand seals even as Anko's chakra reached the edge of the clearing.

"OROCHIMARU!"

Ignoring the shout of his wayward apprentice, he kept his eyes trained on the boy in front of him. "Give the Old Man my regards." His tone was pleasant as he completed the last hand sign and disappeared.

Things moved quickly after Orochimaru disappeared. Anko had showed up just as the ninja, who he now knew was one of the infamous Sannin, vanished and was loudly unhappy about it. She'd destroyed several trees in the immediate area to vent her rage before turning to Naruto and demanding a full account, which he gave as quickly as was feasible with a kunai held at his throat by a crazy woman. When she'd finally released him she swore loudly before telling him to continue with the exams and vanishing in a swirl of leaves. With a nearly-comatose Sakura and an unconscious Uchiha around Naruto decided that discretion was only the better part of valor when you didn't need to get somewhere fast and spammed the area with clones. One group kept watch while another group retraced their steps to the centipede nest and quickly and quietly killed one to complete their set of bands. With all three in hand (and clones carrying both his teammates) they'd made good time to the center of the forest and now stood before the tower.

"Now how do I get in…" Naruto muttered to himself as he looked around before noticing an etching of three interlocking circles cut into the stone side of the tower. The circles proved to be of different depths as he tried to fit his bands inside, and as soon as the shallowest depression was filled he heard a click and a door opened in a formerly featureless section of the tower wall. Naruto immediately went on guard as he heard movement but sighed in relief as a familiar shock of white hair emerged.

"Ruto? What happened!?" Kakashi immediately rushed over to his unconscious students as Naruto motioned towards the door.

"This discussion might be better held inside."