Chapter 22

Naruto looked up at the sun, now red in the sky.

"No." Ryoko hissed, taking a seat as Naruto managed to gather the strength to pull himself up to the branch he'd been hanging off of. "We've got to get food and make some kind of camp before the sun sets!"

"Make camp!? To what? Sleep!?"

"Yes numbnuts we need that, we also need to get food!"

"We could be almost out of here! We have to keep on moving!"

"No! We have to make camp because if we keep on going and we're still stuck here later it'll be too dark to see, and we'll be tired, poisoned and hungry!"

-0-

"The boy panics" Orochimaru observed.

"He's a gennin. Surprised he hasn't burst into tears by now. The girls keeping her cool well enough though."

The pale man nodded. "Indeed. I wonder just how she is considered the dead last."

"Overconfident as hell, didn't study and sucks for everything but Taijutsu, even that is just street brawling more than anything else."

"Orphanage recruit?"

"Close enough. Fathers' a trader, travels constantly almost never in the village. Mothers a...lover of fine wines to put it politely."

Orochimaru smirked "Old Zae must be losing her touch."

"Difficult to teach when they refuse to listen."

-0-

They made camp, such as it was, Naruto, allowing nature chakra to guide him as best he could with his lack of practice, found a hollowed out, dead tree, big enough for them to use. He was relieved when Ryoko and Hanbei volunteered to go get food as opposed to gathering firewood.

Right now, though he hadn't said anything, he could barely see straight, let alone take down an animal big enough for all of them to eat.

And he was only feeling worse.

I'll feel better with some food and sleep.' He thought to himself, his headache pounding across his forehead.

He could not...he could not die here! He had to survive this! There was so much he had to do still...

He moved about gathering dry leaves and twigs for the kindling. The forest of death had plenty of those, so thankfully he didn't have to expel too much effort

All n all, with his small hands and waning strength, it took three trips to gather an amount he thought would be enough to last them the night.

The sun had set before his teammates got back.

Hachiba managed to get three squirrels...Ryoko just caught a single snake.

Hers was the more satisfying meal in his personal opinion.

"Can he really do this!?" Hachiba suddenly asked as they ate. "This is crazy! He can't just...kill fellow leaf ninja!"

"Never...trust...a snake." Naruto wheezed, eyes drooping a bit despite his effort to finish the meal.

"Thought he was your special mentor or something Uzumaki." Ryoko hissed, biting into a rather tasteless piece of meat, the forest of death didn't offer much in the way of seasoning.

This time, strained as the words were, the hostility was unmistakeable in his tone, even if his words hadn't portrayed it just as easilly. "Kill him...one day."

She opened her mouth as though she was about to say something more when she finally took a good look at him. "Hey, hey you okay? Hey!"

But his world went dark and the two gennin had to actually scramble to keep him from tipping face first into the open fires.

Ryoko gnawed on her lower lip as she and Hachiba settled Naruto back, watching him convulse on the ground as his eyes rolled so far back only the whites could be seen and blood began leaking from his nose.

"Shit he's dying! He's really dying!" She screamed, holding him down for lack of anything better to do."

"No shit he's dying! He's half our size!" Hachiba shouted right back.

They held him down, every second bassing in unimaginably slow agony for all huddled within that little hollow.

It seemed an eternity before he finally settled.

"What the hell are we gonna do?" Hachiba groaned, rocking a little where he sat, he probably didn't notice.

Her mouth was dry as she answered, feeling her own heart pounding with adrenalin fueled fear. "We're gonna go to sleep for a few hours...wake up, and carry him out of here the rest of the way that's what! Then when we get back, we're getting Hokage-sama to hold down that snake bastard so we can cut his balls off and feed them to him.

Despite her bravado, her shaking hands and pale features showed just how rattled she really was.

Despite how much they needed it, neither child got much sleep that night.

And the next morning, Naruto was as pale as a corpse.

His breathing didn't sound much better than a dead man's either.

Worst of all, he wasn't waking up.

-0-

Orochimaru smirked, Kakashi had long since left and his replacement was keeping to herself a ways off after Kakashi had briefed her and told her not to interfere.

The poison had worked its way through Naruto's system even quicker than he'd hoped.

Now lets see how they do.

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