The Forest of Death - 10

On their way to the tower, with Naruto heading up the front with an unprecedented speed, they had run into a team of Rain nin. Haku had been, and unknowingly so to the other team, unable to fight. So naturally his teammates were a tad overprotective of him.

Gaara and Naruto trampled the fools trying to confuse them with genjutsu, leaving them to their misery and woe, but with their scrolls intact.

"That was bullying you know," Haku was highly disapproving of their actions, "We could've just left. There was no need for a standoff."

"Yeah well, bullying or whatever it was, they attacked us first!" Naruto protested, "They had it coming!"

Gaara silently agreed with him, leaving Haku to follow behind them, troubled, wondering if they were planning on demolishing every team they encountered on their way to the tower.

The tower, which had appeared absurdly far away during the day time, was much closer than they had anticipated, to their relief. The moon was high in the sky once they had gotten there and they had not been intercepted by any other shinobi since their battering of the Rain nin.

They entered cautiously, unsure of what to expect.

The double doors closed with a rusted creak behind them. It was a wide, vacant room. Moonlight filtered into the dark, echoing room from beneath the door and small windows placed high on the walls. It was not what they had expected and quite underwhelming.

"This place is empty," Naruto went ahead to state the obvious, ""What do you suppose we do now?"

"Look up there." Haku pointed to a large sign hung on the opposite wall, which, after reading it, left them even more baffled.

Gaara remained silent; fighting the urge to let his eyes slip shut and fall asleep on his feet.

"There's a word missing on that sign. It doesn't make any sense!" Naruto declared, annoyed.

It wasn't as if his teammates hadn't noticed. By now they were exhausted and there was little energy left in them to think up any conclusions. Haku, as he often was, was the exception to that rule.

"I suggest we open our scrolls now," Haku decided, fighting a yawn, "We'll open them at the same time..."

Naruto wasn't sure about the idea, "But Anko-sensei said we couldn't open them until-"

"Until we reached the tower." Gaara finished for him, "We're here now."

Haku nodded, "Yes. We've followed the rules, so we have to take it up until the last step." He riffled through his blue gi and retrieved the Earth scroll, and Naruto watched apprehensively as Gaara displayed their Heaven scroll, wondering what the outcome would be.

"Together..." Haku's gulp was audible. Even he was just a bit nervous.

He and the red haired boy opened the scrolls in unison, finding the writing on each to be perplexing. After a moment, Naruto slapped the scrolls from their hands knowingly, letting them fall to the floor with a flutter. His teammates frowned at him.

"What?" Naruto folded his arms, "You want whoever you're summoning to land on you?"

"They're summoning-?" Haku realized that he was in fact correct. He would have eventually noticed what they were, but Naruto had more experience with summoning and recognized it first.

A cloud of smoke billowed from the scrolls on the floor and after a few seconds of observation a figure became visible.

The three of them gawked in shock.

Jiraiya blinked down at them in silence. He then broke into a fit of hysterical laughter at the sight of his bewildered students' faces. Naruto, Haku and Gaara stood, nonplused, even as the sennin fell to the floor, tears welling in his eyes as he chortled like a madman.

"Ero-sensei!" Naruto was the fastest to recover and vocalize, "What the hell are you doing here?"

Jiraiya stood, wiping at his eyes, "Eh? Oh. Well, as it turns out, I would've shown up here to watch you in the next round anyway. But I managed to strike a deal with Hokage-sama a week ago in which if I were to meet you here I'd be free of my community service!"

"Oh joy." Gaara droned. He was honestly glad to see a familiar face, but just too tired to express it. He fell to the floor abruptly, grateful he no longer needed to defy gravity. Haku and Naruto followed suit, falling to their butts and longing for rest.

Jiraiya smirked at his pupils, "Hm? Pooped out already? How difficult was it in there?"

Naruto and Haku exchanged a long glance with each other, before Naruto proceeded to recap their struggle. He outlined their original plan, getting their scrolls, fishing, and the Grass ninja who ultimately defeated them but left them alive.

"Right..." Jiraiya was livid after hearing the story, although they weren't sure why, "Tell me, did you find out this Grass ninja's name?"

Haku vaguely recalled his introduction to the ninja, which had also been his farewell. Gingerly, he touched the seal on his neck, but decided not to bring attention to it, for he himself was unsure of what it was for.

"He said that his name was...Orochimaru, I believe." Haku confirmed and recoiled in shock as Jiraiya reeled away from them in an infuriated frenzy of derogatory comments and babble including phrases like, "They're my students!" and "I'll tear him right of his filthy snake skin!"

Gaara gave him an inquiring look a few minutes later, after he had calmed down, "You know him?"

Jiraiya's eyes narrowed, "More than I'd like to, believe me. Now tell me, did anything happen when you fought him? Anything at all?" His voice was dangerously serious and it was frightening.

Haku still didn't bring up the mark on his neck, being that another question was on his mind, "Yes actually," Jiraiya's gaze was fixed on him after that, "Naruto-kun used a technique against him called the...Rasengan," Naruto's cheeks tinted; he had forgotten about it, "When did he start using such a powerful move?"

Gaara's glare connected fully with the back of Naruto's blonde head now that he knew what he had been doing during the past few weeks.

Jiraiya's anger warped into a surprised face, "Uh...he did?" He looked down at his blue-eyed student, "You did?"

"Yeah I did!" Naruto's nostrils flared in annoyance, "You think I wouldn't be able to?"

"Truthfully, yes..." The toad sage sighed, further agitating his hard-working pupil.

"Yeah, well...I had to use the Kyuubi's chakra to do it twice..." Jiraiya's eyes widened after the word 'twice,' and Naruto didn't miss it either, to his delight, "But now...it's funny. I can't feel my chakra at all. It's like the fox just vanished or something." He added in puzzlement.

Jiraiya raised one white eyebrow, "Oh? That is something. I better take a look..."

Haku and Gaara watched in clinical curiosity as Naruto removed his jacket, and with a small dose of chakra, made the seal on his stomach appear. The toad hermit kneeled down, observing it carefully. He knew what the problem was immediately.

"That bastard..." He muttered, focusing chakra into his fingers, "I was afraid he might use something like this on you. Good thing I can take care of it now."

Naruto gave him a look of bafflement, "You mean he did something to the seal?"

Jiraiya nodded, "Yes, but it isn't permanently damaging. It's preventing the Kyuubi's chakra from mixing with yours at a stable rate. Easily fixable. Now I want you to look over at your teammates."

"Why?"

"Just shut up and do it, squirt."

"Alright! Fine!" Naruto's irritated gaze traveled over to Haku and Gaara, who appeared equally as puzzled as he.

"Good," Jiraiya smirked to himself, drawing his right hand back, "Next, count back from 100."

"This is so stupid. How is this gonna fix-?"

"Get on with it!"

"Sheesh! Fine!" Naruto blinked at Gaara, who looked amused, "100, 99, 98…"

"Five-Pronged Unsealing!" Naruto felt something slam into his abdomen. Perhaps he should have expected it, knowing his sneaky mentor well enough by then. Jiraiya's hand was lit with radiant chakra and it burned off the restraint that had been applied to Naruto's stomach.

Jiraiya promptly stepped back to observe a winded Naruto. He had fallen on his rear to the floor. The five inhibitors surrounding the seal of the demon fox vanished and Jiraiya nodded, quite pleased with himself, "Well that about does it! You don't need to count anymore."

"I wasn't gonna keep going anyway you jerk!" Naruto yowled, trying to recover, "What the heck was that for?"

"You can use the Kyuubi's chakra again, that's what it was for," The sage smirked, turning to his other two visibly amazed students, "Now that you're all here and well, my advice would be for you to rest and prepare for battle-"

"Ero-sensei..."

"What now, Naruto?"

"Can you get us some ramen, maybe?" Naruto's face was pathetic but cute, "We're all starving!"

Gaara frowned, not understanding when Naruto and Haku had picked up that 'cute pout' that could sway others to their whim. Gaara was totally immune to the tactic but also incapable of using it.

Jiraiya frowned down at them as they sat huddled on the cement floor in the dark of the night, begging for food.

"Ah...alright, but quit it with the face."

Naruto's pout was replaced with an expression of delight. So far, he felt that the Chunin Exam were the coolest thing that he had ever participated in while in Konoha.

And the best part was that his friends were beside him.