Chapter 11: Second Task [Rewrite]

The next morning in front of the Forest of Death, we listen to Anko explain the rules of the second test. When she explains that it will be five days in the forest, I smirk at my teammates, who both smirk back in response. Again, I'm cheating, but I don't care. I have more important things to worry about this exam. I know I can't beat Orochimaru, but I'll still try to avoid Sasuke getting marked. I know interfering directly will result in my death, so I'm going to have to be subtle about it. Same thing goes with Kabuto, but for now he is not a concern since he will actually help Sasuke and his team pass. Though frankly, I don't care if they pass, I'd rather them be alive and healthy.

My team and I get into position at a gate after we get our Heaven scroll. I set up three fake copies of the scroll and gave one to each of us to have slightly visible on our bodies while Neji carried the real one hidden in his clothes. This was just in case, but better prepared than nothing. When the gate opened, we took off running. I made sure to keep an eye out for where Sasuke was, spotting him about one and a half kilometers away to the left, but running almost parallel to us. That's good, he's in my range still, I had specifically chosen a gate close to his team for that reason.

"Take it easy, Lee." Neji calls out to Lee, who is running ahead of us and going faster. "The test has only just begun."

"That may be," Lee replies calmly. "But still, whoever our enemies are, I want to find them before they find us." He says dramatically. I sigh lightly, we have two Hyuga's on the team, no one can sneak up on us.

"You hot-blooded fool." Neji smirks at him in response. I giggle lightly at their interaction.

As we are running, we find a good place to set up a trap. We lay out a hidden web of wires connected to kunai. We plan to set up several of these, just in case we don't find a team while running. We can hear screaming from the distance, from other teams attacking each other. After about half an hour in the forest, we hear a large explosion. That could be the snake attacking.

"Wait a moment, guys. There's something I have to see." I say, summoning my bow. They immediately know it's serious if I'm taking my weapon out, and take up watch positions. I activate my eyes, and jump to the top of the highest tree I can. Thankfully, we are up a small hill, so my line of sight extends a good amount. 

It takes me a moment, but I see Naruto fighting a giant snake, and look around a bit more before finally I see Sasuke with Sakura and Orochimaru. I keep the Sannin in my sights, though there are some obstacles in my way, and they are slightly out of my range of clear vision, but I can just make them out.

"Ami, how much longer?" Neji asks after a few minutes of waiting.

"Any second now." I whisper back. 

There, I see an opening. 

I take a breath, and infuse an arrow with as much wind chakra as I can. I let the arrow loose, and watch as it soars over one kilometer away, plowing through two tree's until it hits its target. It stabs straight through the stomach of the snake man. I hide, to make sure they can't find me if they look then, but they must decide I am not important in the moment. I watch their head extend out from their impaled body and launch towards Sasuke. He still gets bit, despite me stabbing the main body. I keep an eye on them for a moment, seeing the Sannin's body turn into an uninjured snake and leave the scene. My arrow didn't have any effect at all on him, I failed in my attempt.

"Ok, we have to move now." I say urgently, and we take off instantly. I don't want us to be spotted in this area now. We run in an arc around, refocusing on trying to find an enemy. 

"Ami, what was that?" Neji asks me seriously after we are setting up another trap.

"A failed experiment. Don't worry about it. Let's focus on the task," I say bitterly. He notices my change in attitude, but chooses not to comment on it.

Several hours pass before we come across a team of genin from the hidden Cloud. We spot them resting by some water. They have a few traps set up, guarding their perimeter, but nothing that we can't see through. We silently communicate on who we will take down. We each throw down shuriken, disabling their defensive traps, then we use our heightened speed and swoop in, swiftly taking them down with only minimal damage taken. Neji and I use our Gentle Fist tactics for take downs, paralyzing them by temporarily blocking their chakra. Lee uses his Leaf hurricane and easily knocks out his target as well. Neji searches their bodies for the scroll while I keep a look out and Lee ropes them up. 

"It's our lucky day. They had an Earth scroll." Neji says smirking as he holds it up.

"And it's not a decoy, right? They didn't have any extra's?" I ask skeptically.

"Not everyone is as smart as you, Ami. They didn't think that far ahead, they only had the one." Neji says with a sigh

I take a moment and look at the Cloud ninja. I should feel bad for leaving them tied up in a deadly forest, but I don't. Ever since our father was killed just to please the thieving Cloud village, I have resented them. While Neji directs his hatred to the main family, I direct it at the Cloud. I think it also had something to do with Danzo, but unfortunately over the years my memories of the shows smaller details have faded. For now, I feel satisfied in beating up these Cloud ninja.

"If that is all, I would like to make a detour before we arrive at the tower. I am worried for my Sakura. I vowed to protect her with my life, and a man never goes back on his vow." Lee declares.

"We don't have time-" Neji starts to say, but I cut him off.

"Make it fast." I say firmly, "And stay safe. Keep in our range. Sasuke and his team are that way, probably about two kilometers away by now." I inform him the direction. "Lee." I stare him dead in the eye, "I mean it, be safe."

Lee nods, then runs off. Neji turns to me and asks skeptically, "Why let him go alone?"

"Good question." I reply lightly, "It seemed like something he had to do himself. We'll follow in a few minutes though. He's finally becoming independent, let him have his moment to shine. We have plenty of those. If he gets too in over his head, we'll step in." I say casually.

"Tch, fine." Neji replies, then looks at me with a piercing gaze. "You're acting strange lately. Everything ok with you?"

"Yeah. Just made a promise to look after my friends. I'm not... I don't know, not used to having to look for anyone besides us, so I feel like I'm failing at it." I admit to him softly. "I don't really know what it means fully to have friends that aren't you, so I'm making this up as I go."

Neji comes up to me and places an arm over my shoulder. "You at least made friends. You make time for them when you can. But this is an exam, Ami. You have to let your friends win or fail on their own. For now, let's just go check on the idiot and make sure he isn't getting into trouble." He squeezes my shoulder gently again as I smile up at him.

"Thanks, nii-san." I thank him sweetly with a nod, and we both set off at a casual but fast pace to reach Lee. I get curious to see if he's fighting the bad guys yet, so I turn on my eyes again once we are in range. "Neji, we have to hurry!" I call out, seeing Lee down on the ground a kilometer away. That happened a lot faster than I thought. We both increase our speed, getting to the scene just in time to halt an attack on Shikamaru and his team.

"You ninja are just a bunch of hacks." We hear a Sound ninja saying, holding his arm out towards them.

"From a second rate village." The other Sound ninja, Dosu I think, adds in smugly.

"Funny." Neji says as we land on the nearest tree. "That's pretty tough talk. I guess that makes your village a third rate one." He says arrogantly as we both sneer down at them.

"I wonder if any of you losers can even handle taking on real shinobi." I add in, just as arrogantly.

The enemy and the gathered rookies look up at us at our arrival.

"About time, Ami." Shikamaru says, blowing out a sigh of relief.

I glance around, finding Lee beaten up on the ground. "Lee!" I call out to him then turn to the enemies.

"It looks like someone used our teammate as a punching bag." Neji says darkly.

"No one does that and gets away with it." I add threateningly, both of us activating our eyes at them. The Sound ninja all take a step back in fear.

"No more playing around, Ami. Full power!" Neji calls. We both notice suddenly that Sasuke is waking up, with a horrible chakra coming off of him.

"Well? You just going to stay up in that tree all day?" Dosu taunts us. We smirk at him.

"It looks like we aren't your opponent." I say smugly, though I do have a hint of worry and shame. I couldn't prevent this.

Sasuke wakes up, and he has his new curse mark spread across his body. He talks to Sakura for a moment, trying to locate a target to take his anger out on. He looks... Different. Not just from the mark, but he looks darker, and he's emanating power. I can feel the evil coming from him. I don't like seeing my friend like this. I watch as he effortlessly defeats his enemy, and then taunts him and breaks him.

"Sasuke..." I mutter out. I know this is supposed to happen, but it's so much harder when I actually know him, and am friends with him, to watch him go through this. As I see him turning on his next target, all traces of who he is gone from his eyes, I can't take it anymore. I jump down in front of him, just before Sakura screams and runs from behind him. I place a hand on his chest to get him to stop while she hugs him and begs him to stop. He looks at her, then looks at me.

"Enough, Sasuke. It's over." I say gently but firmly to him. I watch as he stares at me, then he closes his eye and the curse mark recedes back to his neck. Dosu declares he lost while I continue to watch Sasuke, then leaves his scroll. Sakura calls out to them, asking Dosu about Orochimaru. He replies vaguely before leaving with his unconscious teammates.

Shikamaru calls out to Ino to check on Lee. Sasuke is in front of me sitting down, having an identity crisis.

"Just what... Am I?" He asks himself, shaking. I kneel down in from of him.

"You are Sasuke Uchiha. You are a strong shinobi of the Leaf. You had a dark moment, but that does not define you. What just happened to you, cannot change who you are. Do you understand me?" I ask him firmly after reassuring him. He takes a moment, but then looks into my eyes, trying to find deceit in them. He finds none, and offers me a small nod and I hear a sigh of relief.

"Thanks, Ami." He whispers out. Suddenly, Naruto wakes up and starts yelling nonsense and running to his team, so I step away. I go to Ino who is now carrying Lee.

"Thanks, Ino. I've got him now." I tell her, and take Lee from her. I throw him over my shoulder and head towards where Neji is. "Is it your turn or mine?" I ask him.

"It's your turn. I did it two days ago." He replies with a sigh.

I take Lee off my shoulder, placing him in his feet. Neji goes to support him by his shoulders. I wind up my fist in a punch, then land it solidly in his gut. Lee yells out, gasping awake and coughing from the impact of my hit. He looks around in confusion for a moment, and Neji and I just pat him on his shoulders. This we found is the most efficient way to wake him up every time he gets beaten up by Sensei.

"Ami? Neji? What happened? Where are the enemies?" He looks around at everything.

"Sasuke took care of them, sort of." I reply. "I told you to stay safe, didn't I?" I say with an edge. He snaps his attention back to me and gulps. "This requires a punishment." I say darkly, standing up. "When we get out of here, you have to do 200 laps around the village." I lean in and whisper darkly so only he can hear. "And you have to do them faster than me. If you don't, you triple it." I chuckle as I stand up. He thrives on these types of things, he loves training so much. We do 100 laps every morning anyway. The number kept increasing every month of training with Guy Sensei. Lee won't beat me in the laps, so he knows he will have to do the 600 laps, and he hangs his head in defeat.

Naruto then interrupts again, going off about Lee's brows or something. Sakura hits him, defending Lee. I think it's sweet she respects him. For my friend, I wish she would return his feelings, even if he only has superficial feelings for her currently. Lee goes and makes another vow to her while I walk back to Sasuke.

"Here, let me clean you up some before I go." I say, pulling out a med kit and cleaning his larger wounds. It takes me a moment, and Sasuke doesn't say anything as I work. I take out three soldier pills I brought with me, just in case I ran into him. "Take these. They're soldier pills, made by the Hyuga family. They have restorative qualities, in both minor healing and in chakra replenishing. There's one for each of your teammates as well."

He takes the pills and looks at me surprised. "Why are you helping me so much? Aren't we enemies in here?" He asks skeptically.

I smirk at him, "As if you could ever be my enemy. You're not even on my level, brat." I say arrogantly, knowing it irritates him. I watch his jaw clench in annoyance, and I know I've knocked him out of his funk. "Besides, you're one of my only few friends, it would suck to lose you in this forest." I stand up, and hold out a hand to help him back up. He grasps it firmly, getting to his feet. He pauses for a moment, then smirks at me.

"Hn." He makes that damn sound again. I increase the pressure of my grip on his hand and grin evilly as he winces. I laugh as I release him and walk away, back to Neji.

"Lee! Hurry it up, lover boy!" I call out cheekily. Lee scrambles and gets back up, running over to join us. We wave goodbye to everyone and head out. 

We're done wasting time so we head straight to the tower. We don't encounter anyone else on the way, and manage to avoid some giant creatures thanks to our sight. It took us almost a solid day, but we finished the exam. Only two teams finished before us, Gaara's team and Kiba's.

"Kiba, should have known you would finish as one of the first teams. Do you explore this forest as well growing up?" I say to Kiba in way of greeting. I sit Lee down on the bench next to him, and help him patch up his wounds as I talk.

"All three of us are tracker styles on my team, we made it here second." Kiba says proudly. I look to Akamaru, who is whimpering. Kiba follows my gaze, "He got spooked out there. By that guy, over there." He nodded his head to where Gaara sat on the opposite side of the room.

I finish patching up Lee, then turn to the puppy. "May I pet you, Akamaru?" I ask the puppy, holding out a hand. He sniffs it, then inches his way over to me, placing his head under my hand. I start to pet and scratch him, giving him praises. He calms down a little and Kiba joins in on the petting. When he's relaxed enough, I join my brother and Lee.

"We have four days here. Might as well get comfortable." I say, finding a bench and laying down. "I'm going to nap for now. Wake me if something interesting happens." I say.

Neji decides that my bench is the best one, apparently, out of all the empty unused benches in the room. He sits down and shoves me lower on the bench. I turn and glare at him until he moves. Instead, he just smirks, then pulls me back over, placing my head on his lap. I give him a surprised look, he haven't napped together in a long time. He just closes his eyes and leans his head back, so I get comfortable in his lap and curl up. Lee takes the floor in front of us, in a natural defensive position from how he is sitting in front of us. I feel pretty safe then, and drift off quickly.

Over the next four days, most the other teams file in. Shikamaru and his team finish on the fourth day, and I greet them kindly and offer up some spare food pills I brought. Neji and I switch off being each other's pillows the whole time, which in my opinion is just the cutest thing. 

I get surprised on the last day when Tenten and her team are also there. I didn't notice them until now, but then I realize it's because Tenten is wearing a poncho over her usual clothes, the same as her teammates. I guess their Sensei thought like ours, having a matching uniform. At least it's not a green jumpsuit. Good for her though, I'm glad to see I didn't change her fate too much by being here.