Preparation
"One, two, three... there are three bodies in total. This must have been caused by ninjutsu..." Three Konoha ninjas stared at the bodies on the ground. The exam had only just started, and yet such a scene had already appeared. "Quickly, notify the proctor of the second exam, Anko!"
Outside the Forest of Death, Anko was enjoying her favorite dango with red bean soup.
"Dango is always best when paired with red bean soup..." Anko smiled contentedly as she suddenly touched her left earlobe, where Furen had licked her earlier. A strange feeling welled up in her heart.
"The Third Hokage asked me to keep an eye on Tsukiyo Furen... this kid really is something else," Anko thought to herself, feeling a hint of nostalgia for Furen.
Just as Anko set down her cup, the Konoha ninjas who had discovered the bodies approached her. "Please come and take a look. There are three bodies with strange causes of death!"
"Oh?" Anko raised an eyebrow in surprise. The exam had just begun, and already people were dead?
Ten minutes later, Anko stood staring at the three corpses on the ground, stunned.
"Get me their photos!" Anko shouted at the team behind her. Someone immediately handed her pictures of the three dead Grass ninjas.
"There's no doubt about it. This is his jutsu. Why is he participating in this exam?!" Anko's hands trembled as she clutched the photos. "These melted, unrecognizable faces... Orochimaru!"
After a moment of shock, Anko snapped out of it and quickly ordered, "Go report this to the Third Hokage immediately! Also, activate more than two squads of the Anbu to investigate the Forest of Death!"
In the Hokage's office:
After receiving the message sent by Anko's team—confirming that Orochimaru might be present in the exam—the Third Hokage's reaction was surprisingly calm. His expression only changed slightly before returning to normal. "Understood. I will notify the Anbu right away."
After the messenger left, the Third Hokage leaned back in his chair, taking a long drag from his pipe.
"You heard all of that, right... Jiraiya? It seems the intelligence that Furen gathered was accurate."
Behind the door, Jiraiya—one of the three legendary Sannin, who had been roaming the world for years—stood with his arms crossed, his face unusually grave. The Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, had somehow managed to summon Jiraiya back to the village.
"I heard it, old man..." Jiraiya, his iconic white hair swaying, replied with a rare seriousness in his eyes.
In the Forest of Death:
"If I want to win over Kin Tsuchi, a woman raised under Orochimaru's hand, I'll need to be more aggressive..." Furen licked his lips as he gazed at the trio of Sound ninjas below him.
Thanks to the mental imprint he left on Zaku with the Mind-Body Disturbance Technique, it didn't take much effort for Furen to track them down.
"But to win over Kin Tsuchi, Zaku and Dosu could be problematic..." Furen mused, a plan forming in his mind.
"Have you found out where that guy named Sasuke is yet?" Dosu sat beneath a tree, leaning against its trunk while Zaku scanned the surroundings.
As the only three Sound ninjas participating in the Chunin Exam, Orochimaru's orders to them were not to pass the exam, but rather... to kill the Konoha ninja, Uchiha Sasuke!
After witnessing the perfection of Uchiha Itachi, Orochimaru had become obsessed with obtaining a Uchiha body.
However, Itachi's strength was far too great for Orochimaru to overpower him and use him as a vessel, so Orochimaru set his sights on the last surviving Uchiha, Uchiha Sasuke.
Annoyance flickered across Zaku's face as he was about to turn around and complain that there were too many ninjas to identify which one was from Konoha. Suddenly, Furen's mental command activated in his mind.
"Send Dosu ahead to check out the ninja up ahead."
Following the command, Zaku turned back and said to Dosu, "There's a group of ninjas ahead. Go see if they're the Konoha brats. I'll check the ones on the left."
Dosu tilted his head, glancing suspiciously at Zaku for a moment but didn't think too much of it. A few leaps later, he was on his way toward the direction Zaku had indicated.
Zaku then glanced at Kin Tsuchi and said, "You stay here and wait for us to come back."
Kin Tsuchi clicked her tongue in annoyance but didn't argue, staying behind to wait for their return. Furen, who had been observing from a distance, smiled, knowing his plan had worked.
A few minutes later, Zaku returned first from the left.
"It's just some Rain ninjas, not the Konoha brats," Zaku said as he scanned the area. "Where's Dosu? Hasn't he come back yet?"
Kin shook her head. "No, maybe he found the Konoha brats and followed them. Let's go check it out together."
After walking for a while, Kin and Zaku arrived at the location where Dosu had gone. They froze in shock at the sight.
Dosu... had been crushed into a bloody pulp, dead on the ground.
"This... this was the work of the Sand ninjas!" Zaku's eyes widened as he picked up a handful of bloody sand from the ground.
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T/N:
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