Chapter 603 : Orochimaru's suicide?

Naruto glanced behind him and wondered, 'Who is this joker?'

Naruto saw a Genin wearing a rebreather and a yellow jumpsuit. Since his disguise hadn't been as effective as he had envisioned, Oboro had dropped his Transformation jutsu. In addition, since Naruto performed much better than he speculated, he thought that Naruto might have the scroll.

However, before Oboro could do anything, he jumped behind as several Shurikens attacked him. Hearing the sound of an explosion and due to the winds generated by Naruto's jutsu, Sasuke and Sakura were alerted. They didn't waste any time and quickly came to reinforce Naruto.

Seeing Sasuke and Sakura, Oboro analyzed, 'That blonde kid is tougher than he looks. Others might be stronger as well. I should have come here with my teammates instead of trying to conceal my presence!'

Not wanting to take any undue risks, he escaped. Sasuke appeared beside Naruto and asked, "What the hell happened here, Naruto?"

Naruto immediately replied, "He disguised as you and tried to sneak attack me when I was taking a leak! I'm gonna beat that joker if I see him again, believe it!"

Sasuke immediately thought, 'Terrible! We will need to ensure that something like this doesn't happen again. Or we could all end up dead! Hmm?'

While Sasuke was thinking of countermeasures, Sakura got angry and smacked Naruto on the head once again while shouting, "Close your pants properly, Naruto!"

Naruto immediately did so while complaining, "Hey don't blame me! That bastard didn't even let me take a leak in peace!"

Sasuke ignored their antics and said, "Remember this, if we get separated again, we can't trust each other blindly. Otherwise, it can get much worse than they just did."

Sakura asked, "But, what can we do?"

Sasuke said, "The safest thing for us to have is a secret password. That way, we'll know. No matter who they look like or how they sound, if one of us gets that wrong, they're an enemy."

Naruto and Sakura nodded. Sasuke continued, "Listen very carefully, I'll say it only once. It's a poem called Ninki…"

Sasuke recited a long and complicated poem. Sakura memorized it right away. However, Naruto couldn't do so. He asked in a deadpan tone, "And you expect me to remember that? How?"

Naruto tried changing the password to something easier but wasn't paid any attention to by either of his teammates. Sasuke grabbed the scroll and said, "I'll keep the scroll with me."

A second later, the three Genins were hit by a powerful wind current!

Naruto cursed in surprise, "What the hell?"

Sasuke exclaimed, "A new enemy! Stay on guard!"

Even though the three Genins raised their guard, they weren't able to take the attack head-on and were blown away!

After the attack passed, Sasuke took cover under the vegetation in the area and stayed hidden until he saw Sakura. Sakura was about to approach him when he stopped her and asked for the password. She nodded and recited the Ninki accurately.

Sasuke replied, "Good."

"You… Are you guys alright?" Naruto appeared as well. He was walking towards them when Sasuke said, "Not so fast, Naruto! The password?"

"Right, Ninki!" Naruto maintained his goofy grin and recited, "We thrive in the chaos of the enemy tide. Quiet shinobi don't need dens to hide. Our only concern is to watch and wait until the enemy lowers the gate."

Sasuke smirked on hearing that while Sakura sighed in relief. However, to the surprise of both Sakura and Naruto, Sasuke threw a kunai at Naruto! The attack was so sudden that Naruto barely managed to dodge the kunai and fell over as he did so.

Sakura quickly asked, "What are you doing, Sasuke? Naruto got the password right!"

Sasuke didn't reply and just stared at Naruto. Suddenly, a cloud of smoke was released around Naruto, attracting Sakura's attention. They heard a mature voice, "Well done!"

The smoke cleared and a tall ninja wearing a large hat and Kusagakure headband appeared in front of them. He asked, "What gave me away?"

Sasuke replied, "I knew you were underground, eavesdropping on everything we said. That's why I chose this kind of password."

He smirked and added, "The real Naruto would never manage to memorize it. Gotcha imposter!"

The Kusa Genin replied, "I see. This is going to be more fun than I thought!"

Some distance away, Naruto was lying upside down. The winds had specifically targeted him, sending him quite a distance away from his teammates. He cursed, "First that fake Sasuke and now this wind jutsu!."

He began getting up while wondering, "Where did Sakura and that bonehead Sasuke go?"

His eyes suddenly widened as a large Shadow was cast on him. He exclaimed, "It's huge!"

A gigantic snake, several times the largest snake Naruto had ever seen, appeared in front of him. The snake dived underground and tried sneaking behind him while trying to wrap him with its tail.

Due to his surprise, Naruto was slightly slow to react. However, he quickly realized and made a hand seal thinking, 'Shit! It's trying to eat me! Body Flicker jutsu!'

Just before the snake could coil around him, Naruto disappeared! He appeared on top of the tree and muttered while making new hand seals, "What's up with this forest? Fujin didn't warn us about something like this. Multi Shadow Clone jutsu!"

7 Shadow Clones appeared next to Naruto. The snake noticed it and quickly stretched its body upwards, aiming to swallow Naruto and his clones. Unfortunately for it, Naruto and his clones just threw kunai with paper bombs attached inside its wide mouth and dispersed.

Seconds later, Naruto exploded all the bombs, blowing the snake into smithereens and bathing nearby trees in its blood!

While he did so, his teammates began fighting a Kusa Genin, who was in fact a fearsome rank S ninja in disguise! Unfortunately, they had no idea. Even if they did, there wasn't much they could do about it.

Just like in the original story, Orochimaru used a Genjutsu mixed with his bloodlust to frighten and paralyze Sasuke and Sakura. Sasuke stabbed his own thigh and used the pain to break out of it before escaping.

He hid along with Sakura before being sneak attacked by a gigantic snake as well. Even though he killed it, Orochimaru appeared from within the snake, spooking him and Sakura. Orochimaru immediately went on the attack but was stopped by the shurikens Naruto threw who reached their position.

Some distance away from the four of them, a figure could be seen standing with his back resting against a tree. None of them knew that he was aware of their battle.

He sighed and thought, 'Tsk, that disrespectful snake. He is making a mess even though I'm the one in charge of the exam. Oh well, since he's planning to weaken himself even further, why should I bother stopping him? Plant a dozen more curse seals. I'll see what countermeasures you have prepared for me after you divide your soul even more.'

Even though Fujin considered Orochimaru a formidable ninja and someone extremely difficult to kill, he didn't actually view Orochimaru as a threat. In the original story, after being weakened by Hiruzen's last strike, his prowess weakened a lot and he was later killed by Sasuke.

So, Fujin didn't bother putting a stop to his plans. Even though he could prevent Orochimaru from putting the curse seal on Sasuke right then, it wouldn't mean much in the long term as Orochimaru could just do so later.

If anything, interfering right then could create changes that Fujin wouldn't like to see. For instance, Sasuke would spend most of his time with Kakashi after the second round was over. If Orochimaru decided to act at that time, there was a chance that Kakashi might die prematurely, something Fujin would loathe to see due to the ripple effect it would have on the future.

Even if Kakashi somehow managed to hold off Orochimaru while protecting Sasuke, Orochimaru had the option of applying his seal to some other Uchiha kid. And it wasn't feasible to expect another Uchiha to kill Orochimaru as Sasuke did.

In that case, Orochimaru would survive with a Uchiha body with unknown strength and ridiculous goals. He could affect major events in the future. Fujin didn't want to calculate all that. The only thing he saw was that it wasn't beneficial to him in any way. If he interfered, then he would only bring Orochimaru more benefits. In fact, from Fujin's perspective, interfering now was equivalent to stopping Orochimaru from committing suicide! For those reasons, he didn't bother helping Kakashi's students.

Fujin looked in the direction of the battle and thought, 'Even though I don't want to interfere, I need to ensure that Naruto and Sakura stay alive. He might not do anything to Naruto due to his status, but Sakura is just an ordinary Genin right now. However, she'll be quite significant in the future, be it her prowess or the emotional impact her death might have on Naruto.

Anyway, the good thing is that Orochimaru wants to see Sasuke fight in higher rounds. Not to mention, she won't bother him much. So, he shouldn't kill her. Otherwise, saving her from such a distance will be rather difficult even with my Flying Thunder God jutsu.'

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