Chunin Exams Part 4

Hiroki was sensing the Hiraishin tag he had placed on Naruto and the others. He felt that they were quite far from him. He could speed up and take a few minutes or he could teleport straight away to their location. He didn't feel afraid of teleporting towards them because they knew how fast he was and they wouldn't suspect of anything, but he still chose to leap through the tree branches and find them.

As he was leaping from tree branch to tree branch, he felt the presence of three people coming his way. It seemed that they would pass by each other in the next seconds. Just as Hiroki predicted, he saw the three people leaping to a branch of a tree not far away from him. He looked at them and saw that it was Gaara's team. Gaara, Temari and Kankuro saw Hiroki as well. They were wondering why he was going that way since the tower was the opposite way. Gaara stopped and so did his siblings. Hiroki saw them stopping and stopped as well as they looked at each other.

"You. There's blood on you." Gaara said.

"Oh. Yeah. Just a few crazy people that tried coming after me. Nothing much. I'd love to chat, but there's somewhere I need to go. I'll see you guys later." Hiroki said as he blurred from their vision.

"Tsk. Damn it. Why didn't you kill him Gaara. I hate that guy's face. And the way that he talks. Urgh. It's just annoying." Kankuro said as he grit his teeth.

"He's strong, very strong. Mother says not to get too close to him." Gaara said. He then continued going forward, towards the tower and his brother and sister followed. Kankuro had a displeased look on his face while Temari was thinking about what Gaara had said.

'It's the second time Gaara says that and the first time he mentions mother wanting him to keep away from someone. Normally he just goes on a killing spree.' She thought.

———

Five minutes later, Hiroki arrived in a forest clearing. He felt that Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura were hiding from a team of shinobi from Amegakure. He didn't jump in to help them since he wanted to see what they would do to get out of this situation.

Naruto and Sasuke were hiding inside some dense bushes that were ten meters apart from one another and Sakura was hiding on top of a tall tree as she was looking down. Naruto and Sasuke could see Sakura on the tree and they seemed to be waiting for a signal to come from her. Not long after, Sakura gave the two a signal and each threw a kunai at the Amegakure team. The team members from Amegakure heard the two kunai whistling as they flew towards them and dodged as the threw kunais at the bushed Sasuke and Naruto were hiding. They heard the kunai making contact and went to see who it was that ambushed them.

"Hehe. It's the brat from Konoha that was ranting about beating everyone." One of the team members said.

In the next instant, Sakura cut the metal wire that was hanging midair and two nets fell on top of the bushes. Two of the Amegakure team were caught and only one was able to get away from the trap.

"Damn it." He said as he went atop a tree branch so he could have a better vision of the ground. When he landed on the branch, he was kicked from the back as Sasuke struck him on the leg, making the Amegakure shinobi kneel down. He tried leaping away, but was stopped as he felt a cold blade on his neck.

"Are you sure you want to move?" Naruto asked as his ninjato was steadily placed on the shinobi's neck. Even a thin line of blood ran down his neck.

"Don't kill me. We'll give you our scroll." The Shinobi said as he was afraid of dying.

"Very good. Tell me where it is and I'll get it." Sakura asked as she came down the tree and stood in front of the Ame shinobi.

"It's inside my kunai pouch." The Amegajure shinobi said.

Sakura went to move towards the pouch, but she was stopped by a hand. It wasn't either Sasuke's or Naruto's. She looked up and saw that it was Hiroki's.

"Hiroki, you're here." She said surprised.

"Yeah. You guys did good. The trap was really well planned and the teamwork was on point. You just failed in trusting this guy's word." Hiroki said.

"Wait. You saw all of this?" Sakura asked.

"Yeah. I wanted to see how you guys would do. Sorry for not helping. I only came out because this guy has a tag bomb inside his kunai pouch that would explode once it opened. At point blank range, you guys know what would happen, right?"

The three could only gulp dryly as they heard Hiroki.

"Damn it. How did you know? And what do you gain by helping them?" The Shinobi from Amegakure asked.

"Their my teammates. Of course I would jump in and help them in a crucial situation. As for how I knew you had a tag bomb, let's just say that I know a little about fuuinjutsu. Anyways, these guys are very nice so they would probably not kill you, but I'm a little different. Where is the scroll?" Hiroki asked as he activated his sharingan and place the shinobi in a genjutsu.

The shinobi's eyes became almost lifeless as he started answering.

"It's inside my suit." The shinobi answered. Hiroki had him take out the scroll and hand it over to Sakura. He then struck the shinobi's nape and knocked him out.

"Well, that is that. Is it the scroll you guys need?" Hiroki asked.

"No. It's the same one." Sakura said.

"Let's do a trade then." Hiroki said as he took out a earth scroll and gave it to Sakura and took the heaven scroll from her.

"You have more scrolls?" Naruto asked.

"Yeah. I got five of them. Three heaven scrolls and two earth scrolls. I was thinking that they might come in handy. The others might need them and I wanted to help if possible." Hiroki said.

"Why help the competition?" Sasuke asked not happy hearing what Hiroki said.

"They might be competition during the exams, but at the end of it all, they are still our friends and village members." Hiroki said.

"Since we already have the scroll that we need, let's head towards the tower. It'll probably take us less than ten minutes to get there if we lift the weight seals." Naruto said. Sasuke and Sakura agreed and they started going towards the tower in the center of the forest.

"Leave the weight seals. We might need them if something unexpected happens." Hiroki said. He already knew that Orochimaru was lurking the surrounding area that they were in and he could strike at any time. The weight seals will surely be helpful against him.

The four members of team seven were running at the ground level as they went towards the tower leisurely. They didn't feel the need to get there as fast as possible. They already had the scrolls and they felt no fear of having them taken by anyone. After four minutes, a strong wind started blowing towards them and the power started increasing by the second.

'He's already found us.' Hiroki thought.

"Hold tight. He said as he slammed both palms at the ground and a sturdy rock wall appeared in front of them, protecting them from the gust of wind.

"What was that?" Sakura asked.

"That was a wind jutsu. Someone very strong is coming after us. Be ready to strike at any moment." Hiroki said.

Just after Hiroki finished saying those words, a chuckled was heard by the four of them.

"Kukuku. It seems that you are very resourceful, Hiroki-kun." A voice said from above team seven. They all looked and saw that it was a woman from Kusagakure. Hiroki obviously knew who it was.

"I'm going to need you guys to split up. I have some business with the two Uchiha." The woman said as she started making a few hand seals, but before she could finish her jutsu, she dodged a kunai coming straight at her face.

"Kukuku. Nice reaction, not letting me finish my..."

*Baaam*

The woman's face was kicked fiercely from the back as the force was strong enough to make her fly away and hit a thick tree branch. She stayed down a few seconds, but got up weirdly as she faced the one that had kicked her.

"That was a very impressive trick, Hiroki-kun. I didn't know you were that fast." The woman said as she fixed her dislocated jaw.

"Who the hell are you?" Hiroki asked as he unsheathed his tanto.

"You'll know soon enough." She said as she blurred from her spot and appeared behind Hiroki in a few seconds. She kicked towards Hiroki's back, but when the hit landed, Hiroki turned into smoke.

'A shadow clone. Where is the real one?' She asked to herself as she looked around.

"I'm over here." Hiroki said as he appeared behind her again and went to kick her again on the same place.

"Not again." She said as she dodged by jumping to the side, but what she didn't expect was that Hiroki had already appeared on the other side she leapt to and punched her jaw again, dislocating it once more.

"This is getting quite annoying. Time to get serious with you kids." The woman said as her jaw returned to place again and she released her full killing intent towards the members of team seven. Even the animals in the surrounding area ran away from fear as their instinct kicked in.

Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke and Hiroki stood in place and started trembling in fear.

'What is this killing intent. It's way stronger than Zabuza's.' Sasuke thought as he felt fear and couldn't move. He kept screaming inside his head to move, but it was useless.

Naruto and Sakura were not doing well either. Naruto kept trying to move as he got angry. His chakra started to change and there was a change on his face as his eyes became dark red and the whisker marks became thicker. He then leapt from this spot towards the woman with great force as he started throwing punches and kicks at her, but no matter what he did, none of them landed.

"You'll play with my little pet." The woman said as she kicked Naruto and he was thrown at a good distance away from his team.

"Now, now. Which one of you should I give the mark first to? Huuuum. I guess I'll give it first to Hiroki-kun. He's been very naughty." The woman said as she made some hand seals and her neck stretched towards Hiroki and she opened her mouth and two pointy fangs like a snake's pointed out. Her neck went around the motionless Hiroki a few time and stared him in the eyes.

"Such an expression. Sigh. Too bad you are helpless. I wanted to have more fun seeing the potential of you and Sasuke-kun, but I'm short of time. I'll just give you both a curse mark and choose between you later on." The woman said as she chomped down towards Hiroki's neck, but before she could bite him, Hiroki raised his hand and grabbed the woman's neck as he started choking her.

"Things won't work like you think." Hiroki said as he pressed on the woman's neck and slammed her head at the ground. He then got away from her binding and threw a few shuriken at the woman's body. The woman's neck and head returned back to her body like a whip being pulled back and she jumped away from the shuriken.

"Katsu!" Hiroki said as the shuriken he threw exploded and blasted the woman away.

"Sasuke, Sakura, snap out of it." Hiroki said loudly with his voice laced with chakra. His voice made their head tremble and their minds clear up. Sasuke and Sakura were able to move now thanks to that.

"She's not someone that we can fight against. I feel that she's been playing with us all this time. You saw how my strikes hit head on, but she became perfectly fine after that. Our only option is to run away." Hiroki said.

"What about Naruto?" Sakura asked.

"I'm here." Naruto said as he had his ninjato in hand and he was covered in blood. Sakura seeing that became frightened, but she noticed that Naruto was looking fine other than that.

"Don't worry Sakura. I'm fine. This is the blood from that damn snake. Ugh. Gross." Naruto finished saying as he looked at himself.

"Oh no, you're not running away." The woman said as she came running straight at Hiroki and Sasuke.

"Sasuke, Naruto do the combination." Hiroki said hurriedly.

"Katon: Goukakyuu no jutsu" Sasuke yelled as he breathed out a huge ball of fire towards the woman.

"Not bad, Sasuke-kun. But that's not enough to stop me.

"Fuuton: Daitoppa" Naruto yelled as he blew a very strong wind stream that fueled Sasuke's fire and increased it by three times.

"Shit." The woman said as the fire came straight at her three times bigger and faster than before. When she decided to leap backwards and open some space to get away from it, Hiroki threw ten kunai knives that he had infused lightning chakra to them at the fire ball. The speed of the kunai knives was faster than the fire ball and it entered the fire ball. Once it did, the lightning created a chain reaction with the fire and made it explode right in front of the woman's face.

"Damn you! Just be good boys and let me mark you!" The woman said as she came out from the explosion. Part of the skin from her face had peeled off, but what was strange was that there seemed to be another skin under.

"You ruined the look. It seems I can't hide my true face anymore." The female voice now changed into a male's as she had taken off the skin from her face. What showed under it was the face of a man with light purple markings near the eyes.

"Orochimaru." Hiroki said loudly so everyone could hear.

"Oh, you know who I am. I didn't think that anybody from the young generation knew who I was." Orochimaru said.

"Who is he?" Sakura asked.

"He's one of the legendary sannin." Hiroki said.

Shock was written all over Sakura's and Sasuke's face.

"What is someone so powerful doing here? And why does he want to do with us?" Sasuke asked.

"Orochimaru did many illegal human experiments and used forbidden jutsu. Sandaime Hokage found out about it and fought him, but he was able to scape. All in all, he is a criminal and psychopath." Hiroki said.

"Don't say that, Hiroki-kun. You hurt my feelings like that." Orochimaru said as he grinned.

"Now, be a good boy and stand still."

Orochimaru blurred and kicked towards Hiroki's chest. Hiroki saw the kick coming and parried it using his hapkido style, grabbing Orochimaru's foot and throwing him up into the air. Hiroki's right hand them sparked and a thousand birds sang and he jumped after Orochimaru. He thrusted his right hand towards Orochimaru's chest, where the heart was and his hand went through like knife through butter. But that of course was not the real Orochimaru as the body became mud.

'Earth clone.' Hiroki thought as he instantly looked towards where Sasuke was. He felt Orochimaru moving underground and he was heading towards the last Uchiha very fast. Hiroki grabbed a Kunai and threw it just where Orochimaru was about to surface and appeared next to Sasuke.

"My, my. You are quite capable Hiroki. And that speed of yours. That is something that not even Jounin are able to achieve. Why don't you tell me your secret? Well, it won't matter. Sooner or later, I'm going to find out for myself." Orochimaru said as he smirked and dashed towards Hiroki and Sasuke again.

Hiroki unsheathed his tanto and enveloped it in a very thin, but condensed wind chakra as he went towards Orochimaru. He then slashed his tanto at the snake and hit, but Orochimaru had shed his skin and stretched his neck towards Sasuke, trying to bite him.

'Finally.' Orochimaru thought in excitement as he was about to bite down on Sasuke's neck.

"Your greed for power will be what will kill you." Hiroki said as he grabbed Orochimaru's face and slammed it to the ground for the second time. He then leapt away and so did Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto.

"You three, run towards the tower. I'm going to try stopping him. Don't even think about staying behind to help me. I can take care of myself if I use my full speed." Hiroki said as he looked at Naruto. He was the one that had an unaccepting look on his face as he heard Hiroki telling them to leave the fight to him.

"Alright. We'll go, but don't you dare die here. I'll never forgive you if that happens." Naruto said.

Sakura only had a look of helplessness on her face and Sasuke grit his teeth in frustration. He felt useless for not being able to do anything and even having to run away from an enemy.

"You won't be able to buy them enough time. Kukuku." Orochimaru said.

"It will be enough until the anbu surrounding the forest of death arrives." Hiroki said as he smirked. He then took out twenty shuriken from his pouch and threw them at Orochimaru. He then made a hand seal and the shuriken started multiplying. Forty, eighty, two hundred, six hundred, a thousand, two thousand. The twenty shuriken became two thousand as Hiroki made clones of them. Orochimaru was startled at first, but he saw that they were not aimed at him.

"I thought you had better aim." Orochimaru said.

"And I do. It's just that I had no intention of targeting you." Hiroki said as he smirked.

"And what Are these going to do. They are on the ground and are totally useless now." Orochimaru said as he smirked as well. He then looked at Hiroki and saw that the smirk was still at the boy's face. At that instant he remembered what happened at the beginning of his ambush.

"Oh no, you..." orochimaru tried saying, but was interrupted as all shuriken around him exploded.

*Booooooooooom~*

The explosion was big and strong enough that those that were outside of the Forest of Death could see and hear it. Those who were inside the forest, felt the earth under their feet tremble. A huge mushroom cloud appeared outside of the forest and that in itself already startled the anbu members and the proctors of the second exam.

"Spread out and find out what happened." Anko said to a few men that was under her and went towards the explosion.

"Oh my God. Is Hiroki alright?" Sakura asked as she heard the explosion and felt the earth tremble.

"Don't worry. He said he'll be back in no time, so let's trust him." Naruto said.

Back at the center of the explosion, Hiroki was inside a rock dome that was twenty meter below ground level he had made to cover and protect him from the explosion. He then jumped out of the hole and looked around only to see the trees, rocks and everything else in that area to be destroyed completely.

*cough, cough, cough."

"You are fascinating Hiroki-kun. You are higher leveled than a chunin and most Tokubetsu Jounin and at such an young age. I will choose you instead of Sasuke-kun. You have larger potential and I'm crazy to see what you are hiding. Show me more of what you can do." Orochimaru said.

"Hehe. You're quite lively for someone that will be found out in less than five minutes. And as for hiding things, you don't know half of it. Now give up this stupid plan or I'm going to get serious." Hiroki said.

"Hahahahaha. What you have seen isn't even half of my true power. I'm going to show you that you are to self confident. I'm not one of those pesky genin or chunin." Orochimaru said as he laughed. He then shunshined behind Hiroki and extended his arm, which turned into a snake and it surrounded Hiroki, making him unable to move as it started suffocating him.

"I have said it and I'm sure other people have told you. Your greed for power is too great and it will kill you, Orochima-san." Hiroki said as he smiled at Orochimaru.

The scene around them changed and Orochimaru was facing Hiroki, but there was no snake anymore and Hiroki was moving normally as he went towards Orochimaru. The snake sannin was the one stuck in place as he had been placed in a paralysis genjutsu.

'Impossible! Those eyes again. The same technique as Itachi.' Orochimaru thought as he was reminded of the scene when he tried taking Itachi's body.

"Amazing visual powers Hiroki-kun. This is almost at the level of that man, but too bad that I'm prepared. Orochimaru said as he moved his hands to dispel the genjutsu.

"Not going to happen." Hiroki said as he slashed both of Orochimaru's hands and blood sprayed all over.

"Damn it. Not again. Not by those eyes. Not by this damn genjutsu. Everything is repeating." Orochimaru howled.

"Hehe. It seems that you have tried doing something like this before to an Uchiha. I'm guessing it's Itachi, right? That's why you had you sights in Sasuke since he isn't experienced and his power hasn't developed like his brother's. You thought I was the same because of my age, but as you can see, I'm no easy picking." Hiroki said as he cleaned the blood from his tanto and sheathed it.

"It was a nice chat, Orochimaru-san, but too bad that we can't talk for longer. The anbu teams are coming to investigate the explosion and someone that hates you to the extreme is also coming this way. I'm just curious to see how you'll get out of this, haha. I'm taking my leave now. Goodbye, Orochimaru-san." Hiroki said as he leapt up to a tree branch and went towards his teammates.

'This... I can't accept this. I've been humiliated like this twice. You're going to pay for this." Orochimaru as he was trying to find ways to get out of the genjutsu.

———

On another part of the forest, Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura were worried after the explosion. Sakura and Sasuke looked back and wanted to return and see what happened, but Naruto told them that Hiroki would be fine and that he was the one to create the explosion.

"What do you mean?" Sakura asked.

"How can he create such a big explosion?" Sasuke asked this time.

"Remember these?" Naruto said as he held two shurikens that Hiroki had given to them.

"Hiroki makes these quite easily. There was one time I asked him what he used to make these. His answer was that it is a self created jutsu. He told me that he could make them in great numbers instantly. One is already dangerous enough, imagine thousands of these exploding at the same time." Naruto said. Sasuke and Sakura had a terrified look on their faces just thinking about it.

"That explosion right now must have been from a few thousand of these. Let's continue forwards. We are supposed to meet him at the tower." Naruto said as he didn't look back.

Sasuke and Sakura looked at each other and followed Naruto.

After dashing for some minutes, they found the Ino-Shika-Cho trio hiding close to the tower. They went down to greet them. They looked at each other thinking that they might be after the scrolls they had, but Sakura tranquilized them.

"Don't worry. We already have the scrolls we need. In any case, do you guys already have the scrolls you need?" Sakura asked.

"No. We were waiting for a team that might come towards the tower and ambush them." Choji said as he was eating his last bag of chips.

"Then you can forget about advancing." A voice said as three people appeared on top of a large branch.

The Konoha genin looked and saw that it was the genin from Otogakure.

"Finally, some fun." Sasuke said as he activated his sharingan and threw kunais at them, making them spread apart. He then moved towards Zaku and Naruto took the opportunity to go after Dosu. Sakura on the other hand already knew where Kin would land and slammed her palms on the ground.

"Tsuchi Tou Tou." She said and as soon and Kin landed, the earth under her started moving making her unable to standup. Sakura guided the earth as it moved Kin in a quite fast speed towards a large tree. Kin hit the tree face first and was knocked out.

"Shanarooo!" Sakura yelled.

Sasuke already had Zaku in a difficult position as the genin from oto was having his arms pulled backwards as Sasuke had his foot on Zaku's back and putting his whole weight on him, making it impossible for Zaku to move out of that position.

"You like these arms of your so much. What would you do if they were broken?" Sasuke asked as he lifted the weight seals and pulled on Zaku's arm. He kept pulling and pulling until Zaku screamed in pain and his arms were dislocated from his shoulder. The pain was so great the Zaku fainted and Sasuke let him go as he flopped on the ground.

Naruto on the other hand was quite annoyed about Dosu's ability to manipulate sound waves and make him sick, so he kept his distance while throwing kunai and shuriken at him.

"Nice aim brat." Dosu said as he looked at Naruto. Naruto only had a smirk on his face. Dosu didn't understand why the blonde was acting like that.

*Boooom*

The few shuriken that Naruto had thrown exploded and the impact hit Dosu as he flew backwards and hit a tree.

"Damn you." Dosu said as he felt anger towards Naruto. He then looked at his teammates to see how they were.

"Those two are already down. Shit!" Dosu said as he was surprised to see his teammates down and angry at the same fact. He took out a small ball and threw it on the ground.

"It's a smoke bomb. Useless." Naruto said as he blew out a gust of compressed air and blew the smoke away. He looked at where Dosu was and saw that he had already left the spot. The Otogakure shinobi had gotten his two teammates and fled.

The members of team seven went back to where team eight was and they talked a bit as they sat down to take a breath.

"You guys came from that big explosion. What was that?" Shikamaru asked.

"It was Hiroki." Sasuke answered.

"What?" Ino asked as she started trembling, thinking of the worst possible outcome.

"Relax. He's the one that caused it." Naruto said. This relaxed Ino, but she was still shaken by knowing that Hiroki was near that explosion.

"What happened over there?" Shikamaru asked.

"Some guy called Orochi-something. He ambushed us and he was saying something of capturing Hiroki and Sasuke. That guys was super strong. Even with a combination between Sasuke, Hiroki and I, the guys was totally fine." Naruto said as he told what happened.

"You mean Orochimaru?" Shikamaru asked as he stood up in surprise.

"Yeah. Yeah. That's the name. Hiroki said he's one of the legendary Sannin. He was banished from Konoha many years ago." Naruto said.

"And you guys left him fighting that guy alone? The sannin are legendary and Orochimaru was known for being the strongest of them. How could you leave Hiroki behind?" Ino asked as she felt anger towards Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura.

"He was the one that told us to leave. He grabbed an opportunity so that we could flee and come towards the tower. The explosion he made was most likely to attract the attention from the proctors and I'm sure that the anbu will go and investigate as well." Sasuke said.

"But still..." Ino started saying, but was interrupted by Naruto.

"Ino, you shouldn't be worried. Hiroki might be around the same age as us, but he's not any weaker than some jounin. Trust me, I know him better than anyone else. I've trained with him ever since he started going to the academy. The abilities and everything else we've seen him do is only a cover." Naruto said.

Sasuke, Sakura, Shikamaru, Choji and Ino only stood there speechless as they thought of how Hiroki was already so powerful with how he restrained himself. They could only try and imagine how powerful Hiroki really was.

A mile away from team seven and ten, Hiroki saw the members of team eight going towards the tower while running on the ground. He jumped down and went towards them. Feeling that they were being followed, Kiba was the first one to stop and turn around as he had a faster reaction thanks to his keen smelling senses.

"Hiroki, what are you doing following us?" Kiba asked.

"Hello, Hiroki-kun." Hinata said.

"Hiroki." Shino said as he nodded, saluting Hiroki.

"Hello, Hinata and Shino. And no Kiba, I wasn't following you guys. I just came over to ask if you needed a scroll. I have three heaven scrolls and two earth scrolls. Which one do you guys need?" Hiroki asked.

"Earth scroll." Shino said.

Hiroki then took out an earth scroll and handed it to Shino.

"We aren't accepting charity." Kiba said as he felt annoyed to be helped by Hiroki.

"Your teammates already took the scroll, Kiba. I'm guessing the decision is not up to you. Hehe." Hiroki said as he laughed.

"Thank you, Hiroki-kun." Hinata said shyly.

"Thank you." Shino said.

"You're welcome. I'm just trying to help." Hiroki said.

"Hey, you came from the direction the explosion happened, right? What happened over there?" Kiba asked.

"Yeah. Orochimaru tried ambushing me and my team. They found an opportunity to flee and I kept Otochimaru from going after them. I used the explosion to attract the attention of the proctors and anbu to come and investigate." Hiroki said.

"You mean the Orochimaru from the sannin? That Orochimaru?" Kiba asked in surprise.

"Yeah. That one. Anyways, let's head towards the tower. Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura must be waiting for me to get there anytime now. We can go together now that you guys have the two scrolls you need." Hiroki said.