BSWS CH-40 The Chunin Exams VIII - Clash and Plans

"So..... I think you have something I want?" Orochimaru said as he took out Heaven Scroll from his robe and showed them. Sasuke and Naruto gripped their Kunai tighter on seeing that.

Sakura just clenched her gauntlet-clad fists tighter. She knew that the scroll was just a ruse and that Orochimaru was here for Sasuke.

"Now, let's make this fight more interesting!!" Orochimaru said as he executed a bunch of hand signs and slammed his hands on the ground. The next moment, half a dozen gigantic snakes emerged and struck towards the Team 7 Trio, trying to swallow them alive.

"Aahhhh!!!! Snakes!!!! Shadow Clone Jutsu!!!!!!" Naruto said as he summoned an army of clones to hold off the three snakes coming towards him.

Meanwhile, Sasuke activated his Sharingan, which he had immense fluency in after following Sakura's advice and practicing to keep them open for long periods of time.

With the improved reflexes and perception granted by Sharingan, and his body had adapted better to its prowess after his training, Sasuke dodged the snakes like a leaf in the wind. He counter-attacked them with his weapons when possible, slicing chunks of their bodies out.

However, to both Sasuke and Naruto's surprise, Sakura got swallowed by one of the Giant snakes without much trouble. This was unthinkable to them as Sakura should have been able to easily defeat the snakes if they both had been able to.

They could list a dozen strategies Sakura could have employed based on what they knew of her, and that was not even including whatever hidden cards Sakura might have. So the fact that Sakura was so easily swallowed by a Snake was unthinkable to them.

"Hold on Sakura!!!" Sasuke said as he leaped towards the snake which had swallowed Sakura and was slithering away. He unleashed a hail of shuriken and kunai, turning the two snakes he was battling into Swiss cheese.

However, Orochimaru blocked him, disguised into the body of Kusagakure Genin, Shiore. Sasuke growled as his Sharingan spun faster, his left eye even getting a faint Third Tomoe. Orochimaru started at the evolving Sharingan greedily as let out his long tongue and licked his lips.

"Ah, it seems you care for your teammate, eh? Let's see if you are able to save her before she is digested by my pet." Orochimaru said as he rushed towards Sasuke.

He tried to paralyze Sasuke with killing intent, but Sasuke was no longer as weak as in canon. Though intimidated, Sasuke was still in enough control to put up a good fight against Orochimaru, or at least the Orochimaru who was currently holding back and pretending to be a Genin.

Soon, Naruto too defeated the snakes attacking him and attacked Orochimaru along with Sasuke. With 2 vs 1, or more accurately near to 30 vs 1, Naruto and Sasuke managed to put Orochimaru who was holding back into a stalemate.

Naruto with his Chakra push technique executed by the army of shadow clones took care of all of Orochimaru's summons. Meanwhile, Sasuke attacked Orochimaru with Ninjutsu and Taijutsu, all the time being boosted with Sharingan to give himself a slight edge.

But there was only one thought in both of their minds while fighting their opponents: Where was Sakura?

-x-x-x-x-x-

A few hundred meters away, pieces of the giant snake laid scattered on the ground, along with the chained gauntlets worn by Sakura. The gauntlets finally broke down due to the tough fights they had been through for so long.

Along with the snake's body parts, there were also severed body parts of the lackeys who came with Orochimaru. They had been roaming the perimeter to keep the other Genin away from the place Orochimaru was fighting.

But unfortunately, they were a moment late to detect Sakura's presence, who struck them down with a silent and deadly attack.

Once she had finished ensuring she would not be disturbed, Sakura started flitting around the trees. Her path was tracing a giant circle around the location of the fight featuring Sasuke and Naruto vs Orochimaru. She left a bunch of sealing tags on every tree she stepped on and flitted to the next with incredible speed.

'Sorry, Sasuke and Naruto… I have to leave you to hold that guy on your own for a little while longer.' Sakura thought as she tried her best to hurry up the plan she was executing

'You really have no idea you are fighting with. He is still playing with you two. I need to stay out of his sight and hurry up with this plan so that we can have a backup measure to prevent him from going all out against you.'

Sakura's arrangement of tags on the trees looked random at first, but as she kept installing more and more tags, a complex formation of Sealing Tags emerged. This was the most powerful Fuinjutsu Formation she had ever worked with.

After a few more minutes, she was finally done with her preparations and she ran back towards Naruto and Sasuke.

'Hold on for just a little longer guys!!' Sakura thought as she flickered away.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Mmm, Dango is the best food ever!!" Anko thought as she ate yet another stack of it and threw the remaining stick at the tree nearby to make Leaf Village symbol. Suddenly, one of the sentinels of the Chunin exam came along with a bunch of files.

"Ma'am, something weird has happened in the exams!!" he said as soon as he came.

"Huh? What do you mean?" Anko asked.

"We were investigating a suspicion on a certain test taker, based on information supplied to the Hokage by the Jonin Kakashi, the Copy Ninja. However, during that stealth operation, we found a trio of corpses."

"Based on the estimation of the time of death, they should have been killed somewhere in the early hours of the morning. Their faces were sort of taken away surgically, but due to the outfits worn by them we were able to find who they were." the man said as he handed the files to Anko.

Anko saw the pictures and recognized it as one of the Genin to who she and her sentinels had supplied one of the scrolls in the second phase of the test. Alarm bells went off in her head as she recognized this face stealing technique as one of the signature techniques of her previous mentor.

"Take me to the corpses!! Now!!" Anko said as she left with the man. They reached the place where the trio of Genin was brutally killed and their faceless corpses were strewn around along with their blood and innards.

Seeing it in person, Anko had no more doubts. This was the work of 'that' person. He had somehow snuck into the leaf, and unless the Leaf was able to thwart him in time, he was going to unleash devastation here for sure.

"Everyone!! Listen to me!!" Anko said as she turned agitatedly towards the sentinels with her "This matter has turned into a village level threat. Go and inform Lord Hokage of this ASAP!! Also, inform the ANBU troops to send a few teams here. If I am right then we are going to need them really soon!!!"

As the sentinels went away, Anko rubbed the back of her neck and grimaced.

'If you are really here, then I will find you and make this place your grave.' Anko thought with a grim expression on her face.