[Mad Tiger] Chapter 69

I was tearing through the Forest of Death like a bat outta hell, spooking the local wildlife left and right. Sorry, critters—urgent business! Gaara’s floating eyeball trailed after me, doing its best to keep up. Cool jutsu, sure—great for the desert, where you can see everything to the horizon, or inside tight spaces. But in a place like this? Not ideal. There’s a tree every two feet, giant spiders hiding in ambush, and every bush and beast is screaming on chakra sensors. You don’t just need eyes here—you need a nose, a tail, and divine luck.

I caught scent of a few chakra signatures coming in hot and bolted into the underbrush. A squad of ANBU zipped past, masks and all, moving like silent ghosts. Uh-huh. Good thing my scent markers are cat-grade permanent. I always know my way around. So me and the eyeball took a detour around what I guessed was a recon team.

I had this gnawing feeling it was all because of Sarutobi. The preliminary matches were supposed to start soon, and according to the anime, the Hokage himself was supposed to show up at the tower for a speech and to cheer on the genin. Big morale boost, right? Fighting with the Third Hokage watching? Talk about pressure.

But he hadn’t shown up.

And considering we’ve also got Kushina-san and Orochimaru sneaking around the Forest of Death doing who-knows-what, well, let’s just say my inner math nerd was sketching a very suspicious equation.

When I finally reached the area that reeked of Kushina’s chakra and had leftover chakra residue hanging in the air like fog, I found… a perfectly empty clearing. No signs of a fight. No scorched trees, no craters, not even trampled grass—though to be fair, the moss in the Forest of Death is weirdly “magical,” always healing itself and slowly absorbing chakra. A literal leech carpet. Ugh.

So I had to pull out my best bloodhound impression and put to use everything Kuramaru and Akamaru ever tried to teach me. The trick is to visualize each scent trail as the person or animal that left it. Kuramaru was a beast at this. He could tell what color boots someone wore based on how the leather smelled—treated differently depending on if it was tanned hide, canvas, or that weird ninja rubber. Once you’ve got your mental picture, you “rewind” the trail in your mind. Figure out where they stopped, what they did. If they marked territory or… well, took a nature break, that helps too.

The clearing was a mess of overlapping trails, but I relaxed, sniffed, and started piecing it together like the good little algebra cat I am. Gaara’s eyeball hovered next to me, also scanning the place.

I circled three times, trying to make sense of it all… and got nothing. The trails made no sense. ANBU going in circles, scattered formations. All of them freaked out.

From what I could tell, our wrinkly cherub of a Hokage had been just strolling through the woods. Laid-back pace. Ahead of him were guards sweeping the path, clearing critters and plants. Two escorts close by, and ANBU all over the trees like spooky fruit.

And then? Poof. He just… vanished. No scorch marks, no teleportation flash. Not even a broken twig. Like he got erased from reality.

They’d clearly searched this area from top to bottom and found squat. I wondered how it happened. Did he glow and fade out? Did he dissolve into sparkles? Was it a "pull-the-tablecloth" trick and nobody noticed Granny with the saw under the table? And now I’m picturing Kushina-san in a Vegas magician outfit—sparkly bikini, feather boa, sawing the Hokage in half… Okay, focus, Tora! You're spiraling.

Whatever it was, it felt like a high-level space-time jutsu. But there were no clues left—no telling who did it or where they went. The ANBU must’ve figured he could’ve been warped out against his will, maybe even not far, so they were combing the area like mad. I could still smell Kushina, but her trail came after the others. Like she showed up late to the party. Maybe she’s the one who lost track of him?

What if she and Orochimaru were lying in wait with some classic cartoon ambush—cut down a sapling, set it to spring, jump out yelling “Your wallet or your life!”—okay, wow. I really am losing it.

Focus, Tora.

Kushina did something here. Her chakra is all over the place.

Gaara’s eyeball floated over, giving me a hard look. I shook my head. If I had shoulders, I’d shrug. What’d we expect? That a couple of ninjas who could each be Kage-level would leave behind an obvious footprint? Please. Hiruzen might be a dried-up raisin, but he’s sharp. The kind of guy you try to bite and break your teeth on.

I just hope Kushina-san’s okay. In the anime, she wasn’t even around—but if this is the timeline where she’s back, then we really need her. Orochimaru? Man, that guy fought three Kage—including two zombies—and still lost both his arms. I used to kinda cheer when he got wrecked. Now he’s on our side? No thanks, let’s keep his limbs intact.

Suddenly, a low rumble echoed from the direction of the tower. Trees trembled, birds exploded into the air, and my fur puffed up like I’d licked an outlet.

Gaara’s sand eye crumbled into dust and scattered on the breeze.

Uh-oh.

Either he lost focus, chakra ran out, or something bad just happened.

I gotta get back to the tower. Now.

I… I’m gonna lose weight from the stress. I swear, I just dropped two pounds in sheer panic.

WHAT. THE. HELL. HAPPENED HERE?!

I leave for one hour and this place goes full disaster movie. The walls—how?! They’re thick enough to stop a bijuu blast! And now there’s… slime?? Everywhere?! Did we get invaded by aliens?!

And that massive hole—oh god. That hole’s exactly where I came out earlier.

“Naruto! Sasuke! Gaara!”

Nothing but rocks and slime. No scents. Their scents were gone.

Someone scooped me up and hugged me tight. That’s when I realized I was shaking. Ino.

“Shhh… Tora-chan,” she whispered, her voice cracking with sobs. I turned and saw Sakura too, all dusty and smeared with pale-gray grime, eyes puffy and red from crying.

“What happened?!” I tried to wriggle free. I had to find my boys.

“Tora-chan, they’re gone,” Ino whispered into my fur, breaking into tears again.

“Gone?!” The dust and gunk in the air made it impossible to smell anything. My heart dropped like a rock, but… I still hoped. Maybe this was all part of some plan…

“Some kind of huge snakes attacked the tower,” Sakura sniffled. “I overheard someone say it happened because the structure’s perimeter was breached. The worst hit was this room. One of the chunin said someone forced open the wall vent. They couldn’t find the boys under the wreckage. Most likely, they… they…”

“Got swallowed by the snake,” Ino finished for her.

“But they’re shinobi,” she added quickly. “Sasuke and Naruto are strong. They’ll survive… for a while. The exam proctors drove the snake off, and they’re rebuilding the barrier now. They’ll go after it.”

Right. Of course. Just part of the plan. Everything’s fine. In the anime, Naruto got swallowed by a snake too—Orochimaru’s snake. This is just a rerun with a twist.

Now I just need to cheer up the girls.

“I’m sorry, Ino. Sakura…”

I was staring blankly at what looked like a tiny, pale-blue Naruto being carried by Kakashi. Two more shinobi followed behind, carrying… bodies.

Sasuke and Gaara’s.

Dead bodies.

Naruto looked especially awful—blue-lipped, clothes soaked in slime, his jacket covered in my pawprint designs, all twisted and torn like he’d been chewed on and spit out.

“We got to the snake’s stomach too late,” a man in green muttered quietly. I recognized him—Might Guy, the Brow Sensei. He was holding Sasuke.

“The digestive acid was extremely toxic,” he added grimly.

Then Sand ninja came running over.

“Gaara!” Temari gasped.

Gaara looked especially creepy—his cracked, dried sand coating made him look like a broken doll.

“Oh god, what is that?!” one of the chunin shouted, as Gaara’s body began to crumble, sand shedding like ash.

“Here too!” Guy said, setting Sasuke gently down.

“What’s going on?” the man with the curtain-mask came over and reached for Gaara, only to recoil—his hand had sunk into soft, collapsing mush, and the stench of decay hit like a sledgehammer.

“It’s the snake’s stomach acid. It’s corrosive,” Kakashi said flatly, laying Naruto down. “Damn it. There won’t be much left to bury if this keeps up… We need containment. Tenzo!”

An ANBU stepped forward, forming seals, and wood sprang from his fingers—three small coffins made of dark, polished bark that gently wrapped around the deteriorating bodies. Even names appeared on top. I didn’t want to read them.

No one spoke.

The girls sobbed quietly. I was frozen, clinging to Ino with claws buried in her coat. Her salty tears kept dripping onto my nose.

“I’m taking Gaara,” the masked man said, pulling out a scroll. In silence, he sealed one of the wooden coffins.

“Due to these unforeseen circumstances,” coughed someone behind the crowd, “the Chuunin Exams are canceled. We’ll investigate the death of the genin thoroughly. Everyone is to return to Konoha under ANBU escort. Security measures will be enforced.”

Ino never let go of me. She cried the whole way back.

The guys walked beside us in silence, heads down. Choji sniffled now and then. Akamaru whimpered softly.

But… they don’t really believe it, right? That my boys are really…

This isn’t real, right?

This has to be part of the plan.

Right?

Right?!