Chapter 112 - Arc 7 - We're Ready Kakashi, The Chunin Exams Start Now! - An Ominous Recording

Sakura's not super happy about this chapter.

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Anko informed them that the test was tomorrow, so they should go home and prepare for a trial like no other. She made it sound like it was going to be the hardest thing they ever faced and tried to make sure they were aware death’s grip was but a breath away, and even said only thirty of the sixty teams that made it through the first exam would be there at the finish of the second.

Buuut, they already knew it was going to be the Forest of Death so they got their outdoor gear ready and went to bed early so they could be nice and bright eyed for tomorrow. Well, the boys went to bed early, she squeezed in an extra few hours for a raid. That’s fine though, she only needs five hours and she made sure to go to bed with enough time to get those five hours. The reality in front of them is that the three of them have already spent significant time in the forest of death, though her time was as a non-combatant and she had a Jonin around to make sure she’d be safe. She’s still pretty familiar with it, and Inoichi spent a lot of time making sure the two of them could easily go there for herbs or ingredients if they ever needed to.

Sakura’s under the impression he wanted to make sure she could work at his shop if being a ninja didn’t work out, which hurt when she first thought about it because it meant he doubted her, but makes perfect sense now that she can look back on her past with her current knowledge and understand how pathetic she was. There was a time when she didn’t think anyone but her parents cared about her much, and it turns out she was dumb. Perspective matters, she wonders just how many of her childhood memories involve someone watching out for her while she thought she was all alone.

None of that matters right now though. The dark room and bright red lights tell her exactly where she is, and it’s not in bed or getting ready for tomorrow. She’s been in her mind countless times now, but it’s always been because of Ino. She’s never been here alone, so the very first thing she does upon recognizing the Red Room of all things is to instinctively look around. “She’s not here.” Hunger’s voice at her side causes her heart to jump into her ears, but a deep breath stops her from freaking out on him for sneaking up on her. Technically she’s in his space, it’s not her right to be mad.

“Then why am I here? How am I here?” Sakura asks, sitting up and rubbing her eyes with her knuckles.

“Mnnn, Iunno.” The small boy shrugs, his horns shimmer in the dim red light. “Someone left something for you, and I thought you’d wanna see it is all…” He looks away from her with a little shame in his eyes, but brightens right up when her hand lands on his head and rubs the space between his horns.

“What do you mean left something?” She asks, giving him a gentle smile before looking down at a projector wheel in his hands. She never figured out how the projector made sound last time when she’s pretty sure they aren’t supposed to do that, but that doesn’t matter right now. What does matter is that he slots it into the machine, and a video starts playing.

The previous videos were from her perspective, and this one seems to be too, but there are differences. Her vision has had a small tint of red to it for a while now, the glow from her eyes is unavoidable and of course she has to see through it. It’s not bad per-say, but it’s there and the stark contrast to not seeing it in the video is incredibly obvious. That should imply the recording is in the past, but it’s in the forest of death, and she’s never been in the forest of death with Naruto and Sasuke who feature quite prominently in her vision.

“Is that a woman on a giant snake?” She asks, just before the screams begin. Her jaw drops as the sound of crushing bone fills her ears, and she finds herself watching without blinking. Stuck still in horror, unable to look away, she watches the girl in the recording waver. She hears her own voice squeak, cry, panic, and she hears the final gurgles as her lungs fill with blood and she dies.

The her in the recording never got to see what happened to her teammates, she was killed too quickly, but if the Sasuke and Naruto there are anything like her Sasuke and Naruto, they died shortly after. “Hunger… who left this?” She asks, already replaying the recording so she can get a hint of what this is, and why it would be left with her.

How was it left with her?

“Iunno.” The boy shrugs so unhelpfully she can’t help but wish she could take back her previous pat. “They just showed up and handed it over, they were dressed in all black so I thought you were being weird and wearing a mask, but…”

“You watched it and realized it couldn’t be me.” She puts together, “then you tried to bring me here, and it worked.” She watches the boy furiously nod up and down at her like his head’s a bouncy ball.

“Well yeah, I’ve been with you every moment of your journey, that never happened.” Some explanations give you more questions than answers, those are normally considered poor explanations. This is definitely one of those situations, and she doesn’t know what to do with that.

“Well, I mean, other worlds exist right?” She asks, and holds a hand up when he goes to answer her. “It’s rhetorical.”

“Reh-tor-ikkle?”

“Erm, not meant for you.” She shakes her head in thought, her thumb landing on her chin. “What if I exist in more than just this one? Either that or a Jonin mind-walker managed to sneak in and hand you a genjutsu that perfectly fit the equipment you already have in here… Actually multiple-worlds of me doesn’t make any sense either, how would they know what to hand you? How would they hand it to you?”

“Iunno.” She snickers at his repeat response, and rubs his head again. Nevermind, he deserves it, it’s not his fault nothing makes sense. His smile makes her forget her confusion quickly. The recording is far more important, and the woman in the recording looks rather eerie. The woman killing her is a grass ninja?

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“This is training ground forty four, also known as the Forest of Death.” Their proctor stands in front of a locked gate, looking at them smugly. The forest behind her is huge and a little bit loud, but she already knew that.

[Anko is feeling chipper because you’re playing along]]

She is, she’s even faked a shiver, sorry for yesterday Anko!

“Oh hey, it’s home!” Naruto shouts, pointing at the trees. “I wonder if Kakashi’ll still show up to beat us to a pulp every two hours during the test!”

[Anko is afraid for you.]

“The Itachi Hitsquad experienced this on super difficulty, this should be easy!”

“We’re gonna destroy this place!”

“Jeez…”

The dreadful atmosphere Anko purposefully curated is destroyed in an instant, and Sakura can see more than one person clearly wants to have a discussion with Kakashi. Sucks to be him, he’ll probably have simmered down by the time they’re out of the test so, that’s not her concern. There’s no way he actually sneaks into the test to teach them a lesson, right? And it’s not like Naruto did anything wrong by speaking the truth, the man’s not completely unreasonable.

“Hey, Sakura… did you make them another rock.” Naruto asks, getting her attention.

“You mean Konohamaru? Yeah, but he promised not to use anymore gunpowder in return.” She says, “why?”

“Uh…” His finger points to the side, and her eyes draw right to the rock disguise two point oh, now with wheels and places to sit. It’s a lot bigger and functions more as a vehicle but they still have to crank a wheel to make it go. It’s actually pretty good strength training. Now that she gets ten times statistics experience she’ll have to give it a go sometime, maybe with a harder version.

“Konohamaru, what are you doing here?” She can’t help but ask, “this is the Chunin exam, you’re not supposed to be here.”

“Someone had to bring your dog.” The rock says with a mixture of immature voices inside of it. Oh right, that’s true, she did totally forget it. A look to the side reveals the monstrously fluffy creature panting beside them. She’s pretty sure it doesn’t need air, but then it’s cute when it pants like that so why would she stop it? Its tongue is hanging out, and its fur is in front of its eyes. Its coat has come in a lot recently. The notes on necromancy said her summons would become more lively the more mana she puts into them, and she has been putting mana into it almost nightly, but only as much as the ring from Fierro will let her generate and store… Which can’t be much, one day she’ll learn how to generate her own mana, then her giant dog will look glorious and lustrous.

“Good boy, following Konohamaru is exactly what I would expect from you.” She says boy but girl and male dog parts were used for it, and it’s not like she’s checked what the corpse’s gender ended up being. Should she? Most people know the gender of their pet, that’s not weird… Does it even have a gender? Do undead have genders?

“Grookkk!” It’s happy for the praise, good. Just more proof that she didn’t make a mindless creature. Though if it is sapient she should give it more attention and care, it’s only right.