It Didn't Start Here - Chapter 9 - KRenee (2024)

Chapter Text

The Forest of Death was a large, densely wooded area full of ancient, now-protected species of flora and fauna. The trees grew thicker than the width of most houses and taller than any man-made structures that Kaisuki had seen or heard of. Within the Forest were hundreds of species of large insects, enormous reptiles, and various other huge beasts that had nearly gone extinct during the era of Bijuu. Those gigantic animals were just about the only things worth eating to the Tailed Beasts that had once freely roamed the land.

Everyone had one scroll, either an Earth scroll or a Heaven scroll and each team was instructed to acquire a second scroll of the opposite type, through whatever means necessary. They were also made to sign waivers before entering because, apparently, there were no safety nets in place to protect teams from being killed by the fauna, the other examinees, or even regular accidents.

The first portion of the exam had been solely a skills test, to confirm that everyone who went into the forest actually had the necessary basics. It was one thing to have death as a possibility, it was a wholly different thing to send a team into that forest that couldn't walk up trees or on water, or who couldn't throw shuriken properly, and so on. The waivers were for the safety of the village, as they didn't want to be sued for any wrongful death. The first exam was a guarantee that everyone was qualified to participate in the exams. According to Kakashi, there had been a lot of cases of under-qualified Genin being put through the exams during a time when various Nations were trying to make themselves look better by putting more bodies into the exams. The only result, of course, was mass death of those Genin.

The waivers felt extremely ominous while he was signing a name that wasn't even his own. It was hard to remain confident in his team, it was hard to tell himself he could trust and rely on them. He'd had so many nightmares about the worst possible outcomes during the exams that hadn't even involved the likely invasion Kaisuki and Kakashi had warned them about. There was a little voice in the back of his head that kept reminding him that they weren't really his friends, that he couldn't trust them, that they were weak, that he was weak, and so on and so forth. It was hard to not be a bundle of nerves with that kind of record playing nonstop in his mind.

All the examinees had entered the forest simultaneously at nearly the crack of dawn and were told they would have two hours to do whatever they felt was wise to do before they were allowed to engage in battle. The alarm system used to start and end the challenge would sound at exactly two hours in to let them know it was go time, though Sasuke couldn't help feeling anxious that some examinees might ignore such a warning.

Team Plus Ultra had made camp about a quarter mile from a clear river, finding themselves a nice spot that was well-guarded by the trees growing around them. It was a perfect spot that they'd found after traveling further into the forest between the first and second day. At that moment, Naruto had fifteen kage bunshin running around canvassing the area as far out as possible, maintaining a perimeter. If his clones were dispelled, he would immediately have information on a nearby enemy. According to Kaisuki, Saeka was still keeping a careful eye on their surroundings, but Naruto's kage bunshins could also give them information on traps that Saeka couldn't sense and the skill sets of any nearby enemies.

It was the second day already and Naruto's kage bunshins hadn't run into anyone. Saeka and he kept checking the perimeter, with Naruto pushing his clones further and further out. They had collectively agreed it was odd – if not worrisome – and Sasuke couldn't really help feeling painfully anxious. Hundreds of Genin were in the Forest, how was it that there was no one around in nearly a mile radius around them? Kaisuki had reiterated that Saeka hadn't picked up on anything unusual more than once but that fact alone only served to freak him out.

Where is everyone?

The challenge was only supposed to last five days so one would expect that there would be clashes happening. Naruto's clones should've picked up on someone... something should've happened by then, right? They had expected to hear loud sounds of battle, at least, but their surroundings remained calm and quiet. It was bizarre and, because of the stagnation, they were likely going to have to make some kind of move.

“Oh! I found someone!” Naruto suddenly exclaimed.

Sasuke and Sakura both turned to him in unison but it was Sakura who spoke up. “Anyone we know?”

“No, no one we know. He uses sand to attack, I think?” Naruto replied, looking over at them. “He caught me, though, so that bunshin is no longer with us.”

“What'd he look like?” Sakura asked as she turned her attention back to the fire. She was keeping it hot but small, in preparation for Kaisuki's return from her fishing trip to the river down the way.

“Short red hair, got a big scar on his face. Hella dark circles, like worse than Kaisuki's,” Naruto elaborately described. “He's with a blonde girl using a big fan and a guy in a weird black jumpsuit with face paint. Uh...” He paused, his gaze lowering and a strange expression settling onto his features. “I think he might be the Jinchuriki that Khrai mentioned before.”

“How do you figure?” Sasuke asked immediately, raising an eyebrow.

Naruto bit his lip for a moment before swallowing hard and replying. “I... the Ky... uh... Kurama said so...”

“Annoying idiot...”

He clearly hadn't wanted to tell them that but Sasuke made a point not to react. He had to remain in control of his behavior and thoughts. The Forest of Death was the absolute worst time and place for him to be questioning or provoking a fight over something that he should've gotten used to by then. Naruto hardly spoke of the Kyuubi and the Tailed-Beast rarely interacted with his own host. It seemed like Khrai was more likely to address “Kurama” than Naruto was.

Sasuke filed the information away in his head without further comment, a brooding scowl settling into his face. That was the first group they'd seen hide or hair of, and they were probably pretty strong. It might've been presumptuous or stereotyping to assume but, if they were from Sunagakure, they were definitely strong. That village was known for their powerful Shinobi... would they be able to fight someone like that?

“Not with this useless crowd.”

He swallowed, his mouth dry, when he abruptly heard noise in the bushes behind them. He slipped out a kunai swiftly, moving into an offensive position, ready to strike. Whoever it was, they came closer and closer until...

“I'm too good at fishing,” Kaisuki declared as she stepped through the bushes, pushing branches and the like out of her way. She held up her net of several fish, a grin on her face as she crossed the small clearing to hand her prize to Sakura so she could cook it. Their pink-haired teammate didn't trust them to cook their food properly, allegedly, though Sasuke had a feeling she just wanted something to do so she didn't feel worthless.

“She's just fooling herself. She is worthless.”

Kaisuki plopped down on her sleeping bag and looked towards Naruto. “Anything new?”

Naruto replied right away, “I think I found that guy you were talking about before, the Jinchuriki? He's like a mile, mile and a half away. He caught my bunshin but I know what he looks like.”

Kaisuki nodded and she heard Saeka hum in her mind to confirm Naruto's find. “Saeka agrees, that's the Jinchuriki,” she affirmed. The young spirit could sense the Bijuu within their hosts in much the same way she could sense possessed humans. “Good to know. There's no one else around, though?”

“Yea, seems that way.” Naruto replied with a shrug, worry creasing his forehead. “I mean, you'd think I'd find some battlegrounds or something but, now that the clones are almost 2 miles out, I'm wondering if everyone else is hiding from us.”

Sasuke chewed up his lip, listening to his team chat about possibilities. He had a horrible gut feeling. “Maybe it's because of our location. We're still really close to the gates, but the goal is the center of the forest. Most people have probably long-since left this area, right?”

“I guess,” Naruto replied, tilting his head back and forth with thought.

From the fire, Sakura added her own two cents and betraying her very real fear of the battles to come. “It's smart for us to stay out of the way for now, right? I mean, we're a bulldozer team. Regardless of when we start moving, there aren't a whole lot of teams that actually stand a chance, right?”

“Well, I'd like to think that way,” Kaisuki honestly responded, though she didn't look like she believed her own words. Sasuke felt queasy just listening to them. “But I'd rather not assume our greatness in these circ*mstances...”

“It's better to be cautious than caught off-guard,” Sasuke interjected. “All things considered.”

Considering her initial reaction to participating in the Chuunin Exams at all, Sasuke was surprised by how calm and collected Sakura was able to be. He knew Naruto and Kaisuki felt the same way: Sakura was a weak link, so they had to protect her. She was an incredible person and some of the things she could do with relative ease were impossible to people with decades more experience than her. At the same time though, she wasn't built for battle and he wasn't totally confident in her support abilities either. Maybe he just hadn't seen enough of her training but... he didn't think she could fight at all, actually.

“There's no reason to think she can.”

“The sun won't be fully set for another couple of hours,” Naruto rejoined the conversation from the large tree root he was sitting on. “Should we eat, pack up and move?”

“Probably,” Sasuke answered before Kaisuki could, though he suspected she would say the same thing. “It'd be smart to get close to the center at this point, I think.”

“Yea,” Kaisuki affirmed. He didn't know why he felt surprised at her agreement when he'd already suspected she would. “I'm sure other people have already gotten the idea to stake out the area by the tower, so maybe we can beat someone up and take their spot.”

Sakura and Naruto nodded as well. “Sounds like a plan,” Sakura added, her voice slightly shaky.

“She's pathetic, isn't she?”

.

They had walked all through the night, only stopping for about two hours for a brief rest. Two of them would sleep for an hour while the others kept watch. Naruto slept with Sakura, Kaisuki slept with Sasuke. As the morning approached, they made their way deeper and deeper into the Forest, with Saeka leading them to a decent spot near the Towers. Not so close as to be easily found, but close enough that once they had their scroll it was a simple twenty-minute sprint to get to their end goal.

When one could only see the front of the Forest, it appeared much, much smaller than it truly was. Sasuke had suggested they climbed the trees and traveled through the higher branches but, as Sakura had reminded them, two of them would stand out like a sore thumb. Naruto's bright orange jumper and Sakura’s pink and red color scheme would be like beacons to anyone looking for a fight. So instead, they kept to the ground, picking their way through the treacherous landscape, silently dispatching any lizards or animals that tried them. Despite the difficult-to-navigate landscape, they still made impressive time. It had been quite an undertaking though and, on only a couple of hours of rest and sleep, it was hard to deny their collective fatigue.

At Kaisuki's request and to conserve some of her own energy, she had asked Naruto to cast his clones again to canvas the area around them, specifically in the direction away from the tower. He had them fanned out to cover as much ground as possible. Anyone who ran into his clones would obviously dispel it and with that, they would instantly know who and from where they were coming.

Naruto had been sitting on the ground for nearly fifteen minutes, with Sakura and Sasuke and Kaisuki keeping watch over their immediate surrounding. He was hungry and bored, if he was completely honest. Izumi had supplied him with an ornate and beautiful flower that she instructed him to slowly tear to pieces, suggesting it would help him focus. It was indeed helping, he couldn't deny that, but he was still bored. What if no other teams showed up? What if everyone had already made it to the tower? No, that couldn't be possible, Saeka had informed them that no one had made it to the-...

Pop!

He winced, straightening up and dropping the flower he'd been tearing about. He felt the blood leech out of his face, his eyes widening. That couldn't be right, could it? He stood up, alerting his teammates that something was wrong, and immediately delivered the news:

“We got company on the way,” he informed them seriously. “It's the other Konoha teams – Ino's team and uh, I don't remember their names but it's the older Hyuuga guy, not Hinata. His team is a year ahead of ours...”

Before he could continue, Kaisuki interjected, her eyes flickering to pink when she blinked. “They're possessed...” Kaisuki herself relayed the information with her own voice. Naruto swallowed hard. “Kakashi mentioned it before, too, remember? I knew it was a problem but I didn't expect them to suddenly bum-rush us with a group of six...” she took a shaky breath.

“Okay, so what do we do, aside from prepare for battle?” Sasuke wanted to know, his voice hoarse. “How long do we have until they get here?”

“Maybe a minute or... oh, f*ck, f*ck, f*ck,” Kaisuki's voice quickly slipped into Khrai's familiar intonation and accent. “Bad news ta worse news,” she spoke quickly. “A barrier just went up over t'e Forest. We're trapped in a cage and t'ey're probably about to hit t'e main village...”

“We need to move,” Naruto cut in. “We can't get trapped in a tiny space like this, c'mon!” He didn't wait and he didn't need to. Sakura, Sasuke, and Kaisuki followed his lead as they jumped up out of their hiding spot and raced towards a large clearing that one of his clones had spotted before. In light of the situation, he had already dispelled all of them and regained a lot of chakra as a result. Things were serious but he believed in the team, he believed in their teamwork. He glanced over his shoulder briefly to confirm that everyone was behind him just as they reached the clearing.

“Sakura, Sasuke,” he heard Kaisuki speak softly.

“We know,” Sasuke replied right away, tapping Sakura's shoulder. The two of them simultaneously masked their chakra, concealing it to a degree even higher than they'd displayed in training. Naruto was no sensory type but he considered himself to have decent instincts, and even to him it felt like they'd both just disappeared. Sasuke cast a wide-spanning genjutsu over the area that darkened the shadows and created a light mist around them that ought to impact their opponent's vision but not their own. Naruto didn't know anything about genjutsu but he could feel the weight of his teammates’ chakra falling over the area.

Nice work, Sasuke!

Between himself and Kaisuki, they ought to be able to make quick work of the other Konoha Genin, even if it was six on two. He blinked, the fact that they were fighting their peers settling into his mind right at that moment. He didn't want to kill or maim any of them... he knew it was an exam, everyone for themselves, and that they were possessed...

But I know them personally...

“Kaisuki,” he spoke up, glancing towards her only long enough to see that she had heard him. “How are we supposed to fight them if they're possessed? I don't want to kill them.”

Kaisuki's expression shifted from shock, to recognition, to intensely focused as she considered their options and weighed them among the ladies she hosted. “We have to incapacitate them, is what Khrai said,” his best friend told him. “And we have to immobilize them.”

Naruto swallowed hard, “And how do we immobilize them?”

“That's what Sakura and Sasuke are for,” Kaisuki replied quickly. “If you can keep them busy with your clones, I can take them out one by one easily with... you know,” she cleared her throat and Naruto hummed his understanding. “I'm sure Sasuke will catch on quickly and use his senbon needles to keep them down after that.”

“Okay,” was his simple response. “We can tie them up after too, just to be sure.”

Kaisuki grunted her affirmative. Naruto couldn't deny the anxiety eating away at his chest. Two teams’ worth of their peers were heading towards them and likely wouldn't hold back in the slightest. Their possessed peers were a death squad on a mission and, while they had no control over their own actions, Naruto couldn't and wouldn't let them hurt his teammates. He didn't want to have to kill or seriously injure anyone but what if he didn't have a choice? He was afraid of being forced to take the lives of people he knew so personally, even if they had bullied and ostracized him in school.

Please, go down easily. He moved his hands through several hand seals and summoned twelve clones, all standing behind and beside himself and Kaisuki. Twelve clones plus himself ought to be plenty – two of him per person, and with fewer of them they would have more chakra, more power, and would take more to dispel. His mouth was impossibly dry. They could do this, right?

The aggressive shuddering and noise from the forestry was a loud announcement of the arrival of the two teams. Standing before him, Naruto quickly recognized them. Hyuuga Neji, TenTen, and Rock Lee made up Team Gai, he recalled. Alongside them in a grouping that would never have occurred without them being possessed, was Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji. Ino's presence immediate made him feel somewhat unwell – she had gotten fairly good at using her family's techniques at an early age. He had enough experience with her father to know that she was bad news even without her usual bad attitude.

“Naruto,” Kaisuki muttered quietly to him. “Rock Lee isn't possessed. Fight him yourself, use the clones for the others.”

“Got it,” he replied, rolling his shoulders. Was it a good thing or a bad thing that Lee wasn't possessed? Who knew. Naruto just hoped he'd be willing to listen to reason and stand down when the others were taken out.

“Found you,” TenTen intoned in a sing-song voice, a sinister smile that didn't suit her growing across her face. It didn't escape Naruto's attention the way that Lee nearly winced at the sound of her voice.

Maybe we can manage this.

.

Kaisuki clenched her fists and teeth. This would be the first time she and Saeka fought in tandem outside of training. She felt like they had a decent groove, but it was always different in a real battle. Skill is only a theory until put into practice, in Kakashi's words.

“Will you trust us, Kaisuki?” She heard Saeka's voice in her mind.

Her heart fluttered with anxiety. “I'll trust you.”

As Saeka's chakra flowed into her system, the two of them taking control together, Ino and Shikamaru jumped into action. They were both targeting her while TenTen, Chouji, Neji, and Lee moved to take down Naruto and his clones. As she had directed, Naruto and one of his clones took on Lee directly while the rest got to work stalling the remaining three.

Ino stood by Shikamaru, knelt down and gathering her chakra while Shikamaru activated his shadow manipulation jutsu. Kaisuki's immediately impulse was to move away but she felt Saeka hindering her movement. She felt her anxiety ricochet through her chest until the young spirit spoke up.

“We'll let them catch us,” Saeka explaining quickly. “Ino can't overtake Khrai. She'll go down easily and we won't even have to hit her.”

They moved slower than Kaisuki knew they were capable of on purpose, allowing the shadow manipulation to catch her. The moment she froze, Ino activated her own jutsu. For just a second, Kaisuki felt the spirit of her former classmate and bully push itself into her body only for Khrai to batter it with her energy. It would take several minutes for the girl to re-inhabit her body. In that instant, Ino went down and before Kaisuki could even make a move, she saw a senbon needle strike Shikamaru and then Ino in the neck. The latter was already unconscious but Shikamaru instantly went down. His eyes remained open, his mouth trying to form enraged words to spew at them, but the body was immobilized.

Perfect shot, Sasuke! Now it was her turn. Saeka pushed more of her chakra into Kaisuki and it was game time. She drew a kunai from her pouch, holding it backwards so she could use it as a blunt object. At a speed too fast for an untrained eye to see, Kaisuki and Saeka moved her body in tandem around the edge of the clearing. Neji had just taken out Naruto's pair of clones when she appeared behind him and struck out with the round end of the kunai handle. She heard a noise that sort of sounded like bone crunching but she didn't have time to check on him.

They won't survive this ordeal anyway.

She kept moving, this time appearing behind Chouji. This time, instead of the kunai hilt, she balled up a fist and punched him in the back of the head as hard as she could with her own strength. He went down like a building, slamming to the ground heavily. Only TenTen was left; they could do this! Just one more-...

Suddenly, she felt the genjutsu that Sasuke had cast evaporate around them. At first, she thought nothing of it but an instant later she heard a familiar shriek of fear and shock fill the clearing. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, immediately fearing for her teammate’s life. Had they been attacked by another team? Did Sasuke get hit? Did Sakura get hit?

Saeka didn't slow down in even the slightest, following through with taking down TenTen even as Kaisuki called out to her teammate. “Sakura!!” She barked as loudly as she dared, “What's wrong!?”

TenTen spun around surprisingly fast at the sound of her voice but she wasn't fast enough. Saeka adjusted the trajectory of her swing with pin-point accuracy and drove the round end of the kunai they were still holding into the possessed girl's diaphragm.

“SASUKE'S GONE!!” Came Sakura's crystal-clear scream from the perimeter of the clearing. It sounded like she had moved, probably to confirm what she'd seen with her own eyes. Kaisuki's stomach dropped. “HE DISAPPEARED!”

TenTen doubled forward from the shock of the pain and, even without Kaisuki's full attention, Saeka swung down on the girl's head with a closed fist accented by her superhuman speed. TenTen slammed into the ground almost as hard as Saeka had hit her. Done, done, and done.

“They don't know about us,” she heard Saeka muttering to herself. She knew what the girl was referring to without her adding; “They don't know about me or Khrai.”

She wasn't sure if Saeka was being reassuring or if she was making a statement based on how that fight had gone. It had lasted less than five minutes, but now her muscles burned. Saeka pulled back on her chakra and, barely thinking about it, Kaisuki pushed her own ice-cold chakra through her chakra circulatory system. Her body cooled quickly that way and, if she did it every time Saeka pulled back, they could significantly reduce the risk of injury, prevent any inflammation from affecting her nerves, and improve her recovery time by a lot.

.

Once Naruto heard Sakura's report and saw TenTen go down, he changed gears immediately. Sasuke had disappeared; they did not have time to dawdle around. He released his remaining clones, regaining their chakra, and pushed back harder against Lee. The boy was stronger, faster, and more skilled than he was but he had the upper hand in stamina and how many punches he could take. They needed to figure out where Sasuke had gone and go retrieve him. Surely he hadn't been transported out of the village, right? Or out of the Forest? There was a barrier, so that was impossible, right?

“Lee!” Naruto growled, catching his opponent's fist instead of dodging. Lee seemed to momentarily hesitant. “I don't want to fight you! There's an emergency!”

Lee swung with his other fist and Naruto caught that one too, staring into his fellow Genin's black eyes. “I'm not going to fall for-...”

Naruto interrupted him mercilessly, forcibly pushing both their arms up and jumping back. “This isn't a f*cking trick, Lee!” He exploded, frustration and fear taking over. “The village is under attack! I wouldn't f*ck with you like that! How smart do you think I am!?”

Rock Lee visibly faltered and stepped out of his stance, holding up his hands to look at them. Naruto stared him down intensely. “You've noticed, haven't you? How they seemed weird? On what planet would your team work with those three?” He gestured towards the unconscious remains of Team InoShikaCho. “Never, right?”

Lee licked his lips, looking anxious and even afraid when he met Naruto's gaze again. “What's going on?” He asked sincerely, approaching with his hands held up.

Naruto was about to answer him when Kaisuki interrupted their little meeting.

“Sakura!” Kaisuki barked in a voice that wasn't quite her own, drawing both their attention. “Come out, quickly!”

At their de facto leader's command, Sakura stumbled through the shrubbery, her face white as a hospital sheet, tears threatening to overtake her eyes. She hurried over to Kaisuki and Naruto beckoned Lee to come over as well. Upon seeing her, he spotted Khrai's blue eyes appear for just an instant before the familiar red of the Yurei returned.

“We can't let them go once they wake up,” Kaisuki explained quickly, her voice holding the slightest tinge of Khrai's rather aggressive tone. “Sakura, start tying them up – tightly.”

He watched Kaisuki reach into her own kunai pouch and start walking around the unconscious Genin, sticking them carefully with senbon needles. Naruto hadn't even realized she knew how to use them.

Well, to be fair, it might be Saeka or Khrai or even Izumi who knows...

Sakura pulled out a miniature scroll and summoned a surprisingly long length of rope. She immediately scurried about, cutting lengths of rope with a kunai and tying them up deftly and expertly. Had she been practicing her knots or was she always so skilled with them? Why would she have been practicing tying knots though...?

As if to remind them that he was still there, Lee's anxious voice split the tension in the air.

“What's going on?” He asked again a bit more forcefully, watching Kaisuki and Sakura work at impressive speeds.

“We're trapped in this forest and we have every reason to believe that the village is probably under attack as we speak,” Kaisuki explained flatly. Naruto's chest tightened with fear; somehow, hearing her say it out loud made it that much more real. “We can't do anything to help until we can escape this Forest.”

Before any further questions could be asked, Kaisuki turned to Naruto and Lee directly. “Lee, will you stay here with them?”

“Where are you going?” Sakura questioned as she stepped up beside them. “Everyone's... yea.”

Kaisuki nodded and explained. “Saeka can still sense Sasuke; he's far but he's still in the forest.” She blinked slowly, revealing one pink eye and one blue eye, a murderous scowl set in her expression that they all knew wasn't directed at them.

“We're going to go get him and we'll be right back.”

“Go,” Naruto encouraged her right away. He knew exactly what was at stake; possibly more than the others. He and Kaisuki had stayed up late many times in the past few months, talking about what was coming, what they were facing, and how high the stakes were. “We'll be fine here. Go!”

His best friend smiled at him for only a second before she turned away, heat building around them. It was nearly stifling when she finally bent at the knees and launched herself into the higher branches of the trees. In under a second she was out of sight and Naruto was momentarily in awe of her speed and capability. In that moment, he believed wholeheartedly that she could do anything she decided she needed to do, no matter how impossible it might've been for someone else.

You can do this, Kaisuki! Bring him back to us!

.

He had felt the ground beneath him disappear and the only thing he managed to do was make eye contact with Sakura before everything went dark. He couldn't catch himself on anything – there was nothing to catch on to. The very next instant, his back slammed onto moist grass. It took one singular breath for him to immediately start pushing himself to his feet, his clothes and skin wet and splattered with...

The moment his eyes focused on the scene he had landed upon, nausea rose up his throat with shocking speed and force. He retched on the ground, his hands barely maintaining a grip on his wet, slippery knees as he heaved up his breakfast. He was standing in a puddle of blood. No, not a puddle; a lake. The ground couldn't even soak it up there was so much of it. His feet sunk into it, the stench clinging to his nostrils and the image refusing to leave him even when he closed his eyes. There was a human arm lying near him, and the further around he looked the more sickening it became. Articles of clothing that seemed familiar were scattered around in pieces and shreds – he was sure that hood was part of a parka worn by Hyuuga Hinata.

No matter which way he turned or looked, more gore surrounded him. It was smeared against the trees, shredded viscera mashed into the bark, torn out intestines strung along the branches. His whole team had been wondering where all the other contestants were, sending Naruto's bunshins out looking for them, confused by their absence, worried about what it meant. All along, they had been right there, weren't they? It seemed like everyone who had traveled around from the east had been ripped apart and turned into a meal for something he didn't ever want to see. He raised a hand to cover his mouth and nose, only to see that it was covered in blood. When he went to wipe it on his shirt, it didn't help much. He was covered in it. He could feel it congealing on his skin. He wanted to be sick again but there was nothing left to spit up.

A chill ran up his spine.

“Behind you, pretty boy.”

He hardly registered the warning before he was twisting out of the way of swinging, bladed appendage. He slipped and fell back again, momentarily frozen by the monster that had revealed itself. There was truly no other way to describe it; pieces of insect and animal alike, mutated and formed around a seemingly human base. Instead of legs it had the tail of an enormous snake. Its jowls hung open, drooling blood, meat stuck between its massive, pointed teeth, more of the same sliding to the ground along the stream of its red slobber.

What the f*ck is that?!

His ribs seemed to invert against his lungs, crushing his diaphragm and making it harder and harder to breathe. Sasuke stared up at the thing, terrified, shaking all over, and recognizing in that moment that he was going to die. A strange burning sensation seemed to rise up from his heart to his throat before wrapping around his eyes. He pushed himself up to his feet weakly, squeezing his eyes shut and preparing for what he knew was the end of his life.

Sasuke heard it move and his body reacted without his input. He opened his eyes, vision strangely clearer and, in that instant, he knew where it was aiming, where it would go. He threw several explosive kunai without even realizing he'd grabbed them, aiming for the monster's belly. The moment they made impact and exploded, he took the opportunity to sprint as fast as he could past it, in a direction it hopefully wouldn't predict.

Is this... my Sharingan?

Of all the times to spontaneously activate, he supposed right then was a good opportunity.

“The threat of death is a really good motivator, isn't it? At least you can use it now.”

He hated that the thought stung but he couldn't let himself be distracted by his life of failures. He never wanted to be a Shinobi. He never wanted his Sharingan. He had long since wished he had never been born an Uchiha, or at all. He turned to look behind himself, a shock of fear striking through him as he saw the monster coming after him. It had long scythe-like protrusions that erupted from where a human's shoulder blades would've been, pincers like a spider's that curled out from its neck, sensitive hairs twitching at the sight of potential meal.

It was fast. He wasn't sure he'd be able to outrun it. Yellow eyes chased his every movement and no matter when he turned, or what he used to obstruct its vision, or how much he concealed his chakra, it kept coming after him. Could he make it back to the others? Should he try? Wasn't that cowardly? What did cowardice matter if he died trying to look cool?

“Itachi would've been able to kill it.”

His throat seemed to close up and tears filled his eyes. He blinked aggressively, knowing his vision was his most important asset. He looked back again, surprised to see it was gone. Had he outrun it? He had best keep going, lest it catch up-...

When he turned back to face the front, it was in front of him, scythes swinging and mouth gaping open as though to swallow him in one go. He felt his chakra explode from his throat without any hand seals, a mess of his hottest flames bursting forth. If it didn't move from the heat, it would swallow him whole. He flared his chakra as high and long as he could, praying Saeka could feel it. Weren't they too far away? There was no chance help would find him in time, right? What if the team had been injured by the group that had attacked them?

The monster flinched back and turned away from his flames and for just an instant he thought that maybe, just maybe, he could survive. He managed to catch himself on a branch with his sticky hands, spinning around the branch and ricocheting himself back the way he'd come. Was it going to trap him in this blood-soaked area? Was this what the other Genin had gone through before they were ripped to pieces?

“If only you weren't so weak, right?”

He had just pushed off of a branch when a high-pitched screeching noise rang through the forest around him. His whole body locked up and nausea twisted around his stomach again. With one eye closed and the other only cracked open, he barely managed to land on another branch, struggling to even activate his chakra to stick and stop himself. He dropped to his knees, feeling moisture dripped down his jaw from his eardrums. His brain felt like it was going to explode in his head; he could feel his mouth hanging open but he couldn't tell if he was screaming or not.

Guys, I need you...

“Always whining and crying to be saved, aren't you?”

The noise stopped but his ears continued to ring long after. He could just barely feel his throat vibrating as he retched around his groans of pain. He wanted to give up. He opened his eyes, once again met with the sight of his clothes, his hands, his legs, smeared with the blood of fellow Genin. He wanted to give up. He had never wanted to be a Shinobi so why was he even trying to stay alive?

“I'll come and protect you, no matter who I have to kill.”

He had to keep going. He had to. If there was any chance that Kaisuki was coming, he had to keep going. If she showed up to rescue him and he was already dead, he would just be putting her in unnecessary danger. He couldn't guarantee that she was coming at all, but he had to fight to the bitter end.

He hardly had to strength to push himself back to his feet. He looked behind himself, wondering where the thing had gone and found it slowly slithering towards him, head tilting at a horrifying angle, yellow eyes trained on him.

What, you just want to chase me?

He didn't know how much longer he could keep it up. His whole body felt numb after that screech. He felt dizzy, his heart racing and his breathing too shallow. If he just collapsed, would it still try to kill him? It was still moving closer and closer to him, its jowls slackening again to reveal its rows of pointed teeth and he could smell the rancid odor of meat his mind knew he shouldn't be able to smell. His stomach lurched again.

I can't do this...

“You can't do anything, can you?”

He wanted to run. He wanted to. He forced himself to take a step and his foot, slimy from running through blood, slipped on the branch before he had a chance or thought to use his chakra to stick. As his body lurched into motion he saw the monster rush towards him. He tried to grab onto something but the moment he looked down to find something to grab, his forehead met another tree limb with a sickening crack. His vision went black, then white; he tried to forced his eyes open but he couldn't tell if they were or not. Dazzling lights spun around and it was all he could see.

He felt himself falling through the air, head spinning, unable to find any sense of where he was in space. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second and when he opened them again, his Sharingan rather uselessly spotted the monster, his gaze locking on it to. It had already launched itself at him and his limbs were too weak to respond in the amount of time he had. It was moving too fast, he didn't have any strength left, and he had nothing to grab or catch himself with. He couldn't even think straight enough to remember a series of hand seals to use.

Please, Saeka... you promised...

“I'll come and protect you, no matter who I have to kill.”

Tears were streaming out of his eyes, his gaze unable to look away from the rapidly approaching mouth, wide and gaping with its razor sharp teeth. He had seen what those teeth could do; what they would do. Flashing in his mind like his own life before he died – the images of limbs, blood, and evidence of people he knew flickered across his mind. He was going to die. He was going to die. He felt his mouth fall open and, though he couldn't hear it, he felt his throat let out a long, terrified scream.

I don't want to die like this!!

“Oh, you won't die yet, boy. I still need you.”

The feeling of something piercing through both his shoulders occurred only seconds before his back slammed into the hard bark of a tree. He had been pinned in place and he could feel warm blood – this time his own – running down his arms in a steady stream. Those scythe-like blades dug into him mercilessly, the sound of the wood splitting behind him unmistakable. He howled in pain, his legs kicking out uselessly, his hands immobilized. Why? Why would it not have just chomped into him when its jowls had already been wide open like that?

What the hell is this thing...?

Sasuke forced his eyes open, blinking until his tear-filled eyes cleared enough to see. His vision still seemed to tilt and shift. He was still dizzy from likely cracking his skull on that branch. He whined weakly, his strength leaving him along with the blood oozing from his wounds. He gritted his teeth, trying to force his arms to move but it was pointless. He couldn't even feel his fingers anymore. Why make him suffer? Why not just kill him? Why not just swallow him whole? Wouldn't that have been more-...

His train of thought was interrupted.

Sasuke’s eyes widened hugely, watching the bones moving in the creature’s neck and jaw, listening to the unbearable sound of crunching cartilage as its head was pulled back, its original jaw detaching from the human skull it had been somehow adhered to. The head continued to crack back, and he watched helplessly and in horror as a second mouth opened vertically, splitting open from the center of the human chest all the way to the spot its upper jaw remained. It unfurled open like some kind of monstrous flower blooming, a seemingly endless pit of squelching flesh and grinding bones.

As it opened, something black and wet-looking rose through the hole. It looked opaque and transparent at the same time as it rose out, dripping something that turned to vapor instantly. The rancid smell he'd assumed was from its human victims became unbearably potent, like rotten eggs or something. It seemed to look at him even though it didn't have any eyes of its own, twitching strangely as it came closer and closer to his face.

It was impossible to explain – to rationalize what he was seeing. It wasn't a solid object; it wasn't wet yet it seemed to drip some kind of vapor; he couldn't feel any chakra source from it; it was opaque but transparent; it moved like a tentacle but with far more precision. It curled itself into a spiral for a moment before snapping out into a long, thin, pointed form that seemed much more solid that it had a moment ago. His lips parted in shock and fear, his body frozen from both blood loss and horror.

What is that? What-... what... the f*ck... what the f*ck is that? What is that!?

He turned his head and started shouting; screaming for help before he had the thought to feel ashamed again “KAISUKI! NARUTO! PLEASE, SOMEONE HELP ME! PLE-...!!”

When he turned his head, it struck similarly to a cobra but much faster – far faster than anything an animal or human could do. It pierced his neck into his jugular and seemed to travel into his bloodstream, a pain unlike anything he ever felt filling his senses. It was like being burned alive from the inside and frozen to death in ice at the same time. His voice had died in his throat, replaced by a wheezing, strangled gasping. He couldn't even scream, his whole body stiffening like a board as the pain spread through every nerve in his body.

“No one is coming for you. Why would anyone come for you?”

His eyes, wide and unseeing, filled with tears that blacked out his vision like ink.

Someone... Kaisuki... help... please...

.

When Kaisuki heard him screaming her heart had stuttered in her chest, but when she heard him suddenly stop screaming, her blood had run cold. Saeka had pushed her body as hard as she could without stopping them via injury, and yet it still seemed to take far too long. She spent those few seconds cursing herself for not being stronger, not being faster, not training enough. Was he dead? Had he been silenced and taken away? Would she be too late?

When she finally reached the scene, Saeka only stopped for a second to take in the situation. The blood drenching the forest floor below them, the gore hanging in the trees even as high up as they were. Sasuke laying on the ground, unmoving, not even twitching. The monster curling over him as it uttered a frightening, gurgling noise. Kaisuki stayed back, clutching onto Khrai's hand and shaking within her own mind.

She didn't even wait for them to ask her. “Do what you have to do, Saeka.”

In the kotatsu room after their last team dinner, Khrai and Saeka had sat her and Izumi down. She hadn't known what to expect when they appeared at bedtime, their expressions somber and serious. Naruto had already fallen asleep when they led her into the room. The tension in the air was thick and uncomfortable.

“So...” Kaisuki's voice cracked and she cleared her throat awkwardly. Khrai didn't wait and she was never one to mince words.

“Remember when ye told me you wanted ta be able to trust me?” The Elf asked her. Her heart sank. Bad news, but she should've known by then. “I took t'at to heart, ya know? And I talked ta Sae-chan about it.”

Kaisuki eyes skirted over to Saeka's morose expression. Was that... shame?

“I remember, yea,” she responded slowly, her eyebrows coming together.

“Well, it's about time we put it into perspective fer ya,” Khrai continued. “'Cause t'ings are far worse than even I realized.”

The girl didn't respond verbally at all. She pushed more of her chakra through Kaisuki's body, bending down to prepare to launch. She could feel her fingertips heating up tremendously, until her eyes were watering and she was struggling to hold back tears. Khrai held onto her, holding her close and supporting her as the pain intensified.

“One shot.” There was no hesitation in Saeka's voice and no pause between her words and actions. Internally, Kaisuki gritted her teeth together, pain tearing through her fingers, up her arms, and into her shoulders. She had known it would hurt but it was far worse than she'd expected. Her knees buckled and she collapsed against Khrai, whose strong arms continued to hold her upright, whispering magic to her to soothe the sensation. They would take another dose of medication and she would ice her body as soon as she could, but right now they didn't have a spare second to waste.

At a speed that even the most skilled Sharingan user couldn't keep up with, Saeka slammed into the enormous monster feet first. The force of her momentum was like a cannon ball launched from point-blank range, forcing it away from her brother with enough power to make it fall to the side, rolling onto it's back for just an instant. In that split-second Saeka pushed her chakra through Kaisuki's fingers and beyond, molding it in the shape of the young spirit's own talons with condensed chakra hot enough to warp steel. Kaisuki couldn't hold back anymore and her inner body jack-knifed into itself as a cry escaped her throat, quickly rising to a scream of pain.

Saeka didn't seem to react at all as she used those talons to slash several times at her superhuman speed. In an instant, the monster was shredded into fat slices that fell apart on the already blood-soaked ground, brackish fluid and mutilated flesh splattered all over the trees, the bushes, the forest floor, adding to the already gore-laden area.

Saeka pulled back her chakra as fast as she could and Khrai shook her, “Kaisuki, quickly, your chakra.”

It was difficult to focus on anything but she obeyed, forcing her chakra through her system as quickly as she could, pushing Saeka's energy out and focusing the coldest of it into her hands. She could feel them shaking even on the outside. Saeka had to be in as much pain as Kaisuki was. Her teeth were ground together. She felt Khrai moving, speaking to someone, and a moment later Izumi's familiar, healing chakra was being pushed through as well. The irou-nin worked quickly to heal the damage do Kaisuki's fingers before it worsened. She could feel scar tissue building where the burns had been and while it still tingled and ached horrendously, the worst of the pain was gone.

Saeka had already pulled one of their vials of medication out and had downed it in a single mouthful as she made her way over to Sasuke. The gore didn't seem to bother her in the slightest. From within, Khrai rubbed her back and soothed her as she regained her composure. Izumi's fast-acting co*cktail made all the difference in a matter of minutes as Saeka was checking Sasuke's condition.

She took a few more stabilizing breaths as Izumi switched with Saeka. The youngest spirit walked over to her and Khrai, gingerly touching her Hostess' head with her talons carefully splayed out of the way.

“Amazing,” Saeka whispered to her encouragingly. “Good job.”

She managed a smile around her measured breaths, forcing her heart rate under control and managing her chakra flow. Izumi was quickly looking their teammate over, checking his pulse and gasping out a sigh of relief when she found one. Kaisuki was immediately alerted to the find and she had to fight back a new onslaught of relieved sobs. Sasuke was definitely unconscious and his face was white - “Likely from blood loss,” Izumi explained. The wounds in his shoulders were the greatest concern but they didn't have time to treat them in that moment. Izumi took a quick moment to pull out sterile gauze and pack it into the wounds, then wrapping them tightly with a sticky tape she'd insisted they buy at the market a few days ago.

“That'll hold.” She said, switching out with Saeka and Khrai. With Khrai's inherent strength and the extreme muscle toning Kaisuki had endured, she was able to easily lift Sasuke, focusing on maintaining a good form to prevent any injury.

“Go ahead, Saeka,” Kaisuki breathed out carefully. The pain was bearable now that the medication had kicked in. She could go longer. The spirit in question pushed her chakra into Kaisuki's legs again – though this time much less because she didn't need to rush quite so fast. Still, they raced back at the highest speed they safely could, Saeka continuing to track the situation in the forest around them.

“They're still hunkered down where we left them,” Saeka updated her. “The situation in the Tower seems stable for now, as well.”

On their way out to rescue Sasuke, Saeka had alerted her that the Tower where the Jounin were was under attack in some way. She had picked up on chakra patterns that indicated fighting, some injuries, and many deaths. The girl had assured her that Kakashi was still alive, though he was definitely injured. The Jounin had holed up in the very top floor of the tower but they were trapped. Immediately after rescuing Sasuke, they didn't have a choice but to go straight to the Tower to save the Jounin.

“We're going to have to go beyond normal limits,” Kaisuki grimly told her Guests. “I know that it'll hurt me, but we have to protect the village.”

.

“Kaisuki!” Naruto greeted the moment he saw her, his smile quickly replaced with shock and horror at the sight. Sasuke was covered in a rather thick layer of congealing blood and grime, his clothes literally saturated with it. He was unconscious in Kaisuki's arms and she quickly set him down, flagging over Sakura right away. Rock Lee had stood up with Naruto and he too seemed to be at a loss for words.

Sakura didn't have to be told what to do; she immediately dropped to her knees and pulled forth her chakra, assessing and getting to work repairing any and all damage she could.

Naruto began to ask, his voice cracking mid-sentence, “What happe-...”

“Don't have time to explain it,” Kaisuki breathlessly explained as she paced back and forth for a moment, fatigue evident on her face. Naruto swallowed hard. Things were really bad and Kaisuki was already so exhausted. He felt incredibly useless. Clearly, whatever the situation was, they weren't going to have time to rest and recuperate.

Sakura moved from Sasuke's shoulders to his head and the moment she did, Kaisuki reached into her kunai pouch and produced a jar of what Naruto quickly recognized as smelling salts. Was she going to wake him up with those? If they were in a hurry, he supposed it made sense. Judging by his teammate’s condition, he would be difficult to rouse otherwise.

“Kaisuki, what's the situation right now?” Sakura asked. Sasuke had taken a pretty nasty blow to the head, clearly. A concussion was bad, but considering the massive gash in his forehead that Sakura was closing, he was luckier than luck could be to have survived at all.

Kaisuki swallowed hard, looking hesitant to explain as she looked at Naruto and Lee. She took a breath and started talking, unabated and too fast to be interrupted. “There was a monster on the eastern side of the Forest, and ... it was a blood bath over there. You could've swam in it. Considering the fact that we haven't seen any other examinees, it's likely that they're all ...” she cleared her throat again, disguising her breathlessness. Naruto didn't fall for it.

“The barrier over the Forest is preventing anyone from coming in or going out, and Saeka informed me right when we left that the Watchtower where the Jounin are was under siege, though it seems like the situation is stable for now. They probably don't have a clue what's going on out here, and I don't have to guess to know that the village is probably being razed to the ground outside this blasted forest.”

“Our teachers-...” Rock Lee suddenly spoke up, his voice quiet and shocked.

“I know,” Kaisuki looked at him, her expression contorted in despair and remorse. Naruto felt that she looked a little faint. “I wish I could give you good news. As far as we can tell, there are some possessed Jounin in that building and some who aren't. It's a hostage situation designed to stop us from saving them. We don't have enough time,” she took a breath and swallowed again before continuing. “We don't have enough time to save the people who are possessed. If they attack us, we have to kill them no matter if we know them or not.”

Something about the way she had said it seemed to drop a rock into Naruto's gut. They didn't have time to save the people who were possessed? His eyes strayed to the still-unconscious forms of the two teams they had taken down. If they couldn't save them, then what were they going to do? How could they end the invasion?

Lee had opened his mouth to speak but Kaisuki silenced him with a hand and shook her head. “I do not have time, Lee, I'm sorry. I need you to stay here and watch over these guys, okay? If anyone comes up, tell them the village is under attack. Do not let anyone untie these guys, even if you have to kill them to stop them.” She gestured over to the six Genin still laying on the ground. “These things will try to trick you. Do not listen to them.”

“B-but...”

“Lee,” Kaisuki placed her palms on his shoulders, her expression deadly serious and somewhat panicked. “If they get free, they will kill you. They will not remember you. They will not show you mercy. You will not be able to bring them back to their senses. They will not hesitant. They were going to kill us with your help.”

Lee nodded stiffly, his despair painful to look at. Naruto's mind was still reeling with what Kaisuki had said and continued to say. They wouldn't remember them? No way to get them back? How was she going to save the village?

Before his train of thought could run away with him, Sakura interjected. “Kaisuki,” she announced, “I'm done.”

Kaisuki didn't hesitate, her attention already pulled away from Rock Lee's fear, her hands sliding off his shoulders without a second thought. She was clearly on a time crunch, her mind focused entirely on the task at hand, saving as many people as possible, preventing as much damage as they could. Kakashi was probably still alive if he had to wager a guess; Saeka would've been on the move without waiting to wake Sasuke if things had gotten that serious at the Watchtower. At the same time, though, how serious had it gotten?

“Sit him up,” Kaisuki said. Sakura hauled him upright, leaning his bloodied body against her own without even a grimace and putting her hand on his forehead to tilt his head back some. Kaisuki uncapped the vial of smelling salts and pushed it up against his nose. Within a single breath, he jerked violently, swinging, coughing, and spluttering as Kaisuki put her jar away and replaced it in her kunai pouch.

Sasuke looked up at her, his eyes wide and bright with shock. He pulled away on his own as Sakura released him. “Kaisuki? Sakura... what-...”

“Sasuke, can you move?” Sakura asked immediately, saving no time for questions. Somehow, she had adopted the same business-first attitude as Kaisuki. She clearly understood how serious the situation was. “We have to go, now.”

For a moment, Sasuke looked like he didn't believe he was even alive. Kaisuki had looked towards Sakura as she stood up, and in that moment Naruto watched Sasuke look directly at Kaisuki with an expression that did not look at all like the teammate and friend he knew. He gazed at their Yurei teammate, his eyes narrowing with a brief glint of murderous intent before he started picking himself up.

“Yea,” Sasuke finally spoke as he straightened up. The odd look in his eyes was gone and Naruto found himself looking at Lee, hoping he wasn't the only one who had seen that. The other Genin, however, was staring at his teammates, genuine worry etched into his features. Their Uchiha teammate shook out his limbs briefly and then returned his attention to Kaisuki again.

“It's the village, right?” He asked seriously.

“The village, yea,” Kaisuki was quick to answer. “But first, the Watchtower.”

.

“Kaisuki,” Saeka spoke upon as the Watchtower was coming into view. “That Jinchuriki's team is about to go into the tower.”

Kaisuki glanced at her teammates and beckoned them to pick up the pace a bit. They broke through the tree line and she spotted the redhead and his teammates. He was as Naruto had described and, as they approached, she watched his hand reach out for the door handle. She didn't even think twice, pulling Saeka's chakra into herself and pushing it through her legs as she shouted to them.

“Wait! STOP!” She bellowed, causing all three of them to wince in surprise. The person with the fan spun around, looking like she was ready for a fight, but before Kaisuki could say anything further she felt a pop and a shock of pain that ran through her ankle sent her tumbling to the ground with absolutely no grace.

Sakura stopped with her while Sasuke and Naruto slowed down but kept running forward, their hands going up to signal they weren't trying to attack anyone. Kaisuki hissed out several pained breaths, “I think it's my ankle,” she told her teammate. Sakura nodded, drawing forth her irou-ninjutsu and quickly getting to work assessing the damage.

“It's just a sprain, thankfully,” Sakura replied right away. “This'll only take a moment.”

She looked up as Naruto and Sasuke stopped short, her blond teammate speaking first (and loudly). “We're not here to fight,” he explained quickly. “There's a problem and this tower is full of bad guys-...”

“What the f*ck are you on about?” the taller, blonde woman deadpanned.

Sakura was right about it only taking a moment. She jumped to her feet and jogged over quickly, as Naruto was trying to get a word in edgewise over the older girl. She didn't seem at all interested in listening to him and kept telling her younger-looking teammate to go in, but he was hesitating as he looked at Sasuke – still covered in blood – with a scrutinizing gaze.

“Shut up and listen,” Kaisuki barked as she walked up, her expression deadly serious. The blonde girl looked offended but the redhead smacked her lightly on the forearm to silence her. “This village is under attack. There is a barrier around this forest preventing anyone from getting in or out and the person who cast it is in this building, holding all of our Jounin instructors hostage. If anyone made it to the tower at all, they're dead.”

There was a stiff pause as Kaisuki caught her breath, watching the three of them exchange glances. The jumpsuit guy took charge in that moment and spoke up. “How would you possibly know that? You're just Genin, aren't you?”

“Aren't you a Genin, too, jackass?” Khrai muttered in her head.

Knowing she ought not to, Kaisuki looked them all in the face. “I'm a Yurei, and one of my Guests is a sensory type. Almost every Genin who's come into this Forest is dead.” She blinked, her eyes switching colors as Khrai stepped forward to speak herself and prove their worth. “Ye should know t'at we were expressly told not ta out ourselves to anyone, so this is us extendin' trust to ya's. To hammer it in, we already know yer a Jinchuriki,” she stared directly at the redhead standing in the middle of them. “In fact, I know Shukaku personally, tell 'im Khrai says hi.”

There was a brief pause before Naruto jumped in, “I'm a Jinchuriki too, so don't make it weird, okay?”

The silence stretched for a few more seconds before the blonde girl spoke up again, her face set in a scowl that could rival Khrai's. “What are you suggesting, then?”

Kaisuki stepped forward again and Khrai let her switch in, though she stayed right beside her. The Elf's accent bled into her voice even though her eyes turned back to red. “Well, if no'ting else, this place is full of evil dudes that I, as a citizen of this country, give you full permission ta annihilate by whatever means you see fit.”

The redhead's expression shifting, an interesting glint appearing in their aquamarine color. Was that murderous intent? Sadism? She didn't know and didn't particularly care. “Will you help us?” She asked. “Hopefully your instructor is alright too... I can't tell much because I don't know them...”

The trio exchanged a look again before the redhead, apparently their de facto leader, nodded stiffly. “We might as well get the most of this exam, right?” He spoke, the slightest hint of a smirk twitching at one corner of his mouth.

“Never change, Shukaku,” Khrai breathed out in Kaisuki's mind.

“Are we ready, then?” Sasuke asked, having been silent during the exchange.

Kaisuki took a breath and nodded. “No point in delaying anymore. Let's go.”

The two older Genin with the redhead exchanged a few looks. Perhaps they could tell how serious the situation actually was. Sasuke drew a few senbon needles from his kunai pouch. Naruto was already building chakra to power him through battle. Sakura stayed back, knowing her job was possibly the most important one. Still, she drew a kunai of her own, ready to defend herself at a moment's notice.

Kaisuki cracked her knuckles as Saeka carefully started building her own chakra up. Moving past the other team, she stepped up to the door. Then, she paused, hand on the handle, brows coming together. Khrai and Saeka didn't speak a word to her, but she had just gotten an idea – hopefully a good one. She turned back to her team, gesturing at Sasuke and Sakura specifically.

“I want you two to go up the outside of the building, actually. Meet us on the fifth floor, yea?” Sasuke and Sakura nodded in agreement and understanding. “Even if the pincer is weak, knowing that you two are there to help stop them from rushing the Jounin will make me feel a little better about storming the building like this.”

The two of them didn't waste another moment, not even stopping to look at one another before they started jogging around to the other side of the building, where they could climb up and into a window. There weren't any windows along the other floors; only at the very top were there a few small ones at the top, where the observatory for the exams were. The two of them were small enough that they could probably fit. Even if they couldn't, she trusted them to blast a hole in a wall safely.

“We should try not to actually kill anyone if we can help it,” Kaisuki stated as she looked back at everyone. “But if they die, they die.” She said it perhaps a bit too matter-of-factly, but that was the reality of the situation they were in and there was a limit to how long she could keep up appearances.

Kaisuki stared at Khrai, her throat tight. “How bad is it, really?”

Surprisingly, Saeka was the one who explained. “Kaisuki... it's over a third of the village that's possessed. It's most of the Jounin, all of ANBU, and all of your Genin peers, save for one or two, I think.”

Her heart felt like had it stopped. Time seemed to freeze for a few seconds. A third? A third of the entire village's population? All of her peers? All of ANBU? Sasuke had mentioned ANBU, and Saeka had assured him that they weren't possessed. Had she...

“Did you... lie to Sasuke about ANBU...?” She asked hesitantly. The weight of the burden Saeka had been carrying was far heavier than Kaisuki could possibly have imagined.

“If I had told him the truth, I ... think he probably would've tried running away. From the village” Saeka told him. “Its way more dangerous for him out there than it is here, even with all the demons running around.”

“Here, he has you,” Khrai added. “Out t'ere, we can't protect 'im. He'd be snatched up less t'an a mile away from t'e gates.”

Kaisuki stared at the kotatsu table. “What can we do, then? If a third of the village...” she swallowed hard, nausea from her anxiety beginning to make itself known. “We can't fight that many people.”

Khrai let out a long, sad sigh. “T'at's where I come in, kid.” The Elf's voice was so heavy with a kind of helpless despair that Kaisuki didn't associate with her. She looked up at the woman, only to find that she was staring down at her own hands. Her eyes, normally a vibrant blue, brighter than the sky, seemed dimmed somehow. The humor she normally presented, and even the anger she often gave in to, were nowhere to be found.

For a moment, she could see the reality of the restless spirit's deep, hopeless pain.

Kaisuki pulled the handle of the door and it slid open noisily. The moment she released the handle she was hit with the stench of old blood, rotting into the floor. Her stomach lurched at the rank odor but she didn't react outwardly. She could hear Naruto swallowing repeatedly beside her, gagging a bit loudly. She didn't have to ask for Khrai to lend her Hostess her eyes. The Elf had far better nightvision and it enabled her to see into the darker corners of lobby despite the bright light of day behind her.

Right away, Saeka gave her a rundown on the situation: “They've concentrated most of the forces on the fourth floor,” the young spirit informed her quickly. “The Jounin are holed up on the fifth floor, most of them are injured but none of them are in danger. The bad guys are probably just trying to keep them there so they can't rescue the students.”

“Bad guys mostly on the fourth floor,” Kaisuki recited to her impromptu emergency response group as they came inside with her. The floor was coated in a sticky layer of congealed blood. As they walked further in, their eyes adjusting to the dimness, they began to spot bodies. Some of them, Kaisuki immediately recognized as being from her own peer group and the one above them, people she'd seen at the entrance ceremony, people she'd stared at with interest during the first test.

Dead, decapitated, dismembered, disemboweled. Most of them had to have been there for at least a day. The teams who had been proud at how fast they'd completed the exams, only to meet a grisly end. No victory, no great battle they'd given their lives for; not even an unmarked grave.

Hopefully, with the survivors’ help, they could give these people a proper resting place.

“This is horrible...” Izumi whispered brokenly.

“There's the stairs,” the boy in the black jumpsuit and face paint pointed to a barely-lit stairwell. Even the lights were splattered with blood. Kaisuki led the way to the stairwell, taking her time to ensure that, whatever came, there would be time for Saeka to warn her.

Naruto was right beside her as she started climbing the wide stairs and she made a point not to look at him. He had probably already cottoned on to the fact that she was pushing herself in a non-sustainable way, but he also knew just as well as she did that they had no options. The Kyuubi was useful in a pinch, but he was ultimately not particularly interested in helping them defend their friends, their families, or their homes. It was only Naruto's extreme emotions that could draw on Kurama's power without his own will, and aside from that the Tailed Beast didn't seem interested in helping anyone except Khrai – and only on rare occasions when she asked very nicely.

It was strange and eerie as they traveled up the building. Floor after floor, the blood spatters were fewer and farther between but there was also no sound or sign of movement from the enemies they knew were just a few floors about them. She could feel the redhead moving directly behind her and Naruto, the fan woman and the jumpsuit guy bringing up the rear. She wondered if they were positioned that way based on their fighting style.

They crested the second floor, crossed to the other side of a long hallway marked with signs of battle – likely the remnants of the Jounin's attempt to fight back. The lights flickered on occasion, though the upper floors were far more intact and lit than the bottom ones. She couldn't begin to imagine the nightmare those kids had walked into...

The redhead suddenly spoke up quietly from behind her: “Oi... you.”

Okay, that's kind of rude.

She twisted around to face him, aware that her eyes were lit up with Khrai's blue. He looked a bit taken aback and she wondered what kind of expression she was wearing. The barely-restrained fury of the Elf within her was certainly bleeding into her own mood at that point.

“What?” She hissed with the slightest tinge of an accent. He glared at her, looking offended by her attitude. She felt a little bad, seeing his eye twitching slightly.

“Who are you?” The redhead asked her. At that question, Kaisuki blinked several times and then opened her mouth in a silent “oh”. She had completely neglected to introduce herself, or anyone, and vice versa. The situation was a bit tense, sure, but that was little reason to forgo introductions.

Especially if this is the last time any of us live to see one another.

“Oh, sh*t, my bad,” she responded sheepishly. “Sorry. I'm Kaisuki, Tsubaki Kaisuki. This is Naruto,” she glanced his way as she gestured towards him, seeing him grin and wave. “The two we sent around the outside were Sakura and Sasuke.”

He stared at Kaisuki for a long moment, unblinking, his gaze a bit glazed over. Kaisuki could feel Khrai draw closer, eyeing the boy carefully and humming thoughtfully without speaking.

After a pause, the redhead replied calmly. “Gaara. This is Temari and Kankuro; my siblings.” He told her. She smiled warmly at them all.

“It's nice to meet you guys,” she expressed sincerely. “Though it could be under better circ*mstances, there's no better way to bond than in a major crisis, right?” That twitch of a smirk appeared again but Kaisuki didn't dawdle a moment longer.

She started moving forward again, muttering over her should just loudly enough for them to hear. “Welcome to Konohagakure.”

Gaara let out a huff of breath that could've been interpreted as amusem*nt, but he said nothing further. The third floor was empty, though the marks of previous battle seemed to get farther apart. They had tried to fight on the second floor, and clearly their forces had been quickly diminished as they fled upstairs. She heard Naruto swallow a bit loudly next to her, his chakra stirring and simmering, raring to go despite very clear anxiety. Kaisuki really, really hoped they wouldn't be faced with the possession of with anyone they knew, but she also knew that was... a bit unlikely.

“They're coming.” Kaisuki didn't even realize that she had spoken aloud. The others beside her stiffened and they slowed to a stop. Kaisuki pulled out a kunai, eyes narrowing. It was to be expected that their enemies would try to stop them from climbing the whole tower but she was surprised that they hadn't come sooner. The smoothest option for her and Saeka specifically would be to aim for tendons and joints in the lower extremities to take out their ability to walk as fast as possible.

However, she needed to conserve as much of her body as possible. Her chakra could be replaced thanks to Sakura and the Jinchuriki she was traveling with, but she needed to preserve her body for their final strike.

“Gaara, are you capable of immobilizing people?” She hissed to him, glancing back momentarily. His forehead creased and he nodded. His eye was still twitching, just slightly.

“f*ck off, Shukaku,” she heard Khrai mutter internally.

“Easily.” Was the one word reply she got from Gaara. The redhead pulled the cork out of the top of his gourd and she watched as sand began to slowly filter out. That was what Naruto had meant about him fighting with sand, then.

“Naruto,” Kaisuki looked at him and he nodded, grinning.

“Got it,” with a few seals, he summoned ten kage bunshins. “Go!!” He shouted, and his clones raced towards the door to the stairs. Two of the clones blasted it open with a chakra burst from their fists, and black, not-quite-opaque tendrils lashed out, taking out five clones in single swipe. Several people descended the stairs – all of them ANBU, their masks unmistakable. Kaisuki's eyes narrowed.

“None of them are the caster; those tendrils are coming from upstairs.” Saeka alerted her immediately. She'd had a feeling but, as always, it was a real help to have Saeka confirm it for her.

Without warning and with a shout, Temari and Kankuro suddenly pushed past her and Naruto, Kankuro wielding puppets that went straight after the ANBU members before them. Kaisuki could see the poison dripping from the puppet's weapons as he struck out. Poison would take time to work on a possessed body – far longer than it would on a normal human. Temari unfolded the massive fan she'd been carrying on her back, settling into a stance and waiting for her moment.

“Kankuro!” The boy in question made his puppets split to either side as Temari swung her fan towards their enemies. With blades of wind that cut through the concrete like butter, she downed several ANBU members immediately, limbs severed, bodies ripped up. Right behind her fan was Kankuro's puppets, taking the opportunity made by his sister's blast. They spun around, blades coming from seemingly every crevice, cutting down anyone that the wind blades hadn't incapacitated.

“Now, Kaisuki,” Saeka spoke up and she didn't hesitate for a moment. She heard Naruto say something to her but she ignored him as she gathered her own and Saeka's chakra, her body glowing with the volume of it.

“Zenshin Kirikae no Jutsu,” she chanted, her hands held together in a single hand seal that Khrai had taught her – one that didn't exist among the normal Shinobi ones. Fiery red chakra whirled around her and when it died down, Saeka stood there in her own smaller body, with her talons and full access to her chakra and physical abilities. The only issue they had so far with the technique was the chakra it took to maintain; Kaisuki herself had to shoulder that particular burden. There was no way for the other spirits to do it for her.

“Naruto,” Saeka commanded the attention of everyone around her. Kaisuki, watching from within, had never seen her with so much confidence. “Follow behind me. Dispel your clones. Gaara, right behind Naruto; wrap up everyone we take down. I can't guarantee they'll stay down even with severe injuries like these. Just follow me.”

You were bred for battle, weren't you, Saeka?

Gaara's sand was already seeping across the floor, wrapping itself around the bodies of the downed ANBU members, already aware of his place in the battle. He braced himself beside Naruto – two Jinchuriki, prepared to save a village that persecuted anyone like them, led by a Yurei who had suffered the same and would do far more than just kill to defend the people she cared about.

Saeka took in a breath, her chakra building around her. Heat rolled off her in waves, though she paid it no mind. In her own body and after growing her own chakra control alongside Kaisuki, she could manage it. Her body was made to withstand that heat; it had been her childish and untrained mind that couldn't withstand it.

“Go.”

Unlike Kaisuki, Saeka had long since learned to use levels of speed and chakra that far surpassed what people would call “superhuman”. Her chakra wells were endless and in all the time she'd trained with Kaisuki, the hours and hours of matching each other's chakra volume, she never ran dry. She never even ran low. Kaisuki had long since begun to wonder if Saeka's chakra was truly bottomless.

The youngest spirit of the Yurei propelled herself forward, bouncing off of walls and twisting through the air with her talons flying as she stabbed, sliced, and slashed her way through as many ANBU members as she saw masks. She wasn't paying much attention to where her strikes landed; she knew better than anyone that these people were already as good as dead. There was little reason for her to hold back at that point. Kaisuki knew Saeka wasn't taking down everyone – but that was what Naruto and Gaara were for. In that narrow space and at such a high speed, it would've been nearly impossible to land decent blows on all of them. Regardless, she knew the spirit kept a close eye on the chakra sources behind her as she raced up the stairs.

Her feet barely touched the ground as she ascended the stairs, cutting down the metal door like it was nothing with her burning-hot talons. The metal slammed to the ground loudly, and there he was. The final hallway before the fifth-floor stairwell, stood the person who was wielding those tendrils of smoky black energy, who had cast the barrier, and who then stood between her and her mentor's safe rescue.

“Asuma-san?!” Kaisuki couldn't help being shocked from within and she immediately regretted speaking at all. She didn't want Saeka to hold back; not in these circ*mstances. It was imperative that she didn't stop to consider their relationship to any of these people. In that moment, though, she couldn't help thinking of the team in the forest, tied up and simply awaiting their fate – a fate that only Kaisuki knew.

“Kaisuki, do you trust me?” Saeka asked deliberately, stalled as she stared down the sensei of the InoShikaCho team that they'd just taken out in the forest. She knew Saeka could feel her wretched misery but she knew she could trust Saeka. Her chin trembling just slightly, she doubled down on her resolve.

“I trust you.”

“I'm going to hurt him,” Saeka replied a bit hesitantly. “But...”

“Just do it!” Khrai urged her, not wanting to spend any more time thinking about it than she had to. She knew that Asuma was as good as dead and she didn't want to stall so long that her focus faltered. Kaisuki could feel Saeka pulling from the deep, deep well of her chakra and she knew the young spirit was aware that they had very little time to finish the job. Kaisuki's chakra wells were already running low and they were only a minute or two away from the girl collapsing from chakra exhaustion.

.

Saeka lowered herself closer to the ground, knees bent, torso leaned forward, the ball of one foot pressed against the floor to push off at a moment's notice. She drew out and pushed more and more of her hottest energy throughout her entire body. More and more and more, beyond what she'd ever shown to even Kakashi-san; more than she'd unleashed in that frenzy at the time of her death; more than she had ever been able to access, even when she was still alive.

With that chakra Saeka felt the deepest, darkest pits of her anger bubbling like lava, ready to overflow, tempting her to release it all. Things were different than they were when she had died, though. She had control; she had purpose. The tendrils Asuma-san was controlling billowed out around him, surging towards the young spirit in the form of razor-sharp points and blades.

However, with her chakra now warping the walls around her and softening the metal floor she stood barefoot upon, that dark energy was no match for the sheer intensity of the heat coming off of her. It was likely that the Jounin on the top floor could feel the heat and she hoped, sincerely, that Kakashi recognized they were coming to save him.

No human could have followed her movement when she launched herself at the man Kaisuki remembered as Asuma.

There were four chakra points that Saeka knew the exact anatomical location of. They were in the shoulders and the chest. Anatomy was something drilled into her during her life, as it mattered that she was good at killing. Better than anyone, possibly. Before Asuma – possessed or not – could have recognized her intent or even attempted to block or dodge, her talons had already sunk into his torso, penetrating those chakra points directly.

Saeka condensed her energy, gave it direction, and forced her own chakra into Asuma. He let out a howl of pain, his voice escalating in volume until the sound could no longer be described as human. Alongside his monstrous howls, Saeka was letting out her own scream as she dug deep and blasted Asuma with her chakra. With her chakra sense she picked out every individual cell of demonic energy and incinerated it, burning it to nothing, until it was gone. Asuma's body and chakra circulatory system would be heavily damaged but he would survive.

The moment she had burned out the last bit of dark energy, Saeka quickly retracted her chakra, pulling her talons out of him. Black ooze spilled to the floor in a stream from his wounds but was quickly replaced by red, human blood. She heard Naruto and Gaara and Temari and Kankuro running up behind her, panting from their own battles.

Her vision started to gray out – not good. Saeka let out a breath and dispelled the full-body transfer technique. In another rush of hot, red energy, Saeka's person was replaced by Kaisuki and her eyelids fluttered as she lost the strength to stand.

.

Naruto, ignoring the red-hot metal around him, rushed forward and caught Kaisuki before she could fall. A moment later he felt sand bustling around his ankles and under his feet, protecting him from the heat of the metal and Gaara and his team followed him into the hall. It was insanely hot. If someone asked him how hot the surface of the sun was, he would've pointed to the exact moment they had caught up to Kaisuki.

“We have to... get into the fifth floor.” Kaisuki breathed out weakly, barely able to hold on to her consciousness. “Sakura can... help me...”

Naruto turned to Gaara and the redhead didn't hesitate. With a ball of sand, he smashed through the door to the fifth floor stairs easily. Behind it, there had been furniture piled up, molded together with various jutsu. It had clearly been carefully blocked off by their Jounin instructors, and Naruto almost felt bad for wrecking their hard work.

“Kaisuki! Naruto!!” Sakura's voice suddenly reached them, sounding a bit frightened. He wondered how anyone in the entire village could've felt that heat and thought it was anyone besides Saeka.

“It's us!! We're coming up! Kaisuki needs you, Sakura!” Naruto shouted back as he half-guided, half-carried Kaisuki up the stairs.

“W-wait,” Kaisuki gasped out. “Someone, get Asuma-san... too...”

Naruto quickly looked over to Gaara and his siblings. “Can you grab that guy who was in the hallway? Kaisuki says so!”

His best friend was hanging on to her consciousness with a vice grip of sheer willpower, to ensure that everything was handled. Refusing to relax, or stop, or even let her awareness fade for a moment lest something happen. His eyes were burning; he felt so useless. Was the only thing he could do really to carry his friends to safety after the fact?!

Temari and Kankuro had hurried back down the stairs, while Gaara stayed put and waited for them. Naruto didn't have a moment to waste, all but dragging Kaisuki up the stairs and, he would realize later, for some reason not thinking to ask the guy who could control the sand to carry her for him.

.

Sakura all but threw herself to the railings and looked down, seeing them all slowly climbing the stairs. She hadn't been needed to do much medical care for the Jounin, who were thankfully all trained in the basics. It was a relief; she had known without being told that Kaisuki was running out of chakra and after feeling the impossible heat from what anyone in Konoha would recognize as Saeka's chakra, she knew that her ability to transfer chakra would be needed the most in that moment. She had been practicing it for months and months specifically for such a situation.

“Hurry!” She urged them, turning back into the observatory. “Sasuke, help him-...” she barely had to speak the words before the Uchiha was rushing down the stairs to help. Less than a minute later, they walked onto the observatory floor. Kaisuki was faint, if not already fainted. Barely responsive. Chakra reservoirs about as close to empty as they could be without her heart stopping.

They set her down and Sakura immediately grabbed Naruto's hand, “Can you afford to spare chakra for her?” She asked quickly. Naruto nodded stiffly, looking anxious. She knew he had plenty; he always did, and something about the look in his eyes gave her the impression that he was feeling helpless. If nothing else, she understood his plight. Between the four of them, she felt like she didn't deserve to be on the team at all. At least Naruto could fight, right?

But there are still things only I can do. The same goes for Naruto.

They knelt down together, Sakura taking Kaisuki's hand and immediately beginning the transfer. Behind Naruto and Sasuke and Kaisuki, the team that had supported her own had ascended the stairs, carrying an unconscious Asuma. They set him down nearby, muttering something about Kaisuki saying he wasn't possessed anymore. Kurenai and Gai immediately dropped down beside him and, with the help of one more Jounin from another country, they got to work staunching blood flow and bandaging his wounds. One of them was an irou-nin, evidently, but clearly not skilled enough to repair the damage beyond stopping the worst of the bleeding.

“You're all... alive,” Kakashi's voice was hoarse as he walked up to them, his face pale with stress. He looked more emotional in that moment than any of them (perhaps anyone ever) had seen him. He let out a shaky breath of relief when Naruto looked up and beamed at him. Sakura and Sasuke had assured him before that Kaisuki and Naruto were storming the building with extra help from another team, but he'd been figuratively biting his nails the entire time.

“You're alive!” Naruto exclaimed in relief, his smile positively infectious. “We were worried about you, sensei! Saeka said you were injured and we ran like hell to get here.”

On the other side of the room, Gaara and his siblings were being greeted by their own sensei, who looked to be injured as well. There was a bandage around his head but he looked just as relieved to see them as Kakashi was to see his own team. Sakura couldn't help feeling bad that the other Jounin's teams were...

“What happened out there?” Kakashi asked, kneeling on the floor to join them. Sasuke appeared as well, looking anxious himself. “We couldn't do a thing once they trapped us up here,” another shaky breath. He looked a bit traumatized. “I kept hearing those screams and I never knew if any of you were among them...”

Naruto tilted his head toward the team from Sunagakure. “They helped us. The redhead is a Jinchuriki, like me!” Naruto hissed the last detail in excitement, not wanting to out his peer in case he was sensitive about it. “But mostly it was Saeka and Kaisuki who did all the heavy lifting.”

Kakashi looked at Kaisuki, and Naruto did as well. Sakura watched both their expressions, a mixture of awe, wonder, and helplessness. “She took down Asuma, out there, too. By herself. I don't even know what happened, actually. It just got really hot on the floor below and by the time we got up here, he was down.”

“Asuma...” Kakashi muttered quietly, looking over his shoulder at his comrade, laid up on the floor. “Is he alive?”

“He's alive,” Kaisuki whispered hoarsely; evidently, she hadn't fully lost consciousness and was able to hang on to their conversation as she started to come back to herself. “Saeka... exorcised him. We … killed or immobilized... the rest.”

Naruto nodded in agreement and continued to explain further. “Yea. Rock Lee is out in the forest keeping watch over his team and Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji, too. He's not possessed for some reason.” He explained, his voice quiet and not wanting to attract the attention of the other Jounin from Konoha. “The only thing we could do was keep them from getting back up.”

“They killed...” Kaisuki scrunched up her face, blinking rapidly as she tried to force herself to focus. “The...” She groaned and sighed, shifting a bit uncomfortably. “The village is under attack,” she finally managed to say, lifting her available hand to pinch her nose a bit. “We have to get out there... and put a stop to it.”

Kaisuki slowly pushed herself up onto one elbow, keeping her hand in Sakura's. The chakra transfer was just a little too slow and Sakura could see her impatience on her face. She could see her teammate thinking and watched as she looked past all three of the teammates at her side, towards Sasuke. He was staring out the hole in the wall, standing very still.

They still didn't know what was going on, as far as Sakura knew. She knew they were under attack by demons, that the village was under attack, that the casualties would be high. Kaisuki was clearly thinking deeply, her brow wrinkled, her expression somewhat distant. It didn't seem fair or right that her teammate – a Genin of only thirteen – was somehow the person leading the charge for everyone. However, Kaisuki and the spirits within her seemed to be the only ones who knew what was going on, let alone had the strength and ability to do something.

You can do something, right, Kaisuki?

“Kaisuki?” Sakura suddenly spoke, her voice small. She felt ashamed for even asking. “What do we do?”

Kaisuki turned her attention to Sakura, staring for a moment before her eyes flickered to Khrai's familiar blue. She took a breath, a scowl settling on her face that never looked right on Kaisuki's young and delicate features. “I 'ave a plan, but it's gonna a rough one.”

Kakashi perked up immediately, and several other Jounin instructors heard as well. Gaara and his team, their instructor, Gai, Kurenai, and others that Sakura didn't know turned or stepped towards them, immediately invested in what she had to say. Despite the fact that she was a Genin, everyone was listening, anyone who could move seemed ready to go.

“First; I need all of ye Jounin to stay 'ere and secure any survivors. T'ere are possessed folks and injured people in t'is forest; Gai and Rock Lee for some reason cannot be possessed. Lee is with the rest of Team Gai and Team InoShikaCho.” She paused for a second before adding, “He's guardin' t'em so t'ey don't escape and if ye try to convince him to untie anyone, he will beat ya up. I told 'im to.”

There was a ripple of shock, Gai breathing out his shock at the news about his team. “I suspect t'e vast majority of Genin in t'is forest are dead or severely injured somewhere. T'ere's a strong likelihood t'at any 'nd all Genin who traveled t'rough t'e eastern side of the forest were massacred by a monster t'at was planted t'ere.”

Sakura couldn't help looking around at the pale faces around them. Kurenai's hand had gone up to cover her mouth in horror, Gai wrapping an arm around her shoulder. Many of the other Jounin, whom Sakura didn't recognize, were visibly reeling from shock. Tears in the eyes of some, frustration and resentment in the expressions of others.

Khrai continued unabated by any emotional displays. “T'at monster is dead now, but t'ere may still be ot'er possessed folks in t'is forest. I think it'd be best if a couple'a small teams went out t' look for ot'er survivors and to bring 'em back to t'watchtower a few at a time. It'll be slow, but it matters more t'at no futher possessions occur, ya hear?”

“Gaara, Naruto, Sakura,” she addressed them individually. Gaara stepped closer to them when his name was spoken. Sakura couldn't help the ball of anxiety that rose in her throat the moment Kaisuki said hers. “I specifically need yer help at t'e front lines. Naruto, Gaara, wit' yer abilities, I'll need ya' to post up in a safe spot and conduct the evacuation from t'e affected part of the village. I canny trust any o' t'e normal resources, not after we just 'ad to kill and maim 'bout forty f*ckin' ANBU on our way up 'ere. I can put up a barrier that prevents specific folks from crossin' it and you two can't be possessed.”

No one had a word to speak and everyone was stiff. Khrai sighed, angry and frustrated, her gaze holding a strange sadness in it. “Once the evacuation's complete, t'ere's somet'ing only I can do, t' end this and save everyone. Sakura,” she looked at the pink haired girl directly. “I need ya there to catch Kaisuki.”

Sakura blinked and immediately understood, worrying etching itself onto her face. Usually, she would try to smooth out those wrinkles before they became permanent but, in that moment, it didn't even occur to her. Her mind instead immediately went to the aftermath of their Wave Country mission and the devastating trap that had left Kaisuki so horrifically injured.

Sasuke had walked over to join them when Khrai mentioned Gaara, Naruto, and Sakura. His eyebrows were pulled together and his mouth turned down in a brooding frown. He looked a bit miffed by being excluded. “What about me?” He asked a bit coolly.

With the energy transfer complete, Sakura released Kaisuki's hand and the Yurei stood up, her posture very different when Khrai was controlling it. “I've a special task fer ya t'at I'd prefer to explain in private.” She told him, her expression serious. Sasuke looked taken aback but he nodded in agreement.

“We don' 'ave time to ponder,” Khrai asserted, looking around the room at the resolve on the faces around them. “If yer wit' me, let's get to work.”

There was a rumble of approval. Khrai turned her attention to the sizable hole in the wall that had to have come from Sasuke and Sakura entering from the outside. She glanced at her team, at Gaara, and at Kakashi, and started moving towards it. Without any further words, Gaara, Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke followed her closely. The Jounin and the rest of Gaara's team stayed behind, already starting to work out their own plan for securing survivors of the perhaps-too-aptly-named Forest of Death.