Orochimaru was having an awkward moment.
After entering the exam area, his objective had been to find Sasuke Uchiha and brand him with his Cursed Seal.
For someone at a Sannin's level, locating one person in the Forest of Death should have been easy enough… in theory.
But after Team 7 had stepped into the training ground, their presences had been completely "cut off."
Orochimaru had summoned any number of snakes through the Summoning Technique to search, and they had turned up nothing. Unless the target had a perfectly concealed secret base prepared before entering the Forest of Death, this simply shouldn't have been possible.
"Hm?"
Still, after a while, Orochimaru finally picked something up.
Naruto's Shadow Clone Technique was loud.
"That one—he's a member of the same squad as Sasuke."
He couldn't find Sasuke at the moment, but as long as he got hold of Sasuke's teammate, that would do.
In a sense, the Third Hokage really had protected Naruto well. So well, in fact, that when Orochimaru laid eyes on him, Orochimaru didn't even realize the boy was the Jinchūriki of the Nine-Tails.
"Wind Style: Great Breakthrough."
A violent gust of wind howled up, obliterating the stretch of space ahead. Naruto carried Karin clear of the blast, but the other two Grass-nin were swept away.
"Careful, that was absolutely not the strength of a Genin!" Kushina had instantly recognized that something was wrong.
The power behind that Wind Style: Great Breakthrough was enormous—it had flattened an entire stretch of road ahead.
This wasn't just street-destroyer class. This was god-tier street-destroyer class!
"Another Grass-nin?!"
And the figure across from them was, in fact, another Grass-nin.
"Aren't you all comrades from the same village?!" Naruto started, then glanced at Karin beside him. "Hidden Grass Village… is it all like this?"
"Naruto, was it? Where are the other two teammates from your squad? Just you alone isn't much to play with."
Orochimaru, disguised as a Grass-nin, had no interest in anyone except Sasuke—or rather, no interest in anyone except the Sharingan.
Still, Naruto had reacted in time just now, not only evading his attack but even managing to scoop up the girl beside him. That piqued a sliver of Orochimaru's curiosity.
"As if I'd tell someone like you." Naruto drew a kunai.
Naruto's first instinct was to charge straight in, but Kushina held him back.
"Naruto, aren't you supposed to become a hero? Then protect the person behind you properly!"
"Tch…"
Naruto settled himself.
"Oh? Not coming at me? Well then—" Orochimaru completed his hand seals. "Summoning Technique!"
A gigantic python was called into existence by Orochimaru.
"Huge!"
"Hey, can you still walk?" Naruto looked back at Karin, but she was trembling now.
"No use, girl. She's already been paralyzed by my killing intent. You, though—you weren't affected by my pressure at all."
Orochimaru was genuinely surprised.
The Grass-nin girl behind Naruto, a bystander who had caught the tail end of his killing intent, was completely unable to move. Naruto, on the other hand, hadn't been affected in the slightest.
Orochimaru's interest was piqued now.
"Let's probe a little, then."
The giant snake beneath Orochimaru's feet lunged straight at the two of them.
Naruto scooped Karin up fast.
"Can't keep this up! Shadow Clone Technique!"
Let the clones hold the line in front. Then he ran, carrying Karin.
"Sasuke, Hanabi… that guy is absolutely after one of those two!"
He didn't know what this person was capable of, but whatever this was, it was a crisis.
[Thought it'd be a three-on-three team battle, turns out it's three battlefields]
[Not Hunter mode anymore—this batch is Fairy Tail mode]
[Grass (a type of exclamation), now that you mention it, Fairy Tail really does split team battles into one-on-ones in the later arcs]
[Didn't expect anyone to still remember Fairy Tail, I'm touched]
[Heard Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest is getting an anime too]
[Must be the influence of long-runners coming back, good thing!]
"Oh—Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest hasn't come out yet?"
Hanabi was mildly surprised.
Fairy Tail was a long-running anime. Even though the main series had ended, the spin-off was still getting anime adaptations. But from the audience's wording, it sounded like the series hadn't played out the same way as in the original.
Then again, given that in the audience's world even One Piece had finished, it was probably all part of the butterfly effect caused by Naruto never having existed.
The three-way split happening to Team 7 right now had been engineered by Hanabi too.
The main cast splitting up into one-on-ones after separating—this was a mandatory course of any long-running anime.
"Damn it! Damn it!"
Seeing Hanabi apparently drifting off into her own thoughts, Gaara only got angrier. The sand-clad arm swung at her with full force.
"Don't let anger cloud your vision."
Hanabi's illusion dissolved from the spot. Her real body reappeared from a different angle.
"Come to think of it, I wonder if Gaara's mother's chakra could be used for Seance Jutsu…"
Seance Jutsu required the deceased's consent.
But Gaara's mother and Naruto's mother were a bit different. Besides, a second round of that trick… would expose the method she had used the first time around.
That wouldn't do.
"Damn, damn, damn!"
Gaara had overwhelming power at his disposal and no idea where his enemy even was. Hanabi was toying with him.
Worse, whenever he did close the distance, Hanabi was swinging dual swords and making hand seals and defending at the same time. Gaara's fury only climbed.
"Gaara, no! If you keep this up, the plan—"
Kankuro watched in open panic.
If Gaara fully lost control, the entire Hidden Sand Village operation was going to collapse.
Past this threshold, Kankuro and Temari could no longer intervene.
"Hah, saved at last…"
The three members of Team 8 hadn't been idle either. They had taken advantage of the moment earlier to make a clean break and escape.
Kiba Inuzuka let out a breath. "Hanabi's level is even more broken than Sasuke's!"
"Can't be helped. The Ninja Academy rarely arranges boy-versus-girl matches, and Hanabi-san doesn't seem to have any interest in showing off in front of us either." Shino pushed his sunglasses up.
"Hanabi…"
Hinata was observing the fight with her Byakugan.
Hanabi was clearly toying with the three Sand-nin over there.
In the fight, Hanabi looked like she was trading blows evenly with that monster, but in reality Hanabi was calibrating her strength to sit just slightly above her opponent's level, continually drawing his power out.
"A little bit more. Just a little more and I could overtake that person."
Fighting Hanabi seriously always produced that feeling.
After repeatedly breaking past their own limits, opponents tended to burn themselves out on the runaway power they had unleashed past their own ceilings.
From that angle, Hinata thought Hanabi was actually a pretty terrifying fighter.
—It was a battle of absolute despair.
Mm… the real truth, though, was that Hanabi did this to control the pacing of the fight and deliver the most satisfying action sequence for the audience. She would draw her opponent into showing everything they had, and then—after their performance had peaked—she would crush them with an even more dazzling flourish.
The sparring partners who had served as Hanabi's first test subjects in this style were Neji and Hinata. Those two had been thoroughly run through the "Hanabi treatment."
And now, Gaara was the first to formally taste "Hanabi style."