"Status report, now!" The Hokage made his way through the infirmary where Kakashi had asked to be met with a troubled look on his face.

It's not everyday that your wayward student decides to pay a visit.

"We made contact with Orochimaru in the forest, he really is here." Said Kakashi grimly.

The Hokage sighed. "Do we know what he's doing here?"

"We're not sure yet, He attacked Hyuga Neji's team and left both boys completely out cold, we're still monitoring them through the screens." Informed Kakashi, earning a thoughtful look from the Hokage.

"This has become too serious, ANBU!" The same brown haired man with a Lion mask from before showed up. "Gather a squad and go into the forest, retrieve every team still competing and get them out of there, the exams are cancel-"

"No!" Yelled out a recently awakened Anko.

"No?" Asked the Hokage

"If we cancel the exams, he's going to attack the village." Said Anko, surprising the Jounin and the Hokage.

"How do you know that, Anko?" Kakashi certainly didn't remember Orochimaru telling them he would do such a thing when they faced him off.

"She..." Anko motioned to a little snake coming out of her trench coat, "told me."

Anko was allowed to sign the Snake summoning contract back when she was still Orochimaru's apprentice, after his deflection and her return to the village he tried to get her off but much to his chagrin, the leader of the Snake clan, Manda, view Orochimaru as nothing more than a pest he did favors to from time to time and as such wouldn't honor his wishes.

The summoning clan later became divided between those who came to realize Orochimaru was a sick bastard and those who didn't care as long as they got a free meal out of helping him.

The former were the ones Anko frequently summoned.

Both groups were still a part of the same clan and as such, could be summoned by either if they so choose, hence why Orochimaru had been able to send Anko a message.

"If he's willing to attack us just to make sure we keep this going there must be a reason why he's doing this..." Mused the Hokage before something clicked on his mind.

"It's the Hyuga boy, that's what he's after..." He looked at Kakashi. "Did you see what he did to him?"

Kakashi shook his head. "We were out of the tower looking at the corpse the chunin found, we left a pair of Kage Bunshin to keep watching in our absence but they released themselves the moment they saw him in the surveillance system as instructed."

"Did you find anything?" He asked, rubbing his chin in thought.

"When we got there both him and Team 9 were long gone... we located the team, should we send a squad to retrieve them?"

Hiruzen thought about it for a moment and slumped his shoulders. "I would like to get them out as soon as possible... but it's best if we let them stay in the forest and complete the exams."

"Why would we do that Hokage-sama?" Asked Kakashi.

"He's interested in Neji, that makes Neji the key to lure him out." Hiruzen looked sternly at Anko and she immediately knew what that look meant.

"Do you think he did that to him?" Anko's voice was full of something akin to sadness and frustration when she asked that question, she received a sad nod from the Hokage as an answer.

"He knows what he did is dangerous, if he truly believes what he's doing is worth the risk then we must find out what it is."

Kakashi wasn't too thrilled about this, he knew the Hokage was right but he still didn't like it, growing as close to his team as he had it was hard for him to sacrifice another for the sake of the village.

The Hokage seemed to have caught Kakashi's train of thought if the comforting hand on his shoulder was any indication.

"Tora, I want a squad ready for an emergency extraction, you will stay here and watch over the team, if at any point Orochimaru decides to approach them again and only if he does you will intervene." The Sandaime wanted to keep the team safe from his wayward student but he couldn't show any form of favoritism, especially not with foreign shinobi in the forest.

If another participating team made a move on them it was up to Team 9 to keep themselves safe.

—

"Please wake up... either of you, p-please just wake up..." It was hard for Tenten not to shed a few tears when looking at her team's dire condition, desperation was visible in her face mixed with the frustration she was feeling because there was nothing she could do to help.

It was even harder for her to even start to process just how they managed to get into this situation. Team 9 had started this exam with no doubt in their minds that they were going to ace them and come out as Chunin.

She started thinking they might have been wrong.

After being toyed by Orochimaru of the Sannin, Tenten managed to carry both of her teammates to the safest cave she could find in her vicinity, she found one a few kilometers away from the place where they encountered the traitorous ninja, she wasn't sure exactly how far though.

She knew it was important to keep track of her steps as a ninja but limping your way through a forest full of threats while carrying the unconscious weight of both of your teammates had a way of making you a little... distracted.

The team was now resting in what Tenten thought to be a safe place, the cave they were in was protected by layer after layer of traps made out of the girl's own supplies and what she could find in her vicinity.

She wanted to use her weapons for them so badly, but she had already wasted enough as it is, best not waste anymore here.

What were the chances that someone would be able to find them there anyway?

Tenten took a look at the scroll she was holding in her hand and sighed, the Chunin exams were now the least of her worries, if it were up to her she would've quit the test and made sure her team was alright. Sadly for her, quitting was not an option.

"Argh..."

At first Tenten would immediately jump to her teammate and secret crush's aid when she heard him complaining, it took her a long time to realize she couldn't do anything to help him.

What troubled her the most was not knowing what was going on with her team.

Neji had been bitten by the Sannin and knocked unconscious shortly after, a seal had appeared right were his neck met his shoulders and Tenten didn't know what it meant, she had a decent grasp of fuinjutsu - higher than the average Genin - because of her fighting style, that mark however completely baffled her.

He had been suffering from an intense fever ever since he fell unconscious and it was still burning hot in his body. To top that the Hyuga prodigy would start trembling, groaning in pain from time to time and the seal would give weird pulses, she didn't know what it meant, she didn't know why it was happening, but she knew it couldn't be good.

Her other teammate wasn't faring any better and Tenten knew even less of what was going on with Lee, never had he been unconscious for so long. She didn't know what Orochimaru did to him but it had to be incredibly powerful if he managed to close the gates with a single move.

A noise coming from outside of the cave alerted Tenten, she held a kunai in each hand -one in a reversed grip- and she walked silently towards the exit to find a squirrel looking a bit lost.

Thinking she was overreacting Tenten calmed down and was just about to walk back to her teammates when a hissing sound caught her attention, quickly realizing what it was she spun around to see an exploding tag just activated in the small body of the squirrel.

Without a second thought Tenten threw one of her kunai with perfect accuracy at the animal, making sure it exploded as far away from her and her teammates as possible.

BOOM

A bigger explosion than she anticipated engulfed the clearing and a big cloud of dust rose from the ground. Fetching another kunai from her pouch she walked to the cave's entrance and started looking around for her attacker.

The dust settled and it revealed the genin team from the sound; Kinuta Dosu, Tsuchi Kin and Abumi Zaku.

"We're here for the Hyuga," Said the heavily bandaged one. "Give him to us and we'll let you live."

"What do you want with Neji?" Tenten could guess what they wanted but she needed to buy enough time to come up with something to defend herself.

"That is none of your concern little girl."

Tenten growled. "If you want Neji you'll have to get through me!"

The sound team started laughing at her and that only made her even more mad, one thing was to try and take her teammate from her, but Tenten hated to be underestimated.

"If you have a death wish then so be it."

The spokesman of the team who Tenten assumed to be their leader rushed at her, being that exactly what she wanted she threw a kunai at him that seemingly missed his target.

He smirked behind his bandages but just before he could mock her, the kunai hit a tree trunk that had a thin ninja wire tied around it.

A thick trunk with short pointed rocks tied around it came flying at him, failing to react fast enough to dodge the hit; he was stabbed in multiple places and sent flying until he crashed with a tree and dropped to the ground in a loud thud.

"Dosu!" Yelled the other male of the team, if not familiar with them you might think he was concerned for his teammate.

The truth is he was annoyed because he would have to do more work himself.

Charging fast at Tenten in hopes of catching her off guard, Zaku started charging a big amount of energy on both arms.

On closer inspection Tenten could see... holes?

Not really wanting to find out why he had holes in his palms, Tenten threw a kunai at the ground triggering another one of her traps. In the most undignified way possible Zaku tripped over a hidden rope that tied tightly around his left foot, he was suddenly picked up by it and thrown towards the tree it was tied to.

He hit his head hard.

Making another one of her attackers drop unconscious with the use of her clever traps Tenten started feeling really confident, she didn't have any more traps set but she didn't doubt she could take on the girl of the team without much trouble.

With a smirk of her own, Kin threw a hail of senbon needles at Tenten that she dodged by going down. Not one to waste an opportunity Tenten charged at her only to drop to the ground when the sound of a bell ringing invaded her ear. Unable to stand up, all she could do was watch as Kin calmly walked towards her.

"That is as far as you go." With a chuckle Kin stopped right in front of the struggling Tenten and kicked her stomach as hard as she physically could and stopped to look at the pain visible in her face only to start again.

The onslaught of kicks continued and Tenten could do absolutely nothing to stop it, the devious girl would only give her enough time to cough blood and catch some wind before continuing punishing her.

Growing tired of only kicking the girl's stomach, Kin started viciously stomping her head with as much force as she could, making a dent in the ground the shape of Tenten's face.

Growing bored of her own torture methods, Kin grabbed her arm and bent her elbow backwards, effectively breaking it and making Tenten scream in agony as she bled all over from her multiple bruises, just to top it all off she stabbed a kunai in each of her thighs.

Kin kicked her hard on the head one more time and what little consciousness was still with Tenten started leaving her.

Waking up extremely annoyed, Dosu grabbed a kunai and started making his way towards the barely conscious Tenten, set on ending her life for daring to hurt him.

NIKUDAN SENSHA!

A giant Human boulder came spinning full force at Tenten's attacker, it caught both Kin and Dosu completely off guard but, while Kin managed to jump back in time to avoid the impact, Dosu was hit and crushed so hard by it that he stuck to it and kept rolling with the ball until it finally came to a stop.

Ino landed beside Tenten and started checking her for injuries, she wasn't familiar with her, she in fact had only met her once before but Ino was in no way going to allow a fellow leaf kunoichi to be abused that way.

In her time with Sakura ever since their old friendship resurfaced the pink haired girl shared with Ino the little medical knowledge she had gotten from the scrolls she was provided as well as the books Sakura got from the library, sadly, neither she or Sakura were at a level where they could treat extensive injuries.

In Tenten's case multiple concussions most definitely, stab wounds and what she assumed to be severe lacerations in her stomach as well as a broken arm.

Ino's teammates dropped beside her while she got to work on stopping the bleeding and at least making sure Tenten's pain was bearable.

"Shika, she's really hurt!" Ino was frantic, she didn't know exactly what it was she wanted her teammate to accomplish but he's supposed to be really smart and she's counting on that.

"We don't have a way to treat her, our best shot is to fend these guys off and take her to the tower with us." Shikamaru was analyzing the situation as calmly as he could, she knew Sakura's medical training and by extension Ino's wasn't good enough to treat more than not so threatening injuries, he didn't doubt Ino could heal most of the damage done to the girl's stomach but he wasn't so sure about the head.

"You fucking Tree Huggers!" Kin became incredibly angry and snarled at them as she got out a full hail of senbon with her special bells tied.

Not having been present long enough to be sure of how her jutsu worked or what it was that her Jutsu did, Shikamaru decided it was best to interrupt her before she did anything at all; he started going through the hand seals for his own jutsu but his pissed teammate beat him to it.

Shintenshin no Jutsu!

Still on the ground with Tenten, Ino's body dropped seemingly void of life, while in Kin's body the Yamanaka girl's conscience took control.

Dosu came back to stand next to his 'teammate' being as angry as she was and started channeling chakra into his arm's modifications to use against them.

Ino took advantage of his distraction and from Kin's body she stabbed a kunai in her leg and a senbon needle in the back of his neck, making him drop unconscious.

Zankuuha!

From the air vents installed on his arms Zaku channeled chakra and formed a gust of wind strong enough to destroy rocks and aimed it at the possessed Kin, he hit his target and sent her flying causing multiple cuts in her body in the process.

Ino got back into her body but was hurt by Zaku's attack because of her telepathic link with Kin's body.

"I'm going to kill you, I'm going to KILL YOU ALL!" Blinded by rage Zaku started charging an incredible amount of chakra in both of his arms, set on destroying the group of Genin gathered in front of him.

Zankyokukuuha!

An overloaded version of the jutsu he used before, capable of leveling the ground as it went, started advancing towards them at high speeds.

Out of nowhere, Naruto appeared and jumped in front of the attack, already going through a set of hand seals.

Futon: Bouseki Tate no Kaze!

All around them the wind started spinning in a circular motion effectively creating a shield Naruto loaded as much chakra as he could into.

Both jutsu collided in an explosion of wind that rose a big cloud of dust, when it cleared it revealed an angry Naruto and a Zaku barely able to stand from exhaustion. Naruto's hands and part of his arms were bruised and had shallow cuts in them that slowly started healing on their own.

"That hurt you asshole!" Yelled Naruto with clear anger in his voice.

"N-Naruto?"

---

"Weird..."

"You've been saying that a lot since we entered the forest, Naruto-kun." Joked Sakura.

Naruto chuckled at Sakura's comment and started exploring the area they were now in. "I can feel here..."

"What do you mean?"

"I can still feel the energy from the trees but..." Naruto turned to look at her. "There's no animals here, no nothing, it's like a zone free of interference."

Part of the reason Naruto had such a hard time using his sensing abilities in the forest was the vast amount of animals and insects interfering with his sensing. While not every being had a big chakra signature there were a lot of them and that made it harder for Naruto to focus.

If he had more training it would probably not be a problem for Naruto, Kakashi had explained to him that the best way of training his senses was exposing himself to situations like this and focus on each individual signature and separate it from the others time and time again. That way he would get used to bigger amounts of signatures, amplify his range over time and get through what Naruto described as Interference.

He had however neglected training his sensing abilities the most in favor of working on his fuinjutsu, he still trained but definitely not enough to feel through the forest clearly. That's why this clearing irked him, for some reason the animals had left completely, Naruto could see the signs of battle and by the looks of it it must've been a big one.

Whatever it was that happened here must've scared the local fauna away.

"I'll try and find a team from here." Naruto got to his knees and placed his index and middle finger on the ground. He closed his eyes and started concentrating on as much as he could, near him he found what he thought to be a team from Suna, he was just about to tell Sakura when he felt them.

A few Kilometers from where they were, he could feel Team 10 and Team 9 fighting another team together, that immediately struck him as weird until he noticed Neji's chakra was all wrong, there was something going on with him and whatever it was.

It felt evil.

Then Naruto noticed what worried him the most, he couldn't feel Lee, he could feel Tenten with lower than normal reserves, but he couldn't feel his friend at all, Lee always had a small signature because of his condition, but it was there, no different to that of a regular civilian.

Full of worry, Naruto didn't even think twice.

"Team 9 is hurt!" He released all of his weights and told Sakura to catch up to him as fast as she could and he started running.

He ran and ran as fast as he could for kilometers without stopping, he has always been a stamina freak and that's the only thing that allowed him to run as much as he just did.

When he got to them the first thing he saw was Zaku shooting his overpowered gust of wind at them.

---

"What the hell happened here, Shikamaru?" Naruto couldn't see Neji or Lee anywhere and the only thing he found was an unconscious Tenten being taken care of by Ino.

"We don't know, when we got here they were beating Tenten in the ground, I don't know where Neji and Lee are." Answered Shikamaru, currently the only calm member of Team 10.

Naruto closed his eyes to focus for a moment and calm down, he turned to look at the cave where he felt Neji and Lee to be at, he was glad he could feel Lee this up close, a giant weight was lifted off his shoulders.

"Where's Sakura?" Asked Ino