Chapter 632 : Mind Games?

“That's an interesting way to look at it.” Orochimaru fell into a thought. He began analyzing whether he should take a risk or not. He had several ideas to create a mess and cause chaos in Konoha but failed to see how any of the situation would be beneficial to him or his plans.

After a couple of minutes, he said, “Perhaps, or it could also be his attempt to make it feel like this is normal for him and bait others by making them think that it is a bluff. Regardless, there is no reason to test it out right now as it might give Hiruzen a reason to cancel the exams. We'll continue as per my instructions.”

Kabuto nodded and said, “Alright, Orochimaru-sama.”

Orochimaru immediately disappeared. Realizing the real strength of Fujin caused him some headaches. He had just a month to make sufficient arrangements to ensure that no one else would disturb him until he had killed Hiruzen. Otherwise, he would be swamped by thousands of Konoha ninjas and wouldn't have any chance to kill Hiruzen. He wanted to make plans to avoid that situation as well as on how to deal with it if he couldn't prevent it from happening.

With Orochimaru not making any move and other villages waiting patiently to get more accurate intel, things calmed down. The Chunin exams returned to their normal course.

Apart from a few squads who completed the second phase early and the ones who were eliminated, the remaining squads stayed in the forest until the last day. Fujin's clone kept an eye on Kakashi's students the entire time just in case Orochimaru or Kabuto made a strange move.

On the last day, Kabuto showed up to stop Naruto from opening their scroll. As soon as he did, he realized, ‘Someone is watching me, or rather Sasuke's squad. Is it Suzuki Fujin or other Anbu ninjas?

No, I didn't sense anyone until now. In fact, I could barely feel anyone looking at me when I grabbed Naruto's hand. It should be Fujin or his clone. Understandable I suppose. They should be on guard against another sudden move by Orochimaru-sama.’

Kabuto didn't show any indication that he realized that he was being watched and acted completely normally. He tagged along with them until they fell into the trap set by the Ame squad.

Thanks to Kakashi's training, they had far more stamina and chakra as compared to their canon counterparts at this point. Even though Sasuke struggled due to the curse seal, Naruto was able to destroy their illusions on a large scale using the Great Breakthrough jutsu and force them into a head-on battle.

The Ame Genins used another round of Genjutsu and attacked by hiding underground. Naruto used another Great Breakthrough jutsu but it didn't affect this Genjutsu. He tried attacking with close combat and nearly fell into their trap but was rescued by Kabuto who got injured in return.

Since Fujin was keeping an eye, Kabuto didn't do anything strange and quietly endured the beating instead of scaring and paralyzing them. Even so, he provided Naruto with an opening to knock them all out.

Seeing Kabuto's actions, Fujin's clone couldn't help but chuckle in amusement. He muttered to himself, ‘As expected of a spy of his caliber. If I didn't know about the truth, it would have been difficult to suspect him of being such a deadly spy. To think that a guy playing with Genins would become one of the most dangerous people 4 years later. Hmm…?’

A deadpan expression appeared on his face as he realized, ‘I guess that's not even the least bit strange when compared to how much those three kids would grow! One would reach the level of the Sannins and the other two would reach Hashirama and Madara's level!’

He shook his head and stopped thinking about it. If he said such things openly, everyone in the village would laugh at him. After Naruto and company entered the tower, the clone dispelled himself and sent the memories back to his main body.

The top floor of the tower had a lot more people as compared to the first day. Kakashi, Asuma, Kurenai, Guy and a few others were present along with Fujin's group. In fact, even Hiruzen had returned to the tower along with his Anbu Guards and other proctors!

Fujin said, “Kakashi, it looks like your students have made it through as well.”

Fujin turned his gaze towards Hayate and said, “That makes it 7 squads. You might need to conduct preliminaries to trim the numbers.”

Hayate coughed and said, “Yes. 21 is too high.”

Kakashi sighed and said, “I will need to wait to take care of Sasuke.”

Anko immediately said, “He has the curse seal on him! Pull him out of the exam, seal Orochimaru's curse seal and keep him under the protection of Anbu.”

Kakashi asked, “And you really think that he'd just quietly follow your orders? Keep in mind that he is a member of the Uchiha clan…”

Anko immediately argued back. After some discussion, Hiruzen agreed to let Sasuke participate as long as the curse seal didn't act up. Fujin said, “Alright. Anyway, you can take over from me, Anko. I'll be back before the Genins gather together. Delay it for a bit if I am late.”

Fujin disappeared from the room, leaving others wondering what he was up to. Only Hiruzen watched intently and thought, ‘So he wants to deal with that seal immediately… Hmm, I should send a clone to keep an eye on. Nothing can be allowed to go wrong, especially with Orochimaru and Gaara around. Even though Fujin inscribed seals on the tower, it's best to prevent it instead of dealing with it.’

A Shadow Clone popped next to him and disappeared from the room as well.

“I'm a full-fledged shinobi! You got that?” On the bottom floor, Naruto replied confidently when Iruka expressed his worry for his safety. Unfortunately for Naruto, his confidence all went down the drain as a hand grabbed the back of his neck and he heard, “Come with me, Mr. Full-fledged shinobi.”

“Fuji…” Even before Naruto could form a word, he disappeared along with Fujin! Iruka was startled but relaxed on seeing that it was Fujin. Even so, he couldn't help but think, ‘That's strange. Why did he take away Naruto in such a hurry?’

Sasuke and Sakura only caught a glimpse of him. Sasuke's expression became very serious. He looked at Iruka and asked, “Iruka sensei, is it true that Fujin defeated Orochimaru?”

Iruka smiled and said, “It's completely true. Orochimaru was badly injured and forced to escape from the training ground.”

Iruka's words brought back the memories of the destruction he had seen in the forest. During the time he spent in the forest, they travelled along the length of the canal left behind by the Wind Dragon. Sasuke had a difficult time believing that a single jutsu could cause such destruction!

He clenched his fists and thought, ‘He is only a year older than Haku and can defeat Orochimaru! An opponent who was so strong that he made me feel hopeless! I need to be much stronger to kill Itachi!’

Sasuke couldn't help but feel that he had a long way to go. Unlike in the original story, the impression Orochimaru made on Sasuke's young mind was eroded significantly due to his defeat. Even though he knew that he couldn't face Orochimaru, knowing that Orochimaru was defeated decreased his image considerably.

Fujin entered the meditation room and dropped Naruto, who failed to make Fujin loosen his grip no matter what he did. As soon as he fell to the ground, he complained, “Hey! Don't make me look so uncool in front of Sakura-chan!”

Fujin raised an eyebrow and asked, “Your chakra network is a mess and you're concerned about looking cool? Should I pull you out of the exam and ask someone to inspect whether your brain suffered some damage?”

Naruto immediately tried arguing, “Hey, don't talk abo… Huh? What do you mean by my chakra network is a mess?”

Fujin asked, “Didn't you have difficulty in channeling your chakra and creating jutsus?”

Naruto thought for a bit and said, “Ah, that's right! My Great Breakthrough jutsu's power was weaker than usual and took slightly longer to create! Why is that?”

Fujin replied, “It is due to your encounter with Orochimaru. He put a seal on you to cut off Kyubi's chakra. Remove your shirt and flow chakra through your chakra network.”

Naruto was surprised. He followed Fujin's instructions while saying, “You mean that snake lady did something to me?”

Fujin's eyes twitched as he thought, ‘Snake lady? Pervy Sage, Granny and Snake Lady… I wonder what image the Sannins will have left if these names spread…’

[A/N: Oof, writing is a roller-coaster! Fujin currently is a bit more powerful than I had initially planned for him to be during this arc. It created a lot of issues for me as most of the things I had planned for the Konoha crush became unusable due to his increased strength (though it helped make Fujin Vs Orochimaru much better than my initial plan). So I was quite troubled about how to change those things for quite some time.

A few other issues were troubling me as well which were more of a fault or a plot hole/inconsistency in canon. I was thinking about how to deal with it and was thinking about nerfing one technique to make those events seem logical in this story. While thinking of an answer for this, I got an amazing idea and it resolved most of the issues I was facing!

Rewrote the plot for the war today and finalized most of the details. It's going to be amazing! Can't wait to write those chapters 😁

Have a few interesting events planned out before that as well. The preliminaries will likely start in the next chapter. I won't be covering individual fights IF there aren't any major changes to the way the battle takes place (I might at most add some of Fujin's analysis). Even so, expect a few surprises/changes :)]