Chapter 44: The Prey
Beyond the immense iron fence, a jungle of colossal trees and tangled vegetation stretched towards distant, mist-shrouded mountains. The air was thick, humid, and carried a palpable sense of decay and danger. It felt less like a training ground and more like the lair of a primordial beast.
"It's so... scary here," Naruto mumbled, a genuine shiver running down his spine.
"Hmph," Anko smirked, standing with her hands on her hips as the wind tugged at her coat. "You'll find out exactly why they call this the Forest of Death soon enough."
"Stop lying! Only a ghost would believe you!" Naruto shouted, pointing an accusing finger at her, his fear momentarily overridden by his bravado.
Swish!
In a blur of motion, Anko's arm flicked out. Two kunai shot from her sleeves. One whizzed past Naruto's cheek, drawing a thin line of blood, while the other sliced cleanly through the hair of a kunoichi from Kusagakure who was standing behind him.
Naruto stood frozen, a trickle of blood warm on his skin, only now realizing the attack had happened.
"A brat like you," Anko's voice whispered from directly behind him, making him jump, "will be the first to die out there."
Her smug expression suddenly tightened. Another kunai was now pressed against her own back.
"I believe you dropped this," a voice hissed. It was the kunoichi from Kusa, her face pale and unnervingly calm, her tongue flicking out like a snake's. She held the kunai that had cut her hair.
Anko's eyes narrowed dangerously. "If you want to survive, don't you dare stand behind me with killing intent."
"My apologies," the kunoichi said, her voice a monotone. She stepped back, her movements fluid and unnatural. "I get... excited at the sight of blood."
Aizen observed the entire exchange, his brow furrowing slightly. To his heightened senses, the Kusa kunoichi was a glaring anomaly. She radiated a dense, cold, and overwhelmingly powerful aura—a level of danger he had only felt from the Third Hokage, and this felt even more sinister.
Orochimaru, Aizen deduced internally. Disguised as a grass ninja. How interesting. Another who hides his true face.
While the presence of such a powerful entity was a variable, it did not inspire fear in Aizen. In a direct confrontation, even without Kyōka Suigetsu, he was confident in his ability to eliminate the Sannin. However, such a conflict would be premature. It would reveal too much of his power and disrupt the careful, subtle orchestration of his grand illusion. For now, observation was the wiser course.
With the tense moment passed, Anko refocused the group.
"Alright, before we begin, you all need to sign these," she announced, holding up a thick stack of documents. "This is a consent form. You must sign it because... you might die in there. We need your permission first."
After a moment of sober hesitation, the candidates stepped forward one by one to sign. They had passed the first test of will; they were not about to back down now.
"The second exam is a test of survival at its most extreme," Anko explained, her tone now all business. "There are forty-four entry gates into this forest. Each team will enter through a different one."
She held up two scrolls, one marked 'Heaven' and the other 'Earth'. "Your mission is simple: a scroll hunt. Half of the twenty-six teams will start with a Heaven scroll. The other half will start with an Earth scroll. Your goal is to find another team, take their scroll, and arrive at the central tower in the heart of the forest with both a Heaven and an Earth scroll. Do that, and you pass."
The genin exchanged grim looks. She made it sound straightforward, but they all understood the brutal reality. This was a free-for-all that would pit them against each other in a deadly game of hunter and prey, guaranteed to eliminate half of them.
"However," Anko's voice cut through their thoughts, and her eyes landed squarely on Aizen. "We have a unique situation. Aizen Sōsuke is competing alone. To maintain the balance of the scrolls, he will be given a special provision."
A sly grin spread across her face. "Aizen, you will start the exam with both a Heaven and an Earth scroll."
A collective, sharp intake of breath came from the crowd.
"Your task remains the same," she continued, her gaze sweeping over the other genin. "Reach the tower with a pair of scrolls. For Aizen, since he already has both, he merely needs to reach the tower safely to pass."
The implication was as clear as it was cruel. Aizen, alone and carrying the ultimate prize—a complete set of scrolls—would be the most tempting target for every other team. Why hunt for a specific scroll when you could simply hunt the one boy who had them all?
Every pair of eyes in the clearing locked onto Aizen. The looks were no longer of curiosity or respect, but of naked calculation, cold amusement, and undisguised bloodlust. To them, he was no longer a fellow competitor or a genius. He was prey. The easiest, most valuable prey in the entire Forest of Death.
In an instant, Anko's "special provision" had painted a target on his back that was visible to all twenty-six teams. The solitary figure of Aizen Sōsuke stood calmly at the center of a ring of hungry predators.