Orochimaru-sensei!
While Uchiha Gen was still flipping through the scroll in his hands and organizing the questions he wanted to ask later, Sarutobi Enjun and Uzuki Ruri spotted Orochimaru coming down the stairs and immediately straightened up to greet him.
"This is the mission reward. The three of you can divide it among yourselves. I didn't take part in the mission, so I won't be taking the leader's share this time."
With that, Orochimaru tossed a stack of envelopes stuffed with silver notes onto the table, motioning for them to help themselves.
The payment for the mission was sixty thousand ryo in total. By Orochimaru's count, each of them would receive a full twenty thousand. It didn't sound like much at first glance, but in practical terms, the purchasing power of that amount was more than respectable.
According to the common conversion used in the ninja world, one ryo roughly matched ten yen. Broken down further, that put its value at about half a dollar. Even with prices in Konoha running high—Ichiraku's most basic bowl of ramen already cost sixty ryo—twenty thousand ryo was still a meaningful sum for any ordinary person.
Ninjas possessed terrifying power and made their living by placing their lives on the line. Once missions reached C-rank and above, that money was no longer simply pay. It was hazard compensation bought with blood, risk, and the very real chance of never coming back.
And ninjas burned through money quickly. Daily training meant medicine, treatment, special nutrition, and equipment repairs. Shuriken and kunai had to be replaced, soldier pills weren't cheap, and explosive tags were even worse. Without mission rewards at this level, no one could afford the pace of a real ninja's life.
Before this, Gen had been living on the inheritance left behind by his parents, the subsidies the clan gave to academy students, and the small reserve of ninja tools he had pulled from the system. As long as he didn't spend recklessly, he had managed to remain relatively comfortable.
But things were different now. He had more than a dozen extra mouths to feed—the summoned ninja crows. And in the future, if he wanted to expand the crow flock and combine them with the clan's related techniques, that expense would only increase.
After becoming a formal ninja, the frequency of battle would rise, and the wear and tear on his equipment would accelerate with it. The old tools he had relied on until now would not last forever. Looking at the money in front of him, Gen quickly revised his plans and felt his mood brighten a little.
With this extra twenty thousand ryo, plus the savings he already had, he should finally be able to go to the Ninja Cat clan's weapon shop and look for a decent sword. If he wanted to properly train in Uchiha-style kenjutsu, he needed a blade that suited him.
The reward money was divided up quickly.
"Orochimaru-sensei, are we taking another mission today?" Sarutobi Enjun asked eagerly, unable to hide the excitement still lingering from their first real operation.
That mission had been nothing like what he had imagined before becoming a genin. It had been harsher, stranger, more complicated—and somehow far more real.
"No," Orochimaru replied. "Before you begin taking on new missions, there's one more thing you need to do first."
He swept his gaze across the three of them, then spoke in the same flat, hoarse tone as ever.
"Now assemble at Training Ground One. The Forest of Death."
Gen closed the scroll in his hand at once. Only then did he notice the three bells hanging from Orochimaru's waist, swaying faintly as he moved.
So that was it.
Sarutobi Enjun noticed them too, and immediately began shooting meaningful looks at both Gen and Ruri. As the Hokage's son, he already knew about the famous bell exercise, and had even mentioned the tradition to them in advance. The only thing he had not expected was for Orochimaru to actually use it on them.
Even so, Gen caught one detail right away.
There were three bells, not two.
One minute later, at the edge of the Forest of Death, Orochimaru gave them the explanation.
"You may already have heard of the bell-snatching tradition from your elders. It was originally a test designed by the Second Hokage to teach his disciples the value of teamwork. Later, the Third Hokage used it to test Tsunade, Jiraiya, and me."
He paused, then gave them a faint, unsettling smile.
"But I find the original version a little outdated. So I changed it."
Orochimaru flicked his wrist. Three bells flew through the air, each ringing once before landing neatly in the hands of one of the three genin.
"You have fifteen minutes to prepare. Your activity area will be limited to the Forest of Death. Once those fifteen minutes are up, I will begin hunting for you. These bells represent your lives. They must not leave your possession. The moment I take one from you, it means you have died in battle."
His pale face was expressionless as he continued.
"The first person I catch will write the next mission report, along with a full tactical summary of this exercise. The second person caught will not be punished—but they also won't receive any reward. The last person I catch will be taught a powerful ninjutsu, and I will personally help them master it."
He smiled then, a cold, sinister curve tugging at the corner of his mouth. That smile made the real meaning of the test perfectly clear.
This was not an exercise in cooperation.
It was a live survival drill.
To be more precise, it was an escape exercise designed to simulate the battlefield. The point wasn't for them to attack their teacher. The point was to survive him.
Gen immediately connected it to the lingering shadow left by Nawaki's death. Orochimaru clearly carried that incident with him. He no longer wanted students who only knew how to charge forward. He wanted students who would stay alive.
"Now," Orochimaru said, slipping a watch out of his ninja pouch and clicking it open, "begin."
"Move!" Gen barked at once.
Chakra surged into his legs, sharpening his speed in an instant. He sprang backward into the forest without hesitation. Sarutobi Enjun and Uzuki Ruri followed immediately behind him.
Three figures shot through the woods, weaving between trunks and low branches as they plunged deeper into the forest.
As they ran, Ruri turned toward Gen and asked, "Should the three of us split up? Orochimaru-sensei isn't an ordinary jonin. Even if we stayed together, we still wouldn't stand a chance against him. If we scatter, then even if one of us is caught, the others can keep going. At worst, we lose one person and buy time for the rest."
Her thinking had already shifted. After hearing Orochimaru's rules, she no longer viewed this as a teamwork test like the one Sarutobi Enjun had talked about. She understood that what Orochimaru wanted to teach them now was how to survive on a real battlefield.
"Of course we'll separate," Gen said. "But not yet."
As he spoke, he glanced at the bandage wrapped around his left thumb. He ripped it off with his teeth, exposing the mark beneath. Then he bit down hard, reopening the wound.
Blood welled up at once.
He formed hand seals with practiced speed.
"Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey, Ram."
A plume of white smoke burst beside him. More than a dozen ninja crows appeared in the air around the three of them, black wings beating against the filtered forest light as they cawed sharply and circled overhead.
"The Forest of Death is dense," Gen said quickly. "Even if the crows scout from the air, the trees will block most of what they can see. But they can still handle one thing well enough—communication."
He snapped his fingers. Two crows peeled away from the flock and landed neatly on the shoulders of Sarutobi Enjun and Uzuki Ruri, claws gripping fabric without drawing blood.
"If any of you are caught or lose your bell, the summon near you will disappear immediately. I can use that to judge your position and your situation. And if something happens to me, the crows near you will vanish too. That alone should be enough to send a warning."
Neither of his teammates objected. At this point, both of them had already fallen into step with his command almost unconsciously.
Gen continued without slowing down. "There's more. Orochimaru is skilled with snakes. Snakes use their tongues and scent to track prey, so hiding visually isn't enough. You have to deal with your smell too."
He turned his head and looked at the two of them in turn.
"Use the terrain to cover your scent as much as possible. Mud, stagnant water, crushed plants—whatever you can find. And give me something personal, something that carries your smell. I'll have the crows scatter those items across different parts of the forest to throw off pursuit and create false trails."
Sarutobi Enjun blinked. "You even thought of that?"
"If we're being hunted by Orochimaru-sensei, thinking of it now is already late," Gen said coolly. "The only reason it's not too late is because he gave us fifteen minutes instead of starting immediately."
Ruri didn't waste time talking. She reached up, untied the ribbon binding a section of her hair, and passed the strip of cloth to Gen. Sarutobi Enjun hesitated for a brief second before pulling a wrist wrap loose and handing that over too.
Gen took both items, then selected several of the crows with a glance and a short series of hand motions. The ninja birds understood at once. One seized the ribbon, another grabbed the wrist wrap, and several more followed them into the trees, vanishing into the green shadows above.
"Good," Gen said. "Now we split up in a controlled pattern. Not randomly."
He slowed for the first time since entering the forest and crouched on a broad branch, forcing the other two to stop beside him. The remaining crows settled briefly around them, restless and alert.
"Ruri, you move northeast. Keep low, preserve your chakra, and prioritize concealment over speed. You're good at keeping your head in dangerous situations, so don't force any unnecessary moves. If you sense pursuit closing in, change direction twice before you hide. Make Orochimaru-sensei spend time checking dead paths."
Ruri gave a short nod. "Understood."
"Enjun, you go west. Don't treat this like a race. Your stamina and mobility are good, but if you move too aggressively, you'll leave a trail. Use your clones only if you must, and only once he's already made contact with your position."
Enjun looked slightly dissatisfied, as if being told to restrain himself felt almost physically painful. Still, after their first mission together and everything Gen had said since, he swallowed his first impulse and nodded. "Got it."
Gen looked from one to the other before giving the final instruction.
"The goal isn't to outperform your teammates. The goal is to stay uncaught as long as possible. Even if one of us ends up being the first taken, the others need the warning badly enough to turn that loss into time. Don't forget—on the battlefield, every extra breath matters."
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The forest around them rustled softly in the wind. Somewhere far deeper inside, something screeched. The Forest of Death had always carried a grim reputation, but under Orochimaru's rules, it seemed to grow sharper teeth by the second.
Sarutobi Enjun finally cracked a grin, though there was tension buried under it now. "You really do think of everything, Yuan."
"No," Gen said. "I just don't want to be the one writing the report."
That made even Ruri glance at him for half a second in surprise. Then, faintly, the corner of her mouth curved upward.
Gen rose, then gave the last order.
"From here on, act independently. Maintain your bell at all costs. If you lose it, treat it as death and think about why you died. If you survive, remember how you did it."
He paused, eyes narrowing slightly as his chakra perception spread outward through the undergrowth. He couldn't feel Orochimaru yet—but that meant very little. A monster like that could approach without leaving so much as a ripple if he chose to.
"One last thing," Gen said quietly. "Don't assume Orochimaru-sensei is only testing movement. He's testing judgment too. If he lays out bait, don't touch it unless you've already accepted the cost."
This time, both of them answered together.
"Understood."
Gen exhaled once, slow and steady.
"Good. Then disappear."
In the next instant, the three of them scattered in different directions, breaking apart like leaves caught by three separate gusts of wind. Above them, black crows fanned out through the canopy, carrying false trails, warnings, and the slim thread of coordination that might keep them alive a little longer.
And somewhere in that vast, murderous forest, Orochimaru was already coming.