We moved through the night, extra careful not to get jumped by an animal or another squad. By the time it became too dark to keep pushing, we tried to rest, and that was when a venomous scorpion nearly tagged me. Sena spotted it just in time and warned me, and I answered by pinning it to the ground with a kunai before it could sting.
That should have been the end of it. It wasn't. I was irritated enough that I decided to cook it and eat it out of pure spite. If the wilderness wanted to take a shot at me, it felt only fair that it ended up on the menu. For some reason, Kaen was immediately on board, his eyes lighting up like this was some rare delicacy, while Sena watched us with barely disguised disgust.
After I ate it, I muttered a few curses just to make sure it knew, wherever scorpions went after death, and then we decided to start moving again. We were getting close to the deadline now, and since we had chosen to take things at our own pace earlier, we wanted to be fresh and ready by the time we reached the oasis.
We found it almost entirely thanks to Sena's absurd level of skill with topography and tracking. We followed the Trevine's narrow outflow, and somehow she could tell which branches were part of the main flow and which were just side lines. Without her, we would have been forced to move far more aggressively, likely trigger an explosion or two, and dramatically increase our chances of running into trouble.
We did sense other genin along the way, but we deliberately went around them out of an abundance of caution. We already had three medallions, more than what the exam required, and there was no reason to invite unnecessary fights this late. Picking battles just because we could would have been stupid.
When we finally got close enough to see the oasis on the far horizon, my mouth almost fell open. Dense clusters of trees ringed the water, their canopies thick and tangled as they rose into one another. Explosions rang out constantly among the trunks, followed by distant screams and the occasional horrifying growl that echoed through the foliage and made my skin crawl. I honestly wondered if Suna was trying to set a record for the highest number of genin casualties during the exams, because this looked less like a testing ground and more like an active war zone.
Sena studied the scene quietly, arms crossed, her expression thoughtful rather than alarmed. "Even the ones who lost their medallions came here to rest and try to get them back." Kaen clicked his tongue and shot me an annoyed look. "Told you." I ignored him and kept my eyes on the chaos ahead. "Alright," I said, exhaling slowly. "Do you have a plan to get us through this?"
Sena looked around before sighing, her eyes moving over the terrain as if weighing every possible outcome. "There's one good option and one bad option." Kaen replied immediately, pointing at me without hesitation. "I choose the one that causes him the most as payment for letting those genin go." Sena's gaze shifted to him for a moment before returning to me, concern tightening her expression. "That's actually the good plan."
I really didn't feel like arguing with Kaen's logic. I rolled my shoulders once, then nodded. "Alright, I'll do it," I said. "What's the plan?"
Sena nodded, and began laying it out calmly. "You'll create a shadow clone and load it with as much chakra as you can manage. That clone will move aggressively and deliberately flare its chakra like a beacon, acting desperate enough to grab everyone's attention." She continued without pause, her tone steady. "They'll chase it, try to fight it, and cause chaos in the process. While that's happening, we'll keep our chakra output low and use subtle sensing, just enough to identify the area with the lowest presence."
She gestured faintly toward the side of the oasis. "While everyone is occupied with the chaos, we'll move around the edge and slip in from the back. If no one is waiting there to ambush us, we enter. If they are, we disengage immediately."
Kaen asked out of curiosity, "What was the bad plan then?" Sena answered calmly, "That we walk straight through the outpost's main gate and defeat anyone in our way." Kaen froze, clearly caught off guard, before hesitating. "Can we switch to the bad plan?" Sena shook her head in firm disapproval, and Kaen turned his face away, looking like in both scenarios he had lost something important. I couldn't help but enjoy his misery.
Sena handed me the three medallions we had, and I secured them to my ninja pouch. "Alright," I said quietly. "Let's do this." I coated my entire body in chakra, steadied myself, and formed the hand sign. The shadow clone appeared immediately, carrying most of my chakra. The drain hit hard, sharp enough to make me recoil slightly, and Sena caught my shoulder without a word to keep me upright. I smiled at her, then looked at the clone, who was glaring back at me with obvious irritation. "I know," I said calmly. "It's the best way." The clone narrowed his eyes, lifted his hand, gave me the familiar rude gesture, then sighed and sprinted off into the distance.
Kaen stared after him before finally asking, genuinely puzzled, "Why do your clones act so differently?" Sena's attention sharpened, clear interest in her eyes, as I answered, "Because I think I want them to. If my clones came out emotionless, I'd start thinking I was becoming something empty myself, and that's not good for my head. I think my mind does it on its own, just to make sure I don't lose track of who I am."
Kaen looked at me even more confused than before, but Sena simply squeezed my shoulder reassuringly.
I felt Sena shift into her low chakra sensing mode, subtle and imprecise, but quiet enough that unless we ran into a powerful sensory type, we would go unnoticed. With her taking the lead, Kaen falling back to cover our rear, and me staying between them, we started moving in a twisted, careful line, constantly adjusting our path. Whenever Sena picked up faint signatures ahead, we curved around them instead of pushing through, slipping past clusters of chakra that were too distracted or too focused elsewhere to notice us. Step by step, we closed the distance, skirting the edges of the chaos as the oasis outpost slowly came into view, while hell broke loose far away.
Noa's clone POV
I pushed my chakra sensing to its limit. The goal was simple. Get attention. With so many signatures packed into the area, people could only pick up my general direction at first, not anything precise. That wasn't enough. I decided to go all in and flared my massive chakra reserves into motion. That was when it started. I sensed multiple teams turning toward me at once. I ticked my neck, rolled my shoulders, and stretched. "This should be fun."
The moment the words left my mouth, a Hidden Cloud team burst from the trees ahead. Their eyes widened when they spotted the medallions attached to my ninja tool pouch. One of them shouted that I had three medallions, and everything immediately went to hell. I flickered as kunai and lightning jutsu tore through the space I had just occupied. I wasn't trying to conserve chakra anymore. I flickered wildly, flaring my chakra constantly, but I avoided using ninjutsu. The goal wasn't to defeat anyone. It was to cause chaos and pull as much attention away from my real body as possible. It worked better than expected as the teams chasing me started clashing with each other mid-pursuit.
At some point, I realized I might have overdone it. I was far ahead of my pursuers now, thanks to Shisui's brutal training and the fact that they were too busy fighting each other to keep up. I briefly wondered if I should slow down and loop back to keep them focused on me. That thought barely finished forming before my instincts screamed. Steam burst from my mouth as the temperature around me dropped violently. The world went white. I felt a powerful surge of chakra and flickered as far as I could, abandoning all control for raw speed.
The tree I had been on was nearly encased in ice an instant later. I slammed into the ground, rolled with the impact, and launched myself forward on the momentum, flickering again as fast as I could. Someone powerful was chasing me. Then I sensed another presence approaching from a different angle. They did not close in. Instead, something strange came at me. It felt like a jutsu, but not quite. A thin slice of chakra cut through the air. I ducked under it just in time, and the tree behind me was split cleanly in half. Sweat beaded on my forehead as I flickered again, leaping into the treetops while the world below dissolved into absolute chaos.
I was about to glance back when something I couldn't sense and couldn't feel intent from fired at me. Thin needles tore through the air. I dodged most of them, but one scraped my skin. I twisted toward the source and saw it. A tall puppet with dark blue hair and elongated limbs rushed forward, its arms twisting mechanically into long, thin blades. I ducked under the first slash and shattered one of its wooden arms, sending fragments flying. I grinned as I tried to locate the puppeteer, and that was when I felt it.
The arm I had destroyed shot back toward me. I twisted at the last moment, but it was too late. The blade slashed across my leg. Poison flooded my system instantly. I stumbled, my vision blurring, my body betraying me. I felt someone closing in, strong and confident, but before they could lay a hand on me, my form dispersed into smoke. The medallions vanished with me as I took their despair and anger as fair payment for the suffering I endured.