THUD!!
"Hinata! Are you okay?" Kiba yelled.
On the field, after Hinata had exchanged a few blows with Zaku, she was suddenly knocked back as if a massive object had hit her.
She flew through the air and slammed heavily into a giant tree.
"Cough... I'm fine," Hinata coughed, wiping blood from the corner of her mouth as she stood up.
"Hehe, looks like your skills aren't all that," Zaku sneered, standing a distance away.
His arms had been modified to emit powerful slicing sound waves known as "Decapitating Airwaves." Hinata had just been hit by one of these attacks.
The airwaves were invisible and formless, created by controlling supersonic sound and air pressure, so Hinata hadn't been able to react at all before being struck.
Meanwhile, seeing his teammate gain the upper hand, Dosu looked at his opponent, Shino Aburame, with a cold sneer.
"Looks like your other teammate is going down, too. You three should give up and die obediently!"
With that, he lunged at Shino.
But midway through his charge, a mocking voice suddenly rang out nearby, causing him to pause his attack and look towards the source instinctively.
"Kiba, how did you end up in such a sorry state? Haha!"
On a nearby tree branch, three figures had appeared. One of them was looking down at Kiba with a grin.
"It's you guys!"
Kiba, who was leaning against a tree due to his dizziness, looked up and saw that the speaker was Naruto, flanked by Sasuke and Sakura.
"Hehe, Kiba, weren't you bragging about how strong you were? Why do you look so pale now?" Naruto jumped down from the tree and walked over to him, his hands behind his head.
"Hmph! I was careless! And that guy's moves are weird!" Kiba, usually so proud, flushed red and looked away awkwardly.
"Oh? Weird how?" Naruto asked curiously.
" The moment I clashed with him, I went deaf in one ear, and then my head started spinning, and I couldn't keep my balance," Kiba explained gravely.
Hearing this, Sakura, who had also jumped down, looked over thoughtfully.
"From what you're describing, it sounds like some shockwave ruptured your eardrum. And since the semicircular canals in the inner ear affect balance, that would explain why you can't stand properly."
As a top student, she knew such things.
"Wow! Sakura, you're so smart! You even know that!" Naruto exclaimed in admiration.
Just then, a cold voice cut in. "So it's you three. We were looking for Sasuke!"
Dosu ignored Shino and began walking toward Naruto's group. Zaku did the same, leaving Hinata and walking over with their teammate, Kin.
"Looking for me?"
Sasuke, who had been silent, was puzzled. He didn't know these people at all; why would they be looking for him?
However, when he saw the musical note symbol on their forehead protectors, he had a guess.
"You're Orochimaru's subordinates, aren't you?"
At these words, Naruto and Sakura's eyes narrowed.
They also remembered that after Orochimaru had revealed his true face, he had been wearing a forehead protector with the same musical note symbol.
Since these three were wearing the same protector, they were likely under Orochimaru's control.
"How do you know that?!"
Caught off guard by the revelation of their true identities, Dosu and his team's pupils constricted in shock.
Their identities were supposed to be top secret; how could an outsider possibly know?
"That's none of your business," Sasuke said coolly.
"..."
After a moment of silence, Dosu regained his composure. He looked at the three genin coldly. "In that case, we'll just have to kill all of you."
As soon as he spoke, the eyes of his teammates, Zaku and Kin, also turned cold.
Sensing the killing intent radiating from the three opponents, Sasuke smirked. "Heh. Try it if you can."
"Another fight? Sounds good to me," Naruto said, cracking his knuckles, itching for action.
The fight with Orochimaru had been frustrating, and having punching bags deliver themselves to his doorstep was exactly what he needed.
"Sigh. Honestly, I'd rather rest, but since you two accepted the challenge, I can't back down now," Sakura said, joining in after Sasuke and Naruto had responded.
After two months of training and the life-or-death struggle they had just been through, she was no longer the timid girl from the original story who shied away from battle.
With the three of them showing no signs of weakness, the tension in the air skyrocketed, and a fight seemed imminent.
Meanwhile, Kiba's team, who had been completely ignored by the six of them, looked at each other in confusion.
Wasn't this their fight? How did they suddenly become spectators?
"Naruto..."
Hinata stole glances at the familiar yet somehow different figure, whispering his name.
Suddenly, her gaze hardened, and she clenched her fists as she watched the scene before her. "Naruto, you have to win."
On the field, Dosu and his team moved first, launching their attacks on Naruto's group. Dosu targeted Sasuke, Zaku went for Naruto, and Kin went for Sakura.
"Die, Sasuke!"
Dosu appeared in front of Sasuke, raising his right fist to strike.
'Heh heh, after this hit, you'll be helpless,' he thought to himself.
This punch looked ordinary, but it concealed his ultimate weapon. On his arm was a special device called a Resonating Echo Speaker, which could generate invisible sound waves to paralyse the opponent's auditory nerves.
This was the very move he had used to rupture Kiba's eardrum and disrupt his inner ear, taking him out of the fight!
But just as he was feeling confident, his pupils shrank. Sasuke had vanished before his eyes. A cold voice then sounded from behind him.
"Your speed is no different from a turtle's to me."
Sasuke had appeared behind him at some point and delivered a vicious kick!
THUD!
Dosu was sent flying like a rag doll, slamming violently into a tree.
On the other side, Zaku raised both hands, palms facing Naruto, and unleashed his Decapitating Airwaves.
This was an enhanced version of his previous attack, capable of releasing an even more powerful invisible shockwave!
BOOM!!
With a loud explosion, the trees behind Naruto were blasted into splinters, raining down like flowers from the sky.
But strangely, Naruto was gone, as if he had evaporated into thin air.
'Wait! I missed!'
Zaku's pupils constricted to pinpoints. Alarm bells rang in his head, warning him of imminent danger, and he instinctively tried to jump away.
But he was a step too slow.
Naruto suddenly appeared beside him, a whip kick slamming into his face.
SMACK!
Blood sprayed from his nose as Zaku flew through the air for a distance before crashing to the ground, unconscious.
At the same time, Sakura dodged several senbon needles thrown by Kin and skillfully manoeuvred behind her, delivering a heavy chop to the back of her neck.
THWACK!
Kin's vision went black, and she collapsed forward, also unconscious.
"Cough, cough... H-how... how can you be so strong?"
Dosu, the strongest of the three, barely managed to stay conscious after Sasuke's kick.
He watched as his teammates fell one after another, a sense of utter absurdity rising in his heart.
Are people like this taking the Chunin Exams? These are the people Lord Orochimaru sent us to assassinate? Are they crazy, or is Lord Orochimaru crazy?