By day five, even the trees looked tired.
Branches drooped. Leaves hung heavy with mist. My legs had entered that floaty, disconnected mode where they'd clearly filed a complaint but were still doing the job out of spite.
Naruto was somehow still talking.
"…and then when I punched the ground, that guy just exploded out like FWAM, you should've seen your faces—"
"We were there," I said. "We did, in fact, see our faces."
He ignored me and kept reenacting his own heroics with full arm swings. Every wild gesture tugged at the bandage on his shoulder where he'd taken a kunai for Sasuke. He winced every time and pretended he didn't.
Sasuke walked on his other side, hands in his pockets, hood up. His chakra was a tired, razor-edged blue, flaring a little every time Naruto got too close to his bad side. The bandage on his neck was still clean but I could feel the wrongness under it like a second weather layer.
I tried not to think about what would happen if it decided to storm again.
Kabuto and his two shadows trailed a polite distance behind us. Yoroi's shoulders were hunched, Misumi's hands buried in his sleeves. Kabuto just…glided. Neither rushed nor lagging, gray chakra smooth as copier paper.
"I think I can see it," Naruto said suddenly.
We broke out of the last clutch of trees into a clearing of dead grass and packed dirt. The central tower reared up out of the fog like something the forest had been trying to forget: tall, ugly, functional. No windows low enough to hit with rocks. Massive kanji carved into the stone.
"Yup," I said. "There's the final boss dungeon."
"The what?" Naruto asked.
"Big ominous building where they put the next exam," I corrected. "Keep up."
Sasuke's lips twitched. Just barely. I decided to count that as a win.
The closer we got, the more the tower loomed, swallowing the sky. Naruto craned his neck back to take it in.
"Looks kinda like a bug," he said.
"…Actually, yeah," I admitted. "Creepy one."
Massive doors sat in the front, flanked by two chunin exam proctors who pretended not to be amused by the steady stream of limping genin that had been arriving all day. Their chakra felt bored but sharp—cats at the edge of a mouse maze.
We crossed the threshold into the tower's cool interior. The air inside was different: drier, still humming with fresh seals. Chakra woven into the walls, subtle but there.
"Please proceed down the main hallway," one of the proctors droned, barely glancing at us. "Do not open your scrolls outside the designated room. Doing so will result in immediate removal from the exam."
Naruto twitched. I elbowed him on principle.
The hallway was long and echoing, lined with generic stone and the occasional peeling motivational slogan. My sandals scuffed on worn flagstones. Each step felt heavier now that the forest wasn't watching.
Halfway down, Kabuto slowed.
"Well," he said. "Looks like this is where we part ways for now."
Naruto turned. "Huh? Already?"
Kabuto gestured farther down the hall, where doors branched off and more chakra signatures gathered like tired fireflies. "There's a check-in hall ahead where the remaining teams will assemble. Once you go in, the proctors officially take over."
"'Officially'?" I echoed.
He smiled that mild, thin smile again. "Meaning it's no longer my place to tag along. I've collected the data I need."
There it was. The little flash of honesty under the polite gray.
You're using this as a field study, I thought. Of us. Of everyone.
My stomach knotted. And then…un-knotted, slightly.
Because he hadn't done anything.
He'd had a dozen chances to sabotage us. Steer us into a bloodbath. Feed our positions to enemies. Stick a knife in Naruto's back when his shadow clones thinned out.
Instead, he'd nudged us away from fights, tossed Naruto a helpful "left," and spent most of his time watching like a weird owl in a flak jacket.
Maybe my instincts were wrong.
The thought scraped my nerves. My instincts had kept me alive in houses with slammed doors and too-quiet dinners. Being wrong about danger felt…disloyal. To the younger me who'd needed those alarms.
Kabuto's gaze flicked over the three of us one more time. "In any case," he said, "congratulations on making it this far. Many teams don't."
Naruto grinned, all teeth. "Of course we did. We're awesome."
"Speak for yourself," I muttered, flexing my burned hands. The skin pulled tight. "I'm somewhere between awesome and 'held together by spite and ink.'"
Kabuto chuckled. "Spite is an underrated survival strategy," he said. "I hope we'll meet again in the next phase."
It sounded almost…genuine.
I swallowed.
"Hey," I said, before my social anxiety could kick in and suffocate the words. "Thanks. For the map. And the…uh. Not murdering us."
Smooth, Sylvie. Very normal sentence.
His eyes crinkled at the corners. "You're welcome," he said. "Take care of those hands. Overusing seals at your age can cause permanent damage."
"Add it to the list," I said lightly. "I'll…be careful."
Was he fussing at me? Was my danger sense trying to short-circuit because someone who read as "bad idea" was also giving good advice?
He gave a tiny bow, more habit than formal, and turned away. Yoroi and Misumi melted after him, their chakras wrapping back into forgettable little clumps.
I watched the gray fade down the side corridor until it slipped out of my range.
"Still don't like him?" Naruto asked.
I hesitated. "I don't know," I said honestly. "He pings all my 'liar' alarms, but he also…helped."
Sasuke shrugged, hands still buried in his pockets. "Doesn't matter for now," he said. "We'll see him again. Then we judge."
I wanted to argue that it did matter. That not knowing if I was wrong made my skin itch.
Instead I nodded and started walking.
The hallway ended at a tall stone wall carved floor-to-ceiling with kanji. The text was old, lines worn soft by time and fingers. A single line was larger than the rest, the ink chiseled deeper:
If you seek the meaning of Heaven and Earth, open the scrolls together.
Naruto stepped forward immediately and reached into his jacket.
I smacked his hand.
"OW—what was that for?!" he yelped, clutching his wrist like I'd amputated it.
"No scroll-opening in the hallway," I said. "Rules. Remember those? We got a whole lecture. 'If you open them early, you will be removed from the exam.' Removed as in 'knocked out and dragged away like last week's garbage.'"
He made a face. "Maybe it's just a bluff."
"Yeah," I said. "That's what I want. To gamble on whether or not an exam designed by sadists is bluffing."
Sasuke stepped closer to the wall, eyes scanning the rest of the text. His chakra smoothed out a little when he was reading—less knives, more scalpel.
"Heaven and Earth," he murmured. "Body and mind."
Naruto blinked. "Huh?"
"It's saying strength without knowledge is useless," Sasuke translated. "And knowledge without strength is just as bad. You need both. That's what the scrolls represent."
Naruto squinted at the wall. "I don't see any of that written there."
"It's implied," Sasuke said, and somehow managed to sound like Kakashi with one word.
I stepped closer too, tracing the carved grooves with my eyes. The smaller script talked about timing, patience, unity. The phrase "within these walls" showed up twice.
"There's probably a specific room," I said. "Somewhere in here. 'Within these walls, Heaven and Earth become one'… blah blah, poetic murder instructions."
Naruto groaned. "More walking?"
"Less dying," I countered. "Take the win."
Off to the right, a polite little arrow had been painted at some point, next to a sign I was too tired to fully read. My chakra sense picked up a dense, dormant seal pattern behind the wall, like something waiting to be triggered.
"Door's that way," I said, and followed the arrow.
The designated room turned out to be…a room. No windows. Bare stone. A simple patterned circle on the floor that was definitely a summoning array if you'd ever spent an afternoon eavesdropping on the sealing corps.
Naruto bounced in place, energy already recovering now that the forest wasn't actively trying to eat us. "So we just… open them in here, right?"
"Looks like it," I said. "Heaven, Earth, plus giant ominous magic circle. Very user-friendly."
Sasuke leaned against the wall near the door, crossing his arms. "Do it."
I pulled the Heaven scroll from my pouch. The paper crackled under my fingers, stiff with dried blood and forest humidity. Naruto fished out the Earth scroll from his jacket, almost dropping it because of course he did.
We stepped into the circle together, facing each other.
"On three?" I suggested.
Naruto grinned. "One, two—NOW!"
He popped his open on "now," because of course he cheated on counting too. I rolled my eyes and unfurled mine in sync.
Ink lines on both scrolls glowed at once. Sealing characters lifted off the paper like smoke and spiraled up, meeting overhead. The hair on my arms stood up.
"Uh," Naruto said.
The ink-snake coil snapped downward.
I barely had time to think oh good, we die now before both scrolls slapped themselves out of our hands and hit the floor. The circle flared. Smoke exploded around us in a thick, choking burst.
Something heavy dropped into the center of the room with a thud.
"WH–HOT HOT HOT—"
The smoke cleared just enough to reveal a tall shape flailing slightly, holding a styrofoam cup at arm's length like it contained a bomb.
Iruka-sensei glared down at the instant noodles sloshing in his hand, then at us.
"You brats," he said, voice caught between exasperation and weird pride. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to eat lunch during exam duty?"
"IRUKA-SENSEI!" Naruto yelled, face lighting up like the sun finally found his stupid body again. "You brought ramen because you knew I'd pass?!"
Iruka stared at him.
Then at the cup.
Then back at him.
"…No, Naruto," he said slowly. "I was eating lunch. You summoned me out of the break room."
Naruto's eyes went shiny with betrayal. "So it's not for me?"
Iruka's mouth struggled valiantly not to smile. "I'll get you a bowl later," he said. "If you pass the next part."
Naruto immediately lunged for the cup anyway. Iruka jerked it out of reach with teacher-reflexes honed by years of dealing with this exact goblin.
"Hands off!" he barked.
"You can't dangle noodles in front of a starving man and then say 'hands off,' that's illegal," Naruto protested.
I snorted. My stomach twisted with sympathy pains, because ramen.
Iruka sighed and handed him the disposable chopsticks. "Fine. Two bites. Then we talk."
Naruto's face split in a beatific grin. "You're the best, Iruka-sensei."
"I know," Iruka said dryly, then looked the rest of us over properly.
His gaze snagged on Sasuke's neck, on the edge of white bandage peeking out from the hoodie. His chakra flared with a flash of sharp worry.
Sasuke shifted fractionally, like he could tuck the mark into the wall.
Iruka wisely didn't comment. His eyes moved on to me.
He took in my hacked-off hair, the ink-stained bandages on my hands, the faint, ugly marbling of chakra burns up my fingers. His expression tightened.
"Sylvie," he said softly. "You look like you went through a blender."
"Forest of Death," I said. "So. Yes."
He huffed out a not-quite-laugh. "I'll have words with Kakashi about pushing your team this hard," he muttered. Then, louder: "But for now—"
He straightened up a little, switching fully into teacher mode. The ramen hung forgotten in his grip for the moment, steam curling.
"You've cleared the second exam," he said. "That alone is something to be proud of. Many teams didn't make it this far. Some never left the forest at all."
The room flickered for a second around the edges. Faces we'd only seen at sign-in. The Kusagakure team who'd never made it to the gate. Zaku's twisted arms. Lee crumpled on the ground, not ours but still ours.
My throat tightened. Naruto quietly took his second bite of noodles like a ceremony and swallowed it harder than he wanted to show.
Iruka knelt and picked up the spent scrolls, holding one in each hand so we could see the kanji.
"Heaven," he said, lifting the first. "This represents the mind. Knowledge. Analysis. Planning. The ability to read a situation and adapt."
He lifted the other.
"Earth. The body. Strength. Endurance. Instinct. The will to move forward even when your brain is screaming at you to stop."
Naruto perked up at that one. "That's me," he said, mouth ringed faintly with broth. "I'm Earth."
"Shock," I muttered.
Sasuke shot me a side-eye that said you're not wrong.
Iruka flicked him a look. "Naruto does have the raw willpower down," he said. "But will on its own burns out. And intellect without the guts to act? That leaves you frozen until someone else decides the outcome for you."
He tapped the scrolls together so the edges met.
"This exam," he went on, "was never just about survival. It was about seeing which teams understood that they needed both. Body and mind. Heaven and Earth. The rules warned you not to open the scrolls early. Those who tried were removed, because they lacked judgment. Those who hoarded strength but never took the risk of moving toward the tower—also failed."
"So we were, what, just the right amount of reckless?" I said.
Iruka smiled at me. It did something in my ribs. "You balanced each other," he said. "Even if it didn't always feel like it."
Naruto puffed up a little at that. Sasuke looked away like the wall had just become deeply fascinating.
I looked at the scrolls in his hands and thought about how that balance actually shook out.
Naruto was very obviously Earth. Raw, bright orange in my chakra-sense, crashing into obstacles until they broke or he did, then getting up anyway. Body first. Feelings right after. Brain… eventually, if cornered.
Sasuke was Heaven: sharp angles, deliberate movements, watching three moves ahead even when he pretended not to care. The one who caught patterns, who read the field while the rest of us were still wiping mud out of our eyes.
And me…
I flexed my fingers, ignoring the pull of burned skin. Ink stains flaked off one knuckle.
My role lived in the space between. The scribbles that turned someone's idea into a seal on the ground. The little medical ninjutsu that bridged "stabbed" to "still standing." The messy, anxious analysis trying to turn Naruto's chaos and Sasuke's precision into something that didn't get us killed.
Not Heaven. Not Earth.
More like… ink and nerves tying them together. Glue girl. Tape holding a cracked bowl.
Unromantic. Weirdly right.
Iruka's gaze flicked over me again, just for a second, like he could tell where my mind had gone.
"Some shinobi lean heavily one way," he said. "Strategists who avoid every fight. Brutes who charge every problem head-on. The strongest are usually the ones who can bridge the two. Or the teams that can, collectively."
I pretended that wasn't aimed directly at me.
Naruto heard about three words of it.
"So what you're saying is," he said, "we passed."
Iruka's shoulders slumped in fond defeat. "Yes, Naruto," he said. "You passed."
Naruto whooped so loud the seals in the walls probably flinched. He launched himself at Iruka, nearly knocking the cup noodles out of his hand as he hugged him.
"I knew it! I told everyone I'd do it! Believe—"
"Steady, steady, hot," Iruka groaned, trying not to get burned. "Naruto—"
Sasuke huffed. "Idiot," he muttered. His chakra, for the first time in days, eased out of knife-edge alert into something closer to normal adolescent simmer.
I just…took a second.
Let the words settle.
We passed.
Not because of Orochimaru. Not because of Kabuto lurking in the bushes with his cards. Not because someone swooped in with a miracle new jutsu.
We clawed our way through a murder forest on homegrown stubbornness, messy seals, and a boy who refused to lose to illusions.
God, we were disasters.
Functional disasters.
Iruka finally extricated himself enough to pry his ramen back from Naruto's clingy hands. "Alright," he said, putting on his teacher voice again. "You'll get a short break to recover, then you'll be called to the main hall. The Third Hokage has some things to say about…changes to the exams."
"Changes?" I repeated. "That's not ominous at all."
He gave me a look that said I'm not allowed to answer that.
"Don't wander off," he said instead. "Medical staff can handle minor injuries for now. Major ones will be checked after the Hokage speaks."
His eyes flicked to Sasuke's neck again. To my hands. To Naruto's shoulder.
I nodded. "We'll stick together," I said. "Promise."
Naruto saluted sloppily with the chopsticks. Sasuke rolled his eyes but didn't contradict it.
Iruka stepped out of the circle, touched two fingers to a sealing mark on the wall, and vanished in a puff of smoke, ramen and all.
Naruto sagged. "He didn't even leave the cup…"
"Iruka's not stupid," I said. "He knows you'd drink the broth out of anything, including summoning circles."
He opened his mouth to argue, considered it, then shrugged. "Yeah, probably."
Sasuke pushed off the wall. "Come on," he said. "Let's get this over with."
"'This' being what?" Naruto asked.
"More speeches," I said. "More tests. More weirdos."
"More ramen," Naruto added hopefully.
"Probably," I conceded. "If we live long enough."
We stepped out of the summoning room together, into the hallway that led deeper into the tower.
Other chakras buzzed ahead—familiar colors and textures. Kiba's scruffy static. Hinata's soft lavender. Shikamaru's lazy, low hum. A grainy, horrible sand-red that made my skin crawl.
We'd made it through the first half of the maze.
The next one was waiting.
Naruto bounced on his toes.
Sasuke walked steady, shoulders square.
I tightened my ribbon, flexed my ruined hands, and followed.