After picking up their scrolls, everyone headed into the exam grounds.
The Stage cut to a few close-ups of the major teams.
Orochimaru's little squad was here too.
Their target was singular: Sasuke Uchiha.
Unfortunately for them, that wasn't the script Hanabi had in mind.
"Naruto, Sasuke. From this moment on, drop the weights."
The instant they entered the exam grounds, Hanabi had Naruto and Sasuke switch into "combat mode." Then, she shifted her own Zhuixia into its Shiranui Shinobi Outfit configuration.
"Hm? Ever since the Second Exam started, you've been acting... overly cautious, haven't you?"
Sasuke picked up on the shift.
"Yeah. Some things came up."
Hanabi had originally planned to breeze through this mission at her leisure.
But things were off-script.
At that moment, the Stage's view suddenly cut to Hikari Uchiha.
Hikari, who had been about to head back, had stopped in her tracks.
"The smell of blood... wait, these people are... examinees?"
Examinees had been murdered before the exam even began.
To avoid being noticed by Konoha and causing trouble for Hanabi, Hikari had slipped away immediately.
The Stage didn't show the corpses, but Hanabi already knew—those were the three ninja whose identities Orochimaru had hijacked.
After mulling it over, Hikari had stopped heading home.
The Stage didn't follow what happened next. But Hanabi knew exactly what Hikari would do.
—She'd come looking for her.
In all of Konoha, the only person Hikari trusted was Hanabi. Maybe Natsu too, if you counted her as a half.
So, the script needed a rewrite.
And honestly, compared to letting Orochimaru be Sasuke's teacher, Hanabi thought there were better options.
Hanabi the showrunner was about to start pulling strings.
"You two, hold onto these."
Hanabi handed each of them a Riddler Doll.
These things had already proven basically useless as explosives, but they'd turned out to be surprisingly handy for other purposes.
"Are the enemies really that strong?" Naruto looked at Hanabi, then at Sasuke. A little out of the loop.
"Let's get one thing straight first," Hanabi said. "We're strong. Against any ordinary Genin, we're absolutely the ones with the upper hand."
After Hanabi's "upgrades," Naruto and Sasuke were both leagues above their canon selves.
Naruto could even dodge Anko Mitarashi's kunai by his own power.
And remember, she was a Special Jōnin—not quite on par with a full Jōnin, but seriously strong.
"But this time around, there are several off-the-charts players in this exam," Hanabi continued.
"Stronger than you?" Sasuke asked.
"Who knows~" Hanabi didn't answer directly.
On her own strength, she could handle anyone in this exam except Orochimaru, even the off-the-charts ones.
But Orochimaru, though...
How to put it—there actually was someone who could just flat-out counter him.
The kind of counter where you win without taking a scratch.
The kind where even if you stacked up a few more Orochimarus, he'd still lose.
What can you do? A hard counter trumps everything.
"Hmm... that way, then?"
Hanabi knew exactly what would happen in the "script" she hadn't tampered with.
For instance, Hinata was going to run into Gaara.
This world had its own butterfly effect, but it wouldn't stray too far from the main trajectory. Because this world also had "fate."
Like a pyramid of building blocks: you could keep pulling pieces out from the bottom, and the upper structure would still hold.
But if the lower support got too weak... the whole thing could come crashing down.
That was when the shinobi world would truly be overturned.
And that was when the most dazzling fireworks would bloom.
Hanabi intended to help certain things along.
Setting up Naruto's spotlight moment was one of them.
And if she was going to set it up, she wasn't going to do it just once.
The fight between Naruto and Gaara was important.
And before that, Naruto had another battle ahead of him.
There also needed to be a seed planted for Gaara.
Having the protagonist rescue a character from the abyss and a dark path was the classic storyline, sure—but audiences had grown used to that kind of story.
The current crowd might be clamoring for some big, long, hot-blooded epic, but if you actually served them a melodrama, they'd be the first ones to complain.
How far they could take it depended entirely on Gaara himself.
Hanabi was the one pressing the red button, but how brilliantly the fireworks bloomed was up to the performer.
In the showdown between Naruto and Gaara, Hanabi's role was "director."
"—So, the most important thing for us right now is... to get to my hideout first."
"Mm-hm... huh? Hideout?"
Naruto's whole brain short-circuited.
"Don't tell me you've got prep work set up here too?" Sasuke had stopped being surprised by this kind of thing.
[Grass (a type of exclamation), Director Hanabi strikes again, she even has prep here]
[Lmao, you thought just because you can't pull a bait-and-switch on the scrolls, I didn't have another method?]
[No cheating, no Chūnin Exams]
[Forget the Chūnin Exams, even becoming Hokage—my wife's got it mapped out clear as day for you]
[Didn't you see what happened on Hinata's side earlier?]
"My my, I guess you two don't know yet." Hanabi turned to Naruto and Sasuke. "This Forest of Death is actually one of my secret training bases, you see. So in this place, I've got a fully stocked hideout~"
For other people, the Forest of Death was genuinely dangerous. But for the Hyuga clan, the so-called Forest of Death was more familiar than their own backyard.
The dangers in this forest had nowhere to hide. Forget Hanabi—Hinata could navigate this place just as easily.
For instance, in the original story, if Gaara's team hadn't been absurdly broken and finished the exam in just an hour and a half, the first-place team would actually have been Hinata's squad.
"This training ground isn't an ordinary one. The village doesn't usually allow... ah, forget it."
Sasuke knew one of Hanabi's core tenets was "if you don't get caught, it's not a crime."
As long as nobody noticed, it counted as "acceptable."
"Hahaha, then our advantage is huge for sure!"
Naruto didn't pick up on any of that.
All he cared about was that they had a huge edge right now.
"Mm, let's rest up here for a bit."
Hanabi led the two of them to her hideout.
Since the forest was so large, Hanabi had set up quite a few spots like this.
"Whoa, there's even a bed here!"
This hideout was inside a hollow tree. The exterior was camouflaged, and inside there was a bedroom and even a smokeless stove.
Water and rations were stocked here too.
"Our advantage is seriously through the roof!" Naruto was thrilled, already rolling up his sleeves and itching for a fight.
"No—you two wait here," Hanabi said.
"Huh?" Naruto was stunned.
"We just entered the exam grounds, and right now is when everyone else is on maximum alert. So our strategy is to rest for two hours, let the other side's initial guard drop, and then strike."
Hanabi finished speaking and walked over to the doorway.
"Huh? What about you, Hanabi?" Naruto noticed that Hanabi was the one leaving.
"My sensory abilities are strong, and I'm confident I won't be detected," Hanabi said.
"Naruto, you big lug—if you went scouting, you'd probably get caught on the spot," Sasuke said, agreeing with Hanabi's plan.
"We'll wait here. I'll go do a quick scout and come right back. I'll even bring some fresh oranges back for you two~"