Chapter 209: The Stolen Faces

Beyond the examination area, Izumo led his team to a weathered stone marker.

Three Grass shinobi lay beside it.

"They have been dead for some time," Izumo said after examining them. "Probably since before the examination began. Dokuraku, inform the chief examiner at once."

Dokuraku Meguri understood the danger and disappeared toward the tower.

Izumo and the remaining shinobi guarded the bodies until he returned with Anko and Tessen Togekei. Anko approached with a grave expression. The faces of all three corpses had been removed, leaving ruined flesh where identities should have been.

Her heart pounded. She had seen this method before.

The damage was not random mutilation. The skin and features had been taken so that another person could wear what the victims had lost. Years had passed since Anko served Orochimaru, but time had not softened the precision of his work or the cold purpose behind it.

"What do you make of it?" Izumo asked.

Tessen looked from the missing faces to the Grass equipment. "Someone stole their identities and entered among the candidates. They may intend to attack the genin inside the forest."

Deaths during a dangerous examination could be accepted as part of shinobi life. The deliberate destruction of visiting teams by an infiltrator was different. If foreign candidates were massacred under Konoha's protection, the consequences would reach every village represented there.

The stolen papers made the danger immediate. The killers had not fled with the identities; they had used them to pass registration. Somewhere inside the forest, a team moved beneath Grass headbands while the real candidates cooled beside the boundary.

"Report to the Hokage immediately," Anko said through clenched teeth.

She left at full speed. The others followed after assigning one shinobi to remain with the bodies.

Tessen caught the distress beneath her command voice. "Anko, what is wrong?"

"Orochimaru has returned to Konoha."

The name shocked all three men.

Tessen touched the hard plate beneath his vest. The stored combat experience inside it had been prepared for a desperate battle. He hoped this would not be the day he needed it.

Inside the forest, Sasuke's shuriken curved around a tree trunk toward the stolen Grass face.

Orochimaru caught every blade. The last weapons spun briefly across his fingers before falling.

"Uchiha shurikenjutsu has merit," he said. "You remain too weak."

Naruto dropped from above with a kunai aimed at his skull.

"I'll flatten you!"

A white python shot from behind Orochimaru. Naruto's kunai entered its head and stopped against the mass of bone and muscle. Blood sprayed across his hand.

The snake had emerged from an angle Naruto could not see during the descent. Rather than struggle in the air, he used the lodged kunai as a momentary brace. The maneuver kept the serpent between him and Orochimaru and prevented the counterattack from carrying him into the enemy's reach.

Orochimaru smiled. "Your combat experience is respectable, little brat. You are also too weak."

"Naruto, move!" Sasuke shouted.

Naruto planted one foot on the dead snake and launched himself away. Two kunai carrying explosive tags crossed through the opening he left.

The first explosions hid Sakura's movement. She had learned from Tonbo's simulations that a terrifying enemy was most dangerous when the team stopped attacking to admire its first success.

Her hand swept through her pouch.

"Cherry Blossom Blizzard."

Tagged shuriken drifted through the smoke like petals and detonated in staggered bursts.

The name concealed the brutality of the pattern. The first tags drove the target toward the center, the second destroyed the obvious escape, and the last exploded after the smoke tempted him to move. Sakura controlled the delays by the order of her throw, using the simulations to turn an Academy weapon exercise into a coordinated kill zone.

Sasuke reached Sakura's side while Naruto watched from a branch.

"Did it work?" Sakura asked.

"Excellent teamwork," Orochimaru called from the smoke. "Still not enough."

"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough."

A hurricane tore the smoke apart. Trees snapped, and the three genin were blown backward despite the chakra holding their feet to the bark. Dust covered Sasuke's face when he landed.

A massive python had coiled around Orochimaru and absorbed the explosions. It vanished in smoke, leaving him unharmed.

Its scales were torn and blackened before the summon ended. Team Seven had destroyed the defense Orochimaru placed before himself, but none of the force had reached the body that interested them. The difference between overcoming a technique and overcoming its user became painfully clear.

"You are all quite good," he said. "But Sasuke is my purpose. Show me your potential."

Sasuke's Sharingan spun. He drew a kunai and attacked.

Orochimaru met every strike with casual precision. Naruto and Sakura sought angles from which to join without entering Sasuke's blade path.

Sasuke attacked with the intensity he normally reserved for memories of his brother. Orochimaru yielded a step, offered an apparent opening, and closed it without effort. The exchange was less a duel than an examination: each response allowed him to measure the Sharingan, reflexes, and anger of the body he wanted.

"You know Itachi?" Sasuke demanded.

"Of course. You are still immature beside him, but your talent may be greater. Do you want power? I can give you the strength you need."

The promise fed the hatred in Sasuke's chest. Orochimaru watched with growing satisfaction. Shuriken and kunai became more dangerous in the boy's hands than his age should have allowed. The body before Orochimaru might surpass even the one he had coveted before.

At the Hokage Tower, Hiruzen frowned over Anko's report.

"Orochimaru? Why would he enter Konoha now?"

Anko touched the cursed seal at her neck. "Whatever the reason, we must find him before he carries it out."

Foreign shinobi and the retainers of daimyō already filled the village. Orochimaru loose within the examination could inflict another great loss upon Konoha and turn every victim into a dispute between nations.

Hiruzen did not know whether his former student sought assassination, sabotage, or another experiment. The uncertainty made delay more dangerous. Whatever Orochimaru intended, the Forest of Death gave him isolated targets and enough cover to complete it before ordinary proctors understood the threat.

"Search for his position," Hiruzen ordered. "I will send another unit behind you."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

Anko left with determination hardening every step. Tessen followed and caught her on the roofline.

"Your emotions changed as soon as you saw those bodies. What have you not told me?"

"Orochimaru was my teacher," she said. "I cannot allow him to harm Konoha's juniors as he harmed me. I must kill him."

Tessen stared. Neither Anko nor Tonbo had ever told him she had been the student of one of the Sannin.

As they ran, she told him about Orochimaru's experiments, the cursed seal, and the abandonment that followed. When she finished, her purpose had become unmistakable.

She had once admired the man Konoha called a genius. He answered that trust by marking her body, testing whether she survived, and discarding her when the result failed to meet his desire. The seal remained as both weapon and wound. Anko had carried the shame in silence so long that Tessen had mistaken it for a subject with no history.

"Do not come with me," she said. "You cannot defeat him."

A python struck before Tessen could answer. Its body hit him hard enough to steal consciousness.

Anko caught him and carried him to the outside of the Forest of Death fence. She placed him gently against the ground.

"I am sorry, Tessen. I do not want you to die."

She entered the forest prepared to use Twin Snakes Mutual Death and take Orochimaru with her if no other attack could hold him.

After she disappeared, Tessen opened his eyes.

He had recognized the snake a fraction before it struck and allowed his body to go limp.

"I think I am stronger than you," he muttered.

Then he rose and followed her into the trees.