The cool evening wind rustled through the high canopy, carrying the sharp scent of damp moss and ozone as the immense pressure of the Heal Bite finally subsided.
I stood quietly in the center of the ruined stone clearing, pulling a fresh, dark tunic and a clean pair of trousers from my gear bag's storage scroll to replace the torn, blood-soaked clothing shredded by the bear's heavy claws. Karin stood a few paces away, her fingers nervously twirling a strand of her long crimson hair as she watched me tie my waist belt securely over my dark trousers. Her cheeks were still burning with an intense, breathless blush, her bespectacled red eyes darting toward the dirt every single time my gaze drifted in her direction.
"Your vital energy is completely stable now, Ren," Karin whispered softly, her fingers lightly brushing against the fresh, jagged teeth-impression mark wounding the soft skin of her inner thigh. "The deep laceration on your upper left thighbone is entirely knitted back together, and your chakra channels are flowing with a much heavier volume than before."
"I can feel the difference, Karin," I replied smoothly, my deep voice regaining its flat, commanding consistency as I reached into my canvas pack to pull out a pristine Heaven Scroll.
I stepped closer to her position, my ninja sandals making zero sound as I placed the heavy scroll container directly into her trembling hands. "Take this scroll to help you and your team pass this phase. I need you to reach the central tower safely so I can begin working with the Hokage to free you from that shithole Grass Village as fast as possible."
Karin blinked up at me in total surprise, her spectacles sliding slightly down her nose as she clutched the document against her chest. "But... if I take this, what about your squad? Don't you need to secure your own entries before the fifth day?"
"My team already has both necessary scrolls locked in our hands," I murmured calmly, my amber-green eyes locking straight into her bespectacled red eyes with a serious, unyielding gravity. "Listen to me carefully from now on. Don't let others bite your skin anymore, not even me. From this moment on, do not deploy your healing ability for anyone else, as consuming your own life force for those parasites will eventually end your life... and I have absolutely zero desire to watch that happen."
Before she could even utter a single response to express her quiet, overwhelming happiness, a sudden, freezing spike of cold energy rippled through the nearby brush, the thick ferns violently parting as a dark figure stepped cleanly into the clearing. Sasuke Uchiha stood silently beneath the pale moonlight, his hands buried deep inside his pockets while his black hair fell across his face, his posture carrying an unyielding, aloof pride that completely masked his recent exhaustion. His dark eyes instantly narrowed into a fierce, calculating look as his gaze locked onto the pristine Heaven Scroll resting in Karin's fingers, his muscles tightening with the sharp instinct of a hunter spotting his prey.
This meeting was pure fate; my past-life memories instantly calculated the setup, realizing that if Karin hadn't altered her route to watch my ragged chakra signature, she would have ran straight into Sasuke's path during her frantic escape from the bear.
This single, fateful encounter was what officially triggered the largest shift in the original story line, twisting the future of the ninja world in ways that no one could possibly predict.
Karin instinctively shivered, her body stepping back to hide her body behind my dark canvas cloak as her advanced sensory network picked up the freezing, malicious chakra lingering around the Uchiha's clothing from his recent Curse Mark awakening.
"Ren," Sasuke noted coldly, his deep voice carrying a sharp edge of intense curiosity as he took a slow, deliberate step onto the stone foundations. "What is a lone Grass Genin doing out here in the western woods? And more importantly... why are you handing a winning scroll over to a foreign kunoichi?"
With my knowledge of the story, a faint smirk almost touched my lips beneath my high collar as I smoothly reached into my waist belt pouch, pulling out an identical Heaven Scroll that I had secured from my past days. Without a single second of hesitation, I casually tossed the heavy wooden container straight toward his chest, the scroll cutting through the air with a light whistling sound before Sasuke caught it with a swift, fluid motion.
"Here," I said flatly, my voice remaining perfectly level and unbothered. "I wanted to give this to you the second I woke up inside the hollow tree yesterday morning, but you ran off to test your boundaries before the rest of the camp could even open their eyes. I didn't want to hand it to Sakura or Naruto, fearing their loud styles might cause them to lose it in the brush."
Sasuke’s jaw tightened slightly, a flash of intense irritation flitting across his handsome features as his pride chafed against my casual demeanor. He had spent the last several hours hunting for a physical play to satisfy his desire for combat, and receiving the exact prize he needed without a struggle was clearly grating against his ego. He glanced coldly at Karin's crimson hair peaking out from behind my shoulder, his fingers tightening around the container.
"Why are you traveling with a Grass ninja?" Sasuke demanded sharply, his dark eyes boring into my stone-faced expression. "The proctors warned us to watch for hidden movements, and her village is actively tied to that snake monster who attacked us in the ravines."
I shook my head firmly, my hand reaching back to let Karin hold my left hand, her small fingers tightening against my palm with a sudden, desperate warmth. "No, that was a mere disguise, and Karin here isn't an enemy; she is my friend. You really should stop wasting your stamina out here in the deep woods and go back to protect your team, especially Sakura, who is currently worrying herself to pieces over your sudden disappearance."
Even though Sasuke’s immense Uchiha pride drove him to resist my advice, the mention of his team's vulnerable state seemed to break his desire for a physical match right now. He offered me a final, cold look of silent rivalry, nodded once without saying a single word, and launched his body back into the high canopy, though my sensory awareness noted he was deliberately moving away from his squad's immediate area.
Once his heavy chakra signature completely vanished from the area, I turned my attention back to my own physical status, a faint feeling of absolute satisfaction rising beneath my skin as my internal look validated Karin’s bloodline power. The deep trauma of my bone scraping was entirely gone, the muscle fibers around my upper left thighbone feeling completely restored and free of any lingering fever.
I reached into my canvas ninja pouch, methodically pulling out five real explosive tags and ten beautifully crafted dummy tags that I had mixed back at the family apothecary.
A cold smirk touched my lips as I placed the paper slips into her hands. "These five are real, Karin. Use the standard Rat seal or fire to activate their elemental properties if a real threat locks onto your spot. The other ten are completely fake; attach them directly to your own skin whenever your teammates try to corner you in the dark."
Karin blinked down at the paper bombs, her cheeks flushing red as she accepted the weapons like a young lady taking a fresh bouquet of flowers during a romantic confession.
"Tell them you will happily blow them and yourself into pieces if they ever try to press their teeth against your skin again," I added quietly, my tone dropping into a serious, protective tone. "The five real paper bombs are in case they don't listen to your warning and you genuinely need to blow them off the map."
For the next half of the day, Karin and I moved deeper into a secluded rocky hollow to have a quiet dinner of dried traveler rations and sweet ginger water, gently sharing the good and bad details of our respective backgrounds. Thanks to my past-life memories, I was fully aware that her advanced sensory instinct made it completely impossible to lie to her without her filter picking up the internal deceit, so I remained as honest as possible about my desire to shield her from exploitation. Karin was mature enough to realize that as an active Leaf ninja, I possessed village secrets that I couldn't openly talk about, so she never pressed for further details, simply happy to finally experience a genuine human connection beyond her deceased mother.
"You only have to pass this specific wilderness phase to satisfy your village masters, Karin," I whispered softly, leaning closer to her shoulder as the evening shadows lengthened across the stone ground. "You do not need to enter the final rounds later this month, and avoid the Sand ninja at all costs while you are navigating the tower corridors. Also, keep this between us... do not trust the medical ninja named Kabuto or anyone on his three-man team."
I pulled a small, detailed map of the internal forest pathways from my tool bag, sliding it into her pouch alongside a specific set of instructions on how to locate the Sunken Root apothecary once the Chunin Exams officially concluded. We offered one another a final, lingering look of mutual understanding before she turned her body toward the northern trail, her crimson hair shifting in the wind as our alliance parted...
With my body mostly healed and my stamina completely restored, I accelerated my pace through the deep undergrowth, pushing my ninja sandals to their absolute limit as I marched toward the day-four spot I had left for Shiho.
As I sprinted down a narrow dirt trail near the eastern marshlands, three rogue genin from a foreign squad suddenly burst from the high ferns, their weapons raised as they attempted to launch a sudden physical play to steal my scrolls.
"Mud Style: Mud Doll!" I said aloud, my left hand flashing into a rapid sequence of single-handed seals as I slammed my foot firmly into the wet earth.
The solid dirt beneath the trail violently churned, three massive, human-sized constructs of dense, wet mud erupting from the ground to intercept the advancing attackers before they could throw a single weapon. At my current developmental level, creating three to four stable dolls was the absolute physical threshold of my chakra control, but their dense, malleable bodies were more than enough to handle the play. The mud dolls lunged forward with absolute force, their heavy elemental arms wrapping tightly around the foreign ninja's faces and torsos to systematically suffocate their movements without drawing blood.
The lead attacker managed to break free for a brief second, launching a sharp iron kunai straight toward my chest, but my mind executed an instantaneous calculation.
"Substitution Jutsu!" I whispered aloud, my body instantly swapping positions with the nearest mud doll across the clearing.
The enemy's iron weapon buried itself harmlessly into the thick, wet mud of the duplicate doll, while the real me materialized right behind his exposed shoulder, a swift, heavy blow from my hand knocking his body flat onto the dirt. Within two minutes, the entire foreign squad was lying unconscious across the wet leaves, completely immobilized by the suffocating weight of the mud but left alive as my sandals blurred past their positions...
By the time the twilight hours settled over the zone, I finally located the hidden camp where Sai and Shiho had been maintaining their watch for the past forty-eight hours. It was a secluded stone cave tucked beneath a massive limestone ridge—a location my sensory network had previously discovered a month ago while setting up traps for Anko.
I slid past the heavy brush at the camouflaged entrance, my dark cloak slightly dusty as I stepped onto the stable floor of the cave interior.
Shiho immediately jumped up from her wooden supply crate, her large, swirl-tinted spectacles reflecting the dim light of their small lantern as her face split into a look of pure, overwhelming relief. "Ren! You're finally back! We followed your duplicate's dispersal instructions, and my calculations suggested you had been completely intercepted by an elite squad near the northern zone!"
Sai stood quietly near the back wall, his fingers lightly resting against the ink scroll on his waist belt as his hollow, perfectly practiced smile expanded across his pale face. His dark eyes carefully scanned my fresh clothing and the steady, unbothered placement of my ninja sandals on the cave floor, his silent Root training instantly watching the complete absence of the heavy limp I had been carrying the previous afternoon. He didn't say a single word to betray his internal observation, keeping his blank mask perfectly locked in place as he calmly asked, "Where exactly did you wander during your absence, Ren? My books on cooperative behavior suggest that an unannounced departure can significantly lower the mutual trust of a squad."
I scratched my swamp-brown hair with an air of pure, unbothered patience, my expression remaining completely stone-faced as I met the Root spy's calculating gaze.
"I was helping an elderly lady with her groceries," I deadpanned smoothly, my deep voice remaining completely hollow of any real emotion or hesitation. "She lived in the Hidden Sand. It took a while to carry the heavy bags up the dunes."
Shiho exploded into a loud, frantic fit of laughter at my ridiculous excuse, her administrative anxiety instantly evaporating into the warm air of the cave as she slammed her ledger book down onto the crate.
Sai merely blinked once, his fake smile remaining perfectly locked into his pale face as he logged my absurd response into his internal observation profile of me, the hidden tension between our temporary team finally settling as the third night of the Chunin Exams closed over our heads.