The silence that followed the departure of the "Grass Shinobi" pressed on the eardrums harder than the roar of battle. The Forest of Death froze, as if the ecosystem was afraid to attract the attention of the monster that had just feasted here.
In the center of the devastated clearing, face to the sky, lay Naruto.
Thick white steam rose from his body. His skin was dangerously red, as if he had spent an hour in boiling water. His muscles trembled slightly—the aftershocks of overload from the violent fusion of Qi and the Nine-Tails' Chakra.
He couldn't move, but his mind worked with icy clarity.
Who was that? the question pulsed in his head in time with his wildly beating heart.
The blonde replayed the events of the last few minutes in his mind.
Power level—transcendent. Not a Jonin. Even Kakashi-sensei didn't radiate such pressure.
Techniques—snakes, wind, mud, incredible body regeneration, shapeshifting ability.
Knowledge—he knew about my Seal. Knew how to disrupt its flow.
Infiltration—he entered Konoha territory unnoticed.
An intruder of that level couldn't just infiltrate the exam. Only if he knows the system from the inside, the logical chain closed. Snakes... Inhuman vitality... Hatred for Konoha...
Naruto's eyes narrowed. He had read the archives. He had seen that name in the S-rank Bingo Book list, in the section of traitors forbidden to pursue below ANBU level.
Orochimaru. The Snake Sannin.
The chill of realization ran down his spine, cooling the heat of his body. He had just survived a fight with a living legend. With a Kage-level monster. This was no longer an exam. This was an invasion.
"Naruto..." Sakura's sob tore him from his thoughts.
She was kneeling beside him, afraid to touch.
"You're burning!" Panic was audible in her voice. "Your skin..."
"I'm... okay," he exhaled. His voice rasped, his throat scorched by the Fox's chakra. "Don't touch me yet. Residual heat... you'll get burned."
Rustling in the bushes.
Sakura's reflexes, keyed up by terror, fired instantly. She jumped up, shielding Naruto, and held out a kunai.
"Stay back! I'll kill you!"
A girl stepped out from behind the bushes. Cracked glasses, disheveled red hair, dirty Grass Village tunic. Karin.
She froze, raising her hands in a gesture of surrender. She was shaking, but she walked forward, led by sensor instinct. She felt how Naruto's warm, powerful light had turned into an inferno, then faded to glowing embers.
"He needs help," Karin's voice trembled but sounded confident. She looked past Sakura, straight at Naruto. "I can see his chakra. He's drained to the bottom. He needs an external boost, otherwise recovery will take a long time."
Sakura's eyes widened. She darted her gaze to the tree roots where Sasuke lay.
The Uchiha looked terrible. He was curled up in a fetal position, clutching his shoulder. Black, ominous patterns resembling burning tar were spreading from the bite mark. He moaned in delirium, his skin turning grey.
"You... you're a medic?" Sakura stepped toward Karin, desperate hope lighting up in her eyes. "Help Sasuke-kun! Something's wrong with him! He's in pain! Heal him!"
Karin shifted her gaze to the Uchiha.
And immediately recoiled, covering her nose with her hand as if she smelled an unbearable stench. Her face twisted in a grimace of disgust and fear.
"No," she said sharply.
"What?!" Sakura was taken aback. "But you just said..."
"I won't touch him!" Karin's voice cracked into a screech. "Can't you feel it? His chakra... it's rotten!"
She pointed a trembling finger at the black patterns of the Cursed Seal.
"That's not a wound. That's an infection. It's cold, sticky, and evil. If I try to pour my chakra in there, that filth will eat me too. I won't touch it!"
Sakura froze, stunned. She wasn't a sensor, but Karin's words sounded like a death sentence.
"But he's dying..."
"Sakura, step aside," Naruto's voice from the ground sounded quiet, but there was steel in it.
"Naruto, but she refuses..."
"She's right," he cut her off. "What Sasuke has... isn't cured by simple ninjutsu. Let her through to me."
Sakura, biting her lip, reluctantly stepped back.
Karin circled her in a wide arc, trying to stay away from Sasuke, and fell to her knees beside Naruto.
Up close, the heat from his body could be felt physically.
"You're insane," she whispered, looking at him through a cracked lens. "To burn such reserves in one fight... How are you even alive?"
"I have good genetics," Naruto chuckled, though the smile came out strained. "I need a recharge. Just a push to jumpstart the system. I'll do the rest myself."
Karin nodded. She rolled up her sleeve, revealing a forearm covered in old bite scars.
"Bite. Just don't be greedy."
Uzumaki didn't hesitate. Now was not the time or place for false modesty.
He lifted his head and clamped his teeth on her skin.
FLASH.
Karin's eyes widened.
Usually, when she was used as a medkit, she felt a cold emptiness—life was simply being pumped out of her. It was unpleasant, humiliating.
But now...
Resonance.
As soon as her Uzumaki chakra touched his system, Naruto's body responded.
It felt not like draining, but like closing a circuit.
His Qi, receiving an influx of kindred Yang energy, instantly flared, restarting the empty meridians.
Naruto felt a rush of pure adrenaline surge through his veins. The heat began to subside. Muscles, clogged with lactic acid and Fox chakra, relaxed and filled with new strength.
He unclenched his jaws.
No bite marks remained on Karin's arm—Naruto's regeneration, amplified by her chakra, healed her as well at the moment of contact.
"Enough."
He exhaled a cloud of steam. Sat up with a jerk. Then stood.
Vertebrae cracked.
Sakura looked at him with awestruck horror. A minute ago he couldn't move at all. Now he stood rolling his shoulders, looking... ready to fight again.
"Thank you," Naruto nodded to Karin. "Your chakra... is very nutritious."
Karin sat on the ground, a blush flooding her cheeks. She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling the strange warmth left after the contact.
He... he's warm. Not like those in the Grass. And not like that dark guy. He's like the sun.
Uzumaki walked past her to the tree where Sasuke lay.
He squatted down, carefully examining the black patterns on his comrade's neck.
Qi Sensory scanned the structure of the Seal.
"Just as I thought," he said gloomily. "It's the same thing Anko-san has."
"The proctor?" Sakura asked.
"A parasite," Naruto explained without touching the patterns. "Orochimaru left a piece of his will and chakra in him. It's not just a mark. He's trying to rewrite Sasuke's body to suit himself. She's right—healing this with normal chakra is useless. It will only feed the parasite."
He stood up.
"We need to get to Kakashi-sensei or someone who knows Fūinjutsu. We can't help him here."
Naruto bent down and effortlessly hoisted the unconscious Sasuke onto his left shoulder. He took the body's weight onto his rigid bone structure without even bending.
He turned to the redhead.
"You're coming with us."
"Huh?" Karin blinked. "With you?"
"You're alone. I don't feel your team's presence. In this forest, a lone wolf is a corpse." Naruto looked her in the eyes. "Besides, I need a sensor to avoid meeting that monster again. You help us, we protect you until the Tower. Deal?"
Karin looked at Sakura, who was still eyeing her with distrust, then at the unconscious Sasuke radiating evil, and finally at Naruto. At his calm face. At his confident demeanor.
"Deal," she exhaled, quickly getting up and adjusting her glasses.
Naruto looked deep into the forest, to where Orochimaru had disappeared.
"We survived," he said quietly. "Now we have to make it to the end."
He jumped onto a branch, lightly carrying the load of problems that was the Uchiha.