Kitsune no Akuryō - Under Maintenance

For His Sake!!

    Konichiwa minna! Welcome to the next chapter of Kitsune no Akuryō. I hope you enjoy what's to come. After Naruto has woken up, he gets possessed by some unknown entity, creature, monster...thing. All the while, the second stage of the Chunin exams are underway and Team 7 must survive this death match before moving on, but will they all make it?

    Sakura and Sasuke were sprinting through the Forest of Death in the fight for their lives. They were already exhausted after running nowhere while being caught in the genjutsu, but they had to make it before the sun set or they wouldn't pass the second part of the exams. As if situtation wasn't already tense enough, Sasuke whispered, "We need to get moving?"

     "What?" Sakura asked exasperated, "How much faster do you want to go?"

     "Someone's following us," he intoned, his sharingan flaring, "and we need to get to the tower."

     "Do we even have a single scroll," the girl retorted as she caught up to him, putting every ounce of energy into moving her legs alongside him, "There's no point into going to the tower if we don't have the scrolls."

     "We've got the scrolls, now shut up and start moving."

     Sakura wanted to yell back at him that he should be doing the same but knew that he was right, so she settled for glaring at his back. She needed to conserve energy for the sole purpose of running.

    As they ran, Sasuke glanced at his teammate and asked, "Can you form a clone? We'll use them as a diversion."

    She nodded and would have rolled her eyes if she wasn't to busy running already. She moved her hands through the seals, "Bunshin no jutsu.*"

    Sasuke did the same, and the two clones jumped to the right of the fleeing genin.

    "We just have to outlast them," Sakura said through a breath.

    Sasuke nodded and continued sprinting. As they moved from tree to tree, a rush of air brushed passed them, and Sakura looked at Sasuke in surprise when he stopped her. He glared into the forest, "What do you want?"

    The genin standing across from them was the silver hair boy, the one who had fail the chūnin exams seven times.

    "I'm here to help. It seems that you've lost a member."

     Sasuke began moving, and Sakura quickly followed. She was too frazzled to argue about anything while Sasuke flared his sharingan and shot back, "What's that to you?"

     "Oh," the other said, pushing his glasses up, "are we getting feisty?"

     Sasuke didn't respond to him, but the genin said, "I thought that Konoha's mantra was to leave no teammate behind."

     Sakura groaned, "You certainly did, Konoha-ninja."

     "Hm," the genin smiled knowingly, "Kabuto."

     "What?" Sakura managed through a breath.

     "I have a name. It's Kabuto."

      "There's the tower," Sasuke spoke nonchalantly.

      It stood within three kilometer of the group. Even that felt so far...

      The kunai came racing passed Sakura's face and thudded against a nearby tree.

     "Keep going," Sasuke called, "I'll hold them off. Katon: Gōkakyū no jutsu.*"

     The girl glanced behind herself to see that they were still moving.