"Heh... heh... heh..."
Intense yet faint panting slowly came from within a massive thicket of thorns, its branches sprawling and winding layer upon layer like a flower that occupied the surrounding giant trees and space.
"That was close..."
Then came a relieved murmur.
"Crack! Crack-crack! Crack-crack-crack!"
With that sigh of relief, several thorny branches near the center of the enormous thorn flower—almost at its very core—quietly slid down, revealing their smooth cross-sections.
"Honestly, I almost panicked so badly that I forgot I had this move."
At the spot where those thorny branches had fallen, inside a spherical hollow wrapped in countless overlapping thorny branches like the heart of a flower, a white-haired boy slowly raised his head. He glanced at the ceiling above, formed entirely of thorny branches and sealing him tightly within, then looked around at the equally impenetrable circular walls of thorns. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly as he unconsciously spoke.
"Click!"
"Click!"
At that moment, he pressed down with both hands, fully pushing the two Ninja Swords into their sheaths.
"Next, I should hurry up and recover my Chakra."
Then, as he looked at the ground covered in thorns shredded almost into broken twigs and fragments of leaves, he frowned slightly. A trace of regret seemed to pass over his face before he made his decision.
He would not return to the tree hollow. He would recover his Chakra right here.
Such a huge disturbance might attract the attention of some teams, but his current location was inaccessible from the outside. Besides, this was the Chunin Exams, and the participants were all Genin teams. Seeing a sight like this, they probably would not investigate too closely. Most would be frightened away.
Moreover, he was now at the very center of this thorn thicket. Even if