The Girl with a Nosebleed

Though they were three idiots, they had brought Team 8 something useful.

"Ryusuke-kun, their scroll is the Heaven Scroll."

Hinata searched one of them and found a scroll bearing the character for Heaven on its seal.

"Good. We have everything we need now, so let's go find Ino and Sakura." Ryusuke nodded in satisfaction.

Meanwhile, three Shadow Clones activated their Red Eyes and searched the Death Forest for Karin.

The Death Forest was not small. Every entrance was ten kilometers from the Central Tower, meaning the distance from east to west was a full twenty kilometers.

That was nothing for the Body Flicker Technique, but it was quite a challenge for Ryusuke's Red Eye Telescopic Vision.

At first, Ryusuke thought Karin would be easy to find.

After all, aside from Naruto and Gaara, Karin and Orochimaru possessed the most chakra.

There was no need to search for Karin through the red world. He only needed to find a massive source of chakra.

Before long, Ryusuke discovered that he had been wrong.

Karin's chakra was indeed astonishing, but not at this point in time.

Right now, Karin was merely Kusagakure's mobile blood bag. She had come to take part in the Chunin Exams only to serve as a blood bag for her teammates.

Whenever her teammates were injured, they bit her to recover. Combined with her terrible treatment in Kusagakure, Karin's current chakra reserves did not match the constitution of the Uzumaki Clan at all.

Perhaps that was why her red hair had not drawn attention.

After all, plenty of people in the Shinobi World had red hair besides members of the Uzumaki Clan.

With the Uzumaki Clan's destruction, those with red hair were now the least likely to be descendants of the Uzumaki Clan—unless they possessed enormous chakra reserves.

With that in mind, the three Shadow Clones no longer swept their gazes past in haste. Instead, they carefully observed every female ninja.

More than an hour later, one Shadow Clone finally found Karin.

The Shadow Clone immediately dissolved into a puff of white smoke.

All of his memories were relayed back to the original body.

After confirming Karin's location, Ryusuke immediately led Aburame Shino and Hinata toward that direction.

Evening soon arrived.

"It'll be dark soon. We'll continue looking tomorrow."

Ryusuke said to Aburame Shino and Hinata, "I'll go find some food. You two gather firewood nearby."

After saying that, Ryusuke vanished with the Body Flicker Technique without waiting for their response.

As his figure streaked through the forest, Ryusuke formed hand seals and created a Shadow Clone.

After sending the Shadow Clone out to hunt, Ryusuke activated his Red Eye Telescopic Vision and searched the surrounding area for Karin.

Before long, Ryusuke left the range of Hinata's Byakugan Telescopic Vision and found Karin two kilometers away.

By coincidence, with night approaching, Karin had just been driven out by her companions and ordered to look for food.

Ryusuke increased the speed of his Body Flicker Technique and headed first to Karin's companions.

"You are..."

Seeing Ryusuke appear with the Body Flicker Technique, the two Grass Ninja instantly recognized him.

Just as their eyes widened in shock and they were about to say something,

the world before them abruptly underwent a heaven-shaking transformation.

One second, they had been in the forest. The next, they were in a blood-red space.

Above them floated a pair of moon-like red eyes, each containing three black tomoe that slowly rotated like pinwheels.

Several huge black iron stakes were driven into their bodies as well.

The agonizing pain made them want to scream.

However, robbed of control over their bodies, they could not even open their mouths to cry out.

To avoid any accidents, Ryusuke directly used a combined genjutsu—Demonic Illusion: Shackling Stakes Technique + Body Freeze Technique!

Crack—

The sounds of space and necks shattering rang out together. Before the two Grass Ninja's consciousnesses could return to reality, darkness had completely devoured them.

In the outside world, after snapping the necks of the two Grass Ninja, Ryusuke stored their corpses in his Space Backpack. At only one meter sixty tall, they were smaller and lighter than him.

Ryusuke then used the Body Flicker Technique again and arrived near Karin.

Karin had clearly not awakened the Mind's Eye of the Kagura yet. She was also extremely timid and did not dare hunt at all, so she could only gather edible plants.

If Ryusuke had not come, who knew whether Karin would be scolded and beaten again after bringing those things back.

But from today onward, your fate will change.

Ryusuke thought to himself.

Then Ryusuke vanished with the Body Flicker Technique and found a huge Black Bear nearby.

Ryusuke directly hypnotized the Black Bear with his Sharingan and made it walk toward Karin.

Ryusuke did not wait for the wild beast to find Karin before making his move. That would not only waste time, but also make it easy for Sasuke Uchiha to steal his chance.

He wanted to personally stage a hero saving a beauty.

It was somewhat despicable, but the outcome would definitely be countless times better than Karin's fate in the original story.

"Roar..."

The Black Bear quickly found Karin.

Its roar instantly frightened Karin, who had been crouching on the ground picking mushrooms, into collapsing onto the ground.

Watching the enormous black bear race toward her with its bloody maw open wide, Karin's little face turned deathly pale. Trembling all over, she tried to get up and flee, but at the crucial moment, her body refused to obey.

"Help... somebody help!"

As the Black Bear drew closer and closer, Karin, whose legs had gone weak, suddenly gathered all her strength and screamed, hoping for a miracle.

Whoosh—

Perhaps heaven had heard her voice, because a miracle truly appeared.

A piercing sound tore through the air as a kunai shot toward them and struck precisely into the Black Bear's head.

The poor tool bear immediately tripped flat onto the ground and could not get back up.

"Are you all right?"

At that moment, a voice that sounded incomparably pleasant—warm as morning sunlight—slowly reached Karin's ears.

Looking up toward the voice, Karin saw a tall figure descend from the sky, land in front of her, and ask with a smile.

Though the sun had already set and dusk was being swallowed by the night,

in Karin's eyes, Ryusuke was more dazzling than the sun itself, his entire body radiating golden light.

That handsome face, that gentle smile, that upright figure...

At that moment, Karin felt as if she had found the real-life model for the heroes and princes on white horses from novels and plays, as though she had found the object of her fantasies in a dream.

Gradually, Karin's eyes turned dazed.

"?"

Seeing Karin merely stare at him blankly, Ryusuke tilted his head.

I didn't even use genjutsu! Why is she so out of it?

Ryusuke bent down and waved his hand before Karin's face, then asked again, "Are you all right?"

Karin finally came back to her senses.

But when she saw that handsome face so close at hand, her breath caught again. Her cheeks swiftly turned bright red, and she hurriedly lowered her head, clenching her little hands. "I... I'm fine..."

Drip—

A drop of bright red liquid suddenly fell onto the back of Karin's hand.

Seeing this, Ryusuke was immediately startled. "You have a nosebleed, and you're still saying you're fine?"

Buzz—

Ryusuke's words instantly made white steam rise from the girl's head as though she were boiling water.

Still not recovered from her fright, the girl suddenly saw darkness before her eyes, then collapsed to the ground.