Preliminary Exam Begins: A Dimensionality Reduction Strike in the Forest of Death

Training Ground 44, Forest of Death.

The barbed-wire fence stood thirty meters high, with a faded warning sign hanging from the top. Wind and rain had eroded the words on it until only half remained, but everyone recognized that symbol—a skull.

More than sixty people had gathered in the clearing at the entrance. Twenty-two teams of three were spread throughout the assembly area. Some were from Konoha itself, some were Hidden Sand shinobi here for an exchange, and three Hidden Mist observers stood on a raised platform with their arms folded, looking down.

When Nawaki arrived, ninety percent of the eyes turned toward him.

Not because of him. Because of the people on either side of him.

On the left was a redhead with twin ponytails, chewing on a rice cracker, her eyes curved into crescents. Kushina Uzumaki was wearing a modified Uzumaki Clan outfit today, with the Senju Clan crest embroidered on her cuffs.

On the right was a black-haired girl with a high ponytail, twin blades at her waist, and an expressionless face. Mikoto's standard Anbu combat uniform outlined her figure sharply. The Uchiha Clan fan emblem had been removed completely, and a new patch had been sewn onto her right shoulder—the Senju Clan crest as well.

Whispers surged over like a tide.

"Is that Nawaki Senju? The one with Wood Release?"

"Isn't that Uchiha girl beside him engaged to Fugaku—"

"They broke it off. Didn't you hear? She called it off in front of the Third Hokage last week."

"Damn, the Senju Clan's lineup now..."

Nawaki ignored them. He found a clean rock by the edge of the field and sat down, took a rice cracker from Kushina, and bit down with a crunch.

"Are you nervous?" Kushina asked.

"Nervous about what?"

"The exam."

Nawaki chewed his rice cracker and looked around the assembly area. "Have you ever seen an adult get nervous about taking an exam at a kindergarten?"

Kushina thought about it. "No."

"Then there you go."

At exactly ten o'clock.

The chief examiner arrived.

Orochimaru emerged from behind a dead tree like an upright snake. He wore Konoha's standard jonin uniform, but it always looked strangely wrong on him, like human skin wrapped around something else.

"Everyone, welcome to Training Ground 44." Orochimaru's voice was neither high nor low. During pauses in his speech, his tongue occasionally flicked out to lick the corner of his mouth. "The rules are simple. Each team will receive either a Heaven Scroll or an Earth Scroll. Gather both and reach the central tower within five days to pass. If you fail to gather them—"

He paused.

"You'll stay in the forest and feed the bugs."

His snake-like eyes slowly swept over the crowd. When they landed on Nawaki, they lingered for two extra seconds.

Nawaki raised the rice cracker in his hand at him.

A tiny curve appeared at the corner of Orochimaru's mouth before he looked away.

The scroll distribution ended. Nawaki received a Heaven Scroll. Twenty-two iron gates opened at once.

Most teams rushed in like stones fired from slingshots. Speed, vigilance, tactical formations, chakra concealment—textbook-standard procedure.

Nawaki walked in with his hands in his pockets.

Kushina followed beside him, folding up the rice cracker wrapper and tucking it into her pocket.

Mikoto brought up the rear. Her twin blades remained sheathed, but her right hand rested on a hilt.

The three of them moved only slightly faster than a stroll.

"Nawaki, shouldn't we run faster?" Kushina looked around.

"Why run? The scrolls aren't going to grow legs."

"What if someone gets ahead of us—"

"Let them fight first. Once they're done and exhausted, we'll go harvest the results."

Kushina suddenly understood. "You're really devious."

"Thanks."

They walked for about twenty minutes.

Nawaki spread the Sage Body's sensory network over a range of three hundred meters. He counted the chakra signatures within range—seventeen.

Nine of them were closing in from three directions.

"They're here." Nawaki stopped.

Rustling came from above the canopy. There was a faint metallic clink in the bushes to the left. Something was buried in the ground directly ahead, and its chakra traces were fresh.

"Grass Ninja. Three teams, nine people." Nawaki turned to Mikoto. "Know them?"

Mikoto's Sharingan had already lit up. Her red gaze swept through the shadows among the trees, locking onto targets one by one.

"No. But two of their routes passed near the Uchiha Clan camp."

"Paid help." Nawaki stuffed the last half of his rice cracker into his mouth and chewed it. "Fugaku paid them to be cannon fodder."

The moment he finished speaking.

Three poison smoke bombs shot down from the canopy! Purple smoke exploded outward, instantly covering a radius of thirty meters.

"Poison!" Kushina covered her nose and mouth.

Nawaki lightly slapped the ground. A ring of Wood Walls rose beneath their feet, enclosing all three of them and blocking the poisonous smoke outside. A pale green glow seeped across the inner wall—the Sage Body's chakra filtered the lingering toxins from the air.

Nine black shadows attacked from three directions at once.

Kunai, shuriken, giant shuriken, and hidden weapons rained against the Wood Wall.

Nawaki sat inside without moving.

"Mikoto."

"Mm."

"Warm up a little. Just make sure you don't hurt Kushina."

Mikoto drew her blade.

A crack opened in the Wood Wall before her, just wide enough for one person to pass through.

A black shadow slipped through the opening.

The first Grass Ninja saw a pair of red eyes. Then his consciousness cut off.

Illusion: Instant.

The three-tomoe Sharingan's mental suppression had become an entire level stronger than it had been a week ago after prolonged nourishment by Nawaki's Wood Release vitality. The instant the Grass Ninja saw the red light, he lost control of his body. His knees hit the ground, and Mikoto struck the back of his neck with the hilt of her blade, knocking him down.

The second. The third.

Mikoto moved too fast to seem like a twelve-year-old child. Her short blade never drew blood—she used only the flat and hilt. Not because she was softhearted. There was simply no need. Killing opponents at this level would be a waste of time spent wiping the blade clean.

The fourth Grass Ninja reacted quickly. He formed the hand seals for a Substitution Jutsu, and his body turned into a log.

Mikoto's Sharingan immediately caught his real position after the substitution—behind a tree trunk seven meters to the left rear.

She did not pursue.

A branch grew from the ground beneath her feet, thin as a whip, and lashed out with a crack, flinging the man from behind the tree.

That branch had not been grown by Mikoto.

Nawaki had casually summoned it from inside the Wood Wall.

The Grass Ninja had not even climbed back up when Mikoto stepped on his chest.

Fifty-seven seconds.

All nine were down.

The Wood Wall split open, and Nawaki emerged holding Kushina's hand. He rummaged through the Grass Ninja's ninja tool bag and found an Earth Scroll.

"That's both. Let's go."

Kushina looked at the Grass Ninja scattered all over the ground, forgetting even to swallow the crumbs in her mouth. "Mikoto, you're way too fierce!"

Mikoto sheathed her blade, her expression unchanged. "Average."

"Average???"

"Yeah. In school, I threw more people than this in taijutsu class."

Kushina's eyes widened.

Nawaki had already started walking ahead.

As they passed a patch of bushes, his sage senses caught movement forty meters to the right.

Three people. Residual chakra—fresh from a fight. One of their chakra signatures was unstable, so they were probably injured.

Nawaki did not stop. He glanced over from the corner of his eye.

Through a gap in the bushes, Minato Namikaze was kneeling on one knee, with a bleeding gash on his forehead. Behind him, one teammate had a dislocated arm, while the other sat collapsed on the ground, panting heavily.

The bodies of their opponents lay crookedly nearby. Three Rain Ninja. It had been a brutal fight.

Minato looked up.

Through the bushes forty meters away, he saw Nawaki's team pass by.

Mikoto did not even have a wrinkle in her clothes. Kushina was still eating snacks. Nawaki had kept both hands in his pockets from beginning to end.

The fight Minato had used ninety percent of his strength to finish probably did not even count as a warm-up for that team.

His lips moved, but he did not call out.

Nawaki did not look at him either.

The three figures vanished beyond the tree line.

Minato crouched there for a long time. Only after his teammates called to him twice did he stand.

"Minato, are you okay?"

"I'm fine." He wiped the blood from his forehead. "Let's go. Pick up the pace."

He did not say where they needed to hurry to. He did not know whether hurrying would make any difference.

Deep in the forest. More than two thousand meters from the central tower.

Nawaki stopped.

Not voluntarily. The Sage Body's senses within him suddenly sounded an alarm—as though someone had violently yanked on his nerves.

Three hundred meters away. Underground.

Something was moving.

That chakra signature was unlike any shinobi he had ever encountered. It did not flow. It convulsed. Like something forcibly stuffed into a container, struggling to burst out.

And—

That chakra carried the aura of Wood Release.

Twisted, incomplete Wood Release, as though it had been forcibly torn from something.

Nawaki pulled his hands from his pockets.

"Both of you, get back."

Kushina and Mikoto looked at him at the same time. Since joining his team, this was the first time they had seen Nawaki deliberately wipe the smile from his face.

The soil beneath their feet began to bulge.

One mound. Two. Three.

The bulges grew larger and larger. Dense cracks spread across the ground as mud surged out through them. The surrounding tree roots snapped amid earthquake-like tremors. More than a dozen trees toppled, smashing out an open clearing.

Then—a roar exploded from underground.

It was not a human cry. It was the howl of a creature whose throat had already been altered, one that had lost the ability to speak.

"Wood Release... devour... Wood Release!!"

The earth exploded.

A grotesque arm covered in wooden tumors reached out from the ground.