"I wonder how much experience those even uglier guys up ahead..."
"...can give me?"
Sen tucked Neji beneath a tree root.
He brushed a few weeds off his trouser legs, then wiped the bloodstained mud off his hand onto the bark.
He yawned and continued ambling forward.
The deeper he went.
The darker the woods became.
The smell of rotting leaves mixed with damp air was stifling enough to make him nauseous.
Up ahead.
There came a tremendous crash as a tree trunk snapped under brute force.
"Boom!"
Then came Naruto's distorted roar.
"Give Sasuke... back to me!"
Sen quickened his pace and rounded a thorn-covered bush.
In the clearing ahead.
Naruto was now the only one left of what had been a perfectly intact pursuit squad.
His orange clothes were torn to shreds, and his face was covered in dark mud and blood.
Two grotesque-looking figures had him cornered between them.
One carried a large wooden barrel with sealing tags pasted onto it.
It was Tayuya, the flute player.
Her appearance now was downright unbearable.
Her skin had turned a sickening dark red, and several uneven bone horns had sprouted from her head.
She held that battered flute between her lips, producing a piercing sound like glass being scraped.
The other was even more disgusting.
Sakon and Ukon.
The brothers had fused into a monster with two heads and four arms.
Their bodies were covered in Orochimaru's slimy-looking cursed seal markings, as though they had contracted some horrible disease.
"Konoha's dead last."
Tayuya spat wood splinters from her mouth, her voice hoarse.
"You think you can take him from us all by yourself?"
Both of Sakon and Ukon's heads let out shrill, bizarre laughter at once.
"Just kill him. Lord Orochimaru is still waiting for this new body."
Both