Night slowly settled over the land, and the Forest of Death, noisy all day, finally shed its daytime frenzy.
An entire day of relentless, vicious fighting had swept through the dense woods like countless sudden gales, leaving scorched, blackened scars everywhere.
Broken branches littered the ground. The thick reek of blood mingled with the smell of rotting leaves and earth, lingering among the trees.
The fierce battles ended, and the raging winds abruptly stilled, replaced by an oppressive, suffocating silence and gloom.
The forest was never truly peaceful at night, but to the ninja who had survived those bitter battles, this eerie silence was the harbinger of the deadliest danger.
Hidden beneath gaps in the towering canopy, Uchiha Itachi's squad quietly rested in a secluded crevice between rocks.
All three suppressed their presence, keeping their breathing barely audible. Inuzuka Hana's summoned beast, Haimaru, lay curled at her feet.
Ears pricked straight up, Haimaru keenly tracked every faint disturbance in the woods, never relaxing for a moment.
Scattered explosions occasionally boomed deep in the forest, echoing intermittently through the night and signaling that some squads were still fighting to the death for points and a chance to survive.
But most of the forest had already been swallowed by dense darkness. Only the soft rustle of the evening breeze through the leaves remained, making the surroundings feel all the more shadowy and sinister.
Amid that silence, an utterly impassive female voice suddenly rang out across every inch of the forest through the loudspeakers installed throughout it:
"Attention, all participating squads. The current top ten teams by points will now be announced."
In the dim night, Itachi's Sharingan glimmered a faint scarlet. He slowly lifted his gaze, looking precisely toward the source of the voice through layer upon layer of foliage, his expression