Lies

The towering trees of the Forest of Death grew densely together.

To claim as many resources as possible to sustain themselves, their enormous roots even spread across the ground.

These roots that broke through the earth twisted and intertwined, forming a natural hollow beneath the trees.

Beyond the hollow's entrance lay a patch of low grassland with a wide-open view, where enemies could be spotted immediately.

Naruto tilted his head up inside the hollow and caught a glimpse of grayish white through the dense leaves overhead.

It was the color of dawn. Team 7 had spent their first night in the Forest of Death and were now about to welcome the second day.

Naruto lowered his head and turned to look at Sasuke lying beside him.

With the night receding, Sasuke had finally stopped muttering in his sleep after an entire night.

That meant Sasuke had suppressed the power of the Cursed Seal.

Naruto curiously studied the three black tomoe-shaped marks on Sasuke's right shoulder.

Their rounded ends faced inward and their tails outward, packed closely together on Sasuke's shoulder to form an irregular circle without an outer ring.

He could feel natural energy faintly radiating from the Cursed Seal.

Naruto had long known that Sasuke could control the Cursed Seal.

But seeing Sasuke initially grasp natural energy in just one night, without any foundation or guidance, still left Naruto astonished by Sasuke's talent.

Naruto then looked up and met Sakura's gaze as she lay on Sasuke's other side.

"Naruto?"

Sakura, who had already awakened from her unconsciousness, instinctively called Naruto's name.

She looked utterly confused, with no idea where she was or what had happened before...

She merely stared blankly at Naruto, who was covered in dirt.

"You're finally awake."

Naruto breathed a sigh of relief, glad that Sakura had woken up, while still asking about her condition. "Do you feel nauseous or unwell? Anything else?"

Sakura shook her head and propped herself up, only to suddenly feel as though her head were splitting apart.

"Ugh!"

The pain made Sakura let out a soft groan.

"My head... it hurts a little..."

As she spoke, Sakura reached back and gently pressed the back of her head, finding the source of the pain.

"...That sudden wind blew me away... I think I hit my head, and then I lost consciousness."

Sakura pieced together the scattered fragments of her memories and found the reason.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?"

At Naruto's reminder, Sakura felt herself over again.

"No."

"That's good. Waking up means you're probably fine... but Sasuke..."

Naruto lowered his gaze to the still-sleeping Sasuke, avoiding Sakura's eyes.

It seemed Sakura had not noticed that she had been placed under a genjutsu.

To ensure Sakura would not discover traces of his Flying Thunder God, and to make sure she truly avoided Orochimaru,

Naruto had placed Sakura under a genjutsu before Orochimaru attacked Team 7.

It made her fall into a dream under certain circumstances, unable to distinguish reality from illusion.

That was the real reason Sakura's memories were so fragmented.

Judging from Sakura's current reaction, she probably truly believed that she had been blown away by a hurricane, struck her head on something, and suffered memory loss.

"Sasuke?" Sakura looked at Sasuke, whose body was covered in wounds. "Naruto, what exactly happened?"

Sakura desperately searched her memories, but the last clear thing she recalled was the sudden hurricane scattering the three members of Team 7.

"I don't know either..."

Naruto's answer to Sakura's question was tinged with bitterness.

"Let's sort out the information we have first."

Naruto made a suggestion.

Sakura nodded. There was no other way for now.

"First, let me tell you the time. We've already spent our first night in the Forest of Death. It's dawn on the second day now, and it'll be light soon."

Naruto's words left Sakura speechless.

She had been unconscious for that long...

"Not long after we entered the Forest of Death last night, we were hit by a fierce hurricane that scattered us."

Naruto looked at Sakura. "Sakura, you were blown away by the wind, hit something, and then lost consciousness."

"Yeah."

Sakura affirmed Naruto's summary.

"Then there was me... Just like you, that hurricane blew me far away—"

As he spoke, Naruto suddenly reached for his ninja tool pouch.

Sakura's gaze followed Naruto's hand. When his hand reappeared in her line of sight,

there was an "Earth" Scroll in it.

Sakura had never expected Naruto to take out an "Earth" Scroll.

She stared at the scroll before her, dumbfounded.

"The 'Earth' Scroll... We..."

Sakura still could not quite believe it.

The standard for passing the second exam was for the entire ninja team to gather both the "Heaven" and "Earth" Scrolls and reach the central tower of the Forest of Death within the allotted time.

It was only the morning of the second day, yet Team 7 had already completed the first objective of the exam.

"—That's what I was about to tell you. After the hurricane blew me away, I encountered enemies."

Naruto put the scroll away again and continued, "It was a full three-man team from Hidden Rain. Sakura, you should remember them too—they all wore oxygen masks."

"I remember them. Their names should be Oboro, Kagari, and Mubi!"

With Naruto's reminder, Sakura recalled the three Hidden Rain Genin with their conspicuous masks.

Oboro, one of the three, had been seated in front of Sakura during the first exam.

Then Sakura suddenly realized something. She looked at Naruto and pressed, "Naruto, you ran into all three of them by yourself?"

"That's right."

Naruto answered without the slightest hint of falsehood in his tone.

This... was naturally a lie.

But it was not entirely a lie.

Naruto really had encountered the three Hidden Rain ninja he mentioned.

Oboro among them was the first enemy Team 7 encountered in the original story, disguising himself as Naruto to approach Sasuke and Sakura.

However, Naruto's encounter with the three Hidden Rain ninja had not been the "passive" encounter he had just described to Sakura.

It had been deliberate.

The tree hollow where Team 7 was now hiding had not so much been found by Naruto

as taken by Naruto from Oboro, Kagari, and Mubi with the perception of the Wind Caress Dawn Technique.

Naruto had merely switched around the order of when he encountered the three.

After all, Naruto had been scattered from Sasuke and Sakura by the hurricane.

He needed to have run into some "accident" that delayed him.

Only then could he reasonably arrive "late," after everything had already been settled when he returned to Team 7.

"It took me a long time to barely defeat the three of them."

"By the time I found Sasuke, he was already covered in injuries and unconscious. The area nearby had also been devastated—there were trees and earth burned by Fire Release, as well as a giant python killed by shuriken."

Naruto appropriately added some details from after the battle to his account. "My Shadow Clone found you. After that, my clone and I carried the unconscious two of you to this tree hollow and stayed here until dawn on the second day."

After listening to Naruto recount the entire course of events, Sakura's gaze shifted between Naruto and Sasuke.

She lowered her eyes, hiding the emotion in them so Naruto would not see.

I was useless again... When Naruto and Sasuke were in danger, I slept alone without knowing anything...