Orochimaru appeared! Anko's discovery!

The tall, thin man realized his arm would no longer obey him. Even the bandages on his face seemed to seep cold sweat.

"You... the Sharingan..." His throat tightened.

The figure on the treetop tilted his head slightly. His voice was quiet, yet it carried clearly across the entire clearing.

"You dared lay a hand on ninjas from our Konoha Imperial Village?"

The instant those words fell, Zuo Hao vanished.

The tall, thin man's eyes flew wide, a fleeting afterimage reflected in their cloudy depths.

Before he could react, a foot slammed into his wrist, sending the scroll flying. A knee drove into his chest immediately afterward, and the crack of shattering bones rang out clearly.

He flew backward like a torn sack, smashing through two tree trunks. Blood sprayed from his mouth, and he never got back up.

The bald giant roared and swept his Executioner's Blade toward Zuo Hao, the force of the swing gouging a deep trench in the ground.

Zuo Hao did not even look. He ducked, letting the blade skim over his head, then drove an elbow back into the giant's side and swept a foot into the inside of his knee.

The bald giant lost his balance. The Executioner's Blade slipped from his grasp and plunged into the soil as his massive body crashed to its knees. Zuo Hao was already behind him. He clamped five fingers over the man's bald head and shoved down, smashing his forehead into the ground. Dirt flew, and the giant lost consciousness on the spot.

Seeing things go wrong, the short ninja turned to flee, only to find his body rooted to the spot.

Zuo Hao's Sharingan had already locked onto him. With the terrifying visual prowess of its Three Tomoe, how could he possibly let the man escape?

In just three breaths, all three Rain Ninja had been dealt with.

Shikamaru slumped on the ground, his lips trembling. He could no longer tell whether the poisoned wound on his back or the shock of what he had just witnessed left him more speechless.

Choji was covered in blood, but he grinned, his smile looking worse than tears.

"Zuo Hao... aren't you in Team 7? What are you doing here?"

Ino knelt on the ground, her disheveled blond hair plastered against her tear-streaked face. She stared blankly at that figure, her green eyes brimming with the wild joy of survival and hurt she could not put into words.

Her lips trembled again and again before she finally cried out through her tears.

"Zuo Hao! Why... why did you only get here now?!"

Somehow finding the strength, she staggered to her feet, stumbled toward him, and seized his wrist.

His wrist was warm, just as she remembered.

Ino's tears burst free. Her entire body shook with her sobbing, yet her fingers held on fiercely, as though she feared he would vanish again the next second.

Zuo Hao glanced down at her, then looked at Shikamaru and Choji. His brow creased slightly, as if he had sensed something.

"Can you still stand? You need to leave here as soon as possible."

There was a rare urgency in his voice.

Shikamaru keenly picked up on something and forced himself to ask, "What's wrong? Didn't you already take care of them...?"

Zuo Hao did not answer. His gaze had already passed over Shikamaru and fixed on a spot deep in the woods.

A figure emerged.

He wore a Kusagakure forehead protector and had a tall, slender build. Most of his face lay beneath the shadow of a straw hat, leaving only a chin so pale it hardly looked alive.

Zuo Hao's pupils abruptly contracted. Only he knew who this "Grass Ninja" really was.

Only he knew that this seemingly ordinary ninja was one of Konoha's Sannin, the Third Hokage's most prized student, and the most dangerous, deranged, and unpredictable monster in the entire shinobi world.

Orochimaru.

With no time to think, Zuo Hao spun around and screamed at Ino and the others with all his strength.

"Run! Run! Get out of here, now!"

Ino flinched at his voice. She had never seen Zuo Hao like this before. Instinctively, she shook her head. "No... Zuo Hao, what about you? We can't leave you..."

"I said run!!" Zuo Hao's eyes were bloodshot, his voice nearly tearing apart. "This isn't a fight you can take part in! Go!"

Shikamaru reacted too. He grabbed Ino's wrist, hauled Choji up beside him, and said through gritted teeth, "Listen to him! We're leaving!"

As Ino was dragged backward, her eyes remained fixed on Zuo Hao's back, tears blurring her vision.

Zuo Hao, who had dispatched the Rain Ninja as effortlessly as a god descending from the heavens, now faced a formidable enemy. Every muscle in his body was taut, and even the back of his neck was slick with cold sweat.

"Zuo Hao! Be careful!" Ino cried desperately, her voice scattering on the wind through the dense forest.

Zuo Hao did not look back.

He stared at the approaching Grass Ninja and forced each word through his teeth.

"You'd better stay away from them."

The Grass Ninja finally stopped.

Beneath the shadow of the straw hat, an unnaturally long tongue slowly emerged and licked his pale lower lip. A low, hoarse, delighted chuckle followed.

"Hehehe... Sahiro Uchiha. I've heard so much about you. You seem very afraid of me. May I ask why? After all, I'm only a Genin from Kusagakure..."

Zuo Hao did not answer Orochimaru.

Instead, he directly released the Cursed Seal of Heaven's Aura.

"This is..." Orochimaru's voice suddenly turned cold and eerie. His tone changed, losing its mockery and taking on an excitement suppressed to its limit. "This is indeed the Cursed Seal of Heaven I've been researching... but it's not quite the same."

He took a step forward, a very low laugh rising in his throat, as though yearning for a desire to be fulfilled. "Zuo Hao, who placed that Cursed Seal on you?"

Zuo Hao raised an eyebrow and gave Orochimaru a provocative look. "Well, well. Interested in the Cursed Seal of Heaven?"

Orochimaru's eyes narrowed slightly. His tongue slipped out again, almost unconsciously, to lick his lips.

"So you really do know everything. What makes me even more curious is how you came by that Cursed Seal."

"You aren't the only person in this world researching Cursed Seals." Zuo Hao suddenly smiled. "You thought it was your own invention? Orochimaru, you think far too highly of yourself."

Orochimaru's smile turned strange and dangerous.

He said nothing as the pressure radiating from him slowly intensified.

"Since you've seen through my identity, I won't hold back."

The instant Orochimaru finished speaking, Zuo Hao's Sharingan sharpened its focus. Chakra surged around him as though it had taken physical form, ready at any moment to meet that lethal strike.

Yet at that very moment of mounting tension, somewhere outside the Forest of Death, a Konoha Ninja had gone deathly pale at the sight before him.

The Chunin assigned to perimeter security for the second exam had merely been making his routine patrol when, at the edge of the woods less than two kilometers from the entrance to Training Ground 44, he caught a stench of blood so thick it made him gag.

Holding his breath, he cautiously parted the waist-high weeds. His pupils instantly contracted, and his stomach churned.

Three corpses lay sprawled in the grass, wearing standard Kusagakure forehead protectors and gray ninja uniforms. Their faces were twisted and distorted with pain.

One man's facial skin had been peeled off whole, exposing a bloody mass of flesh. His eyes were wide open, their pupils still holding the utter terror of his final moments.

The Chunin barely managed not to vomit on the spot. He stumbled back several steps, then turned and sprinted toward the Command Post.

"Examiner Anko! S-something's happened! The exam participants from Kusagakure have been killed!" He burst into the tent, his voice shaking and his forehead covered in cold sweat.

Mitaraishi Anko was sitting at a low table in the Command Post, leisurely chewing on dumplings. At his words, she abruptly froze.

"Take me there."

At the scene, Anko crouched beside the corpse whose face had been peeled off. She extended her index finger and gently pressed the blackened skin around two tiny tooth marks on the side of his neck.

The instant her finger touched it, she recoiled as though pricked by a needle.

"This is..." Her pupils abruptly contracted, and for a moment, she stopped breathing.

She knew this method of changing faces with human skin all too well.

It was Orochimaru!

Her teacher.

Konoha's Rogue Ninja.

The madman she had once worshipped, who had cast her aside himself.

Anko's face suddenly turned deathly pale. Cold sweat slid down her temple.

"He's back..." Anko's voice was so low it seemed squeezed from her throat. "He's infiltrated the Chunin Ninja Exams."

She sprang to her feet, her gaze frighteningly cold.

She turned to the Konoha Ninja beside her, who were already too terrified to breathe loudly, and snapped, "Go to the Hokage Building immediately and report this to the Third Hokage! Tell Lord Hokage to send the ANBU here. Hurry!"