"Since the scrolls are gone, I'll have my servants bring some back."
Shengu Xuan's casual voice stood out sharply against Naruto's devastated wails.
Naruto clutched his hair with both hands, his face filled with despair. "Bring some back? Easy for you to say! This is the Forest of Death! Where are we supposed to find teams that just happen to have Heaven and Earth Scrolls? And this damn forest is crawling with monsters! We don't even have any bait left!"
Sasuke also forced himself to his feet. He held his neck, which still ached faintly, and stared darkly at Shengu Xuan. "Hmph. Big talk. Do you think scrolls grow on trees? That you can just pick them up anywhere?"
Although Sasuke had witnessed Shengu Xuan's strength, his deep-seated pride instinctively made him want to argue with this guy who always acted so high and mighty.
Shengu Xuan did not even glance at Sasuke. He merely raised his right hand slowly and snapped his fingers crisply in the air.
Snap!
With that sharp sound, a scene Naruto and Sasuke would never forget unfolded once again!
The shadow beneath Shengu Xuan's feet seemed to have been infused with some profoundly evil vitality and instantly began to boil! The pitch-black shadow spread rapidly across the ground like ink, staining all the scorched earth within ten meters a deep darkness.
"Bubble... bubble..."
Eerie bubbles rose from the black mire. Then pairs of eyes glowing an icy blue lit up one after another in the darkness!
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Ten Shadow Ninjas clad in black ninja garb, their faces completely obscured by shadow, rose silently from the shadowy swamp like ghosts crawling out of the depths of hell. They formed a semicircle around Shengu Xuan, protecting him at its center, and knelt on one knee as though paying homage to their one and only king.
Although there were only ten of them, the pure aura of death and slaughter they radiated instantly lowered the surrounding air temperature by more than ten degrees!
"Wh-what the hell are those things?!" Naruto fell onto his backside in fright, pointing at the Shadow Ninjas and barely managing to speak.
Sasuke's pupils contracted sharply. He instinctively tightened his grip on his kunai, his Sharingan fixed on these monsters that gave off no signs of life. He had been unconscious earlier and had not seen Shengu Xuan use the Shadowkhan to slaughter Orochimaru's snakes. Seeing them for the first time now, he was shocked beyond measure.
"Don't be nervous. They're just a few little pets I keep." Shengu Xuan slipped his hands into his pockets, his tone as casual as if he were introducing a neighbor's cat. "Go. Bring me the scrolls from every team within five kilometers. If anyone resists, play with them however you like, as long as you don't kill them."
Shengu Xuan issued his ruthless command.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
The ten Shadow Ninjas made no sound. Their figures instantly became ten black afterimages, merging into the shadows of the surrounding trees and vanishing without a trace in the blink of an eye!
They moved so incredibly fast that even Sasuke's Sharingan could only catch a faint, blurry trail!
"Wh-what exactly did you order them to do?" Sasuke swallowed, his voice trembling slightly.
"Nothing much. Just sent them to 'borrow' a few things." Shengu Xuan walked over to a relatively intact tree, leaned against its trunk, and closed his eyes to rest. "Let's wait here for a few minutes."
Meanwhile, in a dense patch of woodland two kilometers from Shengu Xuan and the others.
A Genin squad from Kusagakure was cautiously hiding in the bushes. They had just fought a hard battle and successfully seized a Heaven Scroll from a Rain Ninja squad.
"Great! We've got both the Heaven Scroll and the Earth Scroll!" Looking at the two scrolls in his hands, the captain lowered his voice excitedly. "Let's hurry to the tower. I don't want to spend another second in this godforsaken place!"
"Good thinking, Captain!" The other two members also smiled with relief.
But before their smiles could fully spread, they froze on their faces.
"Who's there?!" The captain whipped his head around, staring warily at the treetops behind him.
There was no sound, no fluctuation of chakra.
Yet, at some unknown point, three strange ninjas, pitch-black all over with eyes glowing an icy blue, had appeared among the tree shadows around them!
"What are those things? Konoha's Anbu?!" One Grass Ninja drew his kunai in terror.
The Shadow Ninjas did not answer. They merely crouched slightly, then shot toward the three Grass Ninja like black arrows loosed from a bow!
"You're asking for death! Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!" the Grass Ninja captain roared, rapidly forming hand seals.
An earthen wall rose from the ground, attempting to block the Shadow Ninjas' path.
But what happened next plunged the Grass Ninja captain into utter despair.
The leading Shadow Ninja made no attempt to dodge. He turned directly into a mass of pitch-black shadow, hugged the ground, and actually "flowed" through the gaps in the earthen wall! Then, before the Grass Ninja captain's horrified eyes, he re-formed into a human figure and slammed a fist into his abdomen!
"Urgh!" The Grass Ninja captain spewed a mouthful of blood, his whole body curling like a shrimp and turning the red of one cooked through. He flew backward, struck a tree trunk, and passed out.
Before the other two Grass Ninja could react, the other two Shadow Ninjas used exceptionally clean, decisive taijutsu to snap their arms and shatter their knees in an instant, leaving them screaming on the ground.
The entire fight took less than three seconds!
A Shadow Ninja walked expressionlessly up to the unconscious Grass Ninja captain, searched his clothes for the Heaven and Earth Scrolls, then turned into a shadow and vanished on the spot.
The same scene played out again and again in every corner of the Forest of Death.
Whether Rain Ninja skilled in genjutsu or Waterfall Ninja proficient in assassination, before the Shadowkhan, who were immune to physical attacks, tireless, and masters of consummate assassination taijutsu, they were all lambs to the slaughter, utterly incapable of fighting back.
Like a pack of merciless harvesting machines, the Shadowkhan unleashed a brutal "great scroll plunder" across the Forest of Death!
Ten minutes later.
Shengu Xuan slowly opened his eyes, still leaning against the tree trunk where he had been resting.
The shadow beneath his feet churned again.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
The ten Shadow Ninjas rose from the shadows in unison and knelt on one knee before Shengu Xuan.
Then they dumped the assorted scrolls they carried in their arms at Shengu Xuan's feet with a clatter.
Heaven Scrolls and Earth Scrolls-more than twenty in all! They formed a small mountain on the ground!
Naruto and Sasuke stared at the scrolls scattered across the ground, their jaws nearly dropping to the dirt.
"H-how is this possible?!" Naruto rubbed his eyes, unable to believe what he was seeing. "It's only been ten minutes! Did you rob every team in the whole forest?!"
Sasuke also drew in a sharp breath. As he looked at the Shadow Ninjas, his wariness of Shengu Xuan deepened once again. An ability that could silently summon such a terrifying army was simply unheard of!
"Their efficiency was passable, I suppose." Shengu Xuan casually picked a Heaven Scroll and an Earth Scroll out of the pile and tossed them to Naruto. "Hold on to these. If you lose them again, I'll throw you into a snake pit and feed you to the snakes."
Naruto fumbled to catch the scrolls, hugged them tightly to his chest, and nodded repeatedly. "Don't worry! This time, I won't let go even if I die!"
Shengu Xuan waved his hand, and the Shadow Ninjas instantly turned into shadows, merging back beneath his feet.
"Let's go. To the tower."
With his hands in his pockets, Shengu Xuan led the way toward the tower at the center of the forest.
With the scrolls secured, the rest of the journey went remarkably smoothly. The teams that had been lurking in the shadows, preparing ambushes, had already been beaten so badly during the Shadowkhan's plundering that they could no longer care for themselves. They had no energy left to come looking for trouble.
Half a day later, Team 7 arrived unscathed at the tower in the center of the Forest of Death.
They pushed open the heavy doors. The tower's interior felt rather empty and oppressive.
"According to the rules, we just have to open the Heaven and Earth Scrolls here," Sasuke told Naruto as he read the instructions on the wall.
Naruto carefully set the Heaven and Earth Scrolls on the ground and unrolled them simultaneously.
Poof!
A cloud of white smoke rose.
A man with a scar running across the bridge of his nose appeared in the white smoke.
"Hey! Naruto, Sasuke, and Shengu Xuan! Congratulations on passing the second exam!" Iruka looked at his students with a gratified smile.
"Iruka-sensei!" Naruto rushed toward him excitedly.
Iruka explained the significance of the Chunin Ninja Exams to them and acknowledged their growth.
Afterward, Iruka led them to the enormous arena at the center of the tower.
By then, quite a few teams that had passed the second exam had already gathered in the arena. Among them were Gaara's team from Sunagakure, Neji Hyuga's team from Konoha, and the Ino-Shika-Cho team.
Of course, the three arrogant Sound Ninja whom Shengu Xuan had seen while in his soul state were there too!
In the stands, Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi held a pipe between his lips as his gaze swept over the Genin below. Standing beside him were the chief examiners, Mitaraishi Anko and Gekko Hayate.
Anko searched the crowd. When she spotted Shengu Xuan's nonchalant demeanor, her body trembled involuntarily. The hand Shengu Xuan had bound with his shadow seemed to still ache faintly.
"Cough, cough..."
Gekko Hayate, his face pale and looking as though he might breathe his last at any moment, stepped forward and coughed twice into the microphone.
"Congratulations on passing the second exam. However, because the number of people who passed exceeded our expectations, before the official third exam..."
Gekko Hayate swept his gaze across the arena, his eyes instantly sharpening.
"The next exam-the preliminaries-begins now!"
Before you continue