"That's it, Sasuke!"
"No one can beat an Uchiha!"
The stadium was a pressure cooker of screams and cheers. Sasuke's victory over Gaara hadn't just been a match; it had been a statement. Konoha was strong. The last Uchiha was living proof of it.
Sitting in one of the upper sections, far from the Kage's box, the Konoha rookies were on their feet, swept up in the crowd's energy.
"Ha! Told you so!" barked Kiba Inuzuka, clapping Shino on the shoulder harder than necessary. "I knew Sasuke would kick that weirdo's ass from the Sand! Did you see that speed? Almost as fast as me!"
Akamaru, perched on his head, let out a sharp bark in agreement.
Sakura had her hands clasped to her chest, her green eyes fixed on Sasuke's figure in the arena, who raised an arm with studied indifference. "He's incredible... he won."
"Absolutely!" Ino Yamanaka agreed beside her, practically vibrating with excitement. "That technique... No one stood a chance!"
"It was a logical conclusion," Shino murmured, adjusting his sunglasses. "Sasuke's speed was the perfect counter to Gaara's absolute defense. The question is why Gaara seemed to lose control like that."
Kiba snorted. "Who cares! He lost! That's what matters!" He paused and sniffed the air.
Hinata shivered slightly, looking away from the arena. "There are... there are so many people. So much noise."
A few seats away, Shikamaru yawned ostentatiously, his hands clasped behind his head. "What a drag. It's finally over. Now we can go get something to eat."
"Yeah, barbecue!" Choji exclaimed, his attention finally diverted from the now-empty bag of chips in his lap.
"Don't get too excited, Choji," Shikamaru said, his lazy eyes scanning the crowd. "This isn't over. Not until they announce the winner of the exams." His gaze paused for a second on a motionless figure, an ANBU with a white porcelain mask, standing in one of the access tunnels. The man hadn't moved an inch during the entire fight. Strange.
Naruto clenched his fists, his jaw tight. Watching his rival achieve something so spectacular lit a fire inside him. He had to get stronger. Much stronger.
In the midst of all this human chaos, Kabuto remained impassive. The roar of the crowd was white noise, an insignificant variable in his equation. Standing with the perfect, still posture of an ANBU on duty, his mind was miles away from the celebration. He was analyzing.
An impressive display of power, no doubt, he thought, observing Sasuke in the arena. He's exceeded expectations. The boy's speed, his control... it's admirable. This ruins Lord Orochimaru's plan for a psychological fracture, which is a shame.
His gaze shifted calmly, assessing the battlefield. Militarily, the situation hasn't changed. In fact, it might even be better. The Uchiha's victory has plunged the village into a blind euphoria. They're distracted. Happy. Vulnerable. Their fall from this peak of pride will be that much more devastating.
His eyes, hidden behind the mask, moved to the Kage's Box. He saw Orochimaru, disguised as the Kazekage, applauding politely, the facade perfectly intact. And he saw the empty chair beside him. An almost imperceptible smile formed beneath the porcelain.
And the great Sannin... the legendary Princess Tsunade. True to her reputation. An undisciplined woman who preferred sake to her duties. Hiruzen brought her back as a good luck charm, but he forgot that she has always been a symbol of Konoha's decay, not its strength. A compulsive gambler, a sentimental drunk. An uncontrolled variable that has, predictably, removed herself from the board. How convenient.
The feeling of absolute control was intoxicating. Every piece was in its place. The forces of Suna and the Sound, hidden among the civilians, awaiting his signal. The colossal snakes, ready to be summoned outside the walls. And Root, Konoha's most dangerous faction, neutralized. Everything was perfectly aligned.
The game is over, Kabuto understood instantly. Brute force begins.
With a calmness that bordered on artistic, he began his own preparations. His plan wasn't to simply cast a genjutsu into the air. What he was going to do was an infection.
His gaze swept over the spectators. He needed the perfect anchor, the ideal epicenter for his plague of dreams.
The Inuzuka boy is too agitated, his chakra is a mess. The Aburame is too perceptive. The Nara... his mind is too sharp, he might detect the anomaly. The girls are at an emotional peak.
He dismissed a heavyset man to his left; his chakra network would be resilient, too much effort to subjugate quickly. He dismissed a young couple to his right; their excitement made their chakra erratic.
And then he saw her.
A frail-looking figure a few feet in front of him. She was sitting alone, wrapped in a simple, frayed robe with a neutral-colored hood. Her presence was so nondescript it was invisible. And her chakra... was simply weak.
Perfect. The ideal host.
"Hey, Shikamaru," Choji muttered, reaching into a new bag of chips. "You think the Third Hokage will notice if we sneak out for a bowl of ramen?"
"He'd notice if you breathed too loud, Choji," Shikamaru replied without taking his eyes off the field. "Besides, something's not right. Look at that ANBU."
He pointed discreetly with his chin. "He's moving."
With the fluidity of a shadow, Kabuto moved. He took two steps, a casual movement lost in the commotion of the crowd. He was now directly behind his victim. The stadium's roar was the perfect cloak for his stealth. No one paid him any attention.
Slowly, he raised his right hand. The gesture was deliberate, almost reverent. He was going to turn this humble civilian into the origin point for the village's downfall.
His hand descended, resting gently on the figure's left shoulder. The robe's fabric was rough under his fingers. The victim didn't even notice.
Perfect, Kabuto thought, a wave of professional satisfaction washing over him. Now, let the operation begin.
He closed his eyes for an instant. He focused his chakra. A microscopic needle of pure energy at the tip of his index finger. He was about to perform his own twisted version of medical ninjutsu. A parasitic chakra injection, a seed of illusion that would spread through the host's chakra network, infecting everyone nearby. The white feathers he would later release would be a simple magic trick, a distraction while the real infection spread.
He was a heartbeat away from initiating the end of Konoha. His chakra was gathered, the needle in position. He just had to—
"Looking for something, kid?"
The voice.
A low, dangerously calm, female declaration, laced with a sarcasm so cold it froze the chakra in his veins.
Kabuto's mind shut down. A fatal system error. Impossible. The figure's lips didn't move. A genjutsu within my own preparatory genjutsu? How?
The hooded figure slowly turned its head. The movement was smooth, deliberate, and every degree of rotation heightened the terror that was beginning to bloom in his chest. The hood slid back.
The face that looked at him was not that of a civilian. It was the face of a woman of legendary beauty, but right now, her face wore a sadistic smile. It was the smile of a predator that had just closed its trap. On her forehead, there was a small, violet rhombus.
Her eyes... were not the eyes of a drunken gambler. They were the eyes of a Kage on a war footing.
Tsunade Senju.
Kabuto's universe shattered. The uncontrolled variable. The piece that had removed itself from the board. She was here. She had been here the whole time. Waiting. And he... he had laid a hand on her. A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature ran down his spine.
"I was hoping for Orochimaru himself, but I guess the appetizer will have to do," Tsunade continued, her voice still echoing directly in his mind, an intimate violation of his mental defenses. "You thought I was in some gambling den, drowning my sorrows in sake, didn't you? That's what everyone thinks."
The blood in Kabuto's veins ran cold. She hadn't just detected him. She had been waiting for him. Her calm, stable chakra wasn't that of a civilian. It was that of a master of control, suppressing it to a level he didn't even think was possible.
"Because if you were looking for trouble," her voice changed, becoming an audible whisper, a deadly sound only he could hear, "you just found it."
Before the word "trouble" had finished registering in his paralyzed brain, before he could send a single signal for his muscles to jump, she attacked.
He didn't see the fist.
There was no preparatory motion, no shout. Just a blur of movement and the sharp sound of air being violently displaced. And then, the pain.
An explosion of unimaginable force slammed into his solar plexus. The wet snap of his own ribs turning to splinters. His internal organs were crushed against his spine. The air was torn from his body with such total violence that he felt his soul try to follow it.
"What the hell?!" Kiba yelled.
Kabuto's body was sent flying backward like a rag doll. The world tilted and spun. He saw the shocked faces of the spectators, their mouths open in silent screams lost in the sudden roaring in his ears. Then he saw the stone wall of the stands approaching at an impossible speed.
The impact was a second explosion. He crashed through the wall as if it were made of paper, a shower of concrete and stone debris flying around him.
In the Kage's box, the Kazekage's smile vanished, replaced by utter disbelief. Orochimaru's serpentine eyes went wide beneath the disguise. Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, did not look surprised. A grim, resigned expression settled on his face. He knew exactly what had just happened.
The crowd panicked. Cheers turned to screams of confusion and fear.
"The ANBU!" Shikamaru exclaimed, his eyes fixed on the woman who was now calmly rising from her seat, dusting off her robe. "That woman... she hit him."
Kabuto landed in the stadium's inner corridor, his body bouncing before coming to a stop in a broken, smoking heap.
The silence of the hallway was deafening. The pain was white and blinding. His mind, finally, began to reboot.
With a superhuman effort, he tried to move the fingers of his right hand. A hand seal... I need a seal... medical ninjutsu...
A shadow fell over him.
Kabuto looked up with difficulty. Tsunade stood in the ragged hole he had just made in the wall, her silhouette framed by the light of the arena. She was cracking the knuckles of the hand she had hit him with, an expression of cold determination on her face. Behind her, the chaos in the stands was a distant painting.
"My sensei is too sentimental to deal with trash the way it ought to be dealt with," she said, her voice echoing in the silent corridor. She took a step through the rubble. "He always believes in redemption, in giving people a second chance. It's his greatest strength and his greatest weakness."
She stopped in front of him, looking down. "I don't have that problem."
Panic, an emotion Kabuto rarely felt, seized him. He put all his will, all his concentration, into healing the most critical damage. A thread of green chakra began to form in his chest, trying to mend his shattered lungs. But it was too slow.
He saw Tsunade raise her other fist. He saw the bright green chakra swirling around it. He saw the finality in her eyes, the promise of a pain that would make the first blow feel like a caress.
"And another thing," she said, her voice dropping to a growl. "It sickens me to see a rat like you wearing the mask of an ANBU from my village." Her gaze hardened.
The fist descended.
Kabuto's world became sound and fury. He felt the outer wall of the stadium, a stone structure several feet thick, disintegrate at his back. He felt the sensation of weightlessness, of being thrown without control. The bright blue sky filled his vision, and then the blurry green of distant trees. The wind roared in his ears, drowning out the crowd's screams and any coherent thought.
The last image he had, from outside the stadium, was of a section of the outer wall exploding outward in a cloud of dust and debris.
His own broken body was launched, flying over the rooftops of Konoha, over the training grounds where he had once learned to fight, into the silent darkness of the forest that surrounded the village.