They had quite a few objectives that they could chase after that day, but the only one Tobio wanted was to get rid of the Otogakure team. For all that they might have been children, closer to their age than anything else, he didn't like the idea of letting them free rein to commit Orochimaru's orders. Besides, he'd be denying Snake Epstein sacrifice fodder ter, making him kill even more of his grunts to bring back the first two Hokage.

  "Let's go hunting for some teams to take out," Tobio stated, if only so he could obscure the shape of his true pn. Maybe it wasn't so nice to deceive his teammates…but he was sure that if they knew the truth they'd be just as willing to help out.

  Or maybe that was his own arrogance talking.

  "Now that's a pn I can get behind," Ami smiled, her expression profoundly predatory.

  "Yeah, risking our sure win just to get into some fights…" Hibachi sighed. "Well, I guess I might as well go along just to ensure that the two of you stay alive."

  "And me?" Karin asked.

  Tobio hadn't forgotten Karin, so much as he'd perhaps…not considered her in his pns. It was a failing on his part, he'd admit. "Honestly, it's fine if you don't want to fight, or get your hands dirty here. Think of yourself as a…VIP we're safeguarding."

  "I mean, I can help if you guys need it-"

  "No," Ami bluntly stated. "S'no point in you risking yourself like that. Not that we're like, unappreciative of it, but…"

  Hibachi picked up where Ami trailed off. "What Ami is trying to say is that Team Eleven is a machine that chews up ninja and spits out corpses. Getting someone else in on it, without having trained you into our tempo is just bound to stir up trouble."

  "Oh," she blinked. "Well, if you're sure…"

  "We are," Tobio nodded, smiling her way. "But I appreciate you making the offer."

  And there was Karin's blush again, as Tobio did his best to pretend like there wasn't another twelve-year-old girl with a possible crush on him. His psyche couldn't handle facing the problem head-on. "W-Well, it was the least I could do for the guy who saved me!"

  He also did his best to ignore Ami's stare burning into the side of his head. Instead, he'd merely turn on his heel and begin to lead his pack of preteen maniacs hunting.As a unit, all the members of Team Eleven were a well-oiled machine. They'd passed the need for words ages ago, which meant that the three of them could operate with merely gnces or gestures to communicate everything they needed to. Sometimes not even that much, as the supernatural effects of Sworn Brotherhood sunk deeper into each of them.

  The closer they were as friends or otherwise, the more profound those consequences would be. Unfortunately, that didn't mean they weren't without downsides, though. Something Tobio was made aware of for the first time, as Karin kept up with them.

  "Can you give me more warning before you change directions suddenly?" Karin blurted out, having to twist suddenly in order to keep up with their serpentine pattern through the trees.

  Ah. Tobio had the good grace to at least look a little embarrassed. "Sorry," he apologized. "We're just used to reacting and moving without words."

  "It's fine, just uh, a little more warning next time? Please?"

  "Will do."

  Their pace suffered to some extent with her alongside them, but not as much as Tobio had initially feared. While Karin wasn't an athlete like the rest of his team, her stamina was better than expected for someone who constantly had their life force chomped down on. He'd y it at the feet of her Uzumaki heritage, providing at least some benefit there. She wasn't at the level of Naruto, who could run all day and night and then ask for more, but compared to your average shinobi she was definitely a cut above.

  Keeping her in their orbit as they moved required a little bit of an adjustment, though it was offset by the one thing Karin could provide to their team. As a sensor, she was basically unparalleled in the entire setting. When it came to the topic of hunting, Karin could practically sense out other teams well before they were ever seen.

  As usual, the forest was rge, but between Karin's abilities, and Tobio's own skills at tracking, there was never a question of whether or not their quarry would escape them. Merely how long it would take them to track them down.

  The answer? A few hours.

  "I see somebody," Tobio spoke, voice quiet. Contrary to popur belief, whispering carries further than just keeping your voice low. He'd been surprised when he found that out himself.

  Each of the three Oto-nin that he remembered from the series was there. Dosu, Zaku, and Kin, perched on a tree limb and seemingly talking about their next move. He didn't think they'd ambushed Team Seven yet, but he wasn't keen to allow them to do so, either.

  "That's the Otogakure team, isn't it?" Ami asked. "Do we know how tough they are?"

  "Not tough enough to beat us," Hibachi guessed. "Or Tobio."

  "Don't be cocky," Tobio piped in.

  "Is it untrue?"

  Tobio trailed off, frowning softly. "I mean, no. But getting too full of ourselves is a recipe for trouble in the future."

  Karin was in the background for their conversation, crouched as she was. "Should I just hang back for this?"

  "Yeah," Tobio effortlessly agreed. "Listen up, here's the pn…."

  They had no small amount of options when it came to properly engaging with the Oto-nin. When it came to their combat capabilities, short of squaring up against Gaara, Tobio would bet on his two idiots against most of the other teams in the forest. At least, fighting as a unit. If they had to engage with someone like Neji, or Lee, 1v1, their odds would begin to shrink rapidly. Hopefully, they'd stick to bullying groups that they could reasonably take in a fight.

  All of that said, it didn't mean he thought they should go in immediately. In fact, as dangerous as it might have been, he had a pretty entertaining idea of something to do in order to spice up the exam a little. Entertaining for them, anyway.

  When else would he get the opportunity to aura farm in front of Team Seven?

  "...Let's stalk them a bit," Tobio offered, gncing back at the rest of the team.

  "Instead of just taking them out now?" Hibachi asked, a little confused by the sudden shift in tactic.

  "Yeah," he nodded, getting more excited for the concept the more he let it build in his head. It might have been a truly childish thing to do, but Tobio was a child. He could be excused for having a little fun during these exams. "To maneuver them into a better opportunity for an ambush."

  "I mean..." Ami shrugged. "The idea has merit. And we're already well ahead when it comes to getting our scrolls." She gnced back at Karin, arching a brow the redhead's way. "Think you'll be able to keep up?"

  "I can do this pace all day," Karin challenged back. Tobio believed her, if she had even a fraction of the Uzumaki's famed physical capabilities. Compared to an average ninja like his friends, she was the end product of nearly a thousand years of space alien genetics development.

  Cn shinobi were built different.

  "Then it's settled," Tobio smiled. "Let's tail them, and see the best moment to pounce."

  Though he had a pretty good idea of when that'd be…

  Sakura?Sakura would like to be generous and admit that things had gone from bad to worse. It'd be one thing if they'd been attacked by a superior opponent, and forced to retreat with some degree of their fighting strength defunct. She could theoretically see a tactic, or a pn, that'd allow them to navigate their way from that situation.

  But the escation had been sharp, from that sort of threat to having an S-rank missing-nin assault them.

  He'd managed to completely dismantle Naruto and Sasuke in a fight, both of them she would generously(and in Naruto's case begrudgingly), admit to physically outpacing her. Or, merely even outmatching her in many of the more combat focused aspects of living as a shinobi.

  It made her realize profoundly how useless she was, as to not even manage to add anything of note to the fight. She'd been less than an asset, actively a burden that needed to be protected by her teammates. Galling, for someone who had become the top-ranking kunoichi of her css.

  If she managed to survive this exam, that inability would have to change. She swore that much to herself. Step one of that process was actually getting there, though, seeing as both of her teammates were out of commission, and she'd been up all night trying to watch over them.

  Their position wasn't so insecure though, seeing as she'd id traps. But that wasn't a guarantee against all assaults. Something she was painfully coming to realize now, faced with three different foreign ninja staring her down.

  "As of now, you're off duty. Just wake Sasuke for us," the masked one of their number asked, staring at her with a singur shown eye. "The three of us want to take him on."

  It was effort to keep the tremble from entering her voice, as she swallowed thickly. "Wh-What are you talking about?! I know Orochimaru was the one pulling your strings, so what do you want?!"

  "And with him in this condition, from the mark on his neck…! Get out of here!"

  From there, they'd almost gone right into her traps, specifically the massive log trap she'd managed to set up. For a few brief moments, she'd thought that she had them caught…

  …Until their leader blew right through the log with a keening, whining sound that came from nowhere. It was enough to turn her fledgling joy into misery, as all three ninja began to descend toward her.

  "You're a no-talent kunoichi!" Their leader cried. "And that trap was an insult!"

  And for a few seconds, she saw her life fsh before her eyes, before…

  KRA-KOOOOM~!

  It was like an explosion roared through the air from above, as a figure smmed into the bandaged leader, knocking him out of formation. The older boy grunted with pain, while his teammates also leapt back, out of the way of a rain of kunai and shuriken, as a new figure fell to the earth between her team, and the Oto-nin.

  Broad shoulders supported a truly massive bde, not unlike the kind that Zabuza had wielded. The only real difference was the sheer width of that missing-nin's sword, whereas this one was so much thinner. But something told her that the vaguely familiar figure could whip it around with just as much deadly ease.

  "You alright?"

  "H-Huh?"

  Gncing over his shoulder, with a start, she realized that she'd recognized that face. It was Nakamura Tobio, the boy who'd managed to defeat Sasuke during the graduation exams in the sparring ring. He hadn't scored as highly academically, or with some of the other tests, but in that he'd impressed quite a few of their peers with his raw skill.

  Apparently while she'd been inactive, the gap between herself and everyone else around her was only growing even wider.

  "Who the hell are you supposed to be?" The bandaged figure snarled, anger and seething clear as day in his voice.

  "Me?" It was a broad, toothy grin that spread across Tobio's face with that question, as Sakura gnced briefly at his descending teammates, and a third redhaired girl that came along with them. "I'm just a swordsman of no importance."

  "Then that means you'll have no one to mourn you when I tear you to pieces!"

  "Yikes," Ami grimaced. "This guy really loves to hear himself talk, huh?"

  Hibachi nodded in agreement. "It's typical bad guy personality habits. Guys like that can't help themselves."

  "…Kill them," the bandaged leader spoke, and with those two words, all of the ninja around her blurred into action.

  Tobio?There was no greater purpose, no deeper cause, no political machinations that Tobio needed to worry about in this fight. Just the overwhelming and simple fact that the Oto-nin were invaders, objectively working to threaten the lives of the people that he loved and cared for. It was precisely the kind of fight that Tobio loved.

  Righteous, straightforward, and he wouldn't lose any sleep at night over putting these idiots in the dirt. At the start of all of this, he might have fretted over his willingness to kill. Now, it was a chore, something that he didn't hold any particur fondness for, but was willing to do.

  It was the fight that held his affection.

  Rushing forward to meet Dosu, he felt on the periphery of his senses that Hibachi rushed to Zaku, and Ami was gearing up to face Kin. Good training for those two, while he pyed with his food a little bit, and tried out an idea he had on the way here.

  Rushing toward Tobio's raised bde, the older boy raised his thick, heavy gauntlet, looking positively gleefully murderous. "Have a taste of my Resonating Echo Dr-"

  And then the world turned to a very strange, muted silence.

  With Tobio's memory of the original series, he was able to more or less remember how this attack worked. Dosu's gauntlet was a giant speaker that generated powerful sound waves, amplified by the user's movements, but even sharper ones if the speaker was struck. Dosu could then manipute those sound waves for different effects.

  Because sound was such a esoteric concept, unless Tobio got an earthen barrier between himself and such bsts, he'd get hit. Which would then damage his semicircur canals, throwing Tobio off his game. Let alone what might happen if Tobio let it hit his center of mass.

  Yet even so, could his semicircur ear canals be fucked over if Tobio beat this prick to the punch?

  The world was silent the moment Tobio concentrated on his own biological shifting abilities, leaving him entirely focused on the fight, as Dosu bsted a concussive wave of sound his way. But Tobio was able to fight through the nausea with ease, his hearing protected in a little sealed pocket of flesh. Provided he wasn't directly struck with the speaker, this fight was a much different proposition.

  It was all down to his raw technique this time, rather than nigh-mindless rage, as he sprinted through the bst. Pain was an illusion, at best, and it helped that Tobio could just shut off the nerves that told him he was experiencing it.

  There was some mouthed excmation from Tobio's reckless charge, as the boy held up his gauntlet to take the blow being wound up. It was a fairly reasonable tactic, if it wasn't for one crucial fact; Tobio merely activated chakra flow and cut through it. And the arm behind it.

  Man, he was smart to temporarily maim himself, huh? It was the only reason this dumbass tactic would have worked, because Tobio had the resources to make it work. Not just in his abilities, but the raw flesh-working skills to pull it off. That, and the fact that Dosu's screaming must have been something abysmal judging by the expression he made.

  The sheer pain was enough to make Dosu stagger back, the smell of burned flesh in the air, as the older boy stared at where he'd been cut. Cauterized, seared bone and tissue was all that remained of the midpoint of his forearm and up, with the speaker itself truly broken. A casualty, seeing as he'd wanted to run some tests on it.

  But on the bright side, Tobio got to say unequivocally, chakra flow worked as advertised.

  Stance widening briefly, he twisted his body, the fming sword shing out once more as a wounded Dosu attempted to leap back. Not fast enough to avoid catching Tobio's massive sword sliding nearly clean through the boy's ribcage, not quite bisecting him but damn near managing it.

  It was a killing blow, the sole compassion that Tobio would afford this infiltrator who'd come to wreak havoc on Konoha. He might not have been the most loyal to the vilge as a whole, but it was where his friends were, and a damn sight better than anywhere else in their shitty world.

  Like a sack of potatoes, Dosu's body dropped, steaming as Tobio focused on undoing the mild alterations he'd performed on his ears. Sound came back in, as a sharp cry of surprise filled the air.

  "-e killed Dosu!" A feminine voice called, sounding terrified, as Tobio gnced at Kin. Which was entirely the wrong move for the kunoichi.

  Ami loved to capitalize on distractions in a fight. He'd been stabbed enough times by her in sparring to confirm that much.

  "Eyes on your opponent, bitch!" Ami yelled, kunai fshing as she had a feral grin of her own on her face.

  Kin narrowly managed to avoid getting outright cut, ducking out of the way with a swear of her own. It was a good dodge, too. She just hadn't accounted for Tobio leaping in the air, in unspoken synch with Ami's maneuvers. He was already above where she was going to be nding, one hand lifted out toward her direction.

  "Fire Burst!"

  Like the hues of hell, an orange and red confgration overtook Kin. Tobio had just enough time to see her eyes widen, before the jutsu hit her.

  The screams of people being burned alive would never quite sit well with him. He'd make his peace with it, though.

  "I had her," Ami grumbled, eyes flicking toward the writhing form of Kin in the dirt.

  "I'm sure."

  "I did!"

  "Yeah, yeah…" Tobio's attention turned toward Hibachi's fight, which…seemed like it didn't even need his intervention.

  The beanie-cd genin was in a dance with Zaku, as they were stepping lightly across the trap-den battlefield that Sakura had set up. For Zaku's part, he kept trying to dart away. Unfortunately for the sole enemy ninja left, Hibachi didn't seem keen to give him that space.

  And he had the tools to do it with, one hand maneuvering a shuriken on a ninja wire, while the other was fiercely parrying blows with a kunai. The cng of steel and the sweat on Hibachi's brow spoke of the struggle itself, but there was a determination in their friend's eyes at that moment.

  One Tobio recognized well. Those were the eyes of someone with something to prove.

  "Are we gonna go help him?" Ami asked, ready to dart in.

  "…Nah," Tobio responded, shaking his head. "Let's let him cook."

  "…What does that even mean?"

  For as long as Tobio had known Hibachi, he understood implicitly that the boy's spirit just wasn't meant for the battlefield. There was no shame in that, not everyone could be as unhinged as Tobio was. But that didn't mean he had no martial pride.

  And it was a man's romance to see that pride through to the bloody finish.

  Things went back and forth, parries, ducks, bobs and weaves, until Zaku lifted both of his hands. "I'm tired of this! Get blown away!"

  For a few brief moments, it looked as Hibachi was in the wrong position…until he cracked a smirk. "Heh."

  The reason for it wasn't immediately obvious, as Zaku's foot shifted…and triggered one of Sakura's traps. Immediately, the boy was blown away by the explosive tag, eyes wide open as he cried out, going flying through the air. It was a moment of vulnerability that Hibachi had been waiting for.

  His ninja wire fred out, twisting around Zaku's neck, as Hibachi pulled him through the air toward an awaiting kunai. There was a slick sound of flesh parting, as that kunai found purchase in the neck of Zaku. With one final twitch, the older boy dropped, leaving a heaving, tired Hibachi still standing.

  Albeit with a coolness in his eyes that hadn't been there before.

  The clearing was left quiet, with nothing but their breathing, and the cooling bodies of their foes before them. Sakura blinked, eyes wide, as she spoke gently. "I-It…Its over?"

  "Yeah," Tobio nodded. "At least for now, anyway."

  "You killed them, though…"

  "No, I did simple math. It was either subtract three promising Konoha shinobi, or subtract three foreign ninja. Would you have rather I left you to face them by yourself?"

  To that, Sakura had nothing to say, mouth gawping a little from her position standing guard over her teammates. If nothing else, he hoped it was a learning experience for her. She'd had to have seen violence on the Wave mission before, but this was the bloody face of what being a shinobi was.

  If she couldn't live with it, then better to figure it out here and now. Though something did occur to him, standing there in the clearing.

  …Wasn't Lee supposed to drop in here? Tobio remembered that happening too, distinctly in fact. Ino-Shika-Cho too, seeing as they were supposed to help out. But that foreknowledge was getting increasingly unreliable with each passing day. The more he fucked around with the timeline, the more what he remembered was becoming…loose.

  A scary thought for ter. Wasn't there something else that happened as well? That answer came in the form of a burst of malevolent chakra that brushed against his senses.

  Turning around, Sasuke was getting to his feet, arm, shoulder, and face embzoned with the curse mark.

  Oh yeah. There was still that to deal with.

  The one thing they didn't show in the anime and manga was how wrong the curse mark looked. It was like snarling, snaking lines of dark fire, burning against Sasuke's skin. Even from a distance, Tobio could sense that there was something off. Compared to his own meager sensing abilities, though, Karin's hand smacked up to her mouth in surprise.

  "...His chakra's all wrong…" She gagged, eyes wide behind her gsses. "W-What happened to him?"

  "We were attacked, by O-Orochimaru!" Sakura stuttered out.

  "Yeah, I think you mentioned that before," Ami pointed out, warily looking around. "I'm not sure if you're armed enough for having a run-in with a member of the sannin."

  "They're alive, aren't they?" Hibachi piped in. "If he wanted them dead, they'd be dead."

  "Point."

  Tobio longed to share in the general air of panic, but he couldn't let them spiral off into that paranoia. "Cool it, Ami!" He barked, gncing her way, before looking back at Sasuke.

  The boy was still getting his bearings to some degree, flexing and unflexing his hands, as a slow and distinctly malicious grin spread across his features. It looked unnatural on Sasuke's features, glee writ rge, but with an unsettling glint in his eyes that went beyond the mundane. Those were the eyes of someone who was deeply, mentally unbanced.

  Which made complete sense. The Cursed Seal was basically Orochimaru's perversion of senjutsu, making artificial facsimiles of what was closer to a holy state of becoming a Sage. In fact, when it came to his underlings, being mentally unbanced and easily maniputed was a feature, not a fw. How else was he supposed to more easily take their bodies in the case of his early demise?

  Even when he wasn't even around, Snake Epstein was ruining things for everyone else.

  "The power…flowing through me…" Sasuke murmured, flexing and unflexing his hands in wonder.

  "Are you, uh…" Tobio's mouth felt dry, as he stared at the boy. "Are you alright over there?"

  In an instant, Sasuke's head whipped toward Tobio, and it felt like a dangerous amount of attention to have on him. Though, that might have had more to do with the Sharingan swirling dangerously in his eyes. Two tomoe, fresh off the heels of fighting Orochimaru.

  "...You rescued us," he noted, voice deceptively quiet, even as his gaze flicked over to the corpses of the Oto-nin. "Why?"

  "Why?" Ami blinked. "Why would we even need a reason to rescue fellow Konoha-nin?"

  "Even when we're competing against each other? To the death, obviously?"

  Tobio frowned. "At the end of the day this is just a test. It isn't like it's impossible for anyone here to retake it in the future."

  "I can't slow down like that," Sasuke sneered. "I won't. And you're the perfect benchmark to test my progress." The expression on the boy's face wasn't normally this cruel. Aloof, maybe, that was something Tobio could attest to.

  But willfully violent like this was another thing entirely. It had to be the mark affecting his behavior.

  Sakura seemed just as taken aback by his words. "S-Sasuke, what are you even talking ab-"

  "Shut up, Sakura," Sasuke spoke, eyes narrowing. "This is between me and Tobio. He beat me at graduation…and he's been growing even stronger, hasn't he?"

  Tobio raised his hands in a pcating gesture, smiling softly. "Sasuke, let's all calm down, alright. We're all friends here, aren't we?"

  For a few glorious, brief moments, he thought that was enough. To make Sasuke see reason, or restrain himself. But then the madness in his gaze reasserted itself, and the boy was blurring toward him. His technique was immacute, and it was only the screaming of his instincts that saw Tobio jolting back to narrowly avoid the flurry of strikes.

  "Tobio!" Hibachi yelled, armed, but hardly in a state to fight against a curse-mark empowered Sasuke.

  "Stay back! He's compromised!" He warned, gritting his teeth as he twisted out of the way of a perfect haymaker.

  The worst part? Whatever he did against Sasuke, the boy was going to pick up and internalize via his magic bullshit eyes. This must have been what Rock Lee felt when he saw Sasuke use all of his moves against Gaara.

  Damn Uchiha.

  Using his sword was out of the question, just with how lethal it was, so Tobio dropped it and leaned back on his old mainstay. It was a little nostalgic to go back to mere taijutsu, as he rushed forward at Sasuke to match blows.

  The question was…what was his real goal here? To beat the shit out of Sasuke and y him out, or just try and convince him to rex? There was a potential in either option, seeing as Sakura was able to get him to stand down in the original story.

  But he had to choose now, before Sasuke beat the shit out of him. Tobio had never forgotten that the Uchiha was the more proficient technical fighter, and he wasn't sure if he'd gotten better or pteaued over the st few months.

  In an ideal world, he'd try and talk down Sasuke. But there were some things a guy just had to do, and ensuring that he at least internalized that the cursed mark wasn't that good of a powerup might be beneficial. It didn't have anything to do with Tobio's own desire to prove himself to another opponent.

  That was just snder.

  Hell, he'd even thrown away his bde because he didn't believe that Sasuke would have given him the time to sheathe it properly. So it was to be a duel of straight hands, as he tried to get the boy under control. And if Tobio was going to be honest…

  He almost lost. That galled him, more than anything else, if only because it was closer than he would have imagined. Sasuke was coming at him with violence, limbs a maddening blur that he was just barely keeping ahead of. Even worse was the fact that Tobio knew it wasn't due to his own inherent taijutsu prowess that he was managing to stay ahead.

  Mixed Blood meant that he was just stronger, faster, and just pin tougher. Every time the more technically proficient Sasuke nded a blow to his ribs, Tobio felt it, in a way he hadn't felt solid hits in a good, long time sparring with his teammates. That said, it wasn't as if he wasn't getting anything out of this fight.

  Every punch he failed to nd, every kick that Sasuke nimbly dodged, was being corrected on the spot. Depths Of The Mind was a nefarious perk, as it locked the two of them into a feedback loop. Tobio improved and formuted his own martial arts style, while Sasuke's spinning Sharingan copied it down and the Uchiha immediately threw it back out at him.

  It wasn't made better by Sasuke's cursed hickey, either. The boy was sweating bullets, face manic, as he slowly but surely started to overcome Tobio's defenses with nimble, tactical strikes. "How's it feel, Tobio?! To be on the backfoot!"

  "Your rage has unbanced you, Sasuke," Tobio panted, even as he couldn't help but smile all the same. "That is not the shinobi way, is it?"

  "Shut up and fight!" Sasuke snarled.

  "Sasuke, stop it!" Sakura cried, taking a step forward, before being yanked back by Ami.

  The purple-haired girl shot her a fierce look. "Are you crazy? Don't get between them."

  "I have to stop Sasuke!" Sakura yelled back. "He's…he's not normally like this."

  "An enraged berserker?" Karin asked, looking at the dispy with a gimlet eye.

  Hibachi clicked his tongue. "Damn Uchiha, stealing Tobio's moves…"

  "No, it…has something to do with that seal on his neck. That's where all the weird chakra is coming from," Karin guessed, squinting.

  Tobio couldn't give them any more attention, though, not when he was just trying not to lose. Even with all of his advantages, was this his limit?

  …But inside of him, he felt something begin to click into pce. Not a new power, or a hidden strength, but a solidification of his skills and abilities that had been honed over the st few months. Everything coming together, as he stared at Sasuke winding up for another kick…

  A proper technique that he could use to bring this to a close. Revival of X, at long st rising from the depths of his soul.

  It felt like a divine revetion.

  The world coming to a pinpoint head, as he ignored the yelling of his teammates and Sakura. Just the fine, singur focus on Sasuke, red eyes boring into his own. No greater concerns, like the exam, or Orochimaru's impending invasion of the Hidden Leaf, hovering in the back of his mind.

  For a few brief moments, he felt like enlightenment was crashing down onto him. Everything was the same for a few moments, and then it felt like it was coming into a new, sharper color, as he stared at Sasuke. And felt the need to keep from recoiling.

  In Buddhism, there were five poisons, klesha, that impeded your spiritual progress. Ignorance, which sprung from delusion. Attachment, which sprung from desire and passion. Aversion, more accurately transted to anger and hatred. Pride, speaking of arrogance and conceit. Lastly, Envy, the green jealousy that rotted men from the inside out.

  Enlightenment could reveal incredibly sour truths, and now the blinkers had been taken off Tobio by the dint of...whatever this new technique he made was. Now that Tobio could see clearly, unmoored by the limitations of flesh…Sasuke disgusted him on some level. It wasn't the boy's fault, but in each action he took, he unknowingly dragged his soul back from reaching that same enlightenment that Tobio had found.

  In his ignorance, he clung to the feelings of power his curse granted him. Without ever realizing that it was in fact a weakness, rather than a virtue. His ck of discernment in failing to control himself damned him even more.

  His longing for power kept him from holding this borrowed strength at arm's length.

  An infted sense of his own might was part of the reason why he even wanted to fight Tobio. To prove who was the strongest.

  Looking at the progress of others with envious eyes, rather than trying to measure himself against them. Rather than seeing how he improved over the Sasuke of the previous day. Worse than any of these other poisons in his veins, though, was the st.

  Sasuke hated.

  Himself, the vilge, but most of all his brother. It was the kind of all-consuming hatred that made him willing to put everything on a pyre for the sake of his revenge.

  These five poisons were a rot inside of people, and when he focused, Tobio could sense how they drove Sasuke. All of these animal instincts that sprung from the darkness that came before, which needed to be parted from a soul in order to reach nirvana.

  Even he wasn't free from them. But at least Tobio could recognize where he needed to begin to change.

  "I'm sorry you were hurt like this," he honestly, wholeheartedly spoke, as Sasuke's eyebrows furrowed together in confusion.

  [HIDDEN QUEST COMPLETED: CREATE YOUR FIRST MARTIAL ART TECHNIQUE.]

  [REWARD: 1x MINOR MIGHT OR ARTIFICE PERK ROLL.]?

  They were so back.

  It was as if Sasuke's next move was telegraphed from a mile away. His stance twisted, gearing up into a punch. Which was actually a feint, so he could get into position to knee Tobio in the gut. It would have worked, if he hadn't been able to read it coming.

  The world blurred.

  And then Sasuke was being flipped onto his stomach, as Tobio gently but firmly pinned him to the ground with a foot onto his back.

  "W-What…?" He asked, blinking in confusion. "I don't…how did you…"

  "All of that rage you carry in your heart without purpose keeps you from reaching your full potential," Tobio softly spoke. His own anger was a mental trigger, more of a tool than an actual description of how he felt. "Until you can let it go, though? You'll never become who you're meant to be."

  Sasuke thrashed under his foot, beginning to yell again. "I can still fight! I can still-"

  "Sasuke!" Sakura yelled, eyes bleary and wet. "P-Please, just…stop. It's over."

  That, more than anything else, seemed to take the fight out of the boy, as his curse mark began to recede, inch by inch. Before slowly, he just…fell unconscious again. "I…wasn't…strong enough…"

  With a huff, Tobio took his foot off of Sasuke's back, stretching his sore muscles. "For a guy his size, he hits like a truck."

  "Are you alright?" Karin asked, looking concerned. "That was…a lot."

  "It was kind of crazy, but if Orochimaru did show up and pnt some freaky seal on him, it'd expin those weird tattoos and markings," Ami added.

  "He did," Sakura confirmed.

  "Well, I dunno if we should stick around after all of that," Tobio pointed out. "We weren't exactly quiet."

  That, and Tobio really wanted to find somewhere quiet to roll his new perk. Even a minor perk would be really good right now.

  Ami didn't waste any time gncing over at the corpses of the Oto-nin. "Bright side? We might have solved Team Seven's scroll issue, if you haven't gotten one yet."

  There was indeed a matching scroll for what Team Seven needed. It was a bit of serendipity, too, seeing as Tobio mostly spent the intervening time pulling back his new senses. The technique he'd made was good, but sensing the worst parts of people would get old, quick.

  However, one thing did change while he was distracted. The sole blonde in the clearing woke up, yelling out incoherently.

  Naruto sat up quickly, looking around in confusion, with no small amount of tension in his body. Until he saw that there wasn't any fighting still going on. "…What did I miss?"

  Hibachi sighed. "You're gonna wanna stay sitting down for this. You missed a lot."