Sharingan No Naruto

Chapter 7: Bird of Prey

"Status report, now!" The Hokage made his way through the infirmary where Kakashi had asked to be met with a troubled look on his face.

It's not everyday that your wayward student decides to pay a visit.

"We made contact with Orochimaru in the forest, he really is here." Said Kakashi grimly.

The Hokage sighed. "Do we know what he's doing here?"

"We're not sure yet, He attacked Hyuga Neji's team and left both boys completely out cold, we're still monitoring them through the screens." Informed Kakashi, earning a thoughtful look from the Hokage.

"This has become too serious, ANBU!" The same brown haired man with a Lion mask from before showed up. "Gather a squad and go into the forest, retrieve every team still competing and get them out of there, the exams are cancel-"

"No!" Yelled out a recently awakened Anko.

"No?" Asked the Hokage

"If we cancel the exams, he's going to attack the village." Said Anko, surprising the Jounin and the Hokage.

"How do you know that, Anko?" Kakashi certainly didn't remember Orochimaru telling them he would do such a thing when they faced him off.

"She..." Anko motioned to a little snake coming out of her trench coat, "told me."

Anko was allowed to sign the Snake summoning contract back when she was still Orochimaru's apprentice, after his deflection and her return to the village he tried to get her off but much to his chagrin, the leader of the Snake clan, Manda, view Orochimaru as nothing more than a pest he did favors to from time to time and as such wouldn't honor his wishes.

The summoning clan later became divided between those who came to realize Orochimaru was a sick bastard and those who didn't care as long as they got a free meal out of helping him.

The former were the ones Anko frequently summoned.

Both groups were still a part of the same clan and as such, could be summoned by either if they so choose, hence why Orochimaru had been able to send Anko a message.

"If he's willing to attack us just to make sure we keep this going there must be a reason why he's doing this..." Mused the Hokage before something clicked on his mind.

"It's the Hyuga boy, that's what he's after..." He looked at Kakashi. "Did you see what he did to him?"

Kakashi shook his head. "We were out of the tower looking at the corpse the chunin found, we left a pair of Kage Bunshin to keep watching in our absence but they released themselves the moment they saw him in the surveillance system as instructed."

"Did you find anything?" He asked, rubbing his chin in thought.

"When we got there both him and Team 9 were long gone... we located the team, should we send a squad to retrieve them?"

Hiruzen thought about it for a moment and slumped his shoulders. "I would like to get them out as soon as possible... but it's best if we let them stay in the forest and complete the exams."

"Why would we do that Hokage-sama?" Asked Kakashi.

"He's interested in Neji, that makes Neji the key to lure him out." Hiruzen looked sternly at Anko and she immediately knew what that look meant.

"Do you think he did that to him?" Anko's voice was full of something akin to sadness and frustration when she asked that question, she received a sad nod from the Hokage as an answer.

"He knows what he did is dangerous, if he truly believes what he's doing is worth the risk then we must find out what it is."

Kakashi wasn't too thrilled about this, he knew the Hokage was right but he still didn't like it, growing as close to his team as he had it was hard for him to sacrifice another for the sake of the village.