Escape [Sasuke Uchiha]

Chapter 16: The Softest Gaze

In each passing second, Sakura's face slowly became less tense and a blushing reddish hue was spreading all over her face. She nodded her head at Kazuki with a small smile, before she turned to Kaito.

"You were the smartest person in the class and I was always the second one," recalled Kaito.

Sakura nodded to Kaito and then shifted her attention to me. I said with a vacant look, "You started to hate me the moment when Sasuke and I had officially become rivals back in the academy."

With that said the pinkhead finally lowered down her weapon and exhaled another sigh of relief. We Team 5 moved closer to Sakura and Kazuki asked first, "Are you alright?"

"I am just exhausted..." she replied while faking a smile.

"What happened?" I inquired, taking a step forward to Sakura.

Sakura furrowed her eyebrows. She spun around and headed to a tree – in which I finally realized – had a cave-like hole under the tree. The giant roots seemed to be acting like pillars for the cave. There were two bodies rested in the dark cave. It was no surprise that they were Sasuke and Naruto. My teammates and I followed suit.

"It's hard to explain..." Sakura started, "...a couple of minutes after we entered this forest, Naruto had to go to pee and he left. He came back but Sasuke was the first one to realize that it was an imposter, so he attacked him. After dealing with the Ame-nin, Sasuke had freed the real Naruto and we conferred about passwords that only three of us know. It was a very long password. But then we were separated by a powerful gust of the wind that came out of nowhere. Sasuke and I reunited with Naruto and Sasuke asked him about the password. Naruto managed to say it word for word, and he was attacked by Sasuke again because-"

"There's no way Naruto can memorize a long password," Kaito cut her off, sweatdropping at the moment.

We had reached the cave-like hole and we sat down next to the unconscious boys. Sakura nodded her head, "That's right. The next enemy was too strong for us. Naruto returned to us when Sasuke decided to hand over our scroll to the Grass ninja to ensure our survival. It was a mess... but Naruto interrupted the deal and began fighting with the Grass ninja and his snakes. The next thing I knew, the enemy burned our scroll and Sasuke ended the battle with a blast of fire to the enemy's face. We were surprised to see that... the Grass ninja's skin melted off and revealed another face underneath. He claimed himself as Orochimaru and..."

Sakura's voice trailed away as she stared down Sasuke's face. The three of us remained silent, waiting for the girl to say something. Our eyes – which were obviously filled with burning curiosities – were glued to the pink-haired girl's face. She seemed to be recollecting the harsh moment as her pink eyebrows quivered with a slight rapid motion. She shook her head as if trying to get rid of the memory, "And he left us just like that."

My right eyebrow rose upon hearing her words. Just like that? It is obvious to me that there was something more to it. A mysterious person who disguised as a Grass ninja left them just like that? I don't believe that at all. There must be a reason why this Orochimaru guy has joined this exam. She's hiding something...

"Wow," Kazuki shattered the silence, "you and these two boys went through hell. No wonder why these two passed out after all of that."

Sakura's eyes glanced at Sasuke and Naruto, "Yeah..."

Kaito spoke up, "Don't worry, Sakura. We are going to help you until they wake up."

"Yeah! We came here all the way from our previous spot when we heard that they passed out!" added Kazuki with an infectious grin.

"Arigato (thank you)," Sakura gave us a sincere smile before it faltered slightly as she asked inquisitively, "How do you guys know that they are unconscious?"