As Naruto appeared through the entrance, he was surprised.
"There's a lot of participants here!"
His teammates followed behind him.
"Are you sure you're going to be okay, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked, looking at Sasuke with concern.
Sasuke touched his neck in pain, right where Anko had that strange mark made up of three tomoe. This had been Orochimaru's doing. The Ten no Juin, or Cursed Seal of Heaven, had been forcibly placed on Sasuke.
"I'm fine. You should worry about yourself instead," he said, avoiding Sakura's gaze.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, Kiba's team was gathered together, looking quite affected by all the horrible things they had gone through during the survival test.
"How's Kumagoro, Enko?" Kiba asked.
Enko was slightly injured after having to fight some bastard who had nearly broken her arms.
"Kumagoro is fine, but I'll have to wait a while before I can summon him again..."
"At least no one was seriously hurt. Besides, Shino, you were a huge help. If it weren't for your ninjutsu, we'd probably be dead right now."
Shino didn't respond and remained silent as he looked at the boy with the gourd tied to his back.
"That guy, huh..."
Letting out a tired sigh, Kiba looked at Gaara and his team.
"He's too dangerous, like a demon. My insects are afraid of him..." Shino said, looking at the tiny insects crawling across his hand.
Enko shrugged as she sat down on the floor. She was tired and had no idea what was coming next.
"I thought this would be easier," she said.
Meanwhile, Hakuto trembled in fear, hiding behind Shikamaru.
"I'm not sure I can handle this, Shikamaru. There are so many people here... and they all look really strong. I only use Genjutsu... I don't think I'll be able to do anything if they make us fight each other."
"What a pain... Stop clinging to me so much. It's uncomfortable."
"Sorry..."
"Hey, is anyone else hungry?"
Interrupting his teammates, Chouji searched through his pockets for something to snack on.
"You only ever think about food, huh..." Shikamaru said, tired and stressed.
"I already told you, food is strength to me."
"Seriously? If you keep eating that much, sooner or later you're going to have a heart attack."
As if those words were needles, Chouji felt personally attacked. This caused a displeased expression to form on his face.
"Are you calling me fat?"
"No, of course not. I never said that."
For a moment, Shikamaru felt like his life was in danger. No one should ever mention the word 'fat' in front of Chouji, because if they did, the only fate waiting for them would be a slow and painful death.
Meanwhile, everyone in the room seemed to be in high spirits. The place was large, so the number of people wasn't a problem. There were also two gigantic stone hands at the back of the room, forming the Ram hand seal.
"No matter what challenges life throws at me, I will make the flames of youth burn brightly!" Rock Lee declared, throwing kicks into the air.
He was quite calm despite everything he had gone through to protect Sakura and seeing Sasuke break someone's arms.
'Looks like she managed to pass the survival test,' Hyuga Neji thought, one of Konohagakure's most promising ninjas. Not even Rock Lee had been able to defeat him.
Standing right behind Neji was Tenten, a girl with long brown hair tied into two buns.
"We've been here for a long time. How much longer is all of this going to take?" she asked.
"I'll wait an entire year if I have to! Anything to become stronger!" Rock Lee proclaimed.
Tenten felt a little uncomfortable. It was like looking at a copy of Guy-sensei...
"You're certainly motivated. I guess that's a good thing," Tenten said. Then she looked at the last participants to enter and smiled confidently.
"That guy..."
Sasuke was surprised when he saw him, but then he smiled.
"Everyone is looking at us..."
Hinata felt a little overwhelmed by the gazes of the ninjas around them, although Ino was the complete opposite. She raised her head with a smile on her face. It was as if her expression said, "That's right, look at me. I'm amazing."
Meanwhile, the masked man saw the Hokage enter through one of the doors on the other side of the room.
"This is where I leave you, kids," he said with a sigh, as his vacation had come to an end. "By the way, I know you don't really care, but my name is Naoto. I hope we meet again in the future."
After saying that, as if his body had flickered, Naoto disappeared.
"So his name was Naoto. He should've told us that a long time ago," Ino said.
Suddenly, Kiba approached Toru's group.
"Well, look who it is. The weirdo is here."
With a somewhat arrogant smile on his face, Kiba approached Toru and looked him in the eyes. However, Enko appeared behind him and covered his mouth with her hand. Right then, she said:
"I'm really sorry. This guy fell out of his crib when he was a baby."
Ino and Hinata were a little confused by this, but apparently, Toru didn't care at all.
'Sasuke...'
Toru immediately noticed what Sasuke had on his neck. He quickly assumed that the mark was the 'gift' Orochimaru had offered him during the survival test.
'Did he seriously accept the gift?' he wondered, crossing his arms.
It was true that Sasuke wanted revenge, but accepting some strange power from a complete stranger was something he definitely wouldn't do. Sasuke had always wanted to become stronger on his own, so the most logical explanation was that he had been forced to accept that gift.
Toru frowned, somewhat worried. Things with Orochimaru were serious.