They had to stay by the tree overnight. Sasuke still hadn’t woken up and Naruto was sleeping. 

“This is so stupid Naruto,” Sakura said sitting by the tree next to Solari. “It’s totally obvious you’re just sleeping. Come on, how thick do you think we are?”

“Five more minutes,” he mumbled.

Solari got up and walked over to Sasuke. She bent down to examine him and was glad to find the cruse mark back in its original state. She knew that the Hokage would want someone to seal Sasuke’s mark, but what about her. No, I don’t want to get it resealed. Unlike Sasuke, if I get my curse mark sealed I will lose my Sharingan. Not to mention everything I had to go through because of it. She put one hand on her identical curse mark. She remembered back to when she first got it. Orochimaru had promised to make her pain go away. She remembered the Sound Four, forcing her to advance her curse mark to stage two. She smiled slightly to herself. If I went back to the Sound village right now I could probably walk around that hospital with my eyes shut. I spent so much time in there.

Sasuke opened his eyes. “Hey Sakura, tell Naruto to get up now. Sasuke is awake.”

When Sasuke got up he steadied himself on Solari’s shoulder. “You feeling okay?” Sasuke nodded. “Good, we have both scrolls, so as soon as you’re ready we’re going up to the tower.”

“I’m ready. Let’s go.” He stood on his own shaking slightly, but he quickly gained his balance.

“Right, wait one second.” She turned toward Sakura and Naruto. Naruto was sleeping on the ground, despite Sakura’s efforts to wake him. Sakura looked up at Solari who pointed to Sasuke. Sakura understood and went over to Sasuke, giving him back all his weapons.

“Naruto refuses to budge,” She said.

Solari smiled. “Let me handle this.” Walking over to Naruto, Solari kicked him in the side. “Oi, Naruto! Get up you fat lump! It’s not nap time!”

Grudgingly Naruto stood up and began to walk towards Sasuke and Sakura. Solari followed him. They all took off into the trees, with Solari leading the way.

* * *

They had been traveling for almost an hour when they came across Kabuto. Not knowing what he would be like during a competition like this, they tried to hide from him.

Kabuto stopped walking. “Nice try, but you four aren’t the best at hiding.” He pushed his glasses up and smiled.

Feeling it was pointless to stay hidden, team 7 came out of the bushes they were hiding in.

“We have both scrolls, we just want to get up to the tower,” Sakura said.

“So do I. I’m meeting the rest of my team at the tower. Why don’t we go together? I’ve done this test before. I know the layout of the forest and the kind of things people do to get the scrolls.”

“No, it’s fine. We can get there on our own,” Solari said, taking a step away from Kabuto.

“You don’t trust me do you?”

“I trust you, but not enough to let you show us around this place.”

Sakura walked up to Solari and whispered in her ear. “We should trust him. We have to get to the tower as soon as possible, for you and Sasuke-kun.”

Agreeing with a small nod, Solari stepped closer to Kabuto. “Fine, we will go with you but–” She lost her balance and fell to the ground. A pain shot through her stomach and she remembered the wound from the senbon Kin had done to her.

“Are you okay?” Kabuto asked, steadying her.

“I’m fine. Let’s go,” Solari said, pushing away from him.

“Solari you’re covered in blood,” Sakura said.

Solari looked down at herself. She was drenched in blood and her footprints were scarlet behind her. Without warning she lost her temper. “Why didn’t you tell me that? I was too busy worrying about Sasuke and Naruto, you could have told me that I was dying over here!” She still felt dizzy from loss of blood and her vision was blurring around the edges. She coughed up blood and completely lost control of her legs.

Kabuto caught her and was now holding her up completely. “No need to lose your temper. I can help you.” He held his hand over the wound. When he took it away it was healed. “You still lost a lot of blood, but you should get better now that the wound is healed.”

“How did you do that? You’re a genin, you shouldn’t be able to do medical jutsus.” Sakura looked amazed.

“I was raised by the head medic-nin in Kohona. So I know a thing or two.”

Solari was already feeling better. Hm, thing or two my butt. This is professional. I can already support myself. She pushed away from Kabuto and began to walk towards the tower. “So, are we going or not.”

They all started towards the tower. They had to go slower then they hoped until Solari was back to full strength but it was fast enough.

“So,” Kabuto said to her, “it seems like you’re the one in charge here.”

“Well, Sasuke and I came up with all the plans. Naruto is a nuisance so he makes no decisions.”

“What happened to you guys? You seem pretty beat up.”

“We were attacked by and S-class criminal who snuck in.”

“You survived? That’s amazing.”

“Thanks.”

They made it to the tower without any other problems. There were doors all around the tower and each had the name of a team on it. There were two people standing outside a door.

“Those are my teammates. I’ll see you guys inside.”

They waved goodbye to Kabuto and walked through the door labeled Team Kakashi.
There was a sign at one end of the room on the inside of the tower. Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto headed towards the sign to read it, while Solari headed towards the wall.

“What are you doing?” Sasuke said, glaring at her.

“Shut up, I need to hear something.” She put her ear up to the wall and listened. Kabuto’s team had gone into the room next to them. Solari was determined to find out more about him.

She finally heard something from the other room. “Well Kabuto, do you have it?”

“Yes I do.” There was a period of silence. “Orochimaru-sama, what do we do now?”

“What you always do.”

Solari pulled away from the wall breaking the connection.

“What was that about?” Naruto asked.

She shook her head and turned her attention to the sign on the wall.

“I tied to understand it, but I don’t get it,” Sakura told her.

Solari read the sign over. “I think we need to open the scrolls. Let’s try that.”

They opened the scrolls and found two halves of a summoning jutsu. They backed up and in a puff of smoke Umino Iruka appeared.

“Iruka-sensei!” Sakura said, excited.

“I’m glad you guys made it through this test. I was worried. How about I take you all out for some ramen at Ichiraku’s.”

“Woo-hoo! Yeah!” Naruto ran up and gave him a big hug.

“Hold on Naruto. I still have a job to do, and so do you guys.” He tried to push Naruto off, but it didn’t work and he gave up. “I have to explain what that sign means, then I’ll tell you what you can do while you wait for all the other teams to finish. This sign, in a nutshell tell you how to be the best ninja you can be. If you rely too much on ‘Heaven’ or you mind and you don’t train your body, you will be at a disadvantage. If you rely too much on ‘Earth’ or you body and you don’t train you mind, you will also be at a disadvantage. You need to have a balance of both to be a great ninja. You guys still have 3 days left in this competition.

“During that time you guys will be staying here. Unfortunately this tower wasn’t meant to have time spent in it, so you guys will stay in here. During the day you can wonder around the tower or try to stop other teams from getting here, but you have to be back in this room by sundown. I’m going to come back and check on you guys each night.” With that there was another puff of smoke came and Iruka disappeared.

TO BE CONTINUED.......let me know if you want me to tell you about upcoming chapters