The Forest of Death seemed alive, its oppressive opy casting shifting shadows that danced with every faint breeze. Neji Hyūga stood at the edge of a clearing, his Byakugan activated. His pearlest eyes gleamed faintly in the dim light, effortlessly pierg through yers of trees, rocks, and dense undergrowth.

  His teammates, Tenten and Rock Lee, waited behind him, their trust in Neji’s abilities absolute. Tenteed a hand on her pouch of ons, her sharp eyes sing their immediate surroundings. Rock Lee, ever eager, shifted his weight from foot to foot, his energy barely tained as he waited for the signal to act.

  “Neji, do you see anything?” Tenten finally asked, her voice quiet but cutting through the tense silence.

  Neji’s gaze focused, his expression remaining unreadable. He traced a disturbao the north, his enhanced vision catg fshes of movement beyond the natural barriers of the forest. Shapes blurred together, apanied by bursts of faint light that illumihe shadowy trees. “There’s a battle… about 500 meters ahead,” he said, his tone calm and even.

  Rock Lee took a step forward, his fists g in anticipation. “Is it our ce to secure a Heaven Scroll?” His voice carried a mix of excitement aermination, his ever-present drive to prove himself shining through.

  Neji nodded, but his tone carried a note of caution. “Yes, but this is no ordinary skirmish. There’s something unusual about it.”

  The air around them seemed to hum faintly, as if the forest itself was reag to the distant flieji’s sharp gaze caught fleeting glimpses of figures darting through the trees, their movements impossibly fast. Strange energy lingered in the air, its presenlike anything he’d entered in the exams so far.

  “Let’s move. Quickly,” Neji anded, his posure unshaken.

  The trio darted into the forest, their movements swift and precise as they weaved through the thiderbrush with practiced ease. Tenten moved with quiet efficy, her footsteps almost soundless, while Rock Lee’s boundless energy was tempered by his focus on their objective. Neji led the way, his Byakugan guiding them unerringly toward the disturbance.

  As they drew closer, the distant sounds of the battle greer, cutting through the natural ambiance of the forest. Metalligs rang out itently, mingling with guttural snarls that didn’t souirely human. The faint hum of energy reverberated through the trees, an unnatural vibration that set the hairs on the back of their necks on edge.

  Tenten g Neji, her brow furrowing. “What kind of fight are we walking into?”

  Neji didn’t answer immediately, his focus trained on the se unfolding ahead. “Unusual,” he finally said, his voice low. “I ’t make sense of it. It looks… chaotic —a summoni, perhaps—but the batants are young. Simir age of us..”

  “Young?” Tenteed, her surprise evident.

  Lee’s eyes widened in . “Are they in danger? We should intervene if they’re outmatched!”

  Neji’s voice remaieady, though a faint edge of curiosity crept into his tone. “It’s not what you think, Lee. These guys… they’re holding their ground, but their teiques are unorthodox. I ’t tell who they are.”

  The trio slowed their approach, ing to a stop within a cluster of dense foliage that cealed them from view. Neji’s Byakugan tio track the fight, his expressioraying a flicker of fusion as he observed. Strange bursts of light, rapid movements, and the sound of r metal filled the clearing ahead, but the details refused to add up.

  “Something about this isn’t right,” Neji murmured, his gaze unwavering.

  Teightened her grip on her on pouch. “Do we engage?”

  Neji shook his head. “Not yet. We o uand what we’re dealing with first. For now, we observe.”

  The trio remained in their cealed position, the forest around them alive with tension as they waited, watg the enigmatic battle unfold in the distance.

  When they arrive closely which be view by normal eyes, the se before them was nothing short of chaos. The air was filled with the screech of tearial and the earth-shaking roars of a monstrous, three-headed beast. The creature towered above the clearing, its grotesque body a terrifying fusion of gleamial and sinewy anic tissue. Its heads snapped and growled, eae armed with razor-sharp teeth that glinted menagly in the flickering light of the battle.

  Its massive, cwed limbs left deep gouges in the forest floor as it charged at the team from Tsukigakure. One head unleashed a barrage of energy bsts that seared the air, scorg the ground where the team desperately tried to evade. Another head lunged forward with terrifying speed, its jaws snapping shut inches from its target. The third head let out a guttural roar, the sound reverberating through the trees like an unnatural thundercp.

  “What kind of monster is this? Something like this shouldn’t be here in the in Exams,” Neji muttered under his breath. His Byakugan traced the intricate inner ws of the creature, its body revealing an advanetwork of teology interwoven with living tissue. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before, and the plexity of its design was baffling.

  The Tsukigakure team was struggling against the relentless assault. Their movements had grown sluggish, their energy visibly drained. One of their members y motionless on the ground, his injuries severe. The remaining two fought valiantly but were barely holding their own, their attempts to ter the beast’s attacks growing more desperate with each passing moment.

  Neji’s focus shifted as his Byakugan picked up another battle pying out just beyond the meical beast. His gaze sharpened as he spotted two familiar figures locked in bat: Kuro and Xero.

  The Kuro he saas not the same person he had faced during the first exam. His movements were fluid and precise, each strike nding with pinpoint accurad calcuted i. His bat style had evolved dramatically, blending martial arts with arifying use of elemental energy that Neji couldn’t identify. Sparks crackled around Kuro’s fists as he struck with devastating power, each blow geing a pulse of energy that sent his oppos reeling.

  Beside him, Xero fought with urained ferocity. His bde moved in a blur, cleaving through the swarm of meical wolves that poured into the clearing from every dire. The wolves, summoned by Saibogu Sangō, were relentless, but Xero’s strength and resilience were equally unyielding. He swung his massive on with ease, the ground shaking with every powerful strike. His golden eye gleamed with wild determination, and his ughter echoed over the din of the battle, a stark trast to the life-ah struggle unfolding around him.

  Neji’s expression remained posed, but his voice betrayed a hint of disbelief. “This isn’t the same Kuro and Xero I fought,” he murmured, his eyes narrowing as he tio observe.

  Kuro’s focus and precision were unreizable from the erratic fighter Neji had faced during the first enter. Each step, eaent, carried the weight of discipline and purpose. Xero, too, seemed transformed—his raas tempered with an instinctive uanding of the battlefield, his every strike desigo dismahe enemy forces with ruthless efficy.

  Tenten g Neji, her brow furrowing. “Kuro and Xero? Those are the ones from that day, right? The ones you said wouldn’t st long?”

  Neji nodded slightly, his gaze never leaving the se. “Yes. But they’ve ged. Drastically.”

  The trio remained hidden in the shadows, their presendetected as they watched the chaos unfold. The monstrous beast roared again, its energy bsts scorg the earth, while Kuro and Xero tio fight with a level of skill and ferocity that left even Neji momentarily at a loss.