The cries of birds and beasts rang in his ears, and Kaede Kitahara felt his vision go dark.
The trees in the Forest of Death were already towering and massive, their canopies blotting out the sky. Only part of the sunlight could filter through, barely providing some light below.
But as the sun gradually set, visibility inside the Forest of Death was steadily dropping.
For Kaede Kitahara's eyesight, however, it made almost no difference.
Awakening the Sharingan had greatly improved his vision. Even without activating the Sharingan, his eyesight was far better than that of an ordinary person.
Others did not know Orochimaru's goal, so they were extremely worried he might cause some major incident. The Third Hokage in particular was afraid Orochimaru might kill all the examinees and trigger a diplomatic disaster.
But Kaede knew Orochimaru's goal was to leave the Heaven Curse Mark on Uchiha Sasuke and eventually take over Uchiha Sasuke's body completely.
There was no way Orochimaru would start a massive fight here. If he did, the Chunin Exams would be interrupted immediately. At that point, the situation he wanted, a one-on-one confrontation with the Third Hokage, would never come together.
It was still the same principle. Kage Level powerhouses were strong, but in front of a fully organized ninja army, they still had to turn and run. There were only a handful of freaks who were exceptions, such as the Third Raikage.
But the Third Raikage had been able to stay behind alone and hold off the ninja of Iwagakure, which proved he was no ordinary Kage Level fighter. At the very least, he had already reached Strong Kage Level. Add to that the special nature of the training system passed down through his line, and the fact that Iwagakure did not have a corresponding powerhouse present at the time.
Otherwise, how could he possibly have built such a terrifying reputation?
Without the Final Round of the Chunin Exams as cover, it would be almost impossible for Orochimaru to kill the Hokage. Even with that cover, he still had to have the Sound Four use the Four Violet Flames Formation to seal off the surroundings. In the end, after adding the other two Hokage into the equation, he finally killed the Third Hokage, and even then, he paid the price of both his arms.
From this, it was clear that the Third Hokage's combat power was actually very strong. When he was young, he definitely had Strong Kage Level strength. It could almost be said that without possessing the Otsutsuki Bloodline, he had pushed everything he could do to its absolute limit.
But in this world, not having the Otsutsuki Bloodline was the biggest problem of all.
Because of this understanding, Kaede Kitahara was not particularly anxious. Still, even if he was not anxious, he did not wait around slowly either.
He was also afraid something unexpected might happen. After all, these were only his deductions. What if something went wrong?
Boom!
Suddenly, Kaede Kitahara shattered a giant snake that had popped out at him with a single punch. The giant snake had thought it had found prey, only to discover it had run into a humanoid monster.
"Let's sense where my Flying Thunder God Mark is."
Kaede Kitahara closed his eyes and began to feel for it. He had actually left a Flying Thunder God Mark on Uzumaki Naruto. Only someone as careless as Uzumaki Naruto would not mind it at all, making it easy to place the mark on him.
Soon, he identified the Flying Thunder God Mark on Uzumaki Naruto.
He did not teleport there directly. Instead, he first teleported to a nearby Flying Thunder God Mark, then rushed over from there.
Kaede Kitahara had to make sure Uchiha Sasuke received the Heaven Curse Mark gifted to him by Orochimaru.
Although the Heaven Curse Mark had all sorts of problems, and was even called an inferior version of Senjutsu, Orochimaru's soul was also hidden inside it. It could be called extremely troublesome. Even so, judging by later performance, it was still an indispensable part of Uchiha Sasuke's own combat system.
Before long, Kaede Kitahara arrived near Team 7.
At this moment, Team 7 was confronting a man dressed in Kusagakure clothing.
The three members of Team 7 were in terrible condition. At the front, Uchiha Sasuke had one hand pressed against the Kusanagi Sword and the other clutching his shoulder, letting out waves of pained cries.
Opposite him, the face of the Kusagakure ninja had already dissolved by a small half, revealing faint glimpses of pale skin underneath.
Beside Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto gripped a Rasengan in one hand and stared hard at the enemy. His eyes had taken on a faint beastlike shape. This was the effect caused by the Nine-Tails' Chakra leaking out. Around his body, ominous Chakra churned faintly.
"Who the hell are you?" Uzumaki Naruto stared at the Kusagakure ninja in front of him, disbelief still filling his eyes.
Their team's lineup was definitely not weak. Among them, the strongest, Uchiha Sasuke, already had enough strength to rival some Tokubetsu Jonin. According to Kakashi-sensei's assessment, Naruto himself had enough strength to rival an Elite Chunin. Sakura Haruno was a little weaker, but she had also reached the Chunin level.
From the moment they entered the Forest of Death, they had practically swept through everything in their way.
Yes, unlike in the original story, this time Team 7's strength had received an epic upgrade. Kaede Kitahara had largely made up for the weaknesses of all three of them.
In the original story, Hatake Kakashi had not paid special attention to the three of them in training. He had simply followed the usual rhythm of leading subordinates. They did missions, he taught them some Ninjutsu when he had time, and then they constantly polished themselves. Slowly reaching the Chunin level was only a matter of course.
At that time, Hatake Kakashi did not know the waters of the Shinobi World could run so deep, so he had not ruthlessly pushed their training. Besides, subordinate students and true students were completely different things.
True students inherited your teachings. But ordinary graduated teams, although they also called their Chunin Leader or Jonin leader "teacher," were actually in a relationship of superior and subordinate.
How much they were taught depended entirely on the teacher's mood.
It depended on performance, on mood, and in short, every team's progress was completely different.
Among the three members of Team 7, the only ones who truly counted as having a master-disciple relationship were Hatake Kakashi and Uchiha Sasuke. Kakashi had genuinely taught him many things, even passing down his signature technique, Chidori. That was no longer an ordinary superior-subordinate relationship.
But in this life, because of Kaede Kitahara, Hatake Kakashi knew the future was dangerous. He also knew the future world would have to rely on these two subordinates with astonishing potential to save it, so he paid them special attention. They even took fewer missions, spending more time on training instead, with Kaede Kitahara assisting from the side.
Because of that, Team 7's strength had improved far more than just a little compared with the original story. In the original story, how much combat power Uzumaki Naruto could display depended entirely on luck. When he exploded and borrowed the Nine-Tails' power, he could even go head-to-head with a Jonin. But when he underperformed, even dealing with ordinary Genin was a struggle, because his foundation was too poor.
Over the past few months, Kaede Kitahara had dragged him into basic training plenty of times, so Naruto's overall strength had quickly caught up.
He had even learned an Ultimate Weapon like the Rasengan.
For a Genin, mastering a highly destructive A-Rank Ninjutsu was already far beyond the standard.