Hanako stretched her arms out above her head, popping something in her back as she and the other passing genin followed a yelling Anko Mitarashi out of the Academy.

"Well, that was certainly interesting," Kabuto said as he wiped non-existent dirt from his glasses. "Had I known, I wouldn't have tried so hard to answer every question."

Hanako hadn't tried at all. She distinctly remembered Naruto turning in a blank test and still getting through, so she just turned over her test and waited for the hour to be over. It proved a good opportunity to go over her plan for the Forest of Death.

She'd long ago familiarized herself with Training Ground 44, letting her dogs loose among the trees so they could scope it out, too. She knew how to get to the tower in its center from every gate, the nesting grounds of every dangerous beast, and, most importantly, where all the Anbu emergency tags were hidden.

The only issue was her team.

It would likely be impossible to interfere with Orochimaru's plans with his henchmen on her tail.

With a sigh, she reached into her seal, the pain of activation an old, familiar ache. She pulled out an icy cold can of tea and popped the tab.

"Huh? Where'd you get that?"

She turned to Kankuro with wide eyes, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and hiding her face with the motion. "You want one?"

He blanched as she pulled out another one, flinching comically back as she held it out to him. Temari rolled her eyes and took it.

"Thanks, Hatake." Her can opened with a hiss and she took a shallow sip. "Does that hurt?"

Hanako looked down at her chest. "Yeah, actually. I'm used to it, though."

The taller girl looked like she might say more, but Naruto's nonsense with Anko drew everyone's attention.

Some things just couldn't be changed, huh? Hanako's focus narrowed on the Kusa ninja with the tongue—eugh. Had Orochimaru already taken her face? Was that him, right there? Was there anything she could do to keep him away from Sasuke and Naruto?

"Good luck, you guys," she said to the Suna team, voice carefully casual. "See you on the other side."

She and her team walked through the crowd and past maybe-Orochimaru. Hanako kept her gaze set dead ahead, not even sparing a glance for who might be the catalyst of nearly every canon conflict from then on. She accepted her waver and approached the hut against the fence to turn it in. Once she, Kabuto, and Yoroi had officially signed their lives away, they were supplied with an Earth Scroll.

Kabuto looked down at her with a smile. "I'll leave this to you, Hatake-chan."

She took it and made a show of placing it into her thigh pouch. When both her hand and the scroll were concealed, she activated the seal on her palm and swallowed the scroll. That done, she pulled out her hand and buckled the pouch closed, meeting Kabuto's eyes with a nod.

The three of them walked up to gate 38 and Hanako had to take a deep, deep breath to steady her mounting anxiety. She'd spent the last six years planning almost exclusively for these exams, but those years had also made it clear that canon wasn't set in stone. Orochimaru wasn't a character that popped into being the moment Kishimoto introduced him. He was a living, thinking being capable of adapting to new and changing situations—like the ones Hanako's existence likely created.

The Butterfly Effect is way scarier in reality.

Hopefully—wait, no, that's awful—Orochimaru's depravity was a universal constant.

She was brought from her musings by a chunin unlocking their gate, the sound of falling chains echoing as all the other gates were opened, as well.

And they were off!

Kabuto lead the way up into the trees, leaving the fence and the ground behind. Hanako took up the spot behind him on his left, Yoroi on his right. They leapt from branch to branch, climbing higher and higher until they came to a stop in the uppermost canopy of the forest. The three of them huddled up against a wide tree trunk, squatting in a circle.

"Alright," Kabuto began, huffing and puffing with theatric fatigue. "We should be safe for a few moments, at least."

"We have five days," Yoroi added. "Many will be trying to get there first. If we hang back, we should be able to pick and choose our fights."

Hanako nodded. They were right.

"We would do well to stay up here," she said, looking down over the edge of the tree branch. "It gives us a good vantage point, and I know many of the foreign teams will be unaccustomed to traveling in tree cover. How much you wanna bet none of them even look up?"

Kabuto nodded, his smile a little more genuine and sly. "Good thinking, Hatake-chan. So, our plan as of now is to pace ourselves and stay high up. Anything else?"

Hanako hesitated before speaking. "We might want to target the rookies. They're recent graduates and might hesitate to attack fellow Konoha nin." She'd keep Sasuke out of Orochimaru's hands, even if she had to crush his trust in her to do it.

Kabuto and Yoroi gaped at her.

"Wow, Hatake-chan," Kabuto laughed. "That's really cold."

"Mah," she shrugged. "I'm on your team, not theirs."

"Yes," Kabuto's voice dripped with approval and Hanako resisted the urge to shudder under the weight of his suddenly too focused gaze. "Yes, you are."

Blegh.

She shifted her weight, falling onto one knee. "I have a plan to throw people off our trail, if you're interested." At Kabuto's nod, she pressed her palm to the wood beneath her, calling up a cloud of smoke. When it cleared, three dogs sat among them.

"These are my summons; Sano, Tetsu, and Momiji." The dogs nodded when she gestured to them. "They can henge themselves into us and lead any opponents on a false trail. They'll travel with us for at least a day, so they can get a better grasp of your personalities and how you move. They'll also adopt our scents, to throw off any trackers like Kiba Inuzuka."

Kabuto was nodding along. "They'll also be able to fight without dispelling like clones would. That's very clever!"

Well, yeah. She'd only been planning it since she first summoned Momiji.

"The princess is always clever," Sano said with a huff. "You plebs can't even hope to compare."

"Sano!" Hanako pointed a finger at the Collie. "No!"

Tetsu laughed as his packmate wilted under their master's censure. Momiji rolled her brown eyes.

"Boys."

Yoroi looked absolutely delighted. "They talk!"

"Of course, we do," Sano said with a yipping laugh. "What, did you think we were like those Inuzuka ninken?"

"Oh," Momiji scrunched her muzzle. "Don't even joke about that."

Hanako never did find out why they hated the Inuzuka dogs. Poor Akamaru always looked so put upon whenever Momiji was in the room. Wait, couldn't Tsume Inuzuka's dog talk?

"Right," Kabuto stood, one hand extended down to her. "We should find a decent campsite. Setting up a reliable system for securing a perimeter will be our focus for today."

Hanako took his hand, allowing him to pull her to her feet. He smiled down at her for a little longer than was comfortable before turning and leaping away.

Hanako followed, feeling infinitely safer with her dogs at her side. She let her body fall into autopilot as she ran through her mental file of plans.

With the dogs involved, her chances of getting word out if they did run into Orochimaru were much higher. If her memory could be trusted, Kishimoto had the snake attacking Sasuke later that day. If he stuck to that plan, then she had three options: hurry and take out Team 7 herself; hurry and save Team 7—her own team willing; or wait and hope all those years studying seals weren't for naught.

She didn't like any of those, but they were all she had.

The sudden shouts of her teammates and dogs had her looking up just in time to see the red maw of the snake's mouth as it swallowed her whole.

Rude.