Kabuto explained how Sasuke had battled Dosu and his team.

Orochimaru frowned "That boy, looks like our underlings did not provoke him intentionally then."

"Yes! Although I could not witness the potential in him like you had asked me to..."

"I'm sure that there will be plenty of opportunities soon...."

"Kabuto! You don't understand....." Orochimaru interrupted.

"What do you mean?, Orochimaru-sama."

"That boy currently lacks a power boost, something to fuel his hatred..."

"But, Isn't Uchiha Itachi, his driving force?" Kabuto asked...

"He is... However, currently that Naruto who is on his team is doing very well to keep Sasuke safe from any danger thus not exposing any of his power or hatred..."

"Even though the boy has fought battles, he has not survived it with his life on the brink of death..."

"Yesterday's plan was to have him receive the curse seal after having a close to death battle..."

Kabuto gulped thinking back to how Orochimaru had failed as well.

"Kabuto, Dosu has handed the Earth scroll to Naruto, thus their only course of action now is to go to the tower."

"At this point, I can only try attacking when Sasuke is on his own and drops his guard during the holidays or maybe during the destruction plan. Either way, he is going to be mine."

"Okay, everyone... The plan is to reach the tower as soon as possible since we already have the scrolls that we need" Naruto announced to which the remaining three nodded.

Naruto turned to Karin at this moment since he knew that he could not afford to get her involved if Orochimaru showed up suddenly.

"Karin, would you like to go back to your teammates?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke and Sakura also looked towards Karin.

Karin thought for a minute, after which she decided to follow the group.

The group of four ran through the forest in the direction of the tower.

"Stop!" Sakura cautioned the entire group as they landed on the spot.

Sakura then formed a tiger seal using her fingers.

"RELEASE!"

she shouted, causing the scene around to change a bit.

"Genjutsu field huh?" Naruto commented after which he closed his eyes

< SAGE MODE >

A layer of orange patch appeared over both his eyelids as he tried to sense the people who had cast the Genjutsu.

In an instant, about a 100 or so zombie-like clones started to crawl all over the floor.

"eeeehhhh!!" Sakura and Karin screamed seemingly terrified of the scene.

("I have found the originals, but if these clones will not be undone even if I take them down...") Naruto thought.

I think it is time to test that jutsu then.

Naruto murmured as he prepared a set of kunais.

Naruto then threw the kunais towards the clones.

Naruto disappeared into the crowd, cleanly slashing all the zombies apart as he arrived at the location of the originals.

"crap!" ... "Not you again." one of the men spoke while the trio jumped off together.

"Sasuke!" Naruto called out.

"En" Sasuke nodded as he jumped towards the escaping three