The Konoha Newcomer pt 8 and 9 (two part special!): What's Wrong With Tenten? and Independence style!
What's Wrong With Tenten?
"One of you three get the hell over here and help me!" I yelled, the acid on the string rushing as fast as blood through an artery.
"Ninja art: Kujaku!" Sumaru cut the string just in time using his Peacock ninja art acquired from Star training. He, Hokuto and Mizura were the only ones to complete it after the training was abolished two and a half years ago. I brushed myself off, now free from the wires.
"It's about time. What in the world were you three doing? I was getting my ass kicked out there!" I scolded them.
"We're sorry, Jonathan. It takes a while for our chakra to become usable during a fight. We'd hoped you would hold them off until we were ready." Mizura bowed.
"No time for apologies, Mizura; watch out!" Zurui Datesha, the slick looking Kurokishi member, had taken this chance to jump into the action. He threw a comb shaped kunai towards Mizura's head, and it would have hit, had I not discovered my own type of jutsu at that very second.
"Freedom Style: Aegis Defense!" I said, and a sturdy wall with the emblem of the thirteen original stars of the colonies appeared in front of us. It disappeared as I released the handsign I had unknowingly made: something like the tiger seal, but the little fingers were upright as well.
"Oi, Kuro. Is that the powah you wuz talkin' about to us earlier?" said Zurui to his leader.
"It appears so. Unfortunately, his power came before we could get our hands on him and turn him to our side. Apprehending him now will be tougher than expected." replied Kuro.
Hokuto drew one of her scrolls. Opening it up, she cried,
"Starlight art: Super Star Shuriken!" From the scroll she drew a glowing five pointed shuriken that was bigger than her. She tossed it at Kuro and Zurui, moving her fingers and hands as it flew.
"Is she controlling that shuriken's path?" I asked Sumaru.
"Yes, she is," he replied, "About a year back she went to Konoha and learned this technique from one of yours. Tenten, I believe it was." The two Kurokishi members dodged it, but barely.
"Darn, so close!" Hokuto grunted. Just then reinforcements arrived. Having defeated their opponents, Naruto, Neji, Lee, and Tenten came to our aid. We were so relieved.
"Thank goodness you guys came! Just before you got here, Jonathan exerted a kind of chakra we have never seen before. The Kurokishi seem interested in it, because they just said they had plans to use him with that chakra." reported Mizura to our aid.
"Really? Well since he's on our side this can be used to our advantage." said Neji.
"Yes! It is two against eight! They have no chance of winning now!" said Lee.
"Ah, yeah? Well us twos are the strongest of the Kurokishi 'ere. We're not gonna go dahn as easy as the othas. Ninja aht: Skatin' Rush!" Zurui made wheels come out of the bottom of his shoes, and they allowed him to move fast. Very fast. We couldn't see him. We knew he was moving. You could see it in the grass and dust was flying up, but he was moving even faster than that. And before we knew it he was knocking us down one by one, hardly giving us time to get up before there was another blow on our backs, sending us back to the ground.
"N-Neji," I said, gasping for breath, "let's use our Byakugan. We might be able to isolate his chakra." I engaged my Byakugan and Neji followed suit. It barely helped. He was still moving too fast for any close range attacks to hit him. The Gentle Fist was useless here.
"Tenten!" said Neji. She looked up. "Try to hit him with weapons according to our coordinates." The kunoichi nodded.
"There!" said Neji. Tenten threw a kunai, it missed completely, but it hit someone. Naruto.
"OW! Come on, Tenten! Watch where you're throwing those things!" yelled Naruto. She ignored him.
"There!" Neji spotted Zurui again. Another kunai. Another allied hit.
"Tenten, I know he is fast, but you must be able to throw with more accuracy than that!" said Lee, who was hit by the second knife. Pretty soon she had hit everyone but Neji, Zurui, and Kuro, and not said a word about it.
"Tenten, what's the matter?" asked Neji. Zurui and Kuro smiled. Their looks told me everything. Staggering up with a knife deep in my shoulder, I called to Neji.
"N-Neji! That's n-not Tenten! Well, it is, but it's not! She's a clone or something!" I saw Neji take a closer look.
"You're right. The chakra signature is nothing like Tenten's. In fact, there's no chakra in… whatever that is at all!" he said. The fake Tenten threw another kunai, which Neji deflected with an Eight Trigrams Palm Rotation. Then he picked it up. What is he doing? I thought, barely conscious, pulling the kunai in my shoulder out and using a healing jutsu to close the wound. Even stranger, he sniffed it. Then licked it. Then bit a piece off of it! Just how strong were that Hyuuga's teeth?
"It's chocolate." he said.
"Chocolate?" I mimicked, tasting my own kunai. He was right. It was chocolate. Very sweet chocolate. I continued to heal my friends while Neji and the fake Tenten continued to battle. Apparently the remaining Kurokishi members found this amusing. They hadn't moved since the fake Tenten was found out. Did they have that much confidence in her?
"It's just as tough as normal human flesh." said Neji after striking Tenten a couple times. "Maybe…" he stopped mid sentence and rushed into deliver a medley of hits.
"Empty air palm!" he said. This chakra blast left the fake Tenten motionless. The other ninja and I looked on in awe as Neji began circling Tenten carefully, as if examining a fine work of art. Then he bit one of her hair buns off. The fake Tenten gave no objection.
"She's chocolate too." Neji nodded, chewing a little piece of Tenten. Then, right before our eyes, Neji ate all of the chocolate Tenten from head to toe, burping when he was finished.
"Whoa." we all said in unison.
"Now then," said Neji, "where is the real Tenten?"
"Now, inside you!" came a voice.
Independence Style!
"Shokora. Nice of you to join us. That chocolate clone kept them busy for a while." laughed Kuro. The female Kurokishi chimed in,
"Yes, it appears it did. It will be interesting to see what these kids will come up with to try to get their friend back."
"What do you think we're trying to do over here?" yelled Naruto.
"It doesn't matter at this point," I told them, "We need to finish off the last three members of the Kurokishi. Neji, I want you to stay back. We don't know if you getting hurt will hurt Tenten as well. Now then…" Naruto, Lee, Sumaru, Hokuto, Mizura and I all rushed into battle again in teams of two. Naruto and I squared off against Kuro, Lee and Hokuto went after Zurui, and Sumaru and Mizura began battle versus Shokora.
"I'll get you back for that jutsu you used on me, you just wait!" I yelled, charging at Kuro. I jumped, delivering a spinning drop kick that he blocked with ease.
"Heh, is that all you've got?" Kuro smiled. I smirked back.
"Nope. Now, Naruto!" I called my ally, jumping away from the block. A shadow clone came up from the ground, making almost a mirror image of the Chunnin Exams all that time ago.
"Gotcha!" exclaimed Naruto, "He's all yours, Jonathan! Hit him with everything you've got!" that comment sparked a feeling in me that I had never felt before. I felt light, like I could fly. I could see everything, I could hear everything, and I could feel everything. This must be the power that Kuro said I had. Independence.
"Independence style: American Revolution!" I announced, making the same handsign as the Aegis Defense Jutsu used. Kuro was suspended in the air, and when I spread my arms, hundreds of shards of solid chakra appeared around him. Then, I closed my arms as if embracing something and the shards impaled Kuro at every direction.
"1776!" I yelled. This process was repeated for about a dozen more waves of chakra shards, each with a different four-digit number.
"1812! 1845! 1861! 1865! 1917! 1918! 1941! 1945! 1950! 1953! 1963! 1975! 1991! 1993! 2001! That's all of them, now for the finishing blow!" Kuro fell towards the ground, but before he landed, I intercepted him with a massive blast of silver chakra from my hand. That killed him, I thought. I was right. About a hundred yards away laid Kuro, dead and motionless. The battles between the other two teams ceased entirely, everyone staring at me and the power I had just unleashed.
"My name…" I heaved, nearly out of breath, "Is Jonathan… I am… a Super-Elite Jounin of… Americagakure!"
Following that, I collapsed and fell unconscious. When I woke up, I was in the Konohagakure hospital. All my new friends from the ninja world were around my bed. All I could do was smile.
"Oh, he's awake! Thank goodness!" said Ino, hugging me.
"Ino-baka, let him go! He almost died out there!" scolded Sakura, pulling Ino away.
"What happened?" I asked.
"What do you mean what happened!? That was freakin' awesome! You were all like 'bam'! And Kuro went all 'yarg'!" yelled Naruto. While he was blabbing on about his view of what happened, Neji gave me a clearer explanation.
"After Naruto gave you the signal to finish Kuro Shuhan, you held him in the air with a strange jutsu none of us had ever seen before. While he was in the air, shards of chakra surrounded, and then pierced him. You used about sixteen waves of them, and you yelled a different number each time." The images played in my mind as he spoke. Was that really me?
"Yeah, I think I kind of remember—hey! Where's Tenten?" I shot up, looking around, "did you ever get her out of you?"
"Relax, Jonathan, I'm right here." said Tenten, moving towards the front of the crowd. "All Neji needed to do was perform a summoning jutsu and I was right out of him. He figured that out all on his own! Isn't he amazing?" I couldn't disagree, Neji is a genius. I turned to the others who went on the mission with me.
"What about Zurui and Shokora? Were they taken care of, too?" I asked. Lee, Sumaru, Hokuto, and Mizura looked down in disappointment.
"They are gone." said Lee.
"Once they saw that their leader was dead, they high tailed it out of there as fast as possible." added Hokuto.
"Then again, I don't think there is anyone who wouldn't want to get out of the way, after what you did to him." said Sumaru. I sighed,
"As long as they're out of the way, it doesn't matter. I'm just glad that everyone's ok." I hopped out of bed.
"Nu-uh, Jonathan. You're in no condition to be up and walking." said Sakura, wagging a finger at me.
"Relax, Sakura. I'm fine. Naruto's not the only one with a fast recovery rate." I assured her. She shrugged,
"If you say so." I turned to my new friends and bowed.
"Well, it's about time for me to be heading back home." I told them.
"What? No! You just got here!" said Ino.
"Yeah, we never got a chance to hang out!" said Kiba. Akamaru barked his agreement.
"I'm sorry, but even so, this whole experience has been a little bit much for me. Don't get me wrong, I love this place, and I'd live here if I could, but I now realize why I was brought here in the first place."
"And why is that?" asked Sai.
"In all of this, fighting the Kurokishi and everything, I learned that the answer is my headband," I pointed to it. "I have to turn America into a ninja nation, just like Konoha. It won't be easy, but it's what I have to do."
"So how are you going to go about doing that?" Asked Shikamaru, sitting back relaxed as usual.
"America is a massive country, touching two oceans, more than three thousand miles across and more than one thousand miles north to south. I won't be doing this alone. I have friends back home that will understand that this is the way for our country to go. We'll get everyone else to understand as well. All three hundred million of them. I don't know how long it will take, but we won't stop until we're one of the greatest ninja nations on the planet, just like Konohagakure." I told them. Everyone seemed awestruck that only a few people could turn the hearts of three hundred million people into such a different type of society.
"We'll support you all the way! Believe it!" Naruto grinned, giving me a thumbs-up sign. The other ninja then showed their approval.
"O-of course! I-if there's anything you need during your mission, feel free to call us!" said Hinata.
"The Star Village is at your disposal as well! Don't count us out!" Mizura told me. After everyone had given their two cents, they all escorted me back to the Tokyo International Airport, where we got the strangest looks. We didn't mind though. I said my last goodbyes, kissed each of the kunoichi on the cheek, and boarded my plane.
"I look forward to seeing you again!" I waved at them. Sitting back in my seat, I began to think to myself: What just happened?