Chapter Text
No POV
Kaminari Shōta is a resident of the Land of Lightning and is trying to get home with all his merchandise intact. So, Team Gai receives a C-rank mission to escort Kaminari back to the Kumo border.
It was meant to go well.
It hasn’t so far.
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POV Change: Hyūga Neji
It is three-twenty in the morning and Neji is on watch. They entered the Land of Lightning a day and a half ago, and so far, there has been no signs of Kumo nin.
Until now.
A wave of killing intent washes over the camp and Neji can see the team tensing. The killing intent is strong, but their first-D rank was worse. Ten Kumo missing-nin drop from the trees and Gai and Tenten shoot up. With a speed that he didn’t know that she possesses, Tenten whips on her scrolls and armour.
Neji takes a second to think about why she would sleep with shoes on then realises it’s not the time.
Tenten shakes Lee awake, and shunshins over to Neji.
“Hello Konoha-nin!” one of the nin say – seemingly the leader. “I am Kumonoue no Boidobodi, and I am here to take you.”
Neji runs through his brain of those in the bingo book. Kumonoue is an S-rank kill-on-sight and the others are A through to C-ranks.
Shit.
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Neji engaged with two of the other nin- B-ranks, he believes, “Byakugan!” He yells. Everything around him comes alive with chakra, but he focuses on those he is currently fighting.
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A kunai is thrown, imbued with raiton chakra. Neji dodges.
Thirty-two palms. One nin goes down.
A ration jutsu. Neji leaps upwards, but it clips his foot.
Neji starts Gentle Fist. The nin does the stupid thing and comes towards him.
Finger tenketsu. Three abdominal tenketsu. Two shoulder tenketsu. Thirteen thigh tenketsu. Then- the massive stomach tenketsu and the brain tenketsu.
The both nin are knocked out; he seals them into body scrolls, and Neji’s tunnel-vision - he will need to fix that - clears.
Tenten has taken down three nin – who he can barely see as she is compressing and hiding her chakra - and is fast approaching Gai, who has taken down four and is fighting a fifth, and Lee, who has also taken down two and is fast approaching Gai with his chakra blazing.
Neji compresses his chakra a little and begins to shunshin towards Gai. Three seconds later, he’s next to Gai along with Lee. The tunnel-vision starts to return, and he’s completely focused on the fight in front of him. With Gai, Lee, and Neji all fighting the A-ranked nin, he doesn’t last long.
Finishing the fight and putting the body in a body scroll, Neji almost flinches, and Lee does flinch as the leader from earlier, Kumonoue’s chakra signature rippling into existence behind them. “Well, well, well… Three Konoha nin. I think you’re missing one. Oh well. I’m disappointed, she had Kumo blood in her, and was amazing at weapons wielding. Our weapons master died.” He smiles a saccharine smile, and Neji can see his chakra signature flare and he flashes through hand-signs. “Boidobodi no Jutsu!”
Neji feels his chakra become sluggish as the jutsu takes hold – Gai’s and Lee’s look the same, he sees just before his Byakugan flickers off.
Without his Byakugan, he can see the cruel glint in Kumonoue’s eyes as his voice lowers to a purr, “Oh, I have a Hyūga…” Neji feels cold rage and hatred bubble up inside him.
“I am not yours.” He spits.
“Oh yes, but you are the Main House’s. All because of that little seal. What’s it called? The Caged Bird Seal? It suits you. A little Hyūga, biting at the cage.” Kumonoue smiles again.
“And who was your father…?”
Neji zones out as the nukenin continues to drone on to provoke him. Despite the speed of his chakra, his chakra sense remains. Slowly spreading it out - like water soaking up from the ground, so Kumonoue doesn’t notice – he seeps his chakra through the land.
There! Coming from opposite directions, maybe two-hundred metres out, Tenten is coming from the east, as she was before, and there are three chakra signatures, feeling like static-foggy-slippery approaching in shunshins.
Thirty seconds later, the three nin appear- one Kumo and two Kiri nukenin.
“Hey boss.” One of the nukenin say, “Couldn’t find the body of the girl, but she’s dead ‘cause of the ‘mount of ‘lood on the ground. She ain’t be comin’ back.”
Kumonoue smiles, “good, we don’t want Konoha having a Buki Aijin, it’d be counter-productive.”
The four nin laugh, and Neji scowls. Tenten is getting closer.
“So, who’d ya get, ‘Noue?”
“Well-”
Tenten’s chakra preludes her entrance, but because of the speed she entered at, they had no time to react.
The blade on her kyoketsu-shoge slices through the neck of one of the nukenin – Neji guesses one of the Kiri, as the slippery-ice-cold feeling disappears. The blade cuts through seven centimetres of another shinobi’s bicep.
“You said she was DEAD!” Kumonoue roars.
“Suiton: Kirigakure no jutsu-” the remaining Kiri-nin gets out, chakra-filled mist covering the area.
“Fūton: Fūheki no jutsu!” Tenten yells, blowing the mist away. She sends a senbon through a pressure point on the kunoichi’s neck, knocking her unconscious, Neji blinking at the crumpled body. He didn’t know that Tenten used senbon.
Kumonoue signals the remaining other nin to attack Tenten. The shinobi pulls out a massive claymore-like broadsword. Neji is guessing it is inspired by Kubikiribōchō. The shinobi yells, “Raiton: Den kenmaku no jutsu!”
The sword becomes covered in electricity, the nukenin swinging it in a large arch, a trail of ration following the swing. The blade has the kanji of ‘電気処刑人,’ Denki shokei hito, electric executioner. The shinobi grins, “you sure you wanna fight me, little girl?”
Tenten’s expression sours. She readies her kyoketsu-shoge and starts spinning it, infusing it with some kind of chakra – Neji isn’t sure what it is, it feels like raiton, katon and doton but it’s smooth and mixed amazingly well.
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A kyoketsu-shoge is thrown. It’s deflected by Denki shokei hito. Sparks fly off the blades.
A ration jutsu is fired off. Tenten’s kyoketsu-shoge meets it, but the ninja wire threaded together to create the ‘rope’ absorbs the corrosive lighting. It begins to fray.
Tenten throws the kunai-like blade so fast it blurs in the air to Neji’s eyes. Denki shokei hito slices the rope, and the halved kyoketsu-shoge continues to fly towards the shinobi. He tries to block it, but because of the size of the blade, he lags behind his reactions. The broken kyoketsu-shoge lands in the nin’s shoulder. Tenten flicks something at the nukenin, and the next second there’s a red spit and a perfectly circular hole in his head, and the exit wound sprays out blood onto Kumonoue’s face. The nukenin falls to the ground, very dead.
“Huh.” Kumonoue looks thoughtful, “you’re great with weapons. It’s a shame I have to kill you.”
Tenten snarls, “I wouldn’t go with you anyways.”
For some reason unknown to Neji, he feels a little bit proud of his kunoichi teammate.
Tenten unsheathes her daishō, holding them at the ready. Kumonoue unseals a massive chain, maybe ten metres long, absolutely drenched with his chakra.
Kumonoue swings the chains, Tenten drops under them and shoots forward. Kumonoue charges his hand and shoves her away. The chain was in position. Flicking the chain, Kumonoue wraps it around Tenten’s daishō, and wrenches them away, saying, “if you win this fight, you get them back.” Tenten glares at Kumonoue, before beginning an entrancing dance of death.
Duck. Lunge. Swipe. Kick. Flick. Twist. Wrench. The process repeats over and over, getting faster and faster until-
Kumonoue pulls the chain around Tenten.
“What ‘cha gonna do now, little girl?” He smiles savagely.
Tenten’s head drops. Neji can feel Kumonoue’s control over the Boidobodi slip, enough so that he can activate his Byakugan, whispering a small, “Byakugan!” under his breath.
He realises he’s never actually seen Tenten when she’s fighting in his Byakugan. Her chakra is a roiling mix of doton, raiton and katon, all combined to be a smooth and almost molten-like substance.
Her chakra harmonizes into a rolling liquid. The metal of the chain starts to melt and stay on her body. Neji can see her chakra reaching out to Denki shokei hito and the sword behind her back respond, coming alive with her chakra.
Kumonoue grins again, “giving up little girl?”
Denki shokei hito is now melted, roiling and ready for Tenten’s command. The chain flares outwards, breaking, before Tenten’s chakra snares the metal. The metal around Tenten circles around her, the fight being at a stand-still.
Neji takes the time to think about how does Tenten have Kinton? He thought it was a kekkei genkai? But where is it from…?
While Neji was thinking, Kumonoue lunged outwards and Tenten flashes through handsigns, “Kinton: Sen hari no jutsu!” The metal sharpens into needles, and Neji can see what looks like strings of katon and raiton connecting them together. Tenten holds the handseal and Neji can see her chakra guiding the needles through Kumonoue’s body. Thousands of tiny holes, going in and out of Kumonoue.
Neji can see as the thread tightens, high tension for a moment before slicing off Kumonoue’s head.
Tenten waves groggily at the team as chakra exhaustion sets in, “sorry it took so long.”
And proceeds to flop on the ground, completely asleep.
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POV Change: Hiruzen, Sandaime Hokage
“Hokage-sama,” his assistant pops his head around the door, “Team Gai have returned and would like to give you a verbal report.”
Hiruzen nods, “send them in.” The assistant dips his chin and turns back around the door to get the team.
It was a C-rank. Hiruzen thinks, maybe Gai has become infected with the Team Seven C-rank curse because he spends so much time around Kakashi.
Team Gai enters the office, battered and one unconscious.
Hiruzen can already feel the headache coming on. “Welcome home, Team Gai. Report.”
Gai nods, “hello Hokage-sama…”
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“…then the client ran off as we engaged with the missing-nin from Kumo. I took down four without assistance, Tenten took three, and Lee and Neji both took two. Neji and Lee immediately came to help me with the fifth shinobi, and Tenten was sealing away body scrolls, I believe. Then, the leader of the missing-nin group- Kumonoue no Boidobodi- an S-rank kill-on-sight returned. Kumonoue entraps Lee, Neji, and I in his signature jutsu of Boidobodi, slowing our chakra rotation so it is near-impossible to move. He taunts us for five minutes, before three other nuke nin appear.
“There were two Kiri and another Kumo nin. Tenten appeared a minute later, entering with her kyoketsu-shoge. She felled one Kiri-nin when she appeared and sliced the other’s arm. The other releases the Kirigakure jutsu and Tenten counters with a Fūton: Fūheki, before sending a senbon through the nin’s neck.
“There are two remaining Kumo nukenin. Kumonoue stands back and lets the other fight. He draws Denki shokei hito, a blade similar in size to Kubikiribōchō. He encases Denki shokei hito with Raiton: Den kenmaku. A short fight ensues, during which Tenten’s kyoketsu-shoge is sliced in half. She embeds it in his shoulder before using what I believe was a sealless Kinton – but didn’t know at the time – to send a senbon-sized piece of metal through his forehead.
“Kumonoue unsealed a ten-metre-long chain and Tenten unsheathed her daishō. A battle ensues in which the daishō are ripped away and Tenten moves to taijutsu. Over the course of ten minutes, it is much the same until Kumonoue encircled her with the chain. After some taunting, she uses Kinton to melt the chain yet keep it in place-” Gai reports, until Neji interrupts.
“Gai-sensei, she also used Kinton to melt Denki shokei hito, I could see it.”
“Thank you, Youthful Neji- and exploded the chains before coming to a stalemate of who would move first. Kumonoue lunged outwards and Tenten goes through the handsigns for Kinton: Sen hari, which created a thousand almost-molten metal needles that were connected by raiton and katon ‘strings’ I’ve been told – and Kumonoue is beheaded. Tenten falls unconscious due to chakra exhaustion. Then, we went forward to kill the client, Kaminari Shōta, as per protocol.”
Hiruzen takes a moment to think. They have a kunoichi that has the kekkei genkai metal release of a Yamagakure clan. Picking up Tenten’s file from the desk, he’s surprised to see her mother was a refugee from Uzushio with some Kirigakure blood from her great-grandmother, and her father is from a wandering tribe that has a little bit from every village- except Konoha, which would explain her ability to easily use all affinities. Would she be able to replicate other kekkei genkais of which she has a family connection to?
“Thank you, Team Gai. Your mission pay will be upgraded to an ANBU A-rank. We will meet again in the hospital when Tenten-chan wakes up.” Hiruzen says.
Gai, Lee, and Neji all bow, Tenten awkwardly slipping down from Neji’s back before he rights himself. “Arigatō, Hokage-sama.”
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POV Change: Kabuto
Kabuto’s hands drift over the kunoichi’s body. The sign on the door reads ‘Tenten.’
A while ago, Orochimaru may have told him to keep an eye on her. He doesn’t entirely remember. Something about a possible kekkei genkai compatibility.
He refocuses on the task at hand- healing her. She’s been treated for chakra exhaustion- which is only bedrest and nutrition- but the medic-nin were obviously neglectful, as she has serious bruising around her torso along with three broken ribs.
He sighs, lazy med-nin are probably his least favourite type of person, excluding greedy shinobi.
He feels Tenten’s chakra start to roil and slowly wake up. Chakra spinning faster, she blearily opens her eyes, “‘m I ‘t ‘noha?” She grumbles, obviously still drained – her chakra levels reflect this, being at ten percent still (she actually has massive chakra reserves, surprisingly, but Kabuto is guessing that is because of her Uzushio heritage. She has great control, but she leaks chakra, then again, that might be a result of being born a few weeks before the Kyūbi rampage. He’ll help her with that, after all, if she does have a kekkei genkai, she will need to be ready for Orochimaru – but there’s a little voice in his head saying, ‘you won’t tell him, but if he learns, she must escape.’
He shuts down that train of thought immediately, always for Orochimaru, only for Orochimaru- ‘no it’s not-’ it whispers-
“‘scuse ‘e. whe’ ‘m I?” Tenten asks again, snapping Kabuto out of his thoughts.
“Hello, Tenten-san, you’re in the Konoha hospital after a haywire C-rank mission-” He says, in medic-mode.
“Jus’ ‘all me Tenten- ‘an’ make’ me ‘eel ol’. Who ‘re you?” Tenten grumbles, opening her eyes to immediately wince and snap them shut.
Kabuto smiles, “Okay Tenten. I’m Kabuto. Hokage-sama wanted me to inform you that once you have woken, you’ll need to answer a few questions about the mission. Your team will be here too.”
“M’kay. Thanks Ka-” Tenten coughs, “Kabuto-san.” Kabuto passes her a glass of water, smiling.
“Just Kabuto. ‘san’ makes me feel old.”
Tenten cracks a tired smile.
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POV Change: Neutral 3rd Person
An hour later, Tenten is sitting up in her hospital bed after chatting with Kabuto for the majority of the time. Turns out he’s a skilled medic-nin, likes snakes and hates both lazy iryō-nin and greedy shinobi. He said that she ‘leaks’ chakra and offered to help her train in chakra control and to learn more Kinton techniques. So that’s something to look forward to.
She can hear four sets of footsteps in the hall and three sets of ANBU-sounding footsteps.
Gai, Lee, and surprisingly Neji enter the room, the Hokage following after them.
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“Hokage-sama.” Tenten acknowledges, dipping her chin.
“Tenten-chan.” The Hokage replies. “I’ve received the mission report from your teammates, but I would like to ask you some questions.”
Tenten nods her head down respectfully.
The Hokage’s face hardens, “when did you receive Kinton?”
“I was born with it, Hokage-sama.”
“Do you have any relation to someone in Yamagakure?”
“I am an orphan, Hokage-sama, I do not know.”
“Which district do you live in?”
“The Uzushio district, Hokage-sama?”
Sarutobi’s face darkens, “have you had any contact with Orochimaru?”
“Orochimaru? No, Hokage-sama.” Tenten answers, confused as to why that was relevant.
“Where did you learn the jutsu for Kinton?” The Hokage prods.
“Genkai-san, my neighbour in the Uzushio district.” Tenten answers, dropping her usual honorific.
There is silence for a moment, until the Hokage’s face lightens again, “Thank you, Tenten-chan. You do still need to hand in your mission report.”
Tenten smiles tightly as Sarutobi leaves. Something is going on here.