2/2

She had to act quickly. If she could kill them all at the same time without making a sound she could skip the whole 'mother attacks he in anger' faze.

It was not meant to be. Apparently the mothers were already near, curious about what had caused the commotion.

She effortlessly blasted them away with her favorite wind jutsu.

It was on. The remaining mothers lunged at her, their snail-like bellies in full view-

She shot a wind blade which tore through like a hot knife through butter.

The animal fell to it's death.

Now the fathers were coming.

These bastards were covered in shells and couldn't be torn with jutsus. They were still quite easy.

All she had to do was wait for one of them to lunge at her and she'd grab them and thrown them to their deaths.

The problem was the animals below. The rock-o-diles specifically ate these lizardsnails and the commotion was attracting their attention.

This was the risky part. Wait to be attacked or attack first, easily kill them and deal with that thing?

She opted for waiting. If she was lucky enough they wouldn't notice her.

They didn't. These weren't chakra sensors like the lizardsnails so they could only detect movement via normal means. They didn't understand why the food was coming but they didn't care.

About an hour later another row of baby lizardsnails came, once again curious. She quickly dispatched them.

This time the mothers and fathers came at the same time. They must have been closer.

She dealt with all of them easily.

This time the rock-o-diles noticed the origin and spat a few shards in her direction. The first round didn't get through her dome, but the second did.

Not having another ledge to jump to, she quickly went through hand seals and made another dome, throwing Tenzuka on it.

She fell below where the rock-o-diles were and jumped, dodging their attacks and gathering them all in one place.

She went through a large number of hand seals and the water in the river gathered to the air into multiple drops.

"Taki no jutsu!" She exclaimed, as the water drops turned to spear and fell at great speeds towards the creatures.

The high speed water tore through the damn things with ease.

A roar sounded in the distance.

Ah crap.

She escaped the water as quickly as possible and went back to Tenzuka, who was still knocked out.

A massive purple worm-like creature with a disgusting amount of bright yellow eyes appeared from the exit of the area.

Soon other 'heads' followed, they peered around the area, searching searching-

They found her.

One of the things roared, showing it had 3 rows of razor sharp teeth and lunged at her.

She grabbed Tenzuka and spat a wind bullet, which knocked it a bit, but otherwise didn't do much damage.

Another two tried to bite her but she managed to dodge, she couldn't keep this up-

And as to make things worse her senses told her that the dark seighters had finally managed to assemble enough forces to follow her.

Walking on water cost a lot less then being completely sunken in it, but the amount of water users that were required to create a passage through such an amount of water took a while to organize.

But they were almost here. Fuck.

She leapt to wall, to dodge another lunge.

It was too much. She couldn't protect Tenzuka anymore.

She was just about to drop him to his death when he decided to wake up. She would have made a comment about the sheer convenience but her thoughts were a little preoccupied.

Waking up with a pounding headache was not his favorite thing. He was dangerously low on chakra. Damn it sucked being a civilian.

He felt... squished for the lack of a better word. He opened his eyes and looked down.

He was hundreds of meters above ground and below him was nothing but emptiness.

"What th-"

He struggled and realized that Fu was right next to him. She was using her feet and hands to stay attached to the wall, while her back and arms were keeping him above ground. He tried very hard to not think about her behind being firmly pressed to his leg. She probably didn't even notice.

A huge roar alerted him to the presence of a...

"What the hell is that?!"

It was as if someone had decided to grab a bunch of worms and dump them in a bucket of purple slime, then make then bigger than the Hokage tower.

"I call it wormy-kun!" Said Fu sarcastically.

It lunged towards them.

Since he was awake, Fu left him to his own devices...

Which wasn't much. He couldn't even stick to walls.

Grabbing two kunai he tried to stop his fall but the rocks weren't easy to penetrate so he fell-

And was grabbed by Fu. He felt like dead weight.

"Leave me on the ground! You can't fight it and protect me at the same time!"

"You'll die! The Taki-nin are almost here!"

Huh? Fuck.

"Take me to the ground anyway!"

While Fu did as told, Tenzuka furiously thought of a solution.

Two huge enemies, none that he could deal with, Fu was probably low on chakra, He was basically without chakra"

Thinkthinkthinkthink-

He was on the floor and noticed that there were other rock-like animals too. Had Fu killed them?

The girl in question was dodging as many heads she could and was trying to fight back, but it was clear she would fail.

Thinkthink-

Oh.

"Fu! Can you hear me?! Fu!"

Fu jumped back closer to him, never taking her eyes off the beast.

"What?!"

"Get out of here!"

"Eh?!"

"I said get out of here! Hide or something! I've got a plan!"

"What plan?!"

"Hide! Now!" He barked.

Fu looked a little annoyed by his tone but now was not the time for pleasantries. His plan was a little stupid but it was better than nothing.

He was basically empty, so anything he did had to require a minimum amount of chakra. He could probably manage one ninja jump but he didn't trust himself to do even that.

Fu quickly went to the top corner of the cave and made an earth dome.

The creature prepared to lunge at Fu again but shifted its attention to the kunai.

Or better, the person that threw the kunai.

Tenzuka was charging the monster at full speed, screaming the entire time.

The beast looked at him and lunged without hesitation.

Now for the hard part.

Tenzuka spun around and made a ninja jump, aiming for using half the chakra the technique required.

He managed. The usual incredible leap was nothing more than a fancy jump that any jonin could do without chakra, but it was fast enough to allow him to dodge the worm.

He ran as fast as he could towards the glowing chakra draining water.

Now for the harder part.

The thing was gaining up on him despite his adrenaline-induced dash, only a well time half chakra jump saved his hide.

He was at the chakra draining water.

Now for the hardest part.

He half jumped into the air to dodge a lunge then half jumped again on top of one of the heads.

He was dangerously low. Another three half jumps and he'd faint.

He jumped off the head before another head managed to bite him.

Two left.

Suddenly, the water behind him swirled. The Taki-nin had arrived.

He ran towards them, screaming for help.

The few ninja that had just gotten out of the water looked at him in confusion, then saw the beast.

Half of them needed no more prompting, but some didn't immediately attack.

Tenzuka ducked to the floor right next to the ninja.

"Help! You have to help! You're tour guide randomly attacked me then summoned this monster from nowhere once I was winning! Help it almost killed me!"

Almost every ninja attacked the monster once he said that.

"What were you doing with her at this hour?" said the only ninja that hasn't attacked yet. "It's rather suspicious that she attacked you for no reason."

There were screams in the background as many different jutsu were used against the beast.

"She said something weird then her eyes changed and she attacked me! I don't know why I swear!"

"Her eyes changed you say?!"

Tenzuka couldn't believe the guy was believing him. The stupid plan actually worked.

"Yes exactly that! I managed to wound her deeply which is why she summoned the thing! See the hole in the wall where it's coming from?! She went that way!"

The ninjas battled against the thing for a good half an hour, giving Tenzuka a bit to breathe and try to recuperate his chakra.

Half an hour was only good enough for another half jump, but it was better than nothing.

The beast changed attack pattern when one of its heads were torn off: it grew more slime and covered the area with a powerful acid.

Tenzuka was glad he didn't have to face that thing. Despite being so big it had huge speeds, a few ninja even got hurt.

Eventually it was taken down with no deaths. It turned out that it had a few eggs that it was protecting, which was kind of sad. The animal must've had some sort of chakra sense and took anything that could kill a certain amount of animals as a threat.

The ninja were cheering.

"We took the beast down! We did it!"

The leader that had talked to Tenzuka paled a bit. He touched his ears in a hurry.

"You idiot!" He said, trying to press what Tenzuka now saw was a communication device of some sort.

"You!" He faced Tenzuka.

"Me?"

"Yes you! Where is the jinchuriki?!"

The wha-

Oh.

Ohhhhhhhh.

Oh dear.

"Are you deaf?! Where-"

"I apologize sir! I'm a bit low of chakra so my ears started to ring and I couldn't hear a thing. Can you repeat please?"

"Where is the jinchuriki?!"

This time Tenzuka hid his surprise.

"She went in that passage over there before she summoned the beast-"

There was a sudden gust of wind and a jonin was blasted to the wall. Everybody turned around in shock to see Fu glaring at them. She went through hand seals.

Using the opportunity to his advantage, Tenzuka released his sword, severing the head of a chunin nearby. The guy didn't even have time to be surprised.

All hell broke loose.

At first the group seemed to have the advantage, having superior numbers and all that. They however had just come out of fighting for half an hour and some were badly damaged.

Fu had been resting for half an hour. If she was truly a jinchuriki that would have been plenty of time to recuperate her strength.

Tenzuka stayed to the side. His pride was a bit damaged, but he felt better knowing that Fu had a heavy advantage.

She was also pretty good at taijutsu. Only three jonin dared to go near her while the remaining kept to the sidelines and threw a jutsu every once in a while.

Tenzuka wanted to help but he was pretty much useless right now so he kept to the sidelines.

Fu was pretty badass. She was surrounded in a weird black aura that hurt anyone who touched it and was throwing out wind blasts whenever she could. She would also dodge anything they tried to throw at her as if she had the byakugan- her empathy ability was proving once again to be super useful.

A few ninja were gathering some sort of sealing scroll on the ground and going through hand seals. Hah, not if he could do anything about it.

He equipping an explosion tag on his kunai, he threw it towards the seals on the ground and made it explode.

Well, now he had their attention.

Ando had a wonderful evening. He got to eat new interesting food for free! It was all thanks to Raido; he had been trying to make a move on Kuga the whole evening but was too shy to be direct about it, so he had offered to pay for the meals in a subtle attempt to show his feelings.

And had used the opportunity immediately.

"I could cover your tab: I recently went on an A rank."

"Thanks man!" Said Ando.

Raido clearly had no intention of paying for Ando as well, and was about to say something about it but Kuga came to his rescue.

"Oh don't worry I brought enough money for myself, but that was a very kind offer."

Ando suppressed the urge to grin. Now the guy had no excuses!

A knock to the door was heard.

Before anyone had time to open it, a group of ninja plus Shibuki walked in.

"Oh, to what do we owe the pleasure?" Said Kuga.

"You're all under arrest for attacking Takigakure's jinchuriki!"

"What?!"

The prison of the hidden waterfall was pretty average in terms of structure. Everything was made out of rock and steel and everyone was in chains with a chakra suppression seal.

The seal wasn't the best in the world because it required the user to be unconscious to place, and it would were off after a week or so, but for todays intent and purposes it suited just fine.

"Please listen to us!" Said Kuga. "We are innocent!"

"Be quiet filth!" He turned towards his men and beckoned them to leave.

"Sorry for the treatment." Said Shibuki as soon as they were alone. "I know you guys didn't attack our jinchuriki because Fu didn't detect any intent from any of you to do so."

"Then what's with this dumbass reaction then?" Said Ando.

"I have no choice. The position I find myself in is a fragile one. If I let you guys get away it will be seen as weakness."

"But you know we didn't do anything!"

"Yes. I know. The rest of the population doesn't and I can't vouch for any of you. You won't be harmed however, I will just pretend to demand compensation, using the excuse that harming you means risking war with konoha and try to assassinate the traitors in the meantime. Again, sorry for the inconvenience."

He left.

"What the hell?" Said Ando. "What kind of dumb crap is this?"

"It's called 'being a foreigner in a ninja village,' a risky business." Said Raido scornfully.

"Huh?"

"There is always a bit of internal drama in any ninja village." Said Kuga. "We get to be easy scapegoats if the village can afford war against konoha. It's why we went to Taki: they're too weak to do anything."

Ando sighed. "Well, at least Tenzuka is outside. Dunno how he's gonna solve this one though."

The chunin chuckled. "That kid? The one that couldn't even learn Konohas' fire jutsus because he has a water affinity?"

Raido nodded.

"What's he gonna do?"

Ando said nothing.

What was he going to do?

The group of ninjas that were setting up the trap had cornered him and were smiling evilly.

"What a fucking pest." Said one of them. "To think we helped you survive earlier."

"In my defense, the thing would have attacked you anyway."

Tenzuka got a strong kick to the gut in response.

"Well it was useless. Taki is strong because of it's jonin. The demon brat is good but she doesn't stand a chance."

"Ok."

The group looked at him with mutual scorn.

"Think you're tough don't cha'?" Said one of them pulling out a sword. "Let's see how tough you are when we start cutting off your fingers."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Oh?" Said the guy with a smile, "and why is that?"

Tenzuka looked at the floor and then dramatically looked up slowly to gain some time.

"Because otherwise I release the hidden leafs' bijuu."

Silence.

The group started laughing.

Tenzuka smiled softly and held his hands together in the 'release' seal.

"I'm going to say this once. Back off."

"Bullshit! If you had the powers of a bijuu you would have used them by now!"

"I can't control it like Fu can. I either let it free or don't use it at all. It's why I haven't used it so far; I don't want to die. But if you're going to torture and kill me, may as well take you down with me." Said Tenzuka evilly.

"But konoha doesn't have a bijuu!"

"And the fact that you genuinely believe that proves our ninja skills."

The guy he was talking till now had enough and brought out a kunai. He was stopped by another in the group.

"It's too risky. Let's just stick to the plan and kill Fu like ordered, then we can kill him. He can't control the bijuu so he isn't a threat."

"I call bullshit! Why would konoha send their bijuu for a stupid exchange program?!"

"I was supposed to bond with Fu." Said Tenzuka quickly.

They all looked at him.

"As jinchuriki we share harsh lives. I was supposed to convince her that Taki didn't deserve her and that she was better off with us."

"Then why send the real thing?!"

"Because bijuus can sense one another." Said Tenzuka in a matter-of-fact tone. "It was the only way to be taken seriously."

A scream was heard. Fu had just ripped a man to shreds.

"Shit get in formation! You two keep watch on the leaf jinchuriki!"

"Hai!"

The group sped off.

Phew, the tense situation was over.

"Should we cut off his legs so we can help everyone else?" Said one of them.

"Good idea." Said the other.

FOR FUCKS SAKE-

Tenzuka put his hands in the release seal.

"Do you think he'll let out the bijuu?"

"Naa it's his life over his legs. He'll probably grow them back anyway."

They advanced.

"Fine then!" Said Tenzuka trying not to panic. "Release!"

A huge puff of smoke surrounded him.

The two Taki-nin jumped backwards in fear.

Tenzuka ran right to them...

And ran right pass them.

The two stared at him in comical shock and ran right after him.

The one on the right was faster and kicked Tenzuka in the head-

The head disappeared. It was a bushin.

The Taki-nin turned around right in time to see Tenzuka slash his head off.

"Fuck that was close."

Fu eventually won the battle.

Using the black chakra always made her feel sick and the stomach, not mention filled with an enormous desire to just burn everyone and everything around her. She wanted it all, she'd take it all, she wanted-

She shook her head, trying to take out the after effects of malevolent chakra and realized Tenzuka was still alive.

"How did you do that?" She said, staring at the two dead bodies.

"For... reasons I had my hand in the release seal and they were going to cut my legs off. The only jutsus I know in that seal are the release jutsu and bushin technique they teach at the academy. I channeled too much chakra for one and exploded it as soon as the chakra was gathered, and in the middle of that massive amount of smoke I made another one and have it run past the two, making their backs turn as soon as the smoke ran out. I killed them both before they realized I was behind them."

"Oh."

"How did you kill everyone?"

"Oh I just dodged every attack, punched whoever I could and shot a wind jutsu every now and then to stop them from making too many jutsu. They were all tired and most of them were wounded."

"...nice." What a chad.

They stood in uncomfortable silence.

"Well, what now?" Said Fu.

"Huh? Why are you asking me?"

"Well, you're the plan guy. I mean we could do it my way and just fight everyone but not even I can take on half a hidden village."

Tenzuka blinked.

"What do you mean 'half a village'? Wasn't it just one clan?"

"Nope. The village is basically divided in 'old vs new' generations. The old is mostly the dark seighter clan, but also a lot of high ranking shinobi. It's definitely going full civil war if my corpse isn't found by tonight."

Tenzuka sighed. Well damn.

"I don't suppose the entire dispute is over a single dumb fight?"

"It's because of generations of discontent birthed from opposite philosophies."

Tenzuka groaned. "Of course it is."

The drama started with the birth of the village. The Uzumaki had just been almost entirely wiped out, a few discoveries in farming led to better food production, so more people could afford to experiment with chakra, and the dark seighters were facing the threat of extinction because of wars.

It took a lot of diplomacy and luck, but eventually these clans agreed to move together (along with a few lucky Uzumaki that had been outside of their village during the time).

Right of the bat there had been drama: the dark seighters had lived in this area for millennia, and treated their home as a holy grail, never to be touched or accessed by outsiders. They wanted to seal themselves off from the world.

The new clans plus a decent civilian population abided to these rules, they were happy to be alive and protected.

But as the generations went on and the threat of destruction was reduced, the new population wasn't quite as agreeable as their ancestors. Tensions brew for many reasons: the right to exit the village and return, the right to use technology and resources that the underground didn't provide, new laws, new religions, you name it.

The worse came when the village managed to obtain a bijuu.

The dark seighters were vehemently against it, while the 'young' generation knew enough about fuinjutsu and war want it.

All would be decided once Fu became 18 years old. If she was competent and in control of their bijuu the girl would live, otherwise Taki would sell her to the highest bidder.

But Fu was getting competent and the dark seighters feared they would have to have a walking catastrophe among them forever. All they needed was the perfect excuse to kill her and the perfect scapegoat.

And then Konoha had proposed an exchange program. Tenzuka could see were this was going.

"Hey, don't suppose there's another exit?"

"It's a long walk and we'd have to leave and enter the village, why?"

"No reasons. Do you know a jutsu to talk louder?"

"No but Shibuki does."

"Hm."

"What! Are you insane?!"

Tenzuka raised his hands in a placating manner.

"You got a better idea?"

"Absolutely not." Said Shibuki. Also, I have one question."

He turned dramatically to Tenzuka's feet and pointed.

"WhAT ARE THOOOOOOOOOSE?!"

The underground village of Takigakure slept peacefully, and why shouldn't it? Sure, it had a lot of mines that nobody had mapped out, but ninjas were everywhere and were constantly patrolling! They were perfectly safe! Not to mention the restrictive means to enter the village-

There was a massive rumbling sound.

The village shook.

Suddenly the mines burst open, hundreds of giant worms filled with purple slime were everywhere.

And they were angry. Someone had gotten their children.

The monsters lunged all over the place, knocking over towers, spitting acid everywhere, it was a mess.

However as soon as that happened a huge force of ninja came fully prepared and were ready for battle.

...Almost as if they knew it was going to happen and had 20 minutes to prepare.

Ninjas from both generations/political opinions fought side by side as one.

Raido and Kuga were in the midst of it all, using their techniques to help suppress the worm invasion.

And in front stood Shibuki and Fu, combining together wind and fire to take the monsters down.

The invasion lasted for a good half an hour, simply because there were so many, but 'miraculously' no one was harmed, almost as if everyone already knew the attack patterns.

The dark seighters were fighting with fury, using their special bloodline ability to cast all sorts of spells on their enemies. Tenzuka whistled at one particularly powerful spell that spilt a worms head in half.

But in the end the enemy was defeated and Shibuki held a massive speech in the city town.

"As you have all seen tonight, we are a great village, capable of beating the unbeatable when we work together!"

The crowd cheered.

"But I am not ignorant of this village's pain, and I understand were everyone is coming from. Therefore tonight we shall vote! Are our differences so strong that we truly cannot live together? Are we so full of hate that we cannot even find a peaceful solution?! I refuse! I love Takigakure and simply refuse to fight in my home against my people! We shall talk! Talk and vote!

There were less cheers than earlier but people were still listening in silence.

"The options are these: we work together or we separate ourselves forever! If we are to work together we must become a true hidden village, housing civilians and merchants from all over the world! Running for the best technology and paying attention to our neighbors'! We must open our border's to the world!"

There were different responses.

"But if we are truly so different that we cannot coexist then I propose a complete separation! Those who wish to leave shall do so, and those that wish to stay shall have the opportunity! The entrance shall be closed forever, and those that leave will agree to place a special seal on their foreheads created by members of the Uzumaki family that will protect the location of the original Taki forever!"

There was a huge response.

"So vote my citizens, vote! For tonight, we shall decide the fate of our village!"

In the end, humanity won.

Humans simply do not enjoy the idea of never being able to do something.

So while the idea of separating the villages was a good one in theory, in practice it would give to even more problems and regrets.

Also, with tensions as high as they were, the vote would have turned into a massive bloodbath.

So the best option was to give everyone a common enemy to tire themselves to and remind the population of their ability to coexist.

And since humans prefer having as many options as possible, the entrance of the village would not be permanently sealed.

Shibuki was already organizing the construction of the new Takigakure that would be above ground. Only true citizens would have access to the underground, but any merchant, trader, family looking for protection, could enter the new village. It would take time and effort, but eventually the changes would come. Bit by bit.

Itachi Uchiha sighed in frustration at Raido's report. He looked at the troublemaker.

"Tenzuka-san, you do realize that the purpose of the exchange program was to learn about the cultures of other villages and not radically alter their entire social and economic structure to the point were not even I recognize Takigakure!"

There were a few giggles, courtesy of Ando.

"Yes sir. I simply adapted to the situation as I saw fit."

There were more and louder giggles.

"I'm in a bind." The young adult admitted. "I honestly don't know what to say."

"Interesting week Tenzuka, I guess you deserve a raise?" Replied the genin with a small smile. "I mean, I technically did the main objectives of the mission, which was to learn, and completed the secondary objectives, which was to not wage war and gain as many favors as possible, something I managed quite nicely I might add."

"Pretty much." Replied Itachi simply. "Koshiro Tenzuka, in a brilliant act of professionalism, war strategy and mastery of the real ninja arts; deception, efficiency and attention to detail, I herby grant you the rank of chunin."

Well that was fun. I fixed a few plot holes and came up with this over night. I honestly had no intention of continuing the story, but these ideas wouldn't let me be. I really enjoyed writing this and hope you all like reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Till the next update!Ps does anyone know a better grammar checker then grammarly?