Hello individuals of questionable reading taste! I'm your host, KingsOfSarutobi, and I'm coming at you live from a new chapter of 'The Orphan'! Now that we're in the intermission between the traditional starts/finishes of Naruto and Naruto Shippuden, we get to turn our attention to our other primary characters of unquestionable protagonistic quality; Tenten and Ajisai!
Hopefully this isn't too much of a gap between chapters, and I hope you enjoy the more whimsical nature of these chapters!
~KoS
As Tenten walked towards the gate with Sakura, the former sighed, looking out at the bright spring day. It had been a little over two years since Naruto left Konoha to study with Jiraiya, and another wave of fresh genin were soon to be added to the Shinobi corps – this would mark four years being in the shinobi corps for Tenten, whose sixteenth birthday had come and gone only a few months previously.
Her sixteenth birthday had been a more subdued affair than a civilian's would be, but she still celebrated nonetheless – her parents had taken her out to dinner at her favorite dumpling shop, her team had given her good wishes and new weapons (though Tenten only considered the gift of bright green tights a 'weapon' because of their potential to cause psychological damage), and Naruto's frog, Gamakichi, had delivered another letter along with a present from his summoner a necklace with red tomoe and a crystal flame, made of ruby. The year before, he had given her a white, sleeveless qipao with a flame design (The Last outfit).
Needless to say, Tenten was more than happy about that particular gift, but now she was on the lookout every day – who knew when her old friend would return? Would Naruto still be a genius in battle and a dense moron socially? Admittedly, Lee and Neji weren't exactly what one would call socially competent, especially with the new phenomenon of Lee forcing Neji to cross-dress in his pseudo-genjutsu skits. The less said about the things Gai put his students through, the better.
Of course, Tenten remembered the most prominent memory of her past year – the Chunin exams in Sunagakure, only a few months before her sixteenth birthday...
When Tenten arrived at the Chunin Exam Hall with her team, Team 10 with Sakura, and Team 8, she didn't know what to expect, but the sight of her acquaintance, rival(?), and fellow fuinjutsu user was not expected.
It was the day of the first exam, and teams were rolling in from almost every village that was neutral with Konoha: Suna, Taki, Kusa, and others too. In the first exam, a number of the genin were trying to communicate to their teammates which questions would be answered: some shouted, others used things such as sand, others still had sensory techniques.
While Tenten was sitting down near the crowd, she saw a hand raise four fingers out of the corner of her eye. Turning, Tenten saw the familiar purple hair, onion bun, and smooth confidence in shinobi matters – Ajisai was here.
"Ajisai-san." Said Tenten, looking at the Ame kunoichi. Said kunoichi looked at Tenten in surprise, before giving a soft, courteous smile.
"It's been a long time, Tenten-san. If, no, when both of our teams make it through the first exam, want to catch up?" Tenten nodded, smiling.
The rest of the first exam had progressed on, and Tenten quite honestly couldn't be happier with its ending. While some of the genin teams either had exceptional synergy, sensory abilities, or basic fucking mental fortitude, many of her competitors were not of this breed. Tenten had never been ashamed of being a Konoha kunoichi before she observed teams in her year or senior losing their minds, banging against walls or screaming at the proctors, while incorrectly guessing where the cameras were. Tenten had to chuckle, imagining Shikamaru's lazy satisfaction and Temari's horror at seeing the first part of the Chunin exam breaking down into chaos.
However, Tenten had an idea, more or less. Neji, with his Byakugan, could see through walls and observe what she and Lee were doing. Lee could take a 40 point question, or a 30 point question, and Neji would observe. Furthermore, as Tenten knew the points had to add to one hundred, only one of them could do the 40-point question. As such, she knew that if she took a 30 point question, then there was no problem with whatever Lee picked. Sighing, she walked up to the wall bordering her exam room and Neji's. Calmly, she waved at the wall, straight to where Neji was hopefully seeing her, then pointed towards herself and held up three fingers. Giving a thumb's up to Neji, she walked back to her table, answered the thirty-point question, and sat down.
Once confronted with the secondary question of who to leave behind, Tenten simply wrote 'No one, but I wouldn't be sad if Lee's nightmarish tracksuit were lost. I trust you'll think of something.' Nodding, Tenten turned to one of Ajisai's teammates, who was calm as can be.
"Hey." She said, looking towards her. The Ame kunoichi looked over at her suspiciously, the bottom half of her face obscured by a mask, giving her a strangely Kakashi-like look.
"Hello there. You must be Ajisai and Naruto-san's friend, right?" Tenten nodded, sitting down beside her.
"Yes, my name is Tenten. Want to talk while we wait for the exam to wrap up, or want to keep watching the show?" The kunoichi hesitated, before looking over at the mess of Shinobi and Kunoichi around her.
"Hmm. It seems a waste to neglect this... situation, especially considering we'll have plenty of time to talk once our teams meet up formally. Still, I feel as if this situation is... lacking something. Oh, and please call me Suiren." Tenten nodded sagely, before pulling out a scroll and unsealing several items. While Konoha had suffered economically in Suna and Oto's joint invasion only a few years prior, it had still given rise to a number of modern, advanced, and very easily manufacturable items not available in countries of poorer economic status such as Ame or the pre-Gaara Suna. Among those goods were foodstuffs such as dried ramen in cups, shitty boxed wine, and...
"Butter-flavored pop-corn?" Asked Suiren, who had never seen such an unusual paper bag in her life.
"Here." Said Tenten, using a Kawarimi to get a log, before lighting it on fire with a match, hanging a pan above the small fire, and placing the bag of popcorn in the pan. Suiren's surprise turned to near panic for a second, as the bag flared up with distinctive pops. However, no one else noticed in the chaos. Once the bag was finished popping, Tenten put out the fire and looked at Suiren sheepishly.
"Admittedly, I shouldn't have lit a fire in this place, but all's well that ends well." Said Tenten brightly, opening the bag and setting it on the desk between them. While Suiren had her doubts and a minor dislike of the Great Nations, she had no reason to hate this delectable food. It really did complete the experience - a strange but friendly acquaintance or future friend sitting beside her, both eating this beautiful buttery, salty food, watching incredibly inept genin try more and more desperate and stupid measures to pass the first task.
Chuckling and relaxing ever so slightly, the two sat and waited for the exam to finish. Once the first task was concluded, and both teams confirmed they had passed, Shikamaru and Temari announced that the next task would be in Suna for the first forty teams only, forcing a race to Sunagakure. As per their agreement, Ajisai and Tenten waited for both of their teams before leaving together, creating some interesting shenanigans.
"Eh?" Asked Fuyo in surprise.
"Yes, Fuyo-san! As long as all of your materials are sealed away, I can give you a piggyback ride to Sunagakure!" Ajisai looked in amusement as some type of green menace walked back towards Fuyo, rear end protruding as he expected her to sit down on his back.
"Oh come on, Fuyo," Said Ajisai wryly. "Were you not the one who was complaining about being unable to find yourself a…" Said kunoichi looked at Ajisai in annoyance.
"At least your man doesn't have caterpillars for eyebrows…" Tenten and Ajisai laughed, before starting the long journey to Sunagakure. Fuyo and Suiren weren't of the exact same physical fitness as Ajisai, the latter having spent much more time training to impress Tenshi-sama, and definitely, in no way, no way Jose, was influenced by the young man she thought about a lot, er, SOME of the time. Plus, the two were sensors, and rarely had to spend time in legitimate combat roles aside from their usage of umbrella senbon, a specialty of Amegakure.
As such, Neji and Lee found themselves giving piggybacks to Ajisai's teammates, Suiren much more satisfied with her, er… mount? than Fuyo. Suiren appreciated this Hyuuga fella's quiet, courteous nature. Fuyo found herself being dragged through the wind at Mach 5 for half of the journey by a crazy guy with near-sentient eyebrows who screamed about springtime, some Gai-sensei person, and 'Youthful activities with Sakura-san!'
The two kunoichi were the most amiable pair of the bunch, talking (although not in great detail) about what they had been up to recently. To the other four people, they looked like old friends catching up, but there was just a little bit (read: quite a bit) of tension created between the two, namely because of Naruto's connection.
It seemed that he had done everything he could to treat them in the most even ways possible – both received letters from a messenger toad at the same time, and the letters had more or less the same stories and experiences (with some variation if there was a topic of interest that came up), both had received a top from Naruto for their fifteenth birthday: Ajisai was now sporting a dark blue kimono jacket with a river design on it, and both of them had received a bracelet with a gemstone in the middle.
Three days later, they arrived in Suna, and as that day seemed to be reaching a natural conclusion, a Kusa-nin of immense size was making a break for the food.
For context, this Kusa-nin was bigger than big. With his great size and god-tier sweat glands, he made their mildly chubby Akimichi comrade look as thin as everyone else. It had been in the ensuing food fight that some of the characters of the Chunin exam started to make themselves known.
Tenten was fighting both for her pride and for the cleanliness of her qipao – food, glass, and fists were flying everywhere, and for some shinobi, this was more of a party than anything else. Of course, Tenten and Ajisai, who fought back to back in this bizarre ninja fiesta, noticed some of the teams who stood out more than others.
From Suna, the team of Matsuri, one of the genin particularly close to Gaara, and her teammates seemed to be more on top of things than some of the others. Additionally, the team with the medic, and the team with the creepy-looking puppet seemed to be working together well. Lee seemed to have noticed another team too, with a premier-looking taijutsu user.
From Ame, Ajisai's team was the only one worth noting. The rest ended up as punching bags for the rest, while Fuyo and Suiren defended each other in much the same way as Ajisai and Tenten were doing now.
From Konoha, the present members of their little group, which Ino christened the 'Konoha 12', seemed to be doing well enough too. The remaining Suna and Konoha nin ended up more as cannon fodder than anything else, seeing as they attacked as individuals, or in uncoordinated fashion.
Fuu, a green-haired Takigakure girl who spent most of her time talking about making friends, was jumping around, grabbing peoples' hands and asking them about mixed bathing.
A few seconds after the fighting started, everyone could hear Fuu's requests for friendship and backgammon, and decided to retire for the night. Sighing, Tenten and Ajisai regrouped with their teams, before nodding to each other with a smile.
"I hope we get to face each other in the final round, Tenten." Said Ajisai, calmly. "We never got to have our match from the first Chunin exam." Tenten agreed, and both young women remembered their past exam – starting as adversaries with different goals, and eventually forming a trio with Naruto that could have ended up being the final match in those exams. If only things hadn't gone downhill…
Several minutes later, Team Gai went outside to the sound of screaming, and found Team Asuma only recently released from what looked like a massive bug, with that Fuu girl dancing on the top of it, screaming about friendship once more. Not much longer, they headed inside with Team Asuma, but decided to keep a special eye on that green-haired girl. She may be whimsical, but there was some type of strength within her.
As Gaara looked at the carcass of the beast, and the Takigakure girl standing on top of it, he wondered how things had become so crazy. He was following the guide he had made from watching Naruto down to the dot: becoming Kazekage was slowly granting him the ability to pay his village back for all of the horrible things he had done, his secret plan to assemble a harem seemed to be working too, if the fact that he had a fan club was any measure of success, and he had avoided getting a punch to the face from the Godaime Hokage in all of his meetings with her.
Nowhere in the guide did it talk about crazy scorpions trying to eat competitors in your chunin exams that were chunin exams but also bait for both Akatsuki spies and village dissenters. Nowhere did it talk about strange green-haired girls who hugged him, tried to befriend him, and tried to drag him off to bathing halls.
Needless to say, Temari has some choice words for Fuu, but Gaara's mind was racing, oh the possibilities…
This chapter has probably the best sentence I've ever written. Anyone want to hazard a guess as for what it was?
Have a good day, friends.