Chapter Five- Thunder Run

In the skies above Konoha a small Hayabusa falcon circled lazily overhead, searching for its intended destination. It caught a small thermal and rose higher into the air, the small canister attached to its leg moving with the wind. A gigantic red building with the kanji for "fire" came into the avian beast view. The falcon sped its way towards the building as fast as its wings could carry it, hoping to deliver its message from Suna in time.

The Master Chief awoke after only having five hours of sleep. It was all he needed since he was a super soldier after all and five hours of sleep to him was like fourteen hours of sleep to a normal human. He got up from the futon and began the drilled ritual of adorning his armor. After only seven minutes of checks and re-checks he booted up his armor, connecting to it mentally through his neural interface. He did a quick diagnostic reading of his health systems and made sure that he was in good condition. A small ping accompanied the holographic display of his skeletal system that was displayed on his HUD. Nothing out of the ordinary. He heard footsteps down the hallway outside of his room and turned to meet whoever was sent to greet him. Two, small knocks came at the door. He made his way towards it, his armored boots leaving deep imprints into the carpeting. He opened the door. A short raven haired lady wearing a knee-length black kimono stood in front of the doorway. Two masked soldiers from yesterday stood by her sides. John recognized her as the assistant of the leader of the village, Tsunade.

"Good morning sir." she said uneasily "Lady Tsunade wishes to know if your ready for today's trials."

He could tell that she was intimidated by his sure height and build, and his armor was probably adding to the intimidating factor.

"Take me to where I need to go." he said coolly.

"Right away. If you would please follow me."

They made their way through the entire village, turning heads as they went. It wasn't everyday that you could see a seven foot tall giant encased in armor as complex as the universe itself. In what seemed like minutes they came upon an enormous dome shaped building that rose several meters into the sky. John automatically knew its was the arena, he could hear the crowd inside roaring in anticipation at the event. They led him through the entrance of the building and down a separate hallway that led into the holding pens of the arena. A small table sat at the gate with blade weapons of all sorts arrayed perfectly by order of size.

"On behalf of the Village we give you these weapons for you to use in the event." Shizune motioned towards the table.

The Chief nodded in appreciation.

He eyed the table and immediately spotted something he was familiar with. He picked up six of the strange shaped knives that he had used yesterday and let his right thighs magnetic holster take the blades from his grip. The two metals clanked together as they were joined. Another weapon caught his eye, this one greater in size than the blades. It was a black alloy Bo staff that felt light in is grip. He placed the weapon on his back.

Master Chief turned to face his escorts. They seemed to be mystified by the weapons attachments and the lack of holsters that were supposed to contain them.

"I'm ready." he told the assistant.

His voice snapped her out of her trance.

"Right, just step through this gate."

John stepped through the entrance into the stadium and prepared himself for everything.

The inside of the arena reminded him of one of the training fields back on Reach. Trees dotted miscellaneous spots on the cool green grass and boulders the size of Warthogs were strewn about the entirety of the arena, making sure that there was plenty of cover. He looked up the walls of the arena and met the gaze of thousands of spectators come to see the event. They roared in unison upon seeing him walk into the bright sunlight. His super human hearing allowed him to pick out the conversations of some of the villagers. He heard some making bets on his failure while others making bets on his victory. He heard the awe struck voice of a young child talking to his mother in amazement of the Chief. It made him grin. Regardless of what was going to happen, John knew one thing for certain and that was that this was going to be one hell of an event.

A grand silence washed over the crowd as Lady Tsunade made her way to the Hokage viewing booth high over the stadium. Shizune appeared in a poof of smoke next to her and signaled that everything was ready as planned. Tsunade nodded and began to speak.

"Citizens of Konohagakure! I bid you all welcome on this fine clear blue day!" her voice boomed.

The crowd applauded in kind.

"For today's event we have a newcomer who wishes residence in our mighty village! He will have to earn it in order to be worthy enough to stay!"

Tsunade grimaced at what she just said. In all honesty anybody who could take on four ANBU and a captain without so much as breaking a sweat was definitely welcome to stay as long as he didn't turn on them.

'Well lets see what else he can handle.'

She continued.

"For the first challenge, our guest will face Konoha's own grand team!" she paused and let the crowd eat the anticipation up like candy. Tsunade knew that they loved the tension.

"Give it up for Team Gai!"

At this Gai's team leapt from the observatory balcony and onto the battlefield and prepared themselves to fight.

John eyed his opponents carefully. He assumed that the tall man was the leader of the squadron and the one that the team took its name from. The man wore what appeared to be a forest green jumpsuit and had an incredibly ridiculous bowl hair cut that made the Chief crack a smile. The next one looked like an almost exact clone of the leader and sported the same ridiculous hair cut as the first, but the eyebrows on this kid…

He looked at the next member of the team and noticed that even from the distance away from them he could tell that this kid was blind. His pupil less eyes staring at him from where they stood. The final member of the team was a female who was wearing what appeared to be a white battle kimono top with red maneuverability pants. She hefted a gigantic scroll on her back, but for what the Chief had no idea. The teenaged girl also had two thigh holsters, but instead of pistols she had smaller versions of the scroll on her back.

"On my count the battle shall commence!" He heard the voice of the Hokage boom.

"Begin!"

The group dispersed and quickly surrounded the Chief in a hunter formation. The two green bastards immediately closed in on him, throwing rapid fire punches and kicks. He blocked all of them expertly and retaliated with his own combat moves.

"Neji now!" the leader of the team said. Upon hearing the command the blind teen charged at the Chief, the outer area of his eyes bulging with veins. Visible pupils stared at him in fury. The kid fired his fists at the Chief, each hand in a two fingered fist. He smashed against his armor quickly and John was surprised that the kid wasn't in agony from hitting the alloy of his armor. It wasn't doing any damage, but if anything it was getting quite annoying. John grabbed the kid by his forearm and hurled him towards the leader, much to the kids surprise.

Neji flew through the air, crashing into Gai like a rock from the sky. He wheezed as he tried to get air back into his lungs. Gai checked Neji's pulse to make sure he was okay.

"Neji can you fight still?" he asked his student.

Neji nodded weakly.

"TenTen! Heavenly chain disaster now!" he commanded. TenTen nodded and in a flash her handsigns were made. She launched the scroll high into the sky and then summoned all of her weapons to rain from the heavens.

The sky above the Chief was blotted out as thousands upon thousands of weapons fell from out of the empty looking scroll. He moved fast side stepping and knocking weapons out the air like nothing. A small knife hit him but simply spattered off of his armor. In the distance, on top of a boulder, he spotted the female member of the team holding her hands together in some strange hand sign.

'She must be the origin of all these weapons' the Chief thought. He quickened his pace almost becoming a blur in the eyes of the spectators. A sand cloud trailed behind him as he sprinted as fast as he could towards her. Jumping high he crashed into the rock and separated her hands from the sign she was making. She yelped in surprise at his speed.

The scroll, now lifeless of chakra, tumbled from the sky and clattered onto the rocks. He elbowed her softly in the temple as to knock her out. He didn't want to kill these people anyways. She crumpled on the rock unconscious. John turned to look at the other three who began their renewed assault on him. He met their charge hed on and the fours clashed, fighting with punches and kicks until only the Chief and the leader of the team stood fighting.

"You're an excellent fighter my friend." the leader said as threw a side kick which John blocked. "I am Gai, the green beast of Konoha, tell me friend what your name is?"

"My name is John." he simply stated. The Chief threw an elbow into the leaders side and he grunted in as the wind was knocked out of him. Gai stumbled a bit before hitting the ground, unable to fight. The crowd was in shock at the expertness of Johns fighting skills. A kill record of over five thousand aliens of all kinds would do that. After a few seconds of silence a chain reaction of roars and clapping erupted through the crowd. He looked up to the Hokage booth and magnified his view so that he could see her expression. To his surprise she was grinning.

Tsunade grinned at the sight she just witnessed. Gai's team was not a bunch of pushovers but this man, this giant made them seem like a bunch of children fighting with a hokage. He was definitely going to be a good addition to the Leaf Village arsenal.

"Lady Tsunade do you wish us to execute our mission?" a voice from behind her said.

"Yes commence with the operation, and make sure you get what we need out of him."

"As you wish." Shikamaru replied as he rallied his team together.

Hi there everyone! After a God knows how long hiatus I present to you the fith chapter in all of its written glory. I would like to apologize to every single one of my fans about the long absense but I had alot of things to take care of before I got the chance to finish this chapter.

But anyways there will be a new chapter every week from now on and Ill be able to deliver everything on time with no distractions now. I want to personally thank all of you who left comments and everything is well appreciated. Now I was asked one very important question and I will take the time to address it now. Someone asked me what happened to Cortana. I will simply state that she is still alive but youll have to keep reading to find out what happened to her. Thanks for reading and look for chapter six to be out sometime next week!- Hydra Alpharius