Chapter Eleven.

The 'Impure World Resurrection Jutsu' was the best invention ever – I mean, it brought back all the best characters (albeit for less than a chapter each) but hey, you can't have everything!

I do not own Naruto!

Tenten blinked as harsh light hit her eyes the moment she stepped into the room. It was a sterile white light that, after the dull glow of the corridor, burned her retina and made her see spots before her eyes. After a while, she adjusted to the harsh brightness and looked out at her surroundings.

The room was nothing special, in fact pretty similar to the research laboratories they had back in Konoha and a little like the medical room she ad first woken up in after her meeting with Sasori and Deidara in the woods. The walls were plain white, with shelves put up here and there on which lay a variety of flasks and vials. She looked down as the sole of her boot squeaked against the polished white tiles of the floor and cursing, knowing how hard it would be to move in and out of this room without leaving telltale footprints.

However, the object in the room that drew the most attention was a thin table that stood in the centre of the room, carved from some sort of dark wood, perhaps mahogany. Into it were scratched rows of symbols and letters and figures, most of which Tenten had no idea what they meant,. But assumed must be important.

Lying open on the table, was a huge scroll. It was tattered and worn at the edges, and the ink appeared to be wearing thing in some areas, but Tenten could almost feel the power emanating from it; it made her skin crawl. Without a doubt, this was the 'Impure World Resurrection' jutsu that the Leader had described.

Getting more and more apprehensive at the lack of any sound at all, Tenten approached, extending a hand to pick up the scroll, eyes fixed on it.

"I wouldn't touch that, if I were you."

Tenten whipped around as a calm voice that was nonetheless sneering cut through the still air like a whip. Her eyes met the shine of a pair of glasses, that when the owner moved out of the light revealed a pair of dark, cold eyes. The tall, white-haired man grinned at her shocked face.

"…Kabuto!" hissed Tenten, remembering the bingo book from back in the leaf village.

This man was the one they had been hunting for along with Orochimaru, the snake-sage's co-conspirator during the chunin exams disaster. How on earth had he managed to just appear out of no-where like that? And without betraying his chakra presence for even a second?

"I see someone's done her homework. I remember you from the chunin exams…never thought a quiet kunoichi like you would ever join Akatsuki, how very interesting. I would be inclined to find out more…that is, if I were to let you live. It distresses me severely to know that a low-level kunoichi such as yourself could get this more – our guard's standards must be slipping."

At this, Tenten's eyes widened in indignation, and her knuckles became white as she clasped her katana in one hand.

"That child I once was has gone now!" She snarled, before lunging forward, sweeping the katana with deadly accuracy through the air at Kabuto.

Deidara looked up at the sun, or, more correctly, the absence of the sun. It was at least an hour past night-fall now, and yet the blasted sound-village shinobi wouldn't stop coming. He had prepared enough clay for a lot of enemies, but even he hadn't imagined there would be this many.

The blonde criminal was standing atop another of his large transport birds. Things would have looked bleak to anyone else when he was been dangling from the claws of his last one with a spear through it's side, but he had leapt away and formed a new one in the moment before he hit the ground. Then, whilst he had risen back up out f the way of the enemy, the first bird had crashed into the ground. Using the situation to his advantage, he had then detonated the fallen one, with a blast that sent Orochimaru's men flying into the air.

However, now that he dug around in his hip bags for clay, he gritted his teeth, finding there was little left, not enough to last much longer if the troops, poor fighters as they were, kept coming.

"Guess I better end this sooner rather than later, hmm?" He said to himself as his hand moulded the remaining clay.

He remembered that fight with the Kazekage, back in Sunagakure where his mission had been to capture the Shukaku sand spirit. Grinning, he lifted into the air a single doll, its arms crossed over its chest, sculpted with a mouth open in a silent scream.

"Allow me to show you lowlifes true art, yeah!" Deidara yelled loud enough for the milling troops below to hear.

With that, the blonde shinobi tossed the doll into the air. It floated for a moment, the arms opening like wings before it expanded in the space of a second to the size of an elephant, its shadow passing over the watching shinobi below. Deidara's eyes widened deranged momentarily, oblivious as a shuriken skimmed his forearm cutting a gash into his flesh.

"C3, Ohako!"

There was a momentary silence, unbroken apart from the 'whoosh' of the Ohako as it plummeted down towards Orochimaru's subordinates, and the soft sound of Deidara flying higher so not to be caught up in the explosion.

The doll suddenly began to glow, the bright light becoming a piercing white, expanding until the sound-shinobi who had not fled had to shield their eyes, and illuminating Deidara's exhilarated featured from below, before an explosion that made the very air quake filled the space.

Clouds of burning heat blasted out from the centre point of the detonation, instantly turning men to cinders. The shockwaves tore up huge clods of earth, throwing up vast clouds of dust that hid the destruction from Deidara's view. Even rock was crumbled and the ballista like weapon the sound-shinobi had used against Deidara was shattered and burned to ashes in moments.

"True art, is an explosion." Smirked Deidara from his high up vantage point.

The room suddenly gave a violent shudder and Tenten was thrown completely off balance. For that matter, she wasn't the only one as Kabuto gave a look of surprise and stumbled as well. Putting out a hand to stop herself, Tenten stood upright once more, looking around.

What on earth was that? Surely Deidara could not have caused an explosion that big…

Tenten ducked as a kunai whistled over head, and her concentration fixed firmly back onto the enemy before her. If the sources she had read whilst still in the leaf village were correction, this was no rival to take likely. This time last month, she would have never dreamed of fighting this man and would have been well advised to back down. However, his earlier taunt about her abilities still rang in her mind and to be honest, what other choice did she have right now?

She threw opened the scroll for her scythe and parried with her katana just in time as Kabuto tried to slit her throat with another kunai. He was strong, but so was she and she managed to hold him off in time to aim a swing of the scythe at his head.

"So, you aren't totally pathetic. I am glad, that would have been so dull. In any case, using weapons against you seems to not be the best way forward at this point…" Kabuto said disinterestedly as he dropped his kunai.

Suddenly, a swirling blue light engulfed his hands, extending to just above his wrists. Tenten's eyes looked on with calculated interest. This must be the technique she had heard about from Lady Tsunade, focussing intense chakra to the hands to the point where they became fatal weapons on their own, capable of ceasing all bodily function if they touched you. It was a technique that Tenten had been interesting in cultivating for herself, as to be able to transforms ones own body into such a strong weapon would have been a brilliant boost of her abilities.

Before Tenten could plan her next move, Kabuto had launched himself towards her, hands pulled back so he could strike. Tenten ducked and rolled out of the way, digging around in her back for a scroll. She knew that contact with such an intense aura of chakra would very likely smash most of her more common weapons, or bend them to the point of being useless. Besides, such an adept opponent as this would find it no difficulty to counter such predictable tools in the first place.

Lunging out of the way of another volley of blows, she lithely leapt across the room to the opposite wall, ripping a medium sized scroll from her bag. The sound of metal hitting metal filed the room as the smoke from the summoning cleared, and revealed the weapon in Tenten's arms.

It was a long, snake-like chain, weighted at each ender with a single kunai knife. Each link of the chain was made from specially tempered steel that she had selected for the purpose herself, and sported an inch long blade on both sides. Tenten had spent weeks getting to grips with this particular item in her collection, as it took superior skill and strength to wield without chopping her own fingers off. It was about as long as Tenten was tall, with perhaps an extra foot or so added in.

The kunoichi whirled the weapon deftly around her head and threw its length out at Kabuto, the small knife-like edges to the links gouging scars in the walls where they had scraped it. Her enemy smirked and moved aside just in time before the wall behind him was almost demolished.

"I see, you ran chakra into the chain to increase its overall destructive power. However, that will have its drawbacks, no?" Kabuto smiled.

Tenten's eyes narrowed. How could he know? Of course, she supposed he was a skilled shinobi who used chakra manipulation as a key technique. This method of transmitting chakra down the metal chain was effective, but rapidly drained her reserves of stamina.

"That's not all I can do!" She hissed.

Kabuto looked on with interest as he dodged the chain once more, careful not to let her get too close to the table on which the jutsu scroll lay. Suddenly, thin blue threads of light shot from the links of the chain, faster than the sound-shinobi could move. The tendrils stuck to his arms, his legs and his chest before he could react.

Suddenly, they tautened and the chain was pulled towards him, pulled by the thin strings until with a wet sounding 'thud', the chain wrapped itself tightly around Kabuto like the embrace of a python.

The white-haired shinobi let out a gasp of pain as the miniature blades sunk into his flesh and blood ran down his sides from numerous punctures. His legs trembled and collapsed from under him as he coughed up a mouthful of blood.

"You…" He began in a ragged breath, "You…used…chakra stings as well? That's a…unusual…technique."

"Well, you're the first to see it. I've never done it before." Tenten commented calmly, still tense incase of a trick, as she knew this man was definitely capable of.

"Still…exuding chakra strings from…non-organic…compounds is…quite an advanced…jutsu…for a mere Konoha…chunin." Kabuto continued in a strained voice before coughing up another splatter of blood.

"Well, there you see you're mistake." Tenten replied coldly, "Because I'm not Konoha any longer. I belong to Akatsuki."

"Spoken like a true criminal." Hissed a voice by her ear.

Tenten whirled around as with a cloud of smoke, the injured Kabuto coughing up blood disappeared in an instant and she found herself looking through thick glass into a pair of dark mirthless eyes. The one she had hit had been a clone all along! Suddenly, she cried out in pain as this real Kabuto swiped the side of his hand into her right arm. The blow, had it been a normal hit, would not have even made her flinch, but enforced with chakra it sent her flying across the room to hit the opposite wall. She gritted her teeth and stood up, gasping as intense pain engulfed her right arm.

She tried to reach into her back to draw another scroll, but her dominant right hand wouldn't respond. Her eyes widened as she realised what he had done to her.

"You can feel my technique taking its toll? I'm not surprised. My chakra targeted all of your nerve endings below the point I struck you on your forearm. Your muscles have been completely disabled; you can move that arm or hand at all." Smirked Kabuto as Tenten glowered at him, her face the picture of loathing.

He had taken her ability to wield her weapons from her, the thing that she worked harder for than anything else in her life. Of course, she was not to know that the effects were not permanent, so this dealt an even more painful blow than the physical pain in her arm.

"You…BASTARD!" Tenten yelled, her voice cracking slightly.

She knew that her chakra levels were dangerously low, and that she might not have enough to get out of the situation alive. With her less sure left hand, she dug around and brought out a hand full of shuriken, flinging them as her right arm dangled uselessly. They would have all met their mark, if the sound-shinobi hadn't just leapt to avoid them.

Tenten looked around suddenly as Kabuto disappeared from view, and was forced to block at last minute as a demon windmill shuriken came flying at her. Being the weapon's mistress, she was easily able to block it from striking her heart where it was aimed for, but having not allowed for the useless dead weight of her right arm, she gasped as the projectile sunk deep into its immobilised muscle, pinning her to the wall.

Pain exploded through her arm, and she bit her lip to the point where it started to bleed to stop herself making any more noise. In that instant, Kabuto appeared once more, striding over to her and grinning that cold, superior smile that she hated so much.

"Looks like it's the end for you, little kunoichi." He said, "And I almost regret it, you were such entertainment."

"In which case you'd be wrong." Tenten spat, as with her other arm she lifted a single kunai with a detonating tag tied to the end.

Before Kabuto could stop her, she flung it as hard and as accurately as she could. It sailed through the air, even as Kabuto turned away from her and launched himself towards it to stop its path, but he was too late. The knife buried itself into the wood of the table right by the scroll that lay upon its surface, and the tag began to glow as it prepared to explode. Tenten wrenched the demon windmill shuriken out of her immobilised arm with a sharp intake of breath and ducked beneath her Akatsuki cloak just in time.

There was a moment of silence before the small room was filled with absolute chaos as the tag exploded. Rings of smoke and fire blasted out from the centre point, incinerating the scroll until it was just some wisps of ashes that were carried into the air by the shockwaves.