Okay, let's do this. Hey, UknownHero here and as the hot season finally gets to Australia, welcome to another chapter of TentenTen. I'm managing to get a real plot going, but it's most likely gonna involve the Wave Arc so send me and review or a PM suggesting what I should write instead before I shoot myself in the face. Please note that is a joke, I just really don't wanna do the Wave Arc and just skip straight into the Chunin Exam and now as I'm writing this it should really be a training arc.

…Now I'm kinda curious. What if guns were in Naruto? Or if magic was in Naruto?

Nah, the magic one would just be canon Naruto. Anyway, enough of my ramblings, let's get onto the chapter.

Chapter 3: Learning

To Tenten, as she laid on her bed thinking, it felt like years since she had seen her teammates, gone out on a mission or even did anything related to being a proper ninja. In reality… it was only two weeks at best.

The Hokage informed her team the next day after revealing everything to him. Lee was supportive and hoped for the best while Neji was… somewhat indifferent? She kinda knew he didn't really care, probably thinking about fate or something hypocritical and just told her good luck on her training. Guy-sensei, after giving her congrats on her "new sensei" gave her a very long lecture on responsibility and power and how she shouldn't have lied. She knew all of this already, she was certainly paying for it now, but she found herself… sad after all that. It was only a day after that she missed her team already.

Meanwhile, all she had been doing is maintaining her daily routine. Maintaining her weapons, training and then the weekly visit to the hospital. Overall, she was perfectly fine. Her chakra coils had expanded slightly but overall she was still the same Tenten. She had spent a majority of her time researching seals to either safely remove the braces around her arms or at the very least allow her clothes to not be destroyed every time she transformed.

Speaking of which, she hadn't transformed ever since that visit to the Hokage. Hell, she made sure to thoroughly cover her arms in the bathroom when she needed to wash herself. As far as she knew, no one but Naruto and the Hokage know about her braces, and she had been wearing Naruto's jacket everywhere she went but she started noticing… looks from the public. At first, she just wrote it up being an eye-sore to about everyone except the boy who usually wore them but now it was more like… they were judging her, strangely. It was weirding her out.

Maybe she was just imagining it. She decided tomorrow she would buy something else with long sleeves.

Suddenly, there was a knock on her door. Tenten couldn't help but groan a little as she got up and stretched. This was supposed to be her little day off to just ignore the problems she had with her life and just relax. She quickly put on the orange jacket and went to open the door.

"Hello?" Tenten greeted as she opened it, only to see it was an ANBU with a raccoon mask.

"The Hokage would like to have a word with you. He sent me to escort you." Raccoon said. Tenten's eyes widened at that. Had he found a way to get rid of the braces around her arms already? Or did he have information that could help her with her problem? She didn't care; any news from the Hokage was good news to her.

"Thank you. Take me there now, please." Tenten replied as she put on her sandals. The ANBU just a hand on her shoulder. Before she knew it, she was in the Hokage's office and feeling really dizzy. "Wh-Whoa…" She got out as she stumbled around a little. That was the first time she ever experienced that jutsu.

"Is she the one?" A voice she didn't recognize said as the ANBU disappeared. She looked around before her eyes widened as she saw another old man.

But it wasn't just another old man, it was Jiraiya. One of the two remaining Legendary Sannin of the Village. The other being her hero, Tsunade.

Her more childish side told her that he might be able to get her in contact with her idol, the other more rational side told her no one has seen Tsunade in years and that she doubted Jiraiya would keep in contact with her however.

Plus, thanks her research on the Legendary Sannin she remembered his… dubious reputation.

She absently wondered if the Hokage would understand she transformed into the Kyuubi again. Or maybe one of her other transformations she hadn't used yet.

"Yes she is." The Third stated. "Tenten, this is Jiraiya of the Sannin."

"I… I know who he is." Tenten spoke up. "It's an honour to meet you, Jiraiya-sama." She said politely as she bowed.

"So you're the reason the Hokage dragged me back to Konoha." Jiraiya said before lifting up one of her arms and pulling down the sleeve. "And these must be the Akuma Braces he's been talking about."

"Y-Yes." Tenten replied with a nod as she held up her other arm. The Sage hummed before studying the braces, twisting her arms around to check inch of it. He then let go of her arms, did a few hand signs before touching her arms again.

Suddenly, all over her arms were black symbols and marks she didn't recognize.

"I knew it; these tablets are way too small for something so complex." Jiraiya noted as Tenten freaked out.

"Wh-Wh-What!? When did all this shit get put on my arms!?" Tenten exclaimed as she looked at her new tattoos. They were even on her fingernails!

"Presumably, as soon as you put those braces on." Jiraiya answered as he held her arms still and studied them closely. "Most of these are seals. Pretty complicated seals from the looks of it. Some of these I don't even recognize. The ones I do recognize distill chakra and some safety measures. If I change with one these even slightly, it would either kill her or at the very least cripple her… or explode. Either way, I can't do anything."

"Wha-You mean these things are never coming off!?" Tenten called out in disbelief.

"Unless I have the notes of the original maker of this, there's nothing I can do." Jiraiya stated.

"What about the body I found these things on? Do you have anything on him?" Tenten practically begged.

"Sorry, but we still can't determine his identity." The Hokage said. "We would have to launch a mission to find his medical records from another village, which would more than likely be seen as an act of war."

Tenten just fell to her knees as seals on her arms faded back into her skin colour. Her life was over. Her arms were fused to the damn things and she knew one of these days she would screw up and accidently transform in public.

She was dead. So very dead.

"Wh… What do I do?" Tenten mumbled out before glancing at the braces. "Who would make such a thing…?"

"Tenten, would you mind transforming into one of those… creatures." The Hokage asked kindly. He still needed a little bit more confirmation on what she could transform into, and if he needed Jiraiya to do something about it.

"…A-Alright." Tenten replied as she stood up before taking off her sandals and headband. "Here we go…" She muttered before channeling some chakra into the palm of her hand. "Please don't be a freak of nature, please don't be a freak of nature!" She called out as she slapped her hand onto one of the tablets. As her body glowed intensely, Jiraiya and the Hokage looked away before looking at Tenten's new form as the light faded.

"I knew it." The Hokage said as Jiraiya looked at Tenten in awe.

"Okay! That is the last time I'll do that again." Tenten firmly stated as she tried to move her limbs, only to feel something was… off. "W-Why do I feel so slimy?" She looked down to see what her new form was… just as she realized that her eyes weren't in her skull.

Because she turned herself into a slug with six tails.

"I… I wanna vomit but I think it'll just make me vomit more…" Tenten admitted as she wiggled around her tiny arms and legs. "I wanna be that beetle again!"

"Looks like you were right, Lord Hokage." Jiraiya said as Tenten fruitlessly tried to walk, leaving slime on the floor of the office.

"And this confirms how the person holding those braces died." The Hokage said. "He wasn't protecting those braces… he was collecting their chakra…"

"Huh? What?" Tenten spoke up, confused by the statement as she managed to figure out how to slither.

"Tenten, listen to me." The Third said in a stern tone. "It is very likely that those braces contain the chakra of nine creatures we call 'Tailed Beasts'."

"Tailed… Beasts…?" Tenten got out before looking behind herself and wiggling her six tails. Suddenly, the images of her beetle form's six wings and tail flashed into her mind, as well as the Kyuubi and its nine tails. "Wait a minute, there's nine of those things like the Kyuubi!?"

"Yes. And the guy you got those braces from died during the Kyuubi attack on Konoha twelve years ago." Jiraiya said. "That guy managed to track down all the Tailed Beasts, or at the very least their jinchuriki, steal some of that chakra and put it in those tablets."

"It's very likely that those braces would've been used as a weapon of mass destruction." The Third stated as he puffed his pipe. "Imagine having even a percentage of all the Tailed Beasts' power at the palm of your hands. Imagine the power this person would've had if he didn't perish."

"…Which I have now." Tenten realized as she looked at her body. "I… I can turn into Tailed Beasts…"

"Which makes you a sort of pseudo-jinchuriki." Jiraiya said.

"What… What is a jinchuriki?" Tenten wondered out loud.

"The Power of Human Sacrifice." Jiraiya answered. "Humans with a Tailed Beast seal within them, often sealed within them at birth. Every major village has at least one."

"…Do we have one other than me?" Tenten had to ask. "Who… Who's our jinchuriki?"

"Tenten, you do not have the jurisdiction to ask that question." The Hokage said, causing her to wince. "If we really did have a jinchuriki, only he or she would have the right to tell you."

"I'm… I'm sorry, Hokage-sama." Tenten quickly apologized. "So… What do I do now? Am I still off the active roster?"

"Yes." The Hokage informed, causing her to sigh sadly. "You will be put back on once you are done with your training."

"Training?" Tenten repeated, surprised. "I thought the training was just a cover story."

"Well, that cover story is about come true." Jiraiya said. "Meet me at Training Ground 3 at 0500 tomorrow."

"Wait, why?" Tenten asked before gasping. "Wait, am I… You're going to train me!?" Despite everything from his publically known perversions and her wanting her hero to be her sensei, the prospect of being trained by one of the Sannin was a once in a lifetime thing! She couldn't believe this was happening!

"Only for one or two weeks, then I have to get back on the road." Jiraiya replied. He could maintain his spy network while in Konoha, but there was only so much he could do here. He was stretching it with two weeks, but he was pretty much the only active shinobi available who knew something about the Tailed Beasts in Konoha, and Tenten…

Well, there were several problems.

First off, Tenten would eventually be a target considering the power she had at her wrists, probably much more desirable than an actual jinchuriki, and she would more than likely need to transform in order to fend them off. The problem was that she had no idea how use her transformations properly, each form having different strengths and weaknesses they have yet to discover.

Then there was the fact that Tenten would have zero to no control over her chakra while transformed. Having completely different chakra running through your veins would screw up anyone's control so most of her jutsu and attacks would either fizzle out or, worst case scenario, would probably level the village and everyone living in it to disintegrate. Of course, her forms were about the size of a dog but he was not taking any chances.

So it was either have this small 13 year old child accidently destroy everything in the radius of everywhere or take a break from scoring hot women with daddy issues.

…Bah, he could do both at the same time.

Plus, the real jinchuriki of Konoha didn't need him right now.

"I-I promise! I'll put everything into my training, Jiraiya-sensei!" Tenten said as she quickly bowed, flinging slime around the office and on the Sage's clothes.

"If that's it, if you need me, I need to perform some research for my next book." Jiraiya said as exited through the window.

"Research…?" Tenten got out, looking as confused as she could be in her slug form. "Okay… Um, Hokage-sama, do you…"

"I have spare clothes here this time." The Hokage interrupted as he pulled out a pair of grey sweatpants and a white t-shirt and placed them on his desk. Despite there being clothes available, she felt like she was forgetting something. "I'll leave you alone in this room with some Chunin guarding the door. Just knock on the door three times when you're ready to leave."

"Thank you." Tenten said with a sigh of relief. When the Hokage left the room and locked it, Tenten looked around. "Alright Tenten, you have a few more minutes before you're human again. What are you gonna do?"

She slithered around the floor for a bit as she made the Konoha symbol on the floor, not really caring about the person who would inevitable have the job of cleaning up her mess while getting used to her slug form.

'Guess I should call it my Rokubi form…' Tenten thought as she glanced down at the tablet around her neck and then the clock. 'Any time now…' She looked around the office more and spotted the pictures of all the previous Hokage above the window.

"Never thought this would happen in your village, huh?" Tenten spoke to the pictures. "A girl who can turn into a slug, a beetle, a fox and six other animal demon things." She then looked at the Fourth Hokage's picture in the dark corner of the ceiling. "And… I really you killed the Kyuubi faster now."

Then, she noticed something strange about the Fourth. She narrowed her eyes as they leaned forward.

'Wow, he kinda looks like Naruto.' Tenten noted as she imagined whisker marks on the Fourth's cheeks. 'I mean, he really looks like Naruto. It's actually kinda freaky actually. I mean, I've seen him textbooks and stuff but most of his pictures were in black and white. Now seeing him in colour…'

"HEY, OLD MAN!? WHAT THE HELL'S WITH THE TEAMS!? WHY AM I STUCK WITH SASUKE-TEME OUT OF ALL PEOPLE!?"

"WHAT THE-!?" Tenten shouted out… just as her transformation timed out. "Na-Naruto!?"

"Huh, Ten-san?" Naruto said as he looked around. "Where's the Old Man and why…" He trailed as soon as he saw Tenten's state of undress and inexplicably covered in slime. He blushed, looked away and stepped back outside before shutting the door.

"Huh?" Tenten let out before looking down. Her face then went fully red as she wiped off the slime off her body and got dressed. She knocked three times on the door and left the office, seeing Naruto stand in the hallway not even glancing at her. "That… That never happened."

"What happened?" Naruto replied. Deciding that it meant he was never going to mention what happened previously unless he wanted to make out with her swords and hammer, she quickly left the Hokage Tower and got to her apartment as fast as possible.

Well, she would've, if she didn't collapse from chakra exhaustion.

-101010-

After getting the all clear from the doctor several days later, Tenten left the hospital to go home and get ready for her first training session with Jiraiya-sensei. She grabbed everything she needed: her scrolls, spare clothes, training kunai and shuriken, a water bottle and as many Soldier Pills as she could carry. She was not going to slack off any time soon. She was going learn how use her braces for the benefit of the village, even if it killed her.

Well, preferably without killing her.

"Okay, Tenten, you can do this." She told herself as she opened the window of her apartment and breathed in the fresh air. She quickly put on her orange jacket and leaped out her window and into air, the feeling the air rush past her as she smiled. She could no longer feel the weight of her braces around her arms, she didn't think about the stares she got as she leaped above the streets, she no longer worried about the world she lived in.

After so long, after so many days... she felt free.

-101010-

She arrived at Training Ground 3 thirty minutes earlier than the time Jiraiya-sensei specified. She didn't see him anywhere, so she guessed she should at least wait until he arrived. She decided to get some training in, she felt like she was getting rusty. She couldn't help but be a bit glad that she collapsed. The day she supposed to train was also the day where they weeded out the graduates of the academy. The only training ground that was available that day was the infamous Forest of Death.

She was pretty sure she dodged a kunai with that one.

She wondered what type of training the Sannin would put her through. Maybe help enhance her chakra reserves, or figure out the rest of the Tailed Beasts she could transform into. Hell, she would've been happy with a village-wide game of hide and seek and she had to use her various forms to find him within the time limit.

But knowing her luck these days, it was probably going to be much worse.

As if on cue, Tenten noticed that it had suddenly gotten dark. She would've wrote it off as a cloud but this was Konoha, where it practically had perfect weather every day. It practically reflected the overall mood of everyone in the village and this village was happy 99.99% of the time.

So, she decided to look up… and immediately regretted it as she saw a shadow of a giant toad in the sky that was rapidly getting bigger by the second.

"Well, this is gonna suck." Tenten simply said before gathering chakra into the palm of her hand. Now, if she were some young, naïve civilian, she would've had a battle cry or at least something to call out when she transformed like "Give me strength", "By the power of the Tailed Beasts", "Going demon" or Kami forbid "Hero Time".

Instead she cried out something a little more appropriate for her situation.

"If I die, I'm gonna kill whoever made these things!" Tenten shouted out before slamming her palm onto a tablet.

Save Game… Quit!

Whew! Done! I'm really getting into Animal Crossing and now I have to go buy goddamn amiboos and an NFC reader. By the way if you wanna send me a spare Villager amiboo my postal address is

UknownHero signing off, my friends!