Journey to Americagakure pt 11: Convergence
"Did you hear that?" Tenten asked as she, Ino, and Lee meandered around the halls of the Kurokishi's submarine fortress.
"It sounded like an explosion. Do you think it is one of the others?" Lee added. Ino nodded.
"Probably. Let's go towards it." The three Chunnin advanced towards the sound.
Meanwhile, Shikamaru stopped his group; Naruto, Hinata, and Hinata as they approached a corner.
"What are you stopping for, Shikamaru?" Naruto asked impatiently.
"Be quiet," Shikamaru shushed him. Footsteps echoed around the corridor and right before they rounded the corner,
"Shadow Possession Jutsu!" Shikamaru's holding jutsu held the mystery person where he stood.
"Chouji!" Shikamaru gasped.
"Hey, don't use that on me! I'm not an enemy." Chouji said.
"Sorry," the Nara Clan member apologized, "Since we all got split up everyone's been on edge. There are twenty-one of us out here, though, so I guess I shouldn't have expected an enemy."
"Shh!" America's Hinata said suddenly.
"Now what?" Naruto grunted. This time, multiple sets of footsteps could be heard coming from the opposite direction. The submarine's hallways were very dimly lit, so the ninja could only see silhouettes, but they could tell that there were three people coming their way. Naruto drew a kunai when one of the silhouettes noticed them and began running towards them.
"Get ready!" he warned everyone. Right before Naruto struck, the American Hinata grabbed his hand,
"Stop!" she yelled. Trusting the Super-Elite Jounin's judgment, Naruto laid down his guard.
"Naruto, Hinata, other Hinata, Shikamaru, Chouji! It is you! We have finally found some of our lost comrades!" Lee stepped into the dim light. The others sighed at the sight of an ally.
"Thank goodness." The temporarily blind Hinata said.
"Ino and Tenten are with me. We are on a mission to find everyone else!" Lee gave the thumbs up sign and flashed his teeth.
"So is everyone else." Shikamaru laughed, "Have you learned anything about this place or the enemy along the way?" Ino and Tenten finally caught up with the rest of the group just in time to hear Shikamaru's question.
"We woke up in a bedroom. In the bed was someone I never thought we'd see again." Ino told him.
"Who was it?" Naruto asked.
"I can't really remember. All I know is that Sakura helped beat him a while back. Although he was asleep, I was pretty sure he was alive." Ino explained.
"It would be wise to look into it later, but for now we have to find what made that explosion." Tenten interrupted the conversation.
"What explosion?" Hinata wondered.
"We don't know. That's why we're going this way to find out." Tenten looked at the blind Team 8 member as she finished her sentence.
"What happened to her?" she asked.
"It's impossible to tell. When we all woke up Hinata couldn't see, so the other Hinata is going to be her eyes for now." Shikamaru reported.
"Excuse me; will you please not call me 'the other Hinata'? As a Super-Elite Jounin it's very degrading." The American ninja protested.
"Fine then. We'll call you 'Nata' so we can tell the difference between you two. Let's get moving."
"This is boring." Mio complained as she paced the jail cell she shared with Kiba and Shino. The spoon she was using to 'break them out' wore down after a couple hours of incessant scraping.
"Oh, yeah? Why don't you sing a song for us to lighten the mood?" Kiba retorted sarcastically. He quickly realized his mistake as the young Super-Elite Jounin cleared her throat and opened her mouth. Luckily, she was interrupted when the door of the room opened.
"Sasuke!" Kiba jumped up. Sasuke walked up to the cell with a slight look of amusement in his eyes.
"Is that where the jutsu dumped you, or are you really that much of a dog?" he joked.
"Shut up. Hey, how did you know it was that jutsu that got us here?" Kiba asked. Just as he asked, Tsuchi, Kobi, and Sai entered the room as well. Sasuke tilted his head towards the Super-Elite Jounin.
"They told me. We've been wandering around for a good hour or so now."
"We heard an explosion just a couple moments ago, so we're trying to find it. Kobi insists that Jin did it." Tsuchi said.
"That's great and all, but do you mind getting us out? These bars inhibit chakra use and we can't break them," said Shino.
"I've got it!" Mio exclaimed. She proceeded to produce two tonfa from her weapons pouch and pressed a button on each one's handle. Both tonfa then sported a long blade that ran along the length of the weapon. Mio jumped back and swung the tonfa in the air, each one producing a slicing wave of visible wind that broke the bars to pieces.
"Bladed Gale Jutsu!" she yelled. While Mio stood proud amongst her work, Kiba seemed to be holding back a fist against the American ninja.
"You could have done that the whole time!?" he yelled. Mio stuck her tongue out and happily nodded. Kobi and Tsuchi, knowing the nature of their teammate, began to crack up and even Sasuke let out a smile.
"To play a joke like that… I wonder why Jinketsu chose you to be a Super-Elite Jounin…." Shino said as he stepped out of the cell.
"You haven't seen anything yet!" Mio assured him. Another explosion rocked the submarine and broke the group's laughter.
"Ok, now I know there's a fight!" said Kobi. They rushed towards the origin of the sound.
"Those are some good moves, but I'm afraid you're terribly outnumbered." Jin grunted as he dodged one of Shokora's attacks. It indeed was a wonder why the female Kurokishi member continued to fight against three Super-Elite Jounin, an Uchiha Clan member, one of the strongest kunoichi in Konoha, a Hyuuga Clan member, and a tough ninja dog.
"Haha! Like it matters!" Shokora scoffed. "I can even those numbers any time I want with what I have in store for you brats!"
"Don't be so sure about that!" a voice cut through the air.
"Rasengan!" metal twisted then blew away as Naruto burst through the wall opposite the hole Jinketsu made as he and his group barged into the arena-like room.
"There are doors, you know! You can't just blow through every wall you see fit! This submarine is delicate and expensive!" Shokora screamed at the new entrants.
"I don't think any of that is going to matter once we're through blowing your little toy to bits. Chidori!" Another hole in the wall was blasted open by Sasuke, who used his signature move to bring his group with the rest of the ninja.
"Akamaru!" Kiba called. The dog immediately found him using his keen nose.
"Kiba-sama!" he barked. Twenty experienced ninja then stood defiant against one Kurokishi member.
"Huh? Where's Sai?" Ino asked, looking around.
"Oh, so this is what all that noise was." As if to answer her, Said sauntered through one of the holes in the wall with his famed smile. He joined the group as if he had been there all along.
"Well then," Tenten smiled, "Now that everyone's here again, I believe I'll take the honors of taking you out once and for all, Shokora." As the Chunnin readied her scroll, Shokora still seemed unfazed, even in her circumstances.
"Like I said earlier, I'm not as helpless as you think. I may not be able to match your numbers exactly, but I can certainly match you in skill. Zurui!" Shokora called her teammate, and quick as a flash he was at her side.
"Ay, whaddaya wa—oh? Didn't know yous was expectin' guests heah!" Zurui said in his greaser-like accent.
"Yeah, but it wouldn't be fun not to include everyone in on the party, now would it?" Shokora smiled.
"My thoughts 'zactly. I'll call ah buds in heah so we can really get down, y'know?" Then Zurui took out a large scroll and opened it up on the ground beneath him. He used a kunai to draw blood from his hand and smear it on a symbol on the scroll. He began chanting some incantation while using handsigns too fast for anyone's eyes to track. When he finished, his hand glowed as purple as his cloak, and he slammed it down on the scroll.
"Revenge of Souls Jutsu!"
Now that everyone's together again, they've got the remaining Kurokishi members cornered! But what is the Revenge of Souls Jutsu, and is it enough to defeat all twenty-one ninja? Find out in Journey to Americagakure part 12: Alliance!
