Journey to Americagakure pt. 12: Alliance
From the scroll came multiple snake-like extensions of purple colored chakra. As fast as they had been summoned, they shot out of the various holes in the wall and meandered around the ship.
"What are you planning?" Jinketsu demanded, kunai drawn.
"Oh don' worry your little head, boi. You'll find out soon 'nuff." Zurui smirked as he glared at him.
"Neji!" Jin then demanded.
"I'm on it." Neji replied. He used his Byakugan to survey where the chakra was going. "Jinketsu, it appears those chakra extensions have each attached to something. From the looks of it, they're artificial chakra networks. Something about them is remarkably familiar, though."
"Well, what is it?" Tsuki asked impatiently.
"The chakra networks resemble those of the defeated Akatsuki members. I've remembered them for reference." Neji said.
"So they made some fake corpses, huh?" Kamiko said.
"They're not just any corpses. They're the fine handiwork of my chocolate ninjutsu. You see, the Revenge of Souls Jutsu is a secret forbidden technique. If you have the body of someone who died with a grudge against someone else, you can summon them back from the dead so they can finish their work. Quite unfortunately, the bodies of most of the Akatsuki that have been defeated are… irretrievable, so I carefully crafted perfect copies for the jutsu to use. Now the souls can come back from the dead to these vessels, and because of the Revenge of Souls, the only thing on their mind will be your deaths!" Shokora gave a shrieking laugh after her explanation, and just as she finished, the newly resurrected bodies of the puppet master Sasori, explosive clay user Deidara, immortal Hidan, heart stealer Kakazu, and jutsu master Orochimaru appeared. The purple chakra attached to them faded, and Zurui closed the scroll.
"Now that we got ahselves an even fight. I say it's 'bout time we finish you kids once 'n for all! GO!" Zurui, Shokora, and the resurrected bodies jumped into action, and the twenty one allied ninja stood ready for defense.
"Wait," Tenten said to her teammates, "If they're just chocolate clones, doesn't that mean we can just eat them?"
"No, I think Shokora would have taken care of that hindrance in her techniques. I expect her chocolate is now poisoned." Shikamaru guessed.
"Then we get to do this the old fashioned way. Super-Elite Jounin, let's show them what we've got!" the Jiyuukage commanded, and the Konoha and American ninja engaged in battle.
Kobi reached to his shoulders and undid two of the scrolls stationed there. Unraveling them by throwing them, he smeared blood on them from his thumbs and made a series of handsigns.
"Freedom Style: Light Artillery Jutsu!" The scrolls exploded in puffs of smoke and in their place were two fierce looking cannons attached to a canister on Kobi's back.
"Alright! I can't wait to see what that does!" Kiba exclaimed as he dodged one of Zurui's attacks.
"I'll show you. This is my Light Artillery. As long as I've got lightning chakra, this baby has ammo. I can move around with it easily, and when I shoot, I don't miss." Kobi jumped back to the edge of the arena and out of one of the cannons came a targeting reticule.
"Kobi! Do you need me to spot for you?" Jinketsu called while in a kunai deadlock with Deidara.
"That'd be great, Jin. Light 'em up for me!" Kobi answered. Jin drew two kunai with odd tags from his weapons pouch, and as he jumped away from his deadlock, he threw them at Deidara and Hidan. The kunai impaled their targets, and the tags activated, sending brightly colored paint up through the blade and on to the bodies of the targets.
"Targets locked! Fire!" Kobi pulled the trigger and out of his cannons flashed brilliant beams of light that appeared to be giving off electrical discharges. Hidan and Deidara tried to evade, but wherever they went, so did Kobi's Light Artillery attacks followed, and each of the Akatsuki members were hit square in their cores. The chocolate corpses of Hidan and Deidara fell to the floor and melted away into a formless puddle of sweetness.
"So it's that easy, huh?" Kobi snorted, blowing the smoke off the ends of his cannons.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the arena, Kiba, Akamaru, and Mio were in heated combat with Sasori. The puppet master's many limbs and extensions made it hard for any of them to get close enough to land a hit.
"Mio's had enough of this!" Mio grunted after back-flipping to avoid a strike from one of Sasori's poisonous blades.
"You and I both, kid! What do you suppose we do? You're the Super-Elite Jounin!" Kiba said, trying to find an opening.
"I don't know, hold him somehow, 'kay?" Mio suggested.
"Whatever. I'll do anything as long as it gets this guy beaten faster. Let's do it, Akamaru!" Kiba ordered, Akamaru barked his agreement.
In another end of the battlefield, Hinata, Nata, and Tsuki were pinned down in a perimeter made by Zurui. By running in circles at inhuman speeds, he created a barrier that made it nearly impossible for the three ninja to escape.
"Wha-what's going on? Is everyone fighting?" Hinata asked, scared. She looked around with her temporarily sightless eyes.
"Everyone but you and the kitchen sink, babe. We've got these guys outnumbered but they're one hell of a lot better than I thought." Said Tsuki.
"What we need is a way to slow Zurui down, or else he'll kill us for sure, but I don't have any techniques like that, and he's going too fast for you to use a genjutsu." Nata said.
"My Byakugan would make it easier to see him, but I can't see a thing right now, so it can't be of any use. I'm sorry." Hinata sighed. Suddenly, Nata got a look of realization on her face and turned to Hinata.
"Oh, yes it can! Hinata, let me touch you!" Nata exclaimed. Both Tsuki and Hinata jumped back,
"Hinata, now is not the time for your lesbian advances! Zurui could attack at any second!" Tsuki scolded his sister.
"You idiot, that's not what I mean. I have 'that' technique, remember?" Nata rolled her eyes.
"Oh yeah," Tsuki slapped his head, "well then, get to it, I won't look." Tsuki took a defensive stance in front of his sister and the Hyuuga heiress.
"What's that supposed to mean? Look at wha—Kyaa!" Hinata screamed as she suddenly felt her top exposed and a pair of hands on her body.
"Wha-what are you doing, Nata-chan?" Hinata asked.
"Relax, this is one of my greatest jutsu. I'm a healer, so I know the deepest inner workings of the chakra network, and the technique I'm about to use delves right into that."
"What's going to happen? W-will it hurt?"
"Not in the least. Just like genes run in every cell of your body, all your jutsu are stored in the core of your network. While your Byakugan is useless without sight, it's still there, so I'm going to extract it and use it as my own."
"I understand, but the Byakugan is a bloodline trait! Can't it only be passed on from Hyuuga to Hyuuga?"
"That didn't stop Jin. Don't worry, even if I have the technique, only a Hyuuga knows all the secrets. Please, relax and lie down while I locate the Byakugan in your chakra core." Hinata followed the Super-Elite Jounin's instructions. During her search, Zurui had been testing Tsuki, putting in random attacks for him to defend against while he kept dashing in circles around the trio.
"I'm glad I got to do this twice." Sasuke smiled as the fake Orochimaru dropped to the floor and melted like the others had. Itachi landed right beside him.
"He was as weak as always." Itachi agreed. Suddenly, he gasped and turned quickly towards the door Shokora had entered the arena from.
"What is it?" Sasuke asked.
"That chakra. I've only felt it once before, but what is it doing here?"
"What do you mean?"
"The first time I strolled into the Akatsuki hideout, there was a ninja there who had the Akatsuki robes on, but I never saw him after that day because our leader had sent him off somewhere right before he talked to me. I'll never forget that power I felt, though, and now it's right here."
Kamiko, who had just defeated Kakazu, heard this conversation and joined the Uchiha brothers.
"What's he going on about?" she asked.
"Apparently there's an extremely powerful Akatsuki member nearby. I'm starting to think he's the real reason Shokora and Zurui were so sure they could win against us." Sasuke explained.
Back in the fray with Zurui, Tsuki, and the Hinatas, Nata had just finished absorbing the Byakugan.
"Hey, I'm starting to get my sight back!" Hinata exclaimed.
"You can thank me for that, too. All I had to do was re-wire some nerves and chakra points and it was easy. Don't stare into anything bright or strain your eyes, yet, though. You and your Byakugan will be alright in a couple hours. Now, let's see what these eyes can do! Byakugan!" The Super-Elite Jounin made a handsign and her newly acquired Byakugan activated.
"Oh, wow! Everything is so clear now! Even you, Zurui. Take this!" Using a well placed punch, Hinata decked Zurui and halted his running on a dime. He was sent flying into the wall.
"Tsuki, Hinata and I will go help the others. Please finish Zurui here!" Hinata ordered, and the two kunoichi went to join Naruto, Tenten, and Shino in fighting Shokora. Cracking his knuckles, Tsuki went over to the defeated Zurui, who was barely getting up from his last blow.
"Alright, Zurui Datesha. You've caused me, my team, my country, and most of all these beautiful ladies too much pain. Now you'll endure it all at once. Silence of Endless Despair." Tsuki stared deep into Zurui's eyes and made a handsign. As soon as he said the name of his technique, the eyes of the Kurokishi member filled with fear, and he began screaming loudly.
"Silencing Jutsu." By putting his fingers on Zurui's throat, Tsuki seized all sound coming from him. Sai, Chouji, and Neji came over to see what he had done.
"What did you do to him?" Sai asked.
"He looks terrified." Chouji added.
"My Silence of Endless Despair technique is a genjutsu that traps the victim in a dimension of blackness, with only their greatest fears and the pain of anything the jutsu user puts in to keep them company. While in that genjutsu, he will scream, and he will feel his throat being ripped apart by that scream, but he will not hear it. I added the Silencing Jutsu so we didn't have to hear him out here, too. He should die soon." Tsuki explained coldly.
"Although I feel sorry that he has to die in such a way," Neji winced as he saw Zurui writhe in the pain of the genjutsu, "For what he's done to Americagakure, he deserves it."
Returning to Kiba, Mio, and Sasori's fight, the Akatsuki member seemed to have the two allied ninja on the ropes.
"Kiba, now!" Mio yelled. Kiba and Akamaru took their stances, and prepared for their attack,
"Gatsuuga! Fang over Fang!" Kiba and Akamaru became spinning missiles as they headed straight for Sasori. Unable to block both of them, Sasori was hit, and as Kiba and Akamaru ended their spins, they each grabbed one of Sasori's arms.
"Hit it, kid! Blow him sky high!" Kiba called.
"For the last time, Mio is not a kid! To prove it, I'll show you my move Jin-onii-san helped me learn!" Mio held out her arms, and a ball of chakra began to form in one of her hands, while the other began giving off electric pulses.
"Rasengan! Chidori! Ultimate Ninjutsu: Lightning Storm!" She brought the two attacks together and thrust them forward, making a beam that looked like an angry thundercloud shoot from her hands. Kiba and Akamaru jumped out of the way just in time, and with a massive explosion, the fake Sasori was vaporized.
"That's why I'm a Super-Elite Jounin!" said Mio, her hands still smoking.
"She has wind and lightning chakra?" Kiba asked, amazed.
"Of course. Most of us can use two or more nature types. I'm one exception, being able to use all of them, even though I'm affined to wind and water, Kobi and Tsuchi are the other exceptions, with Kobi having only lightning chakra mastery, and Tsuchi having only earth mastery." Jinketsu, who had just witnessed Mio's victory, told Kiba.
"Argh, damn it! Even Zurui was beaten." Shokora watched helplessly as her small army was destroyed one by one. The Revenge of Souls Jutsu was meant to kill all twenty one ninja from Konohagakure and Americagakure, but the final Kurokishi member had once again miscalculated the strength of friends.
"That's right, and now it's time to finish you, too!" Naruto exclaimed, pointing a defiant finger at Shokora. He had no time to continue, however, because just as he finished the submarine began shaking. Shokora smirked.
"We must be surfacing," she said, "Tsuin's submarine will not be taken down so easily." The massive watercraft broke the surface of the ocean, positioned a mile or two off shore of the desecrated capital city.
"Tsuin?" Tenten gasped.
"You sound like you know that name." Neji pointed out.
"I do. I haven't heard it in years, but it's the same name as… my brother."
This mysterious person known as Tsuin may be Tenten's brother? Who exactly is he? Witness an exciting battle where huge secrets are revealed in Journey to Americagakure part 13: Fear from Relief!
