Chapter 5

Tenten had to wait for a while before Genma and Yuugao appeared, and she spent that time mostly brushing against random walls in the vague hope it'd do the same thing the other one had earlier.

"Tenten, you're done early?" Genma said, raising an eyebrow.

"I found something," Tenten explained. "Not a person, something else."

Up went the other eyebrow, and Tenten gestured back to where she'd found the staircase. "It was a staircase to somewhere. I came to get you instead of exploring it."

"Good thinking," Yuugao praised. "Good to see someone has common sense."

"Our village isn't known for its common sense," Genma agreed.

"Shinobi in general aren't known for their common sense," Tenten pointed out.

"She has a point," Genma told Yuugao, before turning back to her. "Alright, where's this staircase?"

"Back this way," Tenten said quickly, leading them back to it.

Luckily it was still open, and Tenten let Yuugao head down first, sword at the ready. She followed, and Genma took the rear.

It was a library. The thing at the bottom of the steps was a massive library.

Tenten stared at it in amazement, awed by the sheer amount of scrolls and books occupying every shelf. "Is this where all of the Uzushio knowledge has been stored this whole time?"

Genma hummed thoughtfully. "I don't believe this is all of it, Uzushio wouldn't have put all of its metaphorical eggs in one basket."

Tenten looked at him somewhat incredulously. "This, is only part of their collective knowledge?"

"There could be up to five more libraries like this," Yuugao noted. "Possibly up to seven more. Maybe eight."

"What is even in all of those?" Tenten asked, carefully advancing on one of the shelves.

Yuugao scanned the shelves. "I think this is the Hogo Uzu section. The other libraries like this will probably each be for one branch, then one for the Uzuki. There's a good possibility there's another Hogo Uzu one specifically for barrier seals, or a second Difenda no Shio for their weapons division."

"There was a weapons division?" Tenten asked curiously, looking up from where she had crouched down to look at the bottom shelves.

"Yeah, they were pretty fearsome too," Genma agreed. He picked one of the scrolls, tugging on it. "They must have some sort of seal in place to keep people from taking the scrolls."

"In addition to the ones keeping each individual scroll closed probably," Yuugao sighed. "Most of this would be unusable to anyone under Lord Fourth's level anyway."

"And most of that was because he was married to…" Genma trailed off, glancing at her. "Nevermind. Not supposed to say anything about that, my bad."

Tenten raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment on the slip. She tugged on one of the books, titled something about the theory of ghosts. It didn't come out, so she flicked a bit of chakra at it, and it practically flew at her face. She ducked quickly, staring after it. "Uhh, whoops?"

Yuugao snorted. "Whoops indeed. What book is it?"

Tenten picked it up. "Uh, Theory of Seeing Ghosts and Phantoms."

"Nice pick," Genma said, looking like he was trying to read it upside down. "How'd you get it out?"

"I flicked chakra at it," Tenten admitted. "Then it tried to attack me."

Genma patted her on the head, then headed for the scroll he'd been tugging on.

Yuugao yelped, and something hit the ground. "You're kidding me. I wasn't even pulling on it."

Tenten ran over to pick that book up too. "Why do they have an entire book on dimensional exploits."

"That's just volume one," Yuugao noted, tapping the book next to it. "There's five more."

"There's five more?" Tenten asked incredulously.

"There might be more than that buried somewhere in this labyrinth of a place," Genma agreed, glancing around. "We do not have time to categorize and collect every single book in here."

"And most of it isn't useful to Konoha anyway," Yuugao agreed.

Tenten tugged on another book, catching it when it flew at her face. She glanced at the title. "This one is hair seals?" Tenten blinked at it, confused.

"Oh that one might actually be useful, the ones in there shouldn't be too complicated," Genma said, tugging on one as well.

Tenten opened it curiously, finding the instructions for a hair color changing seal on the first page. A note underneath it read 'only good for pranks if victim doesn't know counter seal.' Which made sense.

Four hours later, and they were back on the road, each with a scroll containing several books and scrolls from Uzushio. They hadn't managed to get the entire library, or even just a fifth of it, just grabbing any books or scrolls that looked interesting in the time they had before they had to finish checking the island and start getting back.

"Stop right there!" A four person team of missing nin from what looked like Kiri, based on the striped leggings, jumped down and did a very good either intimidation, or sheer ridiculousness attempt. Unfortunately, Tenten was on a team with Lee and Neji, and as such, neither worked.

A glance at Genma told her he was unimpressed, and Yuugao was very done with the situation. Both of which were very understandable at the moment.

"What do you want," Genma asked lazily, moving his senbon through his teeth.

The apparent leader stepped forward. "We want those scrolls you're carrying! We know it has Uzushio knowledge in it!"

Tenten tried to work out why they wanted Uzushio's knowledge, then how they knew they had been at Uzushio and had gotten stuff from the island, then how they were planning on using the seals that were far beyond anyone but Konoha's comprehension. None of them were solved in the few minutes she had before Genma was apparently done with their idiocy, and just spat a senbon at them.

The Kiri nin in front got impaled through the shoulder, just barely missing the heart, although landing straight through where Tenten was fairly sure was a pressure point or tenketsu, given the way his arm went completely limp.

The Kiri nin squawked in either indignation or pain, Tenten wasn't sure. They rushed forward, the leader and a second one going for Genma, the other two rushing the girls.

Yuugao stepped in front of Tenten, raising her sword.

Tenten grabbed one of her weapons scrolls, fully prepared to launch a barrage of weapons should there be an opening.

An opening was given not a moment later as Yuugao leapt into the air and landed in a nearby tree.

Tenten pulled open the scroll, sending a spread of weapons at the Kiri nin attempting to attack her.

They attempted to dodge, but Yuugao stopping them from one side, Genma fighting off the two on the other, and Tenten's weapons cutting off any escape route.

Tenten cheered inwardly when the Kiri nin fell over, pinned to the ground, one bleeding out, the other unconscious from a hard whack to the skull from one of the two maces Tenten had thrown at them.

Genma finished his two off as well, and pulled out a bingo book to check. "Nope, they aren't in the bingo book, so I'll take care of the bodies while you two go on ahead."

Yuugao nodded, handing Tenten the remainder of her weapons to be sealed up. "Come Tenten, we'll head on ahead and Genma will catch up."

Tenten glanced at Genma, but nodded, hurrying behind Yuugao as she strode away.