File: 8528_Adumaya-Ryokan-outdo(...).jpg (345 KB, 992x661)

345 KB JPG

>>5243457
Makoto nods. “We didn’t realize that most six-year-olds dodn’t have the chakra reserves of a chūnin.”

“I used the Ryūka technique,” you remember.

“Yeah, back then it was harder for you to not set stuff on fire!” Makoto laughs. “And I countered it with Mizurappa.”

“You were always a natural with suiton,” you chuckle. “Remember that time at your fifth birthday when you tried to blow out the candles and...”

Makoto frowns. “I thought we agreed not to talk about that?”

“... I don’t remember agreeing to anything.”

“So this is what having a sibling is like,” Wasabi muses.

Sumire glances at her. “I forgot that you’re an only child... it is nice, isn’t it?”

...

You make sure to provide your guests with tea and wagashi (melon-filled namagashi in this case), which they seem to enjoy sitting on the porch watching the rain fall on the garden (along with Momo and Ichigo, Makoto’s salamander summon, who ‘bask’ on some of the rocks). It’s an unusual if enjoyable moment of complete calm.

“Yeah, so sorry I’m a bit late,” Naori-ue apologizes upon appearing from her office, adjacent to the sitting room, where she has a hiraishin marked kunai on the wall behind her desk. “There was a training session I had to oversee in the 13th training grounds.”

“The one in poisoned village?” you frown. “What for?”

“Some of the chūnin needed a refresher on how to deal with toxic conditions,” your mother explains, “so I thought it was best that I be on-site for that.”

“No kidding,” Makoto shakes her head. “That place is still a deathtrap.”

“That was the village that was destroyed during the Third shinobi war,” Hanabi-sensei sighs. “To think it’s still uninhabitable after all these years.”

“What are you talking about?” Wasabi-kun asks.
>2/3

>>5243464
“There’s a small village near Amegakure’s old city that was exposed to so much poison during the Third shinobi war,” Hanabi-sensei explains, “that it had to be abandoned. There are lethal levels of heavy metals and other contaminants still contained in the soil, so Amegakure uses it as a special training ground.”

“We were taught a little about that war in our coursework,” Sumire muses, “but I had no idea it was so bad.”

“It shaped a lot of our history,” Naori-ue muses, and for a rare moment her tone is completely serious – before that moment passes. “Anyway, we should get you three moved in – you three can have one of the guest rooms, for sure.”

...

While Makoto and Ryūzetsu-ue are busy preparing dinner for guests – two of whom have yet to arrive – Naori-ue calls you over to the dojo. When you arrive you find it empty, except for your mother, two cushions on the floor, and two small teacups with a pot between them.

“Please,” she gestures to the unoccupied cusion, which you dutifully occupy by sitting in seiza atop it. “So yeah, you killed a man yesterday. I wanted to ask you now that we have a moment, how do you feel about that?”

“It’s difficult to say,” you admit.

- Naori -

“I didn’t even intend to kill him,” your son admits after a moment. “I threw that shuriken and duplicated it hoping to create an opportunity for my teammates – I didn’t expect any of them would get hit in the face like that.”

“It’s hard to predict that sort of outcome, for sure,” you agree with his implicit meaning that the death was actually somewhat of an accident. “That being said, they were trying sincerely to hurt or kill you and your team.”

>You shouldn’t feel concerned. Always fight other shinobi assuming they mean to kill you.
>It’s something to consider going forward – when you must kill, and when you must not.
>Was using the fūma shuriken an appropriate use of force? Was there a realistic alternative?
>Other?

>>5243468
>>Was using the fūma shuriken an appropriate use of force? Was there a realistic alternative?

>>5243468
>>Was using the fūma shuriken an appropriate use of force? Was there a realistic alternative?

>>5243468
>>Was using the fūma shuriken an appropriate use of force? Was there a realistic alternative?

>>5243468
>>You shouldn’t feel concerned. Always fight other shinobi assuming they mean to kill you.
>>Was using the fūma shuriken an appropriate use of force? Was there a realistic alternative?

"When you fight another shinobi, you should always assume that they intend to seriously injure or kill you. Assuming any less could get you killed for underestimating them. That said, you and Makoto have always had a problem with 'appropriate force'. Why do you think I don't use sage mode to end every fight I am in instantly? You need to learn to appropriately measure an enemy's capability, and meet them on or slightly above that level. Meeting every fight with overwhelming force is a good way to get sloppy when the time comes that you meet an opponent who can take it."

>>5243468
>>You shouldn’t feel concerned. Always fight other shinobi assuming they mean to kill you.

>>5243468
>It’s something to consider going forward – when you must kill, and when you must not.

>>5243468
>>It’s something to consider going forward – when you must kill, and when you must not.

>>5243468
>It's a balancing act. You'll always have to weigh appropriate force against the potential threat, and if you misjudge it you'll have to live with the consequences.

>>5243468
>>5243920
support

>>5243468
“Yeah no, think about it carefully,” you muse, “so you’re sure not to take away the wrong lessons by mistake. Were there any realistic alternatives to the decision you made?”

A pause. “I could’ve used a standard shuriken, I suppose.”

“Would that have made a difference?” you press, encouraging your son to take that thought to its rational conclusion. “Would it have achieved the effect you were seeking?”

Another pause, as Shiki considers the likely results of such an attack. “Yes, but it might not have been much different – it may have actually been harder to dodge more projectiles.”

“And perhaps the other wounded bandit would have bled to death,” you muse. “Maybe fewer people would have died, maybe more.”

“... it sounds like you’re trying to discourage the question,” Shiki frowns.

You shake your head. “No, it’s always good to think about your actions – it’s part of being responsible for them. However once it’s come to violence there are often no ‘good’ choices, only ones that prioritize your mission and your comrades.”

“I think you did exactly that.”

After a few moments, your son confides in you. “I guess this whole ‘kill or be killed’ thing is just totally foreign to kids our age – me and Makoto I mean.”

“Fair point,” you admit, “back in my day there were a lot more B-rank missions and higher to go around. More kids are surviving to their twenties now, which is a good thing, but it’s harder to find qualified chunin.”

“Despite academy students having more advanced classes...” Shiki sighs. “Yeah, I guess I can see how limited experience would make that outcome possible.”

“You know,” you muse, considering this carefully, “your other mom learned the Tenrō from me?”

“You never told me that,” Shiki replies curiously. “How did you learn it?”

“By interrogating the previous warden of Hōzuki with genjutsu,” you recall, “before killing him. It was an Akatsuki mission – I didn’t want to leave the prison un-guarded despite having to kill Mui-han to keep him from... I guess destroying the world or something.”

“Or something?”

“Yeah no, I didn’t let it get far enough to see what would happen,” you admit. “Point is I think I have a way to help you understand my perspective a little better.”

“By using genjutsu to share the memory of an experience with me,” Shiki realizes – smart kid.

“You can say no,” you insist. “A lot of my memories are... well... a lot.”

- Shiki -
>Yes.
>No.

- Naori -
>Share the memory of your fight with Kurosuki Raiga.
>Share the memory of learning about Ajisai’s death.
>Share the memory of your sword-duel with Kaguya.
>Other?

>>5244488

- Shiki -
>Yes.

- Naori -
>Share each memory with him in turn, and explain what's happening and why as best you can. Keep going until he's had enough.

>>5244488
>yes
>share your fight with the paths of pain in konoha

>>5244488
>>Yes.
>>share your fight with the paths of pain in konoha

I really liked that one moment where Noari had to explicitly choose between gambling to save literally everyone and focusing her efforts on the hospitals and having to watch everyone else die.

>>5244488
>No.
Stop using superpowers to solve everything.

>>5244508
Go play regular human quest, dumbass

>>5244488
>>Yes.
>>Share the memory of your fight with Kurosuki Raiga.

>>5244488

- Shiki -
>Yes.

- Naori -
>Share the memory of your fight with Kurosuki Raiga.
This is the one most relatable to Shiki because the situational comparison between Shiki's age and physical condition mirror that of when Naori fought Kurosuki Raiga.

>>5244493
>>5244488
I'll support this. Start with the easy stuff with Raiga before ramping up in emotional intensity.

>>5244488
Supporting >>5244493 & >>5244527

>>5244488
After considering your idea for a moment, your son nods. “I get that you’re concerned... but you have a point. Show me what you think I need to understand.”

That trust he places in you... it would have been difficult for you to comprehend, before you had children. The full meaning behind that trust isn’t lost on you – it’s only offered because where many others might see a person of monstrous powers and insidious influence, Shiki sees someone who he can trust to have his best interests and his personal growth in mind at all times. That’s a huge sense of responsibility to you, and it’s deeply personal.

“There are three memories I want you to experience,” you explain. “The first one is an event you already know about.”

- Shiki -

Naori-ue places her hand against your forehead, and you can feel the genjutsu beginning to take effect. Instead of fighting it, which is always your first instinct, you consciously allow it to take hold so that the familiar confines of the dojo are quickly replaced by scenes of a battlefield – and startlingly, your slight apprehension at what you’re about to see is replaced by feelings not your own. You’re not just seeing it – true to Naori-ue’s intent, you’re actually feeling what she felt at the time, seeing it through her young eyes.

She never told you that it was raining that day.

The stench of blood hangs heavy over the scene of a mass murder, a man in a raincoat stands over the corpses of other men, finishing off the last survivor with a blade you recognize from seeing it in Buntan-nee’s hand. She never told you what it sounded like, the last, burbling breaths of a dead man. The tension and dread of a battle she knew could not be avoided, the growing resolution to strike first, the momentary thrill of the attack. She never told you that she didn’t even really notice that her eye had been cut out, and though she told you about the frantic retreat feeling her barely-contained panic was something you were hardly prepared for.

So this is what it feels like to watch a friend be murdered. It’s revolting... a nauseating mix of hatred and sorrow that your mother barely managed to contain. But contain it she does, somehow, and with the benefit of your own training you realize that had she not you would never have been born.

“Still standing, little red?” the swordsman grins dementedly. “How wonderful! At least you can take a hit or two and still come swinging at me!”

“I promise to say something nice for you when I bury you, nameless brat!”

“Raishō Naori,” you hear your mother’s voice, as a child your own age, mutter back.

“What was that?”

“My name,” you reply as the air around her blade begins to shimmer. “My name is Raishō Naori!”
>1/?

>>5245160
“Well, if we’re doing this,” the man cackles, “then where are my manners? My name is Kurosuki Raiga, wielder of Kiba, the Boltswords!”

The first time your mother ever used the kengen with the sword whose name is now practically synonymous with her own, the Umekiri Ichimonji, she unknowingly killed a child. Although she had no way to know it, she was immediately punished – you feel the pain of her ribs shattering, her cheek being crushed by a hammering blow. You watch her second friend, who was your doctor when you and Makoto were little, lose the use of his legs. And then... someone else entirely swoops in to kill the madman.

Black cloaks. Red clouds. A glimpse of the fully-evolved sharingan. Uchiha Itachi.

“I lost a friend that day,” Naori-ue tells you as her memory ends in black. “And for a long time, drifted away from another. That was what it felt like to lose them. That was what it felt like to lose a part of myself.”

...

A second memory, this time one of Konohagakure with... well, with a lot of buildings in it that you don’t recognize as still being there. There’s smoke in the air that stings your nostrils, and obvious damage surrounds you as far as you can see.

Your mother closes your eyes, sensing for the one thing that would help her divine Pain’s intentions… only to find that Konan-oba is no longer in the village. It’s infuriating to her that she quite simply blows away a giant multi-headed dog monster and some kind of zombie panda with chained explosive tags just to vent.

“Bastard,” she hisses. “So it’s going to be like that...”

“What?” Ajisai-san, younger now with black eyes and tell-tale signs of having been reincarnated, asks.

“He’s going to blow up the whole village,” your mother declares. “That’s why he threw the Animal Path over the wall and summoned Konan-sensei and his other Paths away. He knew I had him cornered and he was always planning on doing this anyway.”

“Well where is he?” Ajisai-san. “Can you stop him?”

“I have no idea,” Naori admits. “And I doubt he’ll give me an easy opening to counterattack… so even if I can spot him in time, and come up with a way to do it, I’d be gambling everyone’s lives on it.”

“So it’s either gamble everything on a single strike,” Ajisai-san summarizes, “or prepare for the worst and save everyone you can.”

“Exactly,” you can feel a sense of bitterness, dissatisfaction... but also, a grim recognition of reality. “It's not just my own pride, but thousands of innocents that Pain is preparing to murder.”
>2/?

>>5245162
The blast wave hits in almost the exact center of the village and scours a small circle down to bare dirt before reflecting back upwards in a phenomenon that until that day had been totally theoretical. No conventional barrier could have hoped to stop it – a relentless omnidirectional force spreading from a point some three hundred meters above the hypocenter.

Entire city blocks are reduced to dust and shrapnel in seconds by this doubled shockwave, which eventually pushes entire crumbling buildings off their foundations and carries them away. Shinobi unfortunate enough to still be out there are swept up in it… the few unfortunates nearest the hypocenter are simply pulped by the force, while a few hundred meters away anyone still on their feet has time to scramble for cover or to dodge the debris coming their way. You’ve never seen anything like this, and you understand in this moment – Naori-ue didn’t want you to have to experience anything like it the way she did.

It baffles you that anyone facing such a force even stood a chance.

The shock front would have destroyed the hospital completely if your mother hadn’t raised a Kongō Fūsa barrier that forced the destruction to take a wide path around her, like a lone figure parting a relentless tsunami of unidentifiable debris. Literally thousands of helpless victims that inundated the hospital as a result of Pain’s diversionary attack, and hundreds of medical personnel treating them, would have been crushed a second time.

Naori-ue is in bad shape – something wet and warm trickles from her eyes as an unfamiliar man and the lady that runs your favorite ramen shop in Konoha are supporting her.

After opening two of her inner gates to recover her strength, Naori-ue takes charge of the situation. "Keep protecting these people," you hear her instruct them. "Ayame... keep helping, in any way you can. I'll see to things out there, so don't worry.”

...

Naruto-san and Sasuke-san stand with her at the base of the crater, facing down a series of orange-haired shinobi wearing the Akatsuki uniform, all of whom are pierced heavily with black rods. One of them wears a familiar face... is that Ajisai-oba?

Tsunade-han glances at you – at Naori-ue – in shock as she agrees to let Naruto-san and Sasuke-san fight against Pain on their own. “You can’t be serious!”

“I have no right to tell them not to,” you hear her declare. “But there’s also something that I need to do that’s non-negotiable. I’ll take the Animal Path myself.”

“No,” Naruto counters. “Get granny Tsuna...”

“The Animal Path was my friend. I won’t let Pain continue to defile her corpse like this.” You can feel her rage, cold and intensely focused, building with each word, along with her determination to put an end to the outrage she's borne witness to. You couldn't have possibly imagined how this would feel without having felt it yourself. You'd have no frame of reference for it.
>3/?

>>5245165
“It is a shame to lose such a concentration of chakra,” a pale-skinned woman muses as you take in your surroundings. Pale skin, long white hair, horns... waitaminute...

“But a living incarnation of war has no place in our world.”

It’s almost sensory overload as Naori-ue tests senses that have expanded in ways you struggle to comprehend – chakra, thermal, air movements, an instinctive level of spatial awareness that has reached the level of a true ‘sense’ by itself.

“Yeah no, those were some pretty weighty words,” Naori-ue stalls for time, giving herself a chance to study her enemy with those new senses. “It almost sounds as if you hate me despite having only just met me.”

“Are you even aware of the fact that you are smiling?” Kaguya counters. Totally impassive, but Naori-ue gets a strong impression that she has a complete disdain towards not just herself, but towards all of humanity. “You are about to face a god in battle and you are smiling, as if nothing else could make you so happy. That is how I know that you cannot coexist with us.”

It’s striking how much calmer Naori-ue is at this point in her life, facing the strongest opponent any human has ever faced – complete acceptance of the risk, complete focus on the task in front of her, absolute mastery over self. She feels the fear and the tension, accepts them for what they are, and sets them aside as unnecessary.

“And?” she counters Kaguya-hime’s rebuke. “You lost the part of yourself with any understanding of humanity when you ate the fruit, so how could you know what my smile means?”

Naori-ue’s senses tell you what’s happening in exquisite detail as Kaguya-hime pulls out one of her own bones – the right radius – and forms it into a sword like an ancient jian. There’s no viscera, no obvious pain – the bone slides out almost without resistance and settles into her hand as thought it had never belonged anywhere else.

“Tsubaki no Haikotsu,” she announces, blank eyes never leaving Naori-ue nor showing any change in emotion, never betraying any intent.

“You just made that up,” Naori accuse her.

“We have never had need of it before,” she clarifies, “however we understand that further discussion would be meaningless. So we will converse instead in the language most suited to you.”
>4/5

>>5245396
Naruto-san and Kakashi-oji are apprehensive, Naori-ue can sense it – but there’s a little flicker of excitement. She understands full well the risk, that the blade in Kaguya-hime’s hand will kill her even with a glancing blow, making it in a certain sense the ultimate kenjutsu form. In order to win, her skills will need to match Kaguya-hime’s raw ability, which she understands will be a test.

“You’re right,” your mother admits with a sigh. “It’s too bad – a god could have made for a fine ally against your clansmen. But humanity has no need of a god who can’t understand the human heart.”

The first moves are almost impossible to process even with Naori-ue’s overwhelming sensory acuity, Umekiri leaving her saya and seeking the first strike. Kaguya’s bone blade meets the now-famous kodachi, a very keen response but a swing even you recognize as shallow, much like the next two exchanges. Three slashes in quick succession and nothing to show for it, both fighters dancing lightly around each other to gain a positional advantage. Each time Naori-ue moves she unseal paper butterflies, hiding them among illusory distractions.

She flickers behind Kaguya using a hiraishin marking placed directly on her using some means you didn’t even manage to catch despite all your advantages, and combines two quick hand seals using her left hand with a diagonal slash with Umekiri in her right.

“Suiryūsen!”

Kaguya however merely turns, showing you that her arm has crossed in front of her so that you can see her left palm under her right shoulder. She quickly absorbs Naori-ue’s attack, which would have scared the everloving hell out of you but doesn’t seem to even fluster your mother, and retaliates by firing hardened white hairs from the back of her scalp in a wide spray.

“Yeah no, I think that’s enough for you to get the gist,” Naori-ue tells you, and very suddenly the dojo floor returns – your face laying against it in a little puddle of slobber. “Sorry about that last one – I know the extra sensory information was probably too much to handle for too long.”

“... what was that?” you ask her awkwardly.

“The result of everything that came before it,” Naori-ue explains. “I had to be that scared little genin, and that overwhelmed and outraged mercenary, to be the person I was when I needed to face Kaguya-hime alone. If you can benefit from the sort of things I endured without having to endure them yourself – that would be nice, for sure.”

A thought. Something you just began to understand a few moments ago. “The Ōtsutsuki are a clan... you expect others to come here looking for Kaguya-hime?”

- Naori -

>Yes, Kaguya-hime certainly thought so. But it may be your generation that has to face them.
>We can’t say for sure. The Kages decided to keep it quiet for the time being, so it’s classified.
>Let me worry about that for now. You should focus on doing what you know you can.
>Other?

>>5245409
>>Yes, Kaguya-hime certainly thought so. But it may be your generation that has to face them.

>>5245409
>Let me worry about that for now. You should focus on doing what you know you can.

>>5245409
>Others
Kaguya-hime certainly thought so, but she was also insane, we can't say for sure. So the Kages decided to keep it quite for the time being, its classified.

>>5245409
>Yes, Kaguya-hime certainly thought so. But it may be your generation that has to face them.
>We've already dealt with one other so far.

>>5245409
See >>5245431

>>5245409
>Let me worry about that for now. You should focus on doing what you know you can.

>>5245409
>>5245431
This

>>5245409
“Kaguya-hime certainly thought so, but Kaguya-hime was insane,” you admit. “There may have been another one who came here with Kaguya-hime but we can’t know that for sure, and the clan on the moon is basically extinct – down to just one survivor.”

“So we don’t know what to expect or when,” Shiki-kun summarizes.

You nod. “That’s my understanding.”

Shiki shakes his head. “I’m sorry, this is a lot to process.”

You reach over to ruffle his hair, the same way you have for years, and he allows you to do it, same as he has since he was old enough to have an opinion about it. “Take your time, and remember – you don’t need to have all the answers right away. Just do what you can as best you can, and the answers should come.”

“I believe in you, Shiki-kun.”

- Shiki -

You embrace your mother... what you’ve seen and felt will be with you for a long time, possibly until the day you die. You saw deep and lasting pain, a lot of regret, and impossible choices. But you also saw unyielding strength, a powerful love for others, and a striking sense of focus and discipline. And that’s left you with a new appreciation of just how much Naori-ue has done for you, and for the world she helped bring you into, along with a profound sense of gratitude that urges you to action.

She simply returns the gesture, perhaps understanding the meaning behind it, perhaps willing to simply enjoy the moment for its own merits.

“Yeah no, what do you say we have dinner with your teammates?” she eventually muses.

“That sounds nice,” you tell her.

“Our other guests should be here now too,” she continues. “Let’s go, Shiki-kun.”

...

The other guests turn out to be Yugitō-oba and Fū-neesan – which is absolutely, 100% alright by you.

“Been a while, Shikkun!” Fū greets you as soon as she stops swinging you around by your neck.

“... missed you too neesan...” you manage to choke out a response.

“Come on, let the poor young man breathe,” Nii Yugitō insists with a wry grin. “Leave some for the rest of us.”

Fū-nee glances down at you in dawning comprehension before shaking you vigorously by your shoulders. “Ah! Hang in there, Shikkun!”
>1/2

>>5243464
I'm sorry, I have to interrupt and remark on the incredibly poignant image you have conjured in my mind, as tender as it is tragic.

Picture the scene: lights turned down low; family, friends and other well-wishers singing while gatherered around a pair of doe-eyed, apple-cheeked tots in party hats. They both look on in wonder at their birthday cake with five whole candles. The singing ends. There's a brief pause. Without warning from one end of the table a blast of water erupts, strong enough to bowl over a full-grown man (which, in fact, it does: the poor monk never saw it coming.) The cake is just a sad, soggy ruin now plastered across half the room--nevermind the candles. Silence reins for a few heartbeats. Various expressions of shock and two of tearful horror are evident. Then, the crying starts . . .

>>5247073
The meal, as is expected when you have so much company, is one only possible with the cooperation of several shadow clones in the kitchen doing all the preparation work. The appetizer, sakizuke, is a tart bite-sized morsel of watermelon-flavored cream, steamed into a puff with a preserved cherry on top, followed by a hassun, a plate with summer seasonal foods – freshwater eel with pickled ginger slices and lightly-pickled cucumber. It’s striking how poised Hanabi-sensei is while eating, and just as striking how out-of-place Wasabi seems. She’s either a little stunned at being treated to kaiseki that you’d expect to pay a few thousand ryo for in a restaurant you can only get into with a reference from an existing patron, or else she’s nervous at being seated next to Matatabi’s jinchūriki.

Either way, it falls to your parents to try and carefully make her a little more comfortable, prodding Makoto into talking more with her to distract her from whatever’s got her so nervous. Next is the seasonal mukōzuki plate of sliced sashimi, which features two of the aozakana: ‘blue fish’ which come into season in the early autumn, which is the seasonal transition you’re experiencing right now. Featured here are saba mackerel and saira knife-fish, both popular this time of year especially in coastal communities but harder to get here for people who can’t teleport.

Then comes a hiyashi-bachi of chilled steamed edamame, which cleanses the palate for the closest thing to a ‘main’ course – a hot pot with thin-sliced venison, mushroom, tofu, and various vegetables in a miso-based broth. Next is a small bowl of rice with pickled vegetables – which seems to make Sumire about as happy as you’ve ever seen her when eating – followed by dessert in the form of a light but flavorful peach jelly with a white chocolate drizzle. While the adults in the room can all sip on sake the whole time, the rest of you are stuck drinking tea. Good tea to be sure, but it’s not really what kaiseki of this type was meant to be paired with.

Still, it’s an excellent meal even by the standards of the Uzumaki household’s entertaining standards.

...

Once you’ve dealt with the dishes, you return to the sitting room to face out into the garden, where your family’s many guests sit and listen to the rain with tea.

“This is normal for you?” Wasabi-kun hisses softly when you sit down with your team.

You shake your head. “Only with important guests.”

“We’re ‘important’?”

You nod. “You’re my teammates. That’s important to me, which makes it important to my family.”

“Hey Shikkun!” Fū-neesan grins, basically dropping in on you. “Let’s play a game, shall we?”
>2/3

>>5247152
Can we make this version canon please?

>>5247163
“So,” Makoto mutters in the darkness, when you’re back to sharing your room that night. “That’s your team.”

“That’s my team,” you confirm. “They’ve been good to me so far.... all of the class has. We didn’t talk about it, but what’s your team like?”

“Well Gin-kun can be trouble sometimes,” Makoto admits, “and Sakuto-kun can be headstrong...”

“Sakuto?” you interrupt. “You mean that jerk’s your third member?”

“He’s mellowed out since the last time you spoke,” Makoto sighs, “though he can also still be a bit abrasive. He’s good at medical ninjutsu though – right up to using the chakra scalpel in a fight.”

“That’s pretty nasty,” you admit. “But I’m glad your team worked out too – I’ve been worried you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” she acknowledges, “I was worried too. About you, I mean. Now, not so much.”

...

The next morning Makoto has to leave shortly after breakfast for a training session with her teammates, and after giving her a quick hug you and your team head out into the village so that you can show them around – a mission entrusted to you by the village head (Naori-ue) and the chief of security (Ryūzetsu-ue). The first thing you do is show them around the heart of the village, from the lakeside back to the Uzumaki shrine (where you pay respects to your ancestors), and onward to the old shrine (which you explain that your mother actually teleported across the lake from its previous location). There the monks welcome you in and offer to show your team around, including the room where your mother lived for several years after your grandmother passed.

Sumire-kun seems particularly struck by the awareness that your mother, without doubt the most powerful and capable kunoichi in the world, was an orphan just like her. After getting shūin for your visit, which the head abbot offers to write for you and your team personally, you take your teammates past highlights through the rest of the village – pointing out the first dedicated airship terminal in the world, the end terminal of the first international Thunder Rail line, the war memorial, and right next to the war memorial the small and often-overlooked memorial to the deceased members of Akatsuki. The first generation are all here of course including Nagato, who was something like your great uncle, as well as the generation who worked under Pain. Only one name is missing from this list: Uchiha Obito, the man who crassly used Nagato-oji for his own ends in league with Uchiha Madara, seeking to betray the whole world to Kaguya-hime.
>3/4

>>5247411
After wandering through the local history museum, which has an interesting special exhibit on Hanzō the Salamander (including his sword collection from which you understand your personal blade came), you find yourselves at the mall waiting for your meeting time with the clients you came here with. With a little time to shop while Sumire-kun and Wasabi-kun are examining traditional craftwork from the region (the old local styles of ceramics and lacquer, gift boxes of wagashi made with floating rice and taro and other local ingredients, that sort of thing), you find your own thoughts drifting oscillating between the practical and the stylish.

>1d6, best three of four

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5247420

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5247420

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>5247420

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>5247420

>>5247420
You find yourself examining equipment, where your eyes fall on packs of senbon in a supply store. This shop also has prepared parasols – which you never learned how to use properly, since you didn’t attend the academy in Amegakure – and even the tiny bells meant to be attached to senbon to use the shadow senbon technique (which you did master in Konoha’s academy, even if you find it a little gimmicky). A quick test against one of the shop’s targets in back confirms that you can toss two senbon with one hand quite easily, and double it four times into thirty-two by the time they strike. The rather dastardly idea in your head is to provide an alternative to doing the same technique with shuriken – and to coat the points in Momo’s venom.

You even manage to do exactly that by summoning Momo into a public restroom, the door to which you briefly block for privacy, drawing some of the venom from Momo’s exposed bones to coat eight senbon and seal them into your raikō kenka formulae. That will give you two attacks with each hand before you need to ‘reload’, which should be enough to test the theory. You also seal ten uncoated senbon into each seal, five single senbon with bells, and three sets with only one bell between two senbon.

...

After all the preparation, you stop in front of a shop selling clothes in the style your mother has made somewhat popular among shinobi in Amegakure, and even among other villages to a lesser degree – particularly among kunoichi. One of the fabrics catches your eye – medium blue, with stylized white whirlpools swirling on one edge.

“It doesn’t take a genius to know who you are, young master,” an older lady muses, walking up to you as you evaluate the fabric. “Your mother, Naori-sama, was one of the first to order a custom item from our humble shop – and now we have three different locations. Her patronage over the years has meant the world to us.”

“That’s nice to hear,” you muse politely.

“Your style of cloak – it’s quite chic for a young man.”

“Kind of you to say,” you reply.

Then you notice her examining you closely. “Can I help you, ma’am?”

“Perhaps you can,” she muses thoughtfully. “I would like to make a deal with you, same as I did with your mother before you were born – I will make you a new coat, and my company will maintain it whenever it becomes damaged, if you will simply wear it.”

>Deal.
>I’ll pass.
>Maybe when I’m famous.
>Other?

>>5247586
>>Deal.

>>5247586
>Deal.

>>5247586
>>Deal.

>>5247586
>>Deal.

>>5247586
>>Deal.

>>5247586
Other:
>I am going to be operating out of Konoha for the foreseeable future, just so you are aware.

As a side note: shinobi are supposed to steer clear of anything that might feasibly be a bribe, or alternative income source while on official business, right?

>>5247586
“I have to admit, I’m a bit curious,” you frown. “I know that Naori-ue has only one such arrangement, and that otherwise she avoids using her name and position that way like the plague. So why you?”

The old lady chuckles. “You really have no idea who I am, do you? That’s nice. I like to keep it that way.”

“Okay, so who are you?” you ask, slowly approaching the limits of your patience.

“I am Kinoshita Ōi – perhaps you have heard of my name, but have had no face to which you could attach it?”

Kinoshita Ōi... wait...

“Ah, I see that rang a bell?”

“Kino,” you realize. “This isn’t your shop, is it?”

“Ah, no, no it is not,” she recognizes the mistake. “My apologies if you assumed it was. No, I like to browse the work of other local artisans – it gives me ideas, you see, and I’ll often source my materials based on that.”

Kino-ya. You’re talking to the founder of Kino-ya, probably the single most famous design house in the Land of Storms. Kinoshita Ōi is well known not just for her fashion design but for producing her designs entirely from the work of local artisans like this one, for bringing in and supporting talent across multiple forms of practical, decorative, and fine art, and for giving generously to help fund social works and arts festivals within and around Amegakure. She’s also developed a reputation for her eccentricity – you’re not aware of anyone who knows her face outside the village security department, which is evidently just the way she likes it for exactly this sort of shopping trip.

In other words, along with Naori-ue, this is one of the people who really helped drive the revival of traditional arts and design in the Land of Storms with the close of the last shinobi world war.

“In that case,” you muse, “I’ll accept your kind offer... but I live and work in Konohagakure right now. Will that be a problem?”

“No, not at all,” she insists, “I can deliver it to your mothers when I’ve finished and then Naori-sama can take it to you.”

‘Deliver’, as opposed to ‘send’ – she means to hand-make and hand-deliver the coat she intends to make for you.

“Please look forward to it.”

She takes your measurements quickly, seemingly does some mental calculus to adjust for a flak jacket, and then scurries off to start buying fabrics and thread.
>1/2

>>5248652
“So what did you do while we were shopping, Shiki-kun?” Sumire-kun strikes up a conversation as you escort your clients out of Amegakure.

“I picked up some new equipment to try out,” you muse, “and ordered a new one-off cloak from a high-end designer.”

“Oho?” one of the art merchants muses. “Which designer would that be?”

“Kinoshita Ōi.”

The man looks aghast at that revelation. “I had no idea you were so well-connected – Kinoshita-dono only makes garments for a select, hand-picked clientele.”

You shrug. “It was an exchange – a nice new cloak with lifetime repair and replacement, and in exchange I wear it to show off my homeland’s artistic talent.”

“Nice,” Wasabi-kun muses. “So where is it?”

“Kinoshita-san is still making it,” you admit.

…

Your team, your sensei, and your clients all travel the rest of the day to get out of the rain before setting up camp. The next morning you strike out early, and make it a fair distance before Hanabi-sensei stops you. “If you have business with us step forward,” she declares loudly. “Otherwise, step aside.”

A large man with broad shoulders, a big beard, and a dark cloak steps out from behind a tree, along with four thugs. The man looks familiar from your mission files. “We’ve got a woman with an attitude here – I like it. Too bad I can’t allow it.”

“You would be the rest of the Garakuta gang, then?”

“None other,” the man declares. “I sent my guys out here to rob you the first time, but now that’s gotta change.”

“Get ‘em!”
>1d6, best three of four

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5248751

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5248751

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5248751

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5248751
I WANT THAT BOOTY

>>5248751
The thugs move around to flank you, while the bearded leader sticks his hands out from under his cloak before bringing them together and clasping them together. “Doton: Sokona -”

You interrupt his technique by unsealing a senbon with a bell attached to it, and throw it at his head. He’s careful to dodge it, though the movement and the surprise attack throw off his balance and focus just enough to keep him from completing the technique.

“Seen that one,” you frown. “And getting stuck in the mud doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time. So I don’t think I’m gonna let you use it.”

“Nice, Shiki-kun!” Hanabi-sensei commends you. She hits one of the thugs in his wrist to block a kunai, only to find that his entire hand comes off. A follow-up strike to his chin dissolves his head in a splash of water – these are all water clones?

You move to cover for Wasabi-kun for a second while she uses her cat-covering technique, sniffing carefully at the air. In the mean time you toss another pair of senbon with bells, one at a thug’s water clone, and one at the boss to keep him moving.

“All of these guys except for fuzzy-face over there are water clones!” she declares. “They don’t have a scent!”

“The casters have to be nearby,” Sumire-kun declares as she takes a step back from having parried a kunai herself, letting the cloned thug stumble forward before she dispatches it with her tantō. “Sensei?”

Hanabi-sensei quickly takes a look around with her byakugan, before nodding once. “You’re right, the four thugs are all here. But I think I’ll let you three handle this.”

“Shiki-kun, can you handle the boss?” Sumire-kun asks you.

You look the man over, having just thrown another senbon with a bell that he blocked with a kunai. “Yeah.”

“We’ll handle the thugs,” Wasabi-kun insists, “just keep that jerk from using his technique!”

“I’m getting a little tired of this,” the boss grumbles.

“I was about to say the same thing,” you admit. “But if you want me to use something spicier, I’ll be happy to oblige. Just don’t complain about the heat.”

>Slip in a ‘shadow senbon’ coated with salamander venom, see if you can make it stick.
>Use a bell, take advantage of his overconfidence and use the shuriken shadow clone.
>The bells are meant to use genjutsu – you can make them ‘ring’ with the wave transmission.
>Other?

>>5249175
>>Slip in a ‘shadow senbon’ coated with salamander venom, see if you can make it stick.

>>5249175
>>Slip in a ‘shadow senbon’ coated with salamander venom, see if you can make it stick.

>>5249175
>>The bells are meant to use genjutsu – you can make them ‘ring’ with the wave transmission.

>>5249175
>>Slip in a ‘shadow senbon’ coated with salamander venom, see if you can make it stick.

>>5249175
>1d6, first three, DC 10
>SP: 4/4

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5249369

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5249369

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5249369
dice plus one dee six

>>5249369
Use 1SP?
>Yes
>No

>>5249391
>Yes

>>5249391
>>Yes

>>5249391
>Yes

>>5249391
yes

>>5249391
>SP: 3/4

“I see what you have in mind, brat,” the bearded man smirks. “It’s just about the oldest, lamest trick in the book – and even if it worked, there’s a reason nobody uses senbon. The have no killing power!”

“Let’s say that after you’ve seen what I have in mind,” you counter, producing a pair of senbon and throwing them.

The bearded gang leader’s smirk fades as you snap your fingertips, while the senbon are still in flight – he clearly sees them coming, but when the sound of the bells hits him his eyes widen in confused surprise as he loses track of their position for just an instant, putting his kunai blade in the wrong place to parry.

Meanwhile, your teammates have quickly dispatched the water clones and faced down the four thugs who have come out of hiding, their strategy having fallen flat leaving them with little but brute force to get their way. Wasabi-kun seems completely fine with that, just about ripping the first man’s arm out of its socket as she throws him to the ground before kicking several of his teeth in to keep him down. Another thug readies a kunai to throw at her, but Sumire-kun has already summoned Nue. Currently the size of a panther or so, the chimera knocks the would-be attacker to the ground with a pouncing tackle.

“Nue, hold!” Sumire-kun orders, and Nue obliges, grabbing the man’s arm in his fangs and holding him down with his body weight. Sumire uses the opening to gather water from one of the defeated shadow clones for an unusually large attack. “Suiton: Suireiha!”

Instead of one large blast she releases several blasts in quick succession, each about the size of her usual one-handed attack instead of the slightly smaller attacks she typically can create when using the technique this way, covering for Wasabi-kun to get in close. Between the two of them, the last two thugs go down easily.

Back in your own fight, the bearded man pulls the senbon out of his shoulder. “You little bastard, what did you just do?”

“A power-obsessed simpleton like you wouldn’t understand,” you sigh, “but when a solution is simple, efficient, and effective, we call that ‘elegance’. Using a simple genjutsu, two senbon, and a little bit of giant salamander venom is an elegant solution, don’t you think?”

There’s a pause while the color drains from his face. “What was that last thing you said?”

“Giant salamander venom,” you repeat.

Hanabi-sensei joins you, the battle having largely wrapped up. “I thought you were using senbon to have a less lethal option?”

You scoff. “When did I ever say that?”
>1/2

>>5249449
Wasabi-kun and Sumire-kun quickly set to work tying the thugs up to be left by the side of the road so that some of Ryūzetsu-ue’s men can pick them up – Wasabi-kun can’t help but cock her fist, prompting a flinch from a couple of the thugs.

Meanwhile...

“Bullshit,” the bandit leader spits. “No way a brat like you could be...”

You weave the seals and summon Momo-kun. The man’s eyes widen and he starts to visibly sweat at the realization that you weren’t lying, and as he stares into the abyss stares into him. Then the abyss licks his own eyeball again.

“That guy’s not looking so good,” Wasabi-kun muses as she joins you. “Kinda pale and clammy-lookin. What’s up? Why’d you summon Momo-kun?”

“You gave that thing a name!?” the bandit practically screams. “What kind of psychopaths are you!?”

“Now that’s not nice,” Wasabi-kun frowns, scratching Momo-kun behind where his ears should be. “Momo-kun’s a good boy, arentcha Momo-kun?”

Momo barks happily at the attention.

“Calm down,” you sigh. “They may both be neurotoxins, but Ibuse’s venom affects the autonomic nervous system, eventually leading to suffocation. Momo-kun’s works on the somatic nervous system.”

The man tries again to form hand seals, but finds that his right arm and hand won’t do what he wants – the side, naturally, which your senbon hit. “What did you do to me!?”

“I get it!” Wasabi-kun surprises you. “It’s like the Ranshinshō technique!”

“The what?” you ask, almost in unison with your opponent. “Shut up.”

“His nervous system is all scrambled around the spots where you hit him,” Wasabi summarizes. “There’s a really high level medical ninjutsu that does that with the whole body.”

“Anyway, you can’t form seals right now,” Hanabi-sensei muses, “so why don’t we call it quits before someone really gets hurt, hm?”

...

The rest of your trip is totally uneventful now that the Garakuta gang is completely out of the picture. Its members and its leader are now on their way to Yukigakure to experience the warden’s warm welcome, and the art merchants are happy to get home to Konoha with their wares and all of their blood still tucked away safe and sound.

Unfortunately, you soon learn that things have gotten a bit out of hand even in the six days you’ve been gone.
>2/3

>>5250253
Team 15 reports immediately to the mission assignment desk, where one of Naruto-san’s shadow clones meets you personally.

“Congratulations on another successful mission,” he acknowledges, before shaking hands with his sister-in-law. “Hanabi-san, sorry to have you turn right back around but we’ll need you on this as well.”

“What’s going on around here?” Hanabi demands impatiently. “I’ve never seen so many people so worked up.”

“There’s been a rash of incidents lately,” Naruto explains, “all claimed as the work of the Byakuya gang.”

“The who now?” you frown.

“They’re a group of shinobi turned self-described noble thieves,” Hanabi-sensei explains. “They steal things then ingratiate themselves with local folks who are unhappy with their financial situation by handing out a cut of their profits.”

“Not an unfair or inaccurate description,” Naruto admits, “though it bothers me that they’ve found so much support. I don’t think we can completely write that off.”

“So, what do we do, boss?” Wasabi-kun asks.

“You don’t do anything,” Naruto insists. “With the threat to the Kaminarimon company this has become a matter of internal politics, and you three just came off a B-rank mission that took six days to complete. Go home and rest – things will be coming to a head tonight, so let the adults handle it this time.”

>1d6, first three
>DC 10
>SP: 3/4

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5250666

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5250666

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5250666

>spend 1sp
>Yes
>No

>>5250697
No

>>5250697
>>Yes

>>5250697
>Yes

>>5250697
>Yes

>>5250697
Outside of the mission assignment office, you and your teammates occupy a park bench to have a little gripe session, a semi-public airing of grievances.

“It’s always like this!” Wasabi-kun grumbles. “Other than Hanabi-sensei all the adults look down on us... for what? For being born in the peaceful world they created!”

“You’ve been awfully quiet about this,” Sumire observes “What are you thinking, Shiki-kun?”

“There isn’t much we can do,” you admit with a sigh. “I’m a foreign national, remember? The Hokage probably doesn’t want me getting mixed up in his village’s politics if he can avoid it.”

“Speaking of politics, why exactly are these people targeting Denki’s old man anyway?” Wasabi-kun wonders aloud, leaning back on the bench. “I mean, is there even any proof the company’s done anything wrong other than make money hand over fist?”

“For that matter, what kind of shinobi calls out their targets like that?” you shake your head. “Come to think of it, what kind of thief does that?”

There’s a pause. “They wouldn’t,” Sumire-kun realizes almost at the exact same time as you do.

“What, so all this is just some kinda distraction?” Wasabi-kun frowns. “Shouldn’t someone else’ve thought of that?”

“We’ve been out of the village for almost a week,” you point out.

Sumire-kun is quick to agree. “One of the best ways to trick someone is to make them think your lie was something they thought up themselves – I fooled the same adults involved in this ‘noble thieves’ case the same exact way.”

“Sumirin, try to call sensei!” you insist, before pulling out your own mobile and dialing the one person you absolutely trust to have the write answer for this situation. “Naori-ue, we have a problem.”

- Naori -

“Okay, so if you were going to steal something from Konoha,” your son presses you eagerly, “what would you wanna target?”

You frown. “So yeah, I can only speak for myself since I don’t know anything about the enemy – but I’d say the most valuable think in this village that isn’t alive is at the Ninjutsu Research Center.”

“The what now?” he frowns.

“It’s some sciency place Boruto-kun keeps hanging out around,” Wasabi-kun scratches lightly behind her ear. “Guy who runs it gives him new games all the time, limited edition stuff. I don’t even think Boruto-kun knows what goes on there.”
>1/2

>>5252590
“It’s a research center developing scientific ninja tools,” you explain. “And it’s the reason Naruto-kun and I don’t talk much anymore outside official business.”

“Why is that, exactly?” Sumire-kun asks curiously.

“Yeah no, we had a dust-up over it at one of the Union meetings,” you clarify. “Imagine those Garakuta gang punks you fought a few days ago, but they’d all bought the ability to use the rasengan – to put our strongest techniques in the hands of people who don’t have the experience or the perspective to use them judiciously would be a disaster.”

“So what do we do about this?” your son asks. “Sumirin, did you get a hold of Hanabi-sensei?”

“She’s not answering her mobile,” Sumire-kun tells you.

>That means it’s up to the four of us to make sure this gang of miscreants doesn’t get their way.
>Sumire-kun, Wasabi-kun, speak with your sensei directly. Shiki-kun... try not to slow me down.
>All three of you should go to the Kaminarimon building. Make sure nobody gets hurt in all this.
>Other?

>>5252805
>>That means it’s up to the four of us to make sure this gang of miscreants doesn’t get their way.

>>5252805
>>All three of you should go to the Kaminarimon building. Make sure nobody gets hurt in all this.
>Other?
Have a shadow clone secretly follow them. Just because Naori wants them to have a safety net doesn't mean she should ruin their mindset by letting them know it exists.

Trust but verify the new generation.

>>5252805
>All three of you should go to the Kaminarimon building. Make sure nobody gets hurt in all this.

>>5252805
>All three of you should go to the Kaminarimon building. Make sure nobody gets hurt in all this.

>>5252805
>>That means it’s up to the four of us to make sure this gang of miscreants doesn’t get their way.

>>5252805
>All three of you should go to the Kaminarimon building. Make sure nobody gets hurt in all this.

>Yeah no, we had a dust-up over it at one of the Union meetings
Who won?

>>5254122
Since Naruto still has his weapon research center I'd say he did.

>>5252805
“Yeah no, sorry Shiki,” you apologize quickly, “but I’ll get there faster on my own. I can’t order you three to go help, but Shiki? I think you can do some good at the Kaminarimon building. And you’ll do more good as a team.”

Your son and his teammates exchange a series of quick, silent glances, before coming to a conclusion. “I’m going,” he insists curtly. “Even if it’s disobeying an order – not acting now would be worse.”

“You don’t have to convince me,” Wasabi-kun immediately agrees. “Let’s get on it!”

“Right!” Sumire-kun agrees, and the three of them take off together in a loose formation.

A few moments after they’re physically out of sight, you create a shadow clone to follow them. You trust that they’ll be alright, and that they can show discretion when dealing with random civilians that have been whipped into a frenzy somehow by conmen.

It doesn’t take you long to locate a disturbance outside the research center, where you swoop in on a team of vaguely familiar genin fighting against grown men in owl masks. The genin – Akimichi Chōchō, Yamanaka Inojin, Uchiha Sarada, and a girl you don’t recognize – are easily holding their own against most of the thieves. There’s one exception, probably about at the level of an experienced chūnin, who uses the Kitsunebi technique.

“Take this, you little punks!” he crows, slinging the fireballs around with sweeping movements of his hands. “And curse your foolishness for picking a fight with a real ninja with your last breaths!”

You hit the remaining fireballs with water needles, spit from your mouth in quick succession, extinguishing them all. Then you allow yourself to be seen. “Yeah no, that’s not a good look for a ‘noble’ thief.”

“Who the heck are you?” he demands, holding his hands in a position to start weaving seals.

He gets through snake and is trying to do ram when you resheath Umekiri. As he tries to bend his fingers properly, most of them fall off at various knuckles... a realization followed by a wail.

“Don’t be such a baby,” you sigh. “Your fingers can be reattached – but snuffing out a young life, that would’ve been permanent.”

You hit him in the back with Umekiri’s hilt. “So yeah, I’m gonna have you sleep for a while.”

The man falls awkwardly onto his face, out cold.

Sarada-kun is the first to speak up. “Naori-dono? I... even with the sharingan I barely saw what you did.”
>1/2

>>5254531
“Are you four okay?” you ask the important question, before creating a shadow clone. “Can you handle this?”

“Well, now yeah,” Inojin-kun muses. “Should we... I dunno, collect his fingers or something?”

“If you feel like it,” you shrug. “Boruto and Shikadai are missing – where did they go?”

“Towards the train line,” Sarada-kun tells you.

“Then I think I know where I have to be,” you muse. “Thank you, Sarada-kun. You kids did good work... my clone will tie these up and someone will be a long to collect them.”

- Shiki -

You manage to take a side street to get around the crowd, leaping down from a rooftop to join the genin and instructors standing outside the Kaminarimon company headquarters. Hanabi-sensei seems a little surprised to see you.

“I thought you were ordered to rest?” she frowns. “What are you doing here?”

“Naori-ue is dealing with a threat to the Ninjutsu Research Center,” you inform her.

“We tried to call you twice,” Sumire-kun adds. “Straight to voicemail.”

“Can’t just sit around at a time like this,” Wasabi-kun insists.

Hanabi-sensei quickly checks her mobile to confirm what Sumirin told her, then nods. “Okay. We can use the help – just go easy, okay? Get this crowd to disperse without hurting anyone.”

Teams 40 and 20 are present – a whole lot of people you don’t see very often, and an absence of a few teams you expected to be here.

>1d6, first three
>DC 8
>SP: 2/4

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5254544
Some good rolls please

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5254544

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>5254544

>>5254544
The protesters are already clashing with the chūnin and village police who have formed a perimeter around the entrance to the Kaminarimon headquarters building, but one particularly spirited fellow shouting about “destroying the Kaminarimon company” catches your eyes. You wave Sumire-kun over to you and point it out to her.

“Does that look like a seal to you?”

After a moment she nods. “I’ll go get Sensei!”

A few moments later Team 15 is gathered, waiting as Hanabi-sensei uses her Byakugan to examine the crowd. “You’re right... well-spotted, guys.”

“The police chief’s up inside the building, yeah?” Wasabi-kun thinks things through a moment. “Is there any way we can get a call through?”

“Denki-kun is on suspension with his teammates,” Hanabi-sensei informs you. “That should mean he’s inside right now.”

“I’ll send him a picture,” Sumire-kun declares.

“You have his number?” Wasabi-kun muses. “Just what I’d expect from the class rep!”

After sending the pictures out to Denki-kun, you and your team confer with teams 20 and 40 before spreading out along the front line along with various chūnin – you even see Mirai-san getting in on this. You pick out the first guy you noticed with the seal on his neck.

“The Kaminarimon Company works us to the bone and keeps all the profits for themselves!” he protests before you tap your right fingertips against the seal and perform the genjutsu release technique.

He goes a little unsteady for a moment, wavering briefly on his feet, before shaking his head. “What’s going on here? Why am I shouting at the headquarters building when they just gave me a raise last week?”

“You were put under a genjutsu by the Byakuya gang,” you explain over the crowd noise. “They wanted to use you as a diversion while they committed a heist somewhere else in the village.”

“That’s right... there was a guy who stopped me after work,” he recalls blearily, before shaking his head again. “Oh, crap!”


“It’s okay!” you insist, “You weren’t the only one. But we’re going to need you to talk to the police – do you mind?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “I’ll cooperate, of course.”

He steps across the line, and you lead him to a uniformed officer to have a little talk. All up and down the security perimeter you see a few others doing the same, while others even go so far as to tell their fellow protesters what was going on.
>1/2

>>5255364
- Naori -

So they planned to take the train, thinking nobody could outrun it? How foolish.

You slide the window of one of the forward cars open, duck inside, and step through into the second car of the mostly empty train with a smile on your face. “Tickets, please.”

The two shinobi you find there, an older man with a full beard and a boy maybe a few years older than Shiki and Makoto, are initially too stunned at your sudden appearance to even react. Then the younger of the two leaps into action, with a single tiger hand seal. “Hyōton: Mangehyō!”

Before the ice needles have even finished forming your own kunai is on its way past them, and as they streak for the spot where your afterimage still stands Umekiri’s hilt is striking the boy in the solar plexus. His feet lift up off the ground slightly and his eyes lose focus, before you turn and kick him across the whole remaining length of the car and through the door in the back.

Meanwhile the man has barely had time to draw his own sword, stepping back away from you. “I’m not going to let you stop me now – not when the take of a lifetime is in my hands!”

“Gekkō-han, missing-nin from Yukigakure, wanted for multiple counts of homicide, grand theft, and racketeering,” you muse. “Filth.”

“After killing that brat, you have the nerve to lecture me?” he laughs.

In mere moments he finds his own blade pressed against his through, his arm and wrist twisted awkwardly to allow that to be possible. “Who said I’ve killed anyone tonight?”

“What-” he grunts in pain. “Are you... looking down on me?”

“Perhaps a little,” you admit, finally twisting his arm enough to pop his elbow. “Yeah, as much as I hate to quote that man, he had a point – no self-respecting adult would fight seriously against children.”

Then you spin him around, flip him over in a high arc onto his back, then kick him in the face hard enough to knock him out in a single blow.

...

You ruined a lot of lives tonight. Most of them deserved it, but that poor ice-using boy didn’t deserve any of this. You want to think that it’s better for him to know the truth about the man who postured as his guardian, who murdered his parents and then used him for his abilities to fleece people before abandoning him at the first sign of complication. Gekkō is a real piece of work, thoroughly twisted by vice, without a single redeeming feature to his credit – a villain fit for this era of peace. Perhaps knowing that the man who murdered his parents will die in Yukigakure’s prison will be some small comfort to Ryōgi. You hope it will, just as you hope Koyuki-han will be good at her word to treat Ryōgi with as much leniency as their nation’s laws will allow.
>2/3

>>5255364
“The world we shinobi walk in can be unforgiving, even cruel sometimes,” you insist to Shikadai and Boruto, who seem downcast at Ryōgi’s arrest. “Sometimes it’s necessary. But in any event, it’s how we negotiate the realities of this world, and try to make it a better, fairer place, where we can find meaning.”

“Remember that... and try not to let it get you too down.”

...

Which leaves you with this – a scroll, stolen briefly by Gekkō-han before you captured him and remanded him and Ryōgi directly into Yukigakure’s custody. In it is contained a wealth of knowledge regarding the theory and practical application of ninjutsu, enough you think to serve as the basis for a system to recreate it through technological principles.

>Study it, determine the likely form of the tool, and create a counter-strategy to teach to “real” shinobi.
>Remove any mention of techniques like the rasengan which you deem too dangerous to spread widely.
>This scroll’s entire existence is an affont. It should be locked away in the shrike forest and never see the light of day.
>Other?

>>5255632
>>Study it, determine the likely form of the tool, and create a counter-strategy to teach to “real” shinobi.

If Naori can't stop Naruto from pushing high tech ninja tools, then he can hardly begrudge Naori creating "proper" counter strategies to share around.

>>5255632
>Study it, determine the likely form of the tool, and create a counter-strategy to teach to “real” shinobi.

>>5255632
>>Study it, determine the likely form of the tool, and create a counter-strategy to teach to “real” shinobi.

>>5255632
>>Study it, determine the likely form of the tool, and create a counter-strategy to teach to “real” shinobi.

>>5255632
>>Study it, determine the likely form of the tool, and create a counter-strategy to teach to “real” shinobi.

>>5255632
>Study it, determine the likely form of the tool, and create a counter-strategy to teach to “real” shinobi.
ARMS RACE IS A GO!

>>5255632
>Study it, determine the likely form of the tool, and create a counter-strategy to teach to “real” shinobi.

>>5255632
>other: display utter disgust at how careless your blockhead cousin has grown as of late.

>>5255632
>1d6, first three
Roll for how bad the contents turn out to be, on a scale of one to instantly murdering Katasuke.

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>5256785

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5256785
>on a scale of one to instantly murdering Katasuke.

wait what wtf did he do. Do I need to look this guy up?

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>5256785

So is higher or lower better?

>>5256810
>>5256792
>>5256790
>>5256785
>12 is a result
WELP. someone's getting a maiming

>>5256785
It may not be something you want to see in the world, but it exists now and you have to decide what to do about it. And the most conservative way to handle it is to first figure out what it is you have to deal with by reading through as much of the scroll as possible.

...

There are three ways to deal with the device that the head researcher, Katasuke, has come up with. The most obvious and low-tech way would be to damage it in such a way that it’s left inoperable. You suppose anything that could prevent it from releasing the tiny scroll into which individual techniques are sealed would do the job, right down to just physically blocking the ejection port. The second way requires a little more skill, but in a sense for an observant shinobi could be easier.

It’s striking to you that the shinobi kote has such a flaw, though not surprising. To keep the operation simple and reliable it can only store six techniques – one of each element and one of no elemental nature. Each of these is activated by a specific one-handed gesture on the side wearing teh gauntlet. These gestures cannot be changed, false signs can’t be meaningfully mixed in the way you, Sasuke-kun, and Kakashi-han have taken to doing, and messing about too much can lead to unintentional activation or even interfering with your own attack.

The third way is extremely specialized, but perhaps for the Uzumaki clan, the most brutally effective option – to devise a fūinjutsu formula that mimics the signal that tells the gauntlet to select and release a technique. If it works, the effect could be to use a Kongō Fūsa-derived ninjutsu to cause the gauntlet to explode. And wouldn’t you know it, the key to the sealing system Katasuke and his fellow scientists devised to work around not being allowed to use Uzumaki fūinjutsu techniques is right there in front of you.

...

But there’s more in here, and some of it isn’t exactly something you’re happy to see. Hiden techniques for a number of clans are included – the shadow imitation, the partial expansion, and others from Konohagakure. The explosive clay technique from Iwagakure, made infamous by Deidara, is described in detail with no clear way suggested to make it work. The ryūmei used by your wife Ryūzetsu. Then there are kinjutsu – including the multi-shadow clone. Absent are many of the various kekkei genkai, as well as the Edo Tensei. But there’s also a description of a derived technique based on Minato-han’s hiraishin.

Taken together, it’s infuriating.

>Take this straight to Naruto and lay down the ultimatum – get this in check or Amegakure leaves the Shinobi Union. Start playing hardball.
>Take this to Sasuke. He’s not going to be any happier about it than you are and Naruto might listen to him. Force Naruto's hand.
>Take action. Place the necessary markers around the building and teleport the whole damn thing to another dimension. Negotiate from strength.
>Other?

>>5256886
>Call a meeting of the kages, make clear what's happening and explain the dangers to absolutely everyone

>>5256886
>>Take this to Sasuke. He’s not going to be any happier about it than you are and Naruto might listen to him. Force Naruto's hand.

>>5256886
>Take it to Sauske, force Naruto's hand.
>Escalate your demands if he refuses by going full hardball.
>if he still refuses then Get the kages assembled and force THEIR hands.
>Reveal scroll contents
>Demand you idiot cousin to either scrap the project altogether or nerf it heavily.
>Imply that even simple bandits and genin-level terrorist can use and replicate high level lethal techniques like Deidara's explosive clay with a simple tool such as the one the research facility is trying to develop.
>Make extrapolating predictions based on current trends of the sheer amount of terrorist incidents with the advent of the shinobi kote.
>our idiot cousin just laid the foundations and invited EVERYONE to another even more horrible shinobi world war because of his blockheaded tendencies. A Shinobi war where not even civilians are exempt.
>If Naruto really wants the shinobi kote to exist then fine, everyone will get a shinobi kote and the deaths that come in the wake of its use will be all on his country's shoulders. Let him enjoy is Shinobi World War 3 while Amegakure sits this one out by going full isolationist and will VIOLENTLY rebuff any foreigners in the meantime.

>>5256886
>Take this straight to Naruto and lay down the ultimatum – get this in check or Amegakure leaves the Shinobi Union. Start playing hardball.

>>5256886
>>Take action. Place the necessary markers around the building and teleport the whole damn thing to another dimension. Negotiate from strength.

>>5256886
>>Take this to Sasuke. He’s not going to be any happier about it than you are and Naruto might listen to him. Force Naruto's hand.
lets give him the benefit of the doubt, that Naruto doesn't know which techniques are being worked on exactly/he doesn't know how far the "scientist" has gone in their pursuits

>>5256886
>Take this to Sasuke. He’s not going to be any happier about it than you are and Naruto might listen to him. Force Naruto's hand.
Leaving the Shinobi Union will kind of mess up a lot of things, and we kind of need a bit of a chill pill if we're considering yeeting a building into a different dimension.

>>5256886
>>Other?
Talk to him. Copying ninjutsu with technology aside, were the clans having their hiden copied notified or informed at all? They're hiden for a reason, and putting those techniques in the hands of the average person without the proper training risks great harm to them.

>>5256886
>Take this to Sasuke. He’s not going to be any happier about it than you are and Naruto might listen to him. Force Naruto's hand.

>>5256886
Your first instinct is to teleport the whole research building and all its contents to one of Kaguya’s extradimensional realms – the high-gravity one seems like a strong candidate – and if Naruto-bee disagrees he can try to convince Sasuke-kun to go and fetch it for him. It would take a lot of chakra, but you could probably do it in sage mode. That being said, there might just be a simpler and easier way to handle this. You have the scroll, which in the short term buys you a little time to talk to the only person you think Naruto will listen to about this.

...

“... this can’t be right,” Sasuke mutters with a scowl. “Naruto may be an idealistic idiot, but even he has some semblance of common sense. He knows better.”

“The fact that it has information on my wife’s kekkei genkai concerns me,” you emphasize. “You know what that implies.”

“Katasuke-san has clearly been involved in some shady business,” Sasuke admits, “even if your son isn’t technically a citizen of Konoha his diplomatic credentials should extend him the same protection from unreasonable surveillance. But if he’s also got details on hiden from our clans, and even techniques from foreign villages, clearly either he or the people supplying him with information aren’t exactly following the rules anyway.”

“So we’re taking this to him?”

Sasuke nods in agreement. “I don’t see that we have any other choice.”

...

Naruto doesn’t even look at the scroll.

“So you already knew,” you deduce.

He nods curtly. “Thank you for recovering this, Naori-san.”

“Yeah no, I should’ve gone with my first instinct,” you grumble. “Except instead of one of Kaguya’s dimensions I should’ve dropped the building on your stupid idiot head, Naruto-bee.”

“My hands are tied with this one,” he sighs wearily. “The elders and the daimyō wanted the project expanded, and authorized Katasuke-san to gather intelligence from less than reputable sources within the village. The whole information brokerage business is still going strong – it’s hard to pin down the major players doing anything that’s actually illegal.”

“So instead you’ve done... what, exactly?” you demand. “Do any of the clan heads know about this?”

“I’ve informed them, but I’ve also made it clear that at the moment we have no way to take direct action,” your cousin admits.
>1/2

>>5257727
>“I’ve informed them, but I’ve also made it clear that at the moment we have no way to take direct action,” your cousin admits.

Them knowing is a good first step. Even if Naruto feels his hands are tied, I'd hope they're looking into it at least.

>>5257727
There are no such things as "tied hands" in this world, naruto.
You can barely be called human at this point, and you're friends with all the other monsters in this world.

People like the elders and daimyo don't get to make bad decisions that are going to hurt people anymore, because we exist.
The holy trinity of "go fuck yourself". Enough power to remake the world if they so desired.

They're gonna cut your funding? Vaporize them and take over everything. That's the ninja way.

>>5257727
>Guys you don't get it
>Yea this would definitely kick off another world War if it got out
>But how else are the daimyo going to justify their existence?
>Plus it could negatively affect the shareholders

>>5257727
“Yeah no, maybe you could convince the current clan heads with that,” you snort, “but I’m not buying what you’re trying to sell. Each one of us here could remake the world if we wanted to – so I know that the only one tying your hands here is you.”

“What I want to know is why.”

“I agree completely,” Sasuke throws in his weight as well. “Surely you can guess at the repercussions of what you’re letting this man do? If the Shinobi Union finds out that we’ve essentially stolen information on hiden in the other nations...”

“Katasuke-san can’t replicate most of those techniques,” Naruto interrupts.

“I’m hearing a ‘yet’ there,” Sasuke counters. “And so will anyone else with two brain cells to rub together, Naruto. Gathering the information demonstrates the intent.”

“The elders are an old problem,” Naruto sighs, shaking his head. “Working around them has been a tradition since Old Man Third’s time in the office.”

“There was a time in my life when I would’ve killed problems like that for chump change,” you point out. “Surely there are more subtle, less brutal ways to have your way.”

“You’re overstating it a bit,” Naruto insists. “But they’re really, really old, Naori – they’re a problem that will resolve itself.”

“Yeah no, in the mean time, their increasingly out-of-touch takes are going to cause a lot of problems,” you assert.

>The scroll was lost in the robbery, and Gekkō died in an escape attempt. If anyone asks that’s what happened.
>Let me talk with Katasuke-han. I’ll give him the perspective he needs to understand what he’s doing.
>Akatsuki were always willing to play the bad guys, so I’m willing to take a controversial role in this.
>Other?

>>5257835
>>Let me talk with Katasuke-han. I’ll give him the perspective he needs to understand what he’s doing.
>>Akatsuki were always willing to play the bad guys, so I’m willing to take a controversial role in this.

>>5257835
>Other
Just how much political influence does Naori have, because I remember that she speaks for a lot of smaller villages, and has friends in a lot of larger ones.

If we were to inform the other Kages and miscellaneous leaders, could we cut off supplies that Konoha needs for this research?

Either that or have Naruto, or Naori publicly disagree with the research and explain the consequences of it continuing.

>>5257835
I haven't seen any Boruto, is he this fucking shit of a hokage in canon? Literally risking the current WORLD PEACE because he can't be assed to deal with some ancient fucks that'll ruin it because they want the biggest stick?

>>5257835
>>Let me talk with Katasuke-han. I’ll give him the perspective he needs to understand what he’s doing.
and if that fails
>Akatsuki were always willing to play the bad guys, so I’m willing to take a controversial role in this.

>>5257858
It's even worse.
[spoilers]HE thought this was a good idea in canon, despite the fact that a few terrorists with shinobi gauntlets could destabilize a small nation. The political ramifications of Konoha producing these things for profit and supplementing the Land of Fire's military with them are also only ever touched on. In a sense I'm giving him more of an excuse than he had in canon.[/spoilers]

>>5257881
Wow. Been a while since I tried to spoiler-tag anything.

>>5257835
>>Akatsuki were always willing to play the bad guys, so I’m willing to take a controversial role in this.
>If we do get the Akatsuki back, call up Sasori Sempai for his consultation on dealing with Shinobi kote technology.
WE GETTING THE OLD GANG BACK TOGETHER...well what's left of the old gang that is...

>>5257835
>>Akatsuki were always willing to play the bad guys, so I’m willing to take a controversial role in this.
>>5257928
Speaking of the old gang, whatever happened to whathisname’s head, last I remember Naori put his head away but I think I’m misremembering

>>5257835
>Let me talk with Katasuke-han. I’ll give him the perspective he needs to understand what he’s doing.

>>5257881
Mans really thought the whole job was just having a cool hat huh?

>>5257835
>Akatsuki were always willing to play the bad guys, so I’m willing to take a controversial role in this.

>>5257835
“Give me five minutes to speak with Katasuke,” you insist. “I’ll solve this problem for you.”

The thought gives Naruto some pause. “You swear you won’t hurt the guy?”

You nod. “Not a hair on his too-smart-for-his-own-good head.”

“Okay,” Naruto eventually agrees. “He’s at the hospital right now, being treated for minor injuries he got in the robbery.”

...

You knock at the door to his room, where he’s mostly just resting while waiting to be discharged, but you don’t bother to wait for a response before you barge in. “So yeah, you’d be Katasuke-han, right? I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.”

You grab hold of his shoulder and teleport him to where your example is set up chained to a tree trunk – a former shinobi from the Land of Rivers, who had been scheduled for execution anyway and agreed to your hasty arrangement to send him out in what he called a ‘blaze of glory’.

“Ah, so we’re doin’ this after all!” the man, heavily tattooed and scarred, muses. “Better late than never, I always say!”

“This is Sado-han,” you introduce the man. “Sado-han, this is Katasuke-han.”

“Sup nerd!” the condemned greets your guest.

“Naori-sama, I find I’m struggling to see the point to this,” Katasuke-han admits.

“Sado-han is a Jashinist. He was found guilty of burning six children alive before eating them,” you explain. “And so yea, I think he’s the perfect person for this little demonstration.”

“Aw, you’re gonna make me blush,” Sado smirks.

“Why would he do such a thing?” Katasuke-han protests, clearly disgusted.

“Cause fire’s the way you gotta go if you wanna go out pure!” Sado declares. “So far as I’m concerned I helped those brats get in good with Jashin! The whole ‘eating’ thing may’ve gone a bit far though, that I’ll admit that. I swear, it made sense at the time.”

“So yeah, I really take you for the kinda guy who’s never seen the results of the thing you’re trying to create,” you declare, forming a seal with your left hand. “Allow me to help. Katon: Homura!”

The flame bullet you exhale strikes Sado with sufficient force to shake the post he’s chained to, before it swirls around him in a powerful vortex. After the whooshing of the flames, you hear deranged laughter.

“Yeah, this is what I’m talkin’ about!” Sado crows loudly over the sound of the flames that are consuming his own body at this very moment. “None of this prison bullshit, just a good-old-fashioned barbecue – with Jashin himself as the guest of honor! Hahaha, hell yeah! You watchin’ this, Lord Jashin!?”
>1/2

>>5258780
There’s not much left afterwards but burned bones, embers, and the unmistakable stench.

Katasuke stares in horror at the spot where a man just died in front of him. “What the hell was the point of that!?”

“That’s one of the standard options for the gauntlets you designed,” you glance over your shoulder at him where he stands in shock. “I know you can’t have experienced anything like this, but have you ever even thought about what happens when that technique hits someone?”

“I...” he struggles to find any sort of graceful way to admit that the answer is no.

“Yeah no, just think,” you muse, “any reprobate with enough money is gonna be able to get their hands on one of these things... and you’ve been collecting research on even deadlier techniques than that. Wanna see what some of them can do to a living human body?”

“... no thanks.”

“You sure?” you press. “The rasengan makes a real splatter if you make it powerful enough, you know. It’s really quite dramatic.”

“... I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Well do it that way,” you frown, pointing away from yourself. “My clothes are expensive.”

When that’s done, you come to your point.

>If you want to continue this project, you do so under Uchiha Sasuke’s direct supervision and accept all the limitations he wishes to impose.
>You’re making a big problem for my cousins – I think you should turn over your sources and “volunteer” to seal your own research indefinitely.
>I don’t like your research, but I HATE the likely implications. It's bad enough that I'm seriously considering re-founding Akatsuki.
>Other?

>>5258800
>>If you want to continue this project, you do so under Uchiha Sasuke’s direct supervision and accept all the limitations he wishes to impose.
>Other?
Forcefully stopping your research would be a major pain, and likely only serve to stick any further research by others deeper into the shadows. I can only hope you've gained perspective on the potential ramifications and can think about what you really want to come of your work.

>>5258800
>Your ignorant actions aren't just dangerous. They WILL cost countless people their lives. Not just now, but for as long as this technology exists.
>You would think a scientist would be smarter than this. That someone like you would stop to think and understand the consequences of what they're doing.
>You should be ashamed of yourself. Is this what you want your name attributed to? It's disgusting.

>>5258800
>>If you want to continue this project, you do so under Uchiha Sasuke’s direct supervision and accept all the limitations he wishes to impose.

>>5258780
>>5258800
that Jashin Cultist is such a swell guy.

>>5258800
channel Omniman
>Think boy think!
>your project, YOUR project from what I've seen so far has the potential to kickstart another world war. Imagine if you would, hundreds of shinobi soldiers armed with YOUR product and laying waste to women, children, and civilians like yourself using techniques such as the one demonstrated. Would you want to be attributed to the consequences? Would you want your pet project to create such a fallout?
>I don’t like your research, but I HATE the likely implications. It's bad enough that I'm seriously considering re-founding Akatsuki.
>unless...You either seal your own research indefinitely...or continue under severe restrictions.

>>5258800
>>If you want to continue this project, you do so under Uchiha Sasuke’s direct supervision and accept all the limitations he wishes to impose.

>>5258867
He did more to put a stop to this than Nart did lol.

>>5258800
>You’re making a big problem for my cousins – I think you should turn over your sources and “volunteer” to seal your own research indefinitely.
>I don’t like your research, but I HATE the likely implications. It's bad enough that I'm seriously considering re-founding Akatsuki.

File: dmp.jpg (261 KB, 1200x675)

261 KB JPG

>>5259076
>"I'm doing my part"
>fire.gif

>>5259076
Based Jashinist
You gotta love their sincerity, you know? It's like they've got it all figured out. No doubt, no fear. Only love for their god and his teachings.

>>5259847
Yeah, they are a dying breed.

Just a thought, but rather than cutting Katasuke off entirely, why don't we encourage him to work on civilian uses of Ninjitsu? I'm sure Naori could help by building in a limiter to prevent misuse.

>>5258800
“Yeah no, I think your research is wrong,” you declare. “It cheapens the traditional shinobi arts and devalues the sacrifices made by our ancestors and our comrades. But I hate the fact that the technology you’re creating will put innocent lives at risk. So while I can’t stop your research without creating even more political problems, I’m going to insist that you conduct it under Uchiha Sasuke’s direct supervision from now on and that you accept any regulations he imposes.”

“Now hang on!” Katasuke protests. “I admit that there’s a risk here, but you’re effectively knee-capping our entire program!”

“It needs to be done,” you counter. “Just be thankful I’m not the one doing it, otherwise it would be literal.”

Even after what he’s seen, and even after his visceral response to it, he’s still more concerned by your imposition on his research program than he is with its consequences. You guess this is as far as you can get without resorting to much more drastic means.

You just hope it’s enough, despite wondering if the genie might already be out of the bottle.

- Shiki -

It’s been a few weeks since the resolution of the Byakuya gang incident, and you’ve seen more of your parents lately. Naori-ue spent some time drilling you in close combat, and teaching you how to recognize a new potential problem – scientific ninja tools, specifically a gauntlet that shoots out tiny scrolls. She teaches you what to look for to interpret what type of technique is coming next, how to target it in such a way that you can destroy it.

She also leaves you with some direction, both in terms of your kengen training and in terms of training your Uzumaki fūinjutsu. In both cases, that direction is to use your natural gift for fire release transformation – ideally a kengen technique combining fire chakra flow and genjutsu, and a version of the Kongō Fūsa that uses the formula for the Tenrō at its core.

As for Ryūzetsu-ue’s role in your training, she’s left you with the very basic training regimen she devised for you and Makoto to prepare you for learning to use the Ryūmei – a dangerous set of techniques that involve projecting a fragment of your soul outside of your body.

...

“So... what’s going on?” you wonder aloud.

Sumire-kun shrugs. “I couldn’t tell you, Shiki-kun. Sensei didn’t tell me anything either.”

“It’s gotta be something big,” Wasabi-kun insists. “I mean, we’ve had two weeks straight to do nothing but rest and train.”
>1/2

>>5260444
“... sorry I’m late,” Hanabi-sensei apologizes when she comes to find you half an hour late to the meeting she arranged with you yesterday. “Here. Take them.”

She hands you three sets of paperwork. “You look terrible, sensei.”

“Konohamaru-kun and I got a little carried away last night,” she admits, explaining the bags under her eyes and her slight pallor. “He gets worked up about something, then I get worked up about it, then we make mistakes... don’t ever start drinking.”

“Chūnin exams?” Wasabi-kun reads from the papers you hand her.

“Yeah, already,” Hanabi-sensei confirms. “I think you three are more than qualified. Moegi-kun, Konohamaru-kun, and Udon-kun are all recommending their teams too.”

“What do these exams usually involve that requires a consent form?” Sumire-kun wonders aloud with a frown.

“Candidates have absolutely died in the past,” Hanabi-sensei admits. “Unnecessary lethal force is frowned upon now, since even genin who qualify but who fail the exams are too valuable to be wasted these days. But killing an opponent typically isn’t grounds for disqualification either.”

“So what’s it like?” you ask. “Naori-ue told me there used to be multiple stages of elimination?”

“That’s right,” Hanabi-sensei confirms. “Though the tests are just meant to determine who’s suitable to lead a team as a chūnin. You can have multiple promotions at the end, or none. It’s all up to the village leaders based on proctor observations.”

“Should you agree... and you’ve already signed the form,” Hanabi-sensei realizes as you had the form back to her. Without discussion, your teammates do the same right afterward.

...

One week later, you and your teammates decide to head to Lightning Burger for a “last meal” before the official welcoming ceremony – maybe a mistake, you realize, because the place is packed. There are shinobi from all five of the major villages present, most notably a trio of genin from Kumogakure who are giving Boruto-kun and Sarada-kun some trouble over their booth. You figure it’s because Tsubaki-kun is still on her way, which you know because you saw her before you came in.

“Hey, shouldn’t someone do something about that?” Wasabi-kun muses as one of the Kumo-genin grabs Boruto-kun by the collar.

>Grab a packet of ketchup and squirt it in the dude’s face. Draw the attention off Boruto before things get out of control.
>Challenge him verbally. Make it clear that you don’t think much of weaklings who like to act big.
>Just wait. It could be interesting to see who responds to this unfolding situation and how they do so.
>Other?

>>5261413
>>Challenge him verbally. Make it clear that you don’t think much of weaklings who like to act big.

>>5261413
>Challenge him verbally. Make it clear that you don’t think much of weaklings who like to act big.

>>5261413
>>Just wait. It could be interesting to see who responds to this unfolding situation and how they do so.
Not our problem

>>5261413
>Just wait. It could be interesting to see who responds to this unfolding situation and how they do so.
We are going to be directly competing against each other here. Let's see what info this little confrontation will give us.

>>5261413
>>Challenge him verbally. Make it clear that you don’t think much of weaklings who like to act big.

>>5261413
>Just wait. It could be interesting to see who responds to this unfolding situation and how they do so.

Boruto should be more than equal to whatever this is. Probably just some guy trying to act tough by showing he's not afraid to lay hands on the Hokage's kid. Good luck with that plan, genius. Oh, and heavens help him if he actually does something he can't take back.

>>5261413
>>Just wait. It could be interesting to see who responds to this unfolding situation and how they do so.

File: Shinki.png (1.6 MB, 1440x1076)

1.6 MB PNG

>>5261413
“Too loud,” you muse as you walk past, raising your voice just enough to make sure that the genin who’s grabbed hold of Boruto’s collar can be sure you’re talking to him. “I feel bad for Yugitō-anee.”

The genin releases his hold on Boruto and wheels on you – you managed to just stir the pot enough to force someone, anyone in the room really, to react and show you what they’re made of. “Okay, new plan. When I’m through here you’ll be feeling nothing but pain.”

“Either that or disappointment,” you pause to reply with a smirk. “We can flip that coin later if you really wanna.”

“Why wait?” he counters, “Let’s go right...”

You catch sight of a reflection in the window, something coming up behind you like a trail of black smoke. With a turning blow using the back of your left hand you disperse it, putting your teammates on alert. The cloud of iron sand (that’s what it has to be, seeing how bad hitting it like that hurt) wraps the Kumogakure genin and Boruto both tight, binding them so they can’t make any more trouble.

You turn to see who it was that stepped in, gesturing subtly to Sumire-kun and Wasabi-kun that you’re okay, and that it’s best if they hold off. Turns out the boy responsible is part of a team from Sunagakure, with dark hair and red face paint, wrapped in a shifting dark cloak composed entirely of iron sand. Along with him are his teammates – a tall boy with a blue-on-white painted mask, and a tomboyish girl with blonde hair and dark eyes.

“What’s the big idea, Shinki-kun?” the girl sighs. “You know you’re playing right into his hands.”

‘Shinki’ narrows his eyes slightly, locked on you. “Interesting.”

“Yeah, that’s not really an explanation,” you insist with a frown, waving your hand slightly to work some of the aches out. “I’d like one, if you don’t mind.”

“It’s because there’s no point in fighting here,” Shinki declares. “Besides, I don’t care who sees my abilities. I’m not one to hide who I am.”

The Suna tomboy sighs wearily. “Jeez, Shinki-kun... sometimes there’s such a thing as being too honest.”

“It would seem Tsubaki-kun has just arrived,” Sumire-kun muses in a faux-polite tone, subtly pressing the end of her tanto’s hilt against the small of the Kumo girl’s back. “I suggest that you and your team should find a different table.”

“Don’t touch...” the third Kumo genin begins, only to find Wasabi-kun grasping him firmly by the scruff of his neck.

“Or we can help you find a table,” Wasabi-kun offers.

“What’ll it be?” you ask the team’s apparent leader as Shinki releases him.
>1/?

File: Koushuu_Ref_1.jpg (511 KB, 1438x1615)

511 KB JPG

>>5262359
“... let’s go,” he decides after a tense moment. “I don’t think I like the atmosphere in here.”

Sumire and Wasabi release their own grips over his teammates, and allow them to slink out with their proverbial tails between their legs.

“... weak in body and in spirit,” you mutter, before turning to your teammates. “What say we eat outside this time? Seems a bit busy today.”

“I’m game,” Wasabi-kiun shrugs.

“It’s a nice day,” Sumire-kun agrees. “It’ll be like a picnic.”

“Hey!” the tomboy from Sunagakure interrupts, drawing your attention. “Let’s at least do the thing properly?”

“Shinki,” the boy seems to take his teammate’s meaning. “My father is the Fourth Kazekage, Gaara-sama. I look forward to seeing you during the exams, Boruto-kun. Shiki-kun.”

So he already knew who you were.

“Araya,” the masked boy introduces himself simply. “My family isn’t noteworthy.”

“And I’m Kōshū,” the girl greets you with a slight grin, revealing familiar sharp teeth. “My parents are the current Mizukage and his wife, Temari of the Kazekage clan. It’s a long story.”

“I wouldn’t mind hearing it some other time,” you shrug. “You already know, but I’m Uzumaki Shiki, on exchange from Amegakure.”

There are some mutters among the other genin. As the introductions continue one genin from Kirigakure – one of a set of triplets – pulls out a small card and sets it on the table for the others from his village to see, prompting shocked gasps and hushed whispers.

“Nagao Sumire,” Sumirin inclines her head politely. “Assigned to Konoha’s Team 15.”

“Izuno Wasabi,” Wasabi takes her turn. “From a small clan, you’ve probably never heard of it.”

“The Izuno clan are said to be protected by a cat deity,” Shinki mutters, as if recalling a briefing. “Primarily use hiden-type nintaijutsu.”

There’s a long pause.

“... okay, maybe you have heard of it. Am I supposed to be impressed?”

"Be impressed or not. It's really none of my business."
>2/3

>>5262363
“At least there’s one interesting team,” you muse after finding a table outside to sit at with your teammates. “And one team we can write off.”

“Yeah, those three were...” Wasabi muses, looking for a way to put it. “It feels like I could beat their toughest guy, and I’m the one still playing catch-up with you guys.”

“That boy from Sunagakure, Shinki-kun,” Sumire glances at you. “What was your impression of him, Shiki-kun?”

“I think I managed to size up pretty much everyone in that room,” you admit, “and the ones I’d probably enjoy fighting are Shinki-kun, Sarada-kun, Tsubaki-kun, Shikadai-kun, and Kōshū-kun.”

“Not us?” Sumire-kun muses.

You shake your head. “Win or lose, I’d feel bad afterwards. So while I’d fight you seriously no, not really.”

“Aw,” Wasabi-kun smirks. “That’s sweet.”

...

You’re directed to meet somewhere ominous that evening – a training location numbered “44”. At the gate you were sent to you find a large man in a grey uniform with a bandana-style headband. At five o’clock exactly, he makes an announcement.

“Welcome to the first stage of the chūnin exams. I am Morino Ibiki, and I’ll be your proctor. Behind me is the 44th special training grounds...” he smirks ominously, “...also known as the Forest of Death. The stage requires you to reach the tower at the exact center of the forest, which will serve as the exam venue, within twenty-four hours. That’s ten kilometers, and everything in there is either giant, poisonous, or both. Combat is allowed, though unjustified lethal force is heavily discouraged.”

“There are only two rules – Rule One is that any team which fails to arrive at the tower within twenty-four hours fails. Rule Two is that any team which loses a member fails.”

“The chūnin here will take each team to its own gate,” Morino-san concludes. “I’ll see the survivors in twenty-four hours. Try not to die.”

Then he bursts into smoke – a shadow clone dispelling, you recognize.

...

At your gate, your team wonders how to approach this.

>Slow and cautious. You have plenty of time, so just don’t make any mistakes.
>Get there fast, get ahead of the teams that will inevitably be setting up traps.
>Take a balanced approach. As fast as you can without being reckless.
>Other?

>>5262378
>Get there fast, get ahead of the teams that will inevitably be setting up traps.
Blitz!

>>5262378
>Get there fast, get ahead of the teams that will inevitably be setting up traps.

>>5262378
>>Get there fast, get ahead of the teams that will inevitably be setting up traps.

>>5262378
>Get there fast, get ahead of the teams that will inevitably be setting up traps.

>>5262378
Seems like this is going to be pretty uncontroversial, so go ahead and gimme 1d6, best three of four.

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>5262490

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5262490

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5262490

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5262490

>>5262499
>>5262526
>>5262556
13...not bad. That should be about 72%. Solid rolls.

>>5262378
You settle on an idea that Wasabi-kun seems to really like, and one which Sumirin agrees has a reasonable basis behind it – a lot of teams are going to use the time to set traps around the tower, which they’d be foolish to sit around waiting to see the results of. In fact there’s nothing to stop a team that arrives early from setting as many traps they can before heading into the tower aside from a sense of prudence. So that gives you an incentive – the sooner you get to the tower, the fewer traps there will be to navigate.

So you and Team 15 set of on a tear once the gates are opened for you, heading straight into any obstacles you might be destined to encounter. Giant leeches? Not a problem. Giant centipede? Can’t kill what they can’t catch. Giant bear? Smoke bombs make it think twice about chasing you. It ends up trying anyway, but the delay is enough to let you get out ahead of it.

...

After about an hour and a half you arrive at the tower to find that one team is already there – the one you met from Sunagakure earlier in the day. You run into each other while they’re laying out tripwires in the obvious entrances to the clearing around the base of the tower, and you’re busy placing fake explosive tags in poorly-hidden areas.

“Explosives?” Shinki wonders. “Shouldn’t you be disguising them a bit better?”

You shake your head. “I wouldn’t waste perfectly good explosive tags like this.”

“Wait, these are fake?” Wasabi-kun glances at you. “Why?”

“Just to mess with their heads,” you admit.

“That’s almost meaner!” Kōshū-kun flashes you a toothy grin. “But it’s the kinda mean I can get behind, so yeah. Hand me some of those too?”

“I suppose they should keep our potential rivals off balance heading into the paper exams,” Sumire-kun shrugs, placing three more tags around and halfheartedly ‘hiding’ them while you hand Kōshū-kun a few more fakes to place in conjunction with some of her tripwires. “Kakashi-sensei would say ‘a battle between shinobi takes place in the mind as well’, or words to that effect.”

A few minutes later your two teams agree that it’s probably best to head inside and wait, since other teams should be arriving soon and it’s coming up on time to eat anyway.

...

“Yeah, who the heck even does that anyway?” you hear Shikadai-kun exclaim later, once the teams that made it in time have started to assemble the next day. “I mean, all those fake tags made it impossible to tell when one was real. What a damn jerk!”

“Yeah, who does that,” you jump in halfheartedly, refusing to admit it was you.

“To be fair it got that team from Iwagakure we thought were going to be trouble,” Denki-kun points out. “You know, the Genbu trio?”

“Yeah, I guess that means they weren’t so good after all,” Iwabe muses. “Sorry guys, false alarm.”
>1/2

>>5263676
>1d6, best three of five

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5263751

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5263751

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5263751

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5263751
Three of five? Must be a pretty tough check.

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>5263751

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5263751

I see Yoruichi has blessed this day's live.

>>5263676
You look around to see who’s absent – Team 40 had been with you to start with, but didn’t seem to make it, and the Genbu trio who’d been hyped up before the start of the exams is missing as well. But other than that, it’s mostly teams you knew (or cared) little about that are gone. Ino-Shika-Chō are here, Boruto, Sarada, and Tsubaki are here, Shinki and Kōshū’s team is here (of course), along with the Senka trio and those idiots from Kumo that you nearly provoked into a fight yesterday. Surprisingly, you also see Hachiro from Kirigakure and two of his thuggie little friends – who immediately balk under your gaze and retreat as far away from you as they can and still stay in the building.

...

Inside a classroom, all of the remaining candidates are seated in an apparently randomized order for the exam – the test forms are already laid out face-down on your desks, each with two pencils. The proctor, Morino Ibiki, glowers at you for a while before laying out his rules

“From now on and for the duration of this exam you are not to speak aloud. Any candidate who speaks will be immediately disqualified along with their teammates. Cheating is strictly prohibited under the same penalty as speaking. You will have one hour to answer the first twelve questions, and an additional ten minutes to answer the thirteenth question – we’ll get to that later.”

...

The questions honestly aren’t that bad. Some of them are fairly simple, others take a little bit of thought to work out, one or two are a bit of a stretch. But nothing here is too far outside what you’d assume a chūnin would have to know. Out of your teammates you assume Sumirin probably had a little bit of an easier time, and while Wasabi-kun probably got a question or two more than either of you wrong she should be fine too. In fact, it almost feels like the questions were designed carefully to create a spread of different scores.

...

“Alright, pencils down,” Morino Ibiki-san orders. “As promised, it’s time for question thirteen. But it doesn’t come without risk – what I want you to do is mark on your papers either ‘yes’ or ‘no’, meaning ‘yes’ you intend to answer the final question or ‘no’, you intend not to. Should you say ‘yes’ be aware, when your submissions have been graded the candidate with the lowest score on each team will be barred from continuing.”

“Additionally, if a team’s exam papers do not match answers regarding question thirteen, that will be considered grounds for failure.”

So... that’s an interesting set of instructions. You hear chatter in your head almost immediately.

“You have five minutes to answer.”

Clearly then, you were meant to coordinate with your teammates...

[So we’re not doing this,] Sumire-kun declares. [I won’t sell either of you out.]

[I don't like it,] Wasabi admits. [You saying that on my account. But if you’re sure, I can't stop you.]

... but what about...
>2/3

>>5263941
[... do you trust me?]

[Of course,] Wasabi responds.

[Absolutely,] Sumire agrees.

[Okay,] you nod. [Then mark your test forms...]

...

After the five minutes are up, the proctors collect your exams and quickly sort them into stacks. Morino-san then calls out names, one team at a time, and sends them to the next room. Among those teams, you note, are three faces you did not expect – Boruto-kun, Sarada-kun, and Tsubaki-kun. But hardly anyone else you’d consider to be ‘important’ joins them. Not the Senka triplets, not the other remaining teams from Konoha, not Shinki-kun and Kōshū-kun’s team.

That alone should tell you that you made the right call.

“Well, all that remains now is to tell you all remaining here... that you have passed the first stage of the chūnin exams. Congratulations.”

“Wait... what!?” someone calls out.

“So I was right,” you muse.

“Of course it was a trick,” Shikadai sighs wearily. “I mean, it’s not like the rules from yesterday were ever changed.”

“So if we chose to proceed knowing that one member of our team could not pass,” Shinki-kun adds, “that means we could not participate in the next stage of the exams.”

“Exactly,” Morino Ibiki-san insists. “There are three types of teams that ended up nextdoor – teams that couldn’t communicate covertly or otherwise guess what their teammates would do lack the skills. Teams where two members were fine with sacrificing a teammate for personal advancement lack the moral fibre. Teams which failed to consider the next stage simply missed the point.”

“Sometimes the mission takes priority over a single life, but in this case the expedient solution to progress precluded the success of the overall mission. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to break the news to the teams which failed that particular test.”
>3/4

>Naori-Ue says hi.

>>5264245
"Hi mom!"

>>5263984
- Meanwhile -

Team 3 arrives in a classroom, still shocked and confused at being told they’ve failed the first stage of the chūnin exams. In that classroom they find their jōnin-sensei, Sarutobi Konohamaru, who has been waiting for them with a frown.

None of them make eye contact.

“Sorry, sensei,” Sarada mutters. “It’s my fault. I was the one who lost sight of the real objective.”

“I was the one who thought he could breeze through everything,” Boruto insists. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Sarada-kun, but you’re not important enough that your screwups are always gonna drag us all down.”

“I was the one who failed you,” Tsubaki insists. “I pressured you into proceeding because I assumed I would be going back to the Land of Iron after this, and so it did not matter whether I passed. I did not take my role on the team seriously.”

“You’re all correct,” Konohamaru-sensei assures them. “The challenge now is to take that knowledge and do something useful with it.”

- Shiki -

You’re given three days before the next stage of the exam, which as Wasabi-kun points out means three days of having twenty-seven foreign genin wandering around your (well, her) hometown. While in some cases that won’t be a problem, there’s at least one team that will be incredibly annoying.

“Team Yurui, huh?” Kōshū-kun muses the next morning over a cup of steaming tea. “Yeah, those three are gonna be a real nuisance.”

“Remind me of something,” Sumire-kun frowns. “Why is it the three of you are sharing our table?”

“That’s a good question,” Araya admits. “Kōshū-kun, why are we sitting at their table?”

“Because Shinki-kun wanted to and just didn’t wanna say anything,” Kōshū-kun rolls her eyes. “You know how he is.”

Shinki doesn’t seem amused.

>Well, we may as well be good hosts. This is after all a diplomatic event too.
>Honestly, right now I’m just concerned for our classmates who didn’t pass.
>I’m not sure it’s entirely appropriate for our teams to be so casual like this.
>Other?

>>5265150
>>Well, we may as well be good hosts. This is after all a diplomatic event too.

>>5265150
>>Well, we may as well be good hosts. This is after all a diplomatic event too.

>>5265150
>Honestly, right now I’m just concerned for our classmates who didn’t pass.

>>5265150
>>Well, we may as well be good hosts. This is after all a diplomatic event too.

>>5265150
>>Well, we may as well be good hosts. This is after all a diplomatic event too.

>>5265150
>>Well, we may as well be good hosts. This is after all a diplomatic event too.

>>5265150
1d6 best three of four on order of the Queen!

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>5266143

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5266143
>>5266146
Boo!

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>5266143

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>5266143

>>5266143
“Come on,” you nudge Wasabi-kun in the ribs, “my diplomatic instincts are tingling. We should show our guests around the village a little... thing is it’s not really ‘my’ village to show off, so I could use your help.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Sumire agrees, despite her somewhat skeptical tone. “Sunagakure and Konohagakure have been allies since well before the last great war, after all.”

“That said,” Wasabi-kun adds in, “if you guys start acting like those jerks from Kumogakure I’m goin’ home.”

“That’s fair,” Araya shrugs. “Normally I don’t think we’d bother playing nice, but it seems like Kōshū-kun has taken an interest in you guys.”

“Hey now,” Kōshū-kun protests, “it’s not just me, Shinki-kun’s interested too.”

“I am,” Shinki-kun agrees. “But only because I wish to see how strong they are.”

You shrug. “Can’t say I’m much different. I have you three pinned as the team to beat, call it intuition.”

...

You show Team Shinki around, with the help of your teammates, taking them to the academy, through a couple of the local parks, down along the river, past the war memorial stone.

“It’s a little like Sunagakure but with trees,” Kōshū-kun muses.

“Or like Kirigakure, with clear skies,” Shinki-kun observes.

“You’ve been to Kirigakure, Shinki-kun?” Sumire-kun tries to strike up a conversation.

“Only once,” Shinki-kun replies. “To meet with Kōshū-kun’s parents. I don’t think the mist cleared up the whole time we were there.”

“Yeah well, that was in spring,” Kōshū-kun counters. “And you gotta admit, it’s a nice change of pace from Sunagakure.”

“How do you find it here, Uzumaki Shiki-ku-” she begins to ask, only to stop short when she spies another genin team coming in the opposite direction down the road. “Ah, nuts.”

It’s the Senka trio, who all smirk in alarming unison before cutting a path straight towards your group.
>1/2

>>5266513
“Alright, so this is the Senka trio,” Kōshū-kun grumbles. “Makinami, Sazanami, and Takanami, don’t ask me which is which cause idunno.”

“Seems like Kōshū-kun’s made some new friends,” one of the trio, who you’ll consider to be ‘A’ until told otherwise, muses. “Good for her.” That last part was sarcasm.

“It’s not gonna last,” ‘B’ chimes in. “That’s how it goes for traitors, even if they doget special treatment.”

“Used to be she’d be hunted down and killed, now they’re talking about giving her one of the Seven Swords,” ‘C’ frowns. “Doesn’t it just turn your stomach?”

“Why’s that a big deal?” you scoff. “Most of them suck anyway.”

Kōshū-kun is particularly emphatic in her agreement, as if she’s been waiting to hear those words for years. “I know, right!? Finally someone else gets it, the Kiba are good but those are obviously Buntan-senpai’s, and the Seversword’s fine I guess, but all the others are just... I mean they’re kinda...”

“Goofy?” you offer.

“Yeah that,” Kōshū-kun quickly agrees. “Anyway I’m probably going to get one of my mom’s swords after I make chūnin, so I have no idea why you guys are so worked up.”

“Just the idea they’d be sent out of the village is ridiculous,” ‘B’ declares. “Even if you were technically born in Kirigakure, you’re too close to Sunagakure to ever be one of us. No amount of talent’s gonna make up for that.”

“That’s pretty old-fashioned,” Wasabi-kun frowns.

“Some people can be hard-headed about such things,” Shinki-kun offers his own thoughts. “Particularly when the shinobi of concern has more valuable ‘talents’ to offer, instead of nothing but talk and unearned reputation.”

“Excuse you?” ‘A’ scowls. “I don’t remember asking the Kazekage’s brat for his opinion.”

“Nah, he’s right,” Kōshū-kun muses. “I mean I love my dad and all, but my ‘talents’ are why my parents sent me to my mom’s village to study.”

Ah, so that’s it.

“... you have the hyōton,” you realize aloud.

After a moment, Kōshū-kun sighs. “Yeah, that’s right. I know you’d’ve told your teammates eventually, but maybe don’t shout it next time?”

“Understood.”
>2/3

>>5266567
“Ice release?” Wasabi-kun frowns. “Like what they use in the Land of Snow?”

“And a long time ago, in Kirigakure,” you reply. “I had no idea Chōjūrō-san was related to that clan.”

“Neither did he,” Kōshū-kun shrugs. “Not until I got my chakra nature got tested. Probably had to do with my mom’s bizarrely strong affinity for wind release bringing it out or something.”

“The Yuki clan were nearly wiped out in a civil war when our parents’ generation were young,” you explain to Wasabi-kun and Sumirin. “Fear and hatred for their role in it, mainly. The survivors went deep into hiding, but often not deep enough.”

“You know a heck of a lot about it,” Kōshū-kun frowns. “Why?”

“There was a kid involved with a major incident here a month or two ago who had that kekkei genkai,” you clarify. “My mother Naori-ue explained some of the details to me, it’s a long story.”

“That’s great and all,” ‘A’ interrupts, “but I’m starting to feel a bit ignored over here.”

>Dude, why are you even here? What were you hoping to accomplish by stopping us?
>Yeah, that’s deliberate. If we choose to ignore you, you can still walk away peacefully.
>If you really want to pick a fight, the Academy has an open arena for... disagreements.
>Other?

>>5266680
>If you really want to pick a fight, the Academy has an open arena for... disagreements.

>>5266680
>If you really want to pick a fight, the Academy has an open arena for... disagreements

>>5266680
>>Continue to ignore them
Why waste time on them

>>5266680
>>Yeah, that’s deliberate. If we choose to ignore you, you can still walk away peacefully.

>>5266680
>>Yeah, that’s deliberate. If we choose to ignore you, you can still walk away peacefully.

>>5266680
“Why are you three still here?” you roll your eyes. “If you’ve got a problem, sort it out during the exams. Otherwise, quit wasting our time.”

...

In two more days, you find that the remaining genin teams have been called to a venue outside of Konohagakure proper – a small city that appears to have been largely abandoned in favor of Konoha’s growth. A woman about Naori-ue’s age with brown hair up in buns and a white shirt with a standing collar is front and center to explain the nature of the exam.

“For this phase of the examination, the rules are simple – you win when you have the opposing team’s flag in hand, you lose when they have yours. Killing on this one is strictly prohibited – sometimes you have to capture an enemy for interrogation, or subdue a target who may be acting erratically. But also...”

Tenten-san drops her voice slightly. “I mean, this is a game of capture the flag. What game of capture the flag ends with the other team all dying? That’d just be too over-the-top, even for shinobi.”

Then she clears her voice, and raises it again. “Teams will be assigned as opponents at random, then assigned to opposite posts within the old city at random.”

>1d3, taking the second roll

Rolled 3 (1d3)

>>5267043

Rolled 2 (1d3)

>>5267043

>>5267043
“So,” you muse, taking the few minutes of setup to discuss strategy. “Team 5. What do we know?”

“Denki-kun is still physically the least impressive genin from our class,” Sumirin replies calmly. “Iwabe-kun is still physically impressive for his age, which is older than us, and when Metal-kun isn’t panicking he’s the fastest and strongest out of our class. But that being said even those two have glaring weaknesses – Iwabe-kun is predictable and not all that fast, Metal-kun doesn’t use any ninjutsu or genjutsu and has extreme social anxiety. Without Denki-kun’s smarts, their team would be hopeless.”

“Denki-kun has to know all that too,” Wasabi-kun realize. “He probably also knows a lot about us – and really, Sumire? Do you still think about to beat your friends that much!”

Sumirin seems a bit embarrassed. “I mean, I’m just observing – that’s all.”

“That said, what I’ve ‘observed’ is that even their strengths have weaknesses,” you add. “Iwabe-kun’s earth walls are tall and wide, but they only cover from one direction at a time and that direction is never ‘above’ or ‘below’, making those the best avenues for attack.”

“And Metal-kun doesn’t have any long-range attacks other than shuriken,” Wasabi-kun agrees. “So if we stay back from them all they have to rely on is Iwabe-kun’s walls.”

“That being said we should expect some sort of clever trick from Denki-kun,” Sumire points out, “who has probably been thinking hard for the last three days about how to beat us, while I doubt any of us have really been considering how to beat them.”

“It’s not the blade of a master that a master fears,” you muse, “but the blade of a spirited idiot, huh?”

“Something like that,” Sumire agrees.

>You two go to get their flag, I’ll take defense with my shadow clones and traps.
>We’ll all go, leaving shadow clones behind. If we get there first, we’ll win.
>Why go at all? Make them come here and fight on our terms, and crush them.
>Other?

>>5267086
>>Why go at all? Make them come here and fight on our terms, and crush them.

work as a team, win as a team. I'm kinda meh about resting defense on one person.

>>5267086
>>You two go to get their flag, I’ll take defense with my shadow clones and traps.

but regardless of which option wins, lets make shadow clones and use the transformation jutsu to disguise ourselves as each other.
Denki will have plans for each of other, but those plans won't work if we aren't who he thinks we are.

File: file.png (79 KB, 225x225)

79 KB PNG

>>5267086
>You two defend the flag, while i go on the offensive.

>>5267086
>>We’ll all go, leaving shadow clones behind. If we get there first, we’ll win.

You may actually want to discuss this one? I'm getting four very different answers here.

>>5267304
sure

>>5267086
We all know they aren't the greatest danger, but underestimating could lose us the flag and the round. As far as we know there isn't a time limit so waiting with the team is a valid one, but also boring.
Shiki has enough chakra to make multiple shadow clones to back up the girls and have some left to defend.
As i wrote in my other post, since Denki knows our abilities we can easily take an extra advantage if the shadow clones and the girls prepare and use the transformation jutsu to give the appearance of each other, the other team will engage in a way they disgussed previously in accordence to the best match ups, the transformations would throw that off completely!

>>5267248
>>5267097
>>5267090
anyone home?
We gotta decide on a single course of action here

>>5267086
>>5267248
I'll change to
>You two go to get their flag, I’ll take defense with my shadow clones and traps.

>>5267086
>>5267090
I guess I'll swap as well

>You two go to get their flag, I’ll take defense with my shadow clones and traps.

>>5267304
>>5267097

I figured that shiki has plenty of power and to take down the other team on his own, even if it takes a minute.
I'm more worried about some trickery being used and them ending up getting our flag somehow, but with both sumire and wasabi defending it that's a lot less likely.

However, the opposite is also true and i'd be fine with shiki defending and the girls going on offense, i just thought that shiki going on offense would be more fun to play.

>>5267086
I’ll support >>5267097
Like the anon said, it sound like more fun to play

>>5267462
power and stamina*

>>5267086
Back from drafting
>1d6, best three of five

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>5267590

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5267590

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>5267590

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5267590

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5267590

>>5267590
“I have a plan,” you muse, weaving the sign for a few shadow clones. “Leave defending the flag to me.”

...

You set to work preparing your multi-level ruse – the open, circular building is a perfect stage for you to play upon, with a flag set into the center with walls surrounding it. Sealing tags with senbon tipped in numbing toxins, small explosives designed to disorient through a flash and a loud bang, tripwires both active and fake, some even with multiple wires (some of which are disguised). One of your clones transforms to look like Wasabi-kun, and another to look like Sumire-kun. You send one clone with your real teammates, and the fourth continues to look like you. You yourself find some cover to hide behind, and wait for the right moment.

...

Team 5 watch for a while, seeing what they believe to be Team 15 waiting for them – when in reality you’re observing them from above the open area inside the walls of the building. Using your wave transmission you send your clones the signal, and the one looking like Sumire joins the one with your face in putting the second stage of your plan into action.

Your shadow clones, once they give your opponents a chance to see them, fade into the background of the swirling mists. Iwabe meanwhile makes the first move.

“Tsuchinami!” he shouts, slamming his fist into the ground and disarming a large number of your traps by forcing the ground around the flag to roll and sway like ocean waves.

“Now it is my turn!” Metal-kun declares, making a play on the flag itself.

“No, wait!” Denki shouts, even as a pair of senbon with bells force Metal-kun to backpedal.

“I see, so it will not be so easy,” Metal-kun realizes.

Denki dodges a few belled-senbon as well, while a single shuriken grazes Iwabe’s cheek before disappearing into the mist. “They’re trying to confuse us about their locations, distracting us with the bells to cover their moves. Smart.”

A few more bells, and the odd glimpse of your disguised clones moving through the mists, and you’re ready for phase three of your plan. You use the wave transmission technique to set up a vibration in the bells attached to shuriken you’ve already thrown, which set them ringing in unison.

“The bells are all ringing?” Denki realizes, before quickly covering his ears. “Aw crap, it’s a genjutsu!”

“Too late,” you tell them from the covering shroud of mist as more senbon come flying their way. Metal-kun, having fallen into a pattern of avoiding the senbon with bells, takes three in his thigh and leg with numbing poison on them, coming away with a limp.

“Watch out!” he calls out. “They are using senbon without bells mixed in with the ones that do have bells!”

“Crap...” Iwabe realizes too late. “This genjutsu’s got me all screwed up!”
>1/2

>>5268116
“I’m sorry,” Denki-kun apologizes to his team, having taken a cluster of senbon to his shoulder after setting off a sealing tag trap by mistake, disoriented by the genjutsu as well. “I really didn’t think they’d all be here...”

“That’s the thing,” you muse, joining your clones as the mist clears. “We aren’t. Sorry.”

Your clones all disperse.

Iwabe-kun’s eyes widen as he realized he and his team have been played. Then he grins wildly. “Well, if it’s just you and me dude, I’ve got no excuse for whimping out now!”

Unsteady on his feet he raises his club and charges across the open space at you... only to step on a sealing tag you’d hidden thanks to a wobbly step.

The blast momentarily blinds and deafens him, and in the moment after that your foot collides with the side of his head. He manages to get up again, if only just, but you hear an alarm in the distance and a few moments later shinobi in flak jackets descend on your little base.

“Alright, that’s it! Team 15 has Team 5’s flag, the fight’s over!”

...

“Sorry about that,” you shrug as the medical personnel treat the injuries you gave Team 5. “The whole point was to slow you down long enough for my teammates to get through whatever traps you left for them. So I did everything I could to drag things out, turn it into a real nightmare.”

“Yeah, fair,” Iwabe grumbles. “I just can’t believe we got toasted by just you... do us a favor though, and let those other guys have it just as good, alright?”

“We’ll do what we can,” Wasabi-kun assures him.

...

It’s Metal-kun’s father who greets the teams that passed the second phase of the exams – your team, Shikadai’s team, Shinki and Kōshū’s team, the Senka trio, Yurui’s team from Kumo, and Hachiro’s from Kiri.

“Congratulations on passing the second stage of the chūnin exams – you should all be proud of this accomplishment!” he cheers you on. “However, this is no longer a team exercise. From this point on all of you will be fighting alone, against your rivals. That includes members of your own team. And out of your rivals gathered here only eight will progress to the final stage.”

“That means we must hold preliminary matches, starting right here, right now. I will be your proctor – show me what splendid shinobi you are!”
>2/3

>>5268171
There’s a crackle, a series of shouts you can hear even coming from Lee-san’s earpiece.

“I am sorry, Tenten!” Lee-san apologizes awkwardly. “I was merely excited and I...”

“Very well then, I will see to it.”

Then he turns to you, “Apologies, the arena is actually nearby. Please follow me.”

...

The arena is in another circular building, with a ring platform around a wide open space under a dome. That platform is wide enough for a small audience, and you see Hanabi-sensei waiting alongside what you presume are the other senseis for each of the teams that have gotten this far.

There’s also a screen on one wall, which at Lee-san’s signal begins to flash with the names of the remaining combatants...
>1d9
>taking the first two

Rolled 1 (1d9)

>>5268176

Rolled 7 (1d9)

>>5268176

>>5268176
- Uzumaki Shiki vs Yurui -

So, we’re doing this right out of the gate then? Well, at least this is your chance to put this jerk in his place, and to do so with zero consequences.

“Ah, lucky me,” Yurui muses loudly as he descends into the arena. “I was hoping I’d get to fight you.”

“Why would he be hoping for that?” Kōshū-kun wonders behind you – with only two sets of stairs in this whole silly building, it means you had to walk a long way to avoid looking like a showoff by leaping into the arena. You intend to let the beating you give Yurui do the showing off for you.

“He’s an idiot,” Shinki-kun replies curtly.

“Poor dumb bastard,” you hear Hachiro-kun sigh.

You square off in front of Yurui, offering the traditional seal of confrontation – which he doesn’t return.

“Make your respects, jerk,” you insist curtly. Lee-san glances at you.

Then Lee-san glances at Yurui for his response. “Nah, don’t feel like it.”

“Then welcome to the end of the line,” you declare. "I can't promise that it won't hurt."

Lee-san raises his hand, then brings it down. Yurui is already chewing his special gum, in essence cheating by starting to prepare his first attack before the signal. “Begin!”

Yurui leaps back, not particularly quickly by your standards, and starts to blow a bubble.

>Target his first bubble with the senbon that’s already unsealed into your hand.
>Let him blow some bubbles, Pop them all with a wall of shadow cloned senbon.
>Use his bubbles as a diversion to summon Momo and send him underground.
>Other?