Chương 20: Chapter 15

Tea Capital Ryoma, Recently Promoted Ninja"Overwatch- did you hear that?!" Cloma asked urgently through his headset as Ryoma ran through his mental checklist of objectives and considerations. It was entirely possible that the clone of Laughing Smoke had been lying when he said that- still stationed somewhere in the tower and trying to bluff them into running off.

The thing about ninja fights is that you couldn't really call bluffs, because it was entirely possible that the bluff was in fact a bluff for some other nonsense further down. The best way to go about completing missions was usually just to be strong enough to handle anything in your way. Ryoma wasn't that strong, so tough decisions were going to have to be made.

If he stayed to investigate the tower under the premise that Laughing Smoke was bluffing, then he wouldn't be present to defend the clients in the capital. That could potentially lead to a massive loss of life, and more importantly, a significant blow to their reputation as ninja. That would eat into their future paychecks. If they left immediately, then assuming Laughing Smoke was traveling by moth, he'd have several long minutes to work with before the five of them returned even if they traveled away right now.

That would also pull them back from the tower and give anything within more time to prepare for a renewed attack, or potentially vanish. That would potentially let them defend the clients, but it might also be an attack that never comes. The best course of action was to leave someone behind to clean up this island while pulling back the rest of the force to defend the capital. And as the slowest one here, the best choice to remain behind was him.

"I heard it- patching you through the others." Amenin growled over the headset. After a moment, the sound of static burst to life for a moment before settling down into the background noise of blades clashing and semi-electronic moth-screams.

"Suna patched through- all channels." Amenin finished.

"Laughing Smoke claimed that his earlier attack was a baiting diversion to lure us here while he attacks the capital." Ryoma explained quickly and efficiently.

"What?! That bastard!" Iwanin snarled over his line- the sound of rocks smashing into shell and splatters of gore in the background of his voice.

"Is it a bluff?" Taninin asked quickly, making little grunts of exertion over the distinct noise of a sturdy wooden pole rapidly thwacking into meat.

"Doesn't matter- we have to cover everything regardless." In contrast to the slightly strained voices of the ninja from Iwa and Tani, the Kirinin was completely steady, with the sounds of wires whipping through the air and the occasional splash of footsteps in puddles. Immediately- every other ninja with him understood the situation and the potential bluff at play. It was good to be working with professionals.

"I'll volunteer to remain behind and cover the situatio-""Fuck that- I'll stay here!" Iwanin interrupted him with a snarl.

"I'm pissed off now- I'm wrecking this stupid tower!"

"If you know water-walking, you'll be faster than me to return." Ryoma decided to admit a weakness for the sake of expediency. Cloma was scowling as he spoke the next lines.

"I don't." The line was quiet for a few moments, the only sounds being thwacks and smashes and other violent noises.

"What the fuck do you mean you can't water-walk?!" Iwanin snarled out, sounding more baffled than anything else.

"I live in a desert, Rockass! It's never come up before!" Cloma snarled back. He made a note to fix this as soon as he had some off-time after this mission.

"Go back on the boat then- I'm sticking here- fucker!" This interrupt and exclamation was interrupted by a deafening boom of rock smashing into earth. This boom was big enough for Cloma to feel through the soles of his sand-feet.

"It'll be a half hour before I'm safe enough to be around civilian populations! I can't go back yet!" Iwanin, in a show of faint angry comradery, revealed a bit of his own weaknesses in turn. Entirely possible that he was lying here, but then again it was entirely possible that Ryoma was also lying here. There was nothing to be done for it but to just trust that the other party was being relatively transparent about the situation.

Worst case scenario, the Iwanin was an accomplice that helped Laughing Smoke get away, thus forfeiting the bounty for all of them. All they'd really be losing was a bit of time and potential reward. It wouldn't be the end of the world.

"Pft- that settles it then." Kirinin growled.

"Not gonna let my paycheck die because some amateur couldn't keep it in his pants-""Fuck off, Wetass!"

"-Tani can carry you back. We'll finish the fights we're in and head back. Iwa and Ame can clean things up here, if they don't die." Kirinin continued straight through the interruption. Ryoma wasn't the most thrilled by that idea, but if Iwanin was truly a walking population hazard right now, then it was probably the best move they had.

"Fine." He grumbled, biting back his own embarrassment at the prospect.

"All quiet here- support needed anywhere?"

"Y-yeah I could use some- woah!" Taninin decided to refrain from her usual teasing as she spoke over the radio.

"South side of the island- I'll make my way into the clear- fweh!"

"I'll be there soon." Cloma responded, taking off the radio and tossing it up, letting Ryoma connect out a string and catch it as he crawled out of the Wood Dragoon. Fastest way to get to the south side of the island from his current position was to get out of his puppet-armor. Speed was always of utmost importance in these sorts of things. It was annoying to let go of the sand transformation, wasting a few motes of chakra on a defense that ultimately didn't matter, but sunk cost fallacy was a fallacy for a reason.

He sealed it away again, storing it in his belt loop before layering a basic transformation around himself again. Twenty. Cloma caught the large scroll and 'secured' it to his back, hands immediately moving through seals to recast Sand Transformation around himself, adding a layer of dense sand around his form but leaving the appearance unchanged. Eighteen motes. No need to recast Air Convection, which was still operating around the 'scroll' on his back.

Instead he raised his hands in the 'Tiger' seal and cycled chakra. Shunshin was a very basic technique at its core, only D-rank. Chakra was used to energize the body more than normal, providing bursts of high speed. Speed great enough that the individual usually couldn't keep up with themselves, a technique useful mostly in bursts that required reorientation after every movement. Usually, a puff of something was used to cover up the users movements as they fled, the version that he had been taught used sand.

As expected of ninja from the 'Village Hidden in the Sand', they stuck to a theme. A cycling of chakra, an energized jump, and Cloma was suddenly dozens of feet in the air and hurtling towards the south side of the island. Wind rushing back his armored shell of sand and gravity tugging at his ankles as he practically flew. Sixteen motes. The sparse cover made it relatively easy to see most of the island from this position. The north side was covered in unnatural, rolling mists.

The east side was covered in jutting spurs of rock and shaking pillars. And the south side wasn't covered by anything- letting him easily see the Taninin doing many acrobatic moves in the effort to avoid swipes from an elephant-sized ground sloth. The hide was strangely dull green, and a number of droopy white flowers grew from its back like it was some great hedge that had decided to uproot itself and sit down on the local megafauna. The sloth, of course, being too lazy to get it off, or something like that.

There was a joke here, he knew it. She was further troubled by a pair of corpse-clones, making their own swipes and swings in coordination with the giant ground sloth. Each used a simple katana, and thus far no jutsu from what he could see. Low on chakra maybe. He frowned as he steadied himself for a landing. He was getting low on chakra himself. Only sixteen motes before he has to dip into his personal pool. He raised his feet and tensed a few muscles.

Sandals smashed into the side of the hill, leading into a semi-controlled roll to bleed off the momentum of his fall. One, two, three, four tumbles later he had managed to return properly to his feet, as he pulled out sets of kunai from his holster. Four for each hand, eight in total, good enough. Another jump, this time unpowered, brought him within range.

Taninin ducked under a massive swipe, kicking the legs out from one corpse clone before her baton extended to nine times its size against the ground, throwing her up and out of the way of another swing. They were just fast enough to keep her consistently on the run, from the looks of it. The tripped Corpse-clone moved to rise, eyes widening and throwing himself back to avoid a hail of kunai coming down on his position. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Cloma's fingers twitched, making a slight adjustment to the angle of their flight. Six kunai smashed into the corpse clone, almost center-mass, making a spurt of blood then smoke as it collapsed to the ground. The giant ground sloth continued its single minded pursuit of the Taninin, even as the other clone turned to face him.

"Already over her- woah!" The corpse-clone started to rant before being cut off by the swipe of its fallen comrade's katana. Chakra strings that were once connected to the kunai now connected to the body and operating it. The original function of the Puppeteering technique was simple entertainment using handcrafted puppets. The very next function of the puppeteering technique was war, and for a time they continued to use handcrafted puppets exclusively.

It wasn't long at all before someone realized that you didn't actually need to build a puppet from the ground up, if you were in the middle of a battlefield and all of your fancy toys had been broken already. You could simply find a corpse. Uncaring of the damage sustained to itself, the corpse of some random man swung recklessly at its fellow corpse, a rapid rush pushing the clone of Laughing Smoke further and further back.

Sparks flew in the evening as blade clashed against blade, buying space for Cloma and his temporary ally. He wasn't a very good swordsman, but he didn't have to be either. He literally just picked this corpse up, he didn't need to care about preserving it, just about getting pressure and potentially damage in. Cloma didn't bother to focus on that, turning his gaze to the ongoing battle between Taninin and the massive bush sloth.

This was another bluff, Ryoma disguised as a scroll was paying very close attention to that fight, operating everything through Cloma's fingers while Cloma focused on staying aware of the other danger in the scene.

"Y-you! Are you even paying attention?!" Laughing Smoke's corpse-clone frustratedly yelled as he continued to fend off a furious barrage by the puppet-corpse.

"You son of a bitch! Look at me while we're fighting!" The corpse-clone flipped back, hand reaching into the sleeve of one robe and hurling a trio of shuriken his way. Cloma absentmindedly deflected one with a raised bracer and let the others thunk into his flak jacket. If he was just wearing flak, that might've hurt, but he was also covered in a layer of sand and a swirl of wind at the moment. A basic throwing star didn't have much of a chance of actually hurting him.

Taninin was doing much better now that she was no longer being harassed by two enemy ninja in addition to the giant sloth. A basic set of clones summoned up confusing the slow giant and letting her leisurely dance around the beast. Corpse-puppet lost an arm, the corpse-clone cutting it off at the elbow to chip away at the reckless adversity. Cloma's fingers twitched and the arm had a new string connecting to it, shooting it forwards to latch onto the man's throat.

"Gkr- wh-" He choked out, the severed hand gripping hard and pushing forwards, smashing him against a rocky outcrop.

"Puh-pet-!" Just because an arm was severed, didn't mean Ryoma couldn't puppet it around still. The one-handed corpse thrust the katana forwards, impaling the corpse-clone into the rock. A spurt of blood and a puff of- Moths! Cloma threw himself to the side as a sword swiped through the air.

Too late, the sword swung like an angry gorilla smashing into his side, through the buffeting wind, through the layers of densified sand, and barely into the side of the sand clone, drawing a thin layer of sand like blood down along the blade. Nonlethal damage, clone integrity still sufficient.

"What?!" Laughing Smoke's clone was distinctly surprised that it hadn't cut him to the spine, seems like. Cloma turned at the waist, backhanding the corpse-clone and sending him stumbling back. The katana remained stuck in his side, quickly pulled out and dropped as he raised his fists and engaged the now-weaponless corpse clone in hand-to-hand. He really didn't want to waste any more chakra at this point, cleaning up stragglers like this.

He didn't know much about hand-to-hand, beyond what the academy and his jonin-sensei had briefly taught. Most of his knowledge came from his best attempts to replicate boxing. Sure the various types of kung-fu were well and good, and probably had a large number of special chakra-techniques to back them up once mastery was achieved. What Ryoma did have was memories of watching Hajime no Ippo and almost a decade to train up with. Laughing Smoke's corpse-clone snarled as he spun into a kick.

Low guard, right jab, left uppercut. The corpse-clone stumbled back, immediately twisting into a sort of flippy backflip kick and jumping away. High guard, hop forwards. Bracers guarded his forearms, handplates added extra impact to all of his punches. Some punching-gauntlets would be better, but those would interfere with his finger-movements for handseals. He wasn't a monster in hand-to-hand, by any means.

But he had enough practice in the academy to get the basic movements down- and boxing was probably the simplest fighting style in the world. It was all in biology, training, and execution, not complexity of forms or esoteric chakra-secrets. It was the best he was going to get as one of the many random orphans scattered about a ninja village. Laughing Smoke kicked off the ground, spinning into a massive dropkick aimed straight at his midsection.

Cloma tilted his body, the feet smashing into his low-guard, straight into his shoulder and gauntlet- then off to the side. The corpse-clone's eyes widened just in time for Cloma to twist into a right hook. The corpse-clone bounced off the ground as the right hook smashed him into the ground. The kick against him would normally leave a heavy bruise, even through the layer of sand transformation, but this was a clone anyways.

Putrid blood splattered across his fist, the corpse-clone's face briefly sporting a nasty indent across the nose before disappearing in a puff of smoke and revealing the cratered face of some woman that Ryoma didn't recognize. Kirinin had been right earlier, in his estimation. Each of these were about as dangerous as a talented academy graduate.

A glance behind him revealed that Taninin was almost done with the giant ground sloth, having stabbed it in some vital vein in the thigh and carefully waiting for it to bleed to unconsciousness. Cloma reached back to casually take the bulk storage scroll from Ryoma and gather the corpses, sealing both away in the 'corpse' section, then sealing the weapons away in the 'weapons' section, then putting it away in time for Taninin to jump over, flanked by a handful of clones.

The giant ground bush-sloth did not seem quick to pursue, limping and bleeding. The objective wasn't to kill the target, just to escape. What the fuck even was that? Ryoma had never seen a thing like that before. Randomized giant animal over there. Time elapsed since Laughing Smoke revealed his attack on the capital, about two minutes. Another rumble echoed through the island.

"Enemy eliminated, I'm moving towards the docks now." Kirinin growled over the radio.

"Same here- we'll meet you in half a minute." Ryoma called back, nodding towards the trio of Taninins. The clones didn't cast any shadows or move any grass, making them fairly easy to tell apart from the actual ninja. She looked distinctly amused, amused and sweaty from all the exertion she was just put through.

"Thanks for the help, Su~na." She spoke as they leapt away, towards the 'front' of the island.

"Those boys were giving me a little bit of trouble."

"You had it handled, all I did was make it faster." Cloma refuted, holding a hand at his side to staunch the flow of sand.

"Hm-mh." The trio of Taninins responded with an affirmative hum.

"That's fair. I'll pay you back by making your trip across the water faster." The teasing tone indicated that she had heard and at least somewhat approved of the 'Taninin will carry the Sunanin' plan suggested earlier. The best way to respond to teasing was not at all.

"I'd appreciate it." Cloma said, jumping again and then dissolving in the middle of the air, the scroll-transformation disappearing in a puff of smoke and letting Ryoma finish the jump, landing again without a beat and jumping away from the splash of sand. Taninin let out a lazy giggle as they reached the shore, reaching over to grab him by the collar and hefting him bridal-style as she jumped out into the water. Ryoma briefly warred between practicality and impulsive aggression at being suddenly touched.

Her clones dispelled in puffs of smoke behind them. Kirinin greeted them with a growl and a running pace of his own, onwards back towards the mainland. They tossed the radios off to the Amenin as they passed him on the evening waves. Time since Laughing Smoke declared his attack. Two and a half minutes. Time back to the capital, many minutes more than that. Time for the garrison-force to pull their weight, he supposed, lips pressed together under his illusory veil.