Chương 46: Chapter 29

Land of River Ryoma, Jonin Team Five returned in the middle of the night soaked to the bone, their share of rice clutched in a scroll and nervous glances being thrown over their shoulders. They were the ones that he was most concerned about- having gone nearest to the border with the Land of Rain. The team leader said he almost set off the flare and pulled back when the bridge beneath them fell through, but a tense and careful investigation revealed the culprit to be shoddy maintenance of the support struts.

They left a sign saying as much and moved along an alternative route off the road, which caused their delayed return. They were further slowed by a storm that rolled down from Rain, but experienced no further troubles. That was certainly nice to hear, because Ryoma was already anticipating the headache of needing to deal with the paperwork of a single death, let alone multiple. Baki had been deployed immediately afterwards to go check out Team Three's target location and perform standing post-battlefield cleanup.

That meant picking up any bodies, clearing out any evidence of Suna involvement, and picking up any salvageable trinkets and bits that might be in the location. Ninja were downright scavengers that way, picking up basically everything they could get their hands on if they got to a battlefield first.

This was partly why ninja wars were so invisible to the normal population- because the only evidence of a ninja battle is usually the shattered terrain or burns- and there's any number of other potential reasons for stuff like that. This was especially notable in particularly rural areas, where villages went months or years without contact with other villages. If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, does anyone know a ninja knocked it over?

Would anyone know to blame a ninja specifically over animal clans, natural disasters, or demons? The Elemental Nations, for as much as they pretended to be peaceful, was a place where sometimes places were wiped off the face of the earth, and no one will ever figure out why. There was a reason most of the population tended to stick near the cities and roads, where the Daimyos, Samurai, and Ashigaru were in abundance to fend off anything that tries anything funny.

"Sensei."

"Hm?" He responded idly, reeling in another catfish, string looping around his arm and chakra-strings filling his fingers and helping to pull it in. The fish got big here- this catfish was five feet long and several hundred pounds by the look and feel of it. Ryoma was glad he was using a metal wire as his line, anything weaker would've snapped awhile ago.

"All three of them- they're awake now." The little orange-haired medic gave a weary bow in his direction, the morning essentially silent save the chirping of birds, song of cicadas, and the thrashing of the monster at the end of his reel.

"Thank you-" He forgot her name again.

"-Genin, go ahead and get some sleep." He gave a little groan of exertion, tugged forwards suddenly by a tremendous pull. His arms shook slightly as he held on, just long enough for the fish to give some slack and let him make another loop around his arm- across the thumb and the elbow. It had been a long time since he had gone fishing, he forgot how much he enjoyed it.

"I'll see them in a moment."

"Yes sir!" She recited, before wandering off back to whatever tent she and her team was using. Ryoma held the line for a few moments more- then called out to the water. He gave this maybe a fifty percent chance of success.

"Hey- catfish! You mind calling it a draw for today? I have something to do." He stopped his pulling and let the line slacken appropriately. The line loosened further as the head of a catfish slowly poked its way up out of the river, looking up at him with its wide face and beady eyes. After a moment, it spoke.

"... Draw?" It called out in a deep rumble, a dumb tone in its voice. The hook hung out of its immense lip. Looks like he got it right then. Ryoma nodded, uncoiling the ninja wire around his arm to give it more slack.

"Yeah, shame I know. Here, let me come down and get the hook out of your lip." He walked off the side of the bridge, falling for a couple seconds as he gathered chakra in his feet. His soles collided with the rushing water- dipping in and letting him drop for a few moments as he focused- and then bringing him back to the surface. Walking on a flowing river was a bit trickier, seems like. He made sure to stabilize himself before stepping forwards and over to the mostly-still catfish.

The catfish flicked its whiskers back and forth as he knelt down beside it. The hook was a fair bit into its jaws. Ryoma frowned and spoke.

"It's a decent ways in there- I'll try to get it out without hurting you too badly."

"S'alright." The catfish mumbled as he gripped it by the lip and grabbed the hook, wiggling it a bit and trying to maneuver around the barb. After a few seconds of working at it, Ryoma managed to slip the hook free and out of the immense fish's mouth.

"There ya go." He wrapped the rest of his line up around his arm, then reached down and patted the fish on the head.

"I'll try to catch and eat you some other time, if I'm ever in the area, alright?"

"S'okay if I lose. If I win, I'll pull you in and swallow you." The fish rumbled, nodding against his hand before pulling away and continuing.

"See you later, fisherman." A few moments later, it was gone into the river, its immense and slimy shape fading into the darkness of the churning waters. Ryoma washed his hand off with a blank expression, standing up and making his way carefully back to the shoreline. Fish were somehow much creepier when they could talk. The last one, the one they ate, congratulated them on the 'fine match' as they pulled it up. —"Awake huh? How are the ribs treating you?"

Ryoma asked as he stepped over to the 'medical tent' and shrugged off the length of ninja wire. Really it was just his own tent repurposed as an adhoc medical center, one of those big pavilion tents that took less than a minute to set up with chakra strings. He liked it for the space, but didn't actually use it that often. A ninja quickly learns how to go the occasional night without sleep for the good of the mission. After a moment with no reply, he turned to look at the injured team more directly.

The team leader was laying back on her back, blankly staring up at the ceiling. The pink and green haired teammates were sitting up, one with her legs pulled up to her chest and the other sitting slumped and cross-legged. A general mood of despair was upon them. He supposed losing a teammate for the first time would do that. He didn't remember what he looked like the first time, but it probably wasn't that much better. The best thing to do would be to get them back into the mission mindset for a moment.

"Team Three. I need a full report. What led to the situation you were in when reinforcements arrived?" He made sure to use his stern voice, grabbing a fold-out chair and pulling it over, plopping himself down in it and bringing the tips of his fingers together in front of him. That got them to pull themselves up a bit, eyes rising to meet his gaze before dropping a bit. The team leader… Chikako, that's her name, she spoke.

"It's… It's my fault sir-""Do it properly, genin." Ryoma interrupted her little session of self-loathing with another stern word. The pink and green haired girls flinched at that. She swallowed, inclining her head and starting again.

"I- Team Three traveled along the road as orders specified, reaching the five kilometer mark and leaving the outlined marker before traveling forwards at standard pace. Some time before actually reaching the mission location, we spotted a large amount of smoke rising in the distance, at the mission site." Was there smoke? He supposed the treeline might've obscured it too much for him to notice.

"It was- The smoke indicated unknown variables at the mission location, but as there was no immediate evidence of hostiles I made the decision to press forwards and investigate." That's within the letter of what he outlined, but not the spirit. He supposed he was too specific when he said 'hostiles' instead of something like 'indications of danger'. It was just enough confusion for them to decide to push forwards.

Still within reason here, he supposed, though judging by the tone he imagined that was going to change soon.

"The lack of underbrush in the vicinity and the direction of the wind indicated that the fire was potentially deliberate- though I felt there was insufficient evidence to actually claim such. We moved forwards despite the protests of the team, and reached the mission location." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Technically correct, neither of those factors alone is sufficient evidence to determine enemy action.

It should've been enough to start ringing their sense of danger, but that was only something that could be honed with time and experience. The team leader hesitated for a moment, face scrunching up in well-rooted frustration.

"We- The mission location was burned, as the smoke indicated, the compound-complex was clearly and deliberately set aflame, the fires at the very ends still burning and the woodland around the complex untouched. There were no bodies or sounds of evacuation, which I considered odd. I- I determined that our mission was impossible to complete with the current state of the mission-location-" Good, good. All of this well within reason.

He supposed they were ambushed on their way out-"-I made the decision to perform a single-sweep reconnaissance of the area, to find and evacuate any potential survivors, before we would return…" Ryoma stared at her, expression well-hidden behind his veil. Welp. That would certainly do it. He deliberately withheld the urge to sigh, instead giving a tiny incline to indicate she should continue. She gave a mighty sniff, face twisted and glaring up at the ceiling, clearly very angry at herself.

"I- we split into two teams, myself with Yoshimi and Bazo with Mao, the reconnaissance proceeded uneventfully for a time- then an explosion caught our attention. We moved to investigate, finding Mao holding a black sword running in our direction, calling for retreat. The unknown enemy toppled a building behind us- and we quickly began to flee. When- when we did…" Her hands balled up into fists, shaking with rage.

"We- Mao informed us of Bazo's efforts… in d-disarming and distracting the enemy…" Mao, that one was the pink-haired one, pretty sure. He turned an eye towards the girl in question, who was curled up, knees tucked under her chin, and tiny tears accumulating in her eyes.

"... We used- we began to flee, using the…" Ryoma raised a hand, cutting the girl off.

"Save the rest for the written report." There was something akin to a headache building up between and behind his eyes. Expressing his immense frustration with the genin wouldn't be constructive here, they needed something a bit more cut and dry than a rant.

"Yes, field commander…" He stared at them for a few moments longer, then sighed and pulled up, leaning back in his chair.

"Tell me the moment you think you should have retreated- with hindsight to guide you."

"As soon as we saw the smoke." She declared at once.

"Hm." He shook his head.

"Not necessarily. Getting a visual on the mission location wasn't an inherently bad idea. Even if just to confirm the situation- I'd say the moment you got within range, was able to get an eye on the mission location, and able to confirm that your mission was impossible- that's the moment you should have pulled out. Ideally you'd get this visual at range and under cover, and leave without anyone being the wiser about your presence." Ryoma raised a hand and wobbled it.

"Balancing the need to gather intel and stay undetected is an important skill, and it's one you'll just have to learn with experience. There's really no amount of education in a classroom that can give you a good sense for it."

"Yes, field commander…" Geez, already back to repeating lines, huh?

"Baki was sent out earlier- to investigate the mission location. If Bazo is dead, then Baki will retrieve his body." Ryoma shifted his weight.

"Making a decision like that- it was an error, but I don't imagine any official punishment is warranted in this case. So long as you demonstrate sufficient understanding of the mistake made in the written report."

"B-but-" Both the team leader and the green haired girl started at that, both cut off by a sharp raising of his finger. He glared at them for a few moments, before lowering the finger again.

"This was supposed to be a low-risk, low-stakes mission to get you all acquainted with field-work. The fact that you made strategic errors was, to some extent, fully anticipated. The fact that your strategic errors happened to coincide with the field work of an unknown hostile is simply bad luck." They looked pretty forlorn about that, which provoked another sigh from him. He planted his hands on his knees and continued.

"You made mistakes in this case, but there's a secret that only experience can teach you. Do you want to know what that is?" They looked up at him with generally dismal expressions. He nodded.

"You will never stop making mistakes. Every mission, every deed, every action- you will always make mistakes when doing anything. Your mistakes will get smaller, will get less frequent, and sometimes not even be your fault to begin with- but you will never stop making those mistakes." He raised his hand and pulled his index and thumb together.

"Sometimes those mistakes get so small and inconsequential that you can't even notice them. A mistake so minor that most people would look at your work and call it perfect." He dropped the hand again.

"But it's not perfect, not actually. The mistakes are still there, even if you can't see them anymore. You'll never have a perfect mission, no matter how much you try."

"Your goal should be to learn from all of them. All of them that you notice- until your mistakes get so little that you can't notice them anymore." He shook his head.

"Sometimes- even when you make no mistakes that you can notice- no mistakes that matter- you can still fail. That's just the way of things, and sometimes a mission is doomed from the start. All you can do is do your best to survive it, and prepare for the next mission as best you can." He nodded at them.

"You survived this mission. Bazo doesn't seem to have. Your job now is to figure out why and how you can stop it from happening again."

"... It's my fault…" Mao muttered, face coiled in on itself and half-pressed into her knees.

"I gave a lesson on this yesterday, kid." Ryoma deadpanned.

"Figuring out who's to blame isn't important. What is important is surviving." That didn't seem to help her much. So he tilted his head, pushed up from his chair, stepped over, and kneeled down. He made sure to stare at all three of them, silently, before continuing.

"It gets easier." He declared, catching their attention again.

"... D-does it?" Mao muttered forlornly, a twinge of hope in her voice.

"It does." He declared quietly.

"The Third Ninja war… even going into it, I was fully expecting it to be bad. My expectations somehow fell short of the real thing anyways."

"... How bad…" Chikako asked, sounding almost afraid of what she was about to hear. Ryoma considered for a moment how best to answer.

"... As you know, the Suna Ninja Academy outputs several class-groups of around thirty per year. I was in class-group 'Jackal'." He paused for a moment, then continued.

"Of the thirty-one members of class-group Jackal, including my Genin team, I was the only one who survived longer than one year." A trio of horrified looks came over their faces. He continued calmly.

"At a certain point, hearing news of their passing stopped being terribly unfortunate and started being uneventful. I attended their brief funerals, of course, it was the socially correct thing to do- but I can't say that I spent much time mourning their passing. They were dead, and crying over it wasn't going to help anything."

"At a certain point, I stopped asking 'why' and started asking if I could see the written-reports of the mission that killed them." There was silence in the tent for a long while.

"... That didn't help at all…" Mao almost wailed. Yeah that sounds about right.

"Do you want a hug?" He asked quietly. She nodded miserably, unfurling to reach her arms out like a sloth. He pulled his student into his arms and let her quietly sob into his vest. He extended his other arm out, pulling the green haired- Yoshimi that's her name- into the hug, and she soon started to shake too.

"... I'd bring you in but your ribs are-""Yeah." Chikako nodded, laying back and staring at the ceiling of his tent.

"Thank you for the thought, sensei."

"... Do you want a hug after your ribs are healed?" He asked, rubbing circles into the backs of the two sobbing girls clinging to him.

"... Yes, I'd like that, sensei." Ryoma made a note of that, alongside letting Mao have the black sword- the old ninja right of spoils meant it was hers now, and trying to claim it from her would get the Kazekage giving him a pointed look.