Chương 65: Prologue

Sunagakure Ryoma, Recently Promoted Ninja"Congratulations on your promotion, Jonin Ryoma." The man on the other side of the desk was not a particularly intimidating man, on first look. His messy hair was a desaturated shade of rust-red, his features rather plain, and his frame distinctly average. He was neither a tall nor a broad man, and his robes were rather plain save for the emblem on his wide-brimmed hat. That emblem read 'Wind Shadow', and that was reason enough to fear him.

Ryoma looked down at the new standard-issue Jonin vest held in his hands. Another desaturated shade, this time of olive-green, with a high collar and wide pauldrons. The vest itself was somewhat thicker than the standard issues of the previous years and of other hidden villages, a manufacturing decision made in hopes of keeping their dwindling numbers of elite ninja alive for a bit longer than normal. Doubtlessly, he'd be spending some of his paycheck on adding some bracers and greaves to the set.

It would look a bit odd on its own and the extra protection would be welcome.

"Respectfully Lord Kazekage, I really don't believe I'm qualified for this." Ryoma brought his gaze back up to his sworn-lord, brows furrowed and lips pulled down in a concerned scowl.

"Explain your reasoning." The master of Sunagakure demanded, swiftly and casually. He reached for the pipe-end of a delicately carved hookah, inhaling with a practiced draw, then exhaled slowly. The smoke that came from his lips was flecked with gold, and smelled faintly of scorpion-venom.

"I believe the traditional requirements for Jonin is mastery of two elemental releases and to be reasonably capable of completing A-rank missions without support. My abilities with earth-release techniques are rudimentary at best, and my ability to complete A-rank missions is usually uncertain." Ryoma explained diligently, keeping his head slightly bowed as he spoke. Best to not be rude to one's uncontested military commander.

"Your lacking ability in a secondary element is amended by your capabilities in puppetry and sealing, and you have completed three A-rank missions successfully thus far." Said military commander was hearing none of his concerns today, dismissing both points with sharp rebuttals.

"Do you have any other concerns?" Ryoma has a great many concerns, most of which would be laughed off. There was no need to elaborate on all the many reasons those last three missions were won on luck more than anything, or talk about his various nerves and jitters that high-stakes fast-paced combat would naturally bring, or anything else that the child-soldier-turned-military commander would raise a brow in a most unimpressed manner at. Most pressingly, however…

"Lord Kazekage, I'm fifteen." He said this knowing full-well what the response was going to be.

"Many are more capable than you at a younger age." The Kazekage repeated an age-old truism, often repeated by veteran shinobi time and time again for any number of reasons. There was always someone younger and more skilled, so any kind of slacking off was a sin. There was always someone younger and more talented, so you better not get an ego. And of course, there was always someone younger and more powerful, so you'll just have to rise to the occasion.

Ryoma was careful to contain his sigh, merely nodding instead and quietly responding.

"I have no further concerns, Lord Kazekage." A promotion in most careers was normally a very good thing. Better pay, more privileges, and once you leave middle-management, less responsibilities. As a special-operations child soldier, a promotion simply meant responsibility for the completion of more dangerous tasks with less support from allies. That alone wasn't great, but at least the pay was somewhat better than before.

As he was a special-operations child soldier in service to a hidden village with a currently retracting economy, the increased pay just meant higher taxes, which meant it evened out to about the same amount of personal budget as he had before. There were no real positives other than the fancy title and nifty jacket, if he was being critical. He was going to have to keep stealing random bits and bobs while on missions, if he wanted to have enough spending money to keep all his equipment in good repair.

Puppets and poisons were expensive, but they were easily the most useful things he owned.

"Your first mission is tomorrow, be present again at o-eight-hundred. Dismissed." The Kazekage brought the tube of the hookah back to his lips with the final word, reaching into his desk-drawer as he did. Ryoma saluted and turned sharply, leaving the Kazekage's office and stepping into the sandstone halls of the Sunagakure command-center. His old vest had already been stripped off in the office, and the new vest slipped easily over his arms.

It was nice and weighty, which would be excellent during the cold desert nights and horrible during the blazing desert days. Much as he had been expecting, the vest was perfectly sized for his barely-pubescent frame, credit to the… tailors? Tailors or armorers? After a moment of walking and debating the question, he settled on 'manufacturers'. He stopped at a window and looked out over the Village Hidden in the Sand.

A densely-packed urban space filled with various oblong buildings made of packed earth and dotted with many very small windows. Windows in the lower, well-shaded stratas of the stacked-earth buildings were filled with many types of colorful glass, but the upper layers only tolerated tiny deep-set portholes. The whole of the village was set in the basin of an immense crater, the walls of which sheltered the buildings from much of the flaying desert sandstorms and the furious heat of the sun.

The command center was set in the dead center of the immense circular basin, and connected all parts of the village with eight raised and shaded roadways. Its primary export was glass, gold, and violence. Its primary import was food, water, and stolen goods. An impoverished military-city with a daimyo that preferred their neighbors and prospects that weren't going to improve any time soon unless some tremendous and dramatic change in their fortunes occurred.

The Third Great Shinobi War was declared finished one week ago. In a year, the son of the legendary Fourth Hokage would be born and have a great fox demon sealed within him. In thirteen years, that son would graduate from the Konohagakure ninja-academy and begin a long series of shenanigans that would eventually conclude in a rabbit-goddess being reborn and almost destroy-enslaving the entire world complete with kaiju, lasers, and teleporting reincarnated gods.

Ryoma, average shinobi of Sunagakure and mere reincarnee with knowledge of future events, had basically nothing he could do to contribute to that particular clash. It was kinda overwhelming if he stepped back to think of it all, and there were doubtlessly a billion tiny ripples he was already making simply by being alive in this particular time period that he couldn't possibly completely account for.

So the best policy was to simply not worry about all that bigger-picture stuff, and worry much more about his pressing issues of paying for rent and preparing for the upcoming mission- whatever it would happen to be. Good for him, he got a free daily ration of water and foodstuffs simply by being in the military. … Oh! That's a benefit! He gets three ration-shares per day as a Jonin instead of two as a Chunin! Everything was coming up 'Ryoma'!

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. — His apartment was pretty nice, all things considered. Decently spacious for the price-point, something he could reasonably afford to live in, and with all the basic utilities required to live in a desert. The higher apartments were cheaper, because they were more exposed to the sun and sand and provided shade for the somewhat higher-end apartments below him.

He opened the door with a lazy twitch of the finger, carrying two bags of not-quite groceries into the door. One bag of his daily allowance of rations, which was nice to have, and the other bag full of replacement bits and bobs. Blocks of wood and steel screws and otherwise, ready to be carved and attached to ball-joints that were in turn attached to other wooden blocks and so on.

The apartment was rather crowded with these bits and bobs, drawers and drawers of scrap wood and metal bits that might be useful in some other crafting somewhere else one day. Currently all they were useful for was crowding up his already scant living space with boxes of labeled things. That was usually fine, it was rare that he had visitors. The last person to regularly come over was his senpai, and he went rogue three years ago.

That was the same year that the previous Kazekage went missing, and that he graduated to become a Genin. It was a somewhat awkward affair, being heavily investigated and interrogated about the whereabouts of his now missing-nin acquaintance for his first year of ninja-duty. It was lucky though, because the people watching him stepped in a few times to pull his ass out of danger, which saved his life on several occasions. Were it not for that, he'd probably be dead like his old Genin-teammates now were.

Honestly a shame for them, but Ryoma lived a life defined by silver linings. Those rescues were the silver lining to being investigated for being friendly with Sasori of the Red Sands before he decided to run off and perform a secret assassination on your military commander. It wasn't like they were actually friends, Ryoma was pretty sure, Sasori occasionally came over to poke at his puppets and monologue about perfect artistry like the stereotypical 'guy who is going to betray you later' he was.

He was glad they finished their investigation with a nice bold 'low risk of subterfuge' rating, it was pretty relieving all things considered. He set his 'groceries' on the countertop, which served multi-purpose roles as a kitchen countertop, workshopping table, and occasionally sleeping-structure. The groceries inside were quickly unloaded, revealing the rather standard supply of rice, hardtack, canned meat, canned vegetables, tea-leaves, hard candy, and vitamin pills.

All in all a rather robust ration containing everything that will keep a soldier alive and fighting and not much else. This ration was supplemented by his consistent purchase of sweet potatoes, not because he really liked sweet potatoes, but he was pretty sure they were just as nutritious as unsweet potatoes and any increase in caloric and nutrient efficiency at such a low price was something worth pursuing. They didn't have normal potatoes here, he had checked.

This ration of food was combined with three now-full bottles of water from the central wells, and would be cooked at his little gas-stove. A little bit of the water was poured in to start boiling his rice, and a small wind-up timer was pulled back allowing him to step away and over to the eight-foot frame currently braced in a workshop-hangar. His primary combat puppet towered over everything else in the room, dominating the space and serving as the main reason why his apartment felt rather small.

Normally, a puppeteer stands back and controls their puppet from a decent range. This allowed them a vector of attack and potential trickery from a relatively safe distance away, and gave them more time to avoid attacks should something come their way and the puppet is unable to intercept it. This wasn't bad. It was the orthodox technique for a reason, and had many advantages.

On the other hand, Ryoma was pretty squishy, and wearing his puppet as a suit of primitive magitech power-armor was a much more comfortable idea. For this divergence in puppet-orthodoxy, he had attracted the attention of his puppet-senpai Sasori, an event that had its own advantages and disadvantages.

The shell of treated wood and steel was much more comfortable to have on in a fight than just clothes and an armor-jacket, so despite all the clunk and cost involved, he considered 'Wood Dragon' to be an investment worth maintaining. But his promotion left him with a problem. His jacket was sized for himself, and not his cool puppet armor.

He frowned, taking off his new promotion jacket and turning the mounted armor around on the swivel-mount, before comparing the jacket to the hole in the back that allowed him to get inside. Sure enough, there was no way it was going to fit. He'd need another two inches or so on either side of the control-cavity. There wasn't any way to get that fitting on a budget. So either he'd make an ad-hoc solution or go without his primary combat puppet for a few missions. That wasn't really a choice at all.

He inspected the jacket for a few moments more- finding that the armored collar and pauldrons were detachable, and removing them. Both of which were raised and compared to the 'neck' and 'shoulders of the puppet. The issue is that the Wood Dragoon didn't actually have either a neck or a head. It was a large central torso with slits cut for the eyes on the front and sides, four limbs, and not much else. It wasn't very stealthy as it was, but basic genjutsu could account for a lot of that.

Magic ninja-illusions were useful in that way, even if many of them taught in Sunagakure were rather specialized for their duty. As it currently stood, there probably wasn't much of a way for him to simply stack the neck and pauldrons on the puppet. He'd need to install another head and shoulders on top in order to find a place to fit them, and he could- He frowned, before giving a huff of laughter. He probably could just do that, couldn't he? It's not like large, four-armed puppets were unheard of.

The timer for his rice started going off, making him twitch a finger to shut it off, and drop the partially-dismantled jonin jacket. For now, he would shelve any considerations of adding that much extra weight and cost to the Wood Dragoon, he'd need to run the numbers and see what his budget was actually like first. Worst came to worst he'd just mount the neck guard on a 'bicep' or something. Currently, he was hungry, and rice took way too long to cook.

— His collection of puppets was simultaneously extensive and paltry. His primary combat unit, the Wood Dragoon, was what he spent most of his spare money and time on. A large set of puppet-armor with a few puppet-eyes mounted on the front, sides, and back for quick but low-fidelity sight, and a slit in the front and sides that could be slid open to use his normal eyes to see. These slits were hidden in the 'teeth' of a large masklike panel that covered the front of the puppet and served as additional armor.

Sorta like a Blemmyes wearing an Oni mask. He reached for the cast iron pot on the stove, now full of molten tin can, and carried it by heat-resistant glove over to a prepared mold. The molten metal was poured out into the square mold and allowed to form a thin sheet. This was the result of a few days of saving ration-cans. The third ration per day would increase his passive metal-collection by fifty percent, which was huge.

Puppet-eyes were something you could 'see' through once you figured out the trick of it, but the visual quality was strongly dependent on the quality of the eyes themselves, and Ryoma wasn't actually good enough to make puppet-optics that could compare to his normal eyes. It was strange, because the eyes were still just carved wood, but that was ninja-magic for you.

This whole affair was covered in plates of tin, melted down from ration cans and gently pounded into plates before being glued on and then screwed into place and painted over. White, to deflect more of the sun's rays and not cook as quickly. Sometimes he painted seals on these panels to store various useful items. Which was about all sealing could actually be used for, sealing things in and then releasing them later. That's it, that's all any seal ever actually did.

Anyone who told you seals did other things was either cheating or lying. Explosive seals were manufactured by exploding something but sealing the 'boom' inside something to be released later. He had picked up a bad habit of monologuing to no one from senpai. He was practical enough to keep it internal, at least. His other puppets were something of a ramshackle bunch, being cheap-as-shit disposable units he made en masse to support his main unit.

Most of them looked like spiders with crossbows for heads, designed to set up somewhere and occasionally shoot at things. All of them had explosive seals somewhere within their core just to explode on something if he needed a quick emergency boom. Ninjas had an annoying talent for avoiding thrown objects, but objects flung at them from unexpected angles was marginally more useful, and exploding the disposable puppet when they went to kill it was almost always productive.

That's all the Bolters did, shot at things and blew up. He didn't really need them to be fancy to complete this function, and that let him churn them out at a rate of one per day. He had a little assembly-line up and running in his apartment and everything, he was rather proud of it. If he had more downtime, he'd make a few, but he had to get up at eight-am the next morning. As it stood, he still had fifteen of the buggers sealed away and the spare-parts for five more on hand.

He held a hand up to the tin plate, before deciding it was cool enough to drop out of the mold and start tapping it into place. A few of the plates on the front of the Wood Dragoon were still damaged and he needed to re-melt and recast them. At his current pace of repair-work, he was probably getting a good six hours of sleep tonight. Better than usual. He was somewhat dreading whatever the next mission would be- the last one was a doozy with all the gophers flying around.